History of the Peloponnesian War

And already they had their meetings apart and did cast aspersions on the government, and had for their ringleaders some of the heads of the oligarchicals and such as bare office amongst them, as Theramenes, the son of Agnon, and Aristocrates, the son of Scellius, and others, who though they were partakers with the foremost in the affairs of state, yet feared, as they said, Alcibiades and the army at Samos; and joined in the sending of ambassadors to Lacedaemon, because they were loth, by singling themselves from the greater number, to hurt the state, not that they dismissed the state into the hands of a very few, but said that The Five Thousand ought in fact to be assigned, and not in voice only, and the government to be reduced to a greater equality.

And this was indeed the form pretended in words by The Four Hundred. But the most of them, through private ambition, fell upon that by which an oligarchy made out of a democracy is chiefly overthrown. For at once they claimed every one not to be equal but to be far the chief. Whereas in a democracy, when election is made, because a man is not overcome by his equals, he can better brook it.

But the great power of Alcibiades at Samos and the opinion they had that the oligarchy was not like to last was it that most evidently encouraged them; and thereupon they every one contended who should most eminently become the patron of the people.

But those of The Four Hundred that were most opposite to such a form of government, and the principal of them, both Phrynichus, who had been general at Samos and was ever since at difference with Alcibiades, and Aristarchus, a man that had been an adversary to the people both in the greatest manner and for the longest time, and Pisander and Antiphon, and others of the greatest power, not only formerly, as soon as they entered into authority and afterwards when the state at Samos revolted to the people, sent ambassadors to Lacedaemon and bestirred themselves for the oligarchy, and built a wall in the place called Eetioneia; but much more afterwards, when their ambassadors were come from Samos and that they saw not only the populars but also some others of their own party, thought trusty before, to be now changed.

And to Lacedaemon they sent Antiphon and Phrynichus with ten others with all possible speed, as fearing their adversaries both at home and at Samos, with commission to make a peace with the Lacedaemonians on any tolerable conditions whatsoever or howsoever; and in this time went on with the building of the wall in Eetioneia with greater diligence than before.

The scope they had in this wall, as it was given out by Theramenes, [the son of Agnon], was not so much to keep out those of Samos in case they should attempt by force to enter into Peiraeus as at their pleasure to be able to let in both the galleys and the land forces of the enemies.

For this Eetioneia is the pier of the Peiraeus, close unto which is the mouth of the haven. And therefore they built this wall so to another wall that was built before to the continent that a few men lying within it might command the entrance. For the end of each wall was brought to the tower upon the [very] mouth of the haven, as well of the old wall towards the continent as of the new which was built within it to the water.

They built also an open ground-gallery, an exceeding great one and close to their new wall within Peiraeus, and were masters of it, and constrained all men as well to bring thither their corn which they had already come in, as to unload there whatsoever should come in afterward, and to take and sell it from thence.

These things Theramenes murmured at long before; and when the ambassadors returned from Lacedaemon without compounding for them all in general, he gave out that this wall would endanger the undoing of the city.

For at this very instant there happened to be riding on the coast of Laconia fortytwo galleys, amongst which were some of Tarentum, some of Locri, some Italians, and some Sicilians, set out from Peloponnesus at the instance of the Euboeans, bound for Euboea and commanded by Hegesandridas, the son of Hegesander, a Spartan. And these Theramenes said were coming not so much towards Euboea as towards those that fortified in Eetioneia, and that if they were not looked to, they would surprise the city.

Now some matter might indeed be gathered also from those that were accused, so that it was not a mere slander. For their principal design was to retain the oligarchy with dominion over their confederates; but if they failed of that, yet being masters of the galleys and of the fortification, to have subsisted free themselves; if barred of that, then rather than to be the only men to suffer death under the restored democracy, to let in the enemy; and without either navy or fortification to have let what would have become of the city and to have compounded for the safety of their own persons.