History of the Peloponnesian War

And had they been anything adventurous, they might easily have done it; and then, had they stayed there and besieged them, they had not only increased the sedition but also compelled the fleet to come away from Ionia to the aid of their kindred and of the whole city, though enemies to the oligarchy, and in the meantime gotten the Hellespont, Ionia, the Islands, and all places even to Euboea, and, as one may say, the whole Athenian empire into their power.

But the Lacedaemonians, not only in this but in many other things, were most commodious enemies to the Athenians to war withal. For being of most different humours, the one swift, the other slow; the one adventurous, the other timorous; the Lacedaemonians gave them great advantage, especially when their greatness was by sea. This was evident in the Syracusians, who, being in condition like unto them, warred best against them.

The Athenians upon this news made ready, notwithstanding, twenty galleys, and called an assembly, one then presently in the place called Pnyx, where they were wont to assemble at other times, in which having deposed The Four Hundred, they decreed the sovereignty to The Five Thousand, of which number were all such to be as were charged with arms; and from that time forward to salariate no man for magistracy, with a penalty on the magistrate receiving the salary to be held for an execrable person.

There were also divers other assemblies held afterwards, wherein they elected law-makers, and enacted other things concerning the government. And now first (at least in my time) the Athenians seem to have ordered their state aright; which consisted now of a moderate temper, both of the few and of the many. And this was the first thing that after so many misfortunes past made the city again to raise her head.

They decreed also the recalling of Alcibiades and those that were in exile with him, and sending to him and to the army at Samos, willed them to fall in hand with their business.