History of the Peloponnesian War

They gave them, too, all other instructions as to what was suitable for them to say, and despatched them immediately after their own estabment in power, being afraid that a mob of sailors might (as was really the case) both themselves refuse to continue under the government of an oligarchy, and through the evil spreading from that quarter be the means of deposing them.

For at Samos the oligarchy was already made the subject of new measures, and the following events happened at the very time that the Four Hundred were conspiring.