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.

Those of the Samians who had risen up against the aristocratical party, and constituted the commons, turning round again, and being prevailed upon by Pisander on his arrival, and by the Athenians who were in the conspiracy at Samos, both bound themselves by oaths to the number of three hundred, and were prepared to attack the rest, as forming the democratical party.

They also put to death one Hyperbolus, an Athenian, a base fellow, who had been ostracised, not from fear of his influence or rank, but for his villany, and for being a disgrace to the city; acting in the matter in concert with Charminus, one of the generals, and a party of Athenians who were with them, and to whom they had given pledges of faith. They likewise perpetrated other such deeds in conjunction with that party, and had determined to make an attack on the populace.

They, however, having notice of their design, revealed what was going to be done to Leon and Diomedon, two of the generals, (for these submitted to the oligarchy against their will, from being honoured by the people,) and to Thrasybulus and Thrasyllus, the former serving as a trierarch, the latter in the heavy infantry, as well as some others who had always been thought to be most opposed to the conspirators; begging them not to stand still and permit them to be ruined, and Samos to be lost to the Athenians, through whose help alone their empire had held together up to this time.