Page:History of Greece Vol VIII.djvu/263

VICTIMS CONDEMNED TO DEATH. 241 in recompense for the information which he had given against them. 1 The statement of Isokrates, Lysias, and others that the victims of the Thirty, even when brought before the senate, were put to death untried is authentic and trustworthy: many were even put to death by simple order from the Thirty them- selves, without any cognizance of the senate. 2 In regard to the persons first brought to trial, however, whether we consider them, as Xenophon intimates, to have been notorious evil-doers, or to have been innocent sufferers by the reactionary vengeance of returning oligarchical exiles, as was the case certainly with Strombichides and the officers accused along with him, there was little necessity for any constraint on the part of the Thirty over the senate. That body itself partook of the sentiment which dictated the condemnation, and acted as a willing instrument ; while the Thirty themselves were unanimous, Theramenes being even more zealous than Kritias in these exe cutions, to demonstrate his sincere antipathy towards the extinct democracy. 3 As yet too, since all the persons condemned, justly or unjustly, had been marked politicians, so, all other citizens who had taken no conspicuous part in politics, even if they dis- approved of the condemnations, had not been led to conceive any apprehension of the like fate for themselves. Here, then, The- ramenes, and along with him a portion of the Thirty as well as of the senate, were inclined to pause. While enough had been done to satiate their antipathies, by the death of the most obnoxious leaders of the democracy, they at the same time conceived the oligarchical government to be securely established, and contended that farther bloodshed would only endanger its stability, by spreading alarm, multiplying enemies, and alienating friends as well as neutrals. But these were not the views either of Kritias or of the Thirty generally, who surveyed their position with eyes very different from the unstable and cunning Theramenes, and who had brought 1 Lysias cont. Ajrorat. s. 41. 1 Lysias cont. Eratosth. s. 18; Xenoph. Ilcllen. ii, 3, 51; Isokrat. Orat, jcx, cont. Lochit. s. 15, p. 397. 3 Xenoph. Hellen. ii, 3, 12, 28. 38. Awrdf (Thcramends) piil.iaTa, l-opUTjoas Tj/iar, roif irpui t vxr.yoftevoif f ijftuf diKT/v tirindcvai, etc. VOL. vnr. 11 1603.