Page:History of Greece Vol VIII.djvu/35

AT ATHENS. 13 would betray this letter as he had betrayed the former, Phryni- chus waited a proper time, and then revealed to the camp the intention of the enemy to make an attack, as if it had reached him by private information. He insisted on the necessity of im- mediate precautions, and himself, as general, superintended the work of fortification, which was soon completed. Presently arrived a letter from Alkibiades, communicating to the army that Phrynichus had betrayed them, and that the Peloponnesians were on the point of making an attack. But this letter, arriving after the precautions taken by order of Phrynichus himself had been already completed, was construed as a mere trick on the part of Alkibiades himself, through his acquaintance with the intentions of the Peloponnesians, to raise a charge of treasona- ble correspondence against his personal enemy. The impression thus made by his second letter effaced the taint which had been left upon Phrynichus by the first, insomuch that the latter stood exculpated on both charges. 1 But Phrynichus, though successful in extricating himself, failed thoroughly in his manoeuvre against the influence and life of Alkibiades ; in whose favor the oligarchical movement not only went on, but was transferred from Samos to Athens. On arriving at the latter place, Peisander and his companions laid before the public assembly the projects which had been conceived by the oligarchs at Samos. The people were invited to restore Alkibiades and renounce their democratical constitution ; in return for which, they were assured of obtaining the Persian king as an ally, and of overcoming the Peloponnesians. 2 Violent was the storm which these propositions raised in the public as- 1 Thucyd. viii, 50, 51. s In the speech made by TheramenOs (the Athenian) during the oligar- chy of Thirty, seven years aftcnvards, it is aflirmed that the Athenian people voted the adoption of the oligarchy of Four Hundred, from being told that the Lacechemonians would never trust a democracy (Xenoph. Hel- Icn. ii, 3, 45). This is thoroughly incorrect, a specimen of the loose assertion of speal' crs in regard to facts even not very long past. At the moment when Theramenes said this, the question, what political constitution at Athens the Lacedaemonians would please to tolerate, was all-important to the Athe- nians. TheraincnOs transfers the feelings of the present *o tLo 'undents ot the past