Page:History of Greece Vol VIII.djvu/79

DISCORD AMONG THE FOUR HUNDRED. 57 conspirators had succeeded more triumphantly than could havt been expected beforehand, everywhere else they had completely miscarried ; not merely at Samos and in the fleet, but also with the allied dependencies. At the time when Peisander quitted Samos for Athens, to consummate the oligarchical conspiracy even with- out Alkibiades, he and others had gone round many of the dependencies and had effected a similar revolution in their internal government, in hopes that they would thus become attached to the new oligarchy at Athens. But this anticipation, as Phrynichus had predicted, was nowhere realized. The newly-created oli- garchies only became more anxious for complete autonomy than the democracies had been before. At Thasos, especially, a body of exiles who had for some time dwelt in Peloponnesus were re- called, and active preparations were made for revolt, by new for- tifications as well as by new triremes. 1 Instead of strengthening their hold on the maritime empire, the Four Hundred thus found that they had actually weakened it ; while the pronounced hos- tility of the armament at Samos, not only put an end to all their hopes abroad, but rendered their situation at home altogether precarious. From the moment when the coadjutors of Antiphon first learned, through the arrival of Chaereas at Athens, the proc- lamation of the democracy at Samos, discord, mistrust, and alarm began to spread even among their own members ; together with a conviction that the oligarchy could never stand except through the presence of a Peloponnesian garrison in Athens. While Antiphon and Phrynichus, the leading minds who directed the majority of the Four Hundred, despatched envoys to Sparta for concluding peace, these envoys never reached Sparta, being seized by the parali and sent prisoners to Argos, as above stated, and commenced the erection of a special fort at Ectioneia, the projecting mole which contracted and commanded, on the northern side, the narrow entrance of Peiroeus, there began to arise even in the bosom of the Four Hundred an opposition minority affect (Eratosthenes) TU r/ierfpij nhf/det ru ivuvrta tTrpa^fv, u?J.d Kal Ixl rut TeTpaKoaiuv tv r<JJ aroaTOTrsScj ohiyapxiav Ka&iaruf etjievyev !; 'EAA^ffiroi* TOV rpiijpupxos KO.Ta7i.i-uv TT/V vaviv, fterti 'larpo/cP.t'ouf /cat ircpuv. . . .cicuco- {it toq <Je dei'po ruvuvria rocf fiovZopevoif dijfioKpc riav elvai iTrnatrc, Thucyd. viii, 64 3*