Page:History of Greece Vol VIII.djvu/86

64 HISTORY OF GREECE- in it. 1 The new cross wall was carried so as to traverse a vast portico, or open market-house, the largest in Peiraeus : the larger half of this portico thus became inclosed within the new citadel ; and orders were issued that all the corn, both actually warehoused and hereafter to be imported into Peiraeus, should be deposited therein and sold out from thence for consumption. As Athens was sustained almost exclusively on corn brought from Eubcea and elsewhere, since the permanent occupation of Dekeleia, the Four Hundred rendered themselves masters by this arrangement of all the subsistence of the citizens, as well as of the entrance into the harbor ; either to admit the Spartans or exclude the armament from Samos. 2 Though Theramenes, himself one of the generals named under the Four Hundred, denounced, in conjunction with his supporters, the treasonable purpose of this new citadel, yet the majority of the Four Hundred stood to their resolution, and the building made rapid progress under the superintendence of the general Alexikles, one of the most strenuous of the oligarchical faction. 3 Such was the habit of obedience at Athens to an established authority, when once constituted, and so great the fear and mistrust arising out of the general belief in the reality of the Five Thousand unknown auxiliaries, supposed to be prepared to enforce the orders of the Four Hundred, that the people, and even armed citizen hoplites, went on working at the building, in spite of their suspicions as to its design. Though not completed, it was so far advanced as to be defensible, when Antiphon and 1 Thucyd. viii, 90-92.- TO TEI^O^ TOVTO, Kal -nv7Maf %ov, Kal iaodovf, KOJ -eiaayuya<; TUV irofafiiuv, etc. I presume that the last expression refers to facilities for admitting the enemy either from the sea-side, or from the land-side ; that is to say, from the northwestern corner of the old wall of Peiraeus, which formed one side of the new citadel. See Leake's Topographic Athens, pp. 269, 270, Germ, transl. 8 Thucyd. viii, 90. diutcodofirjoav 6e Kal OTOUV, etc. I agree with the note in M. Didot's translation, that this portico, or hatte, open on three sides, must be considered as preexisting ; not as having been first built now ; which seems to be the supposition of Colonel Leake, and the commentators generally. 3 Thucyd. viii, 91, 92. 'A/leftK/Ua, arpaTJtybv ovra in TTJS 6fayapxiaf i-nl jtdl.iara irpbf roilf lralp3Vf rerpauftevov, etc.