Page:History of Greece Vol VIII.djvu/91

ARMED PUBLIC ASSEMBLY. 69 tVo things deserve notice, among these details, as illustrating the Athenian character. Though Alexikles was vehemently oligarchical as well as unpopular, these mutineers do no harm to his person, but content themselves with putting him under arrest. Next, fohey do not venture to commence the actual demolition of the citadel, until they have the formal sanction of Theramenes, Dne of the constituted generals. The strong habit of legality, implanted in all Athenian citizens by their democracy, and the care, even in departing from it, to depart as little as possible, stand plainly evidenced in these proceedings. The events of this day gave a fatal shock to the ascendency of the Four Hundred; yet they assembled on the morrow as usual in the senate-house ; and they appear now, when it was too late, to have directed one of their members to draw up a real list, giving body to the fiction of the Five Thousand. 1 Meanwhile the hoplites in Peirocus, having finished the levelling of the new fortifications, took the still more important step of entering, armed as they were, into the theatre of Dionysus hard by, in Peirasus, but on the verge of Munychia, and there holding a formal assembly ; probably under the convocation of the general Theramenes, pursuant to the forms of the anterior democracy. They here took the resolution of adjourning their assembly to the Anakeion, or temple of Castor and Pollux, the Dioskuri, in grandfather. The allusion chiefly deserves notice from its erroneous men- tion of Kritias and the return of the Demos from exile, betraying a com- plete confusion between the events in the time of the Four Hundred and those in the time of the Thirty. 1 Lysias, Orat. xx. pro Polystrato, c. 4, p. 675, Reisk. This task was confided to Polystratus, a very recent member of the Four Hundred, and therefore probably less unpopular than the rest. In his de- fence after the restoration of the democracy, he pretended to have under- taken the task much against his will, and to have drawn up a list contain- ing nine thousand names instead of five thousand. .It may probably have been in this meeting of the Four Hundred, that Antiphon delivered his oration strongly recommending concord, Uepl <i/2ovoiaf. All his eloquence was required just now, to bring back the oligarchical party, if possible, into united action. Philostratus (Vit. So- phistar. c. xv, p. 500, ed. Olear.) expresses great admiration for this oration, which is several times alluded to both by Harpokration and Snidaj. fiee Wcstermann. Gcsdi. dcr Gricch. Ueredsamkcit, Bcilagu ii, p. 276.