Page:History of Greece Vol VIII.djvu/250

228 HISTORY OF GREECE. any offer to surrender on humiliating conditions. 1 Amidst tie general acrimony, and exasperated special antipathies, arising out of such a state of misery, the leading men who stood out most earnestly for prolonged resistance became successively victims to the prosecutions of their enemies. The demagogue Kleophon was condemned and put to death, on the accusation of having svaded his military duty ; the senate, whose temper and proceed- ings he had denounced, constituting itself a portion of the dikas- tery which tried him, contrary both to the forms and the spirit of Athenian judicatures. 2 Such proceedings, however, though denounced by orators in subsequent years as having contributed to betray the city into the hands of the enemy, appear to have been without any serious influence on the result, which was brought about purely by famine. By the time that Theramenes returned after his long absence, so terrible had the pressure become, that he was sent forth again with instructions to conclude peace upon any terms. On reach- ing Sellasia, and acquainting the ephors that he had come with unlimited powers for peace, he was permitted to come to Sparta, where the assembly of the Peloponnesian confederacy was con- vened, to settle on what terms peace should be granted. The leading allies, especially Corinthians and Thebans, recommended that no agreement should be entered into, nor any farther meas- ure kept, with this hated enemy now in their power ; but that the name of Athens should be rooted out, and the population sold for 1 Xenoph. Hellen. ii, 2, 15-21; compare Isokrates, Areopagit. Or. vii. sect. 73. 8 Lysias, Orat. xiii, cont. Agorat. sects. 15, 16, 17 ; Orat. xxx, cont. Niko mach. sects. 13-17. This seems the most probable story as to the death of Kleophon, though the accounts are not all consistent, and the statement of Xenophon, especially (Hellen. i, 7, 35), is not to be reconciled with Lysias. Xenophon conceived Kleophon as having perished earlier than this period, in a sedition (aru- aeuf TIVOS yevonevris kv rj KAeopwv uTretfave), before the flight of Kallixenus from his recognizances. It is scarcely possible that Kallixenus could have been still under recognizance, during this period of suffering between tha battle of JEgospotami and the capture of Athens. He must have escape^ before that battle. Neither long detention of an accused party in prison before trial, nor long postponement of trial when he was under recognizance were at all in Athenian habits.