Page:History of Greece Vol VIII.djvu/271

KKITIAS AND THE&AMEHES. j-i'j caused his body to be carried away on a hired bier 1'roiK tin prison, with covering and a few scanty appurtenances supj.uied by the sympathy of private friends. 1 Amidst such atrocities, increasing in number and turned more and more to shameless robbery, the party of Theramenes daily gained ground, even in the senate; many of whose members profited nothing by satiating the private cupidity of the Thirty, and began to be weary of so revolting a system, as well as alarmed at the host of enemies which they were raising up. In proposing the late seizure of the metics, the Thirty had desired Theramenes to make choice of any victim among that class, to be destroyed and plundered for his own personal benefit. But he rejected the suggestion emphatically, denouncing the enormity of the measure in the indignant terms which it deserved. So much was the antipathy of Kritias and the majority of the Thirty against him, already acrimonious from the effects of a long course of opposi- tion, exasperated by this refusal ; so much did they fear the consequences of incurring the obloquy of such measures for them- selves, while Theramenes enjoyed all the credit of opposing them : so satisfied were they that their government could not stand with this dissension among its own members ; that they resolved to de- stroy him at all cost. Having canvassed as many of the senators as they could, to persuade them that Theramenes was conspiring against the oligarchy, they caused the most daring of their satel- lites to attend one day in the senate-house, close to the railing which fenced in the senators, with daggers concealed under their garments. So soon as Theramenes appeared, Kritias rose and denounced him to the senate as a public enemy, in an harangue which Xenophon gives at considerable length, and which is so full of instructive evidence, as to Greek political feeling, that I here extract the main points in abridgment : " If any of you imagine, senators, that more people are perishing than the occasion requires, reflect, that this happens everywhere in a time of revolution, and that it must especially happen in th 1 Lysias, Or. xii, cont. Eratosthcn. sects. 8. 21. Lysias prosecuted Eratos- thenfis before the dikastery some years afterwards, as having caused the death of Polcmarchus. The foregoing details arc found in the oration, spoken an well as composed liv liimsclf. 11*