Page:History of Greece Vol VIII.djvu/289

RRITIAS AT ELEUSIS. 267 the Athenian horsemen, under pretence of examining into the strength of the place and the number of its defenders, so as to determine what amount of farther garrison would be necessary. All the Eleusinians disposed and qualified for armed service, were ordered to come in person and give in their names to the Thirty, 1 in a building having its postern opening on to the sea-beach ; along which were posted the horsemen and the attendants from Athens. Each Eleusinian hoplite, after having presented himself and returned his name to the Thirty, was ordered to pass out through this exit, where each man succes- sively found himself in the power of the horsemen, and was fettered by the attendants. Lysimachus, the hipparch, or com- mander of the horsemen, was directed to convey all these prison- ers to Athens, and hand them over to the custody of the Eleven. 2 Having thus seized and carried away from Eleusis every citizen whose sentiments or whose energy they suspected, and having left a force of their own adherents in the place, the Thirty returned to Athens. At the same time, it appears, a similar visit and seizure of prisoners was made by some of them in Salamis. 3 On the next day, they convoked at Athens all their Three Thousand privileged hoplites together with all the remaining horsemen who had not been employed at Eleusis or Salamis in the Odeon, half of which was occupied by the Lacedaemonian garrison all under arms. " Gentlemen (said Kritias, addressing his countrymen), we keep up the government not less for your benefit than for our own. You must therefore share with us in the danger, as well as in the honor, of our position. Here are these Eleusinian prisoners awaiting sentence ; you must pass a vote condemning them all to death, in order that your hopes and fears may be identified with ours." He then 1 Xenopli. Hcllcn. ii. 4, 8. I apprehend that airoypufaadai here refers to prospective military service; as in vi, 5, 29, and in Cyropaed. ii, 1, 18, 19. The words in the context, Trocn/f 0vAa/c^f TrpoadefjiroivTo, attest that such is the meaning ; though the commentators, and Sturz in his Lexicon Xenophonteum. interpret differently. 2 Xenoph. Hellcn. ii, 4, 8. 3 Both Lysias (Orat, xii, cont. Eratosth. s. 53; Oral, xili, cont. Agorat s 47) and Diodorus (xiv, 32) connect together these two similar proceedings at Eleusis and at Salamis. Xenophon mentions only the aftui at EleusU