Page:History of Greece Vol VIII.djvu/61

EXPULSION OF THE SENATE. fiU the day when the greater number of citizens habitually went home, probably to their morning meal, leaving the military station, with the arms piled and ready, under comparatively thin watch. "While the general body of hoplites left the station at this hour, according to the usual practice, the hoplites Andrian, Tenian ; and others in the immediate confidence of the Four Hundred, were directed, by private order, to hold themselves prepared and in arms, at a little distance off; so that if any symptoms should appear of resistance being contemplated, they might at once interfere and forestall it. Having taken this precaution, the Four Hundred marched in a body to the senate-house, each man with a dagger concealed under his garment, and followed by their special body-guard of one hundred and twenty young men from various Grecian cities, the instruments of the assassinations ordered by Antiphon and his colleagues. In this array they marched into the senate-house, where the senators were assem- bled, and commanded them to depart ; at the same time tendering to them their pay for all the remainder of the year, seemingly about three months or more down to the beginning of Heca- tombaeon, the month of new nominations, during which theii functions ought to have continued. The senators were no way pre pared to resist the decree just passed undar the forms of legality with an armed body now arrived to enforce its execution. They obeyed and departed, each man as he passed the door receiving the salary tendered to him. That they should yield obedience to superior force, under the circumstances, can excite neither censure nor surprise ; but that they should accept, from the hands of the conspirators, this anticipation of an unearned salary, was a mean- ness which almost branded them as accomplices, and dishonored the expiring hour of the last democratical authority. The Four Hundred now found themselves triumphantly installed in the senate-house ; without the least resistance, either within its walls, or even without, by any portion of the citizens. 1 Thus perished, or seemed to perish, the democracy of Athens, after an uninterrupted existence of nearly one hundred years since the revolution of Kleisthenes. So incredible did it appear that tli w"nerous, intelligent, and constitutional citizens of Ath 1 Thucvcl. viii, 69, 70.