Page:Thucydides, translated into English Vol 2.djvu/392

384 THE NEW CONSTITUTION y 67 Such was the state of affairs when Peisandcr and his colleagues arrived at Athens. They The final stroke. -^^^^^^^^^^^^^ g^t to work and prepared First the ^ graphe f>n- •' / ' ranotuon' is repealed ; to Strike the final blow. First, they then, on the proposal of called an assembly and proposed the Peisander, all e.visting ^^^^^-^^ ^f t^,, commissioners, who Mingi.sfraaes are abol- r i. ished and replaced l>y should be empowered to frame for the a board 0/ five, -which city the best Constitution which they creates another of four ^^^^j^ ^^^j^^ ^j^j^ ^^^^ ^^ ^^ j^jj ^^^^^^ hundred. ' the people on a fixed day. When the day arrived they " summoned an assembly to meet in the temple >! of Poseidon at Colonus without the walls, and distant rather more than a mile. But the commissioners only moved that any Athenian should be allowed to propose whatever resolution he pleased — nothing more; threatening at the same time with severe penalties any- body who indicted the proposer for unconstitutional action, or* otherwise oftered injury to him. The whole scheme now came to light. A motion was made to abolish all the existing magistracies and the payment of magis- trates, and to choose a presiding board of five ; these five were to choose a hundred, and each of the hundred was to co-opt three others. The Four Hundred thus selected were to meet in the council-chamber; they were to have absolute authority, and might govern as they deemed best ; the Five Thousand were to be summoned by them when- ever they chose. 68 The mover of this proposal, and to outward appearance the most active partisan of the revolution, was Peisander, but the real author and maturer of the whole scheme, who had been longest interested in it, was Antiphon, a man inferior in virtue to none of his contemporaries, and pos- sessed of remarkable powers of thought and gifts of speech. He did not like to come forward in the assembly, or in " Reading (vviXt^av. Or, ' called an assembly' to meet within the narrow bounds of the temple' {'vriKXritrav-, see note.