Page:Thucydides, translated into English Vol 2.djvu/407

86, 87] FIVE THOUSAND, NOT FOUR HUNDRED 399 the envoys against the fury of individuals in the crowd. He then dismissed them himself with the reply that he had nothing to say against the rule of the Five Thousand, but that the Four Hundred must be got rid of, and the old council of Five Hundred restored. If they had re- duced the expenditure in order that the soldiers on service might be better off for supplies, he highly approved. For the rest he entreated them to stand firm, and not give way to the enemy ; if the city was preserved, there was good hope that they might be reconciled amongst themselves, but if once anything happened either to the army at Samos or to their fellow-citizens at home, there would be no one left to be reconciled with. There were also present envoys from Argos, who prof- fered their aid ' to the Athenian people t-, „ ,• / , . *^ '^ I lie Jraralt who have at Samos.' Alcibiades complimented escaped from Athens them, and requested them to come ^>i*^s envoys from with their forces when they were sum- ^'^""' offering aid. moned ; he then dismissed them. These Argives came with the Parali who had been ordered by the Four Hun- dred to cruise oft' Euboea in a troop-ship ^ ; they were afterwards employed in conveying to Lacedaemon certain envoys sent by the Four Hundred, Laespodias, Aristophon, and Melesias. But when they were near Argos on their voyage the crews seized the envoys, and, as they were among the chief authors of the revolution, delivered them over to the Argives ; while they, instead of returning to Athens, went from Argos to Samos, and brought with them in their trireme the Argive ambassadors. During the same summer, and just at the time when the 87 Peloponnesians were most offended with Tissaphernes on various grounds, and above all on account of the restor- ation of Alcibiades, which finally proved him to be a partisan of the Athenians, he, as if he were wanting to clear himself of these suspicions, prepared to go to " Cp. viii. 74 med.