This imprudence enabled Alcibiades to affirm, with some appearance of truth, that their own anger and obstinacy, not the reluctance of Tissaphernes, had obstructed the negotiation, which was precisely the issue of the affair most favourable to his views. His artifices succeeded, but were not attended with the consequences expected from them. The Athenians, both in the camp and city, perceived, by this transaction, that his credit with the Persians was less than he represented it; and the aristocratical faction were glad to get rid of a man, whose restless ambition rendered him a dangerous associate. They persisted, however, with great activity, in executing their purpose; of which Phrynichus, who had opposed them only from hatred of Alcibiades, became an active abettor. When persuasion was ineffectual, they had recourse to violence. Androcles, Hyperbolus, and other licentious demagogues, were assassinated. The people of Athens, ignorant of the strength of the conspirators, and surprised to find in the number many whom they least suspected, were restrained by inactive timidity, or fluctuated in doubtful suspense. The cabal alone acted with union and with vigour; and difficult as it seemed to subvert the Athenian democracy, which had subsisted a hundred years with unexampled glory, yet this design was undertaken and accomplished by the enterprising activity of Pisander, the artful eloquence of Theramenes, the firm intrepidity of Phrynichus, and the superintending wisdom of Antiphon.
He it was who formed the plan, and regulated the mode of attack, which was carried on by his associates. Pisander and his party boldly declared, that neither the spirit nor the forms of the established constitution (which had recently subjected them to such a weight of misfortunes) suited the present dangerous and alarming crisis. That it was necessary to new-model the whole fabric of government; for which purpose five persons (whose names he read) ought to be appointed by the people, to choose a hundred others; each of whom should select three associates; and the four hundred thus chosen, men of dignity and opulence, who would serve their country without fee or reward, ought immediately to be invested with the majesty of the republic. They alone should conduct the administration uncontrolled, and assemble, as often as seemed proper, five thousand citizens, whom they judged most worthy of being consulted in the management of public affairs. This extraordinary proposal was accepted without opposition: the partisans of democracy dreaded the strength of the cabal; and the undiscerning multitude, dazzled by the imposing name of five thousand, a number far exceeding the ordinary assemblies of Athens, perceived not that they surrendered their liberties to the artifice of an ambitious faction.b
THE OVERTHROW OF THE DEMOCRACY: THE FOUR HUNDRED
[411 B.C.]
Full liberty being thus granted to make any motion, however anti-constitutional, and to dispense with all the established formalities, such as preliminary authorisation by the senate, Pisander now came forward with his substantive propositions to the following effect:
(1) All the existing democratical magistracies were suppressed at once, and made to cease for the future. (2) No civil functions whatever were hereafter to be salaried. (3) To constitute a new government, a committee of five persons were named forthwith, who were to choose a larger body of one hundred; that is, one hundred including the five choosers themselves. Each individual out of this body of one hundred, was to choose three persons. (4) A body of Four Hundred was thus constituted, who were to take their seat in the senate house, and to carry on the government with unlimited powers, according to their own discretion. (5) They were to convene the Five Thousand, whenever they might think fit. All was passed without a dissentient voice.
The invention and employment of this imaginary aggregate of Five Thousand was not the least dexterous among the combinations of Antiphon. No one knew who these Five Thousand were: yet the resolution just adopted purported—not that such a number of citizens should be singled out and constituted, either by choice, or by lot, or in some determinate manner which should exhibit them to the view and knowledge of others—but that the Four Hundred should convene the Five Thousand, whenever they thought proper: thus assuming the latter to be a list already made up and notorious, at least to the Four Hundred themselves. The real fact was that the Five Thousand existed nowhere except in the talk and proclamations of the conspirators, as a supplement of fictitious auxiliaries. They did not even exist as individual names on paper, but simply as an imposturous nominal aggregate. The Four Hundred, now installed, formed the entire and exclusive rulers of the state. But the mere name of the Five Thousand, though it was nothing more than a name, served two important purposes for Antiphon and his conspiracy. First, it admitted of being falsely produced, especially to the armament at Samos, as proof of a tolerably numerous and popular body of equal, qualified, concurrent citizens, all intended to take their turn by rotation in exercising the powers of government; thus lightening the odium of extreme usurpation to the Four Hundred, and passing them off merely as the earliest section of the Five Thousand, put into office for a few months, and destined at the end of that period to give place to another equal section. Next, it immensely augmented the means of intimidation possessed by the Four Hundred at home, by exaggerating the impression of their supposed strength. For the citizens generally were made to believe that there were five thousand real and living partners in the conspiracy; while the fact that these partners were not known and could not be individually identified, rather aggravated the reigning terror and mistrust; since every man, suspecting that his neighbour might possibly be among them, was afraid to communicate his discontent or propose means for joint resistance. In both these two ways, the name and assumed existence of the Five Thousand lent strength to the real Four Hundred conspirators. It masked their usurpation, while it increased their hold on the respect and fears of the citizens.
As soon as the public assembly at Colonus had, with such seeming unanimity, accepted all the propositions of Pisander, they were dismissed; and the new regiment of Four Hundred were chosen and constituted in the form prescribed. It now only remained to install them in the senate house. But this could not be done without force, since the senators were already within it; having doubtless gone thither immediately from the assembly, where their presence, at least the presence of the prytanes, or senators of the presiding tribe, was essential as legal presidents. They had to deliberate what they would do under the decree just passed, which divested them of all authority. Nor was it impossible that they might organise armed resistance; for which there seemed more than usual facility at the present moment, since the occupation of Decelea by the Lacedæmonians kept Athens in a condition like that of a permanent camp, with a large proportion of the citizens day and night under arms. Against this chance the Four Hundred made provision. They selected that hour of 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.