Imagine one of the ephors there in Sparta, in lieu of devoted obedience to the majority, taking on himself to find fault with the government and to oppose all measures. Do you not think that the ephors themselves, and the whole commonwealth besides, would hold this renegade worthy of condign punishment? So, too, by the same token, if you are wise, do you spare yourselves, not him. For what does the alternative mean? I will tell you. His preservation will cause the courage of many who hold opposite views to your own to rise; his destruction will cut off the last hopes of all your enemies, whether within or without the city." (9) An annotator seems to have added here the words, occurring in the MSS., "the buskin which seems to fit both legs equally, but is constant to neither," unless, indeed, they are an original "marginal note" of the author. For the character of Theramenes, as popularly conceived, cf. Aristoph. "Frogs," 538, 968 foll., and Thuc. viii. 92; and Prof. Jowett, "Thuc." vol. ii. pp. 523, 524. With these words he sat down, but Theramenes rose and said: "Sirs, with your permission I will first touch upon the charge against me which Critias has mentioned last. The assertion is that as the accuser of the generals I was their murderer. Now I presume it was not I who began the attack upon them, but it was they who asserted that in spite of the orders given me I had neglected to pick up the unfortunates in the sea-fight off Lesbos. All I did was to defend myself. My defence was that the storm was too violent to permit any vessel to ride at sea, much more therefore to pick up the men, and this defence was accepted by my fellow-citizens as highly reasonable, while the generals seemed to be condemned out of their own mouths. For while they kept on asserting that it was possible to save the men, the fact still remained that they abandoned them to their fate, set sail, and were gone.