It is important to notice, that even the Thirty, who were named six years afterwards to draw up a constitution, at the moment when Sparta was mistress of Athens, and when the people were thoroughly put down, are not called Νομοθέται, but are named by a circumlocution equivalent to Ἔδοξε τῷ δήμῳ, τριάκοντα ἄνδρας ἑλέσθαι, οἳ τοὺς πατρίους νόμους συγγράψουσι, καθ᾽ οὓς πολιτεύσουσι.—Αἱρεθέντες δὲ, ἐφ᾽ ᾧ τε συγγράψαι νόμους καθ᾽ οὕστινας πολιτεύσοιντο, τούτους μὲν ἀεὶ ἔμελλον ξυγγράφειν τε καὶ ἀποδεικνύναι, etc. (Xenophon, Hellen. ii, 3, 2-11.) Xenophon calls Kritias and Chariklês the nomothetæ of the Thirty (Memor. i, 2, 30), but this is not democracy. For the signification of Νομοθέτης (applied most generally to Solon, sometimes to others, either by rhetorical looseness or by ironical taunt), or Νομοθέται, a numerous body of persons chosen and sworn, see Lysias cont. Nikomach. sects. 3, 33, 37; Andokidês de Mysteriis, sects. 81-85, c. 14, p. 38, where the nomothetæ are a sworn body of Five Hundred, exercising, conjointly with the senate, the function of accepting or rejecting laws proposed to them. [103] Plutarch, Alkibiadês, c. 33. Cornelius Nepos (Alkibiad. c. 5, and Diodorus, xiii, 38-42) mentions Theramenês as the principal author of the decree for restoring Alkibiadês from exile. But the precise words of the elegy composed by Kritias, wherein the latter vindicates this proceeding to himself, are cited by Plutarch, and are very good evidence. Doubtless many of the leading men supported, and none opposed, the proposition. Thucydidês bestows marked eulogy upon the general spirit of moderation and patriotic harmony which now reigned at Athens, and which directed the political proceedings of the people.[104] But he does not countenance the belief, as he has been sometimes understood, nor is it true in point of fact, that they now introduced a new constitution. Putting an end to the oligarchy, and to the rule of the Four Hundred, they restored the old democracy seemingly with only two modifications, first, the partial limitation of the right of suffrage; next, the discontinuance of all payment for political functions. The impeachment against Antiphon, tried immediately afterwards, went before the senate and the dikastery exactly according to the old democratical forms of procedure. But we must presume that the senate, the dikasts, the nomothetæ, the ekklesiasts, or citizens who attended the assembly, the public orators who prosecuted state-criminals, or defended any law when it was impugned, must have worked for the time without pay. [104] Thucyd. viii, 97. Καὶ οὐχ ἥκιστα δὴ τὸν πρῶτον χρόνον ἐπί γε ἐμοῦ Ἀθηναῖοι φαίνονται εὖ πολιτεύσαντες· μετρία γὰρ ἥ τε ἐς τοὺς ὀλίγους καὶ τοὺς πολλοὺς ξύγκρασις ἐγένετο, καὶ ἐκ πονηρῶν τῶν πραγμάτων γενομένων τοῦτο πρῶτον ἀνήνεγκε τὴν πόλιν.