The assembled Senate heard with consternation the occupation of the acropolis by Phœbidas. Before any deliberation could be taken among the senators, Leontiades came down to resume his seat. The lochages and armed citizens of his party, to whom he had previously given orders, stood close at hand. “Senators (said he), be not intimidated by the news that the Spartans are in the Kadmeia; for they assure us that they have no hostile purpose against any one who does not court war against them. But I, as polemarch, am empowered by law to seize any one whose behavior is manifestly and capitally criminal. Accordingly, I seize this man Ismenias, as the great inflamer of war. Come forward, captains and soldiers, lay hold of him, and carry him off where your orders direct.” Ismenias was accordingly seized and hurried off as a prisoner to the Kadmeia; while the senators, thunderstruck and overawed, offered no resistance. Such of them as were partisans of the arrested polemarch, and many even of the more neutral members, left the Senate and went home, thankful to escape with their lives. Three hundred of them, including Androkleidas, Pelopidas, Mellon, and others, sought safety by voluntary exile to Athens; after which, the remainder of the Senate, now composed of few or none except philo-Spartan partisans, passed a vote formally dismissing Ismenias, and appointing a new polemarch in his place.[139] [139] Xen. Hellen. v, 2, 30, 31. This blow of high-handed violence against Ismenias forms a worthy counterpart to the seizure of Theramenes by Kritias,[140] twenty-two years before, in the Senate of Athens under the Thirty. Terror-striking in itself, it was probably accompanied by similar deeds of force against others of the same party. The sudden explosion and complete success of the conspiracy, plotted by the Executive Chief himself, the most irresistible of all conspirators,—the presence of Phœbidas in the Kadmeia, and of a compliant Senate in the town,—the seizure or flight of Ismenias and all his leading partisans,—were more than sufficient to crush all spirit of resistance on the part of the citizens; whose first anxiety probably was, to extricate their wives and daughters from the custody of the Lacedæmonians in the Kadmeia. Having such a price to offer, Leontiades would extort submission the more easily, and would probably procure a vote of the people ratifying the new _régime_, the Spartan alliance, and the continued occupation of the acropolis. Having accomplished the first settlement of his authority, he proceeded without delay to Sparta, to make known the fact that “order reigned” at Thebes. [140] Xen. Hellen. ii, 3. See above in this History, Vol. VIII. Ch. lxv. p. 252.