This tyranny, though of very short duration, was to the last degree inhuman. The tyrants sacrificed all whom they suspected to their fear, and all who were rich to their avarice. The carnage was so great, that, according to Xenophon,[140] the thirty put more Athenians to death in eight months only, than had fallen in battle, against the whole force of the Peloponnesians, during ten years of the war. But the publick virtue of Thrasybulus[141] could not bear to see his country enslaved by such inhuman monsters: collecting therefore about seventy determined citizens, who, like him, had fled to Thebes for refuge, he first seized upon Phyle,[142] a strong fort near Athens; and, strengthened by the accession of fresh numbers, which flocked in to him from every side, he got possession of the Pyræum.[143] The thirty tyrants endeavoured to retake it, but were repulsed, and Critias[144] and Hippomachus, two of their number, slain in the attempt. The people now, weary of the tyrants,[145] drove them out of the city, and chose ten magistrates, one out of each tribe, to supply their places. The tyrants applied to their friend Lysander, who sailed and invested the Pyræum, and reduced Thrasybulus, and his party, to an extreme want of necessaries, for they were yet confined to the Pyræum, as the people, though they had deposed the tyrants, yet refused to receive them into the city; but Pausanias,[146] one of the kings of Sparta, who commanded the land forces in this expedition, jealous of the reputation which that great man had acquired, gained over two of the ephori, who accompanied him, and granted peace to the Athenians notwithstanding all the opposition of Lysander. Pausanias returned to Sparta with his army, and the tyrants,[147] despairing of assistance, began to hire foreign troops, and were determined to re-establish themselves by force in that power of which they had been so lately deprived. But Thrasybulus, informed of their design, marched out with all his forces, and, drawing them to a parley, punished them with that death their crimes so justly merited. After the execution of the tyrants, Thrasybulus proclaimed a general act of indemnity and oblivion, and by that salutary measure restored peace and liberty to his country without further bloodshed.