The historians' history of the world in twenty-five volumes, volume 04 : $b Greece to the Roman Conquest
History
The historians' history of the world in twenty-five volumes, volume 04 : $b Greece to the Roman Conquest
World history
The presence of Lysander, and the nearness of the Peloponnesian troops,
deterred the friends of liberty from expressing their sentiments on
this proposition. But its nature and tendency were clear, and a murmur
of disapprobation ran through the assembly. Theramenes treated it with
contemptuous defiance; but Lysander silenced it by a graver argument.
He bade the malcontents take notice, that they were at his mercy, and
were no longer protected by the treaty. The fortifications had not been
demolished within the time prescribed, and therefore in strictness of
right the treaty was void. Their lives were forfeited and might be in
jeopardy, if they should reject the proposition of Theramenes. It was
adopted without further hesitation; and a list of the Thirty, of whom
ten were named by Theramenes, ten by the Athenian ephors, and ten were
nominally left to the choice of the assembly, was received with equal
unanimity. The names which it comprised, some of which soon became
infamously notorious were: Polyarches, Critias, Melobius, Hippolochus,
Euclidas, Hiero, Mnesilochus, Chremo, Theramenes, Aresias, Diocles,
Phædrias, Chærilaus, Anætius, Piso, Sophocles (not the poet, who was
now dead), Eratosthenes, Charicles, Onomacles, Theognis, Æschines,
Theogenes, Cleomedes, Erasistratus, Phido, Dracontides, Eumathes,
Aristoteles, Hippomachus, Mnesithides. Besides these a board of Ten was
appointed--perhaps by Lysander himself--to govern Piræus. As soon as this
affair was despatched, Lysander departed with his fleet to Samos, and the
Peloponnesian army evacuated Attica.
The Samians, blockaded by land and by sea, were forced to capitulate
before the end of the summer; they were permitted to leave the city, but
not to carry away any part of their property, except the clothes they
wore.
These terms might be thought lenient, had they been guilty of any
ferocious outrage; but perhaps Lysander did not view their conduct in
that light. He was however probably anxious to return home and to exhibit
the fruits of his victory to his admiring countrymen, and may have been
therefore the more willing to treat with the besieged. When they had
withdrawn, he supplied their place with the exiles who had been expelled
at various times in the civil feuds of the island, put them in possession
of all the property of the vanquished party and appointed a council
of Ten, to govern them, and secure their obedience. He then dismissed
the allies to their homes, and himself with the Lacedæmonian squadron
returned to Laconia.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
The historians' history of the world in twenty-five volumes, volume 04 : $b Greece to the Roman Conquest — John Shaqi
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