After such years of misery, it was an unspeakable relief to the Athenian population to regain possession of Athens and Attica; to exchange their domestic tyrants for a renovated democratical government; and to see their foreign enemies not merely evacuate the country, but even bind themselves by treaty to future friendly dealing. In respect of power, indeed, Athens was but the shadow of her former self. She had no empire, no tribute, no fleet, no fortifications at Piræus, no long walls, not a single fortified place in Attica except the city itself. Of these losses, the Athenians made little account at the first epoch of their re-establishment; so intolerable was the pressure which they had just escaped, and so welcome the restitution of comfort, security, property, and independence at home. The very excess of tyranny committed by the Thirty gave a peculiar zest to the recovery of the democracy. In their hands, the oligarchical principle (to borrow an expression from Burke) “had produced in fact and instantly, the grossest of those evils with which it was pregnant in its nature”; realising the promise of that plain-spoken oligarchical oath, which Aristotle mentions as having been taken in various oligarchical cities--to contrive as much evil as possible to the people. So much the more complete was the reaction of sentiment towards the antecedent democracy, even in the minds of those who had been before discontented with it. To all men, rich and poor, citizens and metics, the comparative excellence of the democracy, in respect of all the essentials of good government, was now manifest. With the exception of those who had identified themselves with the Thirty as partners, partisans, or instruments, there was scarcely any one who did not feel that his life and property had been far more secure under the former democracy, and would become so again if that democracy were revived. It was the first measure of Thrasybulus and his companions, after concluding the treaty with Pausanias and thus re-entering the city, to exchange solemn oaths of amnesty for the past, with those against whom they had just been at war. Similar oaths of amnesty were also exchanged with those in Eleusis, as soon as that town came into their power. The only persons excepted from this amnesty were the Thirty, the Eleven who had presided over the execution of all their atrocities, and the Ten who had governed in Piræus. Even these persons were not peremptorily banished: opportunity was offered to them to come in and take their trial of accountability (universal at Athens in the case of every magistrate on quitting office); so that if acquitted, they would enjoy the benefit of the amnesty as well as all others. We know that Eratosthenes, one of the Thirty, afterwards returned to Athens; since there remains a powerful harangue of Lysias invoking justice against him as having brought to death Polemarchus (the brother of Lysias).