it derived its
guardianship of the constitution, and assigned some of them to the
Council of Five Hundred, and others to the Assembly and the law-courts.
In this revolution he was assisted by Themistocles, who was himself a
member of the Areopagus, but was expecting to be tried before it on a
charge of treasonable dealings with Persia. This made him anxious that
it should be overthrown, and accordingly he warned Ephialtes that the
Council intended to arrest him, while at the same time he informed the
Areopagites that he would reveal to them certain persons who were
conspiring to subvert the constitution. He then conducted the
representatives delegated by the Council to the residence of Ephialtes,
promising to show them the conspirators who assembled there, and
proceeded to converse with them in an earnest manner. Ephialtes, seeing
this, was seized with alarm and took refuge in suppliant guise at the
altar. Every one was astounded at the occurrence, and presently, when
the Council of Five Hundred met, Ephialtes and Themistocles together
proceeded to denounce the Areopagus to them. This they repeated in
similar fashion in the Assembly, until they succeeded in depriving it
of its power. Not long afterwards, however, Ephialtes was assassinated
by Aristodicus of Tanagra. In this way was the Council of Areopagus
deprived of its guardianship of the state.

Part 26

After this revolution the administration of the state became more and
more lax, in consequence of the eager rivalry of candidates for popular
favour. During this period the moderate party, as it happened, had no
real chief, their leader being Cimon son of Miltiades, who was a
comparatively young man, and had been late in entering public life; and
at the same time the general populace suffered great losses by war. The
soldiers for active service were selected at that time from the roll of
citizens, and as the generals were men of no military experience, who
owed their position solely to their family standing, it continually
happened that some two or three thousand of the troops perished on an
expedition; and in this way the best men alike of the lower and the
upper classes were exhausted. Consequently in most matters of
administration less heed was paid to the laws than had formerly been
the case. No alteration, however, was made in the method of election of
the nine Archons, except that five years after the death of Ephialtes
it was decided that the candidat