Council and persuaded them
to execute him without trial, telling them that now they would have to
show whether they wished to preserve the democracy and abide by the
oaths they had taken; for if they let this man escape they would
encourage others to imitate him, while if they executed him they would
make an example for all to learn by. And this was exactly what
happened; for after this man had been put to death no one ever again
broke the amnesty. On the contrary, the Athenians seem, both in public
and in private, to have behaved in the most unprecedentedly admirable
and public-spirited way with reference to the preceding troubles. Not
only did they blot out all memory of former offences, but they even
repaid to the Lacedaemonians out of the public purse the money which
the Thirty had borrowed for the war, although the treaty required each
party, the party of the city and the party of Piraeus, to pay its own
debts separately. This they did because they thought it was a necessary
first step in the direction of restoring harmony; but in other states,
so far from the democratic parties making advances from their own
possessions, they are rather in the habit of making a general
redistribution of the land. A final reconciliation was made with the
secessionists at Eleusis two years after the secession, in the
archonship of Xenaenetus.

Part 41

This, however, took place at a later date; at the time of which we are
speaking the people, having secured the control of the state,
established the constitution which exists at the present day.
Pythodorus was Archon at the time, but the democracy seems to have
assumed the supreme power with perfect justice, since it had effected
its own return by its own exertions. This was the eleventh change which
had taken place in the constitution of Athens. The first modification
of the primaeval condition of things was when Ion and his companions
brought the people together into a community, for then the people was
first divided into the four tribes, and the tribe-kings were created.
Next, and first after this, having now some semblance of a
constitution, was that which took place in the reign of Theseus,
consisting in a slight deviation from absolute monarchy. After this
came the constitution formed under Draco, when the first code of laws
was drawn up. The third was that which followed the civil war, in the
time of Solon; from this the democracy took its rise. The fourth was
the tyran