did not know, or whom he knew but did not trust. Indeed all the popular
party approached each other with suspicion, each thinking his neighbour
concerned in what was going on, the conspirators having in their ranks
persons whom no one could ever have believed capable of joining an
oligarchy; and these it was who made the many so suspicious, and so
helped to procure impunity for the few, by confirming the commons in
their mistrust of one another.

At this juncture arrived Pisander and his colleagues, who lost no time
in doing the rest. First they assembled the people, and moved to elect
ten commissioners with full powers to frame a constitution, and that
when this was done they should on an appointed day lay before the people
their opinion as to the best mode of governing the city. Afterwards,
when the day arrived, the conspirators enclosed the assembly in Colonus,
a temple of Poseidon, a little more than a mile outside the city; when
the commissioners simply brought forward this single motion, that any
Athenian might propose with impunity whatever measure he pleased, heavy
penalties being imposed upon any who should indict for illegality, or
otherwise molest him for so doing. The way thus cleared, it was now
plainly declared that all tenure of office and receipt of pay under the
existing institutions were at an end, and that five men must be elected
as presidents, who should in their turn elect one hundred, and each
of the hundred three apiece; and that this body thus made up to four
hundred should enter the council chamber with full powers and govern
as they judged best, and should convene the five thousand whenever they
pleased.

The man who moved this resolution was Pisander, who was throughout
the chief ostensible agent in putting down the democracy. But he who
concerted the whole affair, and prepared the way for the catastrophe,
and who had given the greatest thought to the matter, was Antiphon,
one of the best men of his day in Athens; who, with a head to contrive
measures and a tongue to recommend them, did not willingly come forward
in the assembly or upon any public scene, being ill looked upon by the
multitude owing to his reputation for talent; and who yet was the one
man best able to aid in the courts, or before the assembly, the suitors
who required his opinion. Indeed, when he was afterwards himself tried
for his life on the charge of having been concerned in setting up this
very government, when the Fo