Constitution of the Athenians

​XXXV. Thus the Thirty were established in this manner in the archonship of Pythodorus. Having become masters of the city, they ignored the other matters that had been decided regarding the constitution, and appointing five hundred councilors and the other magistrates from candidates pre-selected from the Thousand, and choosing in addition for themselves ten rulers of the Peiraeus, eleven guardians of the prison, and three hundred attendants as whip-bearers, they held the city under their own control. At first, then, they were moderate toward the citizens, and pretended to administer the ancestral constitution, and they pulled down from the Areopagus the laws of Ephialtes and Archestratus concerning the Areopagites, and those of Solon’s laws which had ambiguities, and they abolished the final authority that resided in the jurors, as if they were correcting and making the constitution indisputable; for example, they made a man’s power to give his own property to whomever he wishes absolute once and for all, and removed the attached difficulties, such as “except when a man is insane, or aged, or influenced by a woman,” so that there might be no avenue of attack for the sycophants; and they did likewise in other matters too. At first, then, they did these things, and they did away with the sycophants and those who associated with the people to curry favor contrary to what was best, being troublemakers and wicked men, at whose destruction the city rejoiced, thinking that they were doing this for the sake of the best. But when they held the city more securely, they spared none of the citizens, but put to death those who were preeminent in wealth, birth, and reputation, both removing fear and wishing to plunder their estates; and in a short space of time they had put to death no fewer than fifteen hundred people.

​XXXVI. While the city was declining in this way, Theramenes, being indignant at what was happening, exhorted them to cease from their insolence and to share the government with the best citizens. But they at first opposed him, but when their discussions were spread among the multitude, and the majority was friendly toward Theramenes, fearing lest he should become a leader of the people and overthrow their oligarchy, they registered three thousand of the citizens as if they were going to share the constitution with them. But Theramenes again criticized these measures, first because, wishing to share the government with the respectable citizens, they shared it with only three thousand, as if virtue were limited within this number; and secondly because they were doing two most contradictory things, making their rule both based on force and weaker than those who were ruled. But they paid no attention to these arguments, and delayed publishing the register of the three thousand for a long time, keeping those who had been selected in their own possession; and whenever they decided to publish it, they erased some of those who had been written in, and registered others from outside.

​XXXVII. Now when winter had already set in, and Thrasybulus with the exiles had seized Phyle, and when the army which the Thirty had led out returned in failure, they resolved to strip the others of their weapons and to destroy Theramenes in the following manner. They introduced two laws into the council, ordering them to vote on them, of which one made the Thirty sovereign to put to death those citizens who did not participate in the register of the three thousand, and the other excluded from the present constitution all those who happened to have demolished the fort at Eetioneia or to have done anything against the Four Hundred or those who established the previous oligarchy. Since Theramenes happened to have shared in both of these, the result was that, when the laws were ratified, he was excluded from the constitution and the Thirty became sovereign to put him to death. When Theramenes had been removed, they stripped all except the three thousand of their weapons, and in other respects they advanced far in cruelty and wickedness. And they sent ambassadors to Lacedaemon, accusing Theramenes and asking them to help them; hearing these things, the Lacedaemonians sent Callibius as governor and about seven hundred soldiers, who came to the acropolis and guarded it.