The Four Hundred

When these things had been thus arranged, the Four Hundred, each with dagger concealed on his person, and the hundred and twenty Grecian youths, of whose services they availed themelves wherever any business required to be dispatched, came and presented themselves to the council of Five Hundred, who were in their chamber, and told them to take their pay and go out;

that they should elect five men as presidents, who, again, should elect a hundred, and each of the hundred three for himself, and that these, amounting to four hundred, should enter the council-chamber, and govern as they might think best, with full powers, and should elect the five thousand also, whenever they might please.

When in this way the council had withdrawn without speaking a word against it, and the rest of the citizens made no disturbance, but kept quiet, the Four Hundred then entered the council-chamber, and elected their prytanes by lot;

This man in the beginning, although he had received honours at the hands of the democracy, was extremely eager, like his father Hagnon, to change the democracy into the oligarchy of the Four Hundred, and he was a leader in that government.

And on the side of the Eleans the Three Hundred and likewise the Four Hundred came out to meet them.

and at last, in consequence of the eagerness of our public men for war, we sank so low as to see a Spartan garrison in our city, and the Four Hundred, and the impious Thirty;

Instead, directly they learned of my arrival, certain of the Four Hundred sought me out, arrested me, and brought me before the Council.

In fact, I at once proceeded to supply your forces in Samos with oar-spars—this was after the Four Hundred had seized power at Athens —since Archelaus had hereditary connexions with my family and offered me the right of cutting and exporting as many as I wished.

By this time, of course, it was clear that there had been a complete estrangement between the men on service and the Four Hundred.

The soldiers who remained in Athens under the Four Hundred are a case in point.

and all who were recorded as members of the Four Hundred:

When this constitution had come into being, the Five Thousand were chosen in name only, and the Four Hundred, entering the Council-house with the ten plenipotentiaries, ruled the city;

When these things had been ratified by the multitude, on the motion of Aristomachus, the Council in the archonship of Callias was dissolved before completing its term, on the fourteenth of the month Thargelion, and the Four Hundred entered office on the twenty-second of Thargelion;

The constitution of the Four Hundred lasted perhaps four months, and Mnesilochus held office from among them for two months, in the archonship of Theopompus, who held office for the remaining ten months.

Now my plea is the same in this case as for those who overthrew the Four Hundred, and for those who proved helpful to the democrats in exile;

Now the persons who first plotted against the democracy and established the Four Hundred, inasmuch as my father, although he was repeatedly invited to join them would not do so, seeing that he was a vigorous opponent of their activities and a loyal supporter of the people, judged that they were powerless to upset the established order until he was removed out of their way.

Did not the people themselves, because of the depravity of the popular orators, desire the oligarchy which was established under the Four Hundred?