History of the Peloponnesian War

It was at this crisis that Peisander and his colleagues arrived and immediately applied themselves to the work that still remained to be done. First they called the popular assembly together and proposed a resolution that ten men should be chosen as commissioners, with full powers, for the drafting of laws, and that these men, after drafting such laws, should bring before the assembly on an appointed day a proposal embodying provisions for the best administration of the state.

In the second place, when the day came they convened the assembly at Colonus, which is a precinct sacred to Poseidon lying at a distance of about ten stadia outside the city, and the commissioners brought in no other measure except the bare proposal that any Athenian should be permitted with impunity to offer any motion he pleased; and if anyone should move to indict the speaker for making an illegal proposal[*](The γραφὴ παρανόμων, regarded as the great safeguard of the Attic constitution, was provided for annulling an illegal decree or law, and also for punishing the proposer. The latter could be held personally responsible only for a year from the time of the proposal of a decree or the enactment of a law; after a year the decree or law could be attacked and annulled by the same process as that against the proposer. Whoever brought a γραφὴ παρανόμων bound himself by oath to prosecute the case; after the oath was taken a decree or law was suspended if already enacted, and a προβούλευμα could not be brought before the assembly until the suit had been tried and settled. The proposer, if the court decided against him, was punished by death or fine. See Schoemann, Gr. Alt. i, 497 ff. (2nd ed.).) or should in any other manner seek to do him harm, they imposed severe penalties upon him.

After that, the proposal was at length offered without concealment that no one should any longer hold office under the constitution as at present established or receive a salary, and that they should choose five men as presidents, and these should choose one hundred, and each of the hundred three others in addition to himself; then these, being four hundred, should enter the senate-chamber and govern as they should judge best, being clothed with full powers, and they should convene the Five Thousand whenever it seemed to them advisable.[*](cf. 8.65.3. There had been talk of limiting the franchise to 5000, and it was resolved at this same assembly to appoint 100 men to draw up a list of the 5000 (Aristot. Ἀθ. Πολ., ch. xxix. ad fin.). But the list was never published. See 8.92.11 and Ἀθ. Πολ. ch. xxxii. For the somewhat divergent account of Aristotle, see Aristot. Ἀθ. Πολ. xxix.- xxxii.)

It was Peisander who proposed this resolution and in other respects assisted most zealously, to all appearances, in overthrowing the democracy. The man, however, who devised the method by which the whole matter was brought to this issue and who had for the longest time devoted himself to the problem was Antiphon, a man inferior to none of the Athenians of his own day in force of character and one who had proved himself most able both to formulate a plan and to set forth his conclusions in speech; and although he did not come before the assembly or willingly take part in any public contest, but was under suspicion with the people on account of his reputation for cleverness, yet he was the one man most able to help any who were involved in contests, either in court or before the assembly, in case they sought his advice.

And in his own case, when at a later time the acts of the Four Hundred had been reversed and were being severely dealt with by the popular assembly, and he was under charge of having assisted in setting up that government, he manifestly made the ablest plea for his life of all men up to my time in defending these very acts.[*](Antiphon, of Rhamnus, was the earliest of the ten orators of the 'canon,' and the first λογογράφος. Thucydides was said to have been a pupil of his, but the tradition is of doubtful authority, e.g. a second-hand remark of Pseudo-Plutarch (Vit. X. Orat.). Fifteen orations are extant under his name. See Jebb, Attic Orators, 1.1.)