History of the Peloponnesian War

For in Samos there was a commotion about the oligarchy already; and this that followeth happened about the same time that The Four Hundred were set up in Athens.

Those Samians that had risen against the nobility and were of the people's side, turning when Pisander came thither at the persuasion of him and of those Athenians in Samos that were his accomplices, conspired together to the number of three hundred and were to have assaulted the rest as popular.

And one Hyperbolus, a lewd fellow, who, not for any fear of his power or for any dignity, but for wickedness of life and dishonour he did the city, had been banished by ostracism, they slew, abetted therein both by Charminus, one of the commanders, and by other Athenians that were amongst them, who had given them their faith. And together with these, they committed other facts of the same kind, and were fully bent to have assaulted the popular side.

But they, having gotten notice thereof, made known the design both to the generals, Leon and Diomedon (for these, being honoured by the people, endured the oligarchy unwillingly), and also to Thrasybulus and Thrasyllus, whereof one was captain of a galley and the other captain of a band of men of arms, and to such others continually as they thought stood in greatest opposition to the conspirators; and required of them that they would not see them destroyed and Samos alienated from the Athenians by the only means of which their dominion had till this time kept itself in the state it is in.

They, hearing it, went to the soldiers and exhorted them one by one not to suffer it, especially to the Paralians, who were all Athenians and freemen, come thither in the galley called Paralus, and had always before been enemies to the oligarchy.

And Leon and Diomedon, whensoever they went forth any whither, left them certain galleys for their guard, so that when the three hundred assaulted them, the commons of the Samians, with the help of all these, and especially of the Paralians, had the upperhand, and of the three hundred slew thirty. Three of the chief authors they banished, and burying in oblivion the fault of the rest, governed the state from that time forward as a democracy.

The Paralus, and in it Chaereas, the son of Archestratus, a man of Athens, one that had been forward in the making of this change, the Samians and the soldiers dispatched presently away to Athens, to advertise them of what was done; for they knew not yet that the government was in the hands of The Four Hundred.

When they arrived, The Four Hundred cast some two or three of these of the Paralus into prison; the rest, after they had taken the galley from them and put them aboard another military galley, they commanded to keep guard about Euboea.

But Chaereas, by some means or other getting presently away, seeing how things went, came back to Samos and related to the army all that the Athenians had done, aggravating it to the utmost, as that they punished every man with stripes to the end that none should contradict the doings of those that bore rule; and that their wives and children at home were abused; and that they had an intention further to take and imprison all that were of kin to any of the army which was not of their faction, to the intent to kill them if they of Samos would not submit to their authority. And many other things he told them, adding lies of his own.

When they heard this, they were ready at first to have fallen upon the chief authors of the oligarchy and upon such of the rest as were partakers of it. Yet afterwards, being hindered by such as came between and advised them not to overthrow the state, the enemy lying so near with their galleys to assault them, they gave it over.

After this, Thrasybulus, the son of Lycus, and Thrasyllus (for these were the principal authors of the change), determining now openly to reduce the state at Samos to a democracy, took oaths of all the soldiers, especially of the oligarchicals, the greatest they could devise, both that they should be subject to the democracy and agree together and also that they should zealously prosecute the war against the Peloponnesians, and withal be enemies to The Four Hundred and not to have to do with them by ambassadors.