ur, the perfection of the
Laconian constitution. Imagine one of the ephors there in Sparta, in
lieu of devoted obedience to the majority, taking on himself to find
fault with the government and to oppose all measures. Do you not think
that the ephors themselves, and the whole commonwealth besides, would
hold this renegade worthy of condign punishment? So, too, by the same
token, if you are wise, do you spare yourselves, not him. For what does
the alternative mean? I will tell you. His preservation will cause
the courage of many who hold opposite views to your own to rise; his
destruction will cut off the last hopes of all your enemies, whether
within or without the city."

(9) An annotator seems to have added here the words, occurring in the
MSS., "the buskin which seems to fit both legs equally, but is
constant to neither," unless, indeed, they are an original
"marginal note" of the author. For the character of Theramenes, as
popularly conceived, cf. Aristoph. "Frogs," 538, 968 foll., and
Thuc. viii. 92; and Prof. Jowett, "Thuc." vol. ii. pp. 523, 524.

With these words he sat down, but Theramenes rose and said: "Sirs, with
your permission I will first touch upon the charge against me which
Critias has mentioned last. The assertion is that as the accuser of the
generals I was their murderer. Now I presume it was not I who began
the attack upon them, but it was they who asserted that in spite of
the orders given me I had neglected to pick up the unfortunates in the
sea-fight off Lesbos. All I did was to defend myself. My defence was
that the storm was too violent to permit any vessel to ride at sea, much
more therefore to pick up the men, and this defence was accepted by my
fellow-citizens as highly reasonable, while the generals seemed to be
condemned out of their own mouths. For while they kept on asserting
that it was possible to save the men, the fact still remained that they
abandoned them to their fate, set sail, and were gone.

"However, I am not surprised, I confess, at this grave misconception
(10) on the part of Critias, for at the date of these occurrences he
was not in Athens. He was away in Thessaly, laying the foundations of
a democracy with Prometheus, and arming the Penestae (11) against their
masters. Heaven forbid that any of his transactions there should be
re-enacted here. However, I must say, I do heartily concur with him on
one point. Whoever desires to exclude you from the g