POLITICAL CLUBS AT ATHENS. 15 mendation.' He and ten other envoys, invested with full powers of negotiating with AlkibiadGs and Tissaphernes, were despatch- ed to Ionia immediately. Peisander at the same time obtained from the assembly a vote deposing Phrynichus from his com- mand ; under the accusation of having traitorously caused the loss of lasus and the capture of Amorges, after the battle of Miletus, but from the real certainty that he would prove an insuperable bar to all negotiations with Alkibiades. Phrynichus, tvith his colleague Skironides, being thus displaced, Leon and Di- omedon were sent to Samos as commanders in their stead ; an appointment of which, as will be presently seen, Peisander was far from anticipating the consequences. Before his departure for Asia, he took a step yet more impoi- tant. He was well aware that the recent vote a result of fear inspired by the war, representing a sentiment utterly at variance with that of the assembly, and only procured as the price of Per- sian aid against a foreign enemy would never pass into a real- ity by the spontaneous act of the people themselves. It was, indeed, indispensable as a first step ; partly as an authority to himself, partly also as a confession of the temporary weakness of the democracy, and as a sanction and encouragement for the oli- garchical forces to show themselves. But the second step yet remained to be performed ; that of calling these forces into energetic action, organizing an amount of violence sufficient to extort from the people actual submission in addition to verbal acquiescence, and thus, as it were, tying down the patient tfhile the process of emasculation was being consummated. Pei eander visited all the various political clubs, conspiracies, or 1 Thucvd. viii, 54. 'O 6e d^uof rd fikv npurov UKOVUV ^aXeTrwf !-<j>epe TTipi r?if bhiyapxiaf aa<f>uf 6e tiidaanofievoe i>Ttb rov aUrjv aurijpiav, 6 e iaaf, Kal afia t?.Triuv ug ical v e 6 u K t . " Athenicnsibus, immincnte pcriculo belli, major salutis quam dignitatis cura fuit. Itaquc, pcrraittcntc populo, impcrium ad Senatum transfertur," (Justin, v, 3). Justin is correct, so far as this vote goes : but he takes no notice of the change of matters afterwards, when the establishment of the Four Hundred was consummated without the promised benefit of Persian alliance, and by limpla terrorism.
