200 HISTORY OF GREECE. nected with the general state of Grecian politics at the time , tor Argos had not been in any way subject to Sparta, nor a member of the Spartan confederacy, nor (so far as we know) concerned in the recent war, since the peace of Antalkidas in 387 B. c. The Argeian government was a democracy, and the popular leaders were vehement in their denunciations against the oligarchical opposition party who were men of wealth and great family position. These last, thus denounced, formed a conspiracy for the forcible overthrow of the government. But the conspiracy was discovered prior to execution, and some of the suspected conspir- ators were interrogated under the torture, to make them reveal their accomplices ; under which interrogation one of them deposed against thirty conspicuous citizens. The people, after a hasty trial, put these thirty men to death, and confiscated their property, while others slew themselves to escape the same fate. So furious did the fear and wrath of the people become, exasperated by the popular leaders, that they continued their executions until they had put to death twelve hundred (or, as some say, fifteen hundred) of the principal citizens. At length the popular leaders became themselves tired and afraid of what they had done ; upon which the people were animated to fury against them, and put them to death also. 1 This gloomy series of events was termed the Skytalism, or Cudgelling, from the instrument (as we are told) by which these multiplied executions were consummated ; though the name seems more to indicate an impetuous popular insurrection than deliberate executions. We know the facts too imperfectly to be able to infer anything more than the brutal working of angry political passion amidst a population like that of Argos or Korkyra, where there was not (as at Athens) either a taste for speech, or the habit of being guided by speech, and of hearing both sides of every ques- tion fully discussed. Cicero remarks that he had never heard of an Argeian orator. The acrimony of Demosthenes and .2Eschines was discharged by mutual eloquence of vituperation, while the assembly or the dikastery afterwards decided betwt^.n them. We are told that the assembled Athenian people, when ^y heard the news of the Skytalism at Argos, were so shocked ^ t. tb*i they 1 Piodcr. xv, 57, 58.
