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After the murder of Demoteles and the dissolution of his monarchic government the Land-ownersThucydides, viii. 21, recounts the later struggles of the Land-owners and the People. controlled the State, and at this time the Megarians made an expedition against the Perinthians, who were colonists of the Samians; as it is related, they brought with them fetters for their captives. When the Land-owners learned of this, they dispatched aid to the Perinthians with all speed, appointing nine generals and manning thirty ships. Two of these ships, as they were sailing out, were destroyed by a thunderbolt in front of the harbour; but the generals kept on with the others, defeated the Megarians, and took six hundred of them alive. Elated by their victory, they conceived the proj ect of overthrowing the oligarchy of the Land-owners at home. Now the officials in charge of the government had provided an occasion for undertaking this, by writing to the generals to bring back the captive Megarians bound in their own fetters. The generals, accordingly, took the letter, and secretly showed it to certain of the Megarians and persuaded them to join with themselves and free the city. When they took counsel together concerning the deed, they decided to knock loose the rings that fastened the fetters, and in this condition to put them on the legs of the Megarians, holding them up with thongs to their girdles, so that the fetters might not slip down and fall off when their legs became relaxed in walking. Having thus equipped the men and given a sword to each, they sailed back to Samos and disembarked, and there they led the Megarians through the market-place to the council-chamber, where practically all the Land-owners were sitting together. Then, at a given signal, the Megarians fell upon them and slew them. When the city had thus been freed, they made citizens of those Megarians who so desired; and they constructed a great building and dedicated the fetters there; and from this the building was called the Hall of Fetters.
