Book 2
3.19
Theramenes, however, objected to this move also, saying that, in the first place, it seemed to him absurd that, when they wanted to make the best of the citizens their associates, they should limit themselves to three thousand, as though this number must somehow be good men and true and there could neither be excellent men outside this body nor rascals within404 B.C. it. Besides, he said, we are undertaking, in my opinion, two absolutely inconsistent things,—to rig up our government on the basis of force and at the same time to make it weaker than its subjects.
3.20
This was what Theramenes said. As for the Thirty, they held a review, the Three Thousand assembling in the market-place and those who were not on the roll in various places here and there; then they gave the order to pile arms, and while the men were off duty and away, they sent their Lacedaemonian guardsmen and such citizens as were in sympathy with them, seized the arms of all except the Three Thousand, carried them up to the Acropolis, and deposited them in the temple.
3.21
And now, when this had been accomplished, thinking that they were at length free to do whatever they pleased, they put many people to death out of personal enmity, and many also for the sake of securing their property. One measure that they resolved upon, in order to get money to pay their guardsmen, was that each of their number should seize one of the aliens residing in the city, and that they should put these men to death and confiscate their property.
3.22
So they bade Theramenes also to seize anyone he pleased; and he replied: But it is not honourable, as it seems to me, he said, for people who style themselves the best citizens to commit acts of greater injustice than the informers used to do. For they allowed those from whom they got money, to live; but shall we, in order to get money, put to death men who are guilty of no wrong-doing? Are not such acts altogether more unjust than theirs were?
