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When we lost our fleet in the HellespontAt the Battle of Arginusae, 406 B. C., the beginning of the end of the Peloponnesian War. and our city was plunged into the disasters of that time, who of our older men does not know that the “people’s party,”Many of them had been exiled by the Thirty or had fled for their lives. Thrasybulus placed himself at their head, defeated the Thirty in battle, and restored the democracy. See Xen. Hell. 2.4.10 ff. as they were called, were ready to go to any length of hardship to avoid doing what the enemy commanded, deeming it monstrous that anyone should see the city which had ruled over the Hellenes in subjection to another state, whereas the partisans of oligarchy were ready both to tear down the wallsOne of the terms insisted on by Lysander was that the “long walls” connecting Athens with the Piraeus be demolished. and to submit to slavery?
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Or that at the time when the people were in control of affairs, we placed our garrisons in the citadels of other states, whereas when the Thirty took over the government, the enemy occupied the Acropolis of Athens?Lysander kept a Spartan garrison on the Acropolis during the rule of the Thirty. See Isoc. 8.92; Isoc. 15.319. Or, again, that during the rule of the Thirty the Lacedaemonians were our masters, but that when the exiles returned and dared to fight for freedom, and Conon won his naval victory,The Battle of Cnidus, 394 B.C., re-established the power of Athens. ambassadors came from the Lacedaemonians and offered Athens the command of the sea?See Isoc. 9.68.
