Kitap 2
3.36
I do not wonder, however, that Critias has misunderstood the matter; for when these events took place, it chanced that he was not here; he was establishing a democracy in Thessaly along with Prometheus, and arming the serfs against their masters.
3.37
God forbid that any of the things which he was doing there should come to pass here.I quite agree with him, however, on this point, that if anyone is desirous of deposing you from your office and is making strong those who are plotting against you, it is just for him to incur the severest punishment. But I think you can best judge who it is that is doing this, if you will consider the course which each of us two has taken and is now taking.
3.38
Well then, up to the time when you became members of the Senate and magistrates were appointed and the notorious informers were brought to trial, all of us held the same views; but when these Thirty began to arrest men of worth and standing, then I, on my side, began to hold views opposed to theirs.
3.39
For when Leon the Salaminian was put to death,—a man of capacity, both actually and by repute,—although he was not guilty of a single act of wrong-doing, I knew that those who were like him would be fearful, and, being fearful, would be enemies of this government. I also knew, when Niceratus, the son of Nicias, was arrested,—a man of wealth who, like his father, had never done anything to curry popular favour,—that those who were like him would become hostile to us.
3.40
And further, when Antiphon, who during the war supplied from his own means two fast-sailing triremes, was put to death by us, I knew that all those who had been zealous in404 B.C. the state’s cause would look upon us with suspicion. I objected, also, when they said that each of us must seize one of the resident aliens; for it was entirely clear that if these men were put to death, the whole body of such aliens would become enemies of the government.
