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Yes, and who of my own generation does not remember that the democracy so adorned the city with temples and public buildings that even today visitors from other lands consider that she is worthy to rule not only over Hellas but over all the world;In almost the same terms he praises Pericles for his adornment of Athens, Isoc. 15.234. while the Thirty neglected the public buildings, plundered the temples, and sold for destruction for the sum of three talents the dockyardsThe bitterest denunciation of the misrule of the Thirty is in the oration Against Eratosthenes, by Lysias (Lys. 12). At its close, he speaks of the sacrilege of the Thirty, particularly in selling off the treasures stored in the temples, and of their tearing down the dockyards of the Piraeus. upon which the city had spent not less than a thousand talents?
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And surely no one could find grounds to praise the mildnessAn example of irony (litotes), a figure sparingly used by Isocrates. Cf. “outworn” in Isoc. 4.92. of the Thirty as against that of the people’s rule! For when the Thirty took over the city, by vote of the Assembly,Under duress. See Xen. Hell. 2.3.2. they put to death fifteen hundred AtheniansThe same number is given in Isoc. 20.11. without a trial and compelled more than five thousand to leave Athens and take refuge in the Piraeus,Only those enjoyed the franchise under the Thirty who were in the catalogue of the approved “three thousand.” See Isoc. 18.17. whereas when the exiles overcame them and returned to Athens under arms, these put to death only the chief perpetrators of their wrongs and dealt so generously and so justly by the restCf. Plat. Menex. 243e. that those who had driven the citizens from their homes fared no worse than those who had returned from exile.
