Note 15 — Chapter LXII · TWENTY-FIRST YEAR OF THE WAR. — OLIGARCHY OF FOUR HUNDRED AT ATHENS.

In the speech made by Theramenês (the Athenian) during the oligarchy of Thirty, seven years afterwards, it is affirmed that the Athenian people voted the adoption of the oligarchy of Four Hundred, from being told that the Lacedæmonians would never trust a democracy (Xenoph. Hellen. ii, 3, 45).

This is thoroughly incorrect, a specimen of the loose assertion of speakers in regard to facts even not very long past. At the moment when Theramenês said this, the question, what political constitution at Athens the Lacedæmonians would please to tolerate, was all-important to the Athenians. Theramenês transfers the feelings of the present to the incidents of the past.