Note 330 — Chapter LXV · FROM THE BATTLE OF ARGINUSÆ TO THE RESTORATION OF THE DEMOCRACY AT ATHENS, AFTER THE EXPULSION OF THE THIRTY.

Xenoph. Hellen. ii, 2, 6. εὐθὺς δὲ καὶ ἡ ἄλλη Ἑλλὰς ἀφειστήκει Ἀθηναίων, πλὴν Σαμίων· οὗτοι δὲ, σφαγὰς τῶν γνωρίμων ποιήσαντες, κατεῖχον τὴν πόλιν.

I interpret the words σφαγὰς τῶν γνωρίμων ποιήσαντες to refer to the violent revolution at Samos, described in Thucyd. viii, 21, whereby the oligarchy were dispossessed and a democratical government established. The word σφαγὰς is used by Xenophon (Hellen. v, 4, 14), in a subsequent passage, to describe the conspiracy and revolution effected by Pelopidas and his friends at Thebes. It is true that we might rather have expected the preterite participle πεποιηκότες than the aorist ποιήσαντες. But this employment of the aorist participle in a preterite sense is not uncommon with Xenophon: see κατηγορήσας, δόξας, i, 1, 31; γενομένους, i, 7, 11; ii, 2, 20.

It appears to me highly improbable that the Samians should have chosen this occasion to make a fresh massacre of their oligarchical citizens, as Mr. Mitford represents. The democratical Samians must have been now humbled and intimidated, seeing their subjugation approaching; and only determined to hold out by finding themselves already so deeply compromised though the former revolution. Nor would Lysander have spared them personally afterwards, as we shall find that he did, when he had them substantially in his power (ii, 3, 6), if they had now committed any fresh political massacre.