The Complete Aristotle (eng.)

each tribe, chosen out of
candidates of more than thirty years of age, selected by the
members of the tribes. This Council should appoint the magistrates
and draw up the form of oath which they were to take; and in all
that concerned the laws, in the examination of official accounts,
and in other matters generally, they might act according to their
discretion. They must, however, observe the laws that might be
enacted with reference to the constitution of the state, and had no
power to alter them nor to pass others. The generals should be
provisionally elected from the whole body of the Five Thousand, but
so soon as the Council came into existence it was to hold an
examination of military equipments, and thereon elect ten persons,
together with a secretary, and the persons thus elected should hold
office during the coming year with full powers, and should have the
right, whenever they desired it, of joining in the deliberations of
the Council. The Five thousand was also to elect a single Hipparch
and ten Phylarchs; but for the future the Council was to elect
these officers according to the regulations above laid down. No
office, except those of member of the Council and of general, might
be held more than once, either by the first occupants or by their
successors. With reference to the future distribution of the Four
Hundred into the four successive sections, the hundred
commissioners must divide them whenever the time comes for the
citizens to join in the Council along with the rest.
32
    The hundred commissioners appointed by the Five Thousand drew up
the constitution as just stated; and after it had been ratified by
the people, under the presidency of Aristomachus, the existing
Council, that of the year of Callias, was dissolved before it had
completed its term of office. It was dissolved on the fourteenth
day of the month Thargelion, and the Four Hundred entered into
office on the twenty-first; whereas the regular Council, elected by
lot, ought to have entered into office on the fourteenth of
Scirophorion. Thus was the oligarchy established, in the archonship
of Callias, just about a hundred years after the expulsion of the
tyrants. The chief promoters of the revolution were Pisander,
Antiphon, and Theramenes, all of them men of good birth and with
high reputations for ability and judgement. When, however, this
constitution had been established, the Five Thousand were only
nominally selected, and the Four Hundred, together with the ten
officers on whom full powers had been conferred, occupied the
Council-house and really administered the government. They began by
sending ambassadors to the Lacedaemonians proposing a cessation of
the war on the basis of the existing Position; but as the
Lacedaemonians refused to listen to them unless they would also
abandon the command of the sea, they broke off the
negotiations.
33
    For about four months the constitution of the Four Hundred
lasted, and Mnasilochus held office as Archon of their nomination
for two months of the year of Theopompus, who was Archon for the
remaining ten. On the loss of the naval battle of Eretria, however,
and the revolt of the whole of Euboea except Oreum, the indignation
of the people was greater than at any of the earlier disasters,
since they drew far more supplies at this time from Euboea than
from Attica itself. Accordingly they deposed the Four Hundred and
committed the management of affairs to the Five Thousand,
consisting of persons Possessing a military equipment. At the same
time they voted that pay should not be given for any public office.
The persons chiefly responsible for the revolution were
Aristocrates and Theramenes, who disapproved of the action of the
Four Hundred in retaining the direction of affairs entirely in
their own hands, and referring nothing to the Five Thousand. During
this period the constitution of the state seems to have been
admirable, since it was a time of war and the franchise was in the
hands of those who possessed a military equipment.
34
    The people, however, in a very short time deprived the Five
Thousand of their monopoly of the government. Then, six years after
the overthrow of the Four Hundred, in the archonship of Callias of
Angele, battle of Arginusae took place, of which the results were,
first, that the ten generals who had gained the victory were all
condemned by a single decision, owing to the people being led
astray by persons who aroused their indignation; though, as a
matter of fact, some of the