they kept on asserting that it was possible to save the men, the fact
still remained that they abandoned them to their fate, set sail, and
were gone.

"However, I am not surprised, I confess, at this grave
misconception[10] on the part of Critias, for at the date of these
occurrences he was not in Athens. He was away in Thessaly, laying the
foundations of a democracy with Prometheus, and arming the
Penestae[11] against their masters. Heaven forbid that any of his
transactions there should be re-enacted here. However, I must say, I
do heartily concur with him on one point. Whoever desires to exclude
you from the government, or to strength the hands of your secret foes,
deserves and ought to meet with condign punishment; but who is most
capable of so doing? That you will best discover, I think, by looking
a little more closely into the past and the present conduct of each of
us. Well, then! up to the moment at which you were formed into a
senatorial body, when the magistracies were appointed, and certain
notorius 'informers' were brought to trial, we all held the same
views. But later on, when our friends yonder began to hale respectable
honest folk to prison and to death, I, on my side, began to differ
from them. From the moment when Leon of Salamis,[12] a man of high and
well-deserved reputation, was put to death, though he had not
committed the shadow of a crime, I knew that all his equals must
tremble for themselves, and, so trembling, be driven into opposition
to the new constitution. In the same way, when Niceratus,[13] the son
of Nicias, was arrested; a wealthy man, who, no more than his father,
had never done anything that could be called popular or democratic in
his life; it did not require much insight to discover that his
compeers would be converted into our foes. But to go a step further:
when it came to Antiphon[14] falling at our hands--Antiphon, who