Such was the way in which the people earned their livelihood. The
supremacy of the Areopagus lasted for about seventeen years after the
Persian wars, although gradually declining. But as the strength of the
masses increased, Ephialtes, son of Sophonides, a man with a reputation
for incorruptibility and public virtue, who had become the leader of
the people, made an attack upon that Council. First of all he ruined
many of its members by bringing actions against them with reference to
their administration. Then, in the archonship of Conon, he stripped the
Council of all the acquired prerogatives from which it derived its
guardianship of the constitution, and assigned some of them to the
Council of Five Hundred, and others to the Assembly and the law-courts.
In this revolution he was assisted by Themistocles, who was himself a
member of the Areopagus, but was expecting to be tried before it on a
charge of treasonable dealings with Persia. This made him anxious that
it should be overthrown, and accordingly he warned Ephialtes that the
Council intended to arrest him, while at the same time he informed the
Areopagites that he would reveal to them certain persons who were
conspiring to subvert the constitution. He then conducted the
representatives delegated by the Council to the residence of Ephialtes,
promising to show them the conspirators who assembled there, and
proceeded to converse with them in an earnest manner. Ephialtes, seeing
this, was seized with alarm and took refuge in suppliant guise at the
altar. Every one was astounded at the occurrence, and presently, when
the Council of Five Hundred met, Ephialtes and Themistocles together
proceeded to denounce the Areopagus to them. This they repeated in
similar fashion in the Assembly, until they succeeded in depriving it
of its power. Not long afterwards, however, Ephialtes was assassinated
by Aristodicus of Tanagra. In this way was the Council of Areopagus
deprived of its guardianship of the state.