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.