In Athens the Thirty Tyrants, who were in supreme control, made no end of daily exiling some citizens and putting to death others. When the Thebans were displeased at what was taking place and extended kindly hospitality to the exiles,1 Thrasybulus of the deme of Stiria, as he was called, who was an Athenian and had been exiled by the Thirty, with the secret aid of the Thebans seized a stronghold in Attica called Phyle. This was an outpost, which was not only very strong but was also only one hundred stades distant from Athens, so that it afforded them many advantages for attack. [2] The Thirty Tyrants, on learning of this act, at first led forth their troops against the band with the intention of laying siege to the stronghold. But while they were encamped near Phyle there came a heavy snow, [3] and when some set to work to shift their encampment, the majority of the soldiers assumed that they were taking to flight and that a hostile force was at hand; and the uproar which men call Panic struck the army and they removed their camp to another place. [4]
The Thirty, seeing that those citizens of Athens who enjoyed no political rights in the government of the three thousand2 were elated at the prospect of the overthrow of their control of the state, transferred them to the Peiraeus and maintained their control of the city by means of mercenary troops; and accusing the Eleusians and Salaminians of siding with the exiles, they put them all to death. [5] While these things were being done, many of the exiles flocked to Thrasybulus; (and the Thirty dispatched ambassadors to Thrasybulus)3 publicly to treat with him about some prisoners, but privately to advise him to dissolve the band of exiles and to associate himself with the Thirty in the rule of the city, taking the place of Theramenes; and they promised further that he could have licence to restore to their native land any ten exiles he chose. [6] Thrasybulus replied that he preferred his own state of exile to the rule of the Thirty and that he would not end the war unless all the citizens returned from exile and the people got back the form of government they had received from their fathers. The Thirty, seeing many revolting from them because of hatred and the exiles growing ever more numerous, dispatched ambassadors to Sparta for aid, and meanwhile themselves gathered as many troops as they could and pitched a camp in the open country near Acharnae, as it is called.
