The Athenian Constitution   

After this, seeing the state growing in confidence and much wealth
accumulated, he advised the people to lay hold of the leadership of
the league, and to quit the country districts and settle in the
city. He pointed out to them that all would be able to gain a living
there, some by service in the army, others in the garrisons,
others by
taking a part in public affairs; and in this way they would
secure the
leadership. This advice was taken; and when the people had
assumed the
supreme control they proceeded to treat their allies in a more
imperious fashion, with the exception of the Chians, Lesbians, and
Samians. These they maintained to protect their empire, leaving
their constitutions untouched, and allowing them to retain whatever
dominion they then possessed. They also secured an ample maintenance
for the mass of the population in the way which Aristides had
pointed out to them. Out of the proceeds of the tributes and
the taxes
and the contributions of the allies more than twenty thousand
persons were maintained. There were 6,000 jurymen, 1,600
bowmen, 1,200
Knights, 500 members of the Council, 500 guards of the dockyards,
besides fifty guards in the Acropolis. There were some 700
magistrates
at home, and some 700 abroad. Further, when they subsequently went
to war, there were in addition 2,500 heavy-armed troops, twenty
guard-ships, and other ships which collected the tributes, with
crews amounting to 2,000 men, selected by lot; and besides
these there
were the persons maintained at the Prytaneum, and orphans, and
gaolers, since all these were supported by the state.

Part 25

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