Aristotle, Athenian Constitution
H. Rackham, Ed.

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While the state was thus being undermined, Theramenes, resenting what was taking place, kept exhorting them to cease from their wantonness and to admit the best classes to a share in affairs. At first they opposed him, but since these proposals became disseminated among the multitude, and the general public were well disposed towards Theramenes, they grew afraid that he might become head of the People and put down the oligarchy, and so they enrolled three thousand of the citizens with the intention of giving them a share in the government. [2] But Theramenes again criticized this procedure also, first on the ground that although willing to share the government with the respectable they were only giving a share to three thousand, as though moral worth were limited to that number, and next because they were doing two absolutely incompatible things, making their rule one of force and at the same time weaker than those they ruled. But they despised these remonstrances, and for a long time went on postponing the roll of the Three Thousand and keeping to themselves those on whom they had decided, and even on occasions when they thought fit to publish it they made a practice of erasing some of the names enrolled and writing in others instead from among those outside the roll.¹