SAGA-BOOK - Viking Society Web Publications

52 Saga-Book oj the Viking Society
Comparable stories occur in other Greek sources, for
instance in accounts of how a band of Theban exiles
overthrew the polemarchs. Xenophori's account reads
as follows in translation:
There was a certain Phillidas, who acted as secretary to
Archias and his fellow polemarchs and in other ways served
them, as it seemed, most excellently. Now this man went to
Athens on a matter of business, and there met Melon, one of
the Thebans in exile at Athens and a man who had been an
acquaintance of his even before this time. Melon, after
learning of the doings of the polemarch Archias and the
tyrannous rule of Philippus, and finding out that Phillidas
hated the conditions that existed at home even more than he
himself did, exchanged pledges with him and came to an
agreement as to how everything should be managed. After
this Melon took with him six of the fittest men among the
exiles, armed with daggers and no other weapon, and in the
first place proceeded by night into the territory of Thebes;
then after spending the day in a deserted spot they came to the
city gates, as if on their way back from the country, at just the
time when the last returning labourers came in. When they
had entered the city, they spent that night at the house of a
certain Charon, and likewise spent the following day there.
As for Phillidas, since the polemarchs always celebrate a
festival of Aphrodite upon the expiration of their term of office,
he was making all the arrangements for them, and in
particular, having long ago promised to bring them women,
and the most stately and beautiful women there were in Thebes,
he said he would do so at that time. And they - for they were
that sort of men - expected to spend the night very
pleasantly. Now when they had dined and with his zealous
help had quickly become drunk, after they had long urged him
to bring in their mistresses he went out and brought in Melon
and his followers, having dressed up three of them as matrons
and the others as their attendants. He conducted them all to
the anteroom adjoining the treasury of the polemarchs' building,
and then came in himself and told Archias and his colleagues
that the women said they would not enter if any of the
servants were in the room. At that the polemarchs speedily
ordered them all to withdraw, while Phillidas gave them wine
and sent them off to the house of one of their number. Then
he led in the supposed courtesans and seated them one beside
each man. And the agreement was, that when they were
seated, they should unveil themselves and strike at once. It
was in this way, then, as some tell the story, that the polemarchs