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"They know that their aged mistress, Damia, and I myself command the daemons of the upper and lower spheres, and that at a sign from her or from me they would instantly perish; and even if there were an Ephialtes among them, a spring through that loop-hole would save me. Be easy, my friend. Oracles and stars alike foretell me death from another cause than the treason of a slave."
These agreeable imaginations were varied by all the usual vagaries of a feverish dream; the air refused to bear the visionary, the water seemed to burn him the rocks felt like down pillows as he was dashed against them whatever he undertook, failed in some strange and unexpected manner and whatever attracted his attention, underwent, as he attempted to investigate it, some wild and wonderful metamorphosis, while his mind continued all the while in some degree conscious of the delusion, from which it in vain struggled to free itself by awaking; feverish symptoms all, with which those who are haunted by the night-hag, whom the learned call Ephialtes, are but too well acquainted.
He also demanded from Athens the surrender of Demosthenes and other anti-Macedonian politicians and generals, but was persuaded to be content with the banishment of Charidemus and Ephialtes, and the promise of the prosecution of Demosthenes for using subsidies from Persia to help Thebes a prosecution which was allowed to drop.
Those who object to him that he did this to be popular, and gain the applause of the vulgar, are confuted by the constant tenor of the rest of his actions, which all tended to uphold the interests of the nobility and the Spartan policy, of which he gave instances, when together with Aristides, he opposed Themistocles, who was advancing the authority of the people beyond its just limits, and resisted Ephialtes, who to please the multitude, was for abolishing the jurisdiction of the court of Areopagus.
“There is no trap. I will guide you.” That was all they could get him to say. “And do not the Hellenes know of this mountain path and guard it?” persisted the bow-bearer. Ephialtes thought not; at least if they had, they had not told off any efficient detachment to guard it. Hydarnes cut the matter short by rising from his stool and casting himself before the king.
Ephialtes directed all the force of the popular opinion against this venerable senate; and at length, though not openly assisted by Pericles , who took no prominent part in the contention, that influential statesman succeeded in crippling its functions and limiting its authority.
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.
About 463, Pericles, through the agency of his follower, Ephialtes, struck a great blow at the influence of the oligarchy, by causing the decree to be passed which deprived the Areopagus of its most important political powers.
He joined Aristeides in opposing Themistokles when the latter courted the mob to an unseemly extent, opposed Ephialtes when, to please the populace, he dissolved the senate of the Areopagus, and, at a time when all other men except Aristeides and Ephialtes were gorged with the plunder of the public treasury, kept his own hands clean, and always maintained the reputation of an incorruptible and impartial statesman.
The two orators began to be mutually weary, and Cleon wished for solitude in order to hatch the eggs which Anytos had laid for him. Therefore he remarked, "You say that Nicias...." "I am going to bathe," broke in Anytos; "otherwise I will get no sleep to-night." "But Alcibiades, who is he?" "He is the traitor Ephialtes, who will lead the Persian King to Thermopylae."
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