This embassy brought the unpopularity of the Extreme party to a crisis. Immediately upon his return Phrynichos was assassinated. The revolt of the citizens employed in fortifying Eëtioneia quickly followed. The assembly in the Anakeion, broken up by the sudden appearance of the Peloponnesian fleet, met again on the Pnyx soon after the Peloponnesian victory at Oropos; and the Four Hundred, who had taken office in March, were deposed about the middle of June.

The leading ultra-oligarchs hastened to save themselves by flight. Peisandros, Alexikles and others went to Dekeleia; Aristarchos, taking with him a body of bowmen, contrived to betray Oenoe on the Athenian frontier into the hands of the Boeotians who were besieging it. But, of the twelve who had formed the embassy, and who now, before all others, were in peril, three remained at Athens—Antiphon, Archeptolemos and Onomakles. An information against these three men was laid before the ekklesia by the Generals. The eisangelia charged them with having gone on an embassy to Sparta for mischief to Athens, sailing, on their way thither, in an enemy's ship, and traversing the enemy's camp at Dekeleia. A psephism was passed by the ekklesia directing the arrest of the accused that they might be tried by a dikastery, and instructing the Thesmothetae to serve each of them, on the day following the issue of the decree, with a formal summons. On the day fixed by the summons the Thesmothetae were to bring the cases into court; and the Generals, assisted by such Synegori, not more than ten in number, as they might choose from the Council of the Five Hundred, were to prosecute for treason ¹ .