[61] The application of the Athenians at Samos to Alkibiadês,

reminds us of the emphatic language in which Tacitus

characterizes an incident in some respects similar. The Roman

army, fighting in the cause of Vitellius against Vespasian, had

been betrayed by their general Cæcina, who endeavored to carry

them over to the latter: his army, however, refused to follow

him, adhered to their own cause, and put him under arrest. Being

afterwards defeated by the troops of Vespasian, and obliged to

capitulate in Cremona, they released Cæcina, and solicited his

intercession to obtain favorable terms. “Primores castrorum nomen

atque imagines Vitellii amoliuntur; catenas Cæcinæ (nam etiam

tum vinctus erat) exsolvunt, orantque, ut causæ suæ deprecator

adsistat: aspernantem tumentemque lacrymis fatigant. _Extremum

malorum, tot fortissimi viri, proditoris opem invocantes._”

(Tacitus, Histor. iii, 31.)

This exile had been the first to originate the oligarchical

conspiracy, whereby Athens, already scarcely adequate to the

exigencies of her foreign war, was now paralyzed in courage and

torn by civil discord, preserved from absolute ruin only by

that counter-enthusiasm which a fortunate turn of circumstances

had raised up at Samos. Having at first duped the conspirators

themselves, and enabled them to dupe the sincere democrats, by

promising Persian aid, and thus floating the plot over its first

and greatest difficulties,—Alkibiadês had found himself constrained

to break with them as soon as the time came for realizing his

promises. But he had broken off with so much address as still to

keep up the illusion that he _could_ realize them if he chose. His

return by means of the oligarchy being now impossible, he naturally

became its enemy, and this new antipathy superseded his feeling

of revenge against the democracy for having banished him. In fact

he was disposed, as Phrynichus had truly said about him,[62] to

avail himself indifferently of either, according as the one or the

other presented itself as a serviceable agency for his ambitious

views. Accordingly, as soon as the turn of affairs at Samos had

made itself manifest, he opened communication with Thrasybulus and

the democratical leaders,[63] renewing to them the same promises of

Persian alliance, on condition of his own restoration, as he had

before made to Peisander and the oligarchical party. Thrasybulus and

his colleagues either sincerely believed him, or at least thought

that his restoration afforded a possibility, not to be neglected, of

obtaining Persian aid, without which they despaired of the war. Such

possibility would at least infuse spirit into the soldiers; while the

restoration was now proposed without the terrible condition which had

before accompanied it, of renouncing the democratical constitution.

[62] Thucyd. viii, 48.

[63] Thucydidês does not expressly mention this communication,

but it is implied in the words Ἀλκιβιάδην—~ἄσμενον παρέξειν~,

etc. (viii, 76.)

It was not without difficulty, however, nor until after more than

one assembly and discussion,[64] that Thrasybulus prevailed on the

armament to pass a vote of security and restoration to Alkibiadês. As

Athenian citizens, the soldiers probably were unwilling to take upon

them the reversal of a sentence solemnly passed by the democratical

tribunal, on the ground of irreligion with suspicion of treason. They

were, however, induced to pass the vote, after which Thrasybulus

sailed over to the Asiatic coast, brought across Alkibiadês to the

island, and introduced him to the assembled armament. The supple

exile, who had denounced the democracy so bitterly, both at Sparta,

and in his correspondence with the oligarchical conspirators, knew

well how to adapt himself to the sympathies of the democratical

assembly now before him. He began by deploring the sentence of

banishment passed against him, and throwing the blame of it, not

upon the injustice of his countrymen, but upon his own unhappy

destiny.[65] He then entered upon the public prospects of the moment,

pledging himself with entire confidence to realize the hopes of

Persian alliance, and boasting, in terms not merely ostentatious but

even extravagant, of the ascendant influence which he possessed over

Tissaphernês. The satrap had promised him, so the speech went on,

never to let the Athenians want for pay, as soon as he once came to

trust them, not even if it were necessary to issue out his last daric

or to coin his own silver couch into money. Nor would he require any

farther condition to induce him to trust them, except that Alkibiadês

should be restored and should become their guarantee. Not only would

he furnish the Athenians with pay, but he would, besides, bring up to

their aid the Phenician fleet, which was already at Aspendus, instead

of placing it at the disposal of the Peloponnesians.

[64] Thucyd. viii, 81. Θρασύβουλος, ~ἀεί τε τῆς αὐτῆς γνώμης

ἐχόμενος~, ἐπειδὴ μετέστησε τὰ πράγματα, ὥστε κατάγειν

Ἀλκιβιάδην, καὶ ~τέλος~ ἐπ᾽ ἐκκλησίας ἔπεισε τὸ πλῆθος τῶν

στρατιωτῶν, etc.

[65] Thucyd. viii, 81. γενομένης δὲ ἐκκλησίας τήν ~τε ἰδίαν

ξυμφορὰν τῆς φυγῆς ἐπῃτιάσατο καὶ ἀνωλοφύρατο~ ὁ Ἀλκιβιάδης, etc.

Contrast the different language of Alkibiadês, vi, 92: viii, 47.

For the word ξυμφορὰν, compare i, 127.

Nothing can be more false and perverted than the manner in which

the proceedings of Alkibiadês, during this period, are presented

in the Oration of Isokratês de Bigis, sects. 18-23.

In the communications of Alkibiadês with Peisander and his

coadjutors, Alkibiadês had pretended that the Great King could have

no confidence in the Athenians unless they not only restored him, but

abnegated their democracy. On this occasion, the latter condition was

withdrawn, and the confidence of the Great King was said to be more

easily accorded. But though Alkibiadês thus presented himself with

a new falsehood, as well as with a new vein of political sentiment,

his discourse was eminently successful. It answered all the various

purposes which he contemplated; partly of intimidating and disuniting

the oligarchical conspirators at home, partly of exalting his own

grandeur in the eyes of the armament, partly of sowing mistrust

between the Spartans and Tissaphernês. It was in such full harmony

with both the reigning feelings of the armament,—eagerness to

put down the Four Hundred, as well as to get the better of their

Peloponnesian enemies in Ionia,—that the hearers were not disposed to

scrutinize narrowly the grounds upon which his assurances rested. In

the fulness of confidence and enthusiasm, they elected him general

along with Thrasybulus and the rest, conceiving redoubled hopes

of victory over their enemies both at Athens and at Milêtus. So

completely, indeed, were their imaginations filled with the prospect

of Persian aid, against their enemies in Ionia, that alarm for the

danger of Athens under the government of the Four Hundred became

the predominant feeling; and many voices were even raised in favor

of sailing to Peiræus for the rescue of the city. But Alkibiadês,

knowing well—what the armament did not know—that his own promises of

Persian pay and fleet were a mere delusion, strenuously dissuaded

such a movement, which would have left the dependencies in Ionia

defenceless against the Peloponnesians. As soon as the assembly

broke up, he crossed over again to the mainland, under pretence

of concerting measures with Tissaphernês to realize his recent

engagements.

Relieved substantially, though not in strict form, from the penalties

of exile, Alkibiadês was thus launched in a new career. After having

first played the game of Athens against Sparta, next, that of Sparta

against Athens, thirdly, that of Tissaphernês against both, he now

professed to take up again the promotion of Athenian interests.

In reality, however, he was and had always been playing his own

game, or obeying his own self-interest, ambition, or antipathy. He

was at this time eager to make a show of intimate and confidential

communication with Tissaphernês, in order that he might thereby

impose upon the Athenians at Samos, to communicate to the satrap his

recent election as general of the Athenian force, that his importance

with the Persians might be enhanced, and lastly, by passing backwards

and forwards from Tissaphernês to the Athenian camp, to exhibit an

appearance of friendly concert between the two, which might sow

mistrust and alarm in the minds of the Peloponnesians. In this

tripartite manœuvring, so suitable to his habitual character, he was

more or less successful, especially in regard to the latter purpose.

For though he never had any serious chance of inducing Tissaphernês

to assist the Athenians, he did, nevertheless, contribute to alienate

him from the enemy, as well as the enemy from him.[66]

[66] Thucyd. viii, 82, 83, 87.

Without any longer delay in the camp of Tissaphernês than was

necessary to keep up the faith of the Athenians in his promise of

Persian aid, Alkibiadês returned to Samos, where he was found by

the ten envoys sent by the Four Hundred from Athens, on their first

arrival. These envoys had been long in their voyage; having made a

considerable stay at Delos, under alarm from intelligence of the

previous visit of Chæreas, and the furious indignation which his

narrative had provoked.[67] At length they reached Samos, and were

invited by the generals to make their communication to the assembled

armament. They had the utmost difficulty in procuring a hearing, so

strong was the antipathy against them, so loud were the cries that

the subverters of the democracy ought to be put to death. Silence

being at length obtained, they proceeded to state that the late

revolution had been brought to pass for the salvation of the city,

and especially for the economy of the public treasure, by suppressing

the salaried civil functions of the democracy, and thus leaving more

pay for the soldiers;[68] that there was no purpose of mischief in

the change, still less of betrayal to the enemy, which might already

have been effected, had such been the intention of the Four Hundred,

when Agis advanced from Dekeleia up to the walls; that the citizens

now possessing the political franchise, were not Four Hundred only,

but Five Thousand in number, all of whom would take their turn in

rotation for the places now occupied by the Four Hundred;[69] that

the recitals of Chæreas, affirming ill-usage to have been offered

to the relatives of the soldiers at Athens, were utterly false and

calumnious.

[67] Thucyd. viii, 77-86.

[68] Thucyd. viii, 86. Εἰ δὲ ἐς εὐτέλειάν τι ξυντέτμηται, ὥστε

τοὺς στρατιώτας ἔχειν τροφὴν, πάνυ ἐπαινεῖν.

This is a part of the answer of Alkibiadês to the envoys, and

therefore indicates what they had urged.

[69] Thucyd. viii, 86. τῶν τε πεντακισχιλίων ὅτι πάντες ἐν τῷ

μέρει μεθέξουσιν, etc. I dissent from Dr. Arnold’s construction

of this passage, which is followed both by Poppo and by Göller.

He says, in his note: “The sense must clearly be, ‘that all the

citizens should be of the five thousand in their turn,’ however

strange the expression may seem, μεθέξουσι τῶν πεντακισχιλίων.

But without referring to the absurdity of the meaning, that all

the Five Thousand should partake of the government _in their

turn_,—for they _all_ partook of it as being the sovereign

assembly,—yet μετέχειν, in this sense, would require τῶν

πραγμάτων after it, and would be at least as harsh, standing

alone, as in the construction of μεθέξουσι τῶν πεντακισχιλίων.”

Upon this remark, 1. Μετέχειν may be construed with a genitive

case not actually expressed, but understood out of the words

preceding; as we may see by Thucyd. ii, 16, where I agree with

the interpretation suggested by Matthiæ (Gr. Gr. § 325), rather

than with Dr. Arnold’s note.

2. In the present instance, we are not reduced to the necessity

of gathering a genitive case for μετέχειν by implication out of

previous phraseology: for the express genitive case stands there

a line or two before—~τῆς πόλεως~, the idea of which is carried

down without being ever dropped: οἱ δ᾽ ἀπήγγελλον, ὡς οὔτε ἐπὶ

διαφθορᾷ ~τῆς πόλεως~ ἡ μετάστασις γένοιτο, ἀλλ᾽ ἐπὶ σωτηρίᾳ,

οὔθ᾽ ἵνα τοῖς πολεμίοις παραδοθῇ (i. e., ἡ πόλις) ... τῶν τε

πεντακισχιλίων ὅτι πάντες ~ἐν τῷ μέρει μεθέξουσιν~ (i. e., τῆς

πόλεως).

There is therefore no harshness of expression; nor is there any

absurdity of meaning, as we may see by the repetition of the very

same in viii, 93, λέγοντες τούς τε πεντακισχιλίους ἀποφανεῖν,

καὶ ~ἐκ τούτων ἐν μέρει~, ᾗ ἂν τοῖς πεντακισχιλίοις δοκῇ, ~τοὺς

τετρακοσίους ἔσεσθαι~, etc.

Dr. Arnold’s designation of these Five Thousand as “the sovereign

assembly,” is not very accurate. They were not an assembly at

all: they had never been called together, nor had anything

been said about an intention of calling them together: in

reality, they were but a fiction and a name; but even the Four

Hundred themselves pretended only to talk of them as partners

in the conspiracy and revolution, not as _an assembly_ to be

convoked—πεντακισχίλιοι—~οἱ πράσσοντες~ (viii, 72).

As to the idea of bringing all the remaining citizens to equal

privileges, in rotation, with the Five Thousand, we shall see

that it was never broached until considerably after the Four

Hundred had been put down.

Such were the topics on which the envoys insisted, in an apologetic

strain, at considerable length, but without any effect in

conciliating the soldiers who heard them. The general resentment

against the Four Hundred was expressed by several persons present

in public speech, by others in private manifestation of feeling

against the envoys: and so passionately was this sentiment

aggravated,—consisting not only of wrath for what the oligarchy had

done, but of fear for what they might do,—that the proposition of

sailing immediately to the Peiræus was revived with greater ardor

than before. Alkibiadês, who had already once discountenanced this

design, now stood forward to repel it again. Nevertheless, all the

plenitude of his influence, then greater than that of any other

officer in the armament, and seconded by the esteemed character as

well as the loud voice of Thrasybulus,[70] was required to avert

it. But for him, it would have been executed. While he reproved and

silenced those who were most clamorous against the envoys, he took

upon himself to give to the latter a public answer in the name of the

collective armament. “We make no objection (he said) to the power of

the Five Thousand: but the Four Hundred must go about their business,

and reinstate the senate of Five Hundred as it was before. We are

much obliged for what you have done in the way of economy, so as to

increase the pay available for the soldiers. Above all, maintain the

war strenuously, without any flinching before the enemy. For if the

city be now safely held, there is good hope that we may make up the

mutual differences between us by amicable settlement; but if once

either of us perish, either we here or you at home, there will be

nothing left for the other to make up with.”[71]

[70] Plutarch, Alkibiadês, c. 26.

[71] Thucyd. viii. 86. Καὶ τἄλλα ἐκέλευεν ἀντέχειν, καὶ μηδὲν

ἐνδιδόναι τοῖς πολεμίοις· πρὸς μὲν γὰρ σφᾶς αὐτοὺς σωζομένης τῆς

πόλεως πολλὴν ἐλπίδα εἶναι καὶ ξυμβῆναι, εἰ δὲ ἅπαξ τὸ ἕτερον

σφαλήσεται ἢ τὸ ἐν Σάμῳ ἢ ἐκεῖνοι, οὐδὲ ὅτῳ διαλλαγήσεταί τις ἔτι

ἔσεσθαι.

With this reply he dismissed the envoys; the armament reluctantly

abandoning their wish of sailing to Athens. Thucydidês insists much

on the capital service which Alkibiadês then rendered to his country,

by arresting a project which would have had the effect of leaving

all Ionia and the Hellespont defenceless against the Peloponnesians.

His advice doubtless turned out well in the result; yet if we

contemplate the state of affairs at the moment when he gave it, we

shall be inclined to doubt whether prudential calculation was not

rather against him, and in favor of the impulse of the armament.

For what was to hinder the Four Hundred from patching up a peace

with Sparta, and getting a Lacedæmonian garrison into Athens to

help them in maintaining their dominion? Even apart from ambition,

this was their best chance, if not their only chance, of safety for

themselves; and we shall presently see that they tried to do it;

being prevented from succeeding, partly, indeed, by the mutiny which

arose against them at Athens, but still more by the stupidity of the

Lacedæmonians themselves. Alkibiadês could not really imagine that

the Four Hundred would obey his mandate delivered to the envoys,

and resign their power voluntarily. But if they remained masters of

Athens, who could calculate what they would do,—after having received

this declaration of hostility from Samos,—not merely in regard to

the foreign enemy, but even in regard to the relatives of the absent

soldiers? Whether we look to the legitimate apprehensions of the

soldiers, inevitable while their relatives were thus exposed, and

almost unnerving them as to the hearty prosecution of the war abroad,

in their utter uncertainty with regard to matters at home,—or to the

chance of irreparable public calamity, greater even than the loss of

Ionia, by the betrayal of Athens to the enemy,—we shall be disposed

to conclude that the impulse of the armament was not merely natural,

but even founded on a more prudent estimate of the actual chances,

and that Alkibiadês was nothing more than fortunate in a sanguine

venture. And if, instead of the actual chances, we look to the

chances as Alkibiadês represented, and as the armament conceived them

upon his authority,—namely, that the Phenician fleet was close at

hand to act against the Lacedæmonians in Ionia,—we shall sympathize

yet more with the defensive movement homeward. Alkibiadês had an

advantage over every one else, simply by knowing his own falsehoods.

At the same assembly were introduced envoys from Argos, bearing a

mission of recognition and an offer of aid to the Athenian Demos in

Samos. They came in an Athenian trireme, navigated by the parali

who had brought home Chæreas in the paralus from Samos to Athens,

and had been then transferred into a common ship of war and sent to

cruise about Eubœa. Since that time, however, they had been directed

to convey Læspodias, Aristophon, and Melêsias,[72] as ambassadors

from the Four Hundred to Sparta. But when crossing the Argolic gulf,

probably under orders to land at Prasiæ, they declared against the

oligarchy, sailed to Argos, and there deposited as prisoners the

three ambassadors, who had all been active in the conspiracy of

the Four Hundred. Being then about to depart for Samos, they were

requested by the Argeians to carry thither their envoys, who were

dismissed by Alkibiadês with an expression of gratitude, and with a

hope that their aid would be ready when called for.

[72] Thucyd. viii. 86. It is very probable that the Melêsias here

mentioned was the son of that Thucydidês who was the leading

political opponent of Periklês. Melêsias appears as one of the

_dramatis personæ_ in Plato’s dialogue called Lachês.

Meanwhile the envoys returned from Samos to Athens, carrying back

to the Four Hundred the unwelcome news of their total failure with

the armament. A little before, it appears, some of the trierarchs on

service at the Hellespont had returned to Athens also,—Eratosthenês,

Iatroklês, and others, who had tried to turn their squadron to the

purposes of the oligarchical conspirators, but had been baffled and

driven off by the inflexible democracy of their own seamen.[73] If at

Athens, the calculations of these conspirators had succeeded more

triumphantly than could have been expected beforehand, everywhere

else they had completely miscarried; not merely at Samos and in

the fleet, but also with the allied dependencies. At the time when

Peisander quitted Samos for Athens, to consummate the oligarchical

conspiracy even without Alkibiadês, he and others had gone round many

of the dependencies and had effected a similar revolution in their

internal government, in hopes that they would thus become attached to

the new oligarchy at Athens. But this anticipation, as Phrynichus had

predicted, was nowhere realized. The newly-created oligarchies only

became more anxious for complete autonomy than the democracies had

been before. At Thasos, especially, a body of exiles who had for some

time dwelt in Peloponnesus were recalled, and active preparations

were made for revolt, by new fortifications as well as by new

triremes.[74] Instead of strengthening their hold on the maritime

empire, the Four Hundred thus found that they had actually weakened

it; while the pronounced hostility of the armament at Samos, not only

put an end to all their hopes abroad, but rendered their situation at

home altogether precarious.

[73] Lysias cont. Eratosthen. sect. 43, c. 9, p. 411, Reisk.

οὐ γὰρ νῦν πρῶτον (Eratosthenês) τῷ ὑμετέρῳ πλήθει τὰ ἐναντία

ἔπραξεν, ἀλλὰ καὶ ἐπὶ τῶν Τετρακοσίων ἐν τῷ στρατοπέδῳ ὀλιγαρχίαν

καθιστὰς ἔφευγεν ἐξ Ἑλλησπόντου τριηράρχος καταλιπὼν τὴν ναῦν,

μετὰ Ἰατροκλέους καὶ ἑτέρων ... ἀφικόμενος δὲ δεῦρο τἀναντία τοῖς

βουλομένοις δημοκρατίαν εἶναι ἔπραττε.

[74] Thucyd. viii, 64.

From the moment when the coadjutors of Antiphon first learned,

through the arrival of Chæreas at Athens, the proclamation of the

democracy at Samos, discord, mistrust, and alarm began to spread

even among their own members; together with a conviction that

the oligarchy could never stand except through the presence of a

Peloponnesian garrison in Athens. While Antiphon and Phrynichus,

the leading minds who directed the majority of the Four Hundred,

despatched envoys to Sparta for concluding peace,—these envoys never

reached Sparta, being seized by the parali and sent prisoners to

Argos, as above stated—, and commenced the erection of a special fort

at Ectioneia, the projecting mole which contracted and commanded, on

the northern side, the narrow entrance of Peiræus, there began to

arise even in the bosom of the Four Hundred an opposition minority

affecting popular sentiment, among whom the most conspicuous persons

were Theramenês and Aristokratês.[75]

[75] Thucyd. viii, 89, 90. The representation of the character

and motives of Theramenês, as given by Lysias in the Oration

contra Eratosthenem (Orat. xii, sects. 66, 67, 79; Orat. xiii,

cont. Agorat. sects. 12-17), is quite in harmony with that of

Thucydidês (viii, 89): compare Aristophan. Ran. 541-966; Xenoph.

Hellen. ii, 3, 27-30.

Though these men had stood forward prominently as contrivers and

actors throughout the whole progress of the conspiracy, they now

found themselves bitterly disappointed by the result. Individually,

their ascendency with their colleagues was inferior to that of

Peisander, Kallæschrus, Phrynichus, and others; while, collectively,

the ill-gotten power of the Four Hundred was diminished in value, as

much as it was aggravated in peril, by the loss of the foreign empire

and the alienation of their Samian armament. Now began the workings

of jealousy and strife among the successful conspirators, each of

whom had entered into the scheme with unbounded expectations of

personal ambition for himself, each had counted on stepping at once

into the first place among the new oligarchical body. In a democracy,

observes Thucydidês, contentions for power and preëminence provoke in

the unsuccessful competitors less of fierce antipathy and sense of

injustice, than in an oligarchy; for the losing candidates acquiesce

with comparatively little repugnance in the unfavorable vote of a

large miscellaneous body of unknown citizens; but they are angry at

being put aside by a few known comrades, their rivals as well as

their equals: moreover, at the moment when an oligarchy of ambitious

men has just raised itself on the ruins of a democracy, every man

of the conspirators is in exaggerated expectation; every one thinks

himself entitled to become at once the first man of the body, and is

dissatisfied if he be merely put upon a level with the rest.[76]

[76] Thucyd. viii, 89. ἦν δὲ τοῦτο μὲν σχῆμα πολιτικὸν τοῦ λόγου

αὐτοῖς, κατ᾽ ἰδίας δὲ φιλοτιμίας οἱ πολλοὶ αὐτῶν τῷ τοιούτῳ

προσέκειντο, ἐν ᾧπερ καὶ μάλιστα ὀλιγαρχία ἐκ δημοκρατίας

γενομένη ἀπόλλυται. Πάντες γὰρ αὐθημερὸν ἀξιοῦσιν οὐχ ὅπως ἴσοι,

ἀλλὰ καὶ πολὺ πρῶτος αὐτὸς ἕκαστος εἶναι· ἐκ δὲ δημοκρατίας

αἱρέσεως γιγνομένης, ῥᾷον τὰ ἀποβαίνοντα, ὡς οὐκ ἀπὸ τῶν ὁμοίων,

ἐλασσούμενός τις φέρει.

I give in the text what appears to me the proper sense of this

passage, the last words of which are obscure: see the long notes

of the commentators, especially Dr. Arnold and Poppo. Dr. Arnold

considers τῶν ὁμοίων as a neuter, and gives the paraphrase of

the last clause as follows: “Whereas under an old-established

government, they (ambitious men of talent) are prepared to fail:

they know that the weight of the government is against them, and

are thus spared the peculiar pain of being beaten in a fair race,

when they and their competitors start with equal advantages, and

there is nothing to lessen the mortification of defeat. Ἀπὸ τῶν

ὁμοίων ἐλασσούμενος, is, _being beaten when the game is equal,

when the terms of the match are fair_.”

I cannot concur in Dr. Arnold’s explanation of these words, or

of the general sense of the passage. He thinks that Thucydidês

means to affirm what applies generally “to an opposition minority

when it succeeds in revolutionizing the established government,

whether the government be a democracy or a monarchy; whether

the minority be an aristocratical party or a popular one.” It

seems to me, on the contrary, that the affirmation bears only

on the special case of an oligarchical conspiracy subverting a

democracy, and that the comparison taken is applicable only to

the state of things as it stood under the preceding democracy.

Next, the explanation given of the words by Dr. Arnold, assumes

that “to be beaten in a fair race, or when the terms of the

match are fair,” causes to the loser _the maximum_ of pain and

offence. This is surely not the fact: or rather, the reverse is

the fact. The man who loses his cause or his election through

unjust favor, jealousy, or antipathy, is _more_ hurt than if he

had lost it under circumstances where he could find no injustice

to complain of. In both cases, he is doubtless mortified; but

if there be injustice, he is offended and angry as well as

mortified: he is disposed to take vengeance on men whom he looks

upon as his personal enemies. It is important to distinguish

the mortification of simple failure, from the discontent and

anger arising out of belief that the failure has been unjustly

brought about: it is this discontent, tending to break out in

active opposition, which Thucydidês has present to his mind in

the comparison which he takes between the state of feeling which

precedes and follows the subversion of the democracy.

It appears to me that the words τῶν ὁμοίων are masculine, and

that they have reference, like πάντες and ἴσοι, in the preceding

line, to the privileged minority of equal confederates who are

supposed to have just got possession of the government. At

Sparta, the word οἱ ὅμοιοι acquired a sort of technical sense,

to designate the small ascendent minority of wealthy Spartan

citizens, who monopolized in their own hands political power, to

the practical exclusion of the remainder (see Xenoph. Hellen.

iii. 3, 5; Xenoph. Resp. Lac. x, 7; xiii, 1; Demosth. cont. Lept.

s. 88). Now these ὅμοιοι, or peers, here indicated by Thucydidês

as the peers of a recently-formed oligarchy, are not merely equal

among themselves, but rivals one with another, and personally

known to each other. It is important to bear in mind all these

attributes as tacitly implied, though not literally designated or

_connoted_ by the word ὅμοιοι, or peers; because the comparison

instituted by Thucydidês is founded on all the attributes taken

together; just as Aristotle (Rhetoric, ii, 8; ii, 13, 4), in

speaking of the envy and jealousy apt to arise towards τοὺς

ὁμοίους, considers them as ἀντεράστας and ἀνταγωνίστας.

The Four Hundred at Athens were all peers,—equals, rivals,

and personally known among one another,—who had just raised

themselves by joint conspiracy to supreme power. Theramenês,

one of the number, conceives himself entitled to preëminence,

but finds that he is shut out from it, the men who shut him

out being this small body of known equals and rivals. He is

inclined to impute the exclusion to personal motives on the part

of this small knot; to selfish ambition on the part of each; to

ill-will, to jealousy, to wrongful partiality; so that he thinks

himself injured, and the sentiment of injury is embittered by

the circumstance that those from whom it proceeds are a narrow,

known, and definite body of colleagues. Whereas, if his exclusion

had taken place under the democracy, by the suffrage of a large,

miscellaneous, and personally unknown collection of citizens, he

would have been far less likely to carry off with him a sense of

injury. Doubtless he would have been mortified; but he would not

have looked upon the electors in the light of jealous or selfish

rivals, nor would they form a definite body before him for his

indignation to concentrate itself upon. Thus Nikomachidês—whom

Sokratês (see Xenophon, Memor. iii, 4) meets returning mortified

because the people had chosen another person and not him as

general—would have been not only mortified, but angry and

vindictive besides, if he had been excluded by a few peers and

rivals.

Such, in my judgment, is the comparison which Thucydidês wishes

to draw between the effect of disappointment inflicted by the

suffrage of a numerous and miscellaneous body of citizens,

compared with disappointment inflicted by a small knot of

oligarchical peers upon a competitor among their own number,

especially at a moment when the expectations of all these peers

are exaggerated, in consequence of the recent acquisition of

their power. I believe the remark of the historian to be quite

just; and that the disappointment in the first case is less

intense, less connected with the sentiment of injury, and less

likely to lead to active manifestation of enmity. This is one

among the advantages of a numerous suffrage.

I cannot better illustrate the jealousies pretty sure to break

out among a small number of ὅμοιοι, or rival peers, than by

the description which Justin gives of the leading officers of

Alexander the Great, immediately after that monarch’s death

(Justin, xii, 2):—

“Cæterum, occiso Alexandro, non, ut læti, ita et securi fuere,

omnibus unum locum competentibus: nec minus milites invicem se

timebant, quorum et libertas solutior et favor incertus erat.

_Inter ipsos vero æqualitas discordiam augebat_, nemine tantum

cæteros excedente, ut ei aliquis se submitteret.”

Compare Plutarch, Lysander, c. 23.

Haack and Poppo think that ὁμοίων cannot be masculine, because

~ἀπὸ~ τῶν ὁμοίων ἐλασσούμενος would not then be correct, but

ought to be ~ὑπὸ~ τῶν ὁμοίων ἐλασσούμενος. I should dispute,

under all circumstances, the correctness of this criticism: for

there are quite enough parallel cases to defend the use of ἀπὸ

here, (see Thucyd. i, 17; iii, 82; iv, 115; vi, 28, etc.) But

we need not enter into the debate; for the genitive τῶν ὁμοίων

depends rather upon τὰ ἀποβαίνοντα which precedes, than upon

ἐλασσούμενος which follows; and the preposition ἀπὸ is what we

should naturally expect. To mark this, I have put a comma after

ἀποβαίνοντα as well as after ὁμοίων.

To show that an opinion is not correct, indeed, does not afford

_certain_ evidence that Thucydidês may not have advanced it: for

he might be mistaken. But it ought to count as good presumptive

evidence, unless the words peremptorily bind us to the contrary,

which in this case they do not.

Such were the feelings of disappointed ambition, mingled with

despondency, which sprung up among a minority of the Four Hundred,

immediately after the news of the proclamation of the democracy at

Samos among the armament. Theramenês, the leader of this minority,—a

man of keen ambition, clever but unsteady and treacherous, not

less ready to desert his party than to betray his country, though

less prepared for extreme atrocities than many of his oligarchical

comrades, began to look out for a good pretence to disconnect himself

from a precarious enterprise. Taking advantage of the delusion

which the Four Hundred had themselves held out about the fictitious

Five Thousand, he insisted that, since the dangers that beset the

newly-formed authority were so much more formidable than had been

anticipated, it was necessary to popularize the party by enrolling

and producing these Five Thousand as a real instead of a fictitious

body.[77] Such an opposition, formidable from the very outset, became

still bolder and more developed when the envoys returned from Samos,

with an account of their reception by the armament, as well as of the

answer, delivered in the name of the armament, whereby Alkibiadês

directed the Four Hundred to dissolve themselves forthwith, but at

the same time approved of the constitution of the Five Thousand,

coupled with the restoration of the old senate. To enroll the Five

Thousand at once, would be meeting the army half way; and there were

hopes that, at that price, a compromise and reconciliation might be

effected, of which Alkibiadês had himself spoken as practicable.[78]

In addition to the formal answer, the envoys doubtless brought back

intimation of the enraged feelings manifested by the armament, and

of their eagerness, uncontrollable by every one except Alkibiadês,

to sail home forthwith and rescue Athens from the Four Hundred.

Hence arose an increased conviction that the dominion of the latter

could not last: and an ambition, on the part of others as well as

Theramenês, to stand forward as leaders of a popular opposition

against it, in the name of the Five Thousand.[79]

[77] Thucyd. viii, 86, 2. Of this sentence, from φοβούμενοι down

to καθιστάναι, I only profess to understand the last clause.

It is useless to discuss the many conjectural amendments of a

corrupt text, none of them satisfactory.

[78] Thucyd. viii, 86-89. It is alleged by Andokidês (in an

oration delivered many years afterwards before the people of

Athens, De Reditu suo, sects. 10-15), that during this spring

he furnished the armament at Samos with wood proper for the

construction of oars, only obtained by the special favor of

Archelaus king of Macedonia, and of which the armament then stood

in great need. He farther alleges, that he afterwards visited

Athens, while the Four Hundred were in full dominion; and that

Peisander, at the head of this oligarchical body, threatened his

life for having furnished such valuable aid to the armament, then

at enmity with Athens. Though he saved his life by clinging to

the altar, yet he had to endure bonds and manifold hard treatment.

Of these claims, which Andokidês prefers to the favor of the

subsequent democracy, I do not know how much is true.

[79] Thucyd. viii, 89. σαφέστατα δὲ αὐτοὺς ἐπῆρε τὰ ἐν τῇ Σάμῳ

τοῦ Ἀλκιβιάδου ἰσχυρὰ ὄντα, καὶ ὅτι αὐτοῖς οὐκ ἐδόκει μόνιμον τὸ

τῆς ὀλιγαρχίας ἔσεσθαι. ἠγωνίζετο οὖν εἷς ἕκαστος ~προστάτης τοῦ

δήμου ἔσεσθαι~.

This is a remarkable passage, as indicating what is really meant

by προστάτης τοῦ δήμου: “the leader of a popular opposition.”

Theramenês, and the other persons here spoken of, did not even

mention the name of the democracy,—they took up simply the name

of the Five Thousand,—yet they are still called πρόσταται τοῦ

δήμου, inasmuch as the Five Thousand were a sort of qualified

democracy, compared to the Four Hundred.

The words denote the leader of a popular party, as opposed to

an oligarchical party (see Thucyd. iii, 70; iv, 66; vi, 35), in

a form of government either entirely democratical, or at least,

in which the public assembly is frequently convoked and decides

on many matters of importance. Thucydidês does not apply the

words to any Athenian except in the case now before us respecting

Theramenês: he does not use the words even with respect to Kleon,

though he employs expressions which seem equivalent to it (iii,

36; iv, 21)—ἀνὴρ δημαγωγὸς κατ᾽ ἐκεῖνον τὸν χρόνον ὢν καὶ τῷ

πλήθει πιθανώτατος, etc. This is very different from the words

which he applies to Periklês—ὢν γὰρ ~δυνατώτατος~ τῶν καθ᾽ ἑαυτὸν

καὶ ~ἄγων τὴν πολιτείαν~ (i, 127). Even in respect to Nikias, he

puts him in conjunction with Pleistoanax at Sparta, and talks of

both of them as σπεύδοντες τὰ μάλιστα ~τὴν ἡγεμονίαν~ (v, 16).

Compare the note of Dr. Arnold on vi, 35.

Against this popular opposition, Antiphon and Phrynichus exerted

themselves, with demagogic assiduity, to caress and keep together

the majority of the Four Hundred, as well as to uphold their power

without abridgment. They were noway disposed to comply with this

requisition that the fiction of the Five Thousand should be converted

into a reality. They knew well that the enrollment of so many

partners[80] would be tantamount to a democracy, and would be, in

substance at least, if not in form, an annihilation of their own

power. They had now gone too far to recede with safety; while the

menacing attitude of Samos, as well as the opposition growing up

against them at home, both within and without their own body, served

only as instigation to them to accelerate their measures for peace

with Sparta, and to secure the introduction of a Spartan garrison.

[80] Thucyd. viii, 92. τὸ μὲν καταστῆσαι μετόχους τοσούτους,

ἄντικρυς ἂν δῆμον ἡγούμενοι, etc.

Aristotle (Polit. v, 5, 4) calls Phrynichus the _demagogue_ of

the Four Hundred; that is, the person who most strenuously served

_their_ interests and struggled for _their_ favor.

With this view, immediately after the return of their envoys from

Samos, the two most eminent leaders, Antiphon and Phrynichus,

went themselves with ten other colleagues in all haste to Sparta,

prepared to purchase peace and the promise of Spartan aid almost

at any price. At the same time, the construction of the fortress

at Ectioneia was prosecuted with redoubled zeal; under pretence of

defending the entrance of Peiræus against the armament from Samos,

if the threat of their coming should be executed, but with the real

purpose of bringing into it a Lacedæmonian fleet and army. For this

latter object every facility was provided. The northwestern corner

of the fortification of Peiræus, to the north of the harbor and its

mouth, was cut off by a cross wall reaching southward so as to join

the harbor: from the southern end of this cross wall, and forming an

angle with it, a new wall was built, fronting the harbor and running

to the extremity of the mole which narrowed the mouth of the harbor

on the northern side, at which mole it met the termination of the

northern wall of Peiræus. A separate citadel was thus inclosed,

defensible against any attack either from Peiræus or from the harbor;

furnished, besides, with distinct broad gates and posterns of its

own, as well as with facilities for admitting an enemy within

it.[81] The new cross wall was carried so as to traverse a vast

portico, or open market-house, the largest in Peiræus: the larger

half of this portico thus became inclosed within the new citadel; and

orders were issued that all the corn, both actually warehoused and

hereafter to be imported into Peiræus, should be deposited therein

and sold out from thence for consumption. As Athens was sustained

almost exclusively on corn brought from Eubœa and elsewhere, since

the permanent occupation of Dekeleia, the Four Hundred rendered

themselves masters by this arrangement of all the subsistence of the

citizens, as well as of the entrance into the harbor; either to admit

the Spartans or exclude the armament from Samos.[82]

[81] Thucyd. viii, 90-92. τὸ τεῖχος τοῦτο, καὶ πυλίδας ἔχον, καὶ

ἐσόδους, καὶ ἐπεισαγωγὰς τῶν πολεμίων, etc.

I presume that the last expression refers to facilities for

admitting the enemy either from the sea-side, or from the

land-side; that is to say, from the northwestern corner of the

old wall of Peiræus, which formed one side of the new citadel.

See Leake’s Topographie Athens, pp. 269, 270, Germ. transl.

[82] Thucyd. viii, 90. διῳκοδόμησαν δὲ καὶ στοὰν, etc.

I agree with the note in M. Didot’s translation, that this

portico, or _halle_, open on three sides, must he considered as

preëxisting; not as having been first built now; which seems

to be the supposition of Colonel Leake, and the commentators

generally.

Though Theramenês, himself one of the generals named under the

Four Hundred, denounced, in conjunction with his supporters, the

treasonable purpose of this new citadel, yet the majority of the

Four Hundred stood to their resolution, and the building made rapid

progress under the superintendence of the general Alexiklês, one

of the most strenuous of the oligarchical faction.[83] Such was

the habit of obedience at Athens to an established authority, when

once constituted,—and so great the fear and mistrust arising out

of the general belief in the reality of the Five Thousand unknown

auxiliaries, supposed to be prepared to enforce the orders of the

Four Hundred,—that the people, and even armed citizen hoplites,

went on working at the building, in spite of their suspicions as

to its design. Though not completed, it was so far advanced as to

be defensible, when Antiphon and Phrynichus returned from Sparta.

They had gone thither prepared to surrender everything,—not merely

their naval force, but their city itself,—and to purchase their own

personal safety by making the Lacedæmonians masters of Peiræus.[84]

Yet we read with astonishment that the latter could not be prevailed

on to contract any treaty, and that they manifested nothing but

backwardness in seizing this golden opportunity. Had Alkibiadês

been now playing their game, as he had been doing a year earlier,

immediately before the revolt of Chios,—had they been under any

energetic leaders, to impel them into hearty coöperation with the

treason of the Four Hundred, who combined at this moment both the

will and the power to place Athens in their hands, if seconded by an

adequate force,—they might now have overpowered their great enemy at

home, before the armament at Samos could have been brought to the

rescue.

[83] Thucyd. viii, 91, 92. Ἀλεξικλέα, στρατηγὸν ὄντα ἐκ τῆς

ὀλιγαρχίας καὶ μάλιστα πρὸς τοὺς ἑταίρους τετραμμένον, etc.

[84] Thucyd. viii, 91. Ἀλλὰ καὶ τοὺς πολεμίους ἐσαγαγόμενοι ἄνευ

τειχῶν καὶ νεῶν ξυμβῆναι, καὶ ὁπωσοῦν τὰ τῆς πόλεως ἔχειν, εἰ

τοῖς γε σώμασι σφῶν ἄδεια ἔσται.

_Ibid._ ἐπειδὴ οἱ ἐκ τῆς Λακεδαίμονος πρέσβεις οὐδὲν πράξαντες

ἀνεχώρησαν τοῖς πᾶσι ξυμβατικὸν, etc.

Considering that Athens was saved from capture only by the slackness

and stupidity of the Spartans, we may see that the armament at Samos

had reasonable excuse for their eagerness previously manifested to

come home; and that Alkibiadês, in combating that intention, braved

an extreme danger which nothing but incredible good fortune averted.

Why the Lacedæmonians remained idle, both in Peloponnesus and at

Dekeleia, while Athens was thus betrayed, and in the very throes of

dissolution, we can render no account: possibly, the caution of the

ephors may have distrusted Antiphon and Phrynichus, from the mere

immensity of their concessions. All that they would promise was, that

a Lacedæmonian fleet of forty-two triremes, partly from Tarentum and

Lokri, now about to start from Las in the Laconian gulf, and to sail

to Eubœa on the invitation of a disaffected party in that island,

should so far depart from its straight course as to hover near Ægina

and Peiræus, ready to take advantage of any opportunity for attack

laid open by the Four Hundred.[85]

[85] Thucyd. viii, 91. ἦν δέ τι καὶ τοιοῦτον ἀπὸ τῶν τὴν

κατηγορίαν ἐχόντων, καὶ ~οὐ πάνυ διαβολὴ μόνον~ τοῦ λόγου.

The reluctant language, in which Thucydidês admits the

treasonable concert of Antiphon and his colleagues with the

Lacedæmonians, deserves notice; also c. 94. ~τάχα μέν τι καὶ~ ἀπὸ

ξυγκειμένου λόγου, etc.

Of this squadron, however, even before it rounded Cape Malea,

Theramenês obtained intelligence, and denounced it as intended

to operate in concert with the Four Hundred for the occupation

of Ectioneia. Meanwhile Athens became daily a scene of greater

discontent and disorder, after the abortive embassy and return from

Sparta of Antiphon and Phrynichus. The coercive ascendency of the

Four Hundred was silently disappearing, while the hatred which their

usurpation had inspired, together with the fear of their traitorous

concert with the public enemy, became more and more loudly manifested

in men’s private conversations as well as in gatherings secretly

got together within numerous houses; especially the house of the

peripolarch, the captain of the peripoli, or youthful hoplites,

who formed the chief police of the country. Such hatred was not

long in passing from vehement passion into act. Phrynichus, as he

left the senate-house, was assassinated by two confederates, one of

them a peripolus, or youthful hoplite, in the midst of the crowded

market-place and in full daylight. The man who struck the blow made

his escape, but his comrade was seized and put to the torture by

order of the Four Hundred:[86] he was however a stranger, from Argos,

and either could not or would not reveal the name of any directing

accomplice. Nothing was obtained from him except general indications

of meetings and wide-spread disaffection. Nor did the Four Hundred,

being thus left without special evidence, dare to lay hands upon

Theramenês, the pronounced leader of the opposition, as we shall find

Kritias doing six years afterwards, under the rule of the Thirty.

The assassins of Phrynichus remaining undiscovered and unpunished,

Theramenês and his associates became bolder in their opposition

than before. And the approach of the Lacedæmonian fleet under

Agesandridas,—which, having now taken station at Epidaurus, had made

a descent on Ægina, and was hovering not far off Peiræus, altogether

out of the straight course for Eubœa,—lent double force to all their

previous assertions about the imminent dangers connected with the

citadel at Ectioneia.

[86] Thucyd. viii, 91. The statement of Plutarch is in many

respects different (Alkibiadês, c. 25).

Amidst this exaggerated alarm and discord, the general body of

hoplites became penetrated with aversion,[87] every day increasing,

against the new citadel. At length the hoplites of the tribe in which

Aristokratês, the warmest partisan of Theramenês was taxiarch, being

on duty and engaged in the prosecution of the building, broke out

into absolute mutiny against it, seized the person of Alexiklês,

the general in command, and put him under arrest in a neighboring

house; while the peripoli, or youthful military police, stationed at

Munychia, under Hermon, abetted them in the proceeding.[88] News of

this violence was speedily conveyed to the Four Hundred, who were at

that moment holding session in the senate-house, Theramenês himself

being present. Their wrath and menace were at first vented against

him as the instigator of the revolt, a charge against which he could

only vindicate himself by volunteering to go among the foremost for

the liberation of the prisoner. He forthwith started in haste for

the Peiræus, accompanied by one of the generals, his colleague,

who was of the same political sentiment as himself. A third among

the generals, Aristarchus, one of the fiercest of the oligarchs,

followed him, probably from mistrust, together with some of the

younger knights, horsemen, or richest class in the state, identified

with the cause of the Four Hundred. The oligarchical partisans ran

to marshal themselves in arms, alarming exaggerations being rumored,

that Alexiklês had been put to death, and that Peiræus was under

armed occupation; while at Peiræus the insurgents imagined that the

hoplites from the city were in full march to attack them. For a time

all was confusion and angry sentiment, which the slightest untoward

accident might have inflamed into sanguinary civil carnage. Nor was

it appeased except by earnest intreaty and remonstrance from the

elder citizens, aided by Thucydidês of Pharsalus, proxenus or public

guest of Athens, in his native town, on the ruinous madness of such

discord when a foreign enemy was almost at their gates.

[87] Thucyd. viii, 92. τὸ δὲ μέγιστον, τῶν ὁπλιτῶν τὸ στῖφος

ταῦτα ἐβούλετο.

[88] Plutarch, Alkibiad. c. 26, represents Hermon as one of the

assassins of Phrynichus.

The perilous excitement of this temporary crisis, which brought

into full daylight every man’s real political sentiments, proved

the oligarchical faction, hitherto exaggerated in number, to be

far less powerful than had been imagined by their opponents. And

the Four Hundred had found themselves too much embarrassed how to

keep up the semblance of their authority even in Athens itself,

to be able to send down any considerable force for the protection

of their citadel at Ectioneia; though they were reinforced, only

eight days before their fall, by at least one supplementary member,

probably in substitution for some predecessor who had accidentally

died.[89] Theramenês, on reaching Peiræus, began to address the

mutinous hoplites in a tone of simulated displeasure, while

Aristarchus and his oligarchical companions spoke in the harshest

language, and threatened them with the force which they imagined to

be presently coming down from the city. But these menaces were met

by equal firmness on the part of the hoplites, who even appealed to

Theramenês himself, and called upon him to say whether he thought

the construction of this citadel was for the good of Athens, or

whether it would not be better demolished. His opinion had been fully

pronounced beforehand; and he replied, that if they thought proper to

demolish it, he cordially concurred. Without farther delay, hoplites

and unarmed people mounted pell-mell upon the walls, and commenced

the demolition with alacrity; under the general shout, “Whoever is

for the Five Thousand in place of the Four Hundred, let him lend a

hand in this work.” The idea of the old democracy was in every one’s

mind, but no man uttered the word; the fear of the imaginary Five

Thousand still continuing. The work of demolition seems to have been

prosecuted all that day, and not to have been completed until the

next day; after which the hoplites released Alexiklês from arrest,

without doing him any injury.[90]

[89] See Lysias, Orat. xx, pro Polystrato. The fact that

Polystratus was only eight days a member of the Four Hundred,

before their fall, is repeated three distinct times in this

Oration (c. 2, 4, 5, pp. 672, 674, 679, Reisk.), and has all the

air of truth.

[90] Thucyd. viii, 92, 93. In the Oration of Demosthenês, or

Deinarchus, against Theokrinês (c. 17, p. 1343), the speaker,

Epicharês, makes allusion to this destruction of the fort at

Ectioneia by Aristokratês uncle of his grandfather. The allusion

chiefly deserves notice from its erroneous mention of Kritias

and the return of the Demos from exile, betraying a complete

confusion between the events in the time of the Four Hundred and

those in the time of the Thirty.

Two things deserve notice, among these details, as illustrating the

Athenian character. Though Alexiklês was vehemently oligarchical as

well as unpopular, these mutineers do no harm to his person, but

content themselves with putting him under arrest. Next, they do not

venture to commence the actual demolition of the citadel, until

they have the formal sanction of Theramenês, one of the constituted

generals. The strong habit of legality, implanted in all Athenian

citizens by their democracy,—and the care, even in departing from it,

to depart as little as possible,—stand plainly evidenced in these

proceedings.

The events of this day gave a fatal shock to the ascendency of the

Four Hundred; yet they assembled on the morrow as usual in the

senate-house; and they appear now, when it was too late, to have

directed one of their members to draw up a real list, giving body

to the fiction of the Five Thousand.[91] Meanwhile the hoplites in

Peiræus, having finished the levelling of the new fortifications,

took the still more important step of entering, armed as they were,

into the theatre of Dionysus hard by, in Peiræus, but on the verge

of Munychia, and there holding a formal assembly; probably under

the convocation of the general Theramenês, pursuant to the forms of

the anterior democracy. They here took the resolution of adjourning

their assembly to the Anakeion, or temple of Castor and Pollux, the

Dioskuri, in the city itself and close under the acropolis; whither

they immediately marched and established themselves, still retaining

their arms. So much was the position of the Four Hundred changed,

that they who had on the preceding day been on the aggressive against

a spontaneous outburst of mutineers in Peiræus, were now thrown upon

the defensive against a formal assembly, all armed, in the city,

and close by their own senate-house. Feeling themselves too weak to

attempt any force, they sent deputies to the Anakeion to negotiate

and offer concessions. They engaged to publish the list of _The_ Five

Thousand, and to convene them for the purpose of providing for the

periodical cessation and renewal of the Four Hundred, by rotation

from the Five Thousand, in such order as the latter themselves

should determine. But they entreated that time might be allowed for

effecting this, and that internal peace might be maintained, without

which there was no hope of defence against the enemy without. Many of

the hoplites in the city itself joined the assembly in the Anakeion,

and took part in the debates. The position of the Four Hundred being

no longer such as to inspire fear, the tongues of speakers were now

again loosed, and the ears of the multitude again opened, for the

first time since the arrival of Peisander from Samos, with the plan

of the oligarchical conspiracy. Such renewal of free and fearless

public speech, the peculiar life-principle of the democracy, was

not less wholesome in tranquillizing intestine discord than in

heightening the sentiment of common patriotism against the foreign

enemy.[92] The assembly at length dispersed, after naming an early

future time for a second assembly, to bring about the reëstablishment

of harmony in the theatre of Dionysus.[93]

[91] Lysias, Orat. xx, pro Polystrato, c. 4, p. 675, Reisk.

This task was confided to Polystratus, a very recent member of

the Four Hundred, and therefore probably less unpopular than the

rest. In his defence after the restoration of the democracy, he

pretended to have undertaken the task much against his will, and

to have drawn up a list containing nine thousand names instead of

five thousand.

It may probably have been in this meeting of the Four Hundred,

that Antiphon delivered his oration strongly recommending

concord, Περὶ ὁμονοίας. All his eloquence was required just now,

to bring back the oligarchical party, if possible, into united

action. Philostratus (Vit. Sophistar. c. xv, p. 500, ed. Olear.)

expresses great admiration for this oration, which is several

times alluded to both by Harpokration and Suidas. See Westermann,

Gesch. der Griech. Beredsamkeit, Beilage ii, p. 276.

[92] Thucyd. viii, 93. Τὸ δὲ πᾶν πλῆθος τῶν ὁπλιτῶν, ~ἀπὸ πολλῶν

καὶ πρὸς πολλοὺς λόγων γιγνομένων, ἠπιώτερον ἦν ἢ πρότερον, καὶ

ἐφοβεῖτο μάλιστα περὶ τοῦ παντὸς πολιτικοῦ~.

[93] Thucyd. viii, 93. ξυνεχώρησαν δὲ ὥστ᾽ ~ἐς ἡμέραν ῥητὴν~

ἐκκλησίαν ποιῆσαι ἐν τῷ Διονυσίῳ ~περὶ ὁμονοίας~.

The definition of time must here allude to the morrow, or to the

day following the morrow; at least it seems impossible that the

city could be left longer than this interval without a government.

On the day, and at the hour, when this assembly in the theatre

of Dionysus was on the point of coming together, the news ran

through Peiræus and Athens, that the forty-two triremes under the

Lacedæmonian Agesandridas, having recently quitted the harbor of

Megara, were sailing along the coast of Salamis in the direction

towards Peiræus. Such an event, while causing universal consternation

throughout the city, confirmed all the previous warnings of

Theramenês as to the treasonable destination of the citadel recently

demolished, and every one rejoiced that the demolition had been

accomplished just in time. Foregoing their intended assembly, the

citizens rushed with one accord down to Peiræus, where some of them

took post to garrison the walls and the mouth of the harbor; others

got aboard the triremes lying in the harbor: others, again, launched

some fresh triremes from the boat-houses into the water. Agesandridas

rowed along the shore, near the mouth of Peiræus; but found nothing

to promise concert within, or tempt him to the intended attack.

Accordingly, he passed by and moved onward to Sunium, in a southerly

direction. Having doubled the Cape of Sunium, he then turned his

course along the coast of Attica northward, halted for a little while

between Thorikus and Prasiæ, and presently took station at Orôpus.[94]

[94] Thucyd. viii, 94.

Though relieved, when they found that he passed by Peiræus without

making any attack, the Athenians knew that his destination must

now be against Eubœa; which to them was hardly less important than

Peiræus, since their main supplies were derived from that island.

Accordingly, they put to sea at once with all the triremes which

could be manned and got ready in the harbor. But from the hurry of

the occasion, coupled with the mistrust and dissension now reigning,

and the absence of their great naval force at Samos, the crews

mustered were raw and ill-selected, and the armament inefficient.

Polystratus, one of the members of the Four Hundred, perhaps others

of them also, were aboard; men who had an interest in defeat rather

than victory.[95] Thymocharês, the admiral, conducted them round

Cape Sunium to Eretria in Eubœa, where he found a few other triremes,

which made up his whole fleet to thirty-six sail.

[95] Lysias, Orat. xx, pro Polystrato, c. 4, p. 676, Reisk.

From another passage in this oration, it would seem that

Polystratus was in command of the fleet, possibly enough, in

conjunction with Thymocharês, according to a common Athenian

practice (c. 5, p. 679). His son, who defends him, affirms that

he was wounded in the battle.

Diodorus (xiii, 34) mentions the discord among the crews on board

these ships under Thymocharês, almost the only point which we

learn from his meagre notice of this interesting period.

He had scarcely reached the harbor and disembarked, when, without

allowing time for his men to procure refreshment, he found himself

compelled to fight a battle with the forty-two ships of Agesandridas,

who had just sailed across from Orôpus, and was already approaching

the harbor. This surprise had been brought about by the anti-Athenian

party in Eretria, who took care, on the arrival of Thymocharês,

that no provisions should be found in the market-place, so that his

men were compelled to disperse and obtain them from houses at the

extremity of the town; while at the same time a signal was hoisted,

visible at Orôpus on the opposite side of the strait, less than

seven miles broad, indicating to Agesandridas the precise moment for

bringing his fleet across to the attack, with their crews fresh after

the morning meal. Thymocharês, on seeing the approach of the enemy,

ordered his men aboard; but, to his disappointment, many of them were

found to be so far off that they could not be brought back in time,

so that he was compelled to sail out and meet the Peloponnesians

with ships very inadequately manned. In a battle immediately outside

of the Eretrian harbor, he was, after a short contest, completely

defeated, and his fleet driven back upon the shore. Some of his

ships escaped to Chalkis, others to a fortified post garrisoned by

the Athenians themselves, not far from Eretria; yet not less than

twenty-two triremes, out of the whole thirty-six, fell into the hands

of Agesandridas, and a large proportion of the crews were slain or

made prisoners. Of those seamen who escaped, too, many found their

death from the hands of the Eretrians, into whose city they fled for

shelter. On the news of this battle, not merely Eretria, but also all

Eubœa,—except Oreus in the north of the island, which was settled by

Athenian kleruchs,—declared its revolt from Athens, which had been

intended more than a year before, and took measures for defending

itself in concert with Agesandridas and the Bœotians.[96]

[96] Thucyd. viii, 5; viii, 95.

Ill could Athens endure a disaster, in itself so immense and

aggravated, under the present distressed condition of the city. Her

last fleet was destroyed, her nearest and most precious island torn

from her side; an island, which of late had yielded more to her wants

than Attica itself, but which was now about to become a hostile and

aggressive neighbor.[97] The previous revolt of Eubœa, occurring

thirty-four years before, during the maximum of Athenian power, had

been even then a terrible blow to Athens, and formed one of the main

circumstances which forced upon her the humiliation of the Thirty

years’ truce. But this second revolt took place when she had not only

no means of reconquering the island, but no means even of defending

Peiræus against the blockade by the enemy’s fleet. The dismay and

terror excited by the news at Athens was unbounded, even exceeding

what had been felt after the Sicilian catastrophe, or the revolt of

Chios. Nor was there any second reserve now in the treasury, such as

the thousand talents which had rendered such essential service on

the last-mentioned occasion. In addition to their foreign dangers,

the Athenians were farther weighed down by two intestine calamities

in themselves hardly supportable,—alienation of their own fleet at

Samos, and the discord, yet unappeased, within their own walls;

wherein the Four Hundred still held provisionally the reins of

government, with the ablest and most unscrupulous leaders at their

head. In the depth of their despair, the Athenians expected nothing

less than to see the victorious fleet of Agesandridas—more than sixty

triremes strong, including the recent captures—off the Peiræus,

forbidding all importation, and threatening them with approaching

famine, in combination with Agis and Dekeleia. The enterprise would

have been easy for there were neither ships nor seamen to repel him;

and his arrival at this critical moment would most probably have

enabled the Four Hundred to resume their ascendency, with the means

as well as the disposition to introduce a Lacedæmonian garrison into

the city.[98] And though the arrival of the Athenian fleet from Samos

would have prevented this extremity, yet it could not have arrived in

time, except on the supposition of a prolonged blockade: moreover,

its mere transfer from Samos to Athens would have left Ionia and the

Hellespont defenceless against the Lacedæmonians and Persians, and

would have caused the loss of all the Athenian empire. Nothing could

have saved Athens, if the Lacedæmonians at this juncture had acted

with reasonable vigor, instead of confining their efforts to Eubœa,

now an easy and certain conquest. As on the former occasion, when

Antiphon and Phrynichus went to Sparta prepared to make any sacrifice

for the purpose of obtaining Lacedæmonian aid and accommodation,

so now, in a still greater degree, Athens owed her salvation only

to the fact that the enemies actually before her were indolent and

dull Spartans, not enterprising Syracusans under the conduct of

Gylippus.[99] And this is the second occasion, we may add, on which

Athens was on the brink of ruin in consequence of the policy of

Alkibiadês in retaining the armament at Samos.

[97] Thucyd. viii, 95. To show what Eubœa became at a later

period, see Demosthenês, De Fals. Legat. c. 64, p. 409: τὰ

ἐν Εὐβοίᾳ κατασκευασθησόμενα ὁρμητήρια ἐφ᾽ ὑμᾶς, etc.; and

Demosthenês, De Coronâ, c. 71; ἄπλους δ᾽ ἡ θάλασσα ὑπὸ τῶν ἐκ τῆς

Εὐβοίας ὁρμωμένων λῃστῶν γέγονε, etc.

[98] Thucyd. viii, 96. Μάλιστα δ᾽ αὐτοὺς καὶ δι᾽ ἐγγυτάτου

ἐθορύβει, εἰ οἱ πολέμιοι τολμήσουσι νενικηκότες εὐθὺς σφῶν ἐπὶ

τὸν Πειραιᾶ ἔρημον ὄντα νεῶν πλεῖν· καὶ ὅσον οὐκ ἤδη ἐνόμιζον

αὐτοὺς παρεῖναι. ~Ὅπερ ἄν, εἰ τολμηρότεροι ἦσαν, ῥᾳδίως ἂν

ἐποίησαν~· καὶ ἢ διέστησαν ἂν ἔτι μᾶλλον τὴν πόλιν ἐφορμοῦντες,

ἤ εἰ ἐπολιόρκουν μένοντες, καὶ τὰς ἀπ᾽ Ἰωνίας ναῦς ἠνάγκασαν ἂν

βοηθῆσαι, etc.

[99] Thucyd. viii, 96; vii, 21-55.

Fortunately for the Athenians, no Agesandridas appeared off Peiræus;

so that the twenty triremes, which they contrived to man as a

remnant for defence, had no enemy to repel.[100] Accordingly, the

Athenians were allowed to enjoy an interval of repose which enabled

them to recover partially both from consternation and from intestine

discord. It was their first proceeding, when the hostile fleet did

not appear, to convene a public assembly; and that too in the Pnyx

itself, the habitual scene of the democratical assemblies, well

calculated to reinspire that patriotism which had now been dumb and

smouldering for the four last months. In this assembly, the tide of

opinion ran vehemently against the Four Hundred:[101] even those,

who, like the Board of elders entitled probûli had originally

counselled their appointment, now denounced them along with the

rest, though severely taunted by the oligarchical leader Peisander

for their inconsistency. Votes were finally passed: 1. To depose the

Four Hundred; 2. To place the whole government in the hands of _The

Five Thousand_; 3. Every citizen, who furnished a panoply, either

for himself or for any one else, was to be of right a member of

this body of _The_ Five Thousand; 4. No citizen was to receive pay

for any political function, on pain of becoming solemnly accursed,

or excommunicated.[102] Such were the points determined by the

first assembly held in the Pnyx. The archons, the senate of Five

Hundred, etc., were renewed: after which many other assemblies

were also held, in which nomothetæ, dikasts, and other institutions

essential to the working of the democracy, were constituted. Various

other votes were also passed; especially one, on the proposition of

Kritias, seconded by Theramenês,[103] to restore Alkibiadês and some

of his friends from exile; while messages were farther despatched,

both to him and to the armament at Samos, doubtless confirming the

recent nomination of generals, apprizing them of what had recently

occurred at Athens, as well as bespeaking their full concurrence and

unabated efforts against the common enemy.

[100] Thucyd. viii, 97.

[101] It is to this assembly that I refer, with confidence,

the remarkable dialogue of contention between Peisander and

Sophoklês, one of the Athenian probûli, mentioned in Aristotel.

Rhetoric. iii, 18, 2. There was no other occasion on which the

Four Hundred were ever publicly thrown upon their defence at

Athens.

This was not Sophoklês the tragic poet, but another person of

the same name, who appears afterwards as one of the oligarchy of

Thirty.

[102] Thucyd. viii, 97. Καὶ ἐκκλησίαν ξυνέλεγον, μίαν μὲν

εὐθὺς τότε πρῶτον ἐς τὴν Πνύκα καλουμένην, οὗπερ καὶ ἄλλοτε

εἰώθεσαν, ἐν ᾗπερ καὶ τοὺς τετρακοσίους καταπαύσαντες ~τοῖς

πεντακισχιλίοις~ ἐψηφίσαντο τὰ πράγματα παραδοῦναι· ~εἶναι δὲ

αὐτῶν, ὁπόσοι καὶ ὅπλα παρέχονται~· καὶ μισθὸν μηδένα φέρειν,

μηδεμιᾷ ἀρχῇ, εἰ δὲ μὴ, ἐπάρατον ἐποιήσαντο. Ἐγίγνοντο δὲ καὶ

ἄλλαι ὕστερον πυκναὶ ἐκκλησίαι, ἀφ᾽ ὧν καὶ ~νομοθέτας καὶ τἄλλα

ἐψηφίσαντο ἐς τὴν πολιτείαν~.

In this passage I dissent from the commentators on two points.

First, they understand this number Five Thousand as a real

definite list of citizens, containing five thousand names,

neither more nor less. Secondly, they construe νομοθέτας, not in

the ordinary meaning which it bears in Athenian constitutional

language, but in the sense of ξυγγραφεῖς (c. 67), “persons to

model the constitution, corresponding to the ξυγγραφεῖς appointed

by the aristocratical party a little before,” to use the words of

Dr. Arnold.

As to the first point, which is sustained also by Dr. Thirlwall

(Hist. Gr. ch. xxviii, vol. iv, p. 51, 2d ed.), Dr. Arnold really

admits what is the ground of my opinion, when he says: “Of course

the number of citizens capable of providing themselves with heavy

arms must _have much exceeded five thousand_: and it is said in

the defence of Polystratus, one of the Four Hundred (Lysias, p.

675, Reisk.), that he drew up a list of nine thousand. But we

must suppose that all who could furnish heavy arms _were eligible

into the number of the Five Thousand_, whether the members were

fixed on by lot, by election, or by rotation; as it had been

proposed to appoint the Four Hundred by rotation out of the Five

Thousand (viii, 93).”

Dr. Arnold here throws out a supposition which by no means

conforms to the exact sense of the words of Thucydidês—εἶναι

δὲ αὐτῶν, ὁπόσοι καὶ ὅπλα παρέχονται. These words distinctly

signify, that all who furnished heavy arms _should be of the

Five Thousand, should belong of right to that body_, which

is something different from _being eligible_ into the number

of the Five Thousand, either by lot, rotation, or otherwise.

The language of Thucydidês, when he describes, in the passage

referred to by Dr. Arnold, c. 93, the projected formation of

the Four Hundred by rotation out of the Five Thousand, is very

different: καὶ ἐκ τούτων ἐν μέρει τοὺς τετρακοσίους ἔσεσθαι, etc.

M. Boeckh (Public Economy of Athens, bk. ii, ch. 21, p. 268, Eng.

Tr.) is not satisfactory in his description of this event.

The idea which I conceive of the Five Thousand, as a number

existing from the commencement only in talk and imagination,

neither realized nor intended to be realized, coincides with

the full meaning of this passage of Thucydidês, as well as with

everything which he had before said about them.

I will here add that ὁπόσοι ὅπλα παρέχονται means persons

furnishing arms, not for themselves alone, but for others also

(Xenoph. Hellen. iii, 4, 15.)

As to the second point, the signification of νομοθέτας, I

stand upon the general use of that word in Athenian political

language: see the explanation earlier in this History, vol. v,

ch. xlvi, p. 373. It is for the commentators to produce some

justification of the unusual meaning which they assign to it:

“persons to model the constitution; commissioners who drew up the

new constitution,” as Dr. Arnold, in concurrence with the rest,

translates it. Until some justification is produced, I venture

to believe that νομοθέται, is a word which would not be used in

that sense with reference to nominees chosen by the democracy,

and intended to act with the democracy; for it implies a final,

decisive, authoritative determination; whereas the ξυγγραφεῖς,

or “commissioners to draw up a constitution,” were only invested

with the function of submitting something for approbation to the

public assembly or competent authority; that is, assuming that

the public assembly remained an efficient reality.

Moreover, the words καὶ τἄλλα would hardly be used in immediate

sequence to νομοθέτας, if the latter word meant that which the

commentators suppose: “Commissioners for framing a constitution,

_and the other things towards the constitution_.” Such

commissioners are surely far too prominent and initiative in

their function to be named in this way. Let us add, that the most

material items in the new constitution, if we are so to call it,

have already been distinctly specified as settled by public vote,

before these νομοθέται are even named.

It is important to notice, that even the Thirty, who were named

six years afterwards to draw up a constitution, at the moment

when Sparta was mistress of Athens, and when the people were

thoroughly put down, are not called Νομοθέται, but are named

by a circumlocution equivalent to Ἔδοξε τῷ δήμῳ, τριάκοντα

ἄνδρας ἑλέσθαι, οἳ τοὺς πατρίους νόμους συγγράψουσι, καθ᾽ οὓς

πολιτεύσουσι.—Αἱρεθέντες δὲ, ἐφ᾽ ᾧ τε συγγράψαι νόμους καθ᾽

οὕστινας πολιτεύσοιντο, τούτους μὲν ἀεὶ ἔμελλον ξυγγράφειν τε

καὶ ἀποδεικνύναι, etc. (Xenophon, Hellen. ii, 3, 2-11.) Xenophon

calls Kritias and Chariklês the nomothetæ of the Thirty (Memor.

i, 2, 30), but this is not democracy.

For the signification of Νομοθέτης (applied most generally to

Solon, sometimes to others, either by rhetorical looseness or by

ironical taunt), or Νομοθέται, a numerous body of persons chosen

and sworn, see Lysias cont. Nikomach. sects. 3, 33, 37; Andokidês

de Mysteriis, sects. 81-85, c. 14, p. 38, where the nomothetæ are

a sworn body of Five Hundred, exercising, conjointly with the

senate, the function of accepting or rejecting laws proposed to

them.

[103] Plutarch, Alkibiadês, c. 33. Cornelius Nepos (Alkibiad.

c. 5, and Diodorus, xiii, 38-42) mentions Theramenês as the

principal author of the decree for restoring Alkibiadês from

exile. But the precise words of the elegy composed by Kritias,

wherein the latter vindicates this proceeding to himself, are

cited by Plutarch, and are very good evidence. Doubtless many of

the leading men supported, and none opposed, the proposition.

Thucydidês bestows marked eulogy upon the general spirit of

moderation and patriotic harmony which now reigned at Athens, and

which directed the political proceedings of the people.[104] But he

does not countenance the belief, as he has been sometimes understood,

nor is it true in point of fact, that they now introduced a new

constitution. Putting an end to the oligarchy, and to the rule of

the Four Hundred, they restored the old democracy seemingly with

only two modifications, first, the partial limitation of the right

of suffrage; next, the discontinuance of all payment for political

functions. The impeachment against Antiphon, tried immediately

afterwards, went before the senate and the dikastery exactly

according to the old democratical forms of procedure. But we must

presume that the senate, the dikasts, the nomothetæ, the ekklesiasts,

or citizens who attended the assembly, the public orators who

prosecuted state-criminals, or defended any law when it was impugned,

must have worked for the time without pay.

[104] Thucyd. viii, 97. Καὶ οὐχ ἥκιστα δὴ τὸν πρῶτον χρόνον ἐπί

γε ἐμοῦ Ἀθηναῖοι φαίνονται εὖ πολιτεύσαντες· μετρία γὰρ ἥ τε ἐς

τοὺς ὀλίγους καὶ τοὺς πολλοὺς ξύγκρασις ἐγένετο, καὶ ἐκ πονηρῶν

τῶν πραγμάτων γενομένων τοῦτο πρῶτον ἀνήνεγκε τὴν πόλιν.

I refer the reader to a note on this passage in one of my former

volumes, and on the explanation given of it by Dr. Arnold (see

vol. v, ch. xlv, p. 330.)

Moreover, the two modifications above mentioned were of little

practical effect. The exclusive body of Five Thousand citizens,

professedly constituted at this juncture, was neither exactly

realized, nor long retained. It was constituted, even now, more

as a nominal than as a real limit; a nominal total, yet no longer

a mere blank, as the Four Hundred had originally produced it, but

containing, indeed, a number of individual names greater than the

total, and without any assignable line of demarkation. The mere fact,

that every one who furnished a panoply was entitled to be of the Five

Thousand,—and not they alone, but others besides,[105]—shows that

no care was taken to adhere either to that or to any other precise

number. If we may credit a speech composed by Lysias,[106] the Four

Hundred had themselves, after the demolition of their intended

fortress at Ectioneia, and when power was passing out of their hands,

appointed a committee of their number to draw up for the first

time a real list of _The_ Five Thousand; and Polystratus, a member

of that committee, takes credit with the succeeding democracy for

having made the list comprise nine thousand names instead of five

thousand. As this list of Polystratus—if, indeed, it ever existed—was

never either published or adopted, I merely notice the description

given of it, to illustrate my position that the number Five Thousand

was now understood on all sides as an indefinite expression for a

suffrage extensive, but not universal. The number had been first

invented by Antiphon and the leaders of the Four Hundred, to cloak

their own usurpation and intimidate the democracy: next, it served

the purpose of Theramenês and the minority of the Four Hundred, as a

basis on which to raise a sort of dynastic opposition, to use modern

phraseology, within the limits of the oligarchy; that is, without

appearing to overstep principles acknowledged by the oligarchy

themselves: lastly, it was employed by the democratical party

generally as a convenient middle term to slide back into the old

system, with as little dispute as possible; for Alkibiadês and the

armament had sent word home that they adhered to the Five Thousand,

and to the abolition of salaried civil functions.[107]

[105] The words of Thucydidês (viii, 97), εἶναι δὲ ~αὐτῶν~,

ὁπόσοι καὶ ὅπλα παρέχονται, show that this body was not composed

_exclusively_ of those who furnished panoplies. It could never

have been intended, for example, to exclude the hippeis, or

knights.

[106] Lysias, Orat. xx, pro Polystrato, c. 4, p. 675, Reisk.

[107] Thucyd. viii, 86.

But exclusive suffrage of the so-called Five Thousand, especially

with the expansive numerical construction now adopted, was of little

value either to themselves or to the state;[108] while it was an

insulting shock to the feelings of the excluded multitude, especially

to brave and active seamen like the parali. Though prudent as a step

of momentary transition, it could not stand, nor was any attempt made

to preserve it in permanence, amidst a community so long accustomed

to universal citizenship, and where the necessities of defence

against the enemy called for energetic efforts from all the citizens.

[108] Thucyd. viii, 92. τὸ μὲν καταστῆσαι μετόχους τοσούτους,

ἄντικρυς ἂν δῆμον ἡγούμενοι, etc.

Even as to the gratuitous functions, the members of the Five Thousand

themselves would soon become tired, not less than the poorer freemen,

of serving without pay, as senators or in other ways; so that nothing

but absolute financial deficit would prevent the reëstablishment,

entire or partial, of the pay.[109] And that deficit was never so

complete as to stop the disbursement of the diobely, or distribution

of two oboli to each citizen on occasion of various religious

festivals. Such distribution continued without interruption; though

perhaps the number of occasions on which it was made may have been

lessened.

[109] See the valuable financial inscriptions in M. Boeckh’s

Corpus Inscriptionum, part i, nos. 147, 148, which attest

considerable disbursements for the diobely in 410-409 B.C.

Nor does it seem that there was much diminution during these same

years in the private expenditure and ostentation of the Chorêgi

at the festivals and other exhibitions: see the Oration xxi, of

Lysias—Ἀπολογία Δωροδοκίας, c. 1, 2, pp. 698-700, Reiske.

How far or under what restriction, any reëstablishment of civil pay

obtained footing during the seven years between the Four Hundred

and the Thirty, we cannot say. But leaving this point undecided,

we can show, that within a year after the deposition of the Four

Hundred, the suffrage of the so-called Five Thousand expanded into

the suffrage of all Athenians without exception, or into the full

antecedent democracy. A memorable decree, passed about eleven months

after that event,—at the commencement of the archonship of Glaukippus

(June 410 B.C.), when the senate of Five Hundred, the dikasts,

and other civil functionaries, were renewed for the coming year,

pursuant to the ancient democratical practice,—exhibits to us the

full democracy not merely in action, but in all the glow of feeling

called forth by a recent restoration. It seems to have been thought

that this first renewal of archons and other functionaries, under the

revived democracy, ought to be stamped by some emphatic proclamation

of sentiment, analogous to the solemn and heart-stirring oath taken

in the preceding year at Samos. Accordingly, Demophantus proposed

and carried a (psephism or) decree,[110] prescribing the form of

an oath to be taken by all Athenians to stand by the democratical

constitution.

[110] About the date of this psephism, or decree, see Boeckh,

Staatshaushaltung der Athener, vol. ii, p. 168, in the comment

upon sundry inscriptions appended to his work, not included

in the English translation by Mr Lewis; also Meier, De Bonis

Damnatorum, sect. ii, pp. 6-10. Wachsmuth erroneously places the

date of it after the Thirty; see Hellen. Alterth. ii, ix, p. 267.

The terms of his psephism and oath are striking. “If any man subvert

the democracy at Athens, or hold any magistracy after the democracy

has been subverted, he shall be an enemy of the Athenians. Let him be

put to death with impunity, and let his property be confiscated to

the public, with the reservation of a tithe to Athênê. Let the man

who has killed him, and the accomplice privy to the act, be accounted

holy and of good religious odor. Let all Athenians swear an oath

under the sacrifice of full-grown victims, in their respective tribes

and demes, to kill him.[111] Let the oath be as follows: ‘I will

kill with my own hand, if I am able, any man who shall subvert the

democracy at Athens, or who shall hold any office in future after the

democracy has been subverted, or shall rise in arms for the purpose

of making himself a despot, or shall help the despot to establish

himself. And if any one else shall kill him, I will account the

slayer to be holy as respects both gods and demons, as having slain

an enemy of the Athenians. And I engage by word, by deed, and by

vote, to sell his property and make over one-half of the proceeds to

the slayer, without withholding anything. If any man shall perish

in slaying or in trying to slay the despot, I will be kind both to

him and to his children, as to Harmodius and Aristogeiton, and their

descendants. And I hereby break and renounce all oaths which have

been sworn hostile to the Athenian people, either at Athens or at the

camp (at Samos) or elsewhere.[112]’ Let all Athenians swear this as

the regular oath, immediately before the festival of the Dionysia,

with sacrifice and full-grown victims;[113] invoking upon him who

keeps it, good things in abundance; but upon him who breaks it,

destruction for himself as well as for his family.”

[111] Andokidês de Mysteriis, sects. 95-99. (c. 16, p. 48, R.)—Ὁ

δ᾽ ἀποκτείνας τὸν ταῦτα ποιήσαντα, καὶ ὁ συμβουλεύσας, ὅσιος ἔστω

καὶ εὐαγής. Ὀμόσαι δ᾽ ~Ἀθηναίους ἅπαντας~ καθ᾽ ἱερῶν τελείων,

~κατὰ φυλὰς καὶ κατὰ δήμους~, ἀποκτείνειν τὸν ταῦτα ποιήσαντα.

The comment of Sievers (Commentationes De Xenophontis Hellenicis,

Berlin, 1833, pp. 18, 19) on the events of this time, is not

clear.

[112] Andokidês de Mysteriis, sects. 95-99. (c. 16, p. 48, R.)

Ὁπόσοι δ᾽ ὅρκοι ὀμώμονται Ἀθήνῃσιν ἢ ~ἐν τῷ στρατοπέδῳ~ ἢ ἄλλοθί

που ἐναντίοι τῷ δήμῳ τῷ Ἀθηναίων, λύω καὶ ἀφίημι.

To what particular anti-constitutional oaths allusion is here

made, we cannot tell. All those of the oligarchical conspirators,

both at Samos and at Athens, are doubtless intended to be

abrogated: and this oath, like that of the armament at Samos

(Thucyd. viii, 75), is intended to be sworn by every one,

including those who had before been members of the oligarchical

conspiracy. Perhaps it may also be intended to abrogate the

covenant sworn by the members of the political clubs or

ξυνωμοσίαι among themselves, in so far as it pledged them to

anti-constitutional acts (Thucyd. viii, 54-81).

[113] Andokidês de Mysteriis, sects. 95-99, (c. 16, p. 48, R.)

Ταῦτα δὲ ὀμοσάντων ~Ἀθηναῖοι πάντες~ καθ᾽ ἱερῶν τελείων, τὸν

νόμιμον ὅρκον, πρὸ Διονυσίων, etc.

Such was the remarkable decree which the Athenians not only passed in

senate and public assembly, less than a year after the deposition of

the Four Hundred, but also caused to be engraved on a column close to

the door of the senate-house. It plainly indicates, not merely that

the democracy had returned, but an unusual intensity of democratical

feeling along with it. The constitution which _all_ the Athenians

thus swore to maintain by the most strenuous measures of defence,

must have been a constitution in which _all_ Athenians had political

rights, not one of Five Thousand privileged persons excluding the

rest.[114] This decree became invalid after the expulsion of the

Thirty, by the general resolution then passed not to act upon any

laws passed before the archonship of Eukleidês, unless specially

reënacted. But the column on which it stood engraved still remained,

and the words were read upon it, at least down to the time of the

orator Lykurgus, eighty years afterwards.[115]

[114] Those who think that a new constitution was established,

after the deposition of the Four Hundred, are perplexed to fix

the period at which the old democracy was restored. K. F. Hermann

and others suppose, without any special proof, that it was

restored at the time when Alkibiadês returned to Athens in 407

B.C. See K. F. Hermann, Griech. Staats Alterthümer, s. 167, note

13.

[115] Lykurgus adv. Leokrat. sect. 131, c. 31, p. 225: compare

Demosthen. adv. Leptin. sect. 138, c. 34, p. 506.

If we wanted any proof, how perfectly reckless and unmeaning is

the mention of the name of _Solon_ by the orators, we should

find it in this passage of Andokidês. He calls this psephism

of Demophantus _a law of Solon_ (sect. 96): see above in this

History, vol. iii, ch. xi, p. 122.

The mere deposition of the Four Hundred, however, and the transfer of

political power to the Five Thousand, which took place in the first

public assembly held after the defeat off Eretria, was sufficient to

induce most of the violent leaders of the Four Hundred forthwith to

leave Athens. Peisander, Alexiklês, and others, went off secretly

to Dekeleia:[116] Aristarchus alone made his flight the means of

inflicting a new wound upon his country. Being among the number of

the generals, he availed himself of this authority to march—with

some of the rudest among those Scythian archers, who did the police

duty of the city—to Œnoê, on the Bœotian frontier, which was at that

moment under siege by a body of Corinthians and Bœotians united.

Aristarchus, in concert with the besiegers, presented himself to

the garrison, and acquainted them that Athens and Sparta had just

concluded peace, one of the conditions of which was that Œnoê should

be surrendered to the Bœotians. He therefore, as general, ordered

them to evacuate the place, under the benefit of a truce to return

home. The garrison having been closely blocked up, and kept wholly

ignorant of the actual condition of politics, obeyed the order

without reserve; so that the Bœotians acquired possession of this

very important frontier position, a new thorn in the side of Athens,

besides Dekeleia.[117]

[116] Thucyd. viii, 98. Most of these fugitives returned six

years afterwards, after the battle of Ægospotami, when the

Athenian people again became subject to an oligarchy in the

persons of the Thirty. Several of them became members of the

senate which worked under the Thirty (Lysias cont. Agorat. sect.

80, c. 18, p. 495).

Whether Aristotelês and Chariklês were among the number of the

Four Hundred who now went into exile, as Wattenbach affirms (De

Quadringent. Ath. Factione, p. 66), seems not clearly made out.

[117] Thucyd. viii, 89, 90. Ἀρίσταρχος, ἀνὴρ ἐν τοῖς μάλιστα καὶ

ἐκ πλείστου ἐναντίος τῷ δήμῳ, etc.

Thus was the Athenian democracy again restored, and the divorce

between the city and the armament at Samos terminated after an

interruption of about four months by the successful conspiracy of

the Four Hundred. It was only by a sort of miracle—or rather by the

incredible backwardness and stupidity of her foreign enemies—that

Athens escaped alive from this nefarious aggression of her own

ablest and wealthiest citizens. That the victorious democracy

should animadvert upon and punish the principal actors concerned in

it,—who had satiated their own selfish ambition at the cost of so

much suffering, anxiety, and peril to their country,—was nothing

more than rigorous justice. But the circumstances of the case were

peculiar: for the counter-revolution had been accomplished partly by

the aid of a minority among the Four Hundred themselves,—Theramenês,

Aristokratês, and others, together with the Board of Elders called

Probûli,—all of whom had been, at the outset, either principals or

accomplices in that system of terrorism and assassination, whereby

the democracy had been overthrown and the oligarchical rulers

established in the senate-house. The earlier operations of the

conspiracy, therefore, though among its worst features, could not be

exposed to inquiry and trial without compromising these parties as

fellow-criminals. Theramenês evaded this difficulty, by selecting

for animadversion a recent act of the majority of the Four Hundred,

which he and his partisans had opposed, and on which therefore

he had no interests adverse either to justice or to the popular

feeling. He stood foremost to impeach the last embassy sent by the

Four Hundred to Sparta, sent with instructions to purchase peace and

alliance at almost any price, and connected with the construction

of the fort at Ectioneia for the reception of an enemy’s garrison.

This act of manifest treason, in which Antiphon, Phrynichus, and

ten other known envoys were concerned, was chosen as the special

matter for public trial and punishment, not less on public grounds

than with a view to his own favor in the renewed democracy. But

the fact that it was Theramenês who thus denounced his old friends

and fellow-conspirators, after having lent hand and heart to

their earlier and not less guilty deeds, was long remembered as a

treacherous betrayal, and employed in after days as an excuse for

atrocious injustice against himself.[118]

[118] Lysias cont. Eratosthen., c. 11, p. 427, sects. 66-68.

Βουλόμενος δὲ (Theramenês) τῷ ὑμετέρῳ πλήθει πιστὸς δοκεῖν εἶναι,

Ἀντιφῶντα καὶ Ἀρχεπτόλεμον, φιλτάτους ὄντας αὑτῷ, κατηγορῶν

ἀπέκτεινεν· εἰς τοσοῦτον δὲ κακίας ἦλθεν, ὥστε ἅμα μὲν διὰ τὴν

πρὸς ἐκείνους πίστιν ὑμᾶς κατεδουλώσατο, διὰ δὲ τὴν πρὸς ὑμᾶς

τοὺς φίλους ἀπώλεσεν.

Compare Xenophon, Hellen., ii, 3, 30-33.

Of the twelve envoys who went on this mission, all except Phrynichus,

Antiphon, Archeptolemus, and Onomaklês, seem to have already escaped

to Dekeleia or elsewhere. Phrynichus, as I have mentioned a few

pages above, had been assassinated several days before. Respecting

his memory, a condemnatory vote had already been just passed by the

restored senate of Five Hundred, decreeing that his property should

be confiscated and his house razed to the ground, and conferring the

gift of citizenship, together with a pecuniary recompense, on two

foreigners who claimed to have assassinated him.[119] The other

three, Antiphon, Archeptolemus, and Onomaklês,[120] were presented

in name to the senate by the generals, of whom probably Theramenês

was one, as having gone on a mission to Sparta for purposes of

mischief to Athens, partly on board an enemy’s ship, partly through

the Spartan garrison at Dekeleia. Upon this presentation, doubtless a

document of some length and going into particulars, a senator named

Andron moved: That the generals, aided by any ten senators whom they

may choose, do seize the three persons accused, and hold them in

custody for trial; that the thesmothetæ do send to each of the three

a formal summons, to prepare themselves for trial on a future day

before the dikastery, on the charge of high treason, and do bring

them to trial on the day named; assisted by the generals, the ten

senators chosen as auxiliaries, and any other citizen who may please

to take part, as their accusers. Each of the three was to be tried

separately, and, if condemned, was to be dealt with according to

the penal law of the city against traitors, or persons guilty of

treason.[121]

[119] That these votes, respecting the memory and the death of

Phrynichus, preceded the trial of Antiphon, we may gather from

the concluding words of the sentence passed upon Antiphon: see

Plutarch, Vit. x, Oratt. p. 834, B: compare Schol. Aristoph.

Lysistr. 313.

Both Lysias and Lykurgus, the orators, contain statements about

the death of Phrynichus which are not in harmony with Thucydidês.

Both these orators agree in reporting the names of the two

foreigners who claimed to have slain Phrynichus, and whose claim

was allowed by the people afterwards, in a formal reward and vote

of citizenship, Thrasybulus of Kalydon, Apollodorus of Megara

(Lysias cont. Agorat. c. 18, 492; Lykurg. cont. Leokrat. c. 29,

p. 217).

Lykurgus says that Phrynichus was assassinated by night,

“near the fountain, hard by the willow-trees:” which is quite

contradictory to Thucydidês, who states that the deed was done

in daylight, and in the market-place. Agoratus, against whom the

speech of Lysias is directed, pretended to have been one of the

assassins, and claimed reward on that score.

The story of Lykurgus, that the Athenian people, on the

proposition of Kritias, exhumed and brought to trial the dead

body of Phrynichus, and that Aristarchus and Alexiklês were

put to death for undertaking its defence, is certainly in part

false, and probably wholly false. Aristarchus was then at Œnoê,

Alexiklês at Dekeleia.

[120] Onomaklês had been one of the colleagues of Phrynichus,

as general of the armament in Ionia, in the preceding autumn

(Thucyd. viii, 25).

In one of the Biographies of Thucydidês (p. xxii, in Dr. Arnold’s

edition), it is stated that Onomaklês was executed along with

the other two; but the document cited in the Pseudo-Plutarch

contradicts this.

[121] Plutarch, Vit. x, Oratt. p. 834; compare Xenophon,

Hellenic. i, 7, 22.

Apolêxis was one of the accusers of Antiphon: see Harpokration,

v. Στασιώτης.

Though all the three persons thus indicated were at Athens, or at

least were supposed to be there, on the day when this resolution was

passed by the senate, yet, before it was executed, Onomaklês had

fled; so that Antiphon and Archeptolemus only were imprisoned for

trial. They too must have had ample opportunity for leaving the city,

and we might have presumed that Antiphon would have thought it quite

as necessary to retire as Peisander and Alexiklês. So acute a man as

he, at no time very popular, must have known that now at least he had

drawn the sword against his fellow-citizens in a manner which could

never be forgiven. However, he chose voluntarily to stay: and this

man, who had given orders for taking off so many of the democratical

speakers by private assassination, received from the democracy, when

triumphant, full notice and fair trial on a distinct and specific

charge. The speech which he made in his defence, though it did not

procure acquittal, was listened to, not merely with patience, but

with admiration; as we may judge from the powerful and lasting effect

which it produced. Thucydidês describes it as the most magnificent

defence against a capital charge which had ever come before him;[122]

and the poet Agathon, doubtless a hearer, warmly complimented

Antiphon on his eloquence; to which the latter replied, that the

approval of one such discerning judge was in his eyes an ample

compensation for the unfriendly verdict of the multitude. Both he and

Archeptolemus were found guilty by the dikastery and condemned to the

penalties of treason. They were handed over to the magistrates called

the Eleven, the chiefs of executive justice at Athens, to be put to

death by the customary draught of hemlock. Their properties were

confiscated, their houses were directed to be razed, and the vacant

site to be marked by columns, with the inscription: “The residence

of Antiphon the traitor,—of Archeptolemus the traitor.” They were

not permitted to be buried either in Attica, or in any territory

subject to Athenian dominion.[123] Their children, both legitimate

and illegitimate, were deprived of the citizenship; and the citizen

who should adopt any descendant of either of them, was to be himself

in like manner disfranchised.

[122] Thucyd. viii, 68; Aristotel. Ethic. Eudem. iii, 5.

Rühnken seems quite right (Dissertat. De Antiphont. p. 818,

Reisk.) in considering the oration περὶ μεταστάσεως to be

Antiphon’s defence of himself; though Westermann (Geschichte der

Griech. Beredsamkeit, p. 277) controverts this opinion. This

oration is alluded to in several of the articles in Harpokration.

[123] So, Themistoklês, as a traitor, was not allowed to be

buried in Attica (Thucyd. i, 138; Cornel. Nepos, Vit. Themistocl.

ii, 10). His friends are said to have brought his bones thither

secretly.

Such was the sentence passed by the dikastery, pursuant to the

Athenian law of treason. It was directed to be engraved on the same

brazen column as the decree of honor to the slayers of Phrynichus.

From that column it was transcribed, and has thus passed into

history.[124]

[124] It is given at length in Pseudo-Plutarch, Vit. x, Oratt.

pp. 833, 834. It was preserved by Cæcilius, a Sicilian and

rhetorical teacher, of the Augustan age; who possessed sixty

orations ascribed to Antiphon, twenty-five of which he considered

spurious.

Antiphon left a daughter, whom Kallæschrus sued for in marriage,

pursuant to the forms of law, being entitled to do so on the

score of near relationship (ἐπεδικάσατο). Kallæschrus was himself

one of the Four Hundred, perhaps a brother of Kritias. It seems

singular that the legal power of suing at law for a female

in marriage, by right of near kin (τοῦ ἐπιδικάζεσθαι), could

extend to a female disfranchised and debarred from all rights of

citizenship.

If we may believe Harpokration, Andron, who made the motion in

the senate for sending Antiphon and Archeptolemus to trial, had

been himself a member of the Four Hundred oligarchs, as well as

Theramenês (Harp. v. Ἄνδρων).

The note of Dr. Arnold upon that passage (viii, 68) wherein

Thucydidês calls Antiphon ἀρετῇ οὐδενὸς ὕστερος, “inferior to

no man in virtue,” well deserves to be consulted. This passage

shows, in a remarkable manner, what were the political and

private qualities which determined the esteem of Thucydidês.

It shows that his sympathies went along with the oligarchical

party; and that, while the exaggerations of opposition-speakers,

or demagogues, such as those which he imputes to Kleon and

Hyperbolus, provoked his bitter hatred, exaggerations of the

oligarchical warfare, or multiplied assassinations, did not

make him like a man the worse. But it shows, at the same time,

his great candor in the narration of facts: for he gives an

undisguised revelation both of the assassinations, and of the

treason, of Antiphon.

How many of the Four Hundred oligarchs actually came to trial or

were punished, we have no means of knowing; but there is ground

for believing that none were put to death except Antiphon and

Archeptolemus, perhaps also Aristarchus, the betrayer of Œnoê to

the Bœotians. The latter is said to have been formally tried and

condemned:[125] though by what accident he afterwards came into the

power of the Athenians, after having once effected his escape, we are

not informed. The property of Peisander, he himself having escaped,

was confiscated, and granted either wholly or in part as a recompense

to Apollodorus, one of the assassins of Phrynichus:[126] probably the

property of the other conspicuous fugitive oligarchs was confiscated

also. Polystratus, another of the Four Hundred, who had only become

a member of that body a few days before its fall, was tried during

absence, which absence his defenders afterwards accounted for, by

saying that he had been wounded in the naval battle of Eretria, and

heavily fined. It seems that each of the Four Hundred was called on

to go through an audit and a trial of accountability, according to

the practice general at Athens with magistrates going out of office.

Such of them as did not appear to this trial were condemned to fine,

to exile, or to have their names recorded as traitors: but most of

those who did appear seem to have been acquitted; partly, we are

told, by bribes to the logistæ, or auditing officers, though some

were condemned either to fine or to partial political disability,

along with those hoplites who had been the most marked partisans of

the Four Hundred.[127]

[125] Xenoph. Hellenic. i, 7, 28. This is the natural meaning

of the passage; though it _may_ also mean that a day for trial

was named, but that Aristarchus did not appear. Aristarchus may

possibly have been made prisoner in one of the engagements which

took place between the garrison of Dekeleia and the Athenians.

The Athenian exiles in a body established themselves at Dekeleia,

and carried on constant war with the citizens at Athens: see

Lysias, De Bonis Niciæ Fratris, Or. xviii, ch. 4, p. 604: Pro

Polystrato, Orat. xx, c. 7, p. 688; Andokidês de Mysteriis, c.

17, p. 50.

[126] Lysias, De Oleâ Sacrâ, Or. vii, ch. ii, p. 263, Reisk.

[127] “Quadringentis ipsa dominatio fraudi non fuit; imo qui cum

Theramene et Aristocrate steterant, in magno honore habiti sunt:

omnibus autem rationes reddendæ fuerunt; qui solum vertissent,

proditores judicati sunt, nomina in publico proposita.”

(Wattenbach, De Quadringentorum Athenis Factione, p. 65.)

From the psephism of Patrokleidês, passed six years subsequently,

after the battle of Ægospotamos, we learn that the names of such

among the Four Hundred as did not stay to take their trial,

were engraved on pillars distinct from those who were tried and

condemned either to fine or to various disabilities; Andokidês de

Mysteriis, sects. 75-78: Καὶ ὅσα ὀνόματα τῶν τετρακοσίων τινὸς

ἐγγέγραπται, ἢ ἄλλο τι περὶ τῶν ἐν τῇ ὀλιγαρχίᾳ πραχθέντων ἔστι

που γεγραμμένον, ~πλὴν ὁπόσα ἐν στήλαις γέγραπται τῶν μὴ ἐνθάδε

μεινάντων~, etc. These last names, as the most criminal, were

excepted from the amnesty of Patrokleidês.

We here see that there were two categories among the condemned

Four Hundred: 1. Those who remained to stand the trial of

accountability, and were condemned either to a fine which they

could not pay, or to some positive disability. 2. Those who

did not remain to stand their trial, and were condemned _par

contumace_.

Along with the first category we find other names besides those

of the Four Hundred, found guilty as their partisans: ἄλλο

τι (ὄνομα) περὶ τῶν ἐν τῇ ὀλιγαρχίᾳ πραχθέντων. Among these

partisans we may rank the soldiers mentioned a little before,

sect. 75: οἱ στρατιῶται, οἷς ὅτι ~ἐπέμειναν ἐπὶ τῶν τυράννων~ ἐν

τῇ πόλει, τὰ μὲν ἄλλα ἦν ἅπερ τοῖς ἄλλοις πολίταις, εἰπεῖν δ᾽ ἐν

τῷ δήμῳ οὐκ ἐξῆν αὐτοῖς οὐδὲ βουλεῦσαι, where the preposition ἐπὶ

seems to signify not simply contemporaneousness, but a sort of

intimate connection, like the phrase ἐπὶ προστάτου οἰκεῖν (see

Matthiæ, Gr. Gr. sect. 584; Kühner, Gr. Gr. sect. 611).

The oration of Lysias pro Polystrato is on several points

obscure: but we make out that Polystratus was one of the Four

Hundred who did not come to stand his trial of accountability,

and was therefore condemned in his absence. Severe accusations

were made against him, and he was falsely asserted to be

the cousin, whereas he was in reality only fellow-demot, of

Phrynichus (sects. 20, 24, 11). The defence explains his

non-appearance, by saying that he had been wounded at the battle

of Eretria, and that the trial took place immediately after the

deposition of the Four Hundred (sects. 14, 24). He was heavily

fined, and deprived of his citizenship (sects. 15, 33, 38). It

would appear that the fine was greater than his property could

discharge; accordingly this fine, remaining unpaid, would become

chargeable upon his sons after his death, and unless they could

pay it, they would come into the situation of insolvent public

debtors to the state, which would debar them from the exercise of

the rights of citizenship, so long as the debt remained unpaid.

But while Polystratus was alive, his sons were not liable to the

state for the payment of his fine; and _they_ therefore still

remained citizens, and in the full exercise of their rights,

though _he_ was disfranchised. They were three sons, all of

whom had served with credit as hoplites, and even as horsemen,

in Sicily and elsewhere. In the speech before us, one of them

prefers a petition to the dikastery, that the sentence passed

against his father may be mitigated; partly on the ground that

it was unmerited, being passed while his father was afraid to

stand forward in his own defence, partly as recompense for

distinguished military services of all the three sons. The speech

was delivered at a time later than the battle of Kynossêma, in

the autumn of this year (sect. 31), but not very long after the

overthrow of the Four Hundred, and certainly, I think, long

before the Thirty; so that the assertion of Taylor (Vit. Lysiæ,

p. 55) that _all_ the extant orations of Lysias bear date after

the Thirty, must be received with this exception.

Indistinctly as we make out the particular proceedings of the

Athenian people at this restoration of the democracy, we know from

Thucydidês that their prudence and moderation were exemplary. The

eulogy, which he bestows in such emphatic terms upon their behavior

at this juncture, is indeed doubly remarkable:[128] first, because

it comes from an exile, not friendly to the democracy, and a strong

admirer of Antiphon; next, because the juncture itself was one

eminently trying to the popular morality, and likely to degenerate,

by almost natural tendency, into excess of reactionary vengeance and

persecution. The democracy was now one hundred years old, dating

from Kleisthenês, and fifty years old, even dating from the final

reforms of Ephialtês and Periklês; so that self-government and

political equality were a part of the habitual sentiment of every

man’s bosom, heightened in this case by the fact that Athens was not

merely a democracy, but an imperial democracy, having dependencies

abroad.[129] At a moment when, from unparalleled previous disasters,

she is barely able to keep up the struggle against her foreign

enemies, a small knot of her own wealthiest citizens, taking

advantage of her weakness, contrive, by a tissue of fraud and force

not less flagitious than skilfully combined, to concentrate in

their own hands the powers of the state, and to tear from their

countrymen the security against bad government, the sentiment of

equal citizenship, and the long-established freedom of speech. Nor

is this all: these conspirators not only plant an oligarchical

sovereignty in the senate-house, but also sustain that sovereignty by

inviting a foreign garrison from without, and by betraying Athens to

her Peloponnesian enemies. Two more deadly injuries it is impossible

to imagine; and from neither of them would Athens have escaped, if

her foreign enemy had manifested reasonable alacrity. Considering

the immense peril, the narrow escape, and the impaired condition in

which Athens was left, notwithstanding her escape, we might well

have expected in the people a violence of reactionary hostility such

as every calm observer, while making allowance for the provocation,

must nevertheless have condemned; and perhaps somewhat analogous to

that exasperation which, under very similar circumstances, had caused

the bloody massacres at Korkyra.[130] And when we find that this is

exactly the occasion which Thucydidês, an observer rather less than

impartial, selects to eulogize their good conduct and moderation,

we are made deeply sensible of the good habits which their previous

democracy must have implanted in them, and which now served as a

corrective to the impulse of the actual moment. They had become

familiar with the cementing force of a common sentiment; they had

learned to hold sacred the inviolability of law and justice, even

in respect to their worst enemy; and what was of not less moment,

the frequency and freedom of political discussion had taught them

not only to substitute the contentions of the tongue for those of

the sword, but also to conceive their situation with its present

and prospective liabilities, instead of being hurried away by blind

retrospective vengeance against the past.

[128] This testimony of Thucydidês is amply sufficient to

refute the vague assertions in the Oration xxv, of Lysias

(Δήμου Καταλυσ. Ἀπολ. sects. 34, 35), about great enormities

now committed by the Athenians; though Mr. Mitford copies these

assertions as if they were real history, referring them to a time

four years afterwards (History of Greece, ch. xx, s. 1, vol. iv,

p. 327).

[129] Thucyd. viii, 68.

[130] See about the events in Korkyra, vol. vi, ch. 1, p. 283.

There are few contrasts in Grecian history more memorable or more

instructive, than that between this oligarchical conspiracy,

conducted by some of the ablest hands at Athens, and the democratical

movement going on at the same time in Samos, among the Athenian

armament and the Samian citizens. In the former, we have nothing

but selfishness and personal ambition, from the beginning: first,

a partnership to seize for their own advantage the powers of

government; next, after this object has been accomplished, a breach

among the partners, arising out of disappointment alike selfish. We

find appeal made to nothing but the worst tendencies; either tricks

to practise upon the credulity of the people, or extra-judicial

murders to work upon their fear. In the latter, on the contrary,

the sentiment invoked is that of common patriotism, and equal,

public-minded sympathy. That which we read in Thucydidês,—when the

soldiers of the armament and the Samian citizens, pledged themselves

to each other by solemn oaths to uphold their democracy, to maintain

harmony and good feeling with each other, to prosecute energetically

the war against the Peloponnesians, and to remain at enmity with

the oligarchical conspirators at Athens,—is a scene among the most

dramatic and inspiriting which occurs in his history.[131] Moreover,

we recognize at Samos the same absence of reactionary vengeance as

at Athens, after the attack of the oligarchs, Athenian as well as

Samian, has been repelled; although those oligarchs had begun by

assassinating Hyperbolus and others. There is throughout this whole

democratical movement at Samos a generous exaltation of common

sentiment over personal, and at the same time an absence of ferocity

against opponents, such as nothing except democracy ever inspired in

the Grecian bosom.

[131] Thucyd. viii, 75.

It is, indeed, true that this was a special movement of generous

enthusiasm, and that the details of a democratical government

correspond to it but imperfectly. Neither in the life of an

individual, nor in that of a people, does the ordinary and every-day

movement appear at all worthy of those particular seasons in which

a man is lifted above his own level and becomes capable of extreme

devotion and heroism. Yet such emotions, though their complete

predominance is never otherwise than transitory, have their

foundation in veins of sentiment which are not even at other times

wholly extinct, but count among the manifold forces tending to

modify and improve, if they cannot govern, human action. Even their

moments of transitory predominance leave a luminous track behind,

and render the men who have passed through them more apt to conceive

again the same generous impulse, though in fainter degree. It is

one of the merits of Grecian democracy that it _did_ raise this

feeling of equal and patriotic communion: sometimes, and on rare

occasions, like the scene at Samos, with overwhelming intensity, so

as to impassion an unanimous multitude; more frequently, in feebler

tide, yet such as gave some chance to an honest and eloquent orator,

of making successful appeal to public feeling against corruption

or selfishness. If we follow the movements of Antiphon and his

fellow-conspirators at Athens, contemporaneous with the democratical

manifestations at Samos, we shall see that not only was no such

generous impulse included in it, but the success of their scheme

depended upon their being able to strike all common and active

patriotism out of the Athenian bosom. Under the “cold shade” of their

oligarchy—even if we suppose the absence of cruelty and rapacity,

which would probably soon have become rife had their dominion lasted,

as we shall presently learn from the history of the second oligarchy

of Thirty—no sentiment would have been left to the Athenian multitude

except fear, servility, or at best a tame and dumb sequacity to

leaders whom they neither chose nor controlled. To those who regard

different forms of government as distinguished from each other mainly

by the feelings which each tends to inspire in magistrates as well

as citizens, the contemporaneous scenes of Athens and Samos will

suggest instructive comparisons between Grecian oligarchy and Grecian

democracy.