The victory of Arginusæ afforded the most striking proof how much

the democratical energy of Athens could yet accomplish, in spite

of so many years of exhausting war. But far better would it have

been, if her energy on this occasion had been less efficacious and

successful. The defeat of the Peloponnesian fleet, and the death

of their admirable leader,—we must take the second as inseparable

from the first, since Kallikratidas was not the man to survive a

defeat,—were signal misfortunes to the whole Grecian world; and in

an especial manner, misfortunes to Athens herself. If Kallikratidas

had gained the victory and survived it, he would certainly have been

the man to close the Peloponnesian war; for Mitylênê must immediately

have surrendered, and Konon, with all the Athenian fleet there

blocked up, must have become his prisoners; which circumstance,

coming at the back of a defeat, would have rendered Athens disposed

to acquiesce in any tolerable terms of peace. Now to have the terms

dictated at a moment when her power was not wholly prostrate, by a

man like Kallikratidas, free from corrupt personal ambition and of

a generous Pan-Hellenic patriotism, would have been the best fate

which at this moment could befall her; while to the Grecian world

generally, it would have been an unspeakable benefit, that, in the

reorganization which it was sure to undergo at the close of the

war, the ascendant individual of the moment should be penetrated

with devotion to the great ideas of Hellenic brotherhood at home,

and Hellenic independence against the foreigner. The near prospect

of such a benefit was opened by that rare chance which threw

Kallikratidas into the command, enabled him not only to publish

his lofty profession of faith but to show that he was prepared

to act upon it, and for a time floated him on towards complete

success. Nor were the envious gods ever more envious, than when they

frustrated, by the disaster of Arginusæ, the consummation which they

had thus seemed to promise. The pertinence of these remarks will

be better understood in the next chapter, when I come to recount

the actual winding-up of the Peloponnesian war under the auspices

of the worthless, but able, Lysander. It was into his hands that

the command was retransferred, a transfer almost from the best of

Greeks to the worst. We shall then see how much the sufferings of

the Grecian world, and of Athens especially, were aggravated by his

individual temper and tendencies, and we shall then feel by contrast,

how much would have been gained if the commander armed with such

great power of dictation had been a Pan-Hellenic patriot. To have

the sentiment of that patriotism enforced, at a moment of break-up

and rearrangement throughout Greece, by the victorious leader of the

day, with single-hearted honesty and resolution, would have been a

stimulus to all the better feelings of the Grecian mind, such as no

other combination of circumstances could have furnished. The defeat

and death of Kallikratidas was thus even more deplorable as a loss to

Athens and Greece, than to Sparta herself. To his lofty character and

patriotism, even in so short a career, we vainly seek a parallel.

The news of the defeat was speedily conveyed to Eteonikus at Mitylênê

by the admiral’s signal-boat. As soon as he heard it, he desired

the crew of the signal-boat to say nothing to any one, but to go

again out of the harbor, and then return with wreaths and shouts of

triumph, crying out that Kallikratidas had gained the victory and had

destroyed or captured all the Athenian ships. All suspicion of the

reality was thus kept from Konon and the besieged, while Eteonikus

himself, affecting to believe the news, offered the sacrifice of

thanksgiving; but gave orders to all the triremes to take their meal

and depart afterwards without losing a moment, directing the masters

of the trading-ships also to put their property silently aboard, and

get off at the same time. And thus, with little or no delay, and

without the least obstruction from Konon, all these ships, triremes

and merchantmen, sailed out of the harbor and were carried off in

safety to Chios, the wind being fair. Eteonikus at the same time

withdrew his land-forces to Methymna, burning his camp. Konon, thus

finding himself unexpectedly at liberty, put to sea with his ships

when the wind had become calmer, and joined the main Athenian fleet,

which he found already on its way from Arginusæ to Mitylênê. The

latter presently came to Mitylênê, and from thence passed over to

make an attack on Chios; which attack proving unsuccessful, they went

forward to their ordinary station at Samos.[262]

[262] Xenoph. Hellen. i, 6, 38; Diodor. xiii, 100.

The news of the victory at Arginusæ diffused joy and triumph at

Athens. All the slaves who had served in the armament were manumitted

and promoted, according to promise, to the rights of Platæans at

Athens, a qualified species of citizenship. Yet the joy was poisoned

by another incident, which became known at the same time, raising

sentiments of a totally opposite character, and ending in one of the

most gloomy and disgraceful proceedings in all Athenian history.

Not only the bodies of the slain warriors floating about on the

water had not been picked up for burial, but the wrecks had not been

visited to preserve those who were yet living. The first of these two

points, even alone, would have sufficed to excite a painful sentiment

of wounded piety at Athens. But the second point, here an essential

part of the same omission, inflamed that sentiment into shame, grief,

and indignation of the sharpest character.

In the descriptions of this event, Diodorus and many other writers

take notice of the first point, either exclusively,[263] or at least

with slight reference to the second; which latter, nevertheless,

stands as far the gravest in the estimate of every impartial critic,

and was also the most violent in its effect upon Athenian feelings.

Twenty-five Athenian triremes had been ruined, along with most of

their crews; that is, lay heeled over or disabled, with their oars

destroyed, no masts, nor any means of moving; mere hulls, partially

broken by the impact of an enemy’s ship, and gradually filling and

sinking. The original crew of each was two hundred men. The field

of battle, if we may use that word for a space of sea, was strewed

with these wrecks; the men remaining on board being helpless and

unable to get away, for the ancient trireme carried no boat, nor any

aids for escape. And there were, moreover, floating about, men who

had fallen overboard, or were trying to save their lives by means

of accidental spars or empty casks. It was one of the privileges

of a naval victory, that the party who gained it could sail over

the field of battle, and thus assist their own helpless or wounded

comrades aboard the disabled ships,[264] taking captive, or sometimes

killing, the corresponding persons belonging to the enemy. According

even to the speech made in the Athenian public assembly afterwards,

by Euryptolemus, the defender of the accused generals, there were

twelve triremes with their crews on board lying in the condition just

described. This is an admission by the defence, and therefore the

minimum of the reality: there cannot possibly have been fewer, but

there were probably several more, out of the whole twenty-five stated

by Xenophon.[265] No step being taken to preserve them, the surviving

portion, wounded as well as unwounded, of these crews, were left

to be gradually drowned as each disabled ship went down. If any of

them escaped, it was by unusual goodness of swimming, by finding some

fortunate plank or spar, at any rate by the disgrace of throwing

away their arms, and by some method such as no wounded man would be

competent to employ.

[263] See the narrative of Diodorus (xiii, 100, 101, 102),

where nothing is mentioned except about picking up the floating

_dead_ bodies; about the crime, and offence in the eyes of the

people, of omitting to secure burial to so many _dead_ bodies.

He does not seem to have fancied that there were any _living

bodies_, or that it was a question between life and death to

so many of the crews. Whereas, if we follow the narrative of

Xenophon (Hellen. i, 7), we shall see that the question is put

throughout about picking up the _living men_, the _shipwrecked

men_, or the men belonging to, and still living aboard of, the

broken ships, ἀνελέσθαι τοὺς ναυαγοὺς, τοὺς δυστυχοῦντας, τοὺς

καταδύντας (Hellen. ii, 3, 32): compare, especially, ii, 3, 35,

πλεῖν ἐπὶ τὰς καταδεδυκυίας ναῦς καὶ τοὺς ἐπ᾽ αὐτῶν ἀνθρώπους

(i, 6, 36). The word ναυαγὸς does not mean a dead body, but a

_living man_ who has suffered shipwreck: ~Ναυαγὸς~ ἥκω, ξένος,

ἀσύλητον γένος (says Menelaus, Eurip. Helen. 457); also 407, Καὶ

νῦν τάλας ~ναυαγὸς~, ἀπολέσας φίλους Ἐξέπεσον ἐς γῆν τήνδε etc.;

again, 538. It corresponds with the Latin _naufragus_: “mersâ

rate naufragus assem Dum rogat, et pictâ se tempestate tuetur,”

(Juvenal, xiv, 301.) Thucydidês does not use the word ναυαγοὺς,

but speaks of τοὺς νεκροὺς καὶ τὰ ναυαγία, meaning by the latter

word the damaged ships, with every person and thing on board.

It is remarkable that Schneider and most other commentators on

Xenophon, Sturz in his Lexicon Xenophonteum (v. ἀναίρεσις),

Stallbaum ad Platon. Apol. Socrat. c. 20, p. 32, Sievers,

Comment. ad Xenoph. Hellen. p. 31, Forchhammer, Die Athener und

Sokratês, pp. 30-31, Berlin, 1837, and others, all treat this

event as if it were nothing but a question of picking up dead

bodies for sepulture. This is a complete misinterpretation of

Xenophon; not merely because the word ναυαγὸς, which he uses four

several times, means _a living person_, but because there are two

other passages, which leave absolutely no doubt about the matter:

Παρῆλθε δὲ τις ἐς τὴν ἐκκλησίαν, φάσκων ἐπὶ τεύχους ἀλφίτων

σωθῆναι· ~ἐπιστέλλειν δ᾽ αὐτῷ τοὺς ἀπολλυμένους, ἐὰν σωθῂ,

ἀπαγγεῖλαι τῷ δήμῳ, ὅτι οἱ στρατηγοὶ οὐκ ἀνείλοντο τοὺς ἀρίστους

ὑπὲρ τῆς πατρίδος γενομένους~. Again (ii, 3, 35), Theramenês,

when vindicating himself before the oligarchy of Thirty, two

years afterwards, for his conduct in accusing the generals, says

that the generals brought their own destruction upon themselves

by accusing him first, and by saying that the men on the disabled

ships might have been saved with proper diligence: φάσκοντες

γὰρ (the generals) ~οἷον τε εἶναι σῶσαι τοὺς ἄνδρας, προέμενοι

αὐτοὺς ἀπολέσθαι~, ἀποπλέοντες ᾤχοντο. These passages place

the point beyond dispute, that the generals were accused of

having neglected to save the lives of men on the point of being

drowned, and who by their neglect afterwards were drowned, not

of having neglected to pick up dead bodies for sepulture. The

misinterpretation of the commentators is here of the gravest

import. It alters completely the criticisms on the proceedings at

Athens.

[264] See Thucyd. i, 50, 51.

[265] Xenoph. Hellen. i, 6, 34. Ἀπώλοντο δὲ τῶν μὲν Ἀθηναίων νῆες

πέντε καὶ εἴκοσιν αὐτοῖς ἀνδράσιν, ἐκτὸς ὀλίγων τῶν πρὸς τὴν γῆν

προσενεχθέντων.

Schneider in his note, and Mr. Mitford in his History, express

surprise at the discrepancy between the number _twelve_,

which appears in the speech of Euryptolemus, and the number

_twenty-five_, given by Xenophon.

But, first, we are not to suppose Xenophon to guarantee those

assertions, as to matters of fact which he gives, as coming from

Euryptolemus; who as an advocate, speaking in the assembly, might

take great liberties with the truth.

Next, Xenophon speaks of the total number of ships ruined or

disabled in the action: Euryptolemus speaks of the total number

of wrecks afloat and capable of being visited so as to rescue the

sufferers, _at the subsequent moment_, when the generals directed

the squadron under Theramenês to go out for the rescue. It is to

be remembered that the generals went back to Arginusæ from the

battle, and there determined, according to their own statement,

to send out from thence a squadron for visiting the wrecks. A

certain interval of time must therefore have elapsed between the

close of the action and the order given to Theramenês. During

that interval, undoubtedly, _some_ of the disabled ships went

down, or came to pieces: if we are to believe Euryptolemus,

thirteen out of the twenty-five must have thus disappeared, so

that their crews were already drowned, and no more than twelve

remained floating for Theramenês to visit, even had he been ever

so active and ever so much favored by weather.

I distrust the statement of Euryptolemus, and believe that he

most probably underrated the number. But assuming him to be

correct, this will only show how much the generals were to

blame, as we shall hereafter remark, for not having seen to

the visitation of the wrecks _before_ they went back to their

moorings at Arginusæ.

The first letter from the generals which communicated the victory,

made known at the same time the loss sustained in obtaining it.

It announced, doubtless, the fact which we read in Xenophon, that

twenty-five Athenian triremes had been lost, with nearly all their

crews; specifying, we may be sure, the name of each trireme which

had so perished; for each trireme in the Athenian navy, like modern

ships, had its own name.[266] It mentioned, at the same time, that

no step whatever had been taken by the victorious survivors to save

their wounded and drowning countrymen on board the sinking ships.

A storm had arisen, such was the reason assigned, so violent as to

render all such intervention totally impracticable.[267]

[266] Boeckh, in his instructive volume, Urkunden über

das Attische See-Wesen (vii, p. 84, _seq._), gives, from

inscriptions, a long list of the names of Athenian triremes,

between B.C. 356 and 322. All the names are feminine: some

curious. We have a long list also of the Athenian ship-builders;

since the name of the builder is commonly stated in the

inscription along with that of the ship: ~Ἐυχáρις~, Ἀλεξιμάου

ἔργον; ~Σειρὴν~, Ἀριστοκράτους ἔργον; ~Ἐλευθερία~, Ἀρχενέω ἔργον;

~Ἐπίδειξις~, Λυσιστράτου ἔργον; ~Δημοκρατία~, Χαιρεστράτου ἔργον,

etc.

[267] Xenoph. Hellen. i, 7, 4. Ὅτι μὲν γὰρ οὐδενὸς ἄλλου

καθήπτοντο (οἱ στρατηγοὶ) ἐπιστολὴν ἐπεδείκνυε (Theramenês)

μαρτύριον· ἣν ἔπεμψαν οἱ στρατηγοὶ εἰς τὴν βουλὴν καὶ εἰς τὸν

δῆμον, ἄλλο οὐδὲν αἰτιώμενοι ἢ τὸν χειμῶνα.

It is so much the custom, in dealing with Grecian history, to presume

the Athenian people to be a set of children or madmen, whose feelings

it is not worth while to try and account for, that I have been

obliged to state these circumstances somewhat at length, in order to

show that the mixed sentiment excited at Athens by the news of the

battle of Arginusæ was perfectly natural and justifiable. Along with

joy for the victory, there was blended horror and remorse at the fact

that so many of the brave men who had helped to gain it had been left

to perish unheeded. The friends and relatives of the crews of these

lost triremes were of course foremost in the expression of such

indignant emotion. The narrative of Xenophon, meagre and confused

as well as unfair, presents this emotion as if it were something

causeless, factitious, pumped up out of the standing irascibility

of the multitude by the artifices of Theramenês, Kallixenus, and a

few others. But whatever may have been done by these individuals

to aggravate the public excitement, or pervert it to bad purposes,

assuredly the excitement itself was spontaneous, inevitable, and

amply justified. The very thought that so many of the brave partners

in the victory had been left to drown miserably on the sinking hulls,

without any effort on the part of their generals and comrades near

to rescue them, was enough to stir up all the sensibilities, public

as well as private, of the most passive nature, even in citizens who

were not related to the deceased, much more in those who were so. To

expect that the Athenians would be so absorbed in the delight of the

victory, and in gratitude to the generals who had commanded, as to

overlook such a desertion of perishing warriors, and such an omission

of sympathetic duty, is, in my judgment, altogether preposterous; and

would, if it were true, only establish one more vice in the Athenian

people, besides those which they really had, and the many more with

which they have been unjustly branded.

The generals, in their public letter, accounted for their omission by

saying that the violence of the storm was too great to allow them to

move. First, was this true as matter of fact? Next, had there been

time to discharge the duty, or at the least to try and discharge it,

before the storm came on to be so intolerable? These points required

examination. The generals, while honored with a vote of thanks for

the victory, were superseded, and directed to come home; all except

Konon, who having been blocked up at Mitylênê, was not concerned in

the question. Two new colleagues, Philoklês and Adeimantus, were

named to go out and join him.[268] The generals probably received

the notice of their recall at Samos, and came home in consequence;

reaching Athens seemingly about the end of September or beginning

of October, the battle of Arginusæ having been fought in August 406

B.C. Two of the generals, however, Protomachus and Aristogenês,

declined to come: warned of the displeasure of the people, and not

confiding in their own case to meet it, they preferred to pay the

price of voluntary exile. The other six, Periklês, Lysias, Diomedon,

Erasinidês, Aristokratês, and Thrasyllus,—Archestratus, one of the

original ten, having died at Mitylênê,[269]—came without their two

colleagues; an unpleasant augury for the result.

[268] Xenoph. Hellen. i, 7, 1; Diodor. xiii, 101: ἐπὶ μὲν τῇ νίκῃ

τοὺς στρατηγοὺς ἐπῄνουν, ἐπὶ δὲ τῷ περιϊδεῖν ἀτάφους τοὺς ὑπὲρ

τῆς ἡγεμονίας τετελευτηκότας χαλεπῶς διετέθησαν.

I have before remarked that Diodorus makes the mistake of talking

about nothing but _dead bodies_, in place of the living ναυαγοὶ

spoken of by Xenophon.

[269] Lysias, Orat. xxi (Ἀπολογία Δωροδοκίας), sect. vii.

On their first arrival, Archedêmus, at that time an acceptable

popular orator, and exercising some magistracy or high office which

we cannot distinctly make out,[270] imposed upon Erasinidês a fine to

that limited amount which was within the competence of magistrates

without the sanction of the dikastery, and accused him besides before

the dikastery; partly for general misconduct in his command, partly

on the specific charge of having purloined some public money on its

way from the Hellespont. Erasinidês was found guilty, and condemned

to be imprisoned, either until the money was made good, or perhaps

until farther examination could take place into the other alleged

misdeeds.

[270] Xenoph. Hellen. i, 7, 2. Archedêmus is described as τῆς

Δεκελείας ἐπιμελούμενος. What is meant by these words, none

of the commentators can explain in a satisfactory manner. The

text must be corrupt. Some conjecture like that of Dobree seems

plausible; some word like τῆς δεκάτης or τῆς δεκατεύσεως, having

reference to the levying of the tithe in the Hellespont; which

would furnish reasonable ground for the proceeding of Archedêmus

against Erasinidês.

The office held by Archedêmus, whatever it was, must have been

sufficiently exalted to confer upon him the power of imposing the

fine of limited amount called ἐπιβολή.

I hesitate to identify this Archedêmus with the person of that

name mentioned in the Memorabilia of Xenophon, ii, 9. There seems

no similarity at all in the points of character noticed.

The popular orator Archedêmus was derided by Eupolis and

Aristophanês as having sore eyes, and as having got his

citizenship without a proper title to it (see Aristophan. Ran.

419-588, with the Scholia). He is also charged, in a line of an

oration of Lysias, with having embezzled the public money (Lysias

cont. Alkibiad. sect. 25, Orat. xiv).

This trial of Erasinidês took place before the generals were

summoned before the senate to give their formal exposition respecting

the recent battle, and the subsequent neglect of the drowning men.

And it might almost seem as if Archedêmus wished to impute to

Erasinidês exclusively, apart from the other generals, the blame of

that neglect; a distinction, as will hereafter appear, not wholly

unfounded. If, however, any such design was entertained, it did not

succeed. When the generals went to explain their case before the

senate, the decision of that body was decidedly unfavorable to all

of them, though we have no particulars of the debate which passed.

On the proposition of the senator Timokratês,[271] a resolution was

passed that the other five generals present should be placed in

custody, as well as Erasinidês, and thus handed over to the public

assembly for consideration of the case.[272]

[271] Xenoph. Hellen. i, 7, 3. Τιμοκράτους δ᾽ εἰπόντος, ὅτι ~καὶ

τοὺς ἄλλους χρὴ δεθέντας ἐς τὸν δῆμον παραδοθῆναι~, ἡ βουλὴ ἔδησε.

[272] Xenoph. Hellen. i, 7, 4.

The public assembly was accordingly held, and the generals were

brought before it. We are here told who it was that appeared as their

principal accuser, along with several others; though unfortunately

we are left to guess what were the topics on which they insisted.

Theramenês was the man who denounced them most vehemently, as guilty

of leaving the crews of the disabled triremes to be drowned, and

of neglecting all efforts to rescue them. He appealed to their own

public letter to the people, officially communicating the victory;

in which letter they made no mention of having appointed any one to

undertake the duty, nor of having any one to blame for not performing

it. The omission, therefore, was wholly their own: they might have

performed it, and ought to be punished for so cruel a breach of duty.

The generals could not have a more formidable enemy than Theramenês.

We have had occasion to follow him, during the revolution of the

Four Hundred, as a long-sighted as well as tortuous politician: he

had since been in high military command, a partaker in victory with

Alkibiadês at Kyzikus and elsewhere; and he had served as trierarch

in the victory of Arginusæ itself. His authority therefore was

naturally high, and told for much, when he denied the justification

which the generals had set up founded on the severity of the storm.

According to him, they might have picked up the drowning men,

and ought to have done so: either they might have done so before

the storm came on, or there never was any storm of sufficient

gravity to prevent them: upon their heads lay the responsibility

of omission.[273] Xenophon, in his very meagre narrative, does not

tell us, in express words, that Theramenês contradicted the generals

as to the storm. But that he did so contradict them, point blank,

is implied distinctly in that which Xenophon alleges him to have

said. It seems also that Thrasybulus—another trierarch at Arginusæ,

and a man not only of equal consequence, but of far more estimable

character—concurred with Theramenês in this same accusation of the

generals,[274] though not standing forward so prominently in the

case. He too therefore must have denied the reality of the storm; or

at least, the fact of its being so instant after the battle, or so

terrible as to forbid all effort for the relief of these drowning

seamen.

[273] Xenoph. Hellen. i, 7, 4. Μετὰ δὲ ταῦτα, ἐκκλησία ἐγένετο,

ἐν ᾗ τῶν στρατηγῶν ~κατηγόρουν ἄλλοι τε καὶ Θηραμένης μάλιστα,

δικαίους εἶναι λέγων λόγον ὑποσχεῖν, διότι οὐκ ἀνείλοντο τοὺς

ναυαγούς~. Ὅτι μὲν γὰρ ~οὐδενὸς ἄλλου~ καθήπτοντο, ἐπιστολὴν

ἐπεδείκνυε μαρτύριον· καὶ ἔπεμψαν οἱ στρατηγοὶ ἐς τὴν βουλὴν καὶ

ἐς τὸν δῆμον, ἄλλο οὐδὲν αἰτιώμενοι ἢ τὸν χειμῶνα.

[274] That Thrasybulus concurred with Theramenês in accusing the

generals, is intimated in the reply which Xenophon represents the

generals to have made (i, 7, 6): Καὶ οὐχ, ~ὅτι γε κατηγοροῦσιν

ἡμῶν~, ἔφασαν, ψευσόμεθα φάσκοντες ~αὐτοὺς αἰτίους~ εἶναι, ἀλλὰ

τὸ μέγεθος τοῦ χειμῶνος εἶναι τὸ κωλῦσαν τὴν ἀναίρεσιν.

The plural κατηγοροῦσιν shows that Thrasybulus as well as

Theramenês stood forward to accuse the generals, though the

latter was the most prominent and violent.

The case of the generals, as it stood before the Athenian public, was

completely altered when men like Theramenês and Thrasybulus stood

forward as their accusers. Doubtless what was said by these two had

been said by others before, in the senate and elsewhere; but it was

now publicly advanced by men of influence, as well as perfectly

cognizant of the fact. And we are thus enabled to gather indirectly,

what the narrative of Xenophon, studiously keeping back the case

against the generals, does not directly bring forward, that though

the generals affirmed the storm, there were others present who denied

it, thus putting in controversy the matter of fact which formed

their solitary justification. Moreover, we come—in following the

answer made by the generals in the public assembly to Theramenês and

Thrasybulus—to a new point in the case, which Xenophon lets out as

it were indirectly, in that confused manner which pervades his whole

narrative of the transaction. It is, however, a new point of extreme

moment. The generals replied that if any one was to blame for not

having picked up the drowning men, it was Theramenês and Thrasybulus

themselves; for it was they two to whom, together with various other

trierarchs and with forty-eight triremes, the generals had expressly

confided the performance of this duty; it was they two who were

responsible for its omission, not the generals. Nevertheless they,

the generals, made no charge against Theramenês and Thrasybulus,

well knowing that the storm had rendered the performance of the

duty absolutely impossible, and that it was therefore a complete

justification for one as well as for the other. They, the generals,

at least could do no more than direct competent men like these two

trierarchs to perform the task, and assign to them an adequate

squadron for the purpose; while they themselves with the main fleet

went to attack Eteonikus, and relieve Mitylênê. Diomedon, one of

their number, had wished after the battle to employ all the ships in

the fleet for the preservation of the drowning men, without thinking

of anything else until that was done. Erasinidês, on the contrary,

wished that all the fleet should move across at once against

Mitylênê; Thrasyllus said that they had ships enough to do both at

once. Accordingly, it was agreed that each general should set apart

three ships from his division, to make a squadron of forty-eight

ships under Thrasybulus and Theramenês. In making these statements,

the generals produced pilots and others, men actually in the battle

as witnesses in general confirmation.

Here, then, in this debate before the assembly, were two new and

important points publicly raised. First, Theramenês and Thrasybulus

denounced the generals as guilty of the death of these neglected

men; next, the generals affirmed that they had delegated the duty to

Theramenês and Thrasybulus themselves. If this latter were really

true, how came the generals, in their official despatch first sent

home, to say nothing about it? Euryptolemus, an advocate of the

generals, speaking in a subsequent stage of the proceedings, though

we can hardly doubt that the same topics were also urged in this very

assembly, while blaming the generals for such omission, ascribed it

to an ill-placed good-nature on their part, and reluctance to bring

Theramenês and Thrasybulus under the displeasure of the people. Most

of the generals, he said, were disposed to mention the fact in their

official despatch, but were dissuaded from doing so by Periklês and

Diomedon; an unhappy dissuasion, in his judgment, which Theramenês

and Thrasybulus had ungratefully requited by turning round and

accusing them all.[275]

[275] Xenoph. Hellen. i, 7, 17. Euryptolemus says: Κατηγορῶ μὲν

οὖν αὐτῶν ὅτι ~ἔπεισαν τοὺς ξυνάρχοντας~, βουλομένους πέμπειν

γράμματα τῇ τε βουλῇ καὶ ὑμῖν ὅτι ἐπέταξαν τῷ Θηραμένει καὶ

Θρασυβούλῳ τετταράκοντα καὶ ἑπτὰ τριήρεσιν ἀνελέσθαι τοὺς

ναυαγοὺς, οἱ δὲ οὐκ ἀνείλοντο. Εἶτα νῦν τὴν αἰτίαν κοινὴν

ἔχουσιν, ἐκείνων ἰδίᾳ ἁμαρτόντων· καὶ ἀντὶ τῆς τότε φιλανθρωπίας,

νῦν ὑπ᾽ ἐκείνων τε καὶ τινων ἄλλων ἐπιβουλευόμενοι κινδυνεύουσιν

ἀπολέσθαι.

We must here construe ἔπεισαν as equivalent to ἀνέπεισαν or

μετέπεισαν placing a comma after ξυνάρχοντας. This is unusual,

but not inadmissible. To persuade a man to alter his opinion or

his conduct, might be expressed by πείθειν, though it would more

properly be expressed by ἀναπείθειν; see ἐπείσθη, Thucyd. iii, 32.

This remarkable statement of Euryptolemus, as to the intention of

the generals in wording the official despatch, brings us to a closer

consideration of what really passed between them on the one side, and

Theramenês and Thrasybulus on the other; which is difficult to make

out clearly, but which Diodorus represents in a manner completely

different from Xenophon. Diodorus states that the generals were

prevented partly by the storm, partly by the fatigue and reluctance

and alarm of their own seamen, from taking any steps to pick up, what

he calls, the dead bodies for burial; that they suspected Theramenês

and Thrasybulus, who went to Athens before them, of intending to

accuse them before the people, and that for this reason they sent

home intimation to the people that they had given special orders to

these two trierarchs to perform the duty. When these letters were

read in the public assembly, Diodorus says, the Athenians were

excessively indignant against Theramenês; who, however, defended

himself effectively and completely, throwing the blame back upon

the generals. He was thus forced, against his own will, and in

self-defence, to become the accuser of the generals, carrying with

him his numerous friends and partisans at Athens. And thus the

generals, by trying to ruin Theramenês, finally brought condemnation

upon themselves.[276]

[276] Diodor. xiii, 100, 101.

Such is the narrative of Diodorus, in which it is implied that the

generals never really gave any special orders to Theramenês and

Thrasybulus, but falsely asserted afterwards that they had done

so, in order to discredit the accusation of Theramenês against

themselves. To a certain extent, this coincides with what was

asserted by Theramenês himself, two years afterwards, in his defence

before the Thirty, that he was not the first to accuse the generals;

they were the first to accuse him; affirming that they had ordered

him to undertake the duty, and that there was no sufficient reason to

hinder him from performing it; they were the persons who distinctly

pronounced the performance of the duty to be possible, while he had

said, from the beginning, that the violence of the storm was such

as even to forbid any movement in the water; much more, to prevent

rescue of the drowning men.[277]

[277] Xenoph. Hellen. ii, 3, 35. If Theramenês really did say, in

the actual discussions at Athens on the conduct of the generals,

that which he here asserts himself to have said, namely, that

the violence of the storm rendered it impossible for any one to

put to sea, his accusation against the generals must have been

grounded upon alleging that they might have performed the duty

at an earlier moment; before they came back from the battle;

before the storm arose; before they gave the order to him. But I

think it most probable that he misrepresented at the later period

what he had said at the earlier, and that he did not, during the

actual discussions, admit the sufficiency of the storm as fact

and justification.

Taking the accounts of Xenophon and Diodorus together, in combination

with the subsequent accusation and defence of Theramenês at the

time of the Thirty, and blending them so as to reject as little as

possible of either, I think it probable that the order for picking

up the exposed men was really given by the generals to Theramenês,

Thrasybulus, and other trierarchs; but that, first, a fatal interval

was allowed to elapse between the close of the battle and the giving

of such order; next, that the forty-eight triremes talked of for

the service, and proposed to be furnished by drafts of three out

of each general’s division, were probably never assembled; or, if

they assembled, were so little zealous in the business as to satisfy

themselves very easily that the storm was too dangerous to brave,

and that it was now too late. For when we read the version of the

transaction, even as given by Euryptolemus, we see plainly that none

of the generals, except Diomedon, was eager in the performance of the

task. It is a memorable fact, that of all the eight generals, not one

of them undertook the business in person, although its purpose was

to save more than a thousand drowning comrades from death.[278] In a

proceeding where every interval even of five minutes was precious,

they go to work in the most dilatory manner, by determining that each

general shall furnish three ships, and no more, from his division.

Now we know from the statement of Xenophon, that, towards the close

of the battle, the ships on both sides were much dispersed.[279] Such

collective direction therefore would not be quickly realized; nor,

until all the eight fractions were united, together with the Samians

and others, so as to make the force complete, would Theramenês

feel bound to go out upon his preserving visitation. He doubtless

disliked the service, as we see that most of the generals did; while

the crews also, who had just got to land after having gained a

victory, were thinking most about rest and refreshment, and mutual

congratulations.[280] All were glad to find some excuse for staying

in their moorings instead of going out again to buffet what was

doubtless unfavorable weather. Partly from this want of zeal, coming

in addition to the original delay, partly from the bad weather, the

duty remained unexecuted, and the seamen on board the damaged ships

were left to perish unassisted.

[278] The total number of ships lost with all their crews was

twenty-five, of which the aggregate crews, speaking in round

numbers, would be five thousand men. Now we may fairly calculate

that each one of the disabled ships would have on board half her

crew, or one hundred men, after the action; not more than half

would have been slain or drowned in the combat. Even ten disabled

ships would thus contain one thousand living men, wounded and

unwounded. It will be seen, therefore, that I have understated

the number of lives in danger.

[279] Xenoph. Hellen. i, 6, 33.

[280] We read in Thucydidês (vii, 73) how impossible it was to

prevail on the Syracusans to make any military movement after

their last maritime victory in the Great Harbor, when they were

full of triumph, felicitation, and enjoyment.

They had visited the wrecks and picked up both the living men on

board and the floating bodies _before_ they went ashore. It is

remarkable that the Athenians on that occasion were so completely

overpowered by the immensity of their disaster, that they never

even thought of asking permission, always granted by the victors

when asked, to pick up their dead or visit their wrecks (viii,

72).

But presently arose the delicate, yet unavoidable question, “How are

we to account for the omission of this sacred duty, in our official

despatch to the Athenian people?” Here the generals differed among

themselves, as Euryptolemus expressly states: Periklês and Diomedon

carried it, against the judgment of their colleagues, that in the

official despatch, which was necessarily such as could be agreed to

by all, nothing should be said about the delegation to Theramenês

and others; the whole omission being referred to the terrors of

the storm. But though such was the tenor of the official report,

there was nothing to hinder the generals from writing home and

communicating individually with their friends in Athens as each might

think fit; and in these unofficial communications, from them as well

as from others who went home from the armament,—communications not

less efficacious than the official despatch, in determining the tone

of public feeling at Athens,—they did not disguise their convictions

that the blame of not performing the duty belonged to Theramenês.

Having thus a man like Theramenês to throw the blame upon, they did

not take pains to keep up the story of the intolerable storm, but

intimated that there had been nothing to hinder _him_ from performing

the duty if he had chosen. It is this which he accuses them of having

advanced against him, so as to place him as the guilty man before

the Athenian public: it was this which made him, in retaliation and

self-defence, violent and unscrupulous in denouncing them as the

persons really blamable.[281] As they had made light of this alleged

storm, in casting the blame upon him, so he again made light of

it, and treated it as an insufficient excuse, in his denunciations

against them; taking care to make good use of their official

despatch, which virtually exonerated him, by its silence, from any

concern in the matter.

[281] Xenoph. Hellen. ii, 3, 32. The light in which I here place

the conduct of Theramenês is not only coincident with Diodorus,

but with the representations of Kritias, the violent enemy of

Theramenês under the government of the Thirty, just before he was

going to put Theramenês to death: Οὗτος δέ τοι ἐστὶν, ὃς ταχθεὶς

ἀνελέσθαι ὑπὸ τῶν στρατηγῶν τοὺς καταδύντας Ἀθηναίων ἐν τῇ περὶ

Λέσβον ναυμαχίᾳ, ~αὐτὸς οὐκ ἀνελόμενος~ ὅμως τῶν στρατηγῶν

κατηγορῶν ἀπέκτεινεν αὐτοὺς, ~ἵνα αὐτὸς περισωθείη~. (Xen. ut

sup.)

Here it stands admitted that the first impression at Athens was,

as Diodorus states expressly, that Theramenês was ordered to pick

up the men on the wrecks, might have done it if he had taken

proper pains, and was to blame for not doing it. Now how did this

impression arise? Of course, through communications received from

the armament itself. And when Theramenês, in his reply, says

that the generals themselves made communications in the same

tenor, there is no reason why we should not believe him, in spite

of their joint official despatch, wherein they made no mention

of him, and in spite of their speech in the public assembly

afterwards, where the previous official letter fettered them, and

prevented them from accusing him, forcing them to adhere to the

statement first made, of the all-sufficiency of the storm.

The main facts which we here find established, even by the

enemies of Theramenês, are: 1. That Theramenês accused the

generals because he found himself in danger of being punished for

the neglect. 2. That his enemies, who charged him with the breach

of duty, did not admit the storm as an excuse for _him_.

Such is the way in which I conceive the relations to have stood

between the generals on one side and Theramenês on the other, having

regard to all that is said both in Xenophon and in Diodorus. But the

comparative account of blame and recrimination between these two

parties is not the most important feature of the case. The really

serious inquiry is, as to the intensity or instant occurrence of the

storm. Was it really so instant and so dangerous, that the duty of

visiting the wrecks could not be performed, either before the ships

went back to Arginusæ, or afterwards? If we take the circumstances of

the case, and apply them to the habits and feelings of the English

navy, if we suppose more than one thousand seamen, late comrades in

the victory, distributed among twenty damaged and helpless hulls,

awaiting the moment when these hulls would fill and consign them

all to a watery grave, it must have been a frightful storm indeed,

which would force an English admiral even to go back to his moorings

leaving these men so exposed, or which would deter him, if he were

at his moorings, from sending out the very first and nearest ships

at hand to save them. And granting the danger to be such that he

hesitated to give the order, there would probably be found officers

and men to volunteer, against the most desperate risks, in a cause

so profoundly moving all their best sympathies. Now, unfortunately

for the character of Athenian generals, officers, and men, at

Arginusæ,—for the blame belongs, though in unequal proportions,

to all of them,—there exists here strong presumptive proof that

the storm on this occasion was not such as would have deterred any

Grecian seamen animated by an earnest and courageous sense of duty.

We have only to advert to the conduct and escape of Eteonikus and

the Peloponnesian fleet from Mitylênê to Chios; recollecting that

Mitylênê was separated from the promontory of Kanê on the Asiatic

mainland, and from the isles of Arginusæ, by a channel only one

hundred and twenty stadia broad,[282] about fourteen English miles.

Eteonikus, apprized of the defeat by the Peloponnesian official

signal-boat, desired that boat to go out of the harbor, and then to

sail into it again with deceptive false news, to the effect that the

Peloponnesians had gained a complete victory: he then directed his

seamen, after taking their dinners, to depart immediately, and the

masters of the merchant vessels silently to put their cargoes aboard,

and get to sea also. The whole fleet, triremes and merchant vessels

both, thus went out of the harbor of Mitylênê and made straight for

Chios, whither they arrived in safety; the merchant vessels carrying

their sails, and having what Xenophon calls “a fair wind.”[283] Now

it is scarcely possible that all this could have taken place, had

there blown during this time an intolerable storm between Mitylênê

and Arginusæ. If the weather was such as to allow of the safe transit

of Eteonikus and all his fleet from Mitylênê to Chios, it was not

such as to form a legitimate obstacle capable of deterring any

generous Athenian seaman, still less a responsible officer, from

saving his comrades exposed on the wrecks near Arginusæ. Least of all

was it such as ought to have hindered the attempt to save them, even

if such attempt had proved unsuccessful. And here the gravity of the

sin consists, in having remained inactive while the brave men on the

wrecks were left to be drowned. All this reasoning, too, assumes the

fleet to have been already brought back to its moorings at Arginusæ,

discussing only how much was practicable to effect after that moment,

and leaving untouched the no less important question, why the

drowning men were not picked up before the fleet went back.

[282] Strabo, xiii, p. 617.

[283] Xenoph. Hellen. i, 6, 37. Ἐτεόνικος δὲ, ἐπειδὴ ἐκεῖνοι (the

signal-boat, with news of the pretended victory) κατέπλεον, ἔθυε

τὰ εὐαγγέλια, καὶ τοῖς στρατιώταις παρήγγειλε δειπνοποιεῖσθαι,

καὶ τοῖς ἐμπόροις, τὰ χρήματα σιωπῇ ἐνθεμένους ἐς τὰ πλοῖα

ἀποπλεῖν ἐς Χίον, ἦν δὲ τὸ ~πνεῦμα οὔριον~, καὶ τὰς τριήρεις

τὴν ταχίστην. Αὐτὸς δὲ τὸ πεζὸν ἀπῆγεν ἐς τὴν Μήθυμνην, τὸ

στρατόπεδον ἐμπρήσας. Κόνων δὲ καθελκύσας τὰς ναῦς, ἐπεὶ οἵ τε

πολέμιοι ἀπεδεδράκεσαν, ~καὶ ὁ ἄνεμος εὐδιαίτερος ἦν~, ἀπαντήσας

τοῖς Ἀθηναίοις ἤδη ἀνηγμένοις ἐκ τῶν Ἀργινουσῶν, ἔφρασε τὰ περὶ

τοῦ Ἐτεονίκου.

One sees, by the expression used by Xenophon respecting the

proceedings of Konon, that he went out of the harbor “as soon as

the wind became calmer;” that it blew a strong wind, though in

a direction favorable to carry the fleet of Eteonikus to Chios.

Konon was under no particular motive to go out immediately:

he could afford to wait until the wind became quite calm.

The important fact is, that wind and weather were perfectly

compatible with, indeed even favorable to, the escape of the

Peloponnesian fleet from Mitylênê to Chios.

I have thought it right to go over these considerations,

indispensable to the fair appreciation of this memorable event, in

order that the reader may understand the feelings of the assembly and

the public of Athens, when the generals stood before them, rebutting

the accusations of Theramenês and recriminating in their turn against

him. The assembly had before them the grave and deplorable fact, that

several hundreds of brave seamen had been suffered to drown on the

wrecks, without the least effort to rescue them. In explanation of

this fact, they had not only no justification, at once undisputed

and satisfactory, but not even any straightforward, consistent, and

uncontradicted statement of facts. There were discrepancies among the

generals themselves, comparing their official with their unofficial,

as well as with their present statements, and contradictions between

them and Theramenês, each having denied the sufficiency of the

storm as a vindication for the neglect imputed to the other. It

was impossible that the assembly could be satisfied to acquit the

generals on such a presentation of the case; nor could they well know

how to apportion the blame between them and Theramenês. The relatives

of the men left to perish would be doubtless in a state of violent

resentment against one or other of the two, perhaps against both.

Under these circumstances, it could hardly have been the sufficiency

of their defence,—it must have been rather the apparent generosity of

their conduct towards Theramenês, in formally disavowing all charge

of neglect against him, though he had advanced a violent charge

against them,—which produced the result that we read in Xenophon.

The defence of the generals was listened to with favor and seemed

likely to prevail with the majority.[284] Many individuals present

offered themselves as bail for the generals, in order that the latter

might be liberated from custody: but the debate had been so much

prolonged—we see from hence that there must have been a great deal

of speaking—that it was now dark, so that no vote could be taken,

because the show of hands was not distinguishable. It was therefore

resolved to adjourn the whole decision until another assembly;

but that in the mean time the senate should meet, should consider

what would be the proper mode of trying and judging the generals,

and should submit a proposition to that effect to the approaching

assembly.

[284] Xenoph. Hellen. i, 7, 5-7. Μετὰ δὲ ταῦτα οἱ στρατηγοὶ

βραχέα ἕκαστος ἀπελογήσατο, οὐ γὰρ προὐτέθη σφίσι λόγος κατὰ τὸν

νόμον....

Τοιαῦτα λέγοντες ~ἔπειθον~ τὸν δῆμον. The imperfect tense

~ἔπειθον~ must be noticed: “they _were persuading_,” or, _seemed

in the way to persuade_, the people; not ἔπεισαν the aorist,

which would mean that they actually did satisfy the people.

The first words here cited from Xenophon, do not imply that the

generals were checked or abridged in their liberty of speaking

before the public assembly, but merely that no judicial trial and

defence were granted to them. In judicial defence, the person

accused had a measured time for defence—by the clepsydra, or

water-clock—allotted to him, during which no one could interrupt

him; a time doubtless much longer than any single speaker would

be permitted to occupy in the public assembly.

It so chanced that immediately after this first assembly, during

the interval before the meeting of the senate or the holding of the

second assembly, the three days of the solemn annual festival called

Apaturia intervened; early days in the month of October. This was

the characteristic festival of the Ionic race; handed down from a

period anterior to the constitution of Kleisthenês, and to the ten

new tribes each containing so many demes, and bringing together the

citizens in their primitive unions of family, gens, phratry, etc.,

the aggregate of which had originally constituted the four Ionic

tribes, now superannuated. At the Apaturia, the family ceremonies

were gone through; marriages were enrolled, acts of adoption were

promulgated and certified, the names of youthful citizens first

entered on the gentile and phratric roll; sacrifices were jointly

celebrated by these family assemblages to Zeus Phratrius, Athênê,

and other deities, accompanied with much festivity and enjoyment. A

solemnity like this, celebrated every year, naturally provoked in

each of these little unions, questions of affectionate interest: “Who

are those that were with us last year, but are not here now? The

absent, where are they? The deceased, where or how did they die?” Now

the crews of the twenty-five Athenian triremes, lost at the battle

of Arginusæ, at least all those among them who were freemen, had

been members of some one of these family unions, and were missed on

this occasion. The answer to the above inquiry, in their case, would

be one alike melancholy and revolting: “They fought like brave men,

and had their full share in the victory: their trireme was broken,

disabled, and made a wreck, in the battle: aboard this wreck they

were left to perish, while their victorious generals and comrades

made not the smallest effort to preserve them.” To hear this about

fathers, brothers, and friends,—and to hear it in the midst of a

sympathizing family circle,—was well calculated to stir up an agony

of shame, sorrow, and anger, united; an intolerable sentiment, which

required as a satisfaction, and seemed even to impose as a duty, the

punishment of those who had left these brave comrades to perish. Many

of the gentile unions, in spite of the usually festive and cheerful

character of the Apaturia, were so absorbed by this sentiment, that

they clothed themselves in black garments and shaved their heads in

token of mourning, resolving to present themselves in this guise at

the coming assembly, and to appease the manes of their abandoned

kinsmen by every possible effort to procure retribution on the

generals.[285]

[285] Lysias puts into one of his orations a similar expression

respecting the feeling at Athens towards these generals;

ἡγούμενοι χρῆναι τῇ τῶν τεθνεώτων ἀρετῇ παρ᾽ ἐκείνων δίκην

λαβεῖν; Lysias cont. Eratosth. s. 37.

Xenophon in his narrative describes this burst of feeling at the

Apaturia as false and factitious, and the men in mourning as a number

of hired impostors, got up by the artifices of Theramenês,[286] to

destroy the generals. But the case was one in which no artifice was

needed. The universal and self-acting stimulants of intense human

sympathy stand here so prominently marked, that it is not simply

superfluous but even misleading, to look behind for the gold and

machinations of a political instigator. Theramenês might do all that

he could to turn the public displeasure against the generals, and

to prevent it from turning against himself: it is also certain that

he did much to annihilate their defence. He may thus have had some

influence in directing the sentiment against them, but he could have

had little or none in creating it. Nay, it is not too much to say

that no factitious agency of this sort could ever have prevailed on

the Athenian public to desecrate such a festival as the Apaturia, by

all the insignia of mourning. If they did so, it could only have been

through some internal emotion alike spontaneous and violent, such as

the late event was well calculated to arouse.

[286] Xenoph. Hellen. i. 7, 8. Οἱ οὖν περὶ τὸν Θηραμένην

παρεσκεύασαν ἀνθρώπους ~μέλανα ἱμάτια ἔχοντας, καὶ ἐν χρῷ

κεκαρμένους πολλοὺς ἐν ταύτῃ τῇ ἑορτῇ~, ἵνα πρὸς τὴν ἐκκλησίαν

ἥκοιεν, ~ὡς δὴ ξυγγενεῖς ὄντες τῶν ἀπολωλότων~.

Here I adopt substantially the statement of Diodorus, who

gives a juster and more natural description of the proceeding;

representing it as a spontaneous action of mournful and

vindictive feeling on the part of the kinsmen of the deceased

(xiii, 101).

Other historians of Greece, Dr. Thirlwall not excepted (Hist.

of Greece, ch. xxx, vol. iv, pp. 117-125), follow Xenophon

on this point. They treat the intense sentiment against the

generals at Athens as “popular prejudices;” “excitement produced

by the artifices of Theramenês,” (Dr. Thirlwall, pp. 117-124.)

“Theramenês (he says) hired a great number of persons to attend

the festival, dressed in black, and with their heads shaven, as

mourning for kinsmen whom they had lost in the sea-fight.”

Yet Dr. Thirlwall speaks of the narrative of Xenophon in the

most unfavorable terms; and certainly in terms no worse than it

deserves (see p. 116, the note): “It looks as if Xenophon had

_purposely involved the whole affair in obscurity_.” Compare also

p. 123, where his criticism is equally severe.

I have little scruple in deserting the narrative of Xenophon, of

which I think as meanly as Dr. Thirlwall, so far as to supply,

without contradicting any of his main allegations, an omission

which I consider capital and preponderant. I accept his account

of what actually passed at the festival of the Apaturia, but

I deny his statement of the manœuvres of Theramenês as the

producing cause.

Most of the obscurity which surrounds these proceedings at

Athens arises from the fact, that no notice has been taken of

the intense and spontaneous emotion which the desertion of the

men on the wrecks was naturally calculated to produce on the

public mind. It would, in my judgment, have been unaccountable

if such an effect had not been produced, quite apart from all

instigations of Theramenês. The moment that we recognize this

capital fact, the series of transactions becomes comparatively

perspicuous and explicable.

Dr. Thirlwall, as well as Sievers (Commentat. de Xenophontis

Hellen. pp. 25-30), suppose Theramenês to have acted in concert

with the oligarchical party, in making use of this incident to

bring about the ruin of generals odious to them, several of whom

were connected with Alkibiadês. I confess, that I see nothing to

countenance this idea: but at all events, the cause here named is

only secondary, not the grand and dominant fact of the period.

Moreover, what can be more improbable than the allegation that a

great number of men were hired to personate the fathers or brothers

of deceased Athenian citizens, all well known to their really

surviving kinsmen? What more improbable, than the story that numbers

of men would suffer themselves to be hired, not merely to put on

black clothes for the day, which might be taken off in the evening,

but also to shave their heads, thus stamping upon themselves an

ineffaceable evidence of the fraud, until the hair had grown again?

That a cunning man, like Theramenês, should thus distribute his

bribes to a number of persons, all presenting naked heads which

testified his guilt, when there were real kinsmen surviving to prove

the fact of personation? That having done this, he should never be

arraigned or accused for it afterwards,—neither during the prodigious

reaction of feeling which took place after the condemnation of the

generals, which Xenophon himself so strongly attests, and which

fell so heavily upon Kallixenus and others,—nor by his bitter enemy

Kritias, under the government of the Thirty? Not only Theramenês is

never mentioned as having been afterwards accused, but, for aught

that appears, he preserved his political influence and standing,

with little if any abatement. This is one forcible reason among

many others, for disbelieving the bribes and the all-pervading

machinations which Xenophon represents him as having put forth, in

order to procure the condemnation of the generals. His speaking in

the first public assembly, and his numerous partisans voting in the

second, doubtless contributed much to that result, and by his own

desire. But to ascribe to his bribes and intrigues the violent and

overruling emotion of the Athenian public, is, in my judgment, a

supposition alike unnatural and preposterous both with regard to them

and with regard to him.

When the senate met, after the Apaturia, to discharge the duty

confided to it by the last public assembly, of determining in

what manner the generals should be judged, and submitting their

opinion for the consideration of the next assembly, the senator

Kallixenus—at the instigation of Theramenês, if Xenophon is to be

believed—proposed, and the majority of the senate adopted, the

following resolution: “The Athenian people having already heard, in

the previous assembly, both the accusation and the defence of the

generals, shall at once come to a vote on the subject by tribes. For

each tribe two urns shall be placed, and the herald of each tribe

shall proclaim: All citizens who think the generals guilty, for not

having rescued the warriors who had conquered in the battle, shall

drop their pebbles into the foremost urn; all who think otherwise,

into the hindmost. Should the generals be pronounced guilty, by the

result of the voting, they shall be delivered to the Eleven, and

punished with death; their property shall be confiscated, the tenth

part being set apart for the goddess Athênê.”[287] One single vote

was to embrace the case of all the eight generals.[288]

[287] Xenoph. Hellen. i, 7, 8, 9.

[288] Xenoph. Hellen. i. 7, 34.

The unparalleled burst of mournful and vindictive feeling at the

festival of the Apaturia, extending by contagion from the relatives

of the deceased to many other citizens,—and the probability thus

created that the coming assembly would sanction the most violent

measures against the generals,—probably emboldened Kallixenus

to propose, and prompted the senate to adopt, this deplorable

resolution. As soon as the assembly met, it was read and moved by

Kallixenus himself, as coming from the senate in discharge of the

commission imposed upon them by the people.

It was heard by a large portion of the assembly with well-merited

indignation. Its enormity consisted in breaking through the

established constitutional maxims and judicial practices of the

Athenian democracy. It deprived the accused generals of all fair

trial; alleging, with a mere faint pretence of truth which was little

better than utter falsehood, that their defence as well as their

accusation had been heard in the preceding assembly. Now there has

been no people, ancient or modern, in whose view the formalities

of judicial trial were habitually more sacred and indispensable

than in that of the Athenians; formalities including ample notice

beforehand to the accused party, with a measured and sufficient space

of time for him to make his defence before the dikasts; while those

dikasts were men who had been sworn beforehand as a body, yet were

selected by lot for each occasion as individuals. From all these

securities the generals were now to be debarred; and submitted,

for their lives, honors, and fortunes, to a simple vote of the

unsworn public assembly, without hearing or defence. Nor was this

all. One single vote was to be taken in condemnation or absolution

of the eight generals collectively. Now there was a rule in Attic

judicial procedure, called the psephism of Kannônus,—originally

adopted, we do not know when, on the proposition of a citizen of that

name, as a psephism or decree for some particular case, but since

generalized into common practice, and grown into great prescriptive

reverence,—which peremptorily forbade any such collective trial or

sentence, and directed that a separate judicial vote should, in all

cases, be taken for or against each accused party. The psephism of

Kannônus, together with all the other respected maxims of Athenian

criminal justice, was here audaciously trampled under foot.[289]

[289] I cannot concur with the opinion expressed by Dr. Thirlwall

in Appendix iii. vol. iv, p. 501, of his History, on the subject

of the psephism of Kannônus. The view which I give in the text

coincides with that of the expositors generally, from whom Dr.

Thirlwall dissents.

The psephism of Kannônus was the only enactment at Athens which

made it illegal to vote upon the case of two accused persons

at once. This had now grown into a practice in the judicial

proceedings at Athens; so that two or more prisoners, who were

ostensibly tried under some other law, and not under the psephism

of Kannônus, with its various provisions, would yet have the

benefit of this its particular provision, namely, severance of

trial.

In the particular case before us, Euryptolemus was thrown back to

appeal to the psephism itself; which the senate, by a proposition

unheard of at Athens, proposed to contravene. The proposition of

the senate offended against the law in several different ways.

It deprived the generals of trial before a sworn dikastery;

it also deprived them of the liberty of full defence during a

measured time: but farther, it prescribed that they should all be

condemned or absolved by one and the same vote; and, in this last

respect, it sinned against the psephism of Kannônus. Euryptolemus

in his speech, endeavoring to persuade an exasperated assembly

to reject the proposition of the senate and adopt the psephism

of Kannônus as the basis of the trial, very prudently dwells

upon the severe provisions of the psephism, and artfully slurs

over what he principally aims at, the severance of the trials,

by offering his relative Periklês to be tried _first_. The words

δίχα ἕκαστον (sect. 37) appear to me to be naturally construed

with κατὰ τὸ Καννώνου ψήφισμα, as they are by most commentators,

though Dr. Thirlwall dissents from it. It is certain that this

was the capital feature of illegality, among many, which the

proposition of the senate presented, I mean the judging and

condemning all the generals by _one_ vote. It was upon this

point that the amendment of Euryptolemus was taken, and that the

obstinate resistance of Sokratês turned (Plato, Apol. 20; Xenoph.

Memor. i, 1, 18).

Farther, Dr. Thirlwall, in assigning what he believes to have

been the real tenor of the psephism of Kannônus, appears to me to

have been misled by the Scholiast in his interpretation of the

much-discussed passage of Aristophanês, Ekklezias. 1089:—

Τουτὶ τὸ πρᾶγμα κατὰ τὸ Καννώνου σαφῶς

Ψήφισμα, βινεῖν δεῖ με διαλελημμένον,

Πῶς οὖν δικωπεῖν ἀμφοτέρας δυνήσομαι;

Upon which Dr. Thirlwall observes, “that the young man is

comparing his plight to that of a culprit, who, under the decree

of Cannônus, was placed at the bar held by a person on each

side. In this sense the Greek Scholiast, though his words are

corrupted, clearly understood the passage.”

I cannot but think that the Scholiast understood the words

completely wrong. The young man in Aristophanês does not compare

his situation _with that of the culprit_, but _with that of

the dikastery which tried culprits_. The psephism of Kannônus

directed that each defendant should be tried separately:

accordingly, if it happened that two defendants were presented

for trial, and were both to be tried without a moment’s delay,

the dikastery could only effect this object by dividing itself

into two halves, or portions; which was perfectly practicable,

whether often practised or not, as it was a numerous body.

By doing this, κρίνειν διαλελημμένον, it could _try both the

defendants at once_: but in no other way.

Now the young man in Aristophanês compares himself to the

dikastery thus circumstanced; which comparison is signified

by the pun of βινεῖν διαλελημμένον in place of κρίνειν

διαλελημμένον. He is assailed by two obtrusive and importunate

customers, neither of whom will wait until the other has been

served. Accordingly he says: “Clearly, I ought to be divided

into two parts, like a dikastery acting under the psephism of

Kannônus, to deal with this matter: yet how _shall_ I be _able_

to serve both at once?”

This I conceive to be the proper explanation of the passage in

Aristophanês; and it affords a striking confirmation of the truth

of that which is generally received as purport of the psephism of

Kannônus. The Scholiast appears to me to have puzzled himself,

and to have misled every one else.

As soon as the resolution was read in the public assembly,

Euryptolemus, an intimate friend of the generals, denounced it

as grossly illegal and unconstitutional, presenting a notice of

indictment against Kallixenus, under the Graphê Paranomôn, for having

proposed a resolution of that tenor. Several other citizens supported

the notice of indictment, which, according to the received practice

of Athens, would arrest the farther progress of the measure until

the trial of its proposer had been consummated. Nor was there ever

any proposition made at Athens, to which the Graphê Paranomôn more

closely and righteously applied.

But the numerous partisans of Kallixenus—especially the men who

stood by in habits of mourning, with shaven heads, agitated with

sad recollections and thirst of vengeance—were in no temper to

respect this constitutional impediment to the discussion of what

had already been passed by the senate. They loudly clamored, that

“it was intolerable to see a small knot of citizens thus hindering

the assembled people from doing what they chose:” and one of their

number, Lykiskus, even went so far as to threaten that those who

tendered the indictment against Kallixenus should be judged by the

same vote along with the generals, if they would not let the assembly

proceed to consider and determine on the motion just read.[290] The

excited disposition of the large party thus congregated, farther

inflamed by this menace of Lykiskus, was wound up to its highest

pitch by various other speakers; especially by one, who stood

forward and said: “Athenians! I was myself a wrecked man in the

battle; I escaped only by getting upon an empty meal-tub; but my

comrades, perishing on the wrecks near me, implored me, if I should

myself be saved, to make known to the Athenian people, that their

generals had abandoned to death warriors who had bravely conquered

in behalf of their country.” Even in the most tranquil state of

the public mind, such a communication of the last words of these

drowning men, reported by an ear-witness, would have been heard with

emotion; but under the actual predisposing excitement, it went to

the inmost depth of the hearers’ souls, and marked the generals as

doomed men.[291] Doubtless there were other similar statements,

not expressly mentioned to us, bringing to view the same fact in

other ways, and all contributing to aggravate the violence of the

public manifestations; which at length reached such a point, that

Euryptolemus was forced to withdraw his notice of indictment against

Kallixenus.

[290] Xenoph. Hellen. i, 7. Τὸν δὲ Καλλίξενον προσεκαλέσαντο

παράνομα φάσκοντες ξυγγεγραφέναι Εὐρυπτόλεμός τε καὶ ἄλλοι

τινες· τοῦ δὲ δήμου ἔνιοι ταῦτα ἐπῄνουν· τὸ δὲ πλῆθος ἐβόα

~δεινὸν εἶναι, εἰ μή τις ἐάσει τὸν δῆμον πράττειν, ὃ ἂν

βούληται~. Καὶ ἐπὶ τούτοις εἰπόντος Λυκίσκου, καὶ τούτους τῇ

αὐτῇ ψήφῳ κρίνεσθαι, ᾗπερ καὶ τοὺς στρατηγοὺς, ~ἐὰν μὴ ἀφῶσι τὴν

ἐκκλησίαν~, ἐπεθορύβησε πάλιν ὁ δῆμος, καὶ ἠναγκάσθησαν ἀφιέναι

τὰς κλήσεις.

All this violence is directed to the special object of getting

the proposition discussed and decided on by the assembly, in

spite of constitutional obstacles.

[291] Xenoph. Hellen. i, 7, 11. Παρῆλθε δέ τις ἐς τὴν ἐκκλησίαν

φάσκων, ἐπὶ τεύχους ἀλφίτων σωθῆναι· ἐπιστέλλειν δ᾽ αὐτῷ τοὺς

ἀπολλυμένους, ἐὰν σωθῇ, ἀπαγγεῖλαι τῷ δήμῳ, ὅτι οἱ στρατηγοὶ οὐκ

ἀνείλοντο τοὺς ἀρίστους ὑπὲρ τῆς πατρίδος γενομένους.

I venture to say that there is nothing in the whole compass

of ancient oratory, more full of genuine pathos and more

profoundly impressive, than this simple incident and speech;

though recounted in the most bald manner, by an unfriendly and

contemptuous advocate.

Yet the whole effect of it is lost, because the habit is to

dismiss everything which goes to inculpate the generals, and to

justify the vehement emotion of the Athenian public, as if it was

mere stage-trick and falsehood. Dr. Thirlwall goes even beyond

Xenophon, when he says (p. 119, vol. iv): “A man was _brought

forward_, who _pretended_ he had been preserved by clinging to a

meal-barrel, and that his comrades,” etc. So Mr. Mitford: “A man

was produced,” etc. (p. 347).

Now παρῆλθε does not mean, “_he was brought forward_:” it is a

common word employed to signify one who _comes forward_ to speak

in the public assembly (see Thucyd. iii, 44, and the participle

παρελθὼν, in numerous places).

Next, φάσκων while it sometimes means _pretending_, sometimes

also means simply _affirming_: Xenophon does not guarantee the

matter affirmed, but neither does he pronounce it to be false.

He uses φάσκων in various cases where he himself agrees with the

fact affirmed (see Hellen. i, 7, 12; Memorab. i, 2, 29; Cyropæd.

viii, 3, 41; Plato, Ap. Socr. c. 6, p. 21).

The people of Athens heard and fully believed this deposition;

nor do I see any reason why an historian of Greece should

disbelieve it. There is nothing in the assertion of this man

which is at all improbable; nay, more, it is plain that several

such incidents must have happened. If we take the smallest

pains to expand in our imaginations the details connected with

this painfully interesting crisis at Athens, we shall see that

numerous stories of the same affecting character must have been

in circulation; doubtless many false, but many also perfectly

true.

Now, however, a new form of resistance sprung up, still preventing

the proposition from being taken into consideration by the assembly.

Some of the prytanes,—or senators of the presiding tribe, on that

occasion the tribe Antiochis,—the legal presidents of the assembly,

refused to entertain or put the question; which, being illegal and

unconstitutional, not only inspired them with aversion, but also

rendered them personally open to penalties. Kallixenus employed

against them the same menaces which Lykiskus had uttered against

Euryptolemus: he threatened, amidst encouraging clamor from many

persons in the assembly, to include them in the same accusation

with the generals. So intimidated were the prytanes by the incensed

manifestations of the assembly, that all of them, except one,

relinquished their opposition, and agreed to put the question. The

single obstinate prytanis, whose refusal no menace could subdue,

was a man whose name we read with peculiar interest, and in whom an

impregnable adherence to law and duty was only one among many other

titles to reverence. It was the philosopher Sokratês; on this trying

occasion, once throughout a life of seventy years, discharging a

political office, among the fifty senators taken by lot from the

tribe Antiochis. Sokratês could not be induced to withdraw his

protest, so that the question was ultimately put by the remaining

prytanes without his concurrence.[292] It should be observed that his

resistance did not imply any opinion as to the guilt or innocence of

the generals, but applied simply to the illegal and unconstitutional

proposition now submitted for determining their fate; a proposition,

which he must already have opposed once before, in his capacity of

member of the senate.

[292] Xenoph. Hellen. i, 7, 14, 15; Plato, Apol. Socr. c. 20;

Xenoph. Memor. i, 1, 18; iv, 4, 2.

In the passage of the Memorabilia, Xenophon says that Sokratês

was epistatês, or presiding prytanis, for that actual day. In the

Hellenica, he only reckons him as one among the prytanes. It can

hardly be accounted certain that he _was_ epistatês, the rather

as this same passage of the Memorabilia is inaccurate on another

point: it names _nine_ generals as having been condemned, instead

of _eight_.

The constitutional impediments having been thus violently overthrown,

the question was regularly put by the prytanes to the assembly. At

once the clamorous outcry ceased, and those who had raised it resumed

their behavior of Athenian citizens, patient hearers of speeches and

opinions directly opposed to their own. Nothing is more deserving of

notice than this change of demeanor. The champions of the men drowned

on the wrecks had resolved to employ as much force as was required to

eliminate those preliminary constitutional objections, in themselves

indisputable, which precluded the discussion. But so soon as the

discussion was once begun, they were careful not to give to the

resolution the appearance of being carried by force. Euryptolemus,

the personal friend of the generals, was allowed not only to move

an amendment negativing the proposition of Kallixenus, but also to

develop it in a long speech, which Xenophon sets before us.[293]

[293] Xenoph. Hellen. i, 7, 16. ~Μετὰ δὲ ταῦτα~, that is, after

the cries and threats above recounted, ἀναβὰς Εὐρυπτόλεμος ἔλεξεν

ὑπὲρ τῶν στρατηγῶν τάδε, etc.

His speech is one of great skill and judgment in reference to the

case before him and to the temper of the assembly. Beginning with a

gentle censure on his friends, the generals Periklês and Diomedon,

for having prevailed on their colleagues to abstain from mentioning,

in their first official letter, the orders given to Theramenês, he

represented them as now in danger of becoming victims to the base

conspiracy of the latter, and threw himself upon the justice of the

people to grant them a fair trial. He besought the people to take

full time to instruct themselves before they pronounced so solemn

and irrevocable a sentence; to trust only to their own judgment, but

at the same time to take security that judgment should be pronounced

after full information and impartial hearing, and thus to escape that

bitter and unavailing remorse which would otherwise surely follow. He

proposed that the generals should be tried each separately, according

to the psephism of Kannônus, with proper notice, and ample time

allowed for the defence as well as for the accusation; but that, if

found guilty, they should suffer the heaviest and most disgraceful

penalties, his own relation Periklês the first. This was the only

way of striking the guilty, of saving the innocent, and of preserving

Athens from the ingratitude and impiety of condemning to death,

without trial as well as contrary to law, generals who had just

rendered to her so important a service. And what could the people

be afraid of? Did they fear lest the power of trial should slip out

of their hands, that they were so impatient to leap over all the

delays prescribed by the law?[294] To the worst of public traitors,

Aristarchus, they had granted a day with full notice for trial, with

all the legal means for making his defence: and would they now show

such flagrant contrariety of measure to victorious and faithful

officers? “Be not _ye_ (he said) the men to act thus, Athenians. The

laws are your own work; it is through them that ye chiefly hold your

greatness: cherish them, and attempt not any proceeding without their

sanction.”[295]

[294] It is this accusation of “reckless hurry,” προπέτεια, which

Pausanias brings against the Athenians in reference to their

behavior toward the six generals (vi, 7, 2).

[295] Xenoph. Hellen. i, 7, 30. Μὴ ὑμεῖς γε, ὦ Ἀθηναῖοι, ἀλλ᾽

ἑαυτῶν ὄντας τοὺς νόμους, δι᾽ οὓς μάλιστα μέγιστοί ἐστε,

φυλάττοντες, ἄνευ τούτων μηδὲν πράττειν πειρᾶσθε.

Euryptolemus then shortly recapitulated the proceedings after the

battle, with the violence of the storm which had prevented approach

to the wrecks; adding that one of the generals, now in peril, had

himself been on board a broken ship, and had only escaped by a

fortunate accident.[296] Gaining courage from his own harangue,

he concluded by reminding the Athenians of the brilliancy of the

victory, and by telling them that they ought in justice to wreath the

brows of the conquerors, instead of following those wicked advisers

who pressed for their execution.[297]

[296] Xenoph. Hellen. i, 7, 35. τούτων δὲ μάρτυρες οἱ σωθέντες

ἀπὸ τοῦ αὐτομάτου, ὧν εἷς τῶν ὑμετέρων στρατηγῶν ἐπὶ καταδύσης

νεὼς σωθεὶς, etc.

[297] The speech is contained in Xenoph. Hellen. i, 7, 16-36.

It is no small proof of the force of established habits of public

discussion, that the men in mourning and with shaven heads, who had

been a few minutes before in a state of furious excitement, should

patiently hear out a speech so effective and so conflicting with

their strongest sentiments as this of Euryptolemus. Perhaps others

may have spoken also; but Xenophon does not mention them. It is

remarkable that he does not name Theramenês as taking any part in

this last debate.

The substantive amendment proposed by Euryptolemus was that the

generals should be tried each separately, according to the psephism

of Kannônus; implying notice to be given to each, of the day of

trial, and full time for each to defend himself. This proposition,

as well as that of the senate moved by Kallixenus, was submitted to

the vote of the assembly; hands being separately held up, first for

one, next for the other. The prytanes pronounced the amendment of

Euryptolemus to be carried. But a citizen named Meneklês impeached

their decision as wrong or invalid, alleging seemingly some

informality or trick in putting the question, or perhaps erroneous

report of the comparative show of hands. We must recollect that in

this case the prytanes were declared partisans. Feeling that they

were doing wrong in suffering so illegal a proposition as that of

Kallixenus to be put at all, and that the adoption of it would

be a great public mischief, they would hardly scruple to try and

defeat it even by some unfair manœuvre. But the exception taken by

Meneklês constrained them to put the question over again, and they

were then obliged to pronounce that the majority was in favor of the

proposition of Kallixenus.[298]

[298] Xenoph. Hellen. i, 7, 38. Τούτων δὲ διαχειροτονουμένων, τὸ

μὲν πρῶτον ἔκριναν τὴν Εὐρυπτολέμου· ὑπομοσαμένου δὲ Μενεκλέους,

καὶ πάλιν διαχειροτονίας γενομένης, ἔκριναν τὴν τῆς βουλῆς.

I cannot think that the explanations of this passage given either

by Schömann (De Comitiis Athen. part ii, 1, p. 160, _seq._) or

by Meier and Schömann (Der Attische Prozess, b. iii, p. 295;

b. iv, p. 696) are satisfactory. The idea of Schömann, that,

in consequence of the unconquerable resistance of Sokratês,

the voting upon this question was postponed until the next

day, appears to me completely inconsistent with the account

of Xenophon; and, though countenanced by a passage in the

Pseudo-Platonic dialogue called Axiochus (c. 12), altogether

loose and untrustworthy. It is plain to me that the question was

put without Sokratês, and could be legally put by the remaining

prytanes, in spite of his resistance. The word ὑπομοσία must

doubtless bear a meaning somewhat different here to its technical

sense before the dikastery; and different also, I think, to the

other sense which Meier and Schömann ascribe to it, of _a formal

engagement to prefer at some future time an indictment, or_

~γραφὴ παρανόμων~. It seems to me here to denote, an _objection

taken on formal grounds, and sustained by oath either tendered or

actually taken, to the decision of the prytanes_, or presidents.

These latter had to declare on which side the show of hands in

the assembly preponderated: but there surely must have been

_some_ power of calling in question their decision, if they

declared falsely, or if they put the question in a treacherous,

perplexing, or obscure manner. The Athenian assembly did not

admit of an appeal to a division, like the Spartan assembly or

like the English House of Commons; though there were many cases

in which the votes at Athens were taken by pebbles in an urn, and

not by show of hands.

Now it seems to me that Meneklês here exercised the privilege

of calling in question the decision of the prytanes, and

constraining them to take the vote over again. He may have

alleged that they did not make it clearly understood which of the

two propositions was to be put to the vote first; that they put

the proposition of Kallixenus first, without giving due notice;

or perhaps that they misreported the numbers. By what followed,

we see that he had good grounds for his objection.

That proposition was shortly afterwards carried into effect by

disposing the two urns for each tribe, and collecting the votes of

the citizens individually. The condemnatory vote prevailed, and all

the eight generals were thus found guilty; whether by a large or a

small majority we should have been glad to learn, but are not told.

The majority was composed mostly of those who acted under a feeling

of genuine resentment against the generals, but in part also of the

friends and partisans of Theramenês,[299] not inconsiderable in

number. The six generals then at Athens,—Periklês (son of the great

statesman of that name by Aspasia), Diomedon, Erasinidês, Thrasyllus,

Lysias, and Aristokratês,—were then delivered to the Eleven, and

perished by the usual draught of hemlock; their property being

confiscated, as the decree of the senate prescribed.

[299] Diodor. xiii, 101. In regard to these two component

elements of the majority, I doubt not that the statement of

Diodorus is correct. But he represents, quite erroneously, that

the generals were condemned by the vote of the assembly, and led

off from the assembly to execution. The assembly only decreed

that the subsequent urn-voting should take place, the result of

which was necessarily uncertain beforehand. Accordingly, the

speech which Diodorus represents Diomedon to have made in the

assembly, after the vote of the assembly had been declared,

cannot be true history: “Athenians, I wish that the vote which

you have just passed may prove beneficial to the city. Do you

take care to fulfil those vows to Zeus Soter, Apollo, and the

Venerable Goddesses, under which we gained our victory since

fortune has prevented us from fulfilling them ourselves.” It is

impossible that Diomedon can have made a speech of this nature,

since he was not then a condemned man; and after the condemnatory

vote, no assembly was held.

Respecting the condemnation of these unfortunate men, pronounced

without any of the recognized tutelary preliminaries for accused

persons, there can be only one opinion. It was an act of violent

injustice and illegality, deeply dishonoring the men who passed it,

and the Athenian character generally. In either case, whether the

generals were guilty or innocent, this censure is deserved, for

judicial precautions are not less essential in dealing with the

guilty than with the innocent. But it is deserved in an aggravated

form, when we consider that the men against whom such injustice was

perpetrated, had just come from achieving a glorious victory. Against

the democratical constitution of Athens, it furnishes no ground for

censure, nor against the habits and feelings which that constitution

tended to implant in the individual citizen. Both the one and the

other strenuously forbade the deed; nor could the Athenians ever

have so dishonored themselves, if they had not, under a momentary

ferocious excitement, risen in insurrection not less against the

forms of their own democracy, than against the most sacred restraints

of their habitual constitutional morality.

If we wanted proof of this, the facts of the immediate future would

abundantly supply it. After a short time had elapsed, every man in

Athens became heartily ashamed of the deed.[300] A vote of the public

assembly was passed,[301] decreeing that those who had misguided the

people on this occasion ought to be brought to judicial trial, that

Kallixenus with four others should be among the number, and that bail

should be taken for their appearance. This was accordingly done,

and the parties were kept under custody of the sureties themselves,

who were responsible for their appearance on the day of trial. But

presently both foreign misfortunes and internal sedition began to

press too heavily on Athens to leave any room for other thoughts, as

we shall see in the next chapter. Kallixenus and his accomplices

found means to escape before the day of trial arrived, and remained

in exile until after the dominion of the Thirty and the restoration

of the democracy. Kallixenus then returned under the general amnesty.

But the general amnesty protected him only against legal pursuit,

not against the hostile memory of the people. “Detested by all, he

died of hunger,” says Xenophon;[302] a memorable proof how much the

condemnation of these six generals shocked the standing democratical

sentiment at Athens.

[300] I translate here literally the language of Sokratês in his

Defence (Plato, Apol. c. 20), παρανόμως, ὡς ἐν τῷ ὑστέρῳ χρόνῳ

~πᾶσιν ὑμῖν~ ἔδοξε.

[301] Xenoph. Hellen. i, 7, 39. This vote of the public assembly

was known at Athens by the name of Probolê. The assembled people

discharged on this occasion an ante-judicial function, something

like that of a Grand Jury.

[302] Xenophon. Hellen. i, 7, 40. μισούμενος ὑπὸ πάντων, λίμῳ

ἀπέθανεν.

From what cause did this temporary burst of wrong arise, so

foreign to the habitual character of the people? Even under the

strongest political provocation, and towards the most hated

traitors,—as Euryptolemus himself remarked, by citing the case of

Aristarchus,—after the Four Hundred as well as after the Thirty, the

Athenians never committed the like wrong, never deprived an accused

party of the customary judicial securities. How then came they to do

it here, where the generals condemned were not only not traitors, but

had just signalized themselves by a victorious combat? No Theramenês

could have brought about this phenomenon; no deep-laid oligarchical

plot is, in my judgment, to be called in as an explanation.[303]

The true explanation is different, and of serious moment to state.

Political hatred, intense as it might be, was never dissociated,

in the mind of a citizen of Athens, from the democratical forms of

procedure: but the men, who stood out here as actors, had broken

loose from the obligations of citizenship and commonwealth, and

surrendered themselves, heart and soul, to the family sympathies

and antipathies; feelings first kindled, and justly kindled, by the

thought that their friends and relatives had been left to perish

unheeded on the wrecks; next, inflamed into preternatural and

overwhelming violence by the festival of the Apaturia, where all the

religious traditions connected with the ancient family tie, all those

associations which imposed upon the relatives of a murdered man the

duty of pursuing the murderer, were expanded into detail and worked

up by their appropriate renovating solemnity. The garb of mourning

and the shaving of the head—phenomena unknown at Athens, either in

a political assembly or in a religious festival—were symbols of

temporary transformation in the internal man. He could think of

nothing but his drowning relatives, together with the generals as

having abandoned them to death, and his own duty as survivor to

insure to them vengeance and satisfaction for such abandonment. Under

this self-justifying impulse, the shortest and surest proceeding

appeared the best, whatever amount of political wrong it might

entail:[304] nay, in this case it appeared the only proceeding

really sure, since the interposition of the proper judicial delays,

coupled with severance of trial on successive days, according to the

psephism of Kannônus, would probably have saved the lives of five

out of the six generals, if not of all the six. When we reflect that

such absorbing sentiment was common, at one and the same time, to a

large proportion of the Athenians, we shall see the explanation of

that misguided vote, both of the senate and of the ekklesia, which

sent the six generals to an illegal ballot, and of the subsequent

ballot which condemned them. Such is the natural behavior of those

who, having for the moment forgotten their sense of political

commonwealth, become degraded into exclusive family men. The family

affections, productive as they are of so large an amount of gentle

sympathy and mutual happiness in the interior circle, are also liable

to generate disregard, malice, sometimes even ferocious vengeance,

towards others. Powerful towards good generally, they are not less

powerful occasionally towards evil; and require, not less than the

selfish propensities, constant subordinating control from that moral

reason which contemplates for its end the security and happiness of

all. And when a man, either from low civilization, has never known

this large moral reason,—or when from some accidental stimulus,

righteous in the origin, but wrought up into fanaticism by the

conspiring force of religious as well as family sympathies, he comes

to place his pride and virtue in discarding its supremacy,—there

is scarcely any amount of evil or injustice which he may not be

led to perpetrate, by a blind obedience to the narrow instincts of

relationship. “Ces pères de famille sont capables de tout,” was the

satirical remark of Talleyrand upon the gross public jobbing so

largely practised by those who sought place or promotion for their

sons. The same words understood in a far more awful sense, and

generalized for other cases of relationship, sum up the moral of this

melancholy proceeding at Athens.

[303] This is the supposition of Sievers, Forchhammer, and some

other learned men; but, in my opinion, it is neither proved nor

probable.

[304] If Thucydidês had lived to continue his history so far down

as to include this memorable event, he would have found occasion

to notice τὸ ξυγγενὲς, kinship, as being not less capable of

ἀπροφάσιστος τόλμα, unscrupulous daring, than τὸ ἑταιρικόν,

faction. In his reflections on the Korkyræan disturbances (iii,

82), he is led to dwell chiefly on the latter, the antipathies

of faction, of narrow political brotherhood or conspiracy for

the attainment and maintenance of power, as most powerful in

generating evil deeds: had he described the proceedings after

the battle of Arginusæ, he would have seen that the sentiment of

kinship, looked at on its antipathetic or vindictive side, is

pregnant with the like tendencies.

Lastly, it must never be forgotten that the generals themselves were

also largely responsible in the case. Through the unjustifiable

fury of the movement against them, they perished like innocent

men, without trial, “_inauditi et indefensi, tamquam innocentes,

perierunt_;” but it does not follow that they were really innocent.

I feel persuaded that neither with an English, nor French, nor

American fleet, could such events have taken place as those which

followed the victory of Arginusæ. Neither admiral nor seamen, after

gaining a victory and driving off the enemy, could have endured the

thoughts of going back to their anchorage, leaving their own disabled

wrecks unmanageable on the waters, with many living comrades aboard,

helpless, and depending upon extraneous succor for all their chance

of escape. That the generals at Arginusæ did this, stands confessed

by their own advocate Euryptolemus,[305] though they must have known

well the condition of disabled ships after a naval combat, and some

ships even of the victorious fleet were sure to be disabled. If

these generals, after their victory, instead of sailing back to

land, had employed themselves first of all in visiting the crippled

ships, there would have been ample time to perform this duty, and

to save all the living men aboard, before the storm came on. This

is the natural inference, even upon their own showing; this is what

any English, French, or American naval commander would have thought

it an imperative duty to do. What degree of blame is imputable to

Theramenês, and how far the generals were discharged by shifting the

responsibility to him, is a point which we cannot now determine.

But the storm, which is appealed to as a justification of both,

rests upon evidence too questionable to serve that purpose, where

the neglect of duty was so serious, and cost the lives probably of

more than one thousand brave men. At least, the Athenian people at

home, when they heard the criminations and recriminations between the

generals on one side and Theramenês on the other,—each of them in his

character of accuser implying that the storm was no valid obstacle,

though each, if pushed for a defence, fell back upon it as a resource

in case of need,—the Athenian people could not but look upon the

storm more as an afterthought to excuse previous omissions, than as

a terrible reality nullifying all the ardor and resolution of men

bent on doing their duty. It was in this way that the intervention of

Theramenês chiefly contributed to the destruction of the generals,

not by those manœuvres ascribed to him in Xenophon: he destroyed

all belief in the storm as a real and all-covering hindrance. The

general impression of the public at Athens—in my opinion, a natural

and unavoidable impression—was, that there had been most culpable

negligence in regard to the wrecks, through which negligence alone

the seamen on board perished. This negligence dishonors, more or

less, the armament at Arginusæ as well as the generals: but the

generals were the persons responsible to the public at home, who

felt for the fate of the deserted seamen more justly as well as more

generously than their comrades in the fleet.

[305] Xenoph. Hellen. i, 7, 31. ~Ἐπειδὴ γὰρ κρατήσαντες τῇ

ναυμαχίᾳ πρὸς τὴν γῆν κατέπλευσαν~, Διομέδων μὲν ἐκέλευεν,

ἀναχθέντας ἐπὶ κέρως ἅπαντας ἀναιρεῖσθαι τὰ ναυάγια καὶ τοὺς

ναυαγοὺς, Ἐρασινίδης δὲ, ἐπὶ τοὺς ἐς Μυτιλήνην πολεμίους τὴν

ταχίστην πλεῖν ἅπαντας· Θράσυλλος δ᾽ ἀμφότερα ἔφη γενέσθαι, ἂν

τὰς μὲν αὐτοῦ καταλίπωσι, ταῖς δὲ ἐπὶ τοὺς πολεμίους πλέωσι· καὶ

δοξάντων τούτων, etc.

I remarked, a few pages before, that the case of Erasinidês

stood in some measure apart from that of the other generals. He

proposed, according to this speech of Euryptolemus, that all the

fleet should at once go again to Mitylênê; which would of course

have left the men on the wrecks to their fate.

In spite, therefore, of the guilty proceeding to which a furious

exaggeration of this sentiment drove the Athenians,—in spite of

the sympathy which this has naturally and justly procured for the

condemned generals,—the verdict of impartial history will pronounce

that the sentiment itself was well founded, and that the generals

deserved censure and disgrace. The Athenian people might with justice

proclaim to them: “Whatever be the grandeur of your victory, we can

neither rejoice in it ourselves, nor allow you to reap honor from

it, if we find that you have left many hundreds of those who helped

in gaining it to be drowned on board the wrecks without making

any effort to save them, when such effort might well have proved

successful.”