CHAPTER LXV.

FROM THE BATTLE OF ARGINUSÆ TO THE RESTORATION OF THE DEMOCRACY AT

ATHENS, AFTER THE EXPULSION OF THE THIRTY.

The victory of Arginusæ gave for the time decisive mastery of the

Asiatic seas to the Athenian fleet; and is even said to have so

discouraged the Lacedæmonians, as to induce them to send propositions

of peace to Athens. But this statement[306] is open to much doubt,

and I think it most probable that no such propositions were made.

Great as the victory was, we look in vain for any positive results

accruing to Athens. After an unsuccessful attempt on Chios, the

victorious fleet went to Samos, where it seems to have remained until

the following year, without any farther movements than were necessary

for the purpose of procuring money.

[306] The statement rests on the authority of Aristotle, as

referred to by the Scholiast on the last verse of the Ranæ of

Aristophanês. And this, so far as I know, is the only authority:

for when Mr. Fynes Clinton (Fast. Hellen. ad ann. 406) says that

Æschinês (De Fals. Legat. p. 38, c. 24) mentions the overtures

of peace, I think that no one who looks at that passage will be

inclined to found any inference upon it.

Against it, we may observe:—

1. Xenophon does not mention it. This is something, though far

from being conclusive when standing alone.

2. Diodorus does not mention it.

3. The terms alleged to have been proposed by the Lacedæmonians,

are exactly the same as those said to have been proposed by them

after the death of Mindarus at Kyzikus, namely:—

To evacuate Dekeleia, and each party to stand as they were.

Not only the terms are the same, but also the person who stood

prominent in opposition is in both cases the same, _Kleophon_.

The overtures after Arginusæ are in fact a second edition of

those after the battle of Kyzikus.

Now, the supposition that on two several occasions the

Lacedæmonians made propositions of peace, and that both are

left unnoticed by Xenophon, appears to me highly improbable. In

reference to the propositions after the battle of Kyzikus, the

testimony of Diodorus outweighed, in my judgment, the silence of

Xenophon; but here Diodorus is silent also.

In addition to this, the exact sameness of the two alleged events

makes me think that the second is only a duplication of the

first, and that the Scholiast, in citing from Aristotle, mistook

the battle of Arginusæ for that of Kyzikus, which latter was by

far the more decisive of the two.

Meanwhile Eteonikus, who collected the remains of the defeated

Peloponnesian fleet at Chios, being left unsupplied with money by

Cyrus, found himself much straitened, and was compelled to leave

the seamen unpaid. During the later summer and autumn, these men

maintained themselves by laboring for hire on the Chian lands; but

when winter came, this resource ceased, so that they found themselves

unable to procure even clothes or shoes. In such forlorn condition,

many of them entered into a conspiracy to assail and plunder the town

of Chios; a day was named for the enterprise, and it was agreed that

the conspirators should know each other by wearing a straw, or reed.

Informed of the design, Eteonikus was at the same time intimidated by

the number of these straw-bearers; he saw that if he dealt with the

conspirators openly and ostensibly, they might perhaps rush to arms

and succeed in plundering the town; at any rate, a conflict would

arise in which many of the allies would be slain, which would produce

the worst effect upon all future operations. Accordingly, resorting

to stratagem, he took with him a guard of fifteen men armed with

daggers, and marched through the town of Chios. Meeting presently one

of these straw-bearers,—a man with a complaint in his eyes, coming

out of a surgeon’s house,—he directed his guards to put the man to

death on the spot. A crowd gathered round, with astonishment as well

as sympathy, and inquired on what ground the man was put to death;

upon which Eteonikus ordered his guards to reply, that it was because

he wore a straw. The news became diffused, and immediately the

remaining persons who wore straws became so alarmed as to throw their

straws away.[307]

[307] Xenoph. Hellen. ii, 1, 1-4.

Eteonikus availed himself of the alarm to demand money from the

Chians, as a condition of carrying away this starving and perilous

armament. Having obtained from them a month’s pay, he immediately put

the troops on shipboard, taking pains to encourage them, and make

them fancy that he was unacquainted with the recent conspiracy.

The Chians and the other allies of Sparta presently assembled at

Ephesus to consult, and resolved, in conjunction with Cyrus, to

despatch envoys to the ephors, requesting that Lysander might be

sent out a second time as admiral. It was not the habit of Sparta

ever to send out the same man as admiral a second time, after his

year of service. Nevertheless, the ephors complied with the request

substantially, sending out Arakus as admiral, but Lysander along with

him, under the title of secretary, invested with all the real powers

of command.

Lysander, having reached Ephesus about the beginning of B.C. 405,

immediately applied himself with vigor to renovate both Lacedæmonian

power and his own influence. The partisans in the various allied

cities, whose favor he had assiduously cultivated during his last

year’s command, the clubs and factious combinations, which he had

organized and stimulated into a partnership of mutual ambition,

all hailed his return with exultation. Discountenanced and kept

down by the generous patriotism of his predecessor Kallikratidas,

they now sprang into renewed activity, and became zealous in aiding

Lysander to refit and augment his fleet. Nor was Cyrus less hearty

in his preference than before. On arriving at Ephesus, Lysander went

speedily to visit him at Sardis, and solicited a renewal of the

pecuniary aid. The young prince said in reply that all the funds

which he had received from Susa had already been expended, with much

more besides; in testimony of which he exhibited a specification of

the sums furnished to each Peloponnesian officer. Nevertheless,

such was his partiality for Lysander, that he complied even with

the additional demand now made, so as to send him away satisfied.

The latter was thus enabled to return to Ephesus in a state for

restoring the effective condition of his fleet. He made good at once

all the arrears of pay due to the seamen, constituted new trierarchs,

summoned Eteonikus with the fleet from Chios, together with all the

other scattered squadrons, and directed that fresh triremes should be

immediately put on the stocks at Antandrus.[308]

[308] Xenoph. Hellen. ii, 1, 10-12.

In none of the Asiatic towns was the effect of Lysander’s second

advent felt more violently than at Milêtus. He had there a powerful

faction or association of friends, who had done their best to

hamper and annoy Kallikratidas on his first arrival, but had been

put to silence, and even forced to make a show of zeal, by the

straightforward resolution of that noble-minded admiral. Eager

to reimburse themselves for this humiliation, they now formed a

conspiracy, with the privity and concurrence of Lysander, to seize

the government for themselves. They determined, if Plutarch and

Diodorus are to be credited, to put down the existing democracy,

and establish an oligarchy in its place. But we cannot believe that

there could have existed a democracy at Milêtus, which had now been

for five years in dependence upon Sparta and the Persians jointly.

We must rather understand the movement as a conflict between two

oligarchical parties; the friends of Lysander being more thoroughly

self-seeking and anti-popular than their opponents, and perhaps

even crying them down, by comparison, as a democracy. Lysander lent

himself to the scheme, fanned the ambition of the conspirators,

who were at one time disposed to a compromise, and even betrayed

the government into a false security, by promises of support which

he never intended to fulfil. At the festival of the Dionysia, the

conspirators, rising in arms, seized forty of their chief opponents

in their houses, and three hundred more in the market-place; while

the government—confiding in the promises of Lysander, who affected to

reprove, but secretly continued instigating the insurgents—made but

a faint resistance. The three hundred and forty leaders thus seized,

probably men who had gone heartily along with Kallikratidas, were

all put to death; and a still larger number of citizens, not less

than one thousand, fled into exile. Milêtus thus passed completely

into the hands of the friends and partisans of Lysander.[309]

[309] Diodor. xiii, 104; Plutarch, Lysand. c. 8.

It would appear that factious movements in other towns, less

revolting in respect of bloodshed and perfidy, yet still of similar

character to that of Milêtus, marked the reappearance of Lysander

in Asia; placing the towns more and more in the hands of his

partisans. While thus acquiring greater ascendency among the allies,

Lysander received a summons from Cyrus to visit him at Sardis. The

young prince had just been sent for to come and visit his father

Darius, who was both old and dangerously ill, in Media. About to

depart for this purpose, he carried his confidence in Lysander so

far as to delegate to him the management of his satrapy and his

entire revenues. Besides his admiration for the superior energy and

capacity of the Greek character, with which he had only recently

contracted acquaintance; and besides his esteem for the personal

disinterestedness of Lysander, attested as it had been by the conduct

of the latter in the first visit and banquet at Sardis; Cyrus was

probably induced to this step by the fear of raising up to himself a

rival, if he trusted the like power to any Persian grandee. At the

same time that he handed over all his tributes and his reserved funds

to Lysander, he assured him of his steady friendship both towards

himself and towards the Lacedæmonians; and concluded by entreating

that he would by no means engage in any general action with the

Athenians, unless at great advantage in point of numbers. The defeat

of Arginusæ having strengthened his preference for this dilatory

policy, he promised that not only the Persian treasures, but also the

Phenician fleet, should be brought into active employment for the

purpose of crushing Athens.[310]

[310] Xenoph. Hellen. ii, 1, 14; Plutarch, Lysand. c. 9.

Thus armed with an unprecedented command of Persian treasure, and

seconded by ascendent factions in all the allied cities, Lysander was

more powerful than any Lacedæmonian commander had ever been since the

commencement of the war. Having his fleet well paid, he could keep

it united, and direct it whither he chose, without the necessity of

dispersing it in roving squadrons for the purpose of levying money.

It is probably from a corresponding necessity that we are to explain

the inaction of the Athenian fleet at Samos; for we hear of no

serious operations undertaken by it, during the whole year following

the victory of Arginusæ, although under the command of an able and

energetic man, Konon, together with Philoklês and Adeimantus; to whom

were added, during the spring of 405 B.C., three other generals,

Tydeus, Menander, and Kephisodotus. It appears that Theramenês

also was put up and elected one of the generals, but rejected when

submitted to the confirmatory examination called the dokimasy.[311]

The fleet comprised one hundred and eighty triremes, rather a greater

number than that of Lysander; to whom they in vain offered battle

near his station at Ephesus. Finding him not disposed to a general

action, they seem to have dispersed to plunder Chios, and various

portions of the Asiatic coast; while Lysander, keeping his fleet

together, first sailed southward from Ephesus, stormed and plundered

a semi-Hellenic town in the Kerameikan gulf, named Kedreiæ, which was

in alliance with Athens, and thence proceeded to Rhodes.[312] He was

even bold enough to make an excursion across the Ægean to the coast

of Ægina and Attica, where he had an interview with Agis, who came

from Dekeleia to the sea-coast.[313] The Athenians were prepared to

follow him thither when they learned that he had recrossed the Ægean,

and he soon afterwards appeared with all his fleet at the Hellespont,

which important pass they had left unguarded. Lysander went straight

to Abydos, still the great Peloponnesian station in the strait,

occupied by Thorax as harmost with a land force; and immediately

proceeded to attack, both by sea and land, the neighboring town of

Lampsakus, which was taken by storm. It was wealthy in every way, and

abundantly stocked with bread and wine, so that the soldiers obtained

a large booty; but Lysander left the free inhabitants untouched.[314]

[311] Lysias, Orat. xiii, cont. Agorat. sect. 13.

[312] Xenoph. Hellen. ii, 1, 15, 16.

[313] This flying visit of Lysander across the Ægean to the

coasts of Attica and Ægina is not noticed by Xenophon, but it

appears both in Diodorus and in Plutarch (Diodor. xiii, 104:

Plutarch, Lysand. c. 9).

[314] Xenoph. Hellen. ii, 1, 18, 19; Diodor. xiii, 104; Plutarch,

Lysand. c. 9.

The Athenian fleet seems to have been employed in plundering Chios,

when it received news that the Lacedæmonian commander was at the

Hellespont engaged in the siege of Lampsakus. Either from the want

of money, or from other causes which we do not understand, Konon and

his colleagues were partly inactive, partly behindhand with Lysander,

throughout all this summer. They now followed him to the Hellespont,

sailing out on the sea-side of Chios and Lesbos, away from the

Asiatic coast, which was all unfriendly to them. They reached Elæus,

at the southern extremity of the Chersonese, with their powerful

fleet of one hundred and eighty triremes, just in time to hear, while

at their morning meal, that Lysander was already master of Lampsakus;

upon which they immediately proceeded up the strait to Sestos, and

from thence, after stopping only to collect a few provisions, still

farther up, to a place called Ægospotami.[315]

[315] Xenoph. Hellen. ii, 1, 20, 21.

Ægospotami, or Goat’s River—a name of fatal sound to all subsequent

Athenians—was a place which had nothing to recommend it except

that it was directly opposite to Lampsakus, separated by a breadth

of strait about one mile and three-quarters. But it was an open

beach, without harbor, without good anchorage, without either

houses or inhabitants or supplies; so that everything necessary for

this large army had to be fetched from Sestos, about one mile and

three-quarters distant even by land, and yet more distant by sea,

since it was necessary to round a headland. Such a station was highly

inconvenient and dangerous to an ancient naval armament, without any

organized commissariat; since the seamen, being compelled to go to

a distance from their ships in order to get their meals, were not

easily reassembled. Yet this was the station chosen by the Athenian

generals, with the full design of compelling Lysander to fight a

battle. But the Lacedæmonian admiral, who was at Lampsakus, in a good

harbor, with a well-furnished town in his rear, and a land-force to

coöperate, had no intention of accepting the challenge of his enemies

at the moment which suited their convenience. When the Athenians

sailed across the strait the next morning, they found all his ships

fully manned,—the men having already taken their morning meal,—and

ranged in perfect order of battle, with the land-force disposed

ashore to lend assistance; but with strict orders to await attack and

not to move forward. Not daring to attack him in such a position, yet

unable to draw him out by manœuvring all the day, the Athenians were

at length obliged to go back to Ægospotami. But Lysander directed a

few swift-sailing vessels to follow them, nor would he suffer his

own men to disembark until he thus ascertained that their seamen had

actually dispersed ashore.[316]

[316] Xenoph. Hellen. ii, 1, 22-24; Plutarch. Lysand. c. 10;

Diodor. xiii, 105.

For four successive days this same scene was repeated; the Athenians

becoming each day more confident in their own superior strength,

and more full of contempt for the apparent cowardice of the enemy.

It was in vain that Alkibiadês—who from his own private forts in

the Chersonese witnessed what was passing—rode up to the station

and remonstrated with the generals on the exposed condition of the

fleet on this open shore; urgently advising them to move round to

Sestos, where they would be both close to their own supplies and

safe from attack, as Lysander was at Lampsakus, and from whence

they could go forth to fight whenever they chose. But the Athenian

generals, especially Tydeus and Menander, disregarded his advice, and

even dismissed him with the insulting taunt, that they were now in

command, not he.[317] Continuing thus in their exposed position, the

Athenian seamen on each successive day became more and more careless

of their enemy, and rash in dispersing the moment they returned back

to their own shore. At length, on the fifth day, Lysander ordered

the scout-ships, which he sent forth to watch the Athenians on their

return, to hoist a bright shield as a signal, as soon as they should

see the ships at their anchorage and the crews ashore in quest

of their meal. The moment he beheld this welcome signal, he gave

orders to his entire fleet to row across as swiftly as possible from

Lampsakus to Ægospotami, while Thorax marched along the strand with

the land-force in case of need. Nothing could be more complete or

decisive than the surprise of the Athenian fleet. All the triremes

were caught at their moorings ashore, some entirely deserted, others

with one or at most two of the three tiers of rowers which formed

their complement. Out of all the total of one hundred and eighty,

only twelve were found in tolerable order and preparation;[318] the

trireme of Konon himself, together with a squadron of seven under his

immediate orders, and the consecrated ship called paralus, always

manned by the _élite_ of the Athenian seamen, being among them. It

was in vain that Konon, on seeing the fleet of Lysander approaching,

employed his utmost efforts to get his fleet manned and in some

condition for resistance. The attempt was desperate, and the utmost

which he could do was to escape himself with the small squadron of

twelve, including the paralus. All the remaining triremes, nearly

one hundred and seventy in number, were captured by Lysander on

the shore, defenceless, and seemingly without the least attempt on

the part of any one to resist. He landed, and made prisoners most

of the crews ashore, though some of them fled and found shelter in

the neighboring forts. This prodigious and unparalleled victory was

obtained, not merely without the loss of a single ship, but almost

without that of a single man.[319]

[317] Xenoph. Hellen. ii, 1, 25; Plutarch, Lysand. c. 10;

Plutarch, Alkib. c. 36.

Diodorus (xiii, 105) and Cornelius Nepos (Alkib. c. 8) represent

Alkibiadês as wishing to be readmitted to a share in the command

of the fleet, and as promising, if that were granted, that he

would assemble a body of Thracians, attack Lysander by land, and

compel him to fight a battle or retire. Plutarch (Alkib. c. 37)

alludes also to promises of this sort held out by Alkibiadês.

Yet it is not likely that Alkibiadês should have talked of

anything so obviously impossible. How could he bring a Thracian

land-force to attack Lysander, who was on the opposite side of

the Hellespont? How could he carry a land-force across in the

face of Lysander’s fleet?

The representation of Xenophon (followed in my text) is clear and

intelligible.

[318] Xenoph. Hellen. ii, 1, 29; Lysias, Orat. xxi, (Ἀπολ.

Δωροδ.) s. 12.

[319] Xenoph. Hellen. ii, 1, 28; Plutarch, Lysand. c. 11;

Plutarch, Alkibiad. c. 36; Cornel. Nepos, Lysand. c. 8; Polyæn.

i, 45, 2.

Diodorus (xiii, 106) gives a different representation of this

important military operation; far less clear and trustworthy than

that of Xenophon.

Of the number of prisoners taken by Lysander,—which must have been

very great, since the total crews of one hundred and eighty triremes

were not less than thirty-six thousand men,[320]—we hear only of

three thousand or four thousand native Athenians, though this number

cannot represent all the native Athenians in the fleet. The Athenian

generals Philoklês and Adeimantus were certainly taken, and seemingly

all except Konon. Some of the defeated armament took refuge in

Sestos, which, however, surrendered with little resistance to the

victor. He admitted them to capitulation, on condition of their going

back immediately to Athens, and nowhere else: for he was desirous

to multiply as much as possible the numbers assembled in that city,

knowing well that the city would be the sooner starved out. Konon

too was well aware that, to go back to Athens, after the ruin of the

entire fleet, was to become one of the certain prisoners in a doomed

city, and to meet, besides, the indignation of his fellow-citizens,

so well deserved by the generals collectively. Accordingly, he

resolved to take shelter with Evagoras, prince of Salamis in the

island of Cyprus, sending the paralus, with some others of the twelve

fugitive triremes, to make known the fatal news at Athens. But before

he went thither, he crossed the strait—with singular daring, under

the circumstances—to Cape Abarnis in the territory of Lampsakus,

where the great sails of Lysander’s triremes, always taken out when a

trireme was made ready for fighting, lay seemingly unguarded. These

sails he took away, so as to lessen the enemy’s powers of pursuit,

and then made the best of his way to Cyprus.[321]

[320] Xenoph. Hellen. ii, 1, 28. τὰς δ᾽ ἄλλας πάσας (ναῦς)

Λύσανδρος ἔλαβε πρὸς τῇ γῇ· τοὺς δὲ πλείστους ἄνδρας ἐν τῇ γῇ

~ξυνέλεξεν~· οἱ δὲ καὶ ἔφυγον ἐς τὰ τειχύδρια.

[321] Xenoph. Hellen. ii, 1, 29; Diodor. xiii, 106: the latter is

discordant, however, on many points.

On the very day of the victory, Lysander sent off the Milesian

privateer Theopompus to proclaim it at Sparta, who, by a wonderful

speed of rowing, arrived there and made it known on the third

day after starting. The captured ships were towed off and the

prisoners carried across to Lampsakus, where a general assembly of

the victorious allies was convened, to determine in what manner

the prisoners should be treated. In this assembly, the most

bitter inculpations were put forth against the Athenians, as to

the manner in which they had recently dealt with their captives.

The Athenian general Philoklês, having captured a Corinthian and

Andrian trireme, had put the crews to death by hurling them headlong

from a precipice. It was not difficult, in Grecian warfare, for

each of the belligerents to cite precedents of cruelty against

the other; but in this debate, some speakers affirmed that the

Athenians had deliberated what they should do with their prisoners,

in case they had been victorious at Ægospotami; and that they had

determined—chiefly on the motion of Philoklês, but in spite of the

opposition of Adeimantus—that they would cut off the right hands of

all who were captured. Whatever opinion Philoklês may have expressed

personally, it is highly improbable that any such determination was

ever taken by the Athenians.[322] In this assembly of the allies,

however, besides all that could be said against Athens with truth,

doubtless the most extravagant falsehoods found ready credence. All

the Athenian prisoners captured at Ægospotami, three thousand or

four thousand in number, were massacred forthwith, Philoklês himself

at their head.[323] The latter, taunted by Lysander with his cruel

execution of the Corinthian and Andrian crews, disdained to return

any answer, but placed himself in conspicuous vestments at the head

of the prisoners led out to execution. If we may believe Pausanias,

even the bodies of the prisoners were left unburied.

[322] Xenoph. Hellen. ii, 1, 31. This story is given with

variations in Plutarch, Lysand. c. 9. and by Cicero de Offic.

iii, 11. It is there the right thumb which is to be cut off, and

the determination is alleged to have been taken in reference to

the Æginetans.

[323] Xenoph. Hellen. ii, 1, 32; Pausan. ix, 32, 6; Plutarch,

Lysand. c. 13.

Never was a victory more complete in itself, more overwhelming in

its consequences, or more thoroughly disgraceful to the defeated

generals, taken collectively, than that of Ægospotami. Whether it

was in reality very glorious to Lysander, is doubtful; for it was

the general belief afterwards, not merely at Athens, but seemingly

in other parts of Greece also, that the Athenian fleet was sold to

perdition by the treason of some of its own commanders. Of this

suspicion both Konon and Philoklês stand clear. Adeimantus was named

as the chief traitor, and Tydeus along with him.[324] Konon even

preferred an accusation against Adeimantus to this effect,[325]

probably by letter written home from Cyprus, and perhaps by some

formal declaration made several years afterwards, when he returned

to Athens as victor from the battle of Knidus. The truth of the

charge cannot be positively demonstrated, but all the circumstances

of the battle tend to render it probable, as well as the fact that

Konon alone among all the generals was found in a decent state

of preparation. Indeed we may add, that the utter impotence and

inertness of the numerous Athenian fleet during the whole summer

of 405 B.C. conspire to suggest a similar explanation. Nor could

Lysander, master as he was of all the treasures of Cyrus, apply any

portion of them more efficaciously than in corrupting the majority

of the six Athenian generals, so as to nullify all the energy and

ability of Konon.

[324] Xenoph. Hellen. ii, 1. 32; Lysias cont. Alkib. A. s.

38; Pausan. iv, 17, 2; x, 9, 5; Isokratês ad Philipp. Or. v,

sect. 70. Lysias, in his Λόγος Ἐπιτάφιος (s. 58), speaks of the

treason, yet not as a matter of certainty.

Cornelius Nepos (Lysand. c. 1; Alcib. c. 8) notices only the

disorder of the Athenian armament, not the corruption of the

generals, as having caused the defeat. Nor does Diodorus notice

the corruption (xiii, 105).

Both these authors seem to have copied from Theopompus, in

describing the battle of Ægospotami. His description differs on

many points from that of Xenophon (Theopomp. Fragm. 8, ed. Didot).

[325] Demosthen. de Fals. Legat. p. 401, c. 57.

The great defeat of Ægospotami took place about September 405 B.C.

It was made known at Peiræus by the paralus, which arrived there

during the night, coming straight from the Hellespont. Such a

moment of distress and agony had never been experienced at Athens.

The terrible disaster in Sicily had become known to the people by

degrees, without any authorized reporter; but here was the official

messenger, fresh from the scene, leaving no room to question the

magnitude of the disaster or the irreparable ruin impending over

the city. The wailing and cries of woe, first beginning in Peiræus,

were transmitted by the guards stationed on the Long Walls up to the

city. “On that night (says Xenophon) not a man slept; not merely from

sorrow for the past calamity, but from terror for the future fate

with which they themselves were now menaced, a retribution for what

they had themselves inflicted on the Æginetans, Melians, Skionæans,

and others.” After this night of misery, they met in public assembly

on the following day, resolving to make the best preparations they

could for a siege, to put the walls in full state of defence, and to

block up two out of the three ports.[326] For Athens thus to renounce

her maritime action, the pride and glory of the city ever since the

battle of Salamis, and to confine herself to a defensive attitude

within her own walls, was a humiliation which left nothing worse to

be endured except actual famine and surrender.

[326] Xenoph. Hellen. ii, 2, 3; Diodor. xiii, 107.

Lysander was in no hurry to pass from the Hellespont to Athens. He

knew that no farther corn-ships from the Euxine, and few supplies

from other quarters, could now reach Athens; and that the power

of the city to hold out against blockade must necessarily be very

limited; the more limited, the greater the numbers accumulated

within it. Accordingly, he permitted the Athenian garrisons which

capitulated, to go only to Athens, and nowhere else.[327] His first

measure was to make himself master of Chalkêdon and Byzantium, where

he placed the Lacedæmonian Sthenelaus as harmost, with a garrison.

Next, he passed to Lesbos, where he made similar arrangements at

Mitylênê and other cities. In them, as well as in the other cities

which now came under his power, he constituted an oligarchy of ten

native citizens, chosen from among his most daring and unscrupulous

partisans, and called a dekarchy, or dekadarchy, to govern in

conjunction with the Lacedæmonian harmost. Eteonikus was sent to

the Thracian cities which had been in dependence on Athens, to

introduce similar changes. In Thasus, however, this change was

stained by much bloodshed: there was a numerous philo-Athenian

party whom Lysander caused to be allured out of their place of

concealment into the temple of Heraklês, under the false assurance

of an amnesty: when assembled under this pledge, they were all put

to death.[328] Sanguinary proceedings of the like character, many in

the presence of Lysander himself, together with large expulsions of

citizens obnoxious to his new dekarchies, signalized everywhere the

substitution of Spartan for Athenian ascendency.[329] But nowhere,

except at Samos, did the citizens or the philo-Athenian party in the

cities continue any open hostility, or resist by force Lysander’s

entrance and his revolutionary changes. At Samos, they still held

out: the people had too much dread of that oligarchy, whom they had

expelled in the insurrection of 412 B.C., to yield without a farther

struggle.[330] With this single reserve, every city in alliance or

dependence upon Athens submitted without resistance both to the

supremacy and the subversive measures of the Lacedæmonian admiral.

[327] Xenoph. Hellen. ii, 2, 2; Plutarch, Lysand. c. 13.

[328] Cornelius Nepos, Lysand. c. 2; Polyæn. i, 45, 4. It would

appear that this is the same incident which Plutarch (Lysand.

c. 19) recounts as if the Milesians, not the Thasians, were the

parties suffering. It cannot well be the Milesians, however, it

we compare chapter 8 of Plutarch’s Life of Lysander.

[329] Plutarch, Lysand. c. 13. πολλαῖς δὲ παραγινόμενος αὐτὸς

σφαγαῖς καὶ συνεκβάλλων τοὺς τῶν φίλων ἐχθροὺς, etc.

[330] Xenoph. Hellen. ii, 2, 6. εὐθὺς δὲ καὶ ἡ ἄλλη Ἑλλὰς

ἀφειστήκει Ἀθηναίων, πλὴν Σαμίων· οὗτοι δὲ, σφαγὰς τῶν γνωρίμων

ποιήσαντες, κατεῖχον τὴν πόλιν.

I interpret the words σφαγὰς τῶν γνωρίμων ποιήσαντες to refer

to the violent revolution at Samos, described in Thucyd. viii,

21, whereby the oligarchy were dispossessed and a democratical

government established. The word σφαγὰς is used by Xenophon

(Hellen. v, 4, 14), in a subsequent passage, to describe the

conspiracy and revolution effected by Pelopidas and his friends

at Thebes. It is true that we might rather have expected the

preterite participle πεποιηκότες than the aorist ποιήσαντες. But

this employment of the aorist participle in a preterite sense is

not uncommon with Xenophon: see κατηγορήσας, δόξας, i, 1, 31;

γενομένους, i, 7, 11; ii, 2, 20.

It appears to me highly improbable that the Samians should

have chosen this occasion to make a fresh massacre of their

oligarchical citizens, as Mr. Mitford represents. The

democratical Samians must have been now humbled and intimidated,

seeing their subjugation approaching; and only determined to

hold out by finding themselves already so deeply compromised

though the former revolution. Nor would Lysander have spared them

personally afterwards, as we shall find that he did, when he

had them substantially in his power (ii, 3, 6), if they had now

committed any fresh political massacre.

The Athenian empire was thus annihilated, and Athens left

altogether alone. What was hardly less painful, all her kleruchs,

or out-citizens, whom she had formerly planted in Ægina, Melos, and

elsewhere throughout the islands, as well as in the Chersonese,

were now deprived of their properties and driven home.[331] The

leading philo-Athenians, too, at Thasus, Byzantium, and other

dependent cities,[332] were forced to abandon their homes in

the like state of destitution, and to seek shelter at Athens.

Everything thus contributed to aggravate the impoverishment, and the

manifold suffering, physical as well as moral, within her walls.

Notwithstanding the pressure of present calamity, however, and yet

worse prospects for the future, the Athenians prepared, as best they

could, for an honorable resistance.

[331] Xenoph. Memorab. ii, 8, 1; ii, 10, 4; Xenoph. Sympos. iv,

31. Compare Demosthen. cont. Leptin. c. 24, p. 491.

A great number of new proprietors acquired land in the Chersonese

through the Lacedæmonian sway, doubtless in place of these

dispossessed Athenians; perhaps by purchase at a low price, but

most probably by appropriation without purchase (Xenoph. Hellen.

iv, 8, 5).

[332] Xenoph. Hellen. i, 2, 1; Demosthen. cont. Leptin. c. 14, p.

474. Ekphantus and the other Thasian exiles received the grant

of ἀτέλεια, or immunity from the peculiar charges imposed upon

metics at Athens.

It was one of their first measures to provide for the restoration of

harmony, and to interest all in the defence of the city, by removing

every sort of disability under which individual citizens might

now be suffering. Accordingly, Patrokleidês—having first obtained

special permission from the people, without which it would have been

unconstitutional to make any proposition for abrogating sentences

judicially passed, or releasing debtors regularly inscribed in the

public registers—submitted a decree such as had never been mooted

since the period when Athens was in a condition equally desperate,

during the advancing march of Xerxes. All debtors to the state,

either recent or of long standing; all official persons now under

investigation by the Logistæ, or about to be brought before the

dikastery on the usual accountability after office; all persons who

were liquidating by instalment debts due to the public, or had given

bail for sums thus owing; all persons who had been condemned either

to total disfranchisement, or to some specific disqualification or

disability; nay, even all those who, having been either members or

auxiliaries of the Four Hundred, had stood trial afterwards, and had

been condemned to any one of the above-mentioned penalties, all these

persons were pardoned and released; every register of the penalty or

condemnation being directed to be destroyed. From this comprehensive

pardon were excepted: Those among the Four Hundred who had fled from

Athens without standing their trial; those who had been condemned

either to exile or to death by the Areopagus, or any of the other

constituted tribunals for homicide, or for subversion of the public

liberty. Not merely the public registers of all the condemnations

thus released were ordered to be destroyed, but it was forbidden,

under severe penalties, to any private citizen to keep a copy of

them, or to make any allusion to such misfortunes.[333]

[333] This interesting decree or psephism of Patrokleidês is

given at length in the Oration of Andokidês de Mysteriis, sects.

76-80: Ἃ δ᾽ εἴρηται ἐξαλεῖψαι, μὴ κεκτῆσθαι ἰδίᾳ μηδενὶ ἐξεῖναι,

μηδὲ μνησικακῆσαι μηδέποτε.

Pursuant to the comprehensive amnesty and forgiveness adopted by

the people in this decree of Patrokleidês, the general body of

citizens swore to each other a solemn pledge of mutual harmony in

the acropolis.[334] The reconciliation thus introduced enabled them

the better to bear up under their distress;[335] especially as the

persons relieved by the amnesty were, for the most part, not men

politically disaffected, like the exiles. To restore the latter, was

a measure which no one thought of: indeed, a large proportion of them

had been and were still at Dekeleia, assisting the Lacedæmonians in

their warfare against Athens.[336] But even the most prudent internal

measures could do little for Athens in reference to her capital

difficulty, that of procuring subsistence for the numerous population

within her walls, augmented every day by outlying garrisons and

citizens. She had long been shut out from the produce of Attica by

the garrison at Dekeleia; she obtained nothing from Eubœa, and since

the late defeat of Ægospotami, nothing from the Euxine, from Thrace,

or from the islands. Perhaps some corn may still have reached her

from Cyprus, and her small remaining navy did what was possible to

keep Peiræus supplied,[337] in spite of the menacing prohibitions of

Lysander, preceding his arrival to block it up effectually; but to

accumulate any stock for a siege, was utterly impossible.

[334] Andokid. de Myst. s. 76. καὶ πίστιν ἀλλήλοις περὶ ὁμονοίας

δοῦναι ἐν ἀκροπόλει.

[335] Xenoph. Hellen. ii, 2, 11. τοὺς ἀτίμους ἐπιτίμους

ποιήσαντες ἐκαρτέρουν.

[336] Andokidês de Mysteriis, sects. 80-101; Lysias, Orat. xviii,

De Bonis Niciæ Fratr. sect. 9.

At what particular moment the severe condemnatory decree had been

passed by the Athenian assembly against the exiles serving with

the Lacedæmonian garrison at Dekeleia, we do not know. The decree

is mentioned by Lykurgus, cont. Leokrat. sects. 122, 123, p. 164.

[337] Isokratês adv. Kallimachum, sect. 71; compare Andokidês

de Reditu suo, sect. 21, and Lysias cont. Diogeiton. Or. xxxii,

sect. 22, about Cyprus and the Chersonese, as ordinary sources of

supply of corn to Athens.

At length, about November, 405 B.C., Lysander reached the Saronic

gulf, having sent intimation beforehand, both to Agis and to the

Lacedæmonians, that he was approaching with a fleet of two hundred

triremes. The full Lacedæmonian and Peloponnesian force (all except

the Argeians), under king Pausanias, was marched into Attica to

meet him, and encamped in the precinct of Acadêmus, at the gates of

Athens; while Lysander, first coming to Ægina with his overwhelming

fleet of one hundred and fifty sail; next, ravaging Salamis, blocked

up completely the harbor of Peiræus. It was one of his first measures

to collect together the remnant which he could find of the Æginetan

and Melian populations, whom Athens had expelled and destroyed; and

to restore to them the possession of their ancient islands.[338]

[338] Xenoph. Hellen. ii, 2, 9; Diodor. xiii, 107.

Though all hope had now fled, the pride, the resolution, and the

despair of Athens, still enabled her citizens to bear up; nor was

it until some men actually began to die of hunger, that they sent

propositions to entreat peace. Even then their propositions were not

without dignity. They proposed to Agis to become allies of Sparta,

retaining their walls entire and their fortified harbor of Peiræus.

Agis referred the envoys to the ephors at Sparta, to whom he at

the same time transmitted a statement of their propositions. But

the ephors did not even deign to admit the envoys to an interview,

but sent messengers to meet them at Sellasia on the frontier of

Laconia, desiring that they would go back and come again prepared

with something more admissible, and acquainting them at the same

time that no proposition could be received which did not include the

demolition of the Long Walls, for a continuous length of ten stadia.

With this gloomy reply the envoys returned. Notwithstanding all the

suffering in the city, the senate and people would not consent even

to take such humiliating terms into consideration. A senator named

Archestratus, who advised that they should be accepted, was placed

in custody, and a general vote was passed,[339] on the proposition

of Kleophon, forbidding any such motion in future.

[339] Xenoph. Hellen. ii, 2, 12-15; Lysias cont. Agorat. sects.

10-12.

Such a vote demonstrates the courageous patience both of the senate

and the people; but unhappily it supplied no improved prospects,

while the suffering within the walls continued to become more and

more aggravated. Under these circumstances, Theramenês offered

himself to the people to go as envoy to Lysander and Sparta,

affirming that he should be able to detect what the real intention

of the ephors was in regard to Athens, whether they really intended

to root out the population and sell them as slaves. He pretended,

farther, to possess personal influence, founded on circumstances

which he could not divulge, such as would very probably insure a

mitigation of the doom. He was accordingly sent, in spite of strong

protest from the senate of Areopagus and others,—but with no express

powers to conclude,—simply to inquire and report. We hear with

astonishment that he remained more than three months as companion

of Lysander, who, he alleged, had detained him thus long, and had

only acquainted him, after the fourth month had begun, that no

one but the ephors had any power to grant peace. It seems to have

been the object of Theramenês, by this long delay, to wear out the

patience of the Athenians, and to bring them into such a state of

intolerable suffering, that they would submit to any terms of peace

which would only bring provisions into the town. In this scheme he

completely succeeded; and considering how great were the privations

of the people even at the moment of his departure, it is not easy to

understand how they could have been able to sustain protracted and

increasing famine for three months longer.[340]

[340] Xenoph. Hellen. ii, 2, 16; Lysias, Orat. xiii, cont.

Agorat. sect. 12; Lysias, Orat. xii, cont. Eratosthen. sects.

65-71.

See an illustration of the great suffering during the siege, in

Xenophon Apolog. Socrat. s. 18.

We make out little that is distinct respecting these last moments

of imperial Athens. We find only an heroic endurance displayed, to

such a point that numbers actually died of starvation, without any

offer to surrender on humiliating conditions.[341] Amidst the general

acrimony, and exasperated special antipathies, arising out of such

a state of misery, the leading men who stood out most earnestly for

prolonged resistance became successively victims to the prosecutions

of their enemies. The demagogue Kleophon was condemned and put to

death, on the accusation of having evaded his military duty; the

senate, whose temper and proceedings he had denounced, constituting

itself a portion of the dikastery which tried him, contrary both

to the forms and the spirit of Athenian judicatures.[342] Such

proceedings, however, though denounced by orators in subsequent years

as having contributed to betray the city into the hands of the enemy,

appear to have been without any serious influence on the result,

which was brought about purely by famine.

[341] Xenoph. Hellen. ii, 2, 15-21; compare Isokratês, Areopagit.

Or. vii, sect. 73.

[342] Lysias, Orat. xiii, cont. Agorat. sects. 15, 16, 17; Orat.

xxx, cont. Nikomach. sects. 13-17.

This seems the most probable story as to the death of Kleophon,

though the accounts are not all consistent, and the statement of

Xenophon, especially (Hellen. i, 7, 35), is not to be reconciled

with Lysias. Xenophon conceived Kleophon as having perished

earlier than this period, in a sedition (στάσεως τινος γενομένης

ἐν ᾗ Κλεοφῶν ἀπέθανε), before the flight of Kallixenus from his

recognizances. It is scarcely possible that Kallixenus could have

been still under recognizance, during this period of suffering

between the battle of Ægospotami and the capture of Athens. He

must have escaped before that battle. Neither long detention of

an accused party in prison before trial, nor long postponement

of trial when he was under recognizance were at all in Athenian

habits.

By the time that Theramenês returned after his long absence, so

terrible had the pressure become, that he was sent forth again with

instructions to conclude peace upon any terms. On reaching Sellasia,

and acquainting the ephors that he had come with unlimited powers for

peace, he was permitted to come to Sparta, where the assembly of the

Peloponnesian confederacy was convened, to settle on what terms peace

should be granted. The leading allies, especially Corinthians and

Thebans, recommended that no agreement should be entered into, nor

any farther measure kept, with this hated enemy now in their power;

but that the name of Athens should be rooted out, and the population

sold for slaves. Many of the other allies seconded the same views,

which would have probably commanded a majority, had it not been for

the resolute opposition of the Lacedæmonians themselves; who declared

unequivocally that they would never consent to annihilate or enslave

a city which had rendered such capital service to all Greece at the

time of the great common danger from the Persians.[343] Lysander

farther calculated on so dealing with Athens, as to make her into a

dependency, and an instrument of increased power to Sparta, apart

from her allies. Peace was accordingly granted on the following

conditions: that the Long Walls and the fortifications of the Peiræus

should be destroyed; that the Athenians should evacuate all their

foreign possessions, and confine themselves to their own territory;

that they should surrender all their ships of war; that they should

readmit all their exiles; that they should become allies of Sparta,

following her leadership both by sea and land, and recognizing the

same enemies and friends.[344]

[343] Xenoph. Hellen. ii, 2, 19; vi, 5, 35-46; Plutarch, Lysand.

c. 15.

The Thebans, a few years afterwards, when they were soliciting

aid from the Athenians against Sparta, disavowed this proposition

of their delegate Erianthus, who had been the leader of the

Bœotian contingent serving under Lysander at Ægospotami, honored

in that character by having his statue erected at Delphi, along

with the other allied leaders who took part in the battle, and

along with Lysander and Eteonikus (Pausan. x, 9, 4).

It is one of the exaggerations so habitual with Isokratês, to

serve a present purpose, when he says that the Thebans were the

_only_ parties, among all the Peloponnesian confederates, who

gave this harsh anti-Athenian vote (Isokratês, Orat. Plataic. Or.

xiv, sect. 34).

Demosthenês says that the Phocians gave their vote, in the same

synod, against the Theban proposition (Demosth. de Fals. Legat.

c. 22, p. 361).

It seems from Diodor. xv, 63, and Polyæn. i, 45, 5, as well as

from some passages in Xenophon himself, that the motives of the

Lacedæmonians, in thus resisting the proposition of the Thebans

against Athens, were founded in policy more than in generosity.

[344] Xenoph. Hellen. ii, 2, 20; Plutarch, Lysand. c. 14; Diodor.

xiii, 107. Plutarch gives the express words of the Lacedæmonian

decree, some of which words are very perplexing. The conjecture

of G. Hermann, αἱ χρήδοιτε instead of ἃ χρὴ δόντες, has been

adopted into the text of Plutarch by Sintenis, though it seems

very uncertain.

With this document, written according to Lacedæmonian practice on

a skytalê,—or roll intended to go round a stick, of which the

Lacedæmonian commander had always one, and the ephors another,

corresponding,—Theramenês went back to Athens. As he entered the

city, a miserable crowd flocked round him, in distress and terror

lest he should have failed altogether in his mission. The dead

and the dying had now become so numerous, that peace at any price

was a boon; nevertheless, when he announced in the assembly the

terms of which he was bearer, strongly recommending submission to

the Lacedæmonians as the only course now open, there was still a

high-spirited minority who entered their protest, and preferred

death by famine to such insupportable disgrace. The large majority,

however, accepted them, and the acceptance was made known to

Lysander.[345]

[345] Xenoph. Hellen. ii, 2, 23. Lysias (Orat. xii, cont.

Eratosth. s. 71) lays the blame of this wretched and humiliating

peace upon Theramenês, who plainly ought not to be required to

bear it; compare Lysias, Orat. xiii, cont. Agorat. sects. 12-20.

It was on the 16th day of the Attic month Munychion,[346]—about

the middle or end of March,—that this victorious commander sailed

into the Peiræus, twenty-seven years, almost exactly, after that

surprise of Platæa by the Thebans, which opened the Peloponnesian

war. Along with him came the Athenian exiles, several of whom appear

to have been serving with his army,[347] and assisting him with

their counsel. To the population of Athens generally, his entry was

an immediate relief, in spite of the cruel degradation, or indeed

political extinction, with which it was accompanied. At least it

averted the sufferings and horrors of famine, and permitted a decent

interment of the many unhappy victims who had already perished.

The Lacedæmonians, both naval and military force, under Lysander

and Agis, continued in occupation of Athens until the conditions

of the peace had been fulfilled. All the triremes in Peiræus were

carried away by Lysander, except twelve, which he permitted the

Athenians to retain: the ephors, in their skytalê, had left it to

his discretion what number he would thus allow.[348] The unfinished

ships in the dockyards were burnt, and the arsenals themselves

ruined.[349] To demolish the Long Walls and the fortifications of

Peiræus, was however, a work of some time; and a certain number of

days were granted to the Athenians, within which it was required to

be completed. In the beginning of the work, the Lacedæmonians and

their allies all lent a hand, with the full pride and exultation of

conquerors; amidst women playing the flute and dancers crowned with

wreaths; mingled with joyful exclamations from the Peloponnesian

allies, that this was the first day of Grecian freedom.[350] How many

days were allowed for this humiliating duty imposed upon Athenian

hands, of demolishing the elaborate, tutelary, and commanding works

of their forefathers, we are not told. But the business was not

completed within the interval named, so that the Athenians did not

come up to the letter of the conditions, and had therefore, by strict

construction, forfeited their title to the peace granted.[351] The

interval seems, however, to have been prolonged; probably considering

that for the real labor, as well as the melancholy character of the

work to be done, too short a time had been allowed at first.

[346] Plutarch, Lysand. c. 15. He says, however, that this

was also the day on which the Athenians gained the battle of

Salamis. This is incorrect: that victory was gained in the month

Boedromion.

[347] Xenoph. Hellen. ii, 2, 18.

[348] Xenoph. Hellen. ii, 2, 20; ii, 3, 8; Plutarch, Lysand. c.

14. He gives the contents of the skytalê _verbatim_.

[349] Plutarch, Lysand. c. 15; Lysias cont. Agorat. sect. 50. ἔτι

δὲ τὰ τείχη ὡς κατεσκάφη, καὶ αἱ νῆες τοῖς πολεμίοις παρεδόθησαν,

καὶ τὰ νεώρια καθῃρέθη, etc.

[350] Xenoph. Hellen. ii, 2, 23. Καὶ τὰ τείχη κατέσκαπτον ὑπ᾽

αὐλητρίδων πολλῇ προθυμίᾳ, νομίζοντες ἐκείνην τὴν ἡμέραν τῇ

Ἑλλάδι ἄρχειν τῆς ἐλευθερίας.

Plutarch, Lysand. c. 15.

[351] Lysias cont. Eratosth. Or. xii, sect. 75, p. 431, R.;

Plutarch, Lysand. c. 15; Diodor. xiv, 3.

It appears that Lysander, after assisting at the solemn ceremony of

beginning to demolish the walls, and making such a breach as left

Athens without any substantial means of resistance, did not remain

to complete the work, but withdrew with a portion of his fleet to

undertake the siege of Samos which still held out, leaving the

remainder to see that the conditions imposed were fulfilled.[352]

After so long an endurance of extreme misery, doubtless the general

population thought of little except relief from famine and its

accompaniments, without any disposition to contend against the fiat

of their conquerors. If some high-spirited men formed an exception

to the pervading depression, and still kept up their courage against

better days, there was at the same time a party of totally opposite

character, to whom the prostrate condition of Athens was a source

of revenge for the past, exultation for the present, and ambitious

projects for the future. These were partly the remnant of that

faction which had set up, seven years before, the oligarchy of Four

Hundred, and still more, the exiles, including several members of

the Four Hundred,[353] who now flocked in from all quarters. Many

of them had been long serving at Dekeleia, and had formed a part

of the force blockading Athens. These exiles now revisited the

acropolis as conquerors, and saw with delight the full accomplishment

of that foreign occupation at which many of them had aimed seven

years before, when they constructed the fortress of Ecteioneia, as

a means of insuring their own power. Though the conditions imposed

extinguished at once the imperial character, the maritime power, the

honor, and the independence of Athens, these men were as eager as

Lysander to carry them all into execution; because the continuance

of the Athenian democracy was now entirely at his mercy, and because

his establishment of oligarchies in the other subdued cities

plainly intimated what he would do in this great focus of Grecian

democratical impulse.

[352] Lysander dedicated a golden crown to Athênê in the

acropolis, which is recorded in the inscriptions among the

articles belonging to the goddess.

See Boeckh, Corp. Inscr. Attic. Nos. 150-152, p. 235.

[353] Lysias. Or. xiii, cont. Agorat. s. 80.

Among these exiles were comprised Aristodemus and Aristotelês, both

seemingly persons of importance, the former having at one time been

one of the Hellenotamiæ, the first financial office of the imperial

democracy, and the latter an active member of the Four Hundred;[354]

also Chariklês, who had been so distinguished for his violence in

the investigation respecting the Hermæ, and another man, of whom

we now for the first time obtain historical knowledge in detail,

Kritias, son of Kallæschrus. He had been among the persons accused as

having been concerned in the mutilation of the Hermæ, and seems to

have been for a long time important in the political, the literary,

and the philosophical world of Athens. To all three, his abilities

qualified him to do honor. Both his poetry, in the Solonian or

moralizing vein, and his eloquence, published specimens of which

remained in the Augustan age, were of no ordinary merit. His wealth

was large, and his family among the most ancient and conspicuous in

Athens: one of his ancestors had been friend and companion of the

lawgiver Solon. He was himself maternal uncle of the philosopher

Plato,[355] and had frequented the society of Sokratês so much as

to have his name intimately associated in the public mind with that

remarkable man. We know neither the cause, nor even the date of his

exile, except so far, as that he was not in banishment immediately

after the revolution of the Four Hundred, and that he _was_ in

banishment at the time when the generals were condemned after the

battle of Arginusæ.[356] He had passed the time, or a part of the

time, of his exile in Thessaly, where he took an active part in the

sanguinary feuds carried on among the oligarchical parties of that

lawless country. He is said to have embraced, along with a leader

named, or surnamed, Prometheus, what passed for the democratical

side in Thessaly; arming the penestæ, or serfs, against their

masters.[357] What the conduct and dispositions of Kritias had been

before this period we are unable to say; but he brought with him now,

on returning from exile, not merely an unmeasured and unprincipled

lust of power, but also a rancorous impulse towards spoliation and

bloodshed[358] which outran even his ambition, and ultimately ruined

both his party and himself.

[354] Xenoph. Hellen. ii, 2, 18; ii, 3, 46; Plutarch, Vit. x,

Orator. Vit. Lycurg. init.

M. E. Meier, in his Commentary on Lykurgus, construes this

passage of Plutarch differently, so that the person therein

specified as exile would be, not Aristodemus, but the grandfather

of Lykurgus. But I do not think this construction justified: see

Meier, Comm. de Lykurg. Vitâ, p. iv, (Halle, 1847).

Respecting Chariklês, see Isokratês, Orat. xvi, De Bigis, s. 52.

[355] See Stallbaum’s Preface to the Charmidês of Plato, his note

on the Timæus of Plato, p. 20, E, and the Scholia on the same

passage.

Kritias is introduced as taking a conspicuous part in four of the

Platonic dialogues; Protagoras, Charmidês, Timæus and Kritias;

the last only a fragment, not to mention the Eryxias.

The small remains of the elegiac poetry of Kritias are to be

found in Schneidewin, Delect. Poet. Græc. p. 136, _seq._ Both

Cicero (De Orat. ii, 22, 93) and Dionys. Hal. (Judic. de Lysiâ,

c. 2, p. 454; Jud. de Isæo, p. 627) notice his historical

compositions.

About the concern of Kritias in the mutilation of the Hermæ, as

affirmed by Diognêtus, see Andokidês de Mysteriis, s. 47. He was

first cousin of Andokidês, by the mother’s side.

[356] Xenoph. Hellen. ii, 3, 35.

[357] Xenoph. Hellen ii, 3, 35; Memorab. i, 2, 24.

[358] Xenoph. Hellen. ii, 2. ἐπεὶ δὲ αὐτὸς μὲν (Kritias) προπετὴς

ἦν ἐπὶ τὸ πολλοὺς ἀποκτεῖναι, ἅτε καὶ φυγὼν ὑπὸ τοῦ δήμου, etc.

Of all these returning exiles, animated with mingled vengeance and

ambition, Kritias was decidedly the leading man, like Antiphon among

the Four Hundred; partly from his abilities, partly from the superior

violence with which he carried out the common sentiment. At the

present juncture, he and his fellow-exiles became the most important

persons in the city, as enjoying most the friendship and confidence

of the conquerors. But the oligarchical party at home were noway

behind them, either in servility or in revolutionary fervor, and an

understanding was soon established between the two. Probably the old

faction of the Four Hundred, though put down, had never wholly died

out: at any rate, the political hetæries, or clubs, out of which it

was composed, still remained, prepared for fresh coöperation when a

favorable moment should arrive; and the catastrophe of Ægospotami

had made it plain to every one that such moment could not be far

distant. Accordingly, a large portion, if not the majority, of the

senators, became ready to lend themselves to the destruction of the

democracy, and only anxious to insure places among the oligarchy in

prospect;[359] while the supple Theramenês—resuming his place as

oligarchical leader, and abusing his mission as envoy to wear out

the patience of his half-famished countrymen—had, during his three

months’ absence in the tent of Lysander, concerted arrangements with

the exiles for future proceedings.[360]

[359] Lysias cont. Agorat. Or. xiii, s. 23, p. 132.

[360] Lysias cont. Eratosth. Or. xii, s. 78, p. 128. Theramenês

is described, in his subsequent defence, ὀνειδίζων μὲν τοῖς

φεύγουσιν ὅτι δι᾽ αὑτὸν κατέλθοιεν, etc.

The general narrative of Xenophon, meagre as it is, harmonizes

with this.

As soon as the city surrendered, and while the work of demolition

was yet going on, the oligarchical party began to organize itself.

The members of the political clubs again came together, and named

a managing committee of five, called ephors in compliment to the

Lacedæmonians, to direct the general proceedings of the party; to

convene meetings when needful, to appoint subordinate managers for

the various tribes, and to determine what propositions were to be

submitted to the public assembly.[361] Among these five ephors were

Kritias and Eratosthenês; probably Theramenês also.

[361] Lysias cont. Eratosth. Or. xii, s. 44, p. 124. Ἐπειδὴ δὲ ἡ

ναυμαχία καὶ ἡ συμφορὰ τῇ πόλει ἐγένετο, δημοκρατίας ἔτι οὔσης,

ὅθεν τῆς στάσεως ἦρξαν, πέντε ἄνδρες ~ἔφοροι κατέστησαν ὑπὸ τῶν

καλουμένων ἑταίρων~, συναγωγεῖς μὲν τῶν πολιτῶν, ἄρχοντες δὲ τῶν

συνωμοτῶν, ἐναντία δὲ τῷ ὑμετέρῳ πλήθει πράττοντες.

But the oligarchical party, though thus organized and ascendant,

with a compliant senate and a dispirited people, and with an

auxiliary enemy actually in possession, still thought themselves not

powerful enough to carry their intended changes without seizing the

most resolute of the democratical leaders. Accordingly, a citizen

named Theokritus tendered an accusation to the senate against

the general Strombichidês, together with several others of the

democratical generals and taxiarchs; supported by the deposition

of a slave, or lowborn man, named Agoratus. Although Nikias and

several other citizens tried to prevail upon Agoratus to leave

Athens, furnished him with the means of escape, and offered to go

away with him themselves from Munychia, until the political state

of Athens should come into a more assured condition,[362] yet he

refused to retire, appeared before the senate, and accused the

generals of being concerned in a conspiracy to break up the peace;

pretending to be himself their accomplice. Upon his information,

given both before the senate and before an assembly at Munychia,

the generals, the taxiarchs, and several other citizens, men of

high worth and courageous patriots, were put into prison, as well

as Agoratus himself, to stand their trial afterwards before a

dikastery consisting of two thousand members. One of the parties thus

accused, Menestratus, being admitted by the public assembly, on the

proposition of Hagnodôrus, the brother-in-law of Kritias, to become

accusing witness, named several additional accomplices, who were also

forthwith placed in custody.[363]

[362] Lysias cont. Agorat. Or. xiii, s. 28 (p. 132); s. 35, p.

133. Καὶ παρορμίσαντες δύο πλοῖα Μουνυχίασιν, ἐδέοντο αὐτοῦ

(Ἀγοράτου) παντὶ τρόπῳ ἀπελθεῖν Ἀθήνηθεν, καὶ αὐτοὶ ἔφασαν

συνεκπλευσεῖσθαι, ~ἕως τὰ πράγματα κατασταίη~, etc.

Lysias represents this accusation of the generals, and this

behavior of Agoratus, as having occurred _before_ the surrender

of the city, but _after_ the return of Theramenês, bringing back

the final terms imposed by the Lacedæmonians. He thus so colors

it, that Agoratus, by getting the generals out of the way, was

the real cause why the degrading peace brought by Theramenês

was accepted. Had the generals remained at large, he affirms,

they would have prevented the acceptance of this degrading

peace, and would have been able to obtain better terms from the

Lacedæmonians (see Lysias cont. Agor. sects. 16-20).

Without questioning generally the matters of fact set forth by

Lysias in this oration (delivered a long time afterwards, see

s. 90), I believe that he _misdates_ them, and represents them

as having occurred _before_ the surrender, whereas they really

occurred _after_ it. We know from Xenophon, that when Theramenês

came back the second time with the real peace, the people were in

such a state of famine, that farther waiting was impossible: the

peace was accepted immediately that it was proposed; cruel as it

was, the people were glad to get it (Xenoph. Hellen. ii, 2, 22).

Besides, how could Agoratus be conveyed with two vessels out of

Munychia, when the harbor was closely blocked up? and what is the

meaning of ἕως τὰ πράγματα κατασταίη, referred to a moment just

_before_ the surrender?

[363] Lysias cont. Agorat. Or. xiii, sects. 38, 60, 68.

Though the most determined defenders of the democratical constitution

were thus eliminated, Kritias and Theramenês still farther insured

the success of their propositions by invoking the presence of

Lysander from Samos. The demolition of the walls had been completed,

the main blockading army had disbanded, and the immediate pressure

of famine had been removed, when an assembly was held to determine

on future modifications of the constitution. A citizen named

Drakontidês,[364] moved that a Board of Thirty should be named,

to draw up laws for the future government of the city, and to

manage provisionally the public affairs, until that task should

be completed. Among the thirty persons proposed, prearranged by

Theramenês and the oligarchical five ephors, the most prominent

names were those of Kritias and Theramenês: there were, besides,

Drakontidês himself,—Onomaklês, one of the Four Hundred who had

escaped,—Aristotelês and Chariklês, both exiles newly returned,

Eratosthenês, and others whom we do not know, but of whom probably

several had also been exiles or members of the Four Hundred.[365]

Though this was a complete abrogation of the constitution, yet so

conscious were the conspirators of their own strength, that they did

not deem it necessary to propose the formal suspension of the graphê

paranomôn, as had been done prior to the installation of the former

oligarchy. Still, notwithstanding the seizure of the leaders and

the general intimidation prevalent, a loud murmur of repugnance was

heard in the assembly at the motion of Drakontidês. But Theramenês

rose up to defy the murmur, telling the assembly that the proposition

numbered many partisans even among the citizens themselves, and that

it had, besides, the approbation of Lysander and the Lacedæmonians.

This was presently confirmed by Lysander himself, who addressed the

assembly in person. He told them, in a menacing and contemptuous

tone, that Athens was now at his mercy, since the walls had not

been demolished before the day specified, and consequently the

conditions of the promised peace had been violated. He added that,

if they did not adopt the recommendation of Theramenês, they would

be forced to take thought for their personal safety instead of for

their political constitution. After a notice at once so plain and so

crushing, farther resistance was vain. The dissentients all quitted

the assembly in sadness and indignation; while a remnant—according

to Lysias, inconsiderable in number as well as worthless in

character—stayed to vote acceptance of the motion.[366]

[364] Lysias cont. Eratosth. Or. xii, s. 74: compare Aristotle

ap. Schol. ad Aristophan. Vesp. 157.

[365] Xenoph. Hellen. ii, 3, 2.

[366] Lysias cont. Eratosth. Or. xii, sects. 74-77.

Seven years before, Theramenês had carried, in conjunction with

Antiphon and Phrynichus, a similar motion for the installation of

the Four Hundred; extorting acquiescence by domestic terrorism as

well as by multiplied assassinations. He now, in conjunction with

Kritias and the rest, a second time extinguished the constitution of

his country, by the still greater humiliation of a foreign conqueror

dictating terms to the Athenian people assembled in their own Pnyx.

Having seen the Thirty regularly constituted, Lysander retired from

Athens to finish the siege of Samos, which still held out. Though

blocked up both by land and sea, the Samians obstinately defended

themselves for some months longer, until the close of the summer.

Nor was it until the last extremity that they capitulated; obtaining

permission for every freeman to depart in safety, but with no other

property except a single garment. Lysander handed over the city and

the properties to the ancient citizens, that is, to the oligarchy and

their partisans, who had been partly expelled, partly disfranchised,

in the revolution eight years before. But he placed the government

of Samos, as he had dealt with the other cities, in the hands of one

of his dekadarchies, or oligarchy of Ten Samians, chosen by himself;

leaving Thorax as Lacedæmonian harmost, and doubtless a force under

him.[367]

[367] Xenoph. Hellen. ii, 3, 6-8.

Having thus finished the war, and trodden out the last spark of

resistance, Lysander returned in triumph to Sparta. So imposing

a triumph never fell to the lot of any Greek, either before or

afterwards. He brought with him every trireme out of the harbor of

Peiræus, except twelve, left to the Athenians as a concession; he

brought the prow-ornaments of all the ships captured at Ægospotami

and elsewhere; he was loaded with golden crowns, voted to him by

the various cities; and he farther exhibited a sum of money not

less than four hundred and seventy talents, the remnant of those

treasures which Cyrus had handed over to him for the prosecution of

the war.[368] That sum had been greater, but is said to have been

diminished by the treachery of Gylippus, to whose custody it had

been committed, and who sullied by such mean peculation the laurels

which he had so gloriously earned at Syracuse.[369] Nor was it merely

the triumphant evidences of past exploits which now decorated this

returning admiral. He wielded besides an extent of real power greater

than any individual Greek either before or after. Imperial Sparta,

as she had now become, was as it were personified in Lysander, who

was master of almost all the insular, Asiatic, and Thracian cities,

by means of the harmost and the native dekadarchies named by himself

and selected from his creatures. To this state of things we shall

presently return, when we have followed the eventful history of the

Thirty at Athens.

[368] Xenoph. Hellen. ii, 2, 8.

[369] Plutarch, Lysand. c. 16; Diodor. xiii, 106.

These thirty men—the parallel of the dekarchies whom Lysander had

constituted in the other cities—were intended for the same purpose,

to maintain the city in a state of humiliation and dependence upon

Lacedæmon, and upon Lysander, as the representative of Lacedæmon.

Though appointed, in the pretended view of drawing up a scheme of

laws and constitution for Athens, they were in no hurry to commence

this duty. They appointed a new senate, composed of compliant,

assured, and oligarchical persons; including many of the returned

exiles who had been formerly in the Four Hundred, and many also of

the preceding senators who were willing to serve their designs.[370]

They farther named new magistrates and officers; a new Board of

Eleven, to manage the business of police and the public force, with

Satyrus, one of their most violent partisans, as chief; a Board of

Ten, to govern in Peiræus;[371] an archon, to give name to the year,

Pythodôrus, and a second, or king-archon, Patroklês,[372] to offer

the customary sacrifices on behalf of the city. While thus securing

their own ascendency, and placing all power in the hands of the most

violent oligarchical partisans, they began by professing reforming

principles of the strictest virtue; denouncing the abuses of the

past democracy, and announcing their determination to purge the city

of evil-doers.[373] The philosopher Plato—then a young man about

twenty-four years old, of anti-democratical politics, and nephew

of Kritias—was at first misled, together with various others, by

these splendid professions; he conceived hopes, and even received

encouragement from his relations, that he might play an active part

under the new oligarchy.[374] Though he soon came to discern how

little congenial his feelings were with theirs, yet in the beginning

doubtless such honest illusions contributed materially to strengthen

their hands.

[370] Xenoph. Hellen. ii, 2, 11: Lysias cont. Agorat. Orat. xiii,

sects. 23-80.

Tisias, the brother-in-law of Chariklês, was a member of this

senate (Isokratês, Or. xvi, De Bigis, s. 53).

[371] Plato, Epist. vii, p. 324, B.; Xenoph. Hellen. ii, 3, 54.

[372] Isokratês cont. Kallimach. Or. xviii, s. 6, p. 372.

[373] Lysias, Orat. xii, cont. Eratosth. s. 5, p. 121. Ἐπειδὴ

δ᾽ οἱ τριάκοντα πονηροὶ μὲν καὶ ~συκοφάνται~ ὄντες εἰς τὴν

ἀρχὴν κατέστησαν, φάσκοντες χρῆναι τῶν ἀδίκων καθαρὰν ποιῆσαι

τὴν πόλιν, καὶ τοὺς λοιποὺς πολίτας ἐπ᾽ ἀρετὴν καὶ δικαιοσύνην

τραπέσθαι, etc.

[374] Plato, Epist. vii, p. 324, B.C.

In execution of their design to root out evil-doers, the Thirty first

laid hands on some of the most obnoxious politicians under the former

democracy; “men (says Xenophon) whom every one knew to live by making

calumnious accusations, called sycophancy, and who were pronounced

in their enmity to the oligarchical citizens.” How far most of these

men had been honest or dishonest in their previous political conduct

under the democracy, we have no means of determining. But among them

were comprised Strombichidês and the other democratical officers who

had been imprisoned under the information of Agoratus, men whose

chief crime consisted in a strenuous and inflexible attachment to

the democracy. The persons thus seized were brought to trial before

the new senate appointed by the Thirty, contrary to the vote of the

people, which had decreed that Strombichidês and his companions

should be tried before a dikastery of two thousand citizens.[375] But

the dikastery, as well as all the other democratical institutions,

were now abrogated, and no judicial body was left except the newly

constituted senate. Even to that senate, though composed of their

own partisans, the Thirty did not choose to intrust the trial of the

prisoners, with that secrecy of voting which was well known at Athens

to be essential to the free and genuine expression of sentiment.

Whenever prisoners were tried, the Thirty were themselves present

in the senate-house, sitting on the benches previously occupied by

the prytanes: two tables were placed before them, one signifying

condemnation, the other, acquittal; and each senator was required

to deposit his pebble openly before them, either on one or on the

other.[376] It was not merely judgment by the senate, but judgment

by the senate under pressure and intimidation by the all-powerful

Thirty. It seems probable that neither any semblance of defence, nor

any exculpatory witnesses, were allowed; but even if such formalities

were not wholly dispensed with, it is certain that there was no real

trial, and that condemnation was assured beforehand. Among the great

numbers whom the Thirty brought before the senate, not a single

man was acquitted except the informer Agoratus, who was brought to

trial as an accomplice along with Strombichidês and his companions,

but was liberated in recompense for the information which he had

given against them.[377] The statement of Isokratês, Lysias, and

others—that the victims of the Thirty, even when brought before the

senate, were put to death untried—is authentic and trustworthy: many

were even put to death by simple order from the Thirty themselves,

without any cognizance of the senate.[378]

[375] Lysias cont. Agorat. s. 38.

[376] Lysias cont. Agorat. s. 40.

[377] Lysias cont. Agorat. s. 41.

[378] Lysias cont. Eratosth. s. 18; Xenoph. Hellen. ii, 3, 51;

Isokrat. Orat. xx, cont. Lochit. s. 15, p. 397.

In regard to the persons first brought to trial, however,—whether

we consider them, as Xenophon intimates, to have been notorious

evil-doers, or to have been innocent sufferers by the reactionary

vengeance of returning oligarchical exiles, as was the case certainly

with Strombichidês and the officers accused along with him,—there was

little necessity for any constraint on the part of the Thirty over

the senate. That body itself partook of the sentiment which dictated

the condemnation, and acted as a willing instrument; while the Thirty

themselves were unanimous, Theramenês being even more zealous than

Kritias in these executions, to demonstrate his sincere antipathy

towards the extinct democracy.[379] As yet too, since all the persons

condemned, justly or unjustly, had been marked politicians, so, all

other citizens who had taken no conspicuous part in politics, even if

they disapproved of the condemnations, had not been led to conceive

any apprehension of the like fate for themselves. Here, then,

Theramenês, and along with him a portion of the Thirty as well as of

the senate, were inclined to pause. While enough had been done to

satiate their antipathies, by the death of the most obnoxious leaders

of the democracy, they at the same time conceived the oligarchical

government to be securely established, and contended that farther

bloodshed would only endanger its stability, by spreading alarm,

multiplying enemies, and alienating friends as well as neutrals.

[379] Xenoph. Hellen. ii, 3, 12, 28, 38. ~Αὐτὸς~ (Theramenês)

~μάλιστα ἐξορμήσας~ ἡμᾶς, τοῖς πρώτοις ὑπαγομένοις ἐς ἡμᾶς δίκην

ἐπιτιθέναι, etc.

But these were not the views either of Kritias or of the Thirty

generally, who surveyed their position with eyes very different from

the unstable and cunning Theramenês, and who had brought with them

from exile a long arrear of vengeance yet to be appeased. Kritias

knew well that the numerous population of Athens were devotedly

attached, and had good reason to be attached, to their democracy;

that the existing government had been imposed upon them by force,

and could only be upheld by force; that its friends were a narrow

minority, incapable of sustaining it against the multitude around

them, all armed; that there were still many formidable enemies to

be got rid of, so that it was indispensable to invoke the aid of a

permanent Lacedæmonian garrison in Athens, as the only condition

not only of their stability as a government, but even of their

personal safety. In spite of the opposition of Theramenês, Æschinês

and Aristotelês, two among the Thirty, were despatched to Sparta

to solicit aid from Lysander; who procured for them a Lacedæmonian

garrison under Kallibius as harmost, which they engaged to maintain

without any cost to Sparta, until their government should be

confirmed by putting the evil-doers out of the way.[380] Kallibius

was not only installed as master of the acropolis,—full as it was of

the mementos of Athenian glory,—but was farther so caressed and won

over by the Thirty, that he lent himself to everything which they

asked. They had thus a Lacedæmonian military force constantly at

their command, besides an organized band of youthful satellites and

assassins, ready for any deeds of violence; and they proceeded to

seize and put to death many citizens, who were so distinguished for

their courage and patriotism, as to be likely to serve as leaders

to the public discontent. Several of the best men in Athens thus

successively perished, while Thrasybulus, Anytus, and many others,

fearing a similar fate, fled out of Attica, leaving their property

to be confiscated and appropriated by the oligarchs;[381] who passed

a decree of exile against them in their absence, as well as against

Alkibiadês.[382]

[380] Xenoph. Hellen. ii, 3, 13. ἕως δὴ τοὺς πονηροὺς ἐκποδὼν

ποιησάμενοι καταστήσαιντο τὴν πολιτείαν.

[381] Xenoph. Hellen. ii, 3, 15, 23, 42; Isokrat. cont.

Kallimach. Or. xviii, s. 30, p. 375.

[382] Xenoph. Hellen. ii, 3, 42; ii, 4, 14. οἱ δὲ καὶ οὐχ ὅπως

ἀδικοῦντες, ἀλλ᾽ οὐδ᾽ ἐπιδημοῦντες ἐφυγαδευόμεθα, etc.

Isokratês, Orat. xvi, De Bigis, s. 46, p. 355.

These successive acts of vengeance and violence were warmly opposed

by Theramenês, both in the council of Thirty and in the senate.

The persons hitherto executed, he said, had deserved their death,

because they were not merely noted politicians under the democracy,

but also persons of marked hostility to oligarchical men. But

to inflict the same fate on others, who had manifested no such

hostility, simply because they had enjoyed influence under the

democracy, would be unjust: “Even you and I (he reminded Kritias)

have both said and done many things for the sake of popularity.” But

Kritias replied: “We cannot afford to be scrupulous; we are engaged

in a scheme of aggressive ambition, and must get rid of those who

are best able to hinder us. Though we are Thirty in number, and

not one, our government is not the less a despotism, and must be

guarded by the same jealous precautions. If you think otherwise,

you must be simple-minded indeed.” Such were the sentiments which

animated the majority of the Thirty, not less than Kritias, and

which prompted them to an endless string of seizures and executions.

It was not merely the less obnoxious democratical politicians who

became their victims, but men of courage, wealth, and station, in

every vein of political feeling: even oligarchical men, the best

and most high-principled of that party, shared the same fate. Among

the most distinguished sufferers were, Lykurgus,[383] belonging to

one of the most eminent sacred gentes in the state; a wealthy man

named Antiphon, who had devoted his fortune to the public service

with exemplary patriotism during the last years of the war, and

had furnished two well-equipped triremes at his own cost; Leon,

of Salamis; and even Nikêratus, son of Nikias, who had perished

at Syracuse; a man who inherited from his father not only a large

fortune, but a known repugnance to democratical politics, together

with his uncle Eukratês, brother of the same Nikias.[384] These were

only a few among the numerous victims, who were seized, pronounced

to be guilty by the senate or by the Thirty themselves, handed over

to Satyrus and the Eleven, and condemned to perish by the customary

draught of hemlock.

[383] Plutarch, Vit. x, Orator. p. 838.

[384] Xenoph. Hellen. ii, 3, 39-41; Lysias, Orat. xviii, De Bonis

Niciæ Fratris, sects. 5-8.

The circumstances accompanying the seizure of Leon deserve particular

notice. In putting to death him and the other victims, the Thirty

had several objects in view, all tending to the stability of their

dominion. First, they thus got rid of citizens generally known and

esteemed, whose abhorrence they knew themselves to deserve, and

whom they feared as likely to head the public sentiment against

them. Secondly, the property of these victims, all of whom were

rich, was seized along with their persons, and was employed to pay

the satellites whose agency was indispensable for such violences,

especially Kallibius and the Lacedæmonian hoplites in the acropolis.

But, besides murder and spoliation, the Thirty had a farther

purpose, if possible, yet more nefarious. In the work of seizing

their victims, they not only employed the hands of these paid

satellites, but also sent along with them citizens of station and

respectability, whom they constrained by threats and intimidation

to lend their personal aid in a service so thoroughly odious. By

such participation, these citizens became compromised and imbrued in

crime, and as it were, consenting parties in the public eye to all

the projects of the Thirty;[385] exposed to the same general hatred

as the latter, and interested for their own safety in maintaining

the existing dominion. Pursuant to their general plan of implicating

unwilling citizens in their misdeeds, the Thirty sent for five

citizens to the tholus, or government-house, and ordered them, with

terrible menaces, to cross over to Salamis and bring back Leon as

prisoner. Four out of the five obeyed; the fifth was the philosopher

Sokratês, who refused all concurrence and returned to his own house,

while the other four went to Salamis and took part in the seizure of

Leon. Though he thus braved all the wrath of the Thirty, it appears

that they thought it expedient to leave him untouched. But the fact

that they singled him out for such an atrocity,—an old man of tried

virtue, both private and public, and intellectually commanding,

though at the same time intellectually unpopular,—shows to what an

extent they carried their system of forcing unwilling participants;

while the farther circumstance, that he was the only person who had

the courage to refuse, among four others who yielded to intimidation,

shows that the policy was for the most part successful.[386] The

inflexible resistance of Sokratês on this occasion, stands as a

worthy parallel to his conduct as prytanis in the public assembly

held on the conduct of the generals after the battle of Arginusæ,

described in the preceding chapter, wherein he obstinately refused to

concur in putting an illegal question.

[385] Plato, Apol. Sokratês, c. 20, p. 32. Ἐπειδὴ δὲ ὀλιγαρχία

ἐγένετο, οἱ τριάκοντα αὖ μεταπεμψάμενοί με πέμπτον αὐτὸν εἰς τὴν

θόλον προσέταξαν ἀγαγεῖν ἐκ Σαλαμῖνος Λέοντα τὸν Σαλαμίνιον, ἵν᾽

ἀποθάνοι· ~οἷα δὴ καὶ ἄλλοις ἐκεῖνοι πολλοῖς πολλὰ προσέταττον,

βουλόμενοι ὡς πλείστους ἀναπλῆσαι αἰτιῶν~.

Isokrat. cont. Kallimach. Or. xviii, sect. 23, p. 374. ἐνίοις καὶ

προσέταττον ἐξαμαρτάνειν. Compare also Lysias, Or. xii, cont.

Eratosth. sect. 32.

We learn, from Andokidês de Myster. sect. 94, that Melêtus was

one of the parties who actually arrested Leon, and brought him

up for condemnation. It is not probable that this was the same

person who afterwards accused Sokratês. It may possibly have

been his father, who bore the same name; but there is nothing to

determine the point.

[386] Plato, Apol. Sokrat. _ut sup._; Xenoph. Hellen. ii. 4, 9-23.

Such multiplied cases of execution and spoliation naturally

filled the city with surprise, indignation, and terror. Groups of

malcontents got together, and exiles became more and more numerous.

All these circumstances furnished ample material for the vehement

opposition of Theramenês, and tended to increase his party: not

indeed among the Thirty themselves, but to a certain extent in the

senate, and still more among the body of the citizens. He warned his

colleagues that they were incurring daily an increased amount of

public odium, and that their government could not possibly stand,

unless they admitted into partnership an adequate number of citizens,

with a direct interest in its maintenance. He proposed that all those

competent, by their property, to serve the state either on horseback

or with heavy armor, should be constituted citizens; leaving all

the poorer freemen, a far larger number, still disfranchised.[387]

Kritias and the Thirty rejected this proposition; being doubtless

convinced—as the Four Hundred had felt seven years before, when

Theramenês demanded of them to convert their fictitious total of

Five Thousand into a real list of as many living persons—that “to

enroll so great a number of partners, was tantamount to a downright

democracy.”[388] But they were at the same time not insensible to the

soundness of his advice: moreover, they began to be afraid of him

personally, and to suspect that he was likely to take the lead in a

popular opposition against them, as he had previously done against

his colleagues of the Four Hundred. They therefore resolved to comply

in part with his recommendations, and accordingly prepared a list of

three thousand persons to be invested with the political franchise;

chosen, as much as possible, from their own known partisans and

from oligarchical citizens. Besides this body, they also counted

on the adherence of the horsemen, among the wealthiest citizens of

the state. These horsemen, or knights, taking them as a class,—the

thousand good men of Athens, whose virtues Aristophanês sets forth in

hostile antithesis to the alleged demagogic vices of Kleon,—remained

steady supporters of the Thirty, throughout all the enormities of

their career.[389] What privileges or functions were assigned to the

chosen three thousand, we do not hear, except that they could not be

condemned without the warrant of the senate, while any other Athenian

might be put to death by the simple fiat of the Thirty.[390]

[387] Xenoph. Hellen. ii, 3, 17, 19, 48. From sect. 48, we see

that Theramenês actually made this proposition: τὸ μέντοι σὺν

τοῖς δυναμένοις καὶ μεθ᾽ ἵππων καὶ μετ᾽ ἀσπίδων ὠφελεῖν διὰ

τούτων τὴν πολιτείαν, ~πρόσθεν ἄριστον ἡγούμην εἶναι~ καὶ νῦν οὐ

μεταβάλλομαι.

This proposition, made by Theramenês and rejected by the Thirty,

explains the comment which he afterwards made, when they drew up

their special catalogue or roll of three thousand; which comment

otherwise appears unsuitable.

[388] Thucyd. viii, 89-92. τὸ μὲν καταστῆσαι μετόχους τοσούτους,

ἀντικρὺς ἂν δῆμον ἡγούμενοι.

[389] Xenoph. Hellen. ii, 3, 8, 19; ii, 4, 2, 8, 24.

[390] Xenoph. Hellen. ii, 3, 51.

A body of partners thus chosen—not merely of fixed number, but of

picked oligarchical sentiments—was by no means the addition which

Theramenês desired. While he commented on the folly of supposing that

there was any charm in the number three thousand, as if it embodied

all the merit of the city, and nothing else but merit, he admonished

them that it was still insufficient for their defence; their rule was

one of pure force, and yet inferior in force to those over whom it

was exercised. Again the Thirty acted upon his admonition, but in a

way very different from that which he contemplated. They proclaimed

a general muster and examination of arms to all the hoplites in

Athens. The Three Thousand were drawn up in arms all together in the

market-place; but the remaining hoplites were disseminated in small

scattered companies and in different places. After the review was

over, these scattered companies went home to their meal, leaving

their arms piled at the various places of muster. But the adherents

of the Thirty, having been forewarned and kept together, were sent

at the proper moment, along with the Lacedæmonian mercenaries, to

seize the deserted arms, which were deposited under the custody

of Kallibius in the acropolis. All the hoplites in Athens, except

the Three Thousand and the remaining adherents of the Thirty,

were disarmed by this crafty manœuvre, in spite of the fruitless

remonstrance of Theramenês.[391]

[391] Xenoph. Hellen. ii, 3, 20, 41: compare Lysias. Orat. xii,

cont. Eratosth. sect. 41.

Kritias and his colleagues, now relieved from all fear either of

Theramenês, or of any other internal opposition, gave loose, more

unsparingly than ever, to their malevolence and rapacity, putting to

death both many of their private enemies, and many rich victims for

the purpose of spoliation. A list of suspected persons was drawn up,

in which each of their adherents was allowed to insert such names as

he chose, and from which the victims were generally taken.[392] Among

informers, who thus gave in names for destruction, Batrachus and

Æschylidês[393] stood conspicuous. The thirst of Kritias for plunder,

as well as for bloodshed, only increased by gratification;[394]

and it was not merely to pay their mercenaries, but also to enrich

themselves separately, that the Thirty stretched everywhere their

murderous agency, which now mowed down metics as well as citizens.

Theognis and Peison, two of the Thirty, affirmed that many of these

metics were hostile to the oligarchy, besides being opulent men; and

the resolution was adopted that each of the rulers should single out

any of these victims that he pleased, for execution and pillage; care

being taken to include a few poor persons in the seizure, so that the

real purpose of the spoilers might be faintly disguised.

[392] Xenoph. Hellen. ii, 3, 21; Isokratês adv. Euthynum, sect.

5, p. 401; Isokratês cont. Kallimach. sect. 23, p. 375; Lysias,

Or. xxv, Δημ. Καταλ. Ἀπολ. sect. 21, p. 173.

The two passages of Isokratês sufficiently designate what this

list, or κατάλογος, must have been; but the name by which he

calls it—ὁ μετὰ Λυσάνδρου (or Πεισάνδρου) κατάλογος—is not easy

to explain.

[393] Lysias, Orat. vi, cont. Andok. sect. 46; Or. xii, cont.

Eratosth. sect 49.

[394] Xenoph. Memor. i, 2, 12. Κριτίας μὲν γὰρ τῶν ἐν τῇ

ὀλιγαρχίᾳ πάντων κλεπτίστατός τε καὶ βιαιότατος ἐγένετο, etc.