It was in execution of this scheme that the orator Lysias and his

brother Polemarchus were both taken into custody. Both were metics,

wealthy men, and engaged in a manufactory of shields, wherein they

employed a hundred and twenty slaves. Theognis and Peison, with

some others, seized Lysias in his house, while entertaining some

friends at dinner; and having driven away his guests, left him under

the guard of Peison, while the attendants went off to register and

appropriate his valuable slaves. Lysias tried to prevail on Peison

to accept a bribe and let him escape; which the latter at first

promised to do, and having thus obtained access to the money-chest

of the prisoner, laid hands upon all its contents, amounting to

between three and four talents. In vain did Lysias implore that a

trifle might be left for his necessary subsistence; the only answer

vouchsafed was, that he might think himself fortunate if he escaped

with life. He was then conveyed to the house of a person named

Damnippus, where Theognis already was, having other prisoners in

charge. At the earnest entreaty of Lysias, Damnippus tried to induce

Theognis to connive at his escape, on consideration of a handsome

bribe; but while this conversation was going on, the prisoner availed

himself of an unguarded moment to get off through the back door,

which fortunately was open, together with two other doors through

which it was necessary to pass. Having first obtained refuge in the

house of a friend in Peiræus, he took boat during the ensuing night

for Megara. Polemarchus, less fortunate, was seized in the street

by Eratosthenês, one of the Thirty, and immediately lodged in the

prison, where the fatal draught of hemlock was administered to him,

without delay, without trial, and without liberty of defence. While

his house was plundered of a large stock of gold, silver, furniture,

and rich ornaments; while the golden earrings were torn from the ears

of his wife; and while seven hundred shields, with a hundred and

twenty slaves, were confiscated, together with the workshop and the

two dwelling-houses; the Thirty would not allow even a decent funeral

to the deceased, but caused his body to be carried away on a hired

bier from the prison, with covering and a few scanty appurtenances

supplied by the sympathy of private friends.[395]

[395] Lysias, Or. xii. cont. Eratosthen. sects. 8, 21. Lysias

prosecuted Eratosthenês before the dikastery some years

afterwards, as having caused the death of Polemarchus. The

foregoing details are found in the oration, spoken as well as

composed by himself.

Amidst such atrocities, increasing in number and turned more and

more to shameless robbery, the party of Theramenês daily gained

ground, even in the senate; many of whose members profited nothing

by satiating the private cupidity of the Thirty, and began to be

weary of so revolting a system, as well as alarmed at the host of

enemies which they were raising up. In proposing the late seizure

of the metics, the Thirty had desired Theramenês to make choice of

any victim among that class, to be destroyed and plundered for his

own personal benefit. But he rejected the suggestion emphatically,

denouncing the enormity of the measure in the indignant terms which

it deserved. So much was the antipathy of Kritias and the majority

of the Thirty against him, already acrimonious from the effects of a

long course of opposition, exasperated by this refusal; so much did

they fear the consequences of incurring the obloquy of such measures

for themselves, while Theramenês enjoyed all the credit of opposing

them; so satisfied were they that their government could not stand

with this dissension among its own members; that they resolved to

destroy him at all cost. Having canvassed as many of the senators as

they could, to persuade them that Theramenês was conspiring against

the oligarchy, they caused the most daring of their satellites to

attend one day in the senate-house, close to the railing which fenced

in the senators, with daggers concealed under their garments. So

soon as Theramenês appeared, Kritias rose and denounced him to the

senate as a public enemy, in an harangue which Xenophon gives at

considerable length, and which is so full of instructive evidence, as

to Greek political feeling, that I here extract the main points in

abridgment:—

“If any of you imagine, senators, that more people are perishing

than the occasion requires, reflect, that this happens everywhere

in a time of revolution, and that it must especially happen in the

establishment of an oligarchy at Athens, the most populous city

in Greece, and where the population has been longest accustomed

to freedom. You know as well as we do, that democracy is to both

of us an intolerable government, as well as incompatible with all

steady adherence to our protectors, the Lacedæmonians. It is under

their auspices that we are establishing the present oligarchy, and

that we destroy, as far as we can, every man who stands in the way

of it; which becomes most of all indispensable, if such a man be

found among our own body. Here stands the man, Theramenês, whom we

now denounce to you as your foe not less than ours. That such is

the fact, is plain from his unmeasured censures on our proceedings,

from the difficulties which he throws in our way whenever we want

to despatch any of the demagogues. Had such been his policy from

the beginning, he would indeed have been our enemy, yet we could

not with justice have proclaimed him a villain. But it is he who

first originated the alliance which binds us to Sparta, who struck

the first blow at the democracy, who chiefly instigated us to put

to death the first batch of accused persons; and now, when you as

well as we have thus incurred the manifest hatred of the people, he

turns round and quarrels with our proceedings in order to insure his

own safety, and leave us to pay the penalty. He must be dealt with

not only as an enemy, but as a traitor, to you as well as to us; a

traitor in the grain, as his whole life proves. Though he enjoyed,

through his father Agnon, a station of honor under the democracy,

he was foremost in subverting it, and setting up the Four Hundred;

the moment he saw that oligarchy beset with difficulties, he was the

first to put himself at the head of the people against them; always

ready for change in both directions, and a willing accomplice in

those executions which changes of government bring with them. It is

he, too, who—having been ordered by the generals after the battle

of Arginusæ to pick up the men on the disabled ships, and having

neglected the task—accused and brought to execution his superiors, in

order to get himself out of danger. He has well earned his surname of

The Buskin, fitting both legs, but constant to neither; he has shown

himself reckless both of honor and friendship, looking to nothing but

his own selfish advancement; and it is for us now to guard against

his doublings, in order that he may not play us the same trick. We

cite him before you as a conspirator and a traitor, against you as

well as against us. Look to your own safety, and not to his. For

depend upon it, that if you let him off, you will hold out powerful

encouragement to your worst enemies; while if you condemn him, you

will crush their best hopes, both within and without the city.”

Theramenês was probably not wholly unprepared for some such attack as

this. At any rate, he rose up to reply to it at once:—

“First of all, senators, I shall touch upon the charge against me

which Kritias mentioned last, the charge of having accused and

brought to execution the generals. It was not I who began the

accusation against them, but they who began it against me. They said,

that they had ordered me upon the duty, and that I had neglected it;

my defence was, that the duty could not be executed, in consequence

of the storm; the people believed and exonerated me, but the generals

were rightfully condemned on their own accusation, because _they_

said that the duty might have been performed, while yet it had

remained unperformed. I do not wonder, indeed, that Kritias has

told these falsehoods against me; for at the time when this affair

happened, he was an exile in Thessaly, employed in raising up a

democracy, and arming the penestæ against their masters. Heaven grant

that nothing of what he perpetrated _there_ may occur at Athens! I

agree with Kritias, indeed, that, whoever wishes to cut short your

government, and strengthens those who conspire against you, deserves

justly the severest punishment. But to whom does this charge best

apply? To him, or to me? Look at the behavior of each of us, and

then judge for yourselves. At first, we were all agreed, so far as

the condemnation of the known and obnoxious demagogues. But when

Kritias and his friends began to seize men of station and dignity,

then it was that I began to oppose them. I knew that the seizure of

men like Leon, Nikias, and Antiphon, would make the best men in the

city your enemies. I opposed the execution of the metics, well aware

that all that body would be alienated. I opposed the disarming of

the citizens, and the hiring of foreign guards. And when I saw that

enemies at home and exiles abroad were multiplying against you, I

dissuaded you from banishing Thrasybulus and Anytus, whereby you

only furnished the exiles with competent leaders. The man who gives

you this advice, and gives it you openly, is he a traitor, or is he

not rather a genuine friend? It is you and your supporters, Kritias,

who, by your murders and robberies, strengthen the enemies of the

government and betray your friends. Depend upon it, that Thrasybulus

and Anytus are much better pleased with your policy than they would

be with mine. You accuse me of having betrayed the Four Hundred; but

I did not desert them until they were themselves on the point of

betraying Athens to her enemies. You call me The Buskin, as trying

to fit both parties. But what am I to call _you_, who fit neither of

them? who, under the democracy, were the most violent hater of the

people, and who, under the oligarchy, have become equally violent as

a hater of oligarchical merit? I am, and always have been, Kritias,

an enemy both to extreme democracy and to oligarchical tyranny. I

desire to constitute our political community out of those who can

serve it on horseback and with heavy armor; I have proposed this

once, and I still stand to it. I side not either with democrats or

despots, to the exclusion of the dignified citizens. Prove that I am

now, or ever have been, guilty of such crime, and I shall confess

myself deserving of ignominious death.”

This reply of Theramenês was received with such a shout of applause

by the majority of the senate, as showed that they were resolved

to acquit him. To the fierce antipathies of the mortified Kritias,

the idea of failure was intolerable; indeed, he had now carried his

hostility to such a point, that the acquittal of his enemy would have

been his own ruin. After exchanging a few words with the Thirty, he

retired for a few moments, and directed the Eleven with the body of

armed satellites to press close on the railing whereby the senators

were fenced round,—while the court before the senate-house was filled

with the mercenary hoplites. Having thus got his force in hand,

Kritias returned and again addressed the senate: “Senators (said he),

I think it the duty of a good president, when he sees his friends

around him duped, not to let them follow their own counsel. This is

what I am now going to do; indeed, these men, whom you see pressing

upon us from without, tell us plainly that they will not tolerate the

acquittal of one manifestly working to the ruin of the oligarchy.

It is an article of our new constitution, that no man of the select

Three Thousand shall be condemned without your vote; but that any

man not included in that list may be condemned by the Thirty. Now I

take upon me, with the concurrence of all my colleagues, to strike

this Theramenês out of that list; and we, by our authority, condemn

him to death.”

Though Theramenês had already been twice concerned in putting down

the democracy, yet such was the habit of all Athenians to look for

protection from constitutional forms, that he probably accounted

himself safe under the favorable verdict of the senate, and was not

prepared for the monstrous and despotic sentence which he now heard

from his enemy. He sprang at once to the senatorial hearth,—the altar

and sanctuary in the interior of the senate-house,—and exclaimed: “I

too, senators, stand as your suppliant, asking only for bare justice.

Let it be not in the power of Kritias to strike out me or any other

man whom he chooses; let my sentence as well as yours be passed

according to the law which these Thirty have themselves prepared. I

know but too well, that this altar will be of no avail to me as a

defence; but I shall at least make it plain, that these men are as

impious towards the gods as they are nefarious towards men. As for

you, worthy senators, I wonder that you will not stand forward for

your own personal safety; since you must be well aware, that your own

names may be struck out of the Three Thousand just as easily as mine.”

But the senate remained passive and stupefied by fear, in spite of

these moving words, which perhaps were not perfectly heard, since

it could not be the design of Kritias to permit his enemy to speak

a second time. It was probably while Theramenês was yet speaking,

that the loud voice of the herald was heard, calling the Eleven to

come forward and take him into custody. The Eleven advanced into the

senate, headed by their brutal chief Satyrus, and followed by their

usual attendants. They went straight up to the altar, from whence

Satyrus, aided by the attendants, dragged him by main force, while

Kritias said to them: “We hand over to you this man Theramenês,

condemned according to the law. Seize him, carry him off to prison,

and there do the needful.” Upon this, Theramenês was dragged out of

the senate-house and carried in custody through the market-place,

exclaiming with a loud voice against the atrocious treatment

which he was suffering. “Hold your tongue (said Satyrus to him),

or you will suffer for it.” “And if I _do_ hold my tongue (replied

Theramenês), shall not I suffer for it also?”

He was conveyed to prison, where the usual draught of hemlock was

speedily administered. After he had swallowed it, there remained

a drop at the bottom of the cup, which he jerked out on the floor

(according to the playful convivial practice called the Kottabus,

which was supposed to furnish an omen by its sound in falling, and

after which the person who had just drank handed the goblet to the

guest whose turn came next): “Let this (said he) be for the gentle

Kritias.”[396]

[396] Xenoph. Hellen. ii, 3, 56.

The scene just described, which ended in the execution of Theramenês,

is one of the most striking and tragical in ancient history; in spite

of the bald and meagre way in which it is recounted by Xenophon, who

has thrown all the interest into the two speeches. The atrocious

injustice by which Theramenês perished, as well as the courage and

self-possession which he displayed at the moment of danger, and his

cheerfulness even in the prison, not inferior to that of Sokratês

three years afterwards, naturally enlist the warmest sympathies

of the reader in his favor, and have tended to exalt the positive

estimation of his character. During the years immediately succeeding

the restoration of the democracy,[397] he was extolled and pitied as

one of the first martyrs to oligarchical violence: later authors went

so far as to number him among the chosen pupils of Sokratês.[398]

But though Theramenês here became the victim of a much worse man

than himself, it will not for that reason be proper to accord to

him our admiration, which his own conduct will not at all be found

to deserve. The reproaches of Kritias against him, founded on his

conduct during the previous conspiracy of the Four Hundred, were

in the main well founded. After having been one of the foremost

originators of that conspiracy, he deserted his comrades as soon as

he saw that it was likely to fail; and Kritias had doubtless present

to his mind the fate of Antiphon, who had been condemned and executed

under the accusation of Theramenês, together with a reasonable

conviction that the latter would again turn against his colleagues

in the same manner, if circumstances should encourage him to do

so. Nor was Kritias wrong in denouncing the perfidy of Theramenês

with regard to the generals after the battle of Arginusæ, the

death of whom he was partly instrumental in bringing about, though

only as an auxiliary cause, and not with that extreme stretch of

nefarious stratagem, which Xenophon and others have imputed to him.

He was a selfish, cunning, and faithless man,—ready to enter into

conspiracies, yet never foreseeing their consequences,—and breaking

faith to the ruin of colleagues whom he had first encouraged, when

he found them more consistent and thoroughgoing in crime than

himself.[399]

[397] See Lysias, Or. xii, cont. Eratosth. s. 66.

[398] Diodor. xiv, 5. Diodorus tells us that Sokratês and two

of his friends were the only persons who stood forward to

protect Theramenês, when Satyrus was dragging him from the

altar. Plutarch (Vit. x, Orat. p. 836) ascribes the same act of

generous forwardness to _Isokratês_. There is no good ground for

believing it, either of one or of the other. None but senators

were present; and as this senate had been chosen by the Thirty,

it is not likely that either Sokratês or Isokratês were among its

members. If Sokratês had been a member of it, the fact would have

been noticed and brought out in connection with his subsequent

trial.

The manner in which Plutarch (Consolat. ad Apollon. c. 6, p. 105)

states the death of Theramenês, that he was “tortured to death”

by the Thirty is an instance of his loose speaking.

Compare Cicero about the death of Theramenês (Tuscul. Disp. i,

40, 96). His admiration for the manner of death of Theramenês

doubtless contributed to make him rank that Athenian with

Themistoklês and Periklês (De Orat. iii. 16, 59).

[399] The epithets applied by Aristophanês to Theramenês (Ran.

541-966) coincide pretty exactly with those in the speech just

noticed, which Xenophon ascribes to Kritias against him.

Such high-handed violence, by Kritias and the majority of the

Thirty,—carried though, even against a member of their own Board, by

intimidation of the senate,—left a feeling of disgust and dissension

among their own partisans from which their power never recovered. Its

immediate effect, however, was to render them, apparently, and in

their own estimation, more powerful than ever. All open manifestation

of dissent being now silenced, they proceeded to the uttermost

limits of cruel and licentious tyranny. They made proclamation, that

every one not included in the list of Three Thousand, should depart

without the walls, in order that they might be undisturbed masters

within the city, a policy before resorted to by Periander of Corinth

and other Grecian despots.[400] The numerous fugitives expelled by

this order, distributed themselves partly in Peiræus, partly in

the various demes of Attica. Both in one and the other, however,

they were seized by order of the Thirty, and many of them put to

death, in order that their substance and lands might be appropriated

either by the Thirty themselves, or by some favored partisan.[401]

The denunciations of Batrachus, Æschylidês, and other delators,

became more numerous than ever, in order to obtain the seizure and

execution of their private enemies; and the oligarchy were willing

to purchase any new adherent by thus gratifying his antipathies or

his rapacity.[402] The subsequent orators affirmed that more than

fifteen hundred victims were put to death without trial by the

Thirty;[403] on this numerical estimate little stress is to be laid,

but the total was doubtless prodigious. It became more and more plain

that no man was safe in Attica; so that Athenian emigrants, many

in great poverty and destitution, were multiplied throughout the

neighboring territories,—in Megara, Thebes, Orôpus, Chalkis, Argos,

etc.[404] It was not everywhere that these distressed persons could

obtain reception; for the Lacedæmonian government, at the instance

of the Thirty, issued an edict prohibiting all the members of their

confederacy from harboring fugitive Athenians; an edict which these

cities generously disobeyed,[405] though probably the smaller

Peloponnesian cities complied. Without doubt, this decree was

procured by Lysander, while his influence still continued unimpaired.

[400] Xenoph. Hellen. ii, 4, 1; Lysias, Orat. xii, cont.

Eratosth. s. 97; Orat. xxxi, cont. Philon. s. 8, 9; Herakleid.

Pontic. c. 5; Diogen. Laërt. i, 98.

[401] Xenoph. Hellen. l. c. ἦγον δὲ ἐκ τῶν χωρίων, ἵν᾽ αὐτοὶ καὶ

οἱ φίλοι τοὺς τούτων ἀγροὺς ἔχοιεν· φευγόντων δὲ ἐς τὸν Πειραιᾶ,

καὶ ἐντεῦθεν πολλοὺς ἄγοντες, ἐνέπλησαν Μέγαρα καὶ Θήβας τῶν

ὑποχωρούντων.

[402] Lysias, Or. xii, cont. Eratosth. s. 49; Or. xxv, Democrat.

Subvers. Apolog. s. 20; Or. xxvi, cont. Evandr. s. 23.

[403] Æschinês, Fals. Legat. c. 24, p. 266, and cont. Ktesiph. c.

86, p. 455; Isokratês, Or. iv, Panegyr. s. 131; Or. vii, Areopag.

s. 76.

[404] Xenoph. Hellen. ii, 4, 1; Diodor. xiv, 6; Lysias, Or. xxiv,

s. 28; Or. xxxi, cont. Philon. s. 10.

[405] Lysias, Or. xii, cont. Eratosth. sects. 98, 99: παντάχοθεν

ἐκκηρυττόμενοι; Plutarch, Lysand. c. 99; Diodor xiv, 6; Demosth.

de Rhod. Libert. c. 10.

But it was not only against the lives, properties, and liberties

of Athenian citizens that the Thirty made war. They were not less

solicitous to extinguish the intellectual force and education of

the city; a project so perfectly in harmony both with the sentiment

and practice of Sparta, that they counted on the support of their

foreign allies. Among the ordinances which they promulgated was one,

expressly forbidding every one[406] “to teach the art of words,”

if I may be allowed to translate literally the Greek expression,

which bore a most comprehensive signification, and denoted every

intentional communication of logical, rhetorical, or argumentative

improvement,—of literary criticism and composition,—and of command

over those political and moral topics which formed the ordinary theme

of discussion. Such was the species of instruction which Sokratês and

other sophists, each in his own way, communicated to the Athenian

youth. The great foreign sophists, not Athenian, such as Prodikus

and Protagoras had been,—though perhaps neither of these two was now

alive,—were doubtless no longer in the city, under the calamitous

circumstances which had been weighing upon every citizen since the

defeat of Ægospotami. But there were abundance of native teachers, or

sophists, inferior in merit to these distinguished names, yet still

habitually employed, with more or less success, in communicating a

species of instruction held indispensable to every liberal Athenian.

The edict of the Thirty was in fact a general suppression of the

higher class of teachers or professors, above the rank of the

elementary teacher of letters, or grammatist. If such an edict could

have been maintained in force for a generation, combined with the

other mandates of the Thirty, the city out of which Sophoklês and

Euripidês had just died, and in which Plato and Isokratês were in

vigorous age, the former twenty-five, the latter twenty-nine, would

have been degraded to the intellectual level of the meanest community

in Greece. It was not uncommon for a Grecian despot to suppress

all those assemblies wherein youths came together for the purpose

of common training, either intellectual or gymnastic; as well as

the public banquets and clubs, or associations, as being dangerous

to his authority, and tending to elevation of courage, and to a

consciousness of political rights among the citizens.[407]

[406] Xenoph. Memor. i, 2, 31. Καὶ ἐν τοῖς νόμοις ἔγραψε, λόγων

τέχνην μὴ διδάσκειν.—Isokratês, cont. Sophist. Or. xiii, s. 12.

τὴν παίδευσιν τὴν τῶν λόγων.

Plutarch (Themistoklês, c. 19) affirms that the Thirty oligarchs,

during their rule, altered the position of the rostrum in the

Pnyx, the place where the democratical public assemblies were

held: the rostrum had before looked towards the sea, but they

turned it so as to make it look towards the land, because the

maritime service and the associations connected with it were the

chief stimulants of democratical sentiment. This story has been

often copied and reasserted, as if it were an undoubted fact; but

M. Forchhammer (Topographie von Athen, p. 289, in Kieler Philol.

Studien. 1841) has shown it to be untrue and even absurd.

[407] Aristot. Polit. v, 9, 2.

The enormities of the Thirty had provoked severe comments from

the philosopher Sokratês, whose life was spent in conversation on

instructive subjects with those young men who sought his society,

though he never took money from any pupil. These comments had been

made known to Kritias and Chariklês, who sent for him, reminded him

of the prohibitive law, and peremptorily commanded him to abstain for

the future from all conversation with youths. Sokratês met this order

by putting some questions to those who gave it, in his usual style of

puzzling scrutiny, destined to expose the vagueness of the terms; and

to draw the line, or rather to show that no definite line could be

drawn, between that which was permitted and that which was forbidden.

But he soon perceived that his interrogations produced only a feeling

of disgust and wrath, menacing to his own safety. The tyrants ended

by repeating their interdict in yet more peremptory terms, and by

giving Sokratês to understand, that they were not ignorant of the

censures which he had cast upon them.[408]

[408] Xenoph. Memorab. i, 2, 33-39.

Though our evidence does not enable us to make out the precise dates

of these various oppressions of the Thirty, yet it seems probable

that this prohibition of teaching must have been among their earlier

enactments; at any rate, considerably anterior to the death of

Theramenês, and the general expulsion out of the walls of all except

the privileged Three Thousand. Their dominion continued, without any

armed opposition made to it, for about eight months from the capture

of Athens by Lysander, that is, from about April to December 404 B.C.

The measure of their iniquity then became full. They had accumulated

against themselves, both in Attica and among the exiles in the

circumjacent territories, suffering and exasperated enemies, while

they had lost the sympathy of Thebes, Megara, and Corinth, and were

less heartily supported by Sparta.

During these important eight months, the general feeling throughout

Greece had become materially different both towards Athens and

towards Sparta. At the moment when the long war was first brought

to a close, fear, antipathy, and vengeance against Athens, had

been the reigning sentiment, both among the confederates of Sparta

and among the revolted members of the extinct Athenian empire; a

sentiment which prevailed among them indeed to a greater degree

than among the Spartans themselves, who resisted it, and granted to

Athens a capitulation at a time when many of their allies pressed

for the harshest measures. To this resolution they were determined

partly by the still remaining force of ancient sympathy; partly by

the odium which would have been sure to follow the act of expelling

the Athenian population, however it might be talked of beforehand

as a meet punishment; partly too by the policy of Lysander, who

contemplated the keeping of Athens in the same dependence on Sparta

and on himself, and by the same means, as the other outlying cities

in which he had planted his dekadarchies.

So soon as Athens was humbled, deprived of her fleet and walled

port, and rendered innocuous, the great bond of common fear which

had held the allies to Sparta disappeared; and while the paramount

antipathy on the part of those allies towards Athens gradually died

away, a sentiment of jealousy and apprehension of Sparta sprang up in

its place, on the part of the leading states among them. For such a

sentiment there was more than one reason. Lysander had brought home

not only a large sum of money, but valuable spoils of other kinds,

and many captive triremes, at the close of the war. As the success

had been achieved by the joint exertions of all the allies, so the

fruits of it belonged in equity to all of them jointly, not to Sparta

alone. The Thebans and Corinthians preferred a formal claim to be

allowed to share; and if the other allies abstained from openly

backing the demand, we may fairly presume that it was not from any

different construction of the equity of the case, but from fear of

offending Sparta. In the testimonial erected by Lysander at Delphi,

commemorative of the triumph, he had included not only his own brazen

statue, but that of each commander of the allied contingents; thus

formally admitting the allies to share in the honorary results,

and tacitly sanctioning their claim to the lucrative results also.

Nevertheless, the demand made by the Thebans and Corinthians was

not only repelled, but almost resented as an insult; especially by

Lysander, whose influence was at that moment almost omnipotent.[409]

[409] Justin (vi, 10) mentions the demand thus made and refused.

Plutarch (Lysand. c. 27) states the demand as having been made

by the Thebans _alone_, which I disbelieve. Xenophon, according

to the general disorderly arrangement of facts in his Hellenika,

does not mention the circumstance in its proper place, but

alludes to it on a subsequent occasion as having before occurred

(Hellen. iii, 5, 5). He also specifies by name no one but the

Thebans as having actually made the demand; but there is a

subsequent passage, which shows that not only the Corinthians,

but other allies also, sympathized in it (iii, 5, 12).

That the Lacedæmonians should have withheld from the allies a share

in this money, demonstrates still more the great ascendency of

Lysander; because there was a considerable party at Sparta itself,

who protested altogether against the reception of so much gold and

silver, as contrary to the ordinances of Lykurgus, and fatal to the

peculiar morality of Sparta. An ancient Spartan, Skiraphidas, or

Phlogidas, took the lead in calling for exclusive adherence to the

old Spartan money, heavy iron, difficult to carry; nor was it without

difficulty that Lysander and his friends obtained admission for the

treasure into Sparta; under special proviso, that it should be for

the exclusive purposes of the government, and that no private citizen

should ever circulate gold or silver.[410] The existence of such

traditionary repugnance among the Spartans would have seemed likely

to induce them to be just towards their allies, since an equitable

distribution of the treasure would have gone far to remove the

difficulty; yet they nevertheless kept it all.

[410] Plutarch, Lysand. c. 17; Plutarch, Institut. Lacon. p. 239.

But besides this special offence given to the allies, the conduct of

Sparta in other ways showed that she intended to turn the victory to

her own account. Lysander was at this moment all-powerful, playing

his own game under the name of Sparta. His position was far greater

than that of the regent Pausanias had been after the victory of

Platæa; and his talents for making use of the position incomparably

superior. The magnitude of his successes, as well as the eminent

ability which he had displayed, justified abundant eulogy; but in his

case, the eulogy was carried to the length of something like worship.

Altars were erected to him; pæans or hymns were composed in his

honor; the Ephesians set up his statue in the temple of their goddess

Artemis; and the Samians not only erected a statue to him at Olympia,

but even altered the name of their great festival, the Heræa, to

_Lysandria_.[411] Several contemporary poets—Antilochus, Chœrilus,

Nikêratus, and Antimachus—devoted themselves to sing his glories and

profit by his rewards.

[411] Pausan. vi, 3, 6. The Samian oligarchical party owed their

recent restoration to Lysander.

Such excess of flattery was calculated to turn the head even

of the most virtuous Greek: with Lysander, it had the effect

of substituting, in place of that assumed smoothness of manner

with which he began his command, an insulting harshness and

arrogance corresponding to the really unmeasured ambition which

he cherished.[412] His ambition prompted him to aggrandize Sparta

separately, without any thought of her allies, in order to exercise

dominion in her name. He had already established dekadarchies, or

oligarchies of Ten, in many of the insular and Asiatic cities, and

an oligarchy of Thirty in Athens; all composed of vehement partisans

chosen by himself, dependent upon him for support, and devoted to

his objects. To the eye of an impartial observer in Greece, it

seemed as if all these cities had been converted into dependencies

of Sparta, and were intended to be held in that condition; under

Spartan authority, exercised by and through Lysander.[413] Instead

of that general freedom which had been promised as an incentive to

revolt against Athens, a Spartan empire had been constituted in place

of the extinct Athenian, with a tribute, amounting to a thousand

talents annually, intended to be assessed upon the component cities

and islands.[414] Such at least was the scheme of Lysander, though it

never reached complete execution.

[412] Plutarch, Lysand. c. 18, 19.

[413] Xenoph. Hellen. ii, 4, 30. Οὕτω δὲ προχωρούντων, Παυσανίας

ὁ βασιλεὺς (of Sparta), φθονήσας Λυσάνδρῳ εἰ κατειργασμένος

ταῦτα ἅμα μὲν εὐδοκιμήσοι, ἅμα ~δὲ ἰδίας ποιήσοιτο τὰς Ἀθήνας~,

πείσας τῶν Ἐφόρων τρεῖς, ἐξάγει φρουράν. Ξυνείποντο δὲ καὶ οἱ

ξύμμαχοι πάντες, πλὴν Βοιωτῶν καὶ Κορινθίων. Οὗτοι δ᾽ ἔλεγον

μὲν ὅτι οὐ νομίζοιεν εὐορκεῖν ἂν στρατευόμενοι ἐπ᾽ Ἀθηναίους,

μηδὲν παράσπονδον ποιοῦντας· ~ἔπραττον δὲ ταῦτα, ὅτι ἐγίγνωσκον

Λακεδαιμονίους βουλομένους τὴν τῶν Ἀθηναίων χώραν οἰκείαν καὶ

πιστὴν ποιήσασθαι~. Compare also iii, 5, 12, 13, respecting

the sentiments entertained in Greece about the conduct of the

Lacedæmonians.

[414] Diodor. xiv, 10-13.

It is easy to see that under such a state of feeling on the part

of the allies of Sparta, the enormities perpetrated by the Thirty

at Athens and by the Lysandrian dekadarchies in the other cities,

would be heard with sympathy for the sufferers, and without that

strong anti-Athenian sentiment which had reigned a few months before.

But what was of still greater importance, even at Sparta itself,

opposition began to spring up against the measures and the person

of Lysander. If the leading men at Sparta had felt jealous even of

Brasidas, who offended them only by unparalleled success and merit

as a commander,[415] much more would the same feeling be aroused

against Lysander, who displayed an overweening insolence, and was

worshipped with an ostentatious flattery, not inferior to that of

Pausanias after the battle of Platæa. Another Pausanias, son of

Pleistoanax, was now king of Sparta, in conjunction with Agis. Upon

him the feeling of jealousy against Lysander told with especial

force, as it did afterwards upon Agesilaus, the successor of Agis;

not unaccompanied probably with suspicion, which subsequent events

justified, that Lysander was aiming at some interference with the

regal privileges. Nor is it unfair to suppose that Pausanias was

animated by motives more patriotic than mere jealousy, and that the

rapacious cruelty, which everywhere dishonored the new oligarchies,

both shocked his better feelings and inspired him with fears for the

stability of the system. A farther circumstance which weakened the

influence of Lysander at Sparta was the annual change of ephors,

which took place about the end of September or beginning of October.

Those ephors under whom his grand success and the capture of Athens

had been consummated, and who had lent themselves entirely to his

views, passed out of office in September 404 B.C., and gave place to

others more disposed to second Pausanias.

[415] Thucyd. iv.

I remarked, in the preceding chapter, how much more honorable for

Sparta, and how much less unfortunate for Athens and for the rest

of Greece, the close of the Peloponnesian war would have been,

if Kallikratidas had gained and survived the battle of Arginusæ,

so as to close it then, and to acquire for himself that personal

ascendency which the victorious general was sure to exercise

over the numerous rearrangements consequent on peace. We see how

important the personal character of the general so placed was, when

we follow the proceedings of Lysander during the year after the

battle of Ægospotami. His personal views were the grand determining

circumstance throughout Greece; regulating both the measures of

Sparta, and the fate of the conquered cities. Throughout the latter,

rapacious and cruel oligarchies were organized,—of Ten in most

cities, but of Thirty in Athens,—all acting under the power and

protection of Sparta, but in real subordination to his ambition.

Because he happened to be under the influence of a selfish thirst

for power, the measures of Sparta were divested not merely of all

Pan-Hellenic spirit, but even, to a great degree, of reference to

her own confederates, and concentrated upon the acquisition of

imperial preponderance for herself. Now if Kallikratidas had been

the ascendent person at this critical juncture, not only such narrow

and baneful impulses would have been comparatively inoperative,

but the leading state would have been made to set the example

of recommending, of organizing, and if necessary, of enforcing

arrangements favorable to Pan-Hellenic brotherhood. Kallikratidas

would not only have refused to lend himself to dekadarchies governing

by his force and for his purposes, in the subordinate cities, but he

would have discountenanced such conspiracies, wherever they tended

to arise spontaneously. No ruffian like Kritias, no crafty schemer

like Theramenês, would have reckoned upon his aid as they presumed

upon the friendship of Lysander. Probably he would have left the

government of each city to its own natural tendencies, oligarchical

or democratical; interfering only in special cases of actual and

pronounced necessity. Now the influence of an ascendent state,

employed for such purposes, and emphatically discarding all private

ends for the accomplishment of a stable Pan-Hellenic sentiment and

fraternity; employed too thus, at a moment when so many of the Greek

towns were in the throes of reorganization, having to take up a new

political course in reference to the altered circumstances, is an

element of which the force could hardly have failed to be prodigious

as well as beneficial. What degree of positive good might have been

wrought, by a noble-minded victor under such special circumstances,

we cannot presume to affirm in detail. But it would have been no mean

advantage, to have preserved Greece from beholding and feeling such

enormous powers in the hands of a man like Lysander; through whose

management the worst tendencies of an imperial city were studiously

magnified by the exorbitance of individual ambition. It was to

him exclusively that the Thirty in Athens, and the dekadarchies

elsewhere, owed both their existence and their means of oppression.

It has been necessary thus to explain the general changes which had

gone on in Greece and in Grecian feeling during the eight months

succeeding the capture of Athens in March 404 B.C., in order that we

may understand the position of the Thirty oligarchs, or Tyrants, at

Athens, and of the Athenian population both in Attica and in exile,

about the beginning of December in the same year, the period which we

have now reached. We see how it was that Thebes, Corinth, and Megara,

who in March had been the bitterest enemies of the Athenians, had now

become alienated both from Sparta and from the Lysandrian Thirty,

whom they viewed as viceroys of Athens for separate Spartan benefit.

We see how the basis was thus laid of sympathy for the suffering

exiles who fled from Attica; a feeling which the recital of the

endless enormities perpetrated by Kritias and his colleagues inflamed

every day more and more. We discern at the same time how the Thirty,

while thus incurring enmity both in and out of Attica, were at the

same time losing the hearty support of Sparta, from the decline of

Lysander’s influence, and the growing opposition of his rivals at

home.

In spite of formal prohibition from Sparta, obtained doubtless

under the influence of Lysander, the Athenian emigrants had obtained

shelter in all the states bordering on Attica. It was from Bœotia

that they struck the first blow. Thrasybulus, Anytus, and Archinus,

starting from Thebes with the sympathy of the Theban public, and with

substantial aid from Ismenias and other wealthy citizens,—at the

head of a small band of exiles stated variously at thirty, sixty,

seventy, or somewhat above one hundred men,[416]—seized Phylê, a

frontier fortress in the mountains north of Attica, lying on the

direct road between Athens and Thebes. Probably it had no garrison;

for the Thirty, acting in the interest of Lacedæmonian predominance,

had dismantled all the outlying fortresses in Attica;[417] so that

Thrasybulus accomplished his purpose without resistance. The Thirty

marched out from Athens to attack him, at the head of a powerful

force, comprising the Lacedæmonian hoplites who formed their guard,

the Three Thousand privileged citizens, and all the knights, or

horsemen. Probably the small company of Thrasybulus was reinforced by

fresh accessions of exiles, as soon as he was known to have occupied

the fort. For by the time that the Thirty with their assailing force

arrived, he was in condition to repel a vigorous assault made by the

younger soldiers, with considerable loss to the aggressors.

[416] Xenoph. Hellen. ii, 4, 2; Diodor. xiv, 32; Pausan. i,

29, 3; Lysias, Or. xiii, cont. Agorat. sect. 84; Justin, v,

9; Æschinês, cont. Ktesiphon, c. 62, p. 437; Demosth. cont.

Timokrat. c. 34, p. 742. Æschinês allots more than one hundred

followers to the captors of Phylê.

The sympathy which the Athenian exiles found at Thebes is

attested in a fragment of Lysias, ap. Dionys. Hal. Jud. de Lysiâ,

p. 594 (Fragm. 47, ed. Bekker).

[417] Lysias, Or. xii, cont. Eratosth. sect. 41, p. 124.

Disappointed in this direct attack, the Thirty laid plans for

blockading Phylê, where they knew that there was no stock of

provisions. But hardly had their operations commenced, when a

snow-storm fell, so abundant and violent, that they were forced to

abandon their position and retire to Athens, leaving much of their

baggage in the hands of the garrison at Phylê. In the language of

Thrasybulus, this storm was characterized as providential, since the

weather had been very fine until the moment preceding, and since it

gave time to receive reinforcements which made him seven hundred

strong.[418] Though the weather was such that the Thirty did not

choose to keep their main force in the neighborhood of Phylê, and

perhaps the Three Thousand themselves were not sufficiently hearty

in the cause to allow it, yet they sent their Lacedæmonians and

two tribes of Athenian horsemen to restrain the excursions of the

garrison. This body Thrasybulus contrived to attack by surprise.

Descending from Phylê by night, he halted within a quarter of a

mile of their position until a little before daybreak, when the

night-watch had just broken up,[419] and when the grooms were

making a noise in rubbing down the horses. Just at that moment, the

hoplites from Phylê rushed upon them at a running pace, found every

man unprepared, and some even in their beds, and dispersed them with

scarcely any resistance. One hundred and twenty hoplites and a few

horsemen were slain, while abundance of arms and stores were captured

and carried back to Phylê in triumph.[420] News of the defeat was

speedily conveyed to the city, from whence the remaining horsemen

immediately came forth to the rescue, but could do nothing more than

protect the carrying off of the dead.

[418] Xenoph. Hellen. ii, 4, 2, 5, 14.

[419] See an analogous case of a Lacedæmonian army surprised by

the Thebans at this dangerous hour, Xenoph. Hellen. vii, i, 16;

compare Xenoph. Magistr. Equit. vii, 12.

[420] Xenoph. Hellen. ii, 4, 5, 7. Diodorus (xiv, 32, 33)

represents the occasion of this battle somewhat differently. I

follow the account of Xenophon.

This successful engagement sensibly changed the relative situation of

parties in Attica; encouraging the exiles as much as it depressed the

Thirty. Even among the partisans of the latter at Athens, dissension

began to arise; the minority which had sympathized with Theramenês,

as well as that portion of the Three Thousand who were least

compromised as accomplices in the recent enormities, began to waver

so manifestly in their allegiance, that Kritias and his colleagues

felt some doubt of being able to maintain themselves in the city.

They resolved to secure Eleusis and the island of Salamis, as places

of safety and resource in case of being compelled to evacuate Athens.

They accordingly went to Eleusis with a considerable number of the

Athenian horsemen, under pretence of examining into the strength of

the place and the number of its defenders, so as to determine what

amount of farther garrison would be necessary. All the Eleusinians

disposed and qualified for armed service, were ordered to come in

person and give in their names to the Thirty,[421] in a building

having its postern opening on to the sea-beach; along which were

posted the horsemen and the attendants from Athens. Each Eleusinian

hoplite, after having presented himself and returned his name to the

Thirty, was ordered to pass out through this exit, where each man

successively found himself in the power of the horsemen, and was

fettered by the attendants. Lysimachus, the hipparch, or commander of

the horsemen, was directed to convey all these prisoners to Athens,

and hand them over to the custody of the Eleven.[422] Having thus

seized and carried away from Eleusis every citizen whose sentiments

or whose energy they suspected, and having left a force of their own

adherents in the place, the Thirty returned to Athens. At the same

time, it appears, a similar visit and seizure of prisoners was made

by some of them in Salamis.[423] On the next day, they convoked at

Athens all their Three Thousand privileged hoplites—together with

all the remaining horsemen who had not been employed at Eleusis or

Salamis—in the Odeon, half of which was occupied by the Lacedæmonian

garrison all under arms. “Gentlemen (said Kritias, addressing his

countrymen), we keep up the government not less for your benefit

than for our own. You must therefore share with us in the danger,

as well as in the honor, of our position. Here are these Eleusinian

prisoners awaiting sentence; you must pass a vote condemning them

all to death, in order that your hopes and fears may be identified

with ours.” He then pointed to a spot immediately before him and

in his view, directing each man to deposit upon it his pebble of

condemnation visibly to every one.[424] I have before remarked that

at Athens, open voting was well known to be the same thing as voting

under constraint; there was no security for free and genuine suffrage

except by making it secret as well as numerous. Kritias was obeyed,

without reserve or exception; probably any dissentient would have

been put to death on the spot. All the prisoners, seemingly three

hundred in number,[425] were condemned by the same vote, and executed

forthwith.

[421] Xenoph. Hellen. ii, 4, 8. I apprehend that ἀπογράφεσθαι

here refers to prospective military service; as in vi, 5, 29,

and in Cyropæd. ii, 1, 18, 19. The words in the context, πόσης

~φυλακῆς προσδεήσοιντο~, attest that such is the meaning;

though the commentators, and Sturz in his Lexicon Xenophonteum,

interpret differently.

[422] Xenoph. Hellen. ii, 4, 8.

[423] Both Lysias (Orat. xii, cont. Eratosth. s. 53; Orat. xiii,

cont. Agorat. s. 47) and Diodorus (xiv, 32) connect together

these two similar proceedings at Eleusis and at Salamis. Xenophon

mentions only the affair at Eleusis.

[424] Xenoph. Hellen. ii, 4, 9. Δείξας δέ τι χωρίον, ἐς τοῦτο

ἐκέλευσε ~φανερὰν φέρειν τὴν ψῆφον~. Compare Lysias, Or. xiii,

cont. Agorat. s. 40, and Thucyd. iv, 74, about the conduct of the

Megarian oligarchical leaders: καὶ τούτων περὶ ἀναγκάσαντες τὸν

δῆμον ψῆφον φανερὰν διενεγκεῖν, etc.

[425] Lysias (Orat. xii, cont. Eratosth. s. 53) gives this number.

Though this atrocity gave additional satisfaction and confidence to

the most violent friends of Kritias, it probably alienated a greater

number of others, and weakened the Thirty instead of strengthening

them. It contributed in part, we can hardly doubt, to the bold and

decisive resolution now taken by Thrasybulus, five days after his

late success, of marching by night from Phylê to Peiræus.[426]

His force, though somewhat increased, was still no more than one

thousand men; altogether inadequate by itself to any considerable

enterprise, had he not counted on positive support and junction from

fresh comrades, together with a still greater amount of negative

support from disgust or indifference towards the Thirty. He was

indeed speedily joined by many sympathizing countrymen; but few of

them, since the general disarming manœuvre of the oligarchs, had

heavy armor. Some had light shields and darts, but others were wholly

unarmed, and could merely serve as throwers of stones.[427]

[426] Xenoph. Hellen. ii, 4, 10, 13. ἡμέραν πέμπτην, etc.

[427] Xenoph. Hellen. ii, 4, 12.

Peiræus was at this moment an open town, deprived of its

fortifications as well as of those Long Walls which had so long

connected it with Athens. It was however of large compass, and

required an ampler force to defend it than Thrasybulus could

muster. Accordingly, when the Thirty marched out of Athens the next

morning to attack him, with their full force of Athenian hoplites

and horsemen, and with the Lacedæmonian garrison besides, he in vain

attempted to maintain against them the great carriage-road which

led down to Peiræus. He was compelled to concentrate his forces in

Munychia, the easternmost portion of the aggregate called Peiræus,

nearest to the bay of Phalêrum, and comprising one of those three

ports which had once sustained the naval power of Athens. Thrasybulus

occupied the temple of Artemis Munychia, and the adjoining

Bendideion, situated in the midst of Munychia, and accessible only by

a street of steep ascent. In the rear of his hoplites, whose files

were ten deep, were posted the darters and slingers: the ascent being

so steep that these latter could cast their missiles over the heads

of the hoplites in their front. Presently Kritias and the Thirty,

having first mustered in the market-place of Peiræus, called the

Hippodamian agora, were seen approaching with their superior numbers;

mounting the hill in close array, with hoplites not less than fifty

in depth. Thrasybulus, after an animated exhortation to his soldiers,

in which he reminded them of the wrongs which they had to avenge,

and dwelt upon the advantages of their position, which exposed the

close ranks of the enemy to the destructive effect of missiles, and

would force them to crouch under their shields so as to be unable

to resist a charge with the spear in front, waited patiently until

they came within distance, standing in the foremost rank with the

prophet—habitually consulted before a battle—by his side. The latter,

a brave and devoted patriot, while promising victory, had exhorted

his comrades not to charge until some one on their own side should

be slain or wounded: he at the same time predicted his own death in

the conflict. When the troops of the Thirty advanced near enough in

ascending the hill, the light-armed in the rear of Thrasybulus poured

upon them a shower of darts over the heads of their own hoplites,

with considerable effect. As they seemed to waver, seeking to cover

themselves with their shields, and thus not seeing well before them,

the prophet, himself seemingly in arms, set the example of rushing

forward, was the first to close with the enemy, and perished in the

onset. Thrasybulus with the main body of hoplites followed him,

charged vigorously down the hill, and after a smart resistance,

drove them back in disorder, with the loss of seventy men. What was

of still greater moment, Kritias and Hippomachus, who headed their

troops on the left, were among the slain; together with Charmidês son

of Glaukon, one of the ten oligarchs who had been placed to manage

Peiræus.[428]

[428] Xenoph. Hellen. ii, 4, 12, 20.

This great and important advantage left the troops of Thrasybulus

in possession of seventy of the enemy’s dead, whom they stripped

of their arms, but not of their clothing, in token of respect for

fellow-countrymen.[429] So disheartened, lukewarm, and disunited were

the hoplites of the Thirty, in spite of their great superiority of

number, that they sent to solicit the usual truce for burying the

dead. This was of course granted, and the two contending parties

became intermingled with each other in the performance of the funeral

duties. Amidst so impressive a scene, their common feelings as

Athenians and fellow-countrymen were forcibly brought back, and many

friendly observations were interchanged among them. Kleokritus—herald

of the mysts, or communicants in the Eleusinian mysteries, belonging

to one of the most respected gentes in the state—was among the

exiles. His voice was peculiarly loud, and the function which he held

enabled him to obtain silence while he addressed to the citizens

serving with the Thirty a touching and emphatic remonstrance: “Why

are you thus driving us into banishment, fellow-citizens? Why are

you seeking to kill us? We have never done you the least harm; we

have partaken with you in religious rites and festivals; we have been

your companions in chorus, in school, and in army; we have braved a

thousand dangers with you, by land and sea, in defence of our common

safety and freedom. I adjure you by our common gods, paternal and

maternal, by our common kindred and companionship, desist from thus

wronging your country in obedience to these nefarious Thirty, who

have slain as many citizens in eight months, for their own private

gains, as the Peloponnesians in ten years of war. These are the men

who have plunged us into wicked and odious war one against another,

when we might live together in peace. Be assured that your slain in

this battle have cost us as many tears as they have cost you.”[430]

[429] Xenoph. Hellen. ii, 4, 19; Cornel. Nepos, Thrasybul. c. 2.

[430] Xenoph. Hellen. ii, 4, 22.

Such affecting appeals, proceeding from a man of respected station

like Kleokritus, and doubtless from others also, began to work

so sensibly on the minds of the citizens from Athens, that the

Thirty were obliged to give orders for immediately returning, which

Thrasybulus did not attempt to prevent, though it might have been

in his power to do so.[431] But their ascendency had received a

shock from which it never fully recovered. On the next day they

appeared downcast and dispirited in the senate, which was itself

thinly attended; while the privileged Three Thousand, marshalled

in different companies on guard, were everywhere in discord and

partial mutiny. Those among them who had been most compromised in

the crimes of the Thirty, were strenuous in upholding the existing

authority; while such as had been less guilty protested against the

continuance of such unholy war, and declared that the Thirty should

not be permitted to bring Athens to utter ruin. And though the

horsemen still continued steadfast partisans, resolutely opposing

all accommodation with the exiles,[432] yet the Thirty were farther

weakened by the death of Kritias, the ascendent and decisive

head, and at the same time the most cruel and unprincipled among

them; while that party, both in the senate and out of it, which

had formerly adhered to Theramenês, now again raised its head. A

public meeting among them was held, in which what may be called the

opposition-party among the Thirty, that which had opposed the extreme

enormities of Kritias, became predominant. It was determined to

depose the Thirty, and to constitute a fresh oligarchy of Ten, one

from each tribe.[433] But the members of the Thirty were individually

reëligible; so that two of them, Eratosthenês and Pheidon, if

not more, adherents of Theramenês and unfriendly to Kritias and

Chariklês,[434] with others of the same vein of sentiment, were

chosen among the Ten. Chariklês and the more violent members, having

thus lost their ascendency, no longer deemed themselves safe at

Athens, but retired to Eleusis, which they had had the precaution to

occupy beforehand. Probably a number of their partisans, and the

Lacedæmonian garrison also, retired thither along with them.

[431] Xenoph. Hellen. ii, 4, 22; Lysias, Orat. xii, cont.

Eratosth. s. 55: οἱ μὲν γὰρ ἐκ Πειραιέως κρείττους ὄντες εἴασαν

αὐτοὺς ἀπελθεῖν, etc.

[432] Xenoph. Hellen. ii, 4, 24.

[433] Xenoph. Hellen. ii, 4, 23.

[434] Lysias, Orat. xii, cont. Eratosth. sects. 55, 56: οἱ

δοκοῦντες εἶναι ἐναντιώτατοι Χαρικλεῖ καὶ Κριτίᾳ καὶ τῇ τούτων

ἑταιρείᾳ, etc.

The nomination of this new oligarchy of Ten was plainly a compromise,

adopted by some from sincere disgust at the oligarchical system, and

desire to come to accommodation with the exiles; by others, from a

conviction that the only way of maintaining the oligarchical system,

and repelling the exiles, was to constitute a new oligarchical Board,

dismissing that which had become obnoxious. The latter was the

purpose of the horsemen, the main upholders of the first Board as

well as of the second; and such also was soon seen to be the policy

of Eratosthenês and his colleagues. Instead of attempting to agree

upon terms of accommodation with the exiles in Peiræus generally,

they merely tried to corrupt separately Thrasybulus and the leaders,

offering to admit ten of them to a share of the oligarchical power

at Athens, provided they would betray their party. This offer having

been indignantly refused, the war was again resumed between Athens

and Peiræus, to the bitter disappointment, not less of the exiles

than of that portion of the Athenians who had hoped better things

from the new Board of Ten.[435]

[435] The facts which I have here set down, result from a

comparison of Lysias, Orat. xii, cont. Eratosth. sects. 53, 59,

94: Φείδων, αἱρεθεὶς ὑμᾶς διαλλάξαι καὶ καταγαγεῖν. Diodor. xiv,

32; Justin, v, 9.

But the forces of oligarchy were seriously enfeebled at Athens,[436]

as well by the secession of all the more violent spirits to

Eleusis, as by the mistrust, discord, and disaffection which now

reigned within the city. Far from being able to abuse power like

their predecessors, the Ten did not even fully confide in their

three thousand hoplites, but were obliged to take measures for

the defence of the city in conjunction with the hipparch and the

horsemen, who did double duty,—on horseback in the day-time, and as

hoplites with their shields along the walls at night, for fear of

surprise,—employing the Odeon as their head-quarters. The Ten sent

envoys to Sparta to solicit farther aid; while the Thirty sent envoys

thither also, from Eleusis, for the same purpose; both representing

that the Athenian people had revolted from Sparta, and required

farther force to reconquer them.[437]

[436] Isokratês, Or. xviii, cont. Kallimach. s. 25.

[437] Xenoph. Hellen. ii, 4, 24, 28.

Such foreign aid became daily more necessary to them, since the

forces of Thrasybulus in Peiræus grew stronger, before their eyes,

in numbers, in arms, and in hope of success; exerting themselves,

with successful energy, to procure additional arms and shields,

though some of the shields, indeed, were no better than wood-work

or wicker-work whitened over.[438] Many exiles flocked in to their

aid, while others sent donations of money or arms: among the latter,

the orator Lysias stood conspicuous, transmitting to Peiræus a

present of two hundred shields as well as two thousand drachms in

money, and hiring besides three hundred fresh soldiers; while his

friend Thrasydæus, the leader of the democratical interest at Elis,

was induced to furnish a loan of two talents.[439] Others also lent

money; some Bœotians furnished two talents, and a person named

Gelarchus contributed the large sum of five talents, repaid in after

times by the people.[440] Proclamation was made by Thrasybulus,

that all metics who would lend aid should be put on the footing of

isotely, or equal payment of taxes with citizens, exempt from the

metic-tax and other special burdens. Within a short time he had got

together a considerable force both in heavy-armed and light-armed,

and even seventy horsemen; so that he was in condition to make

excursions out of Peiræus, and to collect wood and provisions. Nor

did the Ten venture to make any aggressive movement out of Athens,

except so far as to send out the horsemen, who slew or captured

stragglers from the force of Thrasybulus. Lysimachus the hipparch,

the same who had commanded under the Thirty at the seizure of the

Eleusinian citizens, having made prisoners some young Athenians,

bringing in provisions from the country for the consumption of the

troops in Peiræus, put them to death, in spite of remonstrances

from several even of his own men; for which cruelty Thrasybulus

retaliated, by putting to death a horseman named Kallistratus, made

prisoner in one of their marches to the neighboring villages.[441]

[438] Xenoph. Hellen. ii, 4, 25.

[439] Plutarch, Vit. x, Orator, p. 835; Lysias, Or. xxxi, cont.

Philon. sects. 19-34.

Lysias and his brother had carried on a manufactory of shields

at Athens. The Thirty had plundered it; but some of the stock

probably escaped.

[440] Demosth. cont. Leptin. c. 32, p. 502; Lysias cont.

Nikomach. Or. xxx, s. 29.

[441] Xenoph. Hellen. ii, 4, 27.

In the established civil war which now raged in Attica, Thrasybulus

and the exiles in Peiræus had decidedly the advantage; maintaining

the offensive, while the Ten in Athens, and the remainder of the

Thirty at Eleusis, were each thrown upon their defence. The division

of the oligarchical force into these two sections doubtless weakened

both, while the democrats in Peiræus were hearty and united.

Presently, however, the arrival of a Spartan auxiliary force altered

the balance of parties. Lysander, whom the oligarchical envoys had

expressly requested to be sent to them as general, prevailed with the

ephors to grant their request. While he himself went to Eleusis and

got together a Peloponnesian land-force, his brother Libys conducted

a fleet of forty triremes to block up Peiræus, and one hundred

talents were lent to the Athenian oligarchs out of the large sum

recently brought from Asia into the Spartan treasury.[442]

[442] Xenoph. Hellen. ii, 4, 28; Diodor. xiv, 33; Lysias, Orat.

xii, cont. Eratosth. s. 60.

The arrival of Lysander brought the two sections of oligarchs

in Attica again into coöperation, restrained the progress of

Thrasybulus, and even reduced Peiræus to great straits by preventing

all entry of ships or stores. Nor could anything have prevented it

from being reduced to surrender, if Lysander had been allowed free

scope in his operations. But the general sentiment of Greece had

by this time become disgusted with his ambitious policy, and with

the oligarchies which he had everywhere set up as his instruments;

a sentiment not without influence on the feelings of the leading

Spartans, who, already jealous of his ascendency, were determined not

to increase it farther by allowing him to conquer Attica a second

time, in order to plant his own creatures as rulers at Athens.[443]

[443] Xenoph. Hellen. ii, 4, 29. Οὕτω δὲ προχωρούντων, Παυσανίας

ὁ βασιλεὺς, φθονήσας Λυσάνδρῳ, εἰ κατειργασμένος ταῦτα ἅμα μὲν

εὐδοκιμήσοι, ἅμα δὲ ἰδίας ποιήσοιτο τὰς Ἀθήνας, πείσας τῶν Ἐφόρων

τρεῖς, ἐξάγει φρουράν.

Diodor. xiv, 33. Παυσανίας δὲ..., φθονῶν μὲν τῷ Λυσάνδρῳ, θεωρῶν

δὲ τὴν Σπάρτην ἀδοξοῦσαν παρὰ τοῖς Ἕλλησι, etc.

Plutarch, Lysand. c. 21.

Under the influence of these feelings, king Pausanias obtained

the consent of three out of the five ephors to undertake himself

an expedition into Attica, at the head of the forces of the

confederacy, for which he immediately issued proclamation. Opposed

to the political tendencies of Lysander, he was somewhat inclined to

sympathize with the democracy, not merely at Athens, but elsewhere

also, as at Mantineia.[444] It was probably understood that his

intentions towards Athens were lenient and anti-Lysandrian, so that

the Peloponnesian allies obeyed the summons generally: yet the

Bœotians and Corinthians still declined, on the ground that Athens

had done nothing to violate the late convention; a remarkable proof

of the altered feelings of Greece during the last year, since, down

to the period of that convention, these two states had been more

bitterly hostile to Athens than any others in the confederacy. They

suspected that even the expedition of Pausanias was projected with

selfish Lacedæmonian views, to secure Attica as a separate dependency

of Sparta, though detached from Lysander.[445]

[444] Xenoph. Hellen. v, 2, 3.

[445] Xenoph. Hellen. ii, 4, 30.

On approaching Athens, Pausanias, joined by Lysander and the forces

already in Attica, encamped in the garden of the Academy, near

the city gates. His sentiments were sufficiently known beforehand

to offer encouragement; so that the vehement reaction against

the atrocities of the Thirty, which the presence of Lysander

had doubtless stifled, burst forth without delay. The surviving

relatives of the victims slain beset him even at the Academy in his

camp, with prayers for protection and cries of vengeance against

the oligarchs. Among those victims, as I have already stated, were

Nikêratus the son, and Eukratês the brother, of Nikias who had

perished at Syracuse, the friend and proxenus of Sparta at Athens.

The orphan children, both of Nikêratus and Eukratês, were taken to

Pausanias by their relative Diognêtus, who implored his protection

for them, recounting at the same time the unmerited execution of

their respective fathers, and setting forth their family claims

upon the justice of Sparta. This affecting incident, which has been

specially made known to us,[446] doubtless did not stand alone,

among so many families suffering from the same cause. Pausanias was

furnished at once with ample grounds, not merely for repudiating the

Thirty altogether, and sending back the presents which they tendered

to him,[447] but even for refusing to identify himself unreservedly

with the new oligarchy of Ten which had risen upon their ruins.

The voice of complaint—now for the first time set free, with some

hopes of redress—must have been violent and unmeasured, after such

a career as that of Kritias and his colleagues; while the fact was

now fully manifested, which could not well have come forth into

evidence before, that the persons despoiled and murdered had been

chiefly opulent men, and very frequently even oligarchical men,

not politicians of the former democracy. Both Pausanias, and the

Lacedæmonians along with him, on reaching Athens, must have been

strongly affected by the facts which they learned, and by the loud

cry for sympathy and redress which poured upon them from the most

innocent and respected families. The predisposition both of the

king and the ephors against the policy of Lysander was materially

strengthened, as well as their inclination to bring about an

accommodation of parties, instead of upholding by foreign force an

anti-popular Few.

[446] Lysias, Or. xviii, De Bonis Niciæ Frat. sects. 8-10.

[447] Lysias, _ut sup._ sects. 11, 12. ὅθεν Παυσανίας ἤρξατο

εὔνους εἶναι τῷ δήμῳ, παράδειγμα ποιούμενος πρὸς τοὺς ἄλλους

Λακεδαιμονίους τὰς ἡμετέρας συμφορὰς τῆς τῶν τριάκοντα

πονηρίας....

Οὕτω δ᾽ ἠλεούμεθα, καὶ πᾶσι δεινὰ ἐδοκοῦμεν πεπονθέναι, ὥστε

Παυσανίας τὰ μὲν παρὰ τῶν τριάκοντα ξένια οὐκ ἠθέλησε λαβεῖν, τὰ

δὲ παρ᾽ ἡμῶν ἐδέξατο.

Such convictions would become farther confirmed as Pausanias saw

and heard more of the real state of affairs. At first, he held a

language decidedly adverse to Thrasybulus and the exiles, sending

to them a herald, and requiring them to disband and go to their

respective homes.[448] The requisition not being obeyed, he made a

faint attack upon Peiræus, which had no effect. Next day he marched

down with two Lacedæmonian moræ, or large military divisions, and

three tribes of the Athenian horsemen, to reconnoitre the place,

and see where a line of blockade could be drawn. Some light troops

annoyed him, but his troops repulsed them, and pursued them even as

far as the theatre of Peiræus, where all the forces of Thrasybulus

were mustered, heavy-armed, as well as light-armed. The Lacedæmonians

were here in a disadvantageous position, probably in the midst of

houses and streets, so that all the light-armed of Thrasybulus were

enabled to set upon them furiously from different sides, and drive

them out again with loss, two of the Spartan polemarchs being here

slain. Pausanias was obliged to retreat to a little eminence about

half a mile off, where he mustered his whole force, and formed his

hoplites into a very deep phalanx. Thrasybulus on his side was so

encouraged by the recent success of his light-armed, that he ventured

to bring out his heavy-armed, only eight deep, to an equal conflict

on the open ground. But he was here completely worsted, and driven

back into Peiræus with the loss of one hundred and fifty men; so that

the Spartan king was able to retire to Athens after a victory, and a

trophy erected to commemorate it.[449]

[448] Xenoph. Hellen. ii, 4, 31. This seems the meaning of the

phrase ἀπιέναι ἐπὶ τὰ ἑαυτῶν; as we may see by s. 38.

[449] Xenoph. Hellen. ii, 4, 31-34.

The issue of this battle was one extremely fortunate for Thrasybulus

and his comrades; since it left the honors of the day with Pausanias,

so as to avoid provoking enmity or vengeance on his part, while it

showed plainly that the conquest of Peiræus, defended by so much

courage and military efficiency, would be no easy matter. It disposed

Pausanias still farther towards an accommodation; strengthening also

the force of that party in Athens which was favorable to the same

object, and adverse to the Ten oligarchs. This opposition-party

found decided favor with the Spartan king, as well as with the ephor

Naukleidas, who was present along with him. Numbers of Athenians,

even among those Three Thousand by whom the city was now exclusively

occupied, came forward to deprecate farther war with Peiræus, and to

entreat that Pausanias would settle the quarrel so as to leave them

all at amity with Lacedæmon. Xenophon, indeed, according to that

narrow and partial spirit which pervades his Hellenica, notices no

sentiment in Pausanias except his jealousy of Lysander, and treats

the opposition against the Ten at Athens as having been got up by

his intrigues.[450] But it seems plain that this is not a correct

account. Pausanias did not create the discord, but found it already

existing, and had to choose which of the parties he would adopt.

The Ten took up the oligarchical game after it had been thoroughly

dishonored and ruined by the Thirty: they inspired no confidence, nor

had they any hold upon the citizens in Athens, except in so far as

these latter dreaded reactionary violence, in case Thrasybulus and

his companions should reënter by force; accordingly, when Pausanias

was there at the head of a force competent to prevent such dangerous

reaction, the citizens at once manifested their dispositions against

the Ten, and favorable to peace with Peiræus. To second this pacific

party was at once the easiest course for Pausanias to take, and the

most likely to popularize Sparta in Greece; whereas, he would surely

have entailed upon her still more bitter curses from without, not to

mention the loss of men to herself, if he had employed the amount of

force requisite to uphold the Ten, and subdue Peiræus. To all this we

have to add his jealousy of Lysander, as an important predisposing

motive, but only as auxiliary among many others.

[450] Xenoph. Hellen. ii, 4, 35. Διΐστη δὲ καὶ τοὺς ἐν τῷ

ἄστει (Pausanias) καὶ ἐκέλευε πρὸς σφᾶς προσιέναι ὡς πλείστους

ξυλλεγομένους, λέγοντας, etc.

Under such a state of facts, it is not surprising to learn that

Pausanias encouraged solicitations for peace from Thrasybulus and

the exiles, and that he granted them a truce to enable them to send

envoys to Sparta. Along with these envoys went Kephisophon and

Melitus, sent for the same purpose of entreating peace, by the party

opposed to the Ten at Athens, under the sanction both of Pausanias

and of the accompanying ephors. On the other hand, the Ten, finding

themselves discountenanced by Pausanias, sent envoys of their own

to outbid the others. They tendered themselves, their walls, and

their city, to be dealt with as the Lacedæmonians chose; requiring

that Thrasybulus, if he pretended to be the friend of Sparta, should

make the same unqualified surrender of Peiræus and Munychia. All the

three sets of envoys were heard before the ephors remaining at Sparta

and the Lacedæmonian assembly; who took the best resolution which

the case admitted, to bring to pass an amicable settlement between

Athens and Peiræus, and to leave the terms to be fixed by fifteen

commissioners, who were sent thither forthwith to sit in conjunction

with Pausanias. This Board determined, that the exiles in Peiræus

should be readmitted to Athens, that an accommodation should take

place, and that no man should be molested for past acts, except the

Thirty, the Eleven (who had been the instruments of all executions),

and the Ten who had governed in Peiræus. But Eleusis was recognized

as a government separate from Athens, and left, as it already was, in

possession of the Thirty and their coadjutors, to serve as a refuge

for all those who might feel their future safety compromised at

Athens in consequence of their past conduct.[451]

[451] Xenoph. Hellen. ii, 4, 39; Diodor. xiv, 33.

As soon as these terms were proclaimed, accepted, and sworn to by

all parties, Pausanias with all the Lacedæmonians evacuated Attica.

Thrasybulus and the exiles marched up in solemn procession from

Peiræus to Athens. Their first act was to go up to the acropolis, now

relieved from its Lacedæmonian garrison, and there to offer sacrifice

and thanksgiving. On descending from thence, a general assembly was

held, in which—unanimously and without opposition, as it should

seem—the democracy was restored. The government of the Ten, which

could have no basis except the sword of the foreigner, disappeared as

a matter of course; but Thrasybulus, while he strenuously enforced

upon his comrades from Peiræus a full respect for the oaths which

they had sworn, and an unreserved harmony with their newly acquired

fellow-citizens, admonished the assembly emphatically as to the past

events. “You city-men (he said), I advise you to take just measure

of yourselves for the future; and to calculate fairly, what ground

of superiority you have, so as to pretend to rule over us? Are you

juster than we? Why the demos, though poorer than you, never at any

time wronged you for purposes of plunder; while you, the wealthiest

of all, have done many base deeds for the sake of gain. Since then

you have no justice to boast of, are you superior to us on the score

of courage? There cannot be a better trial, than the war which has

just ended. Again, can you pretend to be superior in policy? you,

who, having a fortified city, an armed force, plenty of money, and

the Peloponnesians for your allies, have been overcome by men who

had nothing of the kind to aid them? Can you boast of your hold

over the Lacedæmonians? Why, they have just handed you over, like a

vicious dog with a clog tied to him, to the very demos whom you have

wronged, and are now gone out of the country. But you have no cause

to be uneasy for the future. I adjure you, my friends from Peiræus,

in no point to violate the oaths which we have just sworn. Show, in

addition to your other glorious exploits, that you are honest and

true to your engagements.”[452]

[452] Xenoph. Hellen. ii, 4, 40-42.

The archons, the senate of Five Hundred, the public assembly, and

the dikasteries, appear to have been now revived, as they had stood

in the democracy prior to the capture of the city by Lysander. This

important restoration seems to have taken place some time in the

spring of 403 B.C., though we cannot exactly make out in what month.

The first archon now drawn was Eukleidês, who gave his name to this

memorable year; a year never afterwards forgotten by Athenians.

Eleusis was at this time, and pursuant to the late convention, a city

independent and separate from Athens, under the government of the

Thirty, and comprising their warmest partisans. It was not likely

that this separation would last; but the Thirty were themselves the

parties to give cause for its termination. They were getting together

a mercenary force at Eleusis, when the whole force of Athens was

marched to forestall their designs. The generals at Eleusis came

forth to demand a conference, but were seized and put to death; the

Thirty themselves, and a few of the most obnoxious individuals,

fled out of Attica; while the rest of the Eleusinian occupants were

persuaded by their friends from Athens to come to an equal and

honorable accommodation. Again Eleusis became incorporated in the

same community with Athens, oaths of mutual amnesty and harmony being

sworn by every one.[453]

[453] Xenoph. Hellen. ii, 4, 43; Justin, v, 11. I do not

comprehend the allusion in Lysias, Orat. xxv, Δημ. Καταλ.

Ἀπολ. sect. 11: εἰσὶ δὲ οἵτινες τῶν Ἐλευσῖνάδε ἀπογραψαμένων,

ἐξελθόντες μεθ᾽ ὑμῶν, ἐπολιορκοῦντο μετ᾽ αὐτῶν.

* * * * *

We have now passed that short, but bitter and sanguinary interval,

occupied by the Thirty, which succeeded so immediately upon the

extinction of the empire and independence of Athens as to leave

no opportunity for pause or reflection. A few words respecting the

rise and fall of that empire are now required, summing up as it were

the political moral of the events recorded in my last two volumes,

between 477 and 405 B.C.

I related, in the forty-fifth chapter, the steps by which Athens

first acquired her empire, raised it to its maximum, including both

maritime and inland dominion, then lost the inland portion of it;

which loss was ratified by the Thirty Years Truce concluded with

Sparta and the Peloponnesian confederacy in 445 B.C. Her maritime

empire was based upon the confederacy of Delos, formed by the islands

in the Ægean and the towns on the seaboard immediately after the

battles of Platæa and Mykalê, for the purpose not merely of expelling

the Persians from the Ægean, but of keeping them away permanently. To

the accomplishment of this important object, Sparta was altogether

inadequate; nor would it ever have been accomplished, if Athens had

not displayed a combination of military energy, naval discipline,

power of organization, and honorable devotion to a great Pan-Hellenic

purpose, such as had never been witnessed in Grecian history.

The confederacy of Delos was formed by the free and spontaneous

association of many different towns, all alike independent; towns

which met in synod and deliberated by equal vote, took by their

majority resolutions binding upon all, and chose Athens as their

chief to enforce these resolutions, as well as to superintend

generally the war against the common enemy. But it was, from the

beginning, a compact which permanently bound each individual state to

the remainder. None had liberty either to recede, or to withhold the

contingent imposed by authority of the common synod, or to take any

separate step inconsistent with its obligations to the confederacy.

No union less stringent than this could have prevented the renewal of

Persian ascendency in the Ægean. Seceding or disobedient states were

thus treated as guilty of treason or revolt, which it was the duty of

Athens, as chief, to repress. Her first repressions, against Naxos

and other states, were undertaken in prosecution of this duty, in

which if she had been wanting, the confederacy would have fallen to

pieces, and the common enemy would have reappeared.

Now the only way by which the confederacy was saved from falling

to pieces, was by being transformed into an Athenian empire. Such

transformation, as Thucydidês plainly intimates,[454] did not arise

from the ambition or deep-laid projects of Athens, but from the

reluctance of the larger confederates to discharge the obligations

imposed by the common synod, and from the unwarlike character of the

confederates generally, which made them desirous to commute military

service for money-payment, while Athens on her part was not less

anxious to perform the service and obtain the money. By gradual and

unforeseen stages, Athens thus passed from consulate to empire: in

such manner that no one could point out the precise moment of time

when the confederacy of Delos ceased, and when the empire began.

Even the transfer of the common fund from Delos to Athens, which was

the palpable manifestation of a change already realized, was not

an act of high-handed injustice in the Athenians, but warranted by

prudential views of the existing state of affairs, and even proposed

by a leading member of the confederacy.[455]

[454] Thucyd. i, 97.

[455] See vol. v, of this History, ch. xlv, p 343.

But the Athenian empire came to include (between 460-446 B.C.) other

cities, not parties to the confederacy of Delos. Athens had conquered

her ancient enemy the island of Ægina, and had acquired supremacy

over Megara, Bœotia, Phocis, and Lokris, and Achaia in Peloponnesus.

The Megarians joined her to escape the oppression of their neighbor

Corinth: her influence over Bœotia was acquired by allying herself

with a democratical party in the Bœotian cities, against Sparta,

who had been actively interfering to sustain the opposite party and

to renovate the ascendency of Thebes. Athens was, for the time,

successful in all these enterprises; but if we follow the details, we

shall not find her more open to reproach on the score of aggressive

tendencies than Sparta or Corinth. Her empire was now at its maximum;

and had she been able to maintain it,—or even to keep possession of

the Megarid separately, which gave her the means of barring out all

invasions from Peloponnesus,—the future course of Grecian history

would have been materially altered. But her empire on land did not

rest upon the same footing as her empire at sea. The exiles in

Megara and Bœotia, etc., and the anti-Athenian party generally in

those places,—combined with the rashness of her general Tolmidês at

Korôneia,—deprived her of all her land-dependencies near home, and

even threatened her with the loss of Eubœa. The peace concluded in

445 B.C. left her with all her maritime and insular empire, including

Eubœa, but with nothing more; while by the loss of Megara she was now

open to invasion from Peloponnesus.

On this footing she remained at the beginning of the Peloponnesian

war fourteen years afterwards. I have shown that that war did not

arise, as has been so often asserted, from aggressive or ambitious

schemes on the part of Athens, but that, on the contrary, the

aggression was all on the side of her enemies; who were full of

hopes that they could put her down with little delay; while she

was not merely conservative and defensive, but even discouraged

by the certainty of destructive invasion, and only dissuaded from

concessions, alike imprudent and inglorious, by the extraordinary

influence and resolute wisdom of Periklês. That great man

comprehended well both the conditions and the limits of Athenian

empire. Athens was now understood, especially since the revolt and

reconquest of the powerful island of Samos in 440 B.C., by her

subjects and enemies as well as by her own citizens, to be mistress

of the sea. It was the care of Periklês to keep that belief within

definite boundaries, and to prevent all waste of the force of the

city in making new or distant acquisitions which could not be

permanently maintained. But it was also his care to enforce upon

his countrymen the lesson of maintaining their existing empire

unimpaired, and shrinking from no effort requisite for that end.

Though their whole empire was now staked upon the chances of a

perilous war, he did not hesitate to promise them success, provided

that they adhered to this conservative policy.

Following the events of the war, we shall find that Athens did adhere

to it for the first seven years; years of suffering and trial, from

the destructive annual invasion, the yet more destructive pestilence,

and the revolt of Mitylênê, but years which still left her empire

unimpaired, and the promises of Periklês in fair chance of being

realized. In the seventh year of the war occurred the unexpected

victory at Sphakteria and the capture of the Lacedæmonian prisoners.

This placed in the hands of the Athenians a capital advantage,

imparting to them prodigious confidence of future success, while

their enemies were in a proportional degree disheartened. It was in

this temper that they first departed from the conservative precept

of Periklês, and attempted to recover (in 424 B.C.) both Megara and

Bœotia. Had the great statesman been alive,[456] he might have turned

this moment of superiority to better account, and might perhaps have

contrived even to get possession of Megara—a point of unspeakable

importance to Athens, since it protected her against invasion—in

exchange for the Spartan captives. But the general feeling of

confidence which then animated all parties at Athens, determined them

in 424 B.C. to grasp at this and much more by force. They tried to

reconquer both Megara and Bœotia: in the former they failed, though

succeeding so far as to capture Nisæa; in the latter they not only

failed, but suffered the disastrous defeat of Delium.

[456] See vol. vi, ch. lii, p. 353 of this History.

It was in the autumn of that same year 424 B.C., too, that Brasidas

broke into their empire in Thrace, and robbed them of Akanthus,

Stageira, and some other towns, including their most precious

possession, Amphipolis. Again, it seems that the Athenians, partly

from the discouragement caused by the disaster at Delium, partly

from the ascendency of Nikias and the peace party, departed from the

conservative policy of Periklês; not by ambitious over-action, but

by inaction, omitting to do all that might have been done to arrest

the progress of Brasidas. We must, however, never forget that their

capital loss, Amphipolis, was owing altogether to the improvidence of

their officers, and could not have been obviated even by Periklês.

But though that great man could not have prevented the loss, he would

assuredly have deemed no efforts too great to recover it; and in this

respect his policy was espoused by Kleon, in opposition to Nikias and

the peace party. The latter thought it wise to make the truce for a

year; which so utterly failed of its effect, that Nikias was obliged,

even in the midst of it, to conduct an armament to Pallênê in order

to preserve the empire against yet farther losses. Still, Nikias and

his friends would hear of nothing but peace; and after the expedition

of Kleon against Amphipolis in the ensuing year, which failed partly

through his military incapacity, partly through the want of hearty

concurrence in his political opponents, they concluded what is called

the Peace of Nikias in the ensuing spring. In this, too, their

calculations are not less signally falsified than in the previous

truce: they stipulate that Amphipolis shall be restored, but it is

as far from being restored as ever. To make the error still graver

and more irreparable, Nikias, with the concurrence of Alkibiadês

contracts the alliance with Sparta a few months after the peace, and

gives up the captives, the possession of whom being the only hold

which Athens as yet had upon the Spartans.

We thus have, during the four years succeeding the battle of Delium

(424-420 B.C.), a series of departures from the conservative

policy of Periklês; departures, not in the way of ambitious

over-acquisition, but of languor and unwillingness to make efforts

even for the recovery of capital losses. Those who see no defects in

the foreign policy of the democracy except those of over-ambition

and love of war, pursuant to the jest of Aristophanês, overlook

altogether these opposite but serious blunders of Nikias and the

peace party.

Next comes the ascendency of Alkibiadês, leading to the two years’

campaign in Peloponnesus in conjunction with Elis, Argos, and

Mantineia, and ending in the complete reëstablishment of Lacedæmonian

supremacy. Here was a diversion of Athenian force from its legitimate

purpose of preserving or reëstablishing the empire, for inland

projects which Periklês could never have approved. The island of

Melos undoubtedly fell within his general conceptions of tenable

empire for Athens. But we may regard it as certain that he would

have recommended no new projects, exposing Athens to the reproach

of injustice, so long as the lost legitimate possessions in Thrace

remained unconquered.

We now come to the expedition against Syracuse. Down to that period,

the empire of Athens, except the possessions in Thrace, remained

undiminished, and her general power nearly as great as it had ever

been since 445 B.C. That expedition was the one great and fatal

departure from the Periklean policy, bringing upon Athens an amount

of disaster from which she never recovered; and it was doubtless an

error of over-ambition. Acquisitions in Sicily, even if made, lay

out of the conditions of permanent empire for Athens; and however

imposing the first effect of success might have been, they would

only have disseminated her strength, multiplied her enemies, and

weakened her in all quarters. But though the expedition itself was

thus indisputably ill-advised, and therefore ought to count to the

discredit of the public judgment at Athens, we are not to impute

to that public an amount of blame in any way commensurate to the

magnitude of the disaster, except in so far as they were guilty of

unmeasured and unconquerable esteem for Nikias. Though Periklês would

have strenuously opposed the project, yet he could not possibly have

foreseen the enormous ruin in which it would end; nor could such

ruin have been brought about by any man existing, save Nikias. Even

when the people committed the aggravated imprudence of sending out

the second expedition, Demosthenês doubtless assured them that he

would speedily either take Syracuse or bring back both armaments,

with a fair allowance for the losses inseparable from failure; and

so he would have done, if the obstinacy of Nikias had permitted. In

measuring therefore the extent of misjudgment fairly imputable to the

Athenians for this ruinous undertaking, we must always recollect,

that first the failure of the siege, next the ruin of the armament,

did not arise from intrinsic difficulties in the case, but from the

personal defects of the commander.

After the Syracusan disaster, there is no longer any question about

adhering to, or departing from, the Periklean policy. Athens is like

Patroklus in the Iliad, after Apollo has stunned him by a blow on the

back and loosened his armor. Nothing but the slackness of her enemies

allowed her time for a partial recovery, so as to make increased

heroism a substitute for impaired force, even against doubled and

tripled difficulties. And the years of struggle which she now went

through are among the most glorious events in her history. These

years present many misfortunes, but no serious misjudgment, not to

mention one peculiarly honorable moment, after the overthrow of the

Four Hundred. I have in the two preceding chapters examined into

the blame imputed to the Athenians for not accepting the overtures

of peace after the battle of Kyzikus, and for dismissing Alkibiadês

after the battle of Notium. On both points their conduct has been

shown to be justifiable. And after all, they were on the point of

partially recovering themselves in 408 B.C., when the unexpected

advent of Cyrus set the seal to their destiny.

The bloodshed after the recapture of Mitylênê and Skionê, and still

more that which succeeded the capture of Melos, are disgraceful

to the humanity of Athens, and stand in pointed contrast with the

treatment of Samos when reconquered by Periklês. But they did

not contribute sensibly to break down her power; though, being

recollected with aversion after other incidents were forgotten, they

are alluded to in later times as if they had caused the fall of the

empire.[457]

[457] This I apprehend to have been in the mind of Xenophon, De

Reditibus, v, 6. Ἔπειτ᾽, ἐπεὶ ~ὠμῶς ἄγαν δόξασα προστατεύειν~ ἡ

πόλις ἐστερήθη τῆς ἀρχῆς, etc.

I have thought it important to recall, in this short summary, the

leading events of the seventy years preceding 405 B.C., in order

that it may be understood to what degree Athens was politically

or prudentially to blame for the great downfall which she then

underwent. That downfall had one great cause—we may almost say, one

single cause—the Sicilian expedition. The empire of Athens both

was, and appeared to be, in exuberant strength when that expedition

was sent forth; strength more than sufficient to bear up against

all moderate faults or moderate misfortunes, such as no government

ever long escapes. But the catastrophe of Syracuse was something

overpassing in terrific calamity all Grecian experience and all power

of foresight. It was like the Russian campaign of 1812 to the emperor

Napoleon; though by no means imputable, in an equal degree, to vice

in the original project. No Grecian power could bear up against such

a death-wound, and the prolonged struggle of Athens after it is not

the least wonderful part of the whole war.

Nothing in the political history of Greece is so remarkable as the

Athenian empire; taking it as it stood in its completeness, from

about 460-413 B.C., the date of the Syracusan catastrophe, or still

more, from 460-421 B.C., the date when Brasidas made his conquests

in Thrace. After the Syracusan catastrophe, the conditions of the

empire were altogether changed; it was irretrievably broken up,

though Athens still continued an energetic struggle to retain some

of the fragments. But if we view it as it had stood before that

event, during the period of its integrity, it is a sight marvellous

to contemplate, and its working must be pronounced, in my judgment,

to have been highly beneficial to the Grecian world. No Grecian state

except Athens could have sufficed to organize such a system, or to

hold in partial though regulated, continuous, and specific communion,

so many little states, each animated with that force of political

repulsion instinctive in the Grecian mind. This was a mighty task,

worthy of Athens, and to which no state except Athens was competent.

We have already seen in part, and we shall see still farther, how

little qualified Sparta was to perform it, and we shall have occasion

hereafter to notice a like fruitless essay on the part of Thebes.

As in regard to the democracy of Athens generally, so in regard to

her empire, it has been customary with historians to take notice

of little except the bad side. But my conviction is, and I have

shown grounds for it, in chap. xlvii, that the empire of Athens was

not harsh and oppressive, as it is commonly depicted. Under the

circumstances of her dominion, at a time when the whole transit and

commerce of the Ægean was under one maritime system, which excluded

all irregular force; when Persian ships of war were kept out of

the waters, and Persian tribute-officers away from the seaboard;

when the disputes inevitable among so many little communities could

be peaceably redressed by the mutual right of application to the

tribunals at Athens, and when these tribunals were also such as to

present to sufferers a refuge against wrongs done even by individual

citizens of Athens herself, to use the expression of the oligarchical

Phrynichus,[458] the condition of the maritime Greeks was materially

better than it had been before, or than it will be seen to become

afterwards. Her empire, if it did not inspire attachment, certainly

provoked no antipathy, among the bulk of the citizens of the

subject-communities, as is shown by the party-character of the

revolts against her. If in her imperial character she exacted

obedience, she also fulfilled duties and insured protection to a

degree incomparably greater than was ever realized by Sparta. And

even if she had been ever so much disposed to cramp the free play

of mind and purpose among her subjects,—a disposition which is no

way proved,—the very circumstances of her own democracy, with its

open antithesis of political parties, universal liberty of speech,

and manifold individual energy, would do much to prevent the

accomplishment of such an end, and would act as a stimulus to the

dependent communities, even without her own intention.

[458] Thucyd. viii, 48.

Without being insensible either to the faults or to the misdeeds of

imperial Athens, I believe that her empire was a great comparative

benefit, and its extinction a great loss, to her own subjects. But

still more do I believe it to have been a good, looked at with

reference to Pan-Hellenic interests. Its maintenance furnished the

only possibility of keeping out foreign intervention, and leaving the

destinies of Greece to depend upon native, spontaneous, untrammelled

Grecian agencies. The downfall of the Athenian empire is the signal

for the arms and corruption of Persia again to make themselves

felt, and for the reënslavement of the Asiatic Greeks under her

tribute-officers. What is still worse, it leaves the Grecian world

in a state incapable of repelling any energetic foreign attack, and

open to the overruling march of “the man of Macedon,” half a century

afterwards. For such was the natural tendency of the Grecian world

to political non-integration or disintegration, that the rise of

the Athenian empire, incorporating so many states into one system,

is to be regarded as a most extraordinary accident. Nothing but the

genius, energy, discipline, and democracy of Athens, could have

brought it about; nor even she, unless favored and pushed on by a

very peculiar train of antecedent events. But having once got it, she

might perfectly well have kept it; and, had she done so, the Hellenic

world would have remained so organized as to be able to repel foreign

intervention, either from Susa or from Pella. When we reflect how

infinitely superior was the Hellenic mind to that of all surrounding

nations and races; how completely its creative agency was stifled,

as soon as it came under the Macedonian dictation; and how much more

it might perhaps have achieved, if it had enjoyed another century or

half-century of freedom, under the stimulating headship of the most

progressive and most intellectual of all its separate communities,

we shall look with double regret on the ruin of the Athenian empire,

as accelerating, without remedy, the universal ruin of Grecian

independence, political action, and mental grandeur.