THE THIRTY TYRANTS, AND THE DEATH OF SOCRATES, B.C. 404-399.
The fall of Athens brought back a host of exiles, all of them the
enemies of her democratical constitution. Of these these most
distinguished was Critias, a man of wealth and family, the uncle of
Plato, and once the intimate friend of Socrates, distinguished both for
his literary and political talents, but of unmeasured ambition and
unscrupulous conscience. Critias and his companions soon found a party
with which they could co-operate; and supported by Lysander they
proposed in the assembly that a committee of thirty should be named to
draw up laws for the future government of the city, and to undertake
its temporary administration. Among the most prominent of the thirty
names were those of Critias and Theramenes. The proposal was of course
carried. Lysander himself addressed the Assembly, and contemptuously
told them that they had better take thought for their personal safety,
which now lay at his mercy, than for their political constitution. The
committee thus appointed soon obtained the title of the Thirty Tyrants,
the name by which they have become known in all subsequent time. After
naming an entirely new Senate, and appointing fresh magistrates, they
proceeded to exterminate their most obnoxious opponents. But Critias,
and the more violent party among them, still called for more blood; and
with the view of obtaining it, procured a Spartan garrison, under the
harmost Callibius, to be installed in the Acropolis. Besides this
force, they had an organized band of assassins at their disposal.
Blood now flowed on all sides. Many of the leading men of Athens fell,
others took to flight.
Thus the reign of terror was completely established. In the bosom of
the Thirty, however, there was a party, headed by Theramenes, who
disapproved of these proceedings. But his moderation cost him his
life. One day as he entered the Senate-house, Critias rose and
denounced him as a public enemy, and ordered him to be carried off to
instant death. Upon hearing these words Theramenes sprang for refuge
to the altar in the Senate-house; but he was dragged away by Satyrus,
the cruel and unscrupulous head of the "Eleven," a body of officers who
carried into execution the penal sentence of the law. Being conveyed
to prison, he was compelled to drink the fatal hemlock. The constancy
of his end might have adorned a better life after swallowing the
draught, he jerked on the floor a drop which remained in the cup,
according to the custom of the game called COTTABOS, exclaiming, "This
to the health of the GENTLE Critias!"
Alcibiades had been included by the Thirty in the list of exiles; but
the fate which now overtook him seems to have sprung from the fears of
the Lacedaemonians, or perhaps from the personal hatred of Agis. After
the battle of AEgospotami, Pharnabazus permitted the Athenian exile to
live in Phrygia, and assigned him a revenue for his maintenance. But a
despatch came out from Sparta, to Lysander, directing that Alcibiades
should be put to death. Lysander communicated the order to Pharnabazus,
who arranged for carrying it into execution. The house of Alcibiades
was surrounded with a band of assassins, and set on fire. He rushed
out with drawn sword upon his assailants, who shrank from the attack,
but who slew him from a distance with their javelins and arrows.
Timandra, a female with whom he lived, performed towards his body the
last offices of duty and affection. Thus perished miserably, in the
vigour of his age, one of the most remarkable, but not one of the
greatest, characters in Grecian history. With qualities which,
properly applied, might have rendered him the greatest benefactor of
Athens, he contrived to attain the infamous distinction of being that
citizen who had inflicted upon her the most signal amount of damage.
Meantime an altered state of feeling was springing up in Greece. Athens
had ceased to be an object of fear or jealousy, and those feelings
began now to be directed towards Sparta. Lysander had risen to a
height of unparalleled power. He was in a manner idolized. Poets
showered their praises on him, and even altars were raised in his
honour by the Asiatic Greeks. In the name of Sparta he exercised
almost uncontrolled authority in the cities he had reduced, including
Athens itself. But it was soon discovered that, instead of the freedom
promised by the Spartans, only another empire had been established,
whilst Lysander was even meditating to extort from the subject cities a
yearly tribute of one thousand talents. And all these oppressions were
rendered still more intolerable by the overweening pride and harshness
of Lysander's demeanour.
Even in Sparta itself the conduct of Lysander was beginning to inspire
disgust and jealousy. Pausanias, son of Plistoanax, who was now king
with Agis, as well as the new Ephors appointed in September, B.C. 404,
disapproved of his proceedings. The Thebans and Corinthians themselves
were beginning to sympathise with Athens, and to regard the Thirty as
mere instruments for supporting the Spartan dominion; whilst Sparta in
her turn looked upon them as the tools of Lysander's ambition. Many of
the Athenian exiles had found refuge in Boeotia: and one of them
Thrasybulus, with the aid of Ismenias and other Theban citizens,
starting from Thebes at the head of a small band of exiles, seized the
fortress of Phyle in the passes of Mount Parnes and on the direct road
to Athens. The Thirty marched out to attack Thrasybulus, at the head
of the Lacedaemonian garrison and a strong Athenian force. But their
attack was repulsed with considerable loss.
Shortly afterwards Thrasybulus marched from Phyle to Piraeus which was
now an open town, and seized upon it without opposition. When the
whole force of the Thirty, including the Lacedaemonians, marched on the
following day to attack him, he retired to the hill of Munychia, the
citadel of Piraeus, the only approach to which was by a steep ascent.
Here he drew up his hoplites in files of ten deep, posting behind them
his slingers and dartmen. He exhorted his men to stand patiently till
the enemy came within reach of the missiles. At the first discharge
the assailing column seemed to waver; and Thrasybulus, taking advantage
of their confusion, charged down the hill, and completely routed them,
killing seventy, among whom was Critias himself. The loss of their
leader had thrown the majority into the hands of the party formerly led
by Theramenes, who resolved to depose the Thirty and constitute a new
oligarchy of Ten. Some of the Thirty were re-elected into this body;
but the more violent colleagues of Critias were deposed and retired for
safety to Eleusis. The new government of the Ten sent to Sparta to
solicit further aid; and a similar application was made at the same
time from the section of the Thirty at Eleusis. Their request was
complied with; and Lysander once more entered Athens at the head of a
Lacedaemonian force. Fortunately, however, the jealousy of the
Lacedaemonians towards Lysander led them at this critical juncture to
supersede him in the command. King Pausanias was appointed to conduct
an army into Attica, and when he encamped in the Academus he was joined
by Lysander and his forces. It was known at Athens that the views of
Pausanias were unfavourable to the proceedings of Lysander; and the
presence of the Spartan king elicited a vehement reaction against the
oligarchy, which fear had hitherto suppressed. All parties sent envoys
to Sparta. The Ephors and the Lacedaemonian Assembly referred the
question to a committee of fifteen, of whom Pausanias was one. The
decision of this board was: That the exiles in Piraeus should be
readmitted to Athens, and that there should be an amnesty for all that
had passed, except as regarded the Thirty and the Ten.
When these terms were settled and sworn to, the Peloponnesians quitted
Attica; and Thrasybulus and the exiles, marching in solemn procession
from Piraeus to Athens, ascended to the Acropolis and offered up a
solemn sacrifice and thanksgiving. An assembly of the people was then
held, and after Thrasybulus had addressed an animated reproof to the
oligarchical party, the democracy was unanimously restored. This
important counter-revolution took place in the spring of 403 B.C. The
archons, the senate of 500, the public assembly, and the dicasteries
seem to have been reconstituted in the same form as before the capture
of the city.
Thus was terminated, after a sway of eight months, the despotism of the
Thirty. The year which contained their rule was not named after the
archon, but was termed "the year of anarchy." The first archon drawn
after their fall was Euclides, who gave his name to a year ever
afterwards memorable among the Athenians.
For the next few years the only memorable event in the history of
Athens is the death of Socrates. This celebrated philosopher was born
in the year 468 B.C., in the immediate neighbourhood of Athens. His
father, Sophroniscus, was a sculptor, and Socrates was brought up to,
and for some time practised, the same profession. He was married to
Xanthippe, by whom he had three sons; but her bad temper has rendered
her name proverbial for a conjugal scold. His physical constitution
was healthy, robust, and wonderfully enduring. Indifferent alike to
heat and cold the same scanty and homely clothing sufficed him both in
summer and winter; and even in the campaign of Potidaea, amidst the
snows of a Thracian winter, he went barefooted. But though thus gifted
with strength of body and of mind, he was far from being endowed with
personal beauty. His thick lips, flat nose, and prominent eyes, gave
him the appearance of a Silenus, or satyr. He served with credit as an
hoplite at Potidaea (B.C. 432), Delium (B.C. 424), and Amphipolis (B.C.
422); but it was not till late in life, in the year 406 B.C., that he
filled any political office. He was one of the Prytanes when, after the
battle of Arginusae, Callixenus submitted his proposition respecting
the six generals to the public Assembly, and his refusal on that
occasion to put an unconstitutional question to the vote has been
already recorded. He had a strong persuasion that he was intrusted
with a divine mission, and he believed himself to be attended by a
daemon, or genius, whose admonitions he frequently heard, not, however,
in the way of excitement, but of restraint. He never WROTE anything,
but he made oral instruction the great business of his life. Early in
the morning he frequented the public walks, the gymnasia, and the
schools; whence he adjourned to the market-place at its most crowded
hours, and thus spent the whole day in conversing with young and old,
rich and poor,--with all in short who felt any desire for his
instructions.
That a reformer and destroyer, like Socrates, of ancient prejudices and
fallacies which passed current under the name of wisdom should have
raised up a host of enemies is only what might be expected; but in his
case this feeling was increased by the manner in which he fulfilled his
mission. The oracle of Delphi, in response to a question put by his
friend Chaerephon, had affirmed that no man was wiser than Socrates.
No one was more perplexed at this declaration than Socrates himself,
since he was conscious of possessing no wisdom at all. However, he
determined to test the accuracy of the priestess, for, though he had
little wisdom, others might have still less. He therefore selected an
eminent politician who enjoyed a high reputation for wisdom, and soon
elicited by his scrutinising method of cross-examination, that this
statesman's reputed wisdom was no wisdom at all. But of this he could
not convince the subject of his examination; whence Socrates concluded
that he was wiser than this politician, inasmuch as he was conscious of
his own ignorance, and therefore exempt from the error of believing
himself wise when in reality he was not so. The same experiment was
tried with the same result on various classes of men; on poets,
mechanics, and especially on the rhetors and sophists, the chief of all
the pretenders to wisdom.
The first indication of the unpopularity which he had incurred is the
attack made upon him by Aristophanes in the 'Clouds' in the year 423
B.C. That attack, however, seems to have evaporated with the laugh,
and for many years Socrates continued his teaching without molestation.
It was not till B.C. 399 that the indictment was preferred against him
which cost him his life. In that year, Meletus, a leather-seller,
seconded by Anytus, a poet, and Lycon, a rhetor, accused him of impiety
in not worshipping the gods of the city, and in introducing new
deities, and also of being a corrupter of youth. With respect to the
latter charge, his former intimacy with Alcibiades and Critias may
have, weighed against him. Socrates made no preparations for his
defence, and seems, indeed, not to have desired an acquittal. But
although he addressed the dicasts in a bold uncompromising tone, he was
condemned only by a small majority of five or six in a court composed
of between five and six hundred dicasts. After the verdict was
pronounced, he was entitled, according to the practice of the Athenian
courts, to make some counter-proposition in place of the penalty of
death, which the accusers had demanded, and if he had done so with any
show of submission it is probable that the sentence would have been
mitigated. But his tone after the verdict was higher than before.
Instead of a fine, he asserted that he ought to be maintained in the
Prytaneum at the public expense, as a public benefactor. This seems to
have enraged the dicasts and he was condemned to death.
It happened that the vessel which proceeded to Delos on the annual
deputation to the festival had sailed the day before his condemnation;
and during its absence it was unlawful to put any one to death.
Socrates was thus kept in prison during thirty days, till the return of
the vessel. He spent the interval in philosophical conversations with
his friends. Crito, one of these, arranged a scheme for his escape by
bribing the gaoler; but Socrates, as might be expected from the tone of
his defence, resolutely refused to save his life by a breach of the
law. His last discourse, on the day of his death, turned on the
immortality of the soul. With a firm and cheerful countenance he drank
the cup of hemlock amidst his sorrowing and weeping friends. His last
words were addressed to Crito:--"Crito, we owe a cock to AEsculapius;
discharge the debt, and by no means omit it."
Thus perished the greatest and most original of the Grecian
philosophers, whose uninspired wisdom made the nearest approach to the
divine morality of the Gospel. His teaching forms an epoch in the
history of philosophy. From his school sprang Plato, the founder of
the Academic philosophy; Euclides, the founder of the Megaric school;
Aristippus, the founder of the Cyrenaic school; and many other
philosophers of eminence.