THE GREEK CITIES.
I have already stated that between 650 B.C. and 338 B.C. the Greek
communities with the exception of Sparta are to be classed as city
states, or communities in which a walled city is of supreme importance
and the rural districts count for very little. It seems right to place
the beginning of the city states so early as 650 B.C., because at that
time three out of the four communities of which we have records were
ruled oppressively by bodies of magnates who lived in the cities or
close to them, and who owed their power to the protection of the city
walls and to the facilities for concerted action which they gained from
living close to a common centre. It must however be admitted that the
evidence of the great importance of the cities is not so clear at the
early date which I have named as it is a century later, in the age of
the tyrants.
The examination of the political institutions of the Greek cities will
be divided into four parts: I. The early aristocracies and oligarchies;
II. The tyrannies; III. The democracies and the later oligarchies; IV.
The conquest of Greece by Macedonia.
I. _The early aristocracies and oligarchies._
Before the year 650 B.C. the heroic monarchies had ceased to exist
in all the more important Greek peoples and other governments had
taken their place. Of the process of the change from the old tribal
system to other systems we have no contemporary records in any case:
and traditions even of a later date are absent except in regard to
Corinth, Megara, Athens and Argos.
At Corinth it is said that in 745 B.C. the members of the royal family,
two hundred in number, deposed the king Aristomenes, and took the
control of the state into their own possession, electing one of their
own number every year to act as president and discharge the functions
of king. They were distinguished by their descent from king Bacchis,
were known as the Bacchiadæ, and in order to keep themselves a distinct
caste they forbade all members of their family to marry any one but a
descendant of Bacchis. In 655 B.C., after they had ruled for ninety
years, their government was selfish and oppressive[118].
[118] Herodotus V. 92. Diodorus Siculus VII. fragment 9. Diodorus
wrote about 20-10 B.C.
At Megara we know only that the government was in the hands of certain
rich families, and that eventually their oppressive rule provoked the
common folk under the leadership of a man named Theagenes to rise
against them and overthrow them[119].
[119] Aristotle, _Politics_ V. 5. 9, Bekker. Welldon, _Translation_,
p. 357.
At Athens the nobles gradually deprived the king of his power and
prerogatives: and from a date somewhere between 700 B.C. and 650 B.C.
the government was controlled by a permanent council of nobles, and
its details were managed by nine archons or administrators, who were
selected yearly by the council[120]. The council consisted of those
who were serving or had served the office of archons[121], so that
the council in selecting new archons also filled up vacancies in its
own numbers: among the nine magistrates the first in rank was The
Archon, who gave his name to his year of office: the second was the
Archon Basileus, who performed the religious rites: the third was the
Polemarch, who commanded in war: the other six were called Thesmothetæ,
and probably attended to judicial business[122]. The nobles then from
650 B.C. or earlier were in exclusive possession of power: how they
used it when first they got it, is not recorded: by 600 B.C. they were
employing it selfishly for the interests of their class.
[120] Aristotle, _Constitution of Athens_, ch. 8.
[121] Plutarch, _Solon_, ch. 19, Aristotle, _Constitution of Athens_,
ch. 3.
[122] Aristotle, _Constitution of Athens_, ch. 3, calls them recorders
of laws or customs for judgement. The chapter may be spurious, but the
assertion is probable.
The first truly historical Athenian is Draco, who, about 620 B.C.,
collected the customary law of Athens and formed it, together with some
provisions of his own, into a written code of legal regulations. The
newly recovered Aristotelian treatise on the constitution of Athens
contains a passage which also attributes to him some very important
changes in the structure of the government[123]: but, as this passage
was certainly either not known or not accepted as genuine by Plutarch
in the first century A.D. and Pollux in the second century, though they
were well acquainted with Aristotle's treatise, it seems impossible to
regard it as an original part of the work[124].
[123] Aristotle, _Constitution of Athens_, 4.
[124] Mr R. Macan in _Journ. of Hellenic Studies_, April 1891, p. 27
notices the silence of Plutarch.
Whether Draco did or did not attempt to reform the government, he
did not put an end to the oppressive practices of the nobles and the
wealthy. They took advantage of the harsh laws relating to debt, to
deprive the poorer freemen of their lands or to reduce them to slavery:
but the poor showed so much inclination for fighting that their
oppressors were alarmed. In the year 594 B.C. it was agreed by both the
contending classes that Solon should be elected archon and entrusted
with power to deal with the existing discontents and to make a new form
of government. He cancelled all existing debts, restored to liberty
those who had been enslaved, altered the law in regard to security for
debt, and then attempted to remedy the defects of the political system.
Solon devised a moderate system of popular government of the kind to
which Aristotle afterwards gave the name of Polity. It was popular,
since the mass of the citizens had a controlling power: but it was
moderate, because no class had opportunities for governing in its
own interest. His new institutions were the δικαστήρια or popular
law-courts, the ἐκκλησία or assembly of citizens, the βουλή or council
of four hundred, and certain regulations which made eligibility to
office depend on wealth. The archons kept their titles and functions:
the permanent council of ex-archons, henceforth known as the council
of the Arêus Pagus (in Latin Areopagus), survived with diminished
authority.
The δικαστήρια were courts in which large bodies of citizens sat as
judges or jurymen: and Athenian citizens of all classes, including the
Thetes or labourers for hire, were qualified to serve in them. The
extent of their jurisdiction is not precisely known: but as they were
empowered to hear appeals from the decisions of all magistrates, they
had the final judgement in questions of the greatest importance: and
as the laws were imperfect or uncertain, they could often be a law to
themselves. Under the oligarchy there had been no general assembly of
citizens or it had been as powerless as the common folk in an ἀγορή of
the Homeric age: Solon ordered all citizens to come together yearly in
assembly for the election of archons. The choice however of the archons
was conducted by a process that was not purely elective: each of the
four ancient tribes, into which the Athenian families were divided,
elected from among the richest class of citizens ten candidates for the
office, and, from the forty thus chosen, nine were taken by drawing
lots. As Solon ordered that the laws which he had made should continue
in force for a hundred years, we may infer that he intended that the
assembly should for the present do little or nothing in the way of law
making: but, in case it should be inclined towards unwise innovations,
he established as a check upon it his βουλή or council of four hundred.
To make up this council he selected a hundred men from each of the
four tribes; and, to give it a restraining power, he ordered that no
proposal should be brought before the assembly till the council had
approved it. His rules for eligibility to office depended on a division
of the citizens into four classes according to their wealth. The
richest class were the Pentacosiomedimni, whose lands yielded in the
year not less than five hundred medimni (about seven hundred bushels)
in aggregate produce of corn, oil and wine: next came the Hippeis,
who had three hundred medimni yearly and could equip and maintain a
horseman for warfare: then the Zeugitæ, who had two hundred medimni
and kept a yoke of oxen: and lastly the Thetes, who were the poorest
class and worked for hire. The richest class were alone eligible to the
archonship and the treasurership: the second and third class could hold
lesser offices suitable to their condition: and the Thetes alone were
incapable of holding places in the administration[125].
[125] The description of Solon's constitution is taken from
Aristotle's _Constitution of Athens_, ch. 5-13: except the statement
that the members of the council of four hundred were selected by
Solon. This is from Plutarch, _Solon_, ch. 19.
The constitution of Solon remained in full working order for only three
or four years: then there arose violent contests about the appointment
of archons, which show that the immediate effect of his changes had
been to transfer the chief power to the nine magistrates[126]. The
turbulence of factions made it impossible to enforce some parts of
his constitution: but other parts of it were probably observed, and
the whole served as a foundation for Cleisthenes to build upon. It
is probable that the strife of classes which spoiled the working of
Solon's institutions led to the restoration of some kind of oligarchy:
for if it was not so, it is hard to account for the readiness of the
poor citizens to accede to the wishes of the demagogue Pisistratus.
[126] Aristotle, _Constitution of Athens_, 13.
The prevalence of oligarchical governments in the Greek cities of
Sicily at an early stage of their career is noticed by Aristotle[127]:
the existence of similar governments in the Greek cities generally
in the same stage of their progress may fairly be inferred from the
silence of historians.
[127] Aristotle, _Politics_ V. 12. 13. Welldon, p. 405.
It is to be noticed that none of the traditions about the governments
of the nobles in the Greek cities of the seventh century B.C. tell us
anything about their behaviour or character when first they rose to
power. From the probabilities of the case however we may conjecture
that at first they were good governments and used their power well:
they supplanted the long-established heroic monarchies, and could not
have succeeded in such an achievement unless they had had merits of
their own. It seems then that during the first part of their existence
they ought to be called aristocracies rather than oligarchies: for
an aristocracy is a government conducted by the few best men in a
community for the best interests of the whole community, while an
oligarchy is a government conducted by a few for their own selfish
interests. From what has been already stated about the governments of
the nobles in the later part of their careers, it will be seen that
oligarchy is a name which suits them precisely.
At the beginning of the chapter it was remarked that the nobles lived
in the cities or close beside them, and owed their power to the
protection of the city walls and to the facilities for concerted action
which they gained from living close to a common centre: and it is now
necessary to give authorities for the statement. Aristotle[128] speaks
of the oligarchy at Athens as οἱ πεδιακοί, or inhabitants of τὸ πεδίον,
a little tract of level ground near Athens, Plutarch[129] calls them
πεδιεῖς in exactly the same sense, and the Etymologicum Magnum[130] a
much later authority says the Eupatridæ lived in the city of Athens
itself. The oligarchy at Megara were overthrown by Theagenes: and he
succeeded in overthrowing them by catching them while they were taking
their horses and cattle to graze beside the river[131]:--a fact which
shows that when they went out into the open country they were caught at
a disadvantage, and implies that they habitually lived behind defences.
As to the Bacchiadæ at Corinth there is not any statement that they
lived in the city, but Herodotus in a story which will be told
presently explains carefully that a certain Corinthian who was not one
of the ruling caste did not live in the city but in a δῆμος or place
in the open country. The evidence for my proposition that at Athens,
Megara and Corinth the cities as distinct from the open country were of
great importance is not, I confess, very conclusive: but I have thought
it sufficient to justify me in regarding the communities which lived at
those places as city states and not as tribes.
[128] _Politics_ V. 5. 9.
[129] _Solon_, ch. 13.
[130] Etymol. Mag., under the word εὐπατρίδαι.
[131] Aristotle, _Pol._ V. 5. 9. Welldon, p. 357.
At Argos the course of events was not the same as in those cities of
which I have spoken. The Argive monarchy, as we have seen[132], was not
abolished but continued to exist so late as 480 B.C.: the king however
was not a great power in the state: for we do not hear of any doings
of any of the kings. On the other hand, the fact that the monarchy
was permitted to survive shows clearly that there was no oligarchy at
Argos so violent and exclusive as the rule of the Bacchiadæ at Corinth
or the Eupatridæ at Athens. Since then supreme power did not belong
either to the king or to the nobles, power must have been in some way
divided, so that Argos had a mixed or balanced form of government: and
this fact is of some interest, since it adds something to the slight
resemblance between Argos and Rome which has been already noticed, by
showing that in these two cities forms of government succeeded one
another in the same order. In each there was first a strong monarchy:
next an excessively strong monarchy or tyranny: and afterwards a mixed
or balanced form of government. At Rome the three stages are marked by
Servius Tullius, by Tarquin the Proud, and by the division of power
between patricians and plebeians: at Argos by the early Doric kings,
by Pheidon, and by the mixed form of government which was established
after the decline of his power.
[132] Above, pages 34, 35.
II. _The Tyrannies._
The way in which the oligarchic governments were destroyed is
illustrated by the successful enterprise of Pisistratus at Athens: the
character of the despotisms which succeeded them by the history of
Cypselus and Periander, tyrants of Corinth from 655 B.C. to 585 B.C.,
and by the reigns of Pisistratus and his son.
The story of the origin of the Corinthian tyranny, as told by
Herodotus[133], begins when Corinth was ruled by the oligarchy of the
Bacchiadæ. It was, as we have already seen, the custom of this family
to forbid their children to marry any but a Bacchiad. But one of them
had a lame daughter named Labda, and, as none of the Bacchiad princes
would marry her, she was given to Eetion who was below the caste.
Eetion had also another wife: Labda had a child, but the other wife
had none, and Eetion, being discontented, sent to consult the Delphic
oracle. The priestess took no notice of what he asked but declared that
Labda should bear another son who should be an important person. The
Bacchiadæ heard of the oracle, held counsel what they should do, and
appointed ten men of their own number to go to the village where Eetion
lived and to destroy the child. The ten men came to the house, went
into the court and asked for the new-born infant: Labda thinking they
had come out of kindness to congratulate Eetion, brought out her child
and put it in the hands of one of the visitors. They had arranged that
the first of them that got hold of it should dash it on the ground: but
it chanced, by luck sent from the gods, that the child smiled on the
man who had received it: he took notice of this, and could not perform
the murder, but passed on the child to the second man, and the second
to the third, and so the child was passed round all ten and none had
the heart to slay it. They gave it back to the mother and went outside
the house, reproached one another for soft-heartedness, and resolved
to go back and carry out their commission. But it was fated that from
the seed of Eetion mischief should grow up for Corinth: Labda standing
by the door heard their words, and hid the child in a κυψέλη or chest:
his life was saved, he received the name of Cypselus (Κύψελος), and
when he was a man overpowered the Bacchiadæ, and established himself
as tyrant. He drove many of the Corinthians into exile, reduced many
to penury, and put to death many more. After a reign of thirty years
he was succeeded by his son. Periander, the new tyrant, at first
governed gently: but after he had sent an envoy to Thrasybulus, tyrant
of Miletus, to ask how he could best secure his power, and had learned
from the envoy on his return that Thrasybulus had replied only by going
into a plot of standing corn and lopping off the tallest ears, he began
to destroy the most distinguished citizens and became a more murderous
oppressor than Cypselus had been.
[133] Herodotus V. 92 and III. 48-53.
The character of Periander's government is exemplified in the stories
of the spoiling of the Corinthian women and the seizure of the
Corcyræan boys.
Among those whom Periander killed was his wife Melissa: a treasure had
been committed to her keeping by a friend, and Periander after he had
killed her regretted that he had not first learned from her where it
was concealed. To repair his error he sent to the necromantic oracle
at Acheron to question her ghost. Melissa appeared, but refused to say
where the treasure was, complaining of being cold and naked, since the
clothing buried in her tomb was no good to her because it had not been
burned. Periander issued a proclamation inviting all the Corinthian
women to a great festival at the Heræum: and when they came in their
best attire, the spearmen surrounded them and stripped them of their
clothes and jewels, which Periander heaped together in a pit and burned
as an offering, accompanied by his prayers, to Melissa. Her ghost was
propitiated, and, appearing a second time, revealed the place where she
had hid the treasure.
The father of Melissa was Procles tyrant of Epidaurus. The two sons of
Periander and Melissa had no suspicion how their mother's death had
occurred, till at the ages of eighteen and seventeen they visited their
grandfather at Epidaurus. When the visit was at an end, and Procles
was bidding them farewell, he remarked "I suppose you know, boys, who
killed your mother?" The elder son gave no heed to this: the younger,
Lycophron, after his return to his home at Corinth, would not speak
to Periander, and was accordingly driven out of his house and went
to stay with friends in the city. Periander forbade them to show him
hospitality; and at last, to force his son to return home, proclaimed
that any one who spoke to him must pay a fine to Apollo. Lycophron,
driven from the houses of his friends, did not go home but went to
sleep in the open air under the porticoes. After this had gone on three
nights, Periander went himself and tried to talk his son over: but got
no answer except "You have incurred the fine to Apollo by speaking to
me." Periander, seeing no other way of getting Lycophron out of his
sight, sent him to rule over Corcyra, which was a colony of Corinth
and, contrary to the usual practice among the Greeks, remained under
the government of the mother city. When Lycophron had lived long in
Corcyra, Periander grew old and unequal to the task of ruling the
Corinthians, and besought Lycophron to come and be tyrant at Corinth,
promising that he himself would go to Corcyra. Lycophron, after much
persuasion, was brought to consent, but the Corcyræans did not like
the prospect of the change and to make it impossible put Lycophron to
death. The vengeance of Periander was worthy of a tyrant: he seized
three hundred boys of the best families in Corcyra and shipped them off
for Sardis to be made slaves and eunuchs to Asiatics and barbarians:
the commanders however of the ships which carried them were obliged
to touch at Samos, and the boys were enabled to take sanctuary and
were afterwards through the kindness of the Samians restored to their
parents in Corcyra.
At Athens, in the year 560 B.C., the chief contending parties were
the rich men of the plain, the men of the sea-shore, and the poor men
of the hill country. Pisistratus, a young Athenian who had twice won
military distinction, having formed a body of partisans and declared
himself to be the leader of the men of the hill country, obtained
tyrannical power over Attica by means of a trick. He drove into
Athens in a chariot drawn by a pair of mules, both he and his mules
bleeding from many wounds, which had been inflicted with his own hands.
The people were already assembled or came together to meet him. He
addressed them and said he had been driving into the country and had
been attacked by his political opponents: and went on to request them
that he might have some men to protect him. A resolution granting his
request was proposed by Aristion and accepted by the assembly: before
long he and his guard of club men seized the Acropolis and he became
tyrant. Twice Pisistratus was expelled from Attica in consequence of
rebellions stirred up by Megacles, the head of the noble house of the
Alcmæonidæ, and twice he recovered his despotic power. After his first
expulsion, he bade a certain woman named Phyê of tall stature and
graceful figure to array herself in a splendid suit of complete armour
and drive in a chariot into the Acropolis: he sent heralds before her
to make proclamation "O Athenians, give good welcome to Pisistratus:
ye see that the goddess Athenê has honoured him above all men, and is
herself leading him home into her own Acropolis." The people in the
city were thus persuaded that Phyê was the goddess Athenê, and were
induced to give good welcome to Pisistratus: he became master of the
Acropolis, and his despotic power was re-established. After his second
expulsion, he spent ten years in exile: at the end of that time he had
contrived to amass large sums of money, and had gained the adherence
of a strong force of mercenary troops and soldiers of fortune. At the
head of his army he landed in Attica and began reducing the country:
the Athenians marched out to oppose him but showed no vigour in their
resistance: and before long he was admitted within the city. Then for
the first time his tyranny rooted itself firmly in the soil. Hitherto
his government had been mild and orderly: he had never tried to meddle
with the habits and home life of his subjects: and, as neither of his
attempts to recover his power had been vigorously resisted, his rule
must have been regarded with favour by a large part of the Athenians.
Now he began to rely on force and fear alone for the maintenance of
his authority. He surrounded himself with a strong body of foreign
mercenaries: many of the citizens from fear of him went into exile: and
those who remained in Attica, in case they fell under any suspicion,
were compelled to deliver their children into his charge as hostages
for their good behaviour. And yet, even in this period when his
government was most oppressive, he never put a stop to the election
by the citizens of the nine yearly archons according to the ancient
constitution, though he took care that one of the archons should always
be a member of his own family[134]. At his death in 527 B.C. he was
succeeded by his son Hippias, who for some years imitated the policy
of his father by tolerating the maintenance of some of the popular
institutions while he kept the substance of power in his own hands.
After the unsuccessful conspiracy of Harmodius and Aristogeiton in 514
B.C. his rule became harsh and repressive[135].
[134] Thucydides VI. 54.
[135] Aristotle, _Constitution of Athens_, ch. 19.
The fall of the Athenian tyranny was brought about through a foreign
intervention. The wealthy family of the Alcmæonidæ had been forced at
the last restoration of Pisistratus to leave Athens and go into exile.
It chanced that the great temple of Apollo at Delphi had been destroyed
by fire, and the Amphictyonic council, composed of delegates from the
Hellenic races, making great efforts had obtained money enough to
rebuild it. The Alcmæonidæ contracted with the Amphictyonic council
that they would for a certain sum restore the temple: and to acquire
influence with the Delphic priestess they performed the task with
splendour far exceeding what was required of them. After this, whenever
the oracle was consulted by the Spartan state or by any Spartan, the
answer was always the same "Set Athens free." In 510 B.C. the Spartans
resolved to obey the commands of the god: the king Cleomenes was
sent to Athens in command of a Spartan army, Hippias was expelled,
the exiles restored, and the Athenians were free to establish any
constitution that they might desire[136].
[136] The stories of Pisistratus and Hippias are told by Herodotus (I.
59-64 and V. 62): see also Aristotle, _Const. Ath._ 14, and Plutarch,
_Solon_ 30. The temple of Delphi was burnt in 548 B.C. Pausanias X. 5.
5, 'Ερξικλείδου ἄρχοντος.
It was probably impossible for a Greek city, in the period when
democracy was unthought of, to overthrow an oligarchy without setting
up a tyranny in its stead. Tyrannies are found in all parts of the
Hellenic world in or about the sixth century B.C.: at Sicyon, Megara,
Epidaurus, in the island of Samos, at Mitylenê in Lesbos, in all the
cities of Asia Minor, in Italy at Rhegium, and in Sicily at Agrigentum,
Zanclê, Himera, Selinus, Gela and Leontini[137]. Most of the tyrants
began their ambitious careers, as Pisistratus began his, by flattering
the poor and oppressed classes and professing to be champions of
liberty[138]: some of them however started with being hereditary
kings possessing limited prerogatives[139], others were high officers
of state[139], or were members of an oligarchy[139]: but all alike
were usurpers of absolute power and found it necessary eventually
to maintain themselves in power by employing a body guard of foreign
mercenaries[140]. Pheidon of Argos, as I have already remarked,
cannot properly be counted among the τύραννοι: the same may be said
of Pittacus of Mitylenê with still greater confidence: for Pittacus
was in no sense a usurper, but was deliberately chosen as Æsymnetes or
permanent dictator and endowed with absolute power by a vote of the
people[141]. If Pittacus were counted as a tyrant, Solon would have to
be counted as a tyrant also: for the powers conferred on the two men
were the same, and were bestowed on them for the same purposes and by
the same authority and procedure.
[137] Grote, Part II. ch. XLIII.
[138] Aristotle, _Politics_ V. 10. 4; and V. 6. 1. Bekker. Welldon,
pp. 381, 382, 358.
[139] Ibid. V. 10. 6. Bekker. Welldon, pp. 381, 382.
[140] Aristotle, _Politics_ III. 14. 7. Welldon, p. 145.
[141] For Pittacus see Aristotle, _Politics_ III. 14. 9. Welldon, p.
146.
The establishment of tyrants, or usurpers of absolute power, was
necessary to the development of most of the Greek states, because
nothing else would have sufficed to destroy the oppressive power of
the nobles: and many of the new rulers for a time governed well and
were respected by their subjects. All however in time became selfish
and cruel, and being detested by their countrymen were forced to hire
foreign mercenaries to protect them. But no precaution on the part
of the tyrants could avail them for long in the face of the general
abhorrence with which they were regarded. Their dynasties usually
lasted only for one or two generations: the most long-lived of all was
that of the Orthagoridæ at Sicyon which lasted a hundred years[142].
[142] Aristotle, _Politics_ V. 12. 1. Welldon, p. 402.
The feelings with which the memory of the tyrants was regarded in the
latter part of the fifth century B.C. when Herodotus wrote his history
are shown by a speech which he puts in the mouth of a Corinthian
named Sosicles. The Spartans at some time between 510 B.C. and 490
B.C. conceived a project of reinstating at Athens the tyrant Hippias
whom they had helped to dethrone, and requested their allies to send
ambassadors to discuss the matter. The envoys of all the states
disliked the proposal: it was Sosicles who expressed the feelings of
all. "Surely" he said "the heaven shall be set below the earth, and the
earth raised above the heaven, and men shall have their habitation
in the sea and the fishes live on dry land, if ye, O Lacedæmonians,
are preparing to destroy equal governments and to bring the cities
of Greece under the rule of tyrannies, which of all things in the
world are the wickedest and bloodiest. If indeed ye think it good
for cities to be ruled by tyrants, ye should first set a tyrant over
yourselves, and then seek to do the like for your neighbours: for
if ye had experienced, as we have, what a tyrant is, ye would bring
before us sounder opinions on the subject than those that ye have now
declared[143]." He enforced his opinions by telling a large part of
the story of Cypselus and Periander: and the effect of his words was
such that the envoys at the congress declared their agreement with them
and the Spartans had to abandon all thought of the restoration of the
Athenian tyranny.
[143] Herodotus V. 92.
There can be no doubt that in the age of the tyrants the Greek
communities were city states, or communities in which a walled city
is of supreme importance and the rural districts are of comparatively
little moment. In the case of Athens, the story of Pisistratus affords
conclusive evidence: for in it we can observe three times over that,
so long as his influence or authority extended only to the rural
districts, he was but an aspirant to sovereignty: but, as soon as he
was master of the city, he was established as tyrant. And in the other
Greek communities tyrannies were upheld by body guards of foreign
mercenaries: and this could hardly have taken place if there had not
been in each community a single fortified city of such importance that
a body guard by occupying it could dominate the whole country.
Between the tyrants of the Greek cities and the tyrants of the
Italian cities of the middle ages there is a close resemblance: but
the tyrants, both Greek and Italian, differ in one most important
particular from all monarchs who have ruled over empires, tribes or
nations. In an empire, a tribe or a nation the power of a monarch
always has some visible utility: in an empire he holds the whole
structure together: in a tribe or nation he repels foreign attack
or leads his subjects to assail their neighbours: and above all,
if his tribe or nation is successful and annexes new territory, he
is supremely useful in amalgamating the people of the new territory
with his old subjects. To a tyrant all these kinds of usefulness were
impossible: the community that he ruled was too small to need holding
together: it was too well protected by its mountain bulwarks and city
walls to fear much hurt from hostile invasion: it could not hope to
conquer neighbours whose defences were as strong as its own: and it did
not acquire new subjects. There was, as we have seen, one momentous
service which the tyrants could and did perform for their cities, and
that was to put down the oligarchies and to ensure that they did not
rise again: but, when once this task was performed, there was little
else that they could do, and their power became a mere political
survival, or an institution which exists not because it is useful but
because it has existed and has not yet been removed.
III. _The Democracies and the Later Oligarchies._
By the year 500 B.C. the tyrannies had disappeared from Greece proper
from Asia Minor and from the Ægean sea: and from about that time
democracies and oligarchies--the rule of the many poor and the rule of
the few rich--succeeded one another alternately in most of the cities
till the battle of Chæroneia in 338 B.C. put an end to the independence
of the Greeks. My examples both of democracy and of oligarchy will all
be taken from the history of Athens: for the march of events at Athens
has been illuminated for us by Thucydides, Aristophanes, Xenophon,
Aristotle, Demosthenes and other great writers and orators, while of
the other Greek cities we have no knowledge beyond what can be derived
from a few fragmentary notices. At Athens the period which we are
considering was most unequally divided between democracy and oligarchy:
the government was oligarchic only for four months in 411 B.C. and for
eight months in 404 B.C.; throughout the rest of the time, a duration
of nearly two centuries, it was steadily democratic.
My sketch of democracy and oligarchy as exemplified in Athenian history
will be divided into five parts: (1) Moderate popular government
508 B.C.-480 B.C. (2) The changes between 480 B.C. and 432 B.C. (3)
Democracy during the Peloponnesian war 432 B.C.-404 B.C. (4) Democracy
after the Peloponnesian war 404 B.C.-338 B.C. (5) Oligarchies in 411
B.C. and in 404 B.C.
1. _Moderate popular government under the Cleisthenean constitution_
508 B.C.-480 B.C.
After the expulsion of Hippias a contest for power arose between
Isagoras and Cleisthenes. Isagoras was a friend of the expelled tyrant:
Cleisthenes, finding that he was getting worsted, made an alliance with
the poorer classes and within three years after the exile of Hippias
he was victorious. Cleisthenes, like Solon, devised a new system of
government: and his system, like Solon's, was popular but moderate,
and formed an instance of what Aristotle called Polity. He desired
to grant the rights of citizenship to certain classes which did not
possess them: and to this end he deprived the four old Ionic tribes of
all political significance: for, as a tribe contained three φρατρίαι
or brotherhoods, and each φρατρία--at least theoretically--contained
thirty kindreds, each tribe was a close corporation consisting of a
fourth part of the families of the Athenian citizens and would resist
the intrusion of new members[144]. He divided the people, for political
purposes, into ten tribes constructed on a new principle and defined
not as containing certain families but as dwelling in certain demes or
villages: and he enrolled in these tribes, and thereby in the list of
citizens, a large number of men who resided in Attica, but were not
of pure Attic descent[145]. It may be that each of the old tribes had
formed a rallying point for one of those factions which had produced
the dissensions between localities and classes in the time before
Pisistratus: for Cleisthenes took care in his new division of the
citizens that the demes which formed a tribe should not lie all in one
district but some of them should be urban or suburban, some situated in
the inland parts, and others along the shore[146].
[144] The composition of the four Ionic tribes is from Pollux, 8. 111
(in Dindorf's or Bekker's edition). Pollux delivered his work in the
form of lectures at Athens in the reign of Marcus Aurelius who died
180 A.D.
[145] Aristotle, _Politics_ III. 2. 3, πολλοὺς ἐφυλέτευσε ξένους καὶ
δούλους μετοίκους. Probably the text is not quite correct, but the
general meaning is clear.
[146] For the geographical scattering of each tribe see Aristotle,
_Constitution of Athens_, ch. 21.
The whole body of Athenian citizens, greatly enlarged by the inclusion
of the new citizens, formed the ἐκκλησία, or general assembly in the
constitution of Cleisthenes. The importance of the meetings of the
assembly in the time before Marathon (490 B.C.) is proved by a passage
in Herodotus in which he attributes the military successes of the
Athenians in their wars with the Bœotians and Chalcidæans between 500
B.C. and 490 B.C. to their newly acquired right of free and equal
speech[147]: for the right of free speech could not have produced such
effects unless it were used in a general assembly.
[147] Herodotus V. 78. ισηγορίη.
The other parts of the Cleisthenean constitution have to do with the
organisation of the army and of the council, with a strange and novel
process known as ostracism, and with local government within the demes.
The military force under Pisistratus and his son had consisted of
foreign mercenaries: Cleisthenes established an army of citizens. Each
tribe furnished a brigade serving under the general whom the tribe had
elected: at Marathon in 490 B.C. the right wing was formed by a body of
troops under the Polemarch and then from right to left the ten tribal
brigades were marshalled in order each under its own general[148].
[148] Herodotus VI. 111, whence the words are taken. Ar. _Const. Ath._
ch. 22.
The number of the council, which Solon had fixed at four hundred, was
raised by Cleisthenes to five hundred, fifty councillors being taken
from each tribe[149]. In the time of the Peloponnesian war, (as will
be shown further on,) the council of five hundred was a committee of
citizens entrusted with the duty of controlling the proceedings of the
general assembly: it considered resolutions and projects of law before
they were submitted to the assembled people: the fifty councillors
of each tribe enjoyed for a tenth part of the year the dignity of
πρυτάνεις or presiding officers, both in the council and in the general
assembly, and the name πρυτανεία was applied both to their right of
presidency and to the thirty-five or thirty-six days for which they
possessed it: and, as the assembly met often and had much business to
attend to, such a committee was obviously necessary. The records of the
age of Cleisthenes give no details about the doings of the assembly and
the council: but the activity of the assembly, as we have already seen,
began in that age, and it is natural to suppose that some of the later
functions and organisation of the council may be referred back to this
time. The opinion is confirmed by a piece of evidence from Plutarch who
states incidentally that in 490 B.C. the tribe Æantis was the presiding
tribe in the assembly which resolved that the Athenians should march
out to resist the invader Darius[150]. It is probable that under the
Cleisthenean constitution the assembly met once in each prytany.
[149] Aristotle, _Constitution of Athens_, ch. 2.
[150] Plutarch, Συμποσιακὰ προβλήματα I. 10.
The process of ostracism was devised to guard the state against any
future demagogue who might, like Pisistratus, aspire to make himself
a tyrant, and perhaps also against the recurrence of such a contest
for the chief power as had arisen between Cleisthenes and Isagoras.
The public assembly could, without naming any person, order that on a
fixed date a vote should be taken in which each citizen might write on
a potsherd the name of any man who ought in his opinion to be banished.
In case the name of any citizen was found to be written on six thousand
of the potsherds, he went into exile for a term of years but did not
suffer any further hurt[151].
[151] For the process of Ostracism see Grote, octavo edition, vol.
III. p. 133, cabinet edition, vol. IV. p. 83.
Local divisions and local governors had existed in Attica even before
the time of Cleisthenes: the divisions were called naucrariæ and
their governors naucrari. We know nothing about them except that each
naucraria contributed two horsemen to the army and a ship to the
navy, and that the naucrari assessed the taxation needed for these
purposes and had something to do in the expenditure of it. Cleisthenes
established his demes as local divisions in lieu of the naucrariæ,
in each deme he set up a demarchus or president of the deme, and the
demarchi took over the functions which the naucrari had hitherto
discharged[152]. Beyond what I have stated we know nothing from direct
testimony about the demes in the days of Cleisthenes: but there can be
no doubt that even in his time the inhabitants of every deme used to
meet in assembly and the assembly regulated the affairs of the deme.
There had been a time when Attica was the home not of one state but
of many independent commonwealths each having its own government[153]
and its own divinities: and the people in the days of Cleisthenes had
not forgotten the fact, for their descendants eighty years later in
the time of Pericles still cherished its memory[154]. Moreover the
Athenians even so late as the time of Pericles delighted in country
life for its own enjoyments[155], and even then a majority of the
citizens of Athens lived not in the city but in the country[156]: and
if the attractions of life in the city did not draw men to desert their
demes and live in Athens in the time of Pericles it is certain that
nothing that the city could offer in the time of Cleisthenes would
entice them from rural to urban life. From all these considerations
it is clear that the rural demes in the days of Cleisthenes were well
filled with a resident population: the resident inhabitants of the
rural demes were citizens of Athens, and, as citizens, took part in
settling great matters of state: and it cannot be supposed that they
did not take part in regulating the comparatively trivial affairs of
their own localities. In the time of Demosthenes about a century and
a half after Cleisthenes the assemblies of the demes were fully
organised bodies and had plenty of business to employ them[157].
[152] See Smith, _Dictionary of Antiquities_, third edition, 1891,
article Naucraria. Aristotle, _Constitution of Athens_, ch. 20
κατέστησε δὲ καὶ δημάρχους τὴν αὐτὴν ἔχοντας ἐπιμέλειαν τοῖς πρότερον
ναυκράροις· καὶ γὰρ τοὺς δήμους ἀντὶ τῶν ναυκραριῶν ἐποίησεν.
[153] See p. 35.
[154] Thucydides II. 14, 16.
[155] Aristophanes, _Acharnians_, the whole play.
[156] Thucydides II. 14, διὰ τὸ εἰωθέναι =τοὺς πολλοὺς= ἐν τοῖς
ἀγροῖς διαιτᾶσθαι.
[157] Smith, _Dictionary of Antiquities_, third edition, article Demus.
One more change made by Cleisthenes is worth a passing notice. He
ordered the archons to be directly elected, and abolished all drawing
of lots in their appointment. Twenty years later, in 487 B.C., the
Athenians made the appointment more a matter of chance than it had ever
been: they selected five hundred, and out of this large number the nine
archons were taken by drawing lots[158].
[158] Aristotle, _Constitution of Athens_, 22.
I may now give a brief summary of the political condition of Attica
in the days of Cleisthenes. In Attica at that time, as in all parts
of ancient Greece at all times, the population consisted partly of
free men (i.e. the citizens) and their families, and partly of slaves.
In matters of government the decision of great matters rested with
the assembly of all the free men: but, as most of the free men lived
habitually in the country and the assembly met only about once in a
month, the management of current business was left to the Archons
for the year and the permanent council of the Areopagus composed of
Archons and ex-Archons. The government therefore was a mixture of
different elements: for dealing with ordinary matters the governors
were a small number of the ablest men, while for dealing with matters
of special importance the rulers were the whole body of free men. In
such a government there was no likelihood that either the rich citizens
could oppress the poor or the poor could oppress the rich: it was in
short what Aristotle afterwards called a Polity, or the rule of all the
citizens conducted for the good of the whole community. There is every
reason to believe that no government with precisely the same qualities
existed elsewhere in Greece: for, if there had been one, Aristotle, who
admired such governments beyond all others, would have mentioned it in
his Politics.
2. _The changes between_ 480 B.C. _and_ 432 B.C.
The invasion of Greece by the Persians under Xerxes and the subsequent
maritime supremacy of Athens produced great changes in the character
of the Athenian government. When the Persians had passed over the
mountains near Thermopylæ, Attica lay at their mercy, and the ten
generals proclaimed that every Athenian must save himself as best he
could. The council of the Areopagus however contrived to provide a sum
of money as an instalment of pay for men who were willing to serve on
shipboard; a hundred and eighty ships were manned, and the men who
served, probably about thirty-six thousand in number, received a sum
of eight drachmas apiece. The Athenian fleet, which was thus provided,
formed more than half of the whole Greek force that won the marvellous
battle of Salamis: and the Areopagus was allowed by the Athenians in
recognition of the service it had rendered to have the chief influence
in the government of Athens for twenty years[159]. But the whole body
of the citizens who risked their lives in winning the great battle
had contributed more effectually to the result than the council that
found the money. Moreover within a few years after the defeat of Xerxes
the Greek cities in the islands of the Ægean sea requested Athens to
be their defender against Persian attack: from being protector of
the islands Athens soon became their suzerain, receiving from them
contingents of ships or payments of tribute, and possessing a maritime
supremacy and abundant revenue such as no Greek city had ever enjoyed:
and all these brilliant achievements were due to the exertions of the
poorer citizens who served as common sailors on board the galleys[160].
Athens, Piræus and Phalerum were fortified and joined together by the
building of the long walls and were formed into a single city capable
of containing a very large population. The result of these events was
a rapid progress towards democracy: the council of the Areopagus was
deprived in 462 B.C. of most of its powers[161], the rules which had
hitherto excluded citizens of the poorer classes from holding the
archonship were repealed or disregarded[162], pay was provided for the
citizens whilst serving as judges or jurymen in the law courts[163],
and in various ways, twenty thousand--probably a majority--of the
citizens were in the employ of the state and received from it salaries
or wages sufficient to maintain them[164].
[159] Aristotle, _Constitution of Athens_, 23. The drachma contained
the same weight of silver as a modern franc.
[160] For the effects of Salamis see Aristotle, _Politics_ V. 4. 8.
Welldon, p. 353.
[161] The Areopagus was deprived of power in the archonship of Conon,
i.e. 463-2 B.C. Aristotle, _Constitution of Athens_, 25.
[162] Plutarch (_Aristides_, 22) says that Aristides proposed to the
assembly a resolution that the archonship should be thrown open to
all Athenian citizens: and he seems to imply that the resolution was
passed, and that thenceforth any Athenian citizen, whether he was a
Pentacosiomedimnus, a Hippeus, a Zeugites, or a Thês, was legally
qualified to hold the office. It is however certain that no such
extensive change in the constitution was made in the lifetime of
Aristides: for Aristides died about 468 B.C. (see Clinton, _Fasti
Hellenici_ under the years 469, 468, 429), and Aristotle, in his
_Constitution of Athens_, chapter 26, tells us that it was not till
457 B.C. that the Zeugitæ were admitted to the archonship. If then
Aristides carried any resolution that altered the law, it did not go
beyond throwing open the office to the Hippeis or Horsemen. The Thêtes
or Labourers were never formally declared eligible: but in Aristotle's
time there was nothing to prevent a Thês from becoming an archon,
provided that on announcing his candidature he did not declare that he
belonged to the class of Thêtes. Aristotle, _Constitution of Athens_,
chapter 7.
[163] Pericles proposed and passed the payment of dicasts, during the
lifetime of Cimon, probably about 450 B.C. Aristotle, _Constitution of
Athens_, 27.
[164] Aristotle, _Constitution of Athens_, 24.
3. _Democracy during the Peloponnesian War_ 432 B.C.-404 B.C.
The changes which have been mentioned, together with others which
have been passed over, produced the constitution under which the
Athenians lived during their contest with Sparta. In the description
of it we must notice (1) the general assembly and the council of five
hundred, (2) the executive officers, (3) the judicature, (4) instances
illustrative of the working of the constitution.
(1) The ἐκκλησία or general assembly had supreme power in all the
most important matters: it consisted of all Athenian citizens who had
attained the age of manhood: its meetings were held on the Pnyx, a
hillside in the open air: four ordinary meetings were held on fixed
days in each prytany, and other meetings for special business could
at any time be summoned by proclamation[165]. Though the assembly had
supreme power to make laws and pass resolutions determining the policy
of the city, it submitted to certain restraining formalities. No law
could be proposed in the assembly till it had been considered and
sanctioned by the council of five hundred[166]: and any resolution or
any new law passed by the assembly might afterwards be indicted before
a popular law-court on the ground that it violated or contradicted
some existing law or was contrary to the Athenian constitution. If the
law or resolution was condemned by the law-court it was _ipso facto_
cancelled. Moreover, if proceedings were taken within a year after the
vote of the assembly, the proposer as well as the proposition might
be indicted, and if the court decided against him he was subject to
a heavy fine. The Greek name for the indictment was Graphê Paranomôn
which may be translated literally Indictment for Illegality[167].
The Graphê Paranomôn was, beyond all doubt, the best bulwark of the
Athenian constitution: though there were occasions, as we shall see,
when it did not save the constitution from being violated.
[165] The place of meeting is proved by Aristophanes, _Acharnians_,
line 20, ἡ πνὺξ αὑτηί, _Knights_, line 42, Δῆμος πυκνίτης and
many other passages: the number of ordinary meetings by Aristotle,
_Constitution of Athens_, 43.
[166] I do not know any evidence which proves directly that this
rule was in force at the time of the Peloponnesian war. But we have
already seen (page 60) that the rule was made by Solon, and it was
certainly in force in the time of Demosthenes (366 B.C.-322 B.C.): see
Demosthenes, _contra Androtionem_, p. 594, and _contra Timocratem_,
p. 715, especially the words πρῶτον μὲν ... πρὸς τὴν βουλήν, εἶτα τῷ
δήμῳ. Smith, _Dictionary of Antiquities_, article Boulê.
[167] The events of 411 B.C. prove clearly that the procedure by
Graphê Paranomôn was then an established part of the Athenian
constitution: see Thucydides VIII. 67, Aristotle, _Constitution of
Athens_, 29: and further on in the present chapter, p. 93.
The council consisted of five hundred citizens taken by lot. It was a
committee to manage the details of the business of the assembly. It met
on every day in the year except the religious festivals or holidays
and it drew up the list of business for the assembly, determining
what business ought and what ought not to be brought forward. All
business intended for the assembly passed through the hands of the
council; and sometimes, in cases that demanded immediate action, (as
in the accusation brought against the commanders at Arginusæ which
will be described further on,) it had to come to important provisional
decisions. The fifty councillors belonging to a tribe were presidents
during a tenth part of the year: and if, during their presidency, a
special meeting of the assembly was required, it was their business to
summon it[168].
[168] The details about the five hundred are from Aristotle,
_Constitution of Athens_, 43. An inscription of the date 410-409 B.C.
printed in Clinton, _Fasti Hellenici_ (vol. II. p. 345), shows how
important the prytaneis then were.
(2) The chief servants of the sovereign assembly were the ten generals
and the nine archons. The generals were elected and not like the rest
of the officers of the state taken by lot: this might be inferred
from the constant occurrence among the generals of the names of
distinguished men, but it is completely proved by the fact that in the
year 430 B.C. the Athenians though they were many of them angry with
Pericles yet re-elected him general because his services could not
be dispensed with[169]. The ten generals levied troops, managed the
revenue allotted to military purposes, and named trierarchs to command
the ships[170]. In the battle of Marathon and in an expedition to Samos
in 440 B.C. all ten generals acted as commanders: in most cases the
assembly appointed a convenient number, usually three, of the generals
to conduct an enterprise abroad, while the rest remained at home to
manage the ordinary business of their office.
[169] Thucydides II. 65.
[170] Smith, _Dictionary of Antiquities_, article Strategus.
The nine archons, taken yearly by lot from among a number of men
who had declared themselves to be candidates, and had submitted the
respectability of their characters to a public examination, had duties
of a ceremonial character and attended to the routine of some business
of state, but had no political influence[171]. There were also some
other functionaries for the supervision of markets and of the supply of
corn, and for the preservation of order, of whom it is not necessary
to speak further.
[171] Smith, _Dictionary of Antiquities_, article Archon.
(3) The judicial bodies alone at Athens were independent of the
political assembly. Jurisdiction, except in those few cases which
were still brought before the semi-religious court of the Areopagus
or before the first Archon, belonged to the popular law-courts which
had been first founded by Solon. A large number of citizens were taken
every year to serve as jurymen: they were divided into bodies varying
in number from two hundred to a thousand[172], and each of these bodies
sat collectively as judges to decide such cases as might be submitted
to them. They sat without any professional judge to inform them about
the condition of the law or the relevance of arguments: the advocate
on either side cited such laws as favoured his contentions, and could
use any reasoning which he thought likely to influence the court. The
citizens were not only willing but eager to render their services
as dicasts, partly because they received as daily pay three obols,
a sum equal to half a modern franc, and partly because they enjoyed
the business of the court and the importance which it conferred on
them[173].
[172] Demosthenes, _Meidias_ p. 585, asks: "What is it that gives
power and authority to any body of jurors sitting in judgement,
whether they be two hundred or a thousand or any number you will?"
[173] The eagerness of the citizens to act as dicasts is ridiculed all
through the play of the _Wasps_, brought out in 422 B.C.
(4) The records of some of the meetings of the assembly of citizens
will serve to illustrate the nature of their business. Just before the
Peloponnesian war the Corcyræans requested the Athenians to protect
them with armed force: the body to whom the Corcyræan envoys made
their request was the assembly of citizens; on the first day the
Athenians heard the arguments of the Corcyræans and of their enemies
the Corinthians: on the second day they debated what answer they should
give; on the third they resolved to grant what the Corcyræans desired
and thereby made the great war inevitable[174]. Again in 415 B.C. the
ambassadors from Egeste in Sicily, sent to ask aid from Athens, were
heard in the assembly, and it was agreed on the same day to send an
expedition of sixty ships[175]. In the case of the Peace of Nicias in
423 B.C. the negotiations were carried on by the ten generals, but
the Treaty became binding on Athens only when it was ratified by the
assembly of the people[176].
[174] Thucydides I. 31 and 44.
[175] Thucydides VI. 8.
[176] Thucydides IV. 118.
In 428 B.C. Mitylenê in Lesbos, a city allied to Athens under
compulsion, broke loose from the alliance. This revolt was the work of
the oligarchy, which ruled supreme in Mitylenê. In the summer of the
next year Mitylenê had difficulty in withstanding the forces of the
Athenians, and the rulers of the city found it desirable to give arms
to the common folk. With arms went power. The common folk preferred to
be ruled by Athens rather than by those among their fellow-citizens who
happened to be wealthy, and declared they would surrender to Paches the
Athenian commander. The surrender was effected, and the fate of the
city was to be settled by the Athenians. The Athenian citizens were
very angry that a city which had been in compulsory alliance with them
had revolted, and, making no distinction between the oligarchical party
who had led the revolt and the democrats who had restored the city to
Athens, voted that every man in Mitylenê of military age should be put
to death, and all the women and children sold into slavery; and they
despatched a galley bearing their orders to Paches. After the vote they
went home and repented of their cruelty: next day they met again, and
after hearing Cleon on the side of severity and Diodotus for mercy they
rescinded the order of the day before and despatched a second galley
to carry the new orders. The crew of the first galley made no haste in
rowing, because they disliked the work of conveying a cruel and unjust
sentence: and the second galley arrived with the new orders before the
first had taken any effect[177].
[177] Thucydides III. 2 and 36-49.
Judicial work at Athens belonged to the dicasteries and not to the
general assembly: but the assembly also if it wished to inflict a
punishment on an offender against the state could do so by a special
legislative act which might be called in Latin a privilegium, and
in English an attainder or bill of pains and penalties. Miltiades,
after he had won the great victory of Marathon, was entrusted with the
command of an expedition of which he did not disclose the object: he
used it wrongfully and unsuccessfully against the Parians, and on his
return Xanthippus proposed to the assembly that he should be put to
death for having deceived the Athenians. The assembly showed mercy to
him in gratitude for his services at Marathon, and let him off with a
very heavy fine of fifty talents[178].
[178] Herodotus VI. 133 and 136.
In the year 406 B.C. an Athenian fleet under the command of nine
στρατηγοί or admirals won a great victory over a Spartan fleet at
Arginusæ: several Athenian ships which had been disabled in the action
were lost in a storm which came on afterwards, and it was suspected
that the admirals had made no efforts to save them. The Athenians
superseded all the admirals and summoned them to Athens. Six of the
number obeyed the summons. One of them was first accused in a law-court
of peculation and misconduct in his command, and the court ordered him
to be kept in custody, with a view probably to any further proceedings
which the general assembly might choose to take. The other five
appeared before the council of five hundred, which acted as a sort of
business committee to the assembly, and were committed to custody.
In a general assembly, held soon afterwards, a citizen who had himself
held a subordinate command in the fleet complained of the conduct
of the admirals and desired that they should be punished. They were
allowed to speak briefly in their defence; and the assembly did not on
that day pass any resolution except that the council of five hundred
should consider what course the proceedings should take, and report
their opinion at the next meeting. During the interval a festival
occurred at which many citizens appeared ostentatiously in mourning
for relatives who had been drowned in the neglected vessels. When the
assembly met, the desire to punish the admirals had risen high: the
council, bringing in its report, proposed that, as the accusation and
the answers had been already heard, the assembly should proceed to
an immediate vote whether or not the accused should be put to death.
An objection was raised that the established practice required that a
separate vote should be taken about each accused person: but it was met
with a clamour that the people ought to be allowed to do what it likes.
The objection based on established practice convinced some of the
prytaneis or presiding councillors, but eventually all of them gave way
to the clamour, except Socrates the philosopher. A formal proposal was
then made by a citizen, who shared the views of Socrates, that a vote
should be taken about each man separately. A division was taken on this
proposal, and at first it was declared to be carried: but on a second
scrutiny the proposal originally made by the council of five hundred
was accepted. A vote was then taken on the proposal that the commanders
should suffer death: the proposal was carried and the sentence executed
on the six men who were in custody[179].
[179] Xenophon, _Hellenica_ I. 6 and 7. He names only eight admirals
recalled. Grote makes the number nine.
The constitution, in the time of the Peloponnesian war, was arranged,
in nearly all respects, according to the principles which the Greeks
regarded as distinctive of ideal or extreme democracy, and tended to
ensure firstly that all citizens should be equally treated in the
distribution of offices, and secondly that the general assembly should
be free to do as it liked. The exceptions to the prevailing tendency
are to be found in the appointment of the ten generals by election, in
the right of the five hundred to exclude a proposal from discussion,
and in the provision that a resolution or new law might be indicted
as unconstitutional before a law court. But the five hundred were not
men of greater wisdom or experience than the other Athenians, being
merely so many citizens taken at random by drawing lots: it does not
appear from the descriptions which Thucydides gives of debates in the
assembly that the generals or the five hundred exercised any commanding
influence: and the illegal resolution against the admirals who
commanded at Arginusæ took effect, just as if there had been no such
thing as a regulation that it might be judicially indicted.
But it must be observed that what was an ideal democracy in the eyes
of the Greeks was not an ideal democracy according to the views of our
own time. When we speak of a democracy we generally mean a system of
government in which the whole adult male population have some sort of
control over public affairs. At Athens, a large part, it may have been
half, or three-quarters or five-sixths, of the adult male population
were slaves; and slaves, having lost their personal freedom, are of
course incapable of political rights. If then we wish in speaking of
the Athenian constitution to use terms in their modern sense and not
in their Greek sense, we must say that the rulers of Athens were not a
democracy but an aristocracy: it is true that they constituted a far
larger part of the population than most aristocracies, but as compared
with the whole they were but few. And further we may observe that
without slavery there could never have been such a government as that
which ruled Athens. The Athenian citizens gave a large part of their
time to public business and attendance at public festivals: and they
could not have done this unless there had been plenty of slaves to
perform the industrial and menial work that the community required[180].
[180] The observations contained in this paragraph were suggested to
me firstly by Professor Mahaffy, _Problems in Greek History_ § 38,
and secondly by Mr W. Warde Fowler, _The City State of the Greeks and
Romans_, chapter VI.
Although Athens ought, according to the modern use of terms, to
be called rather an aristocracy than a democracy, it seems to be
certain that the men actually and habitually employed in the daily
work of government bore numerically a larger proportion to the whole
population in ancient Athens than they have done in any other state
known to history. The whole population of Attica may have been a
quarter of a million or it may have been nearly half-a-million: the
citizens numbered about thirty thousand, and it is probable that at
least ten thousand of them were habitually employed in the business
of government: and these ten thousand may have been a twenty-fifth
part and were not less than a fiftieth part of the whole population.
In modern England those who are habitually employed in governing
would include members of Parliament, of town councils, of county
councils, and of school-boards, magistrates, judges, and the staff
of all Government offices, except those persons who are mere clerks
or servants: I cannot say how many they would muster, all told: but,
judging from those parts of England that I know best, I should estimate
them at something between a two-hundredth and a five-hundredth part of
the inhabitants of the country.
4. _Democracy after the Peloponnesian War_, 404-338 B.C.
In the period which followed the Peloponnesian war the poorer citizens
who predominated in the assembly passed several votes to promote the
pleasure and the pecuniary interests of their class. Pay was provided
for every citizen who attended a meeting of the assembly or was a
spectator at a religious festival and its dramatic performances. The
pay was at first fixed at a low rate: before 392 B.C. it had been
raised to three obols, the same sum as was paid to a dicast for a
day's attendance[181]. The pay for the law courts, the assemblies,
the festivals and the council came to nearly two hundred talents
yearly[182]. The whole revenue of the Athenian state in the fourth
century is not known: but it can scarcely have exceeded eleven or
twelve hundred talents[183]: and thus it seems that about one-sixth
part of it was spent in providing citizens with religious spectacles or
comfortable employment.
[181] The decrees granting pay for attendance at ecclesia are
enumerated in Aristotle, _Constitution of Athens_, 41. In the
_Ecclesiazusæ_, first acted in 392 B.C., Chremes (at lines 381-2)
says he had lost his three obols by being late for the assembly.
For the allowance to citizens at religious festivals see Aristotle,
_Constitution of Athens_, 28.
[182] See Boeckh, _Public Economy of Athens_, book II. ch. 13-14.
[183] See Boeckh, _Public Economy_, book III. ch. 19.
Supposing half a drachma was paid to 18000 spectators at 30 festivals,
to 8000 citizens at 50 assemblies and to 4000 dicasts for 300 days,
and a whole drachma to 400 councillors for 300 days, we get a sum of
1,190,000 drachmæ, and, as there were 6000 drachmæ in a talent, this
was equal to 198⅓ talents.
After the three obols had been decreed, a majority more overwhelming
than ever was ensured in the assembly to the poorer class. The
professional orators began to devote their skill to the purpose of
persuading the ecclesia, and thus obtained a control over Athenian
policy. It was fortunate for the state that in Demosthenes it found
not only an orator but a patriot and a statesman: and it says much
for the good sense of the assembly that it followed his counsels,
unless they interfered too much with the comfort of the individual
citizens. The assembly governed on the whole with moderation, and no
harsh measures against the property of the rich were ever passed in
it: but it insisted that the poor citizens should have their three
obols for the religious spectacles, even when the money was wanted for
a most necessary war to defend Olynthus against Macedonia[184]. The
very frequent assemblies of the whole body of citizens gave the poorer
classes a decisive voice in all questions of policy and legislation:
but they also ensured that all the citizens had some knowledge of what
was being proposed, and gave them the habit of listening to arguments,
and of deciding questions by voting and not by force. During the period
from 404 B.C. to 338 B.C. Athens was never troubled with conspiracies
or seditious violence.
[184] Grote, octavo edition, vol. VIII. pp. 81-98, cabinet edition,
vol. XI. pp. 138-157.
The fall of Athens occurred at the end of the period of which I have
been speaking, and no doubt the defects of the constitution and the
unwillingness of the citizens to make any sacrifices were contributory
causes. But it is not certain that, even if Athens had been as well
governed and patriotic as ever, it would have been able so to unite the
jealous Greek cities as to ensure their independence against the new
and formidable power of Macedonia.
Our materials for forming an estimate of the nature of democracy in the
Greek cities other than Athens are, as I have said, very scanty. But
it seems clear that most of the democracies ruled with less moderation
and self-control than the Athenian democracy, and had less stability.
Revolutions from democracy to oligarchy or from oligarchy to democracy
recurred at shorter intervals in many Greek cities than at Athens:
and sometimes, as at Corcyra in 427 B.C., and at Argos in 371 B.C.
or 370 B.C., an unsuccessful attempt at revolution was punished with
wholesale massacre[185]. It is to be observed that the Greek writers,
in speaking of democracy, generally seem to regard it with distrust
and even dislike: and this could hardly have been the case, if all
democratic governments had been as well conducted as the Athenian
government. We know that at Athens the whole mass of the citizens were
able at any moment to do whatever they liked, subject to no restraint
except from the Graphê Paranomôn and from their own characters and
inclinations: and it seems certain that in every Greek city mentioned
by the Greek writers as democratically governed the citizens were
still more free from restraint: for many of the best and most careful
writers were great admirers of artificial restraints on democracy, and
if any city had provided itself with such restraints the fact would
have been recorded. It is clear that a government which allows the mass
of the citizens to do whatever they choose must be beset with dangers,
unless the citizens have learned habits of self-restraint and mutual
forbearance from a long and gradual political education. The Athenians
had learned such habits, but the other Greeks probably had not: for the
Athenians alone among the Greeks had had the good fortune to live under
the wise constitutions of a Solon and a Cleisthenes, which, by granting
to the mass of the citizens at first a very small share and afterwards
a larger share in the control of public affairs, provided them with
such political training that eventually they were able with safety to
expose themselves to the perils of complete self-government.
[185] Thucydides III. 70-84. Grote, Part II. chapter LXXVIII.
5. _Oligarchy at Athens_, 411 B.C. _and_ 404 B.C.
In the year 415 B.C., the seventeenth year of the Peloponnesian
war, the Athenians despatched a great naval and military expedition
to the distant island of Sicily. The expedition encountered many
difficulties: the Athenians sent strong reinforcements: but in the year
412 B.C. their fleet suffered a crushing defeat in the Great Harbour
of Syracuse, and their army was afterwards completely destroyed.
Athens itself was without any adequate defence of ships or sailors or
soldiers[186]: the Athenians did their best to supply the deficiency,
but there was grave reason to fear that their unaided efforts would not
avail to save them, and they greatly desired to get support by making
some new alliance. It was certain that no new allies could be found
among the Greeks[187], and they could look for no help unless it were
from the king of Persia[188].
[186] Thucydides VIII. 1.
[187] Thucydides VIII. 2.
[188] Aristotle, _Constitution of Athens_, 29, and Thucydides VIII. 47.
Alcibiades, the ablest but the most unpatriotic and unscrupulous of
the Athenians of that time, was in 412 B.C. an exile from his native
city under sentence of death[189]. He had in 415 B.C. been appointed
one of the three commanders of the great expedition to Sicily: but,
when it was on the eve of starting from Attica, he fell under suspicion
of having committed a great crime by wilfully offending one of the
gods who protected Athens and of designing to overthrow the Athenian
constitution[190]. As however there was no proof of his guilt, legal
proceedings could not be immediately instituted, and he was allowed
to sail as one of the commanders of the fleet: but when he reached
Sicily, he found awaiting him the Salaminia, the swift galley which
carried despatches, and on board of her some officers sent by the
Athenian assembly to summon him home to stand his trial[191]. These
officers had been instructed not to arrest him but merely to bid
him come to Athens for trial: accordingly he sailed homeward in his
own ship, under escort of the Salaminia. On the way the two ships
touched at a port in southern Italy, and Alcibiades went ashore and
escaped from his custodians: soon afterwards, getting a passage to
the Peloponnesus[192], he went to Sparta and advised the Spartans how
they might best defeat the Athenian forces in Sicily[193]. The charges
against him were produced before one of the popular law courts at
Athens: and, as he did not appear, he was found guilty and condemned to
death[194].
[189] Thucydides VI. 61.
[190] Thucydides VI. 26-28.
[191] Thucydides VI. 53.
[192] Thucydides VI. 61.
[193] Thucydides VI. 89.
[194] Thucydides VI. 61.
With the Spartans Alcibiades gained great influence, partly through
his intimacy with a powerful man among their Ephors, and partly by the
sound advice which he gave them as to the best way to injure Athens.
In the year 412 B.C., at his own earnest desire, he was sent to act
on behalf of Sparta in some of the cities of Asia Minor which were
in alliance with Athens, and to induce them to change sides in the
war[195]. Before long however the Spartans had reason to suspect that
he was betraying their interests, and sent an order to the commander of
their fleet off the coast of Asia to put him to death[196]. Alcibiades
was warned, and, fleeing to the court of Tissaphernes, a powerful
satrap of the king of Persia in the south-western part of Asia Minor,
became no less zealous and efficient in opposing the interests of the
Spartans than he had been in promoting them: and, after winning in some
degree the confidence of Tissaphernes, he induced him to withhold a
large part of the money which he had been in the habit of furnishing
for the pay of the sailors in the Lacedæmonian fleet[197]. Having
thus completely destroyed his credit with the Spartans, he desired
nothing so much as to obtain pardon for his offences from his own
countrymen[198]: for he hoped that, if once the sentence which had been
passed on him were cancelled, he might return to Athens and recover
some of his former popularity and influence.
[195] Thucydides VIII. 11, 12.
[196] Thucydides VIII. 45.
[197] Thucydides VIII. 45, 46.
[198] Thucydides VIII. 47.
Alcibiades knew that the Athenians were in a sore strait, and were
longing for an alliance with the king of Persia: and in this desire
of theirs and his own friendly relations with Tissaphernes he thought
he saw the means of effecting his return: for, if the Athenians could
only be persuaded that he was able and willing through influence with
Tissaphernes to bring about the desired alliance, they would not only
let him return but would welcome him as a valuable friend in their
distress[199]. He believed however that his restoration could more
easily be brought about if the present quiet and orderly government
of Athens were to come to an end, and the city were thrown into
the turmoil of a revolution[200]. The surest way to cause political
disturbance was to try to substitute an oligarchy for the existing
democracy: and this accordingly was what Alcibiades did, not that he
liked oligarchy better than democracy, but because he thought that any
political troubles at Athens might conduce to his restoration[201]. He
sought for fit agents to bring about the desired revolution, and found
them among the officers of an Athenian fleet stationed at the island of
Samos near the coast of Asia Minor[202].
[199] Thucydides VIII. 47.
[200] Thucydides VIII. 48, 3, ἐκ τοῦ παρόντος =κόσμου= τὴν πόλιν
μεταστήσας.
[201] Thucydides VIII. 48, 3, ὁ 'Αλκιβιάδης, =ὅπερ καὶ ἦν=, οὐδὲν
μᾶλλον ὀλιγαρχίας ἢ δημοκρατίας δεῖσθαι ἐδόκει αὐτῷ.
[202] Thucydides VIII. 47.
The part of Alcibiades in the revolution consisted only in giving it a
start by raising false expectations of a Persian alliance. His agents
went to Athens, and there Pisander, who took the leading part among
them, addressing the assembly of the citizens, urged that the only hope
of salvation for Athens lay in an alliance with Persia, and declared
that that alliance would be made if they would invite Alcibiades to
return, abolish their democracy, which was not to the liking of the
king of Persia, and set up in its stead an oligarchy which the king
could trust[203]. The assembly was grieved at the prospect of losing
its democratic constitution, but under the stress of circumstances
gave some kind of provisional approval of the proposed change; for the
present however it took no definite step beyond appointing Pisander and
ten other men as envoys to negotiate with Alcibiades and Tissaphernes.
Pisander remained for a while in Athens for the purpose of visiting
all the oligarchical clubs which already existed there and preparing
them to be ready to strike a blow against the democratic constitution:
this done, he departed on his mission[204]. It soon became evident
that Alcibiades was powerless to obtain help for Athens from the king
of Persia or even from Tissaphernes: a breach occurred between him and
the oligarchical conspirators, and he took no further part in their
proceedings[205].
[203] Thucydides VIII. 53.
[204] Thucydides VIII. 54.
[205] Thucydides VIII. 56.
During the absence of Pisander the oligarchical clubs at Athens
prepared the way for the success of his designs by skilfully
organising a series of assassinations. The persons selected to
be murdered were the most faithful upholders of the democratic
constitution: the assassins were never brought to justice: and such
general terror prevailed that men did not dare to mourn for the
victims lest their own turn should come next[206]. Meanwhile the
chief politicians in the oligarchic party, wishing to disguise their
real designs, gave out that the changes in the constitution which
they would advocate were moderate in character: they would limit the
number of citizens who formed the ecclesia to a number not exceeding
five thousand, consisting of those who were best able to aid the
state by paying taxes or by serving in the war, and would propose
that henceforth wages from the treasury should be paid to none but
the soldiers and sailors: but in other respects they would wish the
constitution to remain unaltered[207].
[206] Thucydides VIII. 65, 66.
[207] Thucydides VIII. 65, the last sentence. My small addition to the
words of this sentence seems to be justified by ἐυπρεπὲς πρὸς τοὺς
πλείους which occurs in the next.
Pisander, on his return to Athens about April 411 B.C.[208], was
eager for the establishment of an oligarchy, with himself as one
of its leading members: and, even if he had wished to pause in his
measures, it was now dangerous for him to do so, because, if the
citizens recovered from their terror, he would be prosecuted under
a Graphê Paranomôn for the proposals which he had made and carried
last year, and would undergo severe punishment. One of his adherents
named Pythodorus at once proposed to the assembly that it should
appoint a small committee of citizens to make a draft scheme for a new
constitution: Cleitophon, who was probably an opponent of Pisander,
moved that it should be an instruction to the committee that they
should examine the ancient constitution of Cleisthenes to see whether
any of its provisions ought to be revived. The proposal of Pythodorus
was carried: whether Cleitophon's instruction was accepted or rejected
we do not know[209].
[208] The oligarchical government lasted four months and ended two
months after new archons took office, that is to say, two months after
midsummer. Aristotle, _Constitution of Athens_, 33. Clinton, _Fasti
Hellenici_, vol. II. pp. XV. XVI.
[209] Thucydides VIII. 67. Aristotle, _Constitution of Athens_, 29.
Within a short time the committee had prepared its proposals. An
assembly of the citizens was summoned to meet, not as usual at the
Pnyx within the city, but at the hill of Colonus, more than a mile
outside the walls. At this assembly the proposals of the committee were
announced; and they were to the following effect. (1) Any Athenian
citizen may propose whatever he thinks fit; and no proposal shall make
him liable to a Graphê Paranomôn. (2) The government (that is to say,
the right of speaking and voting in the ecclesia) shall be entrusted,
during the continuance of the war, to a body of citizens numbering not
less than Five Thousand, and consisting of those best qualified by
bodily vigour for serving in the war or by wealth for contributing to
the public treasury. (3) During the continuance of the war no wages
shall be paid from the treasury except to the army and navy, and the
nine archons and the presidents of the assembly and council[210].
[210] Aristotle, _Constitution of Athens_, 29. Thucydides VIII. 67.
The proposals bore a specious aspect of moderation, and seemed to
promise that the new constitution should be something like the old
constitution of Cleisthenes. The assembly gave its assent to these
proposals: but, as soon as that assent had been given, it found
that further and more radical changes awaited it. A motion was made
and carried that a second committee of a hundred citizens should be
appointed to give more precise shape to the new constitution. The
report of this second committee, an elaborate document, disclosed the
real intentions of Pisander and his party. It set forth a complicated
scheme of government which was to come into force at some future
time: but it also did what was more important by proposing that for
the present a council of Four Hundred should be elected, that the
Four Hundred should appoint ten generals and a secretary to the
generals, and that the eleven men thus appointed should have power to
do everything except alter the laws[211]. The proposals were ratified
by the assembly; the council of Four Hundred, being elected during
the reign of terror which had been established, was no doubt entirely
filled with the adherents of Pisander, and the ten generals and their
secretary no doubt included Pisander himself and his most ardent
partisans. No steps were taken to call the assembly of Five Thousand
into existence, and thus all political rights had been taken away from
the mass of the citizens, and unrestrained power was conferred upon
Pisander and his fellow-conspirators[212].
[211] Aristotle, _Constitution of Athens_, 31.
[212] Aristotle, _Constitution of Athens_, 31, 32.
The proceedings of the oligarchy which had thus been founded are not
narrated in detail by our authorities: but we are told that the new
rulers governed violently, and made many changes in the administration:
that they "put to death some few men who seemed convenient to be got
rid of, imprisoned others, and removed others from Attica[213]," that
they fell to quarrelling with one another[214], and that at last they
were suspected of a design to introduce a garrison of Spartans into the
Piræus, the port of Athens. As soon as this suspicion gained credence
the days of the oligarchy were numbered. A battalion of Athenian
hoplites, employed by Pisander to build a fortress at the mouth of the
Piræus for the reception of a Lacedæmonian garrison, rose in mutiny
against their officers, held a meeting in Munychia, which adjoins the
Piræus, to decide on their course of action, and after due deliberation
marched into Athens and piled arms at the foot of the Acropolis. Many
specious offers of ineffectual reforms were made to them by envoys
from the Four Hundred: but they insisted on the one thing which the
oligarchy most dreaded, a free assembly of the citizens to be held
within the city. The citizens met in assembly at the Pnyx, and their
first resolution declared that the power of the Four Hundred was at an
end[215].
[213] Thucydides VIII. 70.
[214] Thucydides VIII. 89.
[215] Thucydides VIII. 90-97.
After the deposition of the Four Hundred, which occurred late in August
411 B.C., the Athenians had to decide what their government should be.
Two courses lay open to them: they might rescind all the enactments
which they had made four months earlier, and so return at once to an
unmixed democracy: or they might allow those enactments, except such
as were obviously mischievous, to remain in force. The second of the
two alternatives was that which they adopted. They reaffirmed in
substance the regulations which had been recommended by the small
committee elected under the resolution of Pythodorus, and enacted: (1)
That the government should be entrusted to the body of not less than
Five Thousand, which they had already ordered to be created. (2) That
every citizen, who furnished the equipment of a heavy armed soldier,
either for himself or for any one else, should of right be a member of
this body. (3) That no citizen should receive pay for any political
function, on pain of being solemnly accursed or excommunicated[216].
The constitution thus established was partly democratic and partly
oligarchical: it contained a preponderant element of democracy because
it gave supreme power to a numerous body, who, though they were
called the Five Thousand, were in reality about nine thousand[217]:
but it also contained some small oligarchical ingredients, since it
excluded the poorest citizens from the ecclesia, and by withholding
payment for the discharge of political functions made it likely that
few citizens would be able to serve on the council of five hundred
and in the popular law-courts except those who had money and leisure.
Concerning the motives which induced the Athenians to adopt this mixed
form of government we have no information, and can only observe that
the new constitution would certainly commend itself to the body of
hoplites who had delivered the Athenians from their oppressors, since
it gave supreme power to the class to which they belonged; and that,
from what we know of the political opinions of Socrates[218], we may
be sure that it met with his hearty approval and was supported by his
powerful advocacy. In regard to the merits of the new government we
have an emphatic testimony from Thucydides, who says that of all the
governments that ruled Athens within the space of his lifetime this
was the best[219]. But the mixed form of government was not suited
to the needs and the condition of the Athenians: for within a few
years--certainly before 406 B.C. when they condemned the commanders
at Arginusæ, and possibly as early as 410 B.C.--they abandoned it and
reverted to their well-tried system of unmixed democracy.
[216] Thucydides VIII. 97. 1. The meaning of the words is admirably
explained by Grote in a note to chapter LXII. of his _History of
Greece_.
[217] Arnold's Thucydides, note to VIII. 97. 1.
[218] Grote, _History of Greece_, octavo edition, vol. VI. p. 152,
cabinet edition, vol. VIII. p. 267.
[219] Thucydides V. 26.
Within seven years after the fall of the Four Hundred, Athens was
again ruled by an oligarchy. The events which led to the establishment
of this second oligarchy were in one respect like those to which
the earlier oligarchy owed its origin, since they began with the
destruction of an Athenian fleet: but, as they were simpler and less
complicated, they can be more briefly narrated.
In the year 405 B.C. the Athenians sent nearly the whole of their
naval force to oppose the Lacedæmonian fleet in the eastern waters of
the Ægean sea, along the coast of Asia Minor. In number of ships the
Athenian and Lacedæmonian fleets were nearly equal: in all else they
were ill-matched antagonists. The Lacedæmonians were commanded by
Lysander, the ablest admiral ever produced by Sparta: the condition of
the Athenians was such as might be expected in the year immediately
following an undiscriminating execution of the commanders of the
fleet. Among the six[220] admirals Conon alone was a man of ability,
discipline was lax, and the operations were worse designed and worse
executed than any others in the whole course of the war. Lysander took
the city of Lampsacus on the eastern shore of the narrow channel of
the Hellespont which divides Europe from Asia. The Athenian commanders
took station directly opposite on the western shore of the Hellespont,
which at this point is only two miles wide, and there anchored their
ships close to the open beach of Ægospotami. The nearest place from
which they could get supplies was Sestos, two miles distant: and
all the commanders except Conon and the captain of the Paralus, the
despatch-boat, allowed their men to go ashore and wander far inland.
Lysander watched his opportunity, found the ships for the most part
deserted by their crews, and captured the whole of them (a hundred and
eighty in number), except the Paralus and a little squadron of eight
ships under the immediate command of Conon[221].
[220] Xenophon, _Hellenica_ I. 7. § 1, and II. 1. § 16.
[221] Xenophon, _Hellenica_ II. 1.
After the battle of Ægospotami Athens could make no effectual
resistance. Lysander blockaded the city by land and sea, and in
the spring of 404 B.C. the Athenians were compelled by starvation
to capitulate and admit the Spartans. Lysander occupied the city,
compelled the Athenians to pull down at least a great part of the
long walls which defended Athens and Piræus, to readmit the members
of the oligarchical party who had gone into exile, and to submit to
be governed by them[222]. Arbitrary power was assumed by a Board of
Thirty, who, being supported by Lysander, were able for eight months to
oppress their fellow citizens with violence and rapacity such as had
not been experienced in Athens even under the Four Hundred[223].
[222] Xenophon, _Hellenica_ II. 2.
[223] Xenophon, _Hellenica_ II. 3.
The governments both of the Four Hundred and of the Thirty were too
short-lived to furnish us with materials for forming any precise
estimate of Greek oligarchy in general. They never went beyond the
stage of being revolutionary or half-established governments: and,
being in constant terror of destruction, they were obliged to resort
to cruel measures which a settled oligarchy would not need. The mere
fact that Greek oligarchies were often long-lived governments suffices
to show that they were not, like the rule of the Four Hundred or the
Thirty, so sanguinary and oppressive as to provoke successful mutiny or
rebellion: and we are entitled to believe that, as Athenian democracy
was the best of Greek democracies, so Athenian oligarchy was the worst
of Greek oligarchies.
IV. _The conquest of the Greek cities by Macedonia._
The division of the Greek people into a large number of small
independent cities was a system which answered well enough as long as
the political horizon included no states other than Greek cities and
Asiatic Empires. The Macedonians were a European people inhabiting
a large territory to the north of Greece, and united under a strong
military monarchy. They had formerly lived under a tribal monarchy of
the heroic type: in the fourth century B.C. they may be compared with
the Goths under Alaric or the Salian Franks under Clovis. They were
devoted to military pursuits: they had some of the spirit of individual
independence which is usually found in a rude people of warriors, and
they showed it even under Alexander the Great, the strongest of all
their kings[224]: but their king was their commander, and in time of
war, so long as he commanded ably, he enjoyed supreme power. To resist
such a people as the Macedonians the Greeks would have had to do the
impossible: to unlearn in a moment all the maxims of jealous precaution
against rival cities by which they had regulated their conduct, to give
up the practice of politics in miniature and understand at once what
was needed in politics on a larger scale. As it was, the old jealousy
between Athens and Sparta continued to be as active as ever, only one
or two Greek states joined in resistance to the invader, and after the
battle of Chæroneia in 338 B.C. Greece lay at the mercy of Philip king
of Macedonia.
[224] Especially on the famous occasion when Alexander did not dare to
put his general Philotas to death till he had been condemned by the
assembled chieftains and warriors. Grote, part II. chapter XCIV.