Chapter 3: , page 89 (23)

"Socrates was born very shortly before the year 469 B. C. His
father, Sophroniscus, was a sculptor, his mother, Phænarete, a
midwife. Nothing definite is known of his moral and
intellectual development. There is no specific record of him
at all until he served at the siege of Potidæa (432 B. C.-429
B. C.) when he was nearly forty years old. All that we can say
is that his youth and manhood were passed in the most splendid
period of Athenian or Greek history. … As a boy he received the
usual Athenian liberal education, in music and gymnastic, an
education, that is to say, mental and physical. He was fond of
quoting from the existing Greek literature, and he seems to
have been familiar with it, especially with Homer. He is
represented by Xenophon as repeating Prodieus' fable of the
choice of Heracles at length. He says that he was in the habit
of studying with his friends 'the treasures which the wise men
of old have left us in their books:' collections, that is, of
the short and pithy sayings of the seven sages, such as 'know
thyself'; a saying, it may be noticed, which lay at the root
of his whole teaching. And he had some knowledge of
mathematics, and of science, as it existed in those days. He
understood something of astronomy and of advanced geometry;
and he was acquainted with certain, at any rate, of the
theories of his predecessors in philosophy, the Physical or
Cosmical philosophers, such as Heraclitus and Parmenides, and,
especially, with those of Anaxagoras.
{173}
But there is no trustworthy evidence which enables us to go
beyond the bare fact that he had such knowledge. … All then
that we can say of the first forty years of Socrates' life
consists of general statements like these. During these years
there is no specific record of him. Between 432 B. C. and 429
B. C. he served as a common soldier at the siege of Potidæa,
an Athenian dependency which had revolted, and surpassed
everyone in his powers of enduring hunger, thirst, and cold,
and all the hardships of a severe Thracian winter. At this
siege we hear of him for the first time in connection with
Alcibiades, whose life he saved in a skirmish, and to whom he
eagerly relinquished the prize of valour. In 431 B. C. the
Peloponnesian War broke out, and in 424 B. C. the Athenians
were disastrously defeated and routed by the Thebans at the
battle of Delium. Socrates and Laches were among the few who
did not yield to panic. They retreated together steadily, and
the resolute bearing of Socrates was conspicuous to friend and
foe alike. Had all the Athenians behaved as he did, says
Laches, in the dialogue of that name, the defeat would have
been a victory. Socrates fought bravely a third time at the
battle of Amphipolis [422 B. C.] against the Peloponnesian
forces, in which the commanders on both sides, Cleon and
Brasidas, were killed: but there is no record of his specific
services on that occasion. About the same time that Socrates
was displaying conspicuous courage in the cause of Athens at
Delium and Amphipolis, Aristophanes was holding him up to
hatred, contempt, and ridicule in the comedy of the Clouds
[13. C. 423]. … The Clouds is his protest against the
immorality of free thought and the Sophists. He chose Socrates
for his central figure, chiefly, no doubt, on account of
Socrates' well-known and strange personal appearance. The
grotesque ugliness, and flat nose, and prominent eyes, and
Silenus-like face, and shabby dress, might be seen every day
in the streets, and were familiar to every Athenian.
Aristophanes cared little—probably he did not take the
trouble to find out—that Socrates' whole life was spent in
fighting against the Sophists. It was enough for him that
Socrates did not accept the traditional beliefs, and was a
good centre-piece for a comedy. … The Clouds, it is needless
to say, is a gross and absurd libel from beginning to end: but
Aristophanes hit the popular conception. The charges which he
made in 423 B. C. stuck to Socrates to the end of his life.
They are exactly the charges made by popular prejudice,
against which Socrates defends himself in the first ten
chapters of the Apology, and which he says have been so long
'in the air.' He formulates them as follows: 'Socrates is an
evil doer who busies himself with investigating things beneath
the earth and in the sky, and who makes the worse appear the
better reason, and who teaches others these same things.' …
For sixteen years after the battle of Amphipolis we hear
nothing of Socrates. The next events in his life, of which
there is a specific record, are those narrated by himself in
the twentieth chapter of the Apology. They illustrate, as he
meant them to illustrate, his invincible moral courage. … In
406 B. C. the Athenian fleet defeated the Lacedæmonians at the
battle of Arginusæ, so called from some small islands off the
south-east point of Lesbos. After the battle the Athenian
commanders omitted to recover the bodies of their dead, and to
save the living from off their disabled enemies. The Athenians
at home, on hearing of this, were furious. The due performance
of funeral rites was a very sacred duty with the Greeks; and
many citizens mourned for friends and relatives who had been
left to drown. The commanders were immediately recalled, and
an assembly was held in which they were accused of neglect of
duty. They defended themselves by saying that they had ordered
certain inferior officers (amongst others, their accuser
Theramenes) to perform the duty, but that a storm had come on
which had rendered the performance impossible. The debate was
adjourned, and it was resolved that the Senate should decide
in what way the commanders should be tried. The Senate
resolved that the Athenian people, having heard the accusation
and the defence, should proceed to vote forthwith for the
acquittal or condemnation of the eight commanders
collectively. The resolution was grossly unjust, and it was
illegal. It substituted a popular vote for a fair and formal
trial. … Socrates was at that time a member of the Senate,
the only office that he ever filled. The Senate was composed
of five hundred citizens, elected by lot, fifty from each of
the ten tribes, and holding office for one year. The members
of each tribe held the Prytany, that is, were responsible for
the conduct of business, for thirty-five days at a time, and
ten out of the fifty were proedri or presidents every seven
days in succession. Every bill or motion was examined by the
proedri before it was submitted to the Assembly, to see if it
were in accordance with law; if it was not, it was quashed:
one of the proedri presided over the Senate and the Assembly
each day, and for one day only: he was called the Epistates:
it was his duty to put the question to the vote. In short he
was the speaker. … On the day on which it was proposed to
take a collective vote on the acquittal or condemnation of the
eight commanders, Socrates was Epistates. The proposal was, as
we have seen, illegal: but the people were furious against the
accused, and it was a very popular one. Some of the proedri
opposed it before it was submitted to the Assembly, on the
ground of its illegality; but they were silenced by threats
and subsided. Socrates alone refused to give way. He would not
put a question which he knew to be illegal, to the vote.
Threats of suspension and arrest, the clamour of an angry
people, the fear of imprisonment or death, could not move him.
… But his authority lasted only for a day; the proceedings
were adjourned, a more pliant Epistates succeeded him, and the
generals were condemned and executed."

_F. J. Church,
Introduction to Trial and Death of Socrates,
pages 9-23._

See, also, GREECE: B. C. 406.

{174}

ATHENS: B. C. 421.
End of the first period of the Peloponnesian War.
The Peace of Nicias.

"The first stage of the Peloponnesian war came to an end just
ten years after the invasion of Attica by Archidamus in 431 B.
C. Its results had been almost purely negative; a vast
quantity of blood and treasure had been wasted on each side,
but to no great purpose. The Athenian naval power was
unimpaired, and the confederacy of Delos, though shaken by the
successful revolt of Amphipolis and the Thraceward towns, was
still left subsisting. On the other hand, the attempts of
Athens to accomplish anything on land had entirely failed, and
the defensive policy of Pericles had been so far justified.
Well would it have been for Athens if her citizens had taken
the lesson to heart, and contented themselves with having
escaped so easily from the greatest war they had ever
known."

_C. W. C. Oman,
History of Greece,
page 341._

"The treaty called since ancient times the Peace of Nicias …
put an end to the war between the two Greek confederations of
states, after it had lasted for rather more than ten years,
viz., from the attack of the Bœotians upon Platææ, Ol.
lxxxvii. 1 (beginning of April B. C. 431) to Ol. lxxxix. 3
(towards the middle of April B. C. 421). The war was for this
reason known under the name of the Ten Years' War, while the
Peloponnesians called it the Attic War. Its end constituted a
triumph for Athens; for all the plans of the enemies who had
attacked her had come to naught; Sparta had been unable to
fulfil a single one of the promises with which she had entered
upon the war, and was ultimately forced to acknowledge the
dominion of Athens in its whole extent,—notwithstanding all
the mistakes and misgivings, notwithstanding all the
calamities attributable, or not, to the Athenians themselves:
the resources of offence and defence which the city owed to
Pericles had therefore proved their excellence, and all the
fury of her opponents had wasted itself against her in vain.
Sparta herself was satisfied with the advantages which the
peace offered to her own city and citizens; but great was the
discontent among her confederates, particularly among the
secondary states, who had originally occasioned the war and
obliged Sparta to take part in it. Even after the conclusion
of the peace, it was impossible to induce Thebes and Corinth
to accede to it. The result of the war to Sparta was therefore
the dissolution of the confederation at whose head she had
begun the war; she felt herself thereby placed in so
dangerously isolated a position, that she was obliged to fall
back upon Athens in self-defence against her own confederates.
Accordingly the Peace of Nicias was in the course of the same
year converted into a fifty years' alliance, under the terms
of which Sparta and Athens contracted the obligation of mutual
assistance against any hostile attack."

_E. Curtius,
History of Greece,
book 4, chapter 2 (volume 3)._

See, also, GREECE: B. C. 424-421.

ATHENS: B. C. 421-418.
New combinations.
Conflicting alliances with Sparta and the Argive Confederacy.
Rising influence of Alcibiades.
War in Argos and Arcadia.
Battle of Mantinea.

See GREECE: B. C. 421-418.

ATHENS: B. C. 416.
Siege and conquest of Melos.
Massacre of the inhabitants.

See GREECE: B. C. 416.

ATHENS: B. C. 415.
The expedition against Syracuse.
Mutilation of the Hermæ (Hermai).

A quarrel having broken out in Sicily, between the cities of
Segesta and Selinous, "the latter obtained aid from Syracuse.
Upon this, Segesta, having vainly sought help from Carthage,
appealed to Athens, where the exiled Sicilians were numerous.
Alkibiades had been one of the most urgent for the attack upon
Melos, and he did not lose the present opportunity to incite
the Athenians to an enterprise of much greater importance, and
where he hoped to be in command. … All men's minds were
filled with ambitious hopes. Everywhere, says Plutarch, were
to be seen young men in the gymnasia, old men in workshops and
public places of meeting, drawing the map of Sicily, talking
about the sea that surrounds it, the goodness of its harbors,
its position opposite Africa. Established there, it would be
easy to cross over and subjugate Carthage, and extend their
sway as far as the Pillars of Hercules. The rich did not
approve of this rashness, but feared if they opposed it that
the opposite faction would accuse them of wishing to avoid the
service and costs of arming galleys. Nikias had more courage;
even after the Athenians had appointed him general, with
Alkibiades and Lamachos, he spoke publicly against the
enterprise, showed the imprudence of going in search of new
subjects when those they already had were at the moment in a
state of revolt, as in Chalkidike, or only waited for a
disaster to break the chain which bound them to Athens. He
ended by reproaching Alkibiades for plunging the republic, to
gratify his personal ambition, into a foreign war of the
greatest danger. … One of the demagogues, however, replied
that he would put an end to all this hesitation, and he
proposed and secured the passage of a decree giving the
generals full power to use all the resources of the city in
preparing for the expedition (March 24, 415 B. C.) Nikias was
completely in the right. The expedition to Sicily was
impolitic and foolish. In the Ægæan Sea lay the empire of
Athens, and there only it could lie, within reach, close at
hand. Every acquisition westward of the Peloponnesos was a
source of weakness. Syracuse, even if conquered, would not
long remain subject. Whatever might be the result of the
expedition, it was sure to be disastrous in the end. … An
event which took place shortly before the departure of the
fleet (8-9 June) threw terror into the city: one morning the
hermai throughout the city were seen to have been mutilated.
… 'These Hermæ, or half-statues of the god Hermês, were
blocks of marble about the height of the human figure. The
upper part was cut into a head, face, neck and bust; the lower
part was left as a quadrangular pillar, broad at the base,
without arms, body, or legs, but with the significant mark of
the male sex in front. They were distributed in great numbers
throughout Athens, and always in the most conspicuous
situations; standing beside the outer doors of private houses
as well as of temples, near the most frequented porticos, at
the intersection of cross ways, in the public agora. … The
religious feelings of the Greeks considered the god to be
planted or domiciled where his statue stood, so that the
companionship, sympathy, and guardianship of Hermês became
associated with most of the manifestations of conjunct life at
Athens,—political, social, commercial, or gymnastic.' … To
all pious minds the city seemed menaced with great misfortunes
unless the anger of Heaven should be appeased by a sufficient
expiation.
{175}
While Alkibiades had many partisans, he had also violent
enemies. Not long before this time Hyperbolos, a contemptible
man, had almost succeeded in obtaining his banishment; and he
had escaped this danger only by uniting his party with that of
Nikias, and causing the demagogue himself to suffer ostracism.
The affair of the hermai appeared to his adversaries a
favourable occasion to repeat the attempt made by Hyperbolos,
and we have good reason to believe in a political machination,
seeing this same populace applaud, a few months later, the
impious audacity of Aristophanes in his comedy of The Birds.
An inquiry was set on foot, and certain metoikoi and slaves,
without making any deposition as to the hermai, recalled to
mind that before this time some of these statues had been
broken by young men after a night of carousal and
intoxication, thus indirectly attacking Alkibiades. Others in
set terms accused him of having at a banquet parodied the
Eleusinian Mysteries; and men took advantage of the
superstitious terrors of the people to awake their political
anxieties. It was repeated that the breakers of sacred
statues, the profaners of mysteries, would respect the
government even less than they had respected the gods, and it
was whispered that not one of these crimes had been committed
without the participation of Alkibiades; and in proof of this
men spoke of the truly aristocratic license of his life. Was
he indeed the author of this sacrilegious freak? To believe
him capable of it would not be to calumniate him. Or, on the
other hand, was it a scheme planned to do him injury? Although
proofs are lacking, it is certain that among the rich, upon
whom rested the heavy burden of the naval expenses, a plot had
been formed to destroy the power of Alkibiades, and perhaps to
prevent the sailing of the fleet. The demagogues, who had
intoxicated the people with hope, were for the expedition; but
the popularity of Alkibiades was obnoxious to them: a
compromise was made between the two factions, as is often done
in times when public morality is enfeebled, and Alkibiades
found himself threatened on all sides. … Urging as a pretext
the dangers of delay in sending off the expedition, they
obtained a decree that Alkibiades should embark at once; and
that the question of his guilt or innocence should be
postponed until after his return. It was now the middle of
summer. The day appointed for departure, the whole city,
citizens and foreigners, went out to Peiraieus at daybreak.
… At that moment the view was clearer as to the doubts and
dangers, and also the distance of the expedition; but all eyes
were drawn to the immense preparations that had been made, and
confidence and pride consoled those who were about to part."

_V. Duruy,
History of the Greek People,
chapter 25, section 2 (volume 3)._

ALSO IN:
_Thucydides,
History,
book 6, section 27-28._

_G. W. Cox,
The Athenian Empire,
chapter 5._

_G. Grote,
History of Greece,
part 2, chapter 58 (volume 7)._

ATHENS: B. C. 415-413.
Fatal end of the expedition against Syracuse.

"Alkibiades was called back to Athens, to take his trial on a
charge of impiety. … He did not go back to Athens for his
trial, but escaped to Peloponnesos, where we shall hear from
him again. Meanwhile the command of the Athenian force in
Sicily was left practically in the hands of Nikias. Now Nikias
could always act well when he did act; but it was very hard to
make him act; above all on an errand which he hated. One might
say that Syracuse was saved through the delays of Nikias. He
now went off to petty expeditions in the west of Sicily, under
cover of settling matters at Segesta. … The Syracusans by
this time quite despised the invaders. Their horsemen rode up
to the camp of the Athenians at Katanê, and asked them if they
had come into Sicily merely to sit down there as colonists.
… The winter (B. C. 415-414) was chiefly spent on both sides
in sending embassies to and fro to gain allies. Nikias also
sent home to Athens, asking for horsemen and money, and the
people, without a word of rebuke, voted him all that he asked.
… But the most important embassy of all was that which the
Syracusans sent to Corinth and Sparta. Corinth zealously took
up the cause of her colony and pleaded for Syracuse at Sparta.
And at Sparta Corinth and Syracuse found a helper in the
banished Athenian Alkibiadês, who was now doing all that he
could against Athens. … He told the Spartans to occupy a
fortress in Attica, which they soon afterwards did, and a
great deal came of it. But he also told them to give vigorous
help to Syracuse, and above all things to send a Spartan
commander. The mere name of Sparta went for a great deal in
those days; but no man could have been better chosen than the
Spartan who was sent. He was Gylippos, the deliverer of
Syracuse. He was more like an Athenian than a Spartan, quick
and ready of resource, which few Spartans were. … And now at
last, when the spring came (414) Nikias was driven to do
something. … The Athenians … occupied all that part of the
hill which lay outside the walls of Syracuse. They were joined
by their horsemen, Greek and Sikel, and after nearly a year,
the siege of Syracuse really began. The object of the
Athenians now was to build a wall across the hill and to carry
it down to the sea on both sides. Syracuse would thus be
hemmed in. The object of the Syracusans was to build a
cross-wall of their own, which should hinder the Athenian wall
from reaching the two points it aimed at; This they tried more
than once; but in vain. There were several fights on the hill,
and at last there was a fight of more importance on the lower
ground by the Great Harbour. … The Syracusans were defeated,
as far as fighting went; but they gained far more than they
lost. For Lamachos was killed, and with him all vigour passed
away from the Athenian camp. At the same moment the Athenian
fleet sailed into the Great Harbour, and a Syracusan attack on
the Athenian works on the hill was defeated. Nikias remained
in command of the invaders; but he was grievously sick, and
for once in his life his head seems to have been turned by
success. He finished the wall on the south side; but he
neglected to finish it on the north side also, so that
Syracuse was not really hemmed in. But the hearts of the
Syracusans sank. … It was at this darkest moment of all that
deliverance came. … A Corinthian ship, under its captain
Gongylos, sailed into the Little Harbour. He brought the news
that other ships were on their way from Peloponnesos to the
help of Syracuse, and, yet more, that a Spartan general was
actually in Sicily, getting together a land force for the same
end. As soon as the good news was heard, there was no more talk
of surrender. … And one day the Athenian camp was startled
by the appearance of a Lacedæmonian herald, offering them a
truce of five days, that they might get them out of Sicily
with bag and baggage.
{176}
Gylippos was now on the hill. He of course did not expect that
the Athenian army would really go away in five days. But it
was a great thing to show both to the besiegers and to the
Syracusans that the deliverer had come, and that deliverance
was beginning. Nikias had kept such bad watch that Gylippos
and his troops had come up the hill and the Syracusans had
come out and met them, without his knowledge. The Spartan, as
a matter of course, took the command of the whole force; he
offered battle to the Athenians, which they refused; he then
entered the city. The very next day he began to carry out his
scheme. This was to build a group of forts near the western
end of the hill, and to join them to the city by a wall
running east and west, which would hinder the Athenians from
ever finishing their wall to the north. Each side went on
building, and some small actions took place. … Another
winter (B. C. 414-413) now came on, and with it much sending
of envoys. Gylippos went about Sicily collecting fresh troops.
… Meanwhile Nikias wrote a letter to the Athenian people.
… This letter came at a time when the Lacedæmonian alliance
had determined to renew the war with Athens, and when they
were making everything ready for an invasion of Attica. To
send out a new force to Sicily was simple madness. We hear
nothing of the debates in the Athenian assembly, whether
anyone argued against going on with the Sicilian war, and
whether any demagogue laid any blame on Nikias. But the
assembly voted that a new force equal to the first should be
sent out under Dêmosthenês, the best soldier in Athens, and
Eurymedon. … Meanwhile the Syracusans were strengthened by
help both in Sicily and from Peloponnesos. Their main object
now was to strike a blow at the fleet of Nikias before the new
force came. … It had been just when the Syracusans were most
downcast that they were cheered by the coming of the
Corinthians and of Gylippos. And just now that their spirits
were highest, they were dashed again by the coming of
Dêmosthenês and Eurymedon. A fleet as great as the first,
seventy-five ships, carrying 5,000 heavy-armed and a crowd of
light troops of every kind, sailed into the Great Harbour with
all warlike pomp. The Peloponnesians were already in Attica;
they had planted a Peloponnesian garrison there, which brought
Athens to great straits; but the fleet was sent out to
Syracuse all the same. Dêmosthenês knew what to do as well as
Lamachos had known. He saw that there was nothing to be done
but to try one great blow, and, if that failed, to take the
fleet home again. … The attack was at first successful, and
the Athenians took two of the Syracusan forts. But the
Thespian allies of Syracuse stood their ground, and drove the
assailants back. Utter confusion followed. … The last chance
was now lost, and Dêmosthenês was eager to go home. But Nikias
would stay on. … When sickness grew in the camp, when fresh
help from Sicily and the great body of the allies from
Peloponnesos came into Syracuse, he at last agreed to go. Just
at that moment the moon was eclipsed. … Nikias consulted his
soothsayers, and he gave out that they must stay twenty-nine
days, another full revolution of the moon. This resolve was
the destruction of the besieging army. … It was felt on both
sides that all would turn on one more fight by sea, the
Athenians striving to get out of the harbour, and the
Syracusans striving to keep them in it. The Syracusans now
blocked up the mouth of the harbour by mooring vessels across
it. The Athenians left their position on the hill, a sign that
the siege was over, and brought their whole force down to the
shore. It was no time now for any skillful manoeuvres; the
chief thing was to make the sea-fight as much as might be like
a land-fight, a strange need for Athenians. … The last fight
now began, 110 Athenian ships against 80 of the Syracusans and
their allies. Never before did so many ships meet in so small
a space. … The fight was long and confused; at last the
Athenians gave way and fled to the shore. The battle and the
invasion were over. Syracuse was not only saved; she had begun
to take vengeance on her enemies. … The Athenians waited one
day, and then set out, hoping to make their way to some safe
place among the friendly Sikels in the inland country. The
sick had to be left behind. … On the sixth day, after
frightful toil, they determined to change their course. …
They set out in two divisions, that of Nikias going first.
Much better order was kept in the front division and by the
time Nikias reached the river, Dêmosthenês was six miles
behind. … In the morning a Syracusan force came up with the
frightful news that the whole division of Dêmosthenês were
prisoners. … The Athenians tried in vain to escape in the
night. The next morning they set out, harassed as before, and
driven wild by intolerable thirst. They at last reached the
river Assinaros, which runs by the present town of Noto. There
was the end. … The Athenians were so maddened by thirst
that, though men were falling under darts and the water was
getting muddy and bloody, they thought of nothing but
drinking. … No further terms were made; most of the horsemen
contrived to cut their way out; the rest were made prisoners.
Most of them were embezzled by Syracusans as their private
slaves; but about 7,000 men out of the two divisions were led
prisoners into Syracuse. They were shut up in the
stone-quarries, with no further heed than to give each man
daily half a slave's allowance of food and drink. Many died;
many were sold; some escaped, or were set free; the rest were
after a while taken out of the quarries and set to work. The
generals had made no terms for themselves. Hermokratês wished
to keep them as hostages against future Athenian attempts
against Sicily. Gylippos wished to take them in triumph to
Sparta. The Corinthians were for putting them to death; and so
it was done. … So ended the Athenian invasion of Sicily, the
greatest attempt ever made by Greeks against Greeks, and that
which came to the most utter failure."

_E. A. Freeman,
The Story of Sicily,
pages 117-137._

ALSO IN:
_Thucydides,
History;
translated by B. Jowett,
books 6-7 (volume 1)._

See, also, SYRACUSE: B. C. 415-413.

{177}

ATHENS: B. C. 413-412.
Consequences of the Sicilian Expedition.
Spartan alliance with the Persians.
Plotting of Alcibiades.
The Decelian War.

"At Athens, where, even before this, everyone had been in the
most anxious suspense, the news of the loss of the expedition
produced a consternation, which was certainly greater than
that at Rome after the battle of Cannae, or that in our own
days, after the battle of Jena. … 'At least 40,000 citizens,
allies and slaves, had perished; and among them there may
easily have been 10,000 Athenian citizens, most of whom
belonged to the wealthier and higher classes. The flower of
the Athenian people was destroyed, as at the time of the
plague. It is impossible to say what amount of public property
may have been lost; the whole fleet was gone.' The
consequences of the disaster soon shewed themselves. It was to
be foreseen that Chios, which had long been wavering, and
whose disposition could not be trusted, would avail itself of
this moment to revolt; and the cities in Asia, from which
Athens derived her large revenues, were expected to do the
same. It was, in fact, to be foreseen, that the four islands
of Lesbos, Chios, Samos, and Rhodes, would instantly revolt.
The Spartans were established at Decelea, in Attica itself,
and thence ravaged the country far and wide: so that it was
impossible to venture to go to the coast without a strong
escort. Although there were many districts in which no Spartan
was seen from one year's end to the other, yet there was no
safety anywhere, except in fortified places, 'and the
Athenians were constantly obliged to guard the walls of their
city; and this state of things had already been going on for
the last twelve months.' In this fearful situation, the
Athenian people showed the same firmness as the Romans after
the battle of Cannae. Had they but had one great man among
them, to whom the state could have been entrusted, even more
might perhaps have been done; but it is astonishing that,
although there was no such man, and although the leading men
were only second or third-rate persons, yet so many useful
arrangements were made to meet the necessities of the case.
… The most unfortunate circumstance for the Athenians was,
that Alcibiades, now an enemy of his country, was living among
the Spartans; for he introduced into the undertakings of the
Spartans the very element which before they had been
altogether deficient in, namely energy and elasticity: he
urged them on to undertakings, and induced them now to send a
fleet to Ionia. … Erythrae, Teos, and Miletus, one after
another, revolted to the Peloponnesians, who now concluded
treaties with Tissaphernes in the name of the king of
Persia—Darius was then king—and in his own name as satrap;
and in this manner they sacrificed to him the Asiatic Greeks.
… The Athenians were an object of antipathy and implacable
hatred to the Persians; they had never doubted that the
Athenians were their real opponents in Greece, and were afraid
of them; but they did not fear the Spartans. They knew that
the Athenians would take from them not only the islands, but
the towns on the main land, and were in great fear of their
maritime power. Hence they joined the Spartans; and the latter
were not ashamed of negotiating a treaty of subsidies with the
Persians, in which Tissaphernes, in the king's name, promised
the assistance of the Phoenician fleet; and large subsidies,
as pay for the army. … In return for this, they renounced,
in the name of the Greeks, all claims to independence for the
Greek cities in Asia."

_E. C. Niebuhr,
Lectures on Ancient History,
volume 2, lectures 53 and 54._

See, also, GREECE: B. C. 413-412.

ALSO IN:
_G. Grote,
History of Greece,
chapter 61 (volume 7)._

ATHENS: B. C. 413-412.
Revolt of Chios, Miletus, Lesbos and Rhodes from Athens.
Revolution of Samos.

See GREECE: B. C. 413.

ATHENS: B. C. 413-411.-
The Probuli.
Intrigues of Alcibiades.
Conspiracy against the Constitution.
The Four Hundred and the Five Thousand.

Immediately after the dreadful calamity at Syracuse became
known, "extraordinary measures were adopted by the people; a
number of citizens of advanced age were formed into a
deliberative and executive body under the name of Probuli, and
empowered to fit out a fleet. Whether this laid the foundation
for oligarchical machinations or not, those aged men were
unable to bring back men's minds to their former course; the
prosecution of the Hermocopidæ had been most mischievous in
its results; various secret associations had sprung up and
conspired to reap advantage to themselves from the distress
and embarrassment of the state; the indignation caused by the
infuriated excesses of the people during that trial, possibly
here, as frequently happened in other Grecian states,
determined the more respectable members of the community to
guard against the recurrence of similar scenes in future, by
the establishment of an aristocracy. Lastly, the watchful
malice of Alcibiades, who was the implacable enemy of that
populace, to whose blind fury he had been sacrificed, baffled
all attempts to restore confidence and tranquillity, and there
is no doubt that, whilst he kept up a correspondence with his
partisans at home, he did everything in his power to increase
the perplexity and distress of his native city from without,
in order that he might be recalled to provide for its safety
and defence. A favourable opportunity for the execution of his
plans presented itself in the fifth year of his exile,
Ol. 92. 1; 411. B. C.; as he had incurred the suspicion of the
Spartans, and stood high in the favour of Tissaphernes, the
Athenians thought that his intercession might enable them to
obtain assistance from the Persian king. The people in Athens
were headed by one of his most inveterate enemies, Androcles;
and he well knew that all attempts to effect his return would
be fruitless, until this man and the other demagogues were
removed. Hence Alcibiades entered into negotiations with the
commanders of the Athenian fleet at Samos, respecting the
establishment of an oligarchical constitution, not from any
attachment to that form of government in itself, but solely
with the view of promoting his own ends. Phrynichus and
Pisander were equally insincere in their co-operation with
Alcibiades. … Their plan was that the latter should
reconcile the people to the change in the constitution which
he wished to effect, by promising to obtain them the
assistance of the great king; but they alone resolved to reap
the benefit of his exertions. Pisander took upon himself to
manage the Athenian populace. It was in truth no slight
undertaking to attempt to overthrow a democracy of a hundred
and twenty years' standing, and of intense development; but
most of the able bodied citizens were absent with the fleet,
whilst such as were still in the city were confounded by the
imminence of the danger from without; on the other hand, the
prospect of succour from the Persian king doubtless had some
weight with them, and they possibly felt some symptoms of
returning affection for their former favourite Alcibiades.
Nevertheless, Pisander and his accomplices employed craft and
perfidy to accomplish their designs; the people were not
persuaded or convinced, but entrapped into compliance with
their measures. Pisander gained over to his purpose the above
named clubs, and induced the people to send him with ten
plenipotentiaries to the navy at Samos. In the mean time the
rest of the conspirators prosecuted the work of remodelling
the constitution."

_W. Wachsmuth,
History Antiquities of the Greeks,
volume 2, pages 252-255._

{178}

The people, or an assembly cleverly made up and manipulated to
represent the people, were induced to vote all the powers of
government into the hands of a council of Four Hundred, of
which council the citizens appointed only five members. Those
five chose ninety-five more, to make one hundred, and each of
that hundred then chose three colleagues. The conspirators
thus easily made up the Four Hundred to their liking, from
their own ranks. This council was to convene an assembly of
Five Thousand citizens, whenever it saw fit to do so. But when
news of this constitutional change reached the army at Samos,
where the Athenian headquarters for the Ionian war were fixed,
the citizen soldiers refused to submit to it—repudiated it
altogether—and organized themselves as an independent state.
The ruling spirit among them was Thrasybulus, and his
influence brought about a reconciliation with Alcibiades, then
an exile sheltered at the Persian court. Alcibiades was
recalled by the army and placed at its head. Presently a
reaction at Athens ensued, after the oligarchical party had
given signs of treasonable communication with Sparta, and in
June the people assembled in the Pnyx and reasserted their
sovereignty. "The Council was deposed, and the supreme
sovereignty of the state restored to the people—not, however,
to the entire multitude; for the principle was retained of
reserving full civic rights to a committee of men of a certain
amount of property; and, as the lists of the Five Thousand had
never been drawn up, it was decreed, in order that the desired
end might be speedily reached, to follow the precedent of
similar institutions in other states and to constitute all
Athenians able to furnish themselves with a complete military
equipment from their own resources, full citizens, with the
rights of voting and participating in the government. Thus the
name of the Five Thousand had now become a very inaccurate
designation; but it was retained, because men had in the last
few months become habituated to it. At the same time, the
abolition of pay for civic offices and functions was decreed,
not merely as a temporary measure, but as a fundamental
principle of the new commonwealth, which the citizens were
bound by a solemn oath to maintain. This reform was, upon the
whole, a wise combination of aristocracy and democracy; and,
according to the opinion of Thucydides, the best constitution
which the Athenians had hitherto possessed. On the motion of
Critias, the recall, of Alcibiades was decreed about the same
time; and a deputation was despatched to Samos, to accomplish
the union between army and city."

_E. Curtius,
History of Greece,
book 4, chapter 5._

Most of the leaders of the Four Hundred fled to the Spartan
camp at Decelia. Two were taken, tried and executed.

_Thucydides,
History,
book 8, section 48-97._

See, also, GREECE: B. C. 413-412.

ALSO IN:
_V. Duruy,
History of Greece,
chapter 26 (volume 3)._

ATHENS: B. C. 411-407.
Victories at Cynossema and Abydos.
Exploits of Alcibiades.
His triumphal return.
His appointment to command.
His second deposition and exile.

See GREECE: B. C. 411-407.

ATHENS: B. C. 406.
The Peloponnesian War: Battle and victory of Arginusae.
Condemnation and execution of the Generals.

See GREECE: B. C. 406;
and above: B. C. 424-406.

ATHENS: B. C. 405.
The Peloponnesian War:
Decisive defeat at Aigospotamoi.

See GREECE: B. C. 405.

ATHENS: B. C. 404.
The Surrender to Lysander.

After the battle of Ægospotami (August, B. C. 405), which
destroyed their navy, and cut off nearly all supplies to the
city by sea, as the Spartans at Decelea had long cut off
supplies upon the land side, the Athenians had no hope. They
waited in terror and despair for their enemies to close in
upon them. The latter were in no haste, for they were sure of
their prey. Lysander, the victor at Ægospotami, came leisurely
from the Hellespont, receiving on his way the surrender of the
cities subject or allied to Athens, and placing Spartan
harmosts and garrisons in them, with the local oligarchs
established uniformly in power. About November he reached the
Saronic gulf and blockaded the Athenian harbor of Piræus,
while an overwhelming Peloponnesian land force, under the
Lacedæmonian king Pausanias, arrived simultaneously in Attica
and encamped at the gates of the city. The Athenians had no
longer any power except the power to endure, and that they
exercised for more than three months, mainly resisting the
demand that their Long Walls—the walls which protected the
connection of the city with its harbors—should be thrown
down. But when famine had thinned the ranks of the citizens
and broken the spirit of the survivors, they gave up. "There
was still a high-spirited minority who entered their protest
and preferred death by famine to such insupportable disgrace.
The large majority, however, accepted them [the terms] and the
acceptance was made known to Lysander. It was on the 16th day
of the Attic month Munychion,—about the middle or end of
March,—that this victorious commander sailed into the
Peiræus, twenty-seven years, almost exactly, after the
surprise of Platæa by the Thebans, which opened the
Peloponnesian War. Along with him came the Athenian exiles,
several of whom appear to have been serving with his army and
assisting him with their counsel."

_G. Grote,
History of Greece,
part 2, chapter 65 (volume 8)._

The Long Walls and the fortifications of Piræus were
demolished, and then followed the organization of an
oligarchical government at Athens, resulting in the reign of
terror under "The Thirty."

_E. Curtius,
History of Greece,
book 4, chapter 5._

ALSO IN:
_Xenophon,
Hellenics,
book 2, chapter 2._

_Plutarch,
Lysander._

{179}

ATHENS: B. C. 404-403.
The tyranny of the Thirty.
The Year of Anarchy.

In the summer of B. C. 404, following the siege and surrender
of Athens, and the humiliating close of the long Peloponnesian
War, the returned leaders of the oligarchical party, who had
been in exile, succeeded with the help of their Spartan
friends, in overthrowing the democratic constitution of the
city and establishing themselves in power. The revolution was
accomplished at a public assembly of citizens, in the presence
of Lysander, the victorious Lacedæmonian admiral, whose fleet
in the Piraeus lay ready to support his demands. "In this
assembly, Dracontidas, a scoundrel upon whom repeated
sentences had been passed, brought forward a motion, proposing
the transfer of the government into the hands of Thirty
persons; and Theramenes supported this proposal which he
declared to express the wishes of Sparta. Even now, these
speeches produced a storm of indignation; after all the acts
of violence which Athens had undergone, she yet contained men
outspoken enough to venture to defend the constitution, and to
appeal to the fact that the capitulation sanctioned by both
parties contained no provision as to the internal affairs of
Athens. But, hereupon, Lysander himself came forward and spoke
to the citizens without reserve, like one who was their
absolute master. … By such means the motion of Dracontidas
was passed; but only a small number of unpatriotic and
cowardly citizens raised their hands in token of assent. All
better patriots contrived to avoid participation in this vote.
Next, ten members of the government were chosen by Critias and
his colleagues [the Critias of Plato's Dialogues, pupil of
Socrates, and now the violent and blood-thirsty leader of the
anti-democratic revolution], ten by Theramenes, the
confidential friend of Lysander, and finally ten out of the
assembled multitude, probably by a free vote; and this board
of Thirty was hereupon established as the supreme government
authority by a resolution of the assembly present. Most of the
members of the new government had formerly been among the Four
Hundred, and had therefore long pursued a common course of
action." The Thirty Tyrants so placed in power were masters of
Athens for eight months, and executed their will without
conscience or mercy, having a garrison of Spartan soldiers in
the Acropolis to support them. They were also sustained by a
picked body of citizens, "the Three Thousand," who bore arms
while other citizens were stripped of every weapon. Large
numbers of the more patriotic and high-spirited Athenians had
escaped from their unfortunate city and had taken refuge,
chiefly at Thebes, the old enemy of Athens, but now
sympathetic in her distress. At Thebes these exiles organized
themselves under Thrasybulus and Anytus, and determined to
expel the tyrants and to recover their homes. They first
seized a strong post at Phyle, in Attica, where they gained in
numbers rapidly, and from which point they were able in a few
weeks to advance and occupy the Piræus. When the troops of The
Thirty came out to attack them, they drew back to the adjacent
height of Munychia and there fought a battle which delivered
their city from the Tyrants. Critias, the master-spirit of the
usurpation, was slain; the more violent of his colleagues took
refuge at Eleusis, and Athens, for a time, remained under the
government of a new oligarchical Board of Ten; while
Thrasybulus and the democratic liberators maintained their
headquarters at Munychia. All parties waited the action of
Sparta. Lysander, the Spartan general, marched an army into
Attica to restore the tyranny which was of his own creating;
but one of the two Spartan kings, Pausanias, intervened,
assumed the command in his own person, and applied his efforts
to the arranging of peace between the Athenian parties. The
result was a restoration of the democratic constitution of the
Attic state, with some important reforms. Several of The
Thirty were put to death,—treacherously, it was said,—but an
amnesty was extended to all their partisans. The year in which
they and The Ten controlled affairs was termed in the official
annals of the city the Year of Anarchy, and its magistrates
were not recognized.

_E. Curtius,
History of Greece,
book 4, chapter 5,
and book 5, chapter 1._

ALSO IN:
_Xenophon,
Hellenics,
book 2, chapters 3-4._

_C. Sankey,
The Spartan and Theban Supremacies.
chapters 2-3._

ATHENS: B. C. 395-387.
Confederacy against Sparta.
Alliance with Persia.
The Corinthian War.
Conon's rebuilding of the Long Walls.
Athenian independence restored.
The Peace of Antalcidas.

See GREECE: B. C. 399-387.

ATHENS: B. C. 378-371.
Brief alliance with Thebes against Sparta.

See GREECE: B. C. 379-371.

ATHENS: B. C. 378-357.
The New Confederacy and the Social War.

Upon the Liberation of Thebes and the signs that began to
appear of the decline of Spartan power—during the year of the
archonship of Nausinicus, B. C. 378-7, which was made
memorable at Athens by various movements of political
regeneration,—the organization of a new Confederacy was
undertaken, analogous to the Confederacy of Delos, formed a
century before. Athens was to be, "not the ruling capital, but
only the directing city in possession of the primacy, the seat
of the federal council. … Callistratus was in a sense the
Aristides of the new confederation and doubtless did much to
bring about an agreement; it was likewise his work that, in
place of the 'tributes' of odious memory, the payments
necessary to the existence of the confederation were
introduced under the gentler name of 'contributions.' …
Amicable relations were resumed with the Cyclades, Rhodes and
Perinthus; in other words, the ancient union of navies was at
once renewed upon a large scale and in a wide extent. Even
such states joined it as had hitherto never stood in
confederate relations with Athens, above all Thebes."

_E. Curtius,
History of Greece,
book 6, chapter 1_.

This second confederacy renewed much of the prosperity and
influence of Athens for a brief period of about twenty years.
But in 357 B. C., four important members of the Confederacy,
namely, Chios, Cos, Rhodes, and Byzantium leagued themselves
in revolt, with the aid of Mausolus, prince of Caria, and an
inglorious war ensued, known as the Social War, which lasted
three years. Athens was forced at last to assent to the
secession of the four revolted cities and to recognize their
independence, which greatly impaired her prestige and power,
just at the time when she was called upon to resist the
encroachments of Philip of Macedonia.

_C. Thirlwall,
History of Greece,
chapter 42._

ATHENS: B. C. 370-362.
Alliance with Sparta against Thebes.
Battle of Mantinea.

See GREECE: B. C. 371-362.

{180}

ATHENS: B. C. 359-338.
The collision with Philip of Macedon.
The Policy of Demosthenes and Policy of Phocion.