Chapter LVIII (2)

Neither δήμου προστάτης nor δημαγωγὸς, denotes any express
functions, or titular office (see the note of Dr. Arnold), at
least in these places. It is possible that there may have been
some Grecian town constitutions, in which there was an office
bearing that title: but this is a point which cannot be affirmed.
Nor would the words δήμου προστάτης always imply an equal degree
of power: the person so designated might have more power in one
town than in another. Thus in Megara (iv, 67) it seems that the
oligarchical party had recently been banished: the leaders of the
popular party had become the most influential men in the city.
See also iii, 70, Peithias at Korkyra.

“Every one[275] (said he), except only cowards and bad citizens, must wish that the Athenians _would_ be fools enough to come here and put themselves into our power. The tales which you have just heard are nothing better than fabrications, got up to alarm you; and I wonder at the folly of these alarmists in fancying that their machinations are not seen through.[276] You will be too wise to take measure of the future from their reports: you will rather judge from what able men, such as the Athenians, are likely to do. Be assured that they will never leave behind them the Peloponnesians in menacing attitude, to come hither and court a fresh war not less formidable: indeed, I think they account themselves lucky that we, with our powerful cities, have never come across to attack them. And if they _should_ come, as it is pretended, they will find Sicily a more formidable foe than Peloponnesus: nay, our own city alone will be a match for twice the force which they can bring across. The Athenians, knowing all this well enough, will mind their own business, in spite of all the fictions which men on this side of the water conjure up, and which they have already tried often before, sometimes even worse than on the present occasion, in order to terrify you, and get themselves nominated to the chief posts.[277] One of these days, I fear they may even succeed, from our want of precautions beforehand. Such intrigues leave but short moments of tranquillity to our city; they condemn it to an intestine discord worse than foreign war, and have sometimes betrayed it even to despots and usurpers. However, if you will listen to me, I will try and prevent anything of this sort at present; by simple persuasion to you, by chastisement to these conspirators, and by watchful denunciation of the oligarchical party generally. Let me ask, indeed, what is it that you younger nobles covet? To get into command at your early age? The law forbids you, because you are yet incompetent. Or, do you wish not to be under equal laws with the many? But how can you pretend that citizens of the same city should not have the same rights? Some one will tell me[278] that democracy is neither intelligent nor just, and that the rich are the persons best fitted to command. But I affirm, first, that the people are the sum total, and the oligarchy merely a fraction; next, that rich men are the best trustees of the aggregate wealth existing in the community,—intelligent men, the best counsellors,—and the multitude, the best qualified for hearing and deciding after such advice. In a democracy, these functions, one and all, find their proper place. But oligarchy, though imposing on the multitude a full participation in all hazards, is not content even with an exorbitant share in the public advantages, but grasps and monopolizes the whole for itself.[279] This is just what you young and powerful men are aiming at, though you will never be able to keep it permanently in a city such as Syracuse. Be taught by me, or at least alter your views, and devote yourselves to the public advantage of our common city. Desist from practising, by reports such as these, upon the belief of men who know you too well to be duped. If even there be any truth in what you say, and if the Athenians _do_ come, our city will repel them in a manner worthy of her reputation. She will not take you at your word, and choose _you_ commanders, in order to put the yoke upon her own neck. She will look for herself, construe your communications for what they really mean, and, instead of suffering you to talk her out of her free government, will take effective precautions for maintaining it against you.”

[275] Thucyd. vi, 36-40. I give the substance of what is ascribed
to Athenagoras by Thucydidês, without binding myself to the words.

[276] Thucyd. vi, 36. τοὺς δ’ ἀγγέλλοντας τὰ τοιαῦτα καὶ
περιφόβους ὑμᾶς ποιοῦντας τῆς μὲν τόλμης οὐ θαυμάζω, τῆς δὲ
ἀξυνεσίας, εἰ μὴ οἴονται ἔνδηλοι εἶναι.

[277] Thucyd. vi, 38. Ἀλλὰ ταῦτα, ὥσπερ ἐγὼ λέγω, οἵ τε Ἀθηναῖοι
γιγνώσκοντες, τὰ σφέτερα αὐτῶν, εὖ οἶδ’ ὅτι, σῴζουσι, καὶ ἐνθένδε
ἄνδρες οὔτε ὄντα, οὔτε ἂν γενόμενα, λογοποιοῦσιν. Οὓς ἐγὼ οὐ
νῦν πρῶτον, ἀλλ’ ἀεὶ ἐπίσταμαι, ἤτοι λόγοις γε τοιοῖσδε, καὶ
ἔτι τούτων κακουργοτέροις, ἢ ἔργοις, βουλομένους καταπλήξαντας
τὸ ὑμέτερον πλῆθος αὐτοὺς τῆς πόλεως ἄρχειν. Καὶ δέδοικα μέντοι
μήποτε πολλὰ πειρῶντες καὶ κατορθώσωσιν, etc.

[278] Thucyd. vi, 39. φήσει τις δημοκρατίαν οὔτε ξυνετὸν οὔτ’
ἴσον εἶναι, τοὺς δ’ ἔχοντας τὰ χρήματα καὶ ἄρχειν ἄριστα
βελτίστους. Ἐγὼ δέ φημι πρῶτα μὲν, δῆμον ξύμπαν ὠνομάσθαι,
ὀλιγαρχίαν δὲ μέρος· ἔπειτα, ~φύλακας μὲν ἀρίστους εἶναι χρημάτων
τοὺς πλουσίους~, βουλεῦσαι δ’ ἂν βέλτιστα τοὺς ξυνετοὺς, κρῖναι
δ’ ἂν ἀκούσαντας ἄριστα τοὺς πολλούς· καὶ ταῦτα ὁμοίως καὶ κατὰ
μέρη καὶ ξύμπαντα ἐν δημοκρατίᾳ ἰσομοιρεῖν.

Dr. Arnold translates φύλακας χρημάτων, “having the care of the
public purse,” as if it were φύλακας τῶν δημοσίων χρημάτων. But
it seems to me that the words carry a larger sense, and refer to
the private property of these rich men, not to their functions
as keepers of what was collected from taxation or tribute.
Looking at a rich man from the point of view of the public, he is
guardian of his own property until the necessities of the state
require that he should spend more or less of it for the public
defence or benefit: in the interim, he enjoys it as he pleases,
but he will for his own interest take care that the property
does not perish (compare vi, 9). This is the service which he
renders, _quatenus_, _rich man_, to the state; he may also serve
it in other ways, but that would be by means of his personal
qualities; thus he may, for example, be intelligent as well as
rich (ξυνετὸς as well as πλούσιος), and then he may serve the
state as _counsellor_, the second of the two categories named by
Athenagoras. What that orator is here negativing is, the better
title and superior fitness of the rich to exercise command, which
was the claim put forward in their behalf. And he goes on to
indicate what is their real position and service in a democracy;
that they are to enjoy the revenue, and preserve the capital,
of their wealth, subject to demands for public purposes when
necessary, but not to expect command, unless they are personally
competent. Properly speaking, that which he here affirms is true
of the small lots of property taken in the mass, as well as
of the large, and is one of the grounds of defence of private
property against communism. But the rich man’s property is an
appreciable item to the state, individually taken; moreover, he
is perpetually raising unjust pretensions to political power,
so that it becomes necessary to define how much he is really
entitled to.

[279] Thucyd. vi, 39. Ὀλιγαρχία δὲ τῶν μὲν κινδύνων τοῖς
πολλοῖς μεταδίδωσι, τῶν δ’ ὠφελίμων οὐ πλεονεκτεῖ μόνον, ἀλλὰ
καὶ ξύμπαν ἀφελομένη ἔχει· ~ἃ ὑμῶν οἵ τε δυνάμενοι καὶ οἱ νέοι
προθυμοῦνται~, ἀδύνατα ἐν μεγάλῃ πόλει κατασχεῖν.

Immediately after this vehement speech from Athenagoras, one of the stratêgi who presided in the assembly interposed; permitting no one else to speak, and abruptly closing the assembly, with these few words: “We generals deprecate this interchange of personal vituperation, and trust that the hearers present will not suffer themselves to be biased by it. Let us rather take care, in reference to the reports just communicated, that we be one and all in a condition to repel the invader. And even should the necessity not arise, there is no harm in strengthening our public force with horses, arms, and the other muniments of war. _We_ generals shall take upon ourselves the care and supervision of these matters, as well as of the missions to neighboring cities, for procuring information and for other objects. We have, indeed, already busied ourselves for the purpose, and we shall keep you informed of what we learn.”

The language of Athenagoras, indicating much virulence of party feeling, lets us somewhat into the real working of politics among the Syracusan democracy. Athenagoras at Syracuse was like Kleon at Athens, the popular orator of the city. But he was by no means the most influential person, nor had he the principal direction of public affairs. Executive and magisterial functions belonged chiefly to Hermokratês and his partisans, the opponents of Athenagoras. Hermokratês has already appeared as taking the lead at the congress of Gela nine years before, and will be seen throughout the coming period almost constantly in the same position; while the political rank of Athenagoras is more analogous to that which we should call a leader of opposition, a function of course suspended under pressing danger, so that we hear of him no more. At Athens as at Syracuse, the men who got to real power and handled the force and treasures of the state, were chiefly of the rich families, often of oligarchical sentiments, acquiescing in the democracy as an uncomfortable necessity, and continually open to be solicited by friends or kinsmen to conspire against it. Their proceedings were doubtless always liable to the scrutiny, and their persons to the animadversion, of the public assembly: hence arose the influence of the demagogue, such as Athenagoras and Kleon, the bad side of whose character is so constantly kept before the readers of Grecian history. By whatever disparaging epithets such character may be surrounded, it is in reality the distinguishing feature of a free government under all its forms, whether constitutional monarchy or democracy. By the side of the real political actors, who hold principal office and wield personal powers, there are always abundant censors and critics,—some better, others worse, in respect of honesty, candor, wisdom, or rhetoric,—the most distinguished of whom acquires considerable importance, though holding a function essentially inferior to that of the authorized magistrate or general.

We observe here, that Athenagoras, far from being inclined to push the city into war, is averse to it, even beyond reasonable limit; and denounces it as the interested policy of the oligarchical party. This may show how little it was any constant interest or policy on the part of the persons called demagogues, to involve their city in unnecessary wars: a charge which has been frequently advanced against them, because it so happens that Kleon, in the first half of the Peloponnesian war, discountenanced the propositions of peace between Athens and Sparta. We see by the harangue of Athenagoras that the oligarchical party were the usual promoters of war: a fact which we should naturally expect, seeing that the rich and great, in most communities, have accounted the pursuit of military glory more conformable to their dignity than any other career. At Syracuse, the ascendency of Hermokratês was much increased by the invasion of the Athenians, while Athenagoras does not again appear. The latter was egregiously mistaken in his anticipations respecting the conduct of Athens, though right in his judgment respecting her true political interest. But it is very unsafe to assume that nations will always pursue their true political interest, where present temptations of ambition or vanity intervene. Positive information was in this instance a surer guide than speculations _à priori_ founded upon the probable policy of Athens. But that the imputations advanced by Athenagoras against the oligarchical youth, of promoting military organization with a view to their own separate interest, were not visionary, may be seen by the analogous case of Argos, two or three years before. The democracy of Argos, contemplating a more warlike and aggressive policy, had been persuaded to organize and train the select regiment of one thousand hoplites, chosen from the oligarchical youth: within three years, this regiment subverted the democratical constitution.[280] Now the persons, respecting whose designs Athenagoras expresses so much apprehension, were exactly the class at Syracuse corresponding to the select thousand at Argos.

[280] See above, in this volume, chap. lvi.

The political views, proclaimed in this remarkable speech, are deserving of attention, though we cannot fully understand it without having before us those speeches to which it replies. Not only is democratical constitution forcibly contrasted with oligarchy, but the separate places which it assigns to wealth, intelligence, and multitude, are laid down with a distinctness not unworthy of Aristotle.

Even before the debate here adverted to, the Syracusan generals had evidently acted upon views more nearly approaching to those of Hermokratês than to those of Athenagoras. Already alive to the danger, they were apprized by their scouts when the Athenian armament was passing from Korkyra to Rhegium, and pushed their preparations with the utmost activity, distributing garrisons and sending envoys among their Sikel dependencies, while the force within the city was mustered and placed under all the conditions of war.[281] The halt of the Athenians at Rhegium afforded increased leisure for such equipment. That halt was prolonged for more than one reason. In the first place, Nikias and his colleagues wished to negotiate with the Rhegines, as well as to haul ashore and clean their ships: next, they awaited the return of the three scout-ships from Egesta: lastly, they had as yet formed no plan of action in Sicily.

[281] Thucyd. vi, 45.

The ships from Egesta returned with disheartening news. Instead of the abundant wealth which had been held forth as existing in that town, and upon which the resolutions of the Athenians as to Sicilian operations had been mainly grounded, it turned out that no more than thirty talents in all could be produced. What was yet worse, the elaborate fraud, whereby the Egestæans had duped the commissioners on their first visit, was now exposed; and these commissioners, on returning to Rhegium from their second visit, were condemned to the mortification of proclaiming their own credulity, visited by severe taunts and reproaches from the army. Disappointed in the source from whence they had calculated on obtaining money,—for it appears that both Alkibiadês and Lamachus had sincerely relied on the pecuniary resources of Egesta, though Nikias was always mistrustful,—the generals now discussed their plan of action.

Nikias—availing himself of the fraudulent conduct on the part of the Egestæan allies, now become palpable—wished to circumscribe his range of operations within the rigorous letter of the vote which the Athenian assembly had passed. He proposed to sail at once against Selinus; then, formally to require the Egestæans to provide the means of maintaining the armament, or, at least, of maintaining those sixty triremes which they themselves had solicited. Since this requisition would not be realized, he would only tarry long enough to obtain from the Selinuntines some tolerable terms of accommodation with Egesta, and then return home; exhibiting, as they sailed along, to all the maritime cities, this great display of Athenian naval force. And while he would be ready to profit by any opportunity which accident might present for serving the Leontines or establishing new alliances, he strongly deprecated any prolonged stay in the island for speculative enterprises, all at the cost of Athens.[282]

[282] Thucyd. vi, 47; Plutarch, Nikias, c. 14.

Against this scheme Alkibiadês protested, as narrow, timid, and disgraceful to the prodigious force with which they had been intrusted. He proposed to begin by opening negotiations with all the other Sicilian Greeks,—especially Messênê, convenient both as harbor for their fleet and as base of their military operations,—to prevail upon them to coöperate against Syracuse and Selinus. With the same view, he recommended establishing relations with the Sikels of the interior, in order to detach such of them as were subjects of Syracuse, as well as to insure supplies of provisions. As soon as it had been thus ascertained what extent of foreign aid might be looked for, he would open direct attack forthwith against Syracuse and Selinus; unless, indeed, the former should consent to reëstablish Leontini, and the latter to come to terms with Egesta.[283]

[283] Thucyd. vi, 48. Οὕτως ἤδη Συρακούσαις καὶ Σελινοῦντι
ἐπιχειρεῖν, ἢν μὴ οἱ μὲν Ἐγεσταίοις ξυμβαίνωσιν, οἱ δὲ Λεοντίνους
ἐῶσι κατοικίζειν.

Lamachus, delivering his opinion last, dissented from both his colleagues. He advised, that they should proceed at once, without any delay, to attack Syracuse, and fight their battle under its walls. The Syracusans, he urged, were now in terror and only half-prepared for defence. Many of their citizens, and much property, would be found still lingering throughout the neighboring lands, not yet removed within the walls, and might thus be seized for the subsistence of their army;[284] while the deserted town and harbor of Megara, very near to Syracuse both by land and by sea, might be occupied by the fleet as a naval station. The imposing and intimidating effect of the armament, not less than its real efficiency, was now at the maximum, immediately after its arrival. If advantage were taken of this first impression to strike an instant blow at their principal enemy, the Syracusans would be found destitute of the courage, not less than of the means, to resist: but the longer such attack was delayed, the more this first impression of dismay would be effaced, giving place to a reactionary sentiment of indifference and even contempt, when the much-dreaded armament was seen to accomplish little or nothing. As for the other Sicilian cities, nothing would contribute so much to determine their immediate adhesion, as successful operations against Syracuse.[285]

[284] Compare iv, 104, describing the surprise of Amphipolis by
Brasidas.

[285] Thucyd. vi, 49.

But Lamachus found no favor with either of the other two, and being thus compelled to choose between the plans of Alkibiadês and Nikias, gave his support to that of the former, which was the mean term of the three. There can be no doubt—as far as it is becoming to pronounce respecting that which never reached execution—that the plan of Lamachus was far the best and most judicious; at first sight, indeed, the most daring, but intrinsically the safest, easiest, and speediest, that could be suggested. For undoubtedly the siege and capture of Syracuse, was the one enterprise indispensable towards the promotion of Athenian views in Sicily. The sooner that was commenced, the more easily it would be accomplished: and its difficulties were in many ways aggravated, in no way abated, by those preliminary precautions upon which Alkibiadês insisted. Anything like delay tended fearfully to impair the efficiency, real as well as reputed, of an ancient aggressive armament, and to animate as well as to strengthen those who stood on the defensive, a point on which we shall find painful evidence presently. The advice of Lamachus, alike soldier-like and far-sighted, would probably have been approved and executed either by Brasidas or by Demosthenês; while the dilatory policy still advocated by Alkibiadês, even after the suggestion of Lamachus had been started, tends to show that if he was superior in military energy to one of his colleagues, he was not less inferior to the other. Indeed, when we find him talking of besieging Syracuse, _unless_ the Syracusans would consent to the reëstablishment of Leontini, it seems probable that he had not yet made up his mind peremptorily to besiege the city at all; a fact completely at variance with those unbounded hopes of conquest which he is reported as having conceived even at Athens. It is possible that he may have thought it impolitic to contradict too abruptly the tendencies of Nikias, who, anxious as he was chiefly to find some pretext for carrying back his troops unharmed, might account the proposition of Lamachus too desperate even to be discussed. Unfortunately, the latter, though the ablest soldier of the three, was a poor man, of no political position, and little influence among the hoplites. Had he possessed, along with his own straightforward military energy, the wealth and family ascendency of either of his colleagues, the achievements as well as the fate of this splendid armament would have been entirely altered, and the Athenians would have entered Syracuse not as prisoners but as conquerors.

Alkibiadês, as soon as his plan had become adopted by means of the approval of Lamachus, sailed across the strait in his own trireme from Rhegium to Messênê. Though admitted personally into the city, and allowed to address the public assembly, he could not induce them to conclude any alliance, or to admit the armament to anything beyond a market of provisions without the walls. He accordingly returned back to Rhegium, from whence he and one of his colleagues immediately departed with sixty triremes for Naxos. The Naxians cordially received the armament, which then steered southward along the coast of Sicily to Katana. In the latter place the leading men and the general sentiment were at this time favorable to Syracuse, so that the Athenians, finding admittance refused, were compelled to sail farther southward and take their night-station at the mouth of the river Terias. On the ensuing day they made sail with their ships in single column immediately in front of Syracuse itself, while an advanced squadron of ten triremes were even despatched into the Great Harbor, south of the town, for the purpose of surveying on this side the city with its docks and fortifications, and for the farther purpose of proclaiming from shipboard by the voice of the herald: “The Leontines now in Syracuse are hereby invited to come forth without apprehension and join their friends and benefactors, the Athenians.” After this empty display, they returned back to Katana.[286]

[286] Thucyd. vi, 50.

We may remark that this proceeding was completely at variance with the judicious recommendation of Lamachus. It tended to familiarize the Syracusans with the sight of the armament piece-meal, without any instant action, and thus to abate in their minds the terror-striking impression of its first arrival.

At Katana, Alkibiadês personally was admitted into the town, and allowed to open his case before the public assembly, as he had been at Messênê. Accident alone enabled him to carry his point, for the general opinion was averse to his propositions. While most of the citizens were in the assembly listening to his discourse, some Athenian soldiers without, observing a postern-gate carelessly guarded, broke it open and showed themselves in the market-place. The town was thus in the power of the Athenians, so that the leading men who were friends of Syracuse thought themselves lucky to escape in safety, while the general assembly came to a resolution accepting the alliance proposed by Alkibiadês.[287] The whole Athenian armament was now conducted from Rhegium to Katana, which was established as head-quarters. Intimation was farther received from a party at Kamarina, that the city might be induced to join them, if the armament showed itself: accordingly, the whole armament proceeded thither, and took moorings off the shore, while a herald was sent up to the city. But the Kamarinæans declined to admit the army, and declared that they would abide by the existing treaty; which bound them to receive at any time one single ship, but no more, unless they themselves should ask for it. The Athenians were therefore obliged to return to Katana. Passing by Syracuse both going and returning, they ascertained the falsehood of a report that the Syracusans were putting a naval force afloat; moreover, they landed near the city and ravaged some of the neighboring lands. The Syracusan cavalry and light troops soon appeared, and a skirmish with trifling loss ensued, before the invaders retired to their ships,[288] the first blood shed in this important struggle, and again at variance with the advice of Lamachus.

[287] Polyænus (i, 40, 4) treats this acquisition of Katana as
the result, not of accident, but of a preconcerted plot. I follow
the account as given by Thucydidês.

Serious news awaited them on their return to Katana. They found the public ceremonial trireme, called the Salaminian, just arrived from Athens, the bearer of a formal resolution of the assembly, requiring Alkibiadês to come home and stand his trial for various alleged matters of irreligion combined with treasonable purposes. A few other citizens specified by name were commanded to come along with him under the same charge; but the trierarch of the Salaminian was especially directed to serve him only with the summons, without any guard or coercion, so that he might return home in his own trireme.[289]

[288] Thucyd. vi, 52.

[289] Thucyd. vi. 53-61.

This summons, pregnant with momentous results both to Athens and to her enemies, arose out of the mutilation of the Hermæ, described a few pages back, and the inquiries instituted into the authorship of that deed, since the departure of the armament. The extensive and anxious sympathies connected with so large a body of departing citizens, combined with the solemnity of the scene itself, had for the moment suspended the alarm caused by that sacrilege; but it speedily revived, and the people could not rest without finding out by whom the deed had been done. Considerable rewards, one thousand and even ten thousand drachms, were proclaimed to informers; of whom others soon appeared, in addition to the slave Andromachus, before mentioned. A metic named Teukrus had fled from Athens, immediately after the event, to Megara, from whence he sent intimation to the senate at Athens that he had himself been a party concerned in the recent sacrilege concerning the mysteries, as well as cognizant of the mutilation of the Hermæ, and that, if impunity were guaranteed to him, he would come back and give full information. A vote of the senate was immediately passed to invite him. He denounced by name eleven persons as having been concerned, jointly with himself, in the mock-celebration of the Eleusinian mysteries, and eighteen different persons, himself not being one, as the violators of the Hermæ. A woman named Agaristê, daughter of Alkmæonidês,—these names bespeak her great rank and family in the city,—deposed farther that Alkibiadês, Axiochus, and Adeimantus, had gone through a parody of the mysteries in a similar manner, in the house of Charmidês. And lastly Lydus, slave of a citizen named Phereklês, stated that the like scene had been enacted in the house of his master in the deme Thêmakus, giving the names of the parties present, one of whom—though asleep, and unconscious of what was passing—he stated to be Leogoras, the father of Andokidês.[290] Of the parties named in these different depositions, the greater number seem to have fled from the city at once; but all who remained were put into prison to stand future trial.[291] Those informers received the promised rewards, after some debate as to the parties entitled to receive the reward; for Pythonikus, the citizen who had produced the slave Andromachus, pretended to the first claim, while Androkles, one of the senators, contended that the senate collectively ought to receive[292] the money; a strange pretension, which we do not know how he justified. At last, however, at the time of the Panathenaic festival, Andromachus the slave received the first reward of ten thousand drachms; Teukrus the metic, the second reward of one thousand drachms.

[290] Andokidês de Mysteriis, sects. 14, 15, 35. In reference to
the deposition of Agaristê, Andokidês again includes Alkibiadês
among those who fled into banishment in consequence of it. Unless
we are to suppose another Alkibiadês, not the general in Sicily,
this statement cannot be true. There was another Alkibiadês,
of the deme Phegus: but Andokidês in mentioning him afterwards
(sect. 65), specifies his deme. He was cousin of Alkibiadês, and
was in exile at the same time with him (Xenoph. Hellen. i, 2, 13).

[291] Andokidês (sects. 13-34) affirms that some of the persons,
accused by Teukrus as mutilators of the Hermæ, were put to death
upon his deposition. But I contest his accuracy on this point.
For Thucydidês recognizes no one as having been put to death
except those against whom Andokidês himself informed (see vi,
27, 53, 61). He dwells particularly upon the number of persons,
and persons of excellent character, imprisoned on suspicion;
but he mentions none as having been put to death except those
against whom Andokidês gave testimony. He describes it as a
great harshness, and as an extraordinary proof of the reigning
excitement, that the Athenians should have detained so many
persons upon suspicion, on the evidence of informers not entitled
to credence. But he would not have specified this detention as
extraordinary harshness, if the Athenians had gone so far as to
put individuals to death upon the same evidence. Besides, to put
these men to death would have defeated their own object, the
full and entire disclosure of the plot and the conspirators.
The ignorance in which they were of their internal enemies, was
among the most agonizing of all their sentiments; and to put any
prisoner to death until they arrived, or believed themselves to
have arrived, at the knowledge of the whole, would tend so far
to bar their own chance of obtaining evidence: ὁ δὲ δῆμος ὁ τῶν
Ἀθηναίων ἄσμενος λαβὼν, ὡς ᾤετο, τὸ σαφὲς, καὶ δεινὸν ποιούμενοι
πρότερον εἰ τοὺς ἐπιβουλεύοντας σφῶν τῷ πλήθει μὴ εἴσονται, etc.

Wachsmuth says (p. 194): “The bloodthirsty dispositions of the
people had been excited by the previous murders: the greater the
number of victims to be slaughtered, the better were the people
pleased,” etc. This is an inaccuracy quite in harmony with the
general spirit of his narrative. It is contradicted, implicitly,
by the very words of Thucydidês which he transcribes in his note
108.

[292] Andokid. de Mysteriis, sects. 27-28. καὶ Ἀνδροκλῆς ~ὑπὲρ~
τῆς βουλῆς.

A large number of citizens, many of them of the first consideration in the city, were thus either lying in prison or had fled into exile. But the alarm, the agony, and the suspicion, in the public mind, went on increasing rather than diminishing. The information hitherto received had been all partial, and, with the exception of Agaristê, all the informants had been either slaves or metics, not citizens; while Teukrus, the only one among them who had stated anything respecting the mutilation of the Hermæ, did not profess to be a party concerned, or to know all those who were.[293] The people had heard only a succession of disclosures, all attesting a frequency of irreligious acts, calculated to insult and banish the local gods who protected their country and constitution; all indicating that there were many powerful citizens bent on prosecuting such designs, interpreted as treasonable, yet none communicating any full or satisfactory idea of the Hermokopid plot, of the real conspirators, or of their farther purposes. The enemy was among themselves, yet they knew not where to lay hands upon him. Amidst the gloomy terrors, political blended with religious, which distracted their minds, all the ancient stories of the last and worst oppressions of the Peisistratid despots, ninety-five years before, became again revived, and some new despots, they knew not who, seemed on the point of occupying the acropolis. To detect the real conspirators, was the only way of procuring respite from this melancholy paroxysm, for which purpose the people were willing to welcome questionable witnesses, and to imprison on suspicion citizens of the best character, until the truth could be ascertained.[294]

[293] Andokid. de Myster. sect. 36. It seems that Diognêtus, who
had been commissioner of inquiry at the time when Pythonikus
presented the first information of the slave Andromachus, was
himself among the parties denounced by Teukrus (And. de Mys.
sects. 14, 15).

[294] Thucyd. vi, 53-60. οὐ δοκιμάζοντες τοὺς μηνυτὰς, ἀλλὰ
πάντας ὑπόπτως ἀποδεχόμενοι, διὰ πονηρῶν ἀνθρώπων πίστιν πάνυ
χρηστοὺς τῶν πολιτῶν ξυλλαμβάνοντες κατέδουν, χρησιμώτερον
ἡγούμενοι εἶναι βασανίσαι τὸ πρᾶγμα καὶ εὑρεῖν, ἢ διὰ μηνυτοῦ
πονηρίαν τινὰ καὶ χρηστὸν δοκοῦντα εἶναι αἰτιαθέντα ἀνέλεγκτον
διαφυγεῖν....

... δεινὸν ποιούμενοι, εἰ τοὺς ἐπιβουλεύοντας σφῶν τῷ πλήθει μὴ
εἴσονται....

The public distraction was aggravated by Peisander and Chariklês, who acted as commissioners of investigation, furious and unprincipled politicians,[295] at that time professing exaggerated attachment to the democratical constitution, though we shall find both of them hereafter among the most unscrupulous agents in its subversion. These men loudly proclaimed that the facts disclosed indicated the band of Hermokopid conspirators to be numerous, with an ulterior design of speedily putting down the democracy; and they insisted on pressing their investigations until full discovery should be attained. And the sentiment of the people, collectively taken, responded to this stimulus; though individually, every man was so afraid of becoming himself the next victim arrested, that when the herald convoked the senate for the purpose of receiving informations, the crowd in the market-place straightway dispersed.

[295] Andokid. de Myst. sect. 36.

It was amidst such eager thirst for discovery, that a new informer appeared, Diokleidês, who professed to communicate some material facts connected with the mutilation of the Hermæ, affirming that the authors of it were three hundred in number. He recounted that, on the night on which that incident occurred, he started from Athens to go to the mines of Laureion; wherein he had a slave working on hire, on whose account he was to receive pay. It was full moon, and the night was so bright that he began his journey mistaking it for daybreak.[296] On reaching the propylæum of the temple of Dionysus, he saw a body of men about three hundred in number descending from the Odeon towards the public theatre. Being alarmed at this unexpected sight, he concealed himself behind a pillar, from whence he had leisure to contemplate this body of men, who stood for some time conversing together, in groups of fifteen or twenty each, and then dispersed: the moon was so bright that he could discern the faces of most of them. As soon as they had dispersed, he pursued his walk to Laureion, from whence he returned next day, and learned to his surprise that during the night the Hermæ had been mutilated; also, that commissioners of inquiry had been named, and the reward of ten thousand drachms proclaimed for information. Impressed at once with the belief that the nocturnal crowd whom he had seen were authors of the deed, he happened soon afterwards to see one of them, Euphêmus, sitting in the workshop of a brazier, and took him aside to the neighboring temple of Hephæstus, where he mentioned in confidence that he had seen the party at work and could denounce them, but that he preferred being paid for silence, instead of giving information and incurring private enmities. Euphêmus thanked him for the warning, desiring him to come next day to the house of Leogoras and his son Andokidês, where he would see them as well as the other parties concerned. Andokidês and the rest offered to him, under solemn covenant, the sum of two talents, or twelve thousand drachms, thus overbidding the reward of ten thousand drachms proclaimed by the senate to any truth-telling informer, with admission to a partnership in the benefits of their conspiracy, supposing that it should succeed. Upon his reply that he would consider the proposition, they desired him to meet them at the house of Kallias son of Têleklês, brother-in-law of Andokidês: which meeting accordingly took place, and a solemn bargain was concluded in the acropolis. Andokidês and his friends engaged to pay the two talents to Diokleidês at the beginning of the ensuing month, as the price of his silence. But since this engagement was never performed, Diokleidês came with his information to the senate.[297]

[296] Plutarch (Alkib. c. 20) and Diodorus (xiii, 2) assert
that this testimony was glaringly false, since on the night in
question it was _new moon_. I presume, at least, that the remark
of Diodorus refers to the deposition of Diokleidês, though he
never mentions the name of the latter, and even describes the
deposition referred to with many material variations as compared
with Andokidês. Plutarch’s observation certainly refers to
Diokleidês, whose deposition, he says, affirming that he had seen
and distinguished the persons in question by the light of the
moon, on a night when it was _new_ moon, shocked all sensible
men, but produced no effect upon the blind fury of the people.
Wachsmuth (Hellenisch. Alterth. vol. ii, ch. viii, p. 194) copies
this remark from Plutarch.

I disbelieve altogether the assertion that it was _new moon_ on
that night. Andokidês gives in great detail the deposition of
Diokleidês, with a strong wish to show that it was false and
perfidiously got up. But he nowhere mentions the fact that it was
_new moon_ on the night in question; though if we read his report
and his comments upon the deposition of Diokleidês, we shall see
that he never could have omitted such a means of discrediting the
whole tale, if the fact had been so (Andokid. de Myster. sects.
37-43). Besides, it requires very good positive evidence to make
us believe, that a suborned informer, giving his deposition not
long after one of the most memorable nights that ever passed at
Athens, would be so clumsy as to make particular reference to the
circumstance that it was _full moon_ (εἶναι δὲ πανσέληνον), if it
had really been _new moon_.

[297] Andokid. de Myster. sects. 37-42.

Such—according to the report of Andokidês—was the story of this informer, which he concluded by designating forty-two individuals, out of the three hundred whom he had seen. The first names whom he specified were those of Mantitheus and Aphepsion, two senators actually sitting among his audience. Next came the remaining forty, among whom were Andokidês and many of his nearest relatives, his father Leogoras, his first or second cousins and brother-in-law, Charmidês, Taureas, Nisæus, Kalias son of Alkmæon, Phrynichus, Eukratês (brother of Nikias the commander in Sicily), and Kritias. But as there were a still greater number of names—assuming the total of three hundred to be correct—which Diokleidês was unable to specify, the commissioner Peisander proposed that Mantitheus and Aphepsion should be at once seized and tortured, in order to force them to disclose their accomplices; the psephism passed in the archonship of Skamandrius, whereby it was unlawful to apply the torture to any free Athenian, being first abrogated. Illegal, not less than cruel, as this proposition was, the senate at first received it with favor. But Mantitheus and Aphepsion, casting themselves as suppliants upon the altar in the senate-house, pleaded so strenuously for their rights as citizens, to be allowed to put in bail and stand trial before the dikastery, that this was at last granted.[298] No sooner had they provided their sureties, than they broke their covenant, mounted their horses, and deserted to the enemy, without any regard to their sureties, who were exposed by law to the same trial and the same penalties as would have overtaken the offenders themselves. This sudden flight, together with the news that a Bœotian force was assembled on the borders of Attica, exasperated still farther the frantic terror of the public mind. The senate at once took quiet measures for seizing and imprisoning all the remaining forty whose names had been denounced; while by concert with the strategi, all the citizens were put under arms; those who dwelt in the city, mustering in the market-place; those in and near the long walls, in the Theseium; those in Peiræus, in the square called the Market-place of Hippodamus. Even the horsemen of the city were convoked by sound of trumpet in the sacred precinct of the Anakeion. The senate itself remained all night in the acropolis, except the prytanes, or fifty senators of the presiding tribe, who passed the night in the public building called the Tholus. Every man in Athens felt the terrible sense of an internal conspiracy on the point of breaking out, perhaps along with an invasion of the foreigner, prevented only by the timely disclosure of Diokleidês, who was hailed as the saviour of the city, and carried in procession to dinner at the prytaneium.[299]

[298] Considering the extreme alarm which then pervaded the
Athenian mind, and their conviction that there were traitors
among themselves whom yet they could not identify, it is to be
noted as remarkable that they resisted the proposition of their
commissioners for applying torture. We must recollect that the
Athenians admitted the principle of the torture, as a good mode
of eliciting truth as well as of testing depositions,—for they
applied it often to the testimony of slaves,—sometimes apparently
to that of metics. Their attachment to the established law, which
forbade the application of it to citizens, must have been very
great, to enable them to resist the great special and immediate
temptation to apply it in this case to Mantitheus and Aphepsion,
if only by way of exception.

The application of torture to witnesses and suspected persons,
handed down from the Roman law, was in like manner recognized,
and pervaded nearly all the criminal jurisprudence of Europe
until the last century. I hope that the reader, after having gone
through the painful narrative of the proceedings of the Athenians
after the mutilation of the Hermæ, will take the trouble to
peruse by way of comparison the _Storia della Colonna Infame_, by
the eminent Alexander Manzoni, author of “I Promessi Sposi.” This
little volume, including a republication of Verri’s “Osservazioni
sulla Tortura,” is full both of interest and instruction. It
lays open the judicial enormities committed at Milan in 1630,
while the terrible pestilence was raging there, by the examining
judges and the senate, in order to get evidence against certain
suspected persons called _Untori_; that is, men who were firmly
believed by the whole population, with very few exceptions, to
be causing and propagating the pestilence by means of certain
ointment which they applied to the doors and walls of houses.
Manzoni recounts with simple, eloquent, and impressive detail,
the incredible barbarity with which the official lawyers at
Milan, under the authority of the senate, extorted, by force of
torture, evidence against several persons, of having committed
this imaginary and impossible crime. The persons thus convicted
were executed under horrible torments: the house of one of them,
a barber named Mora, was pulled down, and a pillar with an
inscription erected upon the site, to commemorate the deed. This
pillar, the _Colonna Infame_, remained standing in Milan until
the close of the 18th century. The reader will understand, from
Manzoni’s narrative, the degree to which public excitement and
alarm can operate to poison and barbarize the course of justice
in a Christian city, without a taint of democracy, and with
professional lawyers and judges to guide the whole procedure
secretly, as compared with a pagan city, ultra-democratical,
where judicial procedure as well as decision was all oral,
public, and multitudinous.

[299] Andokid. de Myst. sects. 41-46.

Miserable as the condition of the city was generally, yet more miserable was that of the prisoners confined; and worse, in every way, was still to be looked for, since the Athenians would know neither peace nor patience until they could reach, by some means or other, the names of the undisclosed conspirators. The female relatives and children of Andokidês, and his companions, were by permission along with them in the prison,[300] aggravating by their tears and wailings the affliction of the scene, when Charmidês, one of the parties confined, addressed himself to Andokidês, as his cousin and friend, imploring him to make a voluntary disclosure of all that he knew, in order to preserve the lives of so many innocent persons, his immediate kinsmen, as well as to rescue the city out of a feverish alarm not to be endured. “You know (he said) all that passed about the mutilation of the Hermæ, and your silence will now bring destruction not only upon yourself, but also upon your father and upon all of us; while if you inform, whether you have been an actor in the scene or not, you will obtain impunity for yourself and us, and at the same time soothe the terrors of the city.” Such instances on the part of Charmidês,[301] aided by the supplications of the other prisoners present, overcame the reluctance of Andokidês to become informer, and he next day made his disclosures to the senate. “Euphilêtus (he said) was the chief author of the mutilation of the Hermæ. He proposed the deed at a convivial party where I was present, but I denounced it in the strongest manner and refused all compliance. Presently, I broke my collar-bone, and injured my head, by a fall from a young horse, so badly as to be confined to my bed; when Euphilêtus took the opportunity of my absence to assure the rest of the company falsely that I had consented, and that I had agreed to cut the Hermes near my paternal house, which the tribe Ægeïs have dedicated. Accordingly, they executed the project, while I was incapable of moving, without my knowledge: they presumed that _I_ would undertake the mutilation of this particular Hermes, and you see that this is the only one in all Athens which has escaped injury. When the conspirators ascertained that I had not been a party, Euphilêtus and Melêtus threatened me with a terrible revenge unless I observed silence: to which I replied that it was not I, but their own crime, which had brought them into danger.”

[300] Andokid. de Myst. sect. 48: compare Lysias, Orat. xiii,
cont. Agorat. sect. 42.

[301] Plutarch (Alkib. c. 21) states that the person who thus
addressed himself to, and persuaded Andokidês, was named Timæus.
From whom he got the latter name, we do not know.

Having recounted this tale, in substance, to the senate, Andokidês tendered his slaves, both male and female, to be tortured, in order that they might confirm his story that he was in his bed and unable to leave it, on the night when the Hermæ were mutilated. It appears that the torture was actually applied (according to the custom so cruelly frequent at Athens in the case of slaves), and that the senators thus became satisfied of the truth of what Andokidês affirmed. He delivered in twenty-two names of citizens as having been the mutilators of the Hermæ: eighteen of these names, including Euphilêtus and Melêtus, had already been specified in the information of Teukrus; the remaining four, were Panætius, Diakritus, Lysistratus, and Chæredêmus; all of whom fled, the instant their names were mentioned, without waiting the chance of being seized. As soon as the senate heard the story of Andokidês, they proceeded to question Diokleidês over again; who confessed that he had given a false deposition, and begged for mercy, mentioning Alkibiadês the Phegusian—a relative of the commander in Sicily—and Amiantus, as having suborned him to the crime. Both of them fled immediately on this revelation; but Diokleidês was detained, sent before the dikastery for trial, and put to death.[302]

[302] The narrative, which I have here given in substance, is to
be found in Andokid. de Myst. sects. 48-66.

The foregoing is the story which Andokidês, in the oration De Mysteriis, delivered between fifteen and twenty years afterwards, represented himself to have communicated to the senate at this perilous crisis. But it probably is not the story which he really did tell, certainly not that which his enemies represented him as having told: least of all does it communicate the whole truth, or afford any satisfaction to such anxiety and alarm as are described to have been prevalent at the time. Nor does it accord with the brief information of Thucydidês, who tells us that Andokidês impeached himself, along with others, as participant in the mutilation.[303] Among the accomplices against whom he informed, his enemies affirmed that his own nearest relatives were included, though this latter statement is denied by himself. We may be sure, therefore, that the tale which Andokidês really told was something very different from what now stands in his oration. But what it really was we cannot make out; nor should we gain much even if it could be made out, since even at the time, neither Thucydidês nor other intelligent critics could determine how far it was true. The mutilation of the Hermæ remained to them always an unexplained mystery; though they accounted Andokidês the principal organizer.[304]

[303] Thucyd. vi, 60. Καὶ ὁ μὲν ~αὐτός τε καθ’ ἑαυτοῦ καὶ κατ’
ἄλλων~ μηνύει τὸ τῶν Ἑρμῶν, etc.

To the same effect, see the hostile oration of Lysias contra
Andocidem, Or. vi, sects. 36, 37, 51: also Andokidês himself, De
Mysteriis, sect. 71; De Reditu, sect. 7.

If we may believe the Pseudo-Plutarch (Vit. x, Orator, p. 834),
Andokidês had on a previous occasion been guilty of drunken
irregularity and damaging a statue.

[304] Thucyd. vi, 60. ἐνταῦθα ἀναπείθεται ~εἷς τῶν δεδεμένων,
ὅσπερ ἐδόκει αἰτιώτατος εἶναι~, ὑπὸ τῶν ξυνδεσμωτῶν τινὸς, εἴτε
ἄρα καὶ τὰ ὄντα μηνῦσαι, εἴτε καὶ οὔ· ἐπ’ ἀμφότερα γὰρ εἰκάζεται·
τὸ δὲ σαφὲς οὐδεὶς οὔτε τότε οὔτε ὕστερον ἔχει εἰπεῖν περὶ τῶν
δρασάντων τὸ ἔργον.

If the statement of Andokidês in the Oratio de Mysteriis is
correct, the deposition previously given by Teukrus the metic
must have been a true one; though this man is commonly denounced
among the lying witnesses (see the words of the comic writer
Phrynichus ap. Plutarch, Alkib. c. 20).

Thucydidês refuses even to mention the name of Andokidês, and
expresses himself with more than usual reserve about this dark
transaction, as if he were afraid of giving offence to great
Athenian families. The bitter feuds which it left behind at
Athens, for years afterwards, are shown in the two orations
of Lysias and of Andokidês. If the story of Didymus be true,
that Thucydidês after his return from exile to Athens died by a
violent death (see Biogr. Thucyd. p. xvii. ed. Arnold), it would
seem probable that all his reserve did not protect him against
private enmities arising out of his historical assertions.

That which is at once most important and most incontestable, is the effect produced by the revelations of Andokidês, true or false, on the public mind at Athens. He was a young man of rank and wealth in the city, belonging to the sacred family of the Kerykes,—said to trace his pedigree to the hero Odysseus,—and invested on a previous occasion with an important naval command; whereas the preceding informers had been metics and slaves. Moreover, he was making confession of his own guilt. Hence the people received his communications with implicit confidence. They were delighted to have got to the bottom of the terrible mystery: and the public mind subsided from its furious terrors into comparative tranquillity. The citizens again began to think themselves in safety and to resume their habitual confidence in each other, while the hoplites everywhere on guard were allowed to return to their homes.[305] All the prisoners in custody on suspicion, except those against whom Andokidês informed were forthwith released: those who had fled out of apprehension, were allowed to return; while those whom he named as guilty, were tried, convicted, and put to death. Such of them as had already fled, were condemned to death in their absence, and a reward offered for their heads.[306] And though discerning men were not satisfied with the evidence upon which these sentences were pronounced, yet the general public fully believed themselves to have punished the real offenders, and were thus inexpressibly relieved from the depressing sense of unexpiated insult to the gods, as well as of danger to their political constitution from the withdrawal of divine protection.[307] Andokidês himself was pardoned, and was for the time an object, apparently, even of public gratitude, so that his father Leogoras who had been among the parties imprisoned, ventured to indict a senator named Speusippus for illegal proceedings towards him, and obtained an almost unanimous verdict from the dikastery.[308] But the character of a statue-breaker and an informer could never be otherwise than odious at Athens. Andokidês was either banished by the indirect effect of a general disqualifying decree; or at least found that he had made so many enemies, and incurred so much obloquy, by his conduct in this affair, as to make it necessary for him to quit the city. He remained in banishment for many years, and seems never to have got clear of the hatred which his conduct in this nefarious proceeding so well merited.[309]

[305] Thucyd. vi, 60. Ὁ δὲ δῆμος ὁ τῶν Ἀθηναίων ἄσμενος λαβὼν, ὡς
ᾤετο, τὸ σαφὲς, etc.: compare Andokid. de Mysteriis, sects. 67,
68.

[306] Andokid. de Myster. sect 66; Thucyd. vi, 60; Philochorus,
Fragment. 111, ed. Didot.

[307] Thucyd. vi, 60. ἡ μέντοι ἄλλη πόλις περιφανῶς ὠφέλητο:
compare Andokid. de Reditu, sect. 8.