Chapter LXII (2)

“In this thirteenth year of the reign of Darius, and in the ephorship of Alexippidas at Lacedæmon, a convention is hereby concluded by the Lacedæmonians and their allies, with Tissaphernês and Hieramenês and the sons of Pharnakês, respecting the affairs of the king and of the Lacedæmonians and their allies. The territory of the king, as much of it as is in Asia, shall belong to the king. Let the king determine as he chooses respecting his own territory. The Lacedæmonians and their allies shall not approach the king’s territory with any mischievous purpose, nor shall the king approach that of the Lacedæmonians and their allies with any like purpose. If any one among the Lacedæmonians or their allies shall approach the king’s territory with mischievous purpose, the Lacedæmonians and their allies shall hinder him: if any one from the king’s territory shall approach the Lacedæmonians or their allies with mischievous purpose, the king shall hinder him. Tissaphernês shall provide pay and maintenance, for the fleet now present, at the rate already stipulated, until the king’s fleet shall arrive; after that, it shall be at the option of the Lacedæmonians to maintain their own fleet, if they think fit; or, if they prefer, Tissaphernês shall furnish maintenance, and at the close of the war the Lacedæmonians shall repay to him what they have received. After the king’s fleet shall have arrived, the two fleets shall carry on war conjointly, in such manner as shall seem good to Tissaphernês and the Lacedæmonians and their allies. If they choose to close the war with the Athenians, they shall close it only by joint consent.”[26]

[26] Thucyd. viii, 58.

In comparing this third convention with the two preceding, we find that nothing is now stipulated as to any territory except the continent of Asia; which is insured unreservedly to the king, of course with all the Greek residents planted upon it. But by a diplomatic finesse, the terms of the treaty imply that this is not _all_ the territory which the king is entitled to claim, though nothing is covenanted as to any remainder.[27] Next, this third treaty includes Pharnabazus, the son of Pharnakês, with his satrapy of Daskylium, and Hieramenês, with his district, the extent and position of which we do not know; while in the former treaties no other satrap except Tissaphernês had been concerned. We must recollect that the Peloponnesian fleet included those twenty-seven triremes, which had been brought across by Kalligeitus expressly for the aid of Pharnabazus; and therefore that the latter now naturally became a party to the general operations. Thirdly, we here find, for the first time, formal announcement of a Persian fleet about to be brought up as auxiliary to the Peloponnesians. This was a promise which the satrap now set forth more plainly than before, to amuse them, and to abate the mistrust which they had begun to conceive of his sincerity. It served the temporary purpose of restraining them from any immediate act of despair hostile to his interests, which was all that he looked for. While he renewed his payments, therefore, for the moment, he affected to busy himself in orders and preparations for the fleet from Phenicia.[28]

[27] Thucyd. viii, 58. χώραν τὴν βασιλέως, ~ὅση τῆς Ἀσίας ἐστὶ~,
βασιλέως εἶναι· καὶ περὶ τῆς χώρας τῆς ἑαυτοῦ βουλευέτω βασιλεὺς
ὅπως βούλεται.

[28] Thucyd. viii, 59.

The Peloponnesian fleet was now ordered to move from Rhodes. Before it quitted that island, however, envoys came thither from Eretria and from Orôpus; which latter place, a dependency on the northeastern frontier of Attica, though protected by an Athenian garrison, had recently been surprised and captured by the Bœotians. The loss of Orôpus much increased the facilities for the revolt of Eubœa; and these envoys came to entreat aid from the Peloponnesian fleet, to second that island in that design. The Peloponnesian commanders, however, felt themselves under prior obligation to relieve the sufferers at Chios, towards which island they first bent their course. But they had scarcely passed the Triopian cape, when they saw the Athenian squadron from Chalkê dogging their motions. Though there was no wish on either side for a general battle, yet they saw evidently that the Athenians would not permit them to pass by Samos, and get to the relief of Chios, without one. Renouncing, therefore, the project of relieving Chios, they again concentrated their force at Milêtus, while the Athenian fleet was also again united at Samos.[29] It was about the end of March, 411 B.C., that the two fleets were thus replaced in the stations which they had occupied four months previously.

[29] Thucyd. viii, 60.

After the breach with Alkibiadês, and still more after this manifest reconciliation of Tissaphernês with the Peloponnesians, Peisander and the oligarchical conspirators at Samos had to reconsider their plan of action. They would not have begun the movement at first, had they not been instigated by Alkibiadês, and furnished by him with the treacherous delusion of Persian alliance to cheat and paralyze the people. They had, indeed, motives enough, from their own personal ambition, to originate it of themselves, apart from Alkibiadês; but without the hopes—equally useful for their purpose, whether false or true—connected with his name, they would have had no chance of achieving the first step. Now, however, that first step had been achieved, before the delusive expectation of Persian gold was dissipated. The Athenian people had been familiarized with the idea of a subversion of their constitution, in consideration of a certain price: it remained to extort from them at the point of the sword, without paying the price, what they had thus consented to sell.[30] Moreover, the leaders of the scheme felt themselves already compromised, so that they could not recede with safety. They had set in motion their partisans at Athens, where the system of murderous intimidation, though the news had not as yet reached Samos, was already in full swing: so that they felt constrained to persevere, as the only chance of preservation to themselves. At the same time, all that faint pretence of public benefit, in the shape of Persian alliance, which had been originally attached to it, and which might have been conceived to enlist in the scheme some timid patriots, was now entirely withdrawn; and nothing remained except a naked, selfish, and unscrupulous scheme of ambition, not only ruining the freedom of Athens at home, but crippling and imperiling her before the foreign enemy, at a moment when her entire strength was scarcely adequate to the contest. The conspirators resolved to persevere, at all hazards, both in breaking down the constitution and in carrying on the foreign war. Most of them being rich men, they were content, Thucydidês observes, to defray the cost out of their own purses, now that they were contending, not for their country, but for their own power and profit.[31]

[30] See Aristotel. Politic. v, 3, 8. He cites this revolution
as an instance of one begun by deceit and afterwards consummated
by force: οἷον ἐπὶ τῶν τετρακοσίων τὸν δῆμον ἐξηπάτησαν,
φάσκοντες τὸν βασιλέα χρήματα παρέξειν πρὸς τὸν πόλεμον τὸν πρὸς
Λακεδαιμονίους· ψευσάμενοι δὲ, κατέχειν ἐπειρῶντο τὴν πολιτείαν.

[31] Thucyd. viii, 63. Αὐτοὺς δὲ ἐπὶ σφῶν αὐτῶν, ~ὡς ἤδη καὶ
κινδυνεύοντας~, ὁρᾷν ὅτῳ τρόπῳ μὴ ἀνεθήσεται τὰ πράγματα, καὶ
τὰ τοῦ πολέμου ἅμα ἀντέχειν, καὶ ἐσφέρειν αὐτοὺς προθύμως
χρήματα καὶ ἤν τι ἄλλο δέῃ, ὡς οὐκέτι ~ἄλλοις ἢ σφίσιν αὐτοῖς~
ταλαιπωροῦντας.

They lost no time in proceeding to execution, immediately after returning to Samos from the abortive conference with Alkibiadês. While they despatched Peisander with five of the envoys back to Athens, to consummate what was already in progress there, and the remaining five to oligarchize the dependent allies, they organized all their partisan force in the armament, and began to take measures for putting down the democracy in Samos itself. That democracy had been the product of a forcible revolution, effected about ten months before, by the aid of three Athenian triremes. It had since preserved Samos from revolting like Chios: it was now the means of preserving the democracy at Athens itself. The partisans of Peisander, finding it an invincible obstacle to their views, contrived to gain over a party of the leading Samians now in authority under it. Three hundred of these latter, a portion of those who ten months before had risen in arms to put down the preëxisting oligarchy, now enlisted as conspirators along with the Athenian oligarchs, to put down the Samian democracy, and get possession of the government for themselves. The new alliance was attested and cemented, according to genuine oligarchical practice, by a murder without judicial trial, or an assassination, for which a suitable victim was at hand. The Athenian Hyperbolus, who had been ostracized some years before by the coalition of Nikias and Alkibiadês, together with their respective partisans,—ostracized as Thucydidês tells us, not from any fear of his power and over-ascendent influence, but from his low character, and from his being a disgrace to the city, and thus ostracized by an abuse of the institution,—was now resident at Samos. As he was not a Samian, and had, moreover, been in banishment during the last five or six years, he could have had no power either in the island or the armament, and therefore his death served no prospective purpose. But he represented the demagogic and accusatory eloquence of the democracy, the check upon official delinquency; so that he served as a common object of antipathy to Athenian and Samian oligarchs. Some of the Athenian partisans, headed by Charmînus, one of the generals, in concert with the Samian conspirators, seized Hyperbolus and put him to death, seemingly with some other victims at the same time.[32]

[32] Thucyd. viii, 73. Καὶ Ὑπέρβολόν τέ τινα τῶν Ἀθηναίων,
μοχθηρὸν ἄνθρωπον, ὠστρακισμένον οὐ διὰ δυνάμεως καὶ ἀξιώματος
φόβον, ἀλλὰ διὰ πονηρίαν καὶ αἰσχύνην τῆς πόλεως, ἀποκτείνουσι
μετὰ Χαρμίνου τε ἑνὸς τῶν στρατηγῶν καί τινων τῶν παρὰ σφίσιν
Ἀθηναίων, πίστιν διδόντες αὐτοῖς, ~καὶ ἄλλα μετ᾽ αὐτῶν τοιαῦτα
ξυνέπραξαν~, τοῖς τε πλείοσιν ὥρμηντο ἐπιτίθεσθαι.

I presume that the words, ἄλλα τοιαῦτα ξυνέπραξαν, must mean that
other persons were assassinated along with Hyperbolus.

The incorrect manner in which Mr. Mitford recounts these
proceedings at Samos has been properly commented on by Dr.
Thirlwall (Hist. Gr. ch. xxviii, vol. iv, p. 30). It is the more
surprising, since the phrase μετὰ Χαρμίνου, which Mr. Mitford has
misunderstood, is explained in a special note of Duker.

But though these joint assassinations served as a pledge to each section of the conspirators for the fidelity of the other, in respect to farther operations, they at the same time gave warning to opponents. Those leading men at Samos who remained attached to the democracy, looking abroad for defence against the coming attack, made earnest appeal to Leon and Diomedon, the two generals most recently arrived from Athens in substitution for Phrynichus and Skironidês,—men sincerely devoted to the democracy, and adverse to all oligarchical change, as well as to the trierarch Thrasyllus, to Thrasybulus, son of Lykus, then serving as an hoplite, and to many others of the pronounced democrats and patriots in the Athenian armament. They made appeal not simply in behalf of their own personal safety and of their own democracy, now threatened by conspirators of whom a portion were Athenians, but also on grounds of public interest to Athens; since, if Samos became oligarchized, its sympathy with the Athenian democracy and its fidelity to the alliance would be at an end. At this moment the most recent events which had occurred at Athens, presently to be told, were not known, and the democracy was considered as still subsisting there.[33]

[33] Thucyd. viii, 73, 74. οὐκ ἠξίουν περιϊδεῖν αὐτοὺς σφᾶς τε
διαφθαρέντας, καὶ Σάμον Ἀθηναίοις ἀλλοτριωθεῖσαν, etc.

... οὐ γὰρ ᾔδεσάν πω τοὺς τετρακοσίους ἄρχοντας, etc.

To stand by the assailed democracy of Samos, and to preserve the island itself, now the mainstay of the shattered Athenian empire, were motives more than sufficient to awaken the Athenian leaders thus solicited. Commencing a personal canvass among the soldiers and seamen, and invoking their interference to avert the overthrow of the Samian democracy, they found the general sentiment decidedly in their favor, but most of all, among the parali, or crew of the consecrated public trireme, called the paralus. These men were the picked seamen of the state,—each of them not merely a freeman, but a full Athenian citizen, receiving higher pay than the ordinary seamen, and known as devoted to the democratical constitution, with an active repugnance to oligarchy itself as well as to everything which scented of it.[34] The vigilance of Leon and Diomedon on the defensive side, counteracted the machinations of their colleague Charmînus, along with the conspirators, and provided for the Samian democracy faithful auxiliaries constantly ready for action. Presently, the conspirators made a violent attack to overthrow the government; but though they chose their own moment and opportunity, they still found themselves thoroughly worsted in the struggle, especially through the energetic aid of the parali. Thirty of their number were slain in the contest, and three of the most guilty afterwards condemned to banishment. The victorious party took no farther revenge, even upon the remainder of the three hundred conspirators, granted a general amnesty, and did their best to reëstablish constitutional and harmonious working of the democracy.[35]

[34] Thucyd. viii, 73. καὶ οὐχ ἥκιστα τοὺς Παράλους, ἄνδρας
Ἀθηναίους τε καὶ ἐλευθέρους πάντας ἐν τῇ νηῒ πλέοντας, καὶ ~ἀεὶ
δήποτε ὀλιγαρχίᾳ καὶ μὴ παρούσῃ ἐπικειμένους~.

Peitholaus called the paralus ῥόπαλον τοῦ δήμου, “the club,
staff, or mace of the people.” (Aristotel. Rhetoric, iii, 3.)

[35] Thucyd. viii, 73. Καὶ τριάκοντα μέν τινας ἀπέκτειναν τῶν
τριακοσίων, τρεῖς δὲ τοὺς αἰτιωτάτους φυγῇ ἐζημίωσαν· τοῖς δ᾽
ἄλλοις οὐ μνησικακοῦντες δημοκρατούμενοι τὸ λοιπὸν ξυνεπολίτευον.

Chæreas, an Athenian trierarch, who had been forward in the contest, was sent in the paralus itself to Athens, to make communication of what had occurred. But this democratical crew, on reaching their native city, instead of being received with that welcome which they doubtless expected, found a state of things not less odious than surprising. The democracy of Athens had been subverted: instead of the senate of Five Hundred, and the assembled people, an oligarchy of Four Hundred self-installed persons were enthroned with sovereign authority in the senate-house. The first order of the Four Hundred, on hearing that the paralus had entered Peiræus, was to imprison two or three of the crew, and to remove all the rest from their own privileged trireme aboard a common trireme, with orders to depart forthwith and to cruise near Eubœa. The commander, Chæreas, found means to escape, and returned back to Samos to tell the unwelcome news.[36]

[36] Thucyd. viii. 74.

The steps, whereby this oligarchy of Four Hundred had been gradually raised up to their new power, must be taken up from the time when Peisander quitted Athens,—after having obtained the vote of the public assembly authorizing him to treat with Alkibiadês and Tissaphernês,—and after having set on foot a joint organization and conspiracy of all the anti-popular clubs, which fell under the management especially of Antiphon and Theramenês, afterwards aided by Phrynichus. All the members of that Board of Elders called Probûli, who had been named after the defeat in Sicily, with Agnon, father of Theramenês, at their head,[37]—together with many other leading citizens, some of whom had been counted among the firmest friends of the democracy, joined the conspiracy; while the oligarchical and the neutral rich came into it with ardor; so that a body of partisans was formed both numerous and well provided with money. Antiphon did not attempt to bring them together, or to make any public demonstration, armed or unarmed, for the purpose of overawing the actual authorities. He permitted the senate and the public assembly to go on meeting and debating as usual; but his partisans, neither the names nor the numbers of whom were publicly known, received from him instructions both when to speak and what language to hold. The great topic upon which they descanted, was the costliness of democratical institutions in the present distressed state of the finances, the heavy tax imposed upon the state by paying the senators, the dikasts, the ekklesiasts, or citizens who attended the public assembly, etc. The state could now afford to pay only those soldiers who fought in its defence, nor ought any one else to touch the public money. It was essential, they insisted, to exclude from the political franchise all except a select body of Five Thousand, composed of those who were best able to do service to the city by person and by purse.

[37] Thucyd. viii, 1. About the countenance which _all_ these
probûli lent to the conspiracy, see Aristotle, Rhetoric, iii, 18,
2.

Respecting the activity of Agnon, as one of the probûli, in the
same cause, see Lysias, Orat. xii, cont. Eratosthen. c. 11, p.
426, Reisk. sect. 66.

The extensive disfranchisement involved in this last proposition was quite sufficiently shocking to the ears of an Athenian assembly. But in reality the proposition was itself a juggle, never intended to become reality, and representing something far short of what Antiphon and his partisans intended. Their design was to appropriate the powers of government to themselves simply, without control or partnership, leaving this body of Five Thousand not merely unconvened, but non-existent, as a mere empty name to impose upon the citizens generally. Of this real intention, however, not a word was as yet spoken. The projected body of Five Thousand was the theme preached upon by all the party orators; yet without submitting any substantive motion for the change, which could not be yet done without illegality.

Even thus indirectly advocated, the project of cutting down the franchise to Five Thousand, and of suppressing all the paid civil functions, was a change sufficiently violent to call forth abundant opponents. For such opponents Antiphon was fully prepared. Of the men who thus stood forward in opposition, either all, or at least all the most prominent, were successively taken off by private assassination. The first of them who thus perished was Androklês, distinguished as a demagogue, or popular speaker, and marked out to vengeance not only by that circumstance, but by the farther fact that he had been among the most vehement accusers of Alkibiadês before his exile. For at this time, the breach of Peisander with Tissaphernês and Alkibiadês had not yet become known at Athens, so that the latter was still supposed to be on the point of returning home as a member of the contemplated oligarchical government. After Androklês, many other speakers of similar sentiments perished in the same way, by unknown hands. A band of Grecian youths, strangers, and got together from different cities,[38] was organized for the business: the victims were all chosen on the same special ground, and the deed was so skilfully perpetrated that neither director nor instrument ever became known. After these assassinations—sure, special, secret, and systematic, emanating from an unknown directory, like a Vehmic tribunal—had continued for some time, the terror which they inspired became intense and universal. No justice could be had, no inquiry could be instituted, even for the death of the nearest and dearest relative. At last, no man dared to demand or even to mention inquiry, looking upon himself as fortunate that he had escaped the same fate in his own person. So finished an organization, and such well-aimed blows, raised a general belief that the conspirators were much more numerous than they were in reality. And as it turned out that there were persons among them who had before been accounted hearty democrats,[39] so at last dismay and mistrust became universally prevalent. Nor did any one dare even to express indignation at the murders going on, much less to talk about redress or revenge, for fear that he might be communicating with one of the unknown conspirators. In the midst of this terrorism, all opposition ceased in the senate and public assembly, so that the speakers of the conspiring oligarchy appeared to carry an unanimous assent.[40]

[38] Thucyd. viii, 69. Οἱ εἴκοσι καὶ ἑκατὸν μετ᾽ αὐτῶν (that is,
along with the Four Hundred) Ἕλληνες νεανίσκοι, οἷς ἐχρῶντο εἴ τί
που δέοι χειρουργεῖν.

Dr. Arnold explains the words Ἕλληνες νεανίσκοι to mean some of
the members of the aristocratical clubs, or unions, formerly
spoken of. But I cannot think that Thucydidês would use such an
expression to designate Athenian citizens: neither is it probable
that Athenian citizens would be employed in repeated acts of such
a character.

[39] Even Peisander himself had professed the strongest
attachment to the democracy, coupled with exaggerated violence
against parties suspected of oligarchical plots, four years
before, in the investigations which followed on the mutilation of
the Hermæ at Athens (Andokidês de Myster. c. 9, 10, sects. 36-43).

It is a fact that Peisander was one of the prominent movers on
both these two occasions, four years apart. And if we could
believe Isokratês (de Bigis, sects. 4-7, p. 347), the second of
the two occasions was merely the continuance and consummation of
a plot which had been projected and begun on the first, and in
which the conspirators had endeavored to enlist Alkibiadês. The
latter refused, so his son, the speaker in the above-mentioned
oration, contends, in consequence of his attachment to the
democracy; upon which the oligarchical conspirators, incensed
at his refusal, got up the charge of irreligion against him and
procured his banishment.

Though Droysen and Wattenbach (De Quadringentorum Athenis
Factione, pp. 7, 8, Berlin, 1842) place confidence, to a
considerable extent, in this manner of putting the facts, I
consider it to be nothing better than complete perversion;
irreconcilable with Thucydidês, confounding together facts
unconnected in themselves as well as separated by a long interval
of time, and introducing unreal causes, for the purpose of making
out, what was certainly not true, that Alkibiadês was a faithful
friend of the democracy, and even a sufferer in its behalf.

[40] Thucyd. viii, 66.

Such was the condition to which things had been brought in Athens, by Antiphon and the oligarchical conspirators acting under his direction, at the time when Peisander and the five envoys arrived thither returning from Samos. It is probable that they had previously transmitted home from Samos news of the rupture with Alkibiadês, and of the necessity of prosecuting the conspiracy without farther view either to him or to the Persian alliance. Such news would probably be acceptable both to Antiphon and Phrynichus, both of them personal enemies of Alkibiadês; especially Phrynichus, who had pronounced him to be incapable of fraternizing with an oligarchical revolution.[41] At any rate, the plans of Antiphon had been independent of all view to Persian aid, and had been directed to carry the revolution by means of naked, exorbitant, and well-directed fear, without any intermixture of hope or any prospect of public benefit. Peisander found the reign of terror fully matured. He had not come direct from Samos to Athens, but had halted in his voyage at various allied dependencies, while the other five envoys, as well as a partisan named Diotrephês, had been sent to Thasos and elsewhere;[42] all for the same purpose, of putting down democracies in those allied cities where they existed, and establishing oligarchies in their room. Peisander made this change at Tênos, Andros, Karystus, Ægina, and elsewhere; collecting from these several places a regiment of three hundred hoplites, which he brought with him to Athens as a sort of body-guard to his new oligarchy.[43] He could not know until he reached Peiræus the full success of the terrorism organized by Antiphon and the rest; so that he probably came prepared to surmount a greater resistance than he actually found. As the facts stood, so completely had the public opinion and spirit been subdued, that he was enabled to put the finishing stroke at once, and his arrival was the signal for consummating the revolution, first, by an extorted suspension of the tutelary constitutional sanction, next, by the more direct employment of armed force.

[41] Thucyd. viii. 68. νομίζων οὐκ ἄν ποτε αὐτὸν (Alkibiadês)
κατὰ τὸ εἰκὸς ὑπ᾽ ὀλιγαρχίας κατελθεῖν, etc.

[42] Thucyd. viii, 64.

[43] Thucyd. viii, 65. Οἱ δὲ ἀμφὶ τὸν Πείσανδρον ~παραπλέοντές~
τε, ὥσπερ ἐδέδοκτο, ~τοὺς δήμους ἐν ταῖς πόλεσι κατέλυον~, καὶ
ἅμα ~ἔστιν ἀφ᾽ ὧν χωρίων~ καὶ ὁπλίτας ἔχοντες σφίσιν αὐτοῖς
ξυμμάχους ἦλθον ἐς τὰς Ἀθήνας. Καὶ καταλαμβάνουσι τὰ πλεῖστα τοῖς
ἑταίροις προειργασμένα.

We may gather from c. 69 that the places which I have named in
the text were among those visited by Peisander: all of them lay
very much in his way from Samos to Athens.

First, he convoked a public assembly, in which he proposed a decree, naming ten commissioners with full powers, to prepare propositions for such political reform as they should think advisable, and to be ready by a given day.[44] According to the usual practice, this decree must previously have been approved in the senate of Five Hundred, before it was submitted to the people. Such was doubtless the case in the present instance, and the decree passed without any opposition. On the day fixed, a fresh assembly met, which Peisander and his partisans caused to be held, not in the usual place, called the Pnyx, within the city walls, but at a place called Kolônus, ten stadia, rather more than a mile, without the walls,[45] north of the city. Kolônus was a temple of Poseidon, within the precinct of which the assembly was inclosed for the occasion. Such an assembly was not likely to be numerous, wherever held,[46] since there could be little motive to attend, when freedom of debate was extinguished; but the oligarchical conspirators now transferred it without the walls; selecting a narrow area for the meeting, in order that they might lessen still farther the chance of numerous attendance, an assembly which they fully designed should be the last in the history of Athens. They were thus also more out of the reach of an armed movement in the city, as well as enabled to post their own armed partisans around, under color of protecting the meeting against disturbance by the Lacedæmonians from Dekeleia.

[44] Thucyd. viii, 67. Καὶ πρῶτον μὲν τὸν δῆμον ξυλλέξαντες εἶπον
γνώμην, δέκα ἄνδρας ἑλέσθαι ~ξυγγραφέας αὐτοκράτορας~, τούτους δὲ
ξυγγράψαντας γνώμην ἐσενεγκεῖν ἐς τὸν δῆμον ἐς ἡμέραν ῥητὴν, καθ᾽
ὅτι ἄριστα ἡ πόλις οἰκήσεται.

In spite of certain passages found in Suidas and Harpokration
(see K. F. Hermann, Lehrbuch der Griechischen Staats Alterthümer,
sect. 167, note 12: compare also Wattenbach, De Quadringentor.
Factione, p. 38), I cannot think that there was any connection
between these ten ξυγγραφεῖς, and the Board of πρόβουλοι
mentioned as having been before named (Thucyd. viii, 1). Nor
has the passage in Lysias, to which Hermann makes allusion,
anything to do with these ξυγγραφεῖς. The mention of Thirty
persons by Androtion and Philochorus, seems to imply that they,
or Harpokration, confounded the proceedings ushering in this
oligarchy of Four Hundred, with those before the subsequent
oligarchy of Thirty. The σύνεδροι, or ξυγγραφεῖς, mentioned by
Isokratês (Areopagit. Or. vii, sect. 67) might refer either to
the case of the Four Hundred or to that of the Thirty.

[45] Thucyd. viii, 67. Ἔπειτα, ἐπειδὴ ἡ ἡμέρα ἐφῆκε, ~ξυνέκλῃσαν~
τὴν ἐκκλησίαν ἐς τὸν Κόλωνον (ἔστι δ᾽ ἱερὸν Ποσειδῶνος ἔξω
πόλεως, ἀπέχον σταδίους μάλιστα δέκα), etc.

The very remarkable word ξυνέκλῃσαν, here used respecting the
assembly, appears to me to refer (not, as Dr. Arnold supposes in
his note, to any existing practice observed even in the usual
assemblies which met in the Pnyx, but rather) to a departure
from the usual practice, and the employment of a stratagem in
reference to this particular meeting.

Kolônus was one of the Attic demes: indeed, there seems reason to
imagine that two distinct demes bore this same name (see Boeckh,
in the Commentary appended to his translation of the Antigonê of
Sophoklês, pp. 190, 191: and Ross, Die Demen von Attika, pp. 10,
11). It is in the grove of the Eumenides, hard by this temple
of Poseidon, that Sophoklês has laid the scene of his immortal
drama, the Œdipus Koloneus.

[46] Compare the statement in Lysias (Orat. xii, cont. Eratosth.
s. 76, p. 127) respecting the small numbers who attended and
voted at the assembly by which the subsequent oligarchy of Thirty
was named.

The proposition of the newly-appointed commissioners—probably Peisander, Antiphon, and other partisans themselves—was exceedingly short and simple. They merely moved the abolition of the celebrated Graphê Paranomôn; that is, they proposed that every Athenian citizen should have full liberty of making any anti-constitutional proposition that he chose, and that every other citizen should be interdicted, under heavy penalties, from prosecuting him by graphê paranomôn indictment on the score of informality, illegality, or unconstitutionality, or from doing him any other mischief. This proposition was adopted without a single dissentient. It was thought more formal by the directing chiefs to sever this proposition pointedly from the rest, and to put it, singly and apart, into the mouth of the special commissioners; since it was the legalizing condition of every other positive change which they were about to move afterwards. Full liberty being thus granted to make any motion, however anti-constitutional, and to dispense with all the established formalities, such as preliminary authorization by the senate, Peisander now came forward with his substantive propositions to the following effect:—

1. All the existing democratical magistracies were suppressed at once, and made to cease for the future. 2. No civil functions whatever were hereafter to be salaried. 3. To constitute a new government, a committee of five persons were named forthwith, who were to choose a larger body of one hundred; that is, one hundred including the five choosers themselves. Each individual out of this body of one hundred, was to choose three persons. 4. A body of Four Hundred was thus constituted, who were to take their seat in the senate-house, and to carry on the government with unlimited powers, according to their own discretion. 5. They were to convene the Five Thousand, whenever they might think fit.[47] All was passed without a dissentient voice.

[47] Thucyd. viii, 68. Ἐλθόντας δὲ αὐτοὺς τετρακοσίους
ὄντας ἐς τὸ βουλευτήριον, ἄρχειν ὅπῃ ἂν ἄριστα γιγνώσκωσιν,
~αὐτοκράτορας~, καὶ ~τοὺς πεντακισχιλίους~ δὲ ξυλλέγειν, ὁπόταν
αὐτοῖς δοκῇ.

The invention and employment of this imaginary aggregate of Five Thousand was not the least dexterous among the combinations of Antiphon. No one knew who these Five Thousand were: yet the resolution just adopted purported,—not that such a number of citizens should be singled out and constituted, either by choice, or by lot, or in some determinate manner which should exhibit them to the view and knowledge of others,—but that the Four Hundred should convene _The Five Thousand_, whenever they thought proper: thus assuming the latter to be a list already made up and notorious, at least to the Four Hundred themselves. The real fact was, that the Five Thousand existed nowhere except in the talk and proclamations of the conspirators, as a supplement of fictitious auxiliaries. They did not even exist as individual names on paper, but simply as an imposturous nominal aggregate. The Four Hundred, now installed, formed the entire and exclusive rulers of the state.[48] But the mere name of the Five Thousand, though it was nothing more than a name, served two important purposes for Antiphon and his conspiracy. First, it admitted of being falsely produced, especially to the armament at Samos, as proof of a tolerably numerous and popular body of equal, qualified, concurrent citizens, all intended to take their turn by rotation in exercising the powers of government; thus lightening the odium of extreme usurpation to the Four Hundred, and passing them off merely as the earliest section of the Five Thousand, put into office for a few months, and destined at the end of that period to give place to another equal section.[49] Next, it immensely augmented the means of intimidation possessed by the Four Hundred at home, by exaggerating the impression of their supposed strength. For the citizens generally were made to believe that there were five thousand real and living partners in the conspiracy; while the fact that these partners were not known and could not be individually identified, rather aggravated the reigning terror and mistrust; since every man, suspecting that his neighbor might possibly be among them, was afraid to communicate his discontent or propose means for joint resistance.[50] In both these two ways, the name and assumed existence of the Five Thousand lent strength to the real Four Hundred conspirators. It masked their usurpation, while it increased their hold on the respect and fears of the citizens.

[48] Thucyd. viii, 66. ἦν δὲ τοῦτο εὐπρεπὲς πρὸς τοὺς πλείους,
ἐπεὶ ἕξειν γε τὴν πόλιν οἵπερ καὶ μεθιστάναι ἔμελλον.

Plutarch, Alkibiad. c. 26.

[49] Thucyd. viii, 72. Πέμπουσι δὲ ἐς τὴν Σάμον δέκα ἄνδρας ...
διδάξοντας—~πεντακισχίλιοι δὲ ὅτι εἶεν~, καὶ οὐ τετρακόσιοι
μόνον, οἱ πράσσοντες.

viii, 86. Οἱ δ᾽ ἀπήγγελλον ὡς οὔτε ἐπὶ διαφθορᾷ ~τῆς πόλεως~ ἡ
μετάστασις γένοιτο, ἀλλ᾽ ἐπὶ σωτηρίᾳ ... ~τῶν δὲ πεντακισχιλίων
ὅτε πάντες ἐν τῷ μέρει μεθέξουσιν~, etc.

viii, 89. ἀλλὰ ~τοὺς πεντακισχιλίους~ ἔργῳ καὶ μὴ ὀνόματι χρῆναι
ἀποδεικνύναι, καὶ τὴν πολιτείαν ἰσαιτέραν καθιστάναι.

viii, 92. (After the Four Hundred had already been much opposed
and humbled, and were on the point of being put down)—ἦν δὲ πρὸς
τὸν ὄχλον ἡ παράκλησις ὡς χρὴ, ὅστις ~τοὺς πεντακισχιλίους~
βούλεται ἄρχειν ἀντὶ τῶν τετρακοσίων, ἰέναι ἐπὶ τὸ ἔργον.
Ἐπεκρύπτοντο γὰρ ὅμως ἔτι ~τῶν πεντακισχιλίων~ τῷ ὀνόματι, μὴ
ἄντικρυς δῆμον ὅστις βούλεται ἄρχειν ὀνομάζειν—~φοβούμενοι μὴ
τῷ ὄντι ὦσι, καὶ πρός τινα εἰπών τίς τι δι᾽ ἀγνοίαν σφαλῇ~. Καὶ
οἱ τετρακόσιοι διὰ τοῦτο οὐκ ἤθελον ~τοὺς πεντακισχιλίους οὔτε
εἶναι, οὔτε μὴ ὄντας δήλους εἶναι~· τὸ μὲν καταστῆσαι μετόχους
τοσούτους, ἄντικρυς ἂν δῆμον ἡγούμενοι, ~τὸ δ᾽ αὖ ἀφανὲς φόβον ἐς
ἀλλήλους παρέξειν~.

viii, 93. λέγοντες ~τούς τε πεντακισχιλίους~ ἀποφανεῖν, καὶ
ἐκ ~τούτων ἐν μέρει~, ᾗ ἂν τοῖς πεντακισχιλίοις δοκῇ, τοὺς
τετρακοσίους ἔσεσθαι, τέως δὲ τὴν πόλιν μηδενὶ τρόπῳ διαφθείρειν,
etc.

Compare also c. 97.

[50] Compare the striking passage (Thucyd. viii, 92) cited in my
previous note.

As soon as the public assembly at Kolônus had, with such seeming unanimity, accepted all the propositions of Peisander, they were dismissed; and the new regiment of Four Hundred were chosen and constituted in the form prescribed. It now only remained to install them in the senate-house. But this could not be done without force, since the senators were already within it; having doubtless gone thither immediately from the assembly, where their presence, at least the presence of the prytanes, or senators of the presiding tribe, was essential as legal presidents. They had to deliberate what they would do under the decree just passed, which divested them of all authority. Nor was it impossible that they might organize armed resistance; for which there seemed more than usual facility at the present moment, since the occupation of Dekeleia by the Lacedæmonians kept Athens in a condition like that of a permanent camp, with a large proportion of the citizens day and night under arms.[51] Against this chance the Four Hundred made provision. They selected that hour of the day when the greater number of citizens habitually went home, probably to their morning meal, leaving the military station, with the arms piled and ready, under comparatively thin watch. While the general body of hoplites left the station at this hour, according to the usual practice, the hoplites—Andrian, Tenian, and others—in the immediate confidence of the Four Hundred, were directed, by private order, to hold themselves prepared and in arms, at a little distance off; so that if any symptoms should appear of resistance being contemplated, they might at once interfere and forestall it. Having taken this precaution, the Four Hundred marched in a body to the senate-house, each man with a dagger concealed under his garment, and followed by their special body-guard of one hundred and twenty young men from various Grecian cities, the instruments of the assassinations ordered by Antiphon and his colleagues. In this array they marched into the senate-house, where the senators were assembled, and commanded them to depart; at the same time tendering to them their pay for all the remainder of the year,—seemingly about three months or more down to the beginning of Hecatombæon, the month of new nominations,—during which their functions ought to have continued. The senators were no way prepared to resist the decree just passed under the forms of legality with an armed body now arrived to enforce its execution. They obeyed and departed, each man as he passed the door receiving the salary tendered to him. That they should yield obedience to superior force, under the circumstances, can excite neither censure nor surprise; but that they should accept, from the hands of the conspirators, this anticipation of an unearned salary, was a meanness which almost branded them as accomplices, and dishonored the expiring hour of the last democratical authority. The Four Hundred now found themselves triumphantly installed in the senate-house; without the least resistance, either within its walls, or even without, by any portion of the citizens.[52]

[51] See the jests of Aristophanês, about the citizens all in
armor, buying their provisions in the market-place and carrying
them home, in the Lysistrata, 560: a comedy represented about
December 412 or January 411 B.C., three months earlier than the
events here narrated.

[52] Thucyd. viii, 69, 70.

Thus perished, or seemed to perish, the democracy of Athens, after an uninterrupted existence of nearly one hundred years since the revolution of Kleisthenês. So incredible did it appear that the numerous, intelligent, and constitutional citizens of Athens should suffer their liberties to be overthrown by a band of four hundred conspirators, while the great mass of them not only loved their democracy, but had arms in their hands to defend it, that even their enemy and neighbor Agis, at Dekeleia, could hardly imagine the revolution to be a fact accomplished. We shall see presently that it did not stand,—nor would it probably have stood, had circumstances even been more favorable,—but the accomplishment of it at all, is an incident too extraordinary to be passed over without some words in explanation.

We must remark that the tremendous catastrophe and loss of blood in Sicily had abated the energy of the Athenian character generally, but especially had made them despair of their foreign relations; of the possibility that they could make head against enemies, increased in number by revolts among their own allies, and farther sustained by Persian gold. Upon this sentiment of despair is brought to bear the treacherous delusion of Alkibiadês, offering them the Persian aid; that is, means of defence and success against foreign enemies, at the price of their democracy. Reluctantly the people are brought, but they _are_ brought, to entertain the proposition: and thus the conspirators gain their first capital point, of familiarizing the people with the idea of such a change of constitution. The ulterior success of the conspiracy—when all prospect of Persian gold, or improved foreign position, was at an end—is due to the combinations, alike nefarious and skilful, of Antiphon, wielding and organizing the united strength of the aristocratical classes at Athens; strength always exceedingly great, but under ordinary circumstances working in fractions disunited and even reciprocally hostile to each other,—restrained by the ascendant democratical institutions,—and reduced to corrupt what it could not overthrow. Antiphon, about to employ this anti-popular force in one systematic scheme, and for the accomplishment of a predetermined purpose, keeps still within the same ostensible constitutional limits. He raises no open mutiny: he maintains inviolate the cardinal point of Athenian political morality, respect to the decision of the senate and political assembly, as well as to constitutional maxims. But he knows well that the value of these meetings, as political securities, depends upon entire freedom of speech; and that, if that freedom be suppressed, the assembly itself becomes a nullity, or rather an instrument of positive imposture and mischief. Accordingly, he causes all the popular orators to be successively assassinated, so that no man dares to open his mouth on that side; while on the other hand, the anti-popular speakers are all loud and confident, cheering one another on, and seeming to represent all the feeling of the persons present. By thus silencing each individual leader, and intimidating every opponent from standing forward as spokesman, he extorts the formal sanction of the assembly and the senate to measures which the large majority of the citizens detest. That majority, however, are bound by their own constitutional forms; and when the decision of these, by whatever means obtained, is against them, they have neither the inclination nor the courage to resist. In no part of the world has this sentiment of constitutional duty, and submission to the vote of a legal majority, been more keenly and universally felt, than it was among the citizens of democratical Athens.[53] Antiphon thus finds means to employ the constitutional sentiment of Athens as a means of killing the constitution: the mere empty form, after its vital and protective efficacy has been abstracted, remains simply as a cheat to paralyze individual patriotism.

[53] This striking and deep-seated regard of the Athenians for
all the forms of an established constitution, makes itself felt
even by Mr. Mitford (Hist. Gr. ch. xix. sect. v, vol. iv, p. 235).

It was this cheat which rendered the Athenians indisposed to stand forward with arms in defence of that democracy to which they were attached. Accustomed as they were to unlimited pacific contention within the bounds of their constitution, they were in the highest degree averse to anything like armed intestine contention. This is the natural effect of an established free and equal polity, to substitute the contests of the tongue for those of the sword, and sometimes, even to create so extreme a disinclination to the latter, that if liberty be energetically assailed, the counter-energy necessary for its defence may probably be found wanting. So difficult is it for the same people to have both the qualities requisite for making a free constitution work well in ordinary times, together with those very different qualities requisite for upholding it against exceptional dangers and under trying emergencies. None but an Athenian of extraordinary ability, like Antiphon, would have understood the art of thus making the constitutional feeling of his countrymen subservient to the success of his conspiracy, and of maintaining the forms of legal dealing towards assembled and constitutional bodies, while he violated them in secret and successive stabs directed against individuals. Political assassination had been unknown at Athens, as far as our information reaches, since it was employed, about fifty years before, by the oligarchical party against Ephialtês, the coadjutor of Periklês.[54] But this had been an individual case, and it was reserved for Antiphon and Phrynichus to organize a band of assassins working systematically, and taking off a series of leading victims one after the other. As the Macedonian kings in after-times required the surrender of the popular orators in a body, so the authors of this conspiracy found the same enemies to deal with, and adopted another way of getting rid of them; thus reducing the assembly into a tame and lifeless mass, capable of being intimidated into giving its collective sanction to measures which its large majority detested.

[54] See Plutarch, Periklês, c. 10; Diodor. xi, 77; and vol. v,
of this History chap. xlvi, p. 370.

As Grecian history has been usually written, we are instructed to believe that the misfortunes, and the corruption, and the degradation of the democratical states are brought upon them by the class of demagogues, of whom Kleon, Hyperbolus, Androklês, etc., stand forth as specimens. These men are represented as mischief-makers and revilers, accusing without just cause, and converting innocence into treason. Now the history of this conspiracy of the Four Hundred presents to us the other side of the picture. It shows that the political enemies—against whom the Athenian people were protected by their democratical institutions, and by the demagogues as living organs of those institutions—were not fictitious but dangerously real. It reveals the continued existence of powerful anti-popular combinations, ready to come together for treasonable purposes when the moment appeared safe and tempting. It manifests the character and morality of the leaders, to whom the direction of the anti-popular force naturally fell. It proves that these leaders, men of uncommon ability, required nothing more than the extinction or silence of the demagogues, to be enabled to subvert the popular securities and get possession of the government. We need no better proof to teach us what was the real function and intrinsic necessity of these demagogues in the Athenian system, taking them as a class, and apart from the manner in which individuals among them may have performed their duty. They formed the vital movement of all that was tutelary and public-spirited in democracy. Aggressive in respect to official delinquents, they were defensive in respect to the public and the constitution. If that anti-popular force, which Antiphon found ready-made, had not been efficient, at a much earlier moment, in stifling the democracy, it was because there were demagogues to cry aloud, as well as assemblies to hear and sustain them. If Antiphon’s conspiracy was successful, it was because he knew where to aim his blows, so as to strike down the real enemies of the oligarchy and the real defenders of the people. I here employ the term demagogues because it is that commonly used by those who denounce the class of men here under review: the proper neutral phrase, laying aside odious associations, would be to call them popular speakers, or opposition speakers. But, by whatever name they may be called, it is impossible rightly to conceive their position in Athens, without looking at them in contrast and antithesis with those anti-popular forces against which they formed the indispensable barrier, and which come forth into such manifest and melancholy working under the organizing hands of Antiphon and Phrynichus.

As soon as the Four Hundred found themselves formally installed in the senate-house, they divided themselves by lot into separate prytanies,—probably ten in number, consisting of forty members each, like the former senate of Five Hundred, in order that the distribution of the year to which the people were accustomed might not be disturbed,—and then solemnized their installation by prayer and sacrifice. They put to death some political enemies, though not many: they farther imprisoned and banished others, and made large changes in the administration of affairs, carrying everything with a strictness and rigor unknown under the old constitution.[55] It seems to have been proposed among them to pass a vote of restoration to all persons under sentence of exile. But this was rejected by the majority in order that Alkibiadês might not be among the number; nor did they think it expedient, notwithstanding, to pass the law, reserving him as a special exception.

[55] Thucyd. viii, 70. I imagine that this must be the meaning of
the words τὰ τε ἄλλα ἔνεμον κατὰ κράτος τὴν πόλιν.

They farther despatched a messenger to Agis at Dekeleia, intimating their wish to treat for peace; which, they affirmed, he ought to be ready to grant to them, now that “the faithless Demos” was put down. Agis, however, not believing that the Athenian people would thus submit to be deprived of their liberty, anticipated that intestine dissension would certainly break out, or at least that some portion of the Long Walls would be found unguarded, should a foreign army appear. While therefore he declined the overtures for peace, he at the same time sent for reinforcements out of Peloponnesus, and marched with a considerable army, in addition to his own garrison, up to the very walls of Athens. But he found the ramparts carefully manned: no commotion took place within: even a sally was made, in which some advantage was gained over him. He therefore speedily retired, sending back his newly-arrived reinforcements to Peloponnesus; while the Four Hundred, on renewing their advances to him for peace, now found themselves much better received, and were even encouraged to despatch envoys to Sparta itself.[56]

[56] Thucyd. viii, 71.

As soon as they had thus got over the first difficulties, and placed matters on a footing which seemed to promise stability, they despatched ten envoys to Samos. Aware beforehand of the danger impending over them in that quarter from the known aversion of the soldiers and seamen to anything in the nature of oligarchy, they had, moreover, just heard, by the arrival of Chæreas and the paralus, of the joint attack made by the Athenian and Samian oligarchs, and of its complete failure. Had this event occurred a little earlier, it might perhaps have deterred even some of their own number from proceeding with the revolution at Athens, which was rendered thereby almost sure of failure, from the first. Their ten envoys were instructed to represent at Samos that the recent oligarchy had been established with no views injurious to the city, but on the contrary for the general benefit; that though the Council now installed consisted of Four Hundred only, yet the total number of partisans who had made the revolution, and were qualified citizens under it, was Five Thousand; a number greater, they added, than had ever been actually assembled in the Pnyx under the democracy, even for the most important debates,[57] in consequence of the unavoidable absences of numerous individuals on military service and foreign travel.

[57] Thucyd. viii, 72. This allegation, respecting the number of
citizens who attended in the Athenian democratical assemblies,
has been sometimes cited as if it carried with it the authority
of Thucydidês; which is a great mistake, duly pointed out by all
the best recent critics. It is simply the allegation of the Four
Hundred, whose testimony, as a guarantee for truth, is worth
little enough.

That _no_ assembly had ever been attended by so many as five
thousand (οὐδεπώποτε) I certainly am far from believing. It is
not improbable, however, that five thousand was an unusually
large number of citizens to attend.

Dr. Arnold, in his note, opposes the allegation in part, by
remarking that “the law required not only the presence but the
sanction of at least six thousand citizens to some particular
decrees of the assembly.” It seems to me, however, quite possible
that, in cases where this large number of votes was required,
as in the ostracism, and where there was no discussion carried
on immediately before the voting, the process of voting may
have lasted some hours, like our keeping open of a poll. So
that though more than six thousand citizens must have _voted_,
altogether, it was not necessary that all should have been
present in the same assembly.

What satisfaction might have been given, by this allusion to the fictitious Five Thousand, or by the fallacious reference to the numbers, real or pretended, of the past democratical assemblies, had these envoys carried to Samos the first tidings of the Athenian revolution, we cannot say. They were forestalled by Chæreas, the officer of the paralus; who, though the Four Hundred tried to detain him, made his escape and hastened to Samos to communicate the fearful and unexpected change which had occurred at Athens. Instead of hearing that change described under the treacherous extenuations prescribed by Antiphon and Phrynichus, the armament first learned it from the lips of Chæreas, who told them at once the extreme truth, and even more than the truth. He recounted, with indignation, that every Athenian who ventured to say a word against the Four Hundred rulers of the city, was punished with the scourge; that even the wives and children of persons hostile to them were outraged; that there was a design of seizing and imprisoning the relatives of the democrats at Samos, and putting them to death, if the latter refused to obey orders from Athens. The simple narrative of what had really occurred would have been quite sufficient to provoke in the armament a sentiment of detestation against the Four Hundred. But these additional details of Chæreas, partly untrue, filled them with uncontrollable wrath, which they manifested by open menace against the known partisans of the Four Hundred at Samos, as well as against those who had taken part in the recent oligarchical conspiracy in the island. It was not without difficulty that their hands were arrested by the more reflecting citizens present, who remonstrated against the madness of such disorderly proceedings when the enemy was close upon them.