Chapter LXV (3)

The scene just described, which ended in the execution of Theramenês, is one of the most striking and tragical in ancient history; in spite of the bald and meagre way in which it is recounted by Xenophon, who has thrown all the interest into the two speeches. The atrocious injustice by which Theramenês perished, as well as the courage and self-possession which he displayed at the moment of danger, and his cheerfulness even in the prison, not inferior to that of Sokratês three years afterwards, naturally enlist the warmest sympathies of the reader in his favor, and have tended to exalt the positive estimation of his character. During the years immediately succeeding the restoration of the democracy,[397] he was extolled and pitied as one of the first martyrs to oligarchical violence: later authors went so far as to number him among the chosen pupils of Sokratês.[398] But though Theramenês here became the victim of a much worse man than himself, it will not for that reason be proper to accord to him our admiration, which his own conduct will not at all be found to deserve. The reproaches of Kritias against him, founded on his conduct during the previous conspiracy of the Four Hundred, were in the main well founded. After having been one of the foremost originators of that conspiracy, he deserted his comrades as soon as he saw that it was likely to fail; and Kritias had doubtless present to his mind the fate of Antiphon, who had been condemned and executed under the accusation of Theramenês, together with a reasonable conviction that the latter would again turn against his colleagues in the same manner, if circumstances should encourage him to do so. Nor was Kritias wrong in denouncing the perfidy of Theramenês with regard to the generals after the battle of Arginusæ, the death of whom he was partly instrumental in bringing about, though only as an auxiliary cause, and not with that extreme stretch of nefarious stratagem, which Xenophon and others have imputed to him. He was a selfish, cunning, and faithless man,—ready to enter into conspiracies, yet never foreseeing their consequences,—and breaking faith to the ruin of colleagues whom he had first encouraged, when he found them more consistent and thoroughgoing in crime than himself.[399]

[397] See Lysias, Or. xii, cont. Eratosth. s. 66.

[398] Diodor. xiv, 5. Diodorus tells us that Sokratês and two
of his friends were the only persons who stood forward to
protect Theramenês, when Satyrus was dragging him from the
altar. Plutarch (Vit. x, Orat. p. 836) ascribes the same act of
generous forwardness to _Isokratês_. There is no good ground for
believing it, either of one or of the other. None but senators
were present; and as this senate had been chosen by the Thirty,
it is not likely that either Sokratês or Isokratês were among its
members. If Sokratês had been a member of it, the fact would have
been noticed and brought out in connection with his subsequent
trial.

The manner in which Plutarch (Consolat. ad Apollon. c. 6, p. 105)
states the death of Theramenês, that he was “tortured to death”
by the Thirty is an instance of his loose speaking.

Compare Cicero about the death of Theramenês (Tuscul. Disp. i,
40, 96). His admiration for the manner of death of Theramenês
doubtless contributed to make him rank that Athenian with
Themistoklês and Periklês (De Orat. iii. 16, 59).

[399] The epithets applied by Aristophanês to Theramenês (Ran.
541-966) coincide pretty exactly with those in the speech just
noticed, which Xenophon ascribes to Kritias against him.

Such high-handed violence, by Kritias and the majority of the Thirty,—carried though, even against a member of their own Board, by intimidation of the senate,—left a feeling of disgust and dissension among their own partisans from which their power never recovered. Its immediate effect, however, was to render them, apparently, and in their own estimation, more powerful than ever. All open manifestation of dissent being now silenced, they proceeded to the uttermost limits of cruel and licentious tyranny. They made proclamation, that every one not included in the list of Three Thousand, should depart without the walls, in order that they might be undisturbed masters within the city, a policy before resorted to by Periander of Corinth and other Grecian despots.[400] The numerous fugitives expelled by this order, distributed themselves partly in Peiræus, partly in the various demes of Attica. Both in one and the other, however, they were seized by order of the Thirty, and many of them put to death, in order that their substance and lands might be appropriated either by the Thirty themselves, or by some favored partisan.[401] The denunciations of Batrachus, Æschylidês, and other delators, became more numerous than ever, in order to obtain the seizure and execution of their private enemies; and the oligarchy were willing to purchase any new adherent by thus gratifying his antipathies or his rapacity.[402] The subsequent orators affirmed that more than fifteen hundred victims were put to death without trial by the Thirty;[403] on this numerical estimate little stress is to be laid, but the total was doubtless prodigious. It became more and more plain that no man was safe in Attica; so that Athenian emigrants, many in great poverty and destitution, were multiplied throughout the neighboring territories,—in Megara, Thebes, Orôpus, Chalkis, Argos, etc.[404] It was not everywhere that these distressed persons could obtain reception; for the Lacedæmonian government, at the instance of the Thirty, issued an edict prohibiting all the members of their confederacy from harboring fugitive Athenians; an edict which these cities generously disobeyed,[405] though probably the smaller Peloponnesian cities complied. Without doubt, this decree was procured by Lysander, while his influence still continued unimpaired.

[400] Xenoph. Hellen. ii, 4, 1; Lysias, Orat. xii, cont.
Eratosth. s. 97; Orat. xxxi, cont. Philon. s. 8, 9; Herakleid.
Pontic. c. 5; Diogen. Laërt. i, 98.

[401] Xenoph. Hellen. l. c. ἦγον δὲ ἐκ τῶν χωρίων, ἵν᾽ αὐτοὶ καὶ
οἱ φίλοι τοὺς τούτων ἀγροὺς ἔχοιεν· φευγόντων δὲ ἐς τὸν Πειραιᾶ,
καὶ ἐντεῦθεν πολλοὺς ἄγοντες, ἐνέπλησαν Μέγαρα καὶ Θήβας τῶν
ὑποχωρούντων.

[402] Lysias, Or. xii, cont. Eratosth. s. 49; Or. xxv, Democrat.
Subvers. Apolog. s. 20; Or. xxvi, cont. Evandr. s. 23.

[403] Æschinês, Fals. Legat. c. 24, p. 266, and cont. Ktesiph. c.
86, p. 455; Isokratês, Or. iv, Panegyr. s. 131; Or. vii, Areopag.
s. 76.

[404] Xenoph. Hellen. ii, 4, 1; Diodor. xiv, 6; Lysias, Or. xxiv,
s. 28; Or. xxxi, cont. Philon. s. 10.

[405] Lysias, Or. xii, cont. Eratosth. sects. 98, 99: παντάχοθεν
ἐκκηρυττόμενοι; Plutarch, Lysand. c. 99; Diodor xiv, 6; Demosth.
de Rhod. Libert. c. 10.

But it was not only against the lives, properties, and liberties of Athenian citizens that the Thirty made war. They were not less solicitous to extinguish the intellectual force and education of the city; a project so perfectly in harmony both with the sentiment and practice of Sparta, that they counted on the support of their foreign allies. Among the ordinances which they promulgated was one, expressly forbidding every one[406] “to teach the art of words,” if I may be allowed to translate literally the Greek expression, which bore a most comprehensive signification, and denoted every intentional communication of logical, rhetorical, or argumentative improvement,—of literary criticism and composition,—and of command over those political and moral topics which formed the ordinary theme of discussion. Such was the species of instruction which Sokratês and other sophists, each in his own way, communicated to the Athenian youth. The great foreign sophists, not Athenian, such as Prodikus and Protagoras had been,—though perhaps neither of these two was now alive,—were doubtless no longer in the city, under the calamitous circumstances which had been weighing upon every citizen since the defeat of Ægospotami. But there were abundance of native teachers, or sophists, inferior in merit to these distinguished names, yet still habitually employed, with more or less success, in communicating a species of instruction held indispensable to every liberal Athenian. The edict of the Thirty was in fact a general suppression of the higher class of teachers or professors, above the rank of the elementary teacher of letters, or grammatist. If such an edict could have been maintained in force for a generation, combined with the other mandates of the Thirty, the city out of which Sophoklês and Euripidês had just died, and in which Plato and Isokratês were in vigorous age, the former twenty-five, the latter twenty-nine, would have been degraded to the intellectual level of the meanest community in Greece. It was not uncommon for a Grecian despot to suppress all those assemblies wherein youths came together for the purpose of common training, either intellectual or gymnastic; as well as the public banquets and clubs, or associations, as being dangerous to his authority, and tending to elevation of courage, and to a consciousness of political rights among the citizens.[407]

[406] Xenoph. Memor. i, 2, 31. Καὶ ἐν τοῖς νόμοις ἔγραψε, λόγων
τέχνην μὴ διδάσκειν.—Isokratês, cont. Sophist. Or. xiii, s. 12.
τὴν παίδευσιν τὴν τῶν λόγων.

Plutarch (Themistoklês, c. 19) affirms that the Thirty oligarchs,
during their rule, altered the position of the rostrum in the
Pnyx, the place where the democratical public assemblies were
held: the rostrum had before looked towards the sea, but they
turned it so as to make it look towards the land, because the
maritime service and the associations connected with it were the
chief stimulants of democratical sentiment. This story has been
often copied and reasserted, as if it were an undoubted fact; but
M. Forchhammer (Topographie von Athen, p. 289, in Kieler Philol.
Studien. 1841) has shown it to be untrue and even absurd.

[407] Aristot. Polit. v, 9, 2.

The enormities of the Thirty had provoked severe comments from the philosopher Sokratês, whose life was spent in conversation on instructive subjects with those young men who sought his society, though he never took money from any pupil. These comments had been made known to Kritias and Chariklês, who sent for him, reminded him of the prohibitive law, and peremptorily commanded him to abstain for the future from all conversation with youths. Sokratês met this order by putting some questions to those who gave it, in his usual style of puzzling scrutiny, destined to expose the vagueness of the terms; and to draw the line, or rather to show that no definite line could be drawn, between that which was permitted and that which was forbidden. But he soon perceived that his interrogations produced only a feeling of disgust and wrath, menacing to his own safety. The tyrants ended by repeating their interdict in yet more peremptory terms, and by giving Sokratês to understand, that they were not ignorant of the censures which he had cast upon them.[408]

[408] Xenoph. Memorab. i, 2, 33-39.

Though our evidence does not enable us to make out the precise dates of these various oppressions of the Thirty, yet it seems probable that this prohibition of teaching must have been among their earlier enactments; at any rate, considerably anterior to the death of Theramenês, and the general expulsion out of the walls of all except the privileged Three Thousand. Their dominion continued, without any armed opposition made to it, for about eight months from the capture of Athens by Lysander, that is, from about April to December 404 B.C. The measure of their iniquity then became full. They had accumulated against themselves, both in Attica and among the exiles in the circumjacent territories, suffering and exasperated enemies, while they had lost the sympathy of Thebes, Megara, and Corinth, and were less heartily supported by Sparta.

During these important eight months, the general feeling throughout Greece had become materially different both towards Athens and towards Sparta. At the moment when the long war was first brought to a close, fear, antipathy, and vengeance against Athens, had been the reigning sentiment, both among the confederates of Sparta and among the revolted members of the extinct Athenian empire; a sentiment which prevailed among them indeed to a greater degree than among the Spartans themselves, who resisted it, and granted to Athens a capitulation at a time when many of their allies pressed for the harshest measures. To this resolution they were determined partly by the still remaining force of ancient sympathy; partly by the odium which would have been sure to follow the act of expelling the Athenian population, however it might be talked of beforehand as a meet punishment; partly too by the policy of Lysander, who contemplated the keeping of Athens in the same dependence on Sparta and on himself, and by the same means, as the other outlying cities in which he had planted his dekadarchies.

So soon as Athens was humbled, deprived of her fleet and walled port, and rendered innocuous, the great bond of common fear which had held the allies to Sparta disappeared; and while the paramount antipathy on the part of those allies towards Athens gradually died away, a sentiment of jealousy and apprehension of Sparta sprang up in its place, on the part of the leading states among them. For such a sentiment there was more than one reason. Lysander had brought home not only a large sum of money, but valuable spoils of other kinds, and many captive triremes, at the close of the war. As the success had been achieved by the joint exertions of all the allies, so the fruits of it belonged in equity to all of them jointly, not to Sparta alone. The Thebans and Corinthians preferred a formal claim to be allowed to share; and if the other allies abstained from openly backing the demand, we may fairly presume that it was not from any different construction of the equity of the case, but from fear of offending Sparta. In the testimonial erected by Lysander at Delphi, commemorative of the triumph, he had included not only his own brazen statue, but that of each commander of the allied contingents; thus formally admitting the allies to share in the honorary results, and tacitly sanctioning their claim to the lucrative results also. Nevertheless, the demand made by the Thebans and Corinthians was not only repelled, but almost resented as an insult; especially by Lysander, whose influence was at that moment almost omnipotent.[409]

[409] Justin (vi, 10) mentions the demand thus made and refused.
Plutarch (Lysand. c. 27) states the demand as having been made
by the Thebans _alone_, which I disbelieve. Xenophon, according
to the general disorderly arrangement of facts in his Hellenika,
does not mention the circumstance in its proper place, but
alludes to it on a subsequent occasion as having before occurred
(Hellen. iii, 5, 5). He also specifies by name no one but the
Thebans as having actually made the demand; but there is a
subsequent passage, which shows that not only the Corinthians,
but other allies also, sympathized in it (iii, 5, 12).

That the Lacedæmonians should have withheld from the allies a share in this money, demonstrates still more the great ascendency of Lysander; because there was a considerable party at Sparta itself, who protested altogether against the reception of so much gold and silver, as contrary to the ordinances of Lykurgus, and fatal to the peculiar morality of Sparta. An ancient Spartan, Skiraphidas, or Phlogidas, took the lead in calling for exclusive adherence to the old Spartan money, heavy iron, difficult to carry; nor was it without difficulty that Lysander and his friends obtained admission for the treasure into Sparta; under special proviso, that it should be for the exclusive purposes of the government, and that no private citizen should ever circulate gold or silver.[410] The existence of such traditionary repugnance among the Spartans would have seemed likely to induce them to be just towards their allies, since an equitable distribution of the treasure would have gone far to remove the difficulty; yet they nevertheless kept it all.

[410] Plutarch, Lysand. c. 17; Plutarch, Institut. Lacon. p. 239.

But besides this special offence given to the allies, the conduct of Sparta in other ways showed that she intended to turn the victory to her own account. Lysander was at this moment all-powerful, playing his own game under the name of Sparta. His position was far greater than that of the regent Pausanias had been after the victory of Platæa; and his talents for making use of the position incomparably superior. The magnitude of his successes, as well as the eminent ability which he had displayed, justified abundant eulogy; but in his case, the eulogy was carried to the length of something like worship. Altars were erected to him; pæans or hymns were composed in his honor; the Ephesians set up his statue in the temple of their goddess Artemis; and the Samians not only erected a statue to him at Olympia, but even altered the name of their great festival, the Heræa, to _Lysandria_.[411] Several contemporary poets—Antilochus, Chœrilus, Nikêratus, and Antimachus—devoted themselves to sing his glories and profit by his rewards.

[411] Pausan. vi, 3, 6. The Samian oligarchical party owed their
recent restoration to Lysander.

Such excess of flattery was calculated to turn the head even of the most virtuous Greek: with Lysander, it had the effect of substituting, in place of that assumed smoothness of manner with which he began his command, an insulting harshness and arrogance corresponding to the really unmeasured ambition which he cherished.[412] His ambition prompted him to aggrandize Sparta separately, without any thought of her allies, in order to exercise dominion in her name. He had already established dekadarchies, or oligarchies of Ten, in many of the insular and Asiatic cities, and an oligarchy of Thirty in Athens; all composed of vehement partisans chosen by himself, dependent upon him for support, and devoted to his objects. To the eye of an impartial observer in Greece, it seemed as if all these cities had been converted into dependencies of Sparta, and were intended to be held in that condition; under Spartan authority, exercised by and through Lysander.[413] Instead of that general freedom which had been promised as an incentive to revolt against Athens, a Spartan empire had been constituted in place of the extinct Athenian, with a tribute, amounting to a thousand talents annually, intended to be assessed upon the component cities and islands.[414] Such at least was the scheme of Lysander, though it never reached complete execution.

[412] Plutarch, Lysand. c. 18, 19.

[413] Xenoph. Hellen. ii, 4, 30. Οὕτω δὲ προχωρούντων, Παυσανίας
ὁ βασιλεὺς (of Sparta), φθονήσας Λυσάνδρῳ εἰ κατειργασμένος
ταῦτα ἅμα μὲν εὐδοκιμήσοι, ἅμα ~δὲ ἰδίας ποιήσοιτο τὰς Ἀθήνας~,
πείσας τῶν Ἐφόρων τρεῖς, ἐξάγει φρουράν. Ξυνείποντο δὲ καὶ οἱ
ξύμμαχοι πάντες, πλὴν Βοιωτῶν καὶ Κορινθίων. Οὗτοι δ᾽ ἔλεγον
μὲν ὅτι οὐ νομίζοιεν εὐορκεῖν ἂν στρατευόμενοι ἐπ᾽ Ἀθηναίους,
μηδὲν παράσπονδον ποιοῦντας· ~ἔπραττον δὲ ταῦτα, ὅτι ἐγίγνωσκον
Λακεδαιμονίους βουλομένους τὴν τῶν Ἀθηναίων χώραν οἰκείαν καὶ
πιστὴν ποιήσασθαι~. Compare also iii, 5, 12, 13, respecting
the sentiments entertained in Greece about the conduct of the
Lacedæmonians.

[414] Diodor. xiv, 10-13.

It is easy to see that under such a state of feeling on the part of the allies of Sparta, the enormities perpetrated by the Thirty at Athens and by the Lysandrian dekadarchies in the other cities, would be heard with sympathy for the sufferers, and without that strong anti-Athenian sentiment which had reigned a few months before. But what was of still greater importance, even at Sparta itself, opposition began to spring up against the measures and the person of Lysander. If the leading men at Sparta had felt jealous even of Brasidas, who offended them only by unparalleled success and merit as a commander,[415] much more would the same feeling be aroused against Lysander, who displayed an overweening insolence, and was worshipped with an ostentatious flattery, not inferior to that of Pausanias after the battle of Platæa. Another Pausanias, son of Pleistoanax, was now king of Sparta, in conjunction with Agis. Upon him the feeling of jealousy against Lysander told with especial force, as it did afterwards upon Agesilaus, the successor of Agis; not unaccompanied probably with suspicion, which subsequent events justified, that Lysander was aiming at some interference with the regal privileges. Nor is it unfair to suppose that Pausanias was animated by motives more patriotic than mere jealousy, and that the rapacious cruelty, which everywhere dishonored the new oligarchies, both shocked his better feelings and inspired him with fears for the stability of the system. A farther circumstance which weakened the influence of Lysander at Sparta was the annual change of ephors, which took place about the end of September or beginning of October. Those ephors under whom his grand success and the capture of Athens had been consummated, and who had lent themselves entirely to his views, passed out of office in September 404 B.C., and gave place to others more disposed to second Pausanias.

[415] Thucyd. iv.

I remarked, in the preceding chapter, how much more honorable for Sparta, and how much less unfortunate for Athens and for the rest of Greece, the close of the Peloponnesian war would have been, if Kallikratidas had gained and survived the battle of Arginusæ, so as to close it then, and to acquire for himself that personal ascendency which the victorious general was sure to exercise over the numerous rearrangements consequent on peace. We see how important the personal character of the general so placed was, when we follow the proceedings of Lysander during the year after the battle of Ægospotami. His personal views were the grand determining circumstance throughout Greece; regulating both the measures of Sparta, and the fate of the conquered cities. Throughout the latter, rapacious and cruel oligarchies were organized,—of Ten in most cities, but of Thirty in Athens,—all acting under the power and protection of Sparta, but in real subordination to his ambition. Because he happened to be under the influence of a selfish thirst for power, the measures of Sparta were divested not merely of all Pan-Hellenic spirit, but even, to a great degree, of reference to her own confederates, and concentrated upon the acquisition of imperial preponderance for herself. Now if Kallikratidas had been the ascendent person at this critical juncture, not only such narrow and baneful impulses would have been comparatively inoperative, but the leading state would have been made to set the example of recommending, of organizing, and if necessary, of enforcing arrangements favorable to Pan-Hellenic brotherhood. Kallikratidas would not only have refused to lend himself to dekadarchies governing by his force and for his purposes, in the subordinate cities, but he would have discountenanced such conspiracies, wherever they tended to arise spontaneously. No ruffian like Kritias, no crafty schemer like Theramenês, would have reckoned upon his aid as they presumed upon the friendship of Lysander. Probably he would have left the government of each city to its own natural tendencies, oligarchical or democratical; interfering only in special cases of actual and pronounced necessity. Now the influence of an ascendent state, employed for such purposes, and emphatically discarding all private ends for the accomplishment of a stable Pan-Hellenic sentiment and fraternity; employed too thus, at a moment when so many of the Greek towns were in the throes of reorganization, having to take up a new political course in reference to the altered circumstances, is an element of which the force could hardly have failed to be prodigious as well as beneficial. What degree of positive good might have been wrought, by a noble-minded victor under such special circumstances, we cannot presume to affirm in detail. But it would have been no mean advantage, to have preserved Greece from beholding and feeling such enormous powers in the hands of a man like Lysander; through whose management the worst tendencies of an imperial city were studiously magnified by the exorbitance of individual ambition. It was to him exclusively that the Thirty in Athens, and the dekadarchies elsewhere, owed both their existence and their means of oppression.

It has been necessary thus to explain the general changes which had gone on in Greece and in Grecian feeling during the eight months succeeding the capture of Athens in March 404 B.C., in order that we may understand the position of the Thirty oligarchs, or Tyrants, at Athens, and of the Athenian population both in Attica and in exile, about the beginning of December in the same year, the period which we have now reached. We see how it was that Thebes, Corinth, and Megara, who in March had been the bitterest enemies of the Athenians, had now become alienated both from Sparta and from the Lysandrian Thirty, whom they viewed as viceroys of Athens for separate Spartan benefit. We see how the basis was thus laid of sympathy for the suffering exiles who fled from Attica; a feeling which the recital of the endless enormities perpetrated by Kritias and his colleagues inflamed every day more and more. We discern at the same time how the Thirty, while thus incurring enmity both in and out of Attica, were at the same time losing the hearty support of Sparta, from the decline of Lysander’s influence, and the growing opposition of his rivals at home.

In spite of formal prohibition from Sparta, obtained doubtless under the influence of Lysander, the Athenian emigrants had obtained shelter in all the states bordering on Attica. It was from Bœotia that they struck the first blow. Thrasybulus, Anytus, and Archinus, starting from Thebes with the sympathy of the Theban public, and with substantial aid from Ismenias and other wealthy citizens,—at the head of a small band of exiles stated variously at thirty, sixty, seventy, or somewhat above one hundred men,[416]—seized Phylê, a frontier fortress in the mountains north of Attica, lying on the direct road between Athens and Thebes. Probably it had no garrison; for the Thirty, acting in the interest of Lacedæmonian predominance, had dismantled all the outlying fortresses in Attica;[417] so that Thrasybulus accomplished his purpose without resistance. The Thirty marched out from Athens to attack him, at the head of a powerful force, comprising the Lacedæmonian hoplites who formed their guard, the Three Thousand privileged citizens, and all the knights, or horsemen. Probably the small company of Thrasybulus was reinforced by fresh accessions of exiles, as soon as he was known to have occupied the fort. For by the time that the Thirty with their assailing force arrived, he was in condition to repel a vigorous assault made by the younger soldiers, with considerable loss to the aggressors.

[416] Xenoph. Hellen. ii, 4, 2; Diodor. xiv, 32; Pausan. i,
29, 3; Lysias, Or. xiii, cont. Agorat. sect. 84; Justin, v,
9; Æschinês, cont. Ktesiphon, c. 62, p. 437; Demosth. cont.
Timokrat. c. 34, p. 742. Æschinês allots more than one hundred
followers to the captors of Phylê.

The sympathy which the Athenian exiles found at Thebes is
attested in a fragment of Lysias, ap. Dionys. Hal. Jud. de Lysiâ,
p. 594 (Fragm. 47, ed. Bekker).

[417] Lysias, Or. xii, cont. Eratosth. sect. 41, p. 124.

Disappointed in this direct attack, the Thirty laid plans for blockading Phylê, where they knew that there was no stock of provisions. But hardly had their operations commenced, when a snow-storm fell, so abundant and violent, that they were forced to abandon their position and retire to Athens, leaving much of their baggage in the hands of the garrison at Phylê. In the language of Thrasybulus, this storm was characterized as providential, since the weather had been very fine until the moment preceding, and since it gave time to receive reinforcements which made him seven hundred strong.[418] Though the weather was such that the Thirty did not choose to keep their main force in the neighborhood of Phylê, and perhaps the Three Thousand themselves were not sufficiently hearty in the cause to allow it, yet they sent their Lacedæmonians and two tribes of Athenian horsemen to restrain the excursions of the garrison. This body Thrasybulus contrived to attack by surprise. Descending from Phylê by night, he halted within a quarter of a mile of their position until a little before daybreak, when the night-watch had just broken up,[419] and when the grooms were making a noise in rubbing down the horses. Just at that moment, the hoplites from Phylê rushed upon them at a running pace, found every man unprepared, and some even in their beds, and dispersed them with scarcely any resistance. One hundred and twenty hoplites and a few horsemen were slain, while abundance of arms and stores were captured and carried back to Phylê in triumph.[420] News of the defeat was speedily conveyed to the city, from whence the remaining horsemen immediately came forth to the rescue, but could do nothing more than protect the carrying off of the dead.

[418] Xenoph. Hellen. ii, 4, 2, 5, 14.

[419] See an analogous case of a Lacedæmonian army surprised by
the Thebans at this dangerous hour, Xenoph. Hellen. vii, i, 16;
compare Xenoph. Magistr. Equit. vii, 12.

[420] Xenoph. Hellen. ii, 4, 5, 7. Diodorus (xiv, 32, 33)
represents the occasion of this battle somewhat differently. I
follow the account of Xenophon.

This successful engagement sensibly changed the relative situation of parties in Attica; encouraging the exiles as much as it depressed the Thirty. Even among the partisans of the latter at Athens, dissension began to arise; the minority which had sympathized with Theramenês, as well as that portion of the Three Thousand who were least compromised as accomplices in the recent enormities, began to waver so manifestly in their allegiance, that Kritias and his colleagues felt some doubt of being able to maintain themselves in the city. They resolved to secure Eleusis and the island of Salamis, as places of safety and resource in case of being compelled to evacuate Athens. They accordingly went to Eleusis with a considerable number of the Athenian horsemen, under pretence of examining into the strength of the place and the number of its defenders, so as to determine what amount of farther garrison would be necessary. All the Eleusinians disposed and qualified for armed service, were ordered to come in person and give in their names to the Thirty,[421] in a building having its postern opening on to the sea-beach; along which were posted the horsemen and the attendants from Athens. Each Eleusinian hoplite, after having presented himself and returned his name to the Thirty, was ordered to pass out through this exit, where each man successively found himself in the power of the horsemen, and was fettered by the attendants. Lysimachus, the hipparch, or commander of the horsemen, was directed to convey all these prisoners to Athens, and hand them over to the custody of the Eleven.[422] Having thus seized and carried away from Eleusis every citizen whose sentiments or whose energy they suspected, and having left a force of their own adherents in the place, the Thirty returned to Athens. At the same time, it appears, a similar visit and seizure of prisoners was made by some of them in Salamis.[423] On the next day, they convoked at Athens all their Three Thousand privileged hoplites—together with all the remaining horsemen who had not been employed at Eleusis or Salamis—in the Odeon, half of which was occupied by the Lacedæmonian garrison all under arms. “Gentlemen (said Kritias, addressing his countrymen), we keep up the government not less for your benefit than for our own. You must therefore share with us in the danger, as well as in the honor, of our position. Here are these Eleusinian prisoners awaiting sentence; you must pass a vote condemning them all to death, in order that your hopes and fears may be identified with ours.” He then pointed to a spot immediately before him and in his view, directing each man to deposit upon it his pebble of condemnation visibly to every one.[424] I have before remarked that at Athens, open voting was well known to be the same thing as voting under constraint; there was no security for free and genuine suffrage except by making it secret as well as numerous. Kritias was obeyed, without reserve or exception; probably any dissentient would have been put to death on the spot. All the prisoners, seemingly three hundred in number,[425] were condemned by the same vote, and executed forthwith.

[421] Xenoph. Hellen. ii, 4, 8. I apprehend that ἀπογράφεσθαι
here refers to prospective military service; as in vi, 5, 29,
and in Cyropæd. ii, 1, 18, 19. The words in the context, πόσης
~φυλακῆς προσδεήσοιντο~, attest that such is the meaning;
though the commentators, and Sturz in his Lexicon Xenophonteum,
interpret differently.

[422] Xenoph. Hellen. ii, 4, 8.

[423] Both Lysias (Orat. xii, cont. Eratosth. s. 53; Orat. xiii,
cont. Agorat. s. 47) and Diodorus (xiv, 32) connect together
these two similar proceedings at Eleusis and at Salamis. Xenophon
mentions only the affair at Eleusis.

[424] Xenoph. Hellen. ii, 4, 9. Δείξας δέ τι χωρίον, ἐς τοῦτο
ἐκέλευσε ~φανερὰν φέρειν τὴν ψῆφον~. Compare Lysias, Or. xiii,
cont. Agorat. s. 40, and Thucyd. iv, 74, about the conduct of the
Megarian oligarchical leaders: καὶ τούτων περὶ ἀναγκάσαντες τὸν
δῆμον ψῆφον φανερὰν διενεγκεῖν, etc.

[425] Lysias (Orat. xii, cont. Eratosth. s. 53) gives this number.

Though this atrocity gave additional satisfaction and confidence to the most violent friends of Kritias, it probably alienated a greater number of others, and weakened the Thirty instead of strengthening them. It contributed in part, we can hardly doubt, to the bold and decisive resolution now taken by Thrasybulus, five days after his late success, of marching by night from Phylê to Peiræus.[426] His force, though somewhat increased, was still no more than one thousand men; altogether inadequate by itself to any considerable enterprise, had he not counted on positive support and junction from fresh comrades, together with a still greater amount of negative support from disgust or indifference towards the Thirty. He was indeed speedily joined by many sympathizing countrymen; but few of them, since the general disarming manœuvre of the oligarchs, had heavy armor. Some had light shields and darts, but others were wholly unarmed, and could merely serve as throwers of stones.[427]

[426] Xenoph. Hellen. ii, 4, 10, 13. ἡμέραν πέμπτην, etc.

[427] Xenoph. Hellen. ii, 4, 12.

Peiræus was at this moment an open town, deprived of its fortifications as well as of those Long Walls which had so long connected it with Athens. It was however of large compass, and required an ampler force to defend it than Thrasybulus could muster. Accordingly, when the Thirty marched out of Athens the next morning to attack him, with their full force of Athenian hoplites and horsemen, and with the Lacedæmonian garrison besides, he in vain attempted to maintain against them the great carriage-road which led down to Peiræus. He was compelled to concentrate his forces in Munychia, the easternmost portion of the aggregate called Peiræus, nearest to the bay of Phalêrum, and comprising one of those three ports which had once sustained the naval power of Athens. Thrasybulus occupied the temple of Artemis Munychia, and the adjoining Bendideion, situated in the midst of Munychia, and accessible only by a street of steep ascent. In the rear of his hoplites, whose files were ten deep, were posted the darters and slingers: the ascent being so steep that these latter could cast their missiles over the heads of the hoplites in their front. Presently Kritias and the Thirty, having first mustered in the market-place of Peiræus, called the Hippodamian agora, were seen approaching with their superior numbers; mounting the hill in close array, with hoplites not less than fifty in depth. Thrasybulus, after an animated exhortation to his soldiers, in which he reminded them of the wrongs which they had to avenge, and dwelt upon the advantages of their position, which exposed the close ranks of the enemy to the destructive effect of missiles, and would force them to crouch under their shields so as to be unable to resist a charge with the spear in front, waited patiently until they came within distance, standing in the foremost rank with the prophet—habitually consulted before a battle—by his side. The latter, a brave and devoted patriot, while promising victory, had exhorted his comrades not to charge until some one on their own side should be slain or wounded: he at the same time predicted his own death in the conflict. When the troops of the Thirty advanced near enough in ascending the hill, the light-armed in the rear of Thrasybulus poured upon them a shower of darts over the heads of their own hoplites, with considerable effect. As they seemed to waver, seeking to cover themselves with their shields, and thus not seeing well before them, the prophet, himself seemingly in arms, set the example of rushing forward, was the first to close with the enemy, and perished in the onset. Thrasybulus with the main body of hoplites followed him, charged vigorously down the hill, and after a smart resistance, drove them back in disorder, with the loss of seventy men. What was of still greater moment, Kritias and Hippomachus, who headed their troops on the left, were among the slain; together with Charmidês son of Glaukon, one of the ten oligarchs who had been placed to manage Peiræus.[428]

[428] Xenoph. Hellen. ii, 4, 12, 20.

This great and important advantage left the troops of Thrasybulus in possession of seventy of the enemy’s dead, whom they stripped of their arms, but not of their clothing, in token of respect for fellow-countrymen.[429] So disheartened, lukewarm, and disunited were the hoplites of the Thirty, in spite of their great superiority of number, that they sent to solicit the usual truce for burying the dead. This was of course granted, and the two contending parties became intermingled with each other in the performance of the funeral duties. Amidst so impressive a scene, their common feelings as Athenians and fellow-countrymen were forcibly brought back, and many friendly observations were interchanged among them. Kleokritus—herald of the mysts, or communicants in the Eleusinian mysteries, belonging to one of the most respected gentes in the state—was among the exiles. His voice was peculiarly loud, and the function which he held enabled him to obtain silence while he addressed to the citizens serving with the Thirty a touching and emphatic remonstrance: “Why are you thus driving us into banishment, fellow-citizens? Why are you seeking to kill us? We have never done you the least harm; we have partaken with you in religious rites and festivals; we have been your companions in chorus, in school, and in army; we have braved a thousand dangers with you, by land and sea, in defence of our common safety and freedom. I adjure you by our common gods, paternal and maternal, by our common kindred and companionship, desist from thus wronging your country in obedience to these nefarious Thirty, who have slain as many citizens in eight months, for their own private gains, as the Peloponnesians in ten years of war. These are the men who have plunged us into wicked and odious war one against another, when we might live together in peace. Be assured that your slain in this battle have cost us as many tears as they have cost you.”[430]

[429] Xenoph. Hellen. ii, 4, 19; Cornel. Nepos, Thrasybul. c. 2.

[430] Xenoph. Hellen. ii, 4, 22.

Such affecting appeals, proceeding from a man of respected station like Kleokritus, and doubtless from others also, began to work so sensibly on the minds of the citizens from Athens, that the Thirty were obliged to give orders for immediately returning, which Thrasybulus did not attempt to prevent, though it might have been in his power to do so.[431] But their ascendency had received a shock from which it never fully recovered. On the next day they appeared downcast and dispirited in the senate, which was itself thinly attended; while the privileged Three Thousand, marshalled in different companies on guard, were everywhere in discord and partial mutiny. Those among them who had been most compromised in the crimes of the Thirty, were strenuous in upholding the existing authority; while such as had been less guilty protested against the continuance of such unholy war, and declared that the Thirty should not be permitted to bring Athens to utter ruin. And though the horsemen still continued steadfast partisans, resolutely opposing all accommodation with the exiles,[432] yet the Thirty were farther weakened by the death of Kritias, the ascendent and decisive head, and at the same time the most cruel and unprincipled among them; while that party, both in the senate and out of it, which had formerly adhered to Theramenês, now again raised its head. A public meeting among them was held, in which what may be called the opposition-party among the Thirty, that which had opposed the extreme enormities of Kritias, became predominant. It was determined to depose the Thirty, and to constitute a fresh oligarchy of Ten, one from each tribe.[433] But the members of the Thirty were individually reëligible; so that two of them, Eratosthenês and Pheidon, if not more, adherents of Theramenês and unfriendly to Kritias and Chariklês,[434] with others of the same vein of sentiment, were chosen among the Ten. Chariklês and the more violent members, having thus lost their ascendency, no longer deemed themselves safe at Athens, but retired to Eleusis, which they had had the precaution to occupy beforehand. Probably a number of their partisans, and the Lacedæmonian garrison also, retired thither along with them.

[431] Xenoph. Hellen. ii, 4, 22; Lysias, Orat. xii, cont.
Eratosth. s. 55: οἱ μὲν γὰρ ἐκ Πειραιέως κρείττους ὄντες εἴασαν
αὐτοὺς ἀπελθεῖν, etc.

[432] Xenoph. Hellen. ii, 4, 24.

[433] Xenoph. Hellen. ii, 4, 23.

[434] Lysias, Orat. xii, cont. Eratosth. sects. 55, 56: οἱ
δοκοῦντες εἶναι ἐναντιώτατοι Χαρικλεῖ καὶ Κριτίᾳ καὶ τῇ τούτων
ἑταιρείᾳ, etc.

The nomination of this new oligarchy of Ten was plainly a compromise, adopted by some from sincere disgust at the oligarchical system, and desire to come to accommodation with the exiles; by others, from a conviction that the only way of maintaining the oligarchical system, and repelling the exiles, was to constitute a new oligarchical Board, dismissing that which had become obnoxious. The latter was the purpose of the horsemen, the main upholders of the first Board as well as of the second; and such also was soon seen to be the policy of Eratosthenês and his colleagues. Instead of attempting to agree upon terms of accommodation with the exiles in Peiræus generally, they merely tried to corrupt separately Thrasybulus and the leaders, offering to admit ten of them to a share of the oligarchical power at Athens, provided they would betray their party. This offer having been indignantly refused, the war was again resumed between Athens and Peiræus, to the bitter disappointment, not less of the exiles than of that portion of the Athenians who had hoped better things from the new Board of Ten.[435]

[435] The facts which I have here set down, result from a
comparison of Lysias, Orat. xii, cont. Eratosth. sects. 53, 59,
94: Φείδων, αἱρεθεὶς ὑμᾶς διαλλάξαι καὶ καταγαγεῖν. Diodor. xiv,
32; Justin, v, 9.

But the forces of oligarchy were seriously enfeebled at Athens,[436] as well by the secession of all the more violent spirits to Eleusis, as by the mistrust, discord, and disaffection which now reigned within the city. Far from being able to abuse power like their predecessors, the Ten did not even fully confide in their three thousand hoplites, but were obliged to take measures for the defence of the city in conjunction with the hipparch and the horsemen, who did double duty,—on horseback in the day-time, and as hoplites with their shields along the walls at night, for fear of surprise,—employing the Odeon as their head-quarters. The Ten sent envoys to Sparta to solicit farther aid; while the Thirty sent envoys thither also, from Eleusis, for the same purpose; both representing that the Athenian people had revolted from Sparta, and required farther force to reconquer them.[437]

[436] Isokratês, Or. xviii, cont. Kallimach. s. 25.

[437] Xenoph. Hellen. ii, 4, 24, 28.

Such foreign aid became daily more necessary to them, since the forces of Thrasybulus in Peiræus grew stronger, before their eyes, in numbers, in arms, and in hope of success; exerting themselves, with successful energy, to procure additional arms and shields, though some of the shields, indeed, were no better than wood-work or wicker-work whitened over.[438] Many exiles flocked in to their aid, while others sent donations of money or arms: among the latter, the orator Lysias stood conspicuous, transmitting to Peiræus a present of two hundred shields as well as two thousand drachms in money, and hiring besides three hundred fresh soldiers; while his friend Thrasydæus, the leader of the democratical interest at Elis, was induced to furnish a loan of two talents.[439] Others also lent money; some Bœotians furnished two talents, and a person named Gelarchus contributed the large sum of five talents, repaid in after times by the people.[440] Proclamation was made by Thrasybulus, that all metics who would lend aid should be put on the footing of isotely, or equal payment of taxes with citizens, exempt from the metic-tax and other special burdens. Within a short time he had got together a considerable force both in heavy-armed and light-armed, and even seventy horsemen; so that he was in condition to make excursions out of Peiræus, and to collect wood and provisions. Nor did the Ten venture to make any aggressive movement out of Athens, except so far as to send out the horsemen, who slew or captured stragglers from the force of Thrasybulus. Lysimachus the hipparch, the same who had commanded under the Thirty at the seizure of the Eleusinian citizens, having made prisoners some young Athenians, bringing in provisions from the country for the consumption of the troops in Peiræus, put them to death, in spite of remonstrances from several even of his own men; for which cruelty Thrasybulus retaliated, by putting to death a horseman named Kallistratus, made prisoner in one of their marches to the neighboring villages.[441]

[438] Xenoph. Hellen. ii, 4, 25.

[439] Plutarch, Vit. x, Orator, p. 835; Lysias, Or. xxxi, cont.
Philon. sects. 19-34.

Lysias and his brother had carried on a manufactory of shields
at Athens. The Thirty had plundered it; but some of the stock
probably escaped.

[440] Demosth. cont. Leptin. c. 32, p. 502; Lysias cont.
Nikomach. Or. xxx, s. 29.

[441] Xenoph. Hellen. ii, 4, 27.

In the established civil war which now raged in Attica, Thrasybulus and the exiles in Peiræus had decidedly the advantage; maintaining the offensive, while the Ten in Athens, and the remainder of the Thirty at Eleusis, were each thrown upon their defence. The division of the oligarchical force into these two sections doubtless weakened both, while the democrats in Peiræus were hearty and united. Presently, however, the arrival of a Spartan auxiliary force altered the balance of parties. Lysander, whom the oligarchical envoys had expressly requested to be sent to them as general, prevailed with the ephors to grant their request. While he himself went to Eleusis and got together a Peloponnesian land-force, his brother Libys conducted a fleet of forty triremes to block up Peiræus, and one hundred talents were lent to the Athenian oligarchs out of the large sum recently brought from Asia into the Spartan treasury.[442]

[442] Xenoph. Hellen. ii, 4, 28; Diodor. xiv, 33; Lysias, Orat.
xii, cont. Eratosth. s. 60.

The arrival of Lysander brought the two sections of oligarchs in Attica again into coöperation, restrained the progress of Thrasybulus, and even reduced Peiræus to great straits by preventing all entry of ships or stores. Nor could anything have prevented it from being reduced to surrender, if Lysander had been allowed free scope in his operations. But the general sentiment of Greece had by this time become disgusted with his ambitious policy, and with the oligarchies which he had everywhere set up as his instruments; a sentiment not without influence on the feelings of the leading Spartans, who, already jealous of his ascendency, were determined not to increase it farther by allowing him to conquer Attica a second time, in order to plant his own creatures as rulers at Athens.[443]

[443] Xenoph. Hellen. ii, 4, 29. Οὕτω δὲ προχωρούντων, Παυσανίας
ὁ βασιλεὺς, φθονήσας Λυσάνδρῳ, εἰ κατειργασμένος ταῦτα ἅμα μὲν
εὐδοκιμήσοι, ἅμα δὲ ἰδίας ποιήσοιτο τὰς Ἀθήνας, πείσας τῶν Ἐφόρων
τρεῖς, ἐξάγει φρουράν.

Diodor. xiv, 33. Παυσανίας δὲ..., φθονῶν μὲν τῷ Λυσάνδρῳ, θεωρῶν
δὲ τὴν Σπάρτην ἀδοξοῦσαν παρὰ τοῖς Ἕλλησι, etc.

Plutarch, Lysand. c. 21.

Under the influence of these feelings, king Pausanias obtained the consent of three out of the five ephors to undertake himself an expedition into Attica, at the head of the forces of the confederacy, for which he immediately issued proclamation. Opposed to the political tendencies of Lysander, he was somewhat inclined to sympathize with the democracy, not merely at Athens, but elsewhere also, as at Mantineia.[444] It was probably understood that his intentions towards Athens were lenient and anti-Lysandrian, so that the Peloponnesian allies obeyed the summons generally: yet the Bœotians and Corinthians still declined, on the ground that Athens had done nothing to violate the late convention; a remarkable proof of the altered feelings of Greece during the last year, since, down to the period of that convention, these two states had been more bitterly hostile to Athens than any others in the confederacy. They suspected that even the expedition of Pausanias was projected with selfish Lacedæmonian views, to secure Attica as a separate dependency of Sparta, though detached from Lysander.[445]

[444] Xenoph. Hellen. v, 2, 3.

[445] Xenoph. Hellen. ii, 4, 30.

On approaching Athens, Pausanias, joined by Lysander and the forces already in Attica, encamped in the garden of the Academy, near the city gates. His sentiments were sufficiently known beforehand to offer encouragement; so that the vehement reaction against the atrocities of the Thirty, which the presence of Lysander had doubtless stifled, burst forth without delay. The surviving relatives of the victims slain beset him even at the Academy in his camp, with prayers for protection and cries of vengeance against the oligarchs. Among those victims, as I have already stated, were Nikêratus the son, and Eukratês the brother, of Nikias who had perished at Syracuse, the friend and proxenus of Sparta at Athens. The orphan children, both of Nikêratus and Eukratês, were taken to Pausanias by their relative Diognêtus, who implored his protection for them, recounting at the same time the unmerited execution of their respective fathers, and setting forth their family claims upon the justice of Sparta. This affecting incident, which has been specially made known to us,[446] doubtless did not stand alone, among so many families suffering from the same cause. Pausanias was furnished at once with ample grounds, not merely for repudiating the Thirty altogether, and sending back the presents which they tendered to him,[447] but even for refusing to identify himself unreservedly with the new oligarchy of Ten which had risen upon their ruins. The voice of complaint—now for the first time set free, with some hopes of redress—must have been violent and unmeasured, after such a career as that of Kritias and his colleagues; while the fact was now fully manifested, which could not well have come forth into evidence before, that the persons despoiled and murdered had been chiefly opulent men, and very frequently even oligarchical men, not politicians of the former democracy. Both Pausanias, and the Lacedæmonians along with him, on reaching Athens, must have been strongly affected by the facts which they learned, and by the loud cry for sympathy and redress which poured upon them from the most innocent and respected families. The predisposition both of the king and the ephors against the policy of Lysander was materially strengthened, as well as their inclination to bring about an accommodation of parties, instead of upholding by foreign force an anti-popular Few.

[446] Lysias, Or. xviii, De Bonis Niciæ Frat. sects. 8-10.

[447] Lysias, _ut sup._ sects. 11, 12. ὅθεν Παυσανίας ἤρξατο
εὔνους εἶναι τῷ δήμῳ, παράδειγμα ποιούμενος πρὸς τοὺς ἄλλους
Λακεδαιμονίους τὰς ἡμετέρας συμφορὰς τῆς τῶν τριάκοντα
πονηρίας....

Οὕτω δ᾽ ἠλεούμεθα, καὶ πᾶσι δεινὰ ἐδοκοῦμεν πεπονθέναι, ὥστε
Παυσανίας τὰ μὲν παρὰ τῶν τριάκοντα ξένια οὐκ ἠθέλησε λαβεῖν, τὰ
δὲ παρ᾽ ἡμῶν ἐδέξατο.