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-The Project Gutenberg eBook, History of Greece, Volume 8 (of 12), by
-George Grote
-
-
-This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most
-other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions 
-whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of
-the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at 
-www.gutenberg.org.  If you are not located in the United States, you'll have
-to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook.
-
-
-
-
-Title: History of Greece, Volume 8 (of 12)
-
-
-Author: George Grote
-
-
-
-Release Date: May 21, 2016  [eBook #52119]
-
-Language: English
-
-Character set encoding: UTF-8
-
-
-***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HISTORY OF GREECE, VOLUME 8 (OF
-12)***
-
-
-E-text prepared by Ramon Pajares Box, Adrian Mastronardi, and the Online
-Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net) from page images
-generously made available by Internet Archive/American Libraries
-(https://archive.org/details/americana)
-
-
-
-Note: Images of the original pages are available through
-      Internet Archive/American Libraries. See
-      https://archive.org/details/historyofgreece08grotiala
-
-
-Transcriber's note:
-
-      Text enclosed by underscores is in italics (_italics_).
-
-      Italics are denoted by underscores as in _italics_.
-
-      Small capitals are represented in upper case as in
-      SMALL CAPS.
-
-      Letter spaced Greek text is enclosed in tildes as in ~καὶ τὰ
-      λοιπά~.
-
-
-
-
-
-HISTORY OF GREECE.
-
-by
-
-GEORGE GROTE, Esq.
-
-VOL. VIII.
-
-
-Reprinted from the London Edition.
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-New York:
-Harper & Brothers, Publishers,
-329 and 331 Pearl Street.
-
-1879.
-
-
-
-
-PREFACE TO VOL. VIII.
-
-
-I had hoped to be able, in this Volume, to carry the history of
-Greece down as far as the battle of Knidus; but I find myself
-disappointed.
-
-A greater space than I anticipated has been necessary, not merely to
-do justice to the closing events of the Peloponnesian war, especially
-the memorable scenes at Athens after the battle of Arginusæ, but
-also to explain my views both respecting the Sophists and respecting
-Sokratês.
-
-It has been hitherto common to treat the sophists as corruptors
-of the Greek mind, and to set forth the fact of such corruption,
-increasing as we descend downwards from the great invasion of Xerxês,
-as historically certified. Dissenting as I do from former authors,
-and believing that Grecian history has been greatly misconceived,
-on both these points, I have been forced to discuss the evidences,
-and exhibit the reasons for my own way of thinking, at considerable
-length.
-
-To Sokratês I have devoted one entire Chapter. No smaller space would
-have sufficed to lay before the reader any tolerable picture of that
-illustrious man, the rarest intellectual phenomenon of ancient times,
-and originator of the most powerful scientific impulse which the
-Greek mind ever underwent.
-
-  G. G.
-
-London, February, 1850.
-
-
-
-
-CONTENTS.
-
-VOL. VIII.
-
-
-PART II.
-
-CONTINUATION OF HISTORICAL GREECE.
-
-
-  CHAPTER LXII. TWENTY-FIRST YEAR OF THE WAR.—OLIGARCHY OF FOUR
-  HUNDRED AT ATHENS.
-
-  Rally of Athens, during the year after the defeat at
-  Syracuse. B.C. 412.—Commencement of the conspiracy of the
-  Four Hundred at Athens—Alkibiadês.—Order from Sparta to
-  kill Alkibiadês.—He escapes, retires to Tissaphernês, and
-  becomes adviser of the Persians.—He advises the satrap
-  to assist neither of the Grecian parties heartily—but
-  his advice leans towards Athens, with a view to his own
-  restoration.—Alkibiadês acts as negotiator for Tissaphernês
-  at Magnesia.—Diminution of the rate of pay furnished by
-  Tissaphernês to the Peloponnesians.—Alkibiadês opens
-  correspondence with the Athenian officers at Samos. He
-  originates the scheme of an oligarchical revolution at
-  Athens.—Conspiracy arranged between the Athenian officer
-  and Alkibiadês.—Oligarchical Athenians—the hetæries,
-  or political clubs. Peisander is sent to push forward
-  the conspiracy at Athens.—Credulity of the oligarchical
-  conspirators.—Opposition of Phrynichus at Samos to
-  the conspirators, and to Alkibiadês.—Manœuvres and
-  counter-manœuvres of Phrynichus and Alkibiadês.—Proceedings
-  of Peisander at Athens—strong opposition among the
-  people both to the conspiracy and to the restoration
-  of Alkibiadês.—Unwilling vote of the assembly to
-  relinquish their democracy, under the promise of Persian
-  aid for the war. Peisander is sent back to negotiate
-  with Alkibiadês.—Peisander brings the oligarchical
-  clubs at Athens into organized action against the
-  democracy.—Peisander leaves Athens for Samos—Antiphon takes
-  the management of the oligarchical conspiracy—Theramenês
-  and Phrynichus.—Military operations near the Asiatic
-  coast.—Negotiations of Peisander with Alkibiadês.—Tricks
-  of Alkibiadês—he exaggerates his demands, with a view of
-  breaking off the negotiation—indignation of the oligarchs
-  against him.—Reconciliation between Tissaphernês and
-  the Peloponnesians.—Third convention concluded between
-  them.—Third convention compared with the two preceding.—Loss
-  of Orôpus by Athens.—Peisander and his colleagues persist
-  in the oligarchical conspiracy, without Alkibiadês.—They
-  attempt to subvert the democracy at Samos—assassination of
-  Hyperbolus and others.—The democracy at Samos is sustained
-  by the Athenian armament.—The Athenian Parali—defeat of the
-  oligarchical conspiracy at Samos.—The Paralus is sent to
-  Athens with the news.—Progress of the oligarchical conspiracy
-  at Athens—dextrous management of Antiphon.—Language of the
-  conspirators—juggle about naming Five Thousand citizens to
-  exercise the political franchise exclusively.—Assassination
-  of the popular speakers by Antiphon and the oligarchical
-  party.—Return of Peisander to Athens—oligarchical government
-  established in several of the allied cities.—Consummation
-  of the revolution at Athens—last public assembly at
-  Kolônus.—Abolition of the Graphê Paranomôn.—New government
-  proposed by Peisander—oligarchy of Four Hundred.—Fictitious
-  and nominal aggregate called the Five Thousand.—The
-  Four Hundred install themselves in the senate-house,
-  expelling the senators by armed force.—Remarks on this
-  revolution.—Attachment to constitutional forms at Athens—use
-  made of this sentiment by Antiphon, to destroy the
-  constitution.—Demagogues the indispensable counterpoise
-  and antithesis to the oligarchs.—Proceedings of the Four
-  Hundred in the government.—They make overtures for peace to
-  Agis, and to the Spartans.—They send envoys to the camp at
-  Samos.—First news of the revolution is conveyed to the camp
-  by Chæreas—strong sentiment in the camp against the Four
-  Hundred.—Ardent democratical manifestation, and emphatic
-  oath, taken both by the Athenian armament at Samos and
-  by the Samians.—The Athenian democracy is reconstituted
-  by the armament—public assembly of the soldiers—new
-  generals chosen.—Alkibiadês opens correspondence with the
-  democratical armament at Samos.—Alkibiadês comes to Samos,
-  on the invitation of the armament.—Confidence placed by
-  the armament in his language and promises—they choose him
-  one of their generals.—New position of Alkibiadês—present
-  turn of his ambition.—The envoys of the Four Hundred reach
-  Samos—are indignantly sent back by the armament.—Eagerness
-  of the armament to sail to Peiræus—is discountenanced
-  by Alkibiadês—his answer to the envoys.—Dissuasive
-  advice of Alkibiadês—how far it is to be commended as
-  sagacious.—Envoys sent from Argos to the “Athenian Demos
-  at Samos.”—Return of the envoys of the Four Hundred from
-  Samos to Athens—bad prospects of the oligarchy.—Mistrust and
-  discord among the Four Hundred themselves. An opposition
-  party formed under Theramenês.—Theramenês demands that
-  the Five Thousand shall be made a reality.—Measures
-  of Antiphon and the Four Hundred—their solicitations
-  to Sparta—construction of the fort of Ectioneia, for
-  the admission of a Spartan garrison.—Unaccountable
-  backwardness of the Lacedæmonians.—Assassination of
-  Phrynichus—Lacedæmonian fleet hovering near Peiræus.—Rising
-  at Athens against the Four Hundred—demolition of the new
-  fort at Ectioneia.—Decline of the Four Hundred—concessions
-  made by them—renewal of the public assembly.—Lacedæmonian
-  fleet threatens Peiræus—passes by to Eubœa.—Naval battle
-  near Eretria—Athenians defeated—Eubœa revolts.—Dismay at
-  Athens—her ruin inevitable, if the Lacedæmonians had acted
-  with energy.—The Four Hundred are put down—the democracy in
-  substance restored.—Moderation of political antipathies,
-  and patriotic spirit, now prevalent.—The Five Thousand—a
-  number never exactly realized—were soon enlarged into
-  universal citizenship.—Restoration of the complete democracy,
-  all except pay.—Psephism of Demophantus—democratical oath
-  prescribed.—Flight of most of the leaders of the Four
-  Hundred to Dekeleia.—Theramenês stands forward to accuse
-  the remaining leaders of the Four Hundred, especially in
-  reference to the fort at Ectioneia, and the embassy to
-  Sparta.—Antiphon tried, condemned, and executed.—Treatment of
-  the Four Hundred generally.—Favorable judgment of Thucydidês
-  on the conduct of the Athenians.—Oligarchy at Athens,
-  democracy at Samos—contrast.                                  1-93
-
-
-  CHAPTER LXIII.
-
-  THE RESTORED ATHENIAN DEMOCRACY, AFTER THE DEPOSITION OF THE
-  FOUR HUNDRED, DOWN TO THE ARRIVAL OF CYRUS THE YOUNGER IN
-  ASIA MINOR.
-
-  Embarrassed state of Athens after the Four
-  Hundred.—Peloponnesian fleet—revolt of Abydos
-  from Athens.—Strombichidês goes from Chios to the
-  Hellespont—improved condition of the Chians.—Discontent in
-  the Peloponnesian fleet at Milêtus.—Strombichidês returns
-  from Chios to Samos.—Peloponnesian squadron and force at
-  the Hellespont—revolt of Byzantium from Athens.—Discontent
-  and meeting against Astyochus at Milêtus.—The Spartan
-  commissioner Lichas enjoins the Milesians to obey
-  Tissaphernês—discontent of the Milesians.—Mindarus
-  supersedes Astyochus as admiral.—Phenician fleet at
-  Aspendus—duplicity of Tissaphernês.—Alkibiadês at
-  Aspendus—his double game between Tissaphernês and the
-  Athenians.—Phenicians sent back from Aspendus without
-  action—motives of Tissaphernês.—Mindarus leaves Milêtus
-  with his fleet—goes to Chios—Thrasyllus and the Athenian
-  fleet at Lesbos.—Mindarus eludes Thrasyllus, and reaches
-  the Hellespont.—Athenian Hellespontine squadron escapes
-  from Sestos in the night.—Thrasyllus and the Athenian
-  fleet at the Hellespont.—Battle of Kynossêma—victory
-  of the Athenian fleet.—Rejoicing at Athens for the
-  victory.—Bridge across the Euripus, joining Eubœa with
-  Bœotia.—Revolt of Kyzikus.—Zeal of Pharnabazus against
-  Athens—importance of Persian money.—Tissaphernês again
-  courts the Peloponnesians.—Alkibiadês returns from Aspendus
-  to Samos.—Farther combats at the Hellespont.—Theramenês
-  sent out with reinforcements from Athens.—Renewed troubles
-  at Korkyra.—Alkibiadês is seized by Tissaphernês and
-  confined at Sardis.—Escape of Alkibiadês—concentration of
-  the Athenian fleet—Mindarus besieges Kyzikus.—Battle of
-  Kyzikus—victory of the Athenians—Mindarus is slain, and
-  the whole Peloponnesian fleet taken.—Discouragement of the
-  Spartans—proposition to Athens for peace.—The Lacedæmonian
-  Endius at Athens—his propositions for peace.—Refused by
-  Athens—opposition of Kleophon.—Grounds of the opposition
-  of Kleophon.—Question of policy as it then stood, between
-  war and peace.—Strenuous aid of Pharnabazus to the
-  Peloponnesians—Alkibiadês and the Athenian fleet at the
-  Bosphorus.—The Athenians occupy Chrysopolis, and levy toll on
-  the ships passing through the Bosphorus.—The Lacedæmonians
-  are expelled from Thasus.—Klearchus the Lacedæmonian
-  is sent to Byzantium.—Thrasyllus sent from Athens to
-  Ionia.—Thrasyllus and Alkibiadês at the Hellespont.—Pylos is
-  retaken by the Lacedæmonians—disgrace of the Athenian Anytus
-  for not relieving it.—Capture of Chalkêdon by Alkibiadês and
-  the Athenians.—Convention concluded by the Athenians with
-  Pharnabazus.—Byzantium captured by the Athenians.—Pharnabazus
-  conveys some Athenian envoys towards Susa, to make terms with
-  the Great King.                                             93-135
-
-
-  CHAPTER LXIV.
-
-  FROM THE ARRIVAL OF CYRUS THE YOUNGER IN ASIA MINOR DOWN TO
-  THE BATTLE OF ARGINUSÆ.
-
-  Cyrus the younger—effects of his coming down to
-  Asia Minor.—Pharnabazus detains the Athenian
-  envoys.—Lysander—Lacedæmonian admiral in Asia.—Proceedings
-  of the preceding admiral, Kratesippidas.—Lysander visits
-  Cyrus at Sardis.—His dexterous policy—he acquires the
-  peculiar esteem of Cyrus.—Abundant pay of the Peloponnesian
-  armament, furnished by Cyrus.—Factions organized by Lysander
-  among the Asiatic cities.—Proceedings of Alkibiadês in
-  Thrace and Asia.—His arrival at Athens.—Feelings and details
-  connected with his arrival.—Unanimous welcome with which
-  he is received.—Effect produced upon Alkibiadês.—Sentiment
-  of the Athenians towards him.—Disposition to refrain from
-  dwelling on his previous wrongs, and to give him a new
-  trial.—Mistaken confidence and intoxication of Alkibiadês.—He
-  protects the celebration of the Eleusinian mysteries by
-  land, against the garrison of Dekeleia.—Fruitless attempt of
-  Agis to surprise Athens.—Alkibiadês sails with an armament
-  to Asia—ill-success at Andros—entire failure in respect to
-  hopes from Persia.—Lysander at Ephesus—his cautious policy,
-  refusing to fight—disappointment of Alkibiadês.—Alkibiadês
-  goes to Phokæa, leaving his fleet under the command of
-  Antiochus—oppression by Alkibiadês at Kymê.—Complaints
-  of the Kymæans at Athens—defeat of Antiochus at Notium
-  during the absence of Alkibiadês.—Dissatisfaction and
-  complaint in the armament against Alkibiadês.—Murmur and
-  accusation against him transmitted to Athens.—Alteration
-  of sentiment at Athens—displeasure of the Athenians
-  against him.—Reasonable grounds of such alteration and
-  displeasure.—Different behavior towards Nikias and
-  towards Alkibiadês.—Alkibiadês is dismissed from his
-  command—ten generals named to succeed him—he retires to the
-  Chersonese.—Konon and his colleagues—capture and liberation
-  of the Rhodian Dorieus by the Athenians.—Kallikratidas
-  supersedes Lysander—his noble character.—Murmurs and
-  ill-will against Kallikratidas—energy and rectitude whereby
-  he represses them.—His spirited behavior in regard to
-  the Persians.—His appeal to the Milesians—Pan-Hellenic
-  feelings.—He fits out a commanding fleet—his success at
-  Lesbos—he liberates the captives and the Athenian garrison
-  at Methymna.—Noble character of this proceeding—exalted
-  Pan-Hellenic patriotism of Kallikratidas.—He blocks up Konon
-  and the Athenian fleet at Mitylênê.—Triumphant position of
-  Kallikratidas.—Hopeless condition of Konon—his stratagem
-  to send news to Athens and entreat relief.—Kallikratidas
-  defeats the squadron of Diomedon.—Prodigious effort of
-  the Athenians to relieve Konon—large Athenian fleet
-  equipped and sent to Arginusæ—Kallikratidas withdraws
-  most of his fleet from Mitylênê, leaving Eteonikus to
-  continue the blockade.—The two fleets marshalled for
-  battle.—Comparative nautical skill, reversed since the
-  beginning of the war.—Battle of Arginusæ—defeat of the
-  Lacedæmonians—death of Kallikratidas.—It would have been
-  better for Greece, and even for Athens, if Kallikratidas
-  had been victor at Arginusæ.—Safe escape of Eteonikus
-  and his fleet from Mitylênê to Chios.—Joy of Athens for
-  the victory—indignation arising from the fact that the
-  Athenian seamen on the disabled ships had not been picked
-  up after the battle.—State of the facts about the disabled
-  ships, and the men left in them.—Despatch of the generals
-  to Athens, affirming that a storm had prevented them from
-  saving the drowning men.—Justifiable wrath and wounded
-  sympathy of the Athenians—extreme excitement among the
-  relatives of the drowned men.—The generals are superseded,
-  and directed to come home.—Examination of the generals
-  before the senate and the people at Athens.—Debate in the
-  public assembly—Theramenês accuses the generals as guilty of
-  omitting to save the drowning men.—Effect of the accusation
-  by Theramenês upon the assembly.—Defence of the generals—they
-  affirm that they had commissioned Theramenês himself to
-  undertake the duty.—Reason why the generals had not mentioned
-  this commission in their despatch.—Different account given
-  by Diodorus.—Probable version of the way in which the facts
-  really occurred.—Justification of the generals—how far
-  valid?—The alleged storm. Escape of Eteonikus.—Feelings of
-  the Athenian public—how the case stood before them—decision
-  adjourned to a future assembly.—Occurrence of the festival
-  of Apaturia—the great family solemnity of the Ionic
-  race.—Burst of feeling at the Apaturia—misrepresented
-  by Xenophon.—Proposition of Kallixenus in the senate
-  against the generals—adopted and submitted to the public
-  assembly.—Injustice of the resolution—by depriving the
-  generals of the customary securities for judicial trial.
-  Psephism of Kannônus.—Opposition taken by Euryptolemus on the
-  ground of constitutional form.—Graphê Paranomôn.—Excitement
-  of the assembly—constitutional impediment overruled.—The
-  prytanes refuse to put the question—their opposition
-  overruled, all except that of Sokratês.—Altered temper
-  of the assembly when the discussion had begun—amendment
-  moved and developed by Euryptolemus.—Speech of
-  Euryptolemus.—His amendment is rejected—the proposition
-  of Kallixenus is carried.—The six generals are condemned
-  and executed.—Injustice of the proceeding—violation of the
-  democratical maxims and sentiments.—Earnest repentance of the
-  people soon afterwards—disgrace and end of Kallixenus.—Causes
-  of the popular excitement.—Generals—not innocent men.      135-210
-
-
-  CHAPTER LXV.
-
-  FROM THE BATTLE OF ARGINUSÆ TO THE RESTORATION OF THE
-  DEMOCRACY AT ATHENS, AFTER THE EXPULSION OF THE THIRTY.
-
-  Alleged propositions of peace from Sparta to
-  Athens—doubtful.—Eteonikus at Chios—distress of his
-  seamen—conspiracy suppressed.—Solicitations from
-  Chios and elsewhere that Lysander should be sent out
-  again.—Arrival of Lysander at Ephesus—zeal of his
-  partisans—Cyrus.—Violent revolution at Milêtus by the
-  partisans of Lysander.—Cyrus goes to visit his dying
-  father—confides his tributes to Lysander.—Inaction of the
-  Athenian fleet after the battle of Arginusæ.—Operations of
-  Lysander.—Both fleets at the Hellespont.—Athenian fleet
-  at Ægospotami.—Battle of Ægospotami—surprise and capture
-  of the entire Athenian fleet.—Capture of the Athenian
-  commanders, all except Konon.—Slaughter of the captive
-  generals and prisoners.—The Athenian fleet supposed to
-  have been betrayed by its own commanders.—Distress and
-  agony at Athens, when the defeat of Ægospotami was made
-  known there.—Proceedings of Lysander.—Miserable condition
-  of the Athenian kleruchs, and of the friends of Athens
-  in the allied dependencies.—Suffering in Athens.—Amnesty
-  proposed by Patrokleidês, and adopted.—Oath of mutual
-  harmony sworn in the acropolis.—Arrival of Lysander.
-  Athens is blocked up by sea and land.—Resolute holding-out
-  of the Athenians—their propositions for capitulating are
-  refused.—Pretences of Theramenês—he is sent as envoy—his
-  studied delay.—Misery and famine in Athens—death of
-  Kleophon.—The famine becomes intolerable—Theramenês is
-  sent to obtain peace on any terms—debate about the terms
-  at Sparta.—Peace is granted by Sparta, against the general
-  sentiment of the allies.—Surrender of Athens—extreme
-  wretchedness—number of deaths from famine.—Lysander
-  enters Athens—return of the exiles—demolition of the Long
-  Walls—dismantling of Peiræus—fleet given up.—The exiles
-  and the oligarchical party in Athens—their triumphant
-  behavior and devotion to Lysander.—Kritias and other
-  exiles—past life of Kritias.—Kritias at the head of
-  the oligarchs at Athens.—Oligarchical leaders named
-  at Athens.—Seizure of Strombichidês and other eminent
-  democrats.—Nomination of the Thirty, under the dictation
-  of Lysander.—Conquest of Samos by Lysander—oligarchy
-  restored there.—Triumphant return of Lysander to Sparta—his
-  prodigious ascendency throughout Greece.—Proceedings of
-  the Thirty at Athens—feelings of oligarchical men like
-  Plato.—The Thirty begin their executions—Strombichidês
-  and the imprisoned generals put to death—other democrats
-  also.—Senate appointed by the Thirty—is only trusted to
-  act under their intimidation. Numerous executions without
-  trial.—The senate began by condemning willingly everyone
-  brought before them.—Discord among the Thirty—dissentient
-  views of Kritias and Theramenês.—Lacedæmonian garrison
-  introduced—multiplied executions by Kritias and the
-  Thirty.—Opposition of Theramenês to these measures—violence
-  and rapacity still farther increased—rich and oligarchical
-  men put to death.—Plan of Kritias to gain adherents
-  by forcing men to become accomplices in deeds of
-  blood—resistance of Sokratês.—Terror and discontent in
-  the city—the Thirty nominate a body of Three Thousand as
-  partisan hoplites.—They disarm the remaining hoplites
-  of the city.—Murders and spoliations by the Thirty.
-  Seizure of the Metics.—Seizure of Lysias the rhetor and
-  his brother Polemarchus. The former escapes—the latter
-  is executed.—Increased exasperation of Kritias and the
-  majority of the Thirty against Theramenês.—Theramenês
-  is denounced by Kritias in the Senate—speech of
-  Kritias.—Reply of Theramenês.—Extreme violence of Kritias
-  and the Thirty.—Condemnation of Theramenês.—Death of
-  Theramenês—remarks on his character.—Increased tyranny of
-  Kritias and the Thirty.—The Thirty forbid intellectual
-  teaching.—Sokratês and the Thirty.—Growing insecurity
-  of the Thirty.—Gradual alteration of feeling in Greece,
-  since the capture of Athens.—Demand by the allies of
-  Sparta to share in the spoils of the war—refused by
-  Sparta.—Unparalleled ascendency of Lysander.—His overweening
-  ambition—oppressive dominion of Sparta.—Disgust excited
-  in Greece by the enormities of the Thirty.—Opposition to
-  Lysander at Sparta—king Pausanias.—Kallikratidas compared
-  with Lysander.—Sympathy at Thebes and elsewhere with the
-  Athenian exiles.—Thrasybulus seizes Phylê—repulses the
-  Thirty in their attack.—Farther success of Thrasybulus—the
-  Thirty retreat to Athens.—Discord among the oligarchy
-  at Athens—seizure of the Eleusinians.—Thrasybulus
-  establishes himself in Peiræus.—The Thirty attack him
-  and are defeated—Kritias is slain.—Colloquy during the
-  burial-truce—language of Kleokritus.—Discouragement of
-  the oligarchs at Athens—deposition of the Thirty and
-  appointment of the Ten—the Thirty go to Eleusis.—The Ten
-  carry on the war against the exiles.—Increasing strength
-  of Thrasybulus.—Arrival of Lysander in Attica with a
-  Spartan force.—Straightened condition of the exiles in
-  Peiræus.—Spartan king Pausanias conducts an expedition into
-  Attica; opposed to Lysander.—His dispositions unfavorable
-  to the oligarchy; reaction against the Thirty.—Pausanias
-  attacks Peiræus; his partial success.—Peace party in
-  Athens—sustained by Pausanias.—Pacification granted by
-  Pausanias and the Spartan authorities.—The Spartans evacuate
-  Attica—Thrasybulus and the exiles are restored—harangue
-  of Thrasybulus.—Restoration of the democracy.—Capture of
-  Eleusis—entire reunion of Attica—flight of the survivors of
-  the Thirty.                                                210-290
-
-
-  CHAPTER LXVI.
-
-  FROM THE RESTORATION OF THE DEMOCRACY TO THE DEATH OF
-  ALKIBIADES.
-
-  Miserable condition of Athens during the two preceding
-  years.—Immediate relief caused by the restoration.—Unanimous
-  sentiment towards the renewed democracy.—Amnesty—treatment
-  of the Thirty and the Ten.—Disfranchising proposition
-  of Phormisius.—The proposition rejected—speech composed
-  by Lysias against it.—Revision of the laws—the
-  Nomothetæ.—Decree, that no criminal inquiries should
-  be carried back beyond the archonship of Eukleidês,
-  B.C. 403.—Oath taken by the senate and the dikasts
-  modified.—Farther precautions to insure the observance of
-  the amnesty.—Absence of harsh reactionary feeling, both
-  after the Thirty and after the Four Hundred.—Generous
-  and reasonable behavior of the demos—contrasted with
-  that of the oligarchy.—Care of the people to preserve
-  the rights of private property.—Repayment to the
-  Lacedæmonians.—The horsemen, or knights.—Revision of
-  the laws—Nikomachus.—Adoption of the fuller Ionic
-  alphabet, in place of the old Attic, for writing up the
-  laws.—Memorable epoch of the archonship of Eukleidês.
-  The rhetor Lysias.—Other changes at Athens—abolition
-  of the Board of Hellenotamiæ—restriction of the
-  right of citizenship.—Honorary reward to Thrasybulus
-  and the exiles.—Position and views of Alkibiadês in
-  Asia.—Artaxerxes Mnêmon, the new king of Persia. Plans
-  of Cyrus—Alkibiadês wishes to reveal them at Susa.—The
-  Lacedæmonians conjointly with Cyrus require Pharnabazus to
-  put him to death.—Assassination of Alkibiadês by order of
-  Pharnabazus.—Character of Alkibiadês.                      290-316
-
-
-  CHAPTER LXVII.
-
-  THE DRAMA.—RHETORIC AND DIALECTICS.—THE SOPHISTS.
-
-  Athens immediately after Eukleidês—political history
-  little known.—Extraordinary development of dramatic
-  genius.—Gradual enlargement of tragedy.—Abundance of new
-  tragedy at Athens.—Accessibility of the theatre to the
-  poorest citizens.—Theôrikon, or festival-pay.—Effect of
-  the tragedies on the public mind of Athens.—Æschylus,
-  Sophoklês, and Euripidês—modifications of tragedy.—Popularity
-  arising from expenditure of money on the festivals.—Growth
-  and development of comedy at Athens.—Comic poets before
-  Aristophanês—Kratinus, etc.—Exposure of citizens by name
-  in comedy—forbidden for a time—then renewed—Kratês and the
-  milder comedy.—Aristophanês.—Comedy in its effect on the
-  Athenian mind.—Mistaken estimate of the comic writers,
-  as good witnesses or just critics.—Aversion of Solon to
-  the drama when nascent.—Dramatic poetry as compared with
-  the former kinds of poetry.—Ethical sentiment, interest,
-  and debate, infused into the drama.—The drama formed the
-  stage of transition to rhetoric, dialectics, and ethical
-  philosophy.—Practical value and necessity of rhetorical
-  accomplishments.—Rhetoric and dialectics.—Empedoklês of
-  Agrigentum—first name in the rhetorical movement.—Zeno
-  of Elea—first name in the dialectical movement.—Eleatic
-  school—Parmenidês.—Zeno and Melissus—their dialectic attacks
-  upon the opponents of Parmenidês.—Zeno at Athens—his
-  conversation both with Periklês and with Sokratês.—Early
-  manifestation, and powerful efficacy, of the negative arm
-  in Grecian philosophy.—Rhetoric and dialectics—men of
-  active life and men of speculation—two separate lines of
-  intellectual activity.—Standing antithesis between these
-  two intellectual classes—vein of ignorance at Athens,
-  hostile to both.—Gradual enlargement of the field of
-  education at Athens—increased knowledge and capacity of the
-  musical teachers.—The sophists—true Greek meaning of that
-  word—invidious sentiment implied in it.—The name sophist
-  applied by Plato in a peculiar sense, in his polemics against
-  the eminent paid teachers.—Misconceptions arising from
-  Plato’s peculiar use of the word sophist.—Paid teachers or
-  sophists of the Sokratic age—Protagoras, Gorgias, etc.—Plato
-  and the sophists—two different points of view—the reformer
-  and theorist against the practical teacher.—The sophists
-  were professional teachers for active life, like Isokratês
-  and Quintilian.—Misinterpretations of the dialogues of
-  Plato as carrying evidence against the sophists.—The
-  sophists as paid teachers—no proof that they were greedy
-  or exorbitant—proceeding of Protagoras.—The sophists as
-  rhetorical teachers—groundless accusations against them in
-  that capacity, made also against Sokratês, Isokratês, and
-  others.—Thrasymachus—his rhetorical precepts.—Prodikus—his
-  discrimination of words analogous in meaning.—Protagoras—his
-  treatise on Truth—his opinions about the pagan gods.—His view
-  of the cognitive process and its relative nature.—Gorgias—his
-  treatise on physical subjects—misrepresentations of the scope
-  of it.—Unfounded accusations against the sophists.—They
-  were not a sect or school, with common doctrines or
-  method; they were a profession, with strong individual
-  peculiarities.—The Athenian character was not really
-  corrupted, between 480 B.C. and 405 B.C.—Prodikus—The
-  choice of Hercules.—Protagoras—real estimate exhibited of
-  him by Plato.—Hippias of Elis—how he is represented by
-  Plato.—Gorgias, Pôlus, and Kalliklês.—Doctrine advanced by
-  Pôlus.—Doctrine advanced by Kalliklês—anti-social.—Kalliklês
-  is not a sophist.—The doctrine put into his mouth could
-  never have been laid down in any public lecture among the
-  Athenians.—Doctrine of Thrasymachus in the “Republic” of
-  Plato.—Such doctrine not common to all the sophists—what
-  is offensive in it is, the manner in which it is put
-  forward.—Opinion of Thrasymachus afterwards brought out
-  by Glaukon—with less brutality, and much greater force of
-  reason.—Plato against the sophists generally. His category
-  of accusation comprehends all society, with all the poets
-  and statesmen.—It is unjust to try either the sophists or
-  the statesmen of Athens, by the standard of Plato.—Plato
-  distinctly denies that Athenian corruption was to be
-  imputed to the sophists.—The sophists were not teachers
-  of mere words, apart from action.—General good effect of
-  their teaching upon the youth.—Great reputation of the
-  sophists—evidence of respect for intellect and of a good
-  state of public sentiment.                                 317-399
-
-
-  CHAPTER LXVIII.
-
-  SOKRATES.
-
-  Different spirit shown towards Sokratês and towards the
-  sophists.—Birth and family of Sokratês.—His physical and
-  moral qualities.—Xenophon and Plato as witnesses.—Their
-  pictures of Sokratês are in the main accordant.—Habits of
-  Sokratês.—Leading peculiarities of Sokratês.—His constant
-  publicity of life and indiscriminate conversation.—Reason
-  why Sokratês was shown up by Aristophanês on the stage.—His
-  persuasion of a special religious mission.—His dæmon, or
-  genius—other inspirations.—Oracle from Delphi declaring that
-  no man was wiser than he.—His mission to test the false
-  conceit of wisdom in others.—Confluence of the religious
-  motive with the inquisitive and intellectual impulse in his
-  mind—numerous enemies whom he made.—Sokratês a religious
-  missionary, doing the work of philosophy.—Intellectual
-  peculiarities of Sokratês.—He opened ethics as a new subject
-  of scientific discussion.—Circumstances which turned the
-  mind of Sokratês towards ethical speculations.—Limits of
-  scientific study as laid down by Sokratês.—He confines study
-  to human affairs, as distinguished from divine—to man and
-  society.—Importance of the innovation—multitude of new and
-  accessible phenomena brought under discussion.—Innovations
-  of Sokratês as to method—dialectic method—inductive
-  discourses—definitions.—Commencement of analytical
-  consciousness of the mental operations—genera and
-  species.—Sokratês compared with previous philosophers.—Great
-  step made by Sokratês in laying the foundation of formal
-  logic, afterwards expanded by Plato, and systematized by
-  Aristotle.—Dialectical process employed by Sokratês—essential
-  connection between method and subject.—Essential
-  connection also between the dialectic process and the
-  logical distribution of subject-matter—one in many and
-  many in one.—Persuasion of religious mission in Sokratês,
-  prompting him to extend his colloquial cross-examination
-  to noted men.—His cross-examining purpose was not confined
-  to noted men, but of universal application.—Leading
-  ideas which directed the scrutiny of Sokratês—contrast
-  between the special professions and the general duties
-  of social life.—Platonic dialogues—discussion whether
-  virtue is teachable.—Conceit of knowledge without real
-  knowledge—universal prevalence of it.—Such confident
-  persuasion, without science, belonged at that time to
-  astronomy and physics, as well as to the subjects of man
-  and society—it is now confined to the latter.—Sokratês
-  first lays down the idea of ethical science, comprising the
-  appropriate ethical end with theory and precepts.—Earnestness
-  with which Sokratês inculcated self-examination—effect of
-  his conversation upon others.—Preceptorial and positive
-  exhortation of Sokratês chiefly brought out by Xenophon.—This
-  was not the peculiarity of Sokratês—his powerful method
-  of stirring up the analytical faculties.—Negative and
-  indirect scrutiny of Sokratês produced strong thirst,
-  and active efforts, for the attainment of positive
-  truth.—Inductive process of scrutiny, and Baconian spirit, of
-  Sokratês.—Sokratic method tends to create minds capable of
-  forming conclusions for themselves—not to plant conclusions
-  ready-made.—Grecian dialectics—their many-sided handling of
-  subjects—force of the negative arm.—The subjects to which
-  they were applied—man and society—essentially required such
-  handling—reason why.—Real distinction and variance between
-  Sokratês and the sophists.—Prodigious efficacy of Sokratês in
-  forming new philosophical minds.—General theory of Sokratês
-  on ethics—he resolved virtue into knowledge, or wisdom.—This
-  doctrine defective as stating a part for the whole.—He was
-  led to this general doctrine by the analogy of special
-  professions.—Constant reference of Sokratês to duties of
-  practice and detail.—The derivative reasonings of Sokratês
-  were of larger range than his general doctrine.—Political
-  opinions of Sokratês.—Long period during which Sokratês
-  exercised his vocation as a public converser.—Accusation
-  against him by Melêtus, Anytus, and Lykon.—The real
-  ground for surprise is, that that accusation had not
-  been preferred before.—Inevitable unpopularity incurred
-  by Sokratês in his mission.—It was only from the general
-  toleration of the Athenian democracy and population, that
-  he was allowed to go on so long.—Particular circumstances
-  which brought on the trial of Sokratês.—Private offence of
-  Anytus.—Unpopularity arising to Sokratês from his connection
-  with Kritias and Alkibiadês.—Enmity of the poets and rhetors
-  to Sokratês.—Indictment—grounds of the accusers—effects
-  of the “Clouds” of Aristophanês, in creating prejudice
-  against Sokratês.—Accusation of corruption in teaching was
-  partly founded on political grounds.—Perversion of the
-  poets alleged against him.—Remarks of Xenophon upon these
-  accusations.—The charges touch upon the defective point of
-  the Sokratic ethical theory.—His political strictures.—The
-  verdict against Sokratês was brought upon him partly
-  by his own concurrence.—Small majority by which he was
-  condemned.—Sokratês defended himself like one who did not
-  care to be acquitted.—The “Platonic Apology.”—Sentiment
-  of Sokratês about death.—Effect of his defence upon the
-  dikasts.—Assertion of Xenophon that Sokratês might have been
-  acquitted if he had chosen it.—The sentence—how passed in
-  Athenian procedure.—Sokratês is called upon to propose some
-  counter-penalty against himself—his behavior.—Aggravation
-  of feeling in the dikasts against him in consequence of
-  his behavior.—Sentence of death—resolute adherence of
-  Sokratês to his own convictions.—Satisfaction of Sokratês
-  with the sentence, on deliberate conviction.—Sokratês in
-  prison for thirty days—he refuses to accept the means of
-  escape—his serene death.—Originality of Sokratês.—Views
-  taken of Sokratês as a moral preacher and as a skeptic—the
-  first inadequate, the second incorrect.—Sokratês, positive
-  and practical in his end; negative only in his means.—Two
-  points on which Sokratês is systematically negative.—Method
-  of Sokratês of universal application.—Condemnation of
-  Sokratês one of the misdeeds of intolerance.—Extenuating
-  circumstances—principle of orthodox enforcement recognized
-  generally in ancient times.—Number of personal enemies made
-  by Sokratês.—His condemnation brought on by himself.—The
-  Athenians did not repent it.                               399-496
-
-
-
-
-HISTORY OF GREECE.
-
-
-PART II.
-
-CONTINUATION OF HISTORICAL GREECE.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER LXII.
-
-TWENTY-FIRST YEAR OF THE WAR.—OLIGARCHY OF FOUR HUNDRED AT ATHENS.
-
-
-About a year elapsed between the catastrophe of the Athenians near
-Syracuse and the victory which they gained over the Milêsians, on
-landing near Milêtus (from September 413 B.C., to September 412
-B.C.). After the first of those two events, the complete ruin of
-Athens had appeared both to her enemies and to herself, impending
-and irreparable. But so astonishing, so rapid, and so energetic had
-been her rally, that, at the time of the second, she was found again
-carrying on a tolerable struggle, though with impaired resources
-and on a purely defensive system, against enemies both bolder and
-more numerous than ever. Nor is there any reason to doubt that her
-foreign affairs might have gone on thus improving, had they not been
-endangered at this critical moment by the treason of a fraction of
-her own citizens, bringing her again to the brink of ruin, from which
-she was only rescued by the incompetence of her enemies.
-
-That treason took its first rise from the exile Alkibiadês. I have
-already recounted how this man, alike unprincipled and energetic,
-had thrown himself with his characteristic ardor into the service of
-Sparta, and had indicated to her the best means of aiding Syracuse,
-of inflicting positive injury upon Athens, and lastly, of provoking
-revolt among the Ionic allies of the latter. It was by his boldness
-and personal connections in Ionia that the revolt of Chios and
-Milêtus had been determined.
-
-In the course of a few months, however, he had greatly lost the
-confidence of the Spartans. The revolt of the Asiatic dependencies
-of Athens had not been accomplished so easily and rapidly as he had
-predicted; Chalkideus, the Spartan commander with whom he had acted
-was defeated and slain near Milêtus; the ephor Endius, by whom he
-was chiefly protected, retained his office only for one year, and
-was succeeded by other ephors,[1] just about the end of September,
-or beginning of October, when the Athenians gained their second
-victory near Milêtus, and were on the point of blocking up the town;
-while his personal enemy king Agis still remained to persecute him.
-Moreover, there was in the character of this remarkable man something
-so essentially selfish, vain, and treacherous, that no one could
-ever rely upon his faithful coöperation. And as soon as any reverse
-occurred, that very energy and ability, which seldom failed him, made
-those with whom he acted the more ready to explain the mischance, by
-supposing that he had betrayed them.
-
-  [1] See Thucyd. v, 36.
-
-It was thus that, after the defeat of Milêtus, king Agis was enabled
-to discredit Alkibiadês as a traitor to Sparta; upon which the new
-ephors sent out at once an order to the general Astyochus, to put
-him to death.[2] Alkibiadês had now an opportunity of tasting the
-difference between Spartan and Athenian procedure. Though his enemies
-at Athens were numerous and virulent, with all the advantage, so
-unspeakable in political warfare, of being able to raise the cry
-of irreligion against him, yet the utmost which they could obtain
-was that he should be summoned home to take his trial before the
-dikastery. At Sparta, without any positive ground of crimination, and
-without any idea of judicial trial, his enemies procure an order that
-he shall be put to death.
-
-  [2] Thucyd. viii, 45. Καὶ ἀπ᾽ αὐτῶν ἀφικομένης ἐπιστολῆς πρὸς
-  Ἀστύοχον ἐκ Λακεδαίμονος ὥστ᾽ ἀποκτεῖναι (ἦν γὰρ καὶ τῷ Ἄγιδι
-  ἐχθρὸς ~καὶ ἄλλως ἄπιστος~ ἐφαίνετο), etc.
-
-Alkibiadês, however, got intimation of the order in time to retire
-to Tissaphernês. Probably he was forewarned by Astyochus himself, not
-ignorant that so monstrous a deed would greatly alienate the Chians
-and Milêsians, nor foreseeing the full mischief which his desertion
-would bring upon Sparta. With that flexibility of character which
-enabled him at once to master and take up a new position, Alkibiadês
-soon found means to insinuate himself into the confidence of the
-satrap. He began now to play a game neither Spartan nor Athenian, but
-Persian and anti-Hellenic: a game of duplicity to which Tissaphernês
-himself was spontaneously disposed, but to which the intervention
-of a dexterous Grecian negotiator was indispensable. It was by no
-means the interest of the Great King, Alkibiadês urged, to lend such
-effective aid to either of the contending parties as would enable
-it to crush the other: he ought neither to bring up the Phenician
-fleet to the aid of the Lacedæmonians, nor to furnish that abundant
-pay which would procure for them indefinite levies of new Grecian
-force. He ought so to feed and prolong the war, as to make each party
-an instrument of exhaustion and impoverishment against the other,
-and thus himself to rise on the ruins of both: first to break down
-the Athenian empire by means of the Peloponnesians, and afterwards
-to expel the Peloponnesians themselves; which might be effected
-with little trouble if they were weakened by a protracted previous
-struggle.[3]
-
-  [3] Thucyd. viii, 45, 46.
-
-Thus far Alkibiadês gave advice, as a Persian counsellor, not
-unsuitable to the policy of the court of Susa. But he seldom
-gave advice without some view to his own profit, ambition, or
-antipathies. Cast off unceremoniously by the Lacedæmonians, he was
-now driven to seek restoration in his own country. To accomplish
-this object, it was necessary not only that he should preserve her
-from being altogether ruined, but that he should present himself
-to the Athenians as one who could, if restored, divert the aid of
-Tissaphernês from Lacedæmon to Athens. Accordingly, he farther
-suggested to the satrap, that while it was essential to his interest
-not to permit land power and maritime power to be united in the same
-hands, whether Lacedæmonian or Athenian, it would nevertheless be
-found easier to arrange matters with the empire and pretensions of
-Athens than with those of Lacedæmon. The former, he argued, neither
-sought nor professed any other object than the subjection of her own
-maritime dependencies, in return for which she would willingly leave
-all the Asiatic Greeks in the hands of the Great King; while the
-latter, forswearing all idea of empire, and professing ostentatiously
-to aim at the universal enfranchisement of every Grecian city, could
-not with the smallest consistency conspire to deprive the Asiatic
-Greeks of the same privilege. This view appeared to be countenanced
-by the objection which Theramenês and many of the Peloponnesian
-officers had taken to the first convention concluded by Chalkideus
-and Alkibiadês with Tissaphernês: objections afterwards renewed by
-Lichas even against the second modified convention of Theramenês,
-and accompanied with an indignant protest against the idea of
-surrendering to the Great King all the territory which had been ever
-possessed by his predecessors.[4]
-
-  [4] Thucyd. viii, 46-52.
-
-All these latter arguments, whereby Alkibiadês professed to create in
-the mind of the satrap a preference for Athens, were either futile or
-founded on false assumptions. For on the one hand, even Lichas never
-refused to concur in surrendering the Asiatic Greeks to Persia; while
-on the other hand, the empire of Athens, so long as she retained any
-empire, was pretty sure to be more formidable to Persia than any
-efforts undertaken by Sparta under the disinterested pretence of
-liberating generally the Grecian cities. Nor did Tissaphernês at all
-lend himself to any such positive impression; though he felt strongly
-the force of the negative recommendations of Alkibiadês, that he
-should do no more for the Peloponnesians than was sufficient to feed
-the war, without insuring to them either a speedy or a decisive
-success: or rather, this duplicity was so congenial to his Oriental
-mind, that there was no need of Alkibiadês to recommend it. The real
-use of the Athenian exile, was to assist the satrap in carrying it
-into execution; and to provide for him those plausible pretences and
-justifications, which he was to issue as a substitute for effective
-supplies of men and money. Established along with Tissaphernês at
-Magnesia,—the same place which had been occupied about fifty years
-before by another Athenian exile, equally unprincipled, and yet
-abler, Themistoklês,—Alkibiadês served as interpreter of his views in
-all his conversations with the Greeks, and appeared to be thoroughly
-in his confidence: an appearance of which he took advantage to pass
-himself off falsely upon the Athenians at Samos, as having the power
-of turning Persian wealth to the aid of Athens.
-
-The first payment made by Tissaphernês, immediately after the
-capture of Iasus and of the revolted Amorgês, to the Peloponnesians
-at Milêtus, was at the rate of one drachma per head. But notice was
-given that for the future it would be reduced one half, and for this
-reduction Alkibiadês undertook to furnish a reason. The Athenians,
-he urged, gave no more than half a drachma; not because they could
-not afford more, but because, from their long experience of nautical
-affairs, they had found that higher pay spoiled the discipline of the
-seamen by leading them into excesses and over-indulgence, as well as
-by inducing too ready leave of absence to be granted, in confidence
-that the high pay would induce them to return when called for.[5]
-As he probably never expected that such subterfuges, employed at a
-moment when Athens was so poor that she could not even pay the half
-drachma per head, would carry conviction to any one, so he induced
-Tissaphernês to strengthen their effect by individual bribes to the
-generals and trierarchs: a mode of argument which was found effectual
-in silencing the complaints of all, with the single exception of the
-Syracusan Hermokratês. In regard to other Grecian cities who sent
-to ask pecuniary aid, and especially Chios, Alkibiadês spoke out
-with less reserve. They had been hitherto compelled to contribute to
-Athens, he said, and now that they had shaken off this payment, they
-must not shrink from imposing upon themselves equal or even greater
-burdens in their own defence. Nor was it anything less, he added,
-than sheer impudence in the Chians, the richest people in Greece,
-if they required a foreign military force for their protection, to
-require at the same time that others should furnish the means of
-paying it.[6] At the same time, however, he intimated,—by way of
-keeping up hopes for the future,—that Tissaphernês was at present
-carrying on the war at his own cost; but if hereafter remittances
-should arrive from Susa, the full rate of pay would be resumed, with
-the addition of aid to the Grecian cities in any other way which
-could be reasonably asked. To this promise was added an assurance
-that the Phenician fleet was now under equipment, and would shortly
-be brought up to their aid, so as to give them a superiority which
-would render resistance hopeless: an assurance not merely deceitful
-but mischievous, since it was employed to dissuade them from all
-immediate action, and to paralyze their navy during its moments
-of fullest vigor and efficiency. Even the reduced rate of pay was
-furnished so irregularly, and the Peloponnesian force kept so
-starved, that the duplicity of the satrap became obvious to every
-one, and was only carried through by his bribery to the officers.[7]
-
-  [5] Thucyd. viii, 45. Οἱ δὲ τὰς ναῦς ἀπολείπωσιν, οὐχ ὑπολιπόντες
-  ἐς ὁμήρειαν τὸν προσοφειλόμενον μισθόν.
-
-  This passage is both doubtful in the text and difficult in
-  the translation. Among the many different explanations given
-  by the commentators, I adopt that of Dr. Arnold as the least
-  unsatisfactory, though without any confidence that it is right.
-
-  [6] Thucyd. viii, 45. Τὰς τε πόλεις δεομένας χρημάτων ἀπήλασεν,
-  αὐτὸς ἀντιλέγων ὑπὲρ τοῦ Τισσαφέρνους, ὡς οἱ μὲν Χῖοι ἀναίσχυντοι
-  εἶεν, πλουσιώτατοι ὄντες τῶν Ἑλλήνων, ἐπικουρίᾳ δὲ ὅμως σωζόμενοι
-  ἀξιοῦσι καὶ τοῖς σώμασι καὶ τοῖς χρήμασιν ἄλλους ὑπὲρ τῆς ἐκείνων
-  ἐλευθερίας κινδυνεύειν.
-
-  [7] Thucyd. viii, 46. Τήν τε τροφὴν κακῶς ἐπόριζε τοῖς
-  Πελοποννησίοις καὶ ναυμαχεῖν οὐκ εἴα· ἀλλὰ καὶ τὰς Φοινίσσας ναῦς
-  φάσκων ἥξειν καὶ ἐκ περιόντος ἀγωνιεῖσθαι ἔφθειρε τὰ πράγματα
-  καὶ τὴν ἀκμὴν τοῦ ναυτικοῦ αὐτῶν ἀφείλετο, γενομένην καὶ πάνυ
-  ἰσχυρὰν, τά τε ἄλλα, καταφανέστερον ἢ ὥστε λανθάνειν, οὐ προθύμως
-  ξυνεπολέμει.
-
-While Alkibiadês, as the confidential agent and interpreter of
-Tissaphernês, was carrying on this anti-Peloponnesian policy through
-the autumn and winter of 412-411 B.C.,—partly during the stay of the
-Peloponnesian fleet at Milêtus, partly after it had moved to Knidus
-and Rhodes,—he was at the same time opening correspondence with the
-Athenian officers at Samos. His breach with the Peloponnesians, as
-well as his ostensible position in the service of Tissaphernês, were
-facts well known among the Athenian armament; and his scheme was,
-to procure both restoration and renewed power in his native city,
-by representing himself as competent to bring over to her the aid
-and alliance of Persia, through his ascendency over the mind of the
-satrap. His hostility to the democracy, however, was so generally
-known, that he despaired of accomplishing his return, unless he
-could connect it with an oligarchical revolution; which, moreover,
-was not less gratifying to his sentiment of vengeance for the past,
-than to his ambition for the future. Accordingly, he sent over a
-private message to the officers and trierarchs at Samos, several
-of them doubtless his personal friends, desiring to be remembered
-to the “best men” in the armament,[8] such was one of the standing
-phrases by which oligarchical men knew and described each other; and
-intimating his anxious wish to come again as a citizen among them,
-bringing with him Tissaphernês as their ally. But he would do this
-only on condition of the formation of an oligarchical government; nor
-would he ever again set foot amidst the odious democracy to whom he
-owed his banishment.[9]
-
-  [8] Thucyd. viii, 47. Τὰ μὲν καὶ Ἀλκιβιάδου προσπέμψαντος λόγους
-  ἐς τοὺς δυνατωτάτους αὐτῶν (Ἀθηναίων) ἄνδρας, ὥστε μνησθῆναι
-  περὶ αὐτοῦ ἐς ~τοὺς βελτίστους~ τῶν ἀνθρώπων, ὅτι ἐπ᾽ ὀλιγαρχίᾳ
-  βούλεται, καὶ οὐ πονηρίᾳ οὐδὲ δημοκρατίᾳ τῇ ἑαυτὸν ἐκβαλούσῃ,
-  κατελθὼν, etc.
-
-  [9] Thucyd. viii, 47.
-
-Such was the first originating germ of that temporary calamity, which
-so nearly brought Athens to absolute ruin, called the Oligarchy of
-Four Hundred: a suggestion from the same exile who had already so
-deeply wounded his country by sending Gylippus to Syracuse, and
-the Lacedæmonian garrison to Dekeleia. As yet, no man in Samos had
-thought of a revolution; but the moment that the idea was thus
-started, the trierarchs and wealthy men in the armament caught at
-it with avidity. To subvert the democracy for their own profit, and
-to be rewarded for doing so with the treasures of Persia as a means
-of carrying on the war against the Peloponnesians, was an extent of
-good fortune greater than they could possibly have hoped. Amidst
-the exhaustion of the public treasure at Athens, and the loss of
-tribute from her dependencies, it was now the private proprietors,
-and most of all, the wealthy proprietors, upon whom the cost of
-military operations fell: from which burden they here saw the
-prospect of relief, coupled with increased chance of victory. Elate
-with so tempting a promise, a deputation of them crossed over from
-Samos to the mainland to converse personally with Alkibiadês, who
-again renewed his assurances in person, that he would bring not only
-Tissaphernês, but the Great King himself, into active alliance and
-coöperation with Athens, provided they would put down the Athenian
-democracy, which he affirmed that the king could not possibly
-trust.[10] He doubtless did not omit to set forth the other side of
-the alternative; that, if the proposition were refused, Persian aid
-would be thrown heartily into the scale of the Peloponnesians, in
-which case, there was no longer any hope of safety for Athens.
-
-  [10] Thucyd. viii, 48.
-
-On the return of the deputation with these fresh assurances, the
-oligarchical men in Samos came together, both in greater number
-and with redoubled ardor, to take their measures for subverting
-the democracy. They even ventured to speak of the project openly
-among the mass of the armament, who listened to it with nothing but
-aversion, but who were silenced at least, though not satisfied, by
-being told that the Persian treasury would be thrown open to them on
-condition, and only on condition, that they would relinquish their
-democracy. Such was at this time the indispensable need of foreign
-money for the purposes of the war, such was the certainty of ruin,
-if the Persian treasure went to the aid of the enemy, that the most
-democratical Athenian might well hesitate when the alternative was
-thus laid before him. The oligarchical conspirators, however, knew
-well that they had the feeling of the armament altogether against
-them, that the best which they could expect from it was a reluctant
-acquiescence, and that they must accomplish the revolution by their
-own hands and management. They formed themselves into a political
-confederacy, or hetæria, for the purpose of discussing the best
-measures towards their end. It was resolved to send a deputation
-to Athens, with Peisander[11] at the head, to make known the new
-prospects, and to put the standing oligarchical clubs, or hetæries,
-into active coöperation for the purpose of violently breaking up
-the democracy, and farther to establish oligarchical governments
-in all the remaining dependencies of Athens. They imagined that
-these dependencies would be thus induced to remain faithful to her,
-perhaps even that some of those which had already revolted might come
-back to their allegiance, when once she should be relieved from her
-democracy, and placed under the rule of her “best and most virtuous
-citizens.”
-
-  [11] It is asserted in an Oration of Lysias (Orat. xxv, Δήμου
-  Καταλύσεως Ἀπολογία, c. 3, p. 766, Reisk.) that Phrynichus and
-  Peisander embarked in this oligarchical conspiracy for the
-  purpose of getting clear of previous crimes committed under the
-  democracy. But there is nothing to countenance this assertion,
-  and the narrative of Thucydidês gives quite a different color to
-  their behavior.
-
-  Peisander was now serving with the armament at Samos; moreover,
-  his forwardness and energy—presently to be described—in taking
-  the formidable initiative of putting down the Athenian democracy,
-  is to me quite sufficient evidence that the taunts of the
-  comic writers against his cowardice are unfounded. Xenophon in
-  the Symposion repeats this taunt (ii, 14) which also appears
-  in Aristophanês, Eupolis, Plato Comicus, and others: see the
-  passages collected in Meineke, Histor. Critic. Comicor. Græcorum,
-  vol. i, p. 178, etc.
-
-  Modern writers on Grecian history often repeat such bitter jests
-  as if they were so much genuine and trustworthy evidence against
-  the person libelled.
-
-Hitherto, the bargain tendered for acceptance had been, subversion
-of the Athenian democracy and restoration of Alkibiadês, on one
-hand, against hearty coöperation, and a free supply of gold from
-Persia, on the other. But what security was there that such bargain
-would be realized, or that when the first part should have been
-brought to pass, the second would follow? There was absolutely no
-security except the word of Alkibiadês,—very little to be trusted,
-even when promising what was in his own power to perform, as we may
-recollect from his memorable dealing with the Lacedæmonian envoys at
-Athens,—and on the present occasion, vouching for something in itself
-extravagant and preposterous. For what reasonable motive could be
-imagined to make the Great King shape his foreign policy according
-to the interests of Alkibiadês, or to inspire him with such lively
-interest in the substitution of oligarchy for democracy at Athens?
-This was a question which the oligarchical conspirators at Samos not
-only never troubled themselves to raise, but which they had every
-motive to suppress. The suggestion of Alkibiadês coincided fully with
-their political interest and ambition. Their object was to put down
-the democracy, and get possession of the government for themselves;
-and the promise of Persian gold, if they could get it accredited,
-was inestimable as a stepping-stone towards this goal, whether it
-afterwards turned out to be a delusion or not. The probability is,
-that having a strong interest in believing it themselves, and a still
-stronger interest in making others believe it, they talked each other
-into a sincere persuasion. Without adverting to this fact, we should
-be at a loss to understand how the word of such a man as Alkibiadês,
-on such a matter, could be so implicitly accepted as to set in motion
-a whole train of novel and momentous events.
-
-There was one man, and one man alone, so far as we know, who
-ventured openly to call it in question. This was Phrynichus, one of
-the generals of the fleet, who had recently given valuable counsel
-after the victory of Milêtus; a clear-sighted and sagacious man,
-but personally hostile to Alkibiadês, and thoroughly seeing through
-his character and projects. Though Phrynichus was afterwards one of
-the chief organizers of the oligarchical movement, when it became
-detached from, and hostile to Alkibiadês, yet under the actual
-circumstances he discountenanced it altogether.[12] Alkibiadês, he
-said, had no attachment to oligarchical government rather than to
-democratical; nor could he be relied on for standing by it after it
-should have been set up. His only purpose was, to make use of the
-oligarchical conspiracy now forming, for his own restoration; which,
-if brought to pass, could not fail to introduce political discord
-into the camp, the greatest misfortune that could at present happen.
-As to the Persian king, it was unreasonable to expect that he would
-put himself out of his way to aid the Athenians, his old enemies,
-in whom he had no confidence, while he had the Peloponnesians
-present as allies, with a good naval force and powerful cities in
-his own territory, from whom he had never experienced either insult
-or annoyance. Moreover, the dependencies of Athens—upon whom it
-was now proposed to confer simultaneously with Athens herself, the
-blessing of oligarchical government—would receive that boon with
-indifference. Those who had already revolted would not come back,
-those who yet remained faithful, would not be the more inclined to
-remain so longer. Their object would be to obtain autonomy, either
-under oligarchy or democracy, as the case might be. Assuredly, they
-would not expect better treatment from an oligarchical government
-at Athens, than from a democratical; for they knew that those
-self-styled “good and virtuous” men, who would form the oligarchy,
-were, as ministers of democracy, the chief advisers and instigators
-of the people to iniquitous deeds, most commonly for nothing but
-their own individual profit. From an Athenian oligarchy, the citizens
-of these dependencies had nothing to expect but violent executions
-without any judicial trial; but under the democracy, they could
-obtain shelter and the means of appeal, while their persecutors were
-liable to restraint and chastisement, from the people and the popular
-dikasteries. Such, Phrynichus affirmed on his own personal knowledge,
-was the genuine feeling among the dependencies of Athens.[13] Having
-thus shown the calculations of the conspirators—as to Alkibiadês,
-as to Persia, and as to the allied dependencies—to be all illusory,
-Phrynichus concluded by entering his decided protest against adopting
-the propositions of Alkibiadês.
-
-  [12] Phrynichus is affirmed, in an Oration of Lysias, to have
-  been originally poor, keeping sheep in the country part of
-  Attica; then, to have resided in the city, and practised what was
-  called _sycophancy_, or false and vexatious accusation before
-  the dikastery and the public assembly, (Lysias, Orat. xx. pro
-  Polystrato, c. 3, p. 674, Reisk.)
-
-  [13] Thucyd. viii, 48. Τάς τε ξυμμαχίδας πόλεις, αἷς ὑπεσχῆσθαι
-  δὴ σφᾶς ὀλιγαρχίαν, ὅτι δὴ καὶ αὐτοὶ οὐ δημοκρατήσονται,
-  εὖ εἰδέναι ἔφη ὅτι οὐδὲν μᾶλλον σφίσιν οὔθ᾽ αἱ ἀφεστηκυῖαι
-  προσχωρήσονται, οὔθ᾽ αἱ ὑπάρχουσαι βεβαιότεραι ἔσονται· οὐ γὰρ
-  βουλήσεσθαι αὐτοὺς μετ᾽ ὀλιγαρχίας ἢ δημοκρατίας δουλεύειν
-  μᾶλλον, ἢ μεθ᾽ ὁποτέρου ἂν τύχωσι τούτων ἐλευθέρους εἶναι. Τούς
-  ~τε καλοὺς κἀγαθοὺς ὀνομαζομένους~ οὐκ ἐλάσσω αὐτοὺς νομίζειν
-  σφίσι πράγματα παρέξειν τοῦ ~δήμου, ποριστὰς ὄντας καὶ ἐσηγητὰς
-  τῶν κακῶν τῷ δήμῳ, ἐξ ὧν τὰ πλείω αὐτοὺς ὠφελεῖσθαι~· καὶ τὸ μὲν
-  ἐπ᾽ ἐκείνοις εἶναι, καὶ ἄκριτοι ἂν καὶ βιαιότερον ἀποθνήσκειν,
-  τὸν τε ~δῆμον σφῶν τε καταφυγὴν εἶναι καὶ ἐκείνων σωφρονιστήν~.
-  Καὶ ταῦτα ~παρ᾽ αὐτῶν τῶν ἔργων ἐπισταμένας~ τὰς πόλεις σαφῶς
-  αὐτὸς εἰδέναι, ὅτι οὕτω νομίζουσι.
-
-  In taking the comparison between oligarchy and democracy in
-  Greece, there is hardly any evidence more important than this
-  passage: a testimony to the comparative merit of democracy,
-  pronounced by an oligarchical conspirator, and sanctioned by an
-  historian himself unfriendly to the democracy.
-
-But in this protest, borne out afterwards by the result, he
-stood nearly alone. The tide of opinion, among the oligarchical
-conspirators, ran so furiously the other way, that it was resolved
-to despatch Peisander and others immediately to Athens to consummate
-the oligarchical revolution as well as the recall of Alkibiadês; and
-at the same time to propose to the people their new intended ally,
-Tissaphernês.
-
-Phrynichus knew well what would be the consequence to himself—if
-this consummation were brought about, as he foresaw that it probably
-would be—from the vengeance of his enemy Alkibiadês against his
-recent opposition. Satisfied that the latter would destroy him,
-he took measures for destroying Alkibiadês beforehand, even by a
-treasonable communication to the Lacedæmonian admiral Astyochus at
-Milêtus, to whom he sent a secret account of the intrigues which
-the Athenian exile was carrying on at Samos to the prejudice of the
-Peloponnesians, prefaced with an awkward apology for this sacrifice
-of the interests of his country to the necessity of protecting
-himself against a personal enemy. But Phrynichus was imperfectly
-informed of the real character of the Spartan commander, or of his
-relations with Tissaphernês and Alkibiadês. Not merely was the latter
-now at Magnesia, under the protection of the satrap, and out of the
-power of the Lacedæmonians, but Astyochus, a traitor to his duty
-through the gold of Tissaphernês, went up thither to show the letter
-of Phrynichus to the very person whom it was intended to expose.
-Alkibiadês forthwith sent intelligence to the generals and officers
-at Samos, of the step taken by Phrynichus, and pressed them to put
-him to death.
-
-The life of Phrynichus now hung by a thread, and was probably
-preserved only by that respect for judicial formalities so deeply
-rooted in the Athenian character. In the extremity of danger,
-he resorted to a still more subtle artifice to save himself.
-He despatched a second letter to Astyochus, complaining of the
-violation of confidence in regard to the former, but at the same time
-intimating that he was now willing to betray to the Lacedæmonians the
-camp and armament at Samos. He invited Astyochus to come and attack
-the place, which was as yet unfortified, explaining minutely in what
-manner the attack could be best conducted. And he concluded by saying
-that this, as well as every other means of defence, must be pardoned
-to one whose life was in danger from a personal enemy. Foreseeing
-that Astyochus would betray this letter as he had betrayed the
-former, Phrynichus waited a proper time, and then revealed to the
-camp the intention of the enemy to make an attack, as if it had
-reached him by private information. He insisted on the necessity of
-immediate precautions, and himself, as general, superintended the
-work of fortification, which was soon completed. Presently arrived
-a letter from Alkibiadês, communicating to the army that Phrynichus
-had betrayed them, and that the Peloponnesians were on the point of
-making an attack. But this letter, arriving after the precautions
-taken by order of Phrynichus himself had been already completed, was
-construed as a mere trick on the part of Alkibiadês himself, through
-his acquaintance with the intentions of the Peloponnesians, to raise
-a charge of treasonable correspondence against his personal enemy.
-The impression thus made by his second letter effaced the taint which
-had been left upon Phrynichus by the first, insomuch that the latter
-stood exculpated on both charges.[14]
-
-  [14] Thucyd. viii, 50, 51.
-
-But Phrynichus, though successful in extricating himself, failed
-thoroughly in his manœuvre against the influence and life of
-Alkibiadês; in whose favor the oligarchical movement not only
-went on, but was transferred from Samos to Athens. On arriving
-at the latter place, Peisander and his companions laid before
-the public assembly the projects which had been conceived by the
-oligarchs at Samos. The people were invited to restore Alkibiadês
-and renounce their democratical constitution; in return for which,
-they were assured of obtaining the Persian king as an ally, and
-of overcoming the Peloponnesians.[15] Violent was the storm which
-these propositions raised in the public assembly. Many speakers
-rose in animated defence of the democracy; few, if any, distinctly
-against it. The opponents of Alkibiadês indignantly denounced the
-mischief of restoring him, in violation of the laws, and in reversal
-of a judicial sentence, while the Eumolpidæ and Kerykes, the sacred
-families connected with the Eleusinian mysteries which Alkibiadês had
-violated, entered their solemn protest on religious grounds to the
-same effect. Against all these vehement opponents, whose impassioned
-invectives obtained the full sympathy of the assembly, Peisander had
-but one simple reply. He called them forward successively by name,
-and put to each the question: “What hope have you of salvation for
-the city, when the Peloponnesians have a naval force against us fully
-equal to ours, together with a greater number of allied cities, and
-when the king as well as Tissaphernês are supplying them with money,
-while we have no money left? What hope have you of salvation, unless
-we can persuade the king to come over to our side?” The answer was a
-melancholy negative, or perhaps not less melancholy silence. “Well,
-then, rejoined Peisander, that object cannot possibly be attained,
-unless we conduct our political affairs for the future in a more
-moderate way, and put the powers of government more in the hands of a
-few, and unless we recall Alkibiadês, the only man now living who is
-competent to do the business. Under present circumstances, we surely
-shall not lay greater stress upon our political constitution than
-upon the salvation of the city; the rather as what we now enact may
-be hereafter modified, if it be found not to answer.”
-
-  [15] In the speech made by Theramenês (the Athenian) during the
-  oligarchy of Thirty, seven years afterwards, it is affirmed that
-  the Athenian people voted the adoption of the oligarchy of Four
-  Hundred, from being told that the _Lacedæmonians_ would never
-  trust a democracy (Xenoph. Hellen. ii, 3, 45).
-
-  This is thoroughly incorrect, a specimen of the loose assertion
-  of speakers in regard to facts even not very long past. At
-  the moment when Theramenês said this, the question, what
-  political constitution at Athens the Lacedæmonians would please
-  to tolerate, was all-important to the Athenians. Theramenês
-  transfers the feelings of the present to the incidents of the
-  past.
-
-Against the proposed oligarchical change, the repugnance of the
-assembly was alike angry and unanimous. But they were silenced by
-the imperious necessity of the case, as the armament at Samos had
-been before; and admitting the alternative laid down by Peisander,
-as I have observed already, the most democratical citizen might be
-embarrassed as to his vote. Whether any speaker, like Phrynichus at
-Samos, arraigned the fallacy of the alternative, and called upon
-Peisander for some guarantee, better than mere asseveration, of the
-benefits to come, we are not informed. But the general vote of the
-assembly, reluctant and only passed in the hope of future change,
-sanctioned his recommendation.[16] He and ten other envoys, invested
-with full powers of negotiating with Alkibiadês and Tissaphernês,
-were despatched to Ionia immediately. Peisander at the same time
-obtained from the assembly a vote deposing Phrynichus from his
-command; under the accusation of having traitorously caused the loss
-of Iasus and the capture of Amorgês, after the battle of Milêtus,
-but from the real certainty that he would prove an insuperable bar
-to all negotiations with Alkibiadês. Phrynichus, with his colleague
-Skironidês, being thus displaced, Leon and Diomedon were sent to
-Samos as commanders in their stead; an appointment of which, as
-will be presently seen, Peisander was far from anticipating the
-consequences.
-
-  [16] Thucyd. viii, 54. Ὁ δὲ δῆμος τὸ μὲν πρῶτον ἀκούων χαλεπῶς
-  ἔφερε τὸ περὶ τῆς ὀλιγαρχίας· σαφῶς δὲ διδασκόμενος ὑπὸ τοῦ
-  Πεισάνδρου μὴ εἶναι ἄλλην σωτηρίαν, ~δείσας, καὶ ἅμα ἐλπίζων ὡς
-  καὶ μεταβαλεῖται, ἐνέδωκε~.
-
-  “Atheniensibus, imminente periculo belli, major salutis quam
-  dignitatis cura fuit. Itaque, permittente populo, imperium ad
-  Senatum transfertur,” (Justin, v, 3).
-
-  Justin is correct, so far as this vote goes: but he takes
-  no notice of the change of matters afterwards, when the
-  establishment of the Four Hundred was consummated _without_ the
-  promised benefit of Persian alliance, and by simple terrorism.
-
-Before his departure for Asia, he took a step yet more important. He
-was well aware that the recent vote—a result of fear inspired by the
-war, representing a sentiment utterly at variance with that of the
-assembly, and only procured as the price of Persian aid against a
-foreign enemy—would never pass into a reality by the spontaneous act
-of the people themselves. It was, indeed, indispensable as a first
-step; partly as an authority to himself, partly also as a confession
-of the temporary weakness of the democracy, and as a sanction and
-encouragement for the oligarchical forces to show themselves. But
-the second step yet remained to be performed; that of calling these
-forces into energetic action, organizing an amount of violence
-sufficient to extort from the people actual submission in addition
-to verbal acquiescence, and thus, as it were, tying down the patient
-while the process of emasculation was being consummated. Peisander
-visited all the various political clubs, conspiracies, or hetæries,
-which were habitual and notorious at Athens; associations, bound
-together by oath, among the wealthy citizens, partly for purposes of
-amusement, but chiefly pledging the members to stand by each other
-in objects of political ambition, in judicial trials, in accusation
-or defence of official men after the period of office had expired,
-in carrying points through the public assembly, etc. Among these
-clubs were distributed most of “the best citizens, the good and
-honorable men, the elegant men, the well known, the temperate, the
-honest and moderate men,”[17] etc., to employ that complimentary
-phraseology by which wealthy and anti-popular politicians have chosen
-to designate each other, in ancient as well as in modern times. And
-though there were doubtless individuals among them who deserved
-these appellations in their best sense, yet the general character
-of the clubs was not the less exclusive and oligarchical. In the
-details of political life, they had different partialities as well
-as different antipathies, and were oftener in opposition than in
-coöperation with each other. But they furnished, when taken together,
-a formidable anti-popular force; generally either in abeyance or
-disseminated in the accomplishment of smaller political measures
-and separate personal successes; but capable, at a special crisis,
-of being evoked, organized, and put in conjoint attack, for the
-subversion of the democracy. Such was the important movement now
-initiated by Peisander. He visited separately each of these clubs,
-put them into communication with each other, and exhorted them all
-to joint aggressive action against their common enemy the democracy,
-at a moment when it was already intimidated and might be finally
-overthrown.[18]
-
-  [17] Οἱ βέλτιστοι, οἱ καλοκἀγαθοὶ, οἱ χαριέντες, οἱ γνώριμοι, οἱ
-  σώφρονες, etc.: le parti honnête et modéré, etc.
-
-  [18] About these ξυνωμοσίαι ἐπὶ δίκαις καὶ ἀρχαῖς, political and
-  judicial associations, see above, in this History, vol. iv, ch.
-  xxxvii, pp. 399, 400; vol. vi, ch. li. pp. 290, 291: see also
-  Hermann Büttner, Geschichte der politischen Hetærieen zu Athen.
-  pp. 75, 79, Leipsic, 1840.
-
-  There seem to have been similar political clubs or associations
-  at Carthage, exercising much influence, and holding perpetual
-  banquets as a means of largess to the poor, Aristotel. Polit. ii,
-  8, 2; Livy, xxxiii, 46; xxxiv, 61; compare Kluge, ad Aristotel.
-  De Polit. Carthag. pp. 46-127, Wratisl. 1824.
-
-  The like political associations were both of long duration
-  among the nobility of Rome, and of much influence for political
-  objects as well as judicial success: “coitiones (compare Cicero
-  pro Cluentio, c. 54, s. 148) honorum adipiscendorum causâ factæ,
-  factiones, sodalitates.” The incident described in Livy (ix.
-  26) is remarkable. The senate, suspecting the character and
-  proceedings of these clubs, appointed the dictator Mænius (in
-  312 B.C.) as commissioner with full power to investigate and
-  deal with them. But such was the power of the clubs, in a case
-  where they had a common interest and acted in coöperation (as was
-  equally the fact under Peisander at Athens), that they completely
-  frustrated the inquiry, and went on as before. “Nec diutius,
-  _ut fit, quam dum recens erat, quæstio per clara nomina reorum
-  viguit_: inde labi cœpit ad viliora capita, _donec coitionibus
-  factionibusque, adversus quas comparata erat, oppressa est_.”
-  (Livy. ix, 26.) Compare Dio. Cass. xxxvii, 57, about the ἑταιρικὰ
-  of the Triumvirs at Rome. Quintus Cicero (de Petition. Consulat.
-  c. 5) says to his brother, the orator: “Quod si satis grati
-  homines essent, hæc omnia (_i.e._ all the _subsidia_ necessary
-  for success in his coming election) tibi parata esse debebant,
-  sicut parata esse confido. Nam hoc biennio quatuor _sodalitates_
-  civium ad ambitionem gratiosissimorum tibi obligasti.... Horum in
-  causis ad te deferundis _quidnam eorum sodales tibi receperint et
-  confirmarint_, scio; nam interfui.”
-
-  See Th. Mommsen, De Collegiis et Sodaliciis Romanorum, Kiel,
-  1843, ch. iii, sects. 5, 6, 7; also the Dissertation of Wunder,
-  inserted in the Onomasticon Tullianum of Orelli and Baiter, in
-  the last volume of their edition of Cicero, pp. 200-210, ad Ind.
-  Legum; _Lex Licinia de Sodalitiis_.
-
-  As an example of these clubs or conspiracies for mutual support
-  in ξυνωμοσίαι ἐπὶ δίκαις (not including ἀρχαῖς, so far as we can
-  make out), we may cite the association called οἱ Εἰκαδεῖς, made
-  known to us by an Inscription recently discovered in Attica, and
-  published first in Dr. Wordsworth’s Athens and Attica, p. 223;
-  next in Ross, Die Demen von Attica, Preface, p. v. These Εἰκαδεῖς
-  are an association, the members of which are bound to each other
-  by a common oath, as well as by a curse which the mythical hero
-  of the association, Eikadeus, is supposed to have imprecated
-  (ἐνάντιον τῇ ἄρᾳ ἣν Εἰκαδεὺς ἐπηράσατο); they possess common
-  property, and it was held contrary to the oath for any of the
-  members to enter into a pecuniary process against the κοινόν:
-  compare analogous obligations among the Roman Sodales, Mommsen,
-  p. 4. Some members had violated their obligation upon this point:
-  Polyxenus had attacked them at law for false witness: and the
-  general body of the Eikadeis pass a vote of thanks to him for so
-  doing, and choose three of their members to assist him in the
-  cause before the dikastery (οἳτινες συναγωνιοῦνται τῷ ἐπεσκημμένῳ
-  τοῖς μάρτυσι): compare the ἑταιρίαι alluded to in Demosthenês
-  (cont. Theokrin. c. 11, p. 1335) as assisting Theokrinês before
-  the dikastery, and intimidating the witnesses.
-
-  The Guilds in the European cities during the Middle Ages, usually
-  sworn to by every member, and called _conjurationes Amicitiæ_,
-  bear in many respects a resemblance to these ξυνωμοσίαι; though
-  the judicial proceedings in the mediæval cities, being so much
-  less popular than at Athens, narrowed their range of interference
-  in this direction: their political importance, however, was quite
-  equal. (See Wilda, Das Gilden Wesen des Mittelalters, Abschn. ii,
-  p. 167, etc.)
-
-  “Omnes autem ad Amicitiam pertinentes villæ per _fidem et
-  sacramentum_ firmaverunt, quod unus subveniat alteri tanquam
-  fratri suo in utili et honesto,” (ib. p. 148.)
-
-Having taken other necessary measures towards the same purpose,
-Peisander left Athens with his colleagues to enter upon his
-negotiation with Tissaphernês. But the coöperation and aggressive
-movement of the clubs which he had originated was prosecuted with
-increased ardor during his absence, and even fell into hands more
-organizing and effective than his own. The rhetorical teacher
-Antiphon, of the deme Rhamnus, took it in hand especially, acquired
-the confidence of the clubs, and drew the plan of campaign against
-the democracy. He was a man estimable in private life, and not open
-to pecuniary corruption: in other respects, of preëminent ability,—in
-contrivance, judgment, speech, and action. The profession to which
-he belonged, generally unpopular among the democracy, excluding him
-from taking rank as a speaker either in the public assembly or the
-dikastery: for a rhetorical teacher, contending in either of them
-against a private speaker, to repeat a remark already once made, was
-considered to stand at the same unfair advantage, as a fencing-master
-fighting a duel with a gentleman would be held to stand in modern
-times. Thus debarred himself from the showy celebrity of Athenian
-political life, Antiphon became only the more consummate, as a master
-of advice, calculation, scheming, and rhetorical composition,[19] to
-assist the celebrity of others; insomuch that his silent assistance
-in political and judicial debates, as a sort of chamber-counsel, was
-highly appreciated and largely paid. Now such were precisely the
-talents required for the present occasion; while Antiphon, who hated
-the democracy for having hitherto kept him in the shade, gladly bent
-his full talents towards its subversion.
-
-  [19] The person described by Krito, in the Euthydêmus of Plato
-  (c. 31, p. 305, C.), as having censured Sokratês for conversing
-  with Euthydêmus and Dionysodorus, is presented exactly like
-  Antiphon in Thucydidês: ἥκιστα νὴ τὸν Δία ῥήτωρ· οὐδὲ οἶμαι
-  πώποτε αὐτὸν ἐπὶ δικαστήριον ἀναβεβηκέναι· ἀλλ᾽ ἐπαΐειν αὐτόν
-  φασι περὶ τοῦ πράγματος, νὴ τὸν Δία, καὶ δεινὸν εἶναι καὶ δεινοὺς
-  λόγους ξυντιθέναι.
-
-  Heindorf thinks that Isokratês is here meant: Groen van
-  Prinsterer talks of Lysias; Winkelmann, of Thrasymachus. The
-  description would fit Antiphon as well as either of these three:
-  though Stallbaum may perhaps be right in supposing no particular
-  individual to have been in the mind of Plato.
-
-  Οἱ συνδικεῖν ἐπιστάμενοι, whom Xenophon specifies as being so
-  eminently useful to a person engaged in a lawsuit, are probably
-  the persons who knew how to address the dikastery effectively in
-  support of his case (Xenoph. Memorab. i, 2, 51).
-
-Such was the man to whom Peisander, in departing, chiefly confided
-the task of organizing the anti-popular clubs, for the consummation
-of the revolution already in immediate prospect. His chief auxiliary
-was Theramenês, another Athenian, now first named, of eminent ability
-and cunning. His father (either natural or by adoption), Agnon, was
-one of the probûli, and had formerly been founder of Amphipolis.
-Even Phrynichus—whose sagacity we have already had occasion to
-appreciate, and who, from hatred towards Alkibiadês, had pronounced
-himself decidedly against the oligarchical movement at Samos—became
-zealous in forwarding the movement at Athens, after his dismissal
-from the command. He brought to the side of Antiphon and Theramenês
-a contriving head not inferior to theirs, coupled with daring and
-audacity even superior. Under such skilful leaders, the anti-popular
-force of Athens was organized with a deep skill, and directed with a
-dexterous wickedness, never before witnessed in Greece.
-
-At the time when Peisander and the other envoys reached Ionia,
-seemingly about the end of January or beginning of February 411
-B.C., the Peloponnesian fleet had already quitted Milêtus and gone
-to Knidus and Rhodes, on which latter island Leon and Diomedon made
-some hasty descents, from the neighboring island of Chalkê. At the
-same time the Athenian armament at Chios was making progress in the
-siege of that place and the construction of the neighboring fort
-at Delphinium. Pedaritus, the Lacedæmonian governor of the island,
-had sent pressing messages to solicit aid from the Peloponnesians
-at Rhodes, but no aid arrived; and he therefore resolved to attempt
-a general sally and attack upon the Athenians with his whole
-force, foreign as well as Chian. Though at first he obtained some
-success, the battle ended in his complete defeat and death, with
-great slaughter of the Chian troops, and with the loss of many whose
-shields were captured in the pursuit.[20] The Chians, now reduced to
-greater straits than before, and beginning to suffer severely from
-famine, were only enabled to hold out by a partial reinforcement soon
-afterwards obtained from the Peloponnesian guardships at Milêtus. A
-Spartan named Leon, who had come out in the vessel of Antisthenês as
-one of the epibatæ, or marines, conducted this reinforcing squadron
-of twelve triremes, chiefly Thurian and Syracusan, succeeding
-Pedaritus in the general command of the island.[21]
-
-  [20] Thucyd. viii, 55, 56.
-
-  [21] Thucyd. viii, 61. ἔτυχον δὲ ἔτι ἐν Ῥόδῳ ὄντος Ἀστυόχου ἐκ
-  τῆς Μιλήτου Λέοντά τε ἄνδρα Σπαρτιάτην, ~ὃς Ἀντισθένει ἐπιβάτης~
-  ξυνέπλει, τοῦτον κεκομισμένοι μετὰ τὸν Πεδαρίτου θάνατον ἄρχοντα,
-  etc.
-
-  I do not see why the word ἐπιβάτης should not be construed here,
-  as elsewhere, in its ordinary sense of _miles classiarius_. The
-  commentators, see the notes of Dr. Arnold, Poppo, and Göller
-  start difficulties which seem to me of little importance; and
-  they imagine divers new meanings, for none of which any authority
-  is produced. We ought not to wonder that a common _miles
-  classiarius_, or marine, being a Spartan citizen, should be
-  appointed commander at Chios, when, a few chapters afterwards, we
-  find Thrasybulus at Samos promoted, from being a common hoplite
-  in the ranks, to be one of the Athenian generals (viii. 73).
-
-  The like remark may be made on the passage cited from Xenophon
-  (Hellenic. i. 3, 17), about Hegesandridas—ἐπιβάτης ὢν Μινδάρου,
-  where also the commentators reject the common meaning (see
-  Schneider’s note in the Addenda to his edition of 1791, p. 97).
-  The participle ὢν in that passage must be considered as an
-  inaccurate substitute for γεγενημένος, since Mindarus was dead at
-  the time. Hegesandridas _had been_ among the epibatæ of Mindarus,
-  and was _now_ in command of a squadron on the coast of Thrace.
-
-It was while Chios seemed thus likely to be recovered by Athens—and
-while the superior Peloponnesian fleet was paralyzed at Rhodes by
-Persian intrigues and bribes—that Peisander arrived in Ionia to open
-his negotiations with Alkibiadês and Tissaphernês. He was enabled to
-announce that the subversion of the democracy at Athens was already
-begun, and would soon be consummated: and he now required the price
-which had been promised in exchange, Persian alliance and aid to
-Athens against the Peloponnesians. But Alkibiadês knew well that
-he had promised what he had not the least chance of being able to
-perform. The satrap had appeared to follow his advice,—or had rather
-followed his own inclination, employing Alkibiadês as an instrument
-and auxiliary,—in the endeavor to wear out both parties, and to keep
-them nearly on an equality until each should ruin the other. But he
-was no way disposed to identify himself with the cause of Athens, and
-to break decidedly with the Peloponnesians, especially at a moment
-when their fleet was both the greater of the two, and in occupation
-of an island close to his own satrapy. Accordingly Alkibiadês, when
-summoned by the Athenian envoys to perform his engagement, found
-himself in a dilemma from which he could only escape by one of his
-characteristic manœuvres.
-
-Receiving the envoys himself in conjunction with Tissaphernês, and
-speaking on behalf of the latter, he pushed his demands to an extent
-which he knew that the Athenians would never concede, in order that
-the rupture might seem to be on their side, and not on his. First,
-he required the whole of Ionia to be conceded to the Great King;
-next, all the neighboring islands, with some other items besides.[22]
-Large as these requisitions were, comprehending the cession of Lesbos
-and Samos as well as Chios, and replacing the Persian monarchy in
-the condition in which it had stood in 496 B.C., before the Ionic
-revolt, Peisander and his colleagues granted them all: so that
-Alkibiadês was on the point of seeing his deception exposed and
-frustrated. At last, he bethought himself of a fresh demand, which
-touched Athenian pride, as well as Athenian safety, in the tenderest
-place. He required that the Persian king should be held free to build
-ships of war in unlimited number, and to keep them sailing along
-the coast as he might think fit, through all these new portions of
-territory. After the immense concessions already made, the envoys
-not only rejected this fresh demand at once, but resented it as an
-insult, which exposed the real drift and purpose of Alkibiadês.
-Not merely did it cancel the boasted treaty, called the Peace of
-Kallias, concluded about forty years before between Athens and
-Persia, and limiting the Persian ships of war to the sea eastward
-of Phasêlis, but it extinguished the maritime empire of Athens, and
-compromised the security of all the coasts and islands of the Ægean.
-To see Lesbos, Chios, and Samos, etc., in possession of Persia, was
-sufficiently painful; but if there came to be powerful Persian fleets
-on these islands it would be the certain precursor and means of
-farther conquests to the westward, and would revive the aggressive
-dispositions of the Great King, as they had stood at the beginning of
-the reign of Xerxes. Peisander and his comrades, abruptly breaking
-off the debate, returned to Samos; indignant at the discovery, which
-they now made for the first time, that Alkibiadês had juggled them
-from the outset, and was imposing conditions which he knew to be
-inadmissible.[23] They still appear, however, to have thought that
-Alkibiadês acted thus, not because he _could_ not, but because he
-_would_ not, bring about the alliance under discussion.[24] They
-suspected him of playing false with the oligarchical movement which
-he had himself instigated, and of projecting the accomplishment of
-his own restoration, coupled with the alliance of Tissaphernês,
-into the bosom of the democracy which he had begun by denouncing.
-Such was the light in which they presented his conduct, venting
-their disappointment in invectives against his duplicity, and in
-asseverations that he was after all unsuitable for a place in
-oligarchical society. Such declarations, circulated at Samos, to
-account for their unexpected failure in realizing the hopes which
-they had raised, created among the armament an impression that
-Alkibiadês was really favorable to the democracy, at the same time
-leaving unabated the prestige of his unbounded ascendency over
-Tissaphernês and the Great King. We shall presently see the effects
-resulting from this belief.
-
-  [22] Thucyd. viii, 56. Ἰωνίαν τε γὰρ πᾶσαν ἠξίουν δίδοσθαι, καὶ
-  αὖθις νήσους τε ἐπικειμένας ~καὶ ἄλλα~, οἷς οὐκ ἐναντιουμένων τῶν
-  Ἀθηναίων, etc.
-
-  What this _et cetera_ comprehended, we cannot divine. The demand
-  was certainly ample enough without it.
-
-  [23] Thucyd. viii, 56. ναῦς ἠξίου ἐᾷν βασιλέα ποιεῖσθαι, καὶ
-  παραπλεῖν τὴν ~ἑαυτοῦ~ γῆν, ὅπη ἂν καὶ ὅσαις ἂν βούληται.
-
-  In my judgment ἑαυτοῦ is decidedly the proper reading here, not
-  ἑαυτῶν. I agree in this respect with Dr. Arnold, Bekker, and
-  Göller.
-
-  In a former volume of this History, I have shown reasons for
-  believing, in opposition to Mitford, Dahlmann, and others, that
-  the treaty called by the name of Kallias, and sometimes miscalled
-  by the name of Kimon, was a real fact and not a boastful fiction:
-  see vol. v, ch. xlv, p. 340.
-
-  The note of Dr. Arnold, though generally just, gives an
-  inadequate representation of the strong reasons of Athens for
-  rejecting and resenting this third demand.
-
-  [24] Thucyd. viii, 63. Καὶ ἐν σφίσιν αὐτοῖς ἅμα οἱ ἐν τῇ Σάμῳ τῶν
-  Ἀθηναίων κοινολογούμενοι ἐσκέψαντο, Ἀλκιβιάδην μέν, ~ἐπειδήπερ
-  οὐ βούλεται~, ἐᾷν (καὶ γὰρ οὐκ ἐπιτήδειον αὐτὸν εἶναι ~ἐς
-  ὀλιγαρχίαν~ ἐλθεῖν), etc.
-
-Immediately after the rupture of the negotiations, however, the
-satrap took a step well calculated to destroy the hopes of the
-Athenians altogether, so far as Persian aid was concerned. Though
-persisting in his policy of lending no decisive assistance to either
-party and of merely prolonging the war so as to enfeeble both, he
-yet began to fear that he was pushing matters too far against the
-Peloponnesians, who had now been two months inactive at Rhodes, with
-their large fleet hauled ashore. He had no treaty with them actually
-in force, since Lichas had disallowed the two previous conventions;
-nor had he furnished them with pay or maintenance. His bribes to
-the officers had hitherto kept the armament quiet; yet we do not
-distinctly see how so large a body of men found subsistence.[25]
-He was now, however, apprized that they could find subsistence no
-longer, and that they would probably desert, or commit depredations
-on the coast of his satrapy, or perhaps be driven to hasten on a
-general action with the Athenians, under desperate circumstances.
-Under such apprehensions he felt compelled to put himself again in
-communication with them, to furnish them with pay, and to conclude
-with them a third convention, the proposition of which he had refused
-to entertain at Knidus. He therefore went to Kaunus, invited the
-Peloponnesian leaders to Milêtus, and concluded with them near that
-town a treaty to the following effect:—
-
-  [25] Thucyd. viii, 44-57. In two parallel cases, one in Chios,
-  the other in Korkyra, the seamen of an unpaid armament found
-  subsistence by hiring themselves out for agricultural labor. But
-  this was only during the summer (see Xenoph. Hellen. ii, 1, 1;
-  vi, 2, 37), while the stay of the Peloponnesians at Rhodes was
-  from January to March.
-
-“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.
-
-But though violence and aggressive insult were thus seasonably
-checked, the sentiment of the armament was too ardent and unanimous
-to be satisfied without some solemn, emphatic, and decisive
-declaration against the oligarchs at Athens. A great democratical
-manifestation, of the most earnest and imposing character, was
-proclaimed, chiefly at the instance of Thrasybulus and Thrasyllus.
-The Athenian armament, brought together in one grand assembly, took
-an oath by the most stringent sanctions: to maintain their democracy;
-to keep up friendship and harmony with each other; to carry on the
-war against the Peloponnesians with energy; to be at enmity with the
-Four Hundred at Athens, and to enter into no amicable communication
-with them whatever. The whole armament swore to this compact
-with enthusiasm, and even those who had before taken part in the
-oligarchical movements were forced to be forward in the ceremony.[58]
-What lent double force to this touching scene was, that the entire
-Samian population, every male of the military age, took the oath
-along with the friendly armament. Both pledged themselves to mutual
-fidelity and common suffering or triumph, whatever might be the issue
-of the contest. Both felt that the Peloponnesians at Milêtus, and
-the Four Hundred at Athens, were alike their enemies, and that the
-success of either would be their common ruin.
-
-  [58] Thucyd. viii, 75. Μετὰ δὲ τοῦτο, λαμπρῶς ἤδη ἐς δημοκρατίαν
-  βουλόμενοι μεταστῆσαι τὰ ἐν τῇ Σάμῳ ὅ τε Θρασύβουλος καὶ
-  Θράσυλλος, ὥρκωσαν πάντας τοὺς στρατιώτας τοὺς μεγίστους ὅρκους,
-  καὶ αὐτοὺς τοὺς ἐκ τῆς ὀλιγαρχίας μάλιστα, ἦ μὴν δημοκρατήσεσθαι
-  τε καὶ ὁμονοήσειν, καὶ τὸν πρὸς Πελοποννησίους πόλεμον προθύμως
-  διοίσειν, καὶ τοῖς τετρακοσίοις πολέμιοί τε ἔσεσθαι καὶ οὐδὲν
-  ἐπικηρυκεύεσθαι. Ξυνώμνυσαν δὲ καὶ Σαμίων πάντες τὸν αὐτὸν ὅρκον
-  οἱ ἐν τῇ ἡλικίᾳ, καὶ τὰ πράγματα πάντα καὶ τὰ ἀποβησόμενα ἐκ τῶν
-  κινδύνων ξυνεκοινώσαντο οἱ στρατιῶται τοῖς Σαμίοις, νομίζοντες
-  οὔτε ἐκείνοις ἀποστροφὴν σωτηρίας οὔτε σφίσιν εἶναι, ἀλλ᾽ ἐάν
-  τε οἱ τετρακόσιοι κρατήσωσιν ἐάν τε οἱ ἐκ Μιλήτου πολέμιοι,
-  διαφθαρήσεσθαι.
-
-Pursuant to this resolution,—of upholding their democracy and at
-the same time sustaining the war against the Peloponnesians, at all
-cost or peril to themselves,—the soldiers of the armament now took
-a step unparalleled in Athenian history. Feeling that they could no
-longer receive orders from Athens under her present oligarchical
-rulers, with whom Charmînus and others among their own leaders were
-implicated, they constituted themselves into a sort of community
-apart, and held an assembly as citizens to choose anew their generals
-and trierarchs. Of those already in command, several were deposed as
-unworthy of trust; others being elected in their places, especially
-Thrasybulus and Thrasyllus. Nor was the assembly held for election
-alone; it was a scene of effusive sympathy, animating eloquence, and
-patriotism generous as well as resolute. The united armament felt
-that _they_ were the real Athens; the guardians of her constitution,
-the upholders of her remaining empire and glory, the protectors of
-her citizens at home against those conspirators who had intruded
-themselves wrongfully into the senate-house; the sole barrier, even
-for those conspirators themselves, against the hostile Peloponnesian
-fleet. “_The city has revolted from us_,” exclaimed Thrasybulus
-and others in pregnant words, which embodied a whole train of
-feeling.[59] “But let not this abate our courage: for they are only
-the lesser force, we are the greater and the self-sufficing. We have
-here the whole navy of the state, whereby we can insure to ourselves
-the contributions from our dependencies just as well as if we started
-from Athens. We have the hearty attachment of Samos, second in power
-only to Athens herself, and serving us as a military station against
-the enemy, now as in the past. We are better able to obtain supplies
-for ourselves, than those in the city for themselves; for it is only
-through our presence at Samos that they have hitherto kept the mouth
-of Peiræus open. If they refuse to restore to us our democratical
-constitution, we shall be better able to exclude them from the sea
-than they to exclude us. What, indeed, does the city do now for us
-to second our efforts against the enemy? Little or nothing. We have
-lost nothing by their separation. They send us no pay, they leave us
-to provide maintenance for ourselves; they are now out of condition
-for sending us even good counsel, which is the great superiority of a
-city over a camp.[60] As counsellors, we here are better than they;
-for they have just committed the wrong of subverting the constitution
-of our common country, while we are striving to maintain it, and
-will do our best to force them into the same track. Alkibiadês,
-if we insure to him a safe restoration, will cheerfully bring the
-alliance of Persia to sustain us; and, even if the worst comes to
-the worst, if all other hopes fail us, our powerful naval force will
-always enable us to find places of refuge in abundance, with city and
-territory adequate to our wants.”
-
-  [59] Thucyd. viii, 76. Καὶ παραινέσεις ἄλλας τε ἐποιοῦντο ἐν
-  σφίσιν αὐτοῖς ἀνιστάμενοι, καὶ ὡς οὐ δεῖ ἀθυμεῖν ὅτι ~ἡ πόλις
-  αὐτῶν ἀφέστηκε~· τοὺς γὰρ ἐλάσσους ~ἀπὸ σφῶν τῶν~ πλεόνων καὶ ἐς
-  πάντα ποριμωτέρων ~μεθεστάναι~.
-
-  [60] Thucyd. viii, 76. Βραχὺ δέ τι εἶναι καὶ οὐδενὸς ἄξιον, ᾧ
-  πρὸς τὸ περιγίγνεσθαι τῶν πολεμίων ἡ πόλις χρήσιμος ἦν, καὶ
-  οὐδὲν ἀπολωλεκέναι, οἵ γε μήτε ἀργύριον ἔτι εἶχον πέμπειν, ἀλλ᾽
-  αὐτοὶ ἐπορίζοντο οἱ στρατιῶται, μήτε βούλευμα χρηστὸν, οὗπερ
-  ἕνεκα πόλις στρατοπέδων κρατεῖ· ἀλλὰ καὶ ἐν τούτοις τοὺς μὲν
-  ἡμαρτηκέναι, τοὺς πατρίους νόμους καταλύσαντας, αὐτοὶ δὲ σώζειν
-  καὶ ἐκείνους πειράσεσθαι προσαναγκάζειν. Ὥστε οὐδὲ τούτους, οἵπερ
-  ἂν βουλεύοιέν τι χρηστὸν, παρὰ σφίσι χείρους εἶναι.
-
-Such was the encouraging language of Thrasyllus and Thrasybulus,
-which found full sympathy in the armament, and raised among them
-a spirit of energetic patriotism and resolution, not unworthy of
-their forefathers when refugees at Salamis under the invasion of
-Xerxês. To regain their democracy and to sustain the war against the
-Peloponnesians, were impulses alike ardent and blended in the same
-tide of generous enthusiasm; a tide so vehement as to sweep before it
-the reluctance of that minority who had before been inclined to the
-oligarchical movement. But besides these two impulses, there was also
-a third, tending towards the recall of Alkibiadês; a coadjutor, if in
-many ways useful, yet bringing with him a spirit of selfishness and
-duplicity uncongenial to the exalted sentiment now all-powerful at
-Samos.[61]
-
-  [61] The application of the Athenians at Samos to Alkibiadês,
-  reminds us of the emphatic language in which Tacitus
-  characterizes an incident in some respects similar. The Roman
-  army, fighting in the cause of Vitellius against Vespasian, had
-  been betrayed by their general Cæcina, who endeavored to carry
-  them over to the latter: his army, however, refused to follow
-  him, adhered to their own cause, and put him under arrest. Being
-  afterwards defeated by the troops of Vespasian, and obliged to
-  capitulate in Cremona, they released Cæcina, and solicited his
-  intercession to obtain favorable terms. “Primores castrorum nomen
-  atque imagines Vitellii amoliuntur; catenas Cæcinæ (nam etiam
-  tum vinctus erat) exsolvunt, orantque, ut causæ suæ deprecator
-  adsistat: aspernantem tumentemque lacrymis fatigant. _Extremum
-  malorum, tot fortissimi viri, proditoris opem invocantes._”
-  (Tacitus, Histor. iii, 31.)
-
-This exile had been the first to originate the oligarchical
-conspiracy, whereby Athens, already scarcely adequate to the
-exigencies of her foreign war, was now paralyzed in courage and
-torn by civil discord, preserved from absolute ruin only by
-that counter-enthusiasm which a fortunate turn of circumstances
-had raised up at Samos. Having at first duped the conspirators
-themselves, and enabled them to dupe the sincere democrats, by
-promising Persian aid, and thus floating the plot over its first
-and greatest difficulties,—Alkibiadês had found himself constrained
-to break with them as soon as the time came for realizing his
-promises. But he had broken off with so much address as still to
-keep up the illusion that he _could_ realize them if he chose. His
-return by means of the oligarchy being now impossible, he naturally
-became its enemy, and this new antipathy superseded his feeling
-of revenge against the democracy for having banished him. In fact
-he was disposed, as Phrynichus had truly said about him,[62] to
-avail himself indifferently of either, according as the one or the
-other presented itself as a serviceable agency for his ambitious
-views. Accordingly, as soon as the turn of affairs at Samos had
-made itself manifest, he opened communication with Thrasybulus and
-the democratical leaders,[63] renewing to them the same promises of
-Persian alliance, on condition of his own restoration, as he had
-before made to Peisander and the oligarchical party. Thrasybulus and
-his colleagues either sincerely believed him, or at least thought
-that his restoration afforded a possibility, not to be neglected, of
-obtaining Persian aid, without which they despaired of the war. Such
-possibility would at least infuse spirit into the soldiers; while the
-restoration was now proposed without the terrible condition which had
-before accompanied it, of renouncing the democratical constitution.
-
-  [62] Thucyd. viii, 48.
-
-  [63] Thucydidês does not expressly mention this communication,
-  but it is implied in the words Ἀλκιβιάδην—~ἄσμενον παρέξειν~,
-  etc. (viii, 76.)
-
-It was not without difficulty, however, nor until after more than
-one assembly and discussion,[64] that Thrasybulus prevailed on the
-armament to pass a vote of security and restoration to Alkibiadês. As
-Athenian citizens, the soldiers probably were unwilling to take upon
-them the reversal of a sentence solemnly passed by the democratical
-tribunal, on the ground of irreligion with suspicion of treason. They
-were, however, induced to pass the vote, after which Thrasybulus
-sailed over to the Asiatic coast, brought across Alkibiadês to the
-island, and introduced him to the assembled armament. The supple
-exile, who had denounced the democracy so bitterly, both at Sparta,
-and in his correspondence with the oligarchical conspirators, knew
-well how to adapt himself to the sympathies of the democratical
-assembly now before him. He began by deploring the sentence of
-banishment passed against him, and throwing the blame of it, not
-upon the injustice of his countrymen, but upon his own unhappy
-destiny.[65] He then entered upon the public prospects of the moment,
-pledging himself with entire confidence to realize the hopes of
-Persian alliance, and boasting, in terms not merely ostentatious but
-even extravagant, of the ascendant influence which he possessed over
-Tissaphernês. The satrap had promised him, so the speech went on,
-never to let the Athenians want for pay, as soon as he once came to
-trust them, not even if it were necessary to issue out his last daric
-or to coin his own silver couch into money. Nor would he require any
-farther condition to induce him to trust them, except that Alkibiadês
-should be restored and should become their guarantee. Not only would
-he furnish the Athenians with pay, but he would, besides, bring up to
-their aid the Phenician fleet, which was already at Aspendus, instead
-of placing it at the disposal of the Peloponnesians.
-
-  [64] Thucyd. viii, 81. Θρασύβουλος, ~ἀεί τε τῆς αὐτῆς γνώμης
-  ἐχόμενος~, ἐπειδὴ μετέστησε τὰ πράγματα, ὥστε κατάγειν
-  Ἀλκιβιάδην, καὶ ~τέλος~ ἐπ᾽ ἐκκλησίας ἔπεισε τὸ πλῆθος τῶν
-  στρατιωτῶν, etc.
-
-  [65] Thucyd. viii, 81. γενομένης δὲ ἐκκλησίας τήν ~τε ἰδίαν
-  ξυμφορὰν τῆς φυγῆς ἐπῃτιάσατο καὶ ἀνωλοφύρατο~ ὁ Ἀλκιβιάδης, etc.
-
-  Contrast the different language of Alkibiadês, vi, 92: viii, 47.
-
-  For the word ξυμφορὰν, compare i, 127.
-
-  Nothing can be more false and perverted than the manner in which
-  the proceedings of Alkibiadês, during this period, are presented
-  in the Oration of Isokratês de Bigis, sects. 18-23.
-
-In the communications of Alkibiadês with Peisander and his
-coadjutors, Alkibiadês had pretended that the Great King could have
-no confidence in the Athenians unless they not only restored him, but
-abnegated their democracy. On this occasion, the latter condition was
-withdrawn, and the confidence of the Great King was said to be more
-easily accorded. But though Alkibiadês thus presented himself with
-a new falsehood, as well as with a new vein of political sentiment,
-his discourse was eminently successful. It answered all the various
-purposes which he contemplated; partly of intimidating and disuniting
-the oligarchical conspirators at home, partly of exalting his own
-grandeur in the eyes of the armament, partly of sowing mistrust
-between the Spartans and Tissaphernês. It was in such full harmony
-with both the reigning feelings of the armament,—eagerness to
-put down the Four Hundred, as well as to get the better of their
-Peloponnesian enemies in Ionia,—that the hearers were not disposed to
-scrutinize narrowly the grounds upon which his assurances rested. In
-the fulness of confidence and enthusiasm, they elected him general
-along with Thrasybulus and the rest, conceiving redoubled hopes
-of victory over their enemies both at Athens and at Milêtus. So
-completely, indeed, were their imaginations filled with the prospect
-of Persian aid, against their enemies in Ionia, that alarm for the
-danger of Athens under the government of the Four Hundred became
-the predominant feeling; and many voices were even raised in favor
-of sailing to Peiræus for the rescue of the city. But Alkibiadês,
-knowing well—what the armament did not know—that his own promises of
-Persian pay and fleet were a mere delusion, strenuously dissuaded
-such a movement, which would have left the dependencies in Ionia
-defenceless against the Peloponnesians. As soon as the assembly
-broke up, he crossed over again to the mainland, under pretence
-of concerting measures with Tissaphernês to realize his recent
-engagements.
-
-Relieved substantially, though not in strict form, from the penalties
-of exile, Alkibiadês was thus launched in a new career. After having
-first played the game of Athens against Sparta, next, that of Sparta
-against Athens, thirdly, that of Tissaphernês against both, he now
-professed to take up again the promotion of Athenian interests.
-In reality, however, he was and had always been playing his own
-game, or obeying his own self-interest, ambition, or antipathy. He
-was at this time eager to make a show of intimate and confidential
-communication with Tissaphernês, in order that he might thereby
-impose upon the Athenians at Samos, to communicate to the satrap his
-recent election as general of the Athenian force, that his importance
-with the Persians might be enhanced, and lastly, by passing backwards
-and forwards from Tissaphernês to the Athenian camp, to exhibit an
-appearance of friendly concert between the two, which might sow
-mistrust and alarm in the minds of the Peloponnesians. In this
-tripartite manœuvring, so suitable to his habitual character, he was
-more or less successful, especially in regard to the latter purpose.
-For though he never had any serious chance of inducing Tissaphernês
-to assist the Athenians, he did, nevertheless, contribute to alienate
-him from the enemy, as well as the enemy from him.[66]
-
-  [66] Thucyd. viii, 82, 83, 87.
-
-Without any longer delay in the camp of Tissaphernês than was
-necessary to keep up the faith of the Athenians in his promise of
-Persian aid, Alkibiadês returned to Samos, where he was found by
-the ten envoys sent by the Four Hundred from Athens, on their first
-arrival. These envoys had been long in their voyage; having made a
-considerable stay at Delos, under alarm from intelligence of the
-previous visit of Chæreas, and the furious indignation which his
-narrative had provoked.[67] At length they reached Samos, and were
-invited by the generals to make their communication to the assembled
-armament. They had the utmost difficulty in procuring a hearing, so
-strong was the antipathy against them, so loud were the cries that
-the subverters of the democracy ought to be put to death. Silence
-being at length obtained, they proceeded to state that the late
-revolution had been brought to pass for the salvation of the city,
-and especially for the economy of the public treasure, by suppressing
-the salaried civil functions of the democracy, and thus leaving more
-pay for the soldiers;[68] that there was no purpose of mischief in
-the change, still less of betrayal to the enemy, which might already
-have been effected, had such been the intention of the Four Hundred,
-when Agis advanced from Dekeleia up to the walls; that the citizens
-now possessing the political franchise, were not Four Hundred only,
-but Five Thousand in number, all of whom would take their turn in
-rotation for the places now occupied by the Four Hundred;[69] that
-the recitals of Chæreas, affirming ill-usage to have been offered
-to the relatives of the soldiers at Athens, were utterly false and
-calumnious.
-
-  [67] Thucyd. viii, 77-86.
-
-  [68] Thucyd. viii, 86. Εἰ δὲ ἐς εὐτέλειάν τι ξυντέτμηται, ὥστε
-  τοὺς στρατιώτας ἔχειν τροφὴν, πάνυ ἐπαινεῖν.
-
-  This is a part of the answer of Alkibiadês to the envoys, and
-  therefore indicates what they had urged.
-
-  [69] Thucyd. viii, 86. τῶν τε πεντακισχιλίων ὅτι πάντες ἐν τῷ
-  μέρει μεθέξουσιν, etc. I dissent from Dr. Arnold’s construction
-  of this passage, which is followed both by Poppo and by Göller.
-  He says, in his note: “The sense must clearly be, ‘that all the
-  citizens should be of the five thousand in their turn,’ however
-  strange the expression may seem, μεθέξουσι τῶν πεντακισχιλίων.
-  But without referring to the absurdity of the meaning, that all
-  the Five Thousand should partake of the government _in their
-  turn_,—for they _all_ partook of it as being the sovereign
-  assembly,—yet μετέχειν, in this sense, would require τῶν
-  πραγμάτων after it, and would be at least as harsh, standing
-  alone, as in the construction of μεθέξουσι τῶν πεντακισχιλίων.”
-
-  Upon this remark, 1. Μετέχειν may be construed with a genitive
-  case not actually expressed, but understood out of the words
-  preceding; as we may see by Thucyd. ii, 16, where I agree with
-  the interpretation suggested by Matthiæ (Gr. Gr. § 325), rather
-  than with Dr. Arnold’s note.
-
-  2. In the present instance, we are not reduced to the necessity
-  of gathering a genitive case for μετέχειν by implication out of
-  previous phraseology: for the express genitive case stands there
-  a line or two before—~τῆς πόλεως~, the idea of which is carried
-  down without being ever dropped: οἱ δ᾽ ἀπήγγελλον, ὡς οὔτε ἐπὶ
-  διαφθορᾷ ~τῆς πόλεως~ ἡ μετάστασις γένοιτο, ἀλλ᾽ ἐπὶ σωτηρίᾳ,
-  οὔθ᾽ ἵνα τοῖς πολεμίοις παραδοθῇ (i. e., ἡ πόλις) ... τῶν τε
-  πεντακισχιλίων ὅτι πάντες ~ἐν τῷ μέρει μεθέξουσιν~ (i. e., τῆς
-  πόλεως).
-
-  There is therefore no harshness of expression; nor is there any
-  absurdity of meaning, as we may see by the repetition of the very
-  same in viii, 93, λέγοντες τούς τε πεντακισχιλίους ἀποφανεῖν,
-  καὶ ~ἐκ τούτων ἐν μέρει~, ᾗ ἂν τοῖς πεντακισχιλίοις δοκῇ, ~τοὺς
-  τετρακοσίους ἔσεσθαι~, etc.
-
-  Dr. Arnold’s designation of these Five Thousand as “the sovereign
-  assembly,” is not very accurate. They were not an assembly at
-  all: they had never been called together, nor had anything
-  been said about an intention of calling them together: in
-  reality, they were but a fiction and a name; but even the Four
-  Hundred themselves pretended only to talk of them as partners
-  in the conspiracy and revolution, not as _an assembly_ to be
-  convoked—πεντακισχίλιοι—~οἱ πράσσοντες~ (viii, 72).
-
-  As to the idea of bringing all the remaining citizens to equal
-  privileges, in rotation, with the Five Thousand, we shall see
-  that it was never broached until considerably after the Four
-  Hundred had been put down.
-
-Such were the topics on which the envoys insisted, in an apologetic
-strain, at considerable length, but without any effect in
-conciliating the soldiers who heard them. The general resentment
-against the Four Hundred was expressed by several persons present
-in public speech, by others in private manifestation of feeling
-against the envoys: and so passionately was this sentiment
-aggravated,—consisting not only of wrath for what the oligarchy had
-done, but of fear for what they might do,—that the proposition of
-sailing immediately to the Peiræus was revived with greater ardor
-than before. Alkibiadês, who had already once discountenanced this
-design, now stood forward to repel it again. Nevertheless, all the
-plenitude of his influence, then greater than that of any other
-officer in the armament, and seconded by the esteemed character as
-well as the loud voice of Thrasybulus,[70] was required to avert
-it. But for him, it would have been executed. While he reproved and
-silenced those who were most clamorous against the envoys, he took
-upon himself to give to the latter a public answer in the name of the
-collective armament. “We make no objection (he said) to the power of
-the Five Thousand: but the Four Hundred must go about their business,
-and reinstate the senate of Five Hundred as it was before. We are
-much obliged for what you have done in the way of economy, so as to
-increase the pay available for the soldiers. Above all, maintain the
-war strenuously, without any flinching before the enemy. For if the
-city be now safely held, there is good hope that we may make up the
-mutual differences between us by amicable settlement; but if once
-either of us perish, either we here or you at home, there will be
-nothing left for the other to make up with.”[71]
-
-  [70] Plutarch, Alkibiadês, c. 26.
-
-  [71] Thucyd. viii. 86. Καὶ τἄλλα ἐκέλευεν ἀντέχειν, καὶ μηδὲν
-  ἐνδιδόναι τοῖς πολεμίοις· πρὸς μὲν γὰρ σφᾶς αὐτοὺς σωζομένης τῆς
-  πόλεως πολλὴν ἐλπίδα εἶναι καὶ ξυμβῆναι, εἰ δὲ ἅπαξ τὸ ἕτερον
-  σφαλήσεται ἢ τὸ ἐν Σάμῳ ἢ ἐκεῖνοι, οὐδὲ ὅτῳ διαλλαγήσεταί τις ἔτι
-  ἔσεσθαι.
-
-With this reply he dismissed the envoys; the armament reluctantly
-abandoning their wish of sailing to Athens. Thucydidês insists much
-on the capital service which Alkibiadês then rendered to his country,
-by arresting a project which would have had the effect of leaving
-all Ionia and the Hellespont defenceless against the Peloponnesians.
-His advice doubtless turned out well in the result; yet if we
-contemplate the state of affairs at the moment when he gave it, we
-shall be inclined to doubt whether prudential calculation was not
-rather against him, and in favor of the impulse of the armament.
-For what was to hinder the Four Hundred from patching up a peace
-with Sparta, and getting a Lacedæmonian garrison into Athens to
-help them in maintaining their dominion? Even apart from ambition,
-this was their best chance, if not their only chance, of safety for
-themselves; and we shall presently see that they tried to do it;
-being prevented from succeeding, partly, indeed, by the mutiny which
-arose against them at Athens, but still more by the stupidity of the
-Lacedæmonians themselves. Alkibiadês could not really imagine that
-the Four Hundred would obey his mandate delivered to the envoys,
-and resign their power voluntarily. But if they remained masters of
-Athens, who could calculate what they would do,—after having received
-this declaration of hostility from Samos,—not merely in regard to
-the foreign enemy, but even in regard to the relatives of the absent
-soldiers? Whether we look to the legitimate apprehensions of the
-soldiers, inevitable while their relatives were thus exposed, and
-almost unnerving them as to the hearty prosecution of the war abroad,
-in their utter uncertainty with regard to matters at home,—or to the
-chance of irreparable public calamity, greater even than the loss of
-Ionia, by the betrayal of Athens to the enemy,—we shall be disposed
-to conclude that the impulse of the armament was not merely natural,
-but even founded on a more prudent estimate of the actual chances,
-and that Alkibiadês was nothing more than fortunate in a sanguine
-venture. And if, instead of the actual chances, we look to the
-chances as Alkibiadês represented, and as the armament conceived them
-upon his authority,—namely, that the Phenician fleet was close at
-hand to act against the Lacedæmonians in Ionia,—we shall sympathize
-yet more with the defensive movement homeward. Alkibiadês had an
-advantage over every one else, simply by knowing his own falsehoods.
-
-At the same assembly were introduced envoys from Argos, bearing a
-mission of recognition and an offer of aid to the Athenian Demos in
-Samos. They came in an Athenian trireme, navigated by the parali
-who had brought home Chæreas in the paralus from Samos to Athens,
-and had been then transferred into a common ship of war and sent to
-cruise about Eubœa. Since that time, however, they had been directed
-to convey Læspodias, Aristophon, and Melêsias,[72] as ambassadors
-from the Four Hundred to Sparta. But when crossing the Argolic gulf,
-probably under orders to land at Prasiæ, they declared against the
-oligarchy, sailed to Argos, and there deposited as prisoners the
-three ambassadors, who had all been active in the conspiracy of
-the Four Hundred. Being then about to depart for Samos, they were
-requested by the Argeians to carry thither their envoys, who were
-dismissed by Alkibiadês with an expression of gratitude, and with a
-hope that their aid would be ready when called for.
-
-  [72] Thucyd. viii. 86. It is very probable that the Melêsias here
-  mentioned was the son of that Thucydidês who was the leading
-  political opponent of Periklês. Melêsias appears as one of the
-  _dramatis personæ_ in Plato’s dialogue called Lachês.
-
-Meanwhile the envoys returned from Samos to Athens, carrying back
-to the Four Hundred the unwelcome news of their total failure with
-the armament. A little before, it appears, some of the trierarchs on
-service at the Hellespont had returned to Athens also,—Eratosthenês,
-Iatroklês, and others, who had tried to turn their squadron to the
-purposes of the oligarchical conspirators, but had been baffled and
-driven off by the inflexible democracy of their own seamen.[73] If at
-Athens, the calculations of these conspirators had succeeded more
-triumphantly than could have been expected beforehand, everywhere
-else they had completely miscarried; not merely at Samos and in
-the fleet, but also with the allied dependencies. At the time when
-Peisander quitted Samos for Athens, to consummate the oligarchical
-conspiracy even without Alkibiadês, he and others had gone round many
-of the dependencies and had effected a similar revolution in their
-internal government, in hopes that they would thus become attached to
-the new oligarchy at Athens. But this anticipation, as Phrynichus had
-predicted, was nowhere realized. The newly-created oligarchies only
-became more anxious for complete autonomy than the democracies had
-been before. At Thasos, especially, a body of exiles who had for some
-time dwelt in Peloponnesus were recalled, and active preparations
-were made for revolt, by new fortifications as well as by new
-triremes.[74] Instead of strengthening their hold on the maritime
-empire, the Four Hundred thus found that they had actually weakened
-it; while the pronounced hostility of the armament at Samos, not only
-put an end to all their hopes abroad, but rendered their situation at
-home altogether precarious.
-
-  [73] Lysias cont. Eratosthen. sect. 43, c. 9, p. 411, Reisk.
-  οὐ γὰρ νῦν πρῶτον (Eratosthenês) τῷ ὑμετέρῳ πλήθει τὰ ἐναντία
-  ἔπραξεν, ἀλλὰ καὶ ἐπὶ τῶν Τετρακοσίων ἐν τῷ στρατοπέδῳ ὀλιγαρχίαν
-  καθιστὰς ἔφευγεν ἐξ Ἑλλησπόντου τριηράρχος καταλιπὼν τὴν ναῦν,
-  μετὰ Ἰατροκλέους καὶ ἑτέρων ... ἀφικόμενος δὲ δεῦρο τἀναντία τοῖς
-  βουλομένοις δημοκρατίαν εἶναι ἔπραττε.
-
-  [74] Thucyd. viii, 64.
-
-From the moment when the coadjutors of Antiphon first learned,
-through the arrival of Chæreas at Athens, the proclamation of the
-democracy at Samos, discord, mistrust, and alarm began to spread
-even among their own members; together with a conviction that
-the oligarchy could never stand except through the presence of a
-Peloponnesian garrison in Athens. While Antiphon and Phrynichus,
-the leading minds who directed the majority of the Four Hundred,
-despatched envoys to Sparta for concluding peace,—these envoys never
-reached Sparta, being seized by the parali and sent prisoners to
-Argos, as above stated—, and commenced the erection of a special fort
-at Ectioneia, the projecting mole which contracted and commanded, on
-the northern side, the narrow entrance of Peiræus, there began to
-arise even in the bosom of the Four Hundred an opposition minority
-affecting popular sentiment, among whom the most conspicuous persons
-were Theramenês and Aristokratês.[75]
-
-  [75] Thucyd. viii, 89, 90. The representation of the character
-  and motives of Theramenês, as given by Lysias in the Oration
-  contra Eratosthenem (Orat. xii, sects. 66, 67, 79; Orat. xiii,
-  cont. Agorat. sects. 12-17), is quite in harmony with that of
-  Thucydidês (viii, 89): compare Aristophan. Ran. 541-966; Xenoph.
-  Hellen. ii, 3, 27-30.
-
-Though these men had stood forward prominently as contrivers and
-actors throughout the whole progress of the conspiracy, they now
-found themselves bitterly disappointed by the result. Individually,
-their ascendency with their colleagues was inferior to that of
-Peisander, Kallæschrus, Phrynichus, and others; while, collectively,
-the ill-gotten power of the Four Hundred was diminished in value, as
-much as it was aggravated in peril, by the loss of the foreign empire
-and the alienation of their Samian armament. Now began the workings
-of jealousy and strife among the successful conspirators, each of
-whom had entered into the scheme with unbounded expectations of
-personal ambition for himself, each had counted on stepping at once
-into the first place among the new oligarchical body. In a democracy,
-observes Thucydidês, contentions for power and preëminence provoke in
-the unsuccessful competitors less of fierce antipathy and sense of
-injustice, than in an oligarchy; for the losing candidates acquiesce
-with comparatively little repugnance in the unfavorable vote of a
-large miscellaneous body of unknown citizens; but they are angry at
-being put aside by a few known comrades, their rivals as well as
-their equals: moreover, at the moment when an oligarchy of ambitious
-men has just raised itself on the ruins of a democracy, every man
-of the conspirators is in exaggerated expectation; every one thinks
-himself entitled to become at once the first man of the body, and is
-dissatisfied if he be merely put upon a level with the rest.[76]
-
-  [76] Thucyd. viii, 89. ἦν δὲ τοῦτο μὲν σχῆμα πολιτικὸν τοῦ λόγου
-  αὐτοῖς, κατ᾽ ἰδίας δὲ φιλοτιμίας οἱ πολλοὶ αὐτῶν τῷ τοιούτῳ
-  προσέκειντο, ἐν ᾧπερ καὶ μάλιστα ὀλιγαρχία ἐκ δημοκρατίας
-  γενομένη ἀπόλλυται. Πάντες γὰρ αὐθημερὸν ἀξιοῦσιν οὐχ ὅπως ἴσοι,
-  ἀλλὰ καὶ πολὺ πρῶτος αὐτὸς ἕκαστος εἶναι· ἐκ δὲ δημοκρατίας
-  αἱρέσεως γιγνομένης, ῥᾷον τὰ ἀποβαίνοντα, ὡς οὐκ ἀπὸ τῶν ὁμοίων,
-  ἐλασσούμενός τις φέρει.
-
-  I give in the text what appears to me the proper sense of this
-  passage, the last words of which are obscure: see the long notes
-  of the commentators, especially Dr. Arnold and Poppo. Dr. Arnold
-  considers τῶν ὁμοίων as a neuter, and gives the paraphrase of
-  the last clause as follows: “Whereas under an old-established
-  government, they (ambitious men of talent) are prepared to fail:
-  they know that the weight of the government is against them, and
-  are thus spared the peculiar pain of being beaten in a fair race,
-  when they and their competitors start with equal advantages, and
-  there is nothing to lessen the mortification of defeat. Ἀπὸ τῶν
-  ὁμοίων ἐλασσούμενος, is, _being beaten when the game is equal,
-  when the terms of the match are fair_.”
-
-  I cannot concur in Dr. Arnold’s explanation of these words, or
-  of the general sense of the passage. He thinks that Thucydidês
-  means to affirm what applies generally “to an opposition minority
-  when it succeeds in revolutionizing the established government,
-  whether the government be a democracy or a monarchy; whether
-  the minority be an aristocratical party or a popular one.” It
-  seems to me, on the contrary, that the affirmation bears only
-  on the special case of an oligarchical conspiracy subverting a
-  democracy, and that the comparison taken is applicable only to
-  the state of things as it stood under the preceding democracy.
-
-  Next, the explanation given of the words by Dr. Arnold, assumes
-  that “to be beaten in a fair race, or when the terms of the
-  match are fair,” causes to the loser _the maximum_ of pain and
-  offence. This is surely not the fact: or rather, the reverse is
-  the fact. The man who loses his cause or his election through
-  unjust favor, jealousy, or antipathy, is _more_ hurt than if he
-  had lost it under circumstances where he could find no injustice
-  to complain of. In both cases, he is doubtless mortified; but
-  if there be injustice, he is offended and angry as well as
-  mortified: he is disposed to take vengeance on men whom he looks
-  upon as his personal enemies. It is important to distinguish
-  the mortification of simple failure, from the discontent and
-  anger arising out of belief that the failure has been unjustly
-  brought about: it is this discontent, tending to break out in
-  active opposition, which Thucydidês has present to his mind in
-  the comparison which he takes between the state of feeling which
-  precedes and follows the subversion of the democracy.
-
-  It appears to me that the words τῶν ὁμοίων are masculine, and
-  that they have reference, like πάντες and ἴσοι, in the preceding
-  line, to the privileged minority of equal confederates who are
-  supposed to have just got possession of the government. At
-  Sparta, the word οἱ ὅμοιοι acquired a sort of technical sense,
-  to designate the small ascendent minority of wealthy Spartan
-  citizens, who monopolized in their own hands political power, to
-  the practical exclusion of the remainder (see Xenoph. Hellen.
-  iii. 3, 5; Xenoph. Resp. Lac. x, 7; xiii, 1; Demosth. cont. Lept.
-  s. 88). Now these ὅμοιοι, or peers, here indicated by Thucydidês
-  as the peers of a recently-formed oligarchy, are not merely equal
-  among themselves, but rivals one with another, and personally
-  known to each other. It is important to bear in mind all these
-  attributes as tacitly implied, though not literally designated or
-  _connoted_ by the word ὅμοιοι, or peers; because the comparison
-  instituted by Thucydidês is founded on all the attributes taken
-  together; just as Aristotle (Rhetoric, ii, 8; ii, 13, 4), in
-  speaking of the envy and jealousy apt to arise towards τοὺς
-  ὁμοίους, considers them as ἀντεράστας and ἀνταγωνίστας.
-
-  The Four Hundred at Athens were all peers,—equals, rivals,
-  and personally known among one another,—who had just raised
-  themselves by joint conspiracy to supreme power. Theramenês,
-  one of the number, conceives himself entitled to preëminence,
-  but finds that he is shut out from it, the men who shut him
-  out being this small body of known equals and rivals. He is
-  inclined to impute the exclusion to personal motives on the part
-  of this small knot; to selfish ambition on the part of each; to
-  ill-will, to jealousy, to wrongful partiality; so that he thinks
-  himself injured, and the sentiment of injury is embittered by
-  the circumstance that those from whom it proceeds are a narrow,
-  known, and definite body of colleagues. Whereas, if his exclusion
-  had taken place under the democracy, by the suffrage of a large,
-  miscellaneous, and personally unknown collection of citizens, he
-  would have been far less likely to carry off with him a sense of
-  injury. Doubtless he would have been mortified; but he would not
-  have looked upon the electors in the light of jealous or selfish
-  rivals, nor would they form a definite body before him for his
-  indignation to concentrate itself upon. Thus Nikomachidês—whom
-  Sokratês (see Xenophon, Memor. iii, 4) meets returning mortified
-  because the people had chosen another person and not him as
-  general—would have been not only mortified, but angry and
-  vindictive besides, if he had been excluded by a few peers and
-  rivals.
-
-  Such, in my judgment, is the comparison which Thucydidês wishes
-  to draw between the effect of disappointment inflicted by the
-  suffrage of a numerous and miscellaneous body of citizens,
-  compared with disappointment inflicted by a small knot of
-  oligarchical peers upon a competitor among their own number,
-  especially at a moment when the expectations of all these peers
-  are exaggerated, in consequence of the recent acquisition of
-  their power. I believe the remark of the historian to be quite
-  just; and that the disappointment in the first case is less
-  intense, less connected with the sentiment of injury, and less
-  likely to lead to active manifestation of enmity. This is one
-  among the advantages of a numerous suffrage.
-
-  I cannot better illustrate the jealousies pretty sure to break
-  out among a small number of ὅμοιοι, or rival peers, than by
-  the description which Justin gives of the leading officers of
-  Alexander the Great, immediately after that monarch’s death
-  (Justin, xii, 2):—
-
-  “Cæterum, occiso Alexandro, non, ut læti, ita et securi fuere,
-  omnibus unum locum competentibus: nec minus milites invicem se
-  timebant, quorum et libertas solutior et favor incertus erat.
-  _Inter ipsos vero æqualitas discordiam augebat_, nemine tantum
-  cæteros excedente, ut ei aliquis se submitteret.”
-
-  Compare Plutarch, Lysander, c. 23.
-
-  Haack and Poppo think that ὁμοίων cannot be masculine, because
-  ~ἀπὸ~ τῶν ὁμοίων ἐλασσούμενος would not then be correct, but
-  ought to be ~ὑπὸ~ τῶν ὁμοίων ἐλασσούμενος. I should dispute,
-  under all circumstances, the correctness of this criticism: for
-  there are quite enough parallel cases to defend the use of ἀπὸ
-  here, (see Thucyd. i, 17; iii, 82; iv, 115; vi, 28, etc.) But
-  we need not enter into the debate; for the genitive τῶν ὁμοίων
-  depends rather upon τὰ ἀποβαίνοντα which precedes, than upon
-  ἐλασσούμενος which follows; and the preposition ἀπὸ is what we
-  should naturally expect. To mark this, I have put a comma after
-  ἀποβαίνοντα as well as after ὁμοίων.
-
-  To show that an opinion is not correct, indeed, does not afford
-  _certain_ evidence that Thucydidês may not have advanced it: for
-  he might be mistaken. But it ought to count as good presumptive
-  evidence, unless the words peremptorily bind us to the contrary,
-  which in this case they do not.
-
-Such were the feelings of disappointed ambition, mingled with
-despondency, which sprung up among a minority of the Four Hundred,
-immediately after the news of the proclamation of the democracy at
-Samos among the armament. Theramenês, the leader of this minority,—a
-man of keen ambition, clever but unsteady and treacherous, not
-less ready to desert his party than to betray his country, though
-less prepared for extreme atrocities than many of his oligarchical
-comrades, began to look out for a good pretence to disconnect himself
-from a precarious enterprise. Taking advantage of the delusion
-which the Four Hundred had themselves held out about the fictitious
-Five Thousand, he insisted that, since the dangers that beset the
-newly-formed authority were so much more formidable than had been
-anticipated, it was necessary to popularize the party by enrolling
-and producing these Five Thousand as a real instead of a fictitious
-body.[77] Such an opposition, formidable from the very outset, became
-still bolder and more developed when the envoys returned from Samos,
-with an account of their reception by the armament, as well as of the
-answer, delivered in the name of the armament, whereby Alkibiadês
-directed the Four Hundred to dissolve themselves forthwith, but at
-the same time approved of the constitution of the Five Thousand,
-coupled with the restoration of the old senate. To enroll the Five
-Thousand at once, would be meeting the army half way; and there were
-hopes that, at that price, a compromise and reconciliation might be
-effected, of which Alkibiadês had himself spoken as practicable.[78]
-In addition to the formal answer, the envoys doubtless brought back
-intimation of the enraged feelings manifested by the armament, and
-of their eagerness, uncontrollable by every one except Alkibiadês,
-to sail home forthwith and rescue Athens from the Four Hundred.
-Hence arose an increased conviction that the dominion of the latter
-could not last: and an ambition, on the part of others as well as
-Theramenês, to stand forward as leaders of a popular opposition
-against it, in the name of the Five Thousand.[79]
-
-  [77] Thucyd. viii, 86, 2. Of this sentence, from φοβούμενοι down
-  to καθιστάναι, I only profess to understand the last clause.
-  It is useless to discuss the many conjectural amendments of a
-  corrupt text, none of them satisfactory.
-
-  [78] Thucyd. viii, 86-89. It is alleged by Andokidês (in an
-  oration delivered many years afterwards before the people of
-  Athens, De Reditu suo, sects. 10-15), that during this spring
-  he furnished the armament at Samos with wood proper for the
-  construction of oars, only obtained by the special favor of
-  Archelaus king of Macedonia, and of which the armament then stood
-  in great need. He farther alleges, that he afterwards visited
-  Athens, while the Four Hundred were in full dominion; and that
-  Peisander, at the head of this oligarchical body, threatened his
-  life for having furnished such valuable aid to the armament, then
-  at enmity with Athens. Though he saved his life by clinging to
-  the altar, yet he had to endure bonds and manifold hard treatment.
-
-  Of these claims, which Andokidês prefers to the favor of the
-  subsequent democracy, I do not know how much is true.
-
-  [79] Thucyd. viii, 89. σαφέστατα δὲ αὐτοὺς ἐπῆρε τὰ ἐν τῇ Σάμῳ
-  τοῦ Ἀλκιβιάδου ἰσχυρὰ ὄντα, καὶ ὅτι αὐτοῖς οὐκ ἐδόκει μόνιμον τὸ
-  τῆς ὀλιγαρχίας ἔσεσθαι. ἠγωνίζετο οὖν εἷς ἕκαστος ~προστάτης τοῦ
-  δήμου ἔσεσθαι~.
-
-  This is a remarkable passage, as indicating what is really meant
-  by προστάτης τοῦ δήμου: “the leader of a popular opposition.”
-  Theramenês, and the other persons here spoken of, did not even
-  mention the name of the democracy,—they took up simply the name
-  of the Five Thousand,—yet they are still called πρόσταται τοῦ
-  δήμου, inasmuch as the Five Thousand were a sort of qualified
-  democracy, compared to the Four Hundred.
-
-  The words denote the leader of a popular party, as opposed to
-  an oligarchical party (see Thucyd. iii, 70; iv, 66; vi, 35), in
-  a form of government either entirely democratical, or at least,
-  in which the public assembly is frequently convoked and decides
-  on many matters of importance. Thucydidês does not apply the
-  words to any Athenian except in the case now before us respecting
-  Theramenês: he does not use the words even with respect to Kleon,
-  though he employs expressions which seem equivalent to it (iii,
-  36; iv, 21)—ἀνὴρ δημαγωγὸς κατ᾽ ἐκεῖνον τὸν χρόνον ὢν καὶ τῷ
-  πλήθει πιθανώτατος, etc. This is very different from the words
-  which he applies to Periklês—ὢν γὰρ ~δυνατώτατος~ τῶν καθ᾽ ἑαυτὸν
-  καὶ ~ἄγων τὴν πολιτείαν~ (i, 127). Even in respect to Nikias, he
-  puts him in conjunction with Pleistoanax at Sparta, and talks of
-  both of them as σπεύδοντες τὰ μάλιστα ~τὴν ἡγεμονίαν~ (v, 16).
-
-  Compare the note of Dr. Arnold on vi, 35.
-
-Against this popular opposition, Antiphon and Phrynichus exerted
-themselves, with demagogic assiduity, to caress and keep together
-the majority of the Four Hundred, as well as to uphold their power
-without abridgment. They were noway disposed to comply with this
-requisition that the fiction of the Five Thousand should be converted
-into a reality. They knew well that the enrollment of so many
-partners[80] would be tantamount to a democracy, and would be, in
-substance at least, if not in form, an annihilation of their own
-power. They had now gone too far to recede with safety; while the
-menacing attitude of Samos, as well as the opposition growing up
-against them at home, both within and without their own body, served
-only as instigation to them to accelerate their measures for peace
-with Sparta, and to secure the introduction of a Spartan garrison.
-
-  [80] Thucyd. viii, 92. τὸ μὲν καταστῆσαι μετόχους τοσούτους,
-  ἄντικρυς ἂν δῆμον ἡγούμενοι, etc.
-
-  Aristotle (Polit. v, 5, 4) calls Phrynichus the _demagogue_ of
-  the Four Hundred; that is, the person who most strenuously served
-  _their_ interests and struggled for _their_ favor.
-
-With this view, immediately after the return of their envoys from
-Samos, the two most eminent leaders, Antiphon and Phrynichus,
-went themselves with ten other colleagues in all haste to Sparta,
-prepared to purchase peace and the promise of Spartan aid almost
-at any price. At the same time, the construction of the fortress
-at Ectioneia was prosecuted with redoubled zeal; under pretence of
-defending the entrance of Peiræus against the armament from Samos,
-if the threat of their coming should be executed, but with the real
-purpose of bringing into it a Lacedæmonian fleet and army. For this
-latter object every facility was provided. The northwestern corner
-of the fortification of Peiræus, to the north of the harbor and its
-mouth, was cut off by a cross wall reaching southward so as to join
-the harbor: from the southern end of this cross wall, and forming an
-angle with it, a new wall was built, fronting the harbor and running
-to the extremity of the mole which narrowed the mouth of the harbor
-on the northern side, at which mole it met the termination of the
-northern wall of Peiræus. A separate citadel was thus inclosed,
-defensible against any attack either from Peiræus or from the harbor;
-furnished, besides, with distinct broad gates and posterns of its
-own, as well as with facilities for admitting an enemy within
-it.[81] The new cross wall was carried so as to traverse a vast
-portico, or open market-house, the largest in Peiræus: the larger
-half of this portico thus became inclosed within the new citadel; and
-orders were issued that all the corn, both actually warehoused and
-hereafter to be imported into Peiræus, should be deposited therein
-and sold out from thence for consumption. As Athens was sustained
-almost exclusively on corn brought from Eubœa and elsewhere, since
-the permanent occupation of Dekeleia, the Four Hundred rendered
-themselves masters by this arrangement of all the subsistence of the
-citizens, as well as of the entrance into the harbor; either to admit
-the Spartans or exclude the armament from Samos.[82]
-
-  [81] Thucyd. viii, 90-92. τὸ τεῖχος τοῦτο, καὶ πυλίδας ἔχον, καὶ
-  ἐσόδους, καὶ ἐπεισαγωγὰς τῶν πολεμίων, etc.
-
-  I presume that the last expression refers to facilities for
-  admitting the enemy either from the sea-side, or from the
-  land-side; that is to say, from the northwestern corner of the
-  old wall of Peiræus, which formed one side of the new citadel.
-
-  See Leake’s Topographie Athens, pp. 269, 270, Germ. transl.
-
-  [82] Thucyd. viii, 90. διῳκοδόμησαν δὲ καὶ στοὰν, etc.
-
-  I agree with the note in M. Didot’s translation, that this
-  portico, or _halle_, open on three sides, must he considered as
-  preëxisting; not as having been first built now; which seems
-  to be the supposition of Colonel Leake, and the commentators
-  generally.
-
-Though Theramenês, himself one of the generals named under the
-Four Hundred, denounced, in conjunction with his supporters, the
-treasonable purpose of this new citadel, yet the majority of the
-Four Hundred stood to their resolution, and the building made rapid
-progress under the superintendence of the general Alexiklês, one
-of the most strenuous of the oligarchical faction.[83] Such was
-the habit of obedience at Athens to an established authority, when
-once constituted,—and so great the fear and mistrust arising out
-of the general belief in the reality of the Five Thousand unknown
-auxiliaries, supposed to be prepared to enforce the orders of the
-Four Hundred,—that the people, and even armed citizen hoplites,
-went on working at the building, in spite of their suspicions as
-to its design. Though not completed, it was so far advanced as to
-be defensible, when Antiphon and Phrynichus returned from Sparta.
-They had gone thither prepared to surrender everything,—not merely
-their naval force, but their city itself,—and to purchase their own
-personal safety by making the Lacedæmonians masters of Peiræus.[84]
-Yet we read with astonishment that the latter could not be prevailed
-on to contract any treaty, and that they manifested nothing but
-backwardness in seizing this golden opportunity. Had Alkibiadês
-been now playing their game, as he had been doing a year earlier,
-immediately before the revolt of Chios,—had they been under any
-energetic leaders, to impel them into hearty coöperation with the
-treason of the Four Hundred, who combined at this moment both the
-will and the power to place Athens in their hands, if seconded by an
-adequate force,—they might now have overpowered their great enemy at
-home, before the armament at Samos could have been brought to the
-rescue.
-
-  [83] Thucyd. viii, 91, 92. Ἀλεξικλέα, στρατηγὸν ὄντα ἐκ τῆς
-  ὀλιγαρχίας καὶ μάλιστα πρὸς τοὺς ἑταίρους τετραμμένον, etc.
-
-  [84] Thucyd. viii, 91. Ἀλλὰ καὶ τοὺς πολεμίους ἐσαγαγόμενοι ἄνευ
-  τειχῶν καὶ νεῶν ξυμβῆναι, καὶ ὁπωσοῦν τὰ τῆς πόλεως ἔχειν, εἰ
-  τοῖς γε σώμασι σφῶν ἄδεια ἔσται.
-
-  _Ibid._ ἐπειδὴ οἱ ἐκ τῆς Λακεδαίμονος πρέσβεις οὐδὲν πράξαντες
-  ἀνεχώρησαν τοῖς πᾶσι ξυμβατικὸν, etc.
-
-Considering that Athens was saved from capture only by the slackness
-and stupidity of the Spartans, we may see that the armament at Samos
-had reasonable excuse for their eagerness previously manifested to
-come home; and that Alkibiadês, in combating that intention, braved
-an extreme danger which nothing but incredible good fortune averted.
-Why the Lacedæmonians remained idle, both in Peloponnesus and at
-Dekeleia, while Athens was thus betrayed, and in the very throes of
-dissolution, we can render no account: possibly, the caution of the
-ephors may have distrusted Antiphon and Phrynichus, from the mere
-immensity of their concessions. All that they would promise was, that
-a Lacedæmonian fleet of forty-two triremes, partly from Tarentum and
-Lokri, now about to start from Las in the Laconian gulf, and to sail
-to Eubœa on the invitation of a disaffected party in that island,
-should so far depart from its straight course as to hover near Ægina
-and Peiræus, ready to take advantage of any opportunity for attack
-laid open by the Four Hundred.[85]
-
-  [85] Thucyd. viii, 91. ἦν δέ τι καὶ τοιοῦτον ἀπὸ τῶν τὴν
-  κατηγορίαν ἐχόντων, καὶ ~οὐ πάνυ διαβολὴ μόνον~ τοῦ λόγου.
-
-  The reluctant language, in which Thucydidês admits the
-  treasonable concert of Antiphon and his colleagues with the
-  Lacedæmonians, deserves notice; also c. 94. ~τάχα μέν τι καὶ~ ἀπὸ
-  ξυγκειμένου λόγου, etc.
-
-Of this squadron, however, even before it rounded Cape Malea,
-Theramenês obtained intelligence, and denounced it as intended
-to operate in concert with the Four Hundred for the occupation
-of Ectioneia. Meanwhile Athens became daily a scene of greater
-discontent and disorder, after the abortive embassy and return from
-Sparta of Antiphon and Phrynichus. The coercive ascendency of the
-Four Hundred was silently disappearing, while the hatred which their
-usurpation had inspired, together with the fear of their traitorous
-concert with the public enemy, became more and more loudly manifested
-in men’s private conversations as well as in gatherings secretly
-got together within numerous houses; especially the house of the
-peripolarch, the captain of the peripoli, or youthful hoplites,
-who formed the chief police of the country. Such hatred was not
-long in passing from vehement passion into act. Phrynichus, as he
-left the senate-house, was assassinated by two confederates, one of
-them a peripolus, or youthful hoplite, in the midst of the crowded
-market-place and in full daylight. The man who struck the blow made
-his escape, but his comrade was seized and put to the torture by
-order of the Four Hundred:[86] he was however a stranger, from Argos,
-and either could not or would not reveal the name of any directing
-accomplice. Nothing was obtained from him except general indications
-of meetings and wide-spread disaffection. Nor did the Four Hundred,
-being thus left without special evidence, dare to lay hands upon
-Theramenês, the pronounced leader of the opposition, as we shall find
-Kritias doing six years afterwards, under the rule of the Thirty.
-The assassins of Phrynichus remaining undiscovered and unpunished,
-Theramenês and his associates became bolder in their opposition
-than before. And the approach of the Lacedæmonian fleet under
-Agesandridas,—which, having now taken station at Epidaurus, had made
-a descent on Ægina, and was hovering not far off Peiræus, altogether
-out of the straight course for Eubœa,—lent double force to all their
-previous assertions about the imminent dangers connected with the
-citadel at Ectioneia.
-
-  [86] Thucyd. viii, 91. The statement of Plutarch is in many
-  respects different (Alkibiadês, c. 25).
-
-Amidst this exaggerated alarm and discord, the general body of
-hoplites became penetrated with aversion,[87] every day increasing,
-against the new citadel. At length the hoplites of the tribe in which
-Aristokratês, the warmest partisan of Theramenês was taxiarch, being
-on duty and engaged in the prosecution of the building, broke out
-into absolute mutiny against it, seized the person of Alexiklês,
-the general in command, and put him under arrest in a neighboring
-house; while the peripoli, or youthful military police, stationed at
-Munychia, under Hermon, abetted them in the proceeding.[88] News of
-this violence was speedily conveyed to the Four Hundred, who were at
-that moment holding session in the senate-house, Theramenês himself
-being present. Their wrath and menace were at first vented against
-him as the instigator of the revolt, a charge against which he could
-only vindicate himself by volunteering to go among the foremost for
-the liberation of the prisoner. He forthwith started in haste for
-the Peiræus, accompanied by one of the generals, his colleague,
-who was of the same political sentiment as himself. A third among
-the generals, Aristarchus, one of the fiercest of the oligarchs,
-followed him, probably from mistrust, together with some of the
-younger knights, horsemen, or richest class in the state, identified
-with the cause of the Four Hundred. The oligarchical partisans ran
-to marshal themselves in arms, alarming exaggerations being rumored,
-that Alexiklês had been put to death, and that Peiræus was under
-armed occupation; while at Peiræus the insurgents imagined that the
-hoplites from the city were in full march to attack them. For a time
-all was confusion and angry sentiment, which the slightest untoward
-accident might have inflamed into sanguinary civil carnage. Nor was
-it appeased except by earnest intreaty and remonstrance from the
-elder citizens, aided by Thucydidês of Pharsalus, proxenus or public
-guest of Athens, in his native town, on the ruinous madness of such
-discord when a foreign enemy was almost at their gates.
-
-  [87] Thucyd. viii, 92. τὸ δὲ μέγιστον, τῶν ὁπλιτῶν τὸ στῖφος
-  ταῦτα ἐβούλετο.
-
-  [88] Plutarch, Alkibiad. c. 26, represents Hermon as one of the
-  assassins of Phrynichus.
-
-The perilous excitement of this temporary crisis, which brought
-into full daylight every man’s real political sentiments, proved
-the oligarchical faction, hitherto exaggerated in number, to be
-far less powerful than had been imagined by their opponents. And
-the Four Hundred had found themselves too much embarrassed how to
-keep up the semblance of their authority even in Athens itself,
-to be able to send down any considerable force for the protection
-of their citadel at Ectioneia; though they were reinforced, only
-eight days before their fall, by at least one supplementary member,
-probably in substitution for some predecessor who had accidentally
-died.[89] Theramenês, on reaching Peiræus, began to address the
-mutinous hoplites in a tone of simulated displeasure, while
-Aristarchus and his oligarchical companions spoke in the harshest
-language, and threatened them with the force which they imagined to
-be presently coming down from the city. But these menaces were met
-by equal firmness on the part of the hoplites, who even appealed to
-Theramenês himself, and called upon him to say whether he thought
-the construction of this citadel was for the good of Athens, or
-whether it would not be better demolished. His opinion had been fully
-pronounced beforehand; and he replied, that if they thought proper to
-demolish it, he cordially concurred. Without farther delay, hoplites
-and unarmed people mounted pell-mell upon the walls, and commenced
-the demolition with alacrity; under the general shout, “Whoever is
-for the Five Thousand in place of the Four Hundred, let him lend a
-hand in this work.” The idea of the old democracy was in every one’s
-mind, but no man uttered the word; the fear of the imaginary Five
-Thousand still continuing. The work of demolition seems to have been
-prosecuted all that day, and not to have been completed until the
-next day; after which the hoplites released Alexiklês from arrest,
-without doing him any injury.[90]
-
-  [89] See Lysias, Orat. xx, pro Polystrato. The fact that
-  Polystratus was only eight days a member of the Four Hundred,
-  before their fall, is repeated three distinct times in this
-  Oration (c. 2, 4, 5, pp. 672, 674, 679, Reisk.), and has all the
-  air of truth.
-
-  [90] Thucyd. viii, 92, 93. In the Oration of Demosthenês, or
-  Deinarchus, against Theokrinês (c. 17, p. 1343), the speaker,
-  Epicharês, makes allusion to this destruction of the fort at
-  Ectioneia by Aristokratês uncle of his grandfather. The allusion
-  chiefly deserves notice from its erroneous mention of Kritias
-  and the return of the Demos from exile, betraying a complete
-  confusion between the events in the time of the Four Hundred and
-  those in the time of the Thirty.
-
-Two things deserve notice, among these details, as illustrating the
-Athenian character. Though Alexiklês was vehemently oligarchical as
-well as unpopular, these mutineers do no harm to his person, but
-content themselves with putting him under arrest. Next, they do not
-venture to commence the actual demolition of the citadel, until
-they have the formal sanction of Theramenês, one of the constituted
-generals. The strong habit of legality, implanted in all Athenian
-citizens by their democracy,—and the care, even in departing from it,
-to depart as little as possible,—stand plainly evidenced in these
-proceedings.
-
-The events of this day gave a fatal shock to the ascendency of the
-Four Hundred; yet they assembled on the morrow as usual in the
-senate-house; and they appear now, when it was too late, to have
-directed one of their members to draw up a real list, giving body
-to the fiction of the Five Thousand.[91] Meanwhile the hoplites in
-Peiræus, having finished the levelling of the new fortifications,
-took the still more important step of entering, armed as they were,
-into the theatre of Dionysus hard by, in Peiræus, but on the verge
-of Munychia, and there holding a formal assembly; probably under
-the convocation of the general Theramenês, pursuant to the forms of
-the anterior democracy. They here took the resolution of adjourning
-their assembly to the Anakeion, or temple of Castor and Pollux, the
-Dioskuri, in the city itself and close under the acropolis; whither
-they immediately marched and established themselves, still retaining
-their arms. So much was the position of the Four Hundred changed,
-that they who had on the preceding day been on the aggressive against
-a spontaneous outburst of mutineers in Peiræus, were now thrown upon
-the defensive against a formal assembly, all armed, in the city,
-and close by their own senate-house. Feeling themselves too weak to
-attempt any force, they sent deputies to the Anakeion to negotiate
-and offer concessions. They engaged to publish the list of _The_ Five
-Thousand, and to convene them for the purpose of providing for the
-periodical cessation and renewal of the Four Hundred, by rotation
-from the Five Thousand, in such order as the latter themselves
-should determine. But they entreated that time might be allowed for
-effecting this, and that internal peace might be maintained, without
-which there was no hope of defence against the enemy without. Many of
-the hoplites in the city itself joined the assembly in the Anakeion,
-and took part in the debates. The position of the Four Hundred being
-no longer such as to inspire fear, the tongues of speakers were now
-again loosed, and the ears of the multitude again opened, for the
-first time since the arrival of Peisander from Samos, with the plan
-of the oligarchical conspiracy. Such renewal of free and fearless
-public speech, the peculiar life-principle of the democracy, was
-not less wholesome in tranquillizing intestine discord than in
-heightening the sentiment of common patriotism against the foreign
-enemy.[92] The assembly at length dispersed, after naming an early
-future time for a second assembly, to bring about the reëstablishment
-of harmony in the theatre of Dionysus.[93]
-
-  [91] Lysias, Orat. xx, pro Polystrato, c. 4, p. 675, Reisk.
-
-  This task was confided to Polystratus, a very recent member of
-  the Four Hundred, and therefore probably less unpopular than the
-  rest. In his defence after the restoration of the democracy, he
-  pretended to have undertaken the task much against his will, and
-  to have drawn up a list containing nine thousand names instead of
-  five thousand.
-
-  It may probably have been in this meeting of the Four Hundred,
-  that Antiphon delivered his oration strongly recommending
-  concord, Περὶ ὁμονοίας. All his eloquence was required just now,
-  to bring back the oligarchical party, if possible, into united
-  action. Philostratus (Vit. Sophistar. c. xv, p. 500, ed. Olear.)
-  expresses great admiration for this oration, which is several
-  times alluded to both by Harpokration and Suidas. See Westermann,
-  Gesch. der Griech. Beredsamkeit, Beilage ii, p. 276.
-
-  [92] Thucyd. viii, 93. Τὸ δὲ πᾶν πλῆθος τῶν ὁπλιτῶν, ~ἀπὸ πολλῶν
-  καὶ πρὸς πολλοὺς λόγων γιγνομένων, ἠπιώτερον ἦν ἢ πρότερον, καὶ
-  ἐφοβεῖτο μάλιστα περὶ τοῦ παντὸς πολιτικοῦ~.
-
-  [93] Thucyd. viii, 93. ξυνεχώρησαν δὲ ὥστ᾽ ~ἐς ἡμέραν ῥητὴν~
-  ἐκκλησίαν ποιῆσαι ἐν τῷ Διονυσίῳ ~περὶ ὁμονοίας~.
-
-  The definition of time must here allude to the morrow, or to the
-  day following the morrow; at least it seems impossible that the
-  city could be left longer than this interval without a government.
-
-On the day, and at the hour, when this assembly in the theatre
-of Dionysus was on the point of coming together, the news ran
-through Peiræus and Athens, that the forty-two triremes under the
-Lacedæmonian Agesandridas, having recently quitted the harbor of
-Megara, were sailing along the coast of Salamis in the direction
-towards Peiræus. Such an event, while causing universal consternation
-throughout the city, confirmed all the previous warnings of
-Theramenês as to the treasonable destination of the citadel recently
-demolished, and every one rejoiced that the demolition had been
-accomplished just in time. Foregoing their intended assembly, the
-citizens rushed with one accord down to Peiræus, where some of them
-took post to garrison the walls and the mouth of the harbor; others
-got aboard the triremes lying in the harbor: others, again, launched
-some fresh triremes from the boat-houses into the water. Agesandridas
-rowed along the shore, near the mouth of Peiræus; but found nothing
-to promise concert within, or tempt him to the intended attack.
-Accordingly, he passed by and moved onward to Sunium, in a southerly
-direction. Having doubled the Cape of Sunium, he then turned his
-course along the coast of Attica northward, halted for a little while
-between Thorikus and Prasiæ, and presently took station at Orôpus.[94]
-
-  [94] Thucyd. viii, 94.
-
-Though relieved, when they found that he passed by Peiræus without
-making any attack, the Athenians knew that his destination must
-now be against Eubœa; which to them was hardly less important than
-Peiræus, since their main supplies were derived from that island.
-Accordingly, they put to sea at once with all the triremes which
-could be manned and got ready in the harbor. But from the hurry of
-the occasion, coupled with the mistrust and dissension now reigning,
-and the absence of their great naval force at Samos, the crews
-mustered were raw and ill-selected, and the armament inefficient.
-Polystratus, one of the members of the Four Hundred, perhaps others
-of them also, were aboard; men who had an interest in defeat rather
-than victory.[95] Thymocharês, the admiral, conducted them round
-Cape Sunium to Eretria in Eubœa, where he found a few other triremes,
-which made up his whole fleet to thirty-six sail.
-
-  [95] Lysias, Orat. xx, pro Polystrato, c. 4, p. 676, Reisk.
-
-  From another passage in this oration, it would seem that
-  Polystratus was in command of the fleet, possibly enough, in
-  conjunction with Thymocharês, according to a common Athenian
-  practice (c. 5, p. 679). His son, who defends him, affirms that
-  he was wounded in the battle.
-
-  Diodorus (xiii, 34) mentions the discord among the crews on board
-  these ships under Thymocharês, almost the only point which we
-  learn from his meagre notice of this interesting period.
-
-He had scarcely reached the harbor and disembarked, when, without
-allowing time for his men to procure refreshment, he found himself
-compelled to fight a battle with the forty-two ships of Agesandridas,
-who had just sailed across from Orôpus, and was already approaching
-the harbor. This surprise had been brought about by the anti-Athenian
-party in Eretria, who took care, on the arrival of Thymocharês,
-that no provisions should be found in the market-place, so that his
-men were compelled to disperse and obtain them from houses at the
-extremity of the town; while at the same time a signal was hoisted,
-visible at Orôpus on the opposite side of the strait, less than
-seven miles broad, indicating to Agesandridas the precise moment for
-bringing his fleet across to the attack, with their crews fresh after
-the morning meal. Thymocharês, on seeing the approach of the enemy,
-ordered his men aboard; but, to his disappointment, many of them were
-found to be so far off that they could not be brought back in time,
-so that he was compelled to sail out and meet the Peloponnesians
-with ships very inadequately manned. In a battle immediately outside
-of the Eretrian harbor, he was, after a short contest, completely
-defeated, and his fleet driven back upon the shore. Some of his
-ships escaped to Chalkis, others to a fortified post garrisoned by
-the Athenians themselves, not far from Eretria; yet not less than
-twenty-two triremes, out of the whole thirty-six, fell into the hands
-of Agesandridas, and a large proportion of the crews were slain or
-made prisoners. Of those seamen who escaped, too, many found their
-death from the hands of the Eretrians, into whose city they fled for
-shelter. On the news of this battle, not merely Eretria, but also all
-Eubœa,—except Oreus in the north of the island, which was settled by
-Athenian kleruchs,—declared its revolt from Athens, which had been
-intended more than a year before, and took measures for defending
-itself in concert with Agesandridas and the Bœotians.[96]
-
-  [96] Thucyd. viii, 5; viii, 95.
-
-Ill could Athens endure a disaster, in itself so immense and
-aggravated, under the present distressed condition of the city. Her
-last fleet was destroyed, her nearest and most precious island torn
-from her side; an island, which of late had yielded more to her wants
-than Attica itself, but which was now about to become a hostile and
-aggressive neighbor.[97] The previous revolt of Eubœa, occurring
-thirty-four years before, during the maximum of Athenian power, had
-been even then a terrible blow to Athens, and formed one of the main
-circumstances which forced upon her the humiliation of the Thirty
-years’ truce. But this second revolt took place when she had not only
-no means of reconquering the island, but no means even of defending
-Peiræus against the blockade by the enemy’s fleet. The dismay and
-terror excited by the news at Athens was unbounded, even exceeding
-what had been felt after the Sicilian catastrophe, or the revolt of
-Chios. Nor was there any second reserve now in the treasury, such as
-the thousand talents which had rendered such essential service on
-the last-mentioned occasion. In addition to their foreign dangers,
-the Athenians were farther weighed down by two intestine calamities
-in themselves hardly supportable,—alienation of their own fleet at
-Samos, and the discord, yet unappeased, within their own walls;
-wherein the Four Hundred still held provisionally the reins of
-government, with the ablest and most unscrupulous leaders at their
-head. In the depth of their despair, the Athenians expected nothing
-less than to see the victorious fleet of Agesandridas—more than sixty
-triremes strong, including the recent captures—off the Peiræus,
-forbidding all importation, and threatening them with approaching
-famine, in combination with Agis and Dekeleia. The enterprise would
-have been easy for there were neither ships nor seamen to repel him;
-and his arrival at this critical moment would most probably have
-enabled the Four Hundred to resume their ascendency, with the means
-as well as the disposition to introduce a Lacedæmonian garrison into
-the city.[98] And though the arrival of the Athenian fleet from Samos
-would have prevented this extremity, yet it could not have arrived in
-time, except on the supposition of a prolonged blockade: moreover,
-its mere transfer from Samos to Athens would have left Ionia and the
-Hellespont defenceless against the Lacedæmonians and Persians, and
-would have caused the loss of all the Athenian empire. Nothing could
-have saved Athens, if the Lacedæmonians at this juncture had acted
-with reasonable vigor, instead of confining their efforts to Eubœa,
-now an easy and certain conquest. As on the former occasion, when
-Antiphon and Phrynichus went to Sparta prepared to make any sacrifice
-for the purpose of obtaining Lacedæmonian aid and accommodation,
-so now, in a still greater degree, Athens owed her salvation only
-to the fact that the enemies actually before her were indolent and
-dull Spartans, not enterprising Syracusans under the conduct of
-Gylippus.[99] And this is the second occasion, we may add, on which
-Athens was on the brink of ruin in consequence of the policy of
-Alkibiadês in retaining the armament at Samos.
-
-  [97] Thucyd. viii, 95. To show what Eubœa became at a later
-  period, see Demosthenês, De Fals. Legat. c. 64, p. 409: τὰ
-  ἐν Εὐβοίᾳ κατασκευασθησόμενα ὁρμητήρια ἐφ᾽ ὑμᾶς, etc.; and
-  Demosthenês, De Coronâ, c. 71; ἄπλους δ᾽ ἡ θάλασσα ὑπὸ τῶν ἐκ τῆς
-  Εὐβοίας ὁρμωμένων λῃστῶν γέγονε, etc.
-
-  [98] Thucyd. viii, 96. Μάλιστα δ᾽ αὐτοὺς καὶ δι᾽ ἐγγυτάτου
-  ἐθορύβει, εἰ οἱ πολέμιοι τολμήσουσι νενικηκότες εὐθὺς σφῶν ἐπὶ
-  τὸν Πειραιᾶ ἔρημον ὄντα νεῶν πλεῖν· καὶ ὅσον οὐκ ἤδη ἐνόμιζον
-  αὐτοὺς παρεῖναι. ~Ὅπερ ἄν, εἰ τολμηρότεροι ἦσαν, ῥᾳδίως ἂν
-  ἐποίησαν~· καὶ ἢ διέστησαν ἂν ἔτι μᾶλλον τὴν πόλιν ἐφορμοῦντες,
-  ἤ εἰ ἐπολιόρκουν μένοντες, καὶ τὰς ἀπ᾽ Ἰωνίας ναῦς ἠνάγκασαν ἂν
-  βοηθῆσαι, etc.
-
-  [99] Thucyd. viii, 96; vii, 21-55.
-
-Fortunately for the Athenians, no Agesandridas appeared off Peiræus;
-so that the twenty triremes, which they contrived to man as a
-remnant for defence, had no enemy to repel.[100] Accordingly, the
-Athenians were allowed to enjoy an interval of repose which enabled
-them to recover partially both from consternation and from intestine
-discord. It was their first proceeding, when the hostile fleet did
-not appear, to convene a public assembly; and that too in the Pnyx
-itself, the habitual scene of the democratical assemblies, well
-calculated to reinspire that patriotism which had now been dumb and
-smouldering for the four last months. In this assembly, the tide of
-opinion ran vehemently against the Four Hundred:[101] even those,
-who, like the Board of elders entitled probûli had originally
-counselled their appointment, now denounced them along with the
-rest, though severely taunted by the oligarchical leader Peisander
-for their inconsistency. Votes were finally passed: 1. To depose the
-Four Hundred; 2. To place the whole government in the hands of _The
-Five Thousand_; 3. Every citizen, who furnished a panoply, either
-for himself or for any one else, was to be of right a member of
-this body of _The_ Five Thousand; 4. No citizen was to receive pay
-for any political function, on pain of becoming solemnly accursed,
-or excommunicated.[102] Such were the points determined by the
-first assembly held in the Pnyx. The archons, the senate of Five
-Hundred, etc., were renewed: after which many other assemblies
-were also held, in which nomothetæ, dikasts, and other institutions
-essential to the working of the democracy, were constituted. Various
-other votes were also passed; especially one, on the proposition of
-Kritias, seconded by Theramenês,[103] to restore Alkibiadês and some
-of his friends from exile; while messages were farther despatched,
-both to him and to the armament at Samos, doubtless confirming the
-recent nomination of generals, apprizing them of what had recently
-occurred at Athens, as well as bespeaking their full concurrence and
-unabated efforts against the common enemy.
-
-  [100] Thucyd. viii, 97.
-
-  [101] It is to this assembly that I refer, with confidence,
-  the remarkable dialogue of contention between Peisander and
-  Sophoklês, one of the Athenian probûli, mentioned in Aristotel.
-  Rhetoric. iii, 18, 2. There was no other occasion on which the
-  Four Hundred were ever publicly thrown upon their defence at
-  Athens.
-
-  This was not Sophoklês the tragic poet, but another person of
-  the same name, who appears afterwards as one of the oligarchy of
-  Thirty.
-
-  [102] Thucyd. viii, 97. Καὶ ἐκκλησίαν ξυνέλεγον, μίαν μὲν
-  εὐθὺς τότε πρῶτον ἐς τὴν Πνύκα καλουμένην, οὗπερ καὶ ἄλλοτε
-  εἰώθεσαν, ἐν ᾗπερ καὶ τοὺς τετρακοσίους καταπαύσαντες ~τοῖς
-  πεντακισχιλίοις~ ἐψηφίσαντο τὰ πράγματα παραδοῦναι· ~εἶναι δὲ
-  αὐτῶν, ὁπόσοι καὶ ὅπλα παρέχονται~· καὶ μισθὸν μηδένα φέρειν,
-  μηδεμιᾷ ἀρχῇ, εἰ δὲ μὴ, ἐπάρατον ἐποιήσαντο. Ἐγίγνοντο δὲ καὶ
-  ἄλλαι ὕστερον πυκναὶ ἐκκλησίαι, ἀφ᾽ ὧν καὶ ~νομοθέτας καὶ τἄλλα
-  ἐψηφίσαντο ἐς τὴν πολιτείαν~.
-
-  In this passage I dissent from the commentators on two points.
-  First, they understand this number Five Thousand as a real
-  definite list of citizens, containing five thousand names,
-  neither more nor less. Secondly, they construe νομοθέτας, not in
-  the ordinary meaning which it bears in Athenian constitutional
-  language, but in the sense of ξυγγραφεῖς (c. 67), “persons to
-  model the constitution, corresponding to the ξυγγραφεῖς appointed
-  by the aristocratical party a little before,” to use the words of
-  Dr. Arnold.
-
-  As to the first point, which is sustained also by Dr. Thirlwall
-  (Hist. Gr. ch. xxviii, vol. iv, p. 51, 2d ed.), Dr. Arnold really
-  admits what is the ground of my opinion, when he says: “Of course
-  the number of citizens capable of providing themselves with heavy
-  arms must _have much exceeded five thousand_: and it is said in
-  the defence of Polystratus, one of the Four Hundred (Lysias, p.
-  675, Reisk.), that he drew up a list of nine thousand. But we
-  must suppose that all who could furnish heavy arms _were eligible
-  into the number of the Five Thousand_, whether the members were
-  fixed on by lot, by election, or by rotation; as it had been
-  proposed to appoint the Four Hundred by rotation out of the Five
-  Thousand (viii, 93).”
-
-  Dr. Arnold here throws out a supposition which by no means
-  conforms to the exact sense of the words of Thucydidês—εἶναι
-  δὲ αὐτῶν, ὁπόσοι καὶ ὅπλα παρέχονται. These words distinctly
-  signify, that all who furnished heavy arms _should be of the
-  Five Thousand, should belong of right to that body_, which
-  is something different from _being eligible_ into the number
-  of the Five Thousand, either by lot, rotation, or otherwise.
-  The language of Thucydidês, when he describes, in the passage
-  referred to by Dr. Arnold, c. 93, the projected formation of
-  the Four Hundred by rotation out of the Five Thousand, is very
-  different: καὶ ἐκ τούτων ἐν μέρει τοὺς τετρακοσίους ἔσεσθαι, etc.
-  M. Boeckh (Public Economy of Athens, bk. ii, ch. 21, p. 268, Eng.
-  Tr.) is not satisfactory in his description of this event.
-
-  The idea which I conceive of the Five Thousand, as a number
-  existing from the commencement only in talk and imagination,
-  neither realized nor intended to be realized, coincides with
-  the full meaning of this passage of Thucydidês, as well as with
-  everything which he had before said about them.
-
-  I will here add that ὁπόσοι ὅπλα παρέχονται means persons
-  furnishing arms, not for themselves alone, but for others also
-  (Xenoph. Hellen. iii, 4, 15.)
-
-  As to the second point, the signification of νομοθέτας, I
-  stand upon the general use of that word in Athenian political
-  language: see the explanation earlier in this History, vol. v,
-  ch. xlvi, p. 373. It is for the commentators to produce some
-  justification of the unusual meaning which they assign to it:
-  “persons to model the constitution; commissioners who drew up the
-  new constitution,” as Dr. Arnold, in concurrence with the rest,
-  translates it. Until some justification is produced, I venture
-  to believe that νομοθέται, is a word which would not be used in
-  that sense with reference to nominees chosen by the democracy,
-  and intended to act with the democracy; for it implies a final,
-  decisive, authoritative determination; whereas the ξυγγραφεῖς,
-  or “commissioners to draw up a constitution,” were only invested
-  with the function of submitting something for approbation to the
-  public assembly or competent authority; that is, assuming that
-  the public assembly remained an efficient reality.
-
-  Moreover, the words καὶ τἄλλα would hardly be used in immediate
-  sequence to νομοθέτας, if the latter word meant that which the
-  commentators suppose: “Commissioners for framing a constitution,
-  _and the other things towards the constitution_.” Such
-  commissioners are surely far too prominent and initiative in
-  their function to be named in this way. Let us add, that the most
-  material items in the new constitution, if we are so to call it,
-  have already been distinctly specified as settled by public vote,
-  before these νομοθέται are even named.
-
-  It is important to notice, that even the Thirty, who were named
-  six years afterwards to draw up a constitution, at the moment
-  when Sparta was mistress of Athens, and when the people were
-  thoroughly put down, are not called Νομοθέται, but are named
-  by a circumlocution equivalent to Ἔδοξε τῷ δήμῳ, τριάκοντα
-  ἄνδρας ἑλέσθαι, οἳ τοὺς πατρίους νόμους συγγράψουσι, καθ᾽ οὓς
-  πολιτεύσουσι.—Αἱρεθέντες δὲ, ἐφ᾽ ᾧ τε συγγράψαι νόμους καθ᾽
-  οὕστινας πολιτεύσοιντο, τούτους μὲν ἀεὶ ἔμελλον ξυγγράφειν τε
-  καὶ ἀποδεικνύναι, etc. (Xenophon, Hellen. ii, 3, 2-11.) Xenophon
-  calls Kritias and Chariklês the nomothetæ of the Thirty (Memor.
-  i, 2, 30), but this is not democracy.
-
-  For the signification of Νομοθέτης (applied most generally to
-  Solon, sometimes to others, either by rhetorical looseness or by
-  ironical taunt), or Νομοθέται, a numerous body of persons chosen
-  and sworn, see Lysias cont. Nikomach. sects. 3, 33, 37; Andokidês
-  de Mysteriis, sects. 81-85, c. 14, p. 38, where the nomothetæ are
-  a sworn body of Five Hundred, exercising, conjointly with the
-  senate, the function of accepting or rejecting laws proposed to
-  them.
-
-  [103] Plutarch, Alkibiadês, c. 33. Cornelius Nepos (Alkibiad.
-  c. 5, and Diodorus, xiii, 38-42) mentions Theramenês as the
-  principal author of the decree for restoring Alkibiadês from
-  exile. But the precise words of the elegy composed by Kritias,
-  wherein the latter vindicates this proceeding to himself, are
-  cited by Plutarch, and are very good evidence. Doubtless many of
-  the leading men supported, and none opposed, the proposition.
-
-Thucydidês bestows marked eulogy upon the general spirit of
-moderation and patriotic harmony which now reigned at Athens, and
-which directed the political proceedings of the people.[104] But he
-does not countenance the belief, as he has been sometimes understood,
-nor is it true in point of fact, that they now introduced a new
-constitution. Putting an end to the oligarchy, and to the rule of
-the Four Hundred, they restored the old democracy seemingly with
-only two modifications, first, the partial limitation of the right
-of suffrage; next, the discontinuance of all payment for political
-functions. The impeachment against Antiphon, tried immediately
-afterwards, went before the senate and the dikastery exactly
-according to the old democratical forms of procedure. But we must
-presume that the senate, the dikasts, the nomothetæ, the ekklesiasts,
-or citizens who attended the assembly, the public orators who
-prosecuted state-criminals, or defended any law when it was impugned,
-must have worked for the time without pay.
-
-  [104] Thucyd. viii, 97. Καὶ οὐχ ἥκιστα δὴ τὸν πρῶτον χρόνον ἐπί
-  γε ἐμοῦ Ἀθηναῖοι φαίνονται εὖ πολιτεύσαντες· μετρία γὰρ ἥ τε ἐς
-  τοὺς ὀλίγους καὶ τοὺς πολλοὺς ξύγκρασις ἐγένετο, καὶ ἐκ πονηρῶν
-  τῶν πραγμάτων γενομένων τοῦτο πρῶτον ἀνήνεγκε τὴν πόλιν.
-
-  I refer the reader to a note on this passage in one of my former
-  volumes, and on the explanation given of it by Dr. Arnold (see
-  vol. v, ch. xlv, p. 330.)
-
-Moreover, the two modifications above mentioned were of little
-practical effect. The exclusive body of Five Thousand citizens,
-professedly constituted at this juncture, was neither exactly
-realized, nor long retained. It was constituted, even now, more
-as a nominal than as a real limit; a nominal total, yet no longer
-a mere blank, as the Four Hundred had originally produced it, but
-containing, indeed, a number of individual names greater than the
-total, and without any assignable line of demarkation. The mere fact,
-that every one who furnished a panoply was entitled to be of the Five
-Thousand,—and not they alone, but others besides,[105]—shows that
-no care was taken to adhere either to that or to any other precise
-number. If we may credit a speech composed by Lysias,[106] the Four
-Hundred had themselves, after the demolition of their intended
-fortress at Ectioneia, and when power was passing out of their hands,
-appointed a committee of their number to draw up for the first
-time a real list of _The_ Five Thousand; and Polystratus, a member
-of that committee, takes credit with the succeeding democracy for
-having made the list comprise nine thousand names instead of five
-thousand. As this list of Polystratus—if, indeed, it ever existed—was
-never either published or adopted, I merely notice the description
-given of it, to illustrate my position that the number Five Thousand
-was now understood on all sides as an indefinite expression for a
-suffrage extensive, but not universal. The number had been first
-invented by Antiphon and the leaders of the Four Hundred, to cloak
-their own usurpation and intimidate the democracy: next, it served
-the purpose of Theramenês and the minority of the Four Hundred, as a
-basis on which to raise a sort of dynastic opposition, to use modern
-phraseology, within the limits of the oligarchy; that is, without
-appearing to overstep principles acknowledged by the oligarchy
-themselves: lastly, it was employed by the democratical party
-generally as a convenient middle term to slide back into the old
-system, with as little dispute as possible; for Alkibiadês and the
-armament had sent word home that they adhered to the Five Thousand,
-and to the abolition of salaried civil functions.[107]
-
-  [105] The words of Thucydidês (viii, 97), εἶναι δὲ ~αὐτῶν~,
-  ὁπόσοι καὶ ὅπλα παρέχονται, show that this body was not composed
-  _exclusively_ of those who furnished panoplies. It could never
-  have been intended, for example, to exclude the hippeis, or
-  knights.
-
-  [106] Lysias, Orat. xx, pro Polystrato, c. 4, p. 675, Reisk.
-
-  [107] Thucyd. viii, 86.
-
-But exclusive suffrage of the so-called Five Thousand, especially
-with the expansive numerical construction now adopted, was of little
-value either to themselves or to the state;[108] while it was an
-insulting shock to the feelings of the excluded multitude, especially
-to brave and active seamen like the parali. Though prudent as a step
-of momentary transition, it could not stand, nor was any attempt made
-to preserve it in permanence, amidst a community so long accustomed
-to universal citizenship, and where the necessities of defence
-against the enemy called for energetic efforts from all the citizens.
-
-  [108] Thucyd. viii, 92. τὸ μὲν καταστῆσαι μετόχους τοσούτους,
-  ἄντικρυς ἂν δῆμον ἡγούμενοι, etc.
-
-Even as to the gratuitous functions, the members of the Five Thousand
-themselves would soon become tired, not less than the poorer freemen,
-of serving without pay, as senators or in other ways; so that nothing
-but absolute financial deficit would prevent the reëstablishment,
-entire or partial, of the pay.[109] And that deficit was never so
-complete as to stop the disbursement of the diobely, or distribution
-of two oboli to each citizen on occasion of various religious
-festivals. Such distribution continued without interruption; though
-perhaps the number of occasions on which it was made may have been
-lessened.
-
-  [109] See the valuable financial inscriptions in M. Boeckh’s
-  Corpus Inscriptionum, part i, nos. 147, 148, which attest
-  considerable disbursements for the diobely in 410-409 B.C.
-
-  Nor does it seem that there was much diminution during these same
-  years in the private expenditure and ostentation of the Chorêgi
-  at the festivals and other exhibitions: see the Oration xxi, of
-  Lysias—Ἀπολογία Δωροδοκίας, c. 1, 2, pp. 698-700, Reiske.
-
-How far or under what restriction, any reëstablishment of civil pay
-obtained footing during the seven years between the Four Hundred
-and the Thirty, we cannot say. But leaving this point undecided,
-we can show, that within a year after the deposition of the Four
-Hundred, the suffrage of the so-called Five Thousand expanded into
-the suffrage of all Athenians without exception, or into the full
-antecedent democracy. A memorable decree, passed about eleven months
-after that event,—at the commencement of the archonship of Glaukippus
-(June 410 B.C.), when the senate of Five Hundred, the dikasts,
-and other civil functionaries, were renewed for the coming year,
-pursuant to the ancient democratical practice,—exhibits to us the
-full democracy not merely in action, but in all the glow of feeling
-called forth by a recent restoration. It seems to have been thought
-that this first renewal of archons and other functionaries, under the
-revived democracy, ought to be stamped by some emphatic proclamation
-of sentiment, analogous to the solemn and heart-stirring oath taken
-in the preceding year at Samos. Accordingly, Demophantus proposed
-and carried a (psephism or) decree,[110] prescribing the form of
-an oath to be taken by all Athenians to stand by the democratical
-constitution.
-
-  [110] About the date of this psephism, or decree, see Boeckh,
-  Staatshaushaltung der Athener, vol. ii, p. 168, in the comment
-  upon sundry inscriptions appended to his work, not included
-  in the English translation by Mr Lewis; also Meier, De Bonis
-  Damnatorum, sect. ii, pp. 6-10. Wachsmuth erroneously places the
-  date of it after the Thirty; see Hellen. Alterth. ii, ix, p. 267.
-
-The terms of his psephism and oath are striking. “If any man subvert
-the democracy at Athens, or hold any magistracy after the democracy
-has been subverted, he shall be an enemy of the Athenians. Let him be
-put to death with impunity, and let his property be confiscated to
-the public, with the reservation of a tithe to Athênê. Let the man
-who has killed him, and the accomplice privy to the act, be accounted
-holy and of good religious odor. Let all Athenians swear an oath
-under the sacrifice of full-grown victims, in their respective tribes
-and demes, to kill him.[111] Let the oath be as follows: ‘I will
-kill with my own hand, if I am able, any man who shall subvert the
-democracy at Athens, or who shall hold any office in future after the
-democracy has been subverted, or shall rise in arms for the purpose
-of making himself a despot, or shall help the despot to establish
-himself. And if any one else shall kill him, I will account the
-slayer to be holy as respects both gods and demons, as having slain
-an enemy of the Athenians. And I engage by word, by deed, and by
-vote, to sell his property and make over one-half of the proceeds to
-the slayer, without withholding anything. If any man shall perish
-in slaying or in trying to slay the despot, I will be kind both to
-him and to his children, as to Harmodius and Aristogeiton, and their
-descendants. And I hereby break and renounce all oaths which have
-been sworn hostile to the Athenian people, either at Athens or at the
-camp (at Samos) or elsewhere.[112]’ Let all Athenians swear this as
-the regular oath, immediately before the festival of the Dionysia,
-with sacrifice and full-grown victims;[113] invoking upon him who
-keeps it, good things in abundance; but upon him who breaks it,
-destruction for himself as well as for his family.”
-
-  [111] Andokidês de Mysteriis, sects. 95-99. (c. 16, p. 48, R.)—Ὁ
-  δ᾽ ἀποκτείνας τὸν ταῦτα ποιήσαντα, καὶ ὁ συμβουλεύσας, ὅσιος ἔστω
-  καὶ εὐαγής. Ὀμόσαι δ᾽ ~Ἀθηναίους ἅπαντας~ καθ᾽ ἱερῶν τελείων,
-  ~κατὰ φυλὰς καὶ κατὰ δήμους~, ἀποκτείνειν τὸν ταῦτα ποιήσαντα.
-
-  The comment of Sievers (Commentationes De Xenophontis Hellenicis,
-  Berlin, 1833, pp. 18, 19) on the events of this time, is not
-  clear.
-
-  [112] Andokidês de Mysteriis, sects. 95-99. (c. 16, p. 48, R.)
-  Ὁπόσοι δ᾽ ὅρκοι ὀμώμονται Ἀθήνῃσιν ἢ ~ἐν τῷ στρατοπέδῳ~ ἢ ἄλλοθί
-  που ἐναντίοι τῷ δήμῳ τῷ Ἀθηναίων, λύω καὶ ἀφίημι.
-
-  To what particular anti-constitutional oaths allusion is here
-  made, we cannot tell. All those of the oligarchical conspirators,
-  both at Samos and at Athens, are doubtless intended to be
-  abrogated: and this oath, like that of the armament at Samos
-  (Thucyd. viii, 75), is intended to be sworn by every one,
-  including those who had before been members of the oligarchical
-  conspiracy. Perhaps it may also be intended to abrogate the
-  covenant sworn by the members of the political clubs or
-  ξυνωμοσίαι among themselves, in so far as it pledged them to
-  anti-constitutional acts (Thucyd. viii, 54-81).
-
-  [113] Andokidês de Mysteriis, sects. 95-99, (c. 16, p. 48, R.)
-  Ταῦτα δὲ ὀμοσάντων ~Ἀθηναῖοι πάντες~ καθ᾽ ἱερῶν τελείων, τὸν
-  νόμιμον ὅρκον, πρὸ Διονυσίων, etc.
-
-Such was the remarkable decree which the Athenians not only passed in
-senate and public assembly, less than a year after the deposition of
-the Four Hundred, but also caused to be engraved on a column close to
-the door of the senate-house. It plainly indicates, not merely that
-the democracy had returned, but an unusual intensity of democratical
-feeling along with it. The constitution which _all_ the Athenians
-thus swore to maintain by the most strenuous measures of defence,
-must have been a constitution in which _all_ Athenians had political
-rights, not one of Five Thousand privileged persons excluding the
-rest.[114] This decree became invalid after the expulsion of the
-Thirty, by the general resolution then passed not to act upon any
-laws passed before the archonship of Eukleidês, unless specially
-reënacted. But the column on which it stood engraved still remained,
-and the words were read upon it, at least down to the time of the
-orator Lykurgus, eighty years afterwards.[115]
-
-  [114] Those who think that a new constitution was established,
-  after the deposition of the Four Hundred, are perplexed to fix
-  the period at which the old democracy was restored. K. F. Hermann
-  and others suppose, without any special proof, that it was
-  restored at the time when Alkibiadês returned to Athens in 407
-  B.C. See K. F. Hermann, Griech. Staats Alterthümer, s. 167, note
-  13.
-
-  [115] Lykurgus adv. Leokrat. sect. 131, c. 31, p. 225: compare
-  Demosthen. adv. Leptin. sect. 138, c. 34, p. 506.
-
-  If we wanted any proof, how perfectly reckless and unmeaning is
-  the mention of the name of _Solon_ by the orators, we should
-  find it in this passage of Andokidês. He calls this psephism
-  of Demophantus _a law of Solon_ (sect. 96): see above in this
-  History, vol. iii, ch. xi, p. 122.
-
-The mere deposition of the Four Hundred, however, and the transfer of
-political power to the Five Thousand, which took place in the first
-public assembly held after the defeat off Eretria, was sufficient to
-induce most of the violent leaders of the Four Hundred forthwith to
-leave Athens. Peisander, Alexiklês, and others, went off secretly
-to Dekeleia:[116] Aristarchus alone made his flight the means of
-inflicting a new wound upon his country. Being among the number of
-the generals, he availed himself of this authority to march—with
-some of the rudest among those Scythian archers, who did the police
-duty of the city—to Œnoê, on the Bœotian frontier, which was at that
-moment under siege by a body of Corinthians and Bœotians united.
-Aristarchus, in concert with the besiegers, presented himself to
-the garrison, and acquainted them that Athens and Sparta had just
-concluded peace, one of the conditions of which was that Œnoê should
-be surrendered to the Bœotians. He therefore, as general, ordered
-them to evacuate the place, under the benefit of a truce to return
-home. The garrison having been closely blocked up, and kept wholly
-ignorant of the actual condition of politics, obeyed the order
-without reserve; so that the Bœotians acquired possession of this
-very important frontier position, a new thorn in the side of Athens,
-besides Dekeleia.[117]
-
-  [116] Thucyd. viii, 98. Most of these fugitives returned six
-  years afterwards, after the battle of Ægospotami, when the
-  Athenian people again became subject to an oligarchy in the
-  persons of the Thirty. Several of them became members of the
-  senate which worked under the Thirty (Lysias cont. Agorat. sect.
-  80, c. 18, p. 495).
-
-  Whether Aristotelês and Chariklês were among the number of the
-  Four Hundred who now went into exile, as Wattenbach affirms (De
-  Quadringent. Ath. Factione, p. 66), seems not clearly made out.
-
-  [117] Thucyd. viii, 89, 90. Ἀρίσταρχος, ἀνὴρ ἐν τοῖς μάλιστα καὶ
-  ἐκ πλείστου ἐναντίος τῷ δήμῳ, etc.
-
-Thus was the Athenian democracy again restored, and the divorce
-between the city and the armament at Samos terminated after an
-interruption of about four months by the successful conspiracy of
-the Four Hundred. It was only by a sort of miracle—or rather by the
-incredible backwardness and stupidity of her foreign enemies—that
-Athens escaped alive from this nefarious aggression of her own
-ablest and wealthiest citizens. That the victorious democracy
-should animadvert upon and punish the principal actors concerned in
-it,—who had satiated their own selfish ambition at the cost of so
-much suffering, anxiety, and peril to their country,—was nothing
-more than rigorous justice. But the circumstances of the case were
-peculiar: for the counter-revolution had been accomplished partly by
-the aid of a minority among the Four Hundred themselves,—Theramenês,
-Aristokratês, and others, together with the Board of Elders called
-Probûli,—all of whom had been, at the outset, either principals or
-accomplices in that system of terrorism and assassination, whereby
-the democracy had been overthrown and the oligarchical rulers
-established in the senate-house. The earlier operations of the
-conspiracy, therefore, though among its worst features, could not be
-exposed to inquiry and trial without compromising these parties as
-fellow-criminals. Theramenês evaded this difficulty, by selecting
-for animadversion a recent act of the majority of the Four Hundred,
-which he and his partisans had opposed, and on which therefore
-he had no interests adverse either to justice or to the popular
-feeling. He stood foremost to impeach the last embassy sent by the
-Four Hundred to Sparta, sent with instructions to purchase peace and
-alliance at almost any price, and connected with the construction
-of the fort at Ectioneia for the reception of an enemy’s garrison.
-This act of manifest treason, in which Antiphon, Phrynichus, and
-ten other known envoys were concerned, was chosen as the special
-matter for public trial and punishment, not less on public grounds
-than with a view to his own favor in the renewed democracy. But
-the fact that it was Theramenês who thus denounced his old friends
-and fellow-conspirators, after having lent hand and heart to
-their earlier and not less guilty deeds, was long remembered as a
-treacherous betrayal, and employed in after days as an excuse for
-atrocious injustice against himself.[118]
-
-  [118] Lysias cont. Eratosthen., c. 11, p. 427, sects. 66-68.
-  Βουλόμενος δὲ (Theramenês) τῷ ὑμετέρῳ πλήθει πιστὸς δοκεῖν εἶναι,
-  Ἀντιφῶντα καὶ Ἀρχεπτόλεμον, φιλτάτους ὄντας αὑτῷ, κατηγορῶν
-  ἀπέκτεινεν· εἰς τοσοῦτον δὲ κακίας ἦλθεν, ὥστε ἅμα μὲν διὰ τὴν
-  πρὸς ἐκείνους πίστιν ὑμᾶς κατεδουλώσατο, διὰ δὲ τὴν πρὸς ὑμᾶς
-  τοὺς φίλους ἀπώλεσεν.
-
-  Compare Xenophon, Hellen., ii, 3, 30-33.
-
-Of the twelve envoys who went on this mission, all except Phrynichus,
-Antiphon, Archeptolemus, and Onomaklês, seem to have already escaped
-to Dekeleia or elsewhere. Phrynichus, as I have mentioned a few
-pages above, had been assassinated several days before. Respecting
-his memory, a condemnatory vote had already been just passed by the
-restored senate of Five Hundred, decreeing that his property should
-be confiscated and his house razed to the ground, and conferring the
-gift of citizenship, together with a pecuniary recompense, on two
-foreigners who claimed to have assassinated him.[119] The other
-three, Antiphon, Archeptolemus, and Onomaklês,[120] were presented
-in name to the senate by the generals, of whom probably Theramenês
-was one, as having gone on a mission to Sparta for purposes of
-mischief to Athens, partly on board an enemy’s ship, partly through
-the Spartan garrison at Dekeleia. Upon this presentation, doubtless a
-document of some length and going into particulars, a senator named
-Andron moved: That the generals, aided by any ten senators whom they
-may choose, do seize the three persons accused, and hold them in
-custody for trial; that the thesmothetæ do send to each of the three
-a formal summons, to prepare themselves for trial on a future day
-before the dikastery, on the charge of high treason, and do bring
-them to trial on the day named; assisted by the generals, the ten
-senators chosen as auxiliaries, and any other citizen who may please
-to take part, as their accusers. Each of the three was to be tried
-separately, and, if condemned, was to be dealt with according to
-the penal law of the city against traitors, or persons guilty of
-treason.[121]
-
-  [119] That these votes, respecting the memory and the death of
-  Phrynichus, preceded the trial of Antiphon, we may gather from
-  the concluding words of the sentence passed upon Antiphon: see
-  Plutarch, Vit. x, Oratt. p. 834, B: compare Schol. Aristoph.
-  Lysistr. 313.
-
-  Both Lysias and Lykurgus, the orators, contain statements about
-  the death of Phrynichus which are not in harmony with Thucydidês.
-  Both these orators agree in reporting the names of the two
-  foreigners who claimed to have slain Phrynichus, and whose claim
-  was allowed by the people afterwards, in a formal reward and vote
-  of citizenship, Thrasybulus of Kalydon, Apollodorus of Megara
-  (Lysias cont. Agorat. c. 18, 492; Lykurg. cont. Leokrat. c. 29,
-  p. 217).
-
-  Lykurgus says that Phrynichus was assassinated by night,
-  “near the fountain, hard by the willow-trees:” which is quite
-  contradictory to Thucydidês, who states that the deed was done
-  in daylight, and in the market-place. Agoratus, against whom the
-  speech of Lysias is directed, pretended to have been one of the
-  assassins, and claimed reward on that score.
-
-  The story of Lykurgus, that the Athenian people, on the
-  proposition of Kritias, exhumed and brought to trial the dead
-  body of Phrynichus, and that Aristarchus and Alexiklês were
-  put to death for undertaking its defence, is certainly in part
-  false, and probably wholly false. Aristarchus was then at Œnoê,
-  Alexiklês at Dekeleia.
-
-  [120] Onomaklês had been one of the colleagues of Phrynichus,
-  as general of the armament in Ionia, in the preceding autumn
-  (Thucyd. viii, 25).
-
-  In one of the Biographies of Thucydidês (p. xxii, in Dr. Arnold’s
-  edition), it is stated that Onomaklês was executed along with
-  the other two; but the document cited in the Pseudo-Plutarch
-  contradicts this.
-
-  [121] Plutarch, Vit. x, Oratt. p. 834; compare Xenophon,
-  Hellenic. i, 7, 22.
-
-  Apolêxis was one of the accusers of Antiphon: see Harpokration,
-  v. Στασιώτης.
-
-Though all the three persons thus indicated were at Athens, or at
-least were supposed to be there, on the day when this resolution was
-passed by the senate, yet, before it was executed, Onomaklês had
-fled; so that Antiphon and Archeptolemus only were imprisoned for
-trial. They too must have had ample opportunity for leaving the city,
-and we might have presumed that Antiphon would have thought it quite
-as necessary to retire as Peisander and Alexiklês. So acute a man as
-he, at no time very popular, must have known that now at least he had
-drawn the sword against his fellow-citizens in a manner which could
-never be forgiven. However, he chose voluntarily to stay: and this
-man, who had given orders for taking off so many of the democratical
-speakers by private assassination, received from the democracy, when
-triumphant, full notice and fair trial on a distinct and specific
-charge. The speech which he made in his defence, though it did not
-procure acquittal, was listened to, not merely with patience, but
-with admiration; as we may judge from the powerful and lasting effect
-which it produced. Thucydidês describes it as the most magnificent
-defence against a capital charge which had ever come before him;[122]
-and the poet Agathon, doubtless a hearer, warmly complimented
-Antiphon on his eloquence; to which the latter replied, that the
-approval of one such discerning judge was in his eyes an ample
-compensation for the unfriendly verdict of the multitude. Both he and
-Archeptolemus were found guilty by the dikastery and condemned to the
-penalties of treason. They were handed over to the magistrates called
-the Eleven, the chiefs of executive justice at Athens, to be put to
-death by the customary draught of hemlock. Their properties were
-confiscated, their houses were directed to be razed, and the vacant
-site to be marked by columns, with the inscription: “The residence
-of Antiphon the traitor,—of Archeptolemus the traitor.” They were
-not permitted to be buried either in Attica, or in any territory
-subject to Athenian dominion.[123] Their children, both legitimate
-and illegitimate, were deprived of the citizenship; and the citizen
-who should adopt any descendant of either of them, was to be himself
-in like manner disfranchised.
-
-  [122] Thucyd. viii, 68; Aristotel. Ethic. Eudem. iii, 5.
-
-  Rühnken seems quite right (Dissertat. De Antiphont. p. 818,
-  Reisk.) in considering the oration περὶ μεταστάσεως to be
-  Antiphon’s defence of himself; though Westermann (Geschichte der
-  Griech. Beredsamkeit, p. 277) controverts this opinion. This
-  oration is alluded to in several of the articles in Harpokration.
-
-  [123] So, Themistoklês, as a traitor, was not allowed to be
-  buried in Attica (Thucyd. i, 138; Cornel. Nepos, Vit. Themistocl.
-  ii, 10). His friends are said to have brought his bones thither
-  secretly.
-
-Such was the sentence passed by the dikastery, pursuant to the
-Athenian law of treason. It was directed to be engraved on the same
-brazen column as the decree of honor to the slayers of Phrynichus.
-From that column it was transcribed, and has thus passed into
-history.[124]
-
-  [124] It is given at length in Pseudo-Plutarch, Vit. x, Oratt.
-  pp. 833, 834. It was preserved by Cæcilius, a Sicilian and
-  rhetorical teacher, of the Augustan age; who possessed sixty
-  orations ascribed to Antiphon, twenty-five of which he considered
-  spurious.
-
-  Antiphon left a daughter, whom Kallæschrus sued for in marriage,
-  pursuant to the forms of law, being entitled to do so on the
-  score of near relationship (ἐπεδικάσατο). Kallæschrus was himself
-  one of the Four Hundred, perhaps a brother of Kritias. It seems
-  singular that the legal power of suing at law for a female
-  in marriage, by right of near kin (τοῦ ἐπιδικάζεσθαι), could
-  extend to a female disfranchised and debarred from all rights of
-  citizenship.
-
-  If we may believe Harpokration, Andron, who made the motion in
-  the senate for sending Antiphon and Archeptolemus to trial, had
-  been himself a member of the Four Hundred oligarchs, as well as
-  Theramenês (Harp. v. Ἄνδρων).
-
-  The note of Dr. Arnold upon that passage (viii, 68) wherein
-  Thucydidês calls Antiphon ἀρετῇ οὐδενὸς ὕστερος, “inferior to
-  no man in virtue,” well deserves to be consulted. This passage
-  shows, in a remarkable manner, what were the political and
-  private qualities which determined the esteem of Thucydidês.
-  It shows that his sympathies went along with the oligarchical
-  party; and that, while the exaggerations of opposition-speakers,
-  or demagogues, such as those which he imputes to Kleon and
-  Hyperbolus, provoked his bitter hatred, exaggerations of the
-  oligarchical warfare, or multiplied assassinations, did not
-  make him like a man the worse. But it shows, at the same time,
-  his great candor in the narration of facts: for he gives an
-  undisguised revelation both of the assassinations, and of the
-  treason, of Antiphon.
-
-How many of the Four Hundred oligarchs actually came to trial or
-were punished, we have no means of knowing; but there is ground
-for believing that none were put to death except Antiphon and
-Archeptolemus, perhaps also Aristarchus, the betrayer of Œnoê to
-the Bœotians. The latter is said to have been formally tried and
-condemned:[125] though by what accident he afterwards came into the
-power of the Athenians, after having once effected his escape, we are
-not informed. The property of Peisander, he himself having escaped,
-was confiscated, and granted either wholly or in part as a recompense
-to Apollodorus, one of the assassins of Phrynichus:[126] probably the
-property of the other conspicuous fugitive oligarchs was confiscated
-also. Polystratus, another of the Four Hundred, who had only become
-a member of that body a few days before its fall, was tried during
-absence, which absence his defenders afterwards accounted for, by
-saying that he had been wounded in the naval battle of Eretria, and
-heavily fined. It seems that each of the Four Hundred was called on
-to go through an audit and a trial of accountability, according to
-the practice general at Athens with magistrates going out of office.
-Such of them as did not appear to this trial were condemned to fine,
-to exile, or to have their names recorded as traitors: but most of
-those who did appear seem to have been acquitted; partly, we are
-told, by bribes to the logistæ, or auditing officers, though some
-were condemned either to fine or to partial political disability,
-along with those hoplites who had been the most marked partisans of
-the Four Hundred.[127]
-
-  [125] Xenoph. Hellenic. i, 7, 28. This is the natural meaning
-  of the passage; though it _may_ also mean that a day for trial
-  was named, but that Aristarchus did not appear. Aristarchus may
-  possibly have been made prisoner in one of the engagements which
-  took place between the garrison of Dekeleia and the Athenians.
-  The Athenian exiles in a body established themselves at Dekeleia,
-  and carried on constant war with the citizens at Athens: see
-  Lysias, De Bonis Niciæ Fratris, Or. xviii, ch. 4, p. 604: Pro
-  Polystrato, Orat. xx, c. 7, p. 688; Andokidês de Mysteriis, c.
-  17, p. 50.
-
-  [126] Lysias, De Oleâ Sacrâ, Or. vii, ch. ii, p. 263, Reisk.
-
-  [127] “Quadringentis ipsa dominatio fraudi non fuit; imo qui cum
-  Theramene et Aristocrate steterant, in magno honore habiti sunt:
-  omnibus autem rationes reddendæ fuerunt; qui solum vertissent,
-  proditores judicati sunt, nomina in publico proposita.”
-  (Wattenbach, De Quadringentorum Athenis Factione, p. 65.)
-
-  From the psephism of Patrokleidês, passed six years subsequently,
-  after the battle of Ægospotamos, we learn that the names of such
-  among the Four Hundred as did not stay to take their trial,
-  were engraved on pillars distinct from those who were tried and
-  condemned either to fine or to various disabilities; Andokidês de
-  Mysteriis, sects. 75-78: Καὶ ὅσα ὀνόματα τῶν τετρακοσίων τινὸς
-  ἐγγέγραπται, ἢ ἄλλο τι περὶ τῶν ἐν τῇ ὀλιγαρχίᾳ πραχθέντων ἔστι
-  που γεγραμμένον, ~πλὴν ὁπόσα ἐν στήλαις γέγραπται τῶν μὴ ἐνθάδε
-  μεινάντων~, etc. These last names, as the most criminal, were
-  excepted from the amnesty of Patrokleidês.
-
-  We here see that there were two categories among the condemned
-  Four Hundred: 1. Those who remained to stand the trial of
-  accountability, and were condemned either to a fine which they
-  could not pay, or to some positive disability. 2. Those who
-  did not remain to stand their trial, and were condemned _par
-  contumace_.
-
-  Along with the first category we find other names besides those
-  of the Four Hundred, found guilty as their partisans: ἄλλο
-  τι (ὄνομα) περὶ τῶν ἐν τῇ ὀλιγαρχίᾳ πραχθέντων. Among these
-  partisans we may rank the soldiers mentioned a little before,
-  sect. 75: οἱ στρατιῶται, οἷς ὅτι ~ἐπέμειναν ἐπὶ τῶν τυράννων~ ἐν
-  τῇ πόλει, τὰ μὲν ἄλλα ἦν ἅπερ τοῖς ἄλλοις πολίταις, εἰπεῖν δ᾽ ἐν
-  τῷ δήμῳ οὐκ ἐξῆν αὐτοῖς οὐδὲ βουλεῦσαι, where the preposition ἐπὶ
-  seems to signify not simply contemporaneousness, but a sort of
-  intimate connection, like the phrase ἐπὶ προστάτου οἰκεῖν (see
-  Matthiæ, Gr. Gr. sect. 584; Kühner, Gr. Gr. sect. 611).
-
-  The oration of Lysias pro Polystrato is on several points
-  obscure: but we make out that Polystratus was one of the Four
-  Hundred who did not come to stand his trial of accountability,
-  and was therefore condemned in his absence. Severe accusations
-  were made against him, and he was falsely asserted to be
-  the cousin, whereas he was in reality only fellow-demot, of
-  Phrynichus (sects. 20, 24, 11). The defence explains his
-  non-appearance, by saying that he had been wounded at the battle
-  of Eretria, and that the trial took place immediately after the
-  deposition of the Four Hundred (sects. 14, 24). He was heavily
-  fined, and deprived of his citizenship (sects. 15, 33, 38). It
-  would appear that the fine was greater than his property could
-  discharge; accordingly this fine, remaining unpaid, would become
-  chargeable upon his sons after his death, and unless they could
-  pay it, they would come into the situation of insolvent public
-  debtors to the state, which would debar them from the exercise of
-  the rights of citizenship, so long as the debt remained unpaid.
-  But while Polystratus was alive, his sons were not liable to the
-  state for the payment of his fine; and _they_ therefore still
-  remained citizens, and in the full exercise of their rights,
-  though _he_ was disfranchised. They were three sons, all of
-  whom had served with credit as hoplites, and even as horsemen,
-  in Sicily and elsewhere. In the speech before us, one of them
-  prefers a petition to the dikastery, that the sentence passed
-  against his father may be mitigated; partly on the ground that
-  it was unmerited, being passed while his father was afraid to
-  stand forward in his own defence, partly as recompense for
-  distinguished military services of all the three sons. The speech
-  was delivered at a time later than the battle of Kynossêma, in
-  the autumn of this year (sect. 31), but not very long after the
-  overthrow of the Four Hundred, and certainly, I think, long
-  before the Thirty; so that the assertion of Taylor (Vit. Lysiæ,
-  p. 55) that _all_ the extant orations of Lysias bear date after
-  the Thirty, must be received with this exception.
-
-Indistinctly as we make out the particular proceedings of the
-Athenian people at this restoration of the democracy, we know from
-Thucydidês that their prudence and moderation were exemplary. The
-eulogy, which he bestows in such emphatic terms upon their behavior
-at this juncture, is indeed doubly remarkable:[128] first, because
-it comes from an exile, not friendly to the democracy, and a strong
-admirer of Antiphon; next, because the juncture itself was one
-eminently trying to the popular morality, and likely to degenerate,
-by almost natural tendency, into excess of reactionary vengeance and
-persecution. The democracy was now one hundred years old, dating
-from Kleisthenês, and fifty years old, even dating from the final
-reforms of Ephialtês and Periklês; so that self-government and
-political equality were a part of the habitual sentiment of every
-man’s bosom, heightened in this case by the fact that Athens was not
-merely a democracy, but an imperial democracy, having dependencies
-abroad.[129] At a moment when, from unparalleled previous disasters,
-she is barely able to keep up the struggle against her foreign
-enemies, a small knot of her own wealthiest citizens, taking
-advantage of her weakness, contrive, by a tissue of fraud and force
-not less flagitious than skilfully combined, to concentrate in
-their own hands the powers of the state, and to tear from their
-countrymen the security against bad government, the sentiment of
-equal citizenship, and the long-established freedom of speech. Nor
-is this all: these conspirators not only plant an oligarchical
-sovereignty in the senate-house, but also sustain that sovereignty by
-inviting a foreign garrison from without, and by betraying Athens to
-her Peloponnesian enemies. Two more deadly injuries it is impossible
-to imagine; and from neither of them would Athens have escaped, if
-her foreign enemy had manifested reasonable alacrity. Considering
-the immense peril, the narrow escape, and the impaired condition in
-which Athens was left, notwithstanding her escape, we might well
-have expected in the people a violence of reactionary hostility such
-as every calm observer, while making allowance for the provocation,
-must nevertheless have condemned; and perhaps somewhat analogous to
-that exasperation which, under very similar circumstances, had caused
-the bloody massacres at Korkyra.[130] And when we find that this is
-exactly the occasion which Thucydidês, an observer rather less than
-impartial, selects to eulogize their good conduct and moderation,
-we are made deeply sensible of the good habits which their previous
-democracy must have implanted in them, and which now served as a
-corrective to the impulse of the actual moment. They had become
-familiar with the cementing force of a common sentiment; they had
-learned to hold sacred the inviolability of law and justice, even
-in respect to their worst enemy; and what was of not less moment,
-the frequency and freedom of political discussion had taught them
-not only to substitute the contentions of the tongue for those of
-the sword, but also to conceive their situation with its present
-and prospective liabilities, instead of being hurried away by blind
-retrospective vengeance against the past.
-
-  [128] This testimony of Thucydidês is amply sufficient to
-  refute the vague assertions in the Oration xxv, of Lysias
-  (Δήμου Καταλυσ. Ἀπολ. sects. 34, 35), about great enormities
-  now committed by the Athenians; though Mr. Mitford copies these
-  assertions as if they were real history, referring them to a time
-  four years afterwards (History of Greece, ch. xx, s. 1, vol. iv,
-  p. 327).
-
-  [129] Thucyd. viii, 68.
-
-  [130] See about the events in Korkyra, vol. vi, ch. 1, p. 283.
-
-There are few contrasts in Grecian history more memorable or more
-instructive, than that between this oligarchical conspiracy,
-conducted by some of the ablest hands at Athens, and the democratical
-movement going on at the same time in Samos, among the Athenian
-armament and the Samian citizens. In the former, we have nothing
-but selfishness and personal ambition, from the beginning: first,
-a partnership to seize for their own advantage the powers of
-government; next, after this object has been accomplished, a breach
-among the partners, arising out of disappointment alike selfish. We
-find appeal made to nothing but the worst tendencies; either tricks
-to practise upon the credulity of the people, or extra-judicial
-murders to work upon their fear. In the latter, on the contrary,
-the sentiment invoked is that of common patriotism, and equal,
-public-minded sympathy. That which we read in Thucydidês,—when the
-soldiers of the armament and the Samian citizens, pledged themselves
-to each other by solemn oaths to uphold their democracy, to maintain
-harmony and good feeling with each other, to prosecute energetically
-the war against the Peloponnesians, and to remain at enmity with
-the oligarchical conspirators at Athens,—is a scene among the most
-dramatic and inspiriting which occurs in his history.[131] Moreover,
-we recognize at Samos the same absence of reactionary vengeance as
-at Athens, after the attack of the oligarchs, Athenian as well as
-Samian, has been repelled; although those oligarchs had begun by
-assassinating Hyperbolus and others. There is throughout this whole
-democratical movement at Samos a generous exaltation of common
-sentiment over personal, and at the same time an absence of ferocity
-against opponents, such as nothing except democracy ever inspired in
-the Grecian bosom.
-
-  [131] Thucyd. viii, 75.
-
-It is, indeed, true that this was a special movement of generous
-enthusiasm, and that the details of a democratical government
-correspond to it but imperfectly. Neither in the life of an
-individual, nor in that of a people, does the ordinary and every-day
-movement appear at all worthy of those particular seasons in which
-a man is lifted above his own level and becomes capable of extreme
-devotion and heroism. Yet such emotions, though their complete
-predominance is never otherwise than transitory, have their
-foundation in veins of sentiment which are not even at other times
-wholly extinct, but count among the manifold forces tending to
-modify and improve, if they cannot govern, human action. Even their
-moments of transitory predominance leave a luminous track behind,
-and render the men who have passed through them more apt to conceive
-again the same generous impulse, though in fainter degree. It is
-one of the merits of Grecian democracy that it _did_ raise this
-feeling of equal and patriotic communion: sometimes, and on rare
-occasions, like the scene at Samos, with overwhelming intensity, so
-as to impassion an unanimous multitude; more frequently, in feebler
-tide, yet such as gave some chance to an honest and eloquent orator,
-of making successful appeal to public feeling against corruption
-or selfishness. If we follow the movements of Antiphon and his
-fellow-conspirators at Athens, contemporaneous with the democratical
-manifestations at Samos, we shall see that not only was no such
-generous impulse included in it, but the success of their scheme
-depended upon their being able to strike all common and active
-patriotism out of the Athenian bosom. Under the “cold shade” of their
-oligarchy—even if we suppose the absence of cruelty and rapacity,
-which would probably soon have become rife had their dominion lasted,
-as we shall presently learn from the history of the second oligarchy
-of Thirty—no sentiment would have been left to the Athenian multitude
-except fear, servility, or at best a tame and dumb sequacity to
-leaders whom they neither chose nor controlled. To those who regard
-different forms of government as distinguished from each other mainly
-by the feelings which each tends to inspire in magistrates as well
-as citizens, the contemporaneous scenes of Athens and Samos will
-suggest instructive comparisons between Grecian oligarchy and Grecian
-democracy.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER LXIII.
-
-THE RESTORED ATHENIAN DEMOCRACY, AFTER THE DEPOSITION OF THE FOUR
-HUNDRED, DOWN TO THE ARRIVAL OF CYRUS THE YOUNGER IN ASIA MINOR.
-
-
-The oligarchy of Four Hundred at Athens, installed in the
-senate-house about February or March 411 B.C., and deposed about July
-of the same year, after four or five months of danger and distraction
-such as to bring her almost within the grasp of her enemies, has
-now been terminated by the restoration of her democracy; with what
-attendant circumstances, has been amply detailed. I now revert to
-the military and naval operations on the Asiatic coast, partly
-contemporaneous with the political dissensions at Athens, above
-described.
-
-It has already been stated that the Peloponnesian fleet of
-ninety-four triremes,[132] having remained not less than eighty days
-idle at Rhodes, had come back to Milêtus towards the end of March;
-with the intention of proceeding to the rescue of Chios, which a
-portion of the Athenian armament under Strombichidês had been for
-some time besieging, and which was now in the greatest distress.
-The main Athenian fleet at Samos, however, prevented Astyochus from
-effecting this object, since he did not think it advisable to hazard
-a general battle. He was influenced partly by the bribes, partly
-by the delusions, of Tissaphernês, who sought only to wear out
-both parties by protracted war, and who now professed to be on the
-point of bringing up the Phenician fleet to his aid. Astyochus had
-in his fleet the ships which had been brought over for coöperation
-with Pharnabazus at the Hellespont, and which were thus equally
-unable to reach their destination. To meet this difficulty, the
-Spartan Derkyllidas was sent with a body of troops by land to the
-Hellespont, there to join Pharnabazus, in acting against Abydos
-and the neighboring dependencies of Athens. Abydos, connected with
-Milêtus by colonial ties, set the example of revolting from Athens
-to Derkyllidas and Pharnabazus; an example followed, two days
-afterwards, by the neighboring town of Lampsakus.
-
-  [132] Thucyd. viii, 44, 45.
-
-It does not appear that there was at this time any Athenian force
-in the Hellespont; and the news of this danger to the empire in
-a fresh quarter, when conveyed to Chios, alarmed Strombichidês,
-the commander of the Athenian besieging armament. Though the
-Chians—driven to despair by increasing famine as well as by want of
-relief from Astyochus, and having recently increased their fleet to
-thirty-six triremes against the Athenian thirty-two, by the arrival
-of twelve ships under Leon, obtained from Milêtus during the absence
-of Astyochus at Rhodes—had sallied out and fought an obstinate
-naval battle against the Athenians, with some advantage,[133] yet
-Strombichidês felt compelled immediately to carry away twenty-four
-triremes and a body of hoplites for the relief of the Hellespont.
-Hence the Chians became sufficiently masters of the sea to provision
-themselves afresh, though the Athenian armament and fortified post
-still remained on the island. Astyochus also was enabled to recall
-Leon with the twelve triremes to Milêtus, and thus to strengthen his
-main fleet.[134]
-
-  [133] Thucyd. viii, 61, 62 οὐκ ἔλασσον ἔχοντες means a certain
-  success, not very decisive.
-
-  [134] Thucyd. viii, 63.
-
-The present appears to have been the time, when the oligarchical
-party both in the town and in the camp at Samos, were laying their
-plan of conspiracy as already recounted, and when the Athenian
-generals were divided in opinion, Charmînus siding with this party,
-Leon and Diomedon against it. Apprized of the reigning dissension,
-Astyochus thought it a favorable opportunity for sailing with
-his whole fleet up to the harbor of Samos, and offering battle;
-but the Athenians were in no condition to leave the harbor. He
-accordingly returned to Milêtus, where he again remained inactive,
-in expectation, real or pretended, of the arrival of the Phenician
-ships. But the discontent of his own troops, especially the Syracusan
-contingent, presently became uncontrollable. They not only murmured
-at the inaction of the armament during this precious moment of
-disunion in the Athenian camp, but also detected the insidious policy
-of Tissaphernês in thus frittering away their strength without
-result; a policy still more keenly brought home to their feelings
-by his irregularity in supplying them with pay and provision, which
-caused serious distress. To appease their clamors, Astyochus was
-compelled to call together a general assembly, the resolution of
-which was pronounced in favor of immediate battle. He accordingly
-sailed from Milêtus with his whole fleet of one hundred and twelve
-triremes round to the promontory of Mykalê immediately opposite
-Samos, ordering the Milesian hoplites to cross the promontory by
-land to the same point. The Athenian fleet, now consisting of only
-eighty-two sail, in the absence of Strombichidês, was then moored
-near Glaukê on the mainland of Mykalê; but the public decision just
-taken by the Peloponnesians to fight becoming known to them, they
-retired to Samos, not being willing to engage with such inferior
-numbers.[135]
-
-  [135] Thucyd. viii, 78, 79.
-
-It seems to have been during this last interval of inaction on the
-part of Astyochus, that the oligarchical party in Samos made their
-attempt and miscarried; the reaction from which attempt brought
-about, with little delay, the great democratical manifestation, and
-solemn collective oath, of the Athenian armament, coupled with the
-nomination of new, cordial, and unanimous generals. They were now in
-high enthusiasm, anxious for battle with the enemy, and Strombichidês
-had been sent for immediately, that the fleet might be united against
-the main enemy at Milêtus. That officer had recovered Lampsakus,
-but had failed in his attempt on Abydos.[136] Having established
-a central fortified station at Sestos, he now rejoined the fleet
-at Samos, which by his arrival was increased to one hundred and
-eight sail. He arrived in the night, when the Peloponnesian fleet
-was preparing to renew its attack from Mykalê the next morning. It
-consisted of one hundred and twelve ships, and was therefore still
-superior in number to the Athenians. But having now learned both the
-arrival of Strombichidês, and the renewed spirit as well as unanimity
-of the Athenians, the Peloponnesian commanders did not venture to
-persist in their resolution of fighting. They returned back to
-Milêtus, to the mouth of which harbor the Athenians sailed, and had
-the satisfaction of offering battle to an unwilling enemy.[137]
-
-  [136] Thucyd. viii, 62.
-
-  [137] Thucyd. viii, 79.
-
-Such confession of inferiority was well calculated to embitter still
-farther the discontents of the Peloponnesian fleet at Milêtus.
-Tissaphernês had become more and more parsimonious in furnishing
-pay and supplies; while the recall of Alkibiadês to Samos, which
-happened just now, combined with the uninterrupted apparent
-intimacy between him and the satrap, confirmed their belief that
-the latter was intentionally cheating and starving them in the
-interest of Athens. At the same time, earnest invitations arrived
-from Pharnabazus, soliciting the coöperation of the fleet at the
-Hellespont, with liberal promises of pay and maintenance. Klearchus,
-who had been sent out with the last squadron from Sparta, for the
-express purpose of going to aid Pharnabazus, claimed to be allowed to
-execute his orders; while Astyochus also, having renounced the idea
-of any united action, thought it now expedient to divide the fleet,
-which he was at a loss how to support. Accordingly, Klearchus was
-sent with forty triremes from Milêtus to the Hellespont, yet with
-instructions to evade the Athenians at Samos, by first stretching
-out westward into the Ægean. Encountering severe storms, he was
-forced with the greater part of his squadron to seek shelter at
-Delos, and even suffered so much damage as to return to Milêtus,
-from whence he himself marched to the Hellespont by land. Ten of his
-triremes, however, under the Megarian Helixus, weathered the storm
-and pursued their voyage to the Hellespont, which was at this moment
-unguarded, since Strombichidês seems to have brought back all his
-squadron. Helixus passed on unopposed to Byzantium, a Doric city and
-Megarian colony, from whence secret invitations had already reached
-him, and which he now induced to revolt from Athens. This untoward
-news admonished the Athenian generals at Samos, whose vigilance
-the circuitous route of Klearchus had eluded, of the necessity of
-guarding the Hellespont, whither they sent a detachment, and even
-attempted in vain to recapture Byzantium. Sixteen fresh triremes
-afterwards proceeded from Milêtus to the Hellespont and Abydos,
-thus enabling the Peloponnesians to watch that strait as well as
-the Bosphorus and Byzantium,[138] and even to ravage the Thracian
-Chersonese.
-
-  [138] Thucyd. viii, 80-99.
-
-Meanwhile, the discontents of the fleet at Milêtus broke out into
-open mutiny against Astyochus and Tissaphernês. Unpaid, and only
-half-fed, the seamen came together in crowds to talk over their
-grievances; denouncing Astyochus as having betrayed them for his own
-profit to the satrap, who was treacherously ruining the armament
-under the inspirations of Alkibiadês. Even some of the officers,
-whose silence had been hitherto purchased, began to hold the same
-language; perceiving that the mischief was becoming irreparable,
-and that the men were actually on the point of desertion. Above
-all, the incorruptible Hermokratês of Syracuse, and Dorieus the
-Thurian commander, zealously espoused the claims of their seamen,
-who being mostly freemen (in greater proportion than the crews of
-the Peloponnesian ships), went in a body to Astyochus, with loud
-complaints and demand of their arrears of pay. But the Peloponnesian
-general received them with haughtiness and even with menace, lifting
-up his stick to strike the commander Dorieus while advocating their
-cause. Such was the resentment of the seamen that they rushed forward
-to pelt Astyochus with missiles: he took refuge, however, on a
-neighboring altar, so that no actual mischief was done.[139]
-
-  [139] Thucyd. viii, 83, 84.
-
-Nor was the discontent confined to the seamen of the fleet.
-The Milesians, also, displeased and alarmed at the fort which
-Tissaphernês had built in their town, watched an opportunity of
-attacking it by surprise, and expelled his garrison. Though the
-armament in general, now full of antipathy against the satrap,
-sympathized in this proceeding, yet the Spartan commissioner Lichas
-censured it severely, and intimated to the Milesians that they, as
-well as the other Greeks in the king’s territory, were bound to
-be subservient to Tissaphernês within all reasonable limits, and
-even to court him by extreme subservience, until the war should
-be prosperously terminated. It appears that in other matters
-also, Lichas had enforced instead of mitigating the authority of
-the satrap over them; so that the Milesians now came to hate him
-vehemently,[140] and when he shortly afterwards died of sickness,
-they refused permission to bury him in the spot—probably some place
-of honor—which his surviving countrymen had fixed upon. Though Lichas
-in these enforcements only carried out the stipulations of his
-treaty with Persia, yet it is certain that the Milesians, instead of
-acquiring autonomy, according to the general promises of Sparta, were
-now farther from it than ever, and that imperial Athens had protected
-them against Persia much better than Sparta.
-
-  [140] Thucyd. viii, 84. Ὁ μέντοι Λίχας οὔτε ἠρέσκετο αὐτοῖς, ἔφη
-  τε χρῆναι Τισσαφέρνει καὶ δουλεύειν Μιλησίους καὶ τοὺς ἄλλους ἐν
-  τῇ βασιλέως τὰ μέτρια, καὶ ἐπιθεραπεύειν ἕως ἂν τὸν πόλεμον εὖ
-  θῶνται. Οἱ δὲ Μιλήσιοι ὠργίζοντό τε αὐτῷ καὶ διὰ ταῦτα καὶ δι᾽
-  ἄλλα τοιουτότροπα, etc.
-
-The subordination of the armament, however, was now almost at an
-end, when Mindarus arrived from Sparta as admiral to supersede
-Astyochus, who was summoned home and took his departure. Both
-Hermokratês and some Milesian deputies availed themselves of this
-opportunity to go to Sparta for the purpose of preferring complaints
-against Tissaphernês; while the latter on his part sent thither an
-envoy named Gaulites, a Karian, brought up in equal familiarity
-with the Greek and Karian languages, both to defend himself against
-the often-repeated charges of Hermokratês, that he had been
-treacherously withholding the pay under concert with Alkibiadês
-and the Athenians, and to denounce the Milesians on his own side,
-as having wrongfully demolished his fort.[141] At the same time he
-thought it necessary to put forward a new pretence, for the purpose
-of strengthening the negotiations of his envoy at Sparta, soothing
-the impatience of the armament, and conciliating the new admiral
-Mindarus. He announced that the Phenician fleet was on the point of
-arriving at Aspendus in Pamphylia, and that he was going thither to
-meet it, for the purpose of bringing it up to the seat of war to
-coöperate with the Peloponnesians. He invited Lichas to accompany
-him, and engaged to leave Tamos at Milêtus, as deputy during his
-absence, with orders to furnish pay and maintenance to the fleet.[142]
-
-  [141] Thucyd. viii, 85.
-
-  [142] Thucyd. viii, 87.
-
-Mindarus, a new commander, without any experience of the mendacity
-of Tissaphernês, was imposed upon by this plausible assurance, and
-even captivated by the near prospect of so powerful a reinforcement.
-He despatched an officer named Philippus with two triremes round the
-Triopian Cape to Aspendus, while the satrap went thither by land.
-
-Here again was a fresh delay of no inconsiderable length, while
-Tissaphernês was absent at Aspendus, on this ostensible purpose. Some
-time elapsed before Mindarus was undeceived, for Philippus found
-the Phenician fleet at Aspendus, and was therefore at first full of
-hope that it was really coming onward. But the satrap soon showed
-that his purpose now, as heretofore, was nothing better than delay
-and delusion. The Phenician ships were one hundred and forty-seven
-in number; a fleet more than sufficient for concluding the maritime
-war, if brought up to act zealously. But Tissaphernês affected to
-think that this was a small force, unworthy of the majesty of the
-Great King; who had commanded a fleet of three hundred sail to be
-fitted out for the service.[143] He waited for some time in pretended
-expectation that more ships were on their way, disregarding all the
-remonstrances of the Lacedæmonian officers.
-
-  [143] Thucyd. viii, 87. This greater total, which Tissaphernês
-  pretended that the Great King purposed to send, is specified by
-  Diodorus at three hundred sail. Thucydidês does not assign any
-  precise number (Diodor. xiii, 38, 42, 46).
-
-  On a subsequent occasion, too, we hear of the Phenician fleet
-  as intended to be augmented to a total of three hundred sail
-  (Xenoph. Hellen. iii, 4, 1). It seems to have been the sort of
-  standing number for a fleet worthy of the Persian king.
-
-Presently arrived the Athenian Alkibiadês, with thirteen Athenian
-triremes, exhibiting himself as on the best terms with the satrap.
-He too had made use of this approaching Phenician fleet to delude
-his countrymen at Samos, by promising to go and meet Tissaphernês at
-Aspendus, and to determine him, if possible, to send the fleet to the
-assistance of Athens, but at the very least, _not_ to send it to the
-aid of Sparta. The latter alternative of the promise was sufficiently
-safe, for he knew well that Tissaphernês had no intention of applying
-the fleet to any really efficient purpose. But he was thereby enabled
-to take credit with his countrymen for having been the means of
-diverting this formidable reinforcement from the enemy.
-
-Partly the apparent confidence between Tissaphernês and Alkibiadês,
-partly the impudent shifts of the former, grounded on the incredible
-pretence that the fleet was insufficient in number, at length
-satisfied Philippus that the present was only a new manifestation of
-deceit. After a long and vexatious interval, he apprized Mindarus—not
-without indignant abuse of the satrap—that nothing was to be hoped
-from the fleet at Aspendus. Yet the proceeding of Tissaphernês,
-indeed, in bringing up the Phenicians to that place, and still
-withholding the order for farther advance and action, was in every
-one’s eyes mysterious and unaccountable. Some fancied that he did it
-with a view of levying larger bribes from the Phenicians themselves,
-as a premium for being sent home without fighting, as it appears that
-they actually were. But Thucydidês supposes that he had no other
-motive than that which had determined his behavior during the last
-year, to protract the war and impoverish both Athens and Sparta, by
-setting up a fresh deception, which would last for some weeks, and
-thus procure so much delay.[144] The historian is doubtless right:
-but without his assurance, it would have been difficult to believe,
-that the maintenance of a fraudulent pretence, for so inconsiderable
-a time, should have been held as an adequate motive for bringing
-this large fleet from Phenicia to Aspendus, and then sending it away
-unemployed.
-
-  [144] Thucyd. viii, 87, 88, 99.
-
-Having at length lost all hope of the Phenician ships, Mindarus
-resolved to break off all dealing with the perfidious Tissaphernês;
-the more so, as Tamos, the deputy of the latter, though left
-ostensibly to pay and keep the fleet, performed that duty with
-greater irregularity than ever, and to conduct his fleet to the
-Hellespont into coöperation with Pharnabazus, who still continued his
-promises and invitations. The Peloponnesian fleet[145]—seventy-three
-triremes strong, after deducting thirteen which had been sent under
-Dorieus to suppress some disturbances in Rhodes—having been carefully
-prepared beforehand, was put in motion by sudden order, so that no
-previous intimation might reach the Athenians at Samos. After having
-been delayed some days at Ikarus by bad weather, Mindarus reached
-Chios in safety. But here he was pursued by Thrasyllus, who passed,
-with fifty-five triremes, to the northward of Chios, and was thus
-between the Lacedæmonian admiral and the Hellespont. Believing that
-Mindarus would remain some time at Chios, Thrasyllus placed scouts
-both on the high lands of Lesbos and on the continent opposite Chios,
-in order that he might receive instant notice of any movement on the
-part of the enemy’s fleet.[146] Meanwhile he employed his Athenian
-force in reducing the Lesbian town of Eresus, which had been lately
-prevailed on to revolt by a body of three hundred assailants from
-Kymê under the Theban Anaxander, partly Methymnæan exiles, with some
-political sympathizers, partly mercenary foreigners, who succeeded in
-carrying Eresus after failing in an attack on Methymna. Thrasyllus
-found before Eresus a small Athenian squadron of five triremes under
-Thrasybulus, who had been despatched from Samos to try and forestall
-the revolt, but had arrived too late. He was farther joined by two
-triremes from the Hellespont, and by others from Methymna, so that
-his entire fleet reached the number of sixty-seven triremes, with
-which he proceeded to lay siege to Eresus; trusting to his scouts for
-timely warning, in case the enemy’s fleet should move northward.
-
-  [145] Diodor. xiii, 38.
-
-  [146] Thucyd. viii, 100. Αἰσθόμενος δὲ ὅτι ἐν ~τῇ Χίῳ~ εἴη, καὶ
-  νομίσας αὐτὸν καθέξειν ~αὐτοῦ~, σκοποὺς μὲν κατεστήσατο καὶ ἐν τῇ
-  Λέσβῳ, καὶ ~ἐν τῇ ἀντιπέρας ἠπείρῳ~, εἰ ἄρα ποι κινοῖντο αἱ νῆες,
-  ὅπως μὴ λάθοιεν, etc.
-
-  I construe τῇ ἀντιπέρας ἠπείρῳ, as meaning the mainland opposite
-  _Chios_, not opposite _Lesbos_. The words may admit either
-  sense, since Χίῳ and αὐτοῦ follow so immediately before: and the
-  situation for the scouts was much more suitable, opposite the
-  northern portion of _Chios_.
-
-The course which Thrasyllus expected the Peloponnesian fleet to take,
-was to sail from Chios northward through the strait which separates
-the northeastern portion of that island from Mount Mimas on the
-Asiatic mainland: after which it would probably sail past Eresus
-on the western side of Lesbos, as being the shortest track to the
-Hellespont, though it might also go round on the eastern side between
-Lesbos and the continent, by a somewhat longer route. The Athenian
-scouts were planted so as to descry the Peloponnesian fleet, if it
-either passed through this strait or neared the island of Lesbos.
-But Mindarus did neither; thus eluding their watch, and reaching the
-Hellespont without the knowledge of the Athenians. Having passed two
-days in provisioning his ships, receiving besides from the Chians
-three tesserakosts, a Chian coin of unknown value, for each man among
-his seamen, he departed on the third day from Chios, but took a
-southerly route and rounded the island in all haste on its western or
-sea-side. Having reached and passed the northern latitude of Chios,
-he took an eastward course, with Lesbos at some distance to his left
-hand, direct to the mainland; which he touched at a harbor called
-Karterii, in the Phokæan territory. Here he stopped to give the crew
-their morning meal: he then crossed the arc of the gulf of Kymê to
-the little islets called Arginusæ, close on the Asiatic continent
-opposite Mitylênê, where he again halted for supper. Continuing his
-voyage onward during most part of the night, he was at Harmatûs, on
-the continent, directly northward and opposite to Methymna, by the
-next day’s morning meal: then still hastening forward after a short
-halt, he doubled Cape Lektum, sailed along the Troad and passed
-Tenedos, and reached the entrance of the Hellespont before midnight;
-where his ships were distributed at Sigeium, Rhœteium, and other
-neighboring places.[147]
-
-  [147] Thucyd. viii, 101. The latter portion of this voyage is
-  sufficiently distinct; the earlier portion less so. I describe it
-  in the text differently from all the best and most recent editors
-  of Thucydidês; from whom I dissent with the less reluctance, as
-  they all here take the gravest liberty with his text, inserting
-  the negative οὐ _on pure conjecture_, without the authority
-  of a single MS. Niebuhr has laid it down as almost a canon of
-  criticism that this is never to be done: yet here we have Krüger
-  recommending it, and Haack, Göller, Dr. Arnold, Poppo, and M.
-  Didot, all adopting it as a part of the text of Thucydidês;
-  without even following the caution of Bekker in his small
-  edition, who admonishes the reader, by inclosing the word in
-  brackets. Nay, Dr. Arnold goes so far as to say in note, “_This
-  correction is so certain and so necessary, that it only shows
-  the inattention of the earlier editors that it was not made long
-  since._”
-
-  The words of Thucydidês, _without_ this correction, and as they
-  stood universally before Haack’s edition (even in Bekker’s
-  edition of 1821), are:—
-
-  Ὁ δὲ Μίνδαρος ἐν τούτῳ καὶ αἱ ἐκ τῆς Χίου τῶν Πελοποννησίων νῆες
-  ἐπισιτισάμεναι δυσῖν ἡμέραις, καὶ λαβόντες παρὰ τῶν Χίων τρεῖς
-  τεσσαρακοστὰς ἕκαστος Χίας τῇ τρίτῃ διὰ ταχέων ~ἀπαίρουσιν ἐκ
-  τῆς Χίου πελάγιαι, ἵνα μὴ περιτύχωσι ταῖς ἐν τῇ Ἐρέσῳ ναυσίν,
-  ἀλλὰ ἐν ἀριστερᾷ τὴν Λέσβον ἔχοντες ἔπλεον ἐπὶ τὴν ἤπειρον~.
-  Καὶ προσβαλόντες τῆς Φωκαΐδος ἐς τὸν ἐν Καρτερίοις λιμένα, καὶ
-  ἀριστοποιησάμενοι, παραπλεύσαντες τὴν Κυμαίαν δειπνοποιοῦνται ἐν
-  Ἀργενούσαις τῆς ἠπείρου, ἐν τῷ ἀντιπέρας τῆς Μιτυλήνης, etc.
-
-  Haack and the other eminent critics just mentioned, all insist
-  that these words as they stand are absurd and contradictory, and
-  that it is indispensable to insert οὐ before πελάγιαι; so that
-  the sentence stands in their editions ~ἀπαίρουσιν ἐκ τῆς Χίου οὐ
-  πελάγιαι~. They all picture to themselves the fleet of Mindarus
-  as sailing from the town of Chios _northward_, and going out at
-  the northern strait. Admitting this, they say, plausibly enough,
-  that the words of the old text involve a contradiction, because
-  Mindarus would be going in the direction towards Eresus, and not
-  away from it; though even then, the propriety of their correction
-  would be disputable. But the word πελάγιος, when applied to ships
-  departing from Chios,—though it may perhaps mean that they round
-  the northeastern corner of the island and then strike west round
-  Lesbos,—yet means also as naturally, and more naturally, to
-  announce them as _departing by the outer sea_, or sailing _on the
-  sea-side_ (round the southern and western coast) _of the island_.
-  Accept _this meaning_, and the old words construe perfectly well.
-  Ἀπαίρειν ἐκ τῆς Χίου πελάγιος is the natural and proper phrase
-  for describing the circuit of Mindarus round the south and west
-  coast of Chios. This, too, was the only way by which he could
-  have escaped the scouts and the ships of Thrasyllus: for which
-  same purpose of avoiding Athenian ships, we find (viii, 80) the
-  squadron of Klearchus, on another occasion, making a long circuit
-  out to sea. If it be supposed, which those who read ~οὐ~ πελάγιαι
-  must suppose, that Mindarus sailed first up the northern strait
-  between Chios and the mainland, and then turned his course east
-  towards Phokæa, this would have been the course which Thrasyllus
-  expected that he would take; and it is hardly possible to explain
-  why he was not seen both by the Athenian scouts as well as by the
-  Athenian garrison at their station of Delphinium on Chios itself.
-  Whereas, by taking the circuitous route round the southern and
-  western coast, he never came in sight either of one or the other:
-  and he was enabled, when he got round to the latitude north of
-  the island, to turn to the right and take a straight easterly
-  course, _with Lesbos on his left hand_, but at a sufficient
-  distance from land to be out of sight of all scouts. Ἀνάγεσθαι ἐκ
-  τῆς Χίου πελάγιος (Xen. Hellen. ii, 1, 17), means to strike into
-  the open sea, quite clear of the coast of Asia: that passage does
-  not decisively indicate whether the ships rounded the southeast
-  or the northeast corner of the island.
-
-  We are here told that the seamen of Mindarus received from the
-  Chians per head _three Chian tessarakostæ_. Now this is a small
-  Chian coin, nowhere else mentioned; and it is surprising to
-  find so petty and local a denomination of money here specified
-  by Thucydidês, contrasted with the different manner in which
-  Xenophon describes Chian payments to the Peloponnesian seamen
-  (Hellen. i, 6, 12; ii, 1, 5). But the voyage of Mindarus round
-  the south and west of the island explains the circumstance. He
-  must have landed twice on the island during this circumnavigation
-  (perhaps starting in the evening), for dinner and supper: and
-  this Chian coin, which probably had no circulation out of
-  the island, served each man to buy provisions at the Chian
-  landing-places. It was not convenient to Mindarus to take aboard
-  _more_ provisions in kind, at the town of Chios; because he had
-  already aboard a stock of provisions for two days, the subsequent
-  portion of his voyage, along the coast of Asia to Sigeium, during
-  which he could not afford time to halt and buy them, and where
-  indeed the territory was not friendly.
-
-  It is enough if I can show that the old text of Thucydidês
-  will construe very well, without the violent intrusion of this
-  conjectural ~οὐ~. But I can show more: for this negative actually
-  renders even the construction of the sentence awkward at least,
-  if not inadmissible. Surely, ἀπαίρουσιν οὐ πελάγιαι, ἀλλὰ, ought
-  to be followed by a correlative adjective or participle belonging
-  to the same verb ἀπαίρουσιν: yet if we take ἔχοντες as such
-  correlative participle, how are we to construe ἔπλεον? In order
-  to express the sense which Haack brings out, we ought surely to
-  have different words, such as: οὐκ ἄπῃραν ἐκ τῆς Χίου πελάγιαι,
-  ἀλλ᾽ ἐν ἀριστέρᾳ τὴν Λέσβον ἔχοντες ἔπλεον ἐπὶ τὴν ἤπειρον.
-  Even the change of tense from present to past, when we follow
-  the construction of Haack, is awkward; while if we understand
-  the words in the sense which I propose, the change of tense is
-  perfectly admissible, since the two verbs do not both refer to
-  the same movement or to the same portion of the voyage. “_The
-  fleet starts from Chios out by the sea-side of the island; but
-  when it came to have Lesbos on the left hand, it sailed straight
-  to the continent._”
-
-  I hope that I am not too late to make good my γραφὴν ξενίας, or
-  protest, against the unwarranted right of Thucydidean citizenship
-  which the recent editors have conferred upon this word ~οὐ~, in
-  c. 101. The old text ought certainly to be restored; or, if these
-  editors maintain their views, they ought at least to inclose the
-  word in brackets. In the edition of Thucydidês, published at
-  Leipsic, 1845, by C. A. Koth, I observe that the text is still
-  correctly printed, without the negative.
-
-By this well-laid course and accelerated voyage, the Peloponnesian
-fleet completely eluded the lookers-out of Thrasyllus, and reached
-the opening of the Hellespont when that admiral was barely apprized
-of its departure from Chios. When it arrived at Harmatûs, however,
-opposite to and almost within sight of the Athenian station at
-Methymna, its progress could no longer remain a secret. As it
-advanced still farther along the Troad, the momentous news circulated
-everywhere, and was promulgated through numerous fire-signals and
-beacons on the hill, by friend as well as by foe.
-
-These signals were perfectly visible, and perfectly intelligible,
-to the two hostile squadrons now on guard on each side of the
-Hellespont: eighteen Athenian triremes at Sestos in Europe, sixteen
-Peloponnesian triremes at Abydos in Asia. To the former it was
-destruction, to be caught by this powerful enemy in the narrow
-channel of the Hellespont. They quitted Sestos in the middle of the
-night, passing opposite to Abydos, and keeping a southerly course
-close along the shore of the Chersonese, in the direction towards
-Elæûs at the southern extremity of that peninsular, so as to have
-the chance of escape in the open sea and of joining Thrasyllus. But
-they would not have been allowed to pass even the hostile station at
-Abydos, had not the Peloponnesian guardships received the strictest
-orders from Mindarus, transmitted before he left Chios, or perhaps
-even before he left Milêtus, that, if he should attempt the start,
-they were to keep a vigilant and special look-out for his coming, and
-reserve themselves to lend him such assistance as might be needed, in
-case he were attacked by Thrasyllus. When the signals first announced
-the arrival of Mindarus, the Peloponnesian guardships at Abydos could
-not know in what position he was, nor whether the main Athenian fleet
-might not be near upon him. Accordingly they acted on these previous
-orders, holding themselves in reserve in their station at Abydos,
-until daylight should arrive, and they should be better informed.
-They thus neglected the Athenian Hellespontine squadron in its escape
-from Sestos to Elæûs.[148]
-
-  [148] Thucyd. viii, 102. Οἱ δὲ Ἀθηναῖοι ἐν τῇ Σηστῷ, ...
-  ὡς αὐτοῖς οἵ τε φρυκτωροὶ ἐσήμαινον, καὶ ᾐσθάνοντο τὰ πυρὰ
-  ἐξαίφνης πολλὰ ἐν τῇ πολεμίᾳ φανέντα, ἔγνωσαν ὅτι ἐσπλέουσιν οἱ
-  Πελοποννήσιοι. Καὶ τῆς αὐτῆς ταύτης νυκτὸς, ὡς εἶχον τάχους,
-  ὑπομίξαντες τῇ Χερσονήσῳ, παρέπλεον ἐπ᾽ Ἐλαιοῦντος, βουλόμενοι
-  ἐκπλεῦσαι ἐς τὴν εὐρυχωρίαν τὰς τῶν πολεμίων ναῦς. ~Καὶ τὰς μὲν
-  ἐν Ἀβύδῳ ἑκκαίδεκα ναῦς ἔλαθον, προειρημένης φυλακῆς τῷ φιλίῳ
-  ἐπίπλῳ, ὅπως αὐτῶν ἀνακῶς ἕξουσιν, ἢν ἐκπλέωσι~· τὰς δὲ μετὰ τοῦ
-  Μινδάρου ἅμα ἕῳ κατιδόντες, etc.
-
-  Here, again, we have a difficult text, which has much perplexed
-  the commentators, and which I venture to translate, as it stands
-  in my text, differently from all of them. The words, προειρημένης
-  φυλακῆς τῷ φιλίῳ ἐπίπλῳ, ὅπως αὐτῶν ἀνακῶς ἕξουσιν, ἢν ἐκπλέωσι,
-  are explained by the Scholiast to mean: “Although watch had been
-  enjoined to them (i.e. to the Peloponnesian guard-squadron at
-  Abydos) by the friendly approaching fleet (of Mindarus), that
-  they should keep strict guard on the Athenians at Sestos, in case
-  the latter should sail out.”
-
-  Dr. Arnold, Göller, Poppo, and M. Didot, all accept this
-  construction, though all agree that it is most harsh and
-  confused. The former says: “This again is most strangely intended
-  to mean, προειρημένου αὐτοῖς ~ὑπὸ τῶν ἐπιπλεόντων φίλων~
-  φυλάσσειν τοὺς πολεμίους.”
-
-  To construe τῷ φιλίῳ ἐπίπλῳ as equivalent to ὑπὸ τῶν ἐπιπλεόντων
-  φίλων, is certainly such a harshness as we ought to be very
-  glad to escape. And the construction of the Scholiast involves
-  another liberty which I cannot but consider as objectionable.
-  He supplies, in his paraphrase, the word ~καίτοι~, _although_,
-  from his own imagination. There is no indication of _although_,
-  either express or implied, in the text of Thucydidês; and it
-  appears to me hazardous to assume into the meaning so decisive
-  a particle without any authority. The genitive absolute, when
-  annexed to the main predication affirmed in the verb, usually
-  denotes something naturally connected with it in the way of
-  cause, concomitancy, explanation, or modification, not something
-  opposed to it, requiring to be prefaced by an _although_; if
-  this latter be intended, then the word _although_ is expressed,
-  not left to be understood. After Thucydidês has told us that
-  the Athenians at Sestos escaped their opposite enemies at
-  Abydos, when he next goes on to add something under the genitive
-  absolute, we expect that it should be a new fact which explains
-  why or how they escaped: but if the new fact which he tells us,
-  far from explaining the escape, renders it more extraordinary
-  (such as, that the Peloponnesians had received strict orders to
-  watch them), he would surely prepare the reader for this new fact
-  by an express particle, such as _although_ or _notwithstanding_:
-  “The Athenians escaped, _although_ the Peloponnesians had
-  received the strictest orders to watch them and block them up.”
-  As nothing equivalent to, or implying, the adversative particle
-  _although_ is to be found in the Greek words, so I infer, as a
-  high probability, that it is not to be sought in the meaning.
-
-  Differing from the commentators, I think that these words,
-  προειρημένης φυλακῆς τῷ φιλίῳ ἐπίπλῳ, ὅπως αὐτῶν ἀνακῶς ἕξουσιν,
-  ἢν ἐκπλέωσι, _do_ assign the reason for the fact which had been
-  immediately before announced, and which was really extraordinary;
-  namely, that the Athenian squadron was allowed to pass by Abydos,
-  and escape from Sestos to Elæûs. That reason was, that the
-  Peloponnesian guard-squadron had before received special orders
-  from Mindarus, _to concentrate its attention and watchfulness
-  upon his approaching squadron_; hence it arose that they left the
-  Athenians at Sestos unnoticed.
-
-  The words τῷ φιλίῳ ἐπίπλῳ are equivalent to τῷ τῶν φίλων ἐπίπλῳ,
-  and the pronoun ~αὐτῶν~, which immediately follows, refers
-  to ~φίλων~ (_the approaching fleet of Mindarus_), not to the
-  Athenians at Sestos, as the Scholiast and the commentators
-  construe it. This mistake about the reference of αὐτῶν seems to
-  me to have put them all wrong.
-
-  That τῷ φιλίῳ ἐπίπλῳ must be construed as equivalent to τῷ τῶν
-  φίλων ἐπίπλῳ is certain; but it is not equivalent to ὑπὸ τῶν
-  ἐπιπλεόντων φίλων; nor is it possible to construe the words as
-  the Scholiast would understand them: “_orders had been previously
-  given by the approach (or arrival) of their friends_;” whereby we
-  should turn ὁ ἐπίπλους into an acting and commanding personality.
-  The “approach of their friends” is an event, which may properly
-  be said “to have produced an effect,” but which cannot be said
-  “to have given previous orders.” It appears to me that τῷ φιλίῳ
-  ἐπίπλῳ is the dative case, governed by φυλακῆς; “_a look-out
-  for the arrival of the Peloponnesians_,” having been enjoined
-  upon these guardships at Abydos: “_They had been ordered to
-  watch for the approaching voyage of their friends._” The English
-  preposition _for_, expresses here exactly the sense of the Greek
-  dative; that is, the _object, purpose, or persons whose benefit
-  is referred to_.
-
-  The words immediately succeeding, ὅπως αὐτῶν (τῶν φίλων) ἀνακῶς
-  ἕξουσιν, ἢν ἐκπλέωσι, are an expansion of consequences intended
-  to follow from φυλακῆς τῷ φιλίῳ ἐπίπλῳ. “They shall watch for the
-  approach of the main fleet, in order that they may devote special
-  and paramount regard to its safety, in case it makes a start.”
-  For the phrase ἀνακῶς ἔχειν, compare Herodot. i, 24; viii, 109.
-  Plutarch, Theseus, c. 33: ~ἀνακῶς~, φυλακτῶς, προνοητικῶς,
-  ἐπιμελῶς, the notes of Arnold and Göller here; and Kühner, Gr.
-  Gr. sect. 533, ἀνακῶς ἔχειν τινός, for ἐπιμελεῖσθαι. The words
-  ἀνακῶς ἔχειν express the anxious and special vigilance which the
-  Peloponnesian squadron at Abydos was directed to keep for the
-  arrival of Mindarus and his fleet, which was a matter of doubt
-  and danger: but they would not be properly applicable to the duty
-  of that squadron as respects the opposite Athenian squadron at
-  Sestos, which was hardly of superior force to themselves, and was
-  besides an avowed enemy, in sight of their own port.
-
-  Lastly, the words ἢν ἐκπλέωσι refer _to Mindarus and his fleet
-  about to start from Chios, as their subject_, not to the
-  Athenians at Sestos.
-
-  The whole sentence would stand thus, if we dismiss the
-  peculiarities of Thucydidês, and express the meaning in common
-  Greek: Καὶ τὰς μὲν ἐν Ἀβύδῳ ἑκκαίδεκα ναῦς (Ἀθηναῖοι) ἔλαθον·
-  προείρητο γὰρ (ἐκείναις ταῖς ναῦσιν) φυλάσσειν τὸν ἐπίπλουν τῶν
-  φίλων, ὅπως ~αὐτῶν~ (τῶν φίλων) ἀνακῶς ἔξουσιν, ἢν ἐκπλέωσι.
-  The verb φυλάσσειν here, and of course the abstract substantive
-  φυλακὴ which represents it, signifies to _watch_ for, or _wait_
-  for: like Thucyd. ii, 3. φυλάξαντες ἔτι νύκτα, καὶ αὐτὸ τὸ
-  περίορθρον; also viii, 41, ἐφύλασσε.
-
-  If we construe the words in this way, they will appear in perfect
-  harmony with the general scheme and purpose of Mindarus. That
-  admiral is bent upon carrying his fleet to the Hellespont,
-  but to avoid an action with Thrasyllus in doing so. This is
-  difficult to accomplish, and can only be done by great secrecy
-  of proceeding, as well as by an unusual route. He sends orders
-  beforehand from Chios, perhaps even from Milêtus, before he
-  quitted that place, to the Peloponnesian squadron guarding the
-  Hellespont at Abydos. He contemplates the possible case that
-  Thrasyllus may detect his plan, intercept him on the passage, and
-  perhaps block him up or compel him to fight in some roadstead or
-  bay on the coast opposite Lesbos, or on the Troad, which would
-  indeed have come to pass, had he been seen by a single hostile
-  fishing-boat in rounding the island of Chios. Now the orders sent
-  forward, direct the Peloponnesian squadron at Abydos what they
-  are to do in this contingency; since without such orders, the
-  captain of the squadron would not have known what to do, assuming
-  Mindarus to be intercepted by Thrasyllus; whether to remain on
-  guard at the Hellespont, which was his special duty; or to leave
-  the Hellespont unguarded, keep his attention concentrated on
-  Mindarus, and come forth to help him. “Let your first thought be
-  to insure the safe arrival of the main fleet at the Hellespont,
-  and to come out and render help to it, if it be attacked in its
-  route; even though it be necessary for that purpose to leave
-  the Hellespont for a time unguarded.” Mindarus could not tell
-  beforehand the exact moment when he would start from Chios, nor
-  was it, indeed, absolutely certain that he would start at all,
-  if the enemy were watching him: his orders were therefore sent,
-  _conditional_ upon his being able to get off (~ἢν ἐκπλέωσι~).
-  But he was lucky enough, by the well-laid plan of his voyage,
-  to get to the Hellespont without encountering an enemy. The
-  Peloponnesian squadron at Abydos, however, having received his
-  special orders, when the fire-signals acquainted them that he was
-  approaching, thought only of keeping themselves in reserve to
-  lend him assistance if he needed it, and neglected the Athenians
-  opposite. As it was night, probably the best thing which they
-  could do, was to wait in Abydos for daylight, until they could
-  learn particulars of his position, and how or where they could
-  render aid.
-
-  We thus see both the general purpose of Mindarus, and in what
-  manner the orders which he had transmitted to the Peloponnesian
-  squadron at Abydos, brought about indirectly the escape of the
-  Athenian squadron without interruption from Sestos.
-
-On arriving about daylight near the southern point of the Chersonese,
-these Athenians were descried by the fleet of Mindarus, which
-had come the night before to the opposite stations of Sigeium and
-Rhœteium. The latter immediately gave chase: but the Athenians, now
-in the wide sea, contrived to escape most of them to Imbros, not
-without the loss, however, of four triremes, one even captured with
-all the crew on board, near the temple of Protesilaus at Elæûs: the
-crews of the other three escaped ashore. Mindarus was now joined by
-the squadron from Abydos, and their united force, eighty-six triremes
-strong, was employed for one day in trying to storm Elæûs. Failing in
-this enterprise, the fleet retired to Abydos. Before all could arrive
-there, Thrasyllus with his fleet arrived in haste from Eresus, much
-disappointed that his scouts had been eluded and all his calculations
-baffled. Two Peloponnesian triremes, which had been more adventurous
-than the rest in pursuing the Athenians, fell into his hands. He
-waited at Elæûs the return of the fugitive Athenian squadron from
-Imbros, and then began to prepare his triremes, seventy-six in
-number, for a general action.
-
-After five days of such preparation, his fleet was brought to
-battle, sailing northward towards Sestos up the Hellespont, by
-single ships ahead, along the coast of the Chersonese, or on the
-European side. The left or most advanced squadron, under Thrasyllus,
-stretched even beyond the headland called Kynossêma, or the Dog’s
-Tomb, ennobled by the legend and the chapel of the Trojan queen
-Hecuba: it was thus nearly opposite Abydos, while the right squadron
-under Thrasybulus was not very far from the southern mouth of the
-strait, nearly opposite Dardanus. Mindarus on his side brought
-into action eighty-six triremes, ten more than Thrasyllus in total
-number, extending from Abydos to Dardanus on the Asiatic shore;
-the Syracusans under Hermokratês being on the right, opposed to
-Thrasyllus, while Mindarus with the Peloponnesian ships was on the
-left opposed to Thrasybulus. The epibatæ or maritime hoplites on
-board the ships of Mindarus are said to have been superior to the
-Athenians, but the latter had the advantage in skilful pilots and
-nautical manœuvring: nevertheless, the description of the battle
-tells us how much Athenian manœuvring had fallen off since the
-glories of Phormion at the beginning of the Peloponnesian war; nor
-would that eminent seaman have selected for the scene of a naval
-battle the narrow waters of the Hellespont. Mindarus took the
-aggressive, advancing to attack near the European shore, and trying
-to outflank his opponents on both sides, as well as to drive them
-up against the land. Thrasyllus on one wing, and Thrasybulus on the
-other, by rapid movements, extended themselves so as to frustrate
-this attempt to outflank them; but in so doing, they stripped and
-weakened the centre, which was even deprived of the sight of the
-left wing by means of the projecting headland of Kynossêma. Thus
-unsupported, the centre was vigorously attacked and roughly handled
-by the middle division of Mindarus. Its ships were driven up against
-the land, and the assailants even disembarked to push their victory
-against the men ashore. But this partial success threw the central
-Peloponnesian division itself into disorder, while Thrasybulus and
-Thrasyllus carried on a conflict at first equal, and presently
-victorious, against the ships on the right and left of the enemy.
-Having driven back both these two divisions, they easily chased away
-the disordered ships of the centre, so that the whole Peloponnesian
-fleet was put to flight, and found shelter first in the river
-Meidius, next in Abydos. The narrow breadth of the Hellespont forbade
-either long pursuit or numerous captures. Nevertheless, eight Chian
-ships, five Corinthians, two Ambrakian, and as many Bœotian, and
-from Sparta, Syracuse, Pellênê, and Leukas, one each, fell into the
-hands of the Athenian admirals; who, however, on their own side lost
-fifteen ships. They erected a trophy on the headland of Kynossêma,
-near the tomb or chapel of Hecuba; not omitting the usual duties of
-burying their own dead, and giving up those of the enemy under the
-customary request for truce.[149]
-
-  [149] Thucyd. viii, 105, 106; Diodor. xiii, 39, 40.
-
-  The general account which Diodorus gives of this battle, is, even
-  in its most essential features, not reconcilable with Thucydidês.
-  It is vain to try to blend them. I have been able to borrow from
-  Diodorus hardly anything except his statement of the superiority
-  of the Athenian pilots and the Peloponnesian epibatæ. He states
-  that twenty-five fresh ships arrived to join the Athenians in the
-  middle of the battle, and determined the victory in their favor:
-  this circumstance is evidently borrowed from the subsequent
-  conflict a few months afterwards.
-
-  We owe to him, however, the mention of the chapel or tomb of
-  Hecuba on the headland of Kynossêma.
-
-A victory so incomplete and indecisive would have been little valued
-by the Athenians, in the times preceding the Sicilian expedition.
-But since that overwhelming disaster, followed by so many other
-misfortunes, and last of all, by the defeat of Thymocharis, with
-the revolt of Eubœa, their spirit had been so sadly lowered, that
-the trireme which brought the news of the battle of Kynossêma,
-seemingly towards the end of August 411 B.C., was welcomed with the
-utmost delight and triumph. They began to feel as if the ebb-tide
-had reached its lowest point, and had begun to turn in their favor,
-holding out some hopes of ultimate success in the war. Another piece
-of good fortune soon happened, to strengthen this belief. Mindarus
-was compelled to reinforce himself at the Hellespont by sending
-Hippokratês and Epiklês to bring the fleet of fifty triremes now
-acting at Eubœa.[150] This was in itself an important relief to
-Athens, by withdrawing an annoying enemy near home. But it was still
-further enhanced by the subsequent misfortunes of this fleet, which,
-in passing round the headland of Mount Athos to get to Asia, was
-overtaken by a terrific storm and nearly destroyed, with great loss
-of life among the crews; so that a remnant only, under Hippokratês,
-survived to join Mindarus.[151]
-
-  [150] Thucyd. viii, 107; Diodor. xiii, 41.
-
-  [151] Diodor. xiii, 41. It is probable that this fleet was in
-  great part Bœotian; and twelve seamen who escaped from the wreck
-  commemorated their rescue by an inscription in the temple of
-  Athênê at Korôneia; which inscription was read and copied by
-  Ephorus. By an exaggerated and over-literal confidence in the
-  words of it, Diodorus is led to affirm that these twelve men were
-  the only persons saved, and that every other person perished. But
-  we know perfectly that Hippokratês himself survived, and that he
-  was alive at the subsequent battle of Kyzikus (Xenoph. Hellen. i,
-  1, 23).
-
-But though Athens was thus exempted from all fear of aggression on
-the side of Eubœa, the consequences of this departure of the fleet
-were such as to demonstrate how irreparably the island itself had
-passed out of her supremacy. The inhabitants of Chalkis and the
-other cities, now left without foreign defence against her, employed
-themselves jointly with the Bœotians, whose interest in the case
-was even stronger than their own, in divesting Eubœa of its insular
-character, by constructing a mole or bridge across the Euripus, the
-narrowest portion of the Eubœan strait, where Chalkis was divided
-from Bœotia. From each coast a mole was thrown out, each mole guarded
-at the extremity by a tower, and leaving only an intermediate
-opening, broad enough for a single vessel to pass through, covered
-by a wooden bridge. It was in vain that the Athenian Theramenês,
-with thirty triremes, presented himself to obstruct the progress of
-this undertaking. The Eubœans and Bœotians both prosecuted it in
-such numbers, and with so much zeal, that it was speedily brought to
-completion. Eubœa, so lately the most important island attached to
-Athens, is from henceforward a portion of the mainland, altogether
-independent of her, even though it should please fortune to
-reëstablish her maritime power.[152]
-
-  [152] Diodor. xiii, 47. He places this event a year later, but
-  I agree with Sievers in conceiving it as following with little
-  delay on the withdrawal of the protecting fleet (Sievers,
-  Comment. in Xenoph. Hellen. p. 9; note, p. 66).
-
-  See Colonel Leake’s Travels in Northern Greece, for a description
-  of the Euripus, and the adjoining ground, with a plan, vol. ii,
-  ch. xiv, pp. 259-265.
-
-  I cannot make out from Colonel Leake what is the exact breadth
-  of the channel. Strabo talks in his time of a bridge reaching
-  two hundred feet (x, p. 400). But there must have been material
-  alterations made by the inhabitants of Chalkis during the time
-  of Alexander the Great (Strabo, x, p. 447). The bridge here
-  described by Diodorus, covering an open space broad enough for
-  one ship, could scarcely have been more than twenty feet broad;
-  for it was not at all designed to render the passage easy. The
-  ancient ships could all lower their masts. I cannot but think
-  that Colonel Leake (p. 259) must have read, in Diodorus, xiii,
-  47, οὐ in place of ὁ.
-
-The battle of Kynossêma produced no very important consequences
-except that of encouragement to the Athenians. Even just after the
-action, Kyzikus revolted from them, and on the fourth day after it,
-the Athenian fleet, hastily refitted at Sestos, sailed to that place
-to retake it. It was unfortified, so that they succeeded with little
-difficulty, and imposed upon it a contribution: moreover, in the
-voyage thither, they gained an additional advantage by capturing,
-off the southern coast of the Propontis, those eight Peloponnesian
-triremes which had accomplished, a little while before, the revolt
-of Byzantium. But, on the other hand, as soon as the Athenian fleet
-had left Sestos, Mindarus sailed from his station at Abydos to Elæûs,
-and there recovered all the triremes captured from him at Kynossêma,
-which the Athenians had there deposited, except some of them which
-were so much damaged that the inhabitants of Elæûs set them on
-fire.[153]
-
-  [153] Thucyd. viii, 107.
-
-But that which now began to constitute a far more important element
-of the war, was, the difference of character between Tissaphernês
-and Pharnabazus, and the transfer of the Peloponnesian fleet from
-the satrapy of the former to that of the latter. Tissaphernês, while
-furnishing neither aid nor pay to the Peloponnesians, had by his
-treacherous promises and bribes enervated all their proceedings
-for the last year, with the deliberate view of wasting both the
-belligerent parties. Pharnabazus was a brave and earnest man, who set
-himself to strengthen them strenuously, by men as well as by money,
-and who labored hard to put down the Athenian power; as we shall find
-him laboring equally hard, eighteen years afterwards, to bring about
-its partial renovation. From this time forward, Persian aid becomes
-a reality in the Grecian war; and in the main—first, through the
-hands of Pharnabazus, next, through those of the younger Cyrus—the
-determining reality. For we shall find that while the Peloponnesians
-are for the most part well paid, out of the Persian treasury, the
-Athenians, destitute of any such resource, are compelled to rely
-on the contributions which they can levy here and there, without
-established or accepted right; and to interrupt for this purpose even
-the most promising career of success. Twenty-six years after this,
-at a time when Sparta had lost her Persian allies, the Lacedæmonian
-Teleutias tried to appease the mutiny of his unpaid seamen, by
-telling them how much nobler it was to extort pay from the enemy by
-means of their own swords, than to obtain it by truckling to the
-foreigner;[154] and probably the Athenian generals, during these
-previous years of struggle, tried similar appeals to the generosity
-of their soldiers. But it is not the less certain, that the new
-constant paymaster now introduced, gave fearful odds to the Spartan
-cause.
-
-  [154] Xenoph. Hellen. v, 1, 17. Compare a like exclamation, under
-  nobler circumstances, from the Spartan Kallikratidas, Xenoph.
-  Hellen. i, 6, 7; Plutarch, Lysander, c. 6.
-
-The good pay and hearty coöperation which the Peloponnesians now
-enjoyed from Pharnabazus, only made them the more indignant at
-the previous deceit of Tissaphernês. Under the influence of this
-sentiment, they readily lent aid to the inhabitants of Antandrus in
-expelling his general Arsakes with the Persian garrison. Arsakes had
-recently committed an act of murderous perfidy, under the influence
-of some unexplained pique, against the Delians established at
-Adramyttium: he had summoned their principal citizens to take part as
-allies in an expedition, and had caused them all to be surrounded,
-shot down, and massacred during the morning meal. Such an act was
-more than sufficient to excite hatred and alarm among the neighboring
-Antandrians, who invited a body of Peloponnesian hoplites from
-Abydos, across the mountain range of Ida, by whose aid Antandrus was
-liberated from the Persians.[155]
-
-  [155] Thucyd. viii, 108; Diodor. xiii, 42.
-
-In Milêtus, as well as in Knidus, Tissaphernês had already
-experienced the like humiliation:[156] Lichas was no longer alive
-to back his pretensions: nor do we hear that he obtained any result
-from the complaints of his envoy Gaulites at Sparta. Under these
-circumstances, he began to fear that he had incurred a weight of
-enmity which might prove seriously mischievous, nor was he without
-jealousy of the popularity and possible success of Pharnabazus.
-The delusion respecting the Phenician fleet, now that Mindarus had
-openly broken with him and quitted Milêtus, was no longer available
-to any useful purpose. Accordingly, he dismissed the Phenician fleet
-to their own homes, pretending to have received tidings that the
-Phenician towns were endangered by sudden attacks from Arabia and
-Egypt;[157] while he himself quitted Aspendus to revisit Ionia, as
-well as to go forward to the Hellespont, for the purpose of renewing
-personal intercourse with the dissatisfied Peloponnesians. He wished,
-while trying again to excuse his own treachery about the Phenician
-fleet, at the same time to protest against their recent proceedings
-at Antandrus; or, at the least, to obtain some assurance against any
-repetition of such hostility. His visit to Ionia, however, seems to
-have occupied some time, and he tried to conciliate the Ionic Greeks
-by a splendid sacrifice to Artemis at Ephesus.[158] Having quitted
-Aspendus, as far as we can make out, about the beginning of August
-(411 B.C.), he did not reach the Hellespont until the month of
-November.[159]
-
-  [156] Thucyd. viii, 109.
-
-  [157] Diodor. xiii, 46. This is the statement of Diodorus, and
-  seems probable enough, though he makes a strange confusion
-  in the Persian affairs of this year, leaving out the name of
-  Tissaphernês, and jumbling the acts of Tissaphernês with the name
-  of Pharnabazus.
-
-  [158] Thucyd. viii, 109. It is at this point that we have to part
-  company with the historian Thucydidês, whose work not only closes
-  without reaching any definite epoch or limit, but even breaks
-  off, as we possess it, in the middle of a sentence.
-
-  The full extent of this irreparable loss can hardly be conceived,
-  except by those who have been called upon to study his work with
-  the profound and minute attention required from an historian of
-  Greece. To pass from Thucydidês to the Hellenica of Xenophon,
-  is a descent truly mournful; and yet, when we look at Grecian
-  history as a whole, we have great reason to rejoice that even
-  so inferior a work as the latter has reached us. The historical
-  purposes and conceptions of Thucydidês, as set forth by himself
-  in his preface, are exalted and philosophical to a degree
-  altogether wonderful, when we consider that he had no preëxisting
-  models before him from which to derive them; nor are the eight
-  books of his work, in spite of the unfinished condition of the
-  last, unworthy of these large promises, either in spirit or
-  in execution. Even the peculiarity, the condensation, and the
-  harshness, of his style, though it sometimes hides from us his
-  full meaning, has the general effect of lending great additional
-  force and of impressing his thoughts much more deeply upon every
-  attentive reader.
-
-  During the course of my two last volumes, I have had frequent
-  occasion to notice the criticisms of Dr. Arnold in his edition
-  of Thucydidês, most generally on points where I dissented from
-  him. I have done this, partly because I believe that Dr. Arnold’s
-  edition is in most frequent use among all English readers of
-  Thucydidês, partly because of the high esteem which I entertain
-  for the liberal spirit, the erudition, and the judgment, which
-  pervade his criticisms generally throughout the book. Dr. Arnold
-  deserves, especially, the high commendation, not often to be
-  bestowed even upon learned and exact commentators, of conceiving
-  and appreciating antiquity as a living whole, and not merely
-  as an aggregate of words and abstractions. His criticisms are
-  continually adopted by Göller in the second edition of his
-  Thucydidês, and to a great degree also by Poppo. Desiring, as I
-  do sincerely, that his edition may long maintain its preëminence
-  among English students of Thucydidês, I have thought it my
-  duty at the same time to indicate many of the points on which
-  his remarks either advance or imply views of Grecian history
-  different from my own.
-
-  [159] Xenoph. Hellen. i, 1, 9.
-
-As soon as the Phenician fleet had disappeared, Alkibiadês returned
-with his thirteen triremes from Phasêlis to Samos. He too, like
-Tissaphernês, made the proceeding subservient to deceit of his
-own: he took credit with his countrymen for having enlisted the
-good-will of the satrap more strongly than ever in the cause of
-Athens, and for having induced him to abandon his intention of
-bringing up the Phenician fleet.[160] At this time Dorieus was at
-Rhodes with thirteen triremes, having been despatched by Mindarus,
-before his departure from Milêtus, in order to stifle the growth
-of a philo-Athenian party in the island. Perhaps the presence of
-this force may have threatened the Athenian interest in Kos and
-Halikarnassus; for we now find Alkibiadês going to these places from
-Samos, with nine fresh triremes in addition to his own thirteen.
-He erected fortifications at the town of Kos, and planted in it an
-Athenian officer and garrison: from Halikarnassus he levied large
-contributions; upon what pretence, or whether from simple want of
-money, we do not know. It was towards the middle of September that he
-returned to Samos.[161]
-
-  [160] Thucyd. viii, 108. Diodorus (xiii, 38) talks of this
-  influence of Alkibiadês over the satrap as if it were real.
-  Plutarch (Alkibiad. c. 26) speaks in more qualified language.
-
-  [161] Thucyd. viii, 108. πρὸς τὸ μετόπωρον. Haack and Sievers
-  (see Sievers, Comment. ad Xenoph. Hellen. p. 103) construe this
-  as indicating the middle of August, which I think too early in
-  the year.
-
-At the Hellespont, Mindarus had been reinforced after the battle of
-Kynossêma by the squadron from Eubœa, at least by that portion of
-it which had escaped the storm off Mount Athos. The departure of
-the Peloponnesian fleet from Eubœa enabled the Athenians also to
-send a few more ships to their fleet at Sestos. Thus ranged on the
-opposite sides of the strait, the two fleets came to a second action,
-wherein the Peloponnesians, under Agesandridas, had the advantage;
-yet with little fruit. It was about the month of October, seemingly,
-that Dorieus with his fourteen triremes came from Rhodes to rejoin
-Mindarus at the Hellespont. He had hoped probably to get up the
-strait to Abydos during the night, but he was caught by daylight a
-little way from the entrance, near Rhœteium; and the Athenian scouts
-instantly gave signal of his approach. Twenty Athenian triremes were
-despatched to attack him: upon which Dorieus fled, and sought safety
-by hauling his vessel ashore in the receding bay near Dardanus. The
-Athenian squadron here attacked him, but were repulsed and forced
-to sail back to Madytus. Mindarus was himself a spectator of this
-scene, from a distance; being engaged in sacrificing to Athênê, on
-the venerated hill of Ilium. He immediately hastened to Abydos, where
-he fitted out his whole fleet of eighty-four triremes, Pharnabazus
-coöperating on the shore with his land-force. Having rescued the
-ships of Dorieus, his next care was to resist the entire Athenian
-fleet, which presently came to attack him under Thrasybulus and
-Thrasyllus. An obstinate naval combat took place between the two
-fleets, which lasted nearly the whole day with doubtful issue;
-at length, towards the evening, twenty fresh triremes were seen
-approaching. They proved to be the squadron of Alkibiadês sailing
-from Samos: having probably heard of the rejunction of the squadron
-of Dorieus with the main Peloponnesian fleet, he had come with his
-own counter-balancing reinforcement.[162] As soon as his purple flag
-or signal was ascertained, the Athenian fleet became animated with
-redoubled spirit. The new-comers aided them in pressing the action
-so vigorously, that the Peloponnesian fleet was driven back to
-Abydos, and there run ashore. Here the Athenians still followed up
-their success, and endeavored to tow them all off. But the Persian
-land-force protected them, and Pharnabazus himself was seen foremost
-in the combat; even pushing into the water in person, as far as his
-horse could stand. The main Peloponnesian fleet was thus preserved;
-yet the Athenians retired with an important victory, carrying
-off thirty triremes as prizes, and retaking those which they had
-themselves lost in the two preceding actions.[163]
-
-  [162] Diodorus (xiii, 46) and Plutarch (Alkib. c. 27) speak of
-  his coming to the Hellespont by accident, κατὰ τύχην, which is
-  certainly very improbable.
-
-  [163] Xenoph. Hellen. i, 1, 6, 7.
-
-Mindarus kept his defeated fleet unemployed at Abydos during the
-winter, sending to Peloponnesus as well as among his allies to
-solicit reinforcements: in the mean time, he engaged jointly with
-Pharnabazus in operations by land against various Athenian allies
-on the continent. The Athenian admirals, on their side, instead
-of keeping their fleet united to prosecute the victory, were
-compelled to disperse a large portion of it in flying squadrons,
-for collecting money, retaining only forty sail at Sestos; while
-Thrasyllus in person went to Athens to proclaim the victory and ask
-for reinforcements. Pursuant to this request, thirty triremes were
-sent out under Theramenês; who first endeavored without success to
-impede the construction of the bridge between Eubœa and Bœotia,
-and next sailed on a voyage among the islands for the purpose of
-collecting money. He acquired considerable plunder by descents
-upon hostile territory, and also extorted money from various
-parties, either contemplating or supposed to contemplate revolt,
-among the dependencies of Athens. At Paros, where the oligarchy
-established by Peisander in the conspiracy of the Four Hundred still
-subsisted, Theramenês deposed and fined the men who had exercised
-it, establishing a democracy in their room. From hence he passed to
-Macedonia, to the assistance and probably into the temporary pay of
-Archelaus, king of Macedonia, whom he aided for some time in the
-siege of Pydna; blocking up the town by sea while the Macedonians
-besieged it by land. The blockade having lasted the whole winter,
-Theramenês was summoned away before its capture, to join the main
-Athenian fleet in Thrace: Archelaus, however, took Pydna not long
-afterwards, and transported the town with its residents from the
-seaboard to a distance more than two miles inland.[164] We trace
-in all these proceedings the evidence of that terrible want of
-money which now drove the Athenians to injustice, extortion, and
-interference with their allies, such as they had never committed
-during the earlier years of the war.
-
-  [164] Diodor. xiii, 47-49.
-
-It is at this period that we find mention made of a fresh intestine
-commotion in Korkyra, less stained, however, with savage enormities
-than that recounted in the seventh year of the war. It appears that
-the oligarchical party in the island, which had been for the moment
-nearly destroyed at that period, had since gained strength, and was
-encouraged by the misfortunes of Athens to lay plans for putting the
-island into the hands of the Lacedæmonians. The democratical leaders,
-apprized of this conspiracy, sent to Naupaktus for the Athenian
-admiral Konon. He came, with a detachment of six hundred Messenians,
-by the aid of whom they seized the oligarchical conspirators in the
-market-place, putting a few to death, and banishing more than a
-thousand. The extent of their alarm is attested by the fact, that
-they liberated the slaves and conferred the right of citizenship upon
-the foreigners. The exiles, having retired to the opposite continent,
-came back shortly afterwards, and were admitted, by the connivance
-of a party within, into the market-place. A serious combat took
-place within the walls, which was at last made up by a compromise
-and by the restoration of the exiles.[165] We know nothing about the
-particulars of this compromise, but it seems to have been wisely
-drawn up and faithfully observed; for we hear nothing about Korkyra
-until about thirty-five years after this period, and the island is
-then presented to us as in the highest perfection of cultivation
-and prosperity.[166] Doubtless the emancipation of slaves and the
-admission of so many new foreigners to the citizenship, contributed
-to this result.
-
-  [165] Diodor. xiii, 48. Sievers (Commentat. ad Xenoph. Hellen.
-  p. 12; and p. 65, note 58) controverts the reality of these
-  tumults in Korkyra, here mentioned by Diodorus, but not mentioned
-  in the Hellenika of Xenophon, and contradicted, as he thinks,
-  by the negative inference derivable from Thucyd. iv, 48, ὅσα γε
-  κατὰ τὸν πόλεμον τόνδε. But it appears to me that F. W. Ullrich
-  (Beiträge zur Erklärung des Thukydides, pp. 95-99), has properly
-  explained this phrase of Thucydidês as meaning, in the place here
-  cited, the first ten years of the Peloponnesian war, between the
-  surprise of Platæa and the Peace of Nikias.
-
-  I see no reason to call in question the truth of these
-  disturbances in Korkyra, here alluded to by Diodorus.
-
-  [166] Xenoph. Hellen. vi, 2, 25.
-
-Meanwhile Tissaphernês, having completed his measures in Ionia,
-arrived at the Hellespont not long after the battle of Abydos,
-seemingly about November, 411 B.C. He was anxious to regain some
-credit with the Peloponnesians, for which an opportunity soon
-presented itself. Alkibiadês, then in command of the Athenian fleet
-at Sestos, came to visit him in all the pride of victory, bringing
-the customary presents; but the satrap seized his person and sent
-him away to Sardis as a prisoner in custody, affirming that he
-had the Great King’s express orders for carrying on war with the
-Athenians.[167] Here was an end of all the delusions of Alkibiadês,
-respecting pretended power of influencing the Persian counsels. Yet
-these delusions had already served his purpose by procuring for him a
-renewed position in the Athenian camp, which his own military energy
-enabled him to sustain and justify.
-
-  [167] Xenoph. Hellen. i, 1, 9; Plutarch, Alkibiadês, c. 27.
-
-Towards the middle of this winter the superiority of the fleet of
-Mindarus at Abydos, over the Athenian fleet at Sestos, had become so
-great,—partly, as it would appear, through reinforcements obtained by
-the former, partly through the dispersion of the latter into flying
-squadrons from want of pay,—that the Athenians no longer dared to
-maintain their position in the Hellespont. They sailed round the
-southern point of the Chersonese, and took station at Kardia, on
-the western side of the isthmus of that peninsula. Here, about the
-commencement of spring, they were rejoined by Alkibiadês; who had
-found means to escape from Sardis, along with Mantitheus, another
-Athenian prisoner, first to Klazomenæ, and next to Lesbos, where he
-collected a small squadron of five triremes. The dispersed squadrons
-of the Athenian fleet being now all summoned to concentrate,
-Theramenês came to Kardia from Macedonia, and Thrasybulus from
-Thasos; whereby the Athenian fleet was rendered superior in number
-to that of Mindarus. News was brought that the latter had moved with
-his fleet from the Hellespont to Kyzikus, and was now engaged in
-the siege of that place, jointly with Pharnabazus and the Persian
-land-force.
-
-His vigorous attacks had in fact already carried the place, when the
-Athenian admirals resolved to attack him there, and contrived to do
-it by surprise. Having passed first from Kardia to Elæûs at the south
-of the Chersonese, they sailed up the Hellespont to Prokonnesus by
-night, so that their passage escaped the notice of the Peloponnesian
-guardships at Abydos.[168]
-
-  [168] Diodor. xiii, 49. Diodorus specially notices this fact,
-  which must obviously be correct. Without it, the surprise of
-  Mindarus could not have been accomplished.
-
-Resting at Prokonnesus one night, and seizing every boat on the
-island, in order that their movements might be kept secret,
-Alkibiadês warned the assembled seamen that they must prepare for
-a sea-fight, a land-fight, and a wall-fight, all at once. “We have
-no money (said he), while our enemies have plenty from the Great
-King.” Neither zeal in the men nor contrivance in the commanders
-was wanting. A body of hoplites were landed on the mainland in the
-territory of Kyzikus, for the purpose of operating a diversion;
-after which the fleet was distributed into three divisions under
-Alkibiadês, Theramenês, and Thrasybulus. The former, advancing
-near to Kyzikus with his single division, challenged the fleet of
-Mindarus, and contrived to inveigle him by pretended flight to
-a distance from the harbor; while the other Athenian divisions,
-assisted by hazy and rainy weather, came up unexpectedly, cut off his
-retreat, and forced him to run his ships ashore on the neighboring
-mainland. After a gallant and hard-fought battle, partly on
-shipboard, partly ashore,—at one time unpromising to the Athenians,
-in spite of their superiority of number, but not very intelligible in
-its details, and differently conceived by our two authorities,—both
-the Peloponnesian fleet by sea and the forces of Pharnabazus on land
-were completely defeated. Mindarus himself was slain; and the entire
-fleet, every single trireme, was captured, except the triremes of
-Syracuse, which were burnt by their own crews; while Kyzikus itself
-surrendered to the Athenians, and submitted to a large contribution,
-being spared from all other harm. The booty taken by the victors was
-abundant and valuable. The numbers of the triremes thus captured or
-destroyed is differently given; the lowest estimate states it at
-sixty, the highest at eighty.[169]
-
-  [169] Xenoph. Hellen. i, 1, 14-20; Diodor. xiii, 50, 51.
-
-  The numerous discrepancies between Diodorus and Xenophon, in the
-  events of these few years, are collected by Sievers, Commentat.
-  in Xenoph. Hellen. note, 62, pp. 65, 66, _seq._
-
-This capital action, ably planned and bravely executed by Alkibiadês
-and his two colleagues, about April 410 B.C., changed sensibly the
-relative position of the belligerents. The Peloponnesians had now
-no fleet of importance in Asia, though they probably still retained
-a small squadron at the station of Milêtus; while the Athenian
-fleet was more powerful and menacing than ever. The dismay of the
-defeated army is forcibly portrayed in the laconic despatch sent by
-Hippokratês, secretary of the late admiral Mindarus, to the ephors
-at Sparta: “All honor and advantage are gone from us: Mindarus is
-slain: the men are starving: we are in straits what to do.[170]” The
-ephors doubtless heard the same deplorable tale from more than one
-witness; for this particular despatch never reached them, having
-been intercepted and carried to Athens. So discouraging was the view
-which they entertained of the future, that a Lacedæmonian embassy,
-with Endius at their head, came to Athens to propose peace; or rather
-perhaps Endius—ancient friend and guest of Alkibiadês, who had
-already been at Athens as envoy before—was allowed to come thither
-now again to sound the temper of the city, in a sort of informal
-manner, which admitted of being easily disavowed if nothing came
-of it. For it is remarkable that Xenophon makes no mention of this
-embassy: and his silence, though not sufficient to warrant us in
-questioning the reality of the event,—which is stated by Diodorus,
-perhaps on the authority of Theopompus, and is noway improbable in
-itself,—nevertheless, leads me to doubt whether the ephors themselves
-admitted that they had made or sanctioned the proposition. It is
-to be remembered that Sparta, not to mention her obligation to
-her confederates generally, was at this moment bound by special
-convention to Persia to conclude no separate peace with Athens.
-
-  [170] Xenoph. Hellen. i, 1, 23. Ἔῤῥει τὰ κᾶλα· Μίνδαρος ἀπεσσούα·
-  πεινῶντι τὤνδρες· ἀπορέομες τί χρὴ δρᾷν.
-
-  Plutarch, Alkib. c. 28.
-
-According to Diodorus, Endius, having been admitted to speak in the
-Athenian assembly, invited the Athenians to make peace with Sparta on
-the following terms: That each party should stand just as they were;
-that the garrisons on both sides should be withdrawn; that prisoners
-should be exchanged, one Lacedæmonian against one Athenian. Endius
-insisted in his speech on the mutual mischief which each was doing
-to the other by prolonging the war; but he contended that Athens was
-by far the greater sufferer of the two, and had the deepest interest
-in accelerating peace. She had no money, while Sparta had the Great
-King as a paymaster: she was robbed of the produce of Attica by the
-garrison of Dekeleia, while Peloponnesus was undisturbed: all her
-power and influence depended upon superiority at sea, which Sparta
-could dispense with, and yet retain her pre-eminence.[171]
-
-  [171] Diodor. xiii, 52.
-
-If we may believe Diodorus, all the most intelligent citizens in
-Athens recommended that this proposition should be accepted. Only
-the demagogues, the disturbers, those who were accustomed to blow up
-the flames of war in order to obtain profit for themselves, opposed
-it. Especially the demagogue Kleophon, now enjoying great influence,
-enlarged upon the splendor of the recent victory, and upon the new
-chances of success now opening to them: insomuch that the assembly
-ultimately rejected the proposition of Endius.[172]
-
-  [172] Diodor. xiii, 53.
-
-It was easy for those who wrote after the battle of Ægospotamos and
-the capture of Athens, to be wise after the fact, and to repeat the
-stock denunciations against an insane people, misled by a corrupt
-demagogue. But if, abstracting from our knowledge of the final close
-of the war, we look to the tenor of this proposition, even assuming
-it to have been formal and authorized, as well as the time at which
-it was made, we shall hesitate before we pronounce Kleophon to have
-been foolish, much less corrupt, for recommending its rejection.
-In reference to the charge of corrupt interest in the continuance
-of war, I have already made some remarks about Kleon, tending to
-show that no such interest can fairly be ascribed to demagogues of
-that character[173]. They were essentially unwarlike men, and had
-quite as much chance personally of losing, as of gaining, by a state
-of war. Especially this is true respecting Kleophon, during the
-last years of the war, since the financial posture of Athens was
-then so unprosperous, that all her available means were exhausted
-to provide for ships and men, leaving little or no surplus for
-political peculators. The admirals, who paid the seamen by raising
-contributions abroad, might possibly enrich themselves, if so
-inclined; but the politicians at home had much less chance of such
-gains than they would have had in time of peace. Besides even if
-Kleophon were ever so much a gainer by the continuance of war,
-yet, assuming Athens to be ultimately crushed in the war, he was
-certain beforehand to be deprived, not only of all his gains and his
-position, but of his life also.
-
-  [173] See the preceding vol. vi, ch. liv, p. 455.
-
-So much for the charge against him of corrupt interest. The question
-whether his advice was judicious, is not so easy to dispose of.
-Looking to the time when the proposition was made, we must recollect
-that the Peloponnesian fleet in Asia had been just annihilated,
-and that the brief epistle itself, from Hippokratês to the ephors,
-divulging in so emphatic a manner the distress of his troops, was
-at this moment before the Athenian assembly. On the other hand,
-the despatches of the Athenian generals, announcing their victory,
-had excited a sentiment of universal triumph, manifested by public
-thanksgiving, at Athens:[174] nor can we doubt that Alkibiadês and
-his colleagues promised a large career of coming success, perhaps the
-recovery of most part of the lost maritime empire. In this temper of
-the Athenian people and of their generals, justified as it was to a
-great degree by the reality, what is the proposition which comes from
-Endius? What he proposes, is, in reality, no concession at all. Both
-parties to stand in their actual position; to withdraw garrisons;
-to restore prisoners. There was only one way in which Athens would
-have been a gainer by accepting these propositions. She would have
-withdrawn her garrison from Pylos, she would have been relieved
-from the garrison of Dekeleia; such an exchange would have been a
-considerable advantage to her. To this we must add the relief arising
-from simple cessation of war, doubtless real and important.
-
-  [174] Diodor. xiii, 52.
-
-Now the question is, whether a statesman like Periklês would have
-advised his countrymen to be satisfied with such a measure of
-concession, immediately after the great victory of Kyzikus, and
-the two smaller victories preceding it? I incline to believe that
-he would not. It would rather have appeared to him in the light of
-a diplomatic artifice, calculated to paralyze Athens during the
-interval while her enemies were defenceless, and to gain time for
-them to build a new fleet.[175] Sparta could not pledge herself
-either for Persia, or for her Peloponnesian confederates; indeed,
-past experience had shown that she could not do so with effect. By
-accepting the propositions, therefore, Athens would not really have
-obtained relief from the entire burden of war; but would merely
-have blunted the ardor and tied up the hands of her own troops, at
-a moment when they felt themselves in the full current of success.
-By the armament, most certainly,—and by the generals, Alkibiadês,
-Theramenês, and Thrasybulus,—the acceptance of such terms at such a
-moment would have been regarded as a disgrace. It would have balked
-them of conquests ardently, and at that time not unreasonably,
-anticipated; conquests tending to restore Athens to that eminence
-from which she had been so recently deposed. And it would have
-inflicted this mortification, not merely without compensating gain
-to her in any other shape, but with a fair probability of imposing
-upon all her citizens the necessity of redoubled efforts at no very
-distant future, when the moment favorable to her enemies should have
-arrived.
-
-  [175] Philochorus (ap. Schol. ad Eurip. Orest. 371) appears
-  to have said that the Athenians rejected the proposition as
-  insincerely meant: Λακεδαιμονίων πρεσβευσαμένων περὶ εἰρήνης
-  ~ἀπιστήσαντες~ οἱ Ἀθηναῖοι οὐ προσήκαντο; compare also Schol. ad
-  Eurip. Orest. 772, Philochori Fragment.
-
-If, therefore, passing from the vague accusation that it was the
-demagogue Kleophon who stood between Athens and the conclusion of
-peace, we examine what were the specific terms of peace which he
-induced his countrymen to reject, we shall find that he had very
-strong reasons, not to say preponderant reasons, for his advice.
-Whether he made any use of this proposition, in itself inadmissible,
-to try and invite the conclusion of peace on more suitable and
-lasting terms, may well be doubted. Probably no such efforts would
-have succeeded, even if they had been made; yet a statesman like
-Periklês would have made the trial, in a conviction that Athens was
-carrying on the war at a disadvantage which must in the long run sink
-her. A mere opposition speaker, like Kleophon, even when taking what
-was probably a right measure of the actual proposition before him,
-did not look so far forward into the future.
-
-Meanwhile the Athenian fleet reigned alone in the Propontis and its
-two adjacent straits, the Bosphorus and the Hellespont; although the
-ardor and generosity of Pharnabazus not only supplied maintenance
-and clothing to the distressed seamen of the vanquished fleet, but
-also encouraged the construction of fresh ships in the room of those
-captured. While he armed the seamen, gave them pay for two months,
-and distributed them as guards along the coast of the satrapy, he at
-the same time granted an unlimited supply of ship-timber from the
-abundant forests of Mount Ida, and assisted the officers in putting
-new triremes on the stocks at Antandrus; near to which, at a place
-called Aspaneus, the Idæan wood was chiefly exported.[176]
-
-  [176] Xenoph. Hellen. i, 1, 24-26; Strabo, xiii, p. 606.
-
-Having made these arrangements, he proceeded to lend aid at
-Chalkêdon, which the Athenians had already begun to attack. Their
-first operation after the victory, had been to sail to Perinthus and
-Selymbria, both of which had before revolted from Athens: the former,
-intimidated by the recent events, admitted them and rejoined itself
-to Athens; the latter resisted such a requisition, but ransomed
-itself from attack for the present, by the payment of a pecuniary
-fine. Alkibiadês then conducted them to Chalkêdon, opposite to
-Byzantium on the southernmost Asiatic border of the Bosphorus. To be
-masters of these two straits, the Bosphorus and the Hellespont, was
-a point of first-rate moment to Athens; first, because it enabled
-her to secure the arrival of the corn ships from the Euxine, for her
-own consumption; next, because she had it in her power to impose a
-tithe or due upon all the trading ships passing through, not unlike
-the dues imposed by the Danes at the Sound, even down to the present
-time. For the opposite reasons, of course, the importance of the
-position was equally great to the enemies of Athens. Until the spring
-of the preceding year, Athens had been undisputed mistress of both
-the straits. But the revolt of Abydos in the Hellespont (about April,
-411 B.C.) and that of Byzantium with Chalkêdon in the Bosphorus
-(about June, 411 B.C.), had deprived her of this pre-eminence; and
-her supplies drained during the last few months could only have come
-through during those intervals when her fleets there stationed had
-the preponderance, so as to give them convoy. Accordingly, it is
-highly probable that her supplies of corn from the Euxine during the
-autumn of 411 B.C., had been comparatively restricted.
-
-Though Chalkêdon itself, assisted by Pharnabazus, still held out
-against Athens, Alkibiadês now took possession of Chrysopolis, its
-unfortified seaport, on the eastern coast of the Bosphorus opposite
-Byzantium. This place he fortified, established in it a squadron with
-a permanent garrison, and erected it into a regular tithing-port
-for levying toll on all vessels coming out of the Euxine.[177] The
-Athenians seem to have habitually levied this toll at Byzantium,
-until the revolt of that place, among their constant sources of
-revenue: it was now reëstablished under the auspices of Alkibiadês.
-In so far as it was levied on ships which brought their produce for
-sale and consumption at Athens, it was of course ultimately paid in
-the shape of increased price by Athenian citizens and metics. Thirty
-triremes under Theramenês, were left at Chrysopolis to enforce this
-levy, to convoy friendly merchantmen, and in other respects to serve
-as annoyance to the enemy.
-
-  [177] See Demosthen. de Coronâ, c. 71; and Xenoph. Hellen. i, 1,
-  22. καὶ δεκατευτήριον κατεσκεύασαν ἐν αὐτῇ (Χρυσοπόλει), καὶ ~τὴν
-  δεκάτην~ ἐξέλεγοντο τῶν ἐκ τοῦ Πόντου πλοίων: compare iv, 8, 27;
-  and v, 1, 28; also Diodor. xiii, 64.
-
-  The expression, τὴν δεκάτην, implies that this tithe was
-  something known and preëstablished.
-
-  Polybius (iv, 44) gives credit to Alkibiadês for having been the
-  first to suggest this method of gain to Athens. But there is
-  evidence that it was practised long before, even anterior to the
-  Athenian empire, during the times of Persian preponderance (see
-  Herodot. vi, 5).
-
-  See a striking passage, illustrating the importance to Athens
-  of the possession of Byzantium, in Lysias, Orat. xxviii, cont.
-  Ergokl. sect. 6.
-
-The remaining fleet went partly to the Hellespont, partly to
-Thrace, where the diminished maritime strength of the Lacedæmonians
-already told in respect to the adherence of the cities. At Thasus,
-especially,[178] the citizens, headed by Ekphantus, expelled the
-Lacedæmonian harmost Eteonikus with his garrison, and admitted
-Thrasybulus with an Athenian force. It will be recollected that
-this was one of the cities in which Peisander and the Four Hundred
-conspirators (early in 411 B.C.) had put down the democracy and
-established an oligarchical government, under pretence that the
-allied cities would be faithful to Athens as soon as she was relieved
-from her democratical institutions. All the calculations of these
-oligarchs had been disappointed, as Phrynichus had predicted from
-the first: the Thasians, as soon as their own oligarchical party
-had been placed in possession of the government, recalled their
-disaffected exiles,[179] under whose auspices a Laconian garrison and
-harmost had since been introduced. Eteonikus, now expelled, accused
-the Lacedæmonian admiral Pasippidas of being himself a party to the
-expulsion, under bribes from Tissaphernês; an accusation which seems
-improbable, but which the Lacedæmonians believed, and accordingly
-banished Pasippidas, sending Kratesippidas to replace him. The new
-admiral found at Chios a small fleet which Pasippidas had already
-begun to collect from the allies, to supply the recent losses.[180]
-
-  [178] Xenoph. Hellen. i, 1, 32; Demosthen. cont. Leptin. s. 48,
-  c. 14, p. 474.
-
-  [179] Thucyd. viii, 64.
-
-  [180] Xenoph. Hellen. i, 1, 32.
-
-The tone at Athens since the late naval victories, had become more
-hopeful and energetic. Agis, with his garrison at Dekeleia, though
-the Athenians could not hinder him from ravaging Attica, yet on
-approaching one day near to the city walls, was repelled with
-spirit and success by Thrasyllus. But that which most mortified the
-Lacedæmonian king, was to discern from his lofty station at Dekeleia,
-the abundant influx into the Peiræus of corn-ships from the Euxine,
-again renewed in the autumn of 410 B.C. since the occupation of the
-Bosphorus and Hellespont by Alkibiadês. For the safe reception of
-these vessels, Thorikus was soon after fortified. Agis exclaimed
-that it was fruitless to shut out the Athenians from the produce of
-Attica, so long as plenty of imported corn was allowed to reach them.
-Accordingly, he provided, in conjunction with the Megarians, a small
-squadron of fifteen triremes, with which he despatched Klearchus
-to Byzantium and Chalkêdon. That Spartan was a public guest of the
-Byzantines, and had already been singled out to command auxiliaries
-intended for that city. He seems to have begun his voyage during
-the ensuing winter (B.C. 410-409), and reached Byzantium in safety,
-though with the destruction of three of his squadron by the nine
-Athenian triremes who guarded the Hellespont.[181]
-
-  [181] Xenoph. Hellen. i, 1, 35-36. He says that the ships of
-  Klearchus, on being attacked by the Athenians in the Hellespont,
-  fled first to _Sestos_, and afterwards to Byzantium. But _Sestos_
-  was the _Athenian_ station. The name must surely be put by
-  inadvertence for _Abydos_, the Peloponnesian station.
-
-In the ensuing spring, Thrasyllus was despatched from Athens at
-the head of a large new force to act in Ionia. He commanded fifty
-triremes, one thousand of the regular hoplites, one hundred horsemen,
-and five thousand seamen, with the means of arming these latter as
-peltasts; also transports for his troops besides the triremes.[182]
-Having reposed his armament for three days at Samos, he made a
-descent at Pygela, and next succeeded in making himself master of
-Kolophon, with its port Notium. He next threatened Ephesus, but
-that place was defended by a powerful force which Tissaphernês had
-summoned, under proclamation “to go and succor the goddess Artemis;”
-as well as by twenty-five fresh Syracusan and two Selinusian
-triremes recently arrived.[183] From these enemies, Thrasyllus
-sustained a severe defeat near Ephesus, lost three hundred men, and
-was compelled to sail off to Notium; from whence, after burying
-his dead, he proceeded northward towards the Hellespont. On their
-way thither, while halting for a while at Methymna in the north of
-Lesbos, Thrasyllus saw the twenty-five Syracusan triremes passing
-by on their voyage from Ephesus to Abydos. He immediately attacked
-them, captured four along with the entire crews, and chased the
-remainder back to their station at Ephesus. All the prisoners taken
-were sent to Athens, where they were deposited for custody in the
-stone-quarries of Peiræus, doubtless in retaliation for the treatment
-of the Athenian prisoners at Syracuse; they contrived, however,
-during the ensuing winter, to break a way out and escape to Dekeleia.
-Among the prisoners taken, was found Alkibiadês, the Athenian, cousin
-and fellow-exile of the Athenian general of the same name, whom
-Thrasyllus caused to be set at liberty, while the others were sent to
-Athens.[184]
-
-  [182] Xenoph. Hellen. i, 1, 34; i, 2, 1. Diodorus (xiii, 64)
-  confounds Thrasybulus with Thrasyllus.
-
-  [183] Xenoph. Hellen. i, 2, 5-11. Xenophon distinguishes these
-  twenty-five Syracusan triremes into τῶν προτέρων εἴκοσι νεῶν,
-  and then αἱ ἕτεραι πέντε, αἱ νεωστὶ ἥκουσαι. But it appears to
-  me that the twenty triremes, as well as the five, must have come
-  to Asia since the battle of Kyzikus, though the five may have
-  been somewhat later in their period of arrival. All the Syracusan
-  ships in the fleet of Mindarus were destroyed; and it seems
-  impossible to imagine that that admiral can have left twenty
-  Syracusan ships at Ephesus or Milêtus in addition to those which
-  he took with him to the Hellespont.
-
-  [184] Xenoph. Hellen. i, 2, 8-15.
-
-After the delay caused by this pursuit, he brought back his armament
-to the Hellespont and joined the force of Alkibiadês at Sestos. Their
-joint force was conveyed over, seemingly about the commencement
-of autumn, to Lampsakus, on the Asiatic side of the strait; which
-place they fortified and made their head-quarters for the autumn and
-winter, maintaining themselves by predatory excursions, throughout
-the neighboring satrapy of Pharnabazus. It is curious to learn,
-however, that when Alkibiadês was proceeding to marshal them all
-together,—the hoplites, according to Athenian custom, taking rank
-according to their tribes,—his own soldiers, never yet beaten,
-refused to fraternize with those of Thrasyllus, who had been so
-recently worsted at Ephesus. Nor was this alienation removed until
-after a joint expedition against Abydos; Pharnabazus presenting
-himself with a considerable force, especially cavalry, to relieve
-that place, was encountered and defeated in a battle wherein all the
-Athenians present took part. The honor of the hoplites of Thrasyllus
-was now held to be reëstablished, so that the fusion of ranks was
-admitted without farther difficulty.[185] Even the entire army,
-however, was not able to accomplish the conquest of Abydos; which the
-Peloponnesians and Pharnabazus still maintained as their station on
-the Hellespont.
-
-  [185] Xenoph. Hellen. i, 2, 13-17; Plutarch, Alkibiad. c. 29.
-
-Meanwhile Athens had so stripped herself of force, by the large
-armament recently sent with Thrasyllus, that her enemies near home
-were encouraged to active operations. The Spartans despatched an
-expedition, both of triremes and of land-force, to attack Pylos,
-which had remained as an Athenian post and a refuge for revolted
-Helots ever since its first fortification by Demosthenês, in B.C.
-425. The place was vigorously attacked, both by sea and by land,
-and soon became much pressed. Not unmindful of its distress, the
-Athenians sent to its relief thirty triremes under Anytus, who,
-however, came back without even reaching the place, having been
-prevented by stormy weather or unfavorable winds from doubling Cape
-Malea. Pylos was soon afterwards obliged to surrender, the garrison
-departing on terms of capitulation.[186] But Anytus, on his return,
-encountered great displeasure from his countrymen, and was put on
-his trial for having betrayed, or for not having done his utmost to
-fulfil, the trust confided to him. It is said that he only saved
-himself from condemnation by bribing the dikastery, and that he was
-the first Athenian who ever obtained a verdict by corruption.[187]
-Whether he could really have reached Pylos, and whether the obstacles
-which baffled him were such as an energetic officer would have
-overcome, we have no means of determining; still less, whether it be
-true that he actually escaped by bribery. The story seems to prove,
-however, that the general Athenian public thought him deserving of
-condemnation, and were so much surprised by his acquittal, as to
-account for it by supposing, truly or falsely, the use of means never
-before attempted.
-
-  [186] Diodor. xiii, 64. The slighting way in which Xenophon
-  (Hellen. i, 2, 18) dismisses this capture of Pylos, as a mere
-  retreat of some runaway Helots from Malea, as well as his
-  employment of the name _Koryphasion_, and not of _Pylos_, prove
-  how much he wrote after Lacedæmionian informants.
-
-  [187] Diodor. xiii, 64; Plutarch, Coriolan. c. 14.
-
-  Aristotle, Ἀθηναίων πολιτεία, ap. Harpokration, v. Δεκάζων, and
-  in the Collection of Fragment. Aristotel. no. 72, ed. Didot
-  (Fragment. Historic. Græc. vol. ii, p. 127).
-
-It was about the same time, also, that the Megarians recovered by
-surprise their port of Nisæa, which had been held by an Athenian
-garrison since B.C. 424. The Athenians made an effort to recover it,
-but failed; though they defeated the Megarians in an action.[188]
-
-  [188] Diodor. xiii, 65.
-
-Thrasyllus, during the summer of B.C. 409, and even the joint force
-of Thrasyllus and Alkibiadês during the autumn of the same year, seem
-to have effected less than might have been expected from so large
-a force: indeed, it must have been at some period during this year
-that the Lacedæmonian Klearchus, with his fifteen Megarian ships,
-penetrated up the Hellespont to Byzantium, finding it guarded only
-by nine Athenian triremes.[189] But the operations of 408 B.C. were
-more important. The entire force under Alkibiadês and the other
-commanders was mustered for the siege of Chalkêdon and Byzantium.
-The Chalkêdonians, having notice of the project, deposited their
-movable property for safety in the hand of their neighbors the
-Bithynian Thracians; a remarkable evidence of the good feeling and
-confidence between the two, contrasting strongly with the perpetual
-hostility which subsisted on the other side of the Bosphorus between
-Byzantium and the Thracian tribes adjoining.[190] But the precaution
-was frustrated by Alkibiadês, who entered the territory of the
-Bithynians and compelled them by threats to deliver up the effects
-confided to them. He then proceeded to block up Chalkêdon by a wooden
-wall carried across from the Bosphorus to the Propontis; though the
-continuity of this wall was interrupted by a river, and seemingly by
-some rough ground on the immediate brink of the river. The blockading
-wall was already completed, when Pharnabazus appeared with an army
-for the relief of the place, and advanced as far as the Herakleion,
-or temple of Heraklês, belonging to the Chalkêdonians. Profiting by
-his approach, Hippokratês, the Lacedæmonian harmost in the town,
-made a vigorous sally: but the Athenians repelled all the efforts of
-Pharnabazus to force a passage through their lines and join him; so
-that, after an obstinate contest, the sallying force was driven back
-within the walls of the town, and Hippokratês himself killed.[191]
-
-  [189] Xenoph. Hellen. i, 1, 36.
-
-  [190] Polyb. iv, 44-45.
-
-  [191] Xenoph. Hellen. i, 3, 5-7; Diodor. xiii, 66.
-
-The blockade of the town was now made so sure, that Alkibiadês
-departed with a portion of the army to levy money and get together
-forces for the siege of Byzantium afterwards. During his absence,
-Theramenês and Thrasybulus came to terms with Pharnabazus for the
-capitulation of Chalkêdon. It was agreed that the town should again
-become a tributary dependency of Athens, on the same rate of tribute
-as before the revolt, and that the arrears during the subsequent
-period should be paid up. Moreover, Pharnabazus himself engaged
-to pay to the Athenians twenty talents on behalf of the town, and
-also to escort some Athenian envoys up to Susa, enabling them to
-submit propositions for accommodation to the Great King. Until those
-envoys should return, the Athenians covenanted to abstain from
-hostilities against the satrapy of Pharnabazus.[192] Oaths to this
-effect were mutually exchanged, after the return of Alkibiadês
-from his expedition. For Pharnabazus positively refused to complete
-the ratification with the other generals, until Alkibiadês should
-be there to ratify in person also; a proof at once of the great
-individual importance of the latter, and of his known facility in
-finding excuses to evade an agreement. Two envoys were accordingly
-sent by Pharnabazus to Chrysopolis, to receive the oaths of
-Alkibiadês, while two relatives of Alkibiadês came to Chalkêdon as
-witnesses to those of Pharnabazus. Over and above the common oath
-shared with his colleagues, Alkibiadês took a special covenant of
-personal friendship and hospitality with the satrap, and received
-from him the like.
-
-  [192] Xenoph. Hellen. i, 3, 9. Ὑποτελεῖν τὸν φόρον Καλχηδονίους
-  Ἀθηναίοις ὅσονπερ εἰώθεσαν, καὶ τὰ ὀφειλόμενα χρήματα ἀποδοῦναι·
-  Ἀθηναίους δὲ μὴ πολεμεῖν ~Καλχηδονίοις~, ἕως ἂν οἱ παρὰ βασιλέα
-  πρέσβεις ἔλθωσιν.
-
-  This passage strengthens the doubts which I threw out in a former
-  chapter, whether the Athenians ever did or could realize their
-  project of commuting the tribute, imposed upon the dependent
-  allies, for an _ad valorem_ duty of five per cent. on imports
-  and exports, which project is mentioned by Thucydidês (vii,
-  28) as having been resolved upon at least, if not carried out,
-  in the summer of 413 B.C. In the bargain here made with the
-  Chalkêdonians, it seems implied that the payment of tribute was
-  the last arrangement subsisting between Athens and Chalkêdon, at
-  the time of the revolt of the latter.
-
-  Next, I agree with the remark made by Schneider, in his note
-  upon the passage, Ἀθηναίους δὲ μὴ πολεμεῖν ~Καλχηδονίοις~. He
-  notices the tenor of the covenant as it stands in Plutarch, τὴν
-  Φαρναβάζου δὲ χώραν μὴ ἀδικεῖν (Alkib. c. 31), which is certainly
-  far more suitable to the circumstances. Instead of Καλχηδονίοις,
-  he proposes to read Φαρναβάζῳ. At any rate, this is the meaning.
-
-Alkibiadês had employed his period of absence in capturing Selymbria,
-from whence he obtained a sum of money, and in getting together a
-large body of Thracians, with whom he marched by land to Byzantium.
-That place was now besieged, immediately after the capitulation
-of Chalkêdon, by the united force of the Athenians. A wall of
-circumvallation was drawn around it, and various attacks were made
-by missiles and battering engines. These, however, the Lacedæmonian
-garrison, under the harmost Klearchus, aided by some Megarians under
-Helixus, and Bœotians under Kœratadas, was perfectly competent to
-repel. But the ravages of famine were not so easily dealt with. After
-the blockade had lasted some time, provisions began to fail; so
-that Klearchus, strict and harsh, even under ordinary circumstances,
-became inexorable and oppressive, from exclusive anxiety for the
-subsistence of his soldiers; and even locked up the stock of food
-while the population of the town were dying of hunger around him.
-Seeing that his only hope was from external relief, he sallied forth
-from the city to entreat aid from Pharnabazus; and to get together,
-if possible, a fleet for some aggressive operation that might divert
-the attention of the besiegers. He left the defence to Kœratadas
-and Helixus, in full confidence that the Byzantines were too much
-compromised by their revolt from Athens to venture to desert Sparta,
-whatever might be their suffering. But the favorable terms recently
-granted to Chalkêdon, coupled with the severe and increasing famine,
-induced Kydon and a Byzantine party to open the gates by night, and
-admit Alkibiadês with the Athenians into the wide interior square
-called the Thrakion. Helixus and Kœratadas, apprized of this attack
-only when the enemy had actually got possession of the town on all
-sides, vainly attempted resistance, and were compelled to surrender
-at discretion: they were sent as prisoners to Athens, where Kœratadas
-contrived to escape during the confusion of the landing at Peiræus.
-Favorable terms were granted to the town, which was replaced in its
-position of a dependent ally of Athens, and probably had to pay up
-its arrears of tribute in the same manner as Chalkêdon.[193]
-
-  [193] Xenoph. Hellen. i, 3, 15-22; Diodor. xiii, 67; Plutarch,
-  Alkib. c. 31.
-
-  The account given by Xenophon of the surrender of Byzantium,
-  which I have followed in the text, is perfectly plain and
-  probable. It does not consist with the complicated stratagem
-  described in Diodorus and Plutarch, as well as in Frontinus, iii,
-  xi, 3; alluded to also in Polyænus, i, 48, 2.
-
-So slow was the process of siege in ancient times, that the reduction
-of Chalkêdon and Byzantium occupied nearly the whole year; the latter
-place surrendering about the beginning of winter.[194] Both of them,
-however, were acquisitions of capital importance to Athens, making
-her again undisputed mistress of the Bosphorus, and insuring to her
-two valuable tributary allies. Nor was this all the improvement
-which the summer had operated in her position. The accommodation
-just concluded with Pharnabazus was also a step of great value,
-and still greater promise. It was plain that the satrap had grown
-weary of bearing all the brunt of the war for the benefit of the
-Peloponnesians, and that he was well disposed to assist the Athenians
-in coming to terms with the Great King. The mere withdrawal of his
-hearty support from Sparta, even if nothing else followed from it,
-was of immense moment to Athens; and thus much was really achieved.
-The envoys, five Athenians and two Argeians,—all, probably, sent for
-from Athens, which accounts for some delay,—were directed, after the
-siege of Chalkêdon, to meet Pharnabazus at Kyzikus. Some Lacedæmonian
-envoys, and even the Syracusan Hermokratês, who had been condemned
-and banished by sentence at home, took advantage of the same escort,
-and all proceeded on their journey upward to Susa. Their progress
-was arrested, during the extreme severity of the winter, at Gordium
-in Phrygia; and it was while pursuing their track into the interior
-at the opening of spring, that they met the young prince Cyrus, son
-of king Darius, coming down in person to govern an important part
-of Asia Minor. Some Lacedæmonian envoys, Bœotius and others, were
-travelling down along with him, after having fulfilled their mission
-at the Persian court.[195]
-
-  [194] Xenoph. Hellen. i, 4, 1.
-
-  [195] Xenoph. Hellen. i, 4, 2-3.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER LXIV.
-
-FROM THE ARRIVAL OF CYRUS THE YOUNGER IN ASIA MINOR, DOWN TO THE
-BATTLE OF ARGINUSÆ.
-
-
-The advent of Cyrus, commonly known as Cyrus the younger, into Asia
-Minor, was an event of the greatest importance, opening what may be
-called the last phase in the Peloponnesian war.
-
-He was the younger of the two sons of the Persian king Darius Nothus
-by the cruel queen Parysatis, and was now sent down by his father
-as satrap of Lydia, Phrygia the greater, and Kappadokia, as well
-as general of all that military division of which the muster-place
-was Kastôlus. His command did not at this time comprise the Greek
-cities on the coast, which were still left to Tissaphernês and
-Pharnabazus.[196] But he nevertheless brought down with him a
-strong interest in the Grecian war, and an intense anti-Athenian
-feeling, with full authority from his father to carry it out into
-act. Whatever this young man willed, he willed strongly; his bodily
-activity, rising superior to those temptations of sensual indulgence
-which often enervated the Persian grandees, provoked the admiration
-even of Spartans:[197] and his energetic character was combined with
-a certain measure of ability. Though he had not as yet conceived that
-deliberate plan for mounting the Persian throne which afterwards
-absorbed his whole mind, and was so near succeeding by the help of
-the Ten Thousand Greeks, yet he seems to have had from the beginning
-the sentiment and ambition of a king in prospect, not those of a
-satrap. He came down, well aware that Athens was the efficient
-enemy by whom the pride of the Persian kings had been humbled, the
-insular Greeks kept out of the sight of a Persian ship, and even the
-continental Greeks on the coast practically emancipated, for the last
-sixty years. He therefore brought down with him a strenuous desire
-to put down the Athenian power, very different from the treacherous
-balancing of Tissaphernês, and much more formidable even than the
-straightforward enmity of Pharnabazus, who had less money, less favor
-at court, and less of youthful ardor. Moreover, Pharnabazus, after
-having heartily espoused the cause of the Peloponnesians for the
-last three years, had now become weary of the allies whom he had so
-long kept in pay. Instead of expelling Athenian influence from his
-coasts with little difficulty, as he had expected to do, he found
-his satrapy plundered, his revenues impaired or absorbed, and an
-Athenian fleet all-powerful in the Propontis and Hellespont; while
-the Lacedæmonian fleet, which he had taken so much pains to invite,
-was destroyed. Decidedly sick of the Peloponnesian cause, he was even
-leaning towards Athens; and the envoys whom he was escorting to Susa
-might perhaps have laid the foundation of an altered Persian policy
-in Asia Minor, when the journey of Cyrus down to the coast overthrew
-all such calculations. The young prince brought with him a fresh,
-hearty, and youthful antipathy against Athens, a power inferior only
-to that of the Great King himself, and an energetic determination to
-use it without reserve in insuring victory to the Peloponnesians.
-
-  [196] The Anabasis of Xenophon (i, 1, 6-8; i, 9, 7-9) is better
-  authority, and speaks more exactly, than the Hellenica, i, 4, 3.
-
-  [197] See the anecdote of Cyrus and Lysander in Xenoph. Œconom.
-  iv, 21-23.
-
-From the moment that Pharnabazus and the Athenian envoys met Cyrus,
-their farther progress towards Susa became impossible. Bœotius, and
-the other Lacedæmonian envoys travelling along with the young prince,
-made extravagant boasts of having obtained all that they asked for at
-Susa; and Cyrus himself announced his powers as unlimited in extent
-over the whole coast, all for the purpose of prosecuting vigorous
-war in conjunction with the Lacedæmonians. Pharnabazus, on hearing
-this intelligence, and seeing the Great King’s seal to the words,
-“I send down Cyrus, as lord of all those who muster at Kastôlus,”
-not only refused to let the Athenian envoys proceed onward, but was
-even obliged to obey the orders of the young prince, who insisted
-that they should either be surrendered to him, or at least detained
-for some time in the interior, in order that no information might
-be conveyed to Athens. The satrap resisted the first of these
-requisitions, having pledged his word for their safety; but he obeyed
-the second, detaining them in Kappadokia for no less than three
-years, until Athens was prostrate and on the point of surrender,
-after which he obtained permission from Cyrus to send them back to
-the sea-coast.[198]
-
-  [198] Xenoph. Hellen. i, 4, 3-8. The words here employed
-  respecting the envoys, when returning after their three years’
-  detention, ὅθεν πρὸς τὸ ἄλλο στρατόπεδον ἀπέπλευσαν, appear to
-  me an inadvertence. The return of the envoys must have been in
-  the spring of 404 B.C., at a time when Athens had no camp: the
-  surrender of the city took place in April 404 B.C. Xenophon
-  incautiously speaks as if that state of things which existed when
-  the envoys departed, still continued at their return.
-
-This arrival of Cyrus, overruling the treachery of Tissaphernês as
-well as the weariness of Pharnabazus, and supplying the enemies of
-Athens with a double flow of Persian gold at a moment when the stream
-would otherwise have dried up, was a paramount item in that sum of
-causes which concurred to determine the result of the war.[199] But
-important as the event was in itself, it was rendered still more
-important by the character of the Lacedæmonian admiral Lysander, with
-whom the young prince first came into contact on reaching Sardis.
-
-  [199] The words of Thucydidês (ii, 65) imply this as his opinion,
-  Κύρῳ τε ὕστερον βασιλέως παιδὶ προσγενομένῳ, etc.
-
-Lysander had come out to supersede Kratesippidas, about December,
-408 B.C., or January, 407 B.C.[200] He was the last, after Brasidas
-and Gylippus, of that trio of eminent Spartans, from whom all the
-capital wounds of Athens proceeded, during the course of this long
-war. He was born of poor parents, and is even said to have been of
-that class called mothakes, being only enabled by the aid of richer
-men to keep up his contribution to the public mess, and his place
-in the constant drill and discipline. He was not only an excellent
-officer,[201] thoroughly competent to the duties of military
-command, but possessed also great talents for intrigue, and for
-organizing a political party as well as keeping up its disciplined
-movements. Though indifferent to the temptations either of money or
-of pleasure,[202] and willingly acquiescing in the poverty to which
-he was born, he was altogether unscrupulous in the prosecution of
-ambitious objects, either for his country or for himself. His family,
-poor as it was, enjoyed a dignified position at Sparta, belonging to
-the gens of the Herakleidæ, not connected by any near relationship
-with the kings: moreover, his personal reputation as a Spartan was
-excellent, since his observance of the rules of discipline had been
-rigorous and exemplary. The habits of self-constraint thus acquired,
-served him in good stead when it became necessary to his ambition to
-court the favor of the great. His recklessness about falsehood and
-perjury is illustrated by various current sayings ascribed to him;
-such as, that children were to be taken in by means of dice; men, by
-means of oaths.[203] A selfish ambition—for promoting the power of
-his country not merely in connection with, but in subservience to,
-his own—guided him from the beginning to the end of his career. In
-this main quality, he agreed with Alkibiadês; in reckless immorality
-of means, he went even beyond him. He seems to have been cruel; an
-attribute which formed no part of the usual character of Alkibiadês.
-On the other hand, the love of personal enjoyment, luxury, and
-ostentation, which counted for so much in Alkibiadês, was quite
-unknown to Lysander. The basis of his disposition was Spartan,
-tending to merge appetite, ostentation, and expansion of mind, all in
-the love of command and influence,—not Athenian, which tended to the
-development of many and diversified impulses; ambition being one, but
-only one, among the number.
-
-  [200] The commencement of Lysander’s navarchy, or year of
-  maritime command, appears to me established for this winter. He
-  had been some time actually in his command before Cyrus arrived
-  at Sardis: Οἱ δὲ Λακεδαιμόνιοι, ~πρότερον τούτων οὐ πολλῷ χρόνῳ~
-  Κρατησιππίδᾳ τῆς ναυαρχίας παρεληλυθυίας, Λύσανδρον ἐξέπεμψαν
-  ναύαρχον. Ὁ δὲ ἀφικόμενος εἰς Ῥόδον καὶ ναῦς ἐκεῖθεν λαβών, ἐς Κῶ
-  καὶ Μίλητον ἔπλευσεν· ἐκεῖθεν δὲ ἐς Ἔφεσον· καὶ ~ἐκεῖ ἔμεινε~,
-  ναῦς ἔχων ἑβδομήκοντα, ~μέχρις οὗ Κῦρος ἐς Σάρδεις ἀφίκετο~
-  (Xenoph. Hellen. i, 5, 1).
-
-  Mr. Fynes Clinton (Fast. H. ad ann. 407 B.C.) has, I presume,
-  been misled by the first words of this passage, πρότερον τούτων
-  οὐ πολλῷ χρόνῳ, when he says: “During the stay of Alcibiadês at
-  Athens, Lysander is sent as ναύαρχος, Xen. Hell. i, 5, 1. Then
-  followed the defeat of Antiochus, the deposition of Alcibiadês,
-  and the substitution of ἄλλους δέκα, between September 407 _and
-  September 406, when Callicratidas succeeded Lysander_.”
-
-  Now Alkibiadês came to Athens in the month of Thargelion, or
-  about the end of May, 407, and stayed there till the beginning
-  of September, 407. Cyrus arrived at Sardis before Alkibiadês
-  reached Athens, and Lysander had been some time at his post
-  before Cyrus arrived; so that Lysander was not sent out “during
-  the stay of Alcibiadês at Athens,” but some months before. Still
-  less is it correct to say that Kallikratidas succeeded Lysander
-  in September, 406. The battle of Arginusæ, wherein Kallikratidas
-  perished, was fought about August, 406, after he had been
-  admiral for several months. The words πρότερον τούτων, when
-  construed along with the context which succeeds, must evidently
-  be understood in a large sense; “_these events_,” mean the
-  general series of events which begins i, 4, 8; the proceedings of
-  Alkibiadês, from the beginning of the spring of 407.
-
-  [201] Ælian, V. H. xii, 43; Athenæus, vi, p. 271. The assertion
-  that Lysander belonged to the class of mothakes is given by
-  Athenæus as coming from Phylarchus, and I see no reason for
-  calling it in question. Ælian states the same thing respecting
-  Gylippus and Kallikratidas, also; I do not know on what authority.
-
-  [202] Theopompus, Fragm. 21, ed. Didot; Plutarch, Lysand. c. 30.
-
-  [203] Plutarch, Lysander, c. 8.
-
-Kratesippidas, the predecessor of Lysander, seems to have enjoyed
-the maritime command for more than the usual yearly period, having
-superseded Pasippidas during the middle of the year of the latter.
-But the maritime power of Sparta was then so weak, having not yet
-recovered from the ruinous defeat at Kyzikus, that he achieved little
-or nothing. We hear of him only as furthering, for his own profit,
-a political revolution at Chios. Bribed by a party of Chian exiles,
-he took possession of the acropolis, reinstated them in the island,
-and aided them in deposing and expelling the party then in office, to
-the number of six hundred. It is plain that this is not a question
-between democracy and oligarchy, but between two oligarchical
-parties, the one of which succeeded in purchasing the factious agency
-of the Spartan admiral. The exiles whom he expelled took possession
-of Atarneus, a strong post belonging to the Chians on the mainland
-opposite Lesbos. From hence they made war, as well as they could,
-upon their rivals now in possession of the island, and also upon
-other parts of Ionia; not without some success and profit, as will
-appear by their condition about ten years afterwards.[204]
-
-  [204] Diodor. xiii, 65; Xenoph. Hellen. iii, 2, 11. I presume
-  that this conduct of Kratesippidas is the fact glanced at by
-  Isokratês de Pace, sect. 128, p. 240, ed. Bekk.
-
-The practice of reconstituting the governments of the Asiatic cities,
-thus begun by Kratesippidas, was extended and brought to a system by
-Lysander; not indeed for private emolument, which he always despised,
-but in views of ambition. Having departed from Peloponnesus with
-a squadron, he reinforced it at Rhodes, and then sailed onward to
-Kos—an Athenian island, so that he could only have touched there—and
-Milêtus. He took up his final station at Ephesus, the nearest point
-to Sardis, where Cyrus was expected to arrive; and while awaiting his
-coming, augmented his fleet to the number of seventy triremes. As
-soon as Cyrus reached Sardis, about April or May 407 B.C., Lysander
-went to pay his court to him, along with some Lacedæmonian envoys,
-and found himself welcomed with every mark of favor. Preferring
-bitter complaints against the double-dealing of Tissaphernês,—whom
-they accused of having frustrated the king’s orders, and sacrificed
-the interests of the empire, under the seductions of Alkibiadês,—they
-intreated Cyrus to adopt a new policy, and execute the stipulations
-of the treaty, by lending the most vigorous aid to put down the
-common enemy. Cyrus replied, that these were the express orders which
-he had received from his father, and that he was prepared to fulfil
-them with all his might. He had brought with him, he said, five
-hundred talents, which should be at once devoted to the cause: if
-these were insufficient, he would resort to the private funds which
-his father had given him; and if more still were needed, he would
-coin into money the gold and silver throne on which he sat.[205]
-
-  [205] Xenoph. Hellen. i, 5, 3-4; Diodor. xiii, 70; Plutarch,
-  Lysander, c. 4. This seems to have been a favorite metaphor,
-  either used by, or at least ascribed to, the Persian grandees;
-  we have already had it, a little before, from the mouth of
-  Tissaphernês.
-
-Lysander and the envoys returned the warmest thanks for these
-magnificent promises, which were not likely to prove empty words from
-the lips of a vehement youth like Cyrus. So sanguine were the hopes
-which they conceived from his character and proclaimed sentiments,
-that they ventured to ask him to restore the rate of pay to one
-full Attic drachma per head for the seamen; which had been the rate
-promised by Tissaphernês through his envoys at Sparta, when he first
-invited the Lacedæmonians across the Ægean, and when it was doubtful
-whether they would come, but actually paid only for the first month,
-and then reduced to half a drachma, furnished in practice with
-miserable irregularity. As a motive for granting this increase of
-pay, Cyrus was assured that it would determine the Athenian seamen
-to desert so largely, that the war would sooner come to an end, and
-of course the expenditure also. But he refused compliance, saying
-that the rate of pay had been fixed both by the king’s express
-orders and by the terms of the treaty, so that he could not depart
-from it.[206] In this reply Lysander was forced to acquiesce. The
-envoys were treated with distinction, and feasted at a banquet;
-after which Cyrus, drinking to the health of Lysander, desired him
-to declare what favor he could do to gratify him most. “To grant an
-additional obolus per head for each seaman’s pay,” replied Lysander.
-Cyrus immediately complied, having personally bound himself by his
-manner of putting the question. But the answer impressed him both
-with astonishment and admiration; for he had expected that Lysander
-would ask some favor or present for himself, judging him not only
-according to the analogy of most Persians, but also of Astyochus
-and the officers of the Peloponnesian armament at Milêtus, whose
-corrupt subservience to Tissaphernês had probably been made known to
-him. From such corruption, as well as from the mean carelessness of
-Theramenês, the Spartan, respecting the condition of the seamen,[207]
-Lysander’s conduct stood out in pointed and honorable contrast.
-
-  [206] Xenoph. Hellen. i, 5, 5. εἶναι δὲ καὶ τὰς συνθήκας οὕτως
-  ἐχούσας, τριάκοντα μνᾶς ἑκάστῃ νηῒ τοῦ μηνὸς διδόναι, ὁπόσας ἂν
-  βούλοιντο τρέφειν Λακεδαιμόνιοι.
-
-  This is not strictly correct. The rate of pay is not specified
-  in either of the three conventions, as they stand in Thucyd.
-  viii, 18, 37, 58. It seems to have been, from the beginning,
-  matter of verbal understanding and promise; first, a drachma per
-  day was promised by the envoys of Tissaphernês at Sparta; next,
-  the satrap himself, at Milêtus, cut down this drachma to half a
-  drachma, and promised this lower rate for the future (viii, 29).
-
-  Mr. Mitford says: “Lysander proposed that an Attic drachma,
-  _which was eight oboli_, nearly tenpence sterling, should be
-  allowed for daily pay to every seaman.”
-
-  Mr. Mitford had in the previous sentence stated _three oboli_ as
-  equal to not quite _fourpence_ sterling. Of course, therefore, it
-  is plain that he did not consider three oboli as the half of a
-  drachma (Hist. Greece, ch. xx, sect. i. vol. iv, p. 317, oct. ed.
-  1814).
-
-  That a drachma was equivalent to _six_ oboli, that is, an Æginæan
-  drachma to six Æginæan oboli, and an Attic drachma to six Attic
-  oboli, is so familiarly known, that I should almost have imagined
-  the word _eight_, in the first sentence here cited, to be a
-  misprint for _six_, if the sentence cited next had not clearly
-  demonstrated that Mr. Mitford really believed a drachma to he
-  equal to _eight_ oboli. It is certainly a mistake surprising to
-  find.
-
-  [207] Thucyd. viii, 29.
-
-The incident here described not only procured for the seamen of the
-Peloponnesian fleet the daily pay of four oboli, instead of three,
-per man, but also insured to Lysander himself a degree of esteem and
-confidence from Cyrus which he knew well how to turn to account. I
-have already remarked,[208] in reference to Periklês and Nikias,
-that an established reputation for personal incorruptibility, rare
-as that quality was among Grecian leading politicians, was among the
-most precious items in the capital stock of an ambitious man, even if
-looked at only in regard to the durability of his own influence. If
-the proof of such disinterestedness was of so much value in the eyes
-of the Athenian people, yet more powerfully did it work upon the mind
-of Cyrus. With his Persian and princely ideas of winning adherents
-by munificence,[209] a man who despised presents was a phenomenon
-commanding the higher sentiment of wonder and respect. From this
-time forward he not only trusted Lysander with implicit pecuniary
-confidence, but consulted him as to the prosecution of the war, and
-even condescended to second his personal ambition to the detriment of
-this object.[210]
-
-  [208] See the former volume vi, ch. li, p. 287.
-
-  [209] See the remarkable character of Cyrus the younger, given in
-  the Anabasis of Xenophon, i, 9, 22-28.
-
-  [210] Xenoph. Hellen. ii, 1, 13; Plutarch, Lysand. c. 4-9.
-
-Returning from Sardis to Ephesus, after such unexampled success in
-his interview with Cyrus, Lysander was enabled not only to make good
-to his fleet the full arrear actually due, but also to pay them for
-a month in advance, at the increased rate of four oboli per man; and
-to promise that high rate for the future. A spirit of the highest
-satisfaction and confidence was diffused through the armament. But
-the ships were in indifferent condition, having been hastily and
-parsimoniously got up since the late defeat at Kyzikus. Accordingly,
-Lysander employed his present affluence in putting them into
-better order, procuring more complete tackle, and inviting picked
-crews.[211] He took another step pregnant with important results.
-Summoning to Ephesus a few of the most leading and active men from
-each of the Asiatic cities, he organized them into disciplined clubs,
-or factions, in correspondence with himself. He instigated these
-clubs to the most vigorous prosecution of the war against Athens,
-promising that, as soon as that war should be concluded, they should
-be invested and maintained by Spartan influence in the government of
-their respective cities.[212] His newly established influence with
-Cyrus, and the abundant supplies of which he was now master, added
-double force to an invitation in itself but too seducing. And thus,
-while infusing increased ardor into the joint warlike efforts of
-these cities, he at the same time procured for himself an ubiquitous
-correspondence, such as no successor could manage, rendering the
-continuance of his own command almost essential to success. The
-fruits of his factious manœuvres will be seen in the subsequent
-dekadarchies, or oligarchies of Ten, after the complete subjugation
-of Athens.
-
-  [211] Xenoph. Hellen. i, 5, 10.
-
-  [212] Diodor. xiii, 70; Plutarch, Lysand. c. 5.
-
-While Lysander and Cyrus were thus restoring formidable efficacy
-to their side of the contest, during the summer of 407 B.C., the
-victorious exile Alkibiadês had accomplished the important and
-delicate step of reëntering his native city for the first time.
-According to the accommodation with Pharnabazus, concluded after
-the reduction of Chalkêdon, the Athenian fleet was precluded from
-assailing his satrapy, and was thus forced to seek subsistence
-elsewhere. Byzantium and Selymbria, with contributions levied in
-Thrace, maintained them for the winter: in the spring (407 B.C.),
-Alkibiadês brought them again to Samos; from whence he undertook an
-expedition against the coast of Karia, levying contributions to the
-extent of one hundred talents. Thrasybulus, with thirty triremes,
-went to attack Thrace, where he reduced Thasos, Abdêra, and all those
-towns which had revolted from Athens; Thasos being now in especial
-distress from famine as well as from past seditions. A valuable
-contribution for the support of the fleet was doubtless among the
-fruits of this success. Thrasyllus at the same time conducted another
-division of the army home to Athens, intended by Alkibiadês as
-precursors of his own return.[213]
-
-  [213] Xenoph. Hellen. i, 4, 8-10; Diodor. xiii, 72. The
-  chronology of Xenophon, though not so clear as we could wish,
-  deserves unquestionable preference over that of Diodorus.
-
-Before Thrasyllus arrived, the people had already manifested their
-favorable disposition towards Alkibiadês by choosing him anew general
-of the armament, along with Thrasybulus and Konon. Alkibiadês was now
-tending homeward from Samos with twenty triremes, bringing with him
-all the contributions recently levied: he first stopped at Paros,
-then visited the coast of Laconia, and lastly looked into the harbor
-of Gytheion in Laconia, where he had learned that thirty triremes
-were preparing. The news which he received of his reëlection as
-general, strengthened by the pressing invitations and encouragements
-of his friends, as well as by the recall of his banished kinsmen
-at length determined him to sail to Athens. He reached Peiræus on
-a marked day, the festival of the Plyntêria, on the 25th of the
-month Thargêlion, about the end of May, 407 B.C. This was a day
-of melancholy solemnity, accounted unpropitious for any action of
-importance. The statue of the goddess Athênê was stripped of all its
-ornaments, covered up from every one’s gaze, and washed or cleansed
-under a mysterious ceremonial, by the holy gens, called Praxiergidæ.
-The goddess thus seemed to turn away her face, and refuse to
-behold the returning exile. Such at least was the construction
-of his enemies; and as the subsequent turn of events tended to
-bear them out, it has been preserved; while the more auspicious
-counter-interpretation, doubtless suggested by his friends, has been
-forgotten.
-
-The most extravagant representations, of the pomp and splendor of
-this return of Alkibiadês to Athens, were given by some authors
-of antiquity, especially by Duris of Samos, an author about two
-generations later. It was said that he brought with him two hundred
-prow-ornaments belonging to captive enemies’ ships, or, according
-to some, even the two hundred captured ships themselves; that his
-trireme was ornamented with gilt and silvered shields, and sailed
-by purple sails; that Kallippidês, one of the most distinguished
-actors of the day, performed the functions of keleustês, pronouncing
-the chant or word of command to the rowers; that Chrysogonus,
-a flute-player, who had gained the first prize at the Pythian
-games, was also on board playing the air of return.[214] All these
-details, invented with melancholy facility, to illustrate an ideal
-of ostentation and insolence, are refuted by the more simple and
-credible narrative of Xenophon. The reëntry of Alkibiadês was not
-merely unostentatious, but even mistrustful and apprehensive. He had
-with him only twenty triremes; and though encouraged, not merely
-by the assurances of his friends, but also by the news that he had
-just been reëlected general, he was, nevertheless, half afraid to
-disembark, even at the instant when he made fast his ship to the
-quay in Peiræus. A vast crowd had assembled there from the city
-and the port, animated by curiosity, interest, and other emotions
-of every kind, to see him arrive. But so little did he trust their
-sentiments that he hesitated at first to step on shore, and stood
-upon the deck looking about for his friends and kinsmen. Presently,
-he saw Euryptolemus his cousin, and others, by whom he was heartily
-welcomed, and in the midst of whom he landed. But they too were so
-apprehensive of his numerous enemies, that they formed themselves
-into a sort of body-guard, to surround and protect him against any
-possible assault during his march from Peiræus to Athens.[215]
-
-  [214] Diodor. xiii, 68; Plutarch, Alkib. c. 31; Athenæ. xii, p.
-  535.
-
-  [215] Xenoph. Hellen. i, 4, 18, 19. Ἀλκιβιάδης δὲ, πρὸς τὴν
-  γῆν ὁρμισθεὶς, ἀπέβαινε μὲν οὐκ εὐθέως, φοβούμενος τοὺς
-  ἐχθρούς· ἐπαναστὰς δὲ ἐπὶ τοῦ καταστρώματος, ἐσκόπει τοὺς
-  αὑτοῦ ἐπιτηδείους, εἰ παρείησαν. Κατιδὼν δὲ Εὐρυπτόλεμον τὸν
-  Πεισιάνακτος, ἑαυτοῦ δὲ ἀνεψιὸν, καὶ τοὺς ἄλλους οἰκείους καὶ
-  φίλους μετ᾽ αὐτῶν, τότε ἀποβὰς ἀναβαίνει ἐς τὴν πόλιν, μετὰ τῶν
-  παρεσκευασμένων, εἴ τις ἅπτοιτο, μὴ ἐπιτρέπειν.
-
-No protection, however, was required. Not merely did his enemies
-attempt no violence against him, but they said nothing in opposition
-when he made his defence before the senate and the public assembly.
-Protesting before the one as well as the other, his innocence of the
-impiety laid to his charge, he denounced bitterly the injustice of
-his enemies, and gently, but pathetically, deplored the unkindness
-of the people. His friends all spoke warmly in the same strain. So
-strenuous, and so pronounced, was the sentiment in his favor, both of
-the senate and of the public assembly, that no one dared to address
-them in the contrary sense.[216] The sentence of condemnation passed
-against him was cancelled: the Eumolpidæ were directed to revoke
-the curse which they had pronounced upon his head: the record of
-the sentence was destroyed, and the plate of lead upon which the
-curse was engraven, thrown into the sea: his confiscated property
-was restored: lastly, he was proclaimed general with full powers,
-and allowed to prepare an expedition of one hundred triremes,
-fifteen hundred hoplites from the regular muster-roll, and one
-hundred and fifty horsemen. All this passed, by unopposed vote,
-amidst silence on the part of enemies and acclamations from friends,
-amidst unmeasured promises of future achievement from himself, and
-confident assurances, impressed by his friends on willing hearers,
-that Alkibiadês was the only man competent to restore the empire and
-grandeur of Athens. The general expectation, which he and his friends
-took every possible pains to excite, was, that his victorious career
-of the last three years was a preparation for yet greater triumphs
-during the next.
-
-  [216] Xenoph. Hellen. i, 4, 20; Plutarch, Alkib. c. 33; Diodor.
-  xiii, 69.
-
-We may be satisfied, when we advert to the apprehensions of
-Alkibiadês on entering the Peiræus, and to the body-guard organized
-by his friends, that this overwhelming and uncontradicted triumph
-greatly surpassed the anticipations of both. It intoxicated him, and
-led him to make light of enemies whom only just before he had so much
-dreaded. This mistake, together with the carelessness and insolence
-arising out of what seemed to be an unbounded ascendency, proved
-the cause of his future ruin. But the truth is, that these enemies,
-however they might remain silent, had not ceased to be formidable.
-Alkibiadês had now been eight years in exile, from about August 415
-B.C. to May 407 B.C. Now absence was in many ways a good thing for
-his reputation, since his overbearing private demeanor had been
-kept out of sight, and his impieties partially forgotten. There was
-even a disposition among the majority to accept his own explicit
-denial of the fact laid to his charge, and to dwell chiefly upon the
-unworthy manœuvres of his enemies in resisting his demand for instant
-trial immediately after the accusation was broached, in order that
-they might calumniate him during his absence. He was characterized
-as a patriot animated by the noblest motives, who had brought both
-first-rate endowments and large private wealth to the service of the
-commonwealth, but had been ruined by a conspiracy of corrupt and
-worthless speakers, every way inferior to him; men, whose only chance
-of success with the people arose from expelling those who were better
-than themselves, while he, Alkibiadês, far from having any interest
-adverse to the democracy, was the natural and worthy favorite of a
-democratical people.[217] So far as the old causes of unpopularity
-were concerned, therefore, time and absence had done much to weaken
-their effect, and to assist his friends in countervailing them by
-pointing to the treacherous political manœuvres employed against him.
-
-  [217] Xenoph. Hellen. i, 4, 14-16.
-
-But if the old causes of unpopularity had thus, comparatively
-speaking, passed out of sight, others had since arisen, of a graver
-and more ineffaceable character. His vindictive hostility to his
-country had been not merely ostentatiously proclaimed, but actively
-manifested, by stabs but too effectively aimed at her vitals. The
-sending of Gylippus to Syracuse, the fortification of Dekeleia, the
-revolts of Chios and Milêtus, the first origination of the conspiracy
-of the Four Hundred, had all been emphatically the measures of
-Alkibiadês. Even for these, the enthusiasm of the moment attempted
-some excuse: it was affirmed that he had never ceased to love his
-country, in spite of her wrongs towards him, and that he had been
-compelled by the necessities of exile to serve men whom he detested,
-at the daily risk of his life.[218] But such pretences could not
-really impose upon any one. The treason of Alkibiadês during the
-period of his exile remained indefensible as well as undeniable, and
-would have been more than sufficient as a theme for his enemies,
-had their tongues been free. But his position was one altogether
-singular: having first inflicted on his country immense mischief,
-he had since rendered her valuable service, and promised to render
-still more. It is true, that the subsequent service was by no means
-adequate to the previous mischief: nor had it indeed been rendered
-exclusively by him, since the victories of Abydos and Kyzikus belong
-not less to Theramenês and Thrasybulus than to Alkibiadês:[219]
-moreover, the peculiar present or capital which he had promised
-to bring with him,—Persian alliance and pay to Athens,—had proved
-a complete delusion. Still, the Athenian arms had been eminently
-successful since his junction, and we may see that not merely common
-report, but even good judges, such as Thucydidês, ascribed this
-result to his superior energy and management.
-
-  [218] Xenoph. Hellen. i, 4, 15.
-
-  [219] This point is justly touched upon, more than once, by
-  Cornelius Nepos, Vit. Alcibiad. c. 6: “Quanquam Theramenês et
-  Thrasybulus eisdem rebus præfuerant.” And again, in the life
-  of Thrasybulus (c. 1). “Primum Peloponnesiaco bello multa hic
-  (Thrasybulus) sine Alcibiade gessit; ille nullam rem sine hoc.”
-
-Without touching upon these particulars, it is impossible fully to
-comprehend the very peculiar position of this returning exile before
-the Athenian people in the summer of 407 B.C. The more distant past
-exhibited him as among the worst of criminals; the recent past, as
-a valuable servant and patriot: the future promised continuance in
-this last character, so far as there were any positive indications to
-judge by. Now this was a case in which discussion and recrimination
-could not possibly answer any useful purpose. There was every
-reason for reappointing Alkibiadês to his command; but this could
-only be done under prohibition of censure on his past crimes, and
-provisional acceptance of his subsequent good deeds, as justifying
-the hope of yet better deeds to come. The popular instinct felt
-this situation perfectly, and imposed absolute silence on his
-enemies.[220] We are not to infer from hence that the people had
-forgotten the past deeds of Alkibiadês, or that they entertained
-for him nothing but unqualified confidence and admiration. In their
-present very justifiable sentiment of hopefulness, they determined
-that he should have full scope for prosecuting his new and better
-career, if he chose; and that his enemies should be precluded from
-reviving the mention of an irreparable past, so as to shut the
-door against him. But what was thus interdicted to men’s lips as
-unseasonable, was not effaced from their recollections; nor were the
-enemies, though silenced for the moment, rendered powerless for the
-future. All this train of combustible matter lay quiescent, ready
-to be fired by any future misconduct or negligence, perhaps even by
-blameless ill-success, on the part of Alkibiadês.
-
-  [220] Xenoph. Hellen. i, 4, 20. λεχθέντων δὲ καὶ ἄλλων τοιούτων,
-  καὶ ~οὐδενὸς ἀντειπόντος, διὰ τὸ μὴ ἀνασχέσθαι ἂν τὴν ἐκκλησίαν~,
-  etc.
-
-At a juncture when so much depended upon his future behavior, he
-showed, as we shall see presently, that he completely misinterpreted
-the temper of the people. Intoxicated by the unexpected triumph of
-his reception, according to that fatal susceptibility so common among
-distinguished Greeks, he forgot his own past history, and fancied
-that the people had forgotten and forgiven it also; construing
-their studied and well-advised silence into a proof of oblivion.
-He conceived himself in assured possession of public confidence,
-and looked upon his numerous enemies as if they no longer existed,
-because they were not allowed to speak at a most unseasonable hour.
-Without doubt, his exultation was shared by his friends, and this
-sense of false security proved his future ruin.
-
-Two colleagues, recommended by Alkibiadês himself, Adeimantus and
-Aristokratês, were named by the people as generals of the hoplites
-to go out with him, in case of operations ashore.[221] In less than
-three months, his armament was ready; but he designedly deferred his
-departure until that day of the month Boedromion, about the beginning
-of September, when the Eleusinian mysteries were celebrated, and when
-the solemn processional march of the crowd of communicants was wont
-to take place, along the Sacred Way from Athens to Eleusis. For seven
-successive years, ever since the establishment of Agis at Dekeleia,
-this march had been of necessity discontinued, and the procession had
-been transported by sea, to the omission of many of the ceremonial
-details. Alkibiadês, on this occasion, caused the land-march to be
-renewed, in full pomp and solemnity; assembling all his troops in
-arms to protect, in case any attack should be made from Dekeleia.
-No such attack was hazarded; so that he had the satisfaction of
-reviving the full regularity of this illustrious scene, and escorting
-the numerous communicants out and home, without the smallest
-interruption; an exploit gratifying to the religious feelings of the
-people, and imparting an acceptable sense of undiminished Athenian
-power; while in reference to his own reputation, it was especially
-politic, as serving to make his peace with the Eumolpidæ and the Two
-Goddesses, on whose account he had been condemned.[222]
-
-  [221] Xenoph. Hellen. i, 4, 21. Both Diodorus (xiii, 69) and
-  Cornelius Nepos (Vit. Alcib. c. 7) state Thrasybulus and
-  Adeimantus as his colleagues: both state also that his colleagues
-  were chosen on his recommendation. I follow Xenophon as to the
-  names, and also as to the fact, that they were named as κατὰ γῆν
-  στρατηγοί.
-
-  [222] Xenoph. Hellen. i, 4, 20; Plutarch, Alkib. c. 34. Neither
-  Diodorus nor Cornelius Nepos mentions this remarkable incident
-  about the escort of the Eleusinian procession.
-
-Immediately after the mysteries, he departed with his armament. It
-appears that Agis at Dekeleia, though he had not chosen to come out
-and attack Alkibiadês when posted to guard the Eleusinian procession,
-had nevertheless felt humiliated by the defiance offered to him. He
-shortly afterwards took advantage of the departure of this large
-force, to summon reinforcements from Peloponnesus and Bœotia, and
-attempt to surprise the walls of Athens on a dark night. If he
-expected any connivance within, the plot miscarried: alarm was given
-in time, and the eldest and youngest hoplites were found at their
-posts to defend the walls. The assailants—said to have amounted to
-twenty-eight thousand men, of whom half were hoplites, with twelve
-hundred cavalry, nine hundred of them Bœotians—were seen on the
-ensuing day close under the walls of the city, which were amply
-manned with the full remaining strength of Athens. In an obstinate
-cavalry battle which ensued, the Athenians gained the advantage
-even over the Bœotians. Agis encamped the next night in the garden
-of Akadêmus; again on the morrow he drew up his troops and offered
-battle to the Athenians, who are affirmed to have gone forth in order
-of battle, but to have kept under the protection of the missiles
-from the walls, so that Agis did not dare to attack them.[223] We
-may well doubt whether the Athenians went out at all, since they had
-been for years accustomed to regard themselves as inferior to the
-Peloponnesians in the field. Agis now withdrew, satisfied apparently
-with having offered battle, so as to efface the affront which he had
-received from the march of the Eleusinian communicants in defiance of
-his neighborhood.
-
-  [223] Diodor. xiii, 72, 73.
-
-The first exploit of Alkibiadês was to proceed to Andros, now
-under a Lacedæmonian harmost and garrison. Landing on the island,
-he plundered the fields, defeated both the native troops and the
-Lacedæmonians, and forced them to shut themselves up within the
-town; which he besieged for some days without avail, and then
-proceeded onward to Samos, leaving Konon in a fortified post, with
-twenty ships, to prosecute the siege.[224] At Samos, he first
-ascertained the state of the Peloponnesian fleet at Ephesus, the
-influence acquired by Lysander over Cyrus, the strong anti-Athenian
-dispositions of the young prince, and the ample rate of pay, put
-down even in advance, of which the Peloponnesian seamen were now
-in actual receipt. He now first became convinced of the failure
-of those hopes which he had conceived, not without good reason,
-in the preceding year,—and of which he had doubtless boasted at
-Athens,—that the alliance of Persia might be neutralized at least,
-if not won over, through the envoys escorted to Susa by Pharnabazus.
-It was in vain that he prevailed upon Tissaphernês to mediate with
-Cyrus, to introduce to him some Athenian envoys, and to inculcate
-upon him his own views of the true interests of Persia; that is,
-that the war should be fed and protracted so as to wear out both
-the Grecian belligerent parties, each by means of the other. Such a
-policy, uncongenial at all times to the vehement temper of Cyrus,
-had become yet more repugnant to him since his intercourse with
-Lysander. He would not consent even to see the envoys, nor was
-he probably displeased to put a slight upon a neighbor and rival
-satrap. Deep was the despondency among the Athenians at Samos, when
-painfully convinced that all hopes from Persia must be abandoned for
-themselves; and farther, that Persian pay was both more ample and
-better assured, to their enemies, than ever it had been before.[225]
-
-  [224] Xenoph. Hellen. i, 4, 22; i, 5, 18; Plutarch, Alkib. c. 35;
-  Diodor. xiii, 69. The latter says that Thrasybulus was left at
-  Andros, which cannot be true.
-
-  [225] Xenophon, Hellen. i, 5, 9; Plutarch, Lysand. c. 4. The
-  latter tells us that the Athenian ships were presently emptied by
-  the desertion of the seamen; a careless exaggeration.
-
-Lysander had at Ephesus a fleet of ninety triremes, which he
-employed himself in repairing and augmenting, being still inferior
-in number to the Athenians. In vain did Alkibiadês attempt to
-provoke him out to a general action. This was much to the interest
-of the Athenians, apart from their superiority of number, since they
-were badly provided with money, and obliged to levy contributions
-wherever they could: but Lysander was resolved not to fight unless
-he could do so with advantage, and Cyrus, not afraid of sustaining
-the protracted expense of the war, had even enjoined upon him this
-cautious policy, with additional hopes of a Phenician fleet to his
-aid, which in his mouth was not intended to delude, as it had been
-by Tissaphernês.[226] Unable to bring about a general battle, and
-having no immediate or capital enterprise to constrain his attention,
-Alkibiadês became careless, and abandoned himself partly to the love
-of pleasure, partly to reckless predatory enterprises for the purpose
-of getting money to pay his army. Thrasybulus had come from his post
-on the Hellespont, and was now engaged in fortifying Phokæa, probably
-for the purpose of establishing a post, to be enabled to pillage the
-interior. Here he was joined by Alkibiadês, who sailed across with
-a squadron, leaving his main fleet at Samos. He left it under the
-command of his favorite pilot Antiochus, but with express orders on
-no account to fight until his return.
-
-  [226] Plutarch, Lysand. c. 9. I venture to antedate the
-  statements which he there makes, as to the encouragements from
-  Cyrus to Lysander.
-
-While employed in this visit to Phokæa and Klazomenæ, Alkibiadês,
-perhaps hard-pressed for money, conceived the unwarrantable project
-of enriching his men by the plunder of the neighboring territory
-of Kymê, an allied dependency of Athens. Landing on this territory
-unexpectedly, after fabricating some frivolous calumnies against the
-Kymæans, he at first seized much property and a considerable number
-of prisoners. But the inhabitants assembled in arms, bravely defended
-their possessions, and repelled his men to their ships; recovering
-the plundered property, and lodging it in safety within their walls.
-Stung with this miscarriage, Alkibiadês sent for a reinforcement of
-hoplites from Mitylênê, and marched up to the walls of Kymê, where
-he in vain challenged the citizens to come forth and fight. He then
-ravaged the territory at pleasure: nor had the Kymæans any other
-resource, except to send envoys to Athens, to complain of so gross
-an outrage, inflicted by the Athenian general upon an unoffending
-Athenian dependency.[227]
-
-  [227] Diodor. xiii, 73. I follow Diodorus in respect to this
-  story about Kymê which he probably copied from the Kymæan
-  historian Ephorus. Cornelius Nepos (Alcib. c. 7) briefly glances
-  at it.
-
-  Xenophon (Hellen. i, 5, 11) as well as Plutarch (Lysand. c. 5)
-  mention the visit of Alkibiadês to Thrasybulus at Phokæa. They do
-  not name Kymê, however: according to them, the visit to Phokæa
-  has no assignable purpose or consequences. But the plunder of
-  Kymê is a circumstance both sufficiently probable in itself, and
-  suitable to the occasion.
-
-This was a grave charge, nor was it the only charge which Alkibiadês
-had to meet at Athens. During his absence at Phokæa and Kymê,
-Antiochus the pilot, whom he had left in command, disobeying the
-express order pronounced against fighting a battle, first sailed
-across from Samos to Notium, the harbor of Kolophon, and from thence
-to the mouth of the harbor of Ephesus, where the Peloponnesian fleet
-lay. Entering that harbor with his own ship and another, he passed
-close in front of the prows of the Peloponnesian triremes, insulting
-them scornfully and defying them to combat. Lysander detached some
-ships to pursue him, and an action gradually ensued, which was
-exactly that which Antiochus desired. But the Athenian ships were
-all in disorder, and came into battle as each of them separately
-could; while the Peloponnesian fleet was well marshalled and kept in
-hand; so that the battle was all to the advantage of the latter. The
-Athenians, compelled to take flight, were pursued to Notium, losing
-fifteen triremes, several along with their full crews. Antiochus
-himself was slain. Before retiring to Ephesus, Lysander had the
-satisfaction of erecting his trophy on the shore of Notium; while the
-Athenian fleet was carried back to its station at Samos.[228]
-
-  [228] Xenoph. Hellen. i, 5, 12-15: Diodor. xiii, 71: Plutarch,
-  Alkib. c. 35; Plutarch, Lysand. c. 5.
-
-It was in vain that Alkibiadês, hastening back to Samos, mustered the
-entire Athenian fleet, sailed to the mouth of the harbor of Ephesus,
-and there ranged his ships in battle order, challenging the enemy
-to come forth. Lysander would give him no opportunity of wiping out
-the late dishonor. And as an additional mortification to Athens, the
-Lacedæmonians shortly afterwards captured both Teos and Delphinium;
-the latter being a fortified post which the Athenians had held for
-the last three years in the island of Chios.[229]
-
-  [229] Xenoph. Hellen. i, 5, 15; Diodor. xiii, 76.
-
-  I copy Diodorus, in putting Teos, pursuant to Weiske’s note, in
-  place of Eion, which appears in Xenophon. I copy the latter,
-  however, in ascribing these captures to the year of Lysander,
-  instead of to the year of Kallikratidas.
-
-Even before the battle of Notium, it appears that complaints and
-dissatisfactions had been growing up in the armament against
-Alkibiadês. He had gone out with a splendid force, not inferior,
-in number of triremes and hoplites, to that which he had conducted
-against Sicily, and under large promises, both from himself and
-his friends, of achievements to come. Yet in a space of time which
-can hardly have been less than three months, not a single success
-had been accomplished; while on the other side there was to be
-reckoned the disappointment on the score of Persia, which had great
-effect on the temper of the armament, and which, though not his
-fault, was contrary to expectations which he had held out, the
-disgraceful plunder of Kymê, and the defeat at Notium. It was true
-that Alkibiadês had given peremptory orders to Antiochus not to
-fight, and that the battle had been hazarded in flagrant disobedience
-to his injunctions. But this circumstance only raised new matter
-for dissatisfaction of a graver character. If Antiochus had been
-disobedient,—if, besides disobedience, he had displayed a childish
-vanity and an utter neglect of all military precautions,—who was it
-that had chosen him for deputy; and that too against all Athenian
-precedent, putting the pilot, a paid officer of the ship, over the
-heads of the trierarchs who paid their pilots, and served at their
-own cost? It was Alkibiadês who placed Antiochus in this grave and
-responsible situation,—a personal favorite, an excellent convivial
-companion, but destitute of all qualities befitting a commander.
-And this turned attention on another point of the character of
-Alkibiadês, his habits of excessive self-indulgence and dissipation.
-The loud murmurs of the camp charged him with neglecting the
-interests of the service for enjoyments with jovial parties and
-Ionian women, and with admitting to his confidence those who best
-contributed to the amusement of these chosen hours.[230]
-
-  [230] Plutarch. Alkib. c. 36. He recounts, in the tenth chapter
-  of the same biography, an anecdote, describing the manner in
-  which Antiochus first won the favor of Alkibiadês, then a young
-  man, by catching a tame quail, which had escaped from his bosom.
-
-It was in the camp at Samos that this general indignation against
-Alkibiadês first arose, and was from thence transmitted formally to
-Athens, by the mouth of Thrasybulus son of Thrason,[231] not the
-eminent Thrasybulus, son of Lykus, who has been already often spoken
-of in this history, and will be so again. There came at the same time
-to Athens the complaints from Kymê, against the unprovoked aggression
-and plunder of that place by Alkibiadês; and seemingly complaints
-from other places besides.[232] It was even urged as accusation
-against him, that he was in guilty collusion to betray the fleet to
-Pharnabazus and the Lacedæmonians, and that he had already provided
-three strong forts in the Chersonese to retire to, as soon as this
-scheme should be ripe for execution.
-
-  [231] A person named _Thrason_ is mentioned in the Choiseul
-  Inscription (No. 147, pp. 221, 222, of the Corp. Inscr. of
-  Boeckh) as one of the Hellenotamiæ in the year 410 B.C. He is
-  described by his Deme as _Butades_; he is probably enough the
-  father of this Thrasybulus.
-
-  [232] Xenoph. Hellen. i, 5, 16-17. Ἀλκιβιάδης μὲν οὖν, πονηρῶς
-  καὶ ἐν τῇ στρατιᾷ φερόμενος, etc. Diodor. xiii, 73. ἐγένοντο δὲ
-  καὶ ἄλλαι πολλαὶ διαβολαὶ κατ᾽ αὐτοῦ, etc.
-
-  Plutarch Alkib. c. 36.
-
-  One of the remaining speeches of Lysias (Orat. xxi, Ἀπολογία
-  Δωροδοκίας) is delivered by the trierarch in this fleet, on board
-  of whose ship Alkibiadês himself chose to sail. This trierarch
-  complains of Alkibiadês as having been a most uncomfortable and
-  troublesome companion (sect. 7). His testimony on the point is
-  valuable; for there seems no disposition here to make out any
-  case against Alkibiadês. The trierarch notices the fact, that
-  Alkibiadês preferred _his_ trireme, simply as a proof that it
-  was the best equipped, or among the best equipped, of the whole
-  fleet. Archestratus and Erasinidês preferred it afterwards, for
-  the same reason.
-
-Such grave and wide-spread accusations, coupled with the disaster
-at Notium, and the complete disappointment of all the promises of
-success, were more than sufficient to alter the sentiments of the
-people of Athens towards Alkibiadês. He had no character to fall
-back upon; or rather, he had a character worse than none, such as to
-render the most criminal imputations of treason not intrinsically
-improbable. The comments of his enemies, which had been forcibly
-excluded from public discussion during his summer visit to Athens,
-were now again set free; and all the adverse recollections of his
-past life doubtless revived. The people had refused to listen to
-these, in order that he might have a fair trial, and might verify
-the title, claimed for him by his friends, to be judged only by his
-subsequent exploits, achieved since the year 411 B.C. He had now had
-his trial; he had been found wanting; and the popular confidence,
-which had been provisionally granted to him, was accordingly
-withdrawn.
-
-It is not just to represent the Athenian people, however Plutarch and
-Cornelius Nepos may set before us this picture, as having indulged an
-extravagant and unmeasured confidence in Alkibiadês in the month of
-July, demanding of him more than man could perform, and as afterwards
-in the month of December passing, with childish abruptness, from
-confidence into wrathful displeasure, because their own impossible
-expectations were not already realized. That the people entertained
-large expectations, from so very considerable an armament, cannot
-be doubted: the largest of all, probably, as in the instance of the
-Sicilian expedition, were those entertained by Alkibiadês himself,
-and promulgated by his friends. But we are not called upon to
-determine what the people would have done, had Alkibiadês, after
-performing all the duties of a faithful, skilful, and enterprising
-commander, nevertheless failed, from obstacles beyond his own
-control, in realizing their hopes and his own promises. No such case
-occurred: that which did occur was materially different. Besides
-the absence of grand successes, he had farther been negligent and
-reckless in his primary duties; he had exposed the Athenian arms to
-defeat, by his disgraceful selection of an unworthy lieutenant;[233]
-he had violated the territory and property of an allied dependency,
-at a moment when Athens had a paramount interest in cultivating by
-every means the attachment of her remaining allies. The truth is,
-as I have before remarked, that he had really been spoiled by the
-intoxicating reception given to him so unexpectedly in the city. He
-had mistaken a hopeful public, determined, even by forced silence as
-to the past, to give him the full benefit of a meritorious future,
-but requiring as condition from him, that that future should really
-be meritorious, for a public of assured admirers, whose favor he had
-already earned and might consider as his own. He became an altered
-man after that visit, like Miltiadês after the battle of Marathon;
-or, rather, the impulses of a character essentially dissolute and
-insolent, broke loose from that restraint under which they had
-before been partially controlled. At the time of the battle of
-Kyzikus, when Alkibiadês was laboring to regain the favor of his
-injured countrymen, and was yet uncertain whether he should succeed,
-he would not have committed the fault of quitting his fleet and
-leaving it under the command of a lieutenant like Antiochus. If,
-therefore, Athenian sentiment towards Alkibiadês underwent an entire
-change during the autumn of 407 B.C., this was in consequence of
-an alteration in _his_ character and behavior; an alteration for
-the worse, just at the crisis when everything turned upon his good
-conduct, and upon his deserving at least, if he could not command
-success.
-
-  [233] Xenoph. Hellen. i, 5, 16. Οἱ Ἀθηναῖοι, ὡς ἠγγέλθη ἡ
-  ναυμαχία, χαλεπῶς εἶχον τῷ Ἀλκιβιάδῃ, οἰόμενοι ~δι᾽ ἀμέλειάν τε
-  καὶ ἀκράτειαν~ ἀπολωλεκέναι τὰς ναῦς.
-
-  The expression which Thucydidês employs in reference to
-  Alkibiadês requires a few words of comment: (vi, 15) ~καὶ
-  δημοσίᾳ κράτιστα διαθέντα τὰ τοῦ πολέμου~, ἰδίᾳ ἕκαστοι τοῖς
-  ἐπιτηδεύμασιν αὐτοῦ ἀχθεσθέντες, καὶ ἄλλοις ἐπιτρέψαντες (the
-  Athenians), οὐ διὰ μακροῦ ἔσφηλαν τὴν πόλιν.
-
-  The “strenuous and effective prosecution of warlike business”
-  here ascribed to Alkibiadês, is true of all the period between
-  his exile and his last visit to Athens (about September B.C. 415
-  to September B.C. 407). During the first four years of that time,
-  he was very effective against Athens; during the last four, very
-  effective in her service.
-
-  But the assertion is certainly not true of his last command,
-  which ended with the battle of Notium; nor is it more than
-  partially true, at least, it is an exaggeration of the truth, for
-  the period before his exile.
-
-We may, indeed, observe that the faults of Nikias before Syracuse,
-and in reference to the coming of Gylippus, were far graver and more
-mischievous than those of Alkibiadês during this turning season of
-his career, and the disappointment of antecedent hopes at least
-equal. Yet while these faults and disappointment brought about
-the dismissal and disgrace of Alkibiadês, they did not induce the
-Athenians to dismiss Nikias, though himself desiring it, nor even
-prevent them from sending him a second armament to be ruined along
-with the first. The contrast is most instructive, as demonstrating
-upon what points durable esteem in Athens turned; how long the
-most melancholy public incompetency could remain overlooked, when
-covered by piety, decorum, good intentions, and high station;[234]
-how short-lived was the ascendency of a man far superior in ability
-and energy, besides an equal station, when his moral qualities
-and antecedent life were such as to provoke fear and hatred in
-many, esteem from none. Yet, on the whole, Nikias, looking at him
-as a public servant, was far more destructive to his country than
-Alkibiadês. The mischief done to Athens by the latter was done in the
-avowed service of her enemies.
-
-  [234] To meet the case of Nikias, it would be necessary to take
-  the converse of the judgment of Thucydidês respecting Alkibiadês,
-  cited in my last note, and to say: καὶ δημοσίᾳ ~κάκιστα~ διαθέντα
-  τὰ τοῦ πολέμου, ἰδίᾳ ἕκαστοι ~τὰ ἐπιτηδεύματα αὐτοῦ ἀγασθέντες~,
-  καὶ ~αυτῷ~ ἐπιτρέψαντες, οὐ διὰ μακροῦ ἔσφηλαν τὴν πόλιν.
-
-  The reader will of course understand that these last Greek words
-  are _not_ an actual citation, but a transformation of the actual
-  words of Thucydidês, for the purpose of illustrating the contrast
-  between Alkibiadês and Nikias.
-
-On hearing the news of the defeat of Notium and the accumulated
-complaints against Alkibiadês, the Athenians simply voted that he
-should be dismissed from his command; naming ten new generals to
-replace him. He was not brought to trial, nor do we know whether any
-such step was proposed. Yet his proceedings at Kymê, if they happened
-as we read them, richly deserved judicial animadversion; and the
-people, had they so dealt with him, would only have acted up to the
-estimable function ascribed to them by the oligarchical Phrynichus,
-“of serving as refuge to their dependent allies, and chastising
-the high-handed oppressions of the optimates against them.”[235]
-In the perilous position of Athens, however, with reference to the
-foreign war, such a political trial would have been productive of
-much dissension and mischief. And Alkibiadês avoided the question
-by not coming to Athens. As soon as he heard of his dismissal, he
-retired immediately from the army to his own fortified posts on the
-Chersonese.
-
-  [235] Thucyd. viii, 48. τὸν δὲ δῆμον, σφῶν τε, of the allied
-  dependencies, καταφυγὴν, καὶ ἐκείνων, _i.e._ of the high persons
-  called καλοκἀγαθοὶ, or optimates σωφρονιστήν.
-
-The ten new generals named were Konon, Diomedon, Leon, Periklês,
-Erasinidês, Aristokratês, Archestratus, Protomachus, Thrasyllus,
-Aristogenês. Of these, Konon was directed to proceed forthwith from
-Andros with the twenty ships which he had there, to receive the fleet
-from Alkibiadês; while Phanosthenês proceeded with four triremes to
-replace Konon at Andros.[236]
-
-  [236] Xenoph. Hellen. i, 5, 18; Diodor. xiii, 74.
-
-In his way thither, Phanosthenês fell in with Dorieus the Rhodian
-and two Thurian triremes, which he captured, with every man aboard.
-The captives were sent to Athens, where all were placed in custody,
-in case of future exchange, except Dorieus himself. The latter
-had been condemned to death, and banished from his native city of
-Rhodes, together with his kindred, probably on the score of political
-disaffection, at the time when Rhodes was a member of the Athenian
-alliance. Having since then become a citizen of Thurii, he had
-served with distinction in the fleet of Mindarus, both at Milêtus
-and the Hellespont. The Athenians now had so much compassion upon
-him that they released him at once and unconditionally, without even
-demanding a ransom or an equivalent. By what particular circumstance
-their compassion was determined, forming a pleasing exception
-to the melancholy habits which pervaded Grecian warfare in both
-belligerents, we should never have learned from the meagre narrative
-of Xenophon. But we ascertain from other sources, that Dorieus,
-the son of Diagoras of Rhodes, was illustrious beyond all other
-Greeks for his victories in the pankration at the Olympic, Isthmian,
-and Nemean festivals; that he had gained the first prize at three
-Olympic festivals in succession, of which Olympiad 88, or 428 B.C.
-was the second, a distinction altogether without precedent, besides
-eight Isthmian and seven Nemean prizes; that his father Diagoras,
-his brothers, and his cousins, were all celebrated as successful
-athletes; lastly, that the family were illustrious from old date
-in their native island of Rhodes, and were even descended from the
-Messenian hero Aristomenês. When the Athenians saw before them as
-their prisoner a man doubtless of magnificent stature and presence,
-as we may conclude from his athletic success, and surrounded by
-such a halo of glory, impressive in the highest degree to Grecian
-imagination, the feelings and usages of war were at once overruled.
-Though Dorieus had been one of their most vehement enemies, they
-could not bear either to touch his person, or to exact from him any
-condition. Released by them on this occasion, he lived to be put to
-death, about thirteen years afterwards, by the Lacedæmonians.[237]
-
-  [237] Xenoph. Hellen. i, 5, 19; Pausan. vi, 7, 2.
-
-When Konon reached Samos to take the command, he found the armament
-in a state of great despondency; not merely from the dishonorable
-affair of Notium, but also from disappointed hopes connected with
-Alkibiadês, and from difficulties in procuring regular pay. So
-painfully was the last inconvenience felt, that the first measure
-of Konon was to contract the numbers of the armament from above one
-hundred triremes to seventy; and to reserve for the diminished fleet
-all the ablest seamen of the larger. With this fleet, he and his
-colleagues roved about the enemies’ coasts to collect plunder and
-pay.[238]
-
-  [238] Xenoph. Hellen. i, 5, 20; compare i, 6, 16; Diodor. xiii,
-  77.
-
-Apparently about the same time that Konon superseded Alkibiadês,
-that is, about December 407 B.C. or January 406 B.C., the year
-of Lysander’s command expired, and Kallikratidas arrived from
-Sparta to replace him. His arrival was received with undisguised
-dissatisfaction by the leading Lacedæmonians in the armament, by
-the chiefs in the Asiatic cities, and by Cyrus. Now was felt the
-full influence of those factious correspondences and intrigues which
-Lysander had established with all of them, for indirectly working out
-the perpetuity of his own command. While loud complaints were heard
-of the impolicy of Sparta, in annually changing her admiral, both
-Cyrus and the rest concurred with Lysander in throwing difficulties
-in the way of the new successor.
-
-Kallikratidas, unfortunately only shown by the Fates,[239] and
-not suffered to continue in the Grecian world, was one of the
-noblest characters of his age. Besides perfect courage, energy, and
-incorruptibility, he was distinguished for two qualities, both of
-them very rare among eminent Greeks; entire straightforwardness of
-dealing, and a Pan-Hellenic patriotism alike comprehensive, exalted,
-and merciful. Lysander handed over to him nothing but an empty purse;
-having repaid to Cyrus all the money remaining in his possession,
-under pretence that it had been confided to himself personally.[240]
-Moreover, on delivering up the fleet to Kallikratidas at Ephesus,
-he made boast of delivering to him at the same time the mastery of
-the sea, through the victory recently gained at Notium. “Conduct the
-fleet from Ephesus along the coast of Samos, passing by the Athenian
-station (replied Kallikratidas), and give it up to me at Milêtus: I
-shall then believe in your mastery of the sea.” Lysander had nothing
-else to say, except that he should give himself no farther trouble,
-now that his command had been transferred to another.
-
-  [239] Virgil, Æneid, vi, 870.
-
-      Ostendent terris hunc tantum fata, neque ultra
-      Esse sinent.
-
-  [240] How completely this repayment was a manœuvre for the
-  purpose of crippling his successor,—and not an act of genuine
-  and conscientious obligation to Cyrus, as Mr. Mitford represents
-  it,—we may see by the conduct of Lysander at the close of the
-  war. He then carried away with him to Sparta all the residue of
-  the tributes from Cyrus which he had in his possession, instead
-  of giving them back to Cyrus (Xenoph. Hellen. ii, 3, 8). This
-  obligation to give them back to Cyrus was greater at the end of
-  the war than it was at the time when Kallikratidas came out, and
-  when war was still going on; for the war was a joint business,
-  which the Persians and the Spartans had sworn to prosecute by
-  common efforts.
-
-Kallikratidas soon found that the leading Lacedæmonians in the fleet,
-gained over to the interests of his predecessor, openly murmured at
-his arrival, and secretly obstructed all his measures; upon which he
-summoned them together, and said: “I, for my part, am quite content
-to remain at home; and if Lysander, or any one else, pretends to be
-a better admiral than I am, I have nothing to say against it. But
-sent here as I am by the authorities at Sparta to command the fleet,
-I have no choice except to execute their orders in the best way
-that I can. You now know how far my ambition reaches;[241] you know
-also the murmurs which are abroad against our common city (for her
-frequent change of admirals). Look to it, and give me your opinion.
-Shall I stay where I am, or shall I go home, and communicate what has
-happened here?”
-
-  [241] Xenoph. Hellen. i, 6, 5. ὑμεῖς δὲ, πρὸς ἃ ἐγώ τε
-  φιλοτιμοῦμαι, καὶ ἡ πόλις ἡμῶν αἰτιάζεται (ἴστε γὰρ αὐτὰ, ὥσπερ
-  καὶ ἐγὼ), ξυμβουλεύετε, etc.
-
-This remonstrance, alike pointed and dignified, produced its
-full effect. Every one replied, that it was his duty to stay and
-undertake the command. The murmurs and cabals were from that moment
-discontinued.
-
-His next embarrassments arose from the manœuvre of Lysander in paying
-back to Cyrus all the funds from whence the continuous pay of the
-army was derived. Of course this step was admirably calculated to
-make every one regret the alteration of command. Kallikratidas, who
-had been sent out without funds, in full reliance on the unexhausted
-supply from Sardis, now found himself compelled to go thither in
-person and solicit a renewal of the bounty. But Cyrus, eager to
-manifest in every way his partiality for the last admiral, deferred
-receiving him, first for two days, then for a farther interval, until
-the patience of Kallikratidas was wearied out, so that he left Sardis
-in disgust without an interview. So intolerable to his feelings
-was the humiliation of thus begging at the palace gates, that he
-bitterly deplored those miserable dissensions among the Greeks which
-constrained both parties to truckle to the foreigner for money;
-swearing that, if he survived the year’s campaign, he would use
-every possible effort to bring about an accommodation between Athens
-and Sparta.[242]
-
-  [242] Xenoph. Hellen. i, 6, 7; Plutarch, Lysand. c. 6.
-
-In the mean time, he put forth all his energy to obtain money in some
-other way, and thus get the fleet to sea; knowing well, that the way
-to overcome the reluctance of Cyrus was, to show that he could do
-without him. Sailing first from Ephesus to Milêtus, he despatched
-from thence a small squadron to Sparta, disclosing his unexpected
-poverty, and asking for speedy pecuniary aid. In the mean time he
-convoked an assembly of the Milesians, communicated to them the
-mission just sent to Sparta, and asked from them a temporary supply
-until this money should arrive. He reminded them that the necessity
-of this demand sprang altogether from the manœuvre of Lysander, in
-paying back the funds in his hands; that he had already in vain
-applied to Cyrus for farther money, meeting only with such insulting
-neglect as could no longer be endured: that they, the Milesians,
-dwelling amidst the Persians, and having already experienced the
-maximum of ill-usage at their hands, ought now to be foremost in
-the war, and to set an example of zeal to the other allies,[243] in
-order to get clear the sooner from dependence upon such imperious
-taskmasters. He promised that, when the remittance from Sparta and
-the hour of success should arrive, he would richly requite their
-forwardness. “Let us, with the aid of the gods, show these foreigners
-(he concluded) that we can punish our enemies without worshipping
-them.”
-
-  [243] Xenoph. Hellen. i, 6, 9. ὑμᾶς δὲ ἐγὼ ἀξιῶ προθυμοτάτους
-  εἶναι ἐς τὸν πόλεμον, διὰ τὸ οἰκοῦντας ἐν βαρβάροις πλεῖστα κακὰ
-  ἤδη ὑπ᾽ αὐτῶν πεπονθέναι.
-
-The spectacle of this generous patriot, struggling against a
-degrading dependence on the foreigner, which was now becoming
-unhappily familiar to the leading Greeks of both sides, excites
-our warm sympathy and admiration. We may add, that his language to
-the Milesians, reminding them of the misery which they had endured
-from the Persians as a motive to exertion in the war, is full of
-instruction as to the new situation opened for the Asiatic Greeks
-since the breaking-up of the Athenian power. No such evils had they
-suffered while Athens was competent to protect them, and while they
-were willing to receive protection from her, during the interval
-of more than fifty years between the complete organization of the
-confederacy of Delos and the disaster of Nikias before Syracuse.
-
-The single-hearted energy of Kallikratidas imposed upon all who heard
-him, and even inspired so much alarm to those leading Milesians who
-were playing underhand the game of Lysander, that they were the first
-to propose a large grant of money towards the war, and to offer
-considerable sums from their own purses; an example probably soon
-followed by other allied cities. Some of the friends of Lysander
-tried to couple their offers with conditions; demanding a warrant
-for the destruction of their political enemies, and hoping thus to
-compromise the new admiral. But he strenuously refused all such
-guilty compliances.[244] He was soon able to collect at Milêtus
-fifty fresh triremes in addition to those left by Lysander, making
-a fleet of one hundred and forty sail in all. The Chians having
-furnished him with an outfit of five drachmas for each seaman, equal
-to ten days’ pay at the usual rate, he sailed with the whole fleet
-northward towards Lesbos. Of this numerous fleet, the greatest which
-had yet been assembled throughout the war, only ten triremes were
-Lacedæmonian;[245] while a considerable proportion, and among the
-best equipped, were Bœotian and Eubœan.[246] In his voyage towards
-Lesbos, Kallikratidas seems to have made himself master of Phokæa
-and Kymê,[247] perhaps with the greater facility in consequence
-of the recent ill-treatment of the Kymæans by Alkibiadês. He then
-sailed to attack Methymna, on the northern coast of Lesbos; a town
-not only strongly attached to the Athenians, but also defended by an
-Athenian garrison. Though at first repulsed, he renewed his attacks
-until at length he took the town by storm. The property in it was
-all plundered by the soldiers, and the slaves collected and sold for
-their benefit. It was farther demanded by the allies, and expected
-pursuant to ordinary custom, that the Methymnæan and Athenian
-prisoners should be sold also. But Kallikratidas peremptorily refused
-compliance, and set them all free the next day; declaring that, so
-long as he was in command, not a single free Greek should be reduced
-to slavery if he could prevent it.[248]
-
-  [244] Plutarch, Apophthegm. Laconic. p. 222, C, Xenoph. Hellen.
-  i, 6, 12.
-
-  [245] Xenoph. Hellen. i, 6, 34.
-
-  [246] Diodor. xiii, 99.
-
-  [247] I infer this from the fact, that at the period of the
-  battle of Arginusæ, both these towns appear as adhering to the
-  Peloponnesians; whereas during the command of Alkibiadês they had
-  been both Athenian (Xenoph. Hellen. i, 5, 11; i, 6, 33; Diodor.
-  xiii, 73-99).
-
-  [248] Xenoph. Hellen. i, 6, 14. Καὶ κελευόντων τῶν ξυμμάχων
-  ἀποδόσθαι καὶ τοὺς Μηθυμναίους, οὐκ ἔφη ἑαυτοῦ γε ἄρχοντος οὐδένα
-  Ἑλλήνων ἐς τοὐκείνου δυνατὸν ἀνδραποδισθῆναι.
-
-  Compare a later declaration of Agesilaus, substantially to
-  the same purpose, yet delivered under circumstances far less
-  emphatic, in Xenophon, Agesilaus, vii, 6.
-
-No one, who has not familiarized himself with the details of Grecian
-warfare, can feel the full grandeur and sublimity of this proceeding,
-which stands, so far as I know, unparalleled in Grecian history. It
-is not merely that the prisoners were spared and set free; as to this
-point, analogous cases may be found, though not very frequent. It is,
-that this particular act of generosity was performed in the name and
-for the recommendation of Pan-Hellenic brotherhood and Pan-Hellenic
-independence of the foreigner: a comprehensive principle, announced
-by Kallikratidas on previous occasions as well as on this, but now
-carried into practice under emphatic circumstances, and coupled with
-an explicit declaration of his resolution to abide by it in all
-future cases. It is, lastly, that the step was taken in resistance
-to formal requisition on the part of his allies, whom he had very
-imperfect means either of paying or controlling, and whom therefore
-it was so much the more hazardous for him to offend. There cannot be
-any doubt that these allies felt personally wronged and indignant at
-the loss, as well as confounded with the proposition of a rule of
-duty so new, as respected the relations of belligerents in Greece;
-against which too, let us add, their murmurs would not be without
-some foundation: “If _we_ should come to be Konon’s prisoners, he
-will not treat _us_ in this manner.” Reciprocity of dealing is
-absolutely essential to constant moral observance, either public or
-private; and doubtless Kallikratidas felt a well-grounded confidence,
-that two or three conspicuous examples would sensibly modify the
-future practice on both sides. But some one must begin by setting
-such examples, and the man who does begin—having a position which
-gives reasonable chance that others will follow—is the hero. An
-admiral like Lysander would not only sympathize heartily with the
-complaints of the allies, but also condemn the proceeding as a
-dereliction of duty to Sparta; even men better than Lysander would
-at first look coldly on it as a sort of Quixotism, in doubt whether
-the example would be copied: while the Spartan ephors, though
-probably tolerating it because they interfered very sparingly with
-their admirals afloat, would certainly have little sympathy with the
-feelings in which it originated. So much the rather is Kallikratidas
-to be admired, as bringing out with him not only a Pan-Hellenic
-patriotism,[249] rare either at Athens or Sparta, but also a force
-of individual character and conscience yet rarer, enabling him to
-brave unpopularity and break through routine, in the attempt to make
-that patriotism fruitful and operative in practice. In his career, so
-sadly and prematurely closed, there was at least this circumstance to
-be envied; that the capture of Methymna afforded him the opportunity,
-which he greedily seized, as if he had known that it would be the
-last, of putting in act and evidence the full aspirations of his
-magnanimous soul.
-
-  [249] The sentiment of Kallikratidas deserved the designation of
-  Ἑλληνικώτατον πολίτευμα, far more than that of Nikias, to which
-  Plutarch applies those words (Compar. of Nikias and Crassus, c.
-  2).
-
-Kallikratidas sent word by the released prisoners to Konon, that
-he would presently put an end to his adulterous intercourse with
-the sea;[250] which he now considered as his wife, and lawfully
-appertaining to him, having one hundred and forty triremes against
-the seventy triremes of Konon. That admiral, in spite of his inferior
-numbers, had advanced near to Methymna, to try and relieve it; but
-finding the place already captured, had retired to the islands called
-Hekatonnêsoi, off the continent bearing northeast from Lesbos.
-Thither he was followed by Kallikratidas, who, leaving Methymna
-at night, found him quitting his moorings at break of day, and
-immediately made all sail to try and cut him off from the southerly
-course towards Samos. But Konon, having diminished the number of
-his triremes from one hundred to seventy, had been able to preserve
-all the best rowers, so that in speed he outran Kallikratidas and
-entered first the harbor of Mitylênê. His pursuers, however, were
-close behind, and even got into the harbor along with him, before it
-could be closed and put in a state of defence. Constrained to fight
-a battle at its entrance, he was completely defeated; thirty of his
-ships were taken, though the crews escaped to land; and he preserved
-the remaining forty only by hauling them ashore under the wall.[251]
-
-  [250] Xenoph. Hellen. i, 6, 15. Κόνωνι δὲ εἶπεν, ὅτι παύσει αὐτὸν
-  μοιχῶντα τὴν θάλασσαν, etc. He could hardly _say this_ to Konon,
-  in any other way than through the Athenian prisoners.
-
-  [251] Xenoph. Hellen. i, 6, 17; Diodor. xiii, 78, 79.
-
-  Here, as on so many other occasions, it is impossible to blend
-  these two narratives together. Diodorus conceives the facts in
-  a manner quite different from Xenophon, and much less probable.
-  He tells us that Konon practised a stratagem during his flight
-  (the same in Polyænus, i, 482), whereby he was enabled to fight
-  with and defeat the foremost Peloponnesian ships before the rest
-  came up: also, that he got into the harbor in time to put it into
-  a state of defence before Kallikratidas came up. Diodorus then
-  gives a prolix description of the battle by which Kallikratidas
-  forced his way in.
-
-  The narrative of Xenophon, which I have followed, plainly implies
-  that Konon could have had no time to make preparations for
-  defending the harbor.
-
-The town of Mitylênê, originally founded on a small islet off Lesbos,
-had afterwards extended across a narrow strait to Lesbos itself.
-By this strait, whether bridged over or not we are not informed,
-the town was divided into two portions, and had two harbors, one
-opening northward towards the Hellespont, the other southward towards
-the promontory of Kanê on the mainland.[252] Both these harbors
-were undefended, and both now fell into the occupation of the
-Peloponnesian fleet; at least all the outer portion of each, near
-to the exit of the harbor, which Kallikratidas kept under strict
-watch. He at the same time sent for the full forces of Methymna and
-for hoplites across from Chios, so as to block up Mitylênê by land
-as well as by sea. As soon as his success was announced, too, money
-for the fleet, together with separate presents for himself, which he
-declined receiving,[253] was immediately sent to him by Cyrus; so
-that his future operations became easy.
-
-  [252] Thucyd. viii, 6. τοὺς ἐφόρμους ἐπ᾽ ἀμφοτέροις τοῖς λιμέσιν
-  ἐποιοῦντο (Strabo, xiii, p. 617). Xenophon talks only of _the_
-  harbor, as if it were _one_; and possibly, in very inaccurate
-  language, it might be described as one harbor with two entrances.
-  It seems to me, however, that Xenophon had no clear idea of the
-  locality.
-
-  Strabo speaks of the northern harbor as defended by a mole, the
-  southern harbor, as defended by triremes chained together. Such
-  defences did not exist in the year 406 B.C. Probably, after the
-  revolt of Mitylênê in 427 B.C., the Athenians had removed what
-  defences might have been before provided for the harbor.
-
-  [253] Plutarch, Apophth. Laconic. p. 222, E.
-
-No preparations had been made at Mitylênê for a siege: no stock of
-provisions had been accumulated, and the crowd within the walls
-was so considerable, that Konon foresaw but too plainly the speedy
-exhaustion of his means. Nor could he expect succor from Athens,
-unless he could send intelligence thither of his condition; of which,
-as he had not been able to do so, the Athenians remained altogether
-ignorant. All his ingenuity was required to get a trireme safe out
-of the harbor, in the face of the enemy’s guard. Putting afloat two
-triremes, the best sailers in his fleet, and picking out the best
-rowers for them out of all the rest, he caused these rowers to go
-aboard before daylight, concealing the epibatæ, or maritime soldiers,
-in the interior of the vessel, instead of the deck, which was their
-usual place, with a moderate stock of provisions, and keeping the
-vessel still covered with hides or sails, as was customary with
-vessels hauled ashore, to protect them against the sun.[254] These
-two triremes were thus made ready to depart at a moment’s notice,
-without giving any indication to the enemy that they were so. They
-were fully manned before daybreak, the crews remained in their
-position all day, and after dark were taken out to repose. This
-went on for four days successively, no favorable opportunity having
-occurred to give the signal for attempting a start. At length, on
-the fifth day, about noon, when many of the Peloponnesian crews
-were ashore for their morning meal, and others were reposing, the
-moment seemed favorable, the signal was given, and both the triremes
-started at the same moment with their utmost speed; one to go out
-at the southern entrance towards the sea, between Lesbos and Chios,
-the other to depart by the northern entrance towards the Hellespont.
-Instantly, the alarm was given among the Peloponnesian fleet: the
-cables were cut, the men hastened aboard, and many triremes were
-put in motion to overtake the two runaways. That which departed
-southward, in spite of the most strenuous efforts, was caught towards
-evening and brought back with all her crew prisoners: that which went
-towards the Hellespont escaped, rounded the northern coast of Lesbos,
-and got safe with the news to Athens; sending intelligence also,
-seemingly, in her way, to the Athenian admiral Diomedon at Samos.
-
-  [254] Xenoph. Hellen. i, 6, 19. Καθελκύσας (Konon) τῶν νεῶν τὰς
-  ἄριστα πλεούσας δύο, ἐπλήρωσε πρὸ ἡμέρας, ἐξ ἁπασῶν τῶν νεῶν
-  τοὺς ἀρίστους ἐρέτας ἐκλέξας, καὶ τοὺς ἐπιβάτας εἰς κοίλην ναῦν
-  μεταβιβάσας, καὶ τὰ ~παραῤῥύματα παραβαλών~.
-
-  The meaning of παραῤῥύματα is very uncertain. The commentators
-  give little instruction; nor can we be sure that the same thing
-  is meant as is expressed by παραβλήματα (_infra_, ii, 1, 22).
-  We may be quite sure that the matters meant by παραῤῥύματα were
-  something which, if visible at all to a spectator without, would
-  at least afford no indication that the trireme was intended
-  for a speedy start; otherwise, they would defeat the whole
-  contrivance of Konon, whose aim was secrecy. It was essential
-  that this trireme, though afloat, should be made to look as much
-  as possible like to the other triremes which still remained
-  hauled ashore; in order that the Peloponnesians might not suspect
-  any purpose of departure. I have endeavored in the text to give
-  a meaning which answers this purpose, without forsaking the
-  explanations given by the commentators: see Boeckh, Ueber das
-  Attische Seewesen, ch. x, p. 159.
-
-The latter immediately made all haste to the aid of Konon, with the
-small force which he had with him, no more than twelve triremes.
-The two harbors being both guarded by a superior force, he tried to
-get access to Mitylênê through the Euripus, a strait which opens
-on the southern coast of the island into an interior lake, or bay,
-approaching near to the town. But here he was attacked suddenly by
-Kallikratidas, and his squadron all captured except two triremes, his
-own and another; he himself had great difficulty in escaping.[255]
-
-  [255] Xenoph. Hellen. i, 6, 22. Διομέδων δὲ βοηθῶν Κόνωνι
-  πολιορκουμένῳ δώδεκα ναυσὶν ὡρμίσατο ἐς τὸν εὔριπον τὸν τῶν
-  Μυτιληναίων.
-
-  The reader should look at a map of Lesbos, to see what is
-  meant by the Euripus of Mitylênê, and the other Euripus of the
-  neighboring town of Pyrrha.
-
-  Diodorus (xiii, 79) confounds the Euripus of Mitylênê with the
-  harbor of Mitylênê, with which it is quite unconnected. Schneider
-  and Plehn seem to make the same confusion (see Plehn, Lesbiaca,
-  p. 15).
-
-Athens was all in consternation at the news of the defeat of Konon
-and the blockade of Mitylênê. The whole strength and energy of the
-city was put forth to relieve him, by an effort greater than any
-which had been made throughout the whole war. We read with surprise
-that within the short space of thirty days, a fleet of no less than
-one hundred and ten triremes was fitted out and sent from Peiræus.
-Every man of age and strength to serve, without distinction, was
-taken to form a good crew; not only freemen, but slaves, to whom
-manumission was promised as reward: many also of the horsemen, or
-knights,[256] and citizens of highest rank, went aboard as epibatæ,
-hanging up their bridles like Kimon before the battle of Salamis.
-The levy was in fact as democratical and as equalizing as it had
-been on that memorable occasion. The fleet proceeded straight to
-Samos, whither orders had doubtless been sent to get together all the
-triremes which the allies could furnish as reinforcements, as well as
-all the scattered Athenian. By this means, forty additional triremes,
-ten of them Samian, were assembled, and the whole fleet, one hundred
-and fifty sail, went from Samos to the little islands called
-Arginusæ, close on the mainland, opposite to Malea, the southeastern
-cape of Lesbos.
-
-  [256] Xenoph. Hellen. i, 6, 24-25; Diodor. xiii, 97.
-
-Kallikratidas, apprized of the approach of the new fleet while it
-was yet at Samos, withdrew the greater portion of his force from
-Mitylênê, leaving fifty triremes under Eteonikus to continue the
-blockade. Less than fifty probably would not have been sufficient,
-inasmuch as two harbors were to be watched; but he was thus reduced
-to meet the Athenian fleet with inferior numbers, one hundred and
-twenty triremes against one hundred and fifty. His fleet was off
-Cape Malea, where the crews took their suppers, on the same evening
-as the Athenians supped at the opposite islands of Arginusæ. It
-was his project to sail across the intermediate channel in the
-night, and attack them in the morning before they were prepared;
-but violent wind and rain forced him to defer all movement till
-daylight. On the ensuing morning, both parties prepared for the
-greatest naval encounter which had taken place throughout the whole
-war. Kallikratidas was advised by his pilot, the Megarian Hermon, to
-retire for the present without fighting, inasmuch as the Athenian
-fleet had the advantage of thirty triremes over him in number.
-He replied that flight was disgraceful, and that Sparta would be
-no worse off, even if he should perish.[257] The answer was one
-congenial to his chivalrous nature; and we may well conceive, that,
-having for the last two or three months been lord and master of the
-sea, he recollected his own haughty message to Konon, and thought
-it dishonor to incur or deserve, by retiring, the like taunt upon
-himself. We may remark too that the disparity of numbers, though
-serious, was by no means such as to render the contest hopeless,
-or to serve as a legitimate ground for retreat, to one who prided
-himself on a full measure of Spartan courage.
-
-  [257] Xenoph. Hellen. i, 6, 32; Diodor. xiii, 97, 98; the latter
-  reports terrific omens beforehand for the generals.
-
-  The answer has been a memorable one, more than once adverted to,
-  Plutarch, Laconic. Apophthegm. p. 832; Cicero, De Offic. i, 24.
-
-The Athenian fleet was so marshalled, that its great strength was
-placed in the two wings; in each of which there were sixty Athenian
-ships, divided into four equal divisions, each division commanded
-by a general. Of the four squadrons of fifteen ships each, two were
-placed in front, two to support them in the rear. Aristokratês and
-Diomedon commanded the two front squadrons of the left division,
-Periklês and Erasinidês the two squadrons in the rear: on the right
-division, Protomachus and Thrasyllus commanded the two in front,
-Lysias and Aristogenês the two in the rear. The centre, wherein were
-the Samians and other allies, was left weak, and all in single line:
-it appears to have been exactly in front of one of the isles of
-Arginusæ, while the two other divisions were to the right and left
-of that isle. We read with some surprise that the whole Lacedæmonian
-fleet was arranged by single ships, because it sailed better and
-manœuvred better than the Athenians; who formed their right and left
-divisions in deep order, for the express purpose of hindering the
-enemy from performing the nautical manœuvres of the diekplus and the
-periplus.[258] It would seem that the Athenian centre, having the
-land immediately in its rear, was supposed to be better protected
-against an enemy “sailing through the line out to the rear, and
-sailing round about,” than the other divisions, which were in the
-open waters; for which reason it was left weak, with the ships in
-single line. But the fact which strikes us the most is, that, if
-we turn back to the beginning of the war, we shall find that this
-diekplus and periplus were the special manœuvres of the Athenian
-navy, and continued to be so even down to the siege of Syracuse;
-the Lacedæmonians being at first absolutely unable to perform them
-at all, and continuing for a long time to perform them far less
-skilfully than the Athenians. Now, the comparative value of both
-parties is reversed: the superiority of nautical skill has passed to
-the Peloponnesians and their allies: the precautions whereby that
-superiority is neutralized or evaded, are forced as a necessity on
-the Athenians. How astonished would the Athenian admiral Phormion
-have been, if he could have witnessed the fleets and the order of
-battle at Arginusæ!
-
-  [258] Xenoph. Hellen. i, 6, 31. Οὕτω δ᾽ ἐτάχθησαν (οἱ Ἀθηναῖοι)
-  ἵνα μὴ διέκπλουν διδοῖεν· χεῖρον γὰρ ἔπλεον. Αἱ δὲ τῶν
-  Λακεδαιμονίων ἀντιτεταγμέναι ἦσαν ἅπασαι ἐπὶ μιᾶς, ὡς πρὸς
-  διέκπλουν καὶ περίπλουν παρεσκευασμέναι, διὰ τὸ βέλτιον πλεῖν.
-
-  Contrast this with Thucyd. ii, 84-89 (the speech of Phormion),
-  iv, 12; vii, 36.
-
-Kallikratidas himself, with the ten Lacedæmonian ships, was on the
-right of his fleet: on the left were the Bœotians and Eubœans,
-under the Bœotian admiral Thrasondas. The battle was long and
-obstinately contested, first by the two fleets in their original
-order; afterwards, when all order was broken, by scattered ships
-mingled together and contending in individual combat. At length
-the brave Kallikratidas perished. His ship was in the act of
-driving against the ship of an enemy, and he himself probably, like
-Brasidas[259] at Pylos, had planted himself on the forecastle, to
-be the first in boarding the enemy, or in preventing the enemy from
-boarding him, when the shock arising from impact threw him off his
-footing, so that he fell overboard and was drowned.[260] In spite of
-the discouragement springing from his death, the ten Lacedæmonian
-triremes displayed a courage worthy of his, and nine of them were
-destroyed or disabled. At length the Athenians were victorious
-in all parts: the Peloponnesian fleet gave way, and their flight
-became general, partly to Chios, partly to Phokæa. More than sixty
-of their ships were destroyed over and above the nine Lacedæmonian,
-seventy-seven in all; making a total loss of above the half of the
-entire fleet. The loss of the Athenians was also severe, amounting to
-twenty-five triremes. They returned to Arginusæ after the battle.[261]
-
-  [259] See Thucyd. iv, 11.
-
-  [260] Xenoph. Hellen. i, 6, 33. ~ἐπεὶ~ δὲ Καλλικρατίδας τε
-  ἐμβαλούσης τῆς νεὼς ἀποπεσὼν ἐς τὴν θάλασσαν ἠφανίσθη, etc.
-
-  The details given by Diodorus about this battle and the exploits
-  of Kallikratidas are at once prolix and unworthy of confidence.
-  See an excellent note of Dr. Arnold on Thucyd. iv, 12, respecting
-  the description given by Diodorus of the conduct of Brasidas at
-  Pylos.
-
-  [261] Xenoph. Hellen. i, 6, 34; Diodor. xiii, 99, 100.
-
-The victory of Arginusæ afforded the most striking proof how much
-the democratical energy of Athens could yet accomplish, in spite
-of so many years of exhausting war. But far better would it have
-been, if her energy on this occasion had been less efficacious and
-successful. The defeat of the Peloponnesian fleet, and the death
-of their admirable leader,—we must take the second as inseparable
-from the first, since Kallikratidas was not the man to survive a
-defeat,—were signal misfortunes to the whole Grecian world; and in
-an especial manner, misfortunes to Athens herself. If Kallikratidas
-had gained the victory and survived it, he would certainly have been
-the man to close the Peloponnesian war; for Mitylênê must immediately
-have surrendered, and Konon, with all the Athenian fleet there
-blocked up, must have become his prisoners; which circumstance,
-coming at the back of a defeat, would have rendered Athens disposed
-to acquiesce in any tolerable terms of peace. Now to have the terms
-dictated at a moment when her power was not wholly prostrate, by a
-man like Kallikratidas, free from corrupt personal ambition and of
-a generous Pan-Hellenic patriotism, would have been the best fate
-which at this moment could befall her; while to the Grecian world
-generally, it would have been an unspeakable benefit, that, in the
-reorganization which it was sure to undergo at the close of the
-war, the ascendant individual of the moment should be penetrated
-with devotion to the great ideas of Hellenic brotherhood at home,
-and Hellenic independence against the foreigner. The near prospect
-of such a benefit was opened by that rare chance which threw
-Kallikratidas into the command, enabled him not only to publish
-his lofty profession of faith but to show that he was prepared
-to act upon it, and for a time floated him on towards complete
-success. Nor were the envious gods ever more envious, than when they
-frustrated, by the disaster of Arginusæ, the consummation which they
-had thus seemed to promise. The pertinence of these remarks will
-be better understood in the next chapter, when I come to recount
-the actual winding-up of the Peloponnesian war under the auspices
-of the worthless, but able, Lysander. It was into his hands that
-the command was retransferred, a transfer almost from the best of
-Greeks to the worst. We shall then see how much the sufferings of
-the Grecian world, and of Athens especially, were aggravated by his
-individual temper and tendencies, and we shall then feel by contrast,
-how much would have been gained if the commander armed with such
-great power of dictation had been a Pan-Hellenic patriot. To have
-the sentiment of that patriotism enforced, at a moment of break-up
-and rearrangement throughout Greece, by the victorious leader of the
-day, with single-hearted honesty and resolution, would have been a
-stimulus to all the better feelings of the Grecian mind, such as no
-other combination of circumstances could have furnished. The defeat
-and death of Kallikratidas was thus even more deplorable as a loss to
-Athens and Greece, than to Sparta herself. To his lofty character and
-patriotism, even in so short a career, we vainly seek a parallel.
-
-The news of the defeat was speedily conveyed to Eteonikus at Mitylênê
-by the admiral’s signal-boat. As soon as he heard it, he desired
-the crew of the signal-boat to say nothing to any one, but to go
-again out of the harbor, and then return with wreaths and shouts of
-triumph, crying out that Kallikratidas had gained the victory and had
-destroyed or captured all the Athenian ships. All suspicion of the
-reality was thus kept from Konon and the besieged, while Eteonikus
-himself, affecting to believe the news, offered the sacrifice of
-thanksgiving; but gave orders to all the triremes to take their meal
-and depart afterwards without losing a moment, directing the masters
-of the trading-ships also to put their property silently aboard, and
-get off at the same time. And thus, with little or no delay, and
-without the least obstruction from Konon, all these ships, triremes
-and merchantmen, sailed out of the harbor and were carried off in
-safety to Chios, the wind being fair. Eteonikus at the same time
-withdrew his land-forces to Methymna, burning his camp. Konon, thus
-finding himself unexpectedly at liberty, put to sea with his ships
-when the wind had become calmer, and joined the main Athenian fleet,
-which he found already on its way from Arginusæ to Mitylênê. The
-latter presently came to Mitylênê, and from thence passed over to
-make an attack on Chios; which attack proving unsuccessful, they went
-forward to their ordinary station at Samos.[262]
-
-  [262] Xenoph. Hellen. i, 6, 38; Diodor. xiii, 100.
-
-The news of the victory at Arginusæ diffused joy and triumph at
-Athens. All the slaves who had served in the armament were manumitted
-and promoted, according to promise, to the rights of Platæans at
-Athens, a qualified species of citizenship. Yet the joy was poisoned
-by another incident, which became known at the same time, raising
-sentiments of a totally opposite character, and ending in one of the
-most gloomy and disgraceful proceedings in all Athenian history.
-
-Not only the bodies of the slain warriors floating about on the
-water had not been picked up for burial, but the wrecks had not been
-visited to preserve those who were yet living. The first of these two
-points, even alone, would have sufficed to excite a painful sentiment
-of wounded piety at Athens. But the second point, here an essential
-part of the same omission, inflamed that sentiment into shame, grief,
-and indignation of the sharpest character.
-
-In the descriptions of this event, Diodorus and many other writers
-take notice of the first point, either exclusively,[263] or at least
-with slight reference to the second; which latter, nevertheless,
-stands as far the gravest in the estimate of every impartial critic,
-and was also the most violent in its effect upon Athenian feelings.
-Twenty-five Athenian triremes had been ruined, along with most of
-their crews; that is, lay heeled over or disabled, with their oars
-destroyed, no masts, nor any means of moving; mere hulls, partially
-broken by the impact of an enemy’s ship, and gradually filling and
-sinking. The original crew of each was two hundred men. The field
-of battle, if we may use that word for a space of sea, was strewed
-with these wrecks; the men remaining on board being helpless and
-unable to get away, for the ancient trireme carried no boat, nor any
-aids for escape. And there were, moreover, floating about, men who
-had fallen overboard, or were trying to save their lives by means
-of accidental spars or empty casks. It was one of the privileges
-of a naval victory, that the party who gained it could sail over
-the field of battle, and thus assist their own helpless or wounded
-comrades aboard the disabled ships,[264] taking captive, or sometimes
-killing, the corresponding persons belonging to the enemy. According
-even to the speech made in the Athenian public assembly afterwards,
-by Euryptolemus, the defender of the accused generals, there were
-twelve triremes with their crews on board lying in the condition just
-described. This is an admission by the defence, and therefore the
-minimum of the reality: there cannot possibly have been fewer, but
-there were probably several more, out of the whole twenty-five stated
-by Xenophon.[265] No step being taken to preserve them, the surviving
-portion, wounded as well as unwounded, of these crews, were left
-to be gradually drowned as each disabled ship went down. If any of
-them escaped, it was by unusual goodness of swimming, by finding some
-fortunate plank or spar, at any rate by the disgrace of throwing
-away their arms, and by some method such as no wounded man would be
-competent to employ.
-
-  [263] See the narrative of Diodorus (xiii, 100, 101, 102),
-  where nothing is mentioned except about picking up the floating
-  _dead_ bodies; about the crime, and offence in the eyes of the
-  people, of omitting to secure burial to so many _dead_ bodies.
-  He does not seem to have fancied that there were any _living
-  bodies_, or that it was a question between life and death to
-  so many of the crews. Whereas, if we follow the narrative of
-  Xenophon (Hellen. i, 7), we shall see that the question is put
-  throughout about picking up the _living men_, the _shipwrecked
-  men_, or the men belonging to, and still living aboard of, the
-  broken ships, ἀνελέσθαι τοὺς ναυαγοὺς, τοὺς δυστυχοῦντας, τοὺς
-  καταδύντας (Hellen. ii, 3, 32): compare, especially, ii, 3, 35,
-  πλεῖν ἐπὶ τὰς καταδεδυκυίας ναῦς καὶ τοὺς ἐπ᾽ αὐτῶν ἀνθρώπους
-  (i, 6, 36). The word ναυαγὸς does not mean a dead body, but a
-  _living man_ who has suffered shipwreck: ~Ναυαγὸς~ ἥκω, ξένος,
-  ἀσύλητον γένος (says Menelaus, Eurip. Helen. 457); also 407, Καὶ
-  νῦν τάλας ~ναυαγὸς~, ἀπολέσας φίλους Ἐξέπεσον ἐς γῆν τήνδε etc.;
-  again, 538. It corresponds with the Latin _naufragus_: “mersâ
-  rate naufragus assem Dum rogat, et pictâ se tempestate tuetur,”
-  (Juvenal, xiv, 301.) Thucydidês does not use the word ναυαγοὺς,
-  but speaks of τοὺς νεκροὺς καὶ τὰ ναυαγία, meaning by the latter
-  word the damaged ships, with every person and thing on board.
-
-  It is remarkable that Schneider and most other commentators on
-  Xenophon, Sturz in his Lexicon Xenophonteum (v. ἀναίρεσις),
-  Stallbaum ad Platon. Apol. Socrat. c. 20, p. 32, Sievers,
-  Comment. ad Xenoph. Hellen. p. 31, Forchhammer, Die Athener und
-  Sokratês, pp. 30-31, Berlin, 1837, and others, all treat this
-  event as if it were nothing but a question of picking up dead
-  bodies for sepulture. This is a complete misinterpretation of
-  Xenophon; not merely because the word ναυαγὸς, which he uses four
-  several times, means _a living person_, but because there are two
-  other passages, which leave absolutely no doubt about the matter:
-  Παρῆλθε δὲ τις ἐς τὴν ἐκκλησίαν, φάσκων ἐπὶ τεύχους ἀλφίτων
-  σωθῆναι· ~ἐπιστέλλειν δ᾽ αὐτῷ τοὺς ἀπολλυμένους, ἐὰν σωθῂ,
-  ἀπαγγεῖλαι τῷ δήμῳ, ὅτι οἱ στρατηγοὶ οὐκ ἀνείλοντο τοὺς ἀρίστους
-  ὑπὲρ τῆς πατρίδος γενομένους~. Again (ii, 3, 35), Theramenês,
-  when vindicating himself before the oligarchy of Thirty, two
-  years afterwards, for his conduct in accusing the generals, says
-  that the generals brought their own destruction upon themselves
-  by accusing him first, and by saying that the men on the disabled
-  ships might have been saved with proper diligence: φάσκοντες
-  γὰρ (the generals) ~οἷον τε εἶναι σῶσαι τοὺς ἄνδρας, προέμενοι
-  αὐτοὺς ἀπολέσθαι~, ἀποπλέοντες ᾤχοντο. These passages place
-  the point beyond dispute, that the generals were accused of
-  having neglected to save the lives of men on the point of being
-  drowned, and who by their neglect afterwards were drowned, not
-  of having neglected to pick up dead bodies for sepulture. The
-  misinterpretation of the commentators is here of the gravest
-  import. It alters completely the criticisms on the proceedings at
-  Athens.
-
-  [264] See Thucyd. i, 50, 51.
-
-  [265] Xenoph. Hellen. i, 6, 34. Ἀπώλοντο δὲ τῶν μὲν Ἀθηναίων νῆες
-  πέντε καὶ εἴκοσιν αὐτοῖς ἀνδράσιν, ἐκτὸς ὀλίγων τῶν πρὸς τὴν γῆν
-  προσενεχθέντων.
-
-  Schneider in his note, and Mr. Mitford in his History, express
-  surprise at the discrepancy between the number _twelve_,
-  which appears in the speech of Euryptolemus, and the number
-  _twenty-five_, given by Xenophon.
-
-  But, first, we are not to suppose Xenophon to guarantee those
-  assertions, as to matters of fact which he gives, as coming from
-  Euryptolemus; who as an advocate, speaking in the assembly, might
-  take great liberties with the truth.
-
-  Next, Xenophon speaks of the total number of ships ruined or
-  disabled in the action: Euryptolemus speaks of the total number
-  of wrecks afloat and capable of being visited so as to rescue the
-  sufferers, _at the subsequent moment_, when the generals directed
-  the squadron under Theramenês to go out for the rescue. It is to
-  be remembered that the generals went back to Arginusæ from the
-  battle, and there determined, according to their own statement,
-  to send out from thence a squadron for visiting the wrecks. A
-  certain interval of time must therefore have elapsed between the
-  close of the action and the order given to Theramenês. During
-  that interval, undoubtedly, _some_ of the disabled ships went
-  down, or came to pieces: if we are to believe Euryptolemus,
-  thirteen out of the twenty-five must have thus disappeared, so
-  that their crews were already drowned, and no more than twelve
-  remained floating for Theramenês to visit, even had he been ever
-  so active and ever so much favored by weather.
-
-  I distrust the statement of Euryptolemus, and believe that he
-  most probably underrated the number. But assuming him to be
-  correct, this will only show how much the generals were to
-  blame, as we shall hereafter remark, for not having seen to
-  the visitation of the wrecks _before_ they went back to their
-  moorings at Arginusæ.
-
-The first letter from the generals which communicated the victory,
-made known at the same time the loss sustained in obtaining it.
-It announced, doubtless, the fact which we read in Xenophon, that
-twenty-five Athenian triremes had been lost, with nearly all their
-crews; specifying, we may be sure, the name of each trireme which
-had so perished; for each trireme in the Athenian navy, like modern
-ships, had its own name.[266] It mentioned, at the same time, that
-no step whatever had been taken by the victorious survivors to save
-their wounded and drowning countrymen on board the sinking ships.
-A storm had arisen, such was the reason assigned, so violent as to
-render all such intervention totally impracticable.[267]
-
-  [266] Boeckh, in his instructive volume, Urkunden über
-  das Attische See-Wesen (vii, p. 84, _seq._), gives, from
-  inscriptions, a long list of the names of Athenian triremes,
-  between B.C. 356 and 322. All the names are feminine: some
-  curious. We have a long list also of the Athenian ship-builders;
-  since the name of the builder is commonly stated in the
-  inscription along with that of the ship: ~Ἐυχáρις~, Ἀλεξιμάου
-  ἔργον; ~Σειρὴν~, Ἀριστοκράτους ἔργον; ~Ἐλευθερία~, Ἀρχενέω ἔργον;
-  ~Ἐπίδειξις~, Λυσιστράτου ἔργον; ~Δημοκρατία~, Χαιρεστράτου ἔργον,
-  etc.
-
-  [267] Xenoph. Hellen. i, 7, 4. Ὅτι μὲν γὰρ οὐδενὸς ἄλλου
-  καθήπτοντο (οἱ στρατηγοὶ) ἐπιστολὴν ἐπεδείκνυε (Theramenês)
-  μαρτύριον· ἣν ἔπεμψαν οἱ στρατηγοὶ εἰς τὴν βουλὴν καὶ εἰς τὸν
-  δῆμον, ἄλλο οὐδὲν αἰτιώμενοι ἢ τὸν χειμῶνα.
-
-It is so much the custom, in dealing with Grecian history, to presume
-the Athenian people to be a set of children or madmen, whose feelings
-it is not worth while to try and account for, that I have been
-obliged to state these circumstances somewhat at length, in order to
-show that the mixed sentiment excited at Athens by the news of the
-battle of Arginusæ was perfectly natural and justifiable. Along with
-joy for the victory, there was blended horror and remorse at the fact
-that so many of the brave men who had helped to gain it had been left
-to perish unheeded. The friends and relatives of the crews of these
-lost triremes were of course foremost in the expression of such
-indignant emotion. The narrative of Xenophon, meagre and confused
-as well as unfair, presents this emotion as if it were something
-causeless, factitious, pumped up out of the standing irascibility
-of the multitude by the artifices of Theramenês, Kallixenus, and a
-few others. But whatever may have been done by these individuals
-to aggravate the public excitement, or pervert it to bad purposes,
-assuredly the excitement itself was spontaneous, inevitable, and
-amply justified. The very thought that so many of the brave partners
-in the victory had been left to drown miserably on the sinking hulls,
-without any effort on the part of their generals and comrades near
-to rescue them, was enough to stir up all the sensibilities, public
-as well as private, of the most passive nature, even in citizens who
-were not related to the deceased, much more in those who were so. To
-expect that the Athenians would be so absorbed in the delight of the
-victory, and in gratitude to the generals who had commanded, as to
-overlook such a desertion of perishing warriors, and such an omission
-of sympathetic duty, is, in my judgment, altogether preposterous; and
-would, if it were true, only establish one more vice in the Athenian
-people, besides those which they really had, and the many more with
-which they have been unjustly branded.
-
-The generals, in their public letter, accounted for their omission by
-saying that the violence of the storm was too great to allow them to
-move. First, was this true as matter of fact? Next, had there been
-time to discharge the duty, or at the least to try and discharge it,
-before the storm came on to be so intolerable? These points required
-examination. The generals, while honored with a vote of thanks for
-the victory, were superseded, and directed to come home; all except
-Konon, who having been blocked up at Mitylênê, was not concerned in
-the question. Two new colleagues, Philoklês and Adeimantus, were
-named to go out and join him.[268] The generals probably received
-the notice of their recall at Samos, and came home in consequence;
-reaching Athens seemingly about the end of September or beginning
-of October, the battle of Arginusæ having been fought in August 406
-B.C. Two of the generals, however, Protomachus and Aristogenês,
-declined to come: warned of the displeasure of the people, and not
-confiding in their own case to meet it, they preferred to pay the
-price of voluntary exile. The other six, Periklês, Lysias, Diomedon,
-Erasinidês, Aristokratês, and Thrasyllus,—Archestratus, one of the
-original ten, having died at Mitylênê,[269]—came without their two
-colleagues; an unpleasant augury for the result.
-
-  [268] Xenoph. Hellen. i, 7, 1; Diodor. xiii, 101: ἐπὶ μὲν τῇ νίκῃ
-  τοὺς στρατηγοὺς ἐπῄνουν, ἐπὶ δὲ τῷ περιϊδεῖν ἀτάφους τοὺς ὑπὲρ
-  τῆς ἡγεμονίας τετελευτηκότας χαλεπῶς διετέθησαν.
-
-  I have before remarked that Diodorus makes the mistake of talking
-  about nothing but _dead bodies_, in place of the living ναυαγοὶ
-  spoken of by Xenophon.
-
-  [269] Lysias, Orat. xxi (Ἀπολογία Δωροδοκίας), sect. vii.
-
-On their first arrival, Archedêmus, at that time an acceptable
-popular orator, and exercising some magistracy or high office which
-we cannot distinctly make out,[270] imposed upon Erasinidês a fine to
-that limited amount which was within the competence of magistrates
-without the sanction of the dikastery, and accused him besides before
-the dikastery; partly for general misconduct in his command, partly
-on the specific charge of having purloined some public money on its
-way from the Hellespont. Erasinidês was found guilty, and condemned
-to be imprisoned, either until the money was made good, or perhaps
-until farther examination could take place into the other alleged
-misdeeds.
-
-  [270] Xenoph. Hellen. i, 7, 2. Archedêmus is described as τῆς
-  Δεκελείας ἐπιμελούμενος. What is meant by these words, none
-  of the commentators can explain in a satisfactory manner. The
-  text must be corrupt. Some conjecture like that of Dobree seems
-  plausible; some word like τῆς δεκάτης or τῆς δεκατεύσεως, having
-  reference to the levying of the tithe in the Hellespont; which
-  would furnish reasonable ground for the proceeding of Archedêmus
-  against Erasinidês.
-
-  The office held by Archedêmus, whatever it was, must have been
-  sufficiently exalted to confer upon him the power of imposing the
-  fine of limited amount called ἐπιβολή.
-
-  I hesitate to identify this Archedêmus with the person of that
-  name mentioned in the Memorabilia of Xenophon, ii, 9. There seems
-  no similarity at all in the points of character noticed.
-
-  The popular orator Archedêmus was derided by Eupolis and
-  Aristophanês as having sore eyes, and as having got his
-  citizenship without a proper title to it (see Aristophan. Ran.
-  419-588, with the Scholia). He is also charged, in a line of an
-  oration of Lysias, with having embezzled the public money (Lysias
-  cont. Alkibiad. sect. 25, Orat. xiv).
-
-This trial of Erasinidês took place before the generals were
-summoned before the senate to give their formal exposition respecting
-the recent battle, and the subsequent neglect of the drowning men.
-And it might almost seem as if Archedêmus wished to impute to
-Erasinidês exclusively, apart from the other generals, the blame of
-that neglect; a distinction, as will hereafter appear, not wholly
-unfounded. If, however, any such design was entertained, it did not
-succeed. When the generals went to explain their case before the
-senate, the decision of that body was decidedly unfavorable to all
-of them, though we have no particulars of the debate which passed.
-On the proposition of the senator Timokratês,[271] a resolution was
-passed that the other five generals present should be placed in
-custody, as well as Erasinidês, and thus handed over to the public
-assembly for consideration of the case.[272]
-
-  [271] Xenoph. Hellen. i, 7, 3. Τιμοκράτους δ᾽ εἰπόντος, ὅτι ~καὶ
-  τοὺς ἄλλους χρὴ δεθέντας ἐς τὸν δῆμον παραδοθῆναι~, ἡ βουλὴ ἔδησε.
-
-  [272] Xenoph. Hellen. i, 7, 4.
-
-The public assembly was accordingly held, and the generals were
-brought before it. We are here told who it was that appeared as their
-principal accuser, along with several others; though unfortunately
-we are left to guess what were the topics on which they insisted.
-Theramenês was the man who denounced them most vehemently, as guilty
-of leaving the crews of the disabled triremes to be drowned, and
-of neglecting all efforts to rescue them. He appealed to their own
-public letter to the people, officially communicating the victory;
-in which letter they made no mention of having appointed any one to
-undertake the duty, nor of having any one to blame for not performing
-it. The omission, therefore, was wholly their own: they might have
-performed it, and ought to be punished for so cruel a breach of duty.
-
-The generals could not have a more formidable enemy than Theramenês.
-We have had occasion to follow him, during the revolution of the
-Four Hundred, as a long-sighted as well as tortuous politician: he
-had since been in high military command, a partaker in victory with
-Alkibiadês at Kyzikus and elsewhere; and he had served as trierarch
-in the victory of Arginusæ itself. His authority therefore was
-naturally high, and told for much, when he denied the justification
-which the generals had set up founded on the severity of the storm.
-According to him, they might have picked up the drowning men,
-and ought to have done so: either they might have done so before
-the storm came on, or there never was any storm of sufficient
-gravity to prevent them: upon their heads lay the responsibility
-of omission.[273] Xenophon, in his very meagre narrative, does not
-tell us, in express words, that Theramenês contradicted the generals
-as to the storm. But that he did so contradict them, point blank,
-is implied distinctly in that which Xenophon alleges him to have
-said. It seems also that Thrasybulus—another trierarch at Arginusæ,
-and a man not only of equal consequence, but of far more estimable
-character—concurred with Theramenês in this same accusation of the
-generals,[274] though not standing forward so prominently in the
-case. He too therefore must have denied the reality of the storm; or
-at least, the fact of its being so instant after the battle, or so
-terrible as to forbid all effort for the relief of these drowning
-seamen.
-
-  [273] Xenoph. Hellen. i, 7, 4. Μετὰ δὲ ταῦτα, ἐκκλησία ἐγένετο,
-  ἐν ᾗ τῶν στρατηγῶν ~κατηγόρουν ἄλλοι τε καὶ Θηραμένης μάλιστα,
-  δικαίους εἶναι λέγων λόγον ὑποσχεῖν, διότι οὐκ ἀνείλοντο τοὺς
-  ναυαγούς~. Ὅτι μὲν γὰρ ~οὐδενὸς ἄλλου~ καθήπτοντο, ἐπιστολὴν
-  ἐπεδείκνυε μαρτύριον· καὶ ἔπεμψαν οἱ στρατηγοὶ ἐς τὴν βουλὴν καὶ
-  ἐς τὸν δῆμον, ἄλλο οὐδὲν αἰτιώμενοι ἢ τὸν χειμῶνα.
-
-  [274] That Thrasybulus concurred with Theramenês in accusing the
-  generals, is intimated in the reply which Xenophon represents the
-  generals to have made (i, 7, 6): Καὶ οὐχ, ~ὅτι γε κατηγοροῦσιν
-  ἡμῶν~, ἔφασαν, ψευσόμεθα φάσκοντες ~αὐτοὺς αἰτίους~ εἶναι, ἀλλὰ
-  τὸ μέγεθος τοῦ χειμῶνος εἶναι τὸ κωλῦσαν τὴν ἀναίρεσιν.
-
-  The plural κατηγοροῦσιν shows that Thrasybulus as well as
-  Theramenês stood forward to accuse the generals, though the
-  latter was the most prominent and violent.
-
-The case of the generals, as it stood before the Athenian public, was
-completely altered when men like Theramenês and Thrasybulus stood
-forward as their accusers. Doubtless what was said by these two had
-been said by others before, in the senate and elsewhere; but it was
-now publicly advanced by men of influence, as well as perfectly
-cognizant of the fact. And we are thus enabled to gather indirectly,
-what the narrative of Xenophon, studiously keeping back the case
-against the generals, does not directly bring forward, that though
-the generals affirmed the storm, there were others present who denied
-it, thus putting in controversy the matter of fact which formed
-their solitary justification. Moreover, we come—in following the
-answer made by the generals in the public assembly to Theramenês and
-Thrasybulus—to a new point in the case, which Xenophon lets out as
-it were indirectly, in that confused manner which pervades his whole
-narrative of the transaction. It is, however, a new point of extreme
-moment. The generals replied that if any one was to blame for not
-having picked up the drowning men, it was Theramenês and Thrasybulus
-themselves; for it was they two to whom, together with various other
-trierarchs and with forty-eight triremes, the generals had expressly
-confided the performance of this duty; it was they two who were
-responsible for its omission, not the generals. Nevertheless they,
-the generals, made no charge against Theramenês and Thrasybulus,
-well knowing that the storm had rendered the performance of the
-duty absolutely impossible, and that it was therefore a complete
-justification for one as well as for the other. They, the generals,
-at least could do no more than direct competent men like these two
-trierarchs to perform the task, and assign to them an adequate
-squadron for the purpose; while they themselves with the main fleet
-went to attack Eteonikus, and relieve Mitylênê. Diomedon, one of
-their number, had wished after the battle to employ all the ships in
-the fleet for the preservation of the drowning men, without thinking
-of anything else until that was done. Erasinidês, on the contrary,
-wished that all the fleet should move across at once against
-Mitylênê; Thrasyllus said that they had ships enough to do both at
-once. Accordingly, it was agreed that each general should set apart
-three ships from his division, to make a squadron of forty-eight
-ships under Thrasybulus and Theramenês. In making these statements,
-the generals produced pilots and others, men actually in the battle
-as witnesses in general confirmation.
-
-Here, then, in this debate before the assembly, were two new and
-important points publicly raised. First, Theramenês and Thrasybulus
-denounced the generals as guilty of the death of these neglected
-men; next, the generals affirmed that they had delegated the duty to
-Theramenês and Thrasybulus themselves. If this latter were really
-true, how came the generals, in their official despatch first sent
-home, to say nothing about it? Euryptolemus, an advocate of the
-generals, speaking in a subsequent stage of the proceedings, though
-we can hardly doubt that the same topics were also urged in this very
-assembly, while blaming the generals for such omission, ascribed it
-to an ill-placed good-nature on their part, and reluctance to bring
-Theramenês and Thrasybulus under the displeasure of the people. Most
-of the generals, he said, were disposed to mention the fact in their
-official despatch, but were dissuaded from doing so by Periklês and
-Diomedon; an unhappy dissuasion, in his judgment, which Theramenês
-and Thrasybulus had ungratefully requited by turning round and
-accusing them all.[275]
-
-  [275] Xenoph. Hellen. i, 7, 17. Euryptolemus says: Κατηγορῶ μὲν
-  οὖν αὐτῶν ὅτι ~ἔπεισαν τοὺς ξυνάρχοντας~, βουλομένους πέμπειν
-  γράμματα τῇ τε βουλῇ καὶ ὑμῖν ὅτι ἐπέταξαν τῷ Θηραμένει καὶ
-  Θρασυβούλῳ τετταράκοντα καὶ ἑπτὰ τριήρεσιν ἀνελέσθαι τοὺς
-  ναυαγοὺς, οἱ δὲ οὐκ ἀνείλοντο. Εἶτα νῦν τὴν αἰτίαν κοινὴν
-  ἔχουσιν, ἐκείνων ἰδίᾳ ἁμαρτόντων· καὶ ἀντὶ τῆς τότε φιλανθρωπίας,
-  νῦν ὑπ᾽ ἐκείνων τε καὶ τινων ἄλλων ἐπιβουλευόμενοι κινδυνεύουσιν
-  ἀπολέσθαι.
-
-  We must here construe ἔπεισαν as equivalent to ἀνέπεισαν or
-  μετέπεισαν placing a comma after ξυνάρχοντας. This is unusual,
-  but not inadmissible. To persuade a man to alter his opinion or
-  his conduct, might be expressed by πείθειν, though it would more
-  properly be expressed by ἀναπείθειν; see ἐπείσθη, Thucyd. iii, 32.
-
-This remarkable statement of Euryptolemus, as to the intention of
-the generals in wording the official despatch, brings us to a closer
-consideration of what really passed between them on the one side, and
-Theramenês and Thrasybulus on the other; which is difficult to make
-out clearly, but which Diodorus represents in a manner completely
-different from Xenophon. Diodorus states that the generals were
-prevented partly by the storm, partly by the fatigue and reluctance
-and alarm of their own seamen, from taking any steps to pick up, what
-he calls, the dead bodies for burial; that they suspected Theramenês
-and Thrasybulus, who went to Athens before them, of intending to
-accuse them before the people, and that for this reason they sent
-home intimation to the people that they had given special orders to
-these two trierarchs to perform the duty. When these letters were
-read in the public assembly, Diodorus says, the Athenians were
-excessively indignant against Theramenês; who, however, defended
-himself effectively and completely, throwing the blame back upon
-the generals. He was thus forced, against his own will, and in
-self-defence, to become the accuser of the generals, carrying with
-him his numerous friends and partisans at Athens. And thus the
-generals, by trying to ruin Theramenês, finally brought condemnation
-upon themselves.[276]
-
-  [276] Diodor. xiii, 100, 101.
-
-Such is the narrative of Diodorus, in which it is implied that the
-generals never really gave any special orders to Theramenês and
-Thrasybulus, but falsely asserted afterwards that they had done
-so, in order to discredit the accusation of Theramenês against
-themselves. To a certain extent, this coincides with what was
-asserted by Theramenês himself, two years afterwards, in his defence
-before the Thirty, that he was not the first to accuse the generals;
-they were the first to accuse him; affirming that they had ordered
-him to undertake the duty, and that there was no sufficient reason to
-hinder him from performing it; they were the persons who distinctly
-pronounced the performance of the duty to be possible, while he had
-said, from the beginning, that the violence of the storm was such
-as even to forbid any movement in the water; much more, to prevent
-rescue of the drowning men.[277]
-
-  [277] Xenoph. Hellen. ii, 3, 35. If Theramenês really did say, in
-  the actual discussions at Athens on the conduct of the generals,
-  that which he here asserts himself to have said, namely, that
-  the violence of the storm rendered it impossible for any one to
-  put to sea, his accusation against the generals must have been
-  grounded upon alleging that they might have performed the duty
-  at an earlier moment; before they came back from the battle;
-  before the storm arose; before they gave the order to him. But I
-  think it most probable that he misrepresented at the later period
-  what he had said at the earlier, and that he did not, during the
-  actual discussions, admit the sufficiency of the storm as fact
-  and justification.
-
-Taking the accounts of Xenophon and Diodorus together, in combination
-with the subsequent accusation and defence of Theramenês at the
-time of the Thirty, and blending them so as to reject as little as
-possible of either, I think it probable that the order for picking
-up the exposed men was really given by the generals to Theramenês,
-Thrasybulus, and other trierarchs; but that, first, a fatal interval
-was allowed to elapse between the close of the battle and the giving
-of such order; next, that the forty-eight triremes talked of for
-the service, and proposed to be furnished by drafts of three out
-of each general’s division, were probably never assembled; or, if
-they assembled, were so little zealous in the business as to satisfy
-themselves very easily that the storm was too dangerous to brave,
-and that it was now too late. For when we read the version of the
-transaction, even as given by Euryptolemus, we see plainly that none
-of the generals, except Diomedon, was eager in the performance of the
-task. It is a memorable fact, that of all the eight generals, not one
-of them undertook the business in person, although its purpose was
-to save more than a thousand drowning comrades from death.[278] In a
-proceeding where every interval even of five minutes was precious,
-they go to work in the most dilatory manner, by determining that each
-general shall furnish three ships, and no more, from his division.
-Now we know from the statement of Xenophon, that, towards the close
-of the battle, the ships on both sides were much dispersed.[279] Such
-collective direction therefore would not be quickly realized; nor,
-until all the eight fractions were united, together with the Samians
-and others, so as to make the force complete, would Theramenês
-feel bound to go out upon his preserving visitation. He doubtless
-disliked the service, as we see that most of the generals did; while
-the crews also, who had just got to land after having gained a
-victory, were thinking most about rest and refreshment, and mutual
-congratulations.[280] All were glad to find some excuse for staying
-in their moorings instead of going out again to buffet what was
-doubtless unfavorable weather. Partly from this want of zeal, coming
-in addition to the original delay, partly from the bad weather, the
-duty remained unexecuted, and the seamen on board the damaged ships
-were left to perish unassisted.
-
-  [278] The total number of ships lost with all their crews was
-  twenty-five, of which the aggregate crews, speaking in round
-  numbers, would be five thousand men. Now we may fairly calculate
-  that each one of the disabled ships would have on board half her
-  crew, or one hundred men, after the action; not more than half
-  would have been slain or drowned in the combat. Even ten disabled
-  ships would thus contain one thousand living men, wounded and
-  unwounded. It will be seen, therefore, that I have understated
-  the number of lives in danger.
-
-  [279] Xenoph. Hellen. i, 6, 33.
-
-  [280] We read in Thucydidês (vii, 73) how impossible it was to
-  prevail on the Syracusans to make any military movement after
-  their last maritime victory in the Great Harbor, when they were
-  full of triumph, felicitation, and enjoyment.
-
-  They had visited the wrecks and picked up both the living men on
-  board and the floating bodies _before_ they went ashore. It is
-  remarkable that the Athenians on that occasion were so completely
-  overpowered by the immensity of their disaster, that they never
-  even thought of asking permission, always granted by the victors
-  when asked, to pick up their dead or visit their wrecks (viii,
-  72).
-
-But presently arose the delicate, yet unavoidable question, “How are
-we to account for the omission of this sacred duty, in our official
-despatch to the Athenian people?” Here the generals differed among
-themselves, as Euryptolemus expressly states: Periklês and Diomedon
-carried it, against the judgment of their colleagues, that in the
-official despatch, which was necessarily such as could be agreed to
-by all, nothing should be said about the delegation to Theramenês
-and others; the whole omission being referred to the terrors of
-the storm. But though such was the tenor of the official report,
-there was nothing to hinder the generals from writing home and
-communicating individually with their friends in Athens as each might
-think fit; and in these unofficial communications, from them as well
-as from others who went home from the armament,—communications not
-less efficacious than the official despatch, in determining the tone
-of public feeling at Athens,—they did not disguise their convictions
-that the blame of not performing the duty belonged to Theramenês.
-Having thus a man like Theramenês to throw the blame upon, they did
-not take pains to keep up the story of the intolerable storm, but
-intimated that there had been nothing to hinder _him_ from performing
-the duty if he had chosen. It is this which he accuses them of having
-advanced against him, so as to place him as the guilty man before
-the Athenian public: it was this which made him, in retaliation and
-self-defence, violent and unscrupulous in denouncing them as the
-persons really blamable.[281] As they had made light of this alleged
-storm, in casting the blame upon him, so he again made light of
-it, and treated it as an insufficient excuse, in his denunciations
-against them; taking care to make good use of their official
-despatch, which virtually exonerated him, by its silence, from any
-concern in the matter.
-
-  [281] Xenoph. Hellen. ii, 3, 32. The light in which I here place
-  the conduct of Theramenês is not only coincident with Diodorus,
-  but with the representations of Kritias, the violent enemy of
-  Theramenês under the government of the Thirty, just before he was
-  going to put Theramenês to death: Οὗτος δέ τοι ἐστὶν, ὃς ταχθεὶς
-  ἀνελέσθαι ὑπὸ τῶν στρατηγῶν τοὺς καταδύντας Ἀθηναίων ἐν τῇ περὶ
-  Λέσβον ναυμαχίᾳ, ~αὐτὸς οὐκ ἀνελόμενος~ ὅμως τῶν στρατηγῶν
-  κατηγορῶν ἀπέκτεινεν αὐτοὺς, ~ἵνα αὐτὸς περισωθείη~. (Xen. ut
-  sup.)
-
-  Here it stands admitted that the first impression at Athens was,
-  as Diodorus states expressly, that Theramenês was ordered to pick
-  up the men on the wrecks, might have done it if he had taken
-  proper pains, and was to blame for not doing it. Now how did this
-  impression arise? Of course, through communications received from
-  the armament itself. And when Theramenês, in his reply, says
-  that the generals themselves made communications in the same
-  tenor, there is no reason why we should not believe him, in spite
-  of their joint official despatch, wherein they made no mention
-  of him, and in spite of their speech in the public assembly
-  afterwards, where the previous official letter fettered them, and
-  prevented them from accusing him, forcing them to adhere to the
-  statement first made, of the all-sufficiency of the storm.
-
-  The main facts which we here find established, even by the
-  enemies of Theramenês, are: 1. That Theramenês accused the
-  generals because he found himself in danger of being punished for
-  the neglect. 2. That his enemies, who charged him with the breach
-  of duty, did not admit the storm as an excuse for _him_.
-
-Such is the way in which I conceive the relations to have stood
-between the generals on one side and Theramenês on the other, having
-regard to all that is said both in Xenophon and in Diodorus. But the
-comparative account of blame and recrimination between these two
-parties is not the most important feature of the case. The really
-serious inquiry is, as to the intensity or instant occurrence of the
-storm. Was it really so instant and so dangerous, that the duty of
-visiting the wrecks could not be performed, either before the ships
-went back to Arginusæ, or afterwards? If we take the circumstances of
-the case, and apply them to the habits and feelings of the English
-navy, if we suppose more than one thousand seamen, late comrades in
-the victory, distributed among twenty damaged and helpless hulls,
-awaiting the moment when these hulls would fill and consign them
-all to a watery grave, it must have been a frightful storm indeed,
-which would force an English admiral even to go back to his moorings
-leaving these men so exposed, or which would deter him, if he were
-at his moorings, from sending out the very first and nearest ships
-at hand to save them. And granting the danger to be such that he
-hesitated to give the order, there would probably be found officers
-and men to volunteer, against the most desperate risks, in a cause
-so profoundly moving all their best sympathies. Now, unfortunately
-for the character of Athenian generals, officers, and men, at
-Arginusæ,—for the blame belongs, though in unequal proportions,
-to all of them,—there exists here strong presumptive proof that
-the storm on this occasion was not such as would have deterred any
-Grecian seamen animated by an earnest and courageous sense of duty.
-We have only to advert to the conduct and escape of Eteonikus and
-the Peloponnesian fleet from Mitylênê to Chios; recollecting that
-Mitylênê was separated from the promontory of Kanê on the Asiatic
-mainland, and from the isles of Arginusæ, by a channel only one
-hundred and twenty stadia broad,[282] about fourteen English miles.
-Eteonikus, apprized of the defeat by the Peloponnesian official
-signal-boat, desired that boat to go out of the harbor, and then to
-sail into it again with deceptive false news, to the effect that the
-Peloponnesians had gained a complete victory: he then directed his
-seamen, after taking their dinners, to depart immediately, and the
-masters of the merchant vessels silently to put their cargoes aboard,
-and get to sea also. The whole fleet, triremes and merchant vessels
-both, thus went out of the harbor of Mitylênê and made straight for
-Chios, whither they arrived in safety; the merchant vessels carrying
-their sails, and having what Xenophon calls “a fair wind.”[283] Now
-it is scarcely possible that all this could have taken place, had
-there blown during this time an intolerable storm between Mitylênê
-and Arginusæ. If the weather was such as to allow of the safe transit
-of Eteonikus and all his fleet from Mitylênê to Chios, it was not
-such as to form a legitimate obstacle capable of deterring any
-generous Athenian seaman, still less a responsible officer, from
-saving his comrades exposed on the wrecks near Arginusæ. Least of all
-was it such as ought to have hindered the attempt to save them, even
-if such attempt had proved unsuccessful. And here the gravity of the
-sin consists, in having remained inactive while the brave men on the
-wrecks were left to be drowned. All this reasoning, too, assumes the
-fleet to have been already brought back to its moorings at Arginusæ,
-discussing only how much was practicable to effect after that moment,
-and leaving untouched the no less important question, why the
-drowning men were not picked up before the fleet went back.
-
-  [282] Strabo, xiii, p. 617.
-
-  [283] Xenoph. Hellen. i, 6, 37. Ἐτεόνικος δὲ, ἐπειδὴ ἐκεῖνοι (the
-  signal-boat, with news of the pretended victory) κατέπλεον, ἔθυε
-  τὰ εὐαγγέλια, καὶ τοῖς στρατιώταις παρήγγειλε δειπνοποιεῖσθαι,
-  καὶ τοῖς ἐμπόροις, τὰ χρήματα σιωπῇ ἐνθεμένους ἐς τὰ πλοῖα
-  ἀποπλεῖν ἐς Χίον, ἦν δὲ τὸ ~πνεῦμα οὔριον~, καὶ τὰς τριήρεις
-  τὴν ταχίστην. Αὐτὸς δὲ τὸ πεζὸν ἀπῆγεν ἐς τὴν Μήθυμνην, τὸ
-  στρατόπεδον ἐμπρήσας. Κόνων δὲ καθελκύσας τὰς ναῦς, ἐπεὶ οἵ τε
-  πολέμιοι ἀπεδεδράκεσαν, ~καὶ ὁ ἄνεμος εὐδιαίτερος ἦν~, ἀπαντήσας
-  τοῖς Ἀθηναίοις ἤδη ἀνηγμένοις ἐκ τῶν Ἀργινουσῶν, ἔφρασε τὰ περὶ
-  τοῦ Ἐτεονίκου.
-
-  One sees, by the expression used by Xenophon respecting the
-  proceedings of Konon, that he went out of the harbor “as soon as
-  the wind became calmer;” that it blew a strong wind, though in
-  a direction favorable to carry the fleet of Eteonikus to Chios.
-  Konon was under no particular motive to go out immediately:
-  he could afford to wait until the wind became quite calm.
-  The important fact is, that wind and weather were perfectly
-  compatible with, indeed even favorable to, the escape of the
-  Peloponnesian fleet from Mitylênê to Chios.
-
-I have thought it right to go over these considerations,
-indispensable to the fair appreciation of this memorable event, in
-order that the reader may understand the feelings of the assembly and
-the public of Athens, when the generals stood before them, rebutting
-the accusations of Theramenês and recriminating in their turn against
-him. The assembly had before them the grave and deplorable fact, that
-several hundreds of brave seamen had been suffered to drown on the
-wrecks, without the least effort to rescue them. In explanation of
-this fact, they had not only no justification, at once undisputed
-and satisfactory, but not even any straightforward, consistent, and
-uncontradicted statement of facts. There were discrepancies among the
-generals themselves, comparing their official with their unofficial,
-as well as with their present statements, and contradictions between
-them and Theramenês, each having denied the sufficiency of the
-storm as a vindication for the neglect imputed to the other. It
-was impossible that the assembly could be satisfied to acquit the
-generals on such a presentation of the case; nor could they well know
-how to apportion the blame between them and Theramenês. The relatives
-of the men left to perish would be doubtless in a state of violent
-resentment against one or other of the two, perhaps against both.
-Under these circumstances, it could hardly have been the sufficiency
-of their defence,—it must have been rather the apparent generosity of
-their conduct towards Theramenês, in formally disavowing all charge
-of neglect against him, though he had advanced a violent charge
-against them,—which produced the result that we read in Xenophon.
-The defence of the generals was listened to with favor and seemed
-likely to prevail with the majority.[284] Many individuals present
-offered themselves as bail for the generals, in order that the latter
-might be liberated from custody: but the debate had been so much
-prolonged—we see from hence that there must have been a great deal
-of speaking—that it was now dark, so that no vote could be taken,
-because the show of hands was not distinguishable. It was therefore
-resolved to adjourn the whole decision until another assembly;
-but that in the mean time the senate should meet, should consider
-what would be the proper mode of trying and judging the generals,
-and should submit a proposition to that effect to the approaching
-assembly.
-
-  [284] Xenoph. Hellen. i, 7, 5-7. Μετὰ δὲ ταῦτα οἱ στρατηγοὶ
-  βραχέα ἕκαστος ἀπελογήσατο, οὐ γὰρ προὐτέθη σφίσι λόγος κατὰ τὸν
-  νόμον....
-
-  Τοιαῦτα λέγοντες ~ἔπειθον~ τὸν δῆμον. The imperfect tense
-  ~ἔπειθον~ must be noticed: “they _were persuading_,” or, _seemed
-  in the way to persuade_, the people; not ἔπεισαν the aorist,
-  which would mean that they actually did satisfy the people.
-
-  The first words here cited from Xenophon, do not imply that the
-  generals were checked or abridged in their liberty of speaking
-  before the public assembly, but merely that no judicial trial and
-  defence were granted to them. In judicial defence, the person
-  accused had a measured time for defence—by the clepsydra, or
-  water-clock—allotted to him, during which no one could interrupt
-  him; a time doubtless much longer than any single speaker would
-  be permitted to occupy in the public assembly.
-
-It so chanced that immediately after this first assembly, during
-the interval before the meeting of the senate or the holding of the
-second assembly, the three days of the solemn annual festival called
-Apaturia intervened; early days in the month of October. This was
-the characteristic festival of the Ionic race; handed down from a
-period anterior to the constitution of Kleisthenês, and to the ten
-new tribes each containing so many demes, and bringing together the
-citizens in their primitive unions of family, gens, phratry, etc.,
-the aggregate of which had originally constituted the four Ionic
-tribes, now superannuated. At the Apaturia, the family ceremonies
-were gone through; marriages were enrolled, acts of adoption were
-promulgated and certified, the names of youthful citizens first
-entered on the gentile and phratric roll; sacrifices were jointly
-celebrated by these family assemblages to Zeus Phratrius, Athênê,
-and other deities, accompanied with much festivity and enjoyment. A
-solemnity like this, celebrated every year, naturally provoked in
-each of these little unions, questions of affectionate interest: “Who
-are those that were with us last year, but are not here now? The
-absent, where are they? The deceased, where or how did they die?” Now
-the crews of the twenty-five Athenian triremes, lost at the battle
-of Arginusæ, at least all those among them who were freemen, had
-been members of some one of these family unions, and were missed on
-this occasion. The answer to the above inquiry, in their case, would
-be one alike melancholy and revolting: “They fought like brave men,
-and had their full share in the victory: their trireme was broken,
-disabled, and made a wreck, in the battle: aboard this wreck they
-were left to perish, while their victorious generals and comrades
-made not the smallest effort to preserve them.” To hear this about
-fathers, brothers, and friends,—and to hear it in the midst of a
-sympathizing family circle,—was well calculated to stir up an agony
-of shame, sorrow, and anger, united; an intolerable sentiment, which
-required as a satisfaction, and seemed even to impose as a duty, the
-punishment of those who had left these brave comrades to perish. Many
-of the gentile unions, in spite of the usually festive and cheerful
-character of the Apaturia, were so absorbed by this sentiment, that
-they clothed themselves in black garments and shaved their heads in
-token of mourning, resolving to present themselves in this guise at
-the coming assembly, and to appease the manes of their abandoned
-kinsmen by every possible effort to procure retribution on the
-generals.[285]
-
-  [285] Lysias puts into one of his orations a similar expression
-  respecting the feeling at Athens towards these generals;
-  ἡγούμενοι χρῆναι τῇ τῶν τεθνεώτων ἀρετῇ παρ᾽ ἐκείνων δίκην
-  λαβεῖν; Lysias cont. Eratosth. s. 37.
-
-Xenophon in his narrative describes this burst of feeling at the
-Apaturia as false and factitious, and the men in mourning as a number
-of hired impostors, got up by the artifices of Theramenês,[286] to
-destroy the generals. But the case was one in which no artifice was
-needed. The universal and self-acting stimulants of intense human
-sympathy stand here so prominently marked, that it is not simply
-superfluous but even misleading, to look behind for the gold and
-machinations of a political instigator. Theramenês might do all that
-he could to turn the public displeasure against the generals, and
-to prevent it from turning against himself: it is also certain that
-he did much to annihilate their defence. He may thus have had some
-influence in directing the sentiment against them, but he could have
-had little or none in creating it. Nay, it is not too much to say
-that no factitious agency of this sort could ever have prevailed on
-the Athenian public to desecrate such a festival as the Apaturia, by
-all the insignia of mourning. If they did so, it could only have been
-through some internal emotion alike spontaneous and violent, such as
-the late event was well calculated to arouse.
-
-  [286] Xenoph. Hellen. i. 7, 8. Οἱ οὖν περὶ τὸν Θηραμένην
-  παρεσκεύασαν ἀνθρώπους ~μέλανα ἱμάτια ἔχοντας, καὶ ἐν χρῷ
-  κεκαρμένους πολλοὺς ἐν ταύτῃ τῇ ἑορτῇ~, ἵνα πρὸς τὴν ἐκκλησίαν
-  ἥκοιεν, ~ὡς δὴ ξυγγενεῖς ὄντες τῶν ἀπολωλότων~.
-
-  Here I adopt substantially the statement of Diodorus, who
-  gives a juster and more natural description of the proceeding;
-  representing it as a spontaneous action of mournful and
-  vindictive feeling on the part of the kinsmen of the deceased
-  (xiii, 101).
-
-  Other historians of Greece, Dr. Thirlwall not excepted (Hist.
-  of Greece, ch. xxx, vol. iv, pp. 117-125), follow Xenophon
-  on this point. They treat the intense sentiment against the
-  generals at Athens as “popular prejudices;” “excitement produced
-  by the artifices of Theramenês,” (Dr. Thirlwall, pp. 117-124.)
-  “Theramenês (he says) hired a great number of persons to attend
-  the festival, dressed in black, and with their heads shaven, as
-  mourning for kinsmen whom they had lost in the sea-fight.”
-
-  Yet Dr. Thirlwall speaks of the narrative of Xenophon in the
-  most unfavorable terms; and certainly in terms no worse than it
-  deserves (see p. 116, the note): “It looks as if Xenophon had
-  _purposely involved the whole affair in obscurity_.” Compare also
-  p. 123, where his criticism is equally severe.
-
-  I have little scruple in deserting the narrative of Xenophon, of
-  which I think as meanly as Dr. Thirlwall, so far as to supply,
-  without contradicting any of his main allegations, an omission
-  which I consider capital and preponderant. I accept his account
-  of what actually passed at the festival of the Apaturia, but
-  I deny his statement of the manœuvres of Theramenês as the
-  producing cause.
-
-  Most of the obscurity which surrounds these proceedings at
-  Athens arises from the fact, that no notice has been taken of
-  the intense and spontaneous emotion which the desertion of the
-  men on the wrecks was naturally calculated to produce on the
-  public mind. It would, in my judgment, have been unaccountable
-  if such an effect had not been produced, quite apart from all
-  instigations of Theramenês. The moment that we recognize this
-  capital fact, the series of transactions becomes comparatively
-  perspicuous and explicable.
-
-  Dr. Thirlwall, as well as Sievers (Commentat. de Xenophontis
-  Hellen. pp. 25-30), suppose Theramenês to have acted in concert
-  with the oligarchical party, in making use of this incident to
-  bring about the ruin of generals odious to them, several of whom
-  were connected with Alkibiadês. I confess, that I see nothing to
-  countenance this idea: but at all events, the cause here named is
-  only secondary, not the grand and dominant fact of the period.
-
-Moreover, what can be more improbable than the allegation that a
-great number of men were hired to personate the fathers or brothers
-of deceased Athenian citizens, all well known to their really
-surviving kinsmen? What more improbable, than the story that numbers
-of men would suffer themselves to be hired, not merely to put on
-black clothes for the day, which might be taken off in the evening,
-but also to shave their heads, thus stamping upon themselves an
-ineffaceable evidence of the fraud, until the hair had grown again?
-That a cunning man, like Theramenês, should thus distribute his
-bribes to a number of persons, all presenting naked heads which
-testified his guilt, when there were real kinsmen surviving to prove
-the fact of personation? That having done this, he should never be
-arraigned or accused for it afterwards,—neither during the prodigious
-reaction of feeling which took place after the condemnation of the
-generals, which Xenophon himself so strongly attests, and which
-fell so heavily upon Kallixenus and others,—nor by his bitter enemy
-Kritias, under the government of the Thirty? Not only Theramenês is
-never mentioned as having been afterwards accused, but, for aught
-that appears, he preserved his political influence and standing,
-with little if any abatement. This is one forcible reason among
-many others, for disbelieving the bribes and the all-pervading
-machinations which Xenophon represents him as having put forth, in
-order to procure the condemnation of the generals. His speaking in
-the first public assembly, and his numerous partisans voting in the
-second, doubtless contributed much to that result, and by his own
-desire. But to ascribe to his bribes and intrigues the violent and
-overruling emotion of the Athenian public, is, in my judgment, a
-supposition alike unnatural and preposterous both with regard to them
-and with regard to him.
-
-When the senate met, after the Apaturia, to discharge the duty
-confided to it by the last public assembly, of determining in
-what manner the generals should be judged, and submitting their
-opinion for the consideration of the next assembly, the senator
-Kallixenus—at the instigation of Theramenês, if Xenophon is to be
-believed—proposed, and the majority of the senate adopted, the
-following resolution: “The Athenian people having already heard, in
-the previous assembly, both the accusation and the defence of the
-generals, shall at once come to a vote on the subject by tribes. For
-each tribe two urns shall be placed, and the herald of each tribe
-shall proclaim: All citizens who think the generals guilty, for not
-having rescued the warriors who had conquered in the battle, shall
-drop their pebbles into the foremost urn; all who think otherwise,
-into the hindmost. Should the generals be pronounced guilty, by the
-result of the voting, they shall be delivered to the Eleven, and
-punished with death; their property shall be confiscated, the tenth
-part being set apart for the goddess Athênê.”[287] One single vote
-was to embrace the case of all the eight generals.[288]
-
-  [287] Xenoph. Hellen. i, 7, 8, 9.
-
-  [288] Xenoph. Hellen. i. 7, 34.
-
-The unparalleled burst of mournful and vindictive feeling at the
-festival of the Apaturia, extending by contagion from the relatives
-of the deceased to many other citizens,—and the probability thus
-created that the coming assembly would sanction the most violent
-measures against the generals,—probably emboldened Kallixenus
-to propose, and prompted the senate to adopt, this deplorable
-resolution. As soon as the assembly met, it was read and moved by
-Kallixenus himself, as coming from the senate in discharge of the
-commission imposed upon them by the people.
-
-It was heard by a large portion of the assembly with well-merited
-indignation. Its enormity consisted in breaking through the
-established constitutional maxims and judicial practices of the
-Athenian democracy. It deprived the accused generals of all fair
-trial; alleging, with a mere faint pretence of truth which was little
-better than utter falsehood, that their defence as well as their
-accusation had been heard in the preceding assembly. Now there has
-been no people, ancient or modern, in whose view the formalities
-of judicial trial were habitually more sacred and indispensable
-than in that of the Athenians; formalities including ample notice
-beforehand to the accused party, with a measured and sufficient space
-of time for him to make his defence before the dikasts; while those
-dikasts were men who had been sworn beforehand as a body, yet were
-selected by lot for each occasion as individuals. From all these
-securities the generals were now to be debarred; and submitted,
-for their lives, honors, and fortunes, to a simple vote of the
-unsworn public assembly, without hearing or defence. Nor was this
-all. One single vote was to be taken in condemnation or absolution
-of the eight generals collectively. Now there was a rule in Attic
-judicial procedure, called the psephism of Kannônus,—originally
-adopted, we do not know when, on the proposition of a citizen of that
-name, as a psephism or decree for some particular case, but since
-generalized into common practice, and grown into great prescriptive
-reverence,—which peremptorily forbade any such collective trial or
-sentence, and directed that a separate judicial vote should, in all
-cases, be taken for or against each accused party. The psephism of
-Kannônus, together with all the other respected maxims of Athenian
-criminal justice, was here audaciously trampled under foot.[289]
-
-  [289] I cannot concur with the opinion expressed by Dr. Thirlwall
-  in Appendix iii. vol. iv, p. 501, of his History, on the subject
-  of the psephism of Kannônus. The view which I give in the text
-  coincides with that of the expositors generally, from whom Dr.
-  Thirlwall dissents.
-
-  The psephism of Kannônus was the only enactment at Athens which
-  made it illegal to vote upon the case of two accused persons
-  at once. This had now grown into a practice in the judicial
-  proceedings at Athens; so that two or more prisoners, who were
-  ostensibly tried under some other law, and not under the psephism
-  of Kannônus, with its various provisions, would yet have the
-  benefit of this its particular provision, namely, severance of
-  trial.
-
-  In the particular case before us, Euryptolemus was thrown back to
-  appeal to the psephism itself; which the senate, by a proposition
-  unheard of at Athens, proposed to contravene. The proposition of
-  the senate offended against the law in several different ways.
-  It deprived the generals of trial before a sworn dikastery;
-  it also deprived them of the liberty of full defence during a
-  measured time: but farther, it prescribed that they should all be
-  condemned or absolved by one and the same vote; and, in this last
-  respect, it sinned against the psephism of Kannônus. Euryptolemus
-  in his speech, endeavoring to persuade an exasperated assembly
-  to reject the proposition of the senate and adopt the psephism
-  of Kannônus as the basis of the trial, very prudently dwells
-  upon the severe provisions of the psephism, and artfully slurs
-  over what he principally aims at, the severance of the trials,
-  by offering his relative Periklês to be tried _first_. The words
-  δίχα ἕκαστον (sect. 37) appear to me to be naturally construed
-  with κατὰ τὸ Καννώνου ψήφισμα, as they are by most commentators,
-  though Dr. Thirlwall dissents from it. It is certain that this
-  was the capital feature of illegality, among many, which the
-  proposition of the senate presented, I mean the judging and
-  condemning all the generals by _one_ vote. It was upon this
-  point that the amendment of Euryptolemus was taken, and that the
-  obstinate resistance of Sokratês turned (Plato, Apol. 20; Xenoph.
-  Memor. i, 1, 18).
-
-  Farther, Dr. Thirlwall, in assigning what he believes to have
-  been the real tenor of the psephism of Kannônus, appears to me to
-  have been misled by the Scholiast in his interpretation of the
-  much-discussed passage of Aristophanês, Ekklezias. 1089:—
-
-      Τουτὶ τὸ πρᾶγμα κατὰ τὸ Καννώνου σαφῶς
-      Ψήφισμα, βινεῖν δεῖ με διαλελημμένον,
-      Πῶς οὖν δικωπεῖν ἀμφοτέρας δυνήσομαι;
-
-  Upon which Dr. Thirlwall observes, “that the young man is
-  comparing his plight to that of a culprit, who, under the decree
-  of Cannônus, was placed at the bar held by a person on each
-  side. In this sense the Greek Scholiast, though his words are
-  corrupted, clearly understood the passage.”
-
-  I cannot but think that the Scholiast understood the words
-  completely wrong. The young man in Aristophanês does not compare
-  his situation _with that of the culprit_, but _with that of
-  the dikastery which tried culprits_. The psephism of Kannônus
-  directed that each defendant should be tried separately:
-  accordingly, if it happened that two defendants were presented
-  for trial, and were both to be tried without a moment’s delay,
-  the dikastery could only effect this object by dividing itself
-  into two halves, or portions; which was perfectly practicable,
-  whether often practised or not, as it was a numerous body.
-  By doing this, κρίνειν διαλελημμένον, it could _try both the
-  defendants at once_: but in no other way.
-
-  Now the young man in Aristophanês compares himself to the
-  dikastery thus circumstanced; which comparison is signified
-  by the pun of βινεῖν διαλελημμένον in place of κρίνειν
-  διαλελημμένον. He is assailed by two obtrusive and importunate
-  customers, neither of whom will wait until the other has been
-  served. Accordingly he says: “Clearly, I ought to be divided
-  into two parts, like a dikastery acting under the psephism of
-  Kannônus, to deal with this matter: yet how _shall_ I be _able_
-  to serve both at once?”
-
-  This I conceive to be the proper explanation of the passage in
-  Aristophanês; and it affords a striking confirmation of the truth
-  of that which is generally received as purport of the psephism of
-  Kannônus. The Scholiast appears to me to have puzzled himself,
-  and to have misled every one else.
-
-As soon as the resolution was read in the public assembly,
-Euryptolemus, an intimate friend of the generals, denounced it
-as grossly illegal and unconstitutional, presenting a notice of
-indictment against Kallixenus, under the Graphê Paranomôn, for having
-proposed a resolution of that tenor. Several other citizens supported
-the notice of indictment, which, according to the received practice
-of Athens, would arrest the farther progress of the measure until
-the trial of its proposer had been consummated. Nor was there ever
-any proposition made at Athens, to which the Graphê Paranomôn more
-closely and righteously applied.
-
-But the numerous partisans of Kallixenus—especially the men who
-stood by in habits of mourning, with shaven heads, agitated with
-sad recollections and thirst of vengeance—were in no temper to
-respect this constitutional impediment to the discussion of what
-had already been passed by the senate. They loudly clamored, that
-“it was intolerable to see a small knot of citizens thus hindering
-the assembled people from doing what they chose:” and one of their
-number, Lykiskus, even went so far as to threaten that those who
-tendered the indictment against Kallixenus should be judged by the
-same vote along with the generals, if they would not let the assembly
-proceed to consider and determine on the motion just read.[290] The
-excited disposition of the large party thus congregated, farther
-inflamed by this menace of Lykiskus, was wound up to its highest
-pitch by various other speakers; especially by one, who stood
-forward and said: “Athenians! I was myself a wrecked man in the
-battle; I escaped only by getting upon an empty meal-tub; but my
-comrades, perishing on the wrecks near me, implored me, if I should
-myself be saved, to make known to the Athenian people, that their
-generals had abandoned to death warriors who had bravely conquered
-in behalf of their country.” Even in the most tranquil state of
-the public mind, such a communication of the last words of these
-drowning men, reported by an ear-witness, would have been heard with
-emotion; but under the actual predisposing excitement, it went to
-the inmost depth of the hearers’ souls, and marked the generals as
-doomed men.[291] Doubtless there were other similar statements,
-not expressly mentioned to us, bringing to view the same fact in
-other ways, and all contributing to aggravate the violence of the
-public manifestations; which at length reached such a point, that
-Euryptolemus was forced to withdraw his notice of indictment against
-Kallixenus.
-
-  [290] Xenoph. Hellen. i, 7. Τὸν δὲ Καλλίξενον προσεκαλέσαντο
-  παράνομα φάσκοντες ξυγγεγραφέναι Εὐρυπτόλεμός τε καὶ ἄλλοι
-  τινες· τοῦ δὲ δήμου ἔνιοι ταῦτα ἐπῄνουν· τὸ δὲ πλῆθος ἐβόα
-  ~δεινὸν εἶναι, εἰ μή τις ἐάσει τὸν δῆμον πράττειν, ὃ ἂν
-  βούληται~. Καὶ ἐπὶ τούτοις εἰπόντος Λυκίσκου, καὶ τούτους τῇ
-  αὐτῇ ψήφῳ κρίνεσθαι, ᾗπερ καὶ τοὺς στρατηγοὺς, ~ἐὰν μὴ ἀφῶσι τὴν
-  ἐκκλησίαν~, ἐπεθορύβησε πάλιν ὁ δῆμος, καὶ ἠναγκάσθησαν ἀφιέναι
-  τὰς κλήσεις.
-
-  All this violence is directed to the special object of getting
-  the proposition discussed and decided on by the assembly, in
-  spite of constitutional obstacles.
-
-  [291] Xenoph. Hellen. i, 7, 11. Παρῆλθε δέ τις ἐς τὴν ἐκκλησίαν
-  φάσκων, ἐπὶ τεύχους ἀλφίτων σωθῆναι· ἐπιστέλλειν δ᾽ αὐτῷ τοὺς
-  ἀπολλυμένους, ἐὰν σωθῇ, ἀπαγγεῖλαι τῷ δήμῳ, ὅτι οἱ στρατηγοὶ οὐκ
-  ἀνείλοντο τοὺς ἀρίστους ὑπὲρ τῆς πατρίδος γενομένους.
-
-  I venture to say that there is nothing in the whole compass
-  of ancient oratory, more full of genuine pathos and more
-  profoundly impressive, than this simple incident and speech;
-  though recounted in the most bald manner, by an unfriendly and
-  contemptuous advocate.
-
-  Yet the whole effect of it is lost, because the habit is to
-  dismiss everything which goes to inculpate the generals, and to
-  justify the vehement emotion of the Athenian public, as if it was
-  mere stage-trick and falsehood. Dr. Thirlwall goes even beyond
-  Xenophon, when he says (p. 119, vol. iv): “A man was _brought
-  forward_, who _pretended_ he had been preserved by clinging to a
-  meal-barrel, and that his comrades,” etc. So Mr. Mitford: “A man
-  was produced,” etc. (p. 347).
-
-  Now παρῆλθε does not mean, “_he was brought forward_:” it is a
-  common word employed to signify one who _comes forward_ to speak
-  in the public assembly (see Thucyd. iii, 44, and the participle
-  παρελθὼν, in numerous places).
-
-  Next, φάσκων while it sometimes means _pretending_, sometimes
-  also means simply _affirming_: Xenophon does not guarantee the
-  matter affirmed, but neither does he pronounce it to be false.
-  He uses φάσκων in various cases where he himself agrees with the
-  fact affirmed (see Hellen. i, 7, 12; Memorab. i, 2, 29; Cyropæd.
-  viii, 3, 41; Plato, Ap. Socr. c. 6, p. 21).
-
-  The people of Athens heard and fully believed this deposition;
-  nor do I see any reason why an historian of Greece should
-  disbelieve it. There is nothing in the assertion of this man
-  which is at all improbable; nay, more, it is plain that several
-  such incidents must have happened. If we take the smallest
-  pains to expand in our imaginations the details connected with
-  this painfully interesting crisis at Athens, we shall see that
-  numerous stories of the same affecting character must have been
-  in circulation; doubtless many false, but many also perfectly
-  true.
-
-Now, however, a new form of resistance sprung up, still preventing
-the proposition from being taken into consideration by the assembly.
-Some of the prytanes,—or senators of the presiding tribe, on that
-occasion the tribe Antiochis,—the legal presidents of the assembly,
-refused to entertain or put the question; which, being illegal and
-unconstitutional, not only inspired them with aversion, but also
-rendered them personally open to penalties. Kallixenus employed
-against them the same menaces which Lykiskus had uttered against
-Euryptolemus: he threatened, amidst encouraging clamor from many
-persons in the assembly, to include them in the same accusation
-with the generals. So intimidated were the prytanes by the incensed
-manifestations of the assembly, that all of them, except one,
-relinquished their opposition, and agreed to put the question. The
-single obstinate prytanis, whose refusal no menace could subdue,
-was a man whose name we read with peculiar interest, and in whom an
-impregnable adherence to law and duty was only one among many other
-titles to reverence. It was the philosopher Sokratês; on this trying
-occasion, once throughout a life of seventy years, discharging a
-political office, among the fifty senators taken by lot from the
-tribe Antiochis. Sokratês could not be induced to withdraw his
-protest, so that the question was ultimately put by the remaining
-prytanes without his concurrence.[292] It should be observed that his
-resistance did not imply any opinion as to the guilt or innocence of
-the generals, but applied simply to the illegal and unconstitutional
-proposition now submitted for determining their fate; a proposition,
-which he must already have opposed once before, in his capacity of
-member of the senate.
-
-  [292] Xenoph. Hellen. i, 7, 14, 15; Plato, Apol. Socr. c. 20;
-  Xenoph. Memor. i, 1, 18; iv, 4, 2.
-
-  In the passage of the Memorabilia, Xenophon says that Sokratês
-  was epistatês, or presiding prytanis, for that actual day. In the
-  Hellenica, he only reckons him as one among the prytanes. It can
-  hardly be accounted certain that he _was_ epistatês, the rather
-  as this same passage of the Memorabilia is inaccurate on another
-  point: it names _nine_ generals as having been condemned, instead
-  of _eight_.
-
-The constitutional impediments having been thus violently overthrown,
-the question was regularly put by the prytanes to the assembly. At
-once the clamorous outcry ceased, and those who had raised it resumed
-their behavior of Athenian citizens, patient hearers of speeches and
-opinions directly opposed to their own. Nothing is more deserving of
-notice than this change of demeanor. The champions of the men drowned
-on the wrecks had resolved to employ as much force as was required to
-eliminate those preliminary constitutional objections, in themselves
-indisputable, which precluded the discussion. But so soon as the
-discussion was once begun, they were careful not to give to the
-resolution the appearance of being carried by force. Euryptolemus,
-the personal friend of the generals, was allowed not only to move
-an amendment negativing the proposition of Kallixenus, but also to
-develop it in a long speech, which Xenophon sets before us.[293]
-
-  [293] Xenoph. Hellen. i, 7, 16. ~Μετὰ δὲ ταῦτα~, that is, after
-  the cries and threats above recounted, ἀναβὰς Εὐρυπτόλεμος ἔλεξεν
-  ὑπὲρ τῶν στρατηγῶν τάδε, etc.
-
-His speech is one of great skill and judgment in reference to the
-case before him and to the temper of the assembly. Beginning with a
-gentle censure on his friends, the generals Periklês and Diomedon,
-for having prevailed on their colleagues to abstain from mentioning,
-in their first official letter, the orders given to Theramenês, he
-represented them as now in danger of becoming victims to the base
-conspiracy of the latter, and threw himself upon the justice of the
-people to grant them a fair trial. He besought the people to take
-full time to instruct themselves before they pronounced so solemn
-and irrevocable a sentence; to trust only to their own judgment, but
-at the same time to take security that judgment should be pronounced
-after full information and impartial hearing, and thus to escape that
-bitter and unavailing remorse which would otherwise surely follow. He
-proposed that the generals should be tried each separately, according
-to the psephism of Kannônus, with proper notice, and ample time
-allowed for the defence as well as for the accusation; but that, if
-found guilty, they should suffer the heaviest and most disgraceful
-penalties, his own relation Periklês the first. This was the only
-way of striking the guilty, of saving the innocent, and of preserving
-Athens from the ingratitude and impiety of condemning to death,
-without trial as well as contrary to law, generals who had just
-rendered to her so important a service. And what could the people
-be afraid of? Did they fear lest the power of trial should slip out
-of their hands, that they were so impatient to leap over all the
-delays prescribed by the law?[294] To the worst of public traitors,
-Aristarchus, they had granted a day with full notice for trial, with
-all the legal means for making his defence: and would they now show
-such flagrant contrariety of measure to victorious and faithful
-officers? “Be not _ye_ (he said) the men to act thus, Athenians. The
-laws are your own work; it is through them that ye chiefly hold your
-greatness: cherish them, and attempt not any proceeding without their
-sanction.”[295]
-
-  [294] It is this accusation of “reckless hurry,” προπέτεια, which
-  Pausanias brings against the Athenians in reference to their
-  behavior toward the six generals (vi, 7, 2).
-
-  [295] Xenoph. Hellen. i, 7, 30. Μὴ ὑμεῖς γε, ὦ Ἀθηναῖοι, ἀλλ᾽
-  ἑαυτῶν ὄντας τοὺς νόμους, δι᾽ οὓς μάλιστα μέγιστοί ἐστε,
-  φυλάττοντες, ἄνευ τούτων μηδὲν πράττειν πειρᾶσθε.
-
-Euryptolemus then shortly recapitulated the proceedings after the
-battle, with the violence of the storm which had prevented approach
-to the wrecks; adding that one of the generals, now in peril, had
-himself been on board a broken ship, and had only escaped by a
-fortunate accident.[296] Gaining courage from his own harangue,
-he concluded by reminding the Athenians of the brilliancy of the
-victory, and by telling them that they ought in justice to wreath the
-brows of the conquerors, instead of following those wicked advisers
-who pressed for their execution.[297]
-
-  [296] Xenoph. Hellen. i, 7, 35. τούτων δὲ μάρτυρες οἱ σωθέντες
-  ἀπὸ τοῦ αὐτομάτου, ὧν εἷς τῶν ὑμετέρων στρατηγῶν ἐπὶ καταδύσης
-  νεὼς σωθεὶς, etc.
-
-  [297] The speech is contained in Xenoph. Hellen. i, 7, 16-36.
-
-It is no small proof of the force of established habits of public
-discussion, that the men in mourning and with shaven heads, who had
-been a few minutes before in a state of furious excitement, should
-patiently hear out a speech so effective and so conflicting with
-their strongest sentiments as this of Euryptolemus. Perhaps others
-may have spoken also; but Xenophon does not mention them. It is
-remarkable that he does not name Theramenês as taking any part in
-this last debate.
-
-The substantive amendment proposed by Euryptolemus was that the
-generals should be tried each separately, according to the psephism
-of Kannônus; implying notice to be given to each, of the day of
-trial, and full time for each to defend himself. This proposition,
-as well as that of the senate moved by Kallixenus, was submitted to
-the vote of the assembly; hands being separately held up, first for
-one, next for the other. The prytanes pronounced the amendment of
-Euryptolemus to be carried. But a citizen named Meneklês impeached
-their decision as wrong or invalid, alleging seemingly some
-informality or trick in putting the question, or perhaps erroneous
-report of the comparative show of hands. We must recollect that in
-this case the prytanes were declared partisans. Feeling that they
-were doing wrong in suffering so illegal a proposition as that of
-Kallixenus to be put at all, and that the adoption of it would
-be a great public mischief, they would hardly scruple to try and
-defeat it even by some unfair manœuvre. But the exception taken by
-Meneklês constrained them to put the question over again, and they
-were then obliged to pronounce that the majority was in favor of the
-proposition of Kallixenus.[298]
-
-  [298] Xenoph. Hellen. i, 7, 38. Τούτων δὲ διαχειροτονουμένων, τὸ
-  μὲν πρῶτον ἔκριναν τὴν Εὐρυπτολέμου· ὑπομοσαμένου δὲ Μενεκλέους,
-  καὶ πάλιν διαχειροτονίας γενομένης, ἔκριναν τὴν τῆς βουλῆς.
-
-  I cannot think that the explanations of this passage given either
-  by Schömann (De Comitiis Athen. part ii, 1, p. 160, _seq._) or
-  by Meier and Schömann (Der Attische Prozess, b. iii, p. 295;
-  b. iv, p. 696) are satisfactory. The idea of Schömann, that,
-  in consequence of the unconquerable resistance of Sokratês,
-  the voting upon this question was postponed until the next
-  day, appears to me completely inconsistent with the account
-  of Xenophon; and, though countenanced by a passage in the
-  Pseudo-Platonic dialogue called Axiochus (c. 12), altogether
-  loose and untrustworthy. It is plain to me that the question was
-  put without Sokratês, and could be legally put by the remaining
-  prytanes, in spite of his resistance. The word ὑπομοσία must
-  doubtless bear a meaning somewhat different here to its technical
-  sense before the dikastery; and different also, I think, to the
-  other sense which Meier and Schömann ascribe to it, of _a formal
-  engagement to prefer at some future time an indictment, or_
-  ~γραφὴ παρανόμων~. It seems to me here to denote, an _objection
-  taken on formal grounds, and sustained by oath either tendered or
-  actually taken, to the decision of the prytanes_, or presidents.
-  These latter had to declare on which side the show of hands in
-  the assembly preponderated: but there surely must have been
-  _some_ power of calling in question their decision, if they
-  declared falsely, or if they put the question in a treacherous,
-  perplexing, or obscure manner. The Athenian assembly did not
-  admit of an appeal to a division, like the Spartan assembly or
-  like the English House of Commons; though there were many cases
-  in which the votes at Athens were taken by pebbles in an urn, and
-  not by show of hands.
-
-  Now it seems to me that Meneklês here exercised the privilege
-  of calling in question the decision of the prytanes, and
-  constraining them to take the vote over again. He may have
-  alleged that they did not make it clearly understood which of the
-  two propositions was to be put to the vote first; that they put
-  the proposition of Kallixenus first, without giving due notice;
-  or perhaps that they misreported the numbers. By what followed,
-  we see that he had good grounds for his objection.
-
-That proposition was shortly afterwards carried into effect by
-disposing the two urns for each tribe, and collecting the votes of
-the citizens individually. The condemnatory vote prevailed, and all
-the eight generals were thus found guilty; whether by a large or a
-small majority we should have been glad to learn, but are not told.
-The majority was composed mostly of those who acted under a feeling
-of genuine resentment against the generals, but in part also of the
-friends and partisans of Theramenês,[299] not inconsiderable in
-number. The six generals then at Athens,—Periklês (son of the great
-statesman of that name by Aspasia), Diomedon, Erasinidês, Thrasyllus,
-Lysias, and Aristokratês,—were then delivered to the Eleven, and
-perished by the usual draught of hemlock; their property being
-confiscated, as the decree of the senate prescribed.
-
-  [299] Diodor. xiii, 101. In regard to these two component
-  elements of the majority, I doubt not that the statement of
-  Diodorus is correct. But he represents, quite erroneously, that
-  the generals were condemned by the vote of the assembly, and led
-  off from the assembly to execution. The assembly only decreed
-  that the subsequent urn-voting should take place, the result of
-  which was necessarily uncertain beforehand. Accordingly, the
-  speech which Diodorus represents Diomedon to have made in the
-  assembly, after the vote of the assembly had been declared,
-  cannot be true history: “Athenians, I wish that the vote which
-  you have just passed may prove beneficial to the city. Do you
-  take care to fulfil those vows to Zeus Soter, Apollo, and the
-  Venerable Goddesses, under which we gained our victory since
-  fortune has prevented us from fulfilling them ourselves.” It is
-  impossible that Diomedon can have made a speech of this nature,
-  since he was not then a condemned man; and after the condemnatory
-  vote, no assembly was held.
-
-Respecting the condemnation of these unfortunate men, pronounced
-without any of the recognized tutelary preliminaries for accused
-persons, there can be only one opinion. It was an act of violent
-injustice and illegality, deeply dishonoring the men who passed it,
-and the Athenian character generally. In either case, whether the
-generals were guilty or innocent, this censure is deserved, for
-judicial precautions are not less essential in dealing with the
-guilty than with the innocent. But it is deserved in an aggravated
-form, when we consider that the men against whom such injustice was
-perpetrated, had just come from achieving a glorious victory. Against
-the democratical constitution of Athens, it furnishes no ground for
-censure, nor against the habits and feelings which that constitution
-tended to implant in the individual citizen. Both the one and the
-other strenuously forbade the deed; nor could the Athenians ever
-have so dishonored themselves, if they had not, under a momentary
-ferocious excitement, risen in insurrection not less against the
-forms of their own democracy, than against the most sacred restraints
-of their habitual constitutional morality.
-
-If we wanted proof of this, the facts of the immediate future would
-abundantly supply it. After a short time had elapsed, every man in
-Athens became heartily ashamed of the deed.[300] A vote of the public
-assembly was passed,[301] decreeing that those who had misguided the
-people on this occasion ought to be brought to judicial trial, that
-Kallixenus with four others should be among the number, and that bail
-should be taken for their appearance. This was accordingly done,
-and the parties were kept under custody of the sureties themselves,
-who were responsible for their appearance on the day of trial. But
-presently both foreign misfortunes and internal sedition began to
-press too heavily on Athens to leave any room for other thoughts, as
-we shall see in the next chapter. Kallixenus and his accomplices
-found means to escape before the day of trial arrived, and remained
-in exile until after the dominion of the Thirty and the restoration
-of the democracy. Kallixenus then returned under the general amnesty.
-But the general amnesty protected him only against legal pursuit,
-not against the hostile memory of the people. “Detested by all, he
-died of hunger,” says Xenophon;[302] a memorable proof how much the
-condemnation of these six generals shocked the standing democratical
-sentiment at Athens.
-
-  [300] I translate here literally the language of Sokratês in his
-  Defence (Plato, Apol. c. 20), παρανόμως, ὡς ἐν τῷ ὑστέρῳ χρόνῳ
-  ~πᾶσιν ὑμῖν~ ἔδοξε.
-
-  [301] Xenoph. Hellen. i, 7, 39. This vote of the public assembly
-  was known at Athens by the name of Probolê. The assembled people
-  discharged on this occasion an ante-judicial function, something
-  like that of a Grand Jury.
-
-  [302] Xenophon. Hellen. i, 7, 40. μισούμενος ὑπὸ πάντων, λίμῳ
-  ἀπέθανεν.
-
-From what cause did this temporary burst of wrong arise, so
-foreign to the habitual character of the people? Even under the
-strongest political provocation, and towards the most hated
-traitors,—as Euryptolemus himself remarked, by citing the case of
-Aristarchus,—after the Four Hundred as well as after the Thirty, the
-Athenians never committed the like wrong, never deprived an accused
-party of the customary judicial securities. How then came they to do
-it here, where the generals condemned were not only not traitors, but
-had just signalized themselves by a victorious combat? No Theramenês
-could have brought about this phenomenon; no deep-laid oligarchical
-plot is, in my judgment, to be called in as an explanation.[303]
-The true explanation is different, and of serious moment to state.
-Political hatred, intense as it might be, was never dissociated,
-in the mind of a citizen of Athens, from the democratical forms of
-procedure: but the men, who stood out here as actors, had broken
-loose from the obligations of citizenship and commonwealth, and
-surrendered themselves, heart and soul, to the family sympathies
-and antipathies; feelings first kindled, and justly kindled, by the
-thought that their friends and relatives had been left to perish
-unheeded on the wrecks; next, inflamed into preternatural and
-overwhelming violence by the festival of the Apaturia, where all the
-religious traditions connected with the ancient family tie, all those
-associations which imposed upon the relatives of a murdered man the
-duty of pursuing the murderer, were expanded into detail and worked
-up by their appropriate renovating solemnity. The garb of mourning
-and the shaving of the head—phenomena unknown at Athens, either in
-a political assembly or in a religious festival—were symbols of
-temporary transformation in the internal man. He could think of
-nothing but his drowning relatives, together with the generals as
-having abandoned them to death, and his own duty as survivor to
-insure to them vengeance and satisfaction for such abandonment. Under
-this self-justifying impulse, the shortest and surest proceeding
-appeared the best, whatever amount of political wrong it might
-entail:[304] nay, in this case it appeared the only proceeding
-really sure, since the interposition of the proper judicial delays,
-coupled with severance of trial on successive days, according to the
-psephism of Kannônus, would probably have saved the lives of five
-out of the six generals, if not of all the six. When we reflect that
-such absorbing sentiment was common, at one and the same time, to a
-large proportion of the Athenians, we shall see the explanation of
-that misguided vote, both of the senate and of the ekklesia, which
-sent the six generals to an illegal ballot, and of the subsequent
-ballot which condemned them. Such is the natural behavior of those
-who, having for the moment forgotten their sense of political
-commonwealth, become degraded into exclusive family men. The family
-affections, productive as they are of so large an amount of gentle
-sympathy and mutual happiness in the interior circle, are also liable
-to generate disregard, malice, sometimes even ferocious vengeance,
-towards others. Powerful towards good generally, they are not less
-powerful occasionally towards evil; and require, not less than the
-selfish propensities, constant subordinating control from that moral
-reason which contemplates for its end the security and happiness of
-all. And when a man, either from low civilization, has never known
-this large moral reason,—or when from some accidental stimulus,
-righteous in the origin, but wrought up into fanaticism by the
-conspiring force of religious as well as family sympathies, he comes
-to place his pride and virtue in discarding its supremacy,—there
-is scarcely any amount of evil or injustice which he may not be
-led to perpetrate, by a blind obedience to the narrow instincts of
-relationship. “Ces pères de famille sont capables de tout,” was the
-satirical remark of Talleyrand upon the gross public jobbing so
-largely practised by those who sought place or promotion for their
-sons. The same words understood in a far more awful sense, and
-generalized for other cases of relationship, sum up the moral of this
-melancholy proceeding at Athens.
-
-  [303] This is the supposition of Sievers, Forchhammer, and some
-  other learned men; but, in my opinion, it is neither proved nor
-  probable.
-
-  [304] If Thucydidês had lived to continue his history so far down
-  as to include this memorable event, he would have found occasion
-  to notice τὸ ξυγγενὲς, kinship, as being not less capable of
-  ἀπροφάσιστος τόλμα, unscrupulous daring, than τὸ ἑταιρικόν,
-  faction. In his reflections on the Korkyræan disturbances (iii,
-  82), he is led to dwell chiefly on the latter, the antipathies
-  of faction, of narrow political brotherhood or conspiracy for
-  the attainment and maintenance of power, as most powerful in
-  generating evil deeds: had he described the proceedings after
-  the battle of Arginusæ, he would have seen that the sentiment of
-  kinship, looked at on its antipathetic or vindictive side, is
-  pregnant with the like tendencies.
-
-Lastly, it must never be forgotten that the generals themselves were
-also largely responsible in the case. Through the unjustifiable
-fury of the movement against them, they perished like innocent
-men, without trial, “_inauditi et indefensi, tamquam innocentes,
-perierunt_;” but it does not follow that they were really innocent.
-I feel persuaded that neither with an English, nor French, nor
-American fleet, could such events have taken place as those which
-followed the victory of Arginusæ. Neither admiral nor seamen, after
-gaining a victory and driving off the enemy, could have endured the
-thoughts of going back to their anchorage, leaving their own disabled
-wrecks unmanageable on the waters, with many living comrades aboard,
-helpless, and depending upon extraneous succor for all their chance
-of escape. That the generals at Arginusæ did this, stands confessed
-by their own advocate Euryptolemus,[305] though they must have known
-well the condition of disabled ships after a naval combat, and some
-ships even of the victorious fleet were sure to be disabled. If
-these generals, after their victory, instead of sailing back to
-land, had employed themselves first of all in visiting the crippled
-ships, there would have been ample time to perform this duty, and
-to save all the living men aboard, before the storm came on. This
-is the natural inference, even upon their own showing; this is what
-any English, French, or American naval commander would have thought
-it an imperative duty to do. What degree of blame is imputable to
-Theramenês, and how far the generals were discharged by shifting the
-responsibility to him, is a point which we cannot now determine.
-But the storm, which is appealed to as a justification of both,
-rests upon evidence too questionable to serve that purpose, where
-the neglect of duty was so serious, and cost the lives probably of
-more than one thousand brave men. At least, the Athenian people at
-home, when they heard the criminations and recriminations between the
-generals on one side and Theramenês on the other,—each of them in his
-character of accuser implying that the storm was no valid obstacle,
-though each, if pushed for a defence, fell back upon it as a resource
-in case of need,—the Athenian people could not but look upon the
-storm more as an afterthought to excuse previous omissions, than as
-a terrible reality nullifying all the ardor and resolution of men
-bent on doing their duty. It was in this way that the intervention of
-Theramenês chiefly contributed to the destruction of the generals,
-not by those manœuvres ascribed to him in Xenophon: he destroyed
-all belief in the storm as a real and all-covering hindrance. The
-general impression of the public at Athens—in my opinion, a natural
-and unavoidable impression—was, that there had been most culpable
-negligence in regard to the wrecks, through which negligence alone
-the seamen on board perished. This negligence dishonors, more or
-less, the armament at Arginusæ as well as the generals: but the
-generals were the persons responsible to the public at home, who
-felt for the fate of the deserted seamen more justly as well as more
-generously than their comrades in the fleet.
-
-  [305] Xenoph. Hellen. i, 7, 31. ~Ἐπειδὴ γὰρ κρατήσαντες τῇ
-  ναυμαχίᾳ πρὸς τὴν γῆν κατέπλευσαν~, Διομέδων μὲν ἐκέλευεν,
-  ἀναχθέντας ἐπὶ κέρως ἅπαντας ἀναιρεῖσθαι τὰ ναυάγια καὶ τοὺς
-  ναυαγοὺς, Ἐρασινίδης δὲ, ἐπὶ τοὺς ἐς Μυτιλήνην πολεμίους τὴν
-  ταχίστην πλεῖν ἅπαντας· Θράσυλλος δ᾽ ἀμφότερα ἔφη γενέσθαι, ἂν
-  τὰς μὲν αὐτοῦ καταλίπωσι, ταῖς δὲ ἐπὶ τοὺς πολεμίους πλέωσι· καὶ
-  δοξάντων τούτων, etc.
-
-  I remarked, a few pages before, that the case of Erasinidês
-  stood in some measure apart from that of the other generals. He
-  proposed, according to this speech of Euryptolemus, that all the
-  fleet should at once go again to Mitylênê; which would of course
-  have left the men on the wrecks to their fate.
-
-In spite, therefore, of the guilty proceeding to which a furious
-exaggeration of this sentiment drove the Athenians,—in spite of
-the sympathy which this has naturally and justly procured for the
-condemned generals,—the verdict of impartial history will pronounce
-that the sentiment itself was well founded, and that the generals
-deserved censure and disgrace. The Athenian people might with justice
-proclaim to them: “Whatever be the grandeur of your victory, we can
-neither rejoice in it ourselves, nor allow you to reap honor from
-it, if we find that you have left many hundreds of those who helped
-in gaining it to be drowned on board the wrecks without making
-any effort to save them, when such effort might well have proved
-successful.”
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER LXV.
-
-FROM THE BATTLE OF ARGINUSÆ TO THE RESTORATION OF THE DEMOCRACY AT
-ATHENS, AFTER THE EXPULSION OF THE THIRTY.
-
-
-The victory of Arginusæ gave for the time decisive mastery of the
-Asiatic seas to the Athenian fleet; and is even said to have so
-discouraged the Lacedæmonians, as to induce them to send propositions
-of peace to Athens. But this statement[306] is open to much doubt,
-and I think it most probable that no such propositions were made.
-Great as the victory was, we look in vain for any positive results
-accruing to Athens. After an unsuccessful attempt on Chios, the
-victorious fleet went to Samos, where it seems to have remained until
-the following year, without any farther movements than were necessary
-for the purpose of procuring money.
-
-  [306] The statement rests on the authority of Aristotle, as
-  referred to by the Scholiast on the last verse of the Ranæ of
-  Aristophanês. And this, so far as I know, is the only authority:
-  for when Mr. Fynes Clinton (Fast. Hellen. ad ann. 406) says that
-  Æschinês (De Fals. Legat. p. 38, c. 24) mentions the overtures
-  of peace, I think that no one who looks at that passage will be
-  inclined to found any inference upon it.
-
-  Against it, we may observe:—
-
-  1. Xenophon does not mention it. This is something, though far
-  from being conclusive when standing alone.
-
-  2. Diodorus does not mention it.
-
-  3. The terms alleged to have been proposed by the Lacedæmonians,
-  are exactly the same as those said to have been proposed by them
-  after the death of Mindarus at Kyzikus, namely:—
-
-  To evacuate Dekeleia, and each party to stand as they were.
-  Not only the terms are the same, but also the person who stood
-  prominent in opposition is in both cases the same, _Kleophon_.
-  The overtures after Arginusæ are in fact a second edition of
-  those after the battle of Kyzikus.
-
-  Now, the supposition that on two several occasions the
-  Lacedæmonians made propositions of peace, and that both are
-  left unnoticed by Xenophon, appears to me highly improbable. In
-  reference to the propositions after the battle of Kyzikus, the
-  testimony of Diodorus outweighed, in my judgment, the silence of
-  Xenophon; but here Diodorus is silent also.
-
-  In addition to this, the exact sameness of the two alleged events
-  makes me think that the second is only a duplication of the
-  first, and that the Scholiast, in citing from Aristotle, mistook
-  the battle of Arginusæ for that of Kyzikus, which latter was by
-  far the more decisive of the two.
-
-Meanwhile Eteonikus, who collected the remains of the defeated
-Peloponnesian fleet at Chios, being left unsupplied with money by
-Cyrus, found himself much straitened, and was compelled to leave
-the seamen unpaid. During the later summer and autumn, these men
-maintained themselves by laboring for hire on the Chian lands; but
-when winter came, this resource ceased, so that they found themselves
-unable to procure even clothes or shoes. In such forlorn condition,
-many of them entered into a conspiracy to assail and plunder the town
-of Chios; a day was named for the enterprise, and it was agreed that
-the conspirators should know each other by wearing a straw, or reed.
-Informed of the design, Eteonikus was at the same time intimidated by
-the number of these straw-bearers; he saw that if he dealt with the
-conspirators openly and ostensibly, they might perhaps rush to arms
-and succeed in plundering the town; at any rate, a conflict would
-arise in which many of the allies would be slain, which would produce
-the worst effect upon all future operations. Accordingly, resorting
-to stratagem, he took with him a guard of fifteen men armed with
-daggers, and marched through the town of Chios. Meeting presently one
-of these straw-bearers,—a man with a complaint in his eyes, coming
-out of a surgeon’s house,—he directed his guards to put the man to
-death on the spot. A crowd gathered round, with astonishment as well
-as sympathy, and inquired on what ground the man was put to death;
-upon which Eteonikus ordered his guards to reply, that it was because
-he wore a straw. The news became diffused, and immediately the
-remaining persons who wore straws became so alarmed as to throw their
-straws away.[307]
-
-  [307] Xenoph. Hellen. ii, 1, 1-4.
-
-Eteonikus availed himself of the alarm to demand money from the
-Chians, as a condition of carrying away this starving and perilous
-armament. Having obtained from them a month’s pay, he immediately put
-the troops on shipboard, taking pains to encourage them, and make
-them fancy that he was unacquainted with the recent conspiracy.
-
-The Chians and the other allies of Sparta presently assembled at
-Ephesus to consult, and resolved, in conjunction with Cyrus, to
-despatch envoys to the ephors, requesting that Lysander might be
-sent out a second time as admiral. It was not the habit of Sparta
-ever to send out the same man as admiral a second time, after his
-year of service. Nevertheless, the ephors complied with the request
-substantially, sending out Arakus as admiral, but Lysander along with
-him, under the title of secretary, invested with all the real powers
-of command.
-
-Lysander, having reached Ephesus about the beginning of B.C. 405,
-immediately applied himself with vigor to renovate both Lacedæmonian
-power and his own influence. The partisans in the various allied
-cities, whose favor he had assiduously cultivated during his last
-year’s command, the clubs and factious combinations, which he had
-organized and stimulated into a partnership of mutual ambition,
-all hailed his return with exultation. Discountenanced and kept
-down by the generous patriotism of his predecessor Kallikratidas,
-they now sprang into renewed activity, and became zealous in aiding
-Lysander to refit and augment his fleet. Nor was Cyrus less hearty
-in his preference than before. On arriving at Ephesus, Lysander went
-speedily to visit him at Sardis, and solicited a renewal of the
-pecuniary aid. The young prince said in reply that all the funds
-which he had received from Susa had already been expended, with much
-more besides; in testimony of which he exhibited a specification of
-the sums furnished to each Peloponnesian officer. Nevertheless,
-such was his partiality for Lysander, that he complied even with
-the additional demand now made, so as to send him away satisfied.
-The latter was thus enabled to return to Ephesus in a state for
-restoring the effective condition of his fleet. He made good at once
-all the arrears of pay due to the seamen, constituted new trierarchs,
-summoned Eteonikus with the fleet from Chios, together with all the
-other scattered squadrons, and directed that fresh triremes should be
-immediately put on the stocks at Antandrus.[308]
-
-  [308] Xenoph. Hellen. ii, 1, 10-12.
-
-In none of the Asiatic towns was the effect of Lysander’s second
-advent felt more violently than at Milêtus. He had there a powerful
-faction or association of friends, who had done their best to
-hamper and annoy Kallikratidas on his first arrival, but had been
-put to silence, and even forced to make a show of zeal, by the
-straightforward resolution of that noble-minded admiral. Eager
-to reimburse themselves for this humiliation, they now formed a
-conspiracy, with the privity and concurrence of Lysander, to seize
-the government for themselves. They determined, if Plutarch and
-Diodorus are to be credited, to put down the existing democracy,
-and establish an oligarchy in its place. But we cannot believe that
-there could have existed a democracy at Milêtus, which had now been
-for five years in dependence upon Sparta and the Persians jointly.
-We must rather understand the movement as a conflict between two
-oligarchical parties; the friends of Lysander being more thoroughly
-self-seeking and anti-popular than their opponents, and perhaps
-even crying them down, by comparison, as a democracy. Lysander lent
-himself to the scheme, fanned the ambition of the conspirators,
-who were at one time disposed to a compromise, and even betrayed
-the government into a false security, by promises of support which
-he never intended to fulfil. At the festival of the Dionysia, the
-conspirators, rising in arms, seized forty of their chief opponents
-in their houses, and three hundred more in the market-place; while
-the government—confiding in the promises of Lysander, who affected to
-reprove, but secretly continued instigating the insurgents—made but
-a faint resistance. The three hundred and forty leaders thus seized,
-probably men who had gone heartily along with Kallikratidas, were
-all put to death; and a still larger number of citizens, not less
-than one thousand, fled into exile. Milêtus thus passed completely
-into the hands of the friends and partisans of Lysander.[309]
-
-  [309] Diodor. xiii, 104; Plutarch, Lysand. c. 8.
-
-It would appear that factious movements in other towns, less
-revolting in respect of bloodshed and perfidy, yet still of similar
-character to that of Milêtus, marked the reappearance of Lysander
-in Asia; placing the towns more and more in the hands of his
-partisans. While thus acquiring greater ascendency among the allies,
-Lysander received a summons from Cyrus to visit him at Sardis. The
-young prince had just been sent for to come and visit his father
-Darius, who was both old and dangerously ill, in Media. About to
-depart for this purpose, he carried his confidence in Lysander so
-far as to delegate to him the management of his satrapy and his
-entire revenues. Besides his admiration for the superior energy and
-capacity of the Greek character, with which he had only recently
-contracted acquaintance; and besides his esteem for the personal
-disinterestedness of Lysander, attested as it had been by the conduct
-of the latter in the first visit and banquet at Sardis; Cyrus was
-probably induced to this step by the fear of raising up to himself a
-rival, if he trusted the like power to any Persian grandee. At the
-same time that he handed over all his tributes and his reserved funds
-to Lysander, he assured him of his steady friendship both towards
-himself and towards the Lacedæmonians; and concluded by entreating
-that he would by no means engage in any general action with the
-Athenians, unless at great advantage in point of numbers. The defeat
-of Arginusæ having strengthened his preference for this dilatory
-policy, he promised that not only the Persian treasures, but also the
-Phenician fleet, should be brought into active employment for the
-purpose of crushing Athens.[310]
-
-  [310] Xenoph. Hellen. ii, 1, 14; Plutarch, Lysand. c. 9.
-
-Thus armed with an unprecedented command of Persian treasure, and
-seconded by ascendent factions in all the allied cities, Lysander was
-more powerful than any Lacedæmonian commander had ever been since the
-commencement of the war. Having his fleet well paid, he could keep
-it united, and direct it whither he chose, without the necessity of
-dispersing it in roving squadrons for the purpose of levying money.
-It is probably from a corresponding necessity that we are to explain
-the inaction of the Athenian fleet at Samos; for we hear of no
-serious operations undertaken by it, during the whole year following
-the victory of Arginusæ, although under the command of an able and
-energetic man, Konon, together with Philoklês and Adeimantus; to whom
-were added, during the spring of 405 B.C., three other generals,
-Tydeus, Menander, and Kephisodotus. It appears that Theramenês
-also was put up and elected one of the generals, but rejected when
-submitted to the confirmatory examination called the dokimasy.[311]
-The fleet comprised one hundred and eighty triremes, rather a greater
-number than that of Lysander; to whom they in vain offered battle
-near his station at Ephesus. Finding him not disposed to a general
-action, they seem to have dispersed to plunder Chios, and various
-portions of the Asiatic coast; while Lysander, keeping his fleet
-together, first sailed southward from Ephesus, stormed and plundered
-a semi-Hellenic town in the Kerameikan gulf, named Kedreiæ, which was
-in alliance with Athens, and thence proceeded to Rhodes.[312] He was
-even bold enough to make an excursion across the Ægean to the coast
-of Ægina and Attica, where he had an interview with Agis, who came
-from Dekeleia to the sea-coast.[313] The Athenians were prepared to
-follow him thither when they learned that he had recrossed the Ægean,
-and he soon afterwards appeared with all his fleet at the Hellespont,
-which important pass they had left unguarded. Lysander went straight
-to Abydos, still the great Peloponnesian station in the strait,
-occupied by Thorax as harmost with a land force; and immediately
-proceeded to attack, both by sea and land, the neighboring town of
-Lampsakus, which was taken by storm. It was wealthy in every way, and
-abundantly stocked with bread and wine, so that the soldiers obtained
-a large booty; but Lysander left the free inhabitants untouched.[314]
-
-  [311] Lysias, Orat. xiii, cont. Agorat. sect. 13.
-
-  [312] Xenoph. Hellen. ii, 1, 15, 16.
-
-  [313] This flying visit of Lysander across the Ægean to the
-  coasts of Attica and Ægina is not noticed by Xenophon, but it
-  appears both in Diodorus and in Plutarch (Diodor. xiii, 104:
-  Plutarch, Lysand. c. 9).
-
-  [314] Xenoph. Hellen. ii, 1, 18, 19; Diodor. xiii, 104; Plutarch,
-  Lysand. c. 9.
-
-The Athenian fleet seems to have been employed in plundering Chios,
-when it received news that the Lacedæmonian commander was at the
-Hellespont engaged in the siege of Lampsakus. Either from the want
-of money, or from other causes which we do not understand, Konon and
-his colleagues were partly inactive, partly behindhand with Lysander,
-throughout all this summer. They now followed him to the Hellespont,
-sailing out on the sea-side of Chios and Lesbos, away from the
-Asiatic coast, which was all unfriendly to them. They reached Elæus,
-at the southern extremity of the Chersonese, with their powerful
-fleet of one hundred and eighty triremes, just in time to hear, while
-at their morning meal, that Lysander was already master of Lampsakus;
-upon which they immediately proceeded up the strait to Sestos, and
-from thence, after stopping only to collect a few provisions, still
-farther up, to a place called Ægospotami.[315]
-
-  [315] Xenoph. Hellen. ii, 1, 20, 21.
-
-Ægospotami, or Goat’s River—a name of fatal sound to all subsequent
-Athenians—was a place which had nothing to recommend it except
-that it was directly opposite to Lampsakus, separated by a breadth
-of strait about one mile and three-quarters. But it was an open
-beach, without harbor, without good anchorage, without either
-houses or inhabitants or supplies; so that everything necessary for
-this large army had to be fetched from Sestos, about one mile and
-three-quarters distant even by land, and yet more distant by sea,
-since it was necessary to round a headland. Such a station was highly
-inconvenient and dangerous to an ancient naval armament, without any
-organized commissariat; since the seamen, being compelled to go to
-a distance from their ships in order to get their meals, were not
-easily reassembled. Yet this was the station chosen by the Athenian
-generals, with the full design of compelling Lysander to fight a
-battle. But the Lacedæmonian admiral, who was at Lampsakus, in a good
-harbor, with a well-furnished town in his rear, and a land-force to
-coöperate, had no intention of accepting the challenge of his enemies
-at the moment which suited their convenience. When the Athenians
-sailed across the strait the next morning, they found all his ships
-fully manned,—the men having already taken their morning meal,—and
-ranged in perfect order of battle, with the land-force disposed
-ashore to lend assistance; but with strict orders to await attack and
-not to move forward. Not daring to attack him in such a position, yet
-unable to draw him out by manœuvring all the day, the Athenians were
-at length obliged to go back to Ægospotami. But Lysander directed a
-few swift-sailing vessels to follow them, nor would he suffer his
-own men to disembark until he thus ascertained that their seamen had
-actually dispersed ashore.[316]
-
-  [316] Xenoph. Hellen. ii, 1, 22-24; Plutarch. Lysand. c. 10;
-  Diodor. xiii, 105.
-
-For four successive days this same scene was repeated; the Athenians
-becoming each day more confident in their own superior strength,
-and more full of contempt for the apparent cowardice of the enemy.
-It was in vain that Alkibiadês—who from his own private forts in
-the Chersonese witnessed what was passing—rode up to the station
-and remonstrated with the generals on the exposed condition of the
-fleet on this open shore; urgently advising them to move round to
-Sestos, where they would be both close to their own supplies and
-safe from attack, as Lysander was at Lampsakus, and from whence
-they could go forth to fight whenever they chose. But the Athenian
-generals, especially Tydeus and Menander, disregarded his advice, and
-even dismissed him with the insulting taunt, that they were now in
-command, not he.[317] Continuing thus in their exposed position, the
-Athenian seamen on each successive day became more and more careless
-of their enemy, and rash in dispersing the moment they returned back
-to their own shore. At length, on the fifth day, Lysander ordered
-the scout-ships, which he sent forth to watch the Athenians on their
-return, to hoist a bright shield as a signal, as soon as they should
-see the ships at their anchorage and the crews ashore in quest
-of their meal. The moment he beheld this welcome signal, he gave
-orders to his entire fleet to row across as swiftly as possible from
-Lampsakus to Ægospotami, while Thorax marched along the strand with
-the land-force in case of need. Nothing could be more complete or
-decisive than the surprise of the Athenian fleet. All the triremes
-were caught at their moorings ashore, some entirely deserted, others
-with one or at most two of the three tiers of rowers which formed
-their complement. Out of all the total of one hundred and eighty,
-only twelve were found in tolerable order and preparation;[318] the
-trireme of Konon himself, together with a squadron of seven under his
-immediate orders, and the consecrated ship called paralus, always
-manned by the _élite_ of the Athenian seamen, being among them. It
-was in vain that Konon, on seeing the fleet of Lysander approaching,
-employed his utmost efforts to get his fleet manned and in some
-condition for resistance. The attempt was desperate, and the utmost
-which he could do was to escape himself with the small squadron of
-twelve, including the paralus. All the remaining triremes, nearly
-one hundred and seventy in number, were captured by Lysander on
-the shore, defenceless, and seemingly without the least attempt on
-the part of any one to resist. He landed, and made prisoners most
-of the crews ashore, though some of them fled and found shelter in
-the neighboring forts. This prodigious and unparalleled victory was
-obtained, not merely without the loss of a single ship, but almost
-without that of a single man.[319]
-
-  [317] Xenoph. Hellen. ii, 1, 25; Plutarch, Lysand. c. 10;
-  Plutarch, Alkib. c. 36.
-
-  Diodorus (xiii, 105) and Cornelius Nepos (Alkib. c. 8) represent
-  Alkibiadês as wishing to be readmitted to a share in the command
-  of the fleet, and as promising, if that were granted, that he
-  would assemble a body of Thracians, attack Lysander by land, and
-  compel him to fight a battle or retire. Plutarch (Alkib. c. 37)
-  alludes also to promises of this sort held out by Alkibiadês.
-
-  Yet it is not likely that Alkibiadês should have talked of
-  anything so obviously impossible. How could he bring a Thracian
-  land-force to attack Lysander, who was on the opposite side of
-  the Hellespont? How could he carry a land-force across in the
-  face of Lysander’s fleet?
-
-  The representation of Xenophon (followed in my text) is clear and
-  intelligible.
-
-  [318] Xenoph. Hellen. ii, 1, 29; Lysias, Orat. xxi, (Ἀπολ.
-  Δωροδ.) s. 12.
-
-  [319] Xenoph. Hellen. ii, 1, 28; Plutarch, Lysand. c. 11;
-  Plutarch, Alkibiad. c. 36; Cornel. Nepos, Lysand. c. 8; Polyæn.
-  i, 45, 2.
-
-  Diodorus (xiii, 106) gives a different representation of this
-  important military operation; far less clear and trustworthy than
-  that of Xenophon.
-
-Of the number of prisoners taken by Lysander,—which must have been
-very great, since the total crews of one hundred and eighty triremes
-were not less than thirty-six thousand men,[320]—we hear only of
-three thousand or four thousand native Athenians, though this number
-cannot represent all the native Athenians in the fleet. The Athenian
-generals Philoklês and Adeimantus were certainly taken, and seemingly
-all except Konon. Some of the defeated armament took refuge in
-Sestos, which, however, surrendered with little resistance to the
-victor. He admitted them to capitulation, on condition of their going
-back immediately to Athens, and nowhere else: for he was desirous
-to multiply as much as possible the numbers assembled in that city,
-knowing well that the city would be the sooner starved out. Konon
-too was well aware that, to go back to Athens, after the ruin of the
-entire fleet, was to become one of the certain prisoners in a doomed
-city, and to meet, besides, the indignation of his fellow-citizens,
-so well deserved by the generals collectively. Accordingly, he
-resolved to take shelter with Evagoras, prince of Salamis in the
-island of Cyprus, sending the paralus, with some others of the twelve
-fugitive triremes, to make known the fatal news at Athens. But before
-he went thither, he crossed the strait—with singular daring, under
-the circumstances—to Cape Abarnis in the territory of Lampsakus,
-where the great sails of Lysander’s triremes, always taken out when a
-trireme was made ready for fighting, lay seemingly unguarded. These
-sails he took away, so as to lessen the enemy’s powers of pursuit,
-and then made the best of his way to Cyprus.[321]
-
-  [320] Xenoph. Hellen. ii, 1, 28. τὰς δ᾽ ἄλλας πάσας (ναῦς)
-  Λύσανδρος ἔλαβε πρὸς τῇ γῇ· τοὺς δὲ πλείστους ἄνδρας ἐν τῇ γῇ
-  ~ξυνέλεξεν~· οἱ δὲ καὶ ἔφυγον ἐς τὰ τειχύδρια.
-
-  [321] Xenoph. Hellen. ii, 1, 29; Diodor. xiii, 106: the latter is
-  discordant, however, on many points.
-
-On the very day of the victory, Lysander sent off the Milesian
-privateer Theopompus to proclaim it at Sparta, who, by a wonderful
-speed of rowing, arrived there and made it known on the third
-day after starting. The captured ships were towed off and the
-prisoners carried across to Lampsakus, where a general assembly of
-the victorious allies was convened, to determine in what manner
-the prisoners should be treated. In this assembly, the most
-bitter inculpations were put forth against the Athenians, as to
-the manner in which they had recently dealt with their captives.
-The Athenian general Philoklês, having captured a Corinthian and
-Andrian trireme, had put the crews to death by hurling them headlong
-from a precipice. It was not difficult, in Grecian warfare, for
-each of the belligerents to cite precedents of cruelty against
-the other; but in this debate, some speakers affirmed that the
-Athenians had deliberated what they should do with their prisoners,
-in case they had been victorious at Ægospotami; and that they had
-determined—chiefly on the motion of Philoklês, but in spite of the
-opposition of Adeimantus—that they would cut off the right hands of
-all who were captured. Whatever opinion Philoklês may have expressed
-personally, it is highly improbable that any such determination was
-ever taken by the Athenians.[322] In this assembly of the allies,
-however, besides all that could be said against Athens with truth,
-doubtless the most extravagant falsehoods found ready credence. All
-the Athenian prisoners captured at Ægospotami, three thousand or
-four thousand in number, were massacred forthwith, Philoklês himself
-at their head.[323] The latter, taunted by Lysander with his cruel
-execution of the Corinthian and Andrian crews, disdained to return
-any answer, but placed himself in conspicuous vestments at the head
-of the prisoners led out to execution. If we may believe Pausanias,
-even the bodies of the prisoners were left unburied.
-
-  [322] Xenoph. Hellen. ii, 1, 31. This story is given with
-  variations in Plutarch, Lysand. c. 9. and by Cicero de Offic.
-  iii, 11. It is there the right thumb which is to be cut off, and
-  the determination is alleged to have been taken in reference to
-  the Æginetans.
-
-  [323] Xenoph. Hellen. ii, 1, 32; Pausan. ix, 32, 6; Plutarch,
-  Lysand. c. 13.
-
-Never was a victory more complete in itself, more overwhelming in
-its consequences, or more thoroughly disgraceful to the defeated
-generals, taken collectively, than that of Ægospotami. Whether it
-was in reality very glorious to Lysander, is doubtful; for it was
-the general belief afterwards, not merely at Athens, but seemingly
-in other parts of Greece also, that the Athenian fleet was sold to
-perdition by the treason of some of its own commanders. Of this
-suspicion both Konon and Philoklês stand clear. Adeimantus was named
-as the chief traitor, and Tydeus along with him.[324] Konon even
-preferred an accusation against Adeimantus to this effect,[325]
-probably by letter written home from Cyprus, and perhaps by some
-formal declaration made several years afterwards, when he returned
-to Athens as victor from the battle of Knidus. The truth of the
-charge cannot be positively demonstrated, but all the circumstances
-of the battle tend to render it probable, as well as the fact that
-Konon alone among all the generals was found in a decent state
-of preparation. Indeed we may add, that the utter impotence and
-inertness of the numerous Athenian fleet during the whole summer
-of 405 B.C. conspire to suggest a similar explanation. Nor could
-Lysander, master as he was of all the treasures of Cyrus, apply any
-portion of them more efficaciously than in corrupting the majority
-of the six Athenian generals, so as to nullify all the energy and
-ability of Konon.
-
-  [324] Xenoph. Hellen. ii, 1. 32; Lysias cont. Alkib. A. s.
-  38; Pausan. iv, 17, 2; x, 9, 5; Isokratês ad Philipp. Or. v,
-  sect. 70. Lysias, in his Λόγος Ἐπιτάφιος (s. 58), speaks of the
-  treason, yet not as a matter of certainty.
-
-  Cornelius Nepos (Lysand. c. 1; Alcib. c. 8) notices only the
-  disorder of the Athenian armament, not the corruption of the
-  generals, as having caused the defeat. Nor does Diodorus notice
-  the corruption (xiii, 105).
-
-  Both these authors seem to have copied from Theopompus, in
-  describing the battle of Ægospotami. His description differs on
-  many points from that of Xenophon (Theopomp. Fragm. 8, ed. Didot).
-
-  [325] Demosthen. de Fals. Legat. p. 401, c. 57.
-
-The great defeat of Ægospotami took place about September 405 B.C.
-It was made known at Peiræus by the paralus, which arrived there
-during the night, coming straight from the Hellespont. Such a
-moment of distress and agony had never been experienced at Athens.
-The terrible disaster in Sicily had become known to the people by
-degrees, without any authorized reporter; but here was the official
-messenger, fresh from the scene, leaving no room to question the
-magnitude of the disaster or the irreparable ruin impending over
-the city. The wailing and cries of woe, first beginning in Peiræus,
-were transmitted by the guards stationed on the Long Walls up to the
-city. “On that night (says Xenophon) not a man slept; not merely from
-sorrow for the past calamity, but from terror for the future fate
-with which they themselves were now menaced, a retribution for what
-they had themselves inflicted on the Æginetans, Melians, Skionæans,
-and others.” After this night of misery, they met in public assembly
-on the following day, resolving to make the best preparations they
-could for a siege, to put the walls in full state of defence, and to
-block up two out of the three ports.[326] For Athens thus to renounce
-her maritime action, the pride and glory of the city ever since the
-battle of Salamis, and to confine herself to a defensive attitude
-within her own walls, was a humiliation which left nothing worse to
-be endured except actual famine and surrender.
-
-  [326] Xenoph. Hellen. ii, 2, 3; Diodor. xiii, 107.
-
-Lysander was in no hurry to pass from the Hellespont to Athens. He
-knew that no farther corn-ships from the Euxine, and few supplies
-from other quarters, could now reach Athens; and that the power
-of the city to hold out against blockade must necessarily be very
-limited; the more limited, the greater the numbers accumulated
-within it. Accordingly, he permitted the Athenian garrisons which
-capitulated, to go only to Athens, and nowhere else.[327] His first
-measure was to make himself master of Chalkêdon and Byzantium, where
-he placed the Lacedæmonian Sthenelaus as harmost, with a garrison.
-Next, he passed to Lesbos, where he made similar arrangements at
-Mitylênê and other cities. In them, as well as in the other cities
-which now came under his power, he constituted an oligarchy of ten
-native citizens, chosen from among his most daring and unscrupulous
-partisans, and called a dekarchy, or dekadarchy, to govern in
-conjunction with the Lacedæmonian harmost. Eteonikus was sent to
-the Thracian cities which had been in dependence on Athens, to
-introduce similar changes. In Thasus, however, this change was
-stained by much bloodshed: there was a numerous philo-Athenian
-party whom Lysander caused to be allured out of their place of
-concealment into the temple of Heraklês, under the false assurance
-of an amnesty: when assembled under this pledge, they were all put
-to death.[328] Sanguinary proceedings of the like character, many in
-the presence of Lysander himself, together with large expulsions of
-citizens obnoxious to his new dekarchies, signalized everywhere the
-substitution of Spartan for Athenian ascendency.[329] But nowhere,
-except at Samos, did the citizens or the philo-Athenian party in the
-cities continue any open hostility, or resist by force Lysander’s
-entrance and his revolutionary changes. At Samos, they still held
-out: the people had too much dread of that oligarchy, whom they had
-expelled in the insurrection of 412 B.C., to yield without a farther
-struggle.[330] With this single reserve, every city in alliance or
-dependence upon Athens submitted without resistance both to the
-supremacy and the subversive measures of the Lacedæmonian admiral.
-
-  [327] Xenoph. Hellen. ii, 2, 2; Plutarch, Lysand. c. 13.
-
-  [328] Cornelius Nepos, Lysand. c. 2; Polyæn. i, 45, 4. It would
-  appear that this is the same incident which Plutarch (Lysand.
-  c. 19) recounts as if the Milesians, not the Thasians, were the
-  parties suffering. It cannot well be the Milesians, however, it
-  we compare chapter 8 of Plutarch’s Life of Lysander.
-
-  [329] Plutarch, Lysand. c. 13. πολλαῖς δὲ παραγινόμενος αὐτὸς
-  σφαγαῖς καὶ συνεκβάλλων τοὺς τῶν φίλων ἐχθροὺς, etc.
-
-  [330] Xenoph. Hellen. ii, 2, 6. εὐθὺς δὲ καὶ ἡ ἄλλη Ἑλλὰς
-  ἀφειστήκει Ἀθηναίων, πλὴν Σαμίων· οὗτοι δὲ, σφαγὰς τῶν γνωρίμων
-  ποιήσαντες, κατεῖχον τὴν πόλιν.
-
-  I interpret the words σφαγὰς τῶν γνωρίμων ποιήσαντες to refer
-  to the violent revolution at Samos, described in Thucyd. viii,
-  21, whereby the oligarchy were dispossessed and a democratical
-  government established. The word σφαγὰς is used by Xenophon
-  (Hellen. v, 4, 14), in a subsequent passage, to describe the
-  conspiracy and revolution effected by Pelopidas and his friends
-  at Thebes. It is true that we might rather have expected the
-  preterite participle πεποιηκότες than the aorist ποιήσαντες. But
-  this employment of the aorist participle in a preterite sense is
-  not uncommon with Xenophon: see κατηγορήσας, δόξας, i, 1, 31;
-  γενομένους, i, 7, 11; ii, 2, 20.
-
-  It appears to me highly improbable that the Samians should
-  have chosen this occasion to make a fresh massacre of their
-  oligarchical citizens, as Mr. Mitford represents. The
-  democratical Samians must have been now humbled and intimidated,
-  seeing their subjugation approaching; and only determined to
-  hold out by finding themselves already so deeply compromised
-  though the former revolution. Nor would Lysander have spared them
-  personally afterwards, as we shall find that he did, when he
-  had them substantially in his power (ii, 3, 6), if they had now
-  committed any fresh political massacre.
-
-The Athenian empire was thus annihilated, and Athens left
-altogether alone. What was hardly less painful, all her kleruchs,
-or out-citizens, whom she had formerly planted in Ægina, Melos, and
-elsewhere throughout the islands, as well as in the Chersonese,
-were now deprived of their properties and driven home.[331] The
-leading philo-Athenians, too, at Thasus, Byzantium, and other
-dependent cities,[332] were forced to abandon their homes in
-the like state of destitution, and to seek shelter at Athens.
-Everything thus contributed to aggravate the impoverishment, and the
-manifold suffering, physical as well as moral, within her walls.
-Notwithstanding the pressure of present calamity, however, and yet
-worse prospects for the future, the Athenians prepared, as best they
-could, for an honorable resistance.
-
-  [331] Xenoph. Memorab. ii, 8, 1; ii, 10, 4; Xenoph. Sympos. iv,
-  31. Compare Demosthen. cont. Leptin. c. 24, p. 491.
-
-  A great number of new proprietors acquired land in the Chersonese
-  through the Lacedæmonian sway, doubtless in place of these
-  dispossessed Athenians; perhaps by purchase at a low price, but
-  most probably by appropriation without purchase (Xenoph. Hellen.
-  iv, 8, 5).
-
-  [332] Xenoph. Hellen. i, 2, 1; Demosthen. cont. Leptin. c. 14, p.
-  474. Ekphantus and the other Thasian exiles received the grant
-  of ἀτέλεια, or immunity from the peculiar charges imposed upon
-  metics at Athens.
-
-It was one of their first measures to provide for the restoration of
-harmony, and to interest all in the defence of the city, by removing
-every sort of disability under which individual citizens might
-now be suffering. Accordingly, Patrokleidês—having first obtained
-special permission from the people, without which it would have been
-unconstitutional to make any proposition for abrogating sentences
-judicially passed, or releasing debtors regularly inscribed in the
-public registers—submitted a decree such as had never been mooted
-since the period when Athens was in a condition equally desperate,
-during the advancing march of Xerxes. All debtors to the state,
-either recent or of long standing; all official persons now under
-investigation by the Logistæ, or about to be brought before the
-dikastery on the usual accountability after office; all persons who
-were liquidating by instalment debts due to the public, or had given
-bail for sums thus owing; all persons who had been condemned either
-to total disfranchisement, or to some specific disqualification or
-disability; nay, even all those who, having been either members or
-auxiliaries of the Four Hundred, had stood trial afterwards, and had
-been condemned to any one of the above-mentioned penalties, all these
-persons were pardoned and released; every register of the penalty or
-condemnation being directed to be destroyed. From this comprehensive
-pardon were excepted: Those among the Four Hundred who had fled from
-Athens without standing their trial; those who had been condemned
-either to exile or to death by the Areopagus, or any of the other
-constituted tribunals for homicide, or for subversion of the public
-liberty. Not merely the public registers of all the condemnations
-thus released were ordered to be destroyed, but it was forbidden,
-under severe penalties, to any private citizen to keep a copy of
-them, or to make any allusion to such misfortunes.[333]
-
-  [333] This interesting decree or psephism of Patrokleidês is
-  given at length in the Oration of Andokidês de Mysteriis, sects.
-  76-80: Ἃ δ᾽ εἴρηται ἐξαλεῖψαι, μὴ κεκτῆσθαι ἰδίᾳ μηδενὶ ἐξεῖναι,
-  μηδὲ μνησικακῆσαι μηδέποτε.
-
-Pursuant to the comprehensive amnesty and forgiveness adopted by
-the people in this decree of Patrokleidês, the general body of
-citizens swore to each other a solemn pledge of mutual harmony in
-the acropolis.[334] The reconciliation thus introduced enabled them
-the better to bear up under their distress;[335] especially as the
-persons relieved by the amnesty were, for the most part, not men
-politically disaffected, like the exiles. To restore the latter, was
-a measure which no one thought of: indeed, a large proportion of them
-had been and were still at Dekeleia, assisting the Lacedæmonians in
-their warfare against Athens.[336] But even the most prudent internal
-measures could do little for Athens in reference to her capital
-difficulty, that of procuring subsistence for the numerous population
-within her walls, augmented every day by outlying garrisons and
-citizens. She had long been shut out from the produce of Attica by
-the garrison at Dekeleia; she obtained nothing from Eubœa, and since
-the late defeat of Ægospotami, nothing from the Euxine, from Thrace,
-or from the islands. Perhaps some corn may still have reached her
-from Cyprus, and her small remaining navy did what was possible to
-keep Peiræus supplied,[337] in spite of the menacing prohibitions of
-Lysander, preceding his arrival to block it up effectually; but to
-accumulate any stock for a siege, was utterly impossible.
-
-  [334] Andokid. de Myst. s. 76. καὶ πίστιν ἀλλήλοις περὶ ὁμονοίας
-  δοῦναι ἐν ἀκροπόλει.
-
-  [335] Xenoph. Hellen. ii, 2, 11. τοὺς ἀτίμους ἐπιτίμους
-  ποιήσαντες ἐκαρτέρουν.
-
-  [336] Andokidês de Mysteriis, sects. 80-101; Lysias, Orat. xviii,
-  De Bonis Niciæ Fratr. sect. 9.
-
-  At what particular moment the severe condemnatory decree had been
-  passed by the Athenian assembly against the exiles serving with
-  the Lacedæmonian garrison at Dekeleia, we do not know. The decree
-  is mentioned by Lykurgus, cont. Leokrat. sects. 122, 123, p. 164.
-
-  [337] Isokratês adv. Kallimachum, sect. 71; compare Andokidês
-  de Reditu suo, sect. 21, and Lysias cont. Diogeiton. Or. xxxii,
-  sect. 22, about Cyprus and the Chersonese, as ordinary sources of
-  supply of corn to Athens.
-
-At length, about November, 405 B.C., Lysander reached the Saronic
-gulf, having sent intimation beforehand, both to Agis and to the
-Lacedæmonians, that he was approaching with a fleet of two hundred
-triremes. The full Lacedæmonian and Peloponnesian force (all except
-the Argeians), under king Pausanias, was marched into Attica to
-meet him, and encamped in the precinct of Acadêmus, at the gates of
-Athens; while Lysander, first coming to Ægina with his overwhelming
-fleet of one hundred and fifty sail; next, ravaging Salamis, blocked
-up completely the harbor of Peiræus. It was one of his first measures
-to collect together the remnant which he could find of the Æginetan
-and Melian populations, whom Athens had expelled and destroyed; and
-to restore to them the possession of their ancient islands.[338]
-
-  [338] Xenoph. Hellen. ii, 2, 9; Diodor. xiii, 107.
-
-Though all hope had now fled, the pride, the resolution, and the
-despair of Athens, still enabled her citizens to bear up; nor was
-it until some men actually began to die of hunger, that they sent
-propositions to entreat peace. Even then their propositions were not
-without dignity. They proposed to Agis to become allies of Sparta,
-retaining their walls entire and their fortified harbor of Peiræus.
-Agis referred the envoys to the ephors at Sparta, to whom he at
-the same time transmitted a statement of their propositions. But
-the ephors did not even deign to admit the envoys to an interview,
-but sent messengers to meet them at Sellasia on the frontier of
-Laconia, desiring that they would go back and come again prepared
-with something more admissible, and acquainting them at the same
-time that no proposition could be received which did not include the
-demolition of the Long Walls, for a continuous length of ten stadia.
-With this gloomy reply the envoys returned. Notwithstanding all the
-suffering in the city, the senate and people would not consent even
-to take such humiliating terms into consideration. A senator named
-Archestratus, who advised that they should be accepted, was placed
-in custody, and a general vote was passed,[339] on the proposition
-of Kleophon, forbidding any such motion in future.
-
-  [339] Xenoph. Hellen. ii, 2, 12-15; Lysias cont. Agorat. sects.
-  10-12.
-
-Such a vote demonstrates the courageous patience both of the senate
-and the people; but unhappily it supplied no improved prospects,
-while the suffering within the walls continued to become more and
-more aggravated. Under these circumstances, Theramenês offered
-himself to the people to go as envoy to Lysander and Sparta,
-affirming that he should be able to detect what the real intention
-of the ephors was in regard to Athens, whether they really intended
-to root out the population and sell them as slaves. He pretended,
-farther, to possess personal influence, founded on circumstances
-which he could not divulge, such as would very probably insure a
-mitigation of the doom. He was accordingly sent, in spite of strong
-protest from the senate of Areopagus and others,—but with no express
-powers to conclude,—simply to inquire and report. We hear with
-astonishment that he remained more than three months as companion
-of Lysander, who, he alleged, had detained him thus long, and had
-only acquainted him, after the fourth month had begun, that no
-one but the ephors had any power to grant peace. It seems to have
-been the object of Theramenês, by this long delay, to wear out the
-patience of the Athenians, and to bring them into such a state of
-intolerable suffering, that they would submit to any terms of peace
-which would only bring provisions into the town. In this scheme he
-completely succeeded; and considering how great were the privations
-of the people even at the moment of his departure, it is not easy to
-understand how they could have been able to sustain protracted and
-increasing famine for three months longer.[340]
-
-  [340] Xenoph. Hellen. ii, 2, 16; Lysias, Orat. xiii, cont.
-  Agorat. sect. 12; Lysias, Orat. xii, cont. Eratosthen. sects.
-  65-71.
-
-  See an illustration of the great suffering during the siege, in
-  Xenophon Apolog. Socrat. s. 18.
-
-We make out little that is distinct respecting these last moments
-of imperial Athens. We find only an heroic endurance displayed, to
-such a point that numbers actually died of starvation, without any
-offer to surrender on humiliating conditions.[341] Amidst the general
-acrimony, and exasperated special antipathies, arising out of such
-a state of misery, the leading men who stood out most earnestly for
-prolonged resistance became successively victims to the prosecutions
-of their enemies. The demagogue Kleophon was condemned and put to
-death, on the accusation of having evaded his military duty; the
-senate, whose temper and proceedings he had denounced, constituting
-itself a portion of the dikastery which tried him, contrary both
-to the forms and the spirit of Athenian judicatures.[342] Such
-proceedings, however, though denounced by orators in subsequent years
-as having contributed to betray the city into the hands of the enemy,
-appear to have been without any serious influence on the result,
-which was brought about purely by famine.
-
-  [341] Xenoph. Hellen. ii, 2, 15-21; compare Isokratês, Areopagit.
-  Or. vii, sect. 73.
-
-  [342] Lysias, Orat. xiii, cont. Agorat. sects. 15, 16, 17; Orat.
-  xxx, cont. Nikomach. sects. 13-17.
-
-  This seems the most probable story as to the death of Kleophon,
-  though the accounts are not all consistent, and the statement of
-  Xenophon, especially (Hellen. i, 7, 35), is not to be reconciled
-  with Lysias. Xenophon conceived Kleophon as having perished
-  earlier than this period, in a sedition (στάσεως τινος γενομένης
-  ἐν ᾗ Κλεοφῶν ἀπέθανε), before the flight of Kallixenus from his
-  recognizances. It is scarcely possible that Kallixenus could have
-  been still under recognizance, during this period of suffering
-  between the battle of Ægospotami and the capture of Athens. He
-  must have escaped before that battle. Neither long detention of
-  an accused party in prison before trial, nor long postponement
-  of trial when he was under recognizance were at all in Athenian
-  habits.
-
-By the time that Theramenês returned after his long absence, so
-terrible had the pressure become, that he was sent forth again with
-instructions to conclude peace upon any terms. On reaching Sellasia,
-and acquainting the ephors that he had come with unlimited powers for
-peace, he was permitted to come to Sparta, where the assembly of the
-Peloponnesian confederacy was convened, to settle on what terms peace
-should be granted. The leading allies, especially Corinthians and
-Thebans, recommended that no agreement should be entered into, nor
-any farther measure kept, with this hated enemy now in their power;
-but that the name of Athens should be rooted out, and the population
-sold for slaves. Many of the other allies seconded the same views,
-which would have probably commanded a majority, had it not been for
-the resolute opposition of the Lacedæmonians themselves; who declared
-unequivocally that they would never consent to annihilate or enslave
-a city which had rendered such capital service to all Greece at the
-time of the great common danger from the Persians.[343] Lysander
-farther calculated on so dealing with Athens, as to make her into a
-dependency, and an instrument of increased power to Sparta, apart
-from her allies. Peace was accordingly granted on the following
-conditions: that the Long Walls and the fortifications of the Peiræus
-should be destroyed; that the Athenians should evacuate all their
-foreign possessions, and confine themselves to their own territory;
-that they should surrender all their ships of war; that they should
-readmit all their exiles; that they should become allies of Sparta,
-following her leadership both by sea and land, and recognizing the
-same enemies and friends.[344]
-
-  [343] Xenoph. Hellen. ii, 2, 19; vi, 5, 35-46; Plutarch, Lysand.
-  c. 15.
-
-  The Thebans, a few years afterwards, when they were soliciting
-  aid from the Athenians against Sparta, disavowed this proposition
-  of their delegate Erianthus, who had been the leader of the
-  Bœotian contingent serving under Lysander at Ægospotami, honored
-  in that character by having his statue erected at Delphi, along
-  with the other allied leaders who took part in the battle, and
-  along with Lysander and Eteonikus (Pausan. x, 9, 4).
-
-  It is one of the exaggerations so habitual with Isokratês, to
-  serve a present purpose, when he says that the Thebans were the
-  _only_ parties, among all the Peloponnesian confederates, who
-  gave this harsh anti-Athenian vote (Isokratês, Orat. Plataic. Or.
-  xiv, sect. 34).
-
-  Demosthenês says that the Phocians gave their vote, in the same
-  synod, against the Theban proposition (Demosth. de Fals. Legat.
-  c. 22, p. 361).
-
-  It seems from Diodor. xv, 63, and Polyæn. i, 45, 5, as well as
-  from some passages in Xenophon himself, that the motives of the
-  Lacedæmonians, in thus resisting the proposition of the Thebans
-  against Athens, were founded in policy more than in generosity.
-
-  [344] Xenoph. Hellen. ii, 2, 20; Plutarch, Lysand. c. 14; Diodor.
-  xiii, 107. Plutarch gives the express words of the Lacedæmonian
-  decree, some of which words are very perplexing. The conjecture
-  of G. Hermann, αἱ χρήδοιτε instead of ἃ χρὴ δόντες, has been
-  adopted into the text of Plutarch by Sintenis, though it seems
-  very uncertain.
-
-With this document, written according to Lacedæmonian practice on
-a skytalê,—or roll intended to go round a stick, of which the
-Lacedæmonian commander had always one, and the ephors another,
-corresponding,—Theramenês went back to Athens. As he entered the
-city, a miserable crowd flocked round him, in distress and terror
-lest he should have failed altogether in his mission. The dead
-and the dying had now become so numerous, that peace at any price
-was a boon; nevertheless, when he announced in the assembly the
-terms of which he was bearer, strongly recommending submission to
-the Lacedæmonians as the only course now open, there was still a
-high-spirited minority who entered their protest, and preferred
-death by famine to such insupportable disgrace. The large majority,
-however, accepted them, and the acceptance was made known to
-Lysander.[345]
-
-  [345] Xenoph. Hellen. ii, 2, 23. Lysias (Orat. xii, cont.
-  Eratosth. s. 71) lays the blame of this wretched and humiliating
-  peace upon Theramenês, who plainly ought not to be required to
-  bear it; compare Lysias, Orat. xiii, cont. Agorat. sects. 12-20.
-
-It was on the 16th day of the Attic month Munychion,[346]—about
-the middle or end of March,—that this victorious commander sailed
-into the Peiræus, twenty-seven years, almost exactly, after that
-surprise of Platæa by the Thebans, which opened the Peloponnesian
-war. Along with him came the Athenian exiles, several of whom appear
-to have been serving with his army,[347] and assisting him with
-their counsel. To the population of Athens generally, his entry was
-an immediate relief, in spite of the cruel degradation, or indeed
-political extinction, with which it was accompanied. At least it
-averted the sufferings and horrors of famine, and permitted a decent
-interment of the many unhappy victims who had already perished.
-The Lacedæmonians, both naval and military force, under Lysander
-and Agis, continued in occupation of Athens until the conditions
-of the peace had been fulfilled. All the triremes in Peiræus were
-carried away by Lysander, except twelve, which he permitted the
-Athenians to retain: the ephors, in their skytalê, had left it to
-his discretion what number he would thus allow.[348] The unfinished
-ships in the dockyards were burnt, and the arsenals themselves
-ruined.[349] To demolish the Long Walls and the fortifications of
-Peiræus, was however, a work of some time; and a certain number of
-days were granted to the Athenians, within which it was required to
-be completed. In the beginning of the work, the Lacedæmonians and
-their allies all lent a hand, with the full pride and exultation of
-conquerors; amidst women playing the flute and dancers crowned with
-wreaths; mingled with joyful exclamations from the Peloponnesian
-allies, that this was the first day of Grecian freedom.[350] How many
-days were allowed for this humiliating duty imposed upon Athenian
-hands, of demolishing the elaborate, tutelary, and commanding works
-of their forefathers, we are not told. But the business was not
-completed within the interval named, so that the Athenians did not
-come up to the letter of the conditions, and had therefore, by strict
-construction, forfeited their title to the peace granted.[351] The
-interval seems, however, to have been prolonged; probably considering
-that for the real labor, as well as the melancholy character of the
-work to be done, too short a time had been allowed at first.
-
-  [346] Plutarch, Lysand. c. 15. He says, however, that this
-  was also the day on which the Athenians gained the battle of
-  Salamis. This is incorrect: that victory was gained in the month
-  Boedromion.
-
-  [347] Xenoph. Hellen. ii, 2, 18.
-
-  [348] Xenoph. Hellen. ii, 2, 20; ii, 3, 8; Plutarch, Lysand. c.
-  14. He gives the contents of the skytalê _verbatim_.
-
-  [349] Plutarch, Lysand. c. 15; Lysias cont. Agorat. sect. 50. ἔτι
-  δὲ τὰ τείχη ὡς κατεσκάφη, καὶ αἱ νῆες τοῖς πολεμίοις παρεδόθησαν,
-  καὶ τὰ νεώρια καθῃρέθη, etc.
-
-  [350] Xenoph. Hellen. ii, 2, 23. Καὶ τὰ τείχη κατέσκαπτον ὑπ᾽
-  αὐλητρίδων πολλῇ προθυμίᾳ, νομίζοντες ἐκείνην τὴν ἡμέραν τῇ
-  Ἑλλάδι ἄρχειν τῆς ἐλευθερίας.
-
-  Plutarch, Lysand. c. 15.
-
-  [351] Lysias cont. Eratosth. Or. xii, sect. 75, p. 431, R.;
-  Plutarch, Lysand. c. 15; Diodor. xiv, 3.
-
-It appears that Lysander, after assisting at the solemn ceremony of
-beginning to demolish the walls, and making such a breach as left
-Athens without any substantial means of resistance, did not remain
-to complete the work, but withdrew with a portion of his fleet to
-undertake the siege of Samos which still held out, leaving the
-remainder to see that the conditions imposed were fulfilled.[352]
-After so long an endurance of extreme misery, doubtless the general
-population thought of little except relief from famine and its
-accompaniments, without any disposition to contend against the fiat
-of their conquerors. If some high-spirited men formed an exception
-to the pervading depression, and still kept up their courage against
-better days, there was at the same time a party of totally opposite
-character, to whom the prostrate condition of Athens was a source
-of revenge for the past, exultation for the present, and ambitious
-projects for the future. These were partly the remnant of that
-faction which had set up, seven years before, the oligarchy of Four
-Hundred, and still more, the exiles, including several members of
-the Four Hundred,[353] who now flocked in from all quarters. Many
-of them had been long serving at Dekeleia, and had formed a part
-of the force blockading Athens. These exiles now revisited the
-acropolis as conquerors, and saw with delight the full accomplishment
-of that foreign occupation at which many of them had aimed seven
-years before, when they constructed the fortress of Ecteioneia, as
-a means of insuring their own power. Though the conditions imposed
-extinguished at once the imperial character, the maritime power, the
-honor, and the independence of Athens, these men were as eager as
-Lysander to carry them all into execution; because the continuance
-of the Athenian democracy was now entirely at his mercy, and because
-his establishment of oligarchies in the other subdued cities
-plainly intimated what he would do in this great focus of Grecian
-democratical impulse.
-
-  [352] Lysander dedicated a golden crown to Athênê in the
-  acropolis, which is recorded in the inscriptions among the
-  articles belonging to the goddess.
-
-  See Boeckh, Corp. Inscr. Attic. Nos. 150-152, p. 235.
-
-  [353] Lysias. Or. xiii, cont. Agorat. s. 80.
-
-Among these exiles were comprised Aristodemus and Aristotelês, both
-seemingly persons of importance, the former having at one time been
-one of the Hellenotamiæ, the first financial office of the imperial
-democracy, and the latter an active member of the Four Hundred;[354]
-also Chariklês, who had been so distinguished for his violence in
-the investigation respecting the Hermæ, and another man, of whom
-we now for the first time obtain historical knowledge in detail,
-Kritias, son of Kallæschrus. He had been among the persons accused as
-having been concerned in the mutilation of the Hermæ, and seems to
-have been for a long time important in the political, the literary,
-and the philosophical world of Athens. To all three, his abilities
-qualified him to do honor. Both his poetry, in the Solonian or
-moralizing vein, and his eloquence, published specimens of which
-remained in the Augustan age, were of no ordinary merit. His wealth
-was large, and his family among the most ancient and conspicuous in
-Athens: one of his ancestors had been friend and companion of the
-lawgiver Solon. He was himself maternal uncle of the philosopher
-Plato,[355] and had frequented the society of Sokratês so much as
-to have his name intimately associated in the public mind with that
-remarkable man. We know neither the cause, nor even the date of his
-exile, except so far, as that he was not in banishment immediately
-after the revolution of the Four Hundred, and that he _was_ in
-banishment at the time when the generals were condemned after the
-battle of Arginusæ.[356] He had passed the time, or a part of the
-time, of his exile in Thessaly, where he took an active part in the
-sanguinary feuds carried on among the oligarchical parties of that
-lawless country. He is said to have embraced, along with a leader
-named, or surnamed, Prometheus, what passed for the democratical
-side in Thessaly; arming the penestæ, or serfs, against their
-masters.[357] What the conduct and dispositions of Kritias had been
-before this period we are unable to say; but he brought with him now,
-on returning from exile, not merely an unmeasured and unprincipled
-lust of power, but also a rancorous impulse towards spoliation and
-bloodshed[358] which outran even his ambition, and ultimately ruined
-both his party and himself.
-
-  [354] Xenoph. Hellen. ii, 2, 18; ii, 3, 46; Plutarch, Vit. x,
-  Orator. Vit. Lycurg. init.
-
-  M. E. Meier, in his Commentary on Lykurgus, construes this
-  passage of Plutarch differently, so that the person therein
-  specified as exile would be, not Aristodemus, but the grandfather
-  of Lykurgus. But I do not think this construction justified: see
-  Meier, Comm. de Lykurg. Vitâ, p. iv, (Halle, 1847).
-
-  Respecting Chariklês, see Isokratês, Orat. xvi, De Bigis, s. 52.
-
-  [355] See Stallbaum’s Preface to the Charmidês of Plato, his note
-  on the Timæus of Plato, p. 20, E, and the Scholia on the same
-  passage.
-
-  Kritias is introduced as taking a conspicuous part in four of the
-  Platonic dialogues; Protagoras, Charmidês, Timæus and Kritias;
-  the last only a fragment, not to mention the Eryxias.
-
-  The small remains of the elegiac poetry of Kritias are to be
-  found in Schneidewin, Delect. Poet. Græc. p. 136, _seq._ Both
-  Cicero (De Orat. ii, 22, 93) and Dionys. Hal. (Judic. de Lysiâ,
-  c. 2, p. 454; Jud. de Isæo, p. 627) notice his historical
-  compositions.
-
-  About the concern of Kritias in the mutilation of the Hermæ, as
-  affirmed by Diognêtus, see Andokidês de Mysteriis, s. 47. He was
-  first cousin of Andokidês, by the mother’s side.
-
-  [356] Xenoph. Hellen. ii, 3, 35.
-
-  [357] Xenoph. Hellen ii, 3, 35; Memorab. i, 2, 24.
-
-  [358] Xenoph. Hellen. ii, 2. ἐπεὶ δὲ αὐτὸς μὲν (Kritias) προπετὴς
-  ἦν ἐπὶ τὸ πολλοὺς ἀποκτεῖναι, ἅτε καὶ φυγὼν ὑπὸ τοῦ δήμου, etc.
-
-Of all these returning exiles, animated with mingled vengeance and
-ambition, Kritias was decidedly the leading man, like Antiphon among
-the Four Hundred; partly from his abilities, partly from the superior
-violence with which he carried out the common sentiment. At the
-present juncture, he and his fellow-exiles became the most important
-persons in the city, as enjoying most the friendship and confidence
-of the conquerors. But the oligarchical party at home were noway
-behind them, either in servility or in revolutionary fervor, and an
-understanding was soon established between the two. Probably the old
-faction of the Four Hundred, though put down, had never wholly died
-out: at any rate, the political hetæries, or clubs, out of which it
-was composed, still remained, prepared for fresh coöperation when a
-favorable moment should arrive; and the catastrophe of Ægospotami
-had made it plain to every one that such moment could not be far
-distant. Accordingly, a large portion, if not the majority, of the
-senators, became ready to lend themselves to the destruction of the
-democracy, and only anxious to insure places among the oligarchy in
-prospect;[359] while the supple Theramenês—resuming his place as
-oligarchical leader, and abusing his mission as envoy to wear out
-the patience of his half-famished countrymen—had, during his three
-months’ absence in the tent of Lysander, concerted arrangements with
-the exiles for future proceedings.[360]
-
-  [359] Lysias cont. Agorat. Or. xiii, s. 23, p. 132.
-
-  [360] Lysias cont. Eratosth. Or. xii, s. 78, p. 128. Theramenês
-  is described, in his subsequent defence, ὀνειδίζων μὲν τοῖς
-  φεύγουσιν ὅτι δι᾽ αὑτὸν κατέλθοιεν, etc.
-
-  The general narrative of Xenophon, meagre as it is, harmonizes
-  with this.
-
-As soon as the city surrendered, and while the work of demolition
-was yet going on, the oligarchical party began to organize itself.
-The members of the political clubs again came together, and named
-a managing committee of five, called ephors in compliment to the
-Lacedæmonians, to direct the general proceedings of the party; to
-convene meetings when needful, to appoint subordinate managers for
-the various tribes, and to determine what propositions were to be
-submitted to the public assembly.[361] Among these five ephors were
-Kritias and Eratosthenês; probably Theramenês also.
-
-  [361] Lysias cont. Eratosth. Or. xii, s. 44, p. 124. Ἐπειδὴ δὲ ἡ
-  ναυμαχία καὶ ἡ συμφορὰ τῇ πόλει ἐγένετο, δημοκρατίας ἔτι οὔσης,
-  ὅθεν τῆς στάσεως ἦρξαν, πέντε ἄνδρες ~ἔφοροι κατέστησαν ὑπὸ τῶν
-  καλουμένων ἑταίρων~, συναγωγεῖς μὲν τῶν πολιτῶν, ἄρχοντες δὲ τῶν
-  συνωμοτῶν, ἐναντία δὲ τῷ ὑμετέρῳ πλήθει πράττοντες.
-
-But the oligarchical party, though thus organized and ascendant,
-with a compliant senate and a dispirited people, and with an
-auxiliary enemy actually in possession, still thought themselves not
-powerful enough to carry their intended changes without seizing the
-most resolute of the democratical leaders. Accordingly, a citizen
-named Theokritus tendered an accusation to the senate against
-the general Strombichidês, together with several others of the
-democratical generals and taxiarchs; supported by the deposition
-of a slave, or lowborn man, named Agoratus. Although Nikias and
-several other citizens tried to prevail upon Agoratus to leave
-Athens, furnished him with the means of escape, and offered to go
-away with him themselves from Munychia, until the political state
-of Athens should come into a more assured condition,[362] yet he
-refused to retire, appeared before the senate, and accused the
-generals of being concerned in a conspiracy to break up the peace;
-pretending to be himself their accomplice. Upon his information,
-given both before the senate and before an assembly at Munychia,
-the generals, the taxiarchs, and several other citizens, men of
-high worth and courageous patriots, were put into prison, as well
-as Agoratus himself, to stand their trial afterwards before a
-dikastery consisting of two thousand members. One of the parties thus
-accused, Menestratus, being admitted by the public assembly, on the
-proposition of Hagnodôrus, the brother-in-law of Kritias, to become
-accusing witness, named several additional accomplices, who were also
-forthwith placed in custody.[363]
-
-  [362] Lysias cont. Agorat. Or. xiii, s. 28 (p. 132); s. 35, p.
-  133. Καὶ παρορμίσαντες δύο πλοῖα Μουνυχίασιν, ἐδέοντο αὐτοῦ
-  (Ἀγοράτου) παντὶ τρόπῳ ἀπελθεῖν Ἀθήνηθεν, καὶ αὐτοὶ ἔφασαν
-  συνεκπλευσεῖσθαι, ~ἕως τὰ πράγματα κατασταίη~, etc.
-
-  Lysias represents this accusation of the generals, and this
-  behavior of Agoratus, as having occurred _before_ the surrender
-  of the city, but _after_ the return of Theramenês, bringing back
-  the final terms imposed by the Lacedæmonians. He thus so colors
-  it, that Agoratus, by getting the generals out of the way, was
-  the real cause why the degrading peace brought by Theramenês
-  was accepted. Had the generals remained at large, he affirms,
-  they would have prevented the acceptance of this degrading
-  peace, and would have been able to obtain better terms from the
-  Lacedæmonians (see Lysias cont. Agor. sects. 16-20).
-
-  Without questioning generally the matters of fact set forth by
-  Lysias in this oration (delivered a long time afterwards, see
-  s. 90), I believe that he _misdates_ them, and represents them
-  as having occurred _before_ the surrender, whereas they really
-  occurred _after_ it. We know from Xenophon, that when Theramenês
-  came back the second time with the real peace, the people were in
-  such a state of famine, that farther waiting was impossible: the
-  peace was accepted immediately that it was proposed; cruel as it
-  was, the people were glad to get it (Xenoph. Hellen. ii, 2, 22).
-  Besides, how could Agoratus be conveyed with two vessels out of
-  Munychia, when the harbor was closely blocked up? and what is the
-  meaning of ἕως τὰ πράγματα κατασταίη, referred to a moment just
-  _before_ the surrender?
-
-  [363] Lysias cont. Agorat. Or. xiii, sects. 38, 60, 68.
-
-Though the most determined defenders of the democratical constitution
-were thus eliminated, Kritias and Theramenês still farther insured
-the success of their propositions by invoking the presence of
-Lysander from Samos. The demolition of the walls had been completed,
-the main blockading army had disbanded, and the immediate pressure
-of famine had been removed, when an assembly was held to determine
-on future modifications of the constitution. A citizen named
-Drakontidês,[364] moved that a Board of Thirty should be named,
-to draw up laws for the future government of the city, and to
-manage provisionally the public affairs, until that task should
-be completed. Among the thirty persons proposed, prearranged by
-Theramenês and the oligarchical five ephors, the most prominent
-names were those of Kritias and Theramenês: there were, besides,
-Drakontidês himself,—Onomaklês, one of the Four Hundred who had
-escaped,—Aristotelês and Chariklês, both exiles newly returned,
-Eratosthenês, and others whom we do not know, but of whom probably
-several had also been exiles or members of the Four Hundred.[365]
-Though this was a complete abrogation of the constitution, yet so
-conscious were the conspirators of their own strength, that they did
-not deem it necessary to propose the formal suspension of the graphê
-paranomôn, as had been done prior to the installation of the former
-oligarchy. Still, notwithstanding the seizure of the leaders and
-the general intimidation prevalent, a loud murmur of repugnance was
-heard in the assembly at the motion of Drakontidês. But Theramenês
-rose up to defy the murmur, telling the assembly that the proposition
-numbered many partisans even among the citizens themselves, and that
-it had, besides, the approbation of Lysander and the Lacedæmonians.
-This was presently confirmed by Lysander himself, who addressed the
-assembly in person. He told them, in a menacing and contemptuous
-tone, that Athens was now at his mercy, since the walls had not
-been demolished before the day specified, and consequently the
-conditions of the promised peace had been violated. He added that,
-if they did not adopt the recommendation of Theramenês, they would
-be forced to take thought for their personal safety instead of for
-their political constitution. After a notice at once so plain and so
-crushing, farther resistance was vain. The dissentients all quitted
-the assembly in sadness and indignation; while a remnant—according
-to Lysias, inconsiderable in number as well as worthless in
-character—stayed to vote acceptance of the motion.[366]
-
-  [364] Lysias cont. Eratosth. Or. xii, s. 74: compare Aristotle
-  ap. Schol. ad Aristophan. Vesp. 157.
-
-  [365] Xenoph. Hellen. ii, 3, 2.
-
-  [366] Lysias cont. Eratosth. Or. xii, sects. 74-77.
-
-Seven years before, Theramenês had carried, in conjunction with
-Antiphon and Phrynichus, a similar motion for the installation of
-the Four Hundred; extorting acquiescence by domestic terrorism as
-well as by multiplied assassinations. He now, in conjunction with
-Kritias and the rest, a second time extinguished the constitution of
-his country, by the still greater humiliation of a foreign conqueror
-dictating terms to the Athenian people assembled in their own Pnyx.
-Having seen the Thirty regularly constituted, Lysander retired from
-Athens to finish the siege of Samos, which still held out. Though
-blocked up both by land and sea, the Samians obstinately defended
-themselves for some months longer, until the close of the summer.
-Nor was it until the last extremity that they capitulated; obtaining
-permission for every freeman to depart in safety, but with no other
-property except a single garment. Lysander handed over the city and
-the properties to the ancient citizens, that is, to the oligarchy and
-their partisans, who had been partly expelled, partly disfranchised,
-in the revolution eight years before. But he placed the government
-of Samos, as he had dealt with the other cities, in the hands of one
-of his dekadarchies, or oligarchy of Ten Samians, chosen by himself;
-leaving Thorax as Lacedæmonian harmost, and doubtless a force under
-him.[367]
-
-  [367] Xenoph. Hellen. ii, 3, 6-8.
-
-Having thus finished the war, and trodden out the last spark of
-resistance, Lysander returned in triumph to Sparta. So imposing
-a triumph never fell to the lot of any Greek, either before or
-afterwards. He brought with him every trireme out of the harbor of
-Peiræus, except twelve, left to the Athenians as a concession; he
-brought the prow-ornaments of all the ships captured at Ægospotami
-and elsewhere; he was loaded with golden crowns, voted to him by
-the various cities; and he farther exhibited a sum of money not
-less than four hundred and seventy talents, the remnant of those
-treasures which Cyrus had handed over to him for the prosecution of
-the war.[368] That sum had been greater, but is said to have been
-diminished by the treachery of Gylippus, to whose custody it had
-been committed, and who sullied by such mean peculation the laurels
-which he had so gloriously earned at Syracuse.[369] Nor was it merely
-the triumphant evidences of past exploits which now decorated this
-returning admiral. He wielded besides an extent of real power greater
-than any individual Greek either before or after. Imperial Sparta,
-as she had now become, was as it were personified in Lysander, who
-was master of almost all the insular, Asiatic, and Thracian cities,
-by means of the harmost and the native dekadarchies named by himself
-and selected from his creatures. To this state of things we shall
-presently return, when we have followed the eventful history of the
-Thirty at Athens.
-
-  [368] Xenoph. Hellen. ii, 2, 8.
-
-  [369] Plutarch, Lysand. c. 16; Diodor. xiii, 106.
-
-These thirty men—the parallel of the dekarchies whom Lysander had
-constituted in the other cities—were intended for the same purpose,
-to maintain the city in a state of humiliation and dependence upon
-Lacedæmon, and upon Lysander, as the representative of Lacedæmon.
-Though appointed, in the pretended view of drawing up a scheme of
-laws and constitution for Athens, they were in no hurry to commence
-this duty. They appointed a new senate, composed of compliant,
-assured, and oligarchical persons; including many of the returned
-exiles who had been formerly in the Four Hundred, and many also of
-the preceding senators who were willing to serve their designs.[370]
-They farther named new magistrates and officers; a new Board of
-Eleven, to manage the business of police and the public force, with
-Satyrus, one of their most violent partisans, as chief; a Board of
-Ten, to govern in Peiræus;[371] an archon, to give name to the year,
-Pythodôrus, and a second, or king-archon, Patroklês,[372] to offer
-the customary sacrifices on behalf of the city. While thus securing
-their own ascendency, and placing all power in the hands of the most
-violent oligarchical partisans, they began by professing reforming
-principles of the strictest virtue; denouncing the abuses of the
-past democracy, and announcing their determination to purge the city
-of evil-doers.[373] The philosopher Plato—then a young man about
-twenty-four years old, of anti-democratical politics, and nephew
-of Kritias—was at first misled, together with various others, by
-these splendid professions; he conceived hopes, and even received
-encouragement from his relations, that he might play an active part
-under the new oligarchy.[374] Though he soon came to discern how
-little congenial his feelings were with theirs, yet in the beginning
-doubtless such honest illusions contributed materially to strengthen
-their hands.
-
-  [370] Xenoph. Hellen. ii, 2, 11: Lysias cont. Agorat. Orat. xiii,
-  sects. 23-80.
-
-  Tisias, the brother-in-law of Chariklês, was a member of this
-  senate (Isokratês, Or. xvi, De Bigis, s. 53).
-
-  [371] Plato, Epist. vii, p. 324, B.; Xenoph. Hellen. ii, 3, 54.
-
-  [372] Isokratês cont. Kallimach. Or. xviii, s. 6, p. 372.
-
-  [373] Lysias, Orat. xii, cont. Eratosth. s. 5, p. 121. Ἐπειδὴ
-  δ᾽ οἱ τριάκοντα πονηροὶ μὲν καὶ ~συκοφάνται~ ὄντες εἰς τὴν
-  ἀρχὴν κατέστησαν, φάσκοντες χρῆναι τῶν ἀδίκων καθαρὰν ποιῆσαι
-  τὴν πόλιν, καὶ τοὺς λοιποὺς πολίτας ἐπ᾽ ἀρετὴν καὶ δικαιοσύνην
-  τραπέσθαι, etc.
-
-  [374] Plato, Epist. vii, p. 324, B.C.
-
-In execution of their design to root out evil-doers, the Thirty first
-laid hands on some of the most obnoxious politicians under the former
-democracy; “men (says Xenophon) whom every one knew to live by making
-calumnious accusations, called sycophancy, and who were pronounced
-in their enmity to the oligarchical citizens.” How far most of these
-men had been honest or dishonest in their previous political conduct
-under the democracy, we have no means of determining. But among them
-were comprised Strombichidês and the other democratical officers who
-had been imprisoned under the information of Agoratus, men whose
-chief crime consisted in a strenuous and inflexible attachment to
-the democracy. The persons thus seized were brought to trial before
-the new senate appointed by the Thirty, contrary to the vote of the
-people, which had decreed that Strombichidês and his companions
-should be tried before a dikastery of two thousand citizens.[375] But
-the dikastery, as well as all the other democratical institutions,
-were now abrogated, and no judicial body was left except the newly
-constituted senate. Even to that senate, though composed of their
-own partisans, the Thirty did not choose to intrust the trial of the
-prisoners, with that secrecy of voting which was well known at Athens
-to be essential to the free and genuine expression of sentiment.
-Whenever prisoners were tried, the Thirty were themselves present
-in the senate-house, sitting on the benches previously occupied by
-the prytanes: two tables were placed before them, one signifying
-condemnation, the other, acquittal; and each senator was required
-to deposit his pebble openly before them, either on one or on the
-other.[376] It was not merely judgment by the senate, but judgment
-by the senate under pressure and intimidation by the all-powerful
-Thirty. It seems probable that neither any semblance of defence, nor
-any exculpatory witnesses, were allowed; but even if such formalities
-were not wholly dispensed with, it is certain that there was no real
-trial, and that condemnation was assured beforehand. Among the great
-numbers whom the Thirty brought before the senate, not a single
-man was acquitted except the informer Agoratus, who was brought to
-trial as an accomplice along with Strombichidês and his companions,
-but was liberated in recompense for the information which he had
-given against them.[377] The statement of Isokratês, Lysias, and
-others—that the victims of the Thirty, even when brought before the
-senate, were put to death untried—is authentic and trustworthy: many
-were even put to death by simple order from the Thirty themselves,
-without any cognizance of the senate.[378]
-
-  [375] Lysias cont. Agorat. s. 38.
-
-  [376] Lysias cont. Agorat. s. 40.
-
-  [377] Lysias cont. Agorat. s. 41.
-
-  [378] Lysias cont. Eratosth. s. 18; Xenoph. Hellen. ii, 3, 51;
-  Isokrat. Orat. xx, cont. Lochit. s. 15, p. 397.
-
-In regard to the persons first brought to trial, however,—whether
-we consider them, as Xenophon intimates, to have been notorious
-evil-doers, or to have been innocent sufferers by the reactionary
-vengeance of returning oligarchical exiles, as was the case certainly
-with Strombichidês and the officers accused along with him,—there was
-little necessity for any constraint on the part of the Thirty over
-the senate. That body itself partook of the sentiment which dictated
-the condemnation, and acted as a willing instrument; while the Thirty
-themselves were unanimous, Theramenês being even more zealous than
-Kritias in these executions, to demonstrate his sincere antipathy
-towards the extinct democracy.[379] As yet too, since all the persons
-condemned, justly or unjustly, had been marked politicians, so, all
-other citizens who had taken no conspicuous part in politics, even if
-they disapproved of the condemnations, had not been led to conceive
-any apprehension of the like fate for themselves. Here, then,
-Theramenês, and along with him a portion of the Thirty as well as of
-the senate, were inclined to pause. While enough had been done to
-satiate their antipathies, by the death of the most obnoxious leaders
-of the democracy, they at the same time conceived the oligarchical
-government to be securely established, and contended that farther
-bloodshed would only endanger its stability, by spreading alarm,
-multiplying enemies, and alienating friends as well as neutrals.
-
-  [379] Xenoph. Hellen. ii, 3, 12, 28, 38. ~Αὐτὸς~ (Theramenês)
-  ~μάλιστα ἐξορμήσας~ ἡμᾶς, τοῖς πρώτοις ὑπαγομένοις ἐς ἡμᾶς δίκην
-  ἐπιτιθέναι, etc.
-
-But these were not the views either of Kritias or of the Thirty
-generally, who surveyed their position with eyes very different from
-the unstable and cunning Theramenês, and who had brought with them
-from exile a long arrear of vengeance yet to be appeased. Kritias
-knew well that the numerous population of Athens were devotedly
-attached, and had good reason to be attached, to their democracy;
-that the existing government had been imposed upon them by force,
-and could only be upheld by force; that its friends were a narrow
-minority, incapable of sustaining it against the multitude around
-them, all armed; that there were still many formidable enemies to
-be got rid of, so that it was indispensable to invoke the aid of a
-permanent Lacedæmonian garrison in Athens, as the only condition
-not only of their stability as a government, but even of their
-personal safety. In spite of the opposition of Theramenês, Æschinês
-and Aristotelês, two among the Thirty, were despatched to Sparta
-to solicit aid from Lysander; who procured for them a Lacedæmonian
-garrison under Kallibius as harmost, which they engaged to maintain
-without any cost to Sparta, until their government should be
-confirmed by putting the evil-doers out of the way.[380] Kallibius
-was not only installed as master of the acropolis,—full as it was of
-the mementos of Athenian glory,—but was farther so caressed and won
-over by the Thirty, that he lent himself to everything which they
-asked. They had thus a Lacedæmonian military force constantly at
-their command, besides an organized band of youthful satellites and
-assassins, ready for any deeds of violence; and they proceeded to
-seize and put to death many citizens, who were so distinguished for
-their courage and patriotism, as to be likely to serve as leaders
-to the public discontent. Several of the best men in Athens thus
-successively perished, while Thrasybulus, Anytus, and many others,
-fearing a similar fate, fled out of Attica, leaving their property
-to be confiscated and appropriated by the oligarchs;[381] who passed
-a decree of exile against them in their absence, as well as against
-Alkibiadês.[382]
-
-  [380] Xenoph. Hellen. ii, 3, 13. ἕως δὴ τοὺς πονηροὺς ἐκποδὼν
-  ποιησάμενοι καταστήσαιντο τὴν πολιτείαν.
-
-  [381] Xenoph. Hellen. ii, 3, 15, 23, 42; Isokrat. cont.
-  Kallimach. Or. xviii, s. 30, p. 375.
-
-  [382] Xenoph. Hellen. ii, 3, 42; ii, 4, 14. οἱ δὲ καὶ οὐχ ὅπως
-  ἀδικοῦντες, ἀλλ᾽ οὐδ᾽ ἐπιδημοῦντες ἐφυγαδευόμεθα, etc.
-
-  Isokratês, Orat. xvi, De Bigis, s. 46, p. 355.
-
-These successive acts of vengeance and violence were warmly opposed
-by Theramenês, both in the council of Thirty and in the senate.
-The persons hitherto executed, he said, had deserved their death,
-because they were not merely noted politicians under the democracy,
-but also persons of marked hostility to oligarchical men. But
-to inflict the same fate on others, who had manifested no such
-hostility, simply because they had enjoyed influence under the
-democracy, would be unjust: “Even you and I (he reminded Kritias)
-have both said and done many things for the sake of popularity.” But
-Kritias replied: “We cannot afford to be scrupulous; we are engaged
-in a scheme of aggressive ambition, and must get rid of those who
-are best able to hinder us. Though we are Thirty in number, and
-not one, our government is not the less a despotism, and must be
-guarded by the same jealous precautions. If you think otherwise,
-you must be simple-minded indeed.” Such were the sentiments which
-animated the majority of the Thirty, not less than Kritias, and
-which prompted them to an endless string of seizures and executions.
-It was not merely the less obnoxious democratical politicians who
-became their victims, but men of courage, wealth, and station, in
-every vein of political feeling: even oligarchical men, the best
-and most high-principled of that party, shared the same fate. Among
-the most distinguished sufferers were, Lykurgus,[383] belonging to
-one of the most eminent sacred gentes in the state; a wealthy man
-named Antiphon, who had devoted his fortune to the public service
-with exemplary patriotism during the last years of the war, and
-had furnished two well-equipped triremes at his own cost; Leon,
-of Salamis; and even Nikêratus, son of Nikias, who had perished
-at Syracuse; a man who inherited from his father not only a large
-fortune, but a known repugnance to democratical politics, together
-with his uncle Eukratês, brother of the same Nikias.[384] These were
-only a few among the numerous victims, who were seized, pronounced
-to be guilty by the senate or by the Thirty themselves, handed over
-to Satyrus and the Eleven, and condemned to perish by the customary
-draught of hemlock.
-
-  [383] Plutarch, Vit. x, Orator. p. 838.
-
-  [384] Xenoph. Hellen. ii, 3, 39-41; Lysias, Orat. xviii, De Bonis
-  Niciæ Fratris, sects. 5-8.
-
-The circumstances accompanying the seizure of Leon deserve particular
-notice. In putting to death him and the other victims, the Thirty
-had several objects in view, all tending to the stability of their
-dominion. First, they thus got rid of citizens generally known and
-esteemed, whose abhorrence they knew themselves to deserve, and
-whom they feared as likely to head the public sentiment against
-them. Secondly, the property of these victims, all of whom were
-rich, was seized along with their persons, and was employed to pay
-the satellites whose agency was indispensable for such violences,
-especially Kallibius and the Lacedæmonian hoplites in the acropolis.
-But, besides murder and spoliation, the Thirty had a farther
-purpose, if possible, yet more nefarious. In the work of seizing
-their victims, they not only employed the hands of these paid
-satellites, but also sent along with them citizens of station and
-respectability, whom they constrained by threats and intimidation
-to lend their personal aid in a service so thoroughly odious. By
-such participation, these citizens became compromised and imbrued in
-crime, and as it were, consenting parties in the public eye to all
-the projects of the Thirty;[385] exposed to the same general hatred
-as the latter, and interested for their own safety in maintaining
-the existing dominion. Pursuant to their general plan of implicating
-unwilling citizens in their misdeeds, the Thirty sent for five
-citizens to the tholus, or government-house, and ordered them, with
-terrible menaces, to cross over to Salamis and bring back Leon as
-prisoner. Four out of the five obeyed; the fifth was the philosopher
-Sokratês, who refused all concurrence and returned to his own house,
-while the other four went to Salamis and took part in the seizure of
-Leon. Though he thus braved all the wrath of the Thirty, it appears
-that they thought it expedient to leave him untouched. But the fact
-that they singled him out for such an atrocity,—an old man of tried
-virtue, both private and public, and intellectually commanding,
-though at the same time intellectually unpopular,—shows to what an
-extent they carried their system of forcing unwilling participants;
-while the farther circumstance, that he was the only person who had
-the courage to refuse, among four others who yielded to intimidation,
-shows that the policy was for the most part successful.[386] The
-inflexible resistance of Sokratês on this occasion, stands as a
-worthy parallel to his conduct as prytanis in the public assembly
-held on the conduct of the generals after the battle of Arginusæ,
-described in the preceding chapter, wherein he obstinately refused to
-concur in putting an illegal question.
-
-  [385] Plato, Apol. Sokratês, c. 20, p. 32. Ἐπειδὴ δὲ ὀλιγαρχία
-  ἐγένετο, οἱ τριάκοντα αὖ μεταπεμψάμενοί με πέμπτον αὐτὸν εἰς τὴν
-  θόλον προσέταξαν ἀγαγεῖν ἐκ Σαλαμῖνος Λέοντα τὸν Σαλαμίνιον, ἵν᾽
-  ἀποθάνοι· ~οἷα δὴ καὶ ἄλλοις ἐκεῖνοι πολλοῖς πολλὰ προσέταττον,
-  βουλόμενοι ὡς πλείστους ἀναπλῆσαι αἰτιῶν~.
-
-  Isokrat. cont. Kallimach. Or. xviii, sect. 23, p. 374. ἐνίοις καὶ
-  προσέταττον ἐξαμαρτάνειν. Compare also Lysias, Or. xii, cont.
-  Eratosth. sect. 32.
-
-  We learn, from Andokidês de Myster. sect. 94, that Melêtus was
-  one of the parties who actually arrested Leon, and brought him
-  up for condemnation. It is not probable that this was the same
-  person who afterwards accused Sokratês. It may possibly have
-  been his father, who bore the same name; but there is nothing to
-  determine the point.
-
-  [386] Plato, Apol. Sokrat. _ut sup._; Xenoph. Hellen. ii. 4, 9-23.
-
-Such multiplied cases of execution and spoliation naturally
-filled the city with surprise, indignation, and terror. Groups of
-malcontents got together, and exiles became more and more numerous.
-All these circumstances furnished ample material for the vehement
-opposition of Theramenês, and tended to increase his party: not
-indeed among the Thirty themselves, but to a certain extent in the
-senate, and still more among the body of the citizens. He warned his
-colleagues that they were incurring daily an increased amount of
-public odium, and that their government could not possibly stand,
-unless they admitted into partnership an adequate number of citizens,
-with a direct interest in its maintenance. He proposed that all those
-competent, by their property, to serve the state either on horseback
-or with heavy armor, should be constituted citizens; leaving all
-the poorer freemen, a far larger number, still disfranchised.[387]
-Kritias and the Thirty rejected this proposition; being doubtless
-convinced—as the Four Hundred had felt seven years before, when
-Theramenês demanded of them to convert their fictitious total of
-Five Thousand into a real list of as many living persons—that “to
-enroll so great a number of partners, was tantamount to a downright
-democracy.”[388] But they were at the same time not insensible to the
-soundness of his advice: moreover, they began to be afraid of him
-personally, and to suspect that he was likely to take the lead in a
-popular opposition against them, as he had previously done against
-his colleagues of the Four Hundred. They therefore resolved to comply
-in part with his recommendations, and accordingly prepared a list of
-three thousand persons to be invested with the political franchise;
-chosen, as much as possible, from their own known partisans and
-from oligarchical citizens. Besides this body, they also counted
-on the adherence of the horsemen, among the wealthiest citizens of
-the state. These horsemen, or knights, taking them as a class,—the
-thousand good men of Athens, whose virtues Aristophanês sets forth in
-hostile antithesis to the alleged demagogic vices of Kleon,—remained
-steady supporters of the Thirty, throughout all the enormities of
-their career.[389] What privileges or functions were assigned to the
-chosen three thousand, we do not hear, except that they could not be
-condemned without the warrant of the senate, while any other Athenian
-might be put to death by the simple fiat of the Thirty.[390]
-
-  [387] Xenoph. Hellen. ii, 3, 17, 19, 48. From sect. 48, we see
-  that Theramenês actually made this proposition: τὸ μέντοι σὺν
-  τοῖς δυναμένοις καὶ μεθ᾽ ἵππων καὶ μετ᾽ ἀσπίδων ὠφελεῖν διὰ
-  τούτων τὴν πολιτείαν, ~πρόσθεν ἄριστον ἡγούμην εἶναι~ καὶ νῦν οὐ
-  μεταβάλλομαι.
-
-  This proposition, made by Theramenês and rejected by the Thirty,
-  explains the comment which he afterwards made, when they drew up
-  their special catalogue or roll of three thousand; which comment
-  otherwise appears unsuitable.
-
-  [388] Thucyd. viii, 89-92. τὸ μὲν καταστῆσαι μετόχους τοσούτους,
-  ἀντικρὺς ἂν δῆμον ἡγούμενοι.
-
-  [389] Xenoph. Hellen. ii, 3, 8, 19; ii, 4, 2, 8, 24.
-
-  [390] Xenoph. Hellen. ii, 3, 51.
-
-A body of partners thus chosen—not merely of fixed number, but of
-picked oligarchical sentiments—was by no means the addition which
-Theramenês desired. While he commented on the folly of supposing that
-there was any charm in the number three thousand, as if it embodied
-all the merit of the city, and nothing else but merit, he admonished
-them that it was still insufficient for their defence; their rule was
-one of pure force, and yet inferior in force to those over whom it
-was exercised. Again the Thirty acted upon his admonition, but in a
-way very different from that which he contemplated. They proclaimed
-a general muster and examination of arms to all the hoplites in
-Athens. The Three Thousand were drawn up in arms all together in the
-market-place; but the remaining hoplites were disseminated in small
-scattered companies and in different places. After the review was
-over, these scattered companies went home to their meal, leaving
-their arms piled at the various places of muster. But the adherents
-of the Thirty, having been forewarned and kept together, were sent
-at the proper moment, along with the Lacedæmonian mercenaries, to
-seize the deserted arms, which were deposited under the custody
-of Kallibius in the acropolis. All the hoplites in Athens, except
-the Three Thousand and the remaining adherents of the Thirty,
-were disarmed by this crafty manœuvre, in spite of the fruitless
-remonstrance of Theramenês.[391]
-
-  [391] Xenoph. Hellen. ii, 3, 20, 41: compare Lysias. Orat. xii,
-  cont. Eratosth. sect. 41.
-
-Kritias and his colleagues, now relieved from all fear either of
-Theramenês, or of any other internal opposition, gave loose, more
-unsparingly than ever, to their malevolence and rapacity, putting to
-death both many of their private enemies, and many rich victims for
-the purpose of spoliation. A list of suspected persons was drawn up,
-in which each of their adherents was allowed to insert such names as
-he chose, and from which the victims were generally taken.[392] Among
-informers, who thus gave in names for destruction, Batrachus and
-Æschylidês[393] stood conspicuous. The thirst of Kritias for plunder,
-as well as for bloodshed, only increased by gratification;[394]
-and it was not merely to pay their mercenaries, but also to enrich
-themselves separately, that the Thirty stretched everywhere their
-murderous agency, which now mowed down metics as well as citizens.
-Theognis and Peison, two of the Thirty, affirmed that many of these
-metics were hostile to the oligarchy, besides being opulent men; and
-the resolution was adopted that each of the rulers should single out
-any of these victims that he pleased, for execution and pillage; care
-being taken to include a few poor persons in the seizure, so that the
-real purpose of the spoilers might be faintly disguised.
-
-  [392] Xenoph. Hellen. ii, 3, 21; Isokratês adv. Euthynum, sect.
-  5, p. 401; Isokratês cont. Kallimach. sect. 23, p. 375; Lysias,
-  Or. xxv, Δημ. Καταλ. Ἀπολ. sect. 21, p. 173.
-
-  The two passages of Isokratês sufficiently designate what this
-  list, or κατάλογος, must have been; but the name by which he
-  calls it—ὁ μετὰ Λυσάνδρου (or Πεισάνδρου) κατάλογος—is not easy
-  to explain.
-
-  [393] Lysias, Orat. vi, cont. Andok. sect. 46; Or. xii, cont.
-  Eratosth. sect 49.
-
-  [394] Xenoph. Memor. i, 2, 12. Κριτίας μὲν γὰρ τῶν ἐν τῇ
-  ὀλιγαρχίᾳ πάντων κλεπτίστατός τε καὶ βιαιότατος ἐγένετο, etc.
-
-It was in execution of this scheme that the orator Lysias and his
-brother Polemarchus were both taken into custody. Both were metics,
-wealthy men, and engaged in a manufactory of shields, wherein they
-employed a hundred and twenty slaves. Theognis and Peison, with
-some others, seized Lysias in his house, while entertaining some
-friends at dinner; and having driven away his guests, left him under
-the guard of Peison, while the attendants went off to register and
-appropriate his valuable slaves. Lysias tried to prevail on Peison
-to accept a bribe and let him escape; which the latter at first
-promised to do, and having thus obtained access to the money-chest
-of the prisoner, laid hands upon all its contents, amounting to
-between three and four talents. In vain did Lysias implore that a
-trifle might be left for his necessary subsistence; the only answer
-vouchsafed was, that he might think himself fortunate if he escaped
-with life. He was then conveyed to the house of a person named
-Damnippus, where Theognis already was, having other prisoners in
-charge. At the earnest entreaty of Lysias, Damnippus tried to induce
-Theognis to connive at his escape, on consideration of a handsome
-bribe; but while this conversation was going on, the prisoner availed
-himself of an unguarded moment to get off through the back door,
-which fortunately was open, together with two other doors through
-which it was necessary to pass. Having first obtained refuge in the
-house of a friend in Peiræus, he took boat during the ensuing night
-for Megara. Polemarchus, less fortunate, was seized in the street
-by Eratosthenês, one of the Thirty, and immediately lodged in the
-prison, where the fatal draught of hemlock was administered to him,
-without delay, without trial, and without liberty of defence. While
-his house was plundered of a large stock of gold, silver, furniture,
-and rich ornaments; while the golden earrings were torn from the ears
-of his wife; and while seven hundred shields, with a hundred and
-twenty slaves, were confiscated, together with the workshop and the
-two dwelling-houses; the Thirty would not allow even a decent funeral
-to the deceased, but caused his body to be carried away on a hired
-bier from the prison, with covering and a few scanty appurtenances
-supplied by the sympathy of private friends.[395]
-
-  [395] Lysias, Or. xii. cont. Eratosthen. sects. 8, 21. Lysias
-  prosecuted Eratosthenês before the dikastery some years
-  afterwards, as having caused the death of Polemarchus. The
-  foregoing details are found in the oration, spoken as well as
-  composed by himself.
-
-Amidst such atrocities, increasing in number and turned more and
-more to shameless robbery, the party of Theramenês daily gained
-ground, even in the senate; many of whose members profited nothing
-by satiating the private cupidity of the Thirty, and began to be
-weary of so revolting a system, as well as alarmed at the host of
-enemies which they were raising up. In proposing the late seizure
-of the metics, the Thirty had desired Theramenês to make choice of
-any victim among that class, to be destroyed and plundered for his
-own personal benefit. But he rejected the suggestion emphatically,
-denouncing the enormity of the measure in the indignant terms which
-it deserved. So much was the antipathy of Kritias and the majority
-of the Thirty against him, already acrimonious from the effects of a
-long course of opposition, exasperated by this refusal; so much did
-they fear the consequences of incurring the obloquy of such measures
-for themselves, while Theramenês enjoyed all the credit of opposing
-them; so satisfied were they that their government could not stand
-with this dissension among its own members; that they resolved to
-destroy him at all cost. Having canvassed as many of the senators as
-they could, to persuade them that Theramenês was conspiring against
-the oligarchy, they caused the most daring of their satellites to
-attend one day in the senate-house, close to the railing which fenced
-in the senators, with daggers concealed under their garments. So
-soon as Theramenês appeared, Kritias rose and denounced him to the
-senate as a public enemy, in an harangue which Xenophon gives at
-considerable length, and which is so full of instructive evidence, as
-to Greek political feeling, that I here extract the main points in
-abridgment:—
-
-“If any of you imagine, senators, that more people are perishing
-than the occasion requires, reflect, that this happens everywhere
-in a time of revolution, and that it must especially happen in the
-establishment of an oligarchy at Athens, the most populous city
-in Greece, and where the population has been longest accustomed
-to freedom. You know as well as we do, that democracy is to both
-of us an intolerable government, as well as incompatible with all
-steady adherence to our protectors, the Lacedæmonians. It is under
-their auspices that we are establishing the present oligarchy, and
-that we destroy, as far as we can, every man who stands in the way
-of it; which becomes most of all indispensable, if such a man be
-found among our own body. Here stands the man, Theramenês, whom we
-now denounce to you as your foe not less than ours. That such is
-the fact, is plain from his unmeasured censures on our proceedings,
-from the difficulties which he throws in our way whenever we want
-to despatch any of the demagogues. Had such been his policy from
-the beginning, he would indeed have been our enemy, yet we could
-not with justice have proclaimed him a villain. But it is he who
-first originated the alliance which binds us to Sparta, who struck
-the first blow at the democracy, who chiefly instigated us to put
-to death the first batch of accused persons; and now, when you as
-well as we have thus incurred the manifest hatred of the people, he
-turns round and quarrels with our proceedings in order to insure his
-own safety, and leave us to pay the penalty. He must be dealt with
-not only as an enemy, but as a traitor, to you as well as to us; a
-traitor in the grain, as his whole life proves. Though he enjoyed,
-through his father Agnon, a station of honor under the democracy,
-he was foremost in subverting it, and setting up the Four Hundred;
-the moment he saw that oligarchy beset with difficulties, he was the
-first to put himself at the head of the people against them; always
-ready for change in both directions, and a willing accomplice in
-those executions which changes of government bring with them. It is
-he, too, who—having been ordered by the generals after the battle
-of Arginusæ to pick up the men on the disabled ships, and having
-neglected the task—accused and brought to execution his superiors, in
-order to get himself out of danger. He has well earned his surname of
-The Buskin, fitting both legs, but constant to neither; he has shown
-himself reckless both of honor and friendship, looking to nothing but
-his own selfish advancement; and it is for us now to guard against
-his doublings, in order that he may not play us the same trick. We
-cite him before you as a conspirator and a traitor, against you as
-well as against us. Look to your own safety, and not to his. For
-depend upon it, that if you let him off, you will hold out powerful
-encouragement to your worst enemies; while if you condemn him, you
-will crush their best hopes, both within and without the city.”
-
-Theramenês was probably not wholly unprepared for some such attack as
-this. At any rate, he rose up to reply to it at once:—
-
-“First of all, senators, I shall touch upon the charge against me
-which Kritias mentioned last, the charge of having accused and
-brought to execution the generals. It was not I who began the
-accusation against them, but they who began it against me. They said,
-that they had ordered me upon the duty, and that I had neglected it;
-my defence was, that the duty could not be executed, in consequence
-of the storm; the people believed and exonerated me, but the generals
-were rightfully condemned on their own accusation, because _they_
-said that the duty might have been performed, while yet it had
-remained unperformed. I do not wonder, indeed, that Kritias has
-told these falsehoods against me; for at the time when this affair
-happened, he was an exile in Thessaly, employed in raising up a
-democracy, and arming the penestæ against their masters. Heaven grant
-that nothing of what he perpetrated _there_ may occur at Athens! I
-agree with Kritias, indeed, that, whoever wishes to cut short your
-government, and strengthens those who conspire against you, deserves
-justly the severest punishment. But to whom does this charge best
-apply? To him, or to me? Look at the behavior of each of us, and
-then judge for yourselves. At first, we were all agreed, so far as
-the condemnation of the known and obnoxious demagogues. But when
-Kritias and his friends began to seize men of station and dignity,
-then it was that I began to oppose them. I knew that the seizure of
-men like Leon, Nikias, and Antiphon, would make the best men in the
-city your enemies. I opposed the execution of the metics, well aware
-that all that body would be alienated. I opposed the disarming of
-the citizens, and the hiring of foreign guards. And when I saw that
-enemies at home and exiles abroad were multiplying against you, I
-dissuaded you from banishing Thrasybulus and Anytus, whereby you
-only furnished the exiles with competent leaders. The man who gives
-you this advice, and gives it you openly, is he a traitor, or is he
-not rather a genuine friend? It is you and your supporters, Kritias,
-who, by your murders and robberies, strengthen the enemies of the
-government and betray your friends. Depend upon it, that Thrasybulus
-and Anytus are much better pleased with your policy than they would
-be with mine. You accuse me of having betrayed the Four Hundred; but
-I did not desert them until they were themselves on the point of
-betraying Athens to her enemies. You call me The Buskin, as trying
-to fit both parties. But what am I to call _you_, who fit neither of
-them? who, under the democracy, were the most violent hater of the
-people, and who, under the oligarchy, have become equally violent as
-a hater of oligarchical merit? I am, and always have been, Kritias,
-an enemy both to extreme democracy and to oligarchical tyranny. I
-desire to constitute our political community out of those who can
-serve it on horseback and with heavy armor; I have proposed this
-once, and I still stand to it. I side not either with democrats or
-despots, to the exclusion of the dignified citizens. Prove that I am
-now, or ever have been, guilty of such crime, and I shall confess
-myself deserving of ignominious death.”
-
-This reply of Theramenês was received with such a shout of applause
-by the majority of the senate, as showed that they were resolved
-to acquit him. To the fierce antipathies of the mortified Kritias,
-the idea of failure was intolerable; indeed, he had now carried his
-hostility to such a point, that the acquittal of his enemy would have
-been his own ruin. After exchanging a few words with the Thirty, he
-retired for a few moments, and directed the Eleven with the body of
-armed satellites to press close on the railing whereby the senators
-were fenced round,—while the court before the senate-house was filled
-with the mercenary hoplites. Having thus got his force in hand,
-Kritias returned and again addressed the senate: “Senators (said he),
-I think it the duty of a good president, when he sees his friends
-around him duped, not to let them follow their own counsel. This is
-what I am now going to do; indeed, these men, whom you see pressing
-upon us from without, tell us plainly that they will not tolerate the
-acquittal of one manifestly working to the ruin of the oligarchy.
-It is an article of our new constitution, that no man of the select
-Three Thousand shall be condemned without your vote; but that any
-man not included in that list may be condemned by the Thirty. Now I
-take upon me, with the concurrence of all my colleagues, to strike
-this Theramenês out of that list; and we, by our authority, condemn
-him to death.”
-
-Though Theramenês had already been twice concerned in putting down
-the democracy, yet such was the habit of all Athenians to look for
-protection from constitutional forms, that he probably accounted
-himself safe under the favorable verdict of the senate, and was not
-prepared for the monstrous and despotic sentence which he now heard
-from his enemy. He sprang at once to the senatorial hearth,—the altar
-and sanctuary in the interior of the senate-house,—and exclaimed: “I
-too, senators, stand as your suppliant, asking only for bare justice.
-Let it be not in the power of Kritias to strike out me or any other
-man whom he chooses; let my sentence as well as yours be passed
-according to the law which these Thirty have themselves prepared. I
-know but too well, that this altar will be of no avail to me as a
-defence; but I shall at least make it plain, that these men are as
-impious towards the gods as they are nefarious towards men. As for
-you, worthy senators, I wonder that you will not stand forward for
-your own personal safety; since you must be well aware, that your own
-names may be struck out of the Three Thousand just as easily as mine.”
-
-But the senate remained passive and stupefied by fear, in spite of
-these moving words, which perhaps were not perfectly heard, since
-it could not be the design of Kritias to permit his enemy to speak
-a second time. It was probably while Theramenês was yet speaking,
-that the loud voice of the herald was heard, calling the Eleven to
-come forward and take him into custody. The Eleven advanced into the
-senate, headed by their brutal chief Satyrus, and followed by their
-usual attendants. They went straight up to the altar, from whence
-Satyrus, aided by the attendants, dragged him by main force, while
-Kritias said to them: “We hand over to you this man Theramenês,
-condemned according to the law. Seize him, carry him off to prison,
-and there do the needful.” Upon this, Theramenês was dragged out of
-the senate-house and carried in custody through the market-place,
-exclaiming with a loud voice against the atrocious treatment
-which he was suffering. “Hold your tongue (said Satyrus to him),
-or you will suffer for it.” “And if I _do_ hold my tongue (replied
-Theramenês), shall not I suffer for it also?”
-
-He was conveyed to prison, where the usual draught of hemlock was
-speedily administered. After he had swallowed it, there remained
-a drop at the bottom of the cup, which he jerked out on the floor
-(according to the playful convivial practice called the Kottabus,
-which was supposed to furnish an omen by its sound in falling, and
-after which the person who had just drank handed the goblet to the
-guest whose turn came next): “Let this (said he) be for the gentle
-Kritias.”[396]
-
-  [396] Xenoph. Hellen. ii, 3, 56.
-
-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.
-
-Such convictions would become farther confirmed as Pausanias saw
-and heard more of the real state of affairs. At first, he held a
-language decidedly adverse to Thrasybulus and the exiles, sending
-to them a herald, and requiring them to disband and go to their
-respective homes.[448] The requisition not being obeyed, he made a
-faint attack upon Peiræus, which had no effect. Next day he marched
-down with two Lacedæmonian moræ, or large military divisions, and
-three tribes of the Athenian horsemen, to reconnoitre the place,
-and see where a line of blockade could be drawn. Some light troops
-annoyed him, but his troops repulsed them, and pursued them even as
-far as the theatre of Peiræus, where all the forces of Thrasybulus
-were mustered, heavy-armed, as well as light-armed. The Lacedæmonians
-were here in a disadvantageous position, probably in the midst of
-houses and streets, so that all the light-armed of Thrasybulus were
-enabled to set upon them furiously from different sides, and drive
-them out again with loss, two of the Spartan polemarchs being here
-slain. Pausanias was obliged to retreat to a little eminence about
-half a mile off, where he mustered his whole force, and formed his
-hoplites into a very deep phalanx. Thrasybulus on his side was so
-encouraged by the recent success of his light-armed, that he ventured
-to bring out his heavy-armed, only eight deep, to an equal conflict
-on the open ground. But he was here completely worsted, and driven
-back into Peiræus with the loss of one hundred and fifty men; so that
-the Spartan king was able to retire to Athens after a victory, and a
-trophy erected to commemorate it.[449]
-
-  [448] Xenoph. Hellen. ii, 4, 31. This seems the meaning of the
-  phrase ἀπιέναι ἐπὶ τὰ ἑαυτῶν; as we may see by s. 38.
-
-  [449] Xenoph. Hellen. ii, 4, 31-34.
-
-The issue of this battle was one extremely fortunate for Thrasybulus
-and his comrades; since it left the honors of the day with Pausanias,
-so as to avoid provoking enmity or vengeance on his part, while it
-showed plainly that the conquest of Peiræus, defended by so much
-courage and military efficiency, would be no easy matter. It disposed
-Pausanias still farther towards an accommodation; strengthening also
-the force of that party in Athens which was favorable to the same
-object, and adverse to the Ten oligarchs. This opposition-party
-found decided favor with the Spartan king, as well as with the ephor
-Naukleidas, who was present along with him. Numbers of Athenians,
-even among those Three Thousand by whom the city was now exclusively
-occupied, came forward to deprecate farther war with Peiræus, and to
-entreat that Pausanias would settle the quarrel so as to leave them
-all at amity with Lacedæmon. Xenophon, indeed, according to that
-narrow and partial spirit which pervades his Hellenica, notices no
-sentiment in Pausanias except his jealousy of Lysander, and treats
-the opposition against the Ten at Athens as having been got up by
-his intrigues.[450] But it seems plain that this is not a correct
-account. Pausanias did not create the discord, but found it already
-existing, and had to choose which of the parties he would adopt.
-The Ten took up the oligarchical game after it had been thoroughly
-dishonored and ruined by the Thirty: they inspired no confidence, nor
-had they any hold upon the citizens in Athens, except in so far as
-these latter dreaded reactionary violence, in case Thrasybulus and
-his companions should reënter by force; accordingly, when Pausanias
-was there at the head of a force competent to prevent such dangerous
-reaction, the citizens at once manifested their dispositions against
-the Ten, and favorable to peace with Peiræus. To second this pacific
-party was at once the easiest course for Pausanias to take, and the
-most likely to popularize Sparta in Greece; whereas, he would surely
-have entailed upon her still more bitter curses from without, not to
-mention the loss of men to herself, if he had employed the amount of
-force requisite to uphold the Ten, and subdue Peiræus. To all this we
-have to add his jealousy of Lysander, as an important predisposing
-motive, but only as auxiliary among many others.
-
-  [450] Xenoph. Hellen. ii, 4, 35. Διΐστη δὲ καὶ τοὺς ἐν τῷ
-  ἄστει (Pausanias) καὶ ἐκέλευε πρὸς σφᾶς προσιέναι ὡς πλείστους
-  ξυλλεγομένους, λέγοντας, etc.
-
-Under such a state of facts, it is not surprising to learn that
-Pausanias encouraged solicitations for peace from Thrasybulus and
-the exiles, and that he granted them a truce to enable them to send
-envoys to Sparta. Along with these envoys went Kephisophon and
-Melitus, sent for the same purpose of entreating peace, by the party
-opposed to the Ten at Athens, under the sanction both of Pausanias
-and of the accompanying ephors. On the other hand, the Ten, finding
-themselves discountenanced by Pausanias, sent envoys of their own
-to outbid the others. They tendered themselves, their walls, and
-their city, to be dealt with as the Lacedæmonians chose; requiring
-that Thrasybulus, if he pretended to be the friend of Sparta, should
-make the same unqualified surrender of Peiræus and Munychia. All the
-three sets of envoys were heard before the ephors remaining at Sparta
-and the Lacedæmonian assembly; who took the best resolution which
-the case admitted, to bring to pass an amicable settlement between
-Athens and Peiræus, and to leave the terms to be fixed by fifteen
-commissioners, who were sent thither forthwith to sit in conjunction
-with Pausanias. This Board determined, that the exiles in Peiræus
-should be readmitted to Athens, that an accommodation should take
-place, and that no man should be molested for past acts, except the
-Thirty, the Eleven (who had been the instruments of all executions),
-and the Ten who had governed in Peiræus. But Eleusis was recognized
-as a government separate from Athens, and left, as it already was, in
-possession of the Thirty and their coadjutors, to serve as a refuge
-for all those who might feel their future safety compromised at
-Athens in consequence of their past conduct.[451]
-
-  [451] Xenoph. Hellen. ii, 4, 39; Diodor. xiv, 33.
-
-As soon as these terms were proclaimed, accepted, and sworn to by
-all parties, Pausanias with all the Lacedæmonians evacuated Attica.
-Thrasybulus and the exiles marched up in solemn procession from
-Peiræus to Athens. Their first act was to go up to the acropolis, now
-relieved from its Lacedæmonian garrison, and there to offer sacrifice
-and thanksgiving. On descending from thence, a general assembly was
-held, in which—unanimously and without opposition, as it should
-seem—the democracy was restored. The government of the Ten, which
-could have no basis except the sword of the foreigner, disappeared as
-a matter of course; but Thrasybulus, while he strenuously enforced
-upon his comrades from Peiræus a full respect for the oaths which
-they had sworn, and an unreserved harmony with their newly acquired
-fellow-citizens, admonished the assembly emphatically as to the past
-events. “You city-men (he said), I advise you to take just measure
-of yourselves for the future; and to calculate fairly, what ground
-of superiority you have, so as to pretend to rule over us? Are you
-juster than we? Why the demos, though poorer than you, never at any
-time wronged you for purposes of plunder; while you, the wealthiest
-of all, have done many base deeds for the sake of gain. Since then
-you have no justice to boast of, are you superior to us on the score
-of courage? There cannot be a better trial, than the war which has
-just ended. Again, can you pretend to be superior in policy? you,
-who, having a fortified city, an armed force, plenty of money, and
-the Peloponnesians for your allies, have been overcome by men who
-had nothing of the kind to aid them? Can you boast of your hold
-over the Lacedæmonians? Why, they have just handed you over, like a
-vicious dog with a clog tied to him, to the very demos whom you have
-wronged, and are now gone out of the country. But you have no cause
-to be uneasy for the future. I adjure you, my friends from Peiræus,
-in no point to violate the oaths which we have just sworn. Show, in
-addition to your other glorious exploits, that you are honest and
-true to your engagements.”[452]
-
-  [452] Xenoph. Hellen. ii, 4, 40-42.
-
-The archons, the senate of Five Hundred, the public assembly, and
-the dikasteries, appear to have been now revived, as they had stood
-in the democracy prior to the capture of the city by Lysander. This
-important restoration seems to have taken place some time in the
-spring of 403 B.C., though we cannot exactly make out in what month.
-The first archon now drawn was Eukleidês, who gave his name to this
-memorable year; a year never afterwards forgotten by Athenians.
-
-Eleusis was at this time, and pursuant to the late convention, a city
-independent and separate from Athens, under the government of the
-Thirty, and comprising their warmest partisans. It was not likely
-that this separation would last; but the Thirty were themselves the
-parties to give cause for its termination. They were getting together
-a mercenary force at Eleusis, when the whole force of Athens was
-marched to forestall their designs. The generals at Eleusis came
-forth to demand a conference, but were seized and put to death; the
-Thirty themselves, and a few of the most obnoxious individuals,
-fled out of Attica; while the rest of the Eleusinian occupants were
-persuaded by their friends from Athens to come to an equal and
-honorable accommodation. Again Eleusis became incorporated in the
-same community with Athens, oaths of mutual amnesty and harmony being
-sworn by every one.[453]
-
-  [453] Xenoph. Hellen. ii, 4, 43; Justin, v, 11. I do not
-  comprehend the allusion in Lysias, Orat. xxv, Δημ. Καταλ.
-  Ἀπολ. sect. 11: εἰσὶ δὲ οἵτινες τῶν Ἐλευσῖνάδε ἀπογραψαμένων,
-  ἐξελθόντες μεθ᾽ ὑμῶν, ἐπολιορκοῦντο μετ᾽ αὐτῶν.
-
-       *       *       *       *       *
-
-We have now passed that short, but bitter and sanguinary interval,
-occupied by the Thirty, which succeeded so immediately upon the
-extinction of the empire and independence of Athens as to leave
-no opportunity for pause or reflection. A few words respecting the
-rise and fall of that empire are now required, summing up as it were
-the political moral of the events recorded in my last two volumes,
-between 477 and 405 B.C.
-
-I related, in the forty-fifth chapter, the steps by which Athens
-first acquired her empire, raised it to its maximum, including both
-maritime and inland dominion, then lost the inland portion of it;
-which loss was ratified by the Thirty Years Truce concluded with
-Sparta and the Peloponnesian confederacy in 445 B.C. Her maritime
-empire was based upon the confederacy of Delos, formed by the islands
-in the Ægean and the towns on the seaboard immediately after the
-battles of Platæa and Mykalê, for the purpose not merely of expelling
-the Persians from the Ægean, but of keeping them away permanently. To
-the accomplishment of this important object, Sparta was altogether
-inadequate; nor would it ever have been accomplished, if Athens had
-not displayed a combination of military energy, naval discipline,
-power of organization, and honorable devotion to a great Pan-Hellenic
-purpose, such as had never been witnessed in Grecian history.
-
-The confederacy of Delos was formed by the free and spontaneous
-association of many different towns, all alike independent; towns
-which met in synod and deliberated by equal vote, took by their
-majority resolutions binding upon all, and chose Athens as their
-chief to enforce these resolutions, as well as to superintend
-generally the war against the common enemy. But it was, from the
-beginning, a compact which permanently bound each individual state to
-the remainder. None had liberty either to recede, or to withhold the
-contingent imposed by authority of the common synod, or to take any
-separate step inconsistent with its obligations to the confederacy.
-No union less stringent than this could have prevented the renewal of
-Persian ascendency in the Ægean. Seceding or disobedient states were
-thus treated as guilty of treason or revolt, which it was the duty of
-Athens, as chief, to repress. Her first repressions, against Naxos
-and other states, were undertaken in prosecution of this duty, in
-which if she had been wanting, the confederacy would have fallen to
-pieces, and the common enemy would have reappeared.
-
-Now the only way by which the confederacy was saved from falling
-to pieces, was by being transformed into an Athenian empire. Such
-transformation, as Thucydidês plainly intimates,[454] did not arise
-from the ambition or deep-laid projects of Athens, but from the
-reluctance of the larger confederates to discharge the obligations
-imposed by the common synod, and from the unwarlike character of the
-confederates generally, which made them desirous to commute military
-service for money-payment, while Athens on her part was not less
-anxious to perform the service and obtain the money. By gradual and
-unforeseen stages, Athens thus passed from consulate to empire: in
-such manner that no one could point out the precise moment of time
-when the confederacy of Delos ceased, and when the empire began.
-Even the transfer of the common fund from Delos to Athens, which was
-the palpable manifestation of a change already realized, was not
-an act of high-handed injustice in the Athenians, but warranted by
-prudential views of the existing state of affairs, and even proposed
-by a leading member of the confederacy.[455]
-
-  [454] Thucyd. i, 97.
-
-  [455] See vol. v, of this History, ch. xlv, p 343.
-
-But the Athenian empire came to include (between 460-446 B.C.) other
-cities, not parties to the confederacy of Delos. Athens had conquered
-her ancient enemy the island of Ægina, and had acquired supremacy
-over Megara, Bœotia, Phocis, and Lokris, and Achaia in Peloponnesus.
-The Megarians joined her to escape the oppression of their neighbor
-Corinth: her influence over Bœotia was acquired by allying herself
-with a democratical party in the Bœotian cities, against Sparta,
-who had been actively interfering to sustain the opposite party and
-to renovate the ascendency of Thebes. Athens was, for the time,
-successful in all these enterprises; but if we follow the details, we
-shall not find her more open to reproach on the score of aggressive
-tendencies than Sparta or Corinth. Her empire was now at its maximum;
-and had she been able to maintain it,—or even to keep possession of
-the Megarid separately, which gave her the means of barring out all
-invasions from Peloponnesus,—the future course of Grecian history
-would have been materially altered. But her empire on land did not
-rest upon the same footing as her empire at sea. The exiles in
-Megara and Bœotia, etc., and the anti-Athenian party generally in
-those places,—combined with the rashness of her general Tolmidês at
-Korôneia,—deprived her of all her land-dependencies near home, and
-even threatened her with the loss of Eubœa. The peace concluded in
-445 B.C. left her with all her maritime and insular empire, including
-Eubœa, but with nothing more; while by the loss of Megara she was now
-open to invasion from Peloponnesus.
-
-On this footing she remained at the beginning of the Peloponnesian
-war fourteen years afterwards. I have shown that that war did not
-arise, as has been so often asserted, from aggressive or ambitious
-schemes on the part of Athens, but that, on the contrary, the
-aggression was all on the side of her enemies; who were full of
-hopes that they could put her down with little delay; while she
-was not merely conservative and defensive, but even discouraged
-by the certainty of destructive invasion, and only dissuaded from
-concessions, alike imprudent and inglorious, by the extraordinary
-influence and resolute wisdom of Periklês. That great man
-comprehended well both the conditions and the limits of Athenian
-empire. Athens was now understood, especially since the revolt and
-reconquest of the powerful island of Samos in 440 B.C., by her
-subjects and enemies as well as by her own citizens, to be mistress
-of the sea. It was the care of Periklês to keep that belief within
-definite boundaries, and to prevent all waste of the force of the
-city in making new or distant acquisitions which could not be
-permanently maintained. But it was also his care to enforce upon
-his countrymen the lesson of maintaining their existing empire
-unimpaired, and shrinking from no effort requisite for that end.
-Though their whole empire was now staked upon the chances of a
-perilous war, he did not hesitate to promise them success, provided
-that they adhered to this conservative policy.
-
-Following the events of the war, we shall find that Athens did adhere
-to it for the first seven years; years of suffering and trial, from
-the destructive annual invasion, the yet more destructive pestilence,
-and the revolt of Mitylênê, but years which still left her empire
-unimpaired, and the promises of Periklês in fair chance of being
-realized. In the seventh year of the war occurred the unexpected
-victory at Sphakteria and the capture of the Lacedæmonian prisoners.
-This placed in the hands of the Athenians a capital advantage,
-imparting to them prodigious confidence of future success, while
-their enemies were in a proportional degree disheartened. It was in
-this temper that they first departed from the conservative precept
-of Periklês, and attempted to recover (in 424 B.C.) both Megara and
-Bœotia. Had the great statesman been alive,[456] he might have turned
-this moment of superiority to better account, and might perhaps have
-contrived even to get possession of Megara—a point of unspeakable
-importance to Athens, since it protected her against invasion—in
-exchange for the Spartan captives. But the general feeling of
-confidence which then animated all parties at Athens, determined them
-in 424 B.C. to grasp at this and much more by force. They tried to
-reconquer both Megara and Bœotia: in the former they failed, though
-succeeding so far as to capture Nisæa; in the latter they not only
-failed, but suffered the disastrous defeat of Delium.
-
-  [456] See vol. vi, ch. lii, p. 353 of this History.
-
-It was in the autumn of that same year 424 B.C., too, that Brasidas
-broke into their empire in Thrace, and robbed them of Akanthus,
-Stageira, and some other towns, including their most precious
-possession, Amphipolis. Again, it seems that the Athenians, partly
-from the discouragement caused by the disaster at Delium, partly
-from the ascendency of Nikias and the peace party, departed from the
-conservative policy of Periklês; not by ambitious over-action, but
-by inaction, omitting to do all that might have been done to arrest
-the progress of Brasidas. We must, however, never forget that their
-capital loss, Amphipolis, was owing altogether to the improvidence of
-their officers, and could not have been obviated even by Periklês.
-
-But though that great man could not have prevented the loss, he would
-assuredly have deemed no efforts too great to recover it; and in this
-respect his policy was espoused by Kleon, in opposition to Nikias and
-the peace party. The latter thought it wise to make the truce for a
-year; which so utterly failed of its effect, that Nikias was obliged,
-even in the midst of it, to conduct an armament to Pallênê in order
-to preserve the empire against yet farther losses. Still, Nikias and
-his friends would hear of nothing but peace; and after the expedition
-of Kleon against Amphipolis in the ensuing year, which failed partly
-through his military incapacity, partly through the want of hearty
-concurrence in his political opponents, they concluded what is called
-the Peace of Nikias in the ensuing spring. In this, too, their
-calculations are not less signally falsified than in the previous
-truce: they stipulate that Amphipolis shall be restored, but it is
-as far from being restored as ever. To make the error still graver
-and more irreparable, Nikias, with the concurrence of Alkibiadês
-contracts the alliance with Sparta a few months after the peace, and
-gives up the captives, the possession of whom being the only hold
-which Athens as yet had upon the Spartans.
-
-We thus have, during the four years succeeding the battle of Delium
-(424-420 B.C.), a series of departures from the conservative
-policy of Periklês; departures, not in the way of ambitious
-over-acquisition, but of languor and unwillingness to make efforts
-even for the recovery of capital losses. Those who see no defects in
-the foreign policy of the democracy except those of over-ambition
-and love of war, pursuant to the jest of Aristophanês, overlook
-altogether these opposite but serious blunders of Nikias and the
-peace party.
-
-Next comes the ascendency of Alkibiadês, leading to the two years’
-campaign in Peloponnesus in conjunction with Elis, Argos, and
-Mantineia, and ending in the complete reëstablishment of Lacedæmonian
-supremacy. Here was a diversion of Athenian force from its legitimate
-purpose of preserving or reëstablishing the empire, for inland
-projects which Periklês could never have approved. The island of
-Melos undoubtedly fell within his general conceptions of tenable
-empire for Athens. But we may regard it as certain that he would
-have recommended no new projects, exposing Athens to the reproach
-of injustice, so long as the lost legitimate possessions in Thrace
-remained unconquered.
-
-We now come to the expedition against Syracuse. Down to that period,
-the empire of Athens, except the possessions in Thrace, remained
-undiminished, and her general power nearly as great as it had ever
-been since 445 B.C. That expedition was the one great and fatal
-departure from the Periklean policy, bringing upon Athens an amount
-of disaster from which she never recovered; and it was doubtless an
-error of over-ambition. Acquisitions in Sicily, even if made, lay
-out of the conditions of permanent empire for Athens; and however
-imposing the first effect of success might have been, they would
-only have disseminated her strength, multiplied her enemies, and
-weakened her in all quarters. But though the expedition itself was
-thus indisputably ill-advised, and therefore ought to count to the
-discredit of the public judgment at Athens, we are not to impute
-to that public an amount of blame in any way commensurate to the
-magnitude of the disaster, except in so far as they were guilty of
-unmeasured and unconquerable esteem for Nikias. Though Periklês would
-have strenuously opposed the project, yet he could not possibly have
-foreseen the enormous ruin in which it would end; nor could such
-ruin have been brought about by any man existing, save Nikias. Even
-when the people committed the aggravated imprudence of sending out
-the second expedition, Demosthenês doubtless assured them that he
-would speedily either take Syracuse or bring back both armaments,
-with a fair allowance for the losses inseparable from failure; and
-so he would have done, if the obstinacy of Nikias had permitted. In
-measuring therefore the extent of misjudgment fairly imputable to the
-Athenians for this ruinous undertaking, we must always recollect,
-that first the failure of the siege, next the ruin of the armament,
-did not arise from intrinsic difficulties in the case, but from the
-personal defects of the commander.
-
-After the Syracusan disaster, there is no longer any question about
-adhering to, or departing from, the Periklean policy. Athens is like
-Patroklus in the Iliad, after Apollo has stunned him by a blow on the
-back and loosened his armor. Nothing but the slackness of her enemies
-allowed her time for a partial recovery, so as to make increased
-heroism a substitute for impaired force, even against doubled and
-tripled difficulties. And the years of struggle which she now went
-through are among the most glorious events in her history. These
-years present many misfortunes, but no serious misjudgment, not to
-mention one peculiarly honorable moment, after the overthrow of the
-Four Hundred. I have in the two preceding chapters examined into
-the blame imputed to the Athenians for not accepting the overtures
-of peace after the battle of Kyzikus, and for dismissing Alkibiadês
-after the battle of Notium. On both points their conduct has been
-shown to be justifiable. And after all, they were on the point of
-partially recovering themselves in 408 B.C., when the unexpected
-advent of Cyrus set the seal to their destiny.
-
-The bloodshed after the recapture of Mitylênê and Skionê, and still
-more that which succeeded the capture of Melos, are disgraceful
-to the humanity of Athens, and stand in pointed contrast with the
-treatment of Samos when reconquered by Periklês. But they did
-not contribute sensibly to break down her power; though, being
-recollected with aversion after other incidents were forgotten, they
-are alluded to in later times as if they had caused the fall of the
-empire.[457]
-
-  [457] This I apprehend to have been in the mind of Xenophon, De
-  Reditibus, v, 6. Ἔπειτ᾽, ἐπεὶ ~ὠμῶς ἄγαν δόξασα προστατεύειν~ ἡ
-  πόλις ἐστερήθη τῆς ἀρχῆς, etc.
-
-I have thought it important to recall, in this short summary, the
-leading events of the seventy years preceding 405 B.C., in order
-that it may be understood to what degree Athens was politically
-or prudentially to blame for the great downfall which she then
-underwent. That downfall had one great cause—we may almost say, one
-single cause—the Sicilian expedition. The empire of Athens both
-was, and appeared to be, in exuberant strength when that expedition
-was sent forth; strength more than sufficient to bear up against
-all moderate faults or moderate misfortunes, such as no government
-ever long escapes. But the catastrophe of Syracuse was something
-overpassing in terrific calamity all Grecian experience and all power
-of foresight. It was like the Russian campaign of 1812 to the emperor
-Napoleon; though by no means imputable, in an equal degree, to vice
-in the original project. No Grecian power could bear up against such
-a death-wound, and the prolonged struggle of Athens after it is not
-the least wonderful part of the whole war.
-
-Nothing in the political history of Greece is so remarkable as the
-Athenian empire; taking it as it stood in its completeness, from
-about 460-413 B.C., the date of the Syracusan catastrophe, or still
-more, from 460-421 B.C., the date when Brasidas made his conquests
-in Thrace. After the Syracusan catastrophe, the conditions of the
-empire were altogether changed; it was irretrievably broken up,
-though Athens still continued an energetic struggle to retain some
-of the fragments. But if we view it as it had stood before that
-event, during the period of its integrity, it is a sight marvellous
-to contemplate, and its working must be pronounced, in my judgment,
-to have been highly beneficial to the Grecian world. No Grecian state
-except Athens could have sufficed to organize such a system, or to
-hold in partial though regulated, continuous, and specific communion,
-so many little states, each animated with that force of political
-repulsion instinctive in the Grecian mind. This was a mighty task,
-worthy of Athens, and to which no state except Athens was competent.
-We have already seen in part, and we shall see still farther, how
-little qualified Sparta was to perform it, and we shall have occasion
-hereafter to notice a like fruitless essay on the part of Thebes.
-
-As in regard to the democracy of Athens generally, so in regard to
-her empire, it has been customary with historians to take notice
-of little except the bad side. But my conviction is, and I have
-shown grounds for it, in chap. xlvii, that the empire of Athens was
-not harsh and oppressive, as it is commonly depicted. Under the
-circumstances of her dominion, at a time when the whole transit and
-commerce of the Ægean was under one maritime system, which excluded
-all irregular force; when Persian ships of war were kept out of
-the waters, and Persian tribute-officers away from the seaboard;
-when the disputes inevitable among so many little communities could
-be peaceably redressed by the mutual right of application to the
-tribunals at Athens, and when these tribunals were also such as to
-present to sufferers a refuge against wrongs done even by individual
-citizens of Athens herself, to use the expression of the oligarchical
-Phrynichus,[458] the condition of the maritime Greeks was materially
-better than it had been before, or than it will be seen to become
-afterwards. Her empire, if it did not inspire attachment, certainly
-provoked no antipathy, among the bulk of the citizens of the
-subject-communities, as is shown by the party-character of the
-revolts against her. If in her imperial character she exacted
-obedience, she also fulfilled duties and insured protection to a
-degree incomparably greater than was ever realized by Sparta. And
-even if she had been ever so much disposed to cramp the free play
-of mind and purpose among her subjects,—a disposition which is no
-way proved,—the very circumstances of her own democracy, with its
-open antithesis of political parties, universal liberty of speech,
-and manifold individual energy, would do much to prevent the
-accomplishment of such an end, and would act as a stimulus to the
-dependent communities, even without her own intention.
-
-  [458] Thucyd. viii, 48.
-
-Without being insensible either to the faults or to the misdeeds of
-imperial Athens, I believe that her empire was a great comparative
-benefit, and its extinction a great loss, to her own subjects. But
-still more do I believe it to have been a good, looked at with
-reference to Pan-Hellenic interests. Its maintenance furnished the
-only possibility of keeping out foreign intervention, and leaving the
-destinies of Greece to depend upon native, spontaneous, untrammelled
-Grecian agencies. The downfall of the Athenian empire is the signal
-for the arms and corruption of Persia again to make themselves
-felt, and for the reënslavement of the Asiatic Greeks under her
-tribute-officers. What is still worse, it leaves the Grecian world
-in a state incapable of repelling any energetic foreign attack, and
-open to the overruling march of “the man of Macedon,” half a century
-afterwards. For such was the natural tendency of the Grecian world
-to political non-integration or disintegration, that the rise of
-the Athenian empire, incorporating so many states into one system,
-is to be regarded as a most extraordinary accident. Nothing but the
-genius, energy, discipline, and democracy of Athens, could have
-brought it about; nor even she, unless favored and pushed on by a
-very peculiar train of antecedent events. But having once got it, she
-might perfectly well have kept it; and, had she done so, the Hellenic
-world would have remained so organized as to be able to repel foreign
-intervention, either from Susa or from Pella. When we reflect how
-infinitely superior was the Hellenic mind to that of all surrounding
-nations and races; how completely its creative agency was stifled,
-as soon as it came under the Macedonian dictation; and how much more
-it might perhaps have achieved, if it had enjoyed another century or
-half-century of freedom, under the stimulating headship of the most
-progressive and most intellectual of all its separate communities,
-we shall look with double regret on the ruin of the Athenian empire,
-as accelerating, without remedy, the universal ruin of Grecian
-independence, political action, and mental grandeur.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER LXVI.
-
-FROM THE RESTORATION OF THE DEMOCRACY TO THE DEATH OF ALKIBIADES.
-
-
-The period intervening between the defeat of Ægospotami (October,
-405 B.C.) and the reëstablishment of the democracy as sanctioned by
-the convention concluded with Pausanias, some time in the summer of
-403 B.C., presents two years of cruel and multifarious suffering to
-Athens. For seven years before, indeed ever since the catastrophe
-at Syracuse, she had been struggling with hardships; contending
-against augmented hostile force, while her own means were cut down
-in every way; crippled at home by the garrison of Dekeleia; stripped
-to a great degree both of her tribute and her foreign trade, and
-beset by the snares of her own oligarchs. In spite of circumstances
-so adverse, she had maintained the fight with a resolution not less
-surprising than admirable; yet not without sinking more and more
-towards impoverishment and exhaustion. The defeat of Ægospotami
-closed the war at once, and transferred her from her period of
-struggle to one of concluding agony. Nor is the last word by any
-means too strong for the reality. Of these two years, the first
-portion was marked by severe physical privation, passing by degrees
-into absolute famine, and accompanied by the intolerable sentiment of
-despair and helplessness against her enemies, after two generations
-of imperial grandeur, not without a strong chance of being finally
-consigned to ruin and individual slavery; while the last portion
-comprised all the tyranny, murders, robberies, and expulsions
-perpetrated by the Thirty, overthrown only by heroic efforts of
-patriotism on the part of the exiles; which a fortunate change of
-sentiment, on the part of Pausanias, and the leading members of the
-Peloponnesian confederacy, ultimately crowned with success.
-
-After such years of misery, it was an unspeakable relief to the
-Athenian population to regain possession of Athens and Attica,
-to exchange their domestic tyrants for a renovated democratical
-government, and to see their foreign enemies not merely evacuate
-the country, but even bind themselves by treaty to future friendly
-dealing. In respect of power, indeed, Athens was but the shadow
-of her former self. She had no empire, no tribute, no fleet, no
-fortifications at Peiræus, no long walls, not a single fortified
-place in Attica except the city itself. Of all these losses, however,
-the Athenians probably made little account, at least at the first
-epoch of their reëstablishment; so intolerable was the pressure which
-they had just escaped, and so welcome the restitution of comfort,
-security, property, and independence, at home. The very excess of
-tyranny committed by the Thirty gave a peculiar zest to the recovery
-of the democracy. In their hands, the oligarchical principle, to
-borrow an expression from Mr. Burke,[459] “had produced in fact, and
-instantly, the grossest of those evils with which it was pregnant in
-its nature;” realizing the promise of that plain-spoken oligarchical
-oath, which Aristotle mentions as having been taken in various
-oligarchical cities, to contrive as much evil as possible to the
-people.[460] So much the more complete was the reaction of sentiment
-towards the antecedent democracy, even in the minds of those who
-had been before discontented with it. To all men, rich and poor,
-citizens and metics, the comparative excellence of the democracy, in
-respect of all the essentials of good government, was now manifest.
-With the exception of those who had identified themselves with the
-Thirty as partners, partisans, or instruments, there was scarcely any
-one who did not feel that his life and property had been far more
-secure under the former democracy, and would become so again if that
-democracy were revived.[461]
-
-  [459] “I confess, gentlemen, that this appears to me as bad
-  in the principle, and far worse in the consequences, than an
-  universal suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act.... Far from
-  softening the features of such a principle, and thereby removing
-  any part of the popular odium or natural terrors attending it,
-  I should be sorry _that anything framed in contradiction to
-  the spirit of our constitution did not instantly produce, in
-  fact, the grossest of the evils with which it was pregnant in
-  its nature_. It is by lying dormant a long time, or being at
-  first very rarely exercised, that arbitrary power steals upon a
-  people. On the next unconstitutional act, all the fashionable
-  world will be ready to say: Your prophecies are ridiculous, your
-  fears are vain; you see how little of the misfortunes which
-  you formerly foreboded is come to pass. Thus, by degrees, that
-  artful softening of all arbitrary power, the alleged infrequency
-  or narrow extent of its operation, will be received as a sort
-  of aphorism; and Mr. Hume will not be singular in telling us
-  that the felicity of mankind is no more disturbed by it, than by
-  earthquakes or thunder, or the other more unusual accidents of
-  nature.” (Burke, Letter to the Sheriffs of Bristol, 1777: Burke’s
-  Works, vol. iii, pp. 146-150 oct. edit.)
-
-  [460] Aristot. Polit. v, 7, 19. Καὶ τῷ δήμῳ κακόνους ἔσομαι, καὶ
-  βουλεύσω ὅ,τι ἂν ἔχω κακόν.
-
-  The complimentary epitaph upon the Thirty, cited in the Schol. on
-  Æschinês,—praising them as having curbed, for a short time, the
-  insolence of the accursed Demos of Athens,—is in the same spirit:
-  see K. F. Hermann, Staats-Alterthümer der Griechen, s. 70, note 9.
-
-  [461] Plato, Epistol. vii, p. 324. Καὶ ὁρῶν δή που τοὺς ἄνδρας ἐν
-  χρόνῳ ὀλίγῳ χρυσὸν ἀποδείξαντας τὴν ἔμπροσθεν πολιτείαν, etc.
-
-It was the first measure of Thrasybulus and his companions, after
-concluding the treaty with Pausanias, and thus reëntering the city,
-to exchange solemn oaths, of amnesty for the past, with those against
-whom they had just been at war. Similar oaths of amnesty were also
-exchanged with those in Eleusis, as soon as that town came into
-their power. The only persons excepted from this amnesty were the
-Thirty, the Eleven who had presided over the execution of all their
-atrocities, and the Ten who had governed in Peiræus. Even these
-persons were not peremptorily banished: opportunity was offered to
-them to come in and take their trial of accountability (universal
-at Athens in the case of every magistrate on quitting office); so
-that, if acquitted, they would enjoy the benefit of the amnesty
-as well as all others.[462] We know that Eratosthenês, one of the
-Thirty, afterwards returned to Athens; since there remains a powerful
-harangue of Lysias, invoking justice against him as having brought to
-death Polemarchus, the brother of Lysias. Eratosthenês was one of
-the minority of the Thirty who sided generally with Theramenês, and
-opposed to a considerable degree the extreme violences of Kritias,
-although personally concerned in that seizure and execution of the
-rich metics which Theramenês had resisted, and which was one of
-the grossest misdeeds even of that dark period. He and Pheidon,
-being among the Ten named to succeed the Thirty after the death of
-Kritias, when the remaining members of that deposed Board retired to
-Eleusis, had endeavored to maintain themselves as a new oligarchy,
-carrying on war at the same time against Eleusis and against the
-democratical exiles in Peiræus. Failing in this, they had retired
-from the country, at the time when these exiles returned, and when
-the democracy was first reëstablished. But after a certain interval,
-the intense sentiments of the moment having somewhat subsided, they
-were encouraged by their friends to return, and came back to stand
-their trial of accountability. It was on that occasion that Lysias
-preferred his accusation against Eratosthenês, the result of which we
-do not know, though we see plainly, even from the accusatory speech,
-that the latter had powerful friends to stand by him, and that the
-dikasts manifested considerable reluctance to condemn.[463] We learn,
-moreover, from the same speech, that such was the detestation of
-the Thirty among several of the states surrounding Attica, as to
-cause formal decrees for their expulsion, or for prohibiting their
-coming.[464] The sons, even of such among the Thirty as did not
-return, were allowed to remain at Athens, and enjoy their rights of
-citizens, unmolested;[465] a moderation rare in Grecian political
-warfare.
-
-  [462] Andokidês de Mysteriis, s. 90.
-
-  [463] All this may be collected from various passages of the
-  Orat. xii, of Lysias. Eratosthenês did not stand alone on
-  his trial, but in conjunction with other colleagues; though
-  of course, pursuant to the psephism of Kannônus, the vote of
-  the dikasts would be taken about each separately: ἀλλὰ παρὰ
-  Ἐρατοσθένους καὶ τῶν τουτουῒ συναρχόντων δίκην λαμβάνειν....
-  μηδ᾽ ἀποῦσι μὲν τοῖς τριάκοντα ἐπιβουλεύετε, παρόντας δ᾽ ἀφῆτε·
-  μηδὲ τῆς τύχης, ἣ τούτους παρέδωκε τῇ πόλει, κάκιον ὑμῖν αὐτοῖς
-  βοηθήσητε (sects. 80, 81): compare s. 36.
-
-  The number of friends prepared to back the defence of
-  Eratosthenês, and to obtain his acquittal, chiefly by
-  representing that he had done the least mischief of all the
-  Thirty; that all that he had done had been under fear of his own
-  life; that he had been the partisan and supporter of Theramenês,
-  whose memory was at that time popular, may be seen in sections
-  51, 56, 65, 87, 88, 91.
-
-  There are evidences also of other accusations brought against
-  the Thirty before the senate of Areopagus (Lysias, Or. xi, cont.
-  Theomnest. A. s. 31, B. s. 12).
-
-  [464] Lysias, Or. xii, cont. Eratosth. s. 36.
-
-  [465] Demosth. adv. Bœotum de Dote Matern. c. 6, p. 1018.
-
-The first public vote of the Athenians, after the conclusion of peace
-with Sparta and the return of the exiles, was to restore the former
-democracy purely and simply, to choose by lot the nine archons and
-the senate of Five Hundred, and to elect the generals, all as before.
-It appears that this restoration of the preceding constitution was
-partially opposed by a citizen named Phormisius, who, having served
-with Thrasybulus in Peiræus, now moved that the political franchise
-should for the future be restricted to the possessors of land in
-Attica. His proposition was understood to be supported by the
-Lacedæmonians, and was recommended as calculated to make Athens march
-in better harmony with them. It was presented as a compromise between
-oligarchy and democracy, excluding both the poorer freemen and those
-whose property lay either in movables or in land out of Attica; so
-that the aggregate number of the disfranchised would have been five
-thousand persons. Since Athens now had lost her fleet and maritime
-empire, and since the importance of Peiræus was much curtailed not
-merely by these losses, but by demolition of its separate walls and
-of the long walls, Phormisius and others conceived the opportunity
-favorable for striking out the maritime and trading multitude from
-the roll of citizens. Many of these men must have been in easy and
-even opulent circumstances, but the bulk of them were poor; and
-Phormisius had of course at his command the usual arguments, by
-which it is attempted to prove that poor men have no business with
-political judgment or action. But the proposition was rejected; the
-orator Lysias being among its opponents, and composing a speech
-against it which was either spoken, or intended to be spoken, by some
-eminent citizen in the assembly.[466]
-
-  [466] Dionys. Hal. Jud. de Lysiâ, c. 32, p. 526; Lysias, Orat.
-  xxxiv, Bekk.
-
-Unfortunately, we have only a fragment of the speech remaining,
-wherein the proposition is justly criticized as mischievous and
-unseasonable, depriving Athens of a large portion of her legitimate
-strength, patriotism, and harmony, and even of substantial men
-competent to serve as hoplites or horsemen, at a moment when she
-was barely rising from absolute prostration. Never, certainly, was
-the fallacy which connects political depravity or incapacity with
-a poor station, and political virtue or judgment with wealth, more
-conspicuously unmasked, than in reference to the recent experience of
-Athens. The remark of Thrasybulus was most true,[467] that a greater
-number of atrocities, both against person and against property, had
-been committed in a few months by the Thirty, and abetted by the
-class of horsemen, all rich men, than the poor majority of the Demos
-had sanctioned during two generations of democracy. Moreover, we
-know, on the authority of a witness unfriendly to the democracy, that
-the poor Athenian citizens, who served on shipboard and elsewhere,
-were exact in obedience to their commanders; while the richer
-citizens who served as hoplites and horsemen, and who laid claim to
-higher individual estimation, were far less orderly in the public
-service.[468]
-
-  [467] Xenoph. Hellen. ii, 4, 41.
-
-  [468] Xenoph. Memor. iii, 5, 19.
-
-The motion of Phormisius being rejected, the antecedent democracy
-was restored without qualification, together with the ordinances of
-Drako, and the laws, measures, and weights of Solon. But on closer
-inspection, it was found that this latter part of the resolution was
-incompatible with the amnesty which had been just sworn. According
-to the laws of Solon and Drako, the perpetrators of enormities under
-the Thirty had rendered themselves guilty, and were open to trial.
-To escape this consequence, a second psephism or decree was passed,
-on the proposition of Tisamenus, to review the laws of Solon and
-Drako, and reënact them with such additions and amendments as might
-be deemed expedient. Five hundred citizens had been just chosen by
-the people as nomothetæ, or law-makers, at the same time when the
-senate of Five hundred was taken by lot: out of these nomothetæ,
-the senate now chose a select few, whose duty it was to consider
-all propositions for amendment or addition to the laws of the old
-democracy, and post them up for public inspection before the statues
-of the eponymous heroes, within the month then running.[469] The
-senate, and the entire body of five hundred nomothetæ, were then to
-be convened, in order that each might pass in review, separately,
-both the old laws and the new propositions; the nomothetæ being
-previously sworn to decide righteously. While this discussion was
-going on, every private citizen had liberty to enter the senate,
-and to tender his opinion with reasons for or against any law. All
-the laws which should thus be approved, first by the senate, and
-afterwards by the nomothetæ, but no others, were to be handed to the
-magistrates, and inscribed on the walls of the portico called Pœkilê,
-for public notoriety, as the future regulators of the city. After
-the laws were promulgated by such public inscription, the senate of
-Areopagus was enjoined to take care that they should be duly observed
-and enforced by the magistrates. A provisional committee of twenty
-citizens was named, to be generally responsible for the city during
-the time occupied in this revision.[470]
-
-  [469] Andokidês de Mysteriis, s. 83. Ὁπόσων δ᾽ ἂν προσδέῃ
-  (νόμων), ~οἵδε ᾑρημένοι νομοθέται ὑπὸ τῆς βουλῆς~ ἀναγράφοντες ἐν
-  σάνισιν ἐκτιθέντων πρὸς τοὺς ἐπωνύμους, σκοπεῖν τῷ βουλομένῳ, καὶ
-  παραδιδόντων ταῖς ἀρχαῖς ἐν τῷδε τῷ μηνί. Τοὺς δὲ παραδιδομένους
-  νόμους δοκιμασάτω ~πρότερον ἡ βουλὴ καὶ οἱ νομοθέται οἱ
-  πεντακόσιοι, οὓς οἱ δημόται εἵλοντο~, ἐπειδὴ ὀμωμόκασιν.
-
-  Putting together the two sentences in which the nomothetæ are
-  here mentioned, Reiske and F. A. Wolf (Prolegom. ad Demosthen.
-  cont. Leptin. p. cxxix), think that there were two classes
-  of nomothetæ; one class chosen by the senate, the other by
-  the people. This appears to me very improbable. The persons
-  chosen by the senate were invested with no final or decisive
-  function whatever; they were simply chosen to consider what new
-  propositions were fit to be submitted for discussion, and to
-  provide that such propositions should be publicly made known. Now
-  any persons simply invested with this character of a preliminary
-  committee, would not, in my judgment, be called nomothetæ. The
-  reason why the persons here mentioned were so called, was, that
-  they were a portion of the five hundred nomothetæ, in whom the
-  power of peremptory decision ultimately rested. A small committee
-  would naturally be intrusted with this preliminary duty; and the
-  members of that small committee were to be chosen _by_ one of the
-  bodies with whom ultimate decision rested, but chosen _out of_
-  the other.
-
-  [470] Andokidês de Mysteriis, sections 81-85.
-
-As soon as the laws had been revised and publicly inscribed in
-the pœkilê, pursuant to the above decree, two concluding laws were
-enacted, which completed the purpose of the citizens.
-
-The first of these laws forbade the magistrates to act upon, or
-permit to be acted upon, any law not among those inscribed; and
-declared that no psephism, either of the senate or of the people,
-should overrule any law.[471] It renewed also the old prohibition,
-dating from the days of Kleisthenês, and the first origin of the
-democracy, to enact a special law inflicting direct hardship upon any
-individual Athenian apart from the rest, unless by the votes of six
-thousand citizens voting secretly.
-
-  [471] Andokidês de Myster. s. 87. ψήφισμα δὲ μηδὲν μήτε βουλῆς
-  μήτε δήμου (νόμου), κυριώτερον εἶναι.
-
-  It seems that the word νόμου ought properly to be inserted here:
-  see Demosth. cont. Aristokrat. c. 23, p. 649.
-
-  Compare a similar use of the phrase, μηδὲν κυριώτερον εἶναι, in
-  Demosthen. cont. Lakrit. c. 9, p. 937.
-
-The second of the two laws prescribed, that all the legal
-adjudications and arbitrations which had been passed under the
-antecedent democracy should be held valid and unimpeached, but
-formally annulled all which had been passed under the Thirty. It
-farther provided, that the laws now revised and inscribed should
-only take effect from the archonship of Eukleidês; that is, from the
-nomination of archons made after the recent return of Thrasybulus and
-renovation of the democracy.[472]
-
-  [472] Andokidês de Myster. s. 87. We see (from Demosthen. cont.
-  Timokrat. c. 15, p. 718) that Andokidês has not cited the law
-  fully. He has omitted the words, ὁπόσα δ᾽ ἐπὶ τῶν τριάκοντα
-  ἐπράχθη, ἢ ἰδίᾳ ἢ δημοσίᾳ, ἄκυρα εἶναι, these words not having
-  any material connection with the point at which he was aiming.
-  Compare Æschinês cont. Timarch. c. 9, p. 25, καὶ ἔστω ταῦτα
-  ἄκυρα, ὥσπερ τὰ ἐπὶ τῶν τριάκοντα, ἢ τὰ πρὸ Εὐκλείδου, ἢ εἴ τις
-  ἄλλη πώποτε τοιαύτη ἐγένετο προθεσμία....
-
-  Tisamenus is probably the same person of whom Lysias speaks
-  contemptuously, Or. xxx, cont. Nikomach. s. 36.
-
-  Meier (De Bonis Damnatorum, p. 71) thinks that there is a
-  contradiction between the decree proposed by Tisamenus (Andok. de
-  Myst. s. 83), and another decree proposed by Dioklês, cited in
-  the Oration of Demosth. cont. Timokr. c. 11, p. 713. But there is
-  no real contradiction between the two, and the only semblance of
-  contradiction that is to be found, arises from the fact that the
-  law of Dioklês is not correctly given as it now stands. It ought
-  to be read thus:—
-
-  Διοκλῆς εἶπε, Τοὺς νόμους τοὺς πρὸ Εὐκλείδου τεθέντας ἐν
-  δημοκρατίᾳ, καὶ ὅσοι ~ἐπ᾽~ Εὐκλείδου ἐτέθησαν, καὶ εἰσὶν
-  ἀναγεγραμμένοι, [~ἀπ᾽ Εὐκλείδου~] κυρίους εἶναι· τοὺς δὲ μετ᾽
-  Εὐκλείδην τεθέντας καὶ τολοιπὸν τιθεμένους κυρίους εἶναι ἀπὸ τῆς
-  ἡμέρας ἧς ἕκαστος ἐτέθη, πλὴν εἴ τῳ προσγέγραπται χρόνος ὅντινα
-  δεῖ ἄρχειν. Ἐπιγράψαι δὲ, τοῖς μὲν νῦν κειμένοις, τὸν γραμματέα
-  τῆς βουλῆς, τριάκοντα ἡμερῶν· τὸ δὲ λοιπὸν, ὃς ἂν τυγχάνῃ
-  γραμματεύων, προσγραφέτω παραχρῆμα τὸν νόμον κύριον εἶναι ἀπὸ τῆς
-  ἡμέρας ἧς ἐτέθη.
-
-  The words ἀπ᾽ ~Εὐκλείδου~, which stand between brackets in the
-  second line, are inserted on my own conjecture; and I venture
-  to think that any one who will read the whole law through, and
-  the comments of the orator upon it, will see that they are
-  imperatively required to make the sense complete. The entire
-  scope and purpose of the law is, to regulate clearly the time
-  _from which_ each law shall begin to be valid.
-
-  As the first part of the law reads now, without these words, it
-  has no pertinence, no bearing on the main purpose contemplated by
-  Dioklês in the second part, nor on the reasonings of Demosthenês
-  afterwards. It is easy to understand how the words ἀπ᾽ Εὐκλείδου
-  should have dropped out, seeing that ἐπ᾽ Εὐκλείδου immediately
-  precedes: another error has been in fact introduced, by putting
-  ~ἀπ᾽~ Εὐκλείδου in the former case instead of ~ἐπ᾽~ Εὐκλείδου,
-  which error has been corrected by various recent editors, on the
-  authority of some MSS.
-
-  The law of Dioklês, when properly read, fully harmonizes with
-  that of Tisamenus. Meier wonders that there is no mention made
-  of the δοκιμασία νόμων by the nomothetæ, which is prescribed in
-  the decree of Tisamenus. But it was not necessary to mention this
-  expressly, since the words ὅσοι εἰσὶν ἀναγεγραμμένοι presuppose
-  the foregone δοκιμασία.
-
-By these ever-memorable enactments, all acts done prior to the
-nomination of the archon Eukleidês and his colleagues, in the summer
-of 403 B.C., were excluded from serving as grounds for criminal
-process against any citizen. To insure more fully that this should
-be carried into effect, a special clause was added to the oath taken
-annually by the senators, as well as to that taken by the Heliastic
-dikasts. The senators pledged themselves by oath not to receive any
-impeachment, or give effect to any arrest, founded on any fact prior
-to the archonship of Eukleidês, excepting only against the Thirty,
-and the other individuals expressly shut out from the amnesty, and
-now in exile.[473] To the oath annually taken by the Heliasts, also,
-was added the clause: “I will not remember past wrongs, nor will I
-abet any one else who shall remember them; on the contrary,[474]
-I will give my vote pursuant to the existing laws;” which laws
-proclaimed themselves as only taking effect from the archonship of
-Eukleidês.
-
-  [473] Andokidês de Mysteriis, s. 91. καὶ οὐ δέξομαι ἔνδειξιν οὐδὲ
-  ἀπαγωγὴν ἕνεκα τῶν πρότερον γεγενημένων, πλὴν τῶν φευγόντων.
-
-  [474] Andokid. de Mysteriis, s. 91. καὶ οὐ μνησικακήσω, οὐδὲ
-  ἄλλῳ (sc. ἄλλῳ μνησικακοῦντι) πείσομαι, ψηφιοῦμαι δὲ κατὰ τοὺς
-  κειμένους νόμους.
-
-  This clause does not appear as part of the Heliastic oath given
-  in Demosthen. cont. Timokrat. c. 36, p. 746. It was extremely
-  significant and valuable for the few years immediately succeeding
-  the renovation of the democracy. But its value was essentially
-  temporary, and it was doubtless dropped within twenty or thirty
-  years after the period to which it specially applied.
-
-A still farther precaution was taken to bar all actions for redress
-or damages founded on acts done prior to the archonship of Eukleidês.
-On the motion of Archinus, the principal colleague of Thrasybulus
-at Phylê, a law was passed, granting leave to any defendant against
-whom such an action might be brought, to plead an exception in bar,
-or paragraphê, upon the special ground of the amnesty and the legal
-prescription connected with it. The legal effect of this paragraphê,
-or exceptional plea, in Attic procedure, was to increase both
-the chance of failure, and the pecuniary liabilities in case of
-failure, on the part of the plaintiff; also, to better considerably
-the chances of the defendant. This enactment is said to have been
-moved by Archinus, on seeing that some persons were beginning to
-institute actions at law, in spite of the amnesty; and for the better
-prevention of all such claims.[475]
-
-  [475] The Orat. xviii, of Isokratês, Paragraphê cont.
-  Kallimachum, informs us on these points, especially sections 1-4.
-
-  Kallimachus had entered an action against the client of Isokratês
-  for ten thousand drachmæ (sects. 15-17), charging him as an
-  accomplice of Patroklês,—the king-archon under the Ten, who
-  immediately succeeded the Thirty, prior to the return of the
-  exiles,—in seizing and confiscating a sum of money belonging
-  to Kallimachus. The latter, in commencing this action, was
-  under the necessity of paying the fees called _prytaneia_; a
-  sum proportional to what was claimed, and amounting to thirty
-  drachmæ, when the sum claimed was between one thousand and ten
-  thousand drachmæ. Suppose that action had gone to trial directly,
-  Kallimachus, if he lost his cause, would have to forfeit his
-  prytaneia, but he would forfeit no more. Now according to the
-  paragraphê permitted by the law of Archinus, the defendant is
-  allowed to make oath that the action against him is founded
-  upon a fact prior to the archonship of Eukleidês; and a cause
-  is then tried first, upon that special issue, upon which the
-  defendant is allowed to speak first, before the plaintiff. If
-  the verdict, on this special issue, is given in favor of the
-  defendant, the plaintiff is not only disabled from proceeding
-  further with his action, but is condemned besides to pay to
-  the defendant the forfeit called epobely: that is, one-sixth
-  part of the sum claimed. But if, on the contrary, the verdict
-  on the special issue be in favor of the plaintiff, he is held
-  entitled to proceed farther with his original action, and to
-  receive besides at once, from the defendant, the like forfeit or
-  epobely. Information on these regulations of procedure in the
-  Attic dikasteries may be found in Meier and Schömann, Attischer
-  Prozess, p. 647; Platner, Prozess und Klagen, vol. i, pp.
-  156-162.
-
-By these additional enactments, security was taken that the
-proceedings of the courts of justice should be in full conformity
-with the amnesty recently sworn, and that, neither directly nor
-indirectly, should any person be molested for wrongs done anterior
-to Eukleidês. And, in fact, the amnesty was faithfully observed: the
-reëntering exiles from Peiræus, and the horsemen with other partisans
-of the Thirty in Athens, blended again together into one harmonious
-and equal democracy.
-
-Eight years prior to these incidents, we have seen the oligarchical
-conspiracy of the Four Hundred for a moment successful, and
-afterwards overthrown; and we have had occasion to notice, in
-reference to that event, the wonderful absence of all reactionary
-violence on the part of the victorious people, at a moment of severe
-provocation for the past and extreme apprehension for the future.
-We noticed that Thucydidês, no friend to the Athenian democracy,
-selected precisely that occasion—on which some manifestation of
-vindictive impulse might have been supposed likely and natural—to
-bestow the most unqualified eulogies on their moderate and gentle
-bearing. Had the historian lived to describe the reign of the
-Thirty and the restoration which followed it, we cannot doubt that
-his expressions would have been still warmer and more emphatic in
-the same sense. Few events in history, either ancient or modern,
-are more astonishing than the behavior of the Athenian people, on
-recovering their democracy after the overthrow of the Thirty: and
-when we view it in conjunction with the like phenomenon after the
-deposition of the Four Hundred, we see that neither the one nor the
-other arose from peculiar caprice or accident of the moment; both
-depended upon permanent attributes of the popular character. If we
-knew nothing else except the events of these two periods, we should
-be warranted in dismissing, on that evidence alone, the string of
-contemptuous predicates,—giddy, irascible, jealous, unjust, greedy,
-etc., one or other of which Mr. Mitford so frequently pronounces,
-and insinuates even when he does not pronounce them, respecting the
-Athenian people.[476] A people, whose habitual temper and morality
-merited these epithets, could not have acted as the Athenians acted
-both after the Four Hundred and after the Thirty. Particular acts may
-be found in their history which justify severe censure; but as to
-the permanent elements of character, both moral and intellectual, no
-population in history has ever afforded stronger evidence than the
-Athenians on these two memorable occasions.
-
-  [476] Wachsmuth—who admits into his work, with little or no
-  criticism, everything which has ever been said against the
-  Athenian people, and indeed against the Greeks generally—affirms,
-  contrary to all evidence and probability, that the amnesty was
-  not really observed at Athens. (Wachsm. Hellen. Alterth. ch. ix.
-  sect. 71, vol. ii, p. 267.)
-
-  The simple and distinct words of Xenophon, coming as they do from
-  the mouth of so very hostile a witness, are sufficient to refute
-  him: καὶ ὀμόσαντες ὅρκους ἦ μὴν μὴ μνησικακήσειν, ἔτι καὶ νῦν
-  ὁμοῦ γε πολιτεύονται, καὶ ~τοῖς ὅρκοις ἐμμένει ὁ δῆμος~, (Hellen.
-  ii, 4, 43).
-
-  The passages to which Wachsmuth makes reference, do not in the
-  least establish his point. Even if actions at law or accusations
-  had been brought, in violation of the amnesty, this would not
-  prove that the people violated it; unless we also knew that the
-  dikastery had affirmed those actions. But he does not refer to
-  any actions or accusations preferred on any such ground. He
-  only notices some cases in which, accusation being preferred on
-  grounds subsequent to Eukleidês, the accuser makes allusion in
-  his speech to other matters anterior to Eukleidês. Now every
-  speaker before the Athenian dikastery thinks himself entitled to
-  call up before the dikasts the whole past life of his opponent,
-  in the way of analogous evidence going to attest the general
-  character of the latter, good or bad. For example, the accuser
-  of Sokratês mentions, as a point going to impeach the general
-  character of Sokratês, that he had been the teacher of Kritias;
-  while the philosopher, in his defence, alludes to his own
-  resolution and virtue as prytanis in the assembly by which the
-  generals were condemned after the battle of Arginusæ. Both these
-  allusions come out as evidences to general character.
-
-If we follow the acts of the Thirty, we shall see that the horsemen
-and the privileged three thousand hoplites in the city had made
-themselves partisans in every species of flagitious crime which
-could possibly be imagined to exasperate the feelings of the exiles.
-The latter, on returning, saw before them men who had handed in
-their relations to be put to death without trial, who had seized
-upon and enjoyed their property, who had expelled them all from
-the city, and a large portion of them even from Attica; and who
-had held themselves in mastery not merely by the overthrow of the
-constitution, but also by inviting and subsidizing foreign guards.
-Such atrocities, conceived and ordered by the Thirty, had been
-executed by the aid, and for the joint benefit, as Kritias justly
-remarked,[477] of those occupants of the city whom the exiles
-found on returning. Now Thrasybulus, Anytus, and the rest of these
-exiles, saw their property all pillaged and appropriated by others
-during the few months of their absence: we may presume that their
-lands—which had probably not been sold, but granted to individual
-members or partisans of the Thirty[478]—were restored to them; but
-the movable property could not be reclaimed, and the losses to which
-they remained subject were prodigious. The men who had caused and
-profited by these losses[479]—often with great brutality towards
-the wives and families of the exiles, as we know by the case of
-the orator Lysias—were now at Athens, all individually well known
-to the sufferers. In like manner, the sons and brothers of Leon and
-the other victims of the Thirty, saw before them the very citizens
-by whose hands their innocent relatives had been consigned without
-trial to prison and execution.[480] The amount of wrong suffered had
-been infinitely greater than in the time of the Four Hundred, and the
-provocation, on every ground, public and private, violent to a degree
-never exceeded in history. Yet with all this sting fresh in their
-bosoms, we find the victorious multitude, on the latter occasion
-as well as on the former, burying the past in an indiscriminate
-amnesty, and anxious only for the future harmonious march of the
-renovated and all-comprehensive democracy. We see the sentiment of
-commonwealth in the Demos, twice contrasted with the sentiment of
-faction in an ascendent oligarchy;[481] twice triumphant over the
-strongest counter-motives, over the most bitter recollections of
-wrongful murder and spoliation, over all that passionate rush of
-reactionary appetite which characterizes the moment of political
-restoration. “Bloody will be the reign of that king who comes back
-to his kingdom from exile,” says the Latin poet: bloody, indeed, had
-been the rule of Kritias and those oligarchs who had just come back
-from exile: “Harsh is a Demos (observes Æschylus) which has just got
-clear of misery.”[482] But the Athenian Demos, on coming back from
-Peiræus, exhibited the rare phenomenon of a restoration, after cruel
-wrong suffered, sacrificing all the strong impulse of retaliation
-to a generous and deliberate regard for the future march of the
-commonwealth. Thucydidês remarks that the moderation of political
-antipathy which prevailed at Athens after the victory of the people
-over the Four Hundred, was the main cause which revived Athens from
-her great public depression and danger.[483] Much more forcibly
-does this remark apply to the restoration after the Thirty, when the
-public condition of Athens was at the lowest depth of abasement, from
-which nothing could have rescued her except such exemplary wisdom and
-patriotism on the part of her victorious Demos. Nothing short of this
-could have enabled her to accomplish that partial resurrection—into
-an independent and powerful single state, though shorn of her
-imperial power—which will furnish material for the subsequent portion
-of our History.
-
-  [477] Xenoph. Hellen. ii, 4, 9.
-
-  [478] Xenoph. Hellen. ii, 4, 1. ἦγον δὲ ἐκ τῶν χωρίων (οἱ
-  τριάκοντα) ἵν᾽ αὐτοὶ καὶ οἱ φίλοι τοὺς τούτων ἀγροὺς ἔχοιεν.
-
-  [479] Isokratês cont. Kallimach. Or. xviii, sect. 30.
-
-  Θρασύβουλος μὲν καὶ Ἄνυτος, μέγιστον μὲν δυνάμενοι τῶν ἐν
-  τῇ πόλει, πολλῶν δ᾽ ἀπεστερημένοι χρημάτων, εἰδότες δὲ τοὺς
-  ἀπογράψαντας, ὅμως οὐ τολμῶσιν αὐτοῖς δίκας λαγχάνειν οὐδὲ
-  μνησικακεῖν, ἀλλ᾽ εἰ καὶ περὶ τῶν ἄλλων μᾶλλον ἑτέρων δύνανται
-  διαπράττεσθαι, ἀλλ᾽ οὖν περί γε τῶν ἐν ταῖς συνθήκαις ἶσον ἔχειν
-  τοῖς ἄλλοις ἀξιοῦσιν.
-
-  On the other hand, the young Alkibiadês (in the Orat. xvi, of
-  Isokratês, De Bigis, sect. 56) is made to talk about others
-  recovering their property: τῶν ἄλλων κομιζομένων τὰς οὐσίας.
-  My statement in the text reconciles these two. The young
-  Alkibiadês goes on to state that the people had passed a vote to
-  grant compensation to him for the confiscation of his father’s
-  property, but that the power of his enemies had disappointed him
-  of it. We may well doubt whether such vote ever really passed.
-
-  It appears, however, that Batrachus, one of the chief informers
-  who brought in victims for the Thirty, thought it prudent to live
-  afterwards out of Attica (Lysias cont. Andokid. Or. vi, sect.
-  46), though he would have been legally protected by the amnesty.
-
-  [480] Andokidês de Mysteriis, sect. 94. Μέλητος δ᾽ αὖ οὑτοσὶ
-  ἀπήγαγεν ἐπὶ τῶν τριάκοντα Λέοντα, ὡς ὑμεῖς ἅπαντες ἴστε, καὶ
-  ἀπέθανεν ἐκεῖνος ἄκριτος.... Μέλητον τοίνυν τοῖς παισὶ τοῖς τοῦ
-  Λέοντος οὐκ ἔστι φόνου διώκειν, ὅτι τοῖς νόμοις δεῖ χρῆσθαι ἀπ᾽
-  Εὐκλείδου ἄρχοντος· ἐπεὶ ὥς γε οὐκ ἀπήγαγεν, οὐδ᾽ αὐτὸς ἀντιλέγει.
-
-  [481] Thucyd. vi, 39. δῆμον, ξύμπαν ὠνομάσθαι, ὀλιγαρχίαν δὲ,
-  μέρος.
-
-  [482] Æschylus, Sept. ad Thebas, v, 1047.
-
-      Τραχύς γε μέντοι δῆμος ἐκφυγὼν κακά.
-
-  [483] Thucyd. viii, 97.
-
-While we note the memorable resolution of the Athenian people to
-forget that which could not be remembered without ruin to the future
-march of the democracy, we must at the same time observe that which
-they took special pains to preserve from being forgotten. They
-formally recognized all the adjudged cases and all the rights of
-property as existing under the democracy anterior to the Thirty.
-“You pronounced, fellow-citizens (says Andokidês), that all the
-judicial verdicts and all the decisions of arbitrators passed under
-the democracy should remain valid, in order that there might be
-no abolition of debts, no reversal of private rights, but that
-every man might have the means of enforcing contracts due to him
-by others.”[484] If the Athenian people had been animated by that
-avidity to despoil the rich, and that subjection to the passion of
-the moment, which Mr. Mitford imputes to them in so many chapters
-of his history, neither motive nor opportunity was now wanting for
-wholesale confiscation, of which the rich themselves, during the
-dominion of the Thirty, had set abundant example. The amnesty as
-to political wrong, and the indelible memory as to the rights of
-property, stand alike conspicuous as evidences of the real character
-of the Athenian Demos.
-
-  [484] Andokidês de Mysteriis, sect. 88. Τὰς μὲν δίκας, ὦ ἄνδρες,
-  καὶ τὰς διαίτας ἐποιήσατε κυρίας εἶναι, ὁπόσαι ἐν δημοκρατουμένῃ
-  τῇ πόλει ἐγένοντο, ὅπως μήτε χρεῶν ἀποκοπαὶ εἶεν μήτε δίκαι
-  ἀνάδικοι γένοιντο, ἀλλὰ τῶν ἰδίων συμβολαίων αἱ πράξεις εἶεν.
-
-If we wanted any farther proof of their capacity of taking the
-largest and soundest views on a difficult political situation,
-we should find it in another of their measures at this critical
-period. The Ten who had succeeded to the oligarchical presidency of
-Athens after the death of Kritias and the expulsion of the Thirty,
-had borrowed from Sparta the sum of one hundred talents, for the
-express purpose of making war on the exiles in Peiræus. After the
-peace, it was necessary that such sum should be repaid, and some
-persons proposed that recourse should be had to the property of those
-individuals and that party who had borrowed the money. The apparent
-equity of the proposition was doubtless felt with peculiar force at
-a time when the public treasury was in the extreme of poverty. But
-nevertheless both the democratical leaders and the people decidedly
-opposed it, resolving to recognize the debt as a public charge; in
-which capacity it was afterwards liquidated, after some delay arising
-from an unsupplied treasury.[485]
-
-  [485] Isokratês, Areopagit. Or. vii, sect. 77; Demosth. cont.
-  Leptin. c. 5, p. 460.
-
-All that was required from the horsemen, or knights, who had been
-active in the service of the Thirty, was that they should repay
-the sums which had been advanced to them by the latter as outfit.
-Such advance to the horsemen, subject to subsequent repayment, and
-seemingly distinct from the regular military pay, appears to have
-been a customary practice under the previous democracy;[486] but
-we may easily believe that the Thirty had carried it to an abusive
-excess, in their anxiety to enlist or stimulate partisans, when we
-recollect that they resorted to means more nefarious for the same
-end. There were of course great individual differences among these
-knights, as to the degree in which each had lent himself to the
-misdeeds of the oligarchy. Even the most guilty of them were not
-molested, and they were sent, four years afterwards, to serve with
-Agesilaus in Asia, at a time when the Lacedæmonians required from
-Athens a contingent of cavalry;[487] the Demos being well pleased to
-be able to provide for them an honorable foreign service. But the
-general body of knights suffered so little disadvantage from the
-recollection of the Thirty, that many of them in after days became
-senators, generals, hipparchs, and occupants of other considerable
-posts in the state.[488]
-
-  [486] Lysias pro Mantitheo, Or. xvi, sects. 6-8. I accept
-  substantially the explanation which Harpokration and Photius give
-  of the word κατάστασις, in spite of the objections taken to it
-  by M. Boeckh, which appear to me not founded upon any adequate
-  ground. I cannot but think that Reiske is right in distinguishing
-  κατάστασις from the pay, μισθὸς.
-
-  See Boeckh, Public Economy of Athens, b. ii, sect. 19, p. 250. In
-  the Appendix to this work, which is not translated into English
-  along with the work itself, he farther gives the Fragment of an
-  inscription, which he considers to bear upon this resumption of
-  κατάστασις from the horsemen, or knights, after the Thirty. But
-  the Fragment is so very imperfect, that nothing can be affirmed
-  with any certainty concerning it: see the Staatshaush. der
-  Athener, Appendix, vol. ii, pp. 207, 208.
-
-  [487] Xenoph. Hellen. iii, 1, 4.
-
-  [488] Lysias, Or. xvi, pro Mantitheo, sects. 9, 10; Lysias, cont.
-  Evandr. Or. xxvi, sects. 21-25.
-
-  We see from this latter oration (sect. 26) that Thrasybulus
-  helped some of the chief persons, who had been in the city,
-  and had resisted the return of the exiles, to get over the
-  difficulties of the dokimasy, or examination into character,
-  previously to being admitted to take possession of any office,
-  to which a man had been either elected or drawn by lot, in after
-  years. He spoke in favor of Evander, in order that the latter
-  might be accepted as king-archon.
-
-Although the decree of Tisamenus—prescribing a revision of the laws
-without delay, and directing that the laws, when so revised, should
-be posted up for public view, to form the sole and exclusive guide
-of the dikasteries—had been passed immediately after the return from
-Peiræus and the confirmation of the amnesty, yet it appears that
-considerable delay took place before such enactment was carried into
-full effect. A person named Nikomachus was charged with the duty, and
-stands accused of having performed it tardily as well as corruptly.
-He, as well as Tisamenus,[489] was a scribe, or secretary; under
-which name were included a class of paid officers, highly important
-in the detail of business at Athens, though seemingly men of low
-birth, and looked upon as filling a subordinate station, open to
-sneers from unfriendly orators. The boards, the magistrates, and
-the public bodies were so frequently changed at Athens, that the
-continuity of public business could only have been maintained by paid
-secretaries of this character, who devoted themselves constantly to
-the duty.[490]
-
-  [489] I presume confidently that Tisamenus the scribe, mentioned
-  in Lysias cont. Nikomach. sect. 37, is the same person as
-  Tisamenus named in Andokidês de Mysteriis (sect. 83) as the
-  proposer of the memorable psephism.
-
-  [490] See M. Boeckh’s Public Economy of Athens, b. ii, c. 8, p.
-  186, Eng. Tr., for a summary of all that is known respecting
-  these γραμματεῖς, or secretaries.
-
-  The expression in Lysias cont. Nikomach. sect. 38, ὅτι
-  ὑπογραμματεῦσαι οὐκ ἔξεστι δὶς τὸν αὐτὸν τῇ ἀρχῇ τῇ αὐτῇ, is
-  correctly explained by M. Boeckh as having a very restricted
-  meaning, and as only applying to two successive years. And I
-  think we may doubt whether, in practice, it was rigidly adhered
-  to; though it is possible to suppose that these secretaries
-  alternated, among themselves, from one board or office to
-  another. Their great usefulness consisted in the fact that they
-  were constantly in the service, and thus kept up the continuous
-  march of the details.
-
-Nikomachus had been named, during the democracy anterior to the
-Thirty, for the purpose of preparing a fair transcript, and of
-posting up afresh, probably in clearer characters, and in a place
-more convenient for public view, the old laws of Solon. We can
-well understand that the renovated democratical feeling, which
-burst out after the expulsion of the Four Hundred, and dictated
-the vehement psephism of Demophantus, might naturally also produce
-such a commission as this, for which Nikomachus, both as one of the
-public scribes, or secretaries, and as an able speaker,[491] was a
-suitable person. His accuser, for whom Lysias composed his thirtieth
-oration, now remaining, denounces him as having not only designedly
-lingered in the business, for the purpose of prolonging the period
-of remuneration, but even as having corruptly tampered with the
-old laws, by new interpolations, as well as by omissions. How far
-such charges may have been merited, we have no means of judging;
-but even assuming Nikomachus to have been both honest and diligent,
-he would find no small difficulty in properly discharging his duty
-of anagrapheus,[492] or “writer-up” of all the old laws of Athens,
-from Solon downward. Both the phraseology of these old laws, and the
-alphabet in which they were written, were in many cases antiquated
-and obsolete;[493] while there were doubtless also cases in which
-one law was at variance, wholly or partially, with another. Now such
-contradictions and archaisms would be likely to prove offensive,
-if set up in a fresh place, and with clean, new characters; while
-Nikomachus had no authority to make the smallest alteration, and
-might naturally therefore be tardy in a commission which did not
-promise much credit to him in its result.
-
-  [491] Lysias, Or. xxx, cont. Nikomach. sect. 32.
-
-  [492] Lysias, Or. xxx, cont. Nikomach. sect. 33. Wachsmuth calls
-  him erroneously antigrapheus instead of anagrapheus (Hellen.
-  Alterth. vol. ii, ix, p. 269).
-
-  It seems by Orat. vii, of Lysias (sects. 20, 36, 39) that
-  Nikomachus was at enmity with various persons who employed Lysias
-  as their logograph, or speech-writer.
-
-  [493] Lysias, Or. x, cont. Theomnest. A. sects. 16-20.
-
-These remarks tend to show that the necessity of a fresh collection
-and publication, if we may use that word, of the laws, had been felt
-prior to the time of the Thirty. But such a project could hardly
-be realized without at the same time revising the laws, as a body,
-removing all flagrant contradictions, and rectifying what might
-glaringly displease the age, either in substance or in style. Now
-the psephism of Tisamenus, one of the first measures of the renewed
-democracy after the Thirty, both prescribed such revision and set in
-motion a revising body; but an additional decree was now proposed and
-carried by Archinus, relative to the alphabet in which the revised
-laws should be drawn up. The Ionic alphabet—that is, the full Greek
-alphabet of twenty-four letters, as now written and printed—had been
-in use at Athens universally, for a considerable time, apparently for
-two generations; but from tenacious adherence to ancient custom, the
-laws had still continued to be consigned to writing in the old Attic
-alphabet of only sixteen or eighteen letters. It was now ordained
-that this scanty alphabet should be discontinued, and that the
-revised laws, as well as all future public acts, should be written up
-in the full Ionic alphabet.[494]
-
-  [494] See Taylor, Vit. Lysiæ, pp. 53, 54; Franz, Element
-  Epigraphicê Græc. Introd. pp. 18-24.
-
-Partly through this important reform, partly through the revising
-body, partly through the agency of Nikomachus, who was still
-continued as anagrapheus, the revision, inscription, and publication
-of the laws in their new alphabet was at length completed.
-But it seems to have taken two years to perform, or at least
-two years elapsed before Nikomachus went through his trial of
-accountability.[495] He appears to have made various new propositions
-of his own, which were among those adopted by the nomothetæ: for
-these his accuser attacks him, on the trial of accountability, as
-well as on the still graver allegation, of having corruptly falsified
-the decisions of that body; writing up what they had not sanctioned,
-or suppressing that which they had sanctioned.[496]
-
-  [495] Lysias cont. Nikom. sect. 3. His employment had lasted six
-  years altogether: four years before the Thirty, two years after
-  them, sect. 7. At least this seems the sense of the orator.
-
-  [496] I presume this to be the sense of sect. 21 of the Oration
-  of Lysias against him: εἰ μὲν νόμους ἐτίθην περὶ τῆς ἀναγραφῆς,
-  etc.; also sects. 33-45: παρακαλοῦμεν ἐν τῇ κρίσει τιμωρεῖσθαι
-  τοὺς τὴν ὑμετέραν νομοθεσίαν ἀφανίζοντας, etc.
-
-  The tenor of the oration, however, is unfortunately obscure.
-
-The archonship of Eukleidês, succeeding immediately to the
-anarchy,—as the archonship of Pythodôrus, or the period of the
-Thirty, was denominated,—became thus a cardinal point or epoch in
-Athenian history. We cannot doubt that the laws came forth out of
-this revision considerably modified, though unhappily we possess no
-particulars on the subject. We learn that the political franchise
-was, on the proposition of Aristophon, so far restricted for the
-future, that no person could be a citizen by birth except the son
-of citizen-parents, on both sides; whereas previously, it had been
-sufficient if the father alone was a citizen.[497] The rhetor Lysias,
-by station a metic, had not only suffered great loss, narrowly
-escaping death from the Thirty, who actually put to death his brother
-Polemarchus, but had contributed a large sum to assist the armed
-efforts of the exiles under Thrasybulus in Peiræus. As a reward
-and compensation for such antecedents, the latter proposed that
-the franchise of citizen should be conferred upon him; but we are
-told that this decree, though adopted by the people, was afterwards
-indicted by Archinus as illegal or informal, and cancelled. Lysias,
-thus disappointed of the citizenship, passed the remainder of his
-life as an isoteles, or non-freeman on the best condition, exempt
-from the peculiar burdens upon the class of metics.[498]
-
-  [497] Isæus, Or. viii, De Kiron. Sort. sect. 61; Demosthen. cont.
-  Eubulid. c. 10, p. 1307.
-
-  [498] Plutarch, Vit. x, Orat. (Lysias) p. 836; Taylor, Vit.
-  Lysiæ, p. 53.
-
-Such refusal of citizenship to an eminent man like Lysias, who
-had both acted and suffered in the cause of the democracy, when
-combined with the decree of Aristophon above noticed, implies a
-degree of augmented strictness which we can only partially explain.
-It was not merely the renewal of her democracy for which Athens had
-now to provide. She had also to accommodate her legislation and
-administration to her future march as an isolated state, without
-empire or foreign dependencies. For this purpose, material changes
-must have been required: among others, we know that the Board of
-Hellenotamiæ—originally named for the collection and management of
-the tribute at Delos, but attracting to themselves gradually more
-extended functions, until they became ultimately, immediately before
-the Thirty, the general paymasters of the state—was discontinued,
-and such among its duties as did not pass away along with the loss
-of the foreign empire, were transferred to two new officers, the
-treasurer at war, and the manager of the theôrikon, or religious
-festival-fund.[499] Respecting these two new departments, the latter
-of which especially became so much extended as to comprise most of
-the disbursements of a peace-establishment, I shall speak more fully
-hereafter; at present, I only notice them as manifestations of the
-large change in Athenian administration consequent upon the loss of
-the empire. There were doubtless many other changes arising from
-the same cause, though we do not know them in detail; and I incline
-to number among such the alteration above noticed respecting the
-right of citizenship. While the Athenian empire lasted, the citizens
-of Athens were spread over the Ægean in every sort of capacity, as
-settlers, merchants, navigators, soldiers, etc.; which must have
-tended materially to encourage intermarriages between them and the
-women of other Grecian insular states. Indeed, we are even told that
-an express permission of connubium with Athenians was granted to the
-inhabitants of Eubœa,[500] a fact, noticed by Lysias, of some moment
-in illustrating the tendency of the Athenian empire to multiply
-family ties between Athens and the allied cities. Now, according
-to the law which prevailed before Eukleidês, the son of every such
-marriage was by birth an Athenian citizen, an arrangement at that
-time useful to Athens, as strengthening the bonds of her empire,
-and eminently useful in a larger point of view, among the causes
-of Pan-Hellenic sympathy. But when Athens was deprived both of her
-empire and her fleet, and confined within the limits of Attica,
-there no longer remained any motive to continue such a regulation,
-so that the exclusive city-feeling, instinctive in the Grecian mind,
-again became predominant. Such is, perhaps, the explanation of the
-new restrictive law proposed by Aristophon.
-
-  [499] See respecting this change Boeckh, Public Econ. of Athens,
-  ii, 7, p. 180, _seq._, Eng. Tr.
-
-  [500] Lysias, Fragm. Or. xxxiv, De non dissolvendâ Republicâ,
-  sect. 3: ἀλλὰ καὶ Εὐβοεῦσιν ἐπιγαμίαν ἐποιούμεθα, etc.
-
-Thrasybulus and the gallant handful of exiles who had first seized
-Phylê, received no larger reward than one thousand drachmæ for a
-common sacrifice and votive offering, together with wreaths of
-olive as a token of gratitude from their countrymen.[501] The debt
-which Athens owed to Thrasybulus was indeed such as could not be
-liquidated by money. To his individual patriotism, in great degree,
-we may ascribe not only the restoration of the democracy, but its
-good behavior when restored. How different would have been the
-consequences of the restoration and the conduct of the people, had
-the event been brought about by a man like Alkibiadês, applying great
-abilities principally to the furtherance of his own cupidity and
-power!
-
-  [501] Æschinês, cont. Ktesiphon. c. 62, p. 437; Cornel. Nepos,
-  Thrasybul. c. 4.
-
-At the restoration of the democracy, however, Alkibiadês was already
-no more. Shortly after the catastrophe at Ægospotami, he had sought
-shelter in the satrapy of Pharnabazus, no longer thinking himself
-safe from Lacedæmonian persecution in his forts on the Thracian
-Chersonese. He carried with him a good deal of property, though he
-left still more behind him, in these forts; how acquired, we do not
-know. But having crossed apparently to Asia by the Bosphorus, he
-was plundered by the Thracians in Bithynia, and incurred much loss
-before he could reach Pharnabazus in Phrygia. Renewing the tie of
-personal hospitality which he had contracted with Pharnabazus four
-years before,[502] he now solicited from the satrap a safe-conduct
-up to Susa. The Athenian envoys—whom Pharnabazus, after his former
-pacification with Alkibiadês in 408 B.C., had engaged to escort to
-Susa, but had been compelled by the mandate of Cyrus to detain as
-prisoners—were just now released from their three years’ detention,
-and enabled to come down to the Propontis;[503] and Alkibiadês, by
-whom this mission had originally been projected, tried to prevail
-on the satrap to perform the promise which he had originally given,
-but had not been able to fulfil. The hopes of the sanguine exile,
-reverting back to the history of Themistoklês, led him to anticipate
-the same success at Susa as had fallen to the lot of the latter; nor
-was the design impracticable, to one whose ability was universally
-renowned, and who had already acted as minister to Tissaphernês.
-
-  [502] Xenoph. Hellen. i, 3, 12. τόν τε κοινὸν ὅρκον καὶ ἰδίᾳ
-  ἀλλήλοις πίστεις ἐποιοῦντο.
-
-  [503] Xenoph. Hellen. i, 4, 7.
-
-The court of Susa was at this time in a peculiar position. King
-Darius Nothus, having recently died, had been succeeded by his
-eldest son Artaxerxes Mnemon;[504] but the younger son Cyrus, whom
-Darius had sent for during his last illness, tried after the death
-of the latter to supplant Artaxerxes in the succession, or at least
-was suspected of so trying. Being seized and about to be slain, the
-queen-mother Parysatis prevailed upon Artaxerxes to pardon him, and
-send him again down to his satrapy along the coast of Ionia, where
-he labored strenuously, though secretly, to acquire the means of
-dethroning his brother; a memorable attempt, of which I shall speak
-more fully hereafter. But his schemes, though carefully masked,
-did not escape the observation of Alkibiadês, who wished to make a
-merit of revealing them at Susa, and to become the instrument of
-defeating them. He communicated his suspicions as well as his purpose
-to Pharnabazus; whom he tried to awaken by alarm of danger to the
-empire, in order that he might thus get himself forwarded to Susa as
-informant and auxiliary.
-
-  [504] Xenoph. Anab. i, 1; Diodor. xiii, 108.
-
-Pharnabazus was already jealous and unfriendly in spirit towards
-Lysander and the Lacedæmonians, of which we shall soon see plain
-evidence, and perhaps towards Cyrus also, since such were the
-habitual relations of neighboring satraps in the Persian empire.
-But the Lacedæmonians and Cyrus were now all-powerful on the
-Asiatic coast, so that he probably did not dare to exasperate them,
-by identifying himself with a mission so hostile and an enemy so
-dangerous to both. Accordingly, he refused compliance with the
-request of Alkibiadês; granting him, nevertheless, permission to
-live in Phrygia, and even assigning to him a revenue. But the
-objects at which the exile was aiming soon became more or less fully
-divulged, to those against whom they were intended. His restless
-character, enterprise, and capacity, were so well known as to raise
-exaggerated fears as well as exaggerated hopes. Not merely Cyrus, but
-the Lacedæmonians, closely allied with Cyrus, and the dekadarchies,
-whom Lysander had set up in the Asiatic Grecian cities, and who
-held their power only through Lacedæmonian support, all were uneasy
-at the prospect of seeing Alkibiadês again in action and command,
-amidst so many unsettled elements. Nor can we doubt that the exiles
-whom these dekadarchies had banished, and the disaffected citizens
-who remained at home under their government in fear of banishment
-or death, kept up correspondence with him, and looked to him as a
-probable liberator. Moreover, the Spartan king, Agis, still retained
-the same personal antipathy against him, which had already some
-years before procured the order to be despatched, from Sparta to
-Asia, to assassinate him. Here are elements enough, of hostility,
-vengeance, and apprehension, afloat against Alkibiadês, without
-believing the story of Plutarch, that Kritias and the Thirty sent
-to apprize Lysander that the oligarchy at Athens could not stand,
-so long as Alkibiadês was alive. The truth is, that though the
-Thirty had included him in the list of exiles,[505] they had much
-less to dread from his assaults or plots, in Attica, than the
-Lysandrian dekadarchies in the cities of Asia. Moreover, his name
-was not popular even among the Athenian democrats, as will be shown
-hereafter, when we come to recount the trial of Sokratês. Probably,
-therefore, the alleged intervention of Kritias and the Thirty, to
-procure the murder of Alkibiadês, is a fiction of the subsequent
-encomiasts of the latter at Athens, in order to create for him claims
-to esteem as a friend and fellow-sufferer with the democracy.
-
-  [505] Xenoph. Hellen. ii, 3, 42; Isokratês, Or. xvi, De Bigis, s.
-  46.
-
-A special despatch, or skytalê, was sent out by the Spartan
-authorities to Lysander in Asia, enjoining him to procure that
-Alkibiadês should be put to death. Accordingly, Lysander communicated
-this order to Pharnabazus, within whose satrapy Alkibiadês was
-residing, and requested that it might be put in execution. The
-whole character of Pharnabazus shows that he would not perpetrate
-such a deed, towards a man with whom he had contracted ties of
-hospitality, without sincere reluctance and great pressure from
-without; especially as it would have been easy for him to connive
-underhand at the escape of the intended victim. We may therefore be
-sure that it was Cyrus, who, informed of the revelations contemplated
-by Alkibiadês, enforced the requisition of Lysander; and that the
-joint demand of the two was too formidable even to be evaded, much
-less openly disobeyed. Accordingly, Pharnabazus despatched his
-brother Magæus and his uncle Sisamithres with a band of armed men, to
-assassinate Alkibiadês in the Phrygian village where he was residing.
-These men, not daring to force their way into his house, surrounded
-it and set it on fire; but Alkibiadês, having contrived to extinguish
-the flames, rushed out upon his assailants with a dagger in his right
-hand, and a cloak wrapped round his left to serve as a shield. None
-of them dared to come near him; but they poured upon him showers of
-darts and arrows until he perished, undefended as he was either by
-shield or by armor. A female companion with whom he lived, Timandra,
-wrapped up his body in garments of her own, and performed towards it
-all the last affectionate solemnities.[506]
-
-  [506] I put together what seems to me the most probable account
-  of the death of Alkibiadês from Plutarch, Alkib. c. 38, 39;
-  Diodorus, xiv, 11 (who cites Ephorus, compare Ephor. Fragm. 126,
-  ed. Didot); Cornelius Nepos, Alkibiad. c. 10; Justin, v, 8;
-  Isokratês, Or. xvi, De Bigis, s. 50.
-
-  There were evidently different stories, about the antecedent
-  causes and circumstances, among which a selection must be made.
-  The extreme perfidy ascribed by Ephorus to Pharnabazus appears to
-  me not at all in the character of that satrap.
-
-Such was the deed which Cyrus and the Lacedæmonians did not
-scruple to enjoin, nor the uncle and brother of a Persian satrap
-to execute, and by which this celebrated Athenian perished, before
-he had attained the age of fifty. Had he lived, we cannot doubt
-that he would again have played some conspicuous part,—for neither
-his temper nor his abilities would have allowed him to remain in
-the shade,—but whether to the advantage of Athens or not, is more
-questionable. Certain it is, that taking his life throughout, the
-good which he did to her bore no proportion to the far greater evil.
-Of the disastrous Sicilian expedition, he was more the cause than
-any other individual, though that enterprise cannot properly be said
-to have been caused by any individual, but rather to have emanated
-from a national impulse. Having first, as a counsellor, contributed
-more than any other man to plunge the Athenians into this imprudent
-adventure, he next, as an exile, contributed more than any other man,
-except Nikias, to turn that adventure into ruin, and the consequences
-of it into still greater ruin. Without him, Gylippus would not have
-been sent to Syracuse, Dekeleia would not have been fortified, Chios
-and Milêtus would not have revolted, the oligarchical conspiracy of
-the Four Hundred would not have been originated. Nor can it be said
-that his first three years of political action as Athenian leader,
-in a speculation peculiarly his own,—the alliance with Argos, and
-the campaigns in Peloponnesus,—proved in any way advantageous to
-his country. On the contrary, by playing an offensive game where
-he had hardly sufficient force for a defensive, he enabled the
-Lacedæmonians completely to recover their injured reputation and
-ascendency through the important victory of Mantineia. The period of
-his life really serviceable to his country, and really glorious to
-himself, was that of three years ending with his return to Athens in
-407 B.C. The results of these three years of success were frustrated
-by the unexpected coming down of Cyrus as satrap: but, just at the
-moment when it behooved Alkibiadês to put forth a higher measure
-of excellence, in order to realize his own promises in the face of
-this new obstacle, at that critical moment we find him spoiled by
-the unexpected welcome which had recently greeted him at Athens, and
-falling miserably short even of the former merit whereby that welcome
-had been earned.
-
-If from his achievements we turn to his dispositions, his ends, and
-his means, there are few characters in Grecian history who present
-so little to esteem, whether we look at him as a public or as a
-private man. His ends are those of exorbitant ambition and vanity,
-his means rapacious as well as reckless, from his first dealing with
-Sparta and the Spartan envoys, down to the end of his career. The
-manœuvres whereby his political enemies first procured his exile were
-indeed base and guilty in a high degree; but we must recollect that
-if his enemies were more numerous and violent than those of any
-other politician in Athens, the generating seed was sown by his own
-overweening insolence, and contempt of restraints, legal as well as
-social.
-
-On the other hand, he was never once defeated either by land or sea.
-In courage, in ability, in enterprise, in power of dealing with new
-men and new situations, he was never wanting; qualities, which,
-combined with his high birth, wealth, and personal accomplishments,
-sufficed to render him for the time the first man in every successive
-party which he espoused; Athenian, Spartan, or Persian; oligarchical
-or democratical. But to none of them did he ever inspire any lasting
-confidence; all successively threw him off. On the whole, we shall
-find few men in whom eminent capacities for action and command are
-so thoroughly marred by an assemblage of bad moral qualities, as
-Alkibiadês.[507]
-
-  [507] Cornelius Nepos says (Alcib. c. 11) of Alkibiadês:
-  “Hunc infamatum a plerisque tres gravissimi historici summis
-  laudibus extulerunt: Thucydides, qui ejusdem ætatis fuit;
-  Theopompus, qui fuit post aliquando natus, et Timæus: qui quidem
-  duo maledicentissimi, nescio quo modo, in illo uno laudando
-  conscierunt.”
-
-  We have no means of appreciating what was said by Theopompus and
-  Timæus. But as to Thucydidês, it is to be recollected that he
-  extols only the capacity and warlike enterprise of Alkibiadês,
-  nothing beyond; and he had good reason for doing so. His picture
-  of the dispositions and conduct of Alkibiadês is the reverse of
-  eulogy.
-
-  The Oration xvi, of Isokratês, De Bigis, spoken by the son
-  of Alkibiadês, goes into a labored panegyric of his father’s
-  character, but is prodigiously inaccurate, if we compare it with
-  the facts stated in Thucydidês and Xenophon. But he is justified
-  in saying: οὐδέποτε τοῦ πατρὸς ἡγουμένου τρόπαιον ὑμῶν ἔστησαν οἱ
-  πολέμιοι (s. 23).
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER LXVII.
-
-THE DRAMA.—RHETORIC AND DIALECTICS.—THE SOPHISTS.
-
-
-Respecting the political history of Athens during the few years
-immediately succeeding the restoration of the democracy, we have
-unfortunately little or no information. But in the spring of 399
-B.C., between three and four years after the beginning of the
-archonship of Eukleidês, an event happened of paramount interest to
-the intellectual public of Greece as well as to philosophy generally,
-the trial, condemnation, and execution of Sokratês. Before I recount
-that memorable incident, it will be proper to say a few words on
-the literary and philosophical character of the age in which it
-happened. Though literature and philosophy are now becoming separate
-departments in Greece, each exercises a marked influence on the
-other, and the state of dramatic literature will be seen to be one of
-the causes directly contributing to the fate of Sokratês.
-
-During the century of the Athenian democracy between Kleisthenês and
-Eukleidês, there had been produced a development of dramatic genius,
-tragic and comic, never paralleled before or afterwards. Æschylus,
-the creator of the tragic drama, or at least the first composer who
-rendered it illustrious, had been a combatant both at Marathon and
-Salamis; while Sophoklês and Euripidês, his two eminent followers,
-the former one of the generals of the Athenian armament against
-Samos in 440 B.C., expired both of them only a year before the
-battle of Ægospotami, just in time to escape the bitter humiliation
-and suffering of that mournful period. Out of the once numerous
-compositions of these poets we possess only a few, yet sufficient
-to enable us to appreciate in some degree the grandeur of Athenian
-tragedy; and when we learn that they were frequently beaten, even
-with the best of their dramas now remaining, in fair competition
-for the prize against other poets whose names only have reached us,
-we are warranted in presuming that the best productions of these
-successful competitors, if not intrinsically finer, could hardly have
-been inferior in merit to theirs.[508]
-
-  [508] The Œdipus Tyrannus of Sophoklês was surpassed by the rival
-  composition of Philoklês. The Medea of Euripidês stood only
-  third for the prize; Euphorion, son of Æschylus, being first,
-  Sophoklês second. Yet these two tragedies are the masterpieces
-  now remaining of Sophoklês and Euripidês.
-
-The tragic drama belonged essentially to the festivals in honor of
-the god Dionysus; being originally a chorus sung in his honor, to
-which were successively superadded, first, an Iambic monologue;
-next, a dialogue with two actors; lastly, a regular plot with
-three actors, and the chorus itself interwoven into the scene.
-Its subjects were from the beginning, and always continued to be,
-persons either divine or heroic, above the level of historical life,
-and borrowed from what was called the mythical past: the Persæ of
-Æschylus forms a splendid exception; but the two analogous dramas
-of his contemporary, Phrynichus, the Phœnissæ and the capture of
-Milêtus, were not successful enough to invite subsequent tragedians
-to meddle with contemporary events. To three serious dramas, or a
-trilogy, at first connected together by sequence of subject more or
-less loose, but afterwards unconnected and on distinct subjects,
-through an innovation introduced by Sophoklês, if not before, the
-tragic poet added a fourth or satyrical drama; the characters of
-which were satyrs, the companions of the god Dionysus, and other
-heroic or mythical persons exhibited in farce. He thus made up a
-total of four dramas, or a tetralogy, which he got up and brought
-forward to contend for the prize at the festival. The expense of
-training the chorus and actors was chiefly furnished by the chorêgi,
-wealthy citizens, of whom one was named for each of the ten tribes,
-and whose honor and vanity were greatly interested in obtaining the
-prize. At first, these exhibitions took place on a temporary stage,
-with nothing but wooden supports and scaffolding; but shortly after
-the year 500 B.C., on an occasion when the poets Æschylus and
-Pratinas were contending for the prize, this stage gave way during
-the ceremony, and lamentable mischief was the result. After that
-misfortune, a permanent theatre of stone was provided. To what extent
-the project was realized before the invasion of Xerxes, we do not
-accurately know; but after his destructive occupation of Athens,
-the theatre, if any existed previously, would have to be rebuilt or
-renovated along with other injured portions of the city.
-
-It was under that great development of the power of Athens which
-followed the expulsion of Xerxes, that the theatre with its
-appurtenances attained full magnitude and elaboration, and Attic
-tragedy its maximum of excellence. Sophoklês gained his first
-victory over Æschylus in 468 B.C.: the first exhibition of Euripidês
-was in 455 B.C. The names, though unhappily the names alone, of
-many other competitors have reached us: Philoklês, who gained the
-prize even over the Œdipus Tyrannus of Sophoklês; Euphorion son of
-Æschylus, Xenoklês, and Nikomachus, all known to have triumphed
-over Euripidês; Neophron, Achæus, Ion, Agathon, and many more. The
-continuous stream of new tragedy, poured out year after year, was
-something new in the history of the Greek mind. If we could suppose
-all the ten tribes contending for the prize every year, there would
-be ten tetralogies—or sets of four dramas each, three tragedies and
-one satyrical farce—at the Dionysiac festival, and as many at the
-Lenæan. So great a number as sixty new tragedies composed every
-year,[509] is not to be thought of; yet we do not know what was the
-usual number of competing tetralogies: it was at least three; since
-the first, second, and third are specified in the didaskalies, or
-theatrical records, and probably greater than three. It was rare
-to repeat the same drama a second time unless after considerable
-alterations; nor would it be creditable to the liberality of a
-chorêgus to decline the full cost of getting up a new tetralogy.
-Without pretending to determine with numerical accuracy how many
-dramas were composed in each year, the general fact of unexampled
-abundance in the productions of the tragic muse is both authentic and
-interesting.
-
-  [509] The careful examination of Welcker (Griech. Tragödie. vol.
-  i, p. 76) makes out the titles of eighty tragedies unquestionably
-  belonging to Sophoklês, over and above the satyrical dramas in
-  his tetralogies. Welcker has considerably cut down the number
-  admitted by previous authors, carried by Fabricius as high as one
-  hundred and seventy-eight, and even, by Boeckh, as high as one
-  hundred and nine (Welcker, _ut sup._ p. 62).
-
-  The number of dramas ascribed to Euripidês is sometimes
-  ninety-two, sometimes seventy-five. Elmsley, in his remarks on
-  the Argument to the Medea, p. 72, thinks that even the larger of
-  these numbers is smaller than what Euripidês probably composed;
-  since the poet continued composing for fifty years, from 455 to
-  405 B.C., and was likely during each year to have composed one,
-  if not two, tetralogies; if he could prevail upon the archon to
-  grant him a chorus, that is, the opportunity of representing.
-  The didaskalies took no account of any except such as gained the
-  first, second, or third prize. Welcker gives the titles, and an
-  approximative guess at the contents, of fifty-one lost tragedies
-  of the poet, besides the seventeen remaining (p. 443).
-
-  Aristarchus the tragedian is affirmed by Suidas to have composed
-  seventy tragedies, of which only two gained the prize. As many
-  as a hundred and twenty compositions are ascribed to Neophron,
-  forty-four to Achæus, forty to Ion (Welcker, ib. p. 889).
-
-Moreover, what is not less important to notice, all this abundance
-found its way to the minds of the great body of the citizens,
-not excepting even the poorest. For the theatre is said to have
-accommodated thirty thousand persons:[510] here again it is unsafe
-to rely upon numerical accuracy, but we cannot doubt that it was
-sufficiently capacious to give to most of the citizens, poor as
-well as rich, ample opportunity of profiting by these beautiful
-compositions. At first, the admission to the theatre was gratuitous;
-but as the crowd of strangers as well as freemen, was found both
-excessive and disorderly, the system was adopted of asking a price,
-seemingly at the time when the permanent theatre was put in complete
-order after the destruction caused by Xerxes. The theatre was let
-by contract to a manager, who engaged to defray, either in whole or
-part, the habitual cost incurred by the state in the representation,
-and who was allowed to sell tickets of admission. At first, it
-appears that the price of tickets was not fixed, so that the poor
-citizens were overbid, and could not get places. Accordingly,
-Periklês introduced a new system, fixing the price of places at three
-oboli, or half a drachma, for the better, and one obolus for the less
-good. As there were two days of representation, tickets covering both
-days were sold respectively for a drachma and two oboli. But in order
-that the poor citizens might be enabled to attend, two oboli were
-given out from the public treasure to each citizen—rich as well as
-poor, if they chose to receive it—on the occasion of the festival.
-A poor man was thus furnished with the means of purchasing his place
-and going to the theatre without cost, on both days, if he chose; or,
-if he preferred it, he might go on one day only; or might even stay
-away altogether, and spend both the two oboli in any other manner.
-The higher price obtained for the better seats purchased by the
-richer citizens, is here to be set against the sum disbursed to the
-poorer; but we have no data before us for striking the balance, nor
-can we tell how the finances of the state were affected by it.[511]
-
-  [510] Plato, Symposion, c. 3, p. 175.
-
-  [511] For these particulars, see chiefly a learned and valuable
-  compilation—G. C. Schneider, _Das Attische Theater-Wesen_,
-  Weimar, 1835—furnished with copious notes; though I do not fully
-  concur in all his details, and have differed from him on some
-  points. I cannot think that more than two oboli were given to
-  any one citizen at the same festival; at least, not until the
-  distribution became extended, in times posterior to the Thirty;
-  see M. Schneider’s book, p. 17; also Notes, 29-196.
-
-Such was the original theôrikon, or festival-pay, introduced by
-Periklês at Athens; a system of distributing the public money,
-gradually extended to other festivals in which there was no
-theatrical representation, and which in later times reached a
-mischievous excess; having begun at a time when Athens was full of
-money from foreign tribute, and continuing, with increased demand
-at a subsequent time, when she was comparatively poor and without
-extraneous resources. It is to be remembered that all these festivals
-were portions of the ancient religion, and that, according to the
-feelings of that time, cheerful and multitudinous assemblages were
-essential to the satisfaction of the god in whose honor the festival
-was celebrated. Such disbursements were a portion of the religious,
-even more than of the civil establishment. Of the abusive excess
-which they afterwards reached, however, I shall speak in a future
-volume: at present, I deal with the theôrikon only in its primitive
-function and effect, of enabling all Athenians indiscriminately to
-witness the representation of the tragedies.
-
-We cannot doubt that the effect of these compositions upon the public
-sympathies, as well as upon the public judgment and intelligence,
-must have been beneficial and moralizing in a high degree. Though
-the subjects and persons are legendary, the relations between them
-are all human and simple, exalted above the level of humanity only
-in such measure as to present a stronger claim to the hearer’s
-admiration or pity. So powerful a body of poetical influence has
-probably never been brought to act upon the emotions of any other
-population; and when we consider the extraordinary beauty of these
-immortal compositions, which first stamped tragedy as a separate
-department of poetry, and gave to it a dignity never since reached,
-we shall be satisfied that the tastes, the sentiments, and the
-intellectual standard, of the Athenian multitude, must have been
-sensibly improved and exalted by such lessons. The reception of
-such pleasures through the eye and the ear, as well as amidst a
-sympathizing crowd, was a fact of no small importance in the mental
-history of Athens. It contributed to exalt their imagination, like
-the grand edifices and ornaments added during the same period to
-their acropolis. Like them, too, and even more than they, tragedy was
-the monopoly of Athens; for while tragic composers came thither from
-other parts of Greece—Achæus from Eretria, and Ion from Chios, at a
-time when the Athenian empire comprised both those places—to exhibit
-their genius, nowhere else were original tragedies composed and
-acted, though hardly any considerable city was without a theatre.[512]
-
-  [512] See Plato, Lachês, c. 6, p. 183, B.; and Welcker, Griech.
-  Tragöd. p. 930.
-
-The three great tragedians—Æschylus, Sophoklês, and
-Euripidês—distinguished above all their competitors, as well by
-contemporaries as by subsequent critics, are interesting to us,
-not merely from the positive beauties of each, but also from the
-differences between them in handling, style, and sentiment, and from
-the manner in which these differences illustrate the insensible
-modification of the Athenian mind. Though the subjects, persons, and
-events of tragedy always continued to be borrowed from the legendary
-world, and were thus kept above the level of contemporaneous
-life,[513] yet the dramatic manner of handling them is sensibly
-modified, even in Sophoklês as compared with Æschylus; and still more
-in Euripidês, by the atmosphere of democracy, political and judicial
-contention, and philosophy, encompassing and acting upon the poet.
-
-  [513] Upon the point, compare Welcker, Griech. Tragöd. vol. ii,
-  p. 1102.
-
-In Æschylus, the ideality belongs to the handling not less than
-to the subjects: the passions appealed to are the masculine and
-violent, to the exclusion of Aphroditê and her inspirations:[514]
-the figures are vast and majestic, but exhibited only in half-light
-and in shadowy outline: the speech is replete with bold metaphor and
-abrupt transition, “grandiloquent even to a fault,” as Quintilian
-remarks, and often approaching nearer to Oriental vagueness than
-to Grecian perspicuity. In Sophoklês, there is evidently a closer
-approach to reality and common life: the range of emotions is more
-varied, the figures are more distinctly seen, and the action more
-fully and conspicuously worked out. Not only we have a more elaborate
-dramatic structure, but a more expanded dialogue, and a comparative
-simplicity of speech like that of living Greeks: and we find too a
-certain admixture of rhetorical declamation, amidst the greatest
-poetical beauty which the Grecian drama ever attained. But when we
-advance to Euripidês, this rhetorical element becomes still more
-prominent and developed. The ultra-natural sublimity of the legendary
-characters disappears: love and compassion are invoked to a degree
-which Æschylus would have deemed inconsistent with the dignity of
-the heroic person: moreover, there are appeals to the reason, and
-argumentative controversies, which that grandiloquent poet would have
-despised as petty and forensic cavils. And—what was worse still,
-judging from the Æschylean point of view—there was a certain novelty
-of speculation, an intimation of doubt on reigning opinions, and an
-air of scientific refinement, often spoiling the poetical effect.
-
-  [514] See Aristophan. Ran. 1046. The Antigonê (780, _seq._) and
-  the Trachiniæ (498) are sufficient evidence that Sophoklês did
-  not agree with Æschylus in this renunciation of Aphroditê.
-
-Such differences between these three great poets are doubtless
-referable to the working of Athenian politics and Athenian philosophy
-on the minds of the two later. In Sophoklês, we may trace the
-companion of Herodotus;[515] in Euripidês, the hearer of Anaxagoras,
-Sokratês, and Prodikus;[516] in both, the familiarity with that
-wide-spread popularity of speech, and real, serious debate of
-politicians and competitors before the dikastery, which both had ever
-before their eyes, but which the genius of Sophoklês knew how to keep
-in due subordination to his grand poetical purpose.
-
-  [515] The comparison of Herodot. iii, 119 with Soph. Antig. 905,
-  proves a community of thought which seems to me hardly explicable
-  in any other way. Which of the two obtained the thought from the
-  other, we cannot determine.
-
-  The reason given, by a woman whose father and mother were dead,
-  for preferring a brother either to husband or child,—that she
-  might find another husband and have another child, but could
-  not possibly have another brother,—is certainly not a little
-  far-fetched.
-
-  [516] See Valckenaer, Diatribe in Eurip. Frag. c. 23. Quintilian,
-  who had before him many more tragedies than those which we now
-  possess, remarks how much more useful was the study of Euripidês,
-  than that of Æschylus or Sophoklês, to a young man preparing
-  himself for forensic oratory:—
-
-  “Illud quidem nemo non fateatur, iis qui se ad agendum
-  comparaverint, utiliorem longe Euripidem fore. Namque is et vi
-  et sermone (quo ipsum reprehendunt quibus gravitas et cothurnus
-  et sonus Sophoclis videtur esse sublimior) magis accedit
-  oratorio generi: et sententiis densus, et rebus ipsis; et in iis
-  quæ a sapientibus tradita sunt, pæne ipsis par; et in dicendo
-  et respondendo cuilibet eorum, qui fuerunt in foro diserti,
-  comparandus. In affectibus vero tum omnibus mirus, tum in iis qui
-  miseratione constant, facile præcipuus.” (Quintil. Inst. Orat. x,
-  1.)
-
-The transformation of the tragic muse from Æschylus to Euripidês
-is the more deserving of notice, as it shows us how Attic tragedy
-served as the natural prelude and encouragement to the rhetorical
-and dialectical age which was approaching. But the democracy, which
-thus insensibly modified the tragic drama, imparted a new life and
-ampler proportions to the comic; both the one and the other being
-stimulated by the increasing prosperity and power of Athens during
-the half century following 480 B.C. Not only was the affluence of
-strangers and visitors to Athens continually augmenting, but wealthy
-men were easily found to incur the expense of training the chorus
-and actors. There was no manner of employing wealth which seemed so
-appropriate to procure influence and popularity to its possessors, as
-that of contributing to enhance the magnificence of the national and
-religious festivals.[517] This was the general sentiment both among
-rich and among poor; nor is there any criticism more unfounded than
-that which represents such an obligation as hard and oppressive upon
-rich men. Most of them spent more than they were legally compelled
-to spend in this way, from the desire of exalting their popularity.
-The only real sufferers were the people, considered as interested in
-a just administration of law; since it was a practice which enabled
-many rich men to acquire importance who had no personal qualities to
-deserve it, and which provided them with a stock of factitious merits
-to be pleaded before the dikastery, as a set-off against substantive
-accusations.
-
-  [517] Aristophan. Plutus, 1160:—
-
-      Πλούτῳ γὰρ ἐστὶ τοῦτο συμφορώτατον,
-      Ποιεῖν ἀγῶνας γυμνικοὺς καὶ μουσικούς.
-
-  Compare the speech of Alkibiadês, Thuc. vi, 16, and Theophrastus
-  ap. Cic. de Officiis, ii, 16.
-
-The full splendor of the comic muse was considerably later than that
-of the tragic. Even down to 460 B.C. (about the time when Periklês
-and Ephialtês introduced their constitutional reforms), there was not
-a single comic poet of eminence at Athens; nor was there apparently
-a single undisputed Athenian comedy before that date, which survived
-to the times of the Alexandrine critics. Magnês, Kratês, and
-Kratinus—probably also Chionidês and Ekphantidês[518]—all belong to
-the period beginning about (Olympiad 80 or) 460 B.C.; that is, the
-generation preceding Aristophanês, whose first composition dates
-in 427 B.C. The condition and growth of Attic comedy before this
-period seems to have been unknown even to Aristotle, who intimates
-that the archon did not begin to grant a chorus for comedy, or to
-number it among the authoritative solemnities of the festival, until
-long after the practice had been established for tragedy. Thus the
-comic chorus in that early time consisted of volunteers, without
-any chorêgus publicly assigned to bear the expense of teaching
-them or getting up the piece; so that there was little motive for
-authors to bestow care or genius in the preparation of their song,
-dance, and scurrilous monody, or dialogue. The exuberant revelry of
-the phallic festival and procession, with full license of scoffing
-at any one present, which the god Dionysus was supposed to enjoy,
-and with the most plain-spoken grossness as well in language as
-in ideas, formed the primitive germ, which under Athenian genius
-ripened into the old comedy.[519] It resembled in many respects the
-satyric drama of the tragedians, but was distinguished from it by
-dealing not merely with the ancient mythical stories and persons, but
-chiefly with contemporary men and subjects of common life; dealing
-with them often, too, under their real names, and with ridicule
-the most direct, poignant, and scornful. We see clearly how fair a
-field Athens would offer for this species of composition, at a time
-when the bitterness of political contention ran high,—when the city
-had become a centre for novelties from every part of Greece,—when
-tragedians, rhetors, and philosophers, were acquiring celebrity and
-incurring odium,—and when the democratical constitution laid open all
-the details of political and judicial business, as well as all the
-first men of the state, not merely to universal criticism, but also
-to unmeasured libel.
-
-  [518] See Meineke, Hist. Critic. Comicor. Græcor. vol. i, p. 26,
-  _seq._
-
-  Grysar and Mr. Clinton, following Suidas, place Chionidês
-  before the Persian invasion; but the words of Aristotle rather
-  countenance the later date (Poetic. c. 3).
-
-  [519] See respecting these licentious processions, in connection
-  with the iambus and Archilochus, vol. iv, of this History, ch.
-  xxix, p. 81.
-
-  Aristotle (Poetic, c. 4) tells us that these phallic processions,
-  with liberty to the leaders (οἱ ἐξάρχοντες) of scoffing at every
-  one, still continued in many cities of Greece in his time: see
-  Herod. v, 83, and Sêmus apud Athenæum, xiv, p. 622; also the
-  striking description of the rural Dionysia in the Acharneis of
-  Aristophanês, 235, 255, 1115. The scoffing was a part of the
-  festival, and supposed to be agreeable to Dionysus: ἐν τοῖς
-  Διονυσίοις ἐφειμένον αὐτὸ δρᾷν· καὶ τὸ σκῶμμα μέρος τι ἐδόκει
-  τῆς ἑορτῆς· καὶ ὁ θεὸς ἴσως χαίρει, φιλογέλως τις ὤν (Lucian,
-  Piscator. c. 25). Compare Aristophanês, Ranæ, 367, where the
-  poet seems to imply that no one has a right to complain of being
-  ridiculed in the πατρίοις τελεταῖς Διονύσου.
-
-  The Greek word for comedy—κωμῳδία, τὸ κωμῳδεῖν—at least in its
-  early sense, had reference to a bitter, insulting, criminative
-  ridicule: κωμῳδεῖν καὶ κακῶς λέγειν (Xenophon, Repub. Ath. ii,
-  23)—κακηγοροῦντάς τε καὶ κωμῳδοῦντας ἀλλήλους καὶ αἰσχρολογοῦντας
-  (Plato de Repub. iii, 8, p. 332). A remarkable definition of
-  κωμῳδία appears in Bekker’s Anecdota Græca, ii, 747, 10: Κωμῳδία
-  ἐστιν ἡ ἐν μέσῳ λάου κατηγορία, ἤγουν δημοσίευσις; “public
-  exposure to scorn before the assembled people:” and this idea of
-  it as a penal visitation of evil-doers is preserved in Platonius
-  and the anonymous writers on comedy, prefixed to Aristophanês.
-  The definition which Aristotle (Poetic. c. 11) gives of it,
-  is too mild for the primitive comedy: for he tells us himself
-  that Kratês, immediately preceding Aristophanês, was the first
-  author who departed from the ἰαμβικὴ ἰδέα: this “iambic vein”
-  was originally the common character. It doubtless included every
-  variety of ridicule, from innocent mirth to scornful contempt
-  and odium; but the predominant character tended decidedly to the
-  latter.
-
-  Compare Will. Schneider, Attisches Theater-Wesen, Notes, pp.
-  22-25; Bernhardy, Griechische Litteratur, sect. 67, p. 292.
-
-Out of all the once abundant compositions of Attic comedy, nothing
-has reached us except eleven plays of Aristophanês. That poet himself
-singles out Magnês, Kratês, and Kratinus, among predecessors whom
-he describes as numerous, for honorable mention; as having been
-frequently, though not uniformly, successful. Kratinus appears to
-have been not only the most copious, but also the most distinguished,
-among all those who preceded Aristophanês, a list comprising
-Hermippus, Telekleidês, and the other bitter assailants of Periklês.
-It was Kratinus who first extended and systematized the license of
-the phallic festival, and the “careless laughter of the festive
-crowd,”[520] into a drama of regular structure, with actors three
-in number, according to the analogy of tragedy. Standing forward,
-against particular persons exhibited or denounced by their names,
-with a malignity of personal slander not inferior to the iambist
-Archilochus, and with an abrupt and dithyrambic style somewhat
-resembling Æschylus, Kratinus made an epoch in comedy as the latter
-had made in tragedy; but was surpassed by Aristophanês, as much
-as Æschylus had been surpassed by Sophoklês. We are told that his
-compositions were not only more rudely bitter and extensively
-libellous than those of Aristophanês,[521] but also destitute of that
-richness of illustration and felicity of expression which pervades
-all the wit of the latter, whether good-natured or malignant. In
-Kratinus, too, comedy first made herself felt as a substantive
-agent and partisan in the political warfare of Athens. He espoused
-the cause of Kimon against Periklês;[522] eulogizing the former,
-while he bitterly derided and vituperated the latter Hermippus,
-Telekleidês, and most of the contemporary comic writers followed
-the same political line in assailing that great man, together with
-those personally connected with him, Aspasia and Anaxagoras: indeed,
-Hermippus was the person who indicted Aspasia for impiety before
-the dikastery. But the testimony of Aristophanês[523] shows that no
-comic writer, of the time of Periklês, equalled Kratinus, either in
-vehemence of libel or in popularity.
-
-  [520]
-
-      Χαῖρ᾽, ὦ μέγ᾽ ἀρχειογέλως ὅμιλε ταῖς ἐπίβδαις,
-      Τῆς ἡμετέρας σοφίας κριτὴς ἄριστε πάντων, etc.
-
-  Kratini Fragm. Incert. 51; Meineke, Fr. Com. Græcor. ii, p. 193.
-
-  [521] Respecting Kratinus, see Platonius and the other writers on
-  the Attic comedy, prefixed to Aristophanês in Bekker’s edition,
-  pp. vi, ix, xi, xiii, etc.; also Meineke, Historia Comic. Græc.
-  vol. i, p. 50, _seq._
-
-  ... Οὐ γὰρ, ὥσπερ Ἀριστοφάνης, ἐπιτρέχειν τὴν χάριν τοῖς σκώμμασι
-  ποιεῖ (Κρατῖνος), ἀλλ᾽ ~ἁπλῶς~, καὶ, κατὰ τὴν παροιμίαν, ~γυμνῇ
-  τῇ κεφαλῇ τίθησι τᾶς βλασφημίας~ κατὰ τῶν ἀμαρτανόντων.
-
-  [522] See Kratinus—Ἀρχίλοχοι—Frag. 1, and Plutarch, Kimon, 10, Ἡ
-  κωμῳδία πολιτεύεται ἐν τοῖς δράμασι καὶ φιλοσοφεῖ, ἡ τῶν περὶ τὸν
-  Κρατῖνον καὶ Ἀριστοφάνην καὶ Εὔπολιν, etc. (Dionys. Halikarn. Ars
-  Rhetoric. c. 11.)
-
-  [523] Aristophan. Equit. 525. _seq._
-
-It is remarkable that, in 440 B.C., a law was passed forbidding comic
-authors to ridicule any citizen by name in their compositions; which
-prohibition, however, was rescinded after two years, an interval
-marked by the rare phenomenon of a lenient comedy from Kratinus.[524]
-Such enactment denotes a struggle in the Athenian mind, even at
-that time, against the mischief of making the Dionysiac festival
-an occasion for unmeasured libel against citizens publicly named
-and probably themselves present. And there was another style of
-comedy taken up by Kratês, distinct from the iambic or Archilochian
-vein worked by Kratinus, in which comic incident was attached to
-fictitious characters and woven into a story, without recourse to
-real individual names or direct personality. This species of comedy,
-analogous to that which Epicharmus had before exhibited at Syracuse,
-was continued by Pherekratês as the successor of Kratês. Though for a
-long time less popular and successful than the poignant food served
-up by Kratinus and others, it became finally predominant after the
-close of the Peloponnesian war, by the gradual transition of what is
-called the Old Comedy into the Middle and New Comedy.
-
-  [524] A comedy called Ὀδυσσεῖς (plur. numb. corresponding to the
-  title of another of his comedies, Ἀρχίλοχοι). It had a chorus, as
-  one of the Fragments shows, but few or no choric songs; nor any
-  parabasis, or address by the chorus, assuming the person of the
-  poet, to the spectators.
-
-  See Bergk, De Reliquiis Comœd. Antiq. p. 142, _seq._; Meineke,
-  Frag. Cratini, vol. ii, p. 93, Ὀδυσσεῖς: compare also the first
-  volume of the same work, p. 43: also Runkel, Cratini Fragm. p. 38
-  (Leips. 1827).
-
-But it is in Aristophanês that the genius of the old libellous comedy
-appears in its culminating perfection. At least we have before us
-enough of his works to enable us to appreciate his merits; though
-perhaps Eupolis, Ameipsias, Phrynichus, Plato (Comicus), and others,
-who contended against him at the festivals with alternate victory and
-defeat, would be found to deserve similar praise, if we possessed
-their compositions. Never probably will the full and unshackled force
-of comedy be so exhibited again. Without having Aristophanês actually
-before us, it would have been impossible to imagine the unmeasured
-and unsparing license of attack assumed by the old comedy upon
-the gods, the institutions, the politicians, philosophers, poets,
-private citizens specially named, and even the women, whose life was
-entirely domestic, of Athens. With this universal liberty in respect
-of subject, there is combined a poignancy of derision and satire,
-a fecundity of imagination and variety of turns, and a richness of
-poetical expression, such as cannot be surpassed, and such as fully
-explains the admiration expressed for him by the philosopher Plato,
-who in other respects must have regarded him with unquestionable
-disapprobation. His comedies are popular in the largest sense of
-the word, addressed to the entire body of male citizens on a day
-consecrated to festivity, and providing for them amusement or
-derision with a sort of drunken abundance, out of all persons or
-things standing in any way prominent before the public eye. The
-earliest comedy of Aristophanês was exhibited in 427 B.C., and his
-muse continued for a long time prolific, since two of the dramas now
-remaining belong to an epoch eleven years after the Thirty and the
-renovation of the democracy, about 392 B.C. After that renovation,
-however, as I have before remarked, the unmeasured sweep and
-libellous personality of the old comedy was gradually discontinued:
-the comic chorus was first cut down, and afterwards suppressed, so as
-to usher in what is commonly termed the Middle Comedy, without any
-chorus at all. The “Plutus” of Aristophanês indicates some approach
-to this new phase; but his earlier and more numerous comedies, from
-the “Acharneis,” in 425 B.C. to the “Frogs,” in 405 B.C., only a few
-months before the fatal battle of Ægospotami, exhibit the continuous,
-unexhausted, untempered flow of the stream first opened by Kratinus.
-
-Such abundance both of tragic and comic poetry, each of first-rate
-excellence, formed one of the marked features of Athenian life, and
-became a powerful instrument in popularizing new combinations of
-thought with variety and elegance of expression. While the tragic
-muse presented the still higher advantage of inspiring elevated and
-benevolent sympathies, more was probably lost than gained by the
-lessons of the comic muse; not only bringing out keenly all that was
-really ludicrous or contemptible in the phenomena of the day, but
-manufacturing scornful laughter, quite as often, out of that which
-was innocent or even meritorious, as well as out of boundless private
-slander. The “Knights” and the “Wasps” of Aristophanês, however, not
-to mention other plays, are a standing evidence of one good point in
-the Athenian character; that they bore with good-natured indulgence
-the full outpouring of ridicule and even of calumny interwoven with
-it, upon those democratical institutions to which they were sincerely
-attached. The democracy was strong enough to tolerate unfriendly
-tongues either in earnest or in jest: the reputations of men who
-stood conspicuously forward in politics, on whatever side, might
-also be considered as a fair mark for attacks; inasmuch as that
-measure of aggressive criticism which is tutelary and indispensable,
-cannot be permitted without the accompanying evil, comparatively
-much smaller, of excess and injustice;[525] though even here we
-may remark that excess of bitter personality is among the most
-conspicuous sins of Athenian literature generally. But the warfare of
-comedy, in the persons of Aristophanês and other composers, against
-philosophy, literature, and eloquence, in the name of those good
-old times of ignorance, “when an Athenian seaman knew nothing more
-than how to call for his barley-cake, and cry, Yo-ho;”[526] and
-the retrograde spirit which induces them to exhibit moral turpitude
-as the natural consequence of the intellectual progress of the age,
-are circumstances going far to prove an unfavorable and degrading
-influence of comedy on the Athenian mind.
-
-  [525] Aristophanês boasts that _he_ was the first comic composer
-  who selected great and powerful men for his objects of attack:
-  his predecessors, he affirms, had meddled only with small
-  vermin and rags: ἐς τὰ ῥάκια σκώπτοντας ἀεὶ, καὶ τοῖς φθειρσὶν
-  πολεμοῦντας (Pac. 724-736; Vesp. 1030).
-
-  But this cannot be true in point of fact, since we know that no
-  man was more bitterly assailed by the comic authors of his day
-  than Periklês. It ought to be added, that though Aristophanês
-  doubtless attacked the powerful men, he did not leave the smaller
-  persons unmolested.
-
-  [526] Aristoph. Ran. 1067; also Vesp. 1095. Æschylus reproaches
-  Euripidês:—
-
-      Εἶτ᾽ αὖ λαλίαν ἐπιτηδεῦσαι καὶ στωμυλίαν ἐδίδαξας,
-      Ἣ ᾽ξεκένωσεν τάς τε παλαίστρας, καὶ τὰς πυγὰς ἐνέτριψε
-      Τῶν μειρακίων στωμυλλομένων, καὶ τοὺς παράλους ἀνέπεισεν
-      Ἀνταγορεύειν τοῖς ἄρχουσιν. Καίτοι τότε γ᾽, ἡνίκ᾽ ἐγὼ ᾽ζων,
-      ~Οὐκ ἠπίσταντ᾽ ἀλλ᾽ ἢ μᾶζαν καλέσαι καὶ ῥυππαπαὶ εἰπεῖν~.
-
-  Τὸ ~ῥυππαπαὶ~ seems to have been the peculiar cry or chorus of
-  the seamen on shipboard, probably when some joint pull or effort
-  of force was required: compare Vespæ, 909.
-
-In reference to individual men, and to Sokratês[527] especially, the
-Athenians seem to have been unfavorably biased by the misapplied
-wit and genius of Aristophanês, in “The Clouds,” aided by other
-comedies of Eupolis, and Ameipsias and Eupolis; but on the general
-march of politics, philosophy, or letters, these composers had
-little influence. Nor were they ever regarded at Athens in the
-light in which they are presented to us by modern criticism; as
-men of exalted morality, stern patriotism, and genuine discernment
-of the true interests of their country; as animated by large and
-steady views of improving their fellow-citizens, but compelled, in
-consequence of prejudice or opposition, to disguise a far-sighted
-political philosophy under the veil of satire; as good judges of
-the most debatable questions, such as the prudence of making war or
-peace, and excellent authority to guide us in appreciating the merits
-or demerits of their contemporaries, insomuch that the victims of
-their lampoons are habitually set down as worthless men.[528] There
-cannot be a greater misconception of the old comedy than to regard
-it in this point of view; yet it is astonishing how many subsequent
-writers, from Diodorus and Plutarch down to the present day, have
-thought themselves entitled to deduce their facts of Grecian history,
-and their estimate of Grecian men, events, and institutions, from the
-comedies of Aristophanês. Standing pre-eminent as the latter does in
-comic genius, his point of view is only so much the more determined
-by the ludicrous associations suggested to his fancy, so that he thus
-departs the more widely from the conditions of a faithful witness or
-candid critic. He presents himself to provoke the laugh, mirthful or
-spiteful, of the festival crowd, assembled for the gratification of
-these emotions, and not with any expectation of serious or reasonable
-impressions.[529] Nor does he at all conceal how much he is mortified
-by failure; like the professional jester, or “laughter-maker,” at the
-banquets of rich Athenian citizens;[530] the parallel of Aristophanês
-as to purpose, however unworthy of comparison in every other respect.
-
-  [527] See about the effect on the estimation of Sokratês, Ranke,
-  Commentat. de Vitâ Aristophanis, p. cdxli.
-
-  Compare also the remarks of Cicero (De Repub. iv, 11; vol.
-  iv, p. 476, ed. Orell.) upon the old Athenian comedy and its
-  unrestrained license. The laws of the Twelve Tables at Rome
-  condemned to death any one who composed and published libellous
-  verses against the reputation of another citizen.
-
-  Among the constant butts of Aristophanês and the other comic
-  composers, was the dithyrambic poet Kinesias, upon whom they
-  discharged their wit and bitterness, not simply as an indifferent
-  poet, but also on the ground of his alleged impiety, his thin
-  and feeble bodily frame, and his wretched health. We see the
-  effect of such denunciations in a speech of the orator Lysias;
-  composed on behalf of Phanias, against whom Kinesias had brought
-  an indictment, or graphê paranomôn. Phanias treats these abundant
-  lampoons as if they were good evidence against the character of
-  Kinesias: Θαυμάζω δ᾽ εἰ μὴ βαρέως φέρετε ὅτι Κινησίας ἐστιν ὁ
-  τοῖς νόμοις βοηθὸς, ὃν ὑμεῖς πάντες ἐπίστασθε ἀσεβέστατον ἁπάντων
-  καὶ παρανομώτατον γεγονέναι. Οὐχ οὖτός ἐστὶν ὁ τοιαῦτα περὶ θεοὺς
-  ἐξαμαρτάνων, ἃ τοῖς μὲν ἄλλοις αἰσχρόν ἐστι καὶ λέγειν, τῶν
-  ~κωμῳδιδασκάλον δ᾽ ἀκούετε καθ᾽ ἕκαστον ἐνιαυτόν~; see Lysias,
-  Fragm. 31, ed. Bekker; Athenæus, xii, p. 551.
-
-  Dr. Thirlwall estimates more lightly than I do the effect of
-  these abundant libels of the old comedy: see his review of the
-  Attic tragedy and comedy, in a very excellent chapter of his
-  History of Greece, ch. xviii, vol. iii, p. 42.
-
-  [528] The view which I am here combating, is very general among
-  the German writers; in proof of which, I may point to three of
-  the ablest recent critics on the old comedy, Bergk, Meineke,
-  and Ranke; all most useful writers for the understanding of
-  Aristophanês.
-
-  Respecting Kratinus, Bergk observes: “Erat enim Cratinus,
-  _pariter atque ceteri principes antiquæ comœdiæ, vir egregie
-  moratus_, idemque antiqui moris tenax.... Cum Cratinus _quasi
-  divinitus videret_ ex hac libertate mox tanquam ex stirpe aliquâ
-  nimiam licentiam existere et nasci, statim his initiis graviter
-  adversatus est, videturque Cimonem tanquam exemplum boni et
-  honesti civis proposuisse,” etc.
-
-  “Nam Cratinus cum esset magno ingenio et _eximiâ morum
-  gravitate_, ægerrime tulit rem publicam præceps in perniciem
-  ruere: omnem igitur operam atque omne studium eo contulit, ut
-  _imagine ipsius vitæ ante oculos positâ omnes et res divinæ et
-  humanæ emendarentur, hominumque animi ad honestatem colendam
-  incenderentur_. Hoc sibi primus et proposuit Cratinus, et
-  propositum strenue persecutus est. _Sed si ipsam Veritatem,
-  cujus imago oculis obversabatur, oculis subjecisset, verendum
-  erat ne tædio obrueret eos qui spectarent_, nihilque prorsus
-  eorum, quæ summo studio persequebatur, obtineret. Quare eximiâ
-  quâdam arte pulchram effigiem hilaremque formam finxit, ita
-  tamen ut ad veritatem sublimemque ejus speciem referret omnia:
-  sic cum ludicris miscet seria, ut et vulgus haberet quî
-  delectaretur; et qui plus ingenio valerent, ipsam veritatem, quæ
-  ex omnibus fabularum partibus perluceret, mente et cogitatione
-  comprehenderent.” ... “Jam vero Cratinum in fabulis componendis
-  id _unice spectavisse quod esset verum_, ne veteres quidem
-  latuit.... Aristophanes autem _idem et secutus semper est_ et
-  sæpe professus.” (Bergk, De Reliquiis Comœd. Antiq. pp. 1, 10,
-  20, 233, etc.)
-
-  The criticism of Ranke (Commentatio de Vitâ Aristophanis, pp.
-  ccxli, cccxiv, cccxlii, ccclxix, ccclxxiii, cdxxxiv, etc.) adopts
-  the same strain of eulogy as to the lofty and virtuous purposes
-  of Aristophanês. Compare also the eulogy bestowed by Meineke on
-  the monitorial value of the old comedy (Historia Comic. Græc. pp.
-  39, 50, 165, etc.), and similar praises by Westermann; Geschichte
-  der Beredsamkeit in Griechenland und Rom. sect. 36.
-
-  In one of the arguments prefixed to the “Pax” of Aristophanês,
-  the author is so full of the conception of these poets as public
-  instructors or advisers, that he tells us, absurdly enough, they
-  were for that reason called ~διδάσκαλοι~: οὐδὲν γὰρ συμβούλων
-  διέφερον· ὅθεν αὐτοὺς καὶ ~διδασκάλους~ ὠνόμαζον· ὅτι πάντα τὰ
-  ~πρόσφορα διὰ δραμάτων αὐτοὺς ἐδίδασκον~ (p. 244, ed. Bekk.).
-
-      “Eupolis, atque Cratinus, Aristophanesque poetæ,
-      Atque alii, quorum Comœdia prisca virorum est,
-      Si quis erat dignus describi, quod malus, aut fur,
-      Aut mœchus foret, aut sicarius, aut alioqui
-      Famosus, multâ cum libertate notabant.”
-
-  This is the early judgment of Horace (Serm. i, 4, 1): his
-  later opinion on the _Fescennina licentia_, which was the same
-  in spirit as the old Grecian comedy, is much more judicious
-  (Epistol. ii, 1, 145): compare Art. Poetic. 224. To assume that
-  the persons derided or vilified by these comic authors must
-  always have deserved what was said of them, is indeed a striking
-  evidence of the value of the maxim: “Fortiter calumniare;
-  semper aliquid restat.” Without doubt, their indiscriminate
-  libel sometimes wounded a suitable subject; in what proportion
-  of cases, we have no means of determining: but the perusal of
-  Aristophanês tends to justify the epithets which Lucian puts into
-  the mouth of _Dialogus_ respecting Aristophanês and Eupolis—not
-  to favor the opinions of the authors whom I have cited above
-  (Lucian, Jov. Accus. vol. ii, p. 832). He calls Eupolis and
-  Aristophanês δεινοὺς ἄνδρας ἐπικερτομῆσαι τὰ σεμνὰ καὶ χλευάσαι
-  τὰ καλῶς ἔχοντα.
-
-  When we notice what Aristophanês himself says respecting the
-  other comic poets, his predecessors and contemporaries, we shall
-  find it far from countenancing the exalted censorial function
-  which Bergk and others ascribe to them (see the Parabasis in the
-  Nubes, 530, _seq._, and in the Pax, 723). It seems especially
-  preposterous to conceive Kratinus in that character; of whom what
-  we chiefly know, is his habit of drunkenness, and the downright,
-  unadorned vituperation in which he indulged: see the Fragments
-  and story of his last play, Πυτίνη (in Meineke, vol. ii, p. 116;
-  also Meineke, vol. i, p. 48, _seq._).
-
-  Meineke copies (p. 46) from Suidas a statement (v. Ἐπείου
-  δειλότερος) to the effect that Kratinus was ~ταξίαρχος τῆς
-  Οἰνηΐδος φυλῆς~. He construes this as a real fact: but there can
-  hardly be a doubt that it is only a joke made by his contemporary
-  comedians upon his fondness for wine; and not one of the worst
-  among the many such jests which seem to have been then current.
-  Runkel also, another editor of the Fragments of Kratinus (Cratini
-  Fragment., Leips. 1827, p. 2, M. M. Runkel), construes this
-  ταξίαρχος τῆς Οἰνηΐδος φυλῆς, as if it were a serious function;
-  though he tells us about the general character of Kratinus: “De
-  vitâ ipsâ et moribus pæne nihil dicere possumus: _hoc solum
-  constat, Cratinum poculis et puerorum amori valde deditum
-  fuisse_.”
-
-  Great numbers of Aristophanic jests have been transcribed as
-  serious matter-of-fact, and have found their way into Grecian
-  history. Whoever follows chapter vii of K. F. Hermann’s
-  Griechische Staats-Alterthümer, containing the _Innere
-  Geschichte_ of the Athenian democracy, will see the most sweeping
-  assertions made against the democratical institutions, on the
-  authority of passages of Aristophanês: the same is the case with
-  several of the other most learned German manuals of Grecian
-  affairs.
-
-  [529] Horat. de Art. Poetic. 212-224.
-
-      “Indoctus quid enim saperet, liberque laborum,
-      Rusticus urbano confusus, turpis honesto?...
-      Illecebris erat et gratâ novitate morandus
-      Spectator, functusque sacris, et potus, et exlex.”
-
-  [530] See the Parabasis of Aristophanês in the Nubes (535,
-  _seq._) and in the Vespæ (1015-1045).
-
-  Compare also the description of Philippus the γελωτοποῖος, or
-  Jester, in the Symposion of Xenophon; most of which is extremely
-  Aristophanic, ii, 10, 14. The comic point of view is assumed
-  throughout that piece; and Sokratês is introduced on one occasion
-  as apologizing for the intrusion of a serious reflection (τὸ
-  σπουδαιολογεῖν, viii, 41). The same is the case throughout much
-  of the Symposion of Plato; though the scheme and purpose of this
-  latter are very difficult to follow.
-
-This rise and development of dramatic poetry in Greece—so abundant,
-so varied, and so rich in genius—belongs to the fifth century B.C. It
-had been in the preceding century nothing more than an unpretending
-graft upon the primitive chorus, and was then even denounced by
-Solon, or in the dictum ascribed to Solon, as a vicious novelty,
-tending—by its simulation of a false character, and by its effusion
-of sentiments not genuine or sincere—to corrupt the integrity of
-human dealings;[531] a charge of corruption, not unlike that which
-Aristophanês worked up, a century afterwards, in his “Clouds,”
-against physics, rhetoric, and dialectics, in the person of Sokratês.
-But the properties of the graft had overpowered and subordinated
-those of the original stem; so that dramatic poetry was now a
-distinct form, subject to laws of its own, and shining with splendor
-equal, if not superior, to the elegiac, choric, lyric, and epic
-poetry which constituted the previous stock of the Grecian world.
-
-  [531] Plutarch, Solon, c. 29. See the previous volumes of this
-  History, ch. xxi, vol. ii, p. 145; ch. xxix, vol. iv, pp. 83, 84.
-
-Such transformations in the poetry, or, to speak more justly, in the
-literature—for before the year 500 B.C. the two expressions were
-equivalent—of Greece, were at once products, marks, and auxiliaries,
-in the expansion of the national mind. Our minds have now become
-familiar with dramatic combinations, which have ceased to be peculiar
-to any special form or conditions of political society. But if we
-compare the fifth century B.C. with that which preceded it, the
-recently born drama will be seen to have been a most important and
-impressive novelty: and so assuredly it would have been regarded by
-Solon, the largest mind of his own age, if he could have risen again,
-a century and a quarter after his death, to witness the Antigonê of
-Sophoklês, the Medea of Euripidês, or the Acharneis of Aristophanês.
-
-Its novelty does not consist merely in the high order of imagination
-and judgment required for the construction of a drama at once regular
-and effective. This, indeed, is no small addition to Grecian poetical
-celebrity as it stood in the days of Solon, Alkæus, Sappho, and
-Stesichorus: but we must remember that the epical structure of the
-Odyssey, so ancient and long acquired to the Hellenic world, implies
-a reach of architectonic talent quite equal to that exhibited in
-the most symmetrical drama of Sophoklês. The great innovation of
-the dramatists consisted in the rhetorical, the dialectical, and
-the ethical spirit which they breathed into their poetry. Of all
-this, the undeveloped germ doubtless existed in the previous epic,
-lyric, and gnomic composition; but the drama stood distinguished
-from all three by bringing it out into conspicuous amplitude, and
-making it the substantive means of effect. Instead of recounting
-exploits achieved, or sufferings undergone by the heroes,—instead
-of pouring out his own single-minded impressions in reference to
-some given event or juncture,—the tragic poet produces the mythical
-persons themselves to talk, discuss, accuse, defend, confute, lament,
-threaten, advise, persuade, or appease; among one another, but
-before the audience. In the _drama_, a singular misnomer, nothing is
-actually done: all is talk; assuming what is done, as passing, or as
-having passed, elsewhere. The dramatic poet, speaking continually,
-but at each moment through a different character, carries on the
-purpose of each of his characters by words calculated to influence
-the other characters, and appropriate to each successive juncture.
-Here are rhetorical exigencies from beginning to end:[532] while,
-since the whole interest of the piece turns upon some contention
-or struggle carried on by speech; since debate, consultation, and
-retort, never cease; since every character, good or evil, temperate
-or violent, must be supplied with suitable language to defend his
-proceedings, to attack or repel opponents, and generally to make good
-the relative importance assigned to him, here again dialectical skill
-in no small degree is indispensable.
-
-  [532] Respecting the rhetorical cast of tragedy, see Plato,
-  Gorgias, c. 57, p. 502, D.
-
-  Plato disapproves of tragedy on the same grounds as of rhetoric.
-
-Lastly, the strength and variety of ethical sentiment infused into
-the Grecian tragedy, is among the most remarkable characteristics
-which distinguish it from the anterior forms of poetry. “To do or
-suffer terrible things,” is pronounced by Aristotle to be its proper
-subject-matter; and the internal mind and motives of the doer or
-sufferer, on which the ethical interest fastens, are laid open by
-the Greek tragedians with an impressive minuteness which neither the
-epic nor the lyric could possibly parallel. Moreover, the appropriate
-subject-matter of tragedy is pregnant not only with ethical sympathy,
-but also with ethical debate and speculation. Characters of mixed
-good and evil; distinct rules of duty, one conflicting with the
-other; wrong done, and justified to the conscience of the doer, if
-not to that of the spectator, by previous wrong suffered, all these
-are the favorite themes of Æschylus and his two great successors.
-Klytæmnestra kills her husband Agamemnôn on his return from Troy:
-her defence is, that he had deserved this treatment at her hands
-for having sacrificed his own and her daughter, Iphigeneia. Her son
-Orestês kills her, under a full conviction of the duty of avenging
-his father, and even under the sanction of Apollo. The retributive
-Eumenides pursue him for the deed, and Æschylus brings all the
-parties before the court of Areopagus, with Athênê as president,
-where the case is fairly argued, with the Eumenides as accusers,
-and Apollo as counsel for the prisoner, and ends by an equality of
-votes in the court: upon which Athênê gives her casting-vote to
-absolve Orestês. Again; let any man note the conflicting obligations
-which Sophoklês so forcibly brings out in his beautiful drama of the
-Antigonê. Kreon directs that the body of Polyneikês, as a traitor
-and recent invader of the country, shall remain unburied: Antigonê,
-sister of Polyneikês, denounces such interdict as impious, and
-violates it, under an overruling persuasion of fraternal duty. Kreon
-having ordered her to be buried alive, his youthful son Hæmon, her
-betrothed lover, is plunged into a heart-rending conflict between
-abhorrence of such cruelty on the one side, and submission to his
-father on the other. Sophoklês sets forth both these contending rules
-of duty in an elaborate scene of dialogue between the father and the
-son. Here are two rules both sacred and respectable, but the one of
-which cannot be observed without violating the other. Since a choice
-must be made, which of the two ought a good man to obey? This is a
-point which the great poet is well pleased to leave undetermined.
-But if there be any among the audience in whom the least impulse of
-intellectual speculation is alive, he will by no means leave it so,
-without some mental effort to solve the problem, and to discover
-some grand and comprehensive principle from whence all the moral
-rules emanate; a principle such as may instruct his conscience in
-those cases generally, of not unfrequent occurrence, wherein two
-obligations conflict with each other. The tragedian not only appeals
-more powerfully to the ethical sentiment than poetry had ever done
-before, but also, by raising these grave and touching questions,
-addresses a stimulus and challenge to the intellect, spurring it on
-to ethical speculation.
-
-Putting all these points together, we see how much wider was the
-intellectual range of tragedy, and how considerable is the mental
-progress which it betokens, as compared with the lyric and gnomic
-poetry, or with the Seven Wise Men and their authoritative aphorisms,
-which formed the glory, and marked the limit, of the preceding
-century. In place of unexpanded results, or the mere communication
-of single-minded sentiment, we have even in Æschylus, the earliest
-of the great tragedians, a large latitude of dissent and debate, a
-shifting point of view, a case better or worse, made out for distinct
-and contending parties, and a divination of the future advent of
-sovereign and instructed reason. It was through the intermediate
-stage of tragedy that Grecian literature passed into the rhetoric,
-dialectics, and ethical speculation, which marked the fifth century
-B.C.
-
-Other simultaneous causes, arising directly out of the business of
-real life, contributed to the generation of these same capacities and
-studies. The fifth century B.C. is the first century of democracy
-at Athens, in Sicily, and elsewhere: moreover, at that period,
-beginning from the Ionic revolt and the Persian invasions of Greece,
-the political relations between one Grecian city and another became
-more complicated, as well as more continuous; requiring a greater
-measure of talent in the public men who managed them. Without some
-power of persuading or confuting,—of defending himself against
-accusation, or in case of need, accusing others,—no man could
-possibly hold an ascendent position. He had probably not less need
-of this talent for private, informal, conversations to satisfy his
-own political partisans, than for addressing the public assembly
-formally convoked. Even as commanding an army or a fleet, without
-any laws of war or habits of professional discipline, his power of
-keeping up the good-humor, confidence, and prompt obedience of his
-men, depended not a little on his command of speech.[533] Nor was it
-only to the leaders in political life that such an accomplishment
-was indispensable. In all the democracies,—and probably in several
-governments which were not democracies, but oligarchies of an
-open character,—the courts of justice were more or less numerous,
-and the procedure oral and public: in Athens, especially, the
-dikasteries—whose constitution has been explained in a former
-chapter—were both very numerous, and paid for attendance. Every
-citizen had to go before them in person, without being able to send
-a paid advocate in his place, if he either required redress for
-wrong offered to himself, or was accused of wrong by another.[534]
-There was no man, therefore, who might not be cast or condemned,
-or fail in his own suit, even with right on his side, unless he
-possessed some powers of speech to unfold his case to the dikasts,
-as well as to confute the falsehoods, and disentangle the sophistry,
-of an opponent. Moreover, to any man of known family and station,
-it would be a humiliation hardly less painful than the loss of the
-cause, to stand before the dikastery with friends and enemies around
-him, and find himself unable to carry on the thread of a discourse
-without halting or confusion. To meet such liabilities, from which
-no citizen, rich or poor, was exempt, a certain training in speech
-became not less essential than a certain training in arms. Without
-the latter, he could not do his duty as an hoplite in the ranks for
-the defence of his country; without the former, he could not escape
-danger to his fortune or honor, and humiliation in the eyes of his
-friends, if called before a dikastery, nor lend assistance to any of
-those friends who might be placed under the like necessity.
-
-  [533] See the discourse of Sokratês, insisting upon this point,
-  as part of the duties of a commander (Xen. Mem. iii, 3, 11).
-
-  [534] This necessity of some rhetorical accomplishments, is
-  enforced not less emphatically by Aristotle (Rhetoric. i, 1, 3)
-  than by Kalliklês in the Gorgias of Plato, c. 91, p. 486, B.
-
-Here then were ample motives, arising out of practical prudence not
-less than from the stimulus of ambition, to cultivate the power
-both of continuous harangue, and of concise argumentation, or
-interrogation and reply:[535] motives for all, to acquire a certain
-moderate aptitude in the use of these weapons; for the ambitious few,
-to devote much labor and to shine as accomplished orators.
-
-  [535] See the description which Cicero gives, of his own
-  laborious oratorical training:—
-
-  “Ego hoc tempore omni, noctes et dies, in omnium doctrinarum
-  meditatione versabar. Eram cum Stoico Diodoto, qui cum
-  habitavisset apud me mecumque vixisset, nuper est domi meæ
-  mortuus. A quo quum in aliis rebus, tum studiosissime in
-  dialecticâ versabar; _quæ quasi contracta et astricta eloquentia
-  putanda est_; sine quâ etiam tu, Brute, judicavisti, te illam
-  justam eloquentiam, quam _dialecticam dilatatam_ esse putant,
-  consequi non posse. Huic ego doctori, et ejus artibus variis et
-  multis, ita eram tamen deditus, ut ab exercitationibus oratoriis
-  nullus dies vacaret.” (Cicero, Brutus, 90, 309.)
-
-Such political and social motives, it is to be remembered, though
-acting very forcibly at Athens, were by no means peculiar to Athens,
-but prevailed more or less throughout a large portion of the Grecian
-cities, especially in Sicily, when all the governments became
-popularized after the overthrow of the Gelonian dynasty. And it was
-in Sicily and Italy, that the first individuals arose, who acquired
-permanent name both in rhetoric and dialectics: Empedoklês of
-Agrigentum in the former; Zeno of Elea, in Italy, in the latter.[536]
-
-  [536] Aristotel. ap. Diog. Laërt. viii, 57.
-
-Both these distinguished men bore a conspicuous part in politics,
-and both on the popular side; Empedoklês against an oligarchy,
-Zeno against a despot. But both also were yet more distinguished
-as philosophers, and the dialectical impulse in Zeno, if not the
-rhetorical impulse in Empedoklês, came more from his philosophy than
-from his politics. Empedoklês (about 470-440 B.C.) appears to have
-held intercourse at least, if not partial communion of doctrine,
-with the dispersed philosophers of the Pythagorean league; the
-violent subversion of which, at Kroton and elsewhere, I have related
-in a previous chapter.[537] He constructed a system of physics and
-cosmogony, distinguished for first broaching the doctrine of the
-Four elements, and set forth in a poem composed by himself: besides
-which he seems to have had much of the mystical tone and miraculous
-pretensions of Pythagoras; professing not only to cure pestilence
-and other distempers, but to teach how old age might be averted and
-the dead raised from Hades; to prophesy, and to raise and calm the
-winds at his pleasure. Gorgias, his pupil, deposed to having been
-present at the magical ceremonies of Empedoklês.[538] The impressive
-character of his poem is sufficiently attested by the admiration of
-Lucretius,[539] and the rhetoric ascribed to him may have consisted
-mainly in oral teaching or exposition of the same doctrines. Tisias
-and Korax of Syracuse, who are also mentioned as the first teachers
-of rhetoric, and the first who made known any precepts about the
-rhetorical practice, were his contemporaries; and the celebrated
-Gorgias was his pupil.
-
-  [537] See my preceding vol. iv, ch. xxxvii.
-
-  [538] Diogen. Laërt. viii, 58, 59, who gives a remarkable extract
-  from the poem of Empedoklês, attesting these large pretensions.
-
-  See Brandis, Handbuch der Gr. Röm. Philos. part i. sects. 47, 48,
-  p. 192; Sturz. ad Empedoclis Frag. p. 36.
-
-  [539] De Rerum Naturâ, i, 719.
-
-The dialectical movement emanated at the same time from the Eleatic
-school of philosophers,—Zeno, and his contemporary the Samian
-Melissus, 460-440,—if not from their common teacher Parmenidês.
-Melissus also, as well as Zeno and Empedoklês, was a distinguished
-citizen as well as a philosopher; having been in command of the
-Samian fleet at the time of the revolt from Athens, and having in
-that capacity gained a victory over the Athenians.
-
-All the philosophers of the fifth century B.C., prior to Sokratês,
-inheriting from their earliest poetical predecessors the vast and
-unmeasured problems which had once been solved by the supposition
-of divine or superhuman agents, contemplated the world, physical
-and moral, all in a mass, and applied their minds to find
-some hypothesis which would give them an explanation of this
-totality,[540] or at least appease curiosity by something which
-looked like an explanation. What were the elements out of which
-sensible things were made? What was the initial cause or principle
-of those changes which appeared to our senses? What was change?—was
-it generation of something integrally new and destruction of
-something preëxistent,—or was it a decomposition and recombination
-of elements still continuing. The theories of the various Ionic
-philosophers, and of Empedoklês after them, admitting one, two, or
-four elementary substances, with Friendship and Enmity to serve as
-causes of motion or change; the Homœomeries of Anaxagoras, with
-Nous, or Intelligence, as the stirring and regularizing agent; the
-atoms and void of Leukippus and Demokritus, all these were different
-hypotheses answering to a similar vein of thought. All of them,
-though assuming that the sensible appearances of things were delusive
-and perplexing, nevertheless, were borrowed more or less directly
-from some of these appearances, which were employed to explain and
-illustrate the whole theory, and served to render it plausible when
-stated as well as to defend it against attack. But the philosophers
-of the Eleatic school—first Xenophanês, and after him Parmenidês—took
-a distinct path of their own. To find that which was real, and which
-lay as it were concealed behind or under the delusive phenomena of
-sense, they had recourse only to mental abstractions. They supposed a
-Substance or Something not perceivable by sense, but only cogitable
-or conceivable by reason; a One and All, continuous and finite,
-which was not only real and self-existent, but was the only reality;
-eternal, immovable, and unchangeable, and the only matter knowable.
-The phenomena of sense, which began and ended one after the other,
-they thought, were essentially delusive, uncertain, contradictory
-among themselves, and open to endless diversity of opinion.[541]
-Upon these, nevertheless, they announced an opinion; adopting two
-elements, heat and cold, or light and darkness.
-
-  [540] Some striking lines of Empedoklês are preserved by
-  Sextus Empiricus, adv. Mathemat. vii, 115; to the effect that
-  every individual man gets through his short life, with no more
-  knowledge than is comprised in his own slender fraction of
-  observation and experience: he struggles in vain to find out and
-  explain the totality; but neither eye, nor ear, nor reason can
-  assist him:—
-
-      Παῦρον δὲ ζωῆς ἀβίον μέρος ἀθρήσαντες,
-      Ὠκύμοροι, καπνοῖο δίκην ἀρθέντες, ἀπέπταν
-      Αὐτὸ μόνον πεισθέντες, ὅτῳ προσέκυρσεν ἕκαστος
-      Πάντοσ᾽ ἐλαυνόμενοι. Τὸ δὲ οὖλον ἐπεύχεται εὑρεῖν
-      Αὔτως· οὔτ᾽ ἐπιδερκτὰ τάδ᾽ ἀνδράσιν, οὔτ᾽ ἐπακουστὰ,
-      Οὔτε νόῳ περιληπτά.
-
-  [541] See Parmenidis Fragmenta, ed. Karsten, v, 30, 55, 60: also
-  the Dissertation annexed by Karsten, sects. 3, 4, p. 148, _seq._;
-  sect. 19, p. 221, _seq._
-
-  Compare also Mullach’s edition of the same Fragments, annexed to
-  his edition of the Aristotelian treatise, De Melisso, Xenophane,
-  et Gorgiâ, p. 144.
-
-Parmenidês set forth this doctrine of the One and All in a poem,
-of which but a few fragments now remain, so that we understand
-very imperfectly the positive arguments employed to recommend it.
-The matter of truth and knowledge, such as he alone admitted,
-was altogether removed from the senses and divested of sensible
-properties, so as to be conceived only as an Ens Rationis, and
-described and discussed only in the most general words of the
-language. The exposition given by Parmenidês in his poem,[542] though
-complimented by Plato, was vehemently controverted by others, who
-deduced from it many contradictions and absurdities. As a part of his
-reply, and doubtless the strongest part, Parmenidês retorted upon his
-adversaries; an example followed by his pupil Zeno with still greater
-acuteness and success. Those who controverted his ontological theory,
-that the real, ultra-phenomenal substance was One, affirmed it to be
-not One, but Many; divisible, movable, changeable, etc. Zeno attacked
-this latter theory, and proved that it led to contradictions and
-absurdities still greater than those involved in the proposition of
-Parmenidês.[543] He impugned the testimony of sense, affirming that
-it furnished premises for conclusions which contradicted each other,
-and that it was unworthy of trust.[544] Parmenidês[545] had denied
-that there was any such thing as real change either of place or
-color: Zeno maintained change of place, or motion, to be impossible
-and self-contradictory; propounding many logical difficulties,
-derived from the infinite divisibility of matter, against some of the
-most obvious affirmations respecting sensible phenomena. Melissus
-appears to have argued in a vein similar to that of Zeno, though
-with much less acuteness; demonstrating indirectly the doctrine of
-Parmenidês, by deducing impossible inferences from the contrary
-hypothesis.[546]
-
-  [542] Plato, Parmenidês, p. 128, B. σὺ μὲν (Parmenidês) γὰρ ἐν
-  τοῖς ποιήμασιν ἓν φῂς εἶναι τὸ πᾶν, καὶ τούτων τεκμήρια παρέχεις
-  καλῶς τε καὶ εὖ, etc.
-
-  [543] See the remarkable passage in the Parmenidês of Plato, p.
-  128, B, C, D.
-
-  Ἐστὶ δὲ τό γε ἀληθὲς βοήθειά τις ταῦτα τὰ γράμματα τῷ Παρμενίδου
-  λόγῳ πρὸς τοὺς ἐπιχειροῦντας αὐτὸν κωμῳδεῖν, ὡς εἰ ἕν ἐστι,
-  πολλὰ καὶ γελοῖα συμβαίνει πάσχειν τῷ λόγῳ καὶ ἐναντία αὑτῷ.
-  Ἀντιλέγει δὴ οὖν τοῦτο τὸ γράμμα πρὸς τοὺς τὰ πολλὰ λέγοντας,
-  ~καὶ ἀνταποδίδωσι ταῦτα καὶ πλείω~, τοῦτο βουλόμενον δηλοῦν, ὡς
-  ~ἔτι γελοιότερα πάσχοι ἂν αὐτῶν ἡ ὑπόθεσις—ἡ εἰ πολλὰ ἐστίν—ἢ ἡ
-  τοῦ ἓν εἶναι, εἴ τις ἱκανῶς ἐπεξίοι~.
-
-  [544] Plato, Phædrus, c. 44, p. 261, D. See the citations in
-  Brandis, Gesch. der Gr. Röm. Philosophie, part i, p. 417, _seq._
-
-  [545] Parmenid. Fragm. v, 101, ed. Mullach.
-
-  [546] See the Fragments of Melissus collected by Mullach, in his
-  publication cited in a previous note, p. 81. _seq._
-
-Zeno published a treatise to maintain the thesis above described,
-which he also upheld by personal conversations and discussions,
-in a manner doubtless far more efficacious than his writing; the
-oral teaching of these early philosophers being their really
-impressive manifestation. His subtle dialectic arguments were not
-only sufficient to occupy all the philosophers of antiquity, in
-confuting them more or less successfully, but have even descended to
-modern times as a fire not yet extinguished.[547] The great effect
-produced among the speculative minds of Greece by his writing and
-conversation, is attested both by Plato and Aristotle. He visited
-Athens, gave instruction to some eminent Athenians, for high pay,
-and is said to have conversed both with Periklês and with Sokratês,
-at a time when the latter was very young; probably between 450-440
-B.C.[548]
-
-  [547] The reader will see this in Bayle’s Dictionary, article,
-  Zeno of Elea.
-
-  Simplicius (in his commentary on Aristot. Physic. p. 255) says
-  that Zeno first composed written dialogues, which cannot be
-  believed without more certain evidence. He also particularizes a
-  puzzling question addressed by Zeno to Protagoras. See Brandis,
-  Gesch. der Griech. Röm. Philos. i, p. 409. Zeno ἴδιον μὲν οὐδὲν
-  ἐξέθετο (sc. περὶ τῶν πάντων·), διηπόρησε δὲ περὶ τούτων ἐπὶ
-  πλεῖον. Plutarch. ap. Eusebium, Præpar. Evangel. i, 23, D.
-
-  [548] Compare Plutarch, Periklês, c. 3; Plato, Parmenidês, pp.
-  126, 127; Plato, Alkibiad. i. ch. 14, p. 119, A.
-
-  That Sokratês had in his youth conversed with Parmenidês, when
-  the latter was an old man, is stated by Plato more than once,
-  over and above his dialogue called Parmenidês, which professes
-  to give a conversation between the two, as well as with Zeno. I
-  agree with Mr. Fynes Clinton, Brandis, and Karsten, in thinking
-  that this is better evidence, about the date of Parmenidês than
-  any of the vague indications which appear to contradict it, in
-  Diogenes Laërtius and elsewhere. But it will be hardly proper to
-  place the conversation between Parmenidês and Sokratês—as Mr.
-  Clinton places it, Fast. H. vol. ii, App. c. 21, p. 364—at a time
-  when Sokratês was only fifteen years of age. The ideas which the
-  ancients had about youthful propriety, would not permit him to
-  take part in conversation with an eminent philosopher at so early
-  an age as fifteen, when he would not yet be entered on the roll
-  of citizens, or be qualified for the smallest function, military
-  or civil. I cannot but think that Sokratês must have been more
-  than twenty years of age when he thus conversed with Parmenidês.
-
-  Sokratês was born in 469 B.C. (perhaps 468 B.C.); he would
-  therefore be twenty years of age in 449: assuming the visit of
-  Parmenidês to Athens to have been in 448 B.C., since he was then
-  sixty-five years of age, he would be born in 513 B.C. It is
-  objected that, if this date be admitted, Parmenidês could not
-  have been a pupil of Xenophanês: we should thus he compelled to
-  admit, which perhaps is the truth, that he learned the doctrine
-  of Xenophanês at second-hand.
-
-His appearance constitutes a remarkable era in Grecian philosophy,
-because he first brought out the extraordinary aggressive or negative
-force of the dialectic method. In this discussion respecting the One
-and the Many, positive grounds on either side were alike scanty: each
-party had to set forth the contradictions deducible from the opposite
-hypothesis, and Zeno professed to show that those of his opponents
-were the more flagrant. We thus see that, along with the methodized
-question and answer, or dialectic method, employed from henceforward
-more and more in philosophical inquiries, comes out at the same time
-the negative tendency, the probing, testing, and scrutinizing force,
-of Grecian speculation. The negative side of Grecian speculation
-stands quite as prominently marked, and occupies as large a measure
-of the intellectual force of their philosophers, as the positive
-side. It is not simply to arrive at a conclusion, sustained by a
-certain measure of plausible premise,—and then to proclaim it as an
-authoritative dogma, silencing or disparaging all objectors,—that
-Grecian speculation aspires. To unmask not only positive falsehood,
-but even affirmation without evidence, exaggerated confidence in what
-was only doubtful, and show of knowledge without the reality; to
-look at a problem on all sides, and set forth all the difficulties
-attending its solution, to take account of deductions from the
-affirmative evidence, even in the case of conclusions accepted as
-true upon the balance, all this will be found pervading the march
-of their greatest thinkers. As a condition of all progressive
-philosophy, it is not less essential that the grounds of negation
-should be freely exposed, than the grounds of affirmation. We shall
-find the two going hand in hand, and the negative vein, indeed, the
-more impressive and characteristic of the two, from Zeno downwards in
-our history. In one of the earliest memoranda illustrative of Grecian
-dialectics,—the sentences in which Plato represents Parmenidês and
-Zeno as bequeathing their mantle to the youthful Sokratês, and giving
-him precepts for successfully prosecuting those researches which his
-marked inquisitive impulse promised,—this large and comprehensive
-point of view is emphatically inculcated. He is admonished to set
-before him both sides of every hypothesis, and to follow out both
-the negative and the affirmative chains of argument with equal
-perseverance and equal freedom of scrutiny; neither daunted by the
-adverse opinions around him, nor deterred by sneers against wasting
-time in fruitless talk; since the multitude are ignorant that
-without thus travelling round all sides of a question, no assured
-comprehension of the truth is attainable.[549]
-
-  [549] Plato, Parmenid. pp. 135, 136.
-
-  Parmenidês speaks to Sokratês: Καλὴ μὲν οὖν καὶ θεία, εὖ ἴσθι, ἡ
-  ὁρμὴ, ἣν ὁρμᾷς ἐπὶ τοὺς λόγους· ἕλκυσον δὲ σαυτὸν καὶ γυμνάσαι
-  μᾶλλον διὰ τῆς δοκούσης ἀχρήστου εἶναι καὶ καλουμένης ὑπὸ τῶν
-  πολλῶν ἀδολεσχίας, ἕως ἔτι νέος εἶ· εἰ δὲ μὴ, σὲ διαφεύξεται ἡ
-  ἀλήθεια. Τίς οὖν ὁ τρόπος, φάναι (τὸν Σωκράτη), ὦ Παρμενίδη,
-  τῆς γυμνασίας; Οὗτος, εἰπεῖν (τὸν Παρμενίδην) ὅνπερ ἤκουσας
-  Ζήνωνος.... Χρὴ δὲ καὶ τόδε ἔτι πρὸς τούτῳ σκοπεῖν, ~μὴ μόνον,
-  εἰ ἔστιν ἕκαστον, ὑποτιθέμενον, σκοπεῖν τὰ ξυμβαίνοντα ἐκ τῆς
-  ὑποθέσεως—ἀλλὰ καὶ, εἰ μή ἐστι τὸ αὐτὸ τοῦτο, ὑποτίθεσθαι~—εἰ
-  βούλει μᾶλλον γυμνασθῆναι.... Ἀγνοοῦσι γὰρ οἱ πολλοὶ ὅτι ἄνευ
-  ταύτης τῆς διὰ πάντων διεξόδου καὶ πλάνης, ἀδύνατον ἐντυχόντα
-  τῷ ἀληθεῖ νοῦν σχεῖν. See also Plato’s Kratylus, p. 428, E,
-  about the necessity of the investigator looking both before and
-  behind—ἅμα πρόσσω καὶ ὀπίσσω.
-
-  See also the Parmenidês, p. 130, E,—in which Sokratês is warned
-  respecting the ἀνθρώπων δόξας, against enslaving himself to the
-  opinions of men: compare Plato, Sophistes, p. 227, B, C.
-
-We thus find ourselves, from the year 450 B.C., downwards, in
-presence of two important classes of men in Greece, unknown to Solon
-or even to Kleisthenês, the Rhetoricians, and the Dialecticians;
-for whom, as has been shown, the ground had been gradually prepared
-by the politics, the poetry, and the speculation, of the preceding
-period.
-
-Both these two novelties—like the poetry and other accomplishments
-of this memorable race—grew up from rude indigenous beginnings,
-under native stimulus unborrowed and unassisted from without. The
-rhetorical teaching was an attempt to assist and improve men in the
-power of continuous speech as addressed to assembled numbers, such as
-the public assembly or the dikastery; it was therefore a species of
-training sought for by men of active pursuits and ambition, either
-that they might succeed in public life, or that they might maintain
-their rights and dignity if called before the court of justice. On
-the other hand, the dialectic business had no direct reference to
-public life, to the judicial pleading, or to any assembled large
-number. It was a dialogue carried on by two disputants, usually
-before a few hearers, to unravel some obscurity, to reduce the
-respondent to silence and contradiction, to exercise both parties
-in mastery of the subject, or to sift the consequences of some
-problematical assumption. It was spontaneous conversation[550]
-systematized and turned into some predetermined channel; furnishing
-a stimulus to thought, and a means of improvement not attainable in
-any other manner; furnishing to some, also, a source of profit or
-display. It opened a line of serious intellectual pursuit to men of
-a speculative or inquisitive turn, who were deficient in voice, in
-boldness, in continuous memory, for public speaking; or who desired
-to keep themselves apart from the political and judicial animosities
-of the moment.
-
-  [550] See Aristotel. De Sophist. Elenchis, c. 11, p. 172, ed.
-  Bekker; and his Topica, ix, 5, p. 154; where the different
-  purposes of dialogue are enumerated and distinguished.
-
-Although there were numerous Athenians, who combined, in various
-proportions, speculative with practical study, yet generally
-speaking, the two veins of intellectual movement—one towards
-active public business, the other towards enlarged opinions and
-greater command of speculative truth, with its evidences—continued
-simultaneous and separate. There subsisted between them a standing
-polemical controversy and a spirit of mutual detraction. If Plato
-despised the sophists and the rhetors, Isokratês thinks himself not
-less entitled to disparage those who employed their time in debating
-upon the unity or plurality of virtue.[551] Even among different
-teachers, in the same intellectual walk, also, there prevailed but
-too often an acrimonious feeling of personal rivalry, which laid
-them all so much the more open to assault from the common enemy of
-all mental progress; a feeling of jealous ignorance, stationary or
-wistfully retrospective, of no mean force at Athens, as in every
-other society, and of course blended at Athens with the indigenous
-democratical sentiment. This latter sentiment[552] of antipathy to
-new ideas, and new mental accomplishments, has been raised into
-factitious importance by the comic genius of Aristophanês, whose
-point of view modern authors have too often accepted; thus allowing
-some of the worst feelings of Grecian antiquity to influence their
-manner of conceiving the facts. Moreover, they have rarely made any
-allowance for that force of literary and philosophical antipathy,
-which was no less real and constant at Athens than the political; and
-which made the different literary classes or individuals perpetually
-unjust one towards another.[553] It was the blessing and the glory
-of Athens, that every man could speak out his sentiments and his
-criticisms with a freedom unparalleled in the ancient world, and
-hardly paralleled even in the modern, in which a vast body of dissent
-both is, and always has been, condemned to absolute silence. But this
-known latitude of censure ought to have imposed on modern authors
-a peremptory necessity of not accepting implicitly the censure of
-any one, where the party inculpated has left no defence; at the
-very least, of construing the censure strictly, and allowing for
-the point of view from which it proceeds. From inattention to this
-necessity, almost all the things and persons of Grecian history are
-presented to us on their bad side; the libels of Aristophanês, the
-sneers of Plato and Xenophon, even the interested generalities of a
-plaintiff or defendant before the dikastery, are received with little
-cross-examination as authentic materials for history.
-
-  [551] See Isokratês, Orat. x; Helenæ Encomium, sects. 2-7;
-  compare Orat. xv, De Permutatione, of the same author, s. 90.
-
-  I hold it for certain, that the first of these passages is
-  intended as a criticism upon the Platonic dialogues (as in Or. v,
-  ad Philip. s. 84), probably the second passage also. Isokratês,
-  evidently a cautious and timid man, avoids mentioning the names
-  of contemporaries, that he may provoke the less animosity.
-
-  [552] Isokratês alludes much to this sentiment, and to the men
-  who looked upon gymnastic training with greater favor than upon
-  philosophy, in the Orat. xv, De Permutatione, s. 267, _et seq._ A
-  large portion of this oration is in fact a reply to accusations,
-  the same as those preferred against mental cultivation by the
-  Δίκαιος Λόγος in the Nubes of Aristophanês, 947, _seq._; favorite
-  topics in the mouths of the pugilists “with smashed ears.”
-  (Plato, Gorgias, c. 71, p. 515, E; τῶν τὰ ὦτα κατεαγότων.)
-
-  [553] There is but too much evidence of the abundance of such
-  jealousies and antipathies during the times of Plato, Aristotle,
-  and Isokratês; see Stahr’s Aristotelia, ch. iii, vol. i, pp. 37,
-  68.
-
-  Aristotle was extremely jealous of the success of Isokratês, and
-  was himself much assailed by pupils of the latter, Kephisodôrus
-  and others, as well as by Dikæarchus, Eubulidês, and a numerous
-  host of writers in the same tone: στρατὸν ὅλον τῶν ἐπιθεμένων
-  Ἀριστοτέλει; see the Fragments of Dikæarchus, vol. ii, p. 225,
-  ed. Didot. “De ingenio ejus (observes Cicero, in reference to
-  Epicurus, de Finibus, ii, 25, 80) in his disputationibus, non de
-  moribus, quæritur. Sit ista in Græcorum levitate perversitas, qui
-  maledictis insectantur eos, a quibus de veritate dissentiunt.”
-  This is a taint no way peculiar to _Grecian_ philosophical
-  controversy; but it has nowhere been more infectious than among
-  the Greeks, and modern historians cannot be too much on their
-  guard against it.
-
-If ever there was need to invoke this rare sentiment of candor, it is
-when we come to discuss the history of the persons called sophists,
-who now for the first time appear as of note; the practical teachers
-of Athens and of Greece, misconceived as well as misesteemed.
-
-The primitive education at Athens consisted of two branches;
-gymnastics, for the body; music, for the mind. The word _music_
-is not to be judged according to the limited signification which
-it now bears. It comprehended, from the beginning, everything
-appertaining to the province of the Nine Muses; not merely learning
-the use of the lyre, or how to bear part in a chorus; but also the
-hearing, learning, and repeating, of poetical compositions, as well
-as the practice of exact and elegant pronunciation; which latter
-accomplishment, in a language like the Greek, with long words,
-measured syllables, and great diversity of accentuation between
-one word and another, must have been far more difficult to acquire
-than it is in any modern European language. As the range of ideas
-enlarged, so the words _music_ and musical teachers acquired an
-expanded meaning, so as to comprehend matter of instruction at once
-ampler and more diversified. During the middle of the fifth century
-B.C., at Athens, there came thus to be found, among the musical
-teachers, men of the most distinguished abilities and eminence;
-masters of all the learning and accomplishments of the age, teaching
-what was known of astronomy, geography, and physics, and capable
-of holding dialectical discussions with their pupils, upon all
-the various problems then afloat among intellectual men. Of this
-character were Lamprus, Agathoklês, Pythokleidês, Damon, etc. The
-two latter were instructors of Periklês; and Damon was even rendered
-so unpopular at Athens, partly by his large and free speculations,
-partly through the political enemies of his great pupil, that he was
-ostracized, or at least sentenced to banishment.[554] Such men were
-competent companions for Anaxagoras and Zeno, and employed in part
-on the same studies; the field of acquired knowledge being not then
-large enough to be divided into separate, exclusive compartments.
-While Euripidês frequented the company, and acquainted himself with
-the opinions, of Anaxagoras, Ion of Chios, his rival as a tragic
-poet, as well as the friend of Kimon, bestowed so much thought upon
-physical subjects, as then conceived, that he set up a theory of his
-own, propounding the doctrine of three elements in nature;[555] air,
-fire, and earth.
-
-  [554] See Plato (Protagoras, c. 8, p. 316, D.; Lachês, c. 3, p.
-  180, D.; Menexenus, c. 3, p. 236, A; Alkibiad. i, c. 14, p. 118,
-  C); Plutarch, Periklês, c. 4.
-
-  Periklês had gone through dialectic practice in his youth
-  (Xenoph. Memor. i, 2, 46).
-
-  [555] Isokratês, Or. xv, De Permutat. sect. 287.
-
-  Compare Brandis, Gesch. der Gr. Röm. Philosophie, part i, sect.
-  48, p. 196.
-
-Now such musical teachers as Damon and the others above mentioned,
-were sophists, not merely in the natural and proper Greek sense
-of that word, but, to a certain extent, even in the special and
-restricted meaning which Plato afterwards thought proper to confer
-upon it.[556] A sophist, in the genuine sense of the word, was a
-wise man, a clever man; one who stood prominently before the public
-as distinguished for intellect or talent of some kind. Thus Solon
-and Pythagoras are both called sophists; Thamyras the skilful bard,
-is called a sophist:[557] Sokratês is so denominated, not merely
-by Aristophanês, but by Æschinês:[558] Aristotle himself calls
-Aristippus, and Xenophon calls Antisthenês, both of them disciples
-of Sokratês, by that name:[559] Xenophon,[560] in describing a
-collection of instructive books, calls them “the writings of the
-old poets and sophists,” meaning by the latter word prose-writers
-generally: Plato is alluded to as a sophist, even by Isokratês:[561]
-Isokratês himself was harshly criticized as a sophist, and defends
-both himself and his profession: lastly, Timon, the friend and
-admirer of Pyrrho, about 300-280 B.C., who bitterly satirized all the
-philosophers, designated them all, including Plato and Aristotle, by
-the general name of sophists.[562] In this large and comprehensive
-sense the word was originally used, and always continued to be so
-understood among the general public. But along with this idea, the
-title sophist also carried with it or connoted a certain invidious
-feeling. The natural temper of a people generally ignorant towards
-superior intellect,—the same temper which led to those charges of
-magic so frequent in the Middle Ages,—appears to be a union of
-admiration with something of an unfavorable sentiment;[563] dislike,
-or apprehension, as the case may be, unless where the latter element
-has become neutralized by habitual respect for an established
-profession or station: at any rate, the unfriendly sentiment is so
-often intended, that a substantive word, in which it is implied
-without the necessity of any annexed predicate, is soon found
-convenient. Timon, who hated the philosophers, thus found the word
-sophist exactly suitable, in sentiment as well as meaning, to his
-purpose in addressing them.
-
-  [556] Isokratês calls both Anaxagoras and Damon, sophists (Or.
-  xv, De Perm. sect. 251), Plutarch, Periklês, c. 4. Ὁ δὲ Δάμων
-  ἐοικεν, ἄκρος ὢν σοφιστὴς, καταδύεσθαι μὲν εἰς τὸ τῆς μουσικῆς
-  ὄνομα, ἐπικρυπτόμενος πρὸς τοὺς πολλοὺς τὴν δεινότητα.
-
-  So Protagoras too (in the speech put into his mouth by Plato,
-  Protag. c. 8, p. 316) says, very truly, that there had been
-  sophists from the earliest times of Greece. But he says also,
-  what Plutarch says in the citation just above, that these earlier
-  men refused, intentionally and deliberately, to call themselves
-  sophists, for fear of the odium attached to the name; and that
-  he, Protagoras, was the first person to call himself openly a
-  sophist.
-
-  The denomination by which a man is known, however, seldom depends
-  upon himself, but upon the general public, and upon his critics,
-  friendly or hostile. The unfriendly spirit of Plato did much more
-  to attach the title of sophists specially to these teachers, than
-  any assumption of their own.
-
-  [557] Herodot. i, 29; ii, 49; iv, 95. Diogenês of Apollonia,
-  contemporary of Herodotus, called the Ionic philosophers or
-  physiologists by the name sophists: see Brandis, Geschich. der
-  Griech. Röm. Philosoph. c. lvii, note _O_. About Thamyras, see
-  Welcker, Griech. Tragöd., Sophoklês, p. 421:—
-
-      Εἰτ᾽ οὖν σοφιστὴς καλὰ παραπαίων χέλυν, etc.
-
-  The comic poet Kratinus called all the poets, including Homer and
-  Hesiod, σοφισταί: see the Fragments of his drama Ἀρχίλοχοι in
-  Meineke, Fragm. Comicor. Græcor. vol. ii, p. 16.
-
-  [558] Æschinês cont. Timarch. c. 34. Æschinês calls Demosthenês
-  also a sophist, c. 27.
-
-  We see plainly from the terms in Plato’s Politicus, c. 38, p.
-  299 B, μετεωρολόγον, ἀδολεσχήν τινα σοφιστὴν, that both Sokratês
-  and Plato himself were designated as sophists by the Athenian
-  public.
-
-  [559] Aristotel. Metaphysic. iii, 2, p. 996; Xenophon, Sympos.
-  iv, 1.
-
-  Aristippus is said to have been the first of the disciples of
-  Sokratês who took money for instruction (Diogen. Laërt. ii, 65).
-
-  [560] Xenoph. Memor. iv, 2, 1. γράμματα πολλὰ συνειλεγμένον
-  ποιητῶν τε καὶ σοφιστῶν τῶν εὐδοκιμωτάτων....
-
-  The word σοφιστῶν is here used just in the same sense as τοὺς
-  θησαυροὺς ~τῶν πάλαι σοφῶν ἀνδρῶν~, οὓς ἐκεῖνοι κατέλιπον ἐν
-  βιβλίοις γράψαντες, etc. (Memor. i, 6, 14.) It is used in a
-  different sense in another passage (i, 1, 11), to signify
-  teachers who gave instruction on physical and astronomical
-  subjects, which Sokratês and Xenophon both disapproved.
-
-  [561] Isokratês, Orat. v, ad Philipp. sect. 14: see Heindorf’s
-  note on the Euthydemus of Plato, p. 305, C. sect. 79.
-
-  [562] Diogen. Laërt. ix, 65. Ἔσπετε νῦν μοι, ὅσοι πολυπράγμονές
-  ἐστε σοφισταί (Diogen. Laërt. viii, 74).
-
-  Demetrius of Trœzen numbered Empedoklês as a sophist. Isokratês
-  speaks of Empedoklês, Ion, Alkmæon, Parmenidês, Melissus,
-  Gorgias, all as οἱ παλαιοὶ σοφισταί; all as having taught
-  different περιττολογίας about the elements of the physical world
-  (Isok. de Permut. sect. 288).
-
-  [563] Eurip. Med. 289:—
-
-      Χρὴ δ᾽ οὔποθ᾽ ὅστις ἀρτίφρων πέφυκ᾽ ἀνὴρ,
-      Παῖδας περισσῶς ἐκδιδάσκεσθαι σοφούς.
-      Χωρὶς γὰρ ἄλλης, ἧς ἔχουσιν, ἀργίας,
-      Φθόνον πρὸς ἀστῶν ἀλφάνουσι δυσμενῆ.
-
-  The words ὁ περισσῶς σοφὸς seem to convey the same unfriendly
-  sentiment as the word σοφιστής.
-
-Now when (in the period succeeding 450 B.C.) the rhetorical and
-musical teachers came to stand before the public at Athens in
-such increased eminence, they of course, as well as other men
-intellectually celebrated, became designated by the appropriate name
-of sophists. But there was one characteristic peculiar to themselves,
-whereby they drew upon themselves a double measure of that invidious
-sentiment which lay wrapped up in the name. They taught for pay: of
-course, therefore, the most eminent among them taught only the rich,
-and earned large sums; a fact naturally provocative of envy, to some
-extent, among the many who benefited nothing by them, but still
-more among the inferior members of their own profession. But even
-great minds, like Sokratês and Plato, though much superior to any
-such envy, cherished in that age a genuine and vehement repugnance
-against receiving pay for teaching. We read in Xenophon,[564] that
-Sokratês considered such a bargain as nothing less than servitude,
-robbing the teacher of all free choice as to persons or proceeding;
-and that he assimilated the relation between teacher and pupil to
-that between two lovers or two intimate friends; which was thoroughly
-dishonored, robbed of its charm and reciprocity, and prevented from
-bringing about its legitimate reward of attachment and devotion,
-by the intervention of money payment. However little in harmony
-with modern ideas, such was the conscientious sentiment of Sokratês
-and Plato; who therefore considered the name sophists, denoting
-intellectual celebrity combined with an odious association, as
-preëminently suitable to the leading teachers for pay. The splendid
-genius, the lasting influence, and the reiterated polemics, of Plato,
-have stamped it upon the men against whom he wrote as if it were
-their recognized, legitimate, and peculiar designation: though it
-is certain, that if, in the middle of the Peloponnesian war, any
-Athenian had been asked, “Who are the principal sophists in your
-city?” he would have named Sokratês among the first; for Sokratês
-was at once eminent as an intellectual teacher and personally
-unpopular, not because he received pay, but on other grounds, which
-will be hereafter noticed: and this was the precise combination
-of qualities which the general public naturally expressed by a
-sophist. Moreover, Plato not only stole the name out of general
-circulation, in order to fasten it specially upon his opponents,
-the paid teachers, but also connected with it express discreditable
-attributes, which formed no part of its primitive and recognized
-meaning, and were altogether distinct from, though grafted upon, the
-vague sentiment of dislike associated with it. Aristotle, following
-the example of his master, gave to the word sophist a definition
-substantially the same as that which it bears in the modern
-languages:[565] “an impostrous pretender to knowledge; a man who
-employs what he knows to be fallacy, for the purpose of deceit and of
-getting money.” And he did this at a time when he himself, with his
-estimable contemporary Isokratês, were considered at Athens to come
-under the designation of sophists, and were called so by every one
-who disliked either their profession or their persons.[566]
-
-  [564] Xenoph. Memor. i, 2, 6. In another passage, the sophist
-  Antiphon—whether this is the celebrated Antiphon of the deme
-  Rhamnus, is uncertain; the commentators lean to the negative—is
-  described as conversing with Sokratês, and saying that Sokratês
-  of course must imagine his own conversation to be worth nothing,
-  since he asked no price from his scholars. To which Sokratês
-  replies:—
-
-  Ὦ Ἀντιφῶν, παρ᾽ ἡμῖν νομίζεται, τὴν ὥραν καὶ τὴν σοφίαν ὁμοίως
-  μὲν καλὸν, ὁμοίως δὲ αἰσχρὸν, διατίθεσθαι εἶναι. Τήν τε γὰρ ὥραν,
-  ἐὰν μέν τις ἀργυρίου πωλῇ τῷ βουλομένῳ, πόρνον αὐτὸν ἀποκαλοῦσιν·
-  ἐὰν δέ τις, ὃν ἂν γνῷ καλόν τε κἀγαθὸν ἐραστὴν ὄντα, τοῦτον φίλον
-  ἑαυτῷ ποιῆται, σώφρονα νομίζομεν. Καὶ ~τὴν σοφίαν~ ὡσαύτως τοὺς
-  μὲν ~ἀργυρίου τῷ βουλομένῳ πωλοῦντας, σοφιστὰς ὥσπερ πόρνους~
-  ἀποκαλοῦσιν· ὅστις δὲ, ὃν ἂν γνῷ εὐφυᾶ ὄντα, διδάσκων ὅ,τι ἂν ἔχῃ
-  ἀγαθὸν, φίλον ποιεῖται, τοῦτον νομίζομεν, ἃ τῷ καλῷ κἀγαθῷ πολίτῃ
-  προσήκει, ταῦτα ποιεῖν (Xenoph. Memor. i, 6, 13).
-
-  As an evidence of the manners and sentiment of the age, this
-  passage is extremely remarkable. Various parts of the oration of
-  Æschinês against Timarchus, and the Symposion of Plato, pp. 217,
-  218, both receive and give light to it.
-
-  Among the numerous passages in which Plato expresses his dislike
-  and contempt of teaching for money, see his Sophistes, c. 9, p.
-  223. Plato, indeed, thought that it was unworthy of a virtuous
-  man to accept salary for the discharge of any public duty: see
-  the Republic, i, 19, p. 347.
-
-  [565] Aristot. Rhetoric. i, 1, 4; where he explains the sophist
-  to be a person who has the same powers as the dialectician,
-  but abuses them for a bad purpose: ἡ γὰρ σοφιστικὴ, οὐκ ἐν τῇ
-  δυνάμει, ἀλλ᾽ ἐν τῇ προαιρέσει.... Ἐκεῖ δὲ, σοφιστὴς μὲν, κατὰ
-  τὴν προαίρεσιν, διαλεκτικὸς δὲ, οὐ κατὰ τὴν προαίρεσιν ἀλλὰ
-  κατὰ τὴν δύναμιν. Again, in the first chapter of the treatise
-  de Sophisticis Elenchis: ὁ σοφιστὴς, χρηματιστὴς ἀπὸ φαινομένης
-  σοφίας, ἀλλ᾽ οὐκ οὔσης, etc.
-
-  [566] Respecting Isokratês, see his Orat. xv, De Permutatione,
-  wherein it is evident that he was not only ranked as a sophist
-  by others, but also considered himself as such, though the
-  appellation was one which he did not like. He considers himself
-  as such, as well as Gorgias: οἱ καλούμενοι σοφισταί; sects. 166,
-  169, 213, 231.
-
-  Respecting Aristotle, we have only to read not merely the passage
-  of Timon cited in a previous note, but also the bitter slander
-  of Timæus (Frag. 70. ed. Didot, Polybius, xii, 8), who called
-  him ~σοφιστὴν ὀψιμαθῆ καὶ μισητὸν ὑπάρχοντα~, καὶ τὸ πολυτίμητον
-  ἰατρεῖον ἀρτίως ἀποκεκλεικότα, πρὸς δὲ τούτοις, εἰς πᾶσαν αὐλὴν
-  καὶ σκήνην ἐμπεπηδηκότα· πρὸς δὲ, γαστρίμαργον, ὀψαρτύτην, ἐπὶ
-  στόμα φερόμενον ἐν πᾶσι.
-
-Great thinkers and writers, like Plato and Aristotle, have full right
-to define and employ words in a sense of their own, provided they
-give due notice. But it is essential that the reader should keep in
-mind the consequences of such change, and not mistake a word used in
-a new sense for a new fact or phenomenon. The age with which we are
-now dealing, the last half of the fifth century B.C., is commonly
-distinguished in the history of philosophy as the age of Sokratês and
-the sophists. The sophists are spoken of as a new class of men, or
-sometimes in language which implies a new doctrinal sect, or school,
-as if they then sprang up in Greece for the first time; ostentatious
-imposters, flattering and duping the rich youth for their own
-personal gain; undermining the morality of Athens, public and
-private, and encouraging their pupils to the unscrupulous prosecution
-of ambition and cupidity. They are even affirmed to have succeeded in
-corrupting the general morality, so that Athens had become miserably
-degenerated and vicious in the latter years of the Peloponnesian
-war, as compared with what she was in the time of Miltiadês and
-Aristeidês. Sokratês, on the contrary, is usually described as a
-holy man combating and exposing these false prophets, standing up as
-the champion of morality against their insidious artifices.[567] Now
-though the appearance of a man so very original as Sokratês was a new
-fact of unspeakable importance, the appearance of the sophists was
-no new fact; what was new was the peculiar use of an old word, which
-Plato took out of its usual meaning, and fastened upon the eminent
-paid teachers of the Sokratic age.
-
-  [567] In the general point of view here described, the sophists
-  are presented by _Ritter_, Geschichte der Griech. Philosophie,
-  vol. i, book vi, chaps. 1-3, p. 577, _seq._, 629, _seq._; by
-  _Brandis_, Gesch. der Gr. Röm. Philos. sects, lxxxiv-lxxxvii,
-  vol. i, p. 516, _seq._; by _Zeller_, Geschichte der Philosoph.
-  ii. pp. 65, 69, 165, etc.: and, indeed, by almost all who treat
-  of the sophists.
-
-The paid teachers, with whom, under the name of The Sophists, he
-brings Sokratês into controversy, were Protagoras of Abdêra, Gorgias
-of Leontini, Polus of Agrigentum, Hippias of Elis, Prodikus of Keos,
-Thrasymachus of Chalkêdon, Euthydêmus and Dionysodorus of Chios; to
-whom Xenophon adds Antiphon of Athens. These men—whom modern writers
-set down as the sophists, and denounce as the moral pestilence of
-their age—were not distinguished in any marked or generic way from
-their predecessors. Their vocation was to train up youth for the
-duties, the pursuits, and the successes, of active life, both private
-and public. Others had done this before; but these teachers brought
-to the task a larger range of knowledge with a greater multiplicity
-of scientific and other topics; not only more impressive powers of
-composition and speech, serving as a personal example to the pupil,
-but also a comprehension of the elements of good speaking, so as to
-be able to give him precepts conducive to that accomplishment;[568] a
-considerable treasure of accumulated thought on moral and political
-subjects, calculated to make their conversation very instructive,
-and discourse ready prepared, on general heads or _common places_,
-for their pupils to learn by heart.[569] But this, though a very
-important extension, was nothing more than an extension, differing
-merely in degree of that which Damon and others had done before
-them. It arose from the increased demand which had grown up among
-the Athenian youth, for a larger measure of education and other
-accomplishments; from an elevation in the standard of what was
-required from every man who aspired to occupy a place in the eyes
-of his fellow-citizens. Protagoras, Gorgias, and the rest, supplied
-this demand with an ability and success unknown before their time;
-hence they gained a distinction such as none of their predecessors
-had attained, were prized all over Greece, travelled from city to
-city with general admiration, and obtained considerable pay. While
-such success, among men personally strangers to them, attests
-unequivocally their talent and personal dignity, of course it also
-laid them open to increased jealousy, as well from inferior teachers
-as from the lovers of ignorance generally: such jealousy manifesting
-itself, as I have before explained, by a greater readiness to stamp
-them with the obnoxious title of sophists.
-
-  [568] Compare Isokratês, Orat. xiii. cont. Sophistas, sects.
-  19-21.
-
-  [569] Aristot. Sophist. Elench. c. 33; Cicero, Brut. c. 12.
-
-The hostility of Plato against these teachers,—for it is he, and
-not Sokratês, who was peculiarly hostile to them, as may be seen
-by the absence of any such marked antithesis in the Memorabilia
-of Xenophon,—may be explained without at all supposing in them
-that corruption which modern writers have been so ready not only
-to admit but to magnify. It arose from the radical difference
-between his point of view and theirs. He was a great reformer and
-theorist; they undertook to qualify young men for doing themselves
-credit, and rendering service to others, in active Athenian life.
-Not only is there room for the concurrent operation of both these
-veins of thought and action, in every progressive society, but the
-intellectual outfit of the society can never be complete without
-the one as well as the other. It was the glory of Athens that both
-were there adequately represented, at the period which we have now
-reached. Whoever peruses Plato’s immortal work, “The Republic,”
-will see that he dissented from society, both democratical and
-oligarchical, on some of the most fundamental points of public and
-private morality; and throughout most of his dialogues his quarrel
-is not less with the statesmen, past as well as present, than with
-the paid teachers of Athens. Besides this ardent desire for radical
-reform of the state, on principles of his own, distinct from every
-recognized political party or creed, Plato was also unrivalled as a
-speculative genius and as a dialectician; both which capacities he
-put forth, to amplify and illustrate the ethical theory and method
-first struck out by Sokratês, as well as to establish comprehensive
-generalities of his own.
-
-Now his reforming, as well as his theorizing tendencies, brought
-him into polemical controversy with all the leading agents by whom
-the business of practical life at Athens was carried on. In so
-far as Protagoras or Gorgias talked the language of theory, they
-were doubtless much inferior to Plato, nor would their doctrines
-be likely to hold against his acute dialectics. But it was neither
-their duty, nor their engagement, to reform the state, or discover
-and vindicate the best theory on ethics. They professed to qualify
-young Athenians for an active and honorable life, private as well as
-public, _in Athens_, or in any other given city; they taught them “to
-think, speak, and act,” _in Athens_; they of course accepted, as the
-basis of their teaching, that type of character which estimable men
-exhibited and which the public approved, _in Athens_; not undertaking
-to recast the type, but to arm it with new capacities and adorn it
-with fresh accomplishments. Their direct business was with ethical
-precept, not with ethical theory; all that was required of them, as
-to the latter, was, that their theory should be sufficiently sound
-to lead to such practical precepts as were accounted virtuous
-by the most estimable society _in Athens_. It ought never to be
-forgotten, that those who taught for active life were bound, by the
-very conditions of their profession, to adapt themselves to the place
-and the society as it stood. With the theorist Plato, not only there
-was no such obligation, but the grandeur and instructiveness of his
-speculations were realized only by his departing from it, and placing
-himself on a loftier pinnacle of vision; and he himself[570] not only
-admits, but even exaggerates, the unfitness and repugnance of men,
-taught in his school, for practical life and duties.
-
-  [570] See a striking passage in Plato, Theætet. c. 24, pp. 173,
-  174.
-
-To understand the essential difference between the practical and
-the theoretical point of view, we need only look to Isokratês,
-the pupil of Gorgias, and himself a sophist. Though not a man of
-commanding abilities, Isokratês was one of the most estimable men
-of Grecian antiquity. He taught for money; and taught young men to
-“think, speak, and act,” all with a view to an honorable life of
-active citizenship; not concealing his marked disparagement[571] of
-speculative study and debate, such as the dialogues of Plato and the
-dialectic exercises generally. He defends his profession much in the
-same way as his master Gorgias, or Protagoras, would have defended
-it, if we had before us vindications from their pens. Isokratês at
-Athens, and Quintilian, a man equally estimable at Rome, are, in
-their general type of character and professional duty, the fair
-counterpart of those whom Plato arraigns as the sophists.
-
-  [571] Isokratês, Orat. v (ad. Philip.), sect. 14; Orat. x (Enc.
-  Hel.), sect. 2; Orat. xiii (adv. Sophist.), sect. 9 (compare
-  Heindorf’s note ad Platon. Euthydem. sect. 79); Orat. xii
-  (Panath.), sect. 126; Orat. xv (Perm.), sect. 90.
-
-  Isokratês, in the beginning of his Orat. x, Encom. Helenæ,
-  censures all the speculative teachers; first, Antisthenês and
-  Plato (without naming them, but identifying them sufficiently
-  by their doctrines); next, Protagoras, Gorgias, Melissus, Zeno,
-  etc., by name, as having wasted their time and teaching on
-  fruitless paradox and controversy. He insists upon the necessity
-  of teaching with a view to political life and to the course of
-  actual public events, abandoning these useless studies (sect. 6).
-
-  It is remarkable that what Isokratês recommends is just what
-  Protagoras and Gorgias are represented as actually doing—each
-  doubtless in his own way—in the dialogues of Plato, who censures
-  them for being too practical, while Isokratês, commenting on them
-  from various publications which they left, treats them only as
-  teachers of useless speculations.
-
-  In the Oration De Permutatione, composed when he was eighty-two
-  years of age (sect. 10, the orations above cited are earlier
-  compositions, especially Orat. xiii, against the sophists, see
-  sect. 206), Isokratês stands upon the defensive, and vindicates
-  his profession against manifold aspersions. It is a most
-  interesting oration, as a defence of the educators of Athens
-  generally, and would serve perfectly well as a vindication of
-  the teaching of Protagoras, Gorgias, Hippias, etc., against the
-  reproaches of Plato.
-
-  This oration should be read, if only to get at the genuine
-  Athenian sense of the word sophists, as distinguished from the
-  technical sense which Plato and Aristotle fasten upon it. The
-  word is here used in its largest sense, as distinguished from
-  ἰδιώταις (sect. 159): it meant, literary men or philosophers
-  generally, but especially the professional teachers: it carried,
-  however, an obnoxious sense, and was therefore used as little as
-  possible by themselves; as much as possible by those who disliked
-  them.
-
-  Isokratês, though he does not willingly call himself by
-  this unpleasant name, yet is obliged to acknowledge himself
-  unreservedly as one of the profession, in the same category as
-  Gorgias (sects. 165, 179, 211, 213, 231, 256), and defends the
-  general body as well as himself; distinguishing himself of course
-  from the bad members of the profession, those who pretended to
-  be sophists, but devoted themselves to something different in
-  reality (sect. 230).
-
-  This professional teaching, and the teachers, are signified
-  indiscriminately by these words: οἱ σοφισταί—οἱ περὶ τὴν
-  φιλοσοφίαν διατρίβοντες—τὴν φιλοσοφίαν ἀδίκως διαβεβλημένην
-  (sects. 44, 157, 159, 179, 211, 217, 219)—ἡ τῶν λόγων παιδεία—ἡ
-  τῶν λόγων μελέτη—ἡ φιλοσοφία—ἡ τῆς φρονήσεως ἄσκησις—τῆς ἐμῆς,
-  εἴτε βούλεσθε καλεῖν δυνάμεως, εἴτε φιλοσοφίας, εἴτε διατρίβης
-  (sects. 53, 187, 189, 193, 196). All these expressions mean the
-  same process of training; that is, general mental training as
-  opposed to bodily (sects. 194, 199), and intended to cultivate
-  the powers of thought, speech, and action: πρὸς τὸ λέγειν καὶ
-  φρονεῖν—τοῦ φρονεῖν εὖ καὶ λέγειν—τὸ λέγειν καὶ πράττειν (sects.
-  221, 261, 285, 296, 330).
-
-  Isokratês does not admit any such distinction between the
-  philosopher and dialectician on the one side, and the sophist on
-  the other, as Plato and Aristotle contend for. He does not like
-  dialectical exercises: yet he admits them to be useful for youth,
-  as a part of intellectual training, on condition that all such
-  speculations shall be dropped, when the youth come into active
-  life (sects. 280, 287).
-
-  This is the same language as that of Kalliklês in the Gorgias of
-  Plato, c. 40, p. 484.
-
-We know these latter chiefly from the evidence of Plato, their
-pronounced enemy; yet even his evidence, when construed candidly and
-taken as a whole, will not be found to justify the charges of corrupt
-and immoral teaching, impostrous pretence of knowledge, etc., which
-the modern historians pour forth in loud chorus against them. I know
-few characters in history who have been so hardly dealt with as
-these so-called sophists. They bear the penalty of their name, in
-its modern sense; a misleading association, from which few modern
-writers take pains to emancipate either themselves or their readers,
-though the English or French word sophist is absolutely inapplicable
-to Protagoras or Gorgias, who ought to be called rather “professors,
-or public teachers.” It is really surprising to read the expositions
-prefixed by learned men like Stallbaum and others, to the Platonic
-dialogues entitled Protagoras, Gorgias, Euthydêmus, Theætêtus, etc.,
-where Plato introduces Sokratês either in personal controversy with
-one or other of these sophists, or as canvassing their opinions.
-We continually read from the pen of the expositor, such remarks as
-these: “Mark, how Plato puts down the shallow and worthless sophist;”
-the obvious reflection, that it is Plato himself who plays both games
-on the chess-board, being altogether overlooked. And again: “This or
-that argument, placed in the mouth of Sokratês, is not to be regarded
-as the real opinion of Plato: he only takes it up and enforces it
-at this moment, in order to puzzle and humiliate an ostentatious
-pretender;”[572] a remark which converts Plato into an insincere
-disputant, and a sophist in the modern sense, at the very moment
-when the commentator is extolling his pure and lofty morality as an
-antidote against the alleged corruption of Gorgias and Protagoras.
-
-  [572] Stallbaum, Proleg. ad Platon. Protagor. p. 23: “Hoc vero
-  ejus judicio ita utitur Socrates, ut eum dehinc dialecticâ
-  subtilitate in summam consilii inopiam conjiciat. Colligit enim
-  inde _satis captiose_ rebus ita comparatis justitiam, quippe quæ
-  a sanctitate diversa sit, plane nihil sanctitatis habituram, ac
-  vicissim sanctitati nihil fore commune cum justitiâ. Respondet
-  quidem ad hæc Protagoras, justitiam ac sanctitatem non per omnia
-  sibi similes esse, nec tamen etiam prorsus dissimiles videri. Sed
-  etsi _verissima est hæc ejus sententia_, tamen comparatione illâ
-  a partibus faciei repetitâ, _in fraudem inductus_, et quid sit,
-  in quo omnis virtutis natura contineatur, ignarus, sese ex his
-  difficultatibus adeo non potest expedire,” etc.
-
-  Again, p. 24: “Itaque Socrates, missâ hujus rei disputatione,
-  _repente ad alia progreditur_, scilicet _similibus laqueis
-  hominem deinceps denuo irretiturus_.” ... “Nemini facile obscurum
-  erit, hoc quoque loco, Protagoram _argutis conclusiunculis deludi
-  atque callide eo permoveri_,” etc. ... p. 25: “Quanquam nemo
-  erit, quin videat _callide deludi Protagoram_,” etc. ... p. 34:
-  “Quod si autem ea, quæ in Protagorâ _Sophistæ ridendi causâ_
-  e vulgi atque sophistarum ratione disputantur, in Gorgiâ ex
-  ipsius philosophi mente et sententiâ vel brevius proponuntur vel
-  copiosius disputantur,” etc.
-
-  Compare similar observations of Stallbaum, in his Prolegom. ad
-  Theætet. pp. 12, 22; ad Menon. p. 16; ad Euthydemum, pp. 26, 30;
-  ad Lachetem, p. 11; ad Lysidem, pp. 79, 80, 87; ad Hippiam Major.
-  pp. 154-156.
-
-  “Facile apparet Socratem _argutâ_, quæ verbo φαίνεσθαι inest,
-  _diologiâ interlocutorem_ (Hippiam Sophistam) _in fraudem
-  inducere_.” ... “Illud quidem pro certo et explorato habemus, non
-  serio sed _ridendi verandique Sophistæ gratiâ gravissimam illam
-  sententiam in dubitationem vocari_, ideoque iis conclusiunculis
-  labefactari, quas quilibet paulo attentior facile intelligat non
-  ad fidem faciendam, sed ad lusum jocumque, esse comparatas.”
-
-Plato has devoted a long and interesting dialogue to the inquiry,
-What is a sophist?[573] and it is curious to observe that the
-definition which he at last brings out suits Sokratês himself,
-intellectually speaking, better than any one else whom we know.
-Cicero defines the sophist to be one who pursues philosophy for the
-sake of ostentation or of gain;[574] which, if it is to be held as
-a reproach, will certainly bear hard upon the great body of modern
-teachers, who are determined to embrace their profession and to
-discharge its important duties, like other professional men, by the
-prospect either of deriving an income or of making a figure in it,
-or both, whether they have any peculiar relish for the occupation
-or not. But modern writers, in describing Protagoras or Gorgias,
-while they adopt the sneering language of Plato against teaching
-for pay, low purposes, tricks to get money from the rich, etc., use
-terms which lead the reader to believe that there was something
-in these sophists peculiarly greedy, exorbitant, and truckling;
-something beyond the mere fact of asking and receiving remuneration.
-Now not only there is no proof that any of them were thus dishonest
-or exorbitant, but in the case of Protagoras, even his enemy Plato
-furnishes a proof that he was not so. In the Platonic dialogue
-termed Protagoras, that sophist is introduced as describing the
-manner in which he proceeded respecting remuneration from his pupils.
-“I make no stipulation beforehand: when a pupil parts from me, I
-ask from him such a sum as I think the time and the circumstances
-warrant; and I add, that if he deems the demand too great, he has
-only to make up his own mind what is the amount of improvement
-which my company has procured to him, and what sum he considers
-an equivalent for it. I am content to accept the sum so named by
-himself, only requiring him to go into a temple and make oath that
-it is his sincere belief.”[575] It is not easy to imagine a more
-dignified way of dealing than this, nor one which more thoroughly
-attests an honorable reliance on the internal consciousness of the
-scholar, on the grateful sense of improvement realized, which to
-every teacher constitutes a reward hardly inferior to the payment
-that proceeds from it, and which, in the opinion of Sokratês,
-formed the only legitimate reward. Such is not the way in which the
-corruptors of mankind go to work.
-
-  [573] Plato, Sophistes, c. 52, p. 268.
-
-  [574] Cicero, Academ. iv, 23. Xenophon, at the close of his
-  treatise De Venatione (c. 13), introduces a sharp censure upon
-  the sophists, with very little that is specific or distinct. He
-  accuses them of teaching command and artifice of words, instead
-  of communicating useful maxims; of speaking for purposes of
-  deceit, or for their own profit, and addressing themselves to
-  rich pupils for pay; while the _philosopher_ gives his lessons to
-  every one gratuitously, without distinction of persons. This is
-  the same distinction as that taken by Sokratês and Plato, between
-  the sophist and the philosopher: compare Xenoph. De Vectigal. v,
-  4.
-
-  [575] Plato, Protagoras, c. 16, p. 328, B. Diogenes Laërtius (ix,
-  58) says that Protagoras demanded one hundred minæ as pay: little
-  stress is to be laid upon such a statement, nor is it possible
-  that he could have had one fixed rate of pay. The story told by
-  Aulus Gellius (v, 10) about the suit at law between Protagoras
-  and his disciple Euathlus, is at least amusing and ingenious.
-  Compare the story of the rhetor Skopelianus, in Philostratus,
-  Vit. Sophist. i, 21, 4.
-
-  Isokratês (Or. xv, de Perm. sect. 166) affirms that the gains
-  made by Gorgias, or by any of the eminent sophists, had never
-  been very high; that they had been greatly and maliciously
-  exaggerated; that they were very inferior to those of the great
-  dramatic actors (sect. 168).
-
-That which stood most prominent in the teaching of Gorgias and the
-other sophists, was, that they cultivated and improved the powers
-of public speaking in their pupils; one of the most essential
-accomplishments to every Athenian of consideration. For this, too,
-they have been denounced by Ritter, Brandis, and other learned
-writers on the history of philosophy, as corrupt and immoral.
-“Teaching their pupils rhetoric (it has been said), they only enabled
-them to second unjust designs, to make the worse appear the better
-reason, and to delude their hearers, by trick and artifice, into
-false persuasion and show of knowledge without reality. Rhetoric
-(argues Plato, in the dialogue called Gorgias) is no art whatever,
-but a mere unscientific knack, enslaved to the dominant prejudices,
-and nothing better than an impostrous parody on the true political
-art.” Now though Aristotle, following the Platonic vein, calls this
-power of making the worse appear the better reason, “the promise
-of Protagoras,”[576] the accusation ought never to be urged as if
-it bore specially against the teachers of the Sokratic age. It is
-an argument against rhetorical teaching generally; against all the
-most distinguished teachers of pupils for active life, throughout
-the ancient world, from Protagoras, Gorgias, Isokratês, etc., down
-to Quintilian. Not only does the argument bear equally against all,
-but it was actually urged against all. Isokratês[577] and Quintilian
-both defend themselves against it: Aristotle replies to it in the
-beginning of his treatise on rhetoric: nor was there ever any
-man, indeed, against whom it was pressed with greater bitterness
-of calumny than Sokratês, by Aristophanês, in his comedy of the
-“Clouds,” as well as by other comic composers. Sokratês complains
-of it in his defence before his judges;[578] characterizing such
-accusations in their true point of view, as being “the stock
-reproaches against all who pursue philosophy.” They are indeed only
-one of the manifestations, ever varying in form though the same in
-spirit, of the antipathy of ignorance against dissenting innovation
-or superior mental accomplishments; which antipathy, intellectual men
-themselves, when it happens to make on their side in a controversy,
-are but too ready to invoke. Considering that we have here the
-materials of defence, as well as of attack, supplied by Sokratês and
-Plato, it might have been expected that modern writers would have
-refrained from employing such an argument to discredit Gorgias or
-Protagoras; the rather, as they have before their eyes, in all the
-countries of modern Europe, the profession of lawyers and advocates,
-who lend their powerful eloquence without distinction to the cause
-of justice or injustice, and who, far from being regarded as the
-corrupters of society, are usually looked upon, for that very reason
-among others, as indispensable auxiliaries to a just administration
-of law.
-
-  [576] Aristot. Rhetoric. ii, 26. Ritter (p. 582) and Brandis
-  (p. 521) quote very unfairly the evidence of the “Clouds”
-  of Aristophanês, as establishing this charge, and that of
-  corrupt teaching generally, against the sophists as a body.
-  If Aristophanês is a witness against any one, he is a witness
-  against Sokratês, who is the person singled out for attack in the
-  “Clouds.” But these authors, not admitting Aristophanês as an
-  evidence against Sokratês, whom he _does_ attack, nevertheless
-  quote him as an evidence against men like Protagoras and Gorgias,
-  whom he _does not_ attack.
-
-  [577] Isokratês, Or. xv, (De Permut.) sect. 16, νῦν δὲ λέγει μὲν
-  (the accuser) ὡς ἐγὼ τοὺς ἥττους λόγους κρείττους δύναμαι ποιεῖν,
-  etc.
-
-  Ibid. sect. 32. πειρᾶταί με διαβάλλειν, ὡς διαφθείρω τοὺς
-  νεωτέρους, λέγειν διδάσκων καὶ παρὰ τὸ δίκαιον ἐν τοῖς ἀγῶσι
-  πλεονεκτεῖν, etc.
-
-  Again, sects. 59, 65, 95, 98, 187 (where he represents himself,
-  like Sokratês in his Defence, as vindicating philosophy generally
-  against the accusation of corrupting youth), 233, 256.
-
-  [578] Plato, Sok. Apolog. c. 10, p. 23, D. τὰ κατὰ πάντων τῶν
-  φιλοσοφούντων πρόχειρα ταῦτα λέγουσιν, ὅτι τὰ μετέωρα καὶ τὰ ὑπὸ
-  γῆς, καὶ θεοὺς μὴ νομίζειν, καὶ τὸν ἥττω λόγον κρείττω ποιεῖν
-  (διδάσκω). Compare a similar expression in Xenophon, Memorab. i,
-  2, 31. τὸ κοινῇ τοῖς φιλοσόφοις ὑπὸ τῶν πολλῶν ἐπιτιμώμενον, etc.
-
-  The same unfairness, in making this point tell against the
-  sophists exclusively, is to be found in Westermann, Geschichte
-  der Griech. Beredsamkeit sects. 30, 64.
-
-Though writing was less the business of these sophists than personal
-teaching, several of them published treatises. Thrasymachus
-and Theodôrus both set forth written precepts on the art of
-rhetoric;[579] precepts which have not descended to us, but which
-appear to have been narrow and special, bearing directly upon
-practice, and relating chiefly to the proper component parts of an
-oration. To Aristotle, who had attained that large and comprehensive
-view of the theory of rhetoric which still remains to instruct
-us in his splendid treatise, the views of Thrasymachus appeared
-unimportant, serving to him only as hints and materials. But their
-effect must have been very different when they first appeared,
-and when young men were first enabled to analyze the parts of an
-harangue, to understand the dependence of one upon the other, and
-call them by their appropriate names; all illustrated, let us
-recollect, by oral exposition on the part of the master, which was
-the most impressive portion of the whole.
-
-  [579] See the last chapter of Aristotle De Sophisticis Elenchis.
-  He notices these early rhetorical teachers, also, in various
-  parts of the treatise on rhetoric.
-
-  Quintilian, however, still thought the precepts of Theodôrus and
-  Thrasymachus worthy of his attention (Inst. Orat. iii, 3).
-
-Prodikus, again, published one or more treatises intended to
-elucidate the ambiguities of words, and to point out the different
-significations of terms apparently, but not really, equivalent.
-For this Plato often ridicules him, and the modern historians of
-philosophy generally think it right to adopt the same tone. Whether
-the execution of the work was at all adequate to its purpose, we have
-no means of judging; but assuredly the purpose was one preëminently
-calculated to aid Grecian thinkers and dialecticians; for no man
-can study their philosophy without seeing how lamentably they were
-hampered by enslavement to the popular phraseology, and by inferences
-founded on mere verbal analogy. At a time when neither dictionary
-nor grammar existed, a teacher who took care, even punctilious care,
-in fixing the meaning of important words of his discourse, must
-be considered as guiding the minds of his hearers in a salutary
-direction; salutary, we may add, even to Plato himself, whose
-speculations would most certainly have been improved by occasional
-hints from such a monitor.
-
-Protagoras, too, is said to have been the first who discriminated and
-gave names to the various modes and forms of address, an analysis
-well calculated to assist his lessons on right speaking:[580] he
-appears also to have been the first who distinguished the three
-genders of nouns. We hear further of a treatise which he wrote on
-wrestling, or most probably on gymnastics generally, as well as a
-collection of controversial dialogues.[581] But his most celebrated
-treatise was one entitled “Truth,” seemingly on philosophy generally.
-Of this treatise, we do not even know the general scope or purport.
-In one of his treatises, he confessed his inability to satisfy
-himself about the existence of the gods, in these words:[582]
-“Respecting the gods, I neither know whether they exist, nor what
-are their attributes: the uncertainty of the subject, the shortness
-of human life, and many other causes, debar me from this knowledge.”
-That the believing public of Athens were seriously indignant at
-this passage, and that it caused the author to be threatened with
-prosecution, and forced to quit Athens, we can perfectly understand;
-though there seems no sufficient proof of the tale that he was
-drowned in his outward voyage. But that modern historians of
-philosophy, who consider the pagan gods to be fictions, and the
-religion to be repugnant to any reasonable mind, should concur in
-denouncing Protagoras on this ground as a corrupt man, is to me less
-intelligible. Xenophanês,[583] and probably many other philosophers,
-had said the same thing before him. Nor is it easy to see what a
-superior man was to do, who could not adjust his standard of belief
-to such fictions; or what he could say, if he said anything, less
-than the words cited above from Protagoras; which appear, as far as
-we can appreciate them, standing without the context, to be a brief
-mention, in modest and circumspect phrases, of the reason why he
-said nothing about the gods, in a treatise where the reader would
-expect to find much upon the subject.[584] Certain it is that in the
-Platonic dialogue, called “Protagoras,” that sophist is introduced
-speaking about the gods exactly in the manner that any orthodox pagan
-might naturally adopt.
-
-  [580] Quintilian, Inst. Orat. iii. 4, 10; Aristot. Rhetor. iii,
-  5. See the passages cited in Preller, Histor. Philos. ch. iv, p.
-  132, note _d_, who affirms respecting Protagoras: “alia inani
-  grammaticorum principiorum ostentatione novare conabatur,” which
-  the passages cited do not prove.
-
-  [581] Isokratês, Or. x, Encom. Helen. sect. 3; Diogen. Laërt. ix,
-  54.
-
-  [582] Diogen. Laërt. ix. 51; Sext. Empir. adv. Math. ix. 56. Περὶ
-  μὲν θεῶν οὐκ ἔχω εἰπεῖν, οὔτε εἴ εἰσιν, οὐθ᾽ ὁποίοι τινές εἰσι·
-  πολλὰ γὰρ τὰ κωλύοντα εἰδέναι, ἥ τε ἀδηλότης, καὶ βραχὺς ὢν ὁ
-  βίος τοῦ ἀνθρώπου.
-
-  I give the words partly from Diogenes, partly from Sextus, as I
-  think they would be most likely to stand.
-
-  [583] Xenophanês ap. Sext. Emp. adv. Mathem. vii, 49.
-
-  [584] The satyrical writer Timon (ap. Sext. Emp. ix, 57),
-  speaking in very respectful terms about Protagoras, notices
-  particularly the guarded language which he used in this sentence
-  about the gods; though this precaution did not enable him to
-  avoid the necessity of flight. Protagoras spoke:—
-
-      ~Πᾶσαν ἔχων φυλακὴν ἐπιεικείης~· τὰ μὲν οὐ οἱ
-      Χραίσμησ᾽, ἀλλὰ φυγῆς ἐπεμαίετο ὄφρα μὴ οὕτως
-      Σωκρατικὸν πίνων ψυχρὸν πότον Ἀΐδα δύῃ.
-
-  It would seem, by the last line as if Protagoras had survived
-  Sokratês.
-
-The other fragment preserved of Protagoras, relates to his view of
-the cognitive process, and of truth generally. He taught, that “Man
-is the measure of all things; both of that which exists, and of that
-which does not exist:” a doctrine canvassed and controverted by
-Plato, who represents that Protagoras affirmed knowledge to consist
-in sensation, and considered the sensations of each individual man
-to be, to him, the canon and measure of truth. We know scarce
-anything of the elucidations or limitations with which Protagoras may
-have accompanied his general position: and if even Plato, who had
-good means of knowing them, felt it ungenerous to insult an orphan
-doctrine whose father was recently dead, and could no longer defend
-it,[585] much more ought modern authors, who speak with mere scraps
-of evidence before them, to be cautious how they heap upon the same
-doctrine insults much beyond those which Plato recognizes. In so far
-as we can pretend to understand the theory, it was certainly not
-more incorrect than several others then afloat, from the Eleatic
-school and other philosophers; while it had the merit of bringing
-into forcible relief, though in an erroneous manner, the essentially
-relative nature of cognition,[586] relative, not indeed to the
-sensitive faculty alone, but to that reinforced and guided by the
-other faculties of man, memorial and ratiocinative. And had it been
-even more incorrect than it really is, there would be no warrant
-for those imputations which modern authors build upon it, against
-the morality of Protagoras. No such imputations are countenanced
-in the discussion which Plato devotes to the doctrine: indeed, if
-the vindication which he sets forth against himself on behalf of
-Protagoras be really ascribable to that sophist, it would give an
-exaggerated importance to the distinction between Good and Evil, into
-which the distinction between Truth and Falsehood is considered by
-the Platonic Protagoras as resolvable. The subsequent theories of
-Plato and Aristotle respecting cognition, were much more systematic
-and elaborate, the work of men greatly superior in speculative genius
-to Protagoras: but they would not have been what they were, had not
-Protagoras, as well as others gone before them, with suggestions more
-partial and imperfect.
-
-  [585] Plato, Theætet. 18, p. 164, E. Οὔτι ἄν, οἶμαι, ὦ φίλε,
-  εἴπερ γε ὁ πατὴρ τοῦ ἑτέρου μύθου ἔζη—ἀλλὰ πολλὰ ἂν ἤμυνε· νῦν
-  δὲ ὄρφανον αὐτὸν ὄντα ἡμεῖς προπηλακίζομεν ... ἀλλὰ δὴ ~αὐτοὶ
-  κινδυνεύσομεν τοῦ δικαίου ἕνεκ᾽~ αὐτῷ βοηθεῖν.
-
-  This theory of Protagoras is discussed in the dialogue called
-  Theætetus, p. 152, _seq._, in a long but desultory way.
-
-  See Sextus Empiric. Pyrrhonic. Hypol. i. 216-219, et contra
-  Mathematicos, vii, 60-64. The explanation which Sextus gives
-  of the Protagorean doctrine, in the former passage, cannot be
-  derived from the treatise of Protagoras himself; since he makes
-  use of the word ὕλη in the philosophical sense, which was not
-  adopted until the days of Plato and Aristotle.
-
-  It is difficult to make out what Diogenes Laërtius states about
-  other tenets of Protagoras, and to reconcile them with the
-  doctrine of “man being the measure of all things,” as explained
-  by Plato (Diog. Laërt. ix, 51, 57).
-
-  [586] Aristotle (in one of the passages of his Metaphysica,
-  wherein he discusses the Protagorean doctrine, x, i, p. 1053, B.)
-  says that this doctrine comes to nothing more than saying, that
-  man, so far as cognizant, or so far as percipient, is the measure
-  of all things; in other words, that knowledge, or perception,
-  is the measure of all things. This, Aristotle says, is trivial,
-  and of no value, though it sounds like something of importance:
-  Πρωταγόρας δ᾽ ἄνθρωπόν φησι πάντων εἶναι μέτρον, ὥσπερ ἂν εἰ τὸν
-  ἐπιστήμονα εἰπὼν ἢ τὸν αἰσθανόμενον· τούτους δ᾽ ὅτι ἔχουσιν ὁ μὲν
-  αἴσθησιν ὁ δὲ ἐπιστήμην· ἅ φαμεν εἶναι μέτρα τῶν ὑποκειμένων.
-  Οὐθὲν δὴ λέγων περιττὸν φαίνεταί τι λέγειν.
-
-  It appears to me, that to insist upon the essentially relative
-  nature of cognizable truth, was by no means a trivial or
-  unimportant doctrine, as Aristotle pronounces it to be;
-  especially when we compare it with the unmeasured conceptions
-  of the objects and methods of scientific research which were so
-  common in the days of Protagoras.
-
-  Compare Metaphysic. iii, 5, pp. 1008, 1009, where it will be seen
-  how many other thinkers of that day carried the same doctrine,
-  seemingly, further than Protagoras.
-
-  Protagoras remarked that the observed movements of the heavenly
-  bodies did not coincide with that which the astronomers
-  represented them to be, and to which they applied their
-  mathematical reasonings. This remark was a criticism on the
-  mathematical astronomers of his day—ἐλέγχων τοὺς γεωμέτρας
-  (Aristot. Metaph. iii, 2, p. 998, A). We know too little how far
-  his criticism may have been deserved, to assent to the general
-  strictures of Ritter, Gesch. der Phil. vol. i, p. 633.
-
-From Gorgias there remains one short essay, preserved in one of
-the Aristotelian, or Pseudo-Aristotelian treatises,[587] on a
-metaphysical thesis. He professes to demonstrate that nothing exists:
-that if anything exist, it is unknowable; and granting it even to
-exist and to be knowable by any one man, he could never communicate
-it to others. The modern historians of philosophy here prefer the
-easier task of denouncing the skepticism of the sophist, instead of
-performing the duty incumbent on them of explaining his thesis in
-immediate sequence with the speculations which preceded it. In our
-sense of the words, it is a monstrous paradox: but construing them in
-their legitimate filiation from the Eleatic philosophers immediately
-before him, it is a plausible, not to say conclusive, deduction
-from principles which they would have acknowledged.[588] The word
-existence, as they understood it, did not mean phenomenal, but
-ultra-phenomenal existence. They looked upon the phenomena of sense
-as always coming and going, as something essentially transitory,
-fluctuating, incapable of being surely known, and furnishing at best
-grounds only for conjecture. They searched by cogitation for what
-they presumed to be the really existent something or substance—the
-noumenon, to use a Kantian phrase—lying behind or under the
-phenomena, which noumenon they recognized as the only appropriate
-subject of knowledge. They discussed much, as I have before
-remarked, whether it was one or many; noumenon in the singular, or
-noumena in the plural. Now the thesis of Gorgias related to this
-ultra-phenomenal existence, and bore closely upon the arguments of
-Zeno and Melissus, the Eleatic reasoners of his elder contemporaries.
-He denied that any such ultra-phenomenal something, or noumenon,
-existed, or could be known, or could be described. Of this tripartite
-thesis, the first negation was neither more untenable, nor less
-untenable, than that of those philosophers who before him had argued
-for the affirmative: on the two last points, his conclusions were
-neither paradoxical nor improperly skeptical, but perfectly just,
-and have been ratified by the gradual abandonment, either avowed or
-implied, of such ultra-phenomenal researches among the major part of
-philosophers. It may fairly be presumed that these doctrines were
-urged by Gorgias for the purpose of diverting his disciples from
-studies which he considered as unpromising and fruitless: just as we
-shall find his pupil Isokratês afterwards enforcing the same view,
-discouraging speculations of this nature, and recommending rhetorical
-exercise as preparation for the duties of an active citizen.[589]
-Nor must we forget that Sokratês himself discouraged physical
-speculations even more decidedly than either of them.
-
-  [587] See the treatise entitled De Melisso, Xenophane et Gorgiâ
-  in Bekker’s edition of Aristotle’s Works, vol. i, p. 979, _seq._;
-  also the same treatise, with a good preface and comments, by
-  Mullach, p. 62 _seq._: compare Sextus Emp. adv. Mathemat. vii,
-  65, 87.
-
-  [588] See the note of Mullach, on the treatise mentioned in the
-  preceding note, p. 72. He shows that Gorgias followed in the
-  steps of Zeno and Melissus.
-
-  [589] Isokratês De Permutatione, Or. xv, s. 287; Xenoph. Memorab.
-  i, 1, 14.
-
-If the censures cast upon the alleged skepticism of Gorgias and
-Protagoras are partly without sufficient warrant, partly without any
-warrant at all, much more may the same remark be made respecting
-the graver reproaches heaped upon their teaching on the score of
-immorality or corruption. It has been common with recent German
-historians of philosophy to translate from Plato and dress up a
-fiend called “Die Sophistik,” (Sophistic,) whom they assert to
-have poisoned and demoralized, by corrupt teaching, the Athenian
-moral character, so that it became degenerate at the end of the
-Peloponnesian war, compared with what it had been in the time of
-Miltiadês and Aristeidês.
-
-Now, in the first place, if the abstraction “Die Sophistik” is to
-have any definite meaning, we ought to have proof that the persons
-styled sophists had some doctrines, principles, or method, both
-common to them all and distinguishing them from others. But such
-a supposition is untrue: there were no such common doctrines, or
-principles, or method, belonging to them; even the name by which
-they are known did not belong to them, any more than to Sokratês
-and others; they had nothing in common except their profession, as
-paid teachers, qualifying young men “to think, speak, and act,”
-these are the words of Isokratês, and better words it would not
-be easy to find, with credit to themselves as citizens. Moreover,
-such community of profession did not at that time imply near so
-much analogy of character as it does now, when the path of teaching
-has been beaten into a broad and visible high road, with measured
-distances and stated intervals: Protagoras and Gorgias found
-predecessors, indeed, but no binding precedents to copy; so that
-each struck out more or less a road of his own. And accordingly, we
-find Plato, in his dialogue called “Protagoras,” wherein Protagoras,
-Prodikus, and Hippias, are all introduced, imparting a distinct
-type of character and distinct method to each, not without a strong
-admixture of reciprocal jealousy between them; while Thrasymachus,
-in the Republic, and Euthydêmus, in the dialogue so called, are
-again painted each with colors of his own, different from all the
-three above named. We have not the least reason for presuming that
-Gorgias agreed in the opinion of Protagoras: “Man is the measure
-of all things;” and we may infer, even from Plato himself, that
-Protagoras would have opposed the views expressed by Thrasymachus
-in the first book of the Republic. It is impossible therefore to
-predicate anything concerning doctrines, methods, or tendencies,
-common and peculiar to all the sophists. There were none such; nor
-has the abstract word, “Die Sophistik,” any real meaning, except
-such qualities, whatever they may be, as are inseparable from the
-profession or occupation of public teaching. And if, at present,
-every candid critic would be ashamed to cast wholesale aspersions
-on the entire body of professional teachers, much more is such
-censure unbecoming in reference to the ancient sophists, who were
-distinguished from each other by stronger individual peculiarities.
-
-If, then, it were true that in the interval between 480 B.C. and the
-end of the Peloponnesian war, a great moral deterioration had taken
-place in Athens and in Greece generally, we should have to search for
-some other cause than this imaginary abstraction called sophistic.
-But—and this is the second point—the matter of fact here alleged is
-as untrue, as the cause alleged is unreal. Athens, at the close of
-the Peloponnesian war, was not more corrupt than Athens in the days
-of Miltiadês and Aristeidês. If we revert to that earlier period,
-we shall find that scarcely any acts of the Athenian people have
-drawn upon them sharper censure—in my judgment, unmerited—than their
-treatment of these very two statesmen; the condemnation of Miltiadês,
-and the ostracism of Aristeidês. In writing my history of that time,
-far from finding previous historians disposed to give the Athenians
-credit for public virtue, I have been compelled to contend against
-a body of adverse criticism, imputing to them gross ingratitude and
-injustice. Thus the contemporaries of Miltiadês and Aristeidês, when
-described as matter of present history, are presented in anything but
-flattering colors; except their valor at Marathon and Salamis, which
-finds one unanimous voice of encomium. But when these same men have
-become numbered among the mingled recollections and fancies belonging
-to the past,—when a future generation comes to be present, with its
-appropriate stock of complaint and denunciation,—then it is that men
-find pleasure in dressing up the virtues of the past, as a count in
-the indictment against their own contemporaries. Aristophanês,[590]
-writing during the Peloponnesian war, denounced the Demos of his day
-as degenerated from the virtue of that Demos which had surrounded
-Miltiadês and Aristeidês: while Isokratês,[591] writing as an old
-man, between 350-340 B.C., complains in like manner of his own
-time, boasting how much better the state of Athens had been in his
-youth: which period of his youth fell exactly during the life of
-Aristophanês, in the last half of the Peloponnesian war.
-
-  [590] Aristophan. Equit. 1316-1321.
-
-  [591] Isokratês, Or. xv, De Permutation. s. 170.
-
-Such illusions ought to impose on no one without a careful comparison
-of facts; and most assuredly that comparison will not bear out the
-allegation of increased corruption and degeneracy, between the age
-of Miltiadês and the end of the Peloponnesian war. Throughout the
-whole of Athenian history, there are no acts which attest so large
-a measure of virtue and judgment pervading the whole people, as
-the proceedings after the Four Hundred and after the Thirty. Nor
-do I believe that the contemporaries of Miltiadês would have been
-capable of such heroism; for that appellation is by no means too
-large for the case. I doubt whether they would have been competent
-to the steady self-denial of retaining a large sum in reserve
-during the time of peace, both prior to the Peloponnesian war and
-after the Peace of Nikias; or of keeping back the reserve fund of
-one thousand talents, while they were forced to pay taxes for the
-support of the war; or of acting upon the prudent, yet painfully
-trying, policy recommended by Periklês, so as to sustain an annual
-invasion without either going out to fight or purchasing peace by
-ignominious concessions. If bad acts such as Athens committed during
-the later years of the war, for example, the massacre of the Melian
-population, were not done equally by the contemporaries of Miltiadês,
-this did not arise from any superior humanity or principle on their
-part, but from the fact that they were not exposed to the like
-temptation, brought upon them by the possession of imperial power.
-The condemnation of the six generals after the battle of Arginusæ,
-if we suppose the same conduct on their part to have occurred in 490
-B.C., would have been decreed more rapidly and more unceremoniously
-than it was actually decreed in 406 B.C. For at that earlier date
-there existed no psephism of Kannônus, surrounded by prescriptive
-respect; no graphê paranomôn; no such habits of established deference
-to a dikastery solemnly sworn, with full notice to defendants and
-full time of defence measured by the clock; none of those securities
-which a long course of democracy had gradually worked into the public
-morality of every Athenian, and which, as we saw in a former chapter,
-interposed a serious barrier to the impulse of the moment, though
-ultimately overthrown by its fierceness. A far less violent impulse
-would have sufficed for the same mischief in 490 B.C., when no such
-barriers existed. Lastly, if we want a measure of the appreciating
-sentiment of the Athenian public, towards a strict and decorous
-morality in the narrow sense, in the middle of the Peloponnesian war,
-we have only to consider the manner in which they dealt with Nikias.
-I have shown, in describing the Sicilian expedition, that the gravest
-error which the Athenians ever committed, that which shipwrecked
-both their armament at Syracuse and their power at home, arose from
-their unmeasured esteem for the respectable and pious Nikias, which
-blinded them to the grossest defects of generalship and public
-conduct. Disastrous as such misjudgment was, it counts at least as
-a proof that the moral corruption alleged to have been operated in
-their characters, is a mere fiction. Nor let it be supposed that
-the nerve and resolution which once animated the combatants of
-Marathon and Salamis, had disappeared in the latter years of the
-Peloponnesian war. On the contrary, the energetic and protracted
-struggle of Athens, after the irreparable calamity at Syracuse,
-forms a worthy parallel to her resistance in the time of Xerxes, and
-maintained unabated that distinctive attribute which Periklês had set
-forth as the main foundation of her glory, that of never giving way
-before misfortune.[592] Without any disparagement to the armament at
-Salamis, we may remark that the patriotism of the fleet at Samos,
-which rescued Athens from the Four Hundred, was equally devoted
-and more intelligent; and that the burst of effort, which sent a
-subsequent fleet to victory at Arginusæ, was to the full as strenuous.
-
-  [592] Thucyd. ii, 64. γνῶτε δ᾽ ὄνομα μέγιστον αὐτὴν (τὴν πόλιν)
-  ἔχουσαν ἐν πᾶσιν ἀνθρώποις, διὰ τὸ ταῖς ξυμφοραῖς μὴ εἴκειν.
-
-If, then, we survey the eighty-seven years of Athenian history,
-between the battle of Marathon and the renovation of the democracy
-after the Thirty, we shall see no ground for the assertion, so often
-made, of increased and increasing moral and political corruption. It
-is my belief that the people had become both morally and politically
-better, and that their democracy had worked to their improvement.
-The remark made by Thucydidês, on the occasion of the Korkyræan
-bloodshed,—on the violent and reckless political antipathies,
-arising out of the confluence of external warfare with internal
-party-feud,[593]—wherever else it may find its application, has no
-bearing upon Athens: the proceedings after the Four Hundred and
-after the Thirty prove the contrary. And while Athens may thus be
-vindicated on the moral side, it is indisputable that her population
-had acquired a far larger range of ideas and capacities than they
-possessed at the time of the battle of Marathon. This, indeed, is the
-very matter of fact deplored by Aristophanês, and admitted by those
-writers, who, while denouncing the sophists, connect such enlarged
-range of ideas with the dissemination of the pretended sophistical
-poison. In my judgment, not only the charge against the sophists as
-poisoners, but even the existence of such poison in the Athenian
-system, deserves nothing less than an emphatic denial.
-
-  [593] Thucydidês (iii, 82) specifies very distinctly the cause to
-  which he ascribes the bad consequences which he depicts. He makes
-  no allusion to sophists or sophistical teaching; though Brandis
-  (Gesch. der Gr. Röm. Philos. i, p. 518, not. f.) drags in “the
-  sophistical spirit of the statesmen of that time,” as if it were
-  the cause of the mischief, and as if it were to be found in the
-  speeches of Thucydidês, i, 76, v, 105.
-
-  There cannot be a more unwarranted assertion; nor can a learned
-  man like Brandis be ignorant, that such words as “the sophistical
-  spirit,” (Der sophistische Geist,) are understood by a modern
-  reader in a sense totally different from its true Athenian sense.
-
-Let us examine again the names of these professional teachers,
-beginning with Prodikus, one of the most renowned. Who is there that
-has not read the well-known fable called “The Choice of Hercules,”
-which is to be found in every book professing to collect impressive
-illustrations of elementary morality? Who does not know that its
-express purpose is, to kindle the imaginations of youth in favor of
-a life of labor for noble objects, and against a life of indulgence?
-It was the favorite theme on which Prodikus lectured, and on which he
-obtained the largest audience.[594] If it be of striking simplicity
-and effect even to a modern reader, how much more powerfully must
-it have worked upon the audience for whose belief it was specially
-adapted, when set off by the oral expansions of its author! Xenophon
-wondered that the Athenian dikasts dealt with Sokratês as a corruptor
-of youth,—Isokratês wondered that a portion of the public made the
-like mistake about him,—and I confess my wonder to be not less, that
-not only Aristophanês,[595] but even the modern writers on Grecian
-philosophy, should rank Prodikus in the same unenviable catalogue.
-This is the only composition[596] remaining from him; indeed, the
-only composition remaining from any one of the sophists, excepting
-the thesis of Gorgias, above noticed. It served, not merely as a
-vindication of Prodikus against such reproach, but also as a warning
-against implicit confidence in the sarcastic remarks of Plato,—which
-include Prodikus as well as the other sophists,—and in the doctrines
-which he puts into the mouth of the sophists generally, in order
-that Sokratês may confute them. The commonest candor would teach us,
-that if a polemical writer of dialogue chooses to put indefensible
-doctrine into the mouth of the opponent, we ought to be cautious of
-condemning the latter upon such very dubious proof.
-
-  [594] Xenoph. Memor. ii, 1, 21-34. Καὶ Πρόδικος δὲ ὁ σοφὸς
-  ἐν τῷ συγγράμματι τῷ περὶ Ἡρακλέους, ~ὅπερ δὴ καὶ πλείστοις
-  ἐπιδείκνυται~, ὡσαύτως περὶ τῆς ἀρετῆς ἀποφαίνεται, etc.
-
-  Xenophon here introduces Sokratês himself as bestowing much
-  praise on the moral teaching of Prodikus.
-
-  [595] See Fragment iii, of the Ταγηνισταὶ of Aristophanês,
-  Meineke, Fragment. Aristoph. p. 1140.
-
-  [596] Xenophon gives only the substance of Prodikus’s lecture,
-  not his exact words. But he gives what may be called the whole
-  substance, so that we can appreciate the scope as well as the
-  handling of the author. We cannot say the same of an extract
-  given (in the Pseudo-Platonic Dialogue Axiochus, c. 7, 8) from a
-  lecture said to have been delivered by Prodikus, respecting the
-  miseries of human life, pervading all the various professions
-  and occupations. It is impossible to make out distinctly, either
-  how much really belongs to Prodikus, or what was his scope and
-  purpose, if any such lecture was really delivered.
-
-Welcker and other modern authors treat Prodikus as “the most
-innocent” of the sophists, and except him from the sentence which
-they pass upon the class generally. Let us see, therefore, what Plato
-himself says about the rest of them, and first about Protagoras. If
-it were not the established practice with readers of Plato to condemn
-Protagoras beforehand, and to put upon every passage relating to
-him not only a sense as bad as it will bear, but much worse than
-it will fairly bear, they would probably carry away very different
-inferences from the Platonic dialogue called by that sophist’s
-name, and in which he is made to bear a chief part. That dialogue
-is itself enough to prove that Plato did not conceive Protagoras
-either as a corrupt, or unworthy, or incompetent teacher. The
-course of the dialogue exhibits him as not master of the theory of
-ethics, and unable to solve various difficulties with which that
-theory is expected to grapple; moreover, as no match for Sokratês
-in dialectics, which Plato considered as the only efficient method
-of philosophical investigation. In so far, therefore, as imperfect
-acquaintance with the science or theory upon which rules of art, or
-the precepts bearing on practice, repose, disqualifies a teacher
-from giving instruction in such art or practice, to that extent
-Protagoras is exposed as wanting. And if an expert dialectician, like
-Plato, had passed Isokratês or Quintilian, or the large majority
-of teachers past or present, through a similar cross-examination
-as to the theory of their teaching, an ignorance not less manifest
-than that of Protagoras would be brought out. The antithesis which
-Plato sets forth, in so many of his dialogues, between precept or
-practice, accompanied by full knowledge of the scientific principles
-from which it must be deduced, if its rectitude be disputed,—and
-unscientific practice, without any such power of deduction or
-defence, is one of the most valuable portions of his speculations: he
-exhausts his genius to render it conspicuous in a thousand indirect
-ways, and to shame his readers, if possible, into the loftier and
-more rational walk of thought. But it is one thing to say of a
-man, that he does not know the theory of what he teaches, or of
-the way in which he teaches; it is another thing to say, that he
-actually teaches that which scientific theory would not prescribe
-as the best; it is a third thing, graver than both, to say that
-his teaching is not only below the exigences of science, but even
-corrupt and demoralizing. Now of these three points, it is the first
-only which Plato in his dialogue makes out against Protagoras: even
-the second, he neither affirms nor insinuates; and as to the third,
-not only he never glances at it, even indirectly, but the whole
-tendency of the discourse suggests a directly contrary conclusion.
-As if sensible that when an eminent opponent was to be depicted as
-puzzled and irritated by superior dialectics, it was but common
-fairness to set forth his distinctive merits also, Plato gives a
-fable, and expository harangue, from the mouth of Protagoras,[597]
-upon the question whether virtue is teachable. This harangue is,
-in my judgment, very striking and instructive; and so it would
-have been probably accounted, if commentators had not read it with
-a preëstablished persuasion that whatever came from the lips of a
-sophist must be either ridiculous or immoral.[598] It is the only
-part of Plato’s works wherein any account is rendered of the growth
-of that floating, uncertified, self-propagating body of opinion, upon
-which the cross-examining analysis of Sokratês is brought to bear, as
-will be seen in the following chapter.
-
-  [597] Plato, Protagoras, p. 320, D. c. 11, _et seq._, especially
-  p. 322, D, where Protagoras lays it down that no man is fit to
-  be a member of a social community, who has not in his bosom both
-  δίκη and αἰδὼς,—that is, a sense of reciprocal obligation and
-  right between himself and others,—and a sensibility to esteem or
-  reproach from others. He lays these fundamental attributes down
-  as what a good ethical theory must assume or exact in every man.
-
-  [598] Of the unjust asperity and contempt with which the Platonic
-  commentators treat the sophists, see a specimen in Ast, Ueber
-  Platons Leben und Schriften, pp. 70, 71, where he comments on
-  Protagoras and this fable.
-
-Protagoras professes to teach his pupils “good counsel” in their
-domestic and family relations, as well as how to speak and act in the
-most effective manner for the weal of the city. Since this comes from
-Protagoras, the commentators of Plato pronounce it to be miserable
-morality; but it coincides, almost to the letter, with that which
-Isokratês describes himself as teaching, a generation afterwards,
-and substantially even with that which Xenophon represents Sokratês
-as teaching; nor is it easy to set forth, in a few words, a larger
-scheme of practical duty.[599] And if the measure of practical
-duty, which Protagoras devoted himself to teach, was thus serious
-and extensive, even the fraction of theory assigned to him in his
-harangue, includes some points better than that of Plato himself. For
-Plato seems to have conceived the ethical end, to each individual,
-as comprising nothing more than his own permanent happiness and
-moral health; and in this very dialogue, he introduces Sokratês
-as maintaining virtue to consist only in a right calculation of a
-man’s own personal happiness and misery. But here we find Protagoras
-speaking in a way which implies a larger, and, in my opinion, a
-juster, appreciation of the ethical end, as including not only
-reference to a man’s own happiness, but also obligations towards
-the happiness of others. Without at all agreeing in the harsh terms
-of censure which various critics pronounce upon that theory which
-Sokratês is made to set forth in the Platonic Protagoras, I consider
-his conception of the ethical end essentially narrow and imperfect,
-not capable of being made to serve as basis for deduction of the best
-ethical precepts. Yet such is the prejudice with which the history
-of the sophists has been written, that the commentators on Plato
-accuse the sophists of having originated what they ignorantly term,
-“the base theory of utility,” here propounded by Sokratês himself;
-complimenting the latter on having set forth those larger views which
-in this dialogue belong only to Protagoras.[600]
-
-  [599] Protagoras says: Τὸ δὲ μάθημά ἐστιν, εὐβουλία περὶ τε τῶν
-  οἰκείων ὅπως ἂν ἄριστα τὴν αὑτοῦ οἰκίαν διοικοῖ, καὶ περὶ τῶν
-  τῆς πόλεως, ὅπως τὰ τῆς πόλεως δυνατώτατος εἴη καὶ πράττειν καὶ
-  λέγειν. (Plato, Protagoras, c. 9, p. 318, E.)
-
-  A similar description of the moral teaching of Protagoras and the
-  other sophists, yet comprising a still larger range of duties,
-  towards parents, friends, and fellow-citizens in their private
-  capacities, is given in Plato, Meno. p. 91, B, E.
-
-  Isokratês describes the education which he wished to convey,
-  almost in the same words: Τοὺς τὰ τοιαῦτα μανθάνοντας καὶ
-  μελετῶντας ἐξ ὧν καὶ τὸν ἴδιον οἶκον καὶ τὰ κοινὰ τὰ τῆς πόλεως
-  καλῶς διοικήσουσιν, ὧνπερ ἕνεκα καὶ πονητέον καὶ φιλοσοφητέον καὶ
-  πάντα πρακτέον ἐστί (Or. xv, De Permutat. s. 304; compare 289).
-
-  Xenophon also describes, almost in the same words, the teaching
-  of Sokratês. Kriton and others sought the society of Sokratês:
-  οὐκ ἵνα δημηγορικοὶ ἢ δικανικοὶ γένοιντο, ἀλλ᾽ ἵνα καλοί τε
-  κἀγαθοὶ γενόμενοι, καὶ οἴκῳ καὶ οἰκέταις καὶ οἰκείοις καὶ φίλοις
-  καὶ πόλει καὶ πολίταις δύναιντο καλῶς χρῆσθαι (Memor. i, 2,
-  48). Again, i, 2, 64: Φανερὸς ἦν Σωκράτης τῶν συνόντων τοὺς
-  πονηρὰς ἐπιθυμίας ἔχοντας, τούτων μὲν παύων, ~τῆς δὲ καλλίστης
-  καὶ μεγαλοπρεπεστάτης ἀρετῆς, ᾗ πόλεις τε καὶ οἴκοι εὖ οἰκοῦσι~,
-  προτρέπων ἐπιθυμεῖν. Compare also i, 6, 15; ii, 1, 19; iv, 1, 2;
-  iv, 5, 10.
-
-  When we perceive how much analogy Xenophon establishes—so far as
-  regards practical precept, apart from theory or method—between
-  Sokratês, Protagoras, Prodikus, etc., it is difficult to
-  justify the representations of the commentators respecting the
-  sophists; see Stallbaum, Proleg. ad Platon Menon. p. 8. “Etenim
-  virtutis nomen, cum propter ambitûs magnitudinem valde esset
-  ambiguum et obscurum, sophistæ interpretabantur sic, ut, missâ
-  veræ honestatis et probitatis vi, unice de prudentiâ civili
-  ac domesticâ cogitari vellent, eoque modo totam virtutem _ad
-  callidum quoddam utilitatis vel privatim vel publice consequendæ
-  artificium_ revocarent.” ... “Pervidit hanc _opinionis istius
-  perversitatem, ejusque turpitudinem_ intimo sensit pectore, vir
-  sanctissimi animi, Socratês, etc.” Stallbaum speaks to the same
-  purpose in his Prolegomena to the Protagoras, pp. 10, 11; and to
-  the Euthydemus, pp. 21, 22.
-
-  Those who, like these censors on the sophists, think it _base_
-  to recommend virtuous conduct by the mutual security and comfort
-  which it procures to all parties, must be prepared to condemn
-  on the same ground a large portion of what is said by Sokratês
-  throughout the Memorabilia of Xenophon, Μὴ καταφρόνει τῶν
-  οἰκονομικῶν ἀνδρῶν, etc. (ii, 4, 12); see also his Œconomic. xi,
-  10.
-
-  [600] Stallbaum, Prolegomena ad Platonis Menonem, p. 9: “Etenim
-  sophistæ, quum virtutis exercitationem et ad utilitates externas
-  referent, et facultate quâdam atque consuetudine ejus, quod utile
-  videretur, reperiendi, absolvi statuerent,—Socrates ipse, rejectâ
-  _utilitatis turpitudine_, vim naturamque virtutis unice ad id
-  quod bonum honestumque est, revocavit; voluitque esse in eo, ut
-  quis recti bonique sensu ac scientâ polleret, ad quam tanquam ad
-  certissimam normam atque regulam actiones suas omnes dirigeret
-  atque poneret.”
-
-  Whoever will compare this criticism with the Protagoras of Plato,
-  c. 36, 37, especially p. 357, B, wherein Sokratês identifies
-  good with pleasure and evil with pain, and wherein he considers
-  right conduct to consist in justly calculating the items of
-  pleasure and pain one against the other, ἡ μετρητικὴ τέχνη, will
-  be astonished how a critic on Plato could write what is above
-  cited. I am aware that there are other parts of Plato’s dialogues
-  in which he maintains a doctrine different from that just alluded
-  to. Accordingly, Stallbaum (in his Prolegomena to the Protagoras,
-  p. 30) contends that Plato is here setting forth a doctrine
-  not his own, but is reasoning on the principles of Protagoras,
-  for the purpose of entrapping and confounding him: “Quæ hic
-  de fortitudine disseruntur, ea item cavendum est ne protenus
-  pro decretis mere Platonicis habeantur. Disputat enim Socrates
-  pleraque omnia ad mentem ipsius Protagoræ, ita quidem ut eum per
-  suam ipsius rationem in fraudem et errorem inducat.”
-
-  I am happy to be able to vindicate Plato against the disgrace of
-  so dishonest a spirit of argumentation as that which Stallbaum
-  ascribes to him. Plato most certainly does not reason here upon
-  the doctrines or principles of Protagoras; for the latter begins
-  by positively denying the doctrine, and is only brought to admit
-  it in a very qualified manner, c. 35, p. 351, D. He says, in
-  reply to the question of Sokratês: Οὐκ οἶδα ἁπλῶς οὕτως, ὡς σὺ
-  ἐρωτᾷς, εἰ ἐμοὶ ἀποκριτέον ἐστὶν, ὡς τὰ ἡδέα τε ἀγαθά ἐστιν
-  ἅπαντα καὶ τὰ ἀνιαρὰ κακά· ἀλλὰ μοι δοκεῖ οὐ μόνον πρὸς τὴν νῦν
-  ἀπόκρισιν ἐμοὶ ἀσφαλέστερον εἶναι ἀποκρίνασθαι, ~ἀλλὰ καὶ πρὸς
-  πάντα τὸν ἄλλον βίον τὸν ἐμὸν~, ὅτι ἐστὶ μὲν ἃ τῶν ἡδέων οὔκ
-  ἐστιν ἀγαθὰ, ἐστὶ δὲ αὖ καὶ ἃ τῶν ἀνιαρῶν οὐκ ἐστι κακὰ, ἐστὶ δὲ
-  ἃ ἐστι, καὶ τρίτον ἃ οὐδέτερα, οὔτε κακὰ οὔτ᾽ ἀγαθά.
-
-  There is something peculiarly striking in this appeal of
-  Protagoras to his whole past life, as rendering it impossible for
-  him to admit what he evidently looked upon as a _base theory_,
-  as Stallbaum pronounces it to be. Yet the latter actually
-  ventures to take it away from Sokratês, who not only propounds
-  it confidently, but reasons it out in a clear and forcible
-  manner, and of fastening it on Protagoras, who first disclaims
-  it and then only admits it under reserve! I deny the theory to
-  be _base_, though I think it an imperfect theory of ethics.
-  But Stallbaum, who calls it so, was bound to be doubly careful
-  in looking into his proof before he ascribed it to any one.
-  What makes the case worse is, that he fastens it not only on
-  Protagoras, but on the sophists collectively, by that monstrous
-  fiction which treats them as a doctrinal sect.
-
-So far as concerns Protagoras, therefore, the evidence of Plato
-himself may be produced to show that he was not a corrupt teacher,
-but a worthy companion of Prodikus; worthy also of that which we
-know him to have enjoyed, the society and conversation of Periklês.
-Let us now examine what Plato says about a third sophist, Hippias
-of Elis; who figures both in the dialogue called “Protagoras,”
-and in two distinct dialogues known by the titles of “Hippias
-Major and Minor.” Hippias is represented as distinguished for the
-wide range of his accomplishments, of which in these dialogues he
-ostentatiously boasts. He could teach astronomy, geometry, and
-arithmetic, which subjects Protagoras censured him for enforcing
-too much upon his pupils; so little did these sophists agree in any
-one scheme of doctrine or education. Besides this, he was a poet,
-a musician, an expositor of the poets, and a lecturer with a large
-stock of composed matter,—on subjects moral, political, and even
-legendary,—treasured up in a very retentive memory. He was a citizen
-much employed as envoy by his fellow-citizens: to crown all, his
-manual dexterity was such that he professed to have made with his
-own hands all the attire and ornaments which he wore on his person.
-If, as is sufficiently probable, he was a vain and ostentatious
-man,—defects not excluding an useful and honorable career,—we must
-at the same time give him credit for a variety of acquisitions such
-as to explain a certain measure of vanity.[601] The style in which
-Plato handles Hippias is very different from that in which he treats
-Protagoras. It is full of sneer and contemptuous banter, insomuch
-that even Stallbaum,[602] after having repeated a great many times
-that this was a vile sophist, who deserved no better treatment,
-is forced to admit that the petulance is carried rather too far,
-and to suggest that the dialogue must have been a juvenile work of
-Plato. Be this as it may, amidst so much unfriendly handling, not
-only we find no imputation against Hippias, of having preached a low
-or corrupt morality, but Plato inserts that which furnishes good,
-though indirect, proof of the contrary. For Hippias is made to say
-that he had already delivered, and was about to deliver again, a
-lecture composed by himself with great care, wherein he enlarged
-upon the aims and pursuits which a young man ought to follow. The
-scheme of his discourse was, that after the capture of Troy, the
-youthful Neoptolemus was introduced as asking the advice of Nestor
-about his own future conduct; in reply to which, Nestor sets forth to
-him what was the plan of life incumbent on a young man of honorable
-aspirations, and unfolds to him the full details of regulated
-and virtuous conduct by which it ought to be filled up.[603] The
-selection of two such names, among the most venerated in all Grecian
-legend, as monitor and pupil, is a stamp clearly attesting the vein
-of sentiment which animated the composition. Morality preached by
-Nestor for the edification of Neoptolemus, might possibly be too
-high for Athenian practice; but most certainly it would not err on
-the side of corruption, selfishness, or over-indulgence. We may
-fairly presume that this discourse composed by Hippias would not be
-unworthy, in spirit and purpose, to be placed by the side of “The
-Choice of Hercules,” nor its author by that of Prodikus as a moral
-teacher.
-
-  [601] See about Hippias, Plato, Protagoras, c. 9, p. 318, E.;
-  Stallbaum, Prolegom. ad Platon. Hipp. Maj. p. 147, _seq._;
-  Cicero, de Orator. iii, 33; Plato, Hipp. Minor, c. 10, p. 368, B.
-
-  [602] Stallbaum, Proleg. ad Plat. Hipp. Maj. p. 150.
-
-  [603] Plato, Hippias Major, p. 286, A, B.
-
-The dialogue entitled “Gorgias,” in Plato, is carried on by Sokratês
-with three different persons one after the other,—Gorgias, Pôlus, and
-Kalliklês. Gorgias of Leontini in Sicily, as a rhetorical teacher,
-acquired greater celebrity than any man of his time, during the
-Peloponnesian war: his abundant powers of illustration, his florid
-ornaments, his artificial structure of sentences distributed into
-exact antithetical fractions, all spread a new fashion in the art of
-speaking, which for the time was very popular, but afterwards became
-discredited. If the line could be clearly drawn between rhetors and
-sophists, Gorgias ought rather to be ranked with the former.[604]
-In the conversation with Gorgias, Sokratês exposes the fallacy
-and imposture of rhetoric and rhetorical teaching, as cheating an
-ignorant audience into persuasion without knowledge, and as framed
-to satisfy the passing caprice, without any regard to the permanent
-welfare and improvement of the people. Whatever real inculpation
-may be conveyed in these arguments against a rhetorical teacher,
-Gorgias must bear in common with Isokratês and Quintilian, and under
-the shield of Aristotle. But save and except rhetorical teaching,
-no dissemination of corrupt morality is ascribed to him by Plato;
-who, indeed, treats him with a degree of respect which surprises the
-commentators.[605]
-
-  [604] Plato, Menon, p. 95, A.; Foss, De Gorgiâ Leontino, p. 27,
-  _seq._
-
-  [605] See the observations of Groen van Prinsterer and Stallbaum,
-  Stallbaum ad Platon. Gorg. c. 1.
-
-The tone of the dialogue changes materially when it passes to
-Pôlus and Kalliklês, the former of whom is described as a writer
-on rhetoric, and probably a teacher also.[606] There is much
-insolence in Pôlus, and no small asperity in Sokratês. Yet the
-former maintains no arguments which justify the charge of immorality
-against himself or his fellow-teachers. He defends the tastes and
-sentiments common to every man in Greece, and shared even by the most
-estimable Athenians, Periklês, Nikias, and Aristokratês;[607] while
-Sokratês prides himself on standing absolutely alone, and having
-no support except from his irresistible dialectics, whereby he is
-sure of extorting reluctant admission from his adversary. How far
-Sokratês may be right, I do not now inquire: it is sufficient that
-Pôlus, standing as he does amidst company at once so numerous and
-so irreproachable, cannot be fairly denounced as a poisoner of the
-youthful mind.
-
-  [606] Plato, Gorgias, c. 17, p. 462, B.
-
-  [607] Plato, Gorgias, c. 27, p. 472, A. Καὶ νῦν (say Sokratês)
-  περὶ ὧν σὺ λέγεις ὀλίγου σοι πάντες συμφήσουσι ταῦτα Ἀθηναῖοι καὶ
-  ξένοι—μαρτυρήσουσί σοι, ἐὰν μὲν βούλῃ, Νικίας ὁ Νικηράτου καὶ οἱ
-  ἀδελφοὶ μετ᾽ αὐτοῦ—ἐὰν δὲ βούλῃ, Ἀριστοκράτης ὁ Σκελλίου—ἐὰν δὲ
-  βούλῃ, ἡ Περικλέους ὅλη οἰκία, ἢ ἄλλη συγγένεια, ἥντινα ἂν βούλῃ
-  τῶν ἐνθάδε ἐκλέξασθαι. ~Ἀλλ᾽ ἐγώ σοι εἷς ὢν οὐχ ὁμολογῶ.... Ἐγὼ
-  δὲ ἂν μὴ σὲ αὐτὸν ἕνα ὄντα~ μάρτυρα παράσχωμαι ὁμολογοῦντα περὶ
-  ὧν λέγω, οὐδὲν οἶμαι ἄξιον λόγου μοι πεπεράνθαι περὶ ὧν ἂν ἡμῖν ὁ
-  λόγος ᾖ.
-
-Pôlus presently hands over the dialogue to Kalliklês, who is here
-represented, doubtless, as laying down doctrines openly and avowedly
-anti-social. He distinguishes between the law of nature and the
-law—both written and unwritten, for the Greek word substantially
-includes both—of society. According to the law of nature, Kalliklês
-says, the strong man—the better or more capable man—puts forth
-his strength to the full for his own advantage, without limit or
-restraint; overcomes the resistance which weaker men are able to
-offer; and seizes for himself as much as he pleases of the matter
-of enjoyment. He has no occasion to restrain any of his appetites
-or desires; the more numerous and pressing they are, so much the
-better for him, since his power affords him the means of satiating
-them all. The many, who have the misfortune to be weak, must be
-content with that which he leaves them, and submit to it as best
-they can. This, Kalliklês says, is what actually happens in a state
-of nature; this is what is accounted just, as is evident by the
-practice of independent communities, not included in one common
-political society, towards each other; this is _justice_, by nature,
-or according to the law of nature. But when men come into society,
-all this is reversed. The majority of individuals know very well that
-they are weak, and that their only chance of security or comfort
-consists in establishing laws to restrain this strong man, reinforced
-by a moral sanction of praise and blame devoted to the same general
-end. They catch him, like a young lion, whilst his mind is yet
-tender, and fascinate him by talk and training into a disposition
-conformable to that measure and equality which the law enjoins.
-Here, then, is justice according to the law of society; a factitious
-system, built up by the many for their own protection and happiness,
-to the subversion of the law of nature, which arms the strong man
-with a right to encroachment and license. Let a fair opportunity
-occur, and the favorite of Nature will be seen to kick off his
-harness, tread down the laws, break through the magic circle of
-opinion around him, and stand forth again as lord and master of the
-many; regaining that glorious position which nature has assigned to
-him as his right. Justice by nature, and justice by law and society,
-are thus, according to Kalliklês, not only distinct, but mutually
-contradictory. He accuses Sokratês of having jumbled the two together
-in his argument.[608]
-
-  [608] This doctrine asserted by Kalliklês will be found in Plato,
-  Gorgias, c. 39, 40, pp. 483, 484.
-
-It has been contended by many authors that this anti-social
-reasoning—true enough, in so far as it states simple[609] matter of
-fact and probability; immoral, in so far as it erects the power of
-the strong man into a right; and inviting many comments, if I could
-find a convenient place for them—represents the morality commonly
-and publicly taught by the persons called sophists at Athens.[610] I
-deny this assertion emphatically. Even if I had no other evidence
-to sustain my denial, except what has been already extracted, from
-the unfriendly writings of Plato himself, respecting Protagoras and
-Hippias,—with what we know from Xenophon about Prodikus,—I should
-consider my case made out as vindicating the sophists generally from
-such an accusation. If refutation to the doctrine of Kalliklês were
-needed, it would be obtained quite as efficaciously from Prodikus and
-Protagoras as from Sokratês and Plato.
-
-  [609] See the same matter of fact strongly stated by Sokratês in
-  the Memorab. of Xenophon, ii, 1, 13.
-
-  [610] Schleiermacher (in the Prolegomena to his translation
-  of the Theætetus, p. 183) represents that Plato intended to
-  refute Aristippus in the person of Kalliklês; which supposition
-  he sustains, by remarking that Aristippus affirmed that there
-  was _no such thing as justice by nature_, but only by law and
-  convention. But the affirmation of Kalliklês is the direct
-  contrary of that which Schleiermacher ascribes to Aristippus.
-  Kalliklês not only does not deny justice by nature, but affirms
-  it in the most direct manner,—explains what it is, that it
-  consists in the right of the strongest man to make use of his
-  strength without any regard to others,—and puts it above the
-  justice of law and society, in respect to authority.
-
-  Ritter and Brandis are yet more incorrect in their accusations of
-  the sophists, founded upon this same doctrine. The former says
-  (p. 581): “It is affirmed as a common tenet of the sophists,
-  there is no right by nature, but only by convention;” compare
-  Brandis, p. 521. The very passages to which these writers refer,
-  as far as they prove anything, prove the contrary of what they
-  assert; and Preller actually imputes the contrary tenet to the
-  sophists (Histor. Philosoph. c. 4, p. 130, Hamburg, 1838) with
-  just as little authority. Both Ritter and Brandis charge the
-  sophists with wickedness for this alleged tenet; for denying that
-  there was any right by nature, and allowing no right except by
-  convention; a doctrine which had been maintained before them by
-  Archelaus (Diogen. Laërt. ii, 16). Now Plato (Legg. x, p. 889),
-  whom these writers refer to, charges certain wise men—σοφοὺς
-  ἰδιώτας τε καὶ ποιητὰς (he does not mention sophists)—with
-  wickedness, but on the ground directly opposite; because _they
-  did acknowledge a right by_ nature, _of greater authority
-  than the right laid down by_ the legislator; and because they
-  encouraged pupils to follow this supposed right of nature,
-  disobeying the law; interpreting the right of nature as Kalliklês
-  does in the Gorgias!
-
-  Teachers are thus branded as wicked men by Ritter and Brandis,
-  for the negative, and by Plato, if he here means the sophists,
-  for the affirmative doctrine.
-
-But this is not the strongest part of the vindication.
-
-First, Kalliklês himself is not a sophist, nor represented by Plato
-as such. He is a young Athenian citizen, of rank and station,
-belonging to the deme Acharnæ; he is intimate with other young men
-of condition in the city, has recently entered into active political
-life, and bends his whole soul towards it; he disparages philosophy,
-and speaks with utter contempt about the sophists.[611] If, then,
-it were even just, which I do not admit, to infer from opinions put
-into the mouth of one sophist, that the same were held by another
-or by all of them, it would not be the less unjust to draw the like
-inference from opinions professed by one who is not a sophist, and
-who despises the whole profession.
-
-  [611] Plato, Gorgias, c. 37, p. 481, D; c. 41, p. 485, B, D; c.
-  42, p. 487, C; c. 50, p. 495, B; c. 70, p. 515, A. σὺ μὲν αὐτὸς
-  ἄρτι ἄρχει πράττειν τὰ τῆς πόλεως πράγματα; compare c. 55, p.
-  500, C. His contempt for the sophists, c. 75, p. 519, E, with the
-  note of Heindorf.
-
-Secondly, if any man will read attentively the course of the
-dialogue, he will see that the doctrine of Kalliklês is such as no
-one dared publicly to propound. So it is conceived both by Kalliklês
-himself, and by Sokratês. The former first takes up the conversation,
-by saying that his predecessor Pôlus had become entangled in a
-contradiction, because he had not courage enough openly to announce
-an unpopular and odious doctrine; but he, Kalliklês, was less
-shamefaced, and would speak out boldly that doctrine which others
-kept to themselves for fear of shocking the hearers. “Certainly (says
-Sokratês to him) your audacity is abundantly shown by the doctrine
-which you have just laid down; you set forth plainly that which other
-people think, but do not choose to utter.”[612] Now, opinions of
-which Pôlus, an insolent young man, was afraid to proclaim himself
-the champion, must have been revolting indeed to the sentiments
-of hearers. How then can any reasonable man believe, that such
-opinions were not only openly propounded, but seriously inculcated as
-truth upon audiences of youthful hearers, by the sophists? We know
-that the teaching of the latter was public in the highest degree;
-publicity was pleasing as well as profitable to them; among the many
-disparaging epithets heaped upon them, ostentation and vanity are two
-of the most conspicuous. Whatever they taught, they taught publicly;
-and I contend, with full conviction, that, had they even agreed with
-Kalliklês in this opinion, they could neither have been sufficiently
-audacious, nor sufficiently their own enemies, to make it a part of
-their public teaching; but would have acted like Pôlus, and kept the
-doctrine to themselves.
-
-  [612] Plato, Gorgias, c. 38, p. 482, E. ἐκ ταύτης γὰρ αὖ τῆς
-  ὁμολογίας αὐτὸς ὑπὸ σοῦ συμποδισθεὶς ἐν τοῖς λόγοις ἐπεστομίσθη
-  (Polus), ~αἰσχυνθεὶς ἃ ἐνόει εἰπεῖν~· σὺ γὰρ τῷ ὄντι, ὦ Σώκρατες,
-  εἰς τοιαῦτα ἄγεις φορτικὰ καὶ δημηγορικὰ, φάσκων τὴν ἀλήθειαν
-  διώκειν ... ἐὰν οὖν τις ~αἰσχύνηται καὶ μὴ τολμᾷ λέγειν ἅπερ
-  νοεῖ~, ἀναγκάζεται ἐναντία λέγειν.
-
-  Καὶ μὴν (says Sokratês to Kalliklês, c. 42, p. 487, D.) ὅτι γε
-  οἷος ~παῤῥησιάζεσθαι~ καὶ μὴ αἰσχύνεσθαι, αὐτός τε φῂς, καὶ ὁ
-  λόγος, ὃν ὀλίγον πρότερον ἔλεγες, ὁμολογεῖ σοι. Again, c. 47,
-  p. 492, D. Οὐκ ἀγεννῶς γε, ὦ Καλλικλεῖς, ἐπεξέρχει τῷ λόγῳ
-  παῤῥησιαζόμενος· ~σαφῶς γὰρ σὺ νῦν λέγεις ἃ οἱ ἄλλοι διανοοῦνται
-  μὲν, λέγειν δὲ οὐκ ἐθέλουσι~.
-
-  Again, from Kalliklês, ὃ ἐγώ σοι νῦν ~παῤῥησιαζόμενος~ λέγω, c.
-  46, p. 491, E.
-
-Thirdly, this latter conclusion will be rendered doubly certain,
-when we consider of what city we are now speaking. Of all places in
-the world, the democratical Athens is the last in which the doctrine
-advanced by Kalliklês could possibly have been professed by a public
-teacher; or even by Kalliklês himself, in any public meeting. It is
-unnecessary to remind the reader how profoundly democratical was the
-sentiment and morality of the Athenians,—how much they loved their
-laws, their constitution, and their political equality,—how jealous
-their apprehension was of any nascent or threatening despotism. All
-this is not simply admitted, but even exaggerated, by Mr. Mitford,
-Wachsmuth, and other anti-democratical writers, who often draw from
-it materials for their abundant censures. Now the very point which
-Sokratês, in this dialogue, called “Gorgias,” seeks to establish
-against Kalliklês, against the rhetors, and against the sophists,
-is, that they courted, flattered, and truckled to the sentiment of
-the Athenian people, with degrading subservience; that they looked
-to the immediate gratification simply, and not to permanent moral
-improvement of the people; that they had not courage to address to
-them any unpalatable truths, however salutary, but would shift and
-modify opinions in every way, so as to escape giving offence;[613]
-that no man who put himself prominently forward at Athens had any
-chance of success, unless he became moulded and assimilated, from the
-core, to the people and their type of sentiment[614]. Granting such
-charges to be true, how is it conceivable that any sophist, or any
-rhetor, could venture to enforce upon an Athenian public audience the
-doctrine laid down by Kalliklês? To tell such an audience: “Your laws
-and institutions are all violations of the law of nature, contrived
-to disappoint the Alkibiadês or Napoleon among you of his natural
-right to become your master, and to deal with you petty men as his
-slaves. All your unnatural precautions, and conventional talk, in
-favor of legality and equal dealing, will turn out to be nothing
-better than pitiful impotence[615], as soon as _he_ finds a good
-opportunity of standing forward in his full might and energy, so as
-to put you into your proper places, and show you what privileges
-Nature intends for her favorites!” Conceive such a doctrine
-propounded by a lecturer to assembled Athenians! A doctrine just as
-revolting to Nikias as to Kleon, and which even Alkibiadês would be
-forced to affect to disapprove; since it is not simply anti-popular,
-not simply despotic, but the drunken extravagance of despotism. The
-Great man, as depicted by Kalliklês, stands in the same relation to
-ordinary mortals, as Jonathan Wild the Great, in the admirable parody
-of Fielding.
-
-  [613] This quality is imputed by Sokratês to Kalliklês in a
-  remarkable passage of the Gorgias, c. 37, p. 481, D, E, the
-  substance of which is thus stated by Stallbaum in his note:
-  “Carpit Socrates Calliclis levitatem, mobili populi turbæ nunquam
-  non blandientis et adulantis.”
-
-  It is one of the main points of Sokratês in the dialogue, to
-  make out that the practice, for he will not call it an art, of
-  sophists, as well as rhetors, aims at nothing but the immediate
-  gratification of the people, without any regard to their ultimate
-  or durable benefit; that they are branches of the widely-extended
-  knack of flattery (Gorgias, c. 19, p. 464, D; c. 20, p. 465, C;
-  c. 56, p. 501, C; c. 75, p. 520, B).
-
-  [614] Plato, Gorgias, c. 68, p. 513. Οὐ γὰρ μιμητὴν δεῖ εἶναι,
-  ἀλλ᾽ αὐτοφυῶς ὅμοιον τούτοις, εἰ μέλλεις τι γνήσιον ἀπεργάζεσθαι
-  εἰς φιλίαν τῷ Ἀθηναίων δήμῳ.... Ὅστις οὖν σε τούτοις ὁμοιότατον
-  ἀπεργάσεται, οὗτός σε ποιήσει, ὡς ἐπιθυμεῖς πολιτικὸς εἶναι,
-  πολιτικὸν καὶ ῥητορικόν· τῷ αὐτῶν γὰρ ἤθει λεγομένων τῶν λόγων
-  ἕκαστοι χαίρουσι, τῷ δὲ ἀλλοτρίῳ ἄχθονται.
-
-  [615] Plato, Gorgias, c. 46, p. 492, C (the words of Kalliklês).
-  Τὰ δὲ ἄλλα ταῦτ᾽ ἐστὶ τὰ καλλωπίσματα, τὰ παρὰ φύσιν ξυνθήματα,
-  ἀνθρώπων φλυαρία καὶ οὐδενὸς ἄξια.
-
-That sophists, whom Plato accuses of slavish flattery to the
-democratical ear, should gratuitously insult it by the proposition of
-such tenets, is an assertion not merely untrue, but utterly absurd.
-Even as to Sokratês, we know from Xenophon how much the Athenians
-were offended with him, and how much it was urged by the accusers
-on his trial, that in his conversations he was wont to cite with
-peculiar relish the description, in the second book of the Iliad,
-of Odysseus following the Grecian crowd, when running away from the
-agora to get on shipboard, and prevailing upon them to come back, by
-gentle words addressed to the chiefs, but by blows of his stick,
-accompanied with contemptuous reprimand, to the common people. The
-indirect evidence thus afforded, that Sokratês countenanced unequal
-dealing and ill usage towards the many, told much against him in
-the minds of the dikasts. What would they have felt then towards a
-sophist who publicly professed the political morality of Kalliklês?
-The truth is, not only was it impossible that any such morality, or
-anything of the same type even much diluted, could find its way into
-the educational lectures of professors at Athens, but the fear would
-be in the opposite direction. If the sophist erred in either way,
-it would be in that which Sokratês imputes, by making his lectures
-over-democratical. Nay, if we suppose any opportunity to have arisen
-of discussing the doctrine of Kalliklês, he would hardly omit to
-flatter the ears of the surrounding democrats by enhancing the
-beneficent results of legality and equal dealing, and by denouncing
-this “natural despot,” or undisclosed Napoleon, as one who must
-either take his place under such restraints, or find a place in some
-other city.
-
-I have thus shown, even from Plato himself, that the doctrine
-ascribed to Kalliklês neither did enter, nor could have entered, into
-the lectures of a sophist or professed teacher. The same conclusion
-may be maintained respecting the doctrine of Thrasymachus in the
-first book of the “Republic.” Thrasymachus was a rhetorical teacher,
-who had devised precepts respecting the construction of an oration
-and the training of young men for public speaking. It is most
-probable that he confined himself, like Gorgias, to this department,
-and that he did not profess to give moral lectures, like Protagoras
-and Prodikus. But granting him to have given such, he would not
-talk about justice in the way in which Plato makes him talk, if he
-desired to give any satisfaction to an Athenian audience. The mere
-brutality and ferocious impudence of demeanor even to exaggeration,
-with which Plato invests him, is in itself a strong proof that the
-doctrine, ushered in with such a preface, was not that of a popular
-and acceptable teacher, winning favor in public audiences. He defines
-justice to be “the interest of the superior power; that rule, which,
-in every society, the dominant power prescribes, as being for its own
-advantage.” A man is just, he says, for the advantage of another,
-not for his own: he is weak, cannot help himself, and must submit
-to that which the stronger authority, whether despot, oligarchy, or
-commonwealth, commands.
-
-This theory is essentially different from the doctrine of Kalliklês,
-as set forth a few pages back; for Thrasymachus does not travel out
-of society to insist upon anterior rights dating from a supposed
-state of nature; he takes societies as he finds them, recognizing the
-actual governing authority of each as the canon and constituent of
-justice or injustice. Stallbaum and other writers have incautiously
-treated the two theories as if they were the same; and with something
-even worse than want of caution, while they pronounce the theory
-of Thrasymachus to be detestably immoral, announce it as having
-been propounded not by him only, but by _The Sophists_; thus, in
-their usual style, dealing with the sophists as if they were a
-school, sect, or partnership with mutual responsibility. Whoever has
-followed the evidence which I have produced respecting Protagoras and
-Prodikus, will know how differently these latter handled the question
-of justice.
-
-But the truth is, that the theory of Thrasymachus, though incorrect
-and defective, is not so detestable as these writers represent. What
-makes it seem detestable, is the style and manner in which he is
-made to put it forward; which causes the just man to appear petty
-and contemptible, while it surrounds the unjust man with enviable
-attributes. Now this is precisely the circumstance which revolts
-the common sentiments of mankind, as it revolts also the critics
-who read what is said by Thrasymachus. The moral sentiments exist
-in men’s minds in complex and powerful groups, associated with
-some large words and emphatic forms of speech. Whether an ethical
-theory satisfies the exigencies of reason, or commands and answers
-to all the phenomena, a common audience will seldom give themselves
-the trouble to consider with attention; but what they imperiously
-exact, and what is indispensable to give the theory any chance
-of success, is, that it shall exhibit to their feelings the just
-man as respectable and dignified, and the unjust man as odious
-and repulsive. Now that which offends in the language ascribed to
-Thrasymachus is, not merely the absence, but the reversal, of this
-condition; the presentation of the just man as weak and silly, and
-of injustice in all the _prestige_ of triumph and dignity. And for
-this very reason, I venture to infer that such a theory was never
-propounded by Thrasymachus to any public audience in the form in
-which it appears in Plato. For Thrasymachus was a rhetor, who had
-studied the principles of his art: now we know that these common
-sentiments of an audience, were precisely what the rhetors best
-understood, and always strove to conciliate. Even from the time of
-Gorgias, they began the practice of composing beforehand declamations
-upon the general heads of morality, which were ready to be introduced
-into actual speeches as occasion presented itself, and in which
-appeal was made to the moral sentiments foreknown as common, with
-more or less of modification, to all the Grecian assemblies. The real
-Thrasymachus, addressing any audience at Athens, would never have
-wounded these sentiments, as the Platonic Thrasymachus is made to do
-in the “Republic.” Least of all would he have done this, if it be
-true of him, as Plato asserts of the rhetors and sophists generally,
-that they thought about nothing but courting popularity, without any
-sincerity of conviction.
-
-Though Plato thinks fit to bring out the opinion of Thrasymachus
-with accessories unnecessarily offensive, and thus to enhance
-the dialectical triumph of Sokratês by the brutal manners of the
-adversary, he was well aware that he had not done justice to the
-opinion itself, much less confuted it. The proof of this is, that
-in the second book of the “Republic,” after Thrasymachus has
-disappeared, the very same opinion is taken up by Glaukon and
-Adeimantus, and set forth by both of them, though they disclaim
-entertaining it as their own, as suggesting grave doubts and
-difficulties which they desire to hear solved by Sokratês. Those
-who read attentively the discourses of Glaukon and Adeimantus, will
-see that the substantive opinion ascribed to Thrasymachus, apart
-from the brutality with which he is made to state it, does not even
-countenance the charge of immoral teaching against _him_, much
-less against the sophists generally. Hardly anything in Plato’s
-compositions is more powerful than those discourses. They present,
-in a perspicuous and forcible manner, some of the most serious
-difficulties with which ethical theory is required to grapple. And
-Plato can answer them only in one way, by taking society to pieces,
-and reconstructing it in the form of his imaginary republic. The
-speeches of Glaukon and Adeimantus form the immediate preface to
-the striking and elaborate description which he goes through, of
-his new state of society, nor do they receive any other answer than
-what is implied in that description. Plato indirectly confesses that
-he cannot answer them, assuming social institutions to continue
-unreformed: and his reform is sufficiently fundamental.[616]
-
-  [616] I omitted to notice the Dialogue of Plato entitled
-  Euthydemus, wherein Sokratês is introduced in conversation with
-  the two persons called sophists, Euthydemus and Dionysodorus,
-  who are represented as propounding a number of verbal quibbles,
-  assertions of double sense, arising from equivocal grammar or
-  syntax,—fallacies of mere diction, without the least plausibility
-  as to the sense,—specimens of jests and hoax, p. 278, B. They are
-  described as extravagantly conceited, while Sokratês is painted
-  with his usual affectation of deference and modesty. He himself,
-  during a part of the dialogue, carries on conversation in his
-  own dialectical manner with the youthful Kleinias; who is then
-  handed over to be taught by Euthydemus and Dionysodorus; so that
-  the contrast between their style of questioning, and that of
-  Sokratês, is forcibly brought out.
-
-  To bring out this contrast, appears to me the main purpose
-  of the dialogue, as has already been remarked by Socher and
-  others (see Stallbaum, Prolegom. ad Euthydem. pp. 15-65): but
-  its construction, its manner, and its result, previous to the
-  concluding conversation between Sokratês and Kriton separately,
-  is so thoroughly comic, that Ast, on this and other grounds,
-  rejects it as spurious and unworthy of Plato (see Ast, über
-  Platons Leben und Schriften, pp. 414-418).
-
-  Without agreeing in Ast’s inference, I recognize the violence
-  of the caricature which Plato has here presented under the
-  characters of Euthydemus and Dionysodorus. And it is for this
-  reason, among many others, that I protest the more emphatically
-  against the injustice of Stallbaum and the commentators
-  generally, who consider these two persons as disciples of
-  Protagoras, and samples of what is called “Sophistica,” the
-  sophistical practice, the sophists generally. There is not the
-  smallest ground for considering these two men as disciples of
-  Protagoras, who is presented to us, even by Plato himself, under
-  an aspect as totally different from them as it is possible
-  to imagine. Euthydemus and Dionysodorus are described, by
-  Plato himself in this very dialogue, as old men who had been
-  fencing-masters, and who had only within the last two years
-  applied themselves to the eristic or controversial dialogue
-  (Euthyd. c. 1, p. 272, C.; c. 3, p. 273, E). Schleiermacher
-  himself accounts their personal importance so mean, that he
-  thinks Plato could not have intended to attack them, but meant
-  to attack Antisthenês and the Megaric school of philosophers
-  (Prolegom. ad Euthydem. vol. iii, pp. 403, 404, of his
-  translation of Plato). So contemptible does Plato esteem them,
-  that Krito blames Sokratês for having so far degraded himself as
-  to be seen talking with them before many persons (p. 305, B, c.
-  30).
-
-  The name of Protagoras occurs only once in the dialogue, in
-  reference to the doctrine, started by Euthydemus, that false
-  propositions or contradictory propositions were impossible,
-  because no one could either think about or talk about _that
-  which was not_, or _the non-existent_ (p. 284, A; 286, C). This
-  doctrine is said by Sokratês to have been much talked of “by
-  Protagoras, and by men yet earlier than he.” It is idle to
-  infer from such a passage, any connection or analogy between
-  these men and Protagoras, as Stallbaum labors to do throughout
-  his Prolegomena; affirming (in his note on p. 286, C,) most
-  incorrectly, that Protagoras maintained this doctrine about τὸ μὴ
-  ὂν, or the non-existent, because he had _too great faith_ in the
-  evidence of the senses; whereas we know from Plato that it had
-  its rise with Parmenidês, who rejected the evidence of the senses
-  entirely (see Plato, Sophist. 24, p. 237, A, with Heindorf and
-  Stallbaum’s notes). Diogenes Laërtius (ix, 8, 53) falsely asserts
-  that Protagoras was the _first_ to broach the doctrine, and even
-  cites as his witness Plato in the Euthydemus, where the exact
-  contrary is stated. Whoever broached it first, it was a doctrine
-  following plausibly from the then received Realism, and Plato was
-  long perplexed before he could solve the difficulty to his own
-  satisfaction (Theætet. p. 187, D).
-
-  I do not doubt that there were in Athens persons who abused the
-  dialectical exercise for frivolous puzzles, and it was well for
-  Plato to compose a dialogue exhibiting the contrast between these
-  men and Sokratês. But to treat Euthydemus and Dionysodorus as
-  samples of “The Sophists,” is altogether unwarranted.
-
-I call particular attention to this circumstance, without which
-we cannot fairly estimate the sophists, or practical teachers of
-Athens, face to face with their accuser-general, Plato. He was a
-great and systematic theorist, whose opinions on ethics, politics,
-cognition, religion, etc., were all wrought into harmony by his own
-mind, and stamped with that peculiarity which is the mark of an
-original intellect. So splendid an effort of speculative genius is
-among the marvels of the Grecian world. His dissent from all the
-societies which he saw around him, not merely democratical, but
-oligarchical and despotic also, was of the deepest and most radical
-character. Nor did he delude himself by the belief, that any partial
-amendment of that which he saw around could bring about the end which
-he desired: he looked to nothing short of a new genesis of the man
-and the citizen, with institutions calculated from the beginning to
-work out the full measure of perfectibility. His fertile scientific
-imagination realized this idea in the “Republic.” But that very
-systematic and original character, which lends so much value and
-charm to the substantive speculations of Plato, counts as a deduction
-from his trustworthiness as critic or witness, in reference to the
-living agents whom he saw at work in Athens and other cities, as
-statesmen, generals, or teachers. His criticisms are dictated by
-his own point of view, according to which the entire society was
-corrupt, and all the instruments who carried on its functions were
-of essentially base metal. Whoever will read either the “Gorgias” or
-the “Republic,” will see in how sweeping and indiscriminate a manner
-he passes his sentence of condemnation. Not only all the sophists
-and all the rhetors,[617] but all the musicians and dithyrambic
-or tragic poets; all the statesmen, past as well as present, not
-excepting even the great Periklês, receive from his hands one common
-stamp of dishonor. Every one of these men are numbered by Plato among
-the numerous category of flatterers, who minister to the immediate
-gratification and to the desires of the people, without looking to
-their permanent improvement, or making them morally better. “Periklês
-and Kimon (says Sokratês in the “Gorgias”) are nothing but servants
-or ministers who supply the immediate appetites and tastes of the
-people; just as the baker and the confectioner do in their respective
-departments, without knowing or caring whether the food will do
-any real good, a point which the physician alone can determine. As
-ministers, they are clever enough: they have provided the city amply
-with tribute, walls, docks, ships, and _such other follies_: but I
-(Sokratês) am the only man in Athens who aim, so far as my strength
-permits, at the true purpose of politics, the mental improvement of
-the people.”[618] So wholesale a condemnation betrays itself as the
-offspring, and the consistent offspring, of systematic peculiarity of
-vision, the prejudice of a great and able mind.
-
-  [617] Plato, Gorgias, c. 57, 58; pp. 502, 503.
-
-  [618] Plato, Gorgias, c. 72, 73, p. 517 (Sokratês speaks):
-  Ἀληθεῖς ἄρα οἱ ἔμπροσθεν λόγοι ἦσαν, ὅτι οὐδένα ἡμεῖς ἴσμεν ἄνδρα
-  ἀγαθὸν γεγονότα τὰ πολιτικὰ ἐν τῇδε τῇ πόλει.
-
-  Ὦ δαιμόνιε, οὐδ᾽ ἐγὼ ψέγω τούτους (Periklês and Kimon) ὥς
-  γε ~διακόνους~ εἶναι πόλεως, ἀλλά μοι δοκοῦσι τῶν γε νῦν
-  ~διακονικώτεροι~ γεγονέναι καὶ μᾶλλον οἷοί τε ἐκπορίζειν τῇ
-  πόλει ὧν ἐπεθύμει. Ἀλλὰ γὰρ μεταβιβάζειν τὰς ἐπιθυμίας καὶ μὴ
-  ἐπιτρέπειν, πείθοντες καὶ βιαζόμενοι ἐπὶ τοῦτο, ὅθεν ἔμελλον
-  ἀμείνους ἔσεσθαι οἱ πολῖται, ὡς ἔπος εἰπεῖν, οὐδὲν τούτων
-  διέφερον ἐκεῖνοι· ὅπερ μόνον ἔργον ἐστὶν ἀγαθοῦ πολίτου.
-
-  Ἄνευ γὰρ σωφροσύνης καὶ δικαιοσύνης, λιμένων καὶ νεωρίων καὶ
-  τειχῶν καὶ φόρων καὶ ~τοιούτων φλυαριῶν~ ἐμπεπλήκασι τὴν πόλιν
-  (c. 74, p. 519, A).
-
-  Οἶμαι (says Sokratês, c. 77, p. 521, D.) μετ᾽ ὀλίγων Ἀθηναίων,
-  ἵνα μὴ εἴπω μόνος, ἐπιχειρεῖν τῇ ὡς ἀληθῶς πολιτικῇ τέχνῃ καὶ
-  πράττειν τὰ πολιτικὰ μόνος τῶν νῦν, ἅτε οὖν οὐ πρὸς χάριν λέγων
-  τοὺς λόγους οὓς λέγω ἑκάστοτε, ἀλλὰ πρὸς τὸ βέλτιστον, οὐ πρὸς τὸ
-  ἥδιστον, etc.
-
-It would be not less unjust to appreciate the sophists or the
-statesmen of Athens from the point of view of Plato, than the
-present teachers and politicians of England or France from that
-of Mr. Owen or Fourier. Both the one and the other class labored
-for society as it stood at Athens: the statesmen carried on the
-business of practical politics, the sophist trained up youth for
-practical life in all its departments, as family men, citizens, and
-leaders, to obey as well as to command. Both accepted the system as
-it stood, without contemplating the possibility of a new birth of
-society: both ministered to certain exigences, held their anchorage
-upon certain sentiments, and bowed to a certain morality, actually
-felt among the living men around them. That which Plato says of the
-statesmen of Athens is perfectly true, that they were only servants
-or ministers of the people. He, who tried the people and the entire
-society by comparison with an imaginary standard of his own, might
-deem all these ministers worthless in the lump, as carrying on a
-system too bad to be mended; but, nevertheless, the difference
-between a competent and an incompetent minister, between Periklês
-and Nikias, was of unspeakable moment to the security and happiness
-of the Athenians. What the sophists on their part undertook was, to
-educate young men so as to make them better qualified for statesmen
-or ministers; and Protagoras would have thought it sufficient honor
-to himself,—as well as sufficient benefit to Athens, which assuredly
-it would have been,—if he could have inspired any young Athenian with
-the soul and the capacities of his friend and companion Periklês.
-
-So far is Plato from considering the sophists as the corruptors
-of Athenian morality, that he distinctly protests against that
-supposition, in a remarkable passage of the “Republic.” It is,
-he says, the whole people, or the society, with its established
-morality, intelligence, and tone of sentiment, which is intrinsically
-vicious; the teachers of such a society must be vicious also,
-otherwise their teaching would not be received; and even if their
-private teaching were ever so good, its effect would be washed away,
-except in some few privileged natures, by the overwhelming deluge
-of pernicious social influences.[619] Nor let any one imagine,
-as modern readers are but too ready to understand it, that this
-poignant censure is intended for Athens so far forth as a democracy.
-Plato was not the man to preach king-worship, or wealth-worship, as
-social or political remedies: he declares emphatically that not one
-of the societies then existing was such that a truly philosophical
-nature could be engaged in active functions under it.[620] These
-passages would be alone sufficient to repel the assertions of those
-who denounce the sophists as poisoners of Athenian morality, on the
-alleged authority of Plato.
-
-  [619] This passage is in Republ. vi, 6, p. 492, _seq._ I put the
-  first words of the passage (which is too long to be cited, but
-  which richly deserves to be read, entire) in the translation
-  given by Stallbaum in his note.
-
-  Sokratês says to Adeimantus: “An tu quoque putas esse quidem
-  sophistas, homines privatos, qui corrumpunt juventutem in
-  quâcunque re mentione dignâ; nec illud tamen animadvertisti et
-  tibi persuasisti, quod multo magis debebas, ipsos Athenienses
-  turpissimos esse aliorum corruptores?”
-
-  Yet the commentator who translates this passage, does not scruple
-  (in his Prolegomena to the Republic, pp. xliv, xlv, as well as to
-  the Dialogues) to heap upon the sophists aggravated charges, as
-  the actual corruptors of Athenian morality.
-
-  [620] Plato, Repub. vi, 11, p. 497, B. μηδεμίαν ἀξίαν εἶναι τῶν
-  νῦν κατάστασιν πόλεως φιλοσόφου φύσεως, etc.
-
-  Compare Plato, Epistol. vii, p. 325, A.
-
-Nor is it at all more true that they were men of mere words, and made
-their pupils no better,—a charge just as vehemently pressed against
-Sokratês as against the sophists,—and by the same class of enemies,
-such as Anytus,[621] Aristophanês, Eupolis, etc. It was mainly from
-sophists like Hippias that the Athenian youth learned what they knew
-of geometry, astronomy, and arithmetic: but the range of what is
-called special science, possessed even by the teacher, was at that
-time very limited; and the matter of instruction communicated was
-expressed under the general title of “Words, or Discourses,” which
-were always taught by the sophists, in connection with thought, and
-in reference to a practical use. The capacities of thought, speech,
-and action, are conceived in conjunction by Greeks generally, and by
-teachers like Isokratês and Quintilian especially; and when young men
-in Greece, like the Bœotian Proxenus, put themselves under training
-by Gorgias or any other sophist, it was with a view of qualifying
-themselves, not merely to speak, but to act.[622]
-
-  [621] Anytus was the accuser of Sokratês: his enmity to the
-  sophists may be seen in Plato, Meno. p. 91, C.
-
-  [622] Xenoph. Anabas. ii, 6. Πρόξενος—εὐθὺς μὲν μειράκιον ὢν
-  ἐπεθύμει γενέσθαι ἀνὴρ ~τὰ μεγάλα πράττειν ἱκανός~· καὶ διὰ
-  ταύτην τὴν ἐπιθυμίαν ἔδωκε Γοργίᾳ ἀργύριον τῷ Λεοντίνῳ....
-  Τοσούτων δ᾽ ἐπιθυμῶν, σφόδρα ἔνδηλον αὖ καὶ τοῦτο εἶχεν, ὅτι
-  τούτων οὐδὲν ἂν θέλοι κτᾶσθαι μετὰ ἀδικίας, ἀλλὰ σὺν τῷ δικαίῳ
-  καὶ καλῷ ᾤετο δεῖν τούτων τυγχάνειν, ἄνευ δὲ τούτων μή.
-
-  Proxenus, as described by his friend Xenophon, was certainly a
-  man who did no dishonor to the moral teaching of Gorgias.
-
-  The connection between thought, speech, and action, is seen even
-  in the jests of Aristophanês upon the purposes of Sokratês and
-  the sophists:—
-
-  Νικᾷν πράττων καὶ βουλεύων καὶ τῇ γλώττῃ πολεμίζων (Nubes, 418).
-
-Most of the pupils of the sophists, as of Sokratês[623] himself,
-were young men of wealth; a fact, at which Plato sneers, and others
-copy him, as if it proved that they cared only about high pay. But I
-do not hesitate to range myself on the side of Isokratês,[624] and
-to contend that the sophist himself had much to lose by corrupting
-his pupils,—an argument used by Sokratês in defending himself
-before the dikastery, and just as valid in defence of Protagoras or
-Prodikus,[625]—and strong personal interest in sending them forth
-accomplished and virtuous; that the best-taught youth were decidedly
-the most free from crime and the most active towards good; that
-among the valuable ideas and feelings which a young Athenian had
-in his mind, as well as among the good pursuits which he followed,
-those which he learned from the sophists counted nearly as the best;
-that, if the contrary had been the fact, fathers would not have
-continued so to send their sons, and pay their money. It was not
-merely that these teachers countervailed in part the temptations to
-dissipated enjoyment, but also that they were personally unconcerned
-in the acrimonious slander and warfare of party in his native city;
-that the topics with which they familiarized him were, the general
-interests and duties of men and citizens; that they developed the
-germs of morality in the ancient legends, as in Prodikus’s fable,
-and amplified in his mind all the undefined cluster of associations
-connected with the great words of morality; that they vivified in
-him the sentiment of Pan-Hellenic brotherhood; and that, in teaching
-him the art of persuasion,[626] they could not but make him feel the
-dependence in which he stood towards those who were to be persuaded,
-together with the necessity under which he lay of so conducting
-himself as to conciliate their good-will.
-
-  [623] Plato, Apol. Sokr. c. 10, p. 23, C; Protagoras, p. 328, C.
-
-  [624] See Isokr. Or. xv, De Perm. sects. 218, 233, 235, 245, 254,
-  257.
-
-  [625] Plato, Apol. Sokrat. c. 13, p. 25, D.
-
-  [626] See these points strikingly put by Isokratês, in the Orat.
-  xv, De Permutatione, throughout, especially in sects. 294, 297,
-  305, 307; and again by Xenoph. Memorab. i, 2. 10, in reference to
-  the teaching of Sokratês.
-
-The intimations given in Plato, of the enthusiastic reception
-which Protagoras, Prodikus, and other sophists[627] met with in
-the various cities; the description which we read, in the dialogue
-called Protagoras, of the impatience of the youthful Hippokratês,
-on hearing of the arrival of that sophist, insomuch that he awakens
-Sokratês before daylight, in order to obtain an introduction to
-the new-comer and profit by his teaching; the readiness of such
-rich young men to pay money, and to devote time and trouble, for
-the purpose of acquiring a personal superiority apart from their
-wealth and station; the ardor with which Kallias is represented
-as employing his house for the hospitable entertainment, and his
-fortune for the aid, of the sophists; all this makes upon my mind an
-impression directly the reverse of that ironical and contemptuous
-phraseology with which it is set forth by Plato. Such sophists had
-nothing to recommend them except superior knowledge and intellectual
-force, combined with an imposing personality, making itself felt in
-their lectures and conversation. It is to this that the admiration
-was shown; and the fact that it was so shown, brings to view the
-best attributes of the Greek, especially the Athenian mind. It
-exhibits those qualities of which Periklês made emphatic boast in
-his celebrated funeral oration;[628] conception of public speech as
-a practical thing, not meant as an excuse for inaction, but combined
-with energetic action, and turning it to good account by full and
-open discussion beforehand; profound sensibility to the charm of
-manifested intellect, without enervating the powers of execution
-or endurance. Assuredly, a man like Protagoras, arriving in a city
-with all this train of admiration laid before him, must have known
-very little of his own interest or position, if he began to preach
-a low or corrupt morality. If it be true generally, as Voltaire
-has remarked, that “any man who should come to preach a relaxed
-morality would be pelted,” much more would it be true of a sophist
-like Protagoras, arriving in a foreign city with all the prestige
-of a great intellectual name, and with the imagination of youths on
-fire to hear and converse with him, that any similar doctrine would
-destroy his reputation at once. Numbers of teachers have made their
-reputation by inculcating overstrained asceticism; it will be hard to
-find an example of success in the opposite vein.
-
-  [627] See a striking passage in Plato’s Republic, x, c, 4, p.
-  600, C.
-
-  [628] Thucyd. ii. 40. φιλοσοφοῦμεν ἄνευ μαλακίας—οὐ τοὺς λόγους
-  τοῖς ἔργοις βλαβὴν ἡγούμενοι—διαφερόντως δὲ καὶ τόδε ἔχομεν, ὥστε
-  τολμᾷν τε οἱ αὐτοὶ μάλιστα καὶ περὶ ὧν ἐπιχειρήσομεν ἐκλογίζεσθαι.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER LXVIII.
-
-SOKRATES.
-
-
-That the professional teachers called sophists, in Greece, were
-intellectual and moral corruptors, and that much corruption grew up
-under their teaching in the Athenian mind, are common statements,
-which I have endeavored to show to be erroneous. Corresponding to
-these statements is another, which represents Sokratês as one whose
-special merit it was to have rescued the Athenian mind from such
-demoralizing influences; a reputation which he neither deserves nor
-requires. In general, the favorable interpretation of evidence, as
-exhibited towards Sokratês, has been scarcely less marked than the
-harshness of presumption against the sophists. Of late, however,
-some authors have treated his history in an altered spirit, and
-have manifested a disposition to lower him down to that which they
-regard as the sophistical level. M. Forchhammer’s treatise: “The
-Athenians and Sokratês, or Lawful Dealing against Revolution,” goes
-even further, and maintains confidently that Sokratês was most justly
-condemned as an heretic, a traitor, and a corrupter of youth. His
-book, the conclusions of which I altogether reject, is a sort of
-retribution to the sophists, as extending to their alleged opponent
-the same bitter and unfair spirit of construction with that under
-which they have so long unjustly suffered. But when we impartially
-consider the evidence, it will appear that Sokratês deserves our
-admiration and esteem; not, indeed, as an anti-sophist, but as
-combining with the qualities of a good man, a force of character
-and an originality of speculation as well as of method, and a power
-of intellectually working on others, generically different from
-that of any professional teacher, without parallel either among
-contemporaries or successors.
-
-The life of Sokratês comprises seventy years, from 469 to 399
-B.C. His father, Sophroniskus, being a sculptor, the son began by
-following the same profession, in which he attained sufficient
-proficiency to have executed various works; especially a draped
-group of the Charites, or Graces, preserved in the acropolis, and
-shown as his work down to the time of Pausanias.[629] His mother,
-Phænaretê, was a midwife, and he had a brother by the mother’s side
-named Patroklês.[630] Respecting his wife Xanthippê, and his three
-sons, all that has passed into history is the violent temper of the
-former, and the patience of her husband in enduring it. The position
-and family of Sokratês, without being absolutely poor, were humble
-and unimportant but he was of genuine Attic breed, belonging to the
-ancient gens Dædalidæ, which took its name from Dædalus, the mythical
-artist as progenitor.
-
-  [629] Pausanias, i, 22, 8; ix, 35, 2.
-
-  [630] Plato, Euthydem. c. 24, p. 297, D.
-
-The personal qualities of Sokratês, on the other hand, were marked
-and distinguishing, not less in body than in mind. His physical
-constitution was healthy, robust, and enduring, to an extraordinary
-degree. He was not merely strong and active as an hoplite on
-military service, but capable of bearing fatigue or hardship, and
-indifferent to heat or cold, in a measure which astonished all
-his companions. He went barefoot in all seasons of the year, even
-during the winter campaign at Potidæa, under the severe frosts of
-Thrace; and the same homely clothing sufficed to him for winter as
-well as for summer. Though his diet was habitually simple as well
-as abstemious, yet there were occasions, of religious festival or
-friendly congratulation, on which every Greek considered joviality
-and indulgence to be becoming. On such occasions, Sokratês could
-drink more wine than any guest present, yet without being overcome
-or intoxicated.[631] He abstained, on principle, from all extreme
-gymnastic training, which required, as necessary condition,
-extraordinary abundance of food.[632] It was his professed purpose
-to limit, as much as possible, the number of his wants, as a
-distant approach to the perfection of the gods, who wanted nothing,
-to control such as were natural, and prevent the multiplication
-of any that were artificial.[633] Nor can there be any doubt
-that his admirable bodily temperament contributed materially to
-facilitate such a purpose, and assist him in the maintenance of that
-self-mastery, contented self-sufficiency, and independence of the
-favor[634] as well as of the enmity of others, which were essential
-to his plan of intellectual life. His friends, who communicate to us
-his great bodily strength and endurance, are at the same time full
-of jests upon his ugly physiognomy; his flat nose, thick lips, and
-prominent eyes, like a satyr, or silenus.[635] Nor can we implicitly
-trust the evidence of such very admiring witnesses, as to the
-philosopher’s exemption from infirmities of temper; for there seems
-good proof that he was by natural temperament violently irascible;
-a defect which he generally kept under severe control, but which
-occasionally betrayed him into great improprieties of language and
-demeanor.[636]
-
-  [631] See the Symposion of Plato as well as that of Xenophon,
-  both of which profess to depict Sokratês at one of these jovial
-  moments. Plato, Symposion, c. 31, p. 214, A; c. 35, etc., 39,
-  _ad finem_; Xenoph. Symp. ii, 26, where Sokratês requests that
-  the wine may he handed round in small glasses, but that they may
-  succeed each other quickly, like drops of rain in a shower.
-
-  The view which Plato takes of indulgence in wine, as affording a
-  sort of test of the comparative self-command of individuals, and
-  measuring the facility with which any man may be betrayed into
-  folly and extravagance, and the regulation to which he proposes
-  to submit the practice, may be seen in his treatise De Legibus,
-  i, p. 649; ii, pp. 671-674. Compare Xenoph. Memorab. i, 2, 1; i,
-  6, 10.
-
-  [632] Xenoph. Memorab. i, 2, 4. τὸ μὲν οὖν ὑπερεσθίοντα
-  ὑπερπονεῖν ἀπεδοκίμαζε, etc.
-
-  [633] Xenoph. Mem. i, 6, 10. Even Antisthenês (disciple of
-  Sokratês, and the originator of what was called the Cynic
-  philosophy), while he pronounced virtue to be self-sufficient for
-  conferring happiness, was obliged to add that the strength and
-  vigor of Sokratês were required as a farther condition: αὐτάρκη
-  τὴν ἀρετὴν πρὸς εὐδαιμονίαν, μηδενὸς προσδεομένην ὅτι μὴ τῆς
-  Σωκρατικῆς ἴσχυος; Winckelman, Antisthen. Fragment. p. 47; Diog.
-  Laërt. vi, 11.
-
-  [634] See his reply to the invitation of Archelaus, king of
-  Macedonia, indicating the repugnance to accept favors which he
-  could not return (Aristot. Rhetor. ii, 24).
-
-  [635] Plato, Sympos. c. 32, p. 215, A; Xenoph. Sympos. c. 5;
-  Plato, Theætet. p. 143, D.
-
-  [636] This is one of the traditions which Aristoxenus, the
-  disciple of Aristotle, heard from his father Spintharus, who had
-  been in personal communication with Sokratês. See the Fragments
-  of Aristoxenus, Fragm. 27, 28; ap. Frag. Hist. Græc. p. 280, ed.
-  Didot.
-
-  It appears to me that Frag. 28 contains the statement of what
-  Aristoxenus really said about the irascibility of Sokratês;
-  while the expressions of Fragm. 27, ascribed to that author by
-  Plutarch, are unmeasured.
-
-  Fragm. 28 also substantially contradicts Fragm. 26, in which
-  Diogenes asserts, on the authority of Aristoxenus,—what is not to
-  be believed, even if Aristoxenus had asserted it,—that Sokratês
-  made a regular trade of his teaching, and collected perpetual
-  contributions: see Xenoph. Memor. i, 2, 6; i, 5, 6.
-
-  I see no reason for the mistrust with which Preller (Hist.
-  Philosophie, c. v, p. 139) and Ritter (Geschich. d. Philos. vol.
-  ii, ch. 2, p. 19) regard the general testimony of Aristoxenus
-  about Sokratês.
-
-Of those friends, the best known to us are Xenophon and Plato,
-though there existed in antiquity various dialogues composed, and
-memoranda put together, by other hearers of Sokratês, respecting
-his conversations and teaching, which are all now lost.[637] The
-“Memorabilia” of Xenophon profess to record actual conversations
-held by Sokratês, and are prepared with the announced purpose of
-vindicating him against the accusations of Melêtus and his other
-accusers on the trial, as well as against unfavorable opinions,
-seemingly much circulated respecting his character and purposes.
-We thus have in it a sort of partial biography, subject to such
-deductions from its evidentiary value as may be requisite for
-imperfection of memory, intentional decoration, and partiality. On
-the other hand, the purpose of Plato, in the numerous dialogues
-wherein he introduces Sokratês, is not so clear, and is explained
-very differently by different commentators. Plato was a great
-speculative genius, who came to form opinions of his own distinct
-from those of Sokratês, and employed the name of the latter as
-spokesman for these opinions in various dialogues. How much, in the
-Platonic Sokratês, can be safely accepted either as a picture of the
-man or as a record of his opinions,—how much, on the other hand,
-is to be treated as Platonism; or in what proportions the two are
-intermingled,—is a point not to be decided with certainty or rigor.
-The “Apology of Sokratês,” the “Kriton,” and the “Phædon,”—in so far
-as it is a moral picture, and apart from the doctrines advocated in
-it,—appear to belong to the first category; while the political and
-social views of the “Republic” and of the treatise “De Legibus,”
-the cosmic theories in the “Timæus,” and the hypothesis of Ideas,
-as substantive existences apart from the phenomenal world, in the
-various dialogues wherever it is stated, certainly belong to the
-second. Of the ethical dialogues, much may be probably taken to
-represent Sokratês, more or less Platonized.
-
-  [637] Xenophon (Mem. i, 4, 1) alludes to several such
-  biographers, or collectors of anecdotes about Sokratês. Yet it
-  would seem that most of these _Socratici viri_ (Cicer. ad Attic.
-  xiv, 9, 1) did not collect anecdotes or conversations of the
-  master, after the manner of Xenophon; but composed dialogues,
-  manifesting more or less of his method and ἦθος, after the type
-  of Plato. Simon the leather-cutter, however, took memoranda of
-  conversations held by Sokratês in his shop, and published several
-  dialogues purporting to be such. (Diog. Laërt. ii, 123.) The
-  _Socratici viri_ are generally praised by Cicero (Tus. D. ii, 3,
-  8) for the elegance of their style.
-
-But though the opinions put by Plato into the mouth of Sokratês
-are liable to thus much of uncertainty, we find, to our great
-satisfaction, that the pictures given by Plato and Xenophon of
-their common master are in the main accordant; differing only as
-drawn from the same original by two authors radically different
-in spirit and character. Xenophon, the man of action, brings out
-at length those conversations of Sokratês which had a bearing on
-practical conduct, and were calculated to correct vice or infirmity
-in particular individuals; such being the matter which served
-his purpose as an apologist, at the same time that it suited his
-intellectual taste. But he intimates, nevertheless, very plainly,
-that the conversation of Sokratês was often, indeed usually, of
-a more negative, analytical, and generalizing tendency;[638] not
-destined for the reproof of positive or special defect, but to awaken
-the inquisitive faculties and lead to the rational comprehension of
-vice and virtue as referable to determinate general principles. Now
-this latter side of the master’s physiognomy, which Xenophon records
-distinctly, though without emphasis or development, acquires almost
-exclusive prominence in the Platonic picture. Plato leaves out the
-practical, and consecrates himself to the theoretical, Sokratês;
-whom he divests in part of his identity, in order to enrol him as
-chief speaker in certain larger theoretical views of his own. The
-two pictures, therefore, do not contradict each other, but mutually
-supply each other’s defects, and admit of being blended into one
-consistent whole. And respecting the method of Sokratês, a point more
-characteristic than either his precepts or his theory,—as well as
-respecting the effect of that method on the minds of hearers,—both
-Xenophon and Plato are witnesses substantially in unison: though,
-here again, the latter has made the method his own, worked it out on
-a scale of enlargement and perfection, and given to it a permanence
-which it could never have derived from its original author, who only
-talked and never wrote. It is fortunate that our two main witnesses
-about him, both speaking from personal knowledge, agree to so great
-an extent.
-
-  [638] Xenophon, Memor. i, 1, 16. Αὐτὸς δὲ περὶ τῶν ἀνθρωπείων
-  ἀεὶ διελέγετο, ~σκοπῶν, τί εὐσεβές, τί ἀσεβές~· τί καλὸν, τί
-  αἰσχρόν· τί δίκαιον, τί ἄδικον· τί ἀνδρία, τί δειλία· τί πόλις,
-  τί πολιτικός· τί ἀρχὴ ἀνθρώπων, τί ἀρχικὸς ἀνθρώπων, etc.
-
-  Compare i, 2, 50; iii, 8, 3, 4; iii, 9; iv, 4, 5; iv, 6, 1.
-  σκοπῶν σὺν τοῖς συνοῦσι, ~τί ἕκαστον εἴη τῶν ὄντων, οὐδέποτ᾽
-  ἔληγε~.
-
-Both describe in the same manner his private life and habits; his
-contented poverty, justice, temperance in the largest sense of the
-word, and self-sufficing independence of character. On most of these
-points too, Aristophanês and the other comic writers, so far as their
-testimony counts for anything, appear as confirmatory witnesses; for
-they abound in jests on the coarse fare, shabby and scanty clothing,
-bare feet, pale face, poor and joyless life, of Sokratês.[639] Of
-the circumstances of his life we are almost wholly ignorant: he
-served as an hoplite at Potidæa, at Delium, and at Amphipolis;
-with credit apparently in all, though exaggerated encomiums on the
-part of his friends provoked an equally exaggerated skepticism on
-the part of Athenæus and others. He seems never to have filled any
-political office until the year (B.C. 406) in which the battle of
-Arginusæ occurred, in which year he was member of the senate of Five
-Hundred, and one of the prytanes on that memorable day when the
-proposition of Kallixenus against the six generals was submitted to
-the public assembly: his determined refusal, in spite of all personal
-hazard, to put an unconstitutional question to the vote, has been
-already recounted. That during his long life he strictly obeyed the
-laws,[640] is proved by the fact that none of his numerous enemies
-ever arraigned him before a court of justice: that he discharged all
-the duties of an upright man and a brave as well as pious citizen,
-may also be confidently asserted. His friends lay especial stress
-upon his piety; that is, upon his exact discharge of all the
-religious duties considered as incumbent upon an Athenian.[641]
-
-  [639] Aristoph. Nubes, 105, 121, 362, 414; Aves, 1282; Eupolis,
-  Fragment. Incert. ix, x, xi. ap. Meineke, p. 552; Ameipsias,
-  Fragmenta, Konnus, p. 703, Meineke; Diogen. Laërt. ii, 28.
-
-  The later comic writers ridiculed the Pythagoreans, as well as
-  Zeno the Stoic, on grounds very similar: see Diogenes Laërt. vii,
-  1, 24.
-
-  [640] Plato, Apol. Sokr. c. 1. Νῦν ἐγὼ πρῶτον ἐπὶ δικαστήριον
-  ἀναβέβηκα, ἔτη γεγονὼς πλείω ἑβδομήκοντα.
-
-  [641] Xenoph. Memor. i, 1, 2-20; i, 3, 1-3.
-
-Though these points are requisite to be established, in order
-that we may rightly interpret the character of Sokratês, it is
-not from them that he has derived his eminent place in history.
-Three peculiarities distinguish the man. 1. His long life passed
-in contented poverty, and in public, apostolic dialectics. 2. His
-strong religious persuasion, or belief, of acting under a mission and
-signs from the gods; especially his dæmon, or genius; the special
-religious warning of which he believed himself to be frequently the
-subject. 3. His great intellectual originality, both of subject and
-of method, and his power of stirring and forcing the germ of inquiry
-and ratiocination in others. Though these three characteristics
-were so blended in Sokratês that it is not easy to consider them
-separately; yet, in each respect, he stood distinguished from all
-Greek philosophers before or after him.
-
-At what time Sokratês relinquished his profession as a statuary we do
-not know; but it is certain that all the middle and later part of his
-life, at least, was devoted exclusively to the self-imposed task of
-teaching; excluding all other business, public or private, and to the
-neglect of all means of fortune. We can hardly avoid speaking of him
-as a teacher, though he himself disclaimed the appellation:[642] his
-practice was to talk or converse, or _to prattle without end_,[643]
-if we translate the derisory word by which the enemies of philosophy
-described dialectic conversation. Early in the morning he frequented
-the public walks, the gymnasia for bodily training, and the schools
-where youths were receiving instruction: he was to be seen in the
-market-place at the hour when it was most crowded, among the booths
-and tables where goods were exposed for sale: his whole day was
-usually spent in this public manner.[644] He talked with any one,
-young or old, rich or poor, who sought to address him, and in the
-hearing of all who chose to stand by: not only he never either asked
-or received any reward, but he made no distinction of persons, never
-withheld his conversation from any one, and talked upon the same
-general topics to all. He conversed with politicians, sophists,
-military men, artisans, ambitious or studious youths, etc. He visited
-all persons of interest in the city, male or female: his friendship
-with Aspasia is well known, and one of the most interesting
-chapters[645] of Xenophon’s Memorabilia recounts his visit to and
-dialogue with Theodotê, a beautiful hetæra, or female companion.
-Nothing could be more public, perpetual, and indiscriminate as to
-persons than his conversation. But as it was engaging, curious, and
-instructive to hear, certain persons made it their habit to attend
-him in public as companions and listeners. These men, a fluctuating
-body, were commonly known as his disciples, or scholars; though
-neither he nor his personal friends ever employed the terms _teacher_
-and _disciple_ to describe the relation between them.[646] Many of
-them came, attracted by his reputation, during the later years of
-his life, from other Grecian cities; Megara, Thebes, Elis, Kyrênê,
-etc.
-
-  [642] Plato, Apol. Sokr. c. 21, p. 33, A. ἐγὼ δὲ διδάσκαλος μὲν
-  οὐδενὸς πώποτε ἐγενόμην: compare c. 4, p. 19, E.
-
-  Xenoph. Memor. iii, 11, 16. Sokratês: ἐπισκώπτων τὴν ἑαυτοῦ
-  ἀπραφμοσύνην; Plat. Ap. Sok. c. 18, p. 31, B.
-
-  [643] Ἀδολεσχεῖν; see Ruhnken’s Animadversiones in Xenoph. Memor.
-  p. 293, of Schneider’s edition of that treatise. Compare Plato,
-  Sophistês, c. 23, p. 225, E.
-
-  [644] Xenoph. Mem. i, 1, 10; Plato, Apol. Sok. I, p. 17, D; 18,
-  p. 31. A. οἷον δή μοι δοκεῖ ὁ θεὸς ἐμὲ τῇ πόλει προστεθεικέναι
-  τοιοῦτόν τινα, ὃς ὑμᾶς ἐγείρων καὶ πείθων, καὶ ὀνειδίζων ἕνα
-  ἕκαστον, οὐδὲν παύομαι, ~τὴν ἡμέραν ὅλην πανταχοῦ προσκαθίζων~.
-
-  [645] Xen. Mem. iii, 11.
-
-  [646] Xenophon in his Memorabilia speaks always of the companions
-  of Sokratês, not of his _disciples_: οἱ συνόντες αὐτῷ—οἱ
-  συνουσίασται (i, 6, 1)—οἱ συνδιατρίβοντες—οἱ συγγιγνόμενοι—οἱ
-  ἑταῖροι—οἱ ὁμιλοῦντες αὐτῷ—οἱ συνήθεις (iv, 8, 2)—οἱ μεθ᾽ αὐτοῦ
-  (iv, 2, 1)—οἱ ἐπιθύμηται (i, 2, 60). Aristippus also, in speaking
-  to Plato, talked of Sokratês as ὁ ἑταῖρος ἡμῶν; Aristot. Rhetor.
-  ii. 24. His enemies spoke of his _disciples_, in an invidious
-  sense; Plato, Ap. Sok. c. 21, p. 33, A.
-
-  It is not to be believed that any companions can have made
-  frequent visits, either from Megara and Thebes, to Sokratês at
-  Athens, during the last years of the war, before the capture
-  of Athens in 404 B.C. And in point of fact, the passage of the
-  Platonic Theætetus represents Eukleidês of Megara as alluding
-  to his conversations with Sokratês only a short time before
-  the death of the latter (Plato, Theætetus. c. 2. p. 142,
-  E). The story given by Aulus Gellius—that Eukleidês came to
-  visit Sokratês by night, in women’s clothes, from Megara to
-  Athens—seems to me an absurdity, though Deycks (De Megaricarum
-  Doctrinâ, p. 5) is inclined to believe it.
-
-Now no other person in Athens, or in any other Grecian city, appears
-ever to have manifested himself in this perpetual and indiscriminate
-manner as a public talker for instruction. All teachers either
-took money for their lessons, or at least gave them apart from the
-multitude in a private house or garden, to special pupils, with
-admissions and rejections at their own pleasure. By the peculiar mode
-of life which Sokratês pursued, not only his conversation reached the
-minds of a much wider circle, but he became more abundantly known as
-a person. While acquiring a few attached friends and admirers, and
-raising a certain intellectual interest in others, he at the same
-time provoked a large number of personal enemies. This was probably
-the reason why he was selected by Aristophanês and the other comic
-writers, to be attacked as a general representative of philosophical
-and rhetorical teaching; the more so, as his marked and repulsive
-physiognomy admitted so well of being imitated in the mask which the
-actor wore. The audience at the theatre would more readily recognize
-the peculiar figure which they were accustomed to see every day in
-the market-place, than if Prodikus or Protagoras, whom most of them
-did not know by sight, had been brought on the stage; nor was it of
-much importance, either to them or to Aristophanês, whether Sokratês
-was represented as teaching what he did really teach, or something
-utterly different.
-
-This extreme publicity of life and conversation was one among the
-characteristics of Sokratês, distinguishing him from all teachers
-either before or after him. Next, was his persuasion of a special
-religious mission, restraints, impulses, and communications, sent to
-him by the gods. Taking the belief in such supernatural intervention
-generally, it was indeed noway peculiar to Sokratês: it was the
-ordinary faith of the ancient world; insomuch that the attempts to
-resolve phenomena into general laws were looked upon with a certain
-disapprobation, as indirectly setting it aside. And Xenophon[647]
-accordingly avails himself of this general fact, in replying to
-the indictment for religious innovation, of which his master was
-found guilty, to affirm that the latter pretended to nothing beyond
-what was included in the creed of every pious man. But this is not
-an exact statement of the matter in debate; for it slurs over at
-least, if it does not deny, that speciality of inspiration from the
-gods, which those who talked with Sokratês—as we learn even from
-Xenophon—believed, and which Sokratês himself believed also.[648]
-Very different is his own representation, as put forth in the defence
-before the dikastery. He had been accustomed constantly to hear, even
-from his childhood, a divine voice, interfering, at moments when
-he was about to act, in the way of restraint, but never in the way
-of instigation. Such prohibitory warning was wont to come upon him
-very frequently, not merely on great, but even on small occasions,
-intercepting what he was about to do or to say.[649] Though later
-writers speak of this as the dæmon or genius of Sokratês, he himself
-does not personify it, but treats it merely as a “divine sign, a
-prophetic or supernatural voice.”[650] He was accustomed not only to
-obey it implicitly, but to speak of it publicly and familiarly to
-others, so that the fact was well known both to his friends and to
-his enemies. It had always forbidden him to enter on public life;
-it forbade him, when the indictment was hanging over him, to take
-any thought for a prepared defence;[651] and so completely did he
-march with a consciousness of this bridle in his mouth, that when
-he felt no check, he assumed that the turning which he was about to
-take was the right one. Though his persuasion on the subject was
-unquestionably sincere, and his obedience constant, yet he never
-dwelt upon it himself as anything grand, or awful, or entitling him
-to peculiar deference; but spoke of it often in his usual strain of
-familiar playfulness. To his friends generally, it seems to have
-constituted one of his titles to reverence, though neither Plato nor
-Xenophon scruple to talk of it in that jesting way which doubtless
-they caught from himself.[652] But to his enemies and to the Athenian
-public, it appeared in the light of an offensive heresy; an impious
-innovation on the orthodox creed, and a desertion of the recognized
-gods of Athens.
-
-  [647] Xenoph. Mem. i, 1, 2, 3.
-
-  [648] See the conversation of Sokratês (reported by Xenophon,
-  Mem. i, 4, 15) with Aristodemus, respecting the gods: “What
-  _will_ be sufficient to persuade you (asks Sokratês) that the
-  gods care about you?” “When they _send me special monitors, as
-  you say that they do to you_ (replies Aristodemus); to tell me
-  what to do, and what not to do.” To which Sokratês replied,
-  that they answer the questions of the Athenians, by replies
-  of the oracle, and that they send prodigies (τέρατα) by way
-  of information to the Greeks generally. He further advises
-  Aristodemus to pay assiduous court (θεραπεύειν) to the gods, in
-  order to see whether they will not send him monitory information
-  about doubtful events (i, 4, 18).
-
-  So again in his conversation with Euthydemus, the latter says to
-  him: Σοὶ δὲ, ὦ Σώκρατες, ἐοίκασιν ~ἔτι φιλικώτερον ἢ τοῖς ἄλλοις
-  χρῆσθαι~, οἵγε μηδὲ ἐπερωτώμενοι ὑπὸ σοῦ προσημαίνουσιν, ἅτε χρὴ
-  ποιεῖν καὶ ἃ μὴ (iv, 3, 12).
-
-  Compare i, 1, 19; and iv, 8, 11, where this perpetual
-  communication and advice from the gods is employed as an evidence
-  to prove the superior piety of Sokratês.
-
-  [649] Plato, Ap. Sok. c. 19, p. 31, D. Τούτου δὲ αἴτιόν ἐστιν
-  (that is, the reason why Sokratês had never entered on public
-  life) ~ὃ ὑμεῖς ἐμοῦ πολλάκις ἀκηκόατε πολλαχοῦ λέγοντος~, ὅτι μοι
-  θεῖόν τι καὶ δαιμόνιον γίγνεται, ὃ δὴ καὶ ἐν τῇ γραφῇ ἐπικωμῳδῶν
-  Μέλητος ἐγράψατο. Ἐμοὶ δὲ τοῦτ᾽ ἔστιν ~ἐκ παιδὸς ἀρξάμενον~, φωνή
-  τις γιγνομένη, ἣ ὅταν γένηται, ἀεὶ ἀποτρέπει με τούτου ὃ ἂν μέλλω
-  πράττειν, προτρέπει δὲ οὔποτε. Τοῦτ᾽ ἔστιν ὅ μοι ἐναντιοῦται τὰ
-  πολιτικὰ πράττειν.
-
-  Again, c. 31, p. 40, A, he tells the dikasts, after his
-  condemnation: Ἡ γὰρ εἰωθυῖά μοι μαντικὴ ἡ τοῦ δαιμονίου ~ἐν μὲν
-  τῷ πρόσθεν χρόνῳ παντὶ πάνυ πυκνὴ ἀεὶ ἦν καὶ πάνυ ἐπὶ σμικροῖς
-  ἐναντιουμένη, εἴ τι μέλλοιμι μὴ ὀρθῶς πράξειν~. Νυνὶ δὲ συμβέβηκέ
-  μοι, ἅπερ ὁρᾶτε καὶ αὐτοὶ, ταυτὶ, ἅ γε δὴ οἰηθείη ἄν τις καὶ
-  νομίζεται ἔσχατα κακῶν εἶναι. Ἐμοὶ δὲ οὔτε ἐξιόντι ἕωθεν οἴκοθεν
-  ἠναντιώθη ~τὸ τοῦ θεοῦ σημεῖον~, οὔτε ἡνίκα ἀνέβαινον ἐνταυθοῖ
-  ἐπὶ τὸ δικαστήριον, οὔτ᾽ ἐν τῷ λόγῳ οὐδαμοῦ μέλλοντί τι ἐρεῖν·
-  ~καίτοι ἐν ἄλλοις λόγοις πολλαχοῦ δὴ με ἐπέσχε λέγοντα μεταξύ~.
-
-  He goes on to infer that his line of defence has been right, and
-  that his condemnation is no misfortune to him, but a benefit,
-  seeing that the sign has not manifested itself.
-
-  I agree in the opinion of Schleiermacher (in his Preface to his
-  translation of the Apology of Sokratês, part i, vol. ii, p. 185,
-  of his general translation of Plato’s works), that this defence
-  may be reasonably taken as a reproduction by Plato of what
-  Sokratês actually said to the dikasts on his trial. In addition
-  to the reasons given by Schleiermacher there is one which may
-  be noticed. Sokratês predicts to the dikasts that, if they put
-  him to death, a great number of young men will forthwith put
-  themselves forward to take up the vocation of cross-questioning,
-  who will give them more trouble than he has ever done (Plat.
-  Ap. Sok. c. 30, p. 39, D). Now there is no reason to believe
-  that this prediction was realized. If, therefore, Plato puts an
-  erroneous prophecy into the mouth of Sokratês, this is probably
-  because Sokratês really made one.
-
-  [650] The words of Sokratês plainly indicate this meaning: see
-  also a good note of Schleiermacher, appended to his translation
-  of the Platonic Apology, Platons Werke, part i, vol ii, p. 432.
-
-  [651] Xenoph. Mem. iv, 8, 5.
-
-  [652] Xenoph. Sympos. viii, 5; Plato, Euthydem. c. 5, p. 272, E.
-
-Such was the dæmon or genius of Sokratês, as described by himself
-and as conceived in the genuine Platonic dialogues; a voice
-always prohibitory, and bearing exclusively upon his own personal
-conduct.[653] That which Plutarch and other admirers of Sokratês
-conceived as a dæmon, or intermediate being between gods and men,
-was looked upon by the fathers of the Christian church as a devil;
-by LeClerc, as one of the fallen angels; by some other modern
-commentators, as mere ironical phraseology on the part of Sokratês
-himself.[654] Without presuming to determine the question raised in
-the former hypotheses, I believe the last to be untrue, and that the
-conviction of Sokratês on the point was quite sincere. A circumstance
-little attended to, but deserving peculiar notice, and stated by
-himself, is, that the restraining voice began when he was a child,
-and continued even down to the end of his life: it had thus become an
-established persuasion, long before his philosophical habits began.
-But though this peculiar form of inspiration belonged exclusively
-to him, there were also other ways in which he believed himself to
-have received the special mandates of the gods, not simply checking
-him when he was about to take a wrong turn, but spurring him on,
-directing, and peremptorily exacting from him, a positive course
-of proceeding. Such distinct mission had been imposed upon him by
-dreams, by oracular intimations, and by every other means which the
-gods employed for signifying their special will.[655]
-
-  [653] See Plato (Theætet. c. 7, p. 151, A; Phædrus, c. 20, p.
-  242. C; Republic, vi, 10, p. 496, C)—in addition to the above
-  citations from the Apology.
-
-  The passage in the Euthyphron (c. 2, p. 3, B) is somewhat less
-  specific. The Pseudo-Platonic dialogue, Theagês, retains the
-  strictly prohibitory attribute of the voice, as never in any
-  case impelling; but extends the range of the warning, as if it
-  was heard in cases not simply personal to Sokratês himself, but
-  referring to the conduct of his friends also (Theagês, c. 11, 12,
-  pp. 128, 129).
-
-  Xenophon also neglects the specific attributes, and conceives the
-  voice generally as a divine communication with instruction and
-  advice to Sokratês, so that he often prophesied to his friends,
-  and was always right (Memor. i, 1, 2-4; iv, 8, 1).
-
-  [654] See Dr. Forster’s note on the Euthyphron of Plato, c. 2, p.
-  3.
-
-  The treatise of Plutarch (De Genio Socratis) is full of
-  speculation on the subject, but contains nothing about it which
-  can be relied upon as matter of fact. There are various stories
-  about prophecies made by Sokratês, and verified by the event, c.
-  11, p. 582.
-
-  See also this matter discussed, with abundant references, in
-  Zeller Philosophie der Griechen, v. ii, pp. 25-28.
-
-  [655] Plato, Ap. Sok. c. 22, p. 33, C. Ἐμοὶ δὲ τοῦτο, ὡς ἐγώ
-  φημι, προστέτακται ὑπὸ τοῦ θεοῦ πράττειν καὶ ~ἐκ μαντείων~ καὶ
-  ~ἐξ ἐνυπνίων~, καὶ ~παντὶ τρόπῳ, ᾧπέρ τίς ποτε καὶ ἄλλη θεία
-  μοῖρα ἀνθρώπῳ καὶ ὁτιοῦν προσέταξε πράττειν~.
-
-Of these intimations from the oracle, he specifies particularly one,
-in reply to a question put at Delphi, by his intimate friend, and
-enthusiastic admirer, Chærephon. The question put was, whether any
-other man was wiser than Sokratês; to which the Pythian priestess
-replied, that no other man was wiser.[656] Sokratês affirms that he
-was greatly perplexed on hearing this declaration from so infallible
-an authority, being conscious to himself that he possessed no wisdom
-on any subject, great or small. At length, after much meditation and
-a distressing mental struggle, he resolved to test the accuracy of
-the infallible priestess, by taking measure of the wisdom of others
-as compared with his own. Selecting a leading politician, accounted
-wise both by others and by himself, he proceeded to converse with him
-and put scrutinizing questions; the answers to which satisfied him
-that this man’s supposed wisdom was really no wisdom at all. Having
-made such a discovery, Sokratês next tried to demonstrate to the
-politician himself how much he wanted of being wise; but this was
-impossible; the latter still remained as fully persuaded of his own
-wisdom as before. “The result which I acquired (says Sokratês) was,
-that I was a wiser man than he, for neither he nor I knew anything
-of what was truly good and honorable; but the difference between us
-was, that he fancied he knew them, while I was fully conscious of my
-own ignorance; I was thus wiser than he, inasmuch as I was exempt
-from that capital error.” So far, therefore, the oracle was proved
-to be right. Sokratês repeated the same experiment successively
-upon a great number of different persons, especially those in
-reputation for distinguished abilities; first, upon political men
-and rhetors, next upon poets of every variety, and upon artists as
-well as artisans. The result of his trial was substantially the same
-in all cases. The poets, indeed, composed splendid verses, but when
-questioned even about the words, the topics, and the purpose, of
-their own compositions, they could give no consistent or satisfactory
-explanations; so that it became evident that they spoke or wrote,
-like prophets, as unconscious subjects under the promptings of
-inspiration. Moreover, their success as poets filled them with a
-lofty opinion of their own wisdom on other points also. The case was
-similar with artists and artisans; who, while highly instructed, and
-giving satisfactory answers, each in his own particular employment,
-were for that reason only the more convinced that they also knew well
-other great and noble subjects. This great general mistake more than
-countervailed their special capacities, and left them, on the whole,
-less wise than Sokratês.[657]
-
-  [656] Plato, Apol. Sok. c. 5, p. 21, A. Sokratês offers to
-  produce the testimony of the brother of Chærephon, the latter
-  himself being dead, to attest the reality of this question and
-  answer.
-
-  [657] Plato, Ap. Sok. c. 7, 8, p. 22.
-
-“In this research and scrutiny (said Sokratês, on his defence) I have
-been long engaged, and am still engaged. I interrogate every man
-of reputation; I prove him to be defective in wisdom; but I cannot
-prove it so as to make him sensible of the defect. Fulfilling the
-mission imposed upon me, I have thus established the veracity of the
-god, who meant to pronounce that human wisdom was of little reach or
-worth; and that he who, like Sokratês, felt most convinced of his own
-worthlessness, as to wisdom, was really the wisest of men.[658] My
-service to the god has not only constrained me to live in constant
-poverty[659] and neglect of political estimation, but has brought
-upon me a host of bitter enemies in those whom I have examined and
-exposed while the bystanders talk of me as a wise man, because they
-give me credit for wisdom respecting all the points on which my
-exposure of others turns.”—“Whatever be the danger and obloquy which
-I may incur, it would be monstrous indeed, if, having maintained my
-place in the ranks as an hoplite under your generals at Delium and
-Potidæa, I were now, from fear of death or anything else, to disobey
-the oracle and desert the post which the god has assigned to me, the
-duty of living for philosophy and cross-questioning both myself and
-others.[660] And should you even now offer to acquit me, on condition
-of my renouncing this duty, I should tell you, with all respect and
-affection, that I will obey the god rather than you, and that I will
-persist, until my dying day, in cross-questioning you, exposing your
-want of wisdom and virtue, and reproaching you until the defect be
-remedied.[661] My mission as your monitor is a mark of the special
-favor of the god to you; and if you condemn me, it will be your
-loss; for you will find none other such.[662] Perhaps you will ask
-me, Why cannot you go away, Sokratês, and live among us in peace and
-silence? This is the hardest of all questions for me to answer to
-your satisfaction. If I tell you that silence on my part would be
-disobedience to the god, you will think me in jest, and not believe
-me. You will believe me still less, if I tell you that the greatest
-blessing which can happen to man is, to carry on discussions every
-day about virtue and those other matters which you hear me canvassing
-when I cross-examine myself as well as others; and that life, without
-such examination, is no life at all. Nevertheless, so stands the
-fact, incredible as it may seem to you.”[663]
-
-  [658] Plato, Ap. Sok. c. 9, p. 23. I give here the sense rather
-  than the exact words: Οὗτος ὑμῶν σοφώτατός ἐστιν, ὅστις ὥσπερ
-  Σωκράτης ἔγνωκεν ὅτι οὐδενὸς ἄξιός ἐστι τῇ ἀληθείᾳ πρὸς σοφίαν.
-
-  Ταῦτ᾽ ἐγὼ μὲν ἔτι καὶ νῦν περιϊὼν ζητῶ καὶ ἐρευνῶ κατὰ τὸν θεὸν,
-  καὶ τῶν ἀστῶν καὶ τῶν ξένων ἄν τινα οἴωμαι σοφὸν εἶναι· καὶ
-  ἐπειδάν μοι μὴ δοκῇ, ~τῷ θεῷ βοηθῶν~ ἐνδείκνυμαι ὅτι οὐκ ἔστι
-  σοφός.
-
-  [659] Plato, Ap. Sok. c. 9, p. 23, A-C.
-
-      ... ἐν πενίᾳ μυρίᾳ εἰμὶ, διὰ τὴν τοῦ θεοῦ λατρείαν.
-
-  [660] Plato. Ap. Sok. c. 17, p. 29. Τοῦ δὲ θεοῦ τάττοντος, ὡς
-  ἐγὼ ᾠήθην καὶ ὑπέλαβον, φιλοσοφοῦντά με δεῖν ζῆν, καὶ ἐξετάζοντα
-  ἐμαυτὸν καὶ τοὺς ἄλλους, ἐνταῦθα δὲ φοβηθεὶς ἢ θάνατον ἣ ἄλλο
-  ὁτιοῦν πρᾶγμα λίποιμι τὴν τάξιν.
-
-  [661] Plato, Ap. Sok. c. 17, p. 29, C.
-
-  [662] Plato, Ap. Sok. c. 18, p. 30, D.
-
-  [663] Plato, Ap. Sok. c. 28, p. 38, A. Ἐάν τε γὰρ λέγω, ὅτι τῷ
-  θεῷ ἀπειθεῖν τοῦτ᾽ ἐστὶ, καὶ διὰ τοῦτ᾽ ἀδύνατον ἡσυχίαν ἄγειν,
-  οὐ πείσεσθέ μοι ὡς εἰρωνευομένῳ· ἐάν τ᾽ αὖ λέγω ὅτι καὶ τυγχάνει
-  μέγιστον ἀγαθὸν ὂν ἀνθρώπῳ τοῦτο, ἑκάστης ἡμέρας περὶ ἀρετῆς
-  τοὺς λόγους ποιεῖσθαι καὶ τῶν ἄλλων, περὶ ὧν ὑμεῖς ἐμοῦ ἀκούετε
-  διαλεγομένου καὶ ἐμαυτὸν καὶ ἄλλους ἐξετάζοντοσ—ὁ δὲ ἀνεξεταστὸς
-  βίος οὐ βιωτὸς ἀνθρώπῳ (these last striking words are selected
-  by Dr. Hutcheson, as the motto for his Synopsis Philosophiæ
-  Moralis)—ταῦτα δὲ ἔτι ἧττον πείσεσθέ μοι λέγοντι.
-
-I have given rather ample extracts from the Platonic Apology,
-because no one can conceive fairly the character of Sokratês who
-does not enter into the spirit of that impressive discourse. We see
-in it plain evidence of the marked supernatural mission which he
-believed himself to be executing, and which would not allow him to
-rest or employ himself in other ways. The oracular answer brought
-by Chærephon from Delphi, was a fact of far more importance in his
-history than his so-called dæmon, about which so much more has
-been said. That answer, together with the dreams and other divine
-mandates concurrent to the same end, came upon him in the middle
-of his life, when the intellectual man was formed, and when he
-had already acquired a reputation for wisdom among those who knew
-him. It supplied a stimulus which brought into the most pronounced
-action a pre-existing train of generalizing dialectics and Zenonian
-negation, an intellectual vein with which the religious impulse
-rarely comes into confluence. Without such a motive, to which his
-mind was peculiarly susceptible, his conversation would probably have
-taken the same general turn, but would assuredly have been restricted
-within much narrower and more cautious limits. For nothing could well
-be more unpopular and obnoxious than the task which he undertook of
-cross-examining, and convicting of ignorance, every distinguished
-man whom he could approach. So violent, indeed, was the enmity which
-he occasionally provoked, that there were instances, we are told,
-in which he was struck or maltreated,[664] and very frequently
-laughed to scorn. Though he acquired much admiration from auditors,
-especially youthful auditors, and from a few devoted adherents, yet
-the philosophical motive alone would not have sufficed to prompt him
-to that systematic, and even obtrusive, cross-examination which he
-adopted as the business of his life.
-
-  [664] Diogen. Laërt. ii, 21.
-
-This, then, is the second peculiarity which distinguishes Sokratês,
-in addition to his extreme publicity of life and indiscriminate
-conversation. He was not simply a philosopher, but a religious
-missionary doing the work of philosophy; “an elenchtic,—or
-cross-examining god,—to use an expression which Plato puts into
-his mouth respecting an Eleatic philosopher going about to examine
-and convict the infirm in reason.”[665] Nothing of this character
-belonged either to Parmenidês and Anaxagoras before him, or to
-Plato and Aristotle after him. Both Pythagoras and Empedoklês did,
-indeed, lay claim to supernatural communications, mingled with their
-philosophical teaching. But though there be thus far a general
-analogy between them and Sokratês, the modes of manifestation were so
-utterly different, that no fair comparison can be instituted.
-
-  [665] Plato. Sophistês, c. 1, p. 216; the expression is applied
-  to the Eleatic stranger, who sustains the chief part in that
-  dialogue: Τάχ᾽ ἂν οὖν καὶ σοί τις οὗτος τῶν κρειττόνων συνέποιτο,
-  φαύλους ἡμᾶς ὄντας ἐν τοῖς λόγοις ἐποψόμενος καὶ ἐλέγξων, ~θεὸς
-  ὤν τις ἐλεγκτικός~.
-
-The third and most important characteristic of Sokratês—that, through
-which the first and second became operative—was his intellectual
-peculiarity. His influence on the speculative mind of his age was
-marked and important; as to subject, as to method, and as to doctrine.
-
-He was the first who turned his thoughts and discussions distinctly
-to the subject of ethics. With the philosophers who preceded him,
-the subject of examination had been Nature, or the Kosmos,[666]
-as one undistinguishable whole, blending together cosmogony,
-astronomy, geometry, physics, metaphysics, etc. The Ionic as well
-as the Eleatic philosophers, Pythagoras as well as Empedoklês,
-all set before themselves this vast and undefined problem; each
-framing some system suited to his own vein of imagination;
-religious, poetical, scientific, or skeptical. According to that
-honorable ambition for enlarged knowledge, however, which marked
-the century following 480 B.C., and of which the professional men
-called sophists were at once the products and the instruments,
-arithmetic, geometry, and astronomy, as much as was then known, were
-becoming so far detached sciences as to be taught separately to
-youth. Such appears to have been the state of science when Sokratês
-received his education. He received at least the ordinary amount of
-instruction in all:[667] he devoted himself as a young man to the
-society and lessons of the physical philosopher Archelaus,[668] the
-disciple of Anaxagoras, whom he accompanied from Athens to Samos;
-and there is even reason to believe that, during the earlier part
-of his life, he was much devoted to what was then understood as
-the general study of Nature.[669] A man of his earnest and active
-intellect was likely first to manifest his curiosity as a learner:
-“to run after and track the various discourses of others, like a
-Laconian hound,” if I may borrow an expression applied to him by
-Plato,[670] before he struck out any novelties of his own. And in
-Plato’s dialogue called “Parmenidês,” Sokratês appears as a young
-man full of ardor for the discussion of the Parmenidean theory,
-looking up with reverence to Parmenidês and Zeno, and receiving
-from them instructions in the process of dialectical investigation.
-I have already, in the preceding chapter,[671] noted the tenor of
-that dialogue, as illustrating the way in which Grecian philosophy
-presents itself, even at the first dawn of dialectics, as at once
-negative and positive, recognizing the former branch of method no
-less than the latter as essential to the attainment of truth. I
-construe it as an indication respecting the early mind of Sokratês,
-imbibing this conviction from the ancient Parmenidês and the mature
-and practised Zeno, and imposing upon himself, as a condition of
-assent to any hypothesis or doctrine, the obligation of setting forth
-conscientiously all that could be said against it, not less than all
-that could be said in its favor: however laborious such a process
-might be, and however little appreciated by the multitude.[672]
-Little as we know the circumstances which went to form the remarkable
-mind of Sokratês, we may infer from this dialogue that he owes in
-part his powerful negative vein of dialectics to “the double-tongued
-and all-objecting Zeno.”[673]
-
-  [666] Xenoph Mem. i, 1, 11. Οὐδὲ γὰρ περὶ τῆς τῶν πάντων φύσεως,
-  ἧπερ τῶν ἄλλων οἱ πλεῖστοι, διελέγετο, σκοπῶν ὅπως ὁ καλούμενος
-  ὑπὸ τῶν σοφιστῶν Κόσμος ἔχει, etc.
-
-  Plato, Phædon, c. 45, p. 96. B. ταύτης τῆς σοφίας, ἣν δὴ καλοῦσι
-  ~περὶ φύσεως ἱστορίαν~.
-
-  [667] Xenoph. Memor. iv, 7, 3-5.
-
-  [668] Ion, Chius, Fragm. 9. ap. Didot. Fragm. Historic. Græcor.
-  Diogen. Laërt. ii, 16-19.
-
-  Ritter (Gesch. der Philos. vol, ii, ch. 2, p. 19) calls in
-  question the assertion that Sokratês received instruction from
-  Archelaus; in my judgment, without the least reason, since Ion
-  of Chios is a good contemporary witness. He even denies that
-  Sokratês received any instruction in philosophy at all, on the
-  authority of a passage in the Symposion of Xenophon, where
-  Sokratês is made to speak of himself as ἡμᾶς δὲ ὁρᾶς αὐτουργούς
-  τινας τῆς φιλοσοφίας ὄντας (1, 5). But it appears to me that
-  that expression implies nothing more than a sneering antithesis,
-  so frequent both in Plato and Xenophon, with the costly lessons
-  given by Protagoras, Gorgias, and Prodikus. It cannot be
-  understood to deny instruction given to Sokratês in the earlier
-  portion of his life.
-
-  [669] I think that the expression in Plato’s Phædo, c. 102, p.
-  96, A, applies to Sokratês himself, and not to Plato: τὰ γε ἐμὰ
-  πάθη, means the mental tendencies of Sokratês when a young man.
-
-  Respecting the physical studies probably sought and cultivated by
-  Sokratês in the earlier years of his life, see the instructive
-  Dissertation of Tychsen, Ueber den Prozess des Sokratês, in the
-  Bibliothek der Alten Literatur und Kunst; Erstes Stück, p. 43.
-
-  [670] Plato, Parmenid. p. 128, C. καίτοι ὥσπερ γε αἱ Λάκαιναι
-  σκύλακες, εὖ μεταθεῖς καὶ ἰχνεύεις τὰ λεχθέντα, etc.
-
-  Whether Sokratês can be properly said to have been the pupil
-  of Anaxagoras and Archelaus, is a question of little moment,
-  which hardly merited the skepticism of Bayle (Anaxagoras, note
-  R; Archelaus, note A: compare Schanbach, Anaxagoræ Fragmenta,
-  pp. 23, 27). That he would seek to acquaint himself with their
-  doctrines, and improve himself by communicating personally with
-  them, is a matter so probable, that the slenderest testimony
-  suffices to make us believe it. Moreover, as I have before
-  remarked, we have here a good contemporary witness, Ion of Chios,
-  to the fact of his intimacy with Archelaus. In no other sense
-  than this could a man like Sokratês be said to be the _pupil_ of
-  any one.
-
-  [671] See the chapter immediately preceding, p. 472.
-
-  [672] See the remarkable passage in Plato’s Parmenidês, p. 135 C
-  to 136 E, of which a portion has already been cited in my note to
-  the preceding chapter, referred to in the note above.
-
-  [673] Timon the Sillographer ap. Diogen. Laërt. ix, 25.
-
-      Ἀμφοτερογλώσσου δὲ μέγα σθένος οὐκ ἀλαπαδνὸν
-      Ζήνωνος, πάντων ἐπιλήπτορος, etc.
-
-To a mind at all exigent on the score of proof, physical science
-as handled in that day was indeed likely to appear not only
-unsatisfactory, but hopeless; and Sokratês, in the maturity of his
-life, deserted it altogether. The contradictory hypotheses which he
-heard, with the impenetrable confusion which overhung the subject,
-brought him even to the conviction, that the gods intended the
-machinery by which they brought about astronomical and physical
-results to remain unknown, and that it was impious, as well as
-useless, to pry into their secrets.[674] His master Archelaus, though
-mainly occupied with physics, also speculated more or less concerning
-moral subjects; concerning justice and injustice, the laws, etc.;
-and is said to have maintained the tenet, that justice and injustice
-were determined by law or convention, not by nature. From him,
-perhaps, Sokratês may have been partly led to turn his mind in this
-direction. But to a man disappointed with physics, and having in
-his bosom a dialectical impulse powerful, unemployed, and restless,
-the mere realities of Athenian life, even without Archelaus, would
-suggest human relations, duties, action and suffering, as the most
-interesting materials for contemplation and discourse. Sokratês
-could not go into the public assembly, the dikastery, or even the
-theatre, without hearing discussions about what was just or unjust,
-honorable or base, expedient or hurtful, etc., nor without having his
-mind conducted to the inquiry, what was the meaning of these large
-words which opposing disputants often invoked with equal reverential
-confidence. Along with the dialectic and generalizing power of
-Sokratês, which formed his bond of connection with such minds as
-Plato, there was at the same time a vigorous practicality, a large
-stock of positive Athenian experience, with which Xenophon chiefly
-sympathized, and which he has brought out in his “Memorabilia.” Of
-these two intellectual tendencies, combined with a strong religious
-sentiment, the character of Sokratês is composed; and all of them
-were gratified at once, when he devoted himself to admonitory
-interrogation on the rules and purposes of human life; from which
-there was the less to divert him, as he had neither talents nor taste
-for public speaking.
-
-  [674] Xenoph. Mem. iv, 7, 6. Ὅλως δὲ τῶν οὐρανίων, ᾗ ἕκαστα ὁ
-  θεὸς μηχανᾶται, φροντιστὴν γίγνεσθαι ἀπέτρεπεν· οὔτε γὰρ εὑρετὰ
-  ἀνθρώποις αὐτὰ ἐνόμιζεν εἶναι, οὔτε χαρίζεσθαι θεοῖς ἂν ἡγεῖτο
-  τὸν ζητοῦντα, ἃ ἐκεῖνοι σαφηνίσαι οὐκ ἐβουλήθησαν. Κινδυνεῦσαι
-  δ᾽ ἂν ἔφη καὶ παραφρονῆσαι τὸν ταῦτα μεριμνῶντα, οὐδὲν ἧττον ἢ
-  Ἀναξαγόρας παρεφρόνησεν, ὁ τὰ μέγιστα φρονήσας ~ἐπὶ τῷ τὰς τῶν
-  θεῶν μηχανὰς ἐξηγεῖσθαι~.
-
-That “the proper study of mankind is man,”[675] Sokratês was the
-first to proclaim: he recognized the security and happiness of man
-both as the single end of study, and as the limiting principle
-whereby it ought to be circumscribed. In the present state to which
-science has attained, nothing is more curious than to look back at
-the rules which this eminent man laid down. Astronomy—now exhibiting
-the maximum of perfection, with the largest and most exact power of
-predicting future phenomena which human science has ever attained—was
-pronounced by him to be among the divine mysteries which it was
-impossible to understand, and madness to investigate, as Anaxagoras
-had foolishly pretended to do. He admitted, indeed, that there was
-advantage in knowing enough of the movements of the heavenly bodies
-to serve as an index to the change of seasons, and as guides for
-voyages, journeys by land, or night-watches: but thus much, he said,
-might easily be obtained from pilots and watchmen, while all beyond
-was nothing but waste of valuable time, exhausting that mental effort
-which ought to be employed in profitable acquisitions. He reduced
-geometry to its literal meaning of land-measuring, necessary so far
-as to enable any one to proceed correctly in the purchase, sale, or
-division of land, which any man of common attention might do almost
-without a teacher; but silly and worthless, if carried beyond, to the
-study of complicated diagrams.[676] Respecting arithmetic, he gave
-the same qualified permission of study; but as to general physics,
-or the study of Nature, he discarded it altogether: “Do these
-inquirers (he asked) think that they already know _human affairs_
-well enough, that they thus begin to meddle with _divine_? Do they
-think that they shall be able to excite or calm the winds and the
-rain at pleasure, or have they no other view than to gratify an
-idle curiosity? Surely, they must see that such matters are beyond
-human investigation. Let them only recollect how much the greatest
-men, who have attempted the investigation, differ in their pretended
-results, holding opinions extreme and opposite to each other, like
-those of madmen!” Such was the view which Sokratês took of physical
-science and its prospects.[677] It is the very same skepticism in
-substance, and carried farther in degree, though here invested with a
-religious coloring, for which Ritter and others so severely denounce
-Gorgias. But looking at matters as they stood in 440-430 B.C., it
-ought not to be accounted even surprising, much less blamable. To an
-acute man of that day, physical science as then studied may well be
-conceived to have promised no result; and even to have seemed worse
-than barren, if, like Sokratês, he had an acute perception how much
-of human happiness was forfeited by immorality, and by corrigible
-ignorance; how much might be gained by devoting the same amount of
-earnest study to this latter object. Nor ought we to omit remarking,
-that the objection of Sokratês: “You may judge how unprofitable are
-these studies, by observing how widely the students differ among
-themselves,” remains in high favor down to the present day, and may
-constantly be seen employed against theoretical men, or theoretical
-arguments, in every department.
-
-  [675] Xenoph. Mem. i, 1, 16. Αὐτὸς δὲ περὶ ~τῶν ἀνθρωπείων ἀεὶ
-  διελέγετο~, etc. Compare the whole of this chapter.
-
-  [676] Xenoph. Mem. iv, 7, 5.
-
-  [677] Xenoph. Mem. i, 1, 12-15. Plato entertained much larger
-  views on the subject of physical and astronomical studies than
-  either Sokratês or Xenophon: see Plato, Phædrus, c. 120, p. 270,
-  A; and Republic, vii, c. 6-11, p. 522, _seq._
-
-  His treatise De Legibus, however, written in his old age, falls
-  below this tone.
-
-Sokratês desired to confine the studies of his hearers to _human_
-matters as distinguished from _divine_, the latter comprehending
-astronomy and physics. He looked at all knowledge from the point of
-view of human practice, which had been assigned by the gods to man
-as his proper subject for study and learning, and with reference
-to which, therefore, they managed all the current phenomena upon
-principles of constant and intelligible sequence, so that every
-one who chose to learn, might learn, while those who took no such
-pains suffered for their neglect. Even in these, however, the most
-careful study was not by itself completely sufficient; for the
-gods did not condescend to submit _all_ the phenomena to constant
-antecedence and consequence, but reserved to themselves the capital
-turns and junctures for special sentence.[678] Yet here again, if
-a man had been diligent in learning all that the gods permitted
-to be learned; and if, besides, he was assiduous in pious court to
-them, and in soliciting special information by way of prophecy, they
-would be gracious to him, and signify beforehand how they intended
-to act in putting the final hand and in settling the undecipherable
-portions of the problem.[679] The kindness of the gods in replying
-through their oracles, or sending information by sacrificial signs
-or prodigies, in cases of grave difficulty, was, in the view of
-Sokratês, one of the most signal evidences of their care for the
-human race.[680] To seek access to these prophecies, or indications
-of special divine intervention to come, was the proper supplementary
-business of any one who had done as much for himself as could be done
-by patient study.[681] But as it was madness in a man to solicit
-special information from the gods on matters which they allowed him
-to learn by his own diligence, so it was not less madness in him to
-investigate as a learner that which they chose to keep back for their
-own specialty of will.[682]
-
-  [678] Xenoph. Mem. i, 1, 7. Καὶ τοὺς μέλλοντας οἴκους τε καὶ
-  πόλεις καλῶς οἰκήσειν, μαντικῆς ἔφη ~προσδεῖσθαι~. Τεκτονικὸν
-  μὲν γὰρ, ἢ χαλκευτικὸν, ἢ γεωργικὸν, ἢ ἀνθρώπων ἀρχικὸν, ἢ τῶν
-  τοιούτων ἔργων ἐξεταστικὸν, ἢ λογιστικὸν, ἢ οἰκονομικὸν, ἢ
-  στρατηγικὸν γενέσθαι—~πάντα τὰ τοιαῦτα μαθήματα καὶ ἀνθρώπου
-  γνώμῃ αἱρετέα~ ἐνόμιζεν εἶναι. Τὰ δὲ ~μέγιστα~ τῶν ἐν τούτοις
-  ἔφη τοὺς ~θεοὺς ἑαυτοῖς καταλείπεσθαι, ὧν οὐδὲν δῆλον εἶναι τοῖς
-  ἀνθρώποις~, etc.
-
-  [679] Xenoph. Mem. i, 1, 9-19. Ἔφη δὲ δεῖν, ἃ μὲν μαθόντας ποιεῖν
-  ἔδωκαν οἱ θεοὶ, μανθάνειν· ἃ δὲ μὴ δῆλα τοῖς ἀνθρώποις ἐστὶ,
-  πειρᾶσθαι διὰ μαντικῆς παρὰ τῶν θεῶν πυνθάνεσθαι· τοὺς γὰρ θεοὺς,
-  οἷς ἂν ἵλεῳ ὦσι, σημαίνειν.
-
-  [680] Xenoph. Mem. i, 4, 15; iv, 3, 12. When Xenophon was
-  deliberating whether he should take military service under Cyrus
-  the younger, he consulted Sokratês, who advised him to go to
-  Delphi and submit the case to the oracle (Xen. Anabas. iii, 1, 5).
-
-  [681] Xenoph. Mem. iv, 7, 10.
-
-  [682] Xenoph. Mem. 1, 9; iv, 7, 6.
-
-Such was the capital innovation made by Sokratês in regard to the
-subject of Athenian study, bringing down philosophy, to use the
-expression of Cicero,[683] from the heavens to the earth; and such
-his attempt to draw the line between that which was, and was not,
-scientifically discoverable; an attempt remarkable, inasmuch as it
-shows his conviction that the scientific and the religious point
-of view mutually excluded one another, so that where the latter
-began, the former ended. It was an innovation, inestimable, in
-respect to the new matter which it let in; of little import, as
-regards that which it professed to exclude. For in point of fact,
-physical science, though partially discouraged, was never absolutely
-excluded, through any prevalence of that systematic disapproval which
-he, in common with the multitude of his day, entertained: if it
-became comparatively neglected, this arose rather from the greater
-popularity, and the more abundant and accessible matter, of that
-which he introduced. Physical or astronomical science was narrow in
-amount, known only to few, and even with those few it did not admit
-of being expanded, enlivened, or turned to much profitable account in
-discussion. But the moral and political phenomena on which Sokratês
-turned the light of speculation were abundant, varied, familiar, and
-interesting to every one; comprising—to translate a Greek line which
-he was fond of quoting—“all the good and evil which has befallen you
-in your home;”[684] connected too, not merely with the realities of
-the present, but also with the literature of the past, through the
-gnomic and other poets.
-
-  [683] Cicero, Tusc. Disp. v, 4, 10.
-
-  [684] Ὅττι τοι ἐν μεγάροισι κακὸν τ᾽ ἀγαθόν τε τέτυκται.
-
-The motives which determined this important innovation, as to the
-subject of study, exhibits Sokratês chiefly as a religious man and
-a practical, philanthropic preceptor, the Xenophontic hero. His
-innovations, not less important, as to method and doctrine, place
-before us the philosopher and dialectician; the other side of his
-character, or the Platonic hero; faintly traced, indeed, yet still
-recognized and identified by Xenophon.
-
-“Sokratês,” says the latter,[685] “continued incessantly discussing
-_human_ affairs (the sense of this word will be understood by what
-has been said above, page 420); investigating: What is piety? What
-is impiety? What is the honorable and the base? What is the just and
-the unjust? What is temperance or unsound mind? What is courage or
-cowardice? What is a city? What is the character fit for a citizen?
-What is authority over men? What is the character befitting the
-exercise of such authority? and other similar questions. Men who knew
-these matters he accounted good and honorable; men who were ignorant
-of them he assimilated to slaves.”
-
-  [685] Xenoph. Mem. i, 1, 16.
-
-Sokratês, says Xenophon again, in another passage, considered that
-the _dialectic process_ consisted in coming together and taking
-common counsel, to distinguish and distribute things into genera,
-or families, so as to learn what each separate thing really was. To
-go through this process carefully was indispensable, as the only
-way of enabling a man to regulate his own conduct, aiming at good
-objects and avoiding bad. To be so practised as to be able to do it
-readily, was essential to make a man a good leader or adviser of
-others. Every man who had gone through the process, and come to know
-what each thing was, could also of course define it and explain it to
-others; but if he did not know, it was no wonder that he went wrong
-himself, and put others wrong besides.[686] Moreover, Aristotle says:
-“To Sokratês we may unquestionably assign two novelties; inductive
-discourses, and the definitions of general terms.”[687]
-
-  [686] Xenoph. Mem. iv, 5, 11, 12. Ἀλλὰ τοῖς ἐγκρατέσι μόνοις
-  ἔξεστι σκοπεῖν τὰ κράτιστα τῶν πραγμάτων, καὶ ~λόγῳ καὶ ἔργῳ
-  διαλέγοντας κατὰ γένη~, τὰ μὲν ἀγαθὰ προαιρεῖσθαι, τῶν δὲ κακῶν
-  ἀπέχεσθαι. Καὶ οὕτως ἔφη ἀρίστους τε καὶ εὐδαιμονεστάτους ἄνδρας
-  γίγνεσθαι, καὶ ~διαλέγεσθαι~ δυνατωτάτους. Ἔφη δὲ καὶ ~τὸ
-  διαλέγεσθαι~ ὀνομασθῆναι, ἐκ ~τοῦ συνιόντας κοινῇ βουλεύεσθαι
-  διαλέγοντας κατὰ γένη τὰ πράγματα~· δεῖν οὖν πειρᾶσθαι ὅτι
-  μάλιστα πρὸς τοῦτο ἕτοιμον ἑαυτὸν παρασκευάζειν, καὶ τούτου
-  μάλιστα ἐπιμελεῖσθαι· ἐκ τούτου γὰρ γίγνεσθαι ἄνδρας ἀρίστους τε
-  καὶ ἡγεμονικωτάτους καὶ διαλεκτικωτάτους.
-
-  Surely, the etymology here given by Xenophon or Sokratês, of the
-  word διαλέγεσθαι, cannot be considered as satisfactory.
-
-  Again, iv, 6, 1. Σωκράτης δὲ τοὺς μὲν εἰδότας τί ἕκαστον εἴη τῶν
-  ὄντων, ἐνόμιζε καὶ τοῖς ἄλλοις ἂν ἐξηγεῖσθαι δύνασθαι· τοὺς δὲ
-  μὴ εἰδότας, οὐδὲν ἔφη θαυμαστὸν εἶναι, αὐτοὺς τε σφάλλεσθαι καὶ
-  ἄλλους σφάλλειν. Ὧν ἕνεκα σκοπῶν σὺν τοῖς συνοῦσι, τί ἕκαστον εἴη
-  τῶν ὄντων, οὐδέποτ᾽ ἔληγε. Πάντα μὲν οὖν, ᾗ ~διωρίζετο~, πολὺ
-  ἂν ἔργον εἴη διεξελθεῖν· ἐν ὅσοις δὲ τὸν τρόπον τῆς ἐπισκέψεως
-  δηλώσειν οἶμαι, τοσαῦτα λέξω.
-
-  [687] Aristot. Metaphys. i, 6, 3, p. 987, b. Σωκράτους δὲ περὶ
-  μὲν τὰ ἠθικὰ πραγματευομένου, περὶ δὲ τῆς ὅλης φύσεως οὐδὲν—ἐν
-  μέντοι τούτοις τὸ καθόλου ζητοῦντος καὶ περὶ ὁρισμῶν ἐπιστήσαντος
-  πρώτου τὴν διάνοιαν, etc. Again, xiii, 4, 6-8, p. 1078, b. Δύο
-  γάρ ἐστιν ἅ τις ἂν ἀποδοίη Σωκράτει δικαίως, ~τοὺς τ᾽ ἐπακτικοὺς
-  λόγους~ καὶ ~τὸ ὁρίζεσθαι καθόλου~: compare xiii, 9, 35, p. 1086,
-  b; Cicero, Topic. x, 42.
-
-  These two attributes, of the discussions carried on by Sokratês,
-  explain the epithet attached to him by Timon the Sillographer,
-  that he was the leader and originator of the _accurate talkers_:—
-
-      Ἐκ δ᾽ ἄρα τῶν ἀπέκλινεν ὁ λιθοξόος, ἐννομολέσχης,
-      Ἑλλήνων ἐπαοιδὸς ~ἀκριβολόγους ἀποφῄνας~,
-      Μυκτὴρ, ῥητορόμυκτος, ὑπαττικὸς εἰρωνεύτης.
-
-  (ap. Diog. Laërt. ii, 19.)
-
-  To a large proportion of hearers of that time, as of other times,
-  _accurate thinking and talking_ appeared petty and in bad taste:
-  ἡ ἀκριβολογία μικροπρεπές (Aristot. Ethic. Nikomach. iv, 4, p.
-  1122, b; also Aristot. Metaphys. ii, 3, p. 995, a). Even Plato
-  thinks himself obliged to make a sort of apology for it (Theætet.
-  c. 102, p. 184, C). No doubt Timon used the word ἀκριβολόγους in
-  a sneering sense.
-
-I borrow here intentionally from Xenophon in preference to Plato;
-since the former, tamely describing a process which he imperfectly
-appreciated, identifies it so much the more completely with the real
-Sokratês, and is thus a better witness than Plato, whose genius
-not only conceived but greatly enlarged it, for didactic purposes
-of his own. In our present state of knowledge, some mental effort
-is required to see anything important in the words of Xenophon; so
-familiar has every student been rendered with the ordinary terms and
-gradations of logic and classification,—such as genus, definition,
-individual things as comprehended in a genus; what each thing is,
-and to what genus it belongs, etc. But familiar as these words have
-now become, they denote a mental process, of which, in 440-430 B.C.,
-few men besides Sokratês had any conscious perception. Of course,
-men conceived and described things in classes, as is implied in the
-very form of language, and in the habitual junction of predicates
-with subjects in common speech. They explained their meaning clearly
-and forcibly in particular cases: they laid down maxims, argued
-questions, stated premises, and drew conclusions, on trials in the
-dikastery, or debates in the assembly: they had an abundant poetical
-literature, which appealed to every variety of emotion: they were
-beginning to compile historical narrative, intermixed with reflection
-and criticism. But though all this was done, and often admirably well
-done, it was wanting in that analytical consciousness which would
-have enabled any one to describe, explain, or vindicate what he was
-doing. The ideas of men—speakers as well as hearers, the productive
-minds as well as the recipient multitude—were associated together
-in groups favorable rather to emotional results, or to poetical,
-rhetorical narrative and descriptive effect, than to methodical
-generalization, to scientific conception, or to proof either
-inductive or deductive. That reflex act of attention which enables
-men to understand, compare, and rectify their own mental process,
-was only just beginning. It was a recent novelty on the part of the
-rhetorical teachers, to analyze the component parts of a public
-harangue, and to propound some precepts for making men tolerable
-speakers. Protagoras was just setting forth various grammatical
-distinctions, while Prodikus discriminated the significations of
-words nearly equivalent and liable to be confounded. All these
-proceedings appeared then so new[688] as to incur the ridicule even
-of Plato: yet they were branches of that same analytical tendency
-which Sokratês now carried into scientific inquiry. It may be doubted
-whether any one before him ever used the words genus and species,
-originally meaning family and form, in the philosophical sense now
-exclusively appropriated to them. Not one of those many names—called
-by logicians _names of the second intention_—which imply distinct
-attention to various parts of the logical process, and enable us
-to consider and criticize it in detail, then existed. All of them
-grew out of the schools of Plato, Aristotle, and the subsequent
-philosophers, so that we can thus trace them in their beginning to
-the common root and father, Sokratês.
-
-  [688] How slowly grammatical analysis proceeded among the Greeks,
-  and how long it was before they got at what are now elementary
-  ideas in every instructed man’s mind, may be seen in Gräfenhahn,
-  Geschichte der Klassischen Philologie im Alterthum, sects. 89-92,
-  etc. On this point, these sophists seem to have been decidedly in
-  advance of their age.
-
-To comprehend the full value of the improvements struck out by
-Sokratês, we have only to examine the intellectual paths pursued
-by his predecessors or contemporaries. He set to himself distinct
-and specific problems: “What is justice? What is piety, courage,
-political government? What is it which is really denoted by such
-great and important names, bearing upon the conduct or happiness of
-man?” Now it has been already remarked that Anaxagoras, Empedoklês,
-Demokritus, the Pythagoreans, all had still present to their minds
-those vast and undivided problems which had been transmitted
-down from the old poets; bending their minds to the invention of
-some system which would explain them all at once, or assist the
-imagination in conceiving both how the Kosmos first began, and how it
-continued to move on.[689] Ethics and physics, man and nature, were
-all blended together; and the Pythagoreans, who explained all nature
-by numbers and numerical relations, applied the same explanation
-to moral attributes, considering justice to be symbolized by a
-perfect equation, or by four, the first of all square numbers.[690]
-These early philosophers endeavored to find out the beginnings, the
-component elements, the moving cause or causes, of things in the
-mass;[691] but the logical distribution into genus, species, and
-individuals, does not seem to have suggested itself to them, or to
-have been made a subject of distinct attention by any one before
-Sokratês. To study ethics, or human dispositions and ends, apart from
-the physical world, and according to a theory of their own, referring
-to human good and happiness as the sovereign and comprehensive
-end;[692] to treat each of the great and familiar words designating
-moral attributes, as logical aggregates comprehending many judgments
-in particular cases, and connoting a certain harmony or consistency
-of purpose among the separate judgments, to bring many of these
-latter into comparison, by a scrutinizing dialectical process, so as
-to test the consistency and completeness of the logical aggregate or
-general notion, as it stood in every man’s mind: all these were parts
-of the same forward movement which Sokratês originated.
-
-  [689] This same tendency, to break off from the vague aggregate
-  then conceived as physics, is discernible in the Hippokratic
-  treatises, and even in the treatise De Antiquâ Medicinâ, which
-  M. Littré places first in his edition, and considers to be
-  the production of Hippokratês himself, in which case it would
-  be contemporary with Sokratês. On this subject of authorship,
-  however, other critics do not agree with him: see the question
-  examined in his vol. i, ch. xii, p. 295, _seq._
-
-  Hippokratês, if he be the author, begins by deprecating the
-  attempt to connect the study of medicine with physical or
-  astronomical hypothesis (c. 2), and he farther protests against
-  the procedure of various medical writers and sophists, or
-  philosophers, such as Empedoklês, who set themselves to make out
-  “what man was from the beginning, how he began first to exist,
-  and in what manner he was constructed,” (c. 20). This does not
-  belong, he says, to medicine, which ought indeed to be studied as
-  a comprehensive whole, but as a whole determined by and bearing
-  reference to its own end: “You ought to study the nature of man;
-  what he is with reference to that which he eats and drinks, and
-  to all his other occupations or habits, and to the consequences
-  resulting from each:” ὅ,τί ἐστὶν ἄνθρωπος πρὸς τὰ ἐσθιόμενα
-  καὶ πινόμενα, καὶ ὅ,τι πρὸς τὰ ἄλλα ἐπιτηδεύματα, καὶ ὅ,τι ἀφ᾽
-  ἑκάστου ἑκάστῳ συμβήσεται.
-
-  The spirit, in which Hippokratês here approaches the study of
-  medicine, is exceedingly analogous to that which dictated the
-  innovation of Sokratês in respect to the study of ethics. The
-  same character pervades the treatise, De Aëre, Locis et Aquis, a
-  definite and predetermined field of inquiry, and the Hippokratic
-  treatises generally.
-
-  [690] Aristotel. Metaphys. i, 5, p. 985, 986. τὸ μὲν τοιόνδε τῶν
-  ἀριθμῶν πάθος δικαιοσύνη, τὸ δὲ τοιόνδε ψυχή καὶ νοῦς, ἕτερον
-  δὲ καιρὸς, etc. Ethica Magna, i. 1. ἡ δικαιοσύνη ἀριθμὸς ἰσάκις
-  ἴσος: see Brandis, Gesch. der Gr. Röm. Philos. lxxxii, lxxxiii,
-  p. 492.
-
-  [691] Aristotel. Metaphys. iii, 3, p. 998, A. Οἷον Ἐμπεδοκλῆς πῦρ
-  καὶ ὕδωρ καὶ τὰ μετὰ τούτων, ~στοιχεῖά~ φησιν εἶναι ἐξ ὧν ἐστὶ τὰ
-  ὄντα ἐνυπαρχόντων, ~ἀλλ᾽ οὐχ ὡς γένη~ λέγει ταῦτα τῶν ὄντων. That
-  generic division and subdivision was unknown or unpractised by
-  these early men, is noticed by Plato (Sophist. c. 114, p. 267, D).
-
-  Aristotle thinks that the Pythagoreans had some faint and obscure
-  notion of the logical genus, περὶ τοῦ ~τί ἐστιν~ ἤρξαντο μὲν
-  λέγειν καὶ ὁρίζεσθαι, λίαν δὲ ἁπλῶς ἐπραγματεύθησαν (Metaphys.
-  i, 5, 29, p. 986, B). But we see by comparing two other passages
-  in that treatise (xiii, 4, 6, p. 1078, b, with i, 5, 2, p. 985,
-  b) that the Pythagorean definitions of καιρὸς, τὸ δίκαιον, etc.,
-  were nothing more than certain numerical fancies; so that these
-  words cannot fairly be said to have designated, in their view,
-  logical _genera_. Nor can the ten Pythagorean συστοιχίαι, or
-  parallel series of contraries, be called by that name; arranged
-  in order to gratify a fancy about the perfection of the number
-  ten, which fancy afterwards seems to have passed to Aristotle
-  himself, when drawing up his ten predicaments.
-
-  See a valuable Excursus upon the Aristotelian expressions τί
-  ἐστι—τί ἦν εἶναι, etc., appended to Schwegler’s edition of
-  Aristotle’s Metaphysica, vol. ii, p. 369, p. 378.
-
-  About the few and imperfect definitions which Aristotle seems
-  also to ascribe to Demokritus, see Trendeleuburg, Comment. ad
-  Aristot. De Animâ, p. 212.
-
-  [692] Aristotle remarks about the Pythagoreans, that they
-  referred the virtues to number and numerical relations, not
-  giving to them a theory of their own: τὰς γὰρ ἀρετὰς εἰς τοὺς
-  ἀριθμοὺς ἀνάγων ~οὐκ οἰκείαν τῶν ἀρετῶν τὴν θεωρίαν~ ἐποιεῖτο
-  (Ethic. Magn. i, 1).
-
-It was at that time a great progress to break down the unwieldy
-mass conceived by former philosophers as science; and to study
-ethics apart, with a reference, more or less distinct, to their
-own appropriate end. Nay, we see, if we may trust the “Phædon” of
-Plato,[693] that Sokratês, before he resolved on such pronounced
-severance, had tried to construct, or had at least yearned after,
-an undivided and reformed system, including physics also under the
-ethical end; a scheme of optimistic physics, applying the general
-idea, “_What was best_,” as the commanding principle, from whence
-physical explanations were to be deduced; which he hoped to find,
-but did not find, in Anaxagoras. But it was a still greater advance
-to seize, and push out in conscious application, the essential
-features of that logical process, upon the correct performance of
-which all our security for general truth depends. The notions of
-genus, subordinate genera, and individuals as comprehended under
-them,—we need not here notice the points on which Plato and Aristotle
-differed from each other and from the modern conceptions on that
-subject,—were at that time newly brought into clear consciousness
-in the human mind. The profusion of logical distribution employed
-in some of the dialogues of Plato, such as the Sophistês and the
-Politicus, seems partly traceable to his wish to familiarize hearers
-with that which was then a novelty, as well as to enlarge its
-development, and diversify its mode of application. He takes numerous
-indirect opportunities of bringing it out into broad light, by
-putting into the mouths of his dialogists answers implying complete
-inattention to it, exposed afterwards in the course of the dialogue
-by Sokratês.[694] What was now begun by Sokratês, and improved by
-Plato, was embodied as part in a comprehensive system of formal
-logic by the genius of Aristotle; a system which was not only of
-extraordinary value in reference to the processes and controversies
-of its time, but which also, having become insensibly worked into the
-minds of instructed men, has contributed much to form what is correct
-in the habits of modern thinking. Though it has been now enlarged
-and recast, by some modern authors—especially by Mr. John Stuart
-Mill, in his admirable System of Logic—into a structure commensurate
-with the vast increase of knowledge and extension of positive method
-belonging to the present day, we must recollect that the distance,
-between the best modern logic and that of Aristotle, is hardly so
-great as that between Aristotle and those who preceded him by a
-century, Empedoklês, Anaxagoras, and the Pythagoreans; and that the
-movement in advance of these latter commences with Sokratês.
-
-  [693] Plato, Phædon, c. 102, seq., pp. 96, 97.
-
-  [694] As one specimen among many, see Plato, Theætet. c. 11,
-  p. 146, D. It is maintained by Brandis, and in part by C.
-  Heyder (see Heyder, Kritische Darstellung und Vergleichung
-  der Aristotelischen und Hegelschen Dialektik, part i, pp. 85,
-  129), that the logical process, called division, is not to
-  be considered as having been employed by Sokratês along with
-  definition, but begins with Plato: in proof of which they
-  remark that, in the two Platonic dialogues called Sophistês and
-  Politicus, wherein this process is most abundantly employed,
-  Sokratês is not the conductor of the conversation.
-
-  Little stress is to be laid on this circumstance, I think; and
-  the terms in which Xenophon describes the method of Sokratês
-  (διαλέγοντας κατὰ γένη τὰ πράγματα, Mem. iv, 5, 12) seem to
-  imply the one process as well as the other: indeed, it was
-  scarcely possible to keep them apart, with so abundant a talker
-  as Sokratês. Plato doubtless both enlarged and systematized the
-  method in every way, and especially made greater use of the
-  process of division, because he pushed the dialogue further into
-  positive scientific research than Sokratês.
-
-By Xenophon, by Plato, and by Aristotle, the growth as well as the
-habitual use of logical classification is represented as concurrent
-with and dependent upon dialectics. In this methodized discussion, so
-much in harmony with the marked sociability of the Greek character,
-the quick recurrence of short question and answer was needful as
-a stimulus to the attention, at a time when the habit of close
-and accurate reflection on abstract subjects had been so little
-cultivated. But the dialectics of Sokratês had far greater and more
-important peculiarities than this. We must always consider his method
-in conjunction with the subjects to which he applied it. As those
-subjects were not recondite or special, but bore on the practical
-life of the house, the market-place, the city, the dikastery, the
-gymnasium, or the temple, with which every one was familiar, so
-Sokratês never presented himself as a teacher, nor as a man having
-new knowledge to communicate. On the contrary, he disclaimed such
-pretensions, uniformly and even ostentatiously. But the subjects on
-which he talked were just those which every one professed to know
-perfectly and thoroughly, and on which every one believed himself in
-a condition to instruct others, rather than to require instruction
-for himself. On such questions as these: What is justice? What is
-piety? What is a democracy? What is a law? every man fancied that
-he could give a confident opinion, and even wondered that any other
-person should feel a difficulty. When Sokratês, professing ignorance,
-put any such question, he found no difficulty in obtaining an
-answer, given off-hand, and with very little reflection. The answer
-purported to be the explanation or definition of a term—familiar,
-indeed, but of wide and comprehensive import—given by one who had
-never before tried to render to himself an account of what it meant.
-Having got this answer, Sokratês put fresh questions, applying it
-to specific cases, to which the respondent was compelled to give
-answers inconsistent with the first; thus showing that the definition
-was either too narrow, or too wide, or defective in some essential
-condition. The respondent then amended his answer; but this was a
-prelude to other questions, which could only be answered in ways
-inconsistent with the amendment; and the respondent, after many
-attempts to disentangle himself, was obliged to plead guilty to the
-inconsistencies, with an admission that he could make no satisfactory
-answer to the original query, which had at first appeared so easy and
-familiar. Or, if he did not himself admit this, the hearers at least
-felt it forcibly. The dialogue, as given to us, commonly ends with a
-result purely negative, proving that the respondent was incompetent
-to answer the question proposed to him, in a manner consistent and
-satisfactory even to himself. Sokratês, as he professed from the
-beginning to have no positive theory to support, so he maintains to
-the end the same air of a learner, who would be glad to solve the
-difficulty if he could, but regrets to find himself disappointed of
-that instruction which the respondent had promised.
-
-We see by this description of the cross-examining path of this
-remarkable man, how intimate was the bond of connection between the
-dialectic method and the logical distribution of particulars into
-species and genera. The discussion first raised by Sokratês turns
-upon the meaning of some large generic term, the queries whereby he
-follows it up, bring the answer given into collision with various
-particulars which it ought not to comprehend, yet does; or with
-others, which it ought to comprehend, but does not. It is in this
-manner that the latent and undefined cluster of association, which
-has grown up round a familiar term, is as it were penetrated by a
-fermenting leaven, forcing it to expand into discernible portions,
-and bringing the appropriate function which the term ought to fulfil,
-to become a subject of distinct consciousness. The inconsistencies
-into which the hearer is betrayed in his various answers, proclaim
-to him the fact that he has not yet acquired anything like a clear
-and full conception of the common attribute which binds together the
-various particulars embraced under some term which is ever upon his
-lips; or perhaps enable him to detect a different fact, not less
-important, that there is no such common attribute, and that the
-generalization is merely nominal and fallacious. In either case,
-he is put upon the train of thought which leads to a correction
-of the generalization, and lights him on to that which Plato[695]
-calls, seeing the one in the many, and the many in the one. Without
-any predecessor to copy, Sokratês, fell as it were instinctively
-into that which Aristotle[696] describes as the double track of the
-dialectic process; breaking up the one into many, and recombining
-the many into one; the former duty, at once the first and the most
-essential, Sokratês performed directly by his analytical string of
-questions; the latter, or synthetical process, was one which he did
-not often directly undertake, but strove so to arm and stimulate
-the hearer’s mind, as to enable him to do it for himself. This
-one and many denote the logical distribution of a multifarious
-subject-matter under generic terms, with clear understanding of the
-attributes implied or connoted by each term, so as to discriminate
-those particulars to which it really applies. At a moment when such
-logical distribution was as yet novel as a subject of consciousness,
-it could hardly have been probed and laid out in the mind by any less
-stringent process than the cross-examining dialectics of Sokratês,
-applied to the analysis of some attempts at definition hastily given
-by respondents; that “inductive discourse and search for (clear
-general notions or) definitions of general terms,” which Aristotle so
-justly points out as his peculiar innovation.
-
-  [695] Plato, Phædrus, c. 109, p. 265, D; Sophistês, c. 83, p.
-  253, E.
-
-  [696] Aristot. Topic. viii, 14, p. 164, b. 2. Ἐστὶ μὲν γὰρ ὡς
-  ἁπλῶς εἰπεῖν διαλεκτικὸς, ὁ προτατικὸς καὶ ἐνταστικός. Ἐστὶ δὲ τὸ
-  μὲν προτείνεισθαι, ~ἓν ποιεῖν τὰ πλείω~ (δεῖ γὰρ ἓν ὅλως ληφθῆναι
-  πρὸς ὃ ὁ λόγος) τὸ δ᾽ ἐνίστασθαι, ~τὸ ἓν πολλά~· ἢ γὰρ διαιρεῖ ἢ
-  ἀναιρεῖ, τὸ μὲν διδοὺς, το δ᾽ οὐ, τῶν προτεινομένων.
-
-  It was from Sokratês that dialectic skill derived its great
-  extension and development (Aristot. Metaphys. xiii, 4, p. 1078,
-  b).
-
-I have already adverted to the persuasion of religious mission under
-which Sokratês acted in pursuing this system of conversation and
-interrogation. He probably began it in a tentative way,[697] upon
-a modest scale, and under the pressure of logical embarrassment
-weighing on his own mind. But as he proceeded, and found himself
-successful, as well as acquiring reputation among a certain circle
-of friends, his earnest soul became more and more penetrated with
-devotion to that which he regarded as a duty. It was at this time
-probably, that his friend Chærephon came back with the oracular
-answer from Delphi, noticed a few pages above, to which Sokratês
-himself alludes as having prompted him to extend the range of his
-conversation, and to question a class of persons whom he had not
-before ventured to approach, the noted politicians, poets, and
-artisans. He found them more confident than humbler individuals in
-their own wisdom, but quite as unable to reply to his queries without
-being driven to contradictory answers.
-
-  [697] What Plato makes Sokratês say in the Euthyphron, c. 12, p.
-  11, D, Ἄκων εἰμὶ σοφός, etc., may be accounted as true at least
-  in the beginning of the active career of Sokratês; compare the
-  Hippias Minor, c. 18, p. 376, B; Lachês, c. 33, p. 200, E.
-
-Such scrutiny of the noted men in Athens is made to stand prominent
-in the “Platonic Apology,” because it was the principal cause of that
-unpopularity which Sokratês at once laments and accounts for before
-the dikasts. Nor can we doubt that it was the most impressive portion
-of his proceedings, in the eyes both of enemies and admirers, as well
-as the most flattering to his own natural temper. Nevertheless, it
-would be a mistake to present this part of the general purpose of
-Sokratês—or of his divine mission, if we adopt his own language—as
-if it were the whole; and to describe him as one standing forward
-merely to unmask select leading men, politicians, sophists, poets,
-or others, who had acquired unmerited reputation, and were puffed up
-with foolish conceit of their own abilities, being in reality shallow
-and incompetent. Such an idea of Sokratês is at once inadequate
-and erroneous. His conversation, as I have before remarked, was
-absolutely universal and indiscriminate; while the mental defect
-which he strove to rectify was one not at all peculiar to leading
-men, but common to them with the mass of mankind, though seeming
-to be exaggerated in them, partly because more is expected from
-them, partly because the general feeling of self-estimation stands
-at a higher level, naturally and reasonably, in their bosoms, than
-in those of ordinary persons. That defect was, the “seeming and
-conceit of knowledge without the reality,” on human life with its
-duties, purposes, and conditions; the knowledge of which Sokratês
-called emphatically “human wisdom,” and regarded as essential to the
-dignity of a freeman; while he treated other branches of science
-as above the level of man,[698] and as a stretch of curiosity, not
-merely superfluous, but reprehensible. His warfare against such false
-persuasion of knowledge, in one man as well as another, upon those
-subjects—for with him, I repeat, we must never disconnect the method
-from the subjects—clearly marked even in Xenophon, is abundantly
-and strikingly illustrated by the fertile genius of Plato, and
-constituted the true missionary scheme which pervaded the last half
-of his long life; a scheme far more comprehensive, as well as more
-generous, than those anti-sophistic polemics which are assigned to
-him by so many authors as his prominent object.[699]
-
-  [698] Xenoph. Memor. i, 1, 12-16. Πότερόν ποτε νομίσαντες ἱκανῶς
-  ἤδη τἀνθρώπεια εἰδέναι ἔρχονται (the physical philosophers) ἐπὶ
-  τὸ περὶ τῶν τοιούτων φροντίζειν· ἢ τὰ μὲν ἀνθρώπεια παρέντες,
-  τὰ δὲ δαιμόνια σκοποῦντες, ἡγοῦνται τὰ προσήκοντα πράττειν....
-  Αὐτὸς δὲ περὶ τῶν ~ἀνθρωπείων ἀεὶ διελέγετο~ σκοπῶν, τί εὐσεβὲς,
-  τί ἀσεβὲς καὶ περὶ τῶν ἄλλων, ἃ τοὺς μὲν εἰδότας ἡγεῖτο καλοὺς
-  κἀγαθοὺς εἶναι, τοὺς δὲ ~ἀγνοοῦντας ἀνδραποδώδεις~ ἂν δικαίως
-  κεκλῆσθαι.
-
-  Plato, Apolog. Sok. c. 5, p. 20, D. ἥπερ ἐστὶν ἴσως ἀνθρωπίνη
-  σοφία· τῷ ὄντι γὰρ κινδυνεύω ταύτην εἶναι σοφός· οὗτοι δὲ τάχ᾽
-  ἄν, οὓς ἄρτι ἔλεγον, μείζω τινὰ ἢ κατ᾽ ἄνθρωπον σοφίαν σοφοὶ
-  εἶεν, etc. Compare c. 9, p. 23, A.
-
-  [699] It is this narrow purpose that Plutarch ascribes to
-  Sokratês, Quæstiones Platonicæ, p. 999, E; compare also
-  Tennemann, Geschicht. der Philos. part ii, art. i, vol. ii, p. 81.
-
-  Amidst the customary outpouring of groundless censure against
-  the sophists, which Tennemann here gives, one assertion is
-  remarkable. He tells us that it was the more easy for Sokratês to
-  put down the sophists, since their shallowness and worthlessness,
-  after a short period of vogue, had already been detected by
-  intelligent men, and was becoming discredited.
-
-  It is strange to find such an assertion made, for a period
-  between 420-399 B.C., the era when Protagoras, Prodikus, Hippias,
-  etc., reached the maximum of celebrity.
-
-  And what are we to say about the statement, that Sokratês put
-  down the sophists, when we recollect that the Megaric school and
-  Antisthenês, both emanating from Sokratês, are more frequently
-  attacked than any one else in the dialogues of Plato, as having
-  all those skeptical and disputatious propensities with which the
-  sophists are reproached?
-
-In pursuing the thread of his examination, there was no topic
-upon which Sokratês more frequently insisted, than the contrast
-between the state of men’s knowledge on the general topics of man
-and society, and that which artists or professional men possessed
-in their respective special crafts. So perpetually did he reproduce
-this comparison, that his enemies accused him of wearing it
-threadbare.[700] Take a man of special vocation—a carpenter, a
-brazier, a pilot, a musician, a surgeon—and examine him on the state
-of his professional knowledge, you will find him able to indicate the
-persons from whom and the steps by which he first acquired it: he
-can describe to you his general aim, with the particular means which
-he employs to realize the aim, as well as the reason why such means
-must be employed and why precautions must be taken to combat such and
-such particular obstructions: he can teach his profession to others:
-in matters relating to his profession, he counts as an authority, so
-that no extra-professional person thinks of contesting the decision
-of a surgeon in case of disease, or of a pilot at sea. But while such
-is the fact in regard to every special art, how great is the contrast
-in reference to the art of righteous, social, and useful living,
-which forms, or ought to form, the common business alike important to
-each and to all! On this subject, Sokratês[701] remarked that every
-one felt perfectly well-informed, and confident in his own knowledge;
-yet no one knew from whom, or by what steps, he had learned: no one
-had ever devoted any special reflection either to ends, or means, or
-obstructions: no one could explain or give a consistent account of
-the notions in his own mind, when pertinent questions were put to
-him: no one could teach another, as might be inferred, he thought,
-from the fact that there were no professed teachers, and that the
-sons of the best men were often destitute of merit: every one knew
-for himself, and laid down general propositions confidently, without
-looking up to any other man as knowing better; yet there was no end
-of dissension and dispute on particular cases.[702]
-
-  [700] Plato, Gorgias, c. 101, p. 491, A.
-
-  Kalliklês. Ὡς ἀεὶ ταὐτὰ λέγεις, ὦ Σώκρατες. Sokratês. Οὐ μόνον
-  γε, ὦ Καλλικλεῖς, ἀλλὰ καὶ περὶ τῶν αὐτῶν. Kalliklês. Νὴ τοὺς
-  θεοὺς, ἀτεχνῶς γε ~ἀεὶ σκυτέας~ καὶ ~κναφέας~ καὶ ~μαγείρους
-  λέγων~ καὶ ~ἰατροὺς, οὐδὲν παύῃ~. Compare Plato, Symposion, p.
-  221, E, also Xenoph. Memor. i, 2, 37; iv, 5, 5.
-
-  [701] It is not easy to refer to specific passages in
-  manifestation of the contrast set forth in the text, which,
-  however, runs through large portions of many Platonic dialogues,
-  under one form or another: see the Menon, c. 27-33, pp. 90-94;
-  Protagoras, c. 28, 29, pp. 319, 320; Politicus, c. 38, p. 299,
-  D; Lachês, c. 11, 12, pp. 185, 186; Gorgias, c. 121, p. 501, A;
-  Alkibiadês, i, c. 12-14, pp. 108, 109, 110; c. 20, p. 113, C, D.
-
-  Xenoph. Mem. iii, 5, 21, 22; iv, 2, 20-23; iv, 4, 5; iv, 6, 1. Of
-  these passages, iv, 2, 20, 23 is among the most remarkable.
-
-  It is remarkable that Sokratês (in the Platonic Apology, c. 7,
-  p. 22), when he is describing his wanderings (πλάνην) to test
-  supposed knowledge, first in the statesmen, next in the poets,
-  lastly in the artisans and craftsmen, finds satisfaction only in
-  the answers which these latter made to him on matters concerning
-  their respective trades or professions. They would have been wise
-  men, had it not been for the circumstance that, because they knew
-  those particular things, they fancied that they knew other things
-  also.
-
-  [702] Plato, Euthyphrôn, c. 8, p. 7, D; Xen. Mem. iv, 4, 8.
-
-Such was the general contrast which Sokratês sought to impress upon
-his hearers by a variety of questions bearing on it, directly or
-indirectly. One way of presenting it, which Plato devoted much of
-his genius to expand in dialogue, was, to discuss, Whether virtue be
-really teachable. How was it that superior men, like Aristeidês and
-Periklês,[703] acquired the eminent qualities essential for guiding
-and governing Athens, since they neither learned them under any
-known master, as they had studied music and gymnastics, nor could
-insure the same excellences to their sons, either through their
-own agency or through that of any master? Was it not rather the
-fact that virtue, as it was never expressly taught, so it was not
-really teachable; but was vouchsafed or withheld according to the
-special volition and grace of the gods? If a man has a young horse
-to be broken, or trained, he finds without difficulty a professed
-trainer, thoroughly conversant with the habits of the race,[704] to
-communicate to the animal the excellence required; but whom can he
-find to teach virtue to his sons, with the like preliminary knowledge
-and assured result? Nay, how can any one either teach virtue, or
-affirm virtue to be teachable, unless he be prepared to explain what
-virtue is, and what are the points of analogy and difference between
-its various branches; justice, temperance, fortitude, prudence, etc.?
-In several of the Platonic dialogues, the discussion turns on the
-analysis of these last-mentioned words: the “Lachês” and “Protagoras”
-on courage, the “Charmidês” on temperance, the “Euthyphrôn” on
-holiness.
-
-  [703] Xenoph. Mem. iv. 2, 2; Plato, Meno, c. 33, p. 94.
-
-  [704] Compare Plato, Apol. Sok. c. 4, p. 20, A; Xen. Mem. iv, 2,
-  25.
-
-By these and similar discussions did Sokratês, and Plato amplifying
-upon his master, raise indirectly all the important questions
-respecting society, human aspirations and duties, and the principal
-moral qualities which were accounted virtuous in individual men.
-As the general terms, on which his conversation turned, were among
-the most current and familiar in the language, so also the abundant
-instances of detail, whereby he tested the hearer’s rational
-comprehension and consistent application of such large terms,
-were selected from the best known phenomena of daily life;[705]
-bringing home the inconsistency, if inconsistency there was, in a
-manner obvious to every one. The answers made to him,—not merely by
-ordinary citizens, but by men of talent and genius, such as the poets
-or the rhetors, when called upon for an explanation of the moral
-terms and ideas set forth in their own compositions,[706]—revealed
-alike that state of mind against which his crusade, enjoined and
-consecrated by the Delphian oracle, was directed, the semblance
-and conceit of knowledge without real knowledge. They proclaimed
-confident, unhesitating persuasion, on the greatest and gravest
-questions concerning man and society, in the bosoms of persons who
-had never bestowed upon them sufficient reflection to be aware that
-they involved any difficulty. Such persuasion had grown up gradually
-and unconsciously, partly by authoritative communication, partly by
-insensible transfusion, from others; the process beginning antecedent
-to reason as a capacity, continuing itself with little aid and no
-control from reason, and never being finally revised. With the great
-terms and current propositions concerning human life and society, a
-complex body of association had become accumulated from countless
-particulars, each separately trivial and lost to the memory, knit
-together by a powerful sentiment, and imbibed as it were by each man
-from the atmosphere of authority and example around him. Upon this
-basis the fancied knowledge really rested; and reason, when invoked
-at all, was called in simply as an handmaid, expositor, or apologist
-of the preëxisting sentiment; as an accessory after the fact, not
-as a test or verification. Every man found these persuasions in
-his own mind, without knowing how they became established there;
-and witnessed them in others, as portions of a general fund of
-unexamined common-place and credence. Because the words were at once
-of large meaning, embodied in old and familiar mental processes, and
-surrounded by a strong body of sentiment, the general assertions in
-which they were embodied appeared self-evident and imposing to every
-one: so that, in spite of continual dispute in particular cases,
-no one thought himself obliged to analyze the general propositions
-themselves, or to reflect whether he had verified their import, and
-could apply them rationally and consistently.[707]
-
-  [705] Xenoph. Memor. iv, 6, 15. Ὅποτε δὲ αὐτός τι τῷ λόγῳ
-  διεξίοι, διὰ τῶν μάλιστα ὁμολογουμένων ἐπορεύετο, νομίζων ταύτην
-  τὴν ἀσφάλειαν εἶναι λόγου· τοιγαροῦν πολὺ μάλιστα ὧν ἐγὼ οἶδα,
-  ὅτε λέγοι, τοὺς ἀκούοντας ὁμολογοῦντας παρεῖχε.
-
-  [706] Plato, Apol. Sok. c. 7. p. 22, C: compare Plato, Ion. pp.
-  533, 534.
-
-  [707] Ἀλλὰ ταῦτα μὲν (says Sokratês to Euthydêmus) ἴσως διὰ τὸ
-  σφόδρα πιστεύειν εἰδέναι, οὐδ᾽ ἐσκέψω (Xen. Mem. iv, 2, 36):
-  compare Plato, Alkibiad. i, c. 14, p. 110. A.
-
-The phenomenon here adverted to is too obvious, even at the present
-day, to need further elucidation as matter of fact. In morals, in
-politics, in political economy, on all subjects relating to man
-and society, the like confident persuasion of knowledge without
-the reality is sufficiently prevalent: the like generation and
-propagation, by authority and example, of unverified convictions,
-resting upon strong sentiment, without consciousness of the steps
-or conditions of their growth; the like enlistment of reason as
-the one-sided advocate of a preëstablished sentiment; the like
-illusion, because every man is familiar with the language, that
-therefore every man is master of the complex facts, judgments, and
-tendencies, involved in its signification, and competent both to
-apply comprehensive words and to assume the truth or falsehood of
-large propositions, without any special analysis or study.[708]
-
-  [708] “Moins une science est avancée, moins elle a été bien
-  traitée, et plus elle a besoin d’être enseignée. C’est ce qui
-  me fait beaucoup désirer qu’on ne renonce pas en France à
-  l’enseignement des sciences idéologiques, morales, et politiques;
-  qui, après tout, sont des sciences comme les autres—_à la
-  difference près, que ceux qui ne les ont pas étudiées sont
-  persuadés de si bonne foi de les savoir, qu’ils se croient en
-  état d’en décider_.” (Destutt de Tracy, Elémens d’Idéologie,
-  Préface, p. xxxiv, ed. Paris, 1827.)
-
-There is one important difference, however, to note, between our
-time and that of Sokratês. In his day, the impressions not only
-respecting man and society, but also respecting the physical world,
-were of this same self-sown, self-propagating, and unscientific
-character. The popular astronomy of the Sokratic age was an aggregate
-of primitive, superficial observations and imaginative inferences,
-passing unexamined from elder men to younger, accepted with
-unsuspecting faith, and consecrated by intense sentiment. Not only
-men like Nikias, or Anytus and Melêtus, but even Sokratês himself,
-protested against the impudence of Anaxagoras, when he degraded the
-divine Helios and Selênê into a sun and moon of calculable motions
-and magnitudes. But now, the development of the scientific point of
-view, with the vast increase of methodized physical and mathematical
-knowledge, has taught every one that such primitive astronomical
-and physical convictions were nothing better than “a fancy of
-knowledge without the reality.”[709] Every one renounces them without
-hesitation, seeks his conclusions from the scientific teacher, and
-looks to the proofs alone for his guarantee. A man who has never
-bestowed special study on astronomy, knows that he is ignorant of it:
-to fancy that he knows it, without such preparation, would be held
-an absurdity. While the scientific point of view has thus acquired
-complete predominance in reference to the physical world, it has
-made little way comparatively on topics regarding man and society,
-wherein “fancy of knowledge without the reality” continues to reign,
-not without criticism and opposition, yet still as a paramount
-force. And if a new Sokratês were now to put the same questions
-in the market-place to men of all ranks and professions, he would
-find the like confident persuasion and unsuspecting dogmatism as to
-generalities; the like faltering, blindness, and contradiction, when
-tested by cross-examining details.
-
-  [709] “There is no science which, more than astronomy, stands
-  in need of such a preparation, or draws more largely on that
-  intellectual liberality which is ready to adopt whatever is
-  demonstrated, or concede whatever is rendered highly probable,
-  however new and uncommon the points of view may be, in which
-  objects the most familiar may thereby become placed. Almost
-  all _its conclusions stand in open and striking contradiction
-  with those of superficial and vulgar observation_, and with
-  what appears to every one, until he has understood and weighed
-  the proofs to the contrary, the _most positive evidence of his
-  senses_. Thus the earth on which he stands, and which has served
-  for ages as the unshaken foundation of the firmest structures
-  either of art or nature, is divested by the astronomer of its
-  attribute of fixity, and conceived by him as turning swiftly on
-  its centre, and at the same time moving onward through space
-  with great rapidity, etc.” (Sir John Herschel, Astronomy,
-  Introduction, sect. 2.)
-
-In the time of Sokratês, this last comparison was not open;
-since there did not exist, in any department, a body of doctrine
-scientifically constituted: but the comparison which he actually
-took, borrowed from the special trades and professions, brought
-him to an important result. He was the first to see, and the idea
-pervades all his speculations, that as in each art or profession
-there is an end to be attained, a theory laying down the means and
-conditions whereby it is attainable, and precepts deduced from that
-theory, such precepts collectively taken directing and covering
-nearly the entire field of practice, but each precept separately
-taken liable to conflict with others, and therefore liable to cases
-of exception; so all this is not less true, or admits not less of
-being realized, respecting the general art of human living and
-society. There is a grand and all-comprehensive End,—the security
-and happiness, as far as practicable, of each and all persons in the
-society:[710] there may be a theory, laying down those means and
-conditions under which the nearest approach can be made to that end:
-there may also be precepts, prescribing to every man the conduct and
-character which best enables him to become an auxiliary towards its
-attainment, and imperatively restraining him from acts which tend
-to hinder it; precepts deduced from the theory, each one of them
-separately taken being subject to exceptions, but all of them taken
-collectively governing practice, as in each particular art.[711]
-Sokratês and Plato talk of “the art of dealing with human beings,”
-“the art of behaving in society,” “that science which has for its
-object to make men happy:” and they draw a marked distinction between
-art, or rules of practice deduced from a theoretical survey of the
-subject-matter and taught with precognition of the end, and mere
-artless, irrational knack, or dexterity, acquired by simple copying,
-or assimilation, through a process of which no one could render
-account.[712]
-
-  [710] Xenoph. Memor. iv, 1, 2. Ἐτεκμαίρετο (Sokratês) δὲ τὰς
-  ἀγαθὰς φύσεις, ἐκ τοῦ ταχύ τε μανθάνειν οἷς προσέχοιεν, καὶ
-  μνημονεύειν ἃ ἂν μάθοιεν, καὶ ἐπιθυμεῖν τῶν μαθημάτων πάντων, δι᾽
-  ὧν ἔστιν οἰκίαν τε καλῶς οἰκεῖν καὶ πόλιν, καὶ τὸ ὅλον ἀνθρώποις
-  τε καὶ τοῖς ἀνθρωπίνοις πράγμασιν εὖ χρῆσθαι. Τοὺς γὰρ τοιούτους
-  ἡγεῖτο παιδευθέντας οὐκ ἂν μόνον αὐτούς τε εὐδαίμονας εἶναι καὶ
-  τοὺς ἑαυτῶν οἴκους καλῶς οἰκεῖν, ἀλλὰ ~καὶ ἄλλους ἀνθρώπους καὶ
-  πόλεις δύνασθαι εὐδαίμονας ποιῆσαι~.
-
-  Ib. iii, 2, 4. Καὶ οὕτως ἐπισκοπῶν, τίς εἴη ἀγαθοῦ ἡγεμόνος
-  ἀρετὴ, τὰ μὲν ἄλλα περιῄρει, κατέλειπε δὲ, ~τὸ εὐδαίμονας ποιεῖν,
-  ὧν ἂν ἡγῆται~.
-
-  Ib. iii, 8, 3, 4, 5; iv, 6, 8. He explains τὸ ἀγαθὸν to mean τὸ
-  ὠφέλιμον—μέχρι δὲ τοῦ ὠφελίμου πάντα καὶ αὐτὸς συνεπεσκόπει καὶ
-  συνδιεξῄει τοῖς συνοῦσι (iv, 7, 8). Compare Plato, Gorgias, c.
-  66, 67, p. 474, D; 475, A.
-
-  Things are called ἀγαθὰ καὶ καλὰ on the one hand, and κακὰ καὶ
-  αἰσχρὰ on the other, in reference each to its distinct end,
-  of averting or mitigating in the one case, of bringing on or
-  increasing in the other, different modes of human suffering.
-  So again, iii, 9, 4, we find the phrases: ἃ δεῖ πράττειν—ὀρθῶς
-  πράττειν—τὰ συμφορώτατα αὑτοῖς πράττειν, all used as equivalents.
-
-  Plato, Symposion, p. 205. A. Κτήσει γὰρ ἀγαθῶν εὐδαίμονες
-  ἔσονται—καὶ οὐκέτι προσδεῖ ἐρέσθαι, ἵνατι δὲ βούλεται εὐδαίμων
-  εἶναι; ἀλλὰ τέλος δοκεῖ ἔχειν ἡ ἀπόκρισις: compare Euthydem. c.
-  20, p. 279, A; c. 25, p. 281, D.
-
-  Plato, Alkibiadês, ii, c. 13, p. 145, C. Ὅστις ἄρα
-  τι τῶν τοιούτων οἶδεν, ἐὰν μὲν παρέπηται αὐτῷ ἡ ~τοῦ
-  βελτίστου ἐπιστήμη—αὐτὴ δ᾽ ἦν ἡ αὐτὴ δήπου ἥπερ καὶ ἡ τοῦ
-  ὠφελίμου~—φρόνιμόν γε αὐτὸν φήσομεν καὶ ἀποχρῶντα σύμβουλον,
-  καὶ τῇ πόλει καὶ αὐτὸν ἑαυτῷ· τὸν δὲ μὴ ποιοῦντα, τἀναντία
-  τούτων: compare Plato, Republic, vi, p. 504, E. The fact
-  that this dialogue, called Alkibiadês II, was considered by
-  some as belonging not to Plato, but to Xenophon or Æschinês
-  Socraticus, does not detract from its value as evidence about
-  the speculations of Sokratês (see Diogen. Laërt. ii, 61, 62;
-  Athenæus, v, p. 220).
-
-  Plato, Apol. Sok. c. 17, p. 30, A. οὐδὲν γὰρ ἄλλο πράττων
-  περιέρχομαι, ἢ πείθων ὑμῶν καὶ νεωτέρους καὶ πρεσβυτέρους, μήτε
-  σωμάτων ἐπιμελεῖσθαι μήτε χρημάτων πρότερον μηδὲ οὕτω σφόδρα, ὡς
-  τῆς ψυχῆς, ὅπως ὡς ἀρίστη ἔσται· λέγων ὅτι οὐκ ἐκ χρημάτων ἀρετὴ
-  γίγνεται, ~ἀλλ᾽ ἐξ ἀρετῆς χρήματα καὶ τἄλλα ἀγαθὰ τοῖς ἀνθρώποις
-  ἅπαντα καὶ ἰδίᾳ καὶ δημοσίᾳ~.
-
-  Zeller (Die Philosophie der Griechen, vol. ii, pp. 61-64)
-  admits as a fact this reference of the Sokratic ethics to human
-  security and happiness as their end; while Brandis (Gesch. der
-  Gr. Röm. Philosoph. ii, p. 40, _seq._) resorts to inadmissible
-  suppositions, in order to avoid admitting it, and to explain away
-  the direct testimony of Xenophon. Both of these authors consider
-  this doctrine as a great taint in the philosophical character of
-  Sokratês. Zeller even says, what he intends for strong censure,
-  that “the eudæmonistic basis of the Sokratic ethics differs from
-  the _sophistical moral philosophy_, not in principle, but only in
-  result” (p. 61).
-
-  I protest against this allusion to a _sophistical moral
-  philosophy_, and have shown my grounds for the protest in the
-  preceding chapter. There was no such thing as _sophistical moral
-  philosophy_. Not only the sophists were no sect or school, but
-  farther, not one of them ever aimed, so far as we know, at
-  establishing any ethical theory: this was the great innovation of
-  Sokratês. But it is perfectly true that, between the preceptorial
-  exhortation of Sokratês, and that of Protagoras or Prodikus,
-  there was no great or material difference; and this Zeller seems
-  to admit.
-
-  [711] The existence of cases forming exceptions to each separate
-  moral precept, is brought to view by Sokratês in Xen. Mem. iv, 2,
-  15-19; Plato, Republic, i, 6, p. 331, C, D, E; ii, p. 382, C.
-
-  [712] Plato, Phædon, c. 88, p. 89, E. ἄνευ τέχνης τῆς περὶ
-  τἀνθρώπεια ὁ τοιοῦτος χρῆσθαι ἐπεχειρεῖ τοῖς ἀνθρώποις· εἰ γάρ
-  που μετὰ τέχνης ἔχρητο, ὥσπερ ἔχει, οὕτως ἂν ἡγήσατο, etc. ἡ
-  πολιτικὴ τέχνη, Protagor. c. 27, p. 319, A; Gorgias, c. 163, p.
-  521, D.
-
-  Compare Apol. Sok. c. 4, p. 20, A, B; Euthydêmus, c. 50, p. 292,
-  E: τίς ποτ᾽ ἐστὶν ἐπιστήμη ἐκείνη, ἣ ἡμᾶς εὐδαίμονας ποιήσειεν;...
-
-  The marked distinction between τέχνη, as distinguished from
-  ἄτεχνος τριβὴ—ἄλογος τριβὴ or ἐμπειρία, is noted in the Phædrus,
-  c. 95, p. 260, E, and in Gorgias, c. 42, p. 463, B; c. 45, p.
-  465, A; c. 121, p. 501, A, a remarkable passage. That there is
-  in every art some assignable end, to which its precepts and
-  conditions have reference, is again laid down in the Sophistês,
-  c. 37, p. 232, A.
-
-Plato, with that variety of indirect allusion which is his
-characteristic, continually constrains the reader to look upon
-human and social life as having its own ends and purposes no
-less than each separate profession or craft; and impels him to
-transfer to the former that conscious analysis as a science, and
-intelligent practice as an art, which are known as conditions of
-success in the latter.[713] It was in furtherance of these rational
-conceptions, “Science and Art,” that Sokratês carried on his crusade
-against “that conceit of knowledge without reality,” which reigned
-undisturbed in the moral world around him, and was only beginning
-to be slightly disturbed even as to the physical world. To him the
-precept, inscribed in the Delphian temple, “Know Thyself,” was the
-holiest of all texts, which he constantly cited, and strenuously
-enforced upon his hearers; interpreting it to mean, Know what sort
-of a man thou art, and what are thy capacities, in reference to
-human use.[714] His manner of enforcing it was alike original and
-effective, and though he was dexterous in varying his topics[715] and
-queries according to the individual person with whom he had to deal,
-it was his first object to bring the hearer to take just measure
-of his own real knowledge or real ignorance. To preach, to exhort,
-even to confute particular errors, appeared to Sokratês useless, so
-long as the mind lay wrapped up in its habitual mist or illusion
-of wisdom: such mist must be dissipated before any new light could
-enter. Accordingly, the hearer being usually forward in announcing
-positive declarations on those general doctrines, and explanations
-of those terms, to which he was most attached and in which he had
-the most implicit confidence, Sokratês took them to pieces, and
-showed that they involved contradiction and inconsistency; professing
-himself to be without any positive opinion, nor ever advancing
-any until the hearer’s mind had undergone the proper purifying
-cross-examination.[716]
-
-  [713] This fundamental analogy, which governed the reasoning
-  of Sokratês, between the special professions and social living
-  generally,—transferring to the latter the idea of a preconceived
-  end, a theory, and a regulated practice, or art, which are
-  observed in the former,—is strikingly stated in one of the
-  aphorisms of the emperor Marcus Antoninus, vi, 35: Οὐχ ὁρᾷς,
-  πῶς οἱ βάναυσοι τεχνῖται ἁρμόζονται μὲν ἄχρι τινὸς πρὸς τοὺς
-  ἰδιώτας, οὐδὲν ἧσσον μέντοι ~ἀντέχονται τοῦ λόγου τῆς τέχνης, καὶ
-  τούτου ἀποστῆναι οὐχ ὑπομένουσιν~; Οὐ δεινὸν, εἰ ὁ ἀρχιτέκτων
-  καὶ ὁ ἰατρὸς μᾶλλον αἰδέσονται ~τὸν τῆς ἰδίας τέχνης λόγον, ἢ ὁ
-  ἄνθρωπος τὸν ἑαυτοῦ~, ὃς αὐτῷ κοινός ἐστι πρὸς τοὺς θεούς;
-
-  [714] Plato (Phædr. c. 8, p. 229, E; Charmidês, c. 26, p. 164, E;
-  Alkibiad. i, p. 124, A; 129, A; 131, A).
-
-  Xenoph. Mem. iv, 2, 24-26. οὕτως ἑαυτὸν ἐπισκεψάμενος, ὁποῖός
-  ἐστι πρὸς ~τὴν ἀνθρωπίνην χρείαν~, ἔγνωκε τὴν αὐτοῦ δύναμιν.
-  Cicero (de Legib. i, 22, 59) gives a paraphrase of this
-  well-known text, far more vague and tumid than the conception of
-  Sokratês.
-
-  [715] See the striking conversations of Sokratês with Glaukon and
-  Charmidês especially that with the former, in Xen. Mem. iii, c.
-  6, 7.
-
-  [716] There is no part of Plato in which this doxosophy, or
-  false conceit of wisdom, is more earnestly reprobated than in
-  the Sophistês, with notice of the elenchus, or cross-examining
-  exposure, as the only effectual cure for such fundamental vice of
-  the mind; as the true purifying process (Sophistês, c. 33-35, pp.
-  230, 231).
-
-  See the same process illustrated by Sokratês, after his questions
-  put to the slave of Menon (Plato, Menon, c. 18. p. 84, B;
-  Charmidês, c. 30, p. 166, D).
-
-  As the Platonic Sokratês, even in the Defence, where his own
-  personality stands most manifest, denounces as the worst and
-  deepest of all mental defects, this conceit of knowledge without
-  reality, ἡ ἀμαθία αὐτὴ ἡ ἐπονείδιστος, ἡ τοῦ οἴεσθαι εἰδέναι ἃ
-  ~οὐκ~ οἶδεν, c. 17, p. 29, B,—so the Xenophontic Sokratês, in
-  the same manner, treats this same mental infirmity as being near
-  to madness, and distinguishes it carefully from simple want of
-  knowledge, or conscious ignorance: Μανίαν γε μὴν ἐναντίον μὲν ἔφη
-  εἶναι σοφίᾳ, οὐ μέντοι γε τὴν ἀνεπιστημοσύνην μανίαν ἐνόμιζεν.
-  Τὸ δὲ ἀγνοεῖν ἑαυτὸν, καὶ ἃ μή τις οἶδε δοξάζειν, καὶ οἴεσθαι
-  γιγνώσκειν, ἐγγυτάτω μανίας ἐλογίζετο εἶναι (Mem. iii, 9, 6).
-  This conviction thus stands foremost in the mental character of
-  Sokratês, and on the best evidence, Plato and Xenophon united.
-
-It was this indirect and negative proceeding, which, though only
-a part of the whole, stood out as his most original and most
-conspicuous characteristic, and determined his reputation with a
-large number of persons who took no trouble to know anything else
-about him. It was an exposure no less painful than surprising to the
-person questioned, and produced upon several of them an effect of
-permanent alienation, so that they never came near him again,[717]
-but reverted to their former state of mind without any permanent
-change. But on the other hand, the ingenuity and novelty of the
-process was highly interesting to hearers, especially youthful
-hearers, sons of rich men, and enjoying leisure; who not only
-carried away with them a lofty admiration of Sokratês, but were fond
-of trying to copy his negative polemics.[718] Probably men like
-Alkibiadês and Kritias frequented his society chiefly for the purpose
-of acquiring a quality which they might turn to some account in their
-political career. His constant habit of never suffering a general
-term to remain undetermined, but applying it at once to particulars;
-the homely and effective instances of which he made choice; the
-string of interrogatories each advancing towards a result, yet a
-result not foreseen by any one; the indirect and circuitous manner
-whereby the subject was turned round, and at last approached and laid
-open by a totally different face, all this constituted a sort of
-prerogative in Sokratês, which no one else seems to have approached.
-Its effect was enhanced by a voice and manner highly plausible and
-captivating, and to a certain extent by the very eccentricity of his
-silenic physiognomy.[719] What is termed “his irony,” or assumption
-of the character of an ignorant learner, asking information from
-one who knew better than himself, while it was essential[720] as an
-excuse for his practice as a questioner, contributed also to add
-zest and novelty to his conversation; and totally banished from it
-both didactic pedantry and seeming bias as an advocate; which, to
-one who talked so much, was of no small advantage. After he had
-acquired celebrity, this uniform profession of ignorance in debate
-was usually construed as mere affectation; and those who merely
-heard him occasionally, without penetrating into his intimacy, often
-suspected that he was amusing himself with ingenious paradox.[721]
-Timon the Satirist, and Zeno the Epicurean, accordingly described him
-as a buffoon, who turned every one into ridicule, especially men of
-eminence.[722]
-
-  [717] Xenoph. Mem. iv, 2, 40. Πολλοὶ μὲν οὖν τῶν οὕτω διατεθέντων
-  ὑπὸ Σωκράτους οὐκέτι αὐτῷ προσῄεσαν, οὓς καὶ βλακωτέρους ἐνόμιζεν.
-
-  [718] Plato, Apol. Sok. c. 9, p. 23, A. Οἴονται γάρ με ἑκάστοτε
-  οἱ παρόντες ταῦτα αὐτὸν εἶναι σοφὸν, ἃ ἂν ἄλλον ἐξελέγξω.
-
-  Ibid. c. 10, p. 23, C. Πρὸς δὲ τούτοις, οἱ νέοι μοι
-  ἐπακολουθοῦντες, οἷς μάλιστα σχολή ἐστιν, οἱ τῶν πλουσιωτάτων,
-  αὐτόματοι χαίρουσιν ἀκούοντες ἐξεταζομένων τῶν ἀνθρώπων, καὶ
-  αὐτοὶ πολλάκις ἐμὲ μιμοῦνται, εἶτα ἐπιχειροῦσιν ἄλλους ἐξετάζειν,
-  etc.
-
-  Compare also ibid. c. 22, p. 33, C; c. 27, p. 37, D.
-
-  [719] This is an interesting testimony preserved by Aristoxenus,
-  on the testimony of his father Spintharus, who heard Sokratês
-  (Aristox. Frag. 28, ed. Didot). Spintharus said, respecting
-  Sokratês: ὅτι οὐ πολλοῖς αὐτός γε πιθανωτέροις ἐντετυχηκὼς εἴη·
-  τοιαύτην εἶναι τήν τε φωνὴν καὶ τὸ στόμα καὶ τὸ ἐπιφαινόμενον
-  ἦθος, καὶ πρὸς πᾶσί τε τοῖς εἰρημένοις τὴν τοῦ εἴδους ἰδιότητα.
-
-  It seems evident also, from the remarkable passage in Plato’s
-  Symposion, c. 39, p. 215, A, that he too must have been much
-  affected by the singular physiognomy of Sokratês: compare Xenoph.
-  Sympos. iv. 19.
-
-  [720] Aristot. de Sophist. Elench. c. 32, p. 183, b. 6. Compare
-  also Plutarch, Quæst. Platonic. p. 999, E. Τὸν οὖν ἐλεγκτικὸν
-  λόγον ὥσπερ καθαρτικὸν ἔχων φάρμακον, ὁ Σωκράτης ἀξιόπιστος ἦν
-  ἑτέρους ἐλέγχων, τῷ μηδὲν ἀποφαίνεσθαι· καὶ μᾶλλον ἥπτετο, δοκῶν
-  ζητεῖν κοινῇ τὴν ἀλήθειαν, οὐκ αὐτὸς ἰδίᾳ δόξῃ βοηθεῖν.
-
-  [721] Xenoph. Mem. iv, 4, 9.
-
-  Plato, Gorgias, c. 81, p. 481, B. σπουδάζει ταῦτα Σωκράτης ἢ
-  παίζει; Republic, i, c. 11, p. 337, A. αὐτὴ ἐκείνη ἡ εἰωθυῖα
-  εἰρωνεία Σωκράτους, etc (Apol. Sok. c. 28, p. 38, A.)
-
-  [722] Diog. Laërt. ii, 16; Cicero, De Nat. Deor. i, 34, 93.
-  Cicero (Brutus, 85, 292) also treats the irony of Sokratês as
-  intended to mock and humiliate his fellow-dialogists, and it
-  sometimes appears so in the dialogues of Plato. Yet I doubt
-  whether the real Sokratês could have had any pronounced purpose
-  of this kind.
-
-It is by Plato that the negative and indirect vein of Sokratês has
-been worked out and immortalized; while Xenophon, who sympathized
-little in it, complains that others looked at his master too
-exclusively on this side, and that they could not conceive him as a
-guide to virtue, but only as a stirring and propulsive force.[723]
-One of the principal objects of his “Memorabilia” is, to show
-that Sokratês, after having worked upon novices sufficiently with
-the negative line of questions, altered his tone, desisted from
-embarrassing them, and addressed to them precepts not less plain and
-simple than directly useful in practice.[724] I do not at all doubt
-that this was often the fact, and that the various dialogues in which
-Xenophon presents to us the philosopher inculcating self-control,
-temperance, piety, duty to parents, brotherly love, fidelity in
-friendship, diligence, benevolence, etc., on positive grounds, are
-a faithful picture of one valuable side of his character, and an
-essential part of the whole. Such direct admonitory influence was
-common to Sokratês with Prodikus and the best of the sophists.
-
-  [723] The beginning of Xen. Mem. i, 4, 1, is particularly
-  striking on this head: Εἰ δέ τινες Σωκράτην νομίζουσιν (ὡς ἔνιοι
-  γράφουσί τε καὶ λέγουσι περὶ αὐτοῦ τεκμαιρόμενοι) ~προτρέψασθαι~
-  μὲν ἀνθρώπους ἐπ᾽ ἀρετὴν κράτιστον γεγονέναι, ~προαγαγεῖν~ δὲ ἐπ᾽
-  αὐτὴν οὐχ ἱκανόν—σκεψάμενοι μὴ ~μόνον ἃ ἐκεῖνος κολαστηρίου ἕνεκα
-  τοὺς πάντ᾽ οἰομένους εἰδέναι ἐρωτῶν ἤλεγχεν~, ἀλλὰ καὶ ἃ λέγων
-  συνδιημέρευε τοῖς συνδιατρίβουσιν, δοκιμαζόντων, εἰ ἱκανὸς ἦν
-  βελτίους ποιεῖν τοὺς συνόντας.
-
-  [724] Xenophon, after describing the dialogue wherein Sokratês
-  cross-examines and humiliates Euthydêmus, says at the end: Ὁ
-  δὲ (Sokratês) ὡς ἔγνω αὐτὸν οὕτως ἔχοντα, ~ἥκιστα μὲν αὐτὸν
-  διετάραττεν, ἀπλούστατα δὲ καὶ σαφέστατα~ ἐξηγεῖτο ἅ τε ἐνόμιζεν
-  εἰδέναι δεῖν, καὶ ἃ ἐπιτηδεύειν κράτιστα εἶναι.
-
-  Again, iv, 7, 1. Ὅτι μὲν οὖν ~ἁπλῶς~ τὴν ἑαυτοῦ γνώμην ἀπεφαίνετο
-  Σωκράτης πρὸς τοὺς ὁμιλοῦντας αὐτῷ, δοκεῖ μοι δῆλον ἐκ τῶν
-  εἰρημένων εἶναι, etc.
-
-  His readers were evidently likely to doubt, and required
-  proof, that Sokratês could speak _plainly_, _directly_, and
-  _positively:_ so much better known was the other side of his
-  character.
-
-It is, however, neither from the virtue of his life, nor from the
-goodness of his precepts—though both were essential features in
-his character—that he derives his peculiar title to fame, but from
-his originality and prolific efficacy in the line of speculative
-philosophy. Of that originality, the first portion, as has been
-just stated, consisted in his having been the first to conceive
-the idea of an ethical science with its appropriate end, and with
-precepts capable of being tested and improved; but the second
-point, and not the least important, was, his peculiar method, and
-extraordinary power of exciting scientific impulse and capacity in
-the minds of others. It was not by positive teaching that this effect
-was produced. Both Sokratês and Plato thought that little mental
-improvement could be produced by expositions directly communicated,
-or by new written matter lodged in the memory.[725] It was necessary
-that mind should work upon mind, by short question and answer, or an
-expert employment of the dialectic process,[726] in order to generate
-new thoughts and powers; a process which Plato, with his exuberant
-fancy, compares to copulation and pregnancy, representing it as the
-true way, and the only effectual way, of propagating the philosophic
-spirit.
-
-  [725] Plato, Sophistês, c. 17, p. 230, A. μετὰ δὲ πολλοῦ πόνου
-  τὸ νουθετητικὸν εἶδος τῆς παιδείας σμικρὸν ἀνύτειν, etc. Compare
-  a fragment of Demokritus, in Mullach’s edition of the Fragm.
-  Demokrit. p. 175. Fr. Moral 59. Τὸν οἰόμενον νόον ἔχειν ὁ
-  νουθετέων ματαιοπονέει.
-
-  Compare Plato, Epistol. vii, pp. 343, 344.
-
-We should greatly misunderstand the negative and indirect vein of
-Sokratês, if we suppose that it ended in nothing more than simple
-negation. On busy or ungifted minds, among the indiscriminate public
-who heard him, it probably left little permanent effect of any
-kind, and ended in a mere feeling of admiration for ingenuity, or
-perhaps dislike of paradox: on practical minds like Xenophon, its
-effect was merged in that of the preceptorial exhortation: but where
-the seed fell upon an intellect having the least predisposition or
-capacity for systematic thought, the negation had only the effect
-of driving the hearer back at first, giving him a new impetus for
-afterwards springing forward. The Sokratic dialectics, clearing
-away from the mind its mist of fancied knowledge, and laying bare
-the real ignorance, produced an immediate effect like the touch
-of the torpedo:[727] the newly-created consciousness of ignorance
-was alike unexpected, painful, and humiliating,—a season of doubt
-and discomfort; yet combined with an internal working and yearning
-after truth, never before experienced. Such intellectual quickening,
-which could never commence until the mind had been disabused of its
-original illusion of false knowledge, was considered by Sokratês
-not merely as the index and precursor, but as the indispensable
-condition, of future progress. It was the middle point in the
-ascending mental scale; the lowest point being ignorance unconscious,
-self-satisfied, and mistaking itself for knowledge; the next above,
-ignorance conscious, unmasked, ashamed of itself, and thirsting after
-knowledge as yet unpossessed; while actual knowledge, the third
-and highest stage, was only attainable after passing through the
-second as a preliminary.[728] This second, was a sort of pregnancy;
-and every mind either by nature incapable of it, or in which, from
-want of the necessary conjunction, it had never arisen, was barren
-for all purposes of original or self-appropriated thought. Sokratês
-regarded it as his peculiar vocation and skill, employing another
-Platonic metaphor, while he had himself no power of reproduction,
-to deal with such pregnant and troubled minds in the capacity of
-a midwife; to assist them in that mental parturition whereby they
-were to be relieved, but at the same time to scrutinize narrowly the
-offspring which they brought forth; and if it should prove distorted
-or unpromising, to cast it away with the rigor of a Lykurgean nurse,
-whatever might be the reluctance of the mother-mind to part with
-its new-born.[729] There is nothing which Plato is more fertile in
-illustrating, than this relation between the teacher and the scholar,
-operating not by what it put into the latter, but by what it evolved
-out of him; by creating an uneasy longing after truth, aiding in the
-elaboration necessary for obtaining relief, and testing whether the
-doctrine elaborated possessed the real lineaments, or merely the
-delusive semblance, of truth.
-
-  [726] Compare two passages in Plato’s Protagoras, c. 49, p. 329,
-  A, and c. 94, p. 348, D; and the Phædrus, c. 138-140, p. 276, A,
-  E.
-
-  [727] Plato, Men. c. 13. p. 80, A. ὁμοιότατος τῇ πλατείᾳ νάρκῃ τῇ
-  θαλασσίᾳ.
-
-  [728] This tripartite graduation of the intellectual scale is
-  brought out by Plato in the Symposion, c. 29, p. 204, A, and in
-  the Lysis, c. 33, p. 218, A.
-
-  The intermediate point of the scale is what Plato here, though
-  not always, expresses by the word φιλόσοφος, in its strict
-  etymological sense, “a lover of knowledge;” one who is not yet
-  wise, but who, having learned to know and feel his own ignorance,
-  is anxious to become wise,—and has thus made what Plato thought
-  the greatest and most difficult step towards really becoming so.
-
-  [729] The effect of the interrogatory procedure of Sokratês, in
-  forcing on the minds of youth a humiliating consciousness of
-  ignorance and an eager anxiety to be relieved from it, is not
-  less powerfully attested in the simpler language of Xenophon,
-  than in the metaphorical variety of Plato. See the conversation
-  with Euthydêmus, in the Memorabilia of Xenophon, iv, 2; a long
-  dialogue which ends by the confession of the latter (c. 39):
-  Ἀναγκάζει με καὶ ταῦτα ὁμολογεῖν δηλονότι ἡ ἐμὴ φαυλότης· καὶ
-  φροντίζω μὴ κράτιστον ᾖ μοι σιγᾶν· κινδυνεύω γὰρ ἁπλῶς οὐδὲν
-  εἰδέναι. Καὶ πάνυ ἀθύμως ἔχων ἀπῆλθε· καὶ ~νομίσας τῷ ὄντι
-  ἀνδράποδον εἶναι~: compare i, 1, 16.
-
-  This same expression, “thinking himself no better than a
-  slave,” is also put by Plato into the mouth of Alkibiadês, when
-  he is describing the powerful effect wrought on his mind by
-  the conversation of Sokratês (Symposion, c. 39, p. 215, 216):
-  Περικλέους δὲ ἀκούων καὶ ἄλλων ἀγαθῶν ῥητόρων εὖ μὲν ἡγούμην,
-  τοιοῦτον δ᾽ οὐδὲν ἔπασχον, οὐδὲ τεθορύβητό μου ἡ ψυχὴ οὐδ᾽
-  ἠγανάκτει ὡς ~ἀνδραποδωδῶς διακειμένου~. Ἀλλ᾽ ὑπὸ τούτου τοῦ
-  Μαρσύου πολλάκις δὴ οὕτω διετέθην, ὥστε μοι δόξαι μὴ βιωτὸν εἶναι
-  ἔχοντι ὡς ἔχω.
-
-  Compare also the Meno, c. 13, p. 79, E, and Theætet. c. 17, 22,
-  p. 148, E, 151, C, where the metaphor of pregnancy, and of the
-  obstetric art of Sokratês, is expanded: πάσχουσι δὲ δὴ οἱ ἐμοὶ
-  ξυγγιγνόμενοι καὶ τοῦτο ταὐτὸν ταῖς τικτούσαις· ὠδίνουσι γὰρ καὶ
-  ἀπορίας ἐμπίμπλανται νυκτάς τε καὶ ἡμέρας πολὺ μᾶλλον ἢ ἐκεῖναι.
-  Ταύτην δὲ τὴν ὠδῖνα ἐγείρειν τε καὶ ἀποπαύειν ἡ ἐμὴ τέχνη
-  δύναται.—Ἐνίοτε δὲ, οἳ ἄν ~μὴ μοι δόξωσιν πως ἐγκύμονες εἶναι,
-  γνοὺς ὅτι οὐδὲν ἐμοῦ δέονται~, πάνυ εὐμενῶς προμνῶμαι, etc.
-
-There are few things more remarkable than the description given of
-the colloquial magic of Sokratês and its vehement effects, by those
-who had themselves heard it and felt its force. Its suggestive and
-stimulating power was a gift so extraordinary, as well to justify
-any abundance of imagery on the part of Plato to illustrate it.[730]
-On the subjects to which he applied himself, man and society, his
-hearers had done little but feel and affirm: Sokratês undertook
-to make them think, weigh, and examine themselves and their own
-judgments, until the latter were brought into consistency with each
-other, as well as with a known and venerable end. The generalizations
-embodied in their judgments had grown together and coalesced in a
-manner at once so intimate, so familiar, yet so unverified, that
-the particulars implied in them had passed out of notice: so that
-Sokratês, when he recalled these particulars out of a forgotten
-experience, presented to the hearer his own opinions under a totally
-new point of view. His conversations—even as they appear in the
-reproduction of Xenophon, which presents but a mere skeleton of the
-reality—exhibit the main features of a genuine inductive method,
-struggling against the deep-lying, but unheeded, errors of the early
-intellect acting by itself, without conscious march or scientific
-guidance,—of the _intellectus sibi permissus_,—upon which Bacon so
-emphatically dwells. Amidst abundance of _instantiæ negativæ_, the
-scientific value of which is dwelt upon in the “Novum Organon,”[731]
-and negative instances, too, so dexterously chosen as generally to
-show the way to new truth, in place of that error which they set
-aside,—there is a close pressure on the hearer’s mind, to keep it in
-the distinct tract of particulars, as conditions of every just and
-consistent generalization; and to divert it from becoming enslaved to
-unexamined formulæ, or from delivering mere intensity of persuasion
-under the authoritative phrase of reason. Instead of anxiety to
-plant in the hearer a conclusion ready-made and accepted on trust,
-the questioner keeps up a prolonged suspense with special emphasis
-laid upon the particulars tending both affirmatively and negatively;
-nor is his purpose answered, until that state of knowledge and
-apprehended evidence is created, out of which the conclusion starts
-as a living product, with its own root and self-sustaining power
-consciously linked with its premises. If this conclusion so generated
-be not the same as that which the questioner himself adopts, it will
-at least be some other, worthy of a competent and examining mind
-taking its own independent view of the appropriate evidence. And
-amidst all the variety and divergence of particulars which we find
-enforced in the language of Sokratês, the end, towards which all of
-them point, is one and the same, emphatically signified, the good and
-happiness of social man.
-
-  [730] There is a striking expression of Xenophon, in the
-  Memorabilia, about Sokratês and his conversation (i, 2, 14):—
-
-  “He dealt with every one just as he pleased in his discussions,”
-  says Xenophon: τοῖς δὲ διαλεγομένοις αὐτῷ πᾶσι χρώμενον ἐν τοῖς
-  λόγοις ὅπως ἐβούλετο.
-
-  [731] I know nothing so clearly illustrating both the subjects
-  and the method chosen by Sokratês, as various passages of the
-  immortal criticisms in the Novum Organon. When Sokratês, as
-  Xenophon tells us, devoted his time to questioning others: “What
-  is piety? What is justice? What is temperance, courage, political
-  government?” etc., we best understand the spirit of his procedure
-  by comparing the sentence which Bacon pronounces upon the _first
-  notions of the intellect,—as radically vicious, confused, badly
-  abstracted from things, and needing complete reexamination and
-  revision_,—without which, he says, not one of them could be
-  trusted:—
-
-  “Quod vero attinet ad notiones primas intellectûs, nihil est
-  _eorum, quas intellectus sibi permissus congessit, quin nobis
-  pro suspecto sit_, nec ullo modo ratum nisi novo judicio se
-  stiterit, et secundum illud pronuntiatum fuerit.” (Distributio
-  Operis, prefixed to the N. O. p. 168, of Mr. Montagu’s edition.)
-  “Serum sane rebus perditis adhibetur remedium, postquam mens
-  ex quotidianâ vitæ consuetudine, et auditionibus, et doctrinis
-  inquinatis occupata, et vanissimis idolis obsessa fuerit....
-  Restat unica salus ac sanitas, ut _opus mentis universum de
-  integro resumatur; ac mens, jam ab ipso principio, nullo modo
-  sibi permittatur_, sed perpetuo regatur.” (Ib. Præfatio, p.
-  186.) “Syllogismus ex propositionibus constat, propositiones ex
-  verbis, verba notionum tesseræ sunt. Itaque si notiones ipsæ (id
-  quod basis rei est) confusæ sint et temere a rebus abstractæ,
-  nihil in iis quæ superstruuntur est firmitudinis. Itaque spes
-  est una in inductione verâ. _In notionibus nihil sani est_, nec
-  in logicis, nec in physicis. _Non Substantia, non Qualitas,
-  Agere, Pati, ipsum Esse, bonæ, notiones sunt;_ multo minus Grave,
-  Leve, Der sum, Tenue, Humidum, Siccum, Generatio, Corruptio,
-  Attrahere, Fugare, Elementum, Materia, Forma, et id Genus;
-  sed omnes phantasticæ et male terminatæ. Notiones infimarum
-  specierum, Hominis, Canis, et prehensionum immediatarum sensus,
-  Albi, Nigri, non fallunt magnopere: _reliquæ omnes (quibus
-  homines hactenus usi sunt) aberrationes sunt_, nec debitis modis
-  a rebus abstractæ et excitatæ.” (Aphor. 14, 15, 16.) “Nemo adhuc
-  tantâ mentis constantiâ et rigore inventus est, ut decreverit
-  et sibi imposuerit, _theorias et notiones communes penitus
-  abolere, et intellectum abrasum et æquum ad particularia de
-  integro applicare. Itaque ratio illa quam habemus, ex multâ fide
-  et multo etiam casu, necnon ex puerilibus, quas primo hausimus,
-  notionibus, farrago quædam est et congeries_.” (Aphor. 97.) “Nil
-  magis philosophiæ offecisse deprehendimus, quam quod res quæ
-  familiares sunt et frequenter occurrunt, contemplationem hominum
-  non morentur et detineant, sed recipiantur obiter, neque earum
-  causæ quasi soleant; ut non sæpius requiratur informatio de rebus
-  ignotis, quam attentio in notis.” (Aphor. 119.)
-
-  These passages, and many others to the same effect which might be
-  extracted from the Novum Organon, afford a clear illustration and
-  an interesting parallel to the spirit and purpose of Sokratês.
-  He sought to test the fundamental notions and generalizations
-  respecting man and society, in the same spirit in which Bacon
-  approached those of physics: he suspected the unconscious process
-  of the growing intellect, and desired to revise it, by comparison
-  with particulars; and from particulars too the most clear and
-  certain, but which, from being of vulgar occurrence, were least
-  attended to. And that which Sokratês described in his language
-  as “conceit of knowledge without the reality,” is identical with
-  what Bacon designates as the _primary notions_, the _puerile
-  notions_, the _aberrations_, of the intellect left to itself,
-  which have become so familiar and appear so certainly known, that
-  the mind cannot shake them off, and has lost all habit, we might
-  almost say all power, of examining them.
-
-  The stringent process—or electric shock, to use the simile in
-  Plato’s Menon—of the Sokratic elenchus, afforded the best means
-  of resuscitating this lost power. And the manner in which Plato
-  speaks of this cross-examining elenchus, as “the great and
-  sovereign purification, without which every man, be he the great
-  king himself, is unschooled, dirty, and fall of uncleanness in
-  respect to the main conditions of happiness,”—καὶ τὸν ἔλεγχον
-  λεκτέον ὡς ἄρα μεγίστη καὶ κυριωτάτη τῶν καθάρσεων ἐστὶ, καὶ
-  τὸν ἀνέλεγκτον αὖ νομιστέον, ἂν καὶ τυγχάνῃ μέγας βασιλεὺς ὤν,
-  τὰ μέγιστα ἀκάθαρτον ὄντα· ἀπαίδευτόν τε καὶ αἰσχρὸν γεγονέναι
-  ταῦτα, ἃ καθαρώτατον καὶ κάλλιστον ἔπρεπε τὸν ὄντως ἐσόμενον
-  εὐδαίμονα εἶναι; Plato, Sophist. c. 34, p. 230, E,—precisely
-  corresponds to that “_cross-examination of human reason in its
-  native or spontaneous process_,” which Bacon specifies as one of
-  the three things essential to the expurgation of the intellect,
-  so as to qualify it for the attainment of truth: “Itaque
-  doctrina ista de expurgatione intellectûs, ut ipse ad veritatem
-  habilis sit, tribus redargutionibus absolvitur; redargutione
-  philosophiarum, redargutione demonstrationum, et _redargutione
-  rationis humanæ nativæ_.” (Nov. Organ. Distributio Operis, p.
-  170, ed. Montagu.)
-
-  To show further how essential it is in the opinion of the best
-  judges, that the native intellect should be purged or purified,
-  before it can properly apprehend the truths of physical
-  philosophy, I transcribe the introductory passage of Sir John
-  Herschel’s “Astronomy:”—
-
-  “In entering upon any scientific pursuit, one of the student’s
-  first endeavors ought to be to prepare his mind for the reception
-  of truth, by dismissing, or at least loosening his hold on, all
-  such crude and hastily adopted notions respecting the objects
-  and relations he is about to examine, as may tend to embarrass
-  or mislead him; and to strengthen himself, by _something of
-  an effort and a resolve_, for the unprejudiced admission of
-  any conclusion which shall appear to be supported by careful
-  observation and logical argument; even should it prove adverse
-  to notions he may have previously formed for himself, or taken
-  up, without examination on the credit of others. _Such an effort
-  is, in fact, a commencement of that intellectual discipline
-  which forms one of the most important ends of all science._ It
-  is the first movement of approach towards that state of mental
-  purity which alone can fit us for a full and steady perception of
-  moral beauty as well as physical adaptation. It is the “euphrasy
-  and rue,” with _which we must purge our sight before we can
-  receive, and contemplate as they are, the lineaments of truth and
-  nature_.” (Sir John Herschel, Astronomy; Introduction.)
-
-  I could easily multiply citations from other eminent writers on
-  physical philosophy, to the same purpose. All of them prescribe
-  this intellectual purification: Sokratês not only prescribed
-  it, but actually administered it, by means of his elenchus, in
-  reference to the subjects on which he talked.
-
-It is not, then, to multiply proselytes, or to procure authoritative
-assent, but to create earnest seekers, analytical intellects,
-foreknowing and consistent agents, capable of forming conclusions
-for themselves and of teaching others, as well as to force them into
-that path of inductive generalization whereby alone trustworthy
-conclusions can be formed, that the Sokratic method aspires. In
-many of the Platonic dialogues, wherein Sokratês is brought forward
-as the principal disputant, we read a series of discussions and
-arguments, distinct, though having reference to the same subject,
-but terminating either in a result purely negative, or without any
-definite result at all. The commentators often attempt, but in my
-judgment with little success, either by arranging the dialogues
-in a supposed sequence or by various other hypotheses, to assign
-some positive doctrinal conclusion as having been indirectly
-contemplated by the author. But if Plato had aimed at any substantive
-demonstration of this sort, we cannot well imagine that he would have
-left his purpose thus in the dark, visible only by the microscope
-of a critic. The didactic value of these dialogues—that wherein the
-genuine Sokratic spirit stands most manifest—consists, not in the
-positive conclusion proved, but in the argumentative process itself,
-coupled with the general importance of the subject, upon which
-evidence negative and affirmative is brought to bear.
-
-This connects itself with that which I remarked in the preceding
-chapter, when mentioning Zeno and the first manifestations of
-dialectics, respecting the large sweep, the many-sided argumentation,
-and the strength as well as forwardness of the negative arm, in
-Grecian speculative philosophy. Through Sokratês, this amplitude
-of dialectic range was transmitted from Zeno, first to Plato and
-next to Aristotle. It was a proceeding natural to men who were not
-merely interested in establishing, or refuting some given particular
-conclusion, but who also—like expert mathematicians in their own
-science—loved, esteemed, and sought to improve the dialectic process
-itself, with the means of verification which it afforded; a
-feeling, of which abundant evidence is to be found in the Platonic
-writings.[732] Such pleasure in the scientific operation,—though
-not merely innocent, but valuable both as a stimulant and as
-a guarantee against error, and though the corresponding taste
-among mathematicians is always treated with the sympathy which it
-deserves,—incurs much unmerited reprobation from modern historians
-of philosophy, under the name of love of disputation, cavilling, or
-skeptical subtlety.
-
-  [732] See particularly the remarkable passage in the Philêbus, c.
-  18, p. 16, _seq._
-
-But over and above any love of the process, the subjects to which
-dialectics were applied, from Sokratês downwards,—man and society,
-ethics, politics, metaphysics, etc., were such as particularly called
-for this many-sided handling. On topics like these, relating to
-sequences of fact which depend upon a multitude of coöperating or
-conflicting causes, it is impossible to arrive, by any one thread
-of positive reasoning or induction, at absolute doctrine, which a
-man may reckon upon finding always true, whether he remembers the
-proof or not; as is the case with mathematical, astronomical, or
-physical truth. The utmost which science can ascertain, on subjects
-thus complicated, is an aggregate, not of peremptory theorems and
-predictions, but of tendencies;[733] by studying the action of each
-separate cause, and combining them together as well as our means
-admit. The knowledge of tendencies thus obtained, though falling
-much short of certainty, is highly important for guidance: but it is
-plain that conclusions of this nature, resulting from multifarious
-threads of evidence, true only on a balance, and always liable to
-limitation, can never be safely detached from the proofs on which
-they rest, or taught as absolute and consecrated formulæ.[734] They
-require to be kept in perpetual and conscious association with the
-evidences, affirmative and negative, by the joint consideration of
-which their truth is established; nor can this object be attained by
-any other means than by ever-renovated discussion, instituted from
-new and distinct points of view, and with free play to that negative
-arm which is indispensable as stimulus not less than as control. To
-ask for nothing but results, to decline the labor of verification,
-to be satisfied with a ready-made stock of established positive
-arguments as proof, and to decry the doubter or negative reasoner,
-who starts new difficulties, as a common enemy, this is a proceeding
-sufficiently common, in ancient as well as in modern times. But it
-is, nevertheless, an abnegation of the dignity, and even of the
-functions, of speculative philosophy. It is the direct reverse of
-the method both of Sokratês and Plato, who, as inquirers, felt that,
-for the great subjects which they treated, multiplied threads of
-reasoning, coupled with the constant presence of the cross-examining
-elenchus, were indispensable. Nor is it less at variance with the
-views of Aristotle,—though a man very different from either of
-them,—who goes round his subject on all sides, states and considers
-all its difficulties, and insists emphatically on the necessity of
-having all these difficulties brought out in full force, as the
-incitement and guide to positive philosophy, as well as the test of
-its sufficiency.[735]
-
-  [733] See this point instructively set forth in Mr. John Stuart
-  Mill’s System of Logic, vol. ii, book vi, p. 565, 1st edition.
-
-  [734] Lord Bacon remarks, in the Novum Organon (Aph. 71):—
-
-  “Erat autem sapientia Græcorum professoria, et in disputationes
-  effusa, quod genus inquisitioni veritatis adversissimum est.
-  Itaque nomen illud Sophistarum—quod per contemptum ab iis, qui
-  se philosophos haberi voluerunt, in antiquos rhetores rejectum
-  et traductum est, Gorgiam, Protagoram, Hippiam, Polum—etiam
-  universo generi competit, Platoni, Aristoteli, Zenoni, Epicuro,
-  Theophrasto, et eorum successoribus, Chrysippo, Carneadi,
-  reliquis.”
-
-  Bacon is quite right in effacing the distinction between the two
-  lists of persons whom he compares; and in saying that the latter
-  were just as much sophists as the former, in the sense which he
-  here gives to the word, as well as in every other legitimate
-  sense. But he is not justified in imputing to either of them this
-  many-sided argumentation as a fault, looking to the subjects upon
-  which they brought it to bear. His remark has application to the
-  simpler physical sciences, but none to the moral. It had great
-  pertinence and value, at the time when he brought it forward, and
-  with reference to the important reforms which he was seeking to
-  accomplish in physical science. In so far as Plato, Aristotle,
-  or the other Greek philosophers, apply their deductive method
-  to physical subjects, they come justly under Bacon’s censure.
-  But here again, the fault consisted less in disputing too much,
-  than in too hastily admitting false or inaccurate axioms without
-  dispute.
-
-  [735] Aristotel. Metaphysic. iii, 1, 2-5, p. 995, _a_.
-
-  The indispensable necessity, to a philosopher, of having before
-  him all the difficulties and doubts of the problem which he
-  tries to solve, and of looking at a philosophical question with
-  the same alternate attention to its affirmative and negative
-  side, as is shown by a judge to two litigants, is strikingly
-  set forth in this passage. I transcribes portion of it: Ἐστὶ
-  δὲ τοῖς εὐπορῆσαι βουλομένοις προὔργου τὸ διαπορῆσαι καλῶς· ἡ
-  γὰρ ὕστερον εὐπορία λύσις τῶν πρότερον ἀπορουμένων ἐστὶ, λύειν
-  δ᾽ οὐκ ἐστιν ἀγνοοῦντας τὸν δεσμόν.... Διὸ δεῖ τὰς δυσχερείας
-  τεθεωρηκέναι πάσας πρότερον, τούτων τε χάριν, καὶ διὰ τὸ τοὺς
-  ζητοῦντας ἄνευ τοῦ διαπορῆσαι πρῶτον, ὁμοίους εἶναι τοῖς ποῖ δεῖ
-  βαδίζειν ἀγνοοῦσι, καὶ πρὸς τούτοις οὐδ᾽ εἴ ποτε τὸ ζητούμενον
-  εὕρηκεν, ἢ μὴ, γιγνώσκειν· τὸ γὰρ τέλος τούτῳ μὲν οὐ δῆλον, τῷ δὲ
-  προηπορηκότι δῆλον. Ἔτι δὲ βέλτιον ἀνάγκη ἔχειν πρὸς τὸ κρίνειν,
-  τὸν ὥσπερ ἀντιδίκων καὶ τῶν ἀμφισβητούντων λόγων ἀκηκοότα πάντων.
-
-  A little further on, in the same chapter (iii, 1, 19, p. 996,
-  _a_), he makes a remarkable observation. Not merely it is
-  difficult, on these philosophical subjects, to get at the truth,
-  but it is not easy to perform well even the preliminary task of
-  discerning and setting forth the ratiocinative difficulties which
-  are to be dealt with: Περὶ γὰρ τούτων ἁπάντων οὐ μόνον χαλεπὸν τὸ
-  εὐπορῆσαι τῆς ἀληθείας, ἀλλ᾽ ~οὐδὲ τὸ διαπορῆσαι τῷ λόγῳ ῥᾴδιον
-  καλῶς~. Διαπορῆσαι means the same as διεξελθεῖν τὰς ἀπορίας
-  (Bonitz. not. _ad loc._), “to go through the various points of
-  difficulty.”
-
-  This last passage illustrates well the characteristic gift of
-  Sokratês, which was exactly what Aristotle calls τὸ διαπορῆσαι
-  λόγῳ καλῶς; to force on the hearer’s mind those ratiocinative
-  difficulties which served both as spur and as guide towards
-  solution and positive truth; towards comprehensive and correct
-  generalization, with clear consciousness of the common attribute
-  binding together the various particulars included.
-
-  The same care to admit and even invite the development of
-  the negative side of a question, to accept the obligation of
-  grappling with all the difficulties, to assimilate the process of
-  inquiry to a judicial pleading, is to be seen in other passages
-  of Aristotle; see Ethic. Nikomach. vii, 1, 5; De Animâ, i, 2. p.
-  403, _b_; De Cœlo, i, 10, p. 279, _b_; Topica, i, 2, p. 101, _a_:
-  (Χρήσιμος δὲ ἡ διαλεκτικὴ) πρὸς τὰς κατὰ φιλοσοφίαν ἐπιστήμας,
-  ὅτι δυνάμενοι πρὸς ἀμφότερα διαπορῆσαι, ῥᾷον ἐν ἑκάστοις
-  κατοψόμεθα τἀληθές τε καὶ τὸ ψεῦδος. Compare also Cicero, Tusc.
-  Disput. ii, 3, 9.
-
-Understanding thus the method of Sokratês, we shall be at no loss
-to account for a certain variance on his part—and a still greater
-variance on the part of Plato, who expanded the method in writing
-so much more—with the sophists, without supposing the latter to be
-corrupt teachers. As they aimed at qualifying young men for active
-life, they accepted the current ethical and political sentiment, with
-its unexamined commonplaces and inconsistencies, merely seeking to
-shape it into what was accounted a meritorious character at Athens.
-They were thus exposed, along with others—and more than others, in
-consequence of their reputation—to the analytical cross-examination
-of Sokratês, and were quite as little able to defend themselves
-against it.
-
-Whatever may have been the success of Protagoras or any other among
-these sophists, the mighty originality of Sokratês achieved results
-not only equal at the time, but incomparably grander and more
-lasting in reference to the future. Out of his intellectual school
-sprang not merely Plato, himself a host, but all the other leaders
-of Grecian speculation for the next half-century, and all those who
-continued the great line of speculative philosophy down to later
-times. Eukleidês and the Megaric school of philosophers,—Aristippus
-and the Kyrenaic,—Antisthenês and Diogenês, the first of those called
-the Cynics, all emanated more or less directly from the stimulus
-imparted by Sokratês, though each followed a different vein of
-thought.[736] Ethics continue to be what Sokratês had first made
-them, a distinct branch of philosophy, alongside of which politics,
-rhetoric, logic, and other speculations relating to man and society,
-gradually arranged themselves; all of them more popular, as well as
-more keenly controverted, than physics, which at that time presented
-comparatively little charm, and still less of attainable certainty.
-There can be no doubt that the individual influence of Sokratês
-permanently enlarged the horizon, improved the method, and multiplied
-the ascendent minds, of the Grecian speculative world, in a manner
-never since paralleled. Subsequent philosophers may have had a more
-elaborate doctrine, and a larger number of disciples who imbibed
-their ideas; but none of them applied the same stimulating method
-with the same efficacy; none of them struck out of other minds that
-fire which sets light to original thought; none of them either
-produced in others the pains of intellectual pregnancy, or extracted
-from others the fresh and unborrowed offspring of a really parturient
-mind.
-
-  [736] Cicero (de Orator. iii, 16, 61; Tuscul. Disput. v, 4, 11):
-  “Cujus (Socratis) multiplex ratio disputandi, rerumque varietas,
-  et ingenii magnitudo, Platonis ingenio et literis consecrata,
-  plura genera effecit dissentientium philosophorum.” Ten distinct
-  varieties of Sokratic philosophers are enumerated; but I lay
-  little stress on the exact number.
-
-Having thus touched upon Sokratês, both as first opener of the
-field of ethics to scientific study, and as author of a method,
-little copied and never paralleled since his time, for stimulating
-in other men’s minds earnest analytical inquiry, I speak last about
-his theoretical doctrine. Considering the fanciful, far-fetched
-ideas, upon which alone the Pythagoreans and other predecessors had
-shaped their theories respecting virtues and vices, the wonder is
-that Sokratês, who had no better guides to follow, should have laid
-down an ethical doctrine which has the double merit of being true, as
-far as it goes, legitimate, and of comprehensive generality: though
-it errs, mainly by stating a part of the essential conditions of
-virtue[737]—sometimes also a part of the ethical end—as if it were
-the whole. Sokratês resolved all virtue into knowledge or wisdom;
-all vice, into ignorance or folly. To do right was the only way to
-impart happiness, or the least degree of unhappiness compatible
-with any given situation: now this was precisely what every one
-wished for and aimed at; only that many persons, from ignorance,
-took the wrong road; and no man was wise enough always to take the
-right. But as no man was willingly his own enemy, so no man ever
-did wrong willingly; it was because he was not fully or correctly
-informed of the consequences of his own actions; so that the proper
-remedy to apply was enlarged teaching of consequences and improved
-judgment.[738] To make him willing to be taught, the only condition
-required was to make him conscious of his own ignorance; the want of
-which consciousness was the real cause both of indocility and of vice.
-
-  [737] In setting forth the ethical end, the language of Sokratês,
-  as far as we can judge from Xenophon and Plato, seems to have
-  been not always consistent with itself. He sometimes stated it
-  as if it included a reference to the happiness, not merely of
-  the agent himself, but of others besides; both as coördinate
-  elements; at other times, he seems to speak as if the end was
-  nothing more than the happiness of the agent himself, though the
-  happiness of others was among the greatest and most essential
-  means. The former view is rather countenanced by Xenophon,
-  the best witness about his master, so that I have given it as
-  belonging to Sokratês, though it is not always adhered to. The
-  latter view appears most in Plato, who assimilates the health
-  of the soul to the health of the body, an end essentially
-  self-regarding.
-
-  [738] Cicero, de Orator. i, 47, 204.
-
-That this doctrine sets forth one portion of the essential
-conditions of virtue, is certain; and that too the most commanding
-portion, since there can be no assured moral conduct except under the
-supremacy of reason. But that it omits to notice, what is not less
-essential to virtue, the proper condition of the emotions, desires,
-etc., taking account only of the intellect, is also certain; and has
-been remarked by Aristotle[739] as well as by many others. It is
-fruitless, in my judgment, to attempt by any refined explanation to
-make out that Sokratês meant, by “knowledge,” something more than
-what is directly implied in the word. He had present to his mind,
-as the grand depravation of the human being, not so much vice, as
-madness; that state in which a man does not know what he is doing.
-Against the vicious man, securities both public and private may be
-taken, with considerable effect; against the madman there is no
-security except perpetual restraint. He is incapable of any of the
-duties incumbent on social man, nor can he, even if he wishes, do
-good either to himself or to others. The sentiment which we feel
-towards such an unhappy being is, indeed, something totally different
-from moral reprobation, such as we feel for the vicious man who does
-wrong knowingly. But Sokratês took measure of both with reference
-to the purposes of human life and society, and pronounced that the
-latter was less completely spoiled for those purposes than the
-former. Madness was ignorance at its extreme pitch, accompanied, too,
-by the circumstance that the madman himself was unconscious of his
-own ignorance, acting under a sincere persuasion that he knew what
-he was doing. But short of this extremity, there were many varieties
-and gradations in the scale of ignorance, which, if accompanied by
-false conceit of knowledge, differed from madness only in degree, and
-each of which disqualified a man from doing right, in proportion to
-the ground which it covered. The worst of all ignorance—that which
-stood nearest to madness—was when a man was ignorant of himself,
-fancying that he knew what he did not really know, and that he could
-do, or avoid, or endure, what was quite beyond his capacity; when,
-for example, intending to speak the same truth, he sometimes said
-one thing, sometimes another; or, casting up the same arithmetical
-figures, made sometimes a greater sum, sometimes a less. A person
-who knows his letters, or an arithmetician, may doubtless write
-bad orthography or cast-up incorrectly, by design, but can also
-perform the operations correctly, if he chooses; while one ignorant
-of writing or of arithmetic, _cannot_ do it correctly, even though
-he should be anxious to do so. The former, therefore, comes nearer
-to the good orthographer or arithmetician than the latter. So, if
-a man knows what is just, honorable, and good, but commits acts
-of a contrary character, he is juster, or comes nearer to being a
-just man, than one who does not know what just acts are, and does
-not distinguish them from unjust; for this latter _cannot_ conduct
-himself justly, even if he desires it ever so much.[740]
-
-  [739] Xenoph. Mem. iii, 9, 4; Aristot. Ethic. Nikomach. vi, 13,
-  3-5; Ethic. Eudem. i, 5; Ethic. Magn. i, 35.
-
-  [740] Xenoph. Mem. iii, 9, 6; iv, 2, 19-22. δικαιότερον δὲ τὸν
-  ἐπιστάμενον τὰ δίκαια τοῦ μὴ ἐπισταμένου. To call him the juster
-  man of the two, when neither are just, can hardly be meant: I
-  translate it according to what seems to me the meaning intended.
-  So γραμματικώτερον, in the sentence before, means, comes nearer
-  to a good orthographer. The Greek derivative adjectives in -ικὸς
-  are very difficult to render precisely.
-
-  Compare Plato, Hippias Minor, c. 15, p. 372, D, where the same
-  opinion is maintained. Hippias tells Sokratês, in that dialogue
-  (c. 11, p. 369, B), that he fixes his mind on a part of the
-  truth, and omits to notice the rest.
-
-The opinion here maintained illustrates forcibly the general doctrine
-of Sokratês. I have already observed that the fundamental idea which
-governed his train of reasoning, was, the analogy of each man’s
-social life and duty to a special profession or trade. Now what is
-principally inquired after in regard to these special men, is their
-professional capacity; without this, no person would ever think of
-employing them, let their dispositions be ever so good; with it, good
-dispositions and diligence are presumed, unless there be positive
-grounds for suspecting the contrary. But why do we indulge such
-presumption? Because their pecuniary interest, their professional
-credit, and their place among competitors, are staked upon success,
-so that we reckon upon their best efforts. But in regard to that
-manifold and indefinite series of acts which constitute the sum
-total of social duty, a man has no such special interest to guide
-and impel him, nor can we presume in him those dispositions which
-will insure his doing right, wherever he knows what right is.
-Mankind are obliged to give premiums for these dispositions, and to
-attach penalties to the contrary, by means of praise and censure;
-moreover, the natural sympathies and antipathies of ordinary minds,
-which determine so powerfully the application of moral terms, run
-spontaneously in this direction, and even overshoot the limit which
-reason would prescribe. The analogy between the paid special duty and
-the general social duty, fails in this particular. Even if Sokratês
-were correct as to the former,—and this would be noway true,—in
-making the intellectual conditions of good conduct stand for the
-whole, no such inference could safely be extended to the latter.
-
-Sokratês affirmed that “well-doing” was the noblest pursuit of man.
-“Well-doing” consisted in doing a thing well after having learned it
-and practised it, by the rational and proper means; it was altogether
-disparate from good fortune, or success without rational scheme
-and preparation. “The best man (he said), and the most beloved by
-the gods, is he who, as an husbandman, performs well the duties of
-husbandry; as a surgeon, those of medical art; in political life,
-his duty towards the commonwealth. But the man who does nothing
-well, is neither useful, nor agreeable to the gods.”[741] This is
-the Sokratic view of human life; to look at it as an assemblage of
-realities and practical details; to translate the large words of the
-moral vocabulary into those homely particulars to which at bottom
-they refer; to take account of acts, not of dispositions apart from
-act (in contradiction to the ordinary flow of the moral sympathies);
-to enforce upon every one, that what he chiefly required was teaching
-and practice, as preparations for act; and that therefore ignorance,
-especially ignorance mistaking itself for knowledge, was his capital
-deficiency. The religion of Sokratês, as well as his ethics, had
-reference to practical human ends; nor had any man ever less of that
-transcendentalism in his mind, which his scholar Plato exhibits in
-such abundance.
-
-  [741] Xenoph. Memor. iii, 9, 14, 15.
-
-It is indisputable, then, that Sokratês laid down a general
-ethical theory which is too narrow, and which states a part of the
-truth as if it were the whole. But, as it frequently happens with
-philosophers who make the like mistake, we find that he did not
-confine his deductive reasonings within the limits of the theory,
-but escaped the erroneous consequences by a partial inconsistency.
-For example; no man ever insisted more emphatically than he, on the
-necessity of control over the passions and appetites, of enforcing
-good habits, and on the value of that state of the sentiments and
-emotions which such a course tended to form.[742] In truth, this
-is one particular characteristic of his admonitions. He exhorted
-men to limit their external wants, to be sparing in indulgence, and
-to cultivate, even in preference to honors and advancement, those
-pleasures which would surely arise from a performance of duty, as
-well as from self-examination and the consciousness of internal
-improvement. This earnest attention, in measuring the elements and
-conditions of happiness, to the state of the internal associations
-as contrasted with the effect of external causes, as well as the
-pains taken to make it appear how much the latter depend upon the
-former for their power of conferring happiness, and how sufficient
-is moderate good fortune in respect to externals, provided the
-internal man be properly disciplined, is a vein of thought which
-pervades both Sokratês and Plato, and which passed from them, under
-various modifications, to most of the subsequent schools of ethical
-philosophy. It is probable that Protagoras or Prodikus, training rich
-youth for active life, without altogether leaving out such internal
-element of happiness, would yet dwell upon it less; a point of
-decided superiority in Sokratês.
-
-  [742] Xenoph. Mem. ii, 6, 39. ὅσαι δ᾽ ἐν ἀνθρώποις ἀρεταὶ
-  λέγονται ταύτας πάσας σκοπούμενος εὑρήσεις μαθήσει τε καὶ
-  ~μελέτῃ~ αὐξανομένας. Again, the necessity of practise or
-  discipline is inculcated, iii, 9, 1. When Sokratês enumerates the
-  qualities requisite in a good friend, it is not merely superior
-  knowledge which he talks of, but of moral excellence; continence,
-  a self-sufficing temper, mildness, a grateful disposition (c. ii,
-  6, 1-5).
-
-  Moreover, Sokratês laid it down that continence, or self-control,
-  was the very basis of virtue: τὴν ἐγκράτειαν ἀρετῆς κρηπῖδα (i,
-  5, 4). Also, that _continence_ was indispensable in order to
-  enable a man to acquire knowledge (iv, 5, 10, 11).
-
-  Sokratês here plainly treats ἐγκράτειαν (continence, or
-  self-control) as not being a state of the intellectual man, and
-  yet as being the very basis of virtue. He therefore does not seem
-  to have applied consistently his general doctrine, that virtue
-  consisted in knowledge, or in the excellence of the intellectual
-  man, alone. Perhaps he might have said: Knowledge alone will
-  be sufficient to make you virtuous; but before you can acquire
-  knowledge, you must previously have disciplined your emotions and
-  appetites. This merely eludes the objection, without saving the
-  sufficiency of the general doctrine.
-
-  I cannot concur with Ritter (Gesch. der Philos. vol. ii, ch.
-  2, p. 78) in thinking that Sokratês meant by _knowledge_, or
-  _wisdom_, a transcendental attribute, above humanity, and such
-  as is possessed only by a god. This is by no means consistent
-  with that practical conception of human life and its ends, which
-  stands so plainly marked in his character.
-
-  Why should we think it wonderful that Sokratês should propose a
-  defective theory, which embraces only one side of a large and
-  complicated question? Considering that his was the first theory
-  derived from data really belonging to the subject, the wonder is,
-  that it was so near an approach to the truth.
-
-The political opinions of Sokratês were much akin to his ethical,
-and deserve especial notice, as having in part contributed to his
-condemnation by the dikastery. He thought that the functions of
-government belonged legitimately to those who knew best how to
-exercise them for the advantage of the governed. “The legitimate king
-or governor was not the man who held the sceptre, nor the man elected
-by some vulgar persons, nor he who had got the post by lot, nor he
-who had thrust himself in by force or by fraud, but he alone who knew
-how to govern well.”[743] Just as the pilot governed on shipboard,
-the surgeon in a sick man’s house, the trainer in a palæstra; every
-one else being eager to obey these professional superiors, and even
-thanking and recompensing them for their directions, simply because
-their greater knowledge was an admitted fact. It was absurd, Sokratês
-used to contend, to choose public officers by lot, when no one would
-trust himself on shipboard under the care of a pilot selected by
-hazard,[744] nor would any one pick out a carpenter or a musician in
-like manner.
-
-  [743] Xen. Mem. iii, 9, 10, 11.
-
-  [744] Xen. Mem. i, 2, 9.
-
-We do not know what provision Sokratês suggested for applying his
-principle to practice, for discovering who was the fittest man in
-point of knowledge, or for superseding him in case of his becoming
-unfit, or in case another fitter than he should arise. The analogies
-of the pilot, the surgeon, and professional men generally, would
-naturally conduct him to election by the people, renewable after
-temporary periods; since no one of these professional persons,
-whatever may be his positive knowledge, is ever trusted or obeyed
-except by the free choice of those who confide in him, and who may at
-any time make choice of another. But it does not appear that Sokratês
-followed out this part of the analogy. His companions remarked to him
-that his first-rate intellectual ruler would be a despot, who might,
-if he pleased, either refuse to listen to good advice, or even put to
-death those who gave it. “He will not act thus,” replied Sokratês,
-“for if he does, he will himself be the greatest loser.”[745]
-
-  [745] Xen. Mem. iii, 9, 12: compare Plato, Gorgias, c. 56. pp.
-  469, 470.
-
-We may notice in this doctrine of Sokratês the same imperfection as
-that which is involved in the ethical doctrine; a disposition to make
-the intellectual conditions of political fitness stand for the whole.
-His negative political doctrine is not to be mistaken: he approved
-neither of democracy, nor of oligarchy. As he was not attached,
-either by sentiment or by conviction, to the constitution of Athens,
-so neither had he the least sympathy with oligarchical usurpers, such
-as the Four Hundred and the Thirty. His positive ideal state, as far
-as we can divine it, would have been something like that which is
-worked out in the “Cyropædia” of Xenophon.
-
-In describing the persevering activity of Sokratês, as a religious
-and intellectual missionary, we have really described his life; for
-he had no other occupation than this continual intercourse with the
-Athenian public; his indiscriminate conversation, and invincible
-dialectics. Discharging faithfully and bravely his duties as an
-hoplite on military service,—but keeping aloof from official duty in
-the dikastery, the public assembly, or the senate-house, except in
-that one memorable year of the battle of Arginusæ,—he incurred none
-of those party animosities which an active public life at Athens
-often provoked. His life was legally blameless, nor had he ever been
-brought up before the dikastery until his one final trial, when he
-was seventy years of age. That he stood conspicuous before the public
-eye in 423 B.C., at the time when the “Clouds” of Aristophanês were
-brought on the stage, is certain: he may have been, and probably was,
-conspicuous even earlier: so that we can hardly allow him less than
-thirty years of public, notorious, and efficacious discoursing, down
-to his trial in 399 B.C.
-
-It was in that year that Melêtus, seconded by two auxiliaries, Anytus
-and Lykon, presented against him, and hung up in the appointed place,
-the portico before the office of the second or king-archon, an
-indictment against him in the following terms: “Sokratês is guilty of
-crime: first, for not worshipping the gods whom the city worships,
-but introducing new divinities of his own; next, for corrupting the
-youth. The penalty due is—death.”
-
-It is certain that neither the conduct nor the conversation of
-Sokratês had undergone any alteration for many years past; since the
-sameness of his manner of talking is both derided by his enemies
-and confessed by himself. Our first sentiment, therefore, apart
-from the question of guilt or innocence, is one of astonishment,
-that he should have been prosecuted, at seventy years of age, for
-persevering in an occupation which he had publicly followed during
-twenty-five or thirty years preceding. Xenophon, full of reverence
-for his master, takes up the matter on much higher ground, and
-expresses himself in a feeling of indignant amazement that the
-Athenians could find anything to condemn in a man every way so
-admirable. But whoever attentively considers the picture which I have
-presented of the purpose, the working, and the extreme publicity of
-Sokratês, will rather be inclined to wonder, not that the indictment
-was presented at last, but that some such indictment had not been
-presented long before. Such certainly is the impression suggested
-by the language of Sokratês himself, in the “Platonic Apology.” He
-there proclaims, emphatically, that though his present accusers were
-men of consideration, it was neither _their_ enmity, nor _their_
-eloquence, which he had now principally to fear; but the accumulated
-force of antipathy,—the numerous and important personal enemies, each
-with sympathizing partisans,—the long-standing and uncontradicted
-calumnies,[746] raised against him throughout his cross-examining
-career.
-
-  [746] Plato, Apol. Sok. c. 2, p. 18, B; c. 16, p. 28, A. Ὃ δὲ καὶ
-  ἐν τοῖς ἔμπροσθεν ἔλεγον, ὅτι πολλή μοι ἀπέχθεια γέγονεν καὶ πρὸς
-  πολλοὺς, εὖ ἴστε ὅτι ἀληθές ἐστιν. Καὶ τοῦτ᾽ ἐστὶν ὃ ἐμὲ αἱρήσει,
-  ἐάνπερ αἱρῇ—οὐ Μέλητος οὐδὲ Ἄνυτος, ἀλλ᾽ ἡ τῶν πολλῶν διαβολὴ καὶ
-  φθόνος.
-
-  The expression τῶν πολλῶν in this last line is not used in its
-  most common signification, but is equivalent to τούτων τῶν
-  πολλῶν.
-
-In truth, the mission of Sokratês, as he himself describes it, could
-not but prove eminently unpopular and obnoxious. To convince a man
-that, of matters which he felt confident of knowing, and had never
-thought of questioning or even of studying, he is really profoundly
-ignorant, insomuch that he cannot reply to a few pertinent queries
-without involving himself in flagrant contradictions, is an operation
-highly salutary, often necessary, to his future improvement; but
-an operation of painful surgery, in which, indeed, the temporary
-pain experienced is one of the conditions almost indispensable to
-the future beneficial results. It is one which few men can endure
-without hating the operator at the time; although doubtless such
-hatred would not only disappear, but be exchanged for esteem and
-admiration, if they persevered until the full ulterior consequences
-of the operation developed themselves. But we know, from the express
-statement of Xenophon, that many, who underwent this first pungent
-thrust of his dialectics, never came near him again: he disregarded
-them as laggards,[747] but their voices did not the less count in
-the hostile chorus. What made that chorus the more formidable, was
-the high quality and position of its leaders. For Sokratês himself
-tells us, that the men whom he chiefly and expressly sought out to
-cross-examine, were the men of celebrity as statesmen, rhetors,
-poets, or artisans; those at once most sensitive to such humiliation,
-and most capable of making their enmity effective.
-
-  [747] Xen. Mem. iv, 2, 40. Πολλοὶ μὲν οὖν τῶν οὕτω διατεθέντων
-  ὑπὸ Σωκράτους οὐκέτι αὐτῷ προσῄεσαν, οὓς καὶ βλακωτέρους ἐνόμιζεν.
-
-When we reflect upon this great body of antipathy, so terrible both
-from number and from constituent items, we shall wonder only that
-Sokratês could have gone on so long standing in the market-place to
-aggravate it, and that the indictment of Melêtus could have been so
-long postponed; since it was just as applicable earlier as later,
-and since the sensitive temper of the people, as to charges of
-irreligion, was a well-known fact.[748] The truth is, that as history
-presents to us only one man who ever devoted his life to prosecute
-this duty of an elenchic, or cross-examining missionary, so there was
-but one city, in the ancient world at least, wherein he would have
-been allowed to prosecute it for twenty-five years with safety and
-impunity; and that city was Athens. I have in a previous volume noted
-the respect for individual dissent of opinion, taste, and behavior,
-among one another, which characterized the Athenian population, and
-which Periklês puts in emphatic relief as a part of his funeral
-discourse. It was this established liberality of the democratical
-sentiment at Athens which so long protected the noble eccentricity
-of Sokratês from being disturbed by the numerous enemies which he
-provoked: at Sparta, at Thebes, at Argos, Milêtus, or Syracuse,
-his blameless life would have been insufficient as a shield, and
-his irresistible dialectic power would have caused him to be only
-the more speedily silenced. Intolerance is the natural weed of the
-human bosom, though its growth or development may be counteracted
-by liberalizing causes; of these, at Athens, the most powerful was,
-the democratical constitution as there worked, in combination with
-diffused intellectual and æsthetical sensibility, and keen relish
-for discourse. Liberty of speech was consecrated, in every man’s
-estimation, among the first of privileges; every man was accustomed
-to hear opinions, opposite to his own, constantly expressed, and to
-believe that others had a right to their opinions as well as himself.
-And though men would not, as a general principle, have extended
-such toleration to religious subjects, yet the established habit
-in reference to other matters greatly influenced their practice,
-and rendered them more averse to any positive severity against
-avowed dissenters from the received religious belief. It is certain
-that there was at Athens both a keener intellectual stimulus, and
-greater freedom as well of thought as of speech, than in any other
-city of Greece. The long toleration of Sokratês is one example of
-this general fact, while his trial proves little, and his execution
-nothing, against it, as will presently appear.
-
-  [748] Plato, Euthyphron, c. 2, p. 3, C. εἰδὼς ὅτι εὐδιάβολα τὰ
-  τοιαῦτα πρὸς τοὺς πολλούς.
-
-There must doubtless have been particular circumstances, of which we
-are scarcely at all informed, which induced his accusers to prefer
-their indictment at the actual moment, in spite of the advanced age
-of Sokratês.
-
-In the first place, Anytus, one of the accusers of Sokratês, appears
-to have become incensed against him on private grounds. The son of
-Anytus had manifested interest in his conversation, and Sokratês,
-observing in the young man intellectual impulse and promise,
-endeavored to dissuade his father from bringing him up to his own
-trade of a leather-seller.[749] It was in this general way that a
-great proportion of the antipathy against Sokratês was excited, as
-he himself tells us in the “Platonic Apology.” The young men were
-those to whom he chiefly addressed himself, and who, keenly relishing
-his conversation, often carried home new ideas which displeased
-their fathers;[750] hence the general charge against Sokratês, of
-corrupting the youth. Now this circumstance had recently happened
-in the peculiar case of Anytus, a rich tradesman, a leading man in
-politics, and just now of peculiar influence in the city, because he
-had been one of the leading fellow-laborers with Thrasybulus in the
-expulsion of the Thirty, manifesting an energetic and meritorious
-patriotism. He, like Thrasybulus and many others, had sustained great
-loss of property[751] during the oligarchical dominion; which perhaps
-made him the more strenuous in requiring that his son should pursue
-trade with assiduity, in order to restore the family fortunes. He
-seems, moreover, to have been an enemy of all teaching which went
-beyond the narrowest practicality, hating alike Sokratês and the
-sophists.[752]
-
-  [749] See Xenoph. Apol. Sok. sects. 29, 30. This little piece
-  bears a very erroneous title, and may possibly not be the
-  composition of Xenophon, as the commentators generally affirm;
-  but it has every appearance of being a work of the time.
-
-  [750] Plato, Apol. Sok. c. 10, p. 23, C; c. 27, p. 37, E.
-
-  [751] Isokrat. Or. xviii, cont. Kallimach. s. 30.
-
-  [752] See Plato, Menon, c. 27, 28, pp. 90, 91.
-
-While we can thus point out a recent occurrence, which had brought
-one of the most ascendent politicians in the city into special
-exasperation against Sokratês, another circumstance which weighed
-him down was, his past connection with the deceased Kritias and
-Alkibiadês. Of these two men, the latter, though he had some great
-admirers, was on the whole odious; still more from his private
-insolence and enormities than from his public treason as an exile.
-But the name of Kritias was detested, and deservedly detested, beyond
-that of any other man in Athenian history, as the chief director of
-the unmeasured spoliation and atrocities committed by the Thirty.
-That Sokratês had educated both Kritias and Alkibiadês, was affirmed
-by the accusers, and seemingly believed by the general public, both
-at the time and afterwards.[753] That both of them had been among
-those who conversed with him, when young men, is an unquestionable
-fact; to what extent, or down to what period, the conversation was
-carried, we cannot distinctly ascertain. Xenophon affirms that
-both of them frequented his society when young, to catch from him
-an argumentative facility which might be serviceable to their
-political ambition; that he curbed their violent and licentious
-propensities, so long as they continued to come to him; that both of
-them manifested a respectful obedience to him, which seemed in little
-consonance with their natural tempers; but that they soon quitted
-him, weary of such restraint, after having acquired as much as they
-thought convenient of his peculiar accomplishment. The writings of
-Plato, on the contrary, impress us with the idea that the association
-of both of them with Sokratês must have been more continued and
-intimate; for both of them are made to take great part in the
-Platonic dialogues, while the attachment of Sokratês to Alkibiadês
-is represented as stronger than that which he ever felt towards
-any other man; a fact not difficult to explain, since the latter,
-notwithstanding his ungovernable dispositions, was distinguished in
-his youth not less for capacity and forward impulse, than for beauty;
-and since youthful beauty fired the imagination of the Greeks,
-especially that of Sokratês, more than the charms of the other
-sex.[754] From the year 420 B.C., in which the activity of Alkibiadês
-as a political leader commenced, it seems unlikely that he could
-have seen much of Sokratês, and after the year 415 B.C. the fact is
-impossible; since in that year he became a permanent exile, with the
-exception of three or four months in the year 407 B.C. At the moment
-of the trial of Sokratês, therefore, his connection with Alkibiadês
-must at least have been a fact long past and gone. Respecting
-Kritias, we make out less; and as he was a kinsman of Plato, one
-of the well-known companions of Sokratês, and present at his trial,
-and himself an accomplished and literary man, his association with
-Sokratês may have continued longer; at least a color was given for
-so asserting. Though the supposition that any of the vices either
-of Kritias or Alkibiadês were encouraged, or even tolerated, by
-Sokratês, can have arisen in none but prejudiced or ill-informed
-minds, yet it is certain that such a supposition was entertained; and
-that it placed him before the public in an altered position after
-the enormities of the Thirty. Anytus, incensed with him already on
-the subject of his son, would be doubly incensed against him as the
-reputed tutor of Kritias.
-
-  [753] Æschinês, cont. Timarch. c. 34, p. 74. ὑμεῖς Σωκράτη τὸν
-  σοφιστὴν ἀπεκτείνατε, ὅτι Κριτίαν ἐφάνη πεπαιδευκὼς, etc. Xenoph.
-  Mem. i, 2, 12.
-
-  [754] See Plato (Charmidês, c. 3, p. 154, C; Lysis, c. 2, p. 201,
-  B; Protagoras, c. 1, p. 309, A), etc.
-
-Of Melêtus, the primary, though not the most important accuser, we
-know only that he was a poet; of Lykon, that he was a rhetor. Both
-these classes had been alienated by the cross-examining dialectics
-to which many of their number had been exposed by Sokratês. They
-were the last men to bear such an exposure with patience, and their
-enmity, taken as a class rarely unanimous, was truly formidable when
-it bore upon any single individual.
-
-We know nothing of the speeches of either of the accusers before the
-dikastery, except what can be picked out from the remarks in Xenophon
-and the defence of Plato. Of the three counts of the indictment, the
-second was the easiest for them to support, on plausible grounds.
-That Sokratês was a religious innovator, would be considered as
-proved by the peculiar divine sign, of which he was wont to speak
-freely and publicly, and which visited no one except himself.
-Accordingly, in the “Platonic Defence,” he never really replies to
-this second charge. He questions Melêtus before the dikastery, and
-the latter is represented as answering, that he meant to accuse
-Sokratês of not believing in the gods at all;[755] to which imputed
-disbelief Sokratês answers with an emphatic negative. In support of
-the first count, however,—the charge of general disbelief in the
-gods recognized by the city,—nothing in his conduct could be cited;
-for he was exact in his legal worship like other citizens, and even
-more than others, if Xenophon is correct.[756] But it would appear
-that the old calumnies of the Aristophanic “Clouds” were revived,
-and that the effect of that witty drama, together with similar
-efforts of Eupolis and others, perhaps hardly less witty, was still
-enduring; a striking proof that these comedians were no impotent
-libellers. Sokratês manifests greater apprehension of the effect of
-the ancient impressions, than of the speeches which had been just
-delivered against him: but these latter speeches would of course
-tell, by refreshing the sentiments of the past, and reviving the
-Aristophanic picture of Sokratês, as a speculator on physics as well
-as a rhetorical teacher for pleading, making the worse appear the
-better reason.[757] Sokratês, in the “Platonic Defence,” appeals
-to the number of persons who had heard him discourse, whether any
-of them had ever heard him say one word on the subject of physical
-studies;[758] while Xenophon goes further, and represents him as
-having positively discountenanced them, on the ground of impiety.[759]
-
-  [755] Plato, Apol. Sok. c. 14, p. 26, C.
-
-  [756] Xen. Mem. i. 2, 64; i, 3, 1.
-
-  [757] Plato, Apol. Sok. c. 3, p. 19, B.
-
-  [758] Plato, Apol. Sok. c. 3, p. 19, C.
-
-  [759] Xen. Mem. i. 1, 13.
-
-As there were three distinct accusers to speak against Sokratês, so
-we may reasonably suppose that they would concert beforehand on what
-topics each should insist; Melêtus undertaking that which related to
-religion, while Anytus and Lykon would dwell on the political grounds
-of attack. In the “Platonic Apology,” Sokratês comments emphatically
-on the allegations of Melêtus, questions him publicly before the
-dikasts, and criticizes his replies: he makes little allusion to
-Anytus, or to anything except what is formally embodied in the
-indictment; and treats the last count, the charge of corrupting
-youth, in connection with the first, as if the corruption alleged
-consisted in irreligious teaching. But Xenophon intimates that the
-accusers, in enforcing this allegation of pernicious teaching, went
-into other matters quite distinct from the religious tenets of
-Sokratês, and denounced him as having taught them lawlessness and
-disrespect, as well towards their parents as towards their country.
-We find mention made in Xenophon of accusatory grounds similar to
-those in the “Clouds;” similar also to those which modern authors
-usually advance against the sophists.
-
-Sokratês, said Anytus and the other accusers, taught young men to
-despise the existing political constitution, by remarking that the
-Athenian practice of naming archons by lot was silly, and that no
-man of sense would ever choose in this way a pilot or a carpenter,
-though the mischief arising from bad qualification, was in these
-cases far less than in the case of the archons.[760] Such teaching,
-it was urged, destroyed in the minds of the hearers respect for the
-laws and constitution, and rendered them violent and licentious. As
-examples of the way in which it had worked, his two pupils Kritias
-and Alkibiadês might be cited, both formed in his school; one, the
-most violent and rapacious of the Thirty recent oligarchs; the
-other, a disgrace to the democracy, by his outrageous insolence and
-licentiousness;[761] both of them authors of ruinous mischief to the
-city.
-
-  [760] Xen. Mem. i, 2, 9.
-
-  [761] Xen. Mem. i, 2, 12.
-
-Moreover, the youth learned from him conceit of their own superior
-wisdom, and the habit of insulting their fathers as well as of
-slighting their other kinsmen. Sokratês told them, it was urged,
-that even their fathers, in case of madness, might be lawfully put
-under restraint; and that when a man needed service, those whom he
-had to look to, were not his kinsmen, as such, but the persons best
-qualified to render it: thus, if he was sick, he must consult a
-surgeon; if involved in a lawsuit, those who were most conversant
-with such a situation. Between friends also, mere good feeling and
-affection was of little use; the important circumstance was, that
-they should acquire the capacity of rendering mutual service to each
-other. No one was worthy of esteem except the man who knew what was
-proper to be done, and could explain it to others: which meant, urged
-the accuser, that Sokratês was not only the wisest of men, but the
-only person capable of making his pupils wise; other advisers being
-worthless compared with him.[762]
-
-  [762] Xen. Mem. i, 2, 49-53.
-
-He was in the habit too, the accusation proceeded, of citing the
-worst passages out of distinguished poets, and of perverting
-them to the mischievous purpose of spoiling the dispositions of
-youth, planting in them criminal and despotic tendencies. Thus he
-quoted a line of Hesiod: “No work is disgraceful; but indolence
-is disgraceful:” explaining it to mean, that a man might without
-scruple do any sort of work, base or unjust as it might be, for the
-sake of profit. Next, Sokratês was particularly fond of quoting those
-lines of Homer, in the second book of the Iliad, wherein Odysseus is
-described as bringing back the Greeks, who had just dispersed from
-the public agora in compliance with the exhortation of Agamemnôn, and
-were hastening to their ships. Odysseus caresses and flatters the
-chiefs, while he chides and even strikes the common men; though both
-were doing the same thing, and guilty of the same fault; if fault it
-was, to obey what the commander-in-chief had himself just suggested.
-Sokratês interpreted this passage, the accuser affirmed, as if
-Homer praised the application of stripes to poor men and the common
-people.[763]
-
-  [763] Xen. Mem. i, 2, 56-59.
-
-Nothing could be easier than for an accuser to find matter for
-inculpation of Sokratês, by partial citations from his continual
-discourses, given without the context or explanations which had
-accompanied them; by bold invention, where even this partial basis
-was wanting; sometimes also by taking up real error, since no man
-who is continually talking, especially extempore, can always talk
-correctly. Few teachers would escape, if penal sentences were
-permitted to tell against them, founded upon evidence such as this.
-Xenophon, in noticing the imputations, comments upon them all,
-denies some, and explains others. As to the passages out of Hesiod
-and Homer, he affirms that Sokratês drew from them inferences
-quite contrary to those alleged;[764] which latter seem, indeed,
-altogether unreasonable, invented to call forth the deep-seated
-democratical sentiment of the Athenians, after the accuser had laid
-his preliminary ground by connecting Sokratês with Kritias and
-Alkibiadês. That Sokratês improperly depreciated either filial duty
-or the domestic affections, is in like manner highly improbable.
-We may much more reasonably believe the assertion of Xenophon, who
-represents him to have exhorted the hearer “to make himself as wise,
-and as capable of rendering service, as possible; so that, when he
-wished to acquire esteem from father or brother or friend, he might
-not sit still, in reliance on the simple fact of relationship, but
-might earn such feeling by doing them positive good.”[765] To tell
-a young man that mere good feeling would be totally insufficient,
-unless he were prepared and competent to carry it into action, is
-a lesson which few parents would wish to discourage. Nor would any
-generous parent make it a crime against the teaching of Sokratês,
-that it rendered his son wiser than himself, which probably it would
-do. To restrict the range of teaching for a young man, because it
-may make him think himself wiser than his father, is only one of the
-thousand shapes in which the pleading of ignorance against knowledge
-was then, and still continues occasionally to be, presented.
-
-  [764] Xen. Mem. i, 2, 59.
-
-  [765] Xen. Mem. i, 2, 55. Καὶ παρεκάλει ἐπιμελεῖσθαι τοῦ ὡς
-  φρονιμώτατον εἶναι καὶ ὠφελιμώτατον, ὅπως, ἐάν τε ὑπὸ πατρὸς ἐάν
-  τε ὑπὸ ἀδελφοῦ ἐάν τε ὑπ᾽ ἄλλου τινὸς βούληται τιμᾶσθαι, μὴ τῷ
-  οἰκεῖος εἶναι πιστεύων ἀμελῇ, ἀλλὰ πειρᾶται, ὑφ᾽ ὧν ἂν βούληται
-  τιμᾶσθαι, τούτοις ὠφέλιμος εἶναι.
-
-Nevertheless, it is not to be denied that these attacks of Anytus
-bear upon the vulnerable side of the Sokratic general theory of
-ethics, according to which virtue was asserted to depend upon
-knowledge. I have already remarked that this is true, but not the
-whole truth; a certain state of the affections and dispositions being
-not less indispensable, as conditions of virtue, than a certain state
-of the intelligence. An enemy, therefore, had some pretence for
-making it appear that Sokratês, stating a part of the truth as the
-whole, denied or degraded all that remained. But though this would
-be a criticism not entirely unfounded against his general theory, it
-would not hold against his precepts or practical teaching, as we find
-them in Xenophon; for these, as I have remarked, reach much wider
-than his general theory, and inculcate the cultivation of habits and
-dispositions not less strenuously than the acquisition of knowledge.
-
-The censures affirmed to have been cast by Sokratês against the
-choice of archons by lot at Athens, are not denied by Xenophon. The
-accuser urged that “by such censures Sokratês excited the young men
-to despise the established constitution, and to become lawless and
-violent in their conduct.”[766] This is just the same pretence,
-of tendency to bring the government into hatred and contempt, on
-which in former days prosecutions for public libel were instituted
-against writers in England, and on which they still continue to be
-abundantly instituted in France, under the first President of the
-Republic. There can hardly be a more serious political mischief than
-such confusion of the disapproving critic with a conspirator, and
-imposition of silence upon dissentient minorities. Nor has there
-ever been any case in which such an imputation was more destitute of
-color than that of Sokratês, who appealed always to men’s reason and
-very little to their feelings; so little, indeed, that modern authors
-make his coldness a matter of charge against him; who never omitted
-to inculcate rigid observance of the law, and set the example of
-such observance himself. Whatever may have been his sentiments about
-democracy, he always obeyed the democratical government, nor is there
-any pretence for charging him with participation in oligarchical
-schemes. It was the Thirty who, for the first time in his long life,
-interdicted his teaching altogether, and were on the point almost of
-taking his life; while his intimate friend Chærephon was actually in
-exile with the democrats.[767]
-
-  [766] Xen. Mem. i, 2, 9. τοὺς δὲ τοιούτους λόγους ἐπαίρειν ἔφη
-  τοὺς νέους καταφρονεῖν τῆς καθεστώσης πολιτείας, καὶ ποιεῖν
-  βιαίους.
-
-  [767] Plato, Apol. Sok. c. 5, p. 21. A; c. 20, p. 32, E; Xen.
-  Mem. 1, 2, 31.
-
-Xenophon lays great emphasis on two points, when defending Sokratês
-against his accusers. First, that his own conduct was virtuous,
-self-denying, and strict in obedience to the law. Next, that he
-accustomed his hearers to hear nothing except appeals to their
-reason, and impressed on them obedience only to their rational
-convictions. That such a man, with so great a weight of presumption
-in his favor, should be tried and found guilty as a corruptor of
-youth,—the most undefined of all imaginable charges,—is a grave and
-melancholy fact in the history of mankind. Yet when we see upon what
-light evidence modern authors are willing to admit the same charge
-against the sophists, we have no right to wonder that the Athenians
-when addressed, not through that calm reason to which Sokratês
-appealed, but through all their antipathies, religious as well as
-political, public as well as private—were exasperated into dealing
-with him as the type and precursor of Kritias and Alkibiadês.
-
-After all, the exasperation, and the consequent verdict of guilty,
-were not wholly the fault of the dikasts, nor wholly brought about
-by his accusers and his numerous private enemies. No such verdict
-would have been given, unless by what we must call the consent and
-concurrence of Sokratês himself. This is one of the most important
-facts of the case, in reference both to himself and to the Athenians.
-
-We learn from his own statement in the “Platonic Defence,” that
-the verdict of guilty was only pronounced by a majority of five or
-six, amidst a body so numerous as an Athenian dikastery; probably
-five hundred and fifty-seven in total number,[768] if a confused
-statement in Diogenes Laërtius can be trusted. Now any one who
-reads that defence, and considers it in conjunction with the
-circumstances of the case and the feelings of the dikasts, will see
-that its tenor is such as must have turned a much greater number
-of votes than six against him. And we are informed by the distinct
-testimony of Xenophon,[769] that Sokratês approached his trial with
-the feelings of one who hardly wished to be acquitted. He took no
-thought whatever for the preparation of his defence; and when his
-friend Hermogenês remonstrated with him on the serious consequences
-of such an omission, he replied, first, that the just and blameless
-life, which he was conscious of having passed, was the best of all
-preparations for defence; next, that having once begun to meditate
-on what it would be proper for him to say, the divine sign had
-interposed to forbid him from proceeding. He went on to say, that it
-was no wonder that the gods should deem it better for him to die now,
-than to live longer. He had hitherto lived in perfect satisfaction,
-with a consciousness of progressive moral improvement, and with
-esteem, marked and unabated, from his friends. If his life were
-prolonged, old age would soon overpower him; he would lose in part
-his sight, his hearing, or his intelligence; and life with such
-abated efficacy and dignity would be intolerable to him. Whereas, if
-he were condemned now, he should be condemned unjustly, which would
-be a great disgrace to his judges, but none to him; nay, it would
-even procure for him increase of sympathy and admiration, and a more
-willing acknowledgment from every one that he had been both a just
-man and an improving preceptor.[770]
-
-  [768] Plato, Apol. Sok. c. 25, p. 36, A; Diog. Laërt. ii, 41.
-  Diogenes says that he was condemned by two hundred and eighty-one
-  ψήφοις πλείοσι τῶν ἀπολυούσων. If he meant to assert that the
-  verdict was found by a _majority_ of two hundred and eighty-one
-  above the acquitting votes, this would be contradicted by the
-  “Platonic Apology,” which assures us beyond any doubt that the
-  majority was not greater than five or six, so that the turning
-  of three votes would have altered the verdict. But as the number
-  two hundred and eighty-one seems precise, and is not in itself
-  untrustworthy, some commentators construe it, though the words as
-  they now stand are perplexing, as the aggregate of the majority.
-  Since the “Platonic Apology” proves that it was a majority of
-  five or six, the minority would consequently be two hundred and
-  seventy-six, and the total five hundred and fifty-seven.
-
-  [769] Xen. Mem. iv, 8, 4, _seq._ He learned the fact from
-  Hermogenês, who heard it from Sokratês himself.
-
-  [770] Xen. Mem. iv, 8, 9, 10.
-
-These words, spoken before his trial, intimate a state of belief
-which explains the tenor of the defence, and formed one essential
-condition of the final result. They prove that Sokratês not only
-cared little for being acquitted, but even thought that the
-approaching trial was marked out by the gods as the term of his
-life, and that there were good reasons why he should prefer such a
-consummation as best for himself. Nor is it wonderful that he should
-entertain that opinion, when we recollect the entire ascendency
-within him of strong internal conscience and intelligent reflection,
-built upon an originally fearless temperament, and silencing what
-Plato[771] calls “the child within us, who trembles before death;”
-his great love of colloquial influence, and incapacity of living
-without it; his old age, now seventy years, rendering it impossible
-that such influence could much longer continue, and the opportunity
-afforded to him, by now towering above ordinary men under the like
-circumstances, to read an impressive lesson, as well as to leave
-behind him a reputation yet more exalted than that which he had
-hitherto acquired. It was in this frame of mind that Sokratês came to
-his trial, and undertook his unpremeditated defence, the substance
-of which we now read in the “Platonic Apology.” His calculations,
-alike high-minded and well-balanced, were completely realized. Had
-he been acquitted after such a defence, it would have been not only
-a triumph over his personal enemies, but would have been a sanction
-on the part of the people and the popular dikastery to his teaching,
-which, indeed, had been enforced by Anytus,[772] in his accusing
-argument, in reference to acquittal generally, even before he heard
-the defence: whereas his condemnation, and the feelings with which he
-met it, have shed double and triple lustre over his whole life and
-character.
-
-  [771] Plato, Phædon, c. 60, p. 77, E. ἀλλ᾽ ἴσως ἔνι τις καὶ
-  ἐν ἡμῖν παῖς, ὅστις τὰ τοιαῦτα φοβεῖται. Τοῦτον οὖν πειρώμεθα
-  πείθειν μὴ δεδιέναι τὸν θάνατον, ὥσπερ τὰ μορμολύκεια.
-
-  [772] Plato, Apol. Sok. c. 17, p. 29, C.
-
-Prefaced by this exposition of the feelings of Sokratês, the
-“Platonic Defence” becomes not merely sublime and impressive, but
-also the manifestation of a rational and consistent purpose. It
-does, indeed, include a vindication of himself against two out
-of the three counts of the indictment; against the charge of not
-believing in the recognized gods of Athens, and that of corrupting
-the youth; respecting the second of the three, whereby he was
-charged with religious innovation, he says little or nothing. But
-it bears no resemblance to the speech of one standing on his trial,
-with the written indictment concluding “Penalty, Death,” hanging
-up in open court before him. On the contrary, it is an emphatic
-lesson to the hearers, embodied in the frank outpouring of a
-fearless and self-confiding conscience. It is undertaken, from the
-beginning, because the law commands; with a faint wish, and even
-not an unqualified wish, but no hope, that it may succeed.[773]
-Sokratês first replies to the standing antipathies against him
-without, arising from the number of enemies whom his cross-examining
-elenchus had aroused against him, and from those false reports which
-the Aristophanic “Clouds” had contributed so much to circulate.
-In accounting for the rise of these antipathies, he impresses
-upon the dikasts the divine mission under which he was acting,
-not without considerable doubts whether they will believe him to
-be in earnest;[774] and gives that interesting exposition of his
-intellectual campaign, against “the conceit of knowledge without
-the reality,” of which I have already spoken. He then goes into
-the indictment, questions Melêtus in open court, and dissects his
-answers. Having rebutted the charge of irreligion, he reverts again
-to the imperative mandate of the gods under which he is acting, “to
-spend his life in the search for wisdom, and in examining himself as
-well as others;” a mandate, which if he were to disobey, he would
-be then justly amenable to the charge of irreligion;[775] and he
-announces to the dikasts distinctly, that, even if they were now to
-acquit him, he neither could nor would relax in the course which he
-had been pursuing.[776] He considers that the mission imposed upon
-him is among the greatest blessings ever conferred by the gods upon
-Athens.[777] He deprecates those murmurs of surprise or displeasure,
-which his discourse evidently called forth more than once,[778]
-though not so much on his own account as on that of the dikasts,
-who will be benefited by hearing him, and who will hurt themselves
-and their city much more than him, if they should now pronounce
-condemnation.[779] It was not on his own account that he sought
-to defend himself, but on account of the Athenians, lest they by
-condemning him should sin against the gracious blessing of the god;
-they would not easily find such another, if they should put him to
-death.[780] Though his mission had spurred him on to indefatigable
-activity in individual colloquy, yet the divine sign had always
-forbidden him from taking active part in public proceedings; on the
-two exceptional occasions when he had stood publicly forward,—once
-under the democracy, once under the oligarchy,—he had shown the
-same resolution as at present; not to be deterred by any terrors
-from that course which he believed to be just.[781] Young men were
-delighted as well as improved by listening to his cross-examinations;
-in proof of the charge that he had corrupted them, no evidence had
-been produced; neither any of themselves, who, having been once young
-when they enjoyed his conversation, had since grown elderly; nor
-any of their relatives; while he on his part could produce abundant
-testimony to the improving effect of his society, from the relatives
-of those who had profited by it.[782]
-
-  [773] Plato, Apol. Sok. c. 2, p. 19, A. Βουλοίμην μὲν οὖν ἂν
-  τοῦτο οὕτω γενέσθαι, εἴτι ἄμεινον καὶ ὑμῖν καὶ ἐμοὶ, καὶ πλέον
-  τί με ποιῆσαι ἀπολογούμενον· οἶμαι δὲ αὐτὸ χαλεπὸν εἶναι, καὶ
-  οὐ πάνυ με λανθάνει οἷόν ἐστι. Ὅμως δὲ τοῦτο μὲν ἴτω ὅπῃ τῷ θεῷ
-  φίλον, τῷ δὲ νόμῳ πειστέον καὶ ἀπολογητέον.
-
-  [774] Plato, Apol. Sok. c. 5, p. 20, D. Καὶ ἴσως μὲν δόξω τισὶν
-  ὑμῶν παίζειν—εὖ μέντοι ἴστε, πᾶσαν ὑμῖν τὴν ἀλήθειαν ἐρῶ. Again,
-  c. 28, p. 37, E. Ἐάν τε γὰρ λέγω, ὅτι τῷ θεῷ ἀπειθεῖν τοῦτ᾽
-  ἐστὶ, καὶ διὰ τοῦτ᾽ ἀδύνατον ἡσυχίαν ἄγειν, οὐ πείσεσθέ μοι ὡς
-  εἰρωνευομένῳ.
-
-  [775] Plato, Apol. Sok. c. 17, p. 20, A.
-
-  [776] Plato, Apol. Sok. c. 17, p. 30, B.
-
-  [777] Plato, Apol. Sok. c. 17, p. 30, A, B. οἴομαι οὐδέν πω ὑμῖν
-  μεῖζον ἀγαθὸν γενέσθαι ἐν τῇ πόλει ἢ τὴν ἐμὴν τῷ θεῷ ὑπηρεσίαν.
-
-  [778] Plato, Apol. Sok. c. 18, p. 30, B.
-
-  [779] Plato, Apol. Sok. c. 18, p. 30, B. καὶ γὰρ, ὡς ἐγὼ οἶμαι,
-  ὀνήσεσθε ἀκούοντες—ἐὰν ἐμὲ ἀποκτείνητε τοιοῦτον ὄντα οἷον ἐγὼ
-  λέγω, οὐκ ἐμὲ μείζω βλάψετε ἢ ὑμᾶς αὐτούς.
-
-  [780] Plato, Apol. Sok. c. 18, p. 30, E. πολλοῦ δέω ἐγὼ ὑπὲρ
-  ἐμαυτοῦ ἀπολογεῖσθαι, ὥς τις ἂν οἴοιτο, ἀλλὰ ὑπὲρ ὑμῶν μή τι
-  ἐξαμάρτητε περὶ τὴν τοῦ θεοῦ δόσιν ὑμῖν ἐμοῦ καταψηφισάμενοι· ἐὰν
-  γὰρ ἐμὲ ἀποκτείνητε, οὐ ῥᾳδίως ἄλλον τοιοῦτον εὑρήσετε, etc.
-
-  [781] Plato, Apol. Sok. c. 20, 21, p. 33.
-
-  [782] Plato, Apol. Sok. c. 22.
-
-“No man (says he) knows what death is; yet men fear it as if they
-knew well that it was the greatest of all evils, which is just a
-case of that worst of all ignorance, the conceit of knowing what you
-do not really know. For my part, this is the exact point on which I
-differ from most other men, if there be any one thing in which I am
-wiser than they; as I know nothing about Hades, so I do not pretend
-to any knowledge; but I do know well, that disobedience to a person
-better than myself, either god or man, is both an evil and a shame;
-nor will I ever embrace evil certain, in order to escape evil which
-may for aught I know be a good.[783] Perhaps you may feel indignant
-at the resolute tone of my defence; you may have expected that I
-should do as most others do in less dangerous trials than mine; that
-I should weep, beg and entreat for my life, and bring forward my
-children and relatives to do the same. I have relatives like other
-men, and three children; but not one of them shall appear before
-you for any such purpose. Not from any insolent dispositions on my
-part, nor any wish to put a slight upon you, but because I hold such
-conduct to be degrading to the reputation which I enjoy; for I _have_
-a reputation for superiority among you, deserved or undeserved as
-it may be. It is a disgrace to Athens, when her esteemed men lower
-themselves, as they do but too often, by such mean and cowardly
-supplications; and you dikasts, instead of being prompted thereby to
-spare them, ought rather to condemn them the more for so dishonoring
-the city.[784] Apart from any reputation of mine, too, I should be
-a guilty man, if I sought to bias you by supplications. My duty is
-to instruct and persuade you, if I can; but you have sworn to follow
-your convictions in judging according to the laws, not to make the
-laws bend to your partiality; and it is your duty so to do. Far
-be it from me to habituate you to perjury; far be it from you to
-contract any such habit. Do not, therefore, require of me proceedings
-dishonorable in reference to myself, as well as criminal and impious
-in regard to you, especially at a moment when I am myself rebutting
-an accusation of impiety advanced by Melêtus. I leave to you and to
-the god, to decide as may turn out best both for me and for you.”[785]
-
-  [783] Plato, Apol. Sok. c. 17, p. 29, B. Contrast this striking
-  and truly Sokratic sentiment about the fear of death, with the
-  common-place way in which Sokratês is represented as handling the
-  same subject in Xenoph. Memor. i, 4, 7.
-
-  [784] Plato, Apol. Sok. c. 23, pp. 34, 35. I translate the
-  substance and not the words.
-
-  [785] Plato, Apol. Sok. c. 24, p. 35.
-
-No one who reads the “Platonic Apology” of Sokratês will ever wish
-that he had made any other defence. But it is the speech of one who
-deliberately foregoes the immediate purpose of a defence, persuasion
-of his judges; who speaks for posterity, without regard to his own
-life: “solâ posteritatis curâ, et abruptis vitæ blandimentis.”[786]
-The effect produced upon the dikasts was such as Sokratês anticipated
-beforehand, and heard afterwards without surprise as without
-discomposure, in the verdict of guilty. His only surprise was, at
-the extreme smallness of the majority whereby that verdict was
-passed.[787] And this is the true matter for astonishment. Never
-before had the Athenian dikasts heard such a speech addressed to
-them. While all of them, doubtless, knew Sokratês as a very able
-and very eccentric man, respecting his purposes and character they
-would differ; some regarding him with unqualified hostility, a
-few others with respectful admiration, and a still larger number
-with simple admiration for ability, without any decisive sentiment
-either of antipathy or esteem. But by all these three categories,
-hardly excepting even his admirers, the speech would be felt to
-carry one sting which never misses its way to the angry feelings of
-the judicial bosom, whether the judges in session be one or a few
-or many, the sting of “affront to the court.” The Athenian dikasts
-were always accustomed to be addressed with deference, often with
-subservience: they now heard themselves lectured by a philosopher
-who stood before them like a fearless and invulnerable superior,
-beyond their power, though awaiting their verdict; one who laid
-claim to a divine mission, which probably many of them believed to
-be an imposture, and who declared himself the inspired uprooter of
-“conceit of knowledge without the reality,” which purpose many would
-not understand, and some would not like. To many, his demeanor would
-appear to betray an insolence not without analogy to Alkibiadês or
-Kritias, with whom his accuser had compared him. I have already
-remarked, in reference to his trial, that, considering the number
-of personal enemies whom he made, the wonder is, not that he was
-tried at all, but that he was not tried until so late in his life:
-I now remark in reference to the verdict, that, considering his
-speech before the dikastery, we cannot be surprised that he was found
-guilty, but only that such verdict passed by so small a majority as
-five or six.
-
-  [786] These are the striking words of Tacitus (Hist. ii, 54)
-  respecting the last hours of the emperor Otho, after his suicide
-  had been fully resolved upon, but before it had been consummated:
-  an interval spent in the most careful and provident arrangements
-  for the security and welfare of those around him: “ipsum viventem
-  quidem relictum, sed solâ posteritatis curâ, et abruptis vitæ
-  blandimentis.”
-
-  [787] Plato. Apol. Sok. c. 25, p. 36, A. Οὐκ ἀνέλπιστόν μοι
-  γέγονεν τὸ γεγονὸς τοῦτο, ἀλλὰ πολὺ μᾶλλον θαυμάζω ἑκατέρων τῶν
-  ψήφων τὸν γεγονότα ἀριθμόν. Οὐ γὰρ ᾤμην ἔγωγε οὕτω παρ᾽ ὀλίγον
-  ἔσεσθαι, ἀλλὰ παρὰ πολὺ, etc.
-
-That the condemnation of Sokratês was brought on distinctly by
-the tone and tenor of his defence, is the express testimony of
-Xenophon. “Other persons on trial (he says) defended themselves in
-such manner as to conciliate the favor of the dikasts, or flatter,
-or entreat them, contrary to the laws, and thus obtained acquittal.
-But Sokratês would resort to nothing of this customary practice of
-the dikastery contrary to the laws. Though _he might easily have
-been let off by the dikasts, if he would have done anything of the
-kind even moderately_, he preferred rather to adhere to the laws and
-die, than to save his life by violating them.”[788] Now no one in
-Athens except Sokratês, probably, would have construed the laws as
-requiring the tone of oration which he adopted; nor would he himself
-have so construed them, if he had been twenty years younger, with
-less of acquired dignity, and more years of possible usefulness
-open before him. Without debasing himself by unbecoming flattery
-or supplication, he would have avoided lecturing them as a master
-and superior,[789] or ostentatiously asserting a divine mission for
-purposes which they would hardly understand, or an independence of
-their verdict which they might construe as defiance. The rhetor
-Lysias is said to have sent to him a composed speech for his defence,
-which he declined to use, not thinking it suitable to his dignity.
-But such a man as Lysias would hardly compose what would lower the
-dignity even of the loftiest client, though he would look to the
-result also; nor is there any doubt that if Sokratês had pronounced
-it,—or even a much less able speech, if inoffensive,—he would have
-been acquitted. Quintilian,[790] indeed, expresses his satisfaction
-that Sokratês maintained that towering dignity which brought out the
-rarest and most exalted of his attributes, but which at the same time
-renounced all chance of acquittal. Few persons will dissent from this
-criticism: but when we look at the sentence, as we ought in fairness
-to do, from the point of view of the dikasts, justice will compel us
-to admit that Sokratês deliberately brought it upon himself.
-
-  [788] Xenoph. Mem. iv, 4, 4. Ἐκεῖνος οὐδὲν ἠθέλησε τῶν εἰωθότων
-  ἐν τῷ δικαστηρίῳ παρὰ τοὺς νόμους ποιῆσαι· ἀλλὰ ῥᾳδίως ἂν ἀφεθεὶς
-  ὑπὸ τῶν δικαστῶν, εἰ καὶ μετρίως τι τούτων ἐποίησε, προείλετο
-  μᾶλλον τοῖς νόμοις ἐμμένων ἀποθανεῖν, ἢ παρανομῶν ζῇν.
-
-  [789] Cicero (de Orat. i, 54, 231): “Socrates ita in judicio
-  capitis pro se ipse dixit, ut non supplex aut reus, sed _magister
-  aut dominus videretur esse judicum_.” So Epiktêtus also remarked,
-  in reference to the defence of Sokratês: “By all means, abstain
-  from supplication for mercy; but do not put it specially forward,
-  that you _will_ abstain, unless you intend, like Sokratês,
-  purposely to provoke the judges.” (Arrian, Epiktêt. Diss. ii, 2,
-  18.)
-
-  [790] Quintilian, Inst. Or. ii, 15, 30; xi, 1, 10; Diog. Laërt.
-  ii, 40.
-
-If the verdict of guilty was thus brought upon Sokratês by his own
-consent and coöperation, much more may the same remark be made
-respecting the capital sentence which followed it. In Athenian
-procedure, the penalty inflicted was determined by a separate vote of
-the dikasts, taken after the verdict of guilty. The accuser having
-named the penalty which he thought suitable, the accused party on his
-side named some lighter penalty upon himself; and between these two
-the dikasts were called on to make their option, no third proposition
-being admissible. The prudence of an accused party always induced
-him to propose, even against himself, some measure of punishment
-which the dikasts might be satisfied to accept, in preference to the
-heavier sentence invoked by his antagonist.
-
-Now Melêtus, in his indictment and speech against Sokratês, had
-called for the infliction of capital punishment. It was for Sokratês
-to make his own counter-proposition, and the very small majority,
-by which the verdict had been pronounced, afforded sufficient proof
-that the dikasts were no way inclined to sanction the extreme penalty
-against him. They doubtless anticipated, according to the uniform
-practice before the Athenian courts of justice, that he would suggest
-some lesser penalty; fine, imprisonment, exile, disfranchisement,
-etc. And had he done this purely and simply, there can be little
-doubt that the proposition would have passed. But the language of
-Sokratês, after the verdict, was in a strain yet higher than before
-it; and his resolution to adhere to his own point of view, disdaining
-the smallest abatement or concession, only the more emphatically
-pronounced. “What counter proposition shall I make to you (he said)
-as a substitute for the penalty of Melêtus? Shall I name to you the
-treatment which I think I deserve at your hands? In that case, my
-proposition would be that I should be rewarded with a subsistence
-at the public expense in the prytaneum; for that is what I really
-deserve as a public benefactor; one who has neglected all thought of
-his own affairs, and embraced voluntary poverty, in order to devote
-himself to your best interests, and to admonish you individually on
-the serious necessity of mental and moral improvement. Assuredly, I
-cannot admit that I have deserved from you any evil whatever; nor
-would it be reasonable in me to propose exile or imprisonment, which
-I know to be certain and considerable evils, in place of death, which
-may perhaps be not an evil, but a good. I might, indeed, propose to
-you a pecuniary fine; for the payment of _that_ would be no evil. But
-I am poor, and have no money: all that I could muster might perhaps
-amount to a mina: and I therefore propose to you a fine of one mina,
-as punishment on myself. Plato, and my other friends near me, desire
-me to increase this sum to thirty minæ, and they engage to pay it for
-me. A fine of thirty minæ, therefore, is the counter penalty which I
-submit for your judgment.”[791]
-
-  [791] Plato. Apol. Sok. c. 26, 27, 28, pp. 37, 38. I give, as
-  well as I can, the substantive propositions, apart from the
-  emphatic language of the original.
-
-Subsistence in the prytaneum at the public expense, was one of the
-greatest honorary distinctions which the citizens of Athens ever
-conferred; an emphatic token of public gratitude. That Sokratês,
-therefore, should proclaim himself worthy of such an honor, and talk
-of assessing it upon himself in lieu of a punishment, before the
-very dikasts who had just passed against him a verdict of guilty,
-would be received by them as nothing less than a deliberate insult;
-a defiance of judicial authority, which it was their duty to prove,
-to an opinionated and haughty citizen, that he could not commit
-with impunity. The persons who heard his language with the greatest
-distress, were doubtless Plato, Krito, and his other friends around
-him; who, though sympathizing with him fully, knew well that he was
-assuring the success of the proposition of Melêtus,[792] and would
-regret that he should thus throw away his life by what they would
-think an ill-placed and unnecessary self-exaltation. Had he proposed,
-with little or no preface, the substitute-fine of thirty minæ with
-which this part of his speech concluded, there is every reason for
-believing that the majority of dikasts would have voted for it.
-
-  [792] See Plato, Krito, c. 5, p. 45, B.
-
-The sentence of death passed against him, by what majority we do
-not know. But Sokratês neither altered his tone, nor manifested
-any regret for the language by which he had himself seconded the
-purpose of his accusers. On the contrary, he told the dikasts, in
-a short address prior to his departure for the prison, that he was
-satisfied both with his own conduct and with the result. The divine
-sign, he said, which was wont to restrain him, often on very small
-occasions, both in deeds and in words, had never manifested itself
-once to him throughout the whole day, neither when he came thither at
-first, nor at any one point throughout his whole discourse. The tacit
-acquiescence of this infallible monitor satisfied him not only that
-he had spoken rightly, but that the sentence passed was in reality no
-evil to him; that to die now was the best thing which could befall
-him.[793] Either death was tantamount to a sound, perpetual, and
-dreamless sleep, which in his judgment would be no loss, but rather a
-gain, compared with the present life; or else, if the common mythes
-were true, death would transfer him to a second life in Hades, where
-he would find all the heroes of the Trojan war, and of the past
-generally, so as to pursue in conjunction with them the business
-of mutual cross-examination, and debate on ethical progress and
-perfection.[794]
-
-  [793] Plato, Apol. Sok. c. 31, p. 40, B; c. 33, p. 41, D.
-
-  [794] Plato, Apol. Sok. c. 32, p. 40, C; p. 41, B.
-
-There can be no doubt that the sentence really appeared to Sokratês
-in this point of view, and to his friends also, after the event had
-happened, though doubtless not at the time when they were about
-to lose him. He took his line of defence advisedly, and with full
-knowledge of the result. It supplied him with the fittest of all
-opportunities for manifesting, in an impressive manner, both his
-personal ascendency over human fears and weakness, and the dignity
-of what he believed to be his divine mission. It took him away
-in his full grandeur and glory, like the setting of the tropical
-sun, at a moment when senile decay might be looked upon as close
-at hand. He calculated that his defence and bearing on the trial
-would be the most emphatic lesson which he could possibly read to
-the youth of Athens; more emphatic, probably, than the sum total of
-those lessons which his remaining life might suffice to give, if he
-shaped his defence otherwise. This anticipation of the effect of
-the concluding scene of his life, setting the seal on all his prior
-discourses, manifests itself in portions of his concluding words to
-the dikasts, wherein he tells them that they will not, by putting him
-to death, rid themselves of the importunity of the cross-examining
-elenchus; that numbers of young men, more restless and obtrusive
-than he, already carried within them that impulse, which they would
-now proceed to apply; his superiority having hitherto kept them
-back.[795] It was thus the persuasion of Sokratês, that his removal
-would be the signal for numerous apostles, putting forth with
-increased energy that process of interrogatory test and spur to which
-he had devoted his life, and which doubtless was to him far dearer
-and more sacred than his life. Nothing could be more effective than
-his lofty bearing on his trial, for inflaming the enthusiasm of young
-men thus predisposed; and the loss of life was to him compensated by
-the missionary successors whom he calculated on leaving behind.
-
-  [795] Plato, Apol. Sok. c. 30, p. 39, C.
-
-Under ordinary circumstances, Sokratês would have drunk the cup of
-hemlock in the prison, on the day after his trial. But it so happened
-that the day of his sentence was immediately after that on which
-the sacred ship started on its yearly ceremonial pilgrimage from
-Athens to Delos, for the festival of Apollo. Until the return of this
-vessel to Athens, it was accounted unholy to put any person to death
-by public authority. Accordingly, Sokratês remained in prison,—and
-we are pained to read, actually with chains on his legs,—during
-the interval that this ship was absent, thirty days altogether.
-His friends and companions had free access to him, passing nearly
-all their time with him in the prison; and Krito had even arranged
-a scheme for procuring his escape, by a bribe to the jailer. This
-scheme was only prevented from taking effect by the decided refusal
-of Sokratês to become a party in any breach of the law;[796] a
-resolution, which we should expect as a matter of course, after the
-line which he had taken in his defence. His days were spent in the
-prison, in discourse respecting ethical and human subjects, which had
-formed the charm and occupation of his previous life: it is to the
-last of these days that his conversation with Simmias, Kebês, and
-Phædon, on the immortality of the soul is referred, in the Platonic
-dialogue called “Phædon.” Of that conversation the main topics and
-doctrines are Platonic rather than Sokratic. But the picture which
-the dialogue presents of the temper and state of mind of Sokratês,
-during the last hours of his life, is one of immortal beauty and
-interest, exhibiting his serene and even playful equanimity, amidst
-the uncontrollable emotions of his surrounding friends,—the genuine,
-unforced persuasion, governing both his words and his acts, of what
-he had pronounced before the dikasts, that the sentence of death was
-no calamity to him,[797]—and the unabated maintenance of that earnest
-interest in the improvement of man and society, which had for so many
-years formed both his paramount motive and his active occupation. The
-details of the last scene are given with minute fidelity, even down
-to the moment of his dissolution; and it is consoling to remark that
-the cup of hemlock—the means employed for executions by public order
-at Athens—produced its effect by steps far more exempt from suffering
-than any natural death which was likely to befall him. Those who have
-read what has been observed above respecting the strong religious
-persuasions of Sokratês, will not be surprised to hear that his
-last words, addressed to Krito immediately before he passed into a
-state of insensibility, were: “Krito, we owe a cock to Æsculapius:
-discharge the debt, and by no means omit it.”[798]
-
-  [796] Plato, Krito, c. 2, 3, _seq._
-
-  [797] Plato, Phædon, c. 77, p. 84, E.
-
-  [798] Plato, Phædon, c. 155, p. 118, A.
-
-Thus perished the “parens philosophiæ,” the first of ethical
-philosophers; a man who opened to science both new matter, alike
-copious and valuable; and a new method, memorable not less for its
-originality and efficacy, than for the profound philosophical basis
-on which it rests. Though Greece produced great poets, orators,
-speculative philosophers, historians, etc., yet other countries
-having the benefit of Grecian literature to begin with, have nearly
-equalled her in all these lines, and surpassed her in some. But
-where are we to look for a parallel to Sokratês, either in or out
-of the Grecian world? The cross-examining elenchus, which he not
-only first struck out, but wielded with such matchless effect and to
-such noble purposes, has been mute ever since his last conversation
-in the prison; for even his great successor Plato was a writer and
-lecturer, not a colloquial dialectician. No man has ever been found
-strong enough to bend his bow; much less, sure enough to use it as he
-did. His life remains as the only evidence, but a very satisfactory
-evidence, how much can be done by this sort of intelligent
-interrogation; how powerful is the interest which it can be made to
-inspire; how energetic the stimulus which it can apply in awakening
-dormant reason and generating new mental power.
-
-It has been often customary to exhibit Sokratês as a moral preacher,
-in which character probably he has acquired to himself the general
-reverence attached to his name. This is, indeed, a true attribute,
-but not the characteristic or salient attribute, nor that by which
-he permanently worked on mankind. On the other hand, Arkesilaus,
-and the New Academy,[799] a century and more afterwards, thought
-that they were following the example of Sokratês—and Cicero seems
-to have thought so too—when they reasoned against everything; and
-when they laid it down as a system, that, against every affirmative
-position, an equal force of negative argument might be brought up
-as counterpoise. Now this view of Sokratês is, in my judgment, not
-merely partial, but incorrect. He entertained no such systematic
-distrust of the powers of the mind to attain certainty. He laid down
-a clear, though erroneous line of distinction between the knowable
-and the unknowable. About physics, he was more than a skeptic; he
-thought that man could know nothing; the gods did not intend that man
-should acquire any such information, and therefore managed matters
-in such a way as to be beyond his ken, for all except the simplest
-phenomena of daily wants; moreover, not only man could not acquire
-such information, but ought not to labor after it. But respecting
-the topics which concern man and society, the views of Sokratês
-were completely the reverse. This was the field which the gods had
-expressly assigned, not merely to human practice, but to human study
-and acquisition of knowledge; a field, wherein, with that view, they
-managed phenomena on principles of constant and observable sequence,
-so that every man who took the requisite pains might know them.
-Nay, Sokratês went a step further; and this forward step is the
-fundamental conviction upon which all his missionary impulse hinges.
-He thought that every man not only might know these things but ought
-to know them; that he could not possibly act well, unless he did know
-them; and that it was his imperious duty to learn them as he would
-learn a profession; otherwise, he was nothing better than a slave,
-unfit to be trusted as a free and accountable being. Sokratês felt
-persuaded that no man could behave as a just, temperate, courageous,
-pious, patriotic agent, unless he taught himself to know correctly
-what justice, temperance, courage, piety, and patriotism, etc.,
-really were. He was possessed with the truly Baconian idea, that the
-power of steady moral action depended upon, and was limited by, the
-rational comprehension of moral ends and means. But when he looked
-at the minds around him, he perceived that few or none either had
-any such comprehension, or had ever studied to acquire it; yet at
-the same time every man felt persuaded that he did possess it, and
-acted confidently upon such persuasion. Here, then, Sokratês found
-that the first outwork for him to surmount, was, that universal
-“conceit of knowledge without the reality,” against which he declares
-such emphatic war; and against which, also, though under another
-form of words and in reference to other subjects, Bacon declares
-war not less emphatically, two thousand years afterwards: “Opinio
-copiæ inter causas inopiæ est.” Sokratês found that those notions
-respecting human and social affairs, on which each man relied and
-acted, were nothing but spontaneous products of the “intellectus
-sibi permissus,” of the intellect left to itself either without any
-guidance, or with only the blind guidance of sympathies, antipathies,
-authority, or silent assimilation. They were products got together,
-to use Bacon’s language, “from much faith and much chance, and from
-the primitive suggestions of boyhood,” not merely without care or
-study, but without even consciousness of the process, and without
-any subsequent revision. Upon this basis the sophists, or professed
-teachers for active life, sought to erect a superstructure of virtue
-and ability; but to Sokratês, such an attempt appeared hopeless
-and contradictory—not less impracticable than Bacon in his time
-pronounced it to be, to carry up the tree of science into majesty
-and fruit-bearing, without first clearing away those fundamental
-vices which lay unmolested and in poisonous influence round its root.
-Sokratês went to work in the Baconian manner and spirit; bringing
-his cross-examining process to bear, as the first condition to all
-further improvement, upon these rude, self-begotten, incoherent
-generalizations, which passed in men’s minds for competent and
-directing knowledge. But he, not less than Bacon, performs this
-analysis, not with a view to finality in the negative, but as
-the first stage towards an ulterior profit; as the preliminary
-purification, indispensable to future positive result. In the
-physical sciences, to which Bacon’s attention was chiefly turned, no
-such result could be obtained without improved experimental research,
-bringing to light facts new and yet unknown; but on those topics
-which Sokratês discussed, the elementary data of the inquiry were all
-within the hearer’s experience, requiring only to be pressed upon
-his notice, affirmatively as well as negatively, together with the
-appropriate ethical and political end; in such manner as to stimulate
-within him the rational effort requisite for combining them anew upon
-consistent principles.
-
-  [799] Cicero, Academ. Post. i, 12, 44. “Cum Zenone Arcesilas
-  sibi omne certamen instituit, non pertinaciâ aut studio
-  vincendi (ut mihi quidem videtur), sed earum rerum obscuritate,
-  quæ ad confessionem ignorationis adduxerant Socratem, et jam
-  ante Socratem, Democritum, Anaxagoram, Empedoclem, omnes pene
-  veteres; qui nihil cognosci, nihil percipi, nihil sciri, posse,
-  dixerunt.... Itaque Arcesilas negabat, esse quidquam, quod sciri
-  posset, no illud quidem ipsum, quod Socrates sibi reliquisset:
-  sic omnia latere in occulto.” Compare Academ. Prior. ii, 23, 74;
-  de Nat. Deor. i, 5, 11.
-
-  In another passage (Academ. Post. i, 4, 17) Cicero speaks (or
-  rather introduces Varro as speaking) rather confusedly. He talks
-  of “illam Socraticam dubitationem de omnibus rebus, et nullâ
-  affirmatione adhibitâ, consuetudinem disserendi;” but a few lines
-  before, he had said what implies that men might, in the opinion
-  of Sokratês, come to learn and know what belonged to human
-  conduct and human duties.
-
-  Again (in Tusc. Disp. i, 4, 8), he admits that Sokratês had a
-  positive ulterior purpose in his negative questioning: “vetus et
-  Socratica ratio contra alterius opinionem disserendi: nam ita
-  facillime, quid veri simillimum esset, inveniri posse Socrates
-  arbitrabatur.”
-
-  Tennemann (Gesch. der Philos. ii, 5, vol. ii, pp. 169-175) seeks
-  to make out considerable analogy between Sokratês and Pyrrho.
-  But it seems to me that the analogy only goes thus far, that
-  both agreed in repudiating all speculations not ethical (see the
-  verses of Timon upon Pyrrho, Diog. Laërt. ix, 65). But in regard
-  to ethics, the two differed materially. Sokratês maintained that
-  ethics were matter of science, and the proper subject of study.
-  Pyrrho, on the other hand, seems to have thought that speculation
-  was just as useless, and science just as unattainable, upon
-  ethics as upon physics; that nothing was to be attended to except
-  feelings, and nothing cultivated except good dispositions.
-
-If, then, the philosophers of the New Academy considered Sokratês
-either as a skeptic, or as a partisan of systematic negation, they
-misinterpreted his character, and mistook the first stage of his
-process—that which Plato, Bacon, and Herschel call the purification
-of the intellect—for the ultimate goal. The elenchus, as Sokratês
-used it, was animated by the truest spirit of positive science, and
-formed an indispensable precursor to its attainment.[800]
-
-  [800] Plato, Apol. Sok. c. 7, p. 22, A. δεῖ δὴ ὑμῖν τὴν ἐμὴν
-  πλάνην ἐπιδεῖξαι, ὥσπερ τινὰς πόνους πονοῦντος, etc.
-
-There are two points, and two points only, in topics concerning man
-and society, with regard to which Sokratês is a skeptic; or rather,
-which he denies; and on the negation of which, his whole method and
-purpose turn. He denies, first, that men can know that on which they
-have bestowed no conscious effort, no deliberate pains, no systematic
-study, in learning. He denies, next, that men can practise what they
-do not know;[801] that they can be just, or temperate, or virtuous
-generally, without knowing what justice, or temperance, or virtue is.
-To imprint upon the minds of his hearers his own negative conviction,
-on these two points is, indeed, his first object, and the primary
-purpose of his multiform dialectical manœuvring. But though negative
-in his means, Sokratês is strictly positive in his ends; his attack
-is undertaken only with distinct view to a positive result; in order
-to shame them out of the illusion of knowledge, and to spur them on
-and arm them for the acquisition of real, assured, comprehensive,
-self-explanatory knowledge, as the condition and guarantee of
-virtuous practice. Sokratês was, indeed, the reverse of a skeptic;
-no man ever looked upon life with a more positive and practical
-eye; no man ever pursued his mark with a clearer perception of the
-road which he was travelling; no man ever combined, in like manner,
-the absorbing enthusiasm of a missionary,[802] with the acuteness,
-the originality, the inventive resource, and the generalizing
-comprehension, of a philosopher.
-
-  [801] So Demokritus, Fragm. ed. Mullach, p. 185, Fr. 131. οὔτε
-  τέχνη, οὔτε σοφίη, ἐφιστὸν, ἢν μὴ μάθῃ τις....
-
-  [802] Aristotle (Problem. c. 30, p. 953, Bek.) numbers both
-  Sokratês and Plato (compare Plutarch, Lysand. c. 2) among those
-  to whom he ascribes φύσιν μελανχολικὴν, the black bile and
-  ecstatic temperament. I do not know how to reconcile this with
-  a passage in his Rhetoric (ii, 17), in which he ranks Sokratês
-  among the _sedate_ persons (στάσιμον). The first of the two
-  assertions seems countenanced by the anecdotes respecting
-  Sokratês (in Plato, Symposion, p. 175, B; p. 220, C), that he
-  stood in the same posture, quite unmoved, even for several hours
-  continuously, absorbed in meditation upon some idea which had
-  seized his mind.
-
-His method yet survives, as far as such method can survive, in
-some of the dialogues of Plato. It is a process of eternal value
-and of universal application. That purification of the intellect,
-which Bacon signalized as indispensable for rational or scientific
-progress, the Sokratic elenchus affords the only known instrument
-for at least partially accomplishing. However little that instrument
-may have been applied since the death of its inventor, the
-necessity and use of it neither have disappeared, nor ever can
-disappear. There are few men whose minds are not more or less in
-that state of sham knowledge against which Sokratês made war:
-there is no man whose notions have not been first got together by
-spontaneous, unexamined, unconscious, uncertified association,
-resting upon forgotten particulars, blending together disparates or
-inconsistencies, and leaving in his mind old and familiar phrases,
-and oracular propositions, of which he has never rendered to himself
-account: there is no man, who, if he be destined for vigorous and
-profitable scientific effort, has not found it a necessary branch of
-self-education, to break up, disentangle, analyze, and reconstruct,
-these ancient mental compounds; and who has not been driven to do
-it by his own lame and solitary efforts, since the giant of the
-colloquial elenchus no longer stands in the market-place to lend him
-help and stimulus.
-
-To hear of any man,[803] especially of so illustrious a man, being
-condemned to death on such accusations as that of heresy and alleged
-corruption of youth, inspires at the present day a sentiment of
-indignant reprobation, the force of which I have no desire to
-enfeeble. The fact stands eternally recorded as one among the
-thousand misdeeds of intolerance, religious and political. But since
-amidst this catalogue each item has its own peculiar character,
-grave or light, we are bound to consider at what point of the scale
-the condemnation of Sokratês is to be placed, and what inferences
-it justifies in regard to the character of the Athenians. Now if
-we examine the circumstances of the case, we shall find them all
-extenuating; and so powerful, indeed, as to reduce such inferences
-to their minimum, consistent with the general class to which the
-incident belongs.
-
-  [803] Dr. Thirlwall has given, in an Appendix to his fourth
-  volume (Append. vii, p. 526, _seq._), an interesting and
-  instructive review of the recent sentiments expressed by Hegel,
-  and by some other eminent German authors, on Sokratês and his
-  condemnation. It affords me much satisfaction to see that he has
-  bestowed such just animadversions on the unmeasured bitterness,
-  as well as upon the untenable views, of M. Forchhammer’s treatise
-  respecting Sokratês.
-
-  I dissent, however, altogether, from the manner in which Dr.
-  Thirlwall speaks about the sophists, both in this Appendix and
-  elsewhere. My opinion, respecting the persons so called, has been
-  given at length in the preceding chapter.
-
-First, the sentiment now prevalent is founded upon a conviction that
-such matters as heresy and heretical teaching of youth are not proper
-for judicial cognizance. Even in the modern world, such a conviction
-is of recent date; and in the fifth century B.C. it was unknown.
-Sokratês himself would not have agreed in it; and all Grecian
-governments, oligarchical and democratical alike, recognized the
-opposite. The testimony furnished by Plato is on this point decisive.
-When we examine the two positive communities which he constructs,
-in the treatises “De Republicâ” and “De Legibus,” we find that
-there is nothing about which he is more anxious, than to establish
-an unresisted orthodoxy of doctrine, opinion, and education. A
-dissenting and free-spoken teacher, such as Sokratês was at Athens,
-would not have been allowed to pursue his vocation for a week, in the
-Platonic Republic. Plato would not, indeed, condemn him to death;
-but he would put him to silence, and in case of need send him away.
-This, in fact, is the consistent deduction, if you assume that the
-state is to determine what _is_ orthodoxy and orthodox teaching,
-and to repress what contradicts its own views. Now all the Grecian
-states, including Athens, held this principle[804] of interference
-against the dissenting teacher. But at Athens, though the principle
-was recognized, yet the application of it was counteracted by
-resisting forces which it did not find elsewhere; by the democratical
-constitution, with its liberty of speech and love of speech, by the
-more active spring of individual intellect, and by the toleration,
-greater there than anywhere else, shown to each man’s peculiarities
-of every sort. In any other government of Greece, as well as in the
-Platonic Republic, Sokratês would have been quickly arrested in his
-career, even if not severely punished; in Athens, he was allowed to
-talk and teach publicly for twenty-five or thirty years, and then
-condemned when an old man. Of these two applications of the same
-mischievous principle, assuredly the latter is at once the more
-moderate and the less noxious.
-
-  [804] See Plato, Euthyphron, c. 3, p. 3, D.
-
-Secondly, the force of this last consideration, as an extenuating
-circumstance in regard to the Athenians, is much increased, when we
-reflect upon the number of individual enemies whom Sokratês made to
-himself in the prosecution of his cross-examining process. Here
-were a multitude of individuals, including men personally the most
-eminent and effective in the city, prompted by special antipathies,
-over and above general convictions, to call into action the dormant
-state-principle of intolerance against an obnoxious teacher. If,
-under such provocation, he was allowed to reach the age of seventy,
-and to talk publicly for so many years, before any real Melêtus stood
-forward, this attests conspicuously the efficacy of the restraining
-dispositions among the people, which made their practical habits more
-liberal than their professed principles.
-
-Thirdly, whoever has read the account of the trial and defence of
-Sokratês, will see that he himself contributed quite as much to
-the result as all the three accusers united. Not only he omitted
-to do all that might have been done without dishonor, to insure
-acquittal, but he held positive language very nearly such as
-Melêtus himself would have sought to put in his mouth. He did this
-deliberately,—having an exalted opinion both of himself and his own
-mission,—and accounting the cup of hemlock, at his age, to be no
-calamity. It was only by such marked and offensive self-exaltation
-that he brought on the first vote of the dikastery, even then the
-narrowest majority, by which he was found guilty: it was only by a
-still more aggravated manifestation of the same kind, even to the
-pitch of something like insult, that he brought on the second vote,
-which pronounced the capital sentence. Now it would be uncandid not
-to allow for the effect of such a proceeding on the minds of the
-dikastery. They were not at all disposed, of their own accord, to put
-in force the recognized principle of intolerance against him. But
-when they found that the man who stood before them charged with this
-offence, addressed them in a tone such as dikasts had never heard
-before and could hardly hear with calmness, they could not but feel
-disposed to credit all the worst inferences which his accusers had
-suggested, and to regard Sokratês as a dangerous man both religiously
-and politically, against whom it was requisite to uphold the majesty
-of the court and constitution.
-
-In appreciating this memorable incident, therefore, though the
-mischievous principle of intolerance cannot be denied, yet all
-the circumstances show that that principle was neither irritable
-nor predominant in the Athenian bosom; that even a large body of
-collateral antipathies did not readily call it forth against any
-individual; that the more liberal and generous dispositions,
-which deadened its malignity, were of steady efficacy, not easily
-overborne; and that the condemnation ought to count as one of the
-least gloomy items in an essentially gloomy catalogue.
-
-Let us add, that as Sokratês himself did not account his own
-condemnation and death, at his age, to be any misfortune, but rather
-a favorable dispensation of the gods, who removed him just in
-time to escape that painful consciousness of intellectual decline
-which induced Demokritus to prepare the poison for himself, so his
-friend Xenophon goes a step further, and while protesting against
-the verdict of guilty, extols the manner of death as a subject of
-triumph; as the happiest, most honorable, and most gracious way, in
-which the gods could set the seal upon a useful and exalted life.[805]
-
-  [805] Xen. Mem. iv, 8, 3:—
-
-      “Denique Democritum postquam matura vetustas
-      Admonuit memores motus languescere mentis,
-      Sponte suâ letho sese obvius obtulit ipse.”
-
-      (Lucretius, iii, 1052.)
-
-It is asserted by Diodorus, and repeated with exaggerations by
-other later authors, that after the death of Sokratês the Athenians
-bitterly repented of the manner in which they had treated him, and
-that they even went so far as to put his accusers to death without
-trial.[806] I know not upon what authority this statement is
-made, and I disbelieve it altogether. From the tone of Xenophon’s
-“Memorabilia,” there is every reason to presume that the memory
-of Sokratês still continued to be unpopular at Athens when that
-collection was composed. Plato, too, left Athens immediately after
-the death of his master, and remained absent for a long series of
-years: indirectly, I think, this affords a presumption that no such
-reaction took place in Athenian sentiment as that which Diodorus
-alleges; and the same presumption is countenanced by the manner in
-which the orator Æschinês speaks of the condemnation, half a century
-afterwards. I see no reason to believe that the Athenian dikasts,
-who doubtless felt themselves justified, and more than justified, in
-condemning Sokratês after his own speech, retracted that sentiment
-after his decease.
-
-  [806] Diodor. xiv. 37, with Wesseling’s note; Diog. Laërt. ii.
-  43; Argument ad Isokrat. Or. xi, Busiris.
-
-
-
-
-      *      *      *      *      *      *
-
-
-
-
-Transcriber's note:
-
-  * Obvious printer errors have been silently corrected, after
-    comparison with a later edition of this work. Greek text has
-    also been corrected after checking with this later edition and
-    with Perseus, when the reference was found.
-
-  * Original spelling, hyphenation and punctuation have been kept,
-    but variant spellings were made consistent when a predominant
-    usage was found.
-
-  * Some inconsistencies in the use of accents over proper nouns
-    (like “Euthydemus” and “Euthydêmus”) have been retained.
-
-  * At Page 409, note 649, the word “οὐδαμοῦ” has been inserted in
-    the sentence “οὔτ᾽ ἐν τῷ λόγῳ οὐδαμοῦ μέλλοντί τι ἐρεῖν·”, as
-    suggested by modern editions of Plato.
-
-
-
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