READING HALL

THE DOORS OF WISDOM

ATHENS . 478—401 B.C.

CHAPTER XI

THE OLIGARCHICAL MOVEMENT IN ATHENS

I

THE REVOLT OF CHIOS

WHEN the completeness of the disaster in Sicily became known it was generally thought that Athens was done for. The first idea men had was that the fleet which had triumphed in the Great Harbour would appear off the Piraeus; and there was a disposition on all sides to lend it a helping hand. Neutrals bestirred themselves, islanders planned insurrection, the Lacedaemonians were jubilant, Persia was interested, and the Athenians depressed. But the Syracusans were neither willing nor able to bear longer the chief burden of the war against Athens. They had paid dearly for their victory in men, money, and ships; and now that they need not fear Athenian intervention again, they had their own policy in Sicily to prosecute. Hermocrates, however, was insistent on carrying the war into the Aegean, and since his influence had become paramount during the course of the siege, he succeeded in having a Sicilian fleet sent to help the Peloponnesians. It consisted of twenty Syracusan and two Selinuntian ships, but the summer of 412 b.c. was well advanced before it arrived. The other western states that took a hand in the eastern war, Thurii, Locri, and Tarentum, intervened still later.

Events in Greece did not await their coming. During the winter both Sparta and Athens were hard at work on new fleets—Sparta on a programme which called for the building of 100 triremes; Athens, under the direction of a new board of ten Advisers (probouloi) in equipping the triremes it already had and in collecting timber and money for additions. But these preparations took time, and the naval war began long before they were completed. It was precipitated by a serious revolt which broke out in the Athenian Empire. This contained a deadly menace to the war-revenues of which Athens had now such need. For the Sicilian expedition had eaten up all the reserves (with the exception of the 1000 talents held for a naval crisis); and already in 413 b.c. the city had been so short of funds that it had dismissed 1300 Thracians who had reached Athens too late to sail with Demosthenes. Strict measures of economy were therefore taken, among them the withdrawal of the garrison from Laconia ; and it was the necessity of augmenting its revenues which led Athens about this time to supplant the tribute by a 5 per cent, toll on maritime commerce—a change not unconciliatory in itself, but invidious because of the exemption undoubtedly granted to Athenians if not to Athenian metics. Upon communities agitated by this innovation fell the terrible blood-tax levied in Sicily. Hence ‘the allies judged the situation under the influence of passion and were ready even beyond their power to revolt from the Athenians.’

The secession movement manifested itself spontaneously in several centres. Euboea and Lesbos communicated with Agis, now installed at Decelea almost as an independent ruler, Chios and Erythrae with Lacedaemon direct, all with the same purpose—to join Sparta the moment the Peloponnesian fleet arrived. In view of the number of ships the Chians possessed (no less than 60) there could not be much doubt as to the point at which the Spartans should intervene.

Their intervention was also solicited by Persia. King Darius II thought the moment opportune to regain the cities in Asia of which the Athenians had had the undisputed possession since 448 b.c. His decision reached Tissaphernes, the new governor of the maritime provinces (Lydia, Caria, Ionia), and Pharnabazus, satrap of Dascylium (Phrygia, Bithynia), in the form of a request for the tribute due by the ‘rebels’. These officials got in touch with Sparta, each aiming to secure assistance in his own territory. Tissaphernes accordingly supported the petition of Chios and Erythrae. He had a particular reason for resentment at Athens in that Amorges, the son of the rebel Pissuthnes, from whom he had had to wrest Lydia, found support in Attic Caria. In order to satisfy everybody, a programme was agreed upon according to which the Peloponnesian fleet was to go to Ionia first, thence to Lesbos, and then to the Hellespont.

The fleet consisted of some sixty ships, thirty-nine at Lechaeum, five in Laconia, and sixteen on their way back from Syracuse. It would have suited Sparta to wait till the Sicilian squadron arrived; but the Chians pressed for speedier action. The Athenians were naturally suspicious of them, and the Chian aristocrats, who were conducting both the government and the negotiations, were afraid lest their dealings with Sparta should become prematurely known either to their own people or to Athens. Accordingly 21 of the ships at Lechaeum were carried across the Isthmus and started for Chios (July 412 b.c.). But the Athenians, who had learned of the enterprise, forced the squadron ashore at Peiraeus, a deserted harbour near the border of Epidauria, and blockaded it there; and a little later they routed the ships that were returning from Syracuse. But one torch sufficed to set the heather on fire. Undeterred by the misadventure of the main fleet, the Laconian squadron continued on its way to Chios. The Athenians tried to intercept it. But the Spartans pushed straight across the open sea and reached their destination safely. The mainspring of this bold action was Alcibiades, who, keen to strike Athens in its most vulnerable point and glad to quit Sparta because of the enmity of Agis, whose wife he had seduced, accompanied the expedition as unofficial chief-of-staff to Chalcideus, its commander; and it was by announcing the despatch of the Lacedaemonian fleet while concealing its mishap that they precipitated the revolt. Erythrae followed the lead of Chios; so did Clazomenae. The Chians went by sea, the Erythraeans and Clazomenians by land, and won Teos. Ephesus too seceded. And so the movement spread. The adhesion of Miletus was especially desirable. To it Alcibiades and Chalcideus sailed and they were admitted at once.

Tissaphernes joined them there and arranged with Chalcideus the draft of a treaty of alliance against Athens. Its larger signi­ficance consisted in the admission by Sparta of Persia’s right to all the land and cities held by the King or his ancestors—a defini­tion so wide as to make subsequent interpretation inevitable, yet incontrovertibly surrendering to Darius the Greek communities in Asia Minor. The agreement called, further, for common action to prevent Athens from drawing money or supplies of any sort from the places recognized as belonging to the King. It seems to have been assumed that the resources thus denied to Athens would be used for the maintenance of the Peloponnesian fleets; but as Sparta had received a promise from Tissaphernes that he would attend to this himself, the home government declined to ratify the draft. The states thus bargained away can hardly have known of this transaction. For their part the Chians had already implicated themselves so deeply that they had everything to gain—not least relative independence of Sparta and Persia—by enlarging as quickly as possible the scope of the revolt. So they manned another squadron which won Lebedus and Aerae; and they sent still another to Lesbos, on the arrival of which both Mitylene and Methymna on the island and Phocaea and Cyme on the mainland revolted. The energy of Chios was thus richly rewarded. Between the Iasic Gulf and the Gulf of Adramyttium practically all that was left of the empire of Athens was Samos; and as a centre of commerce in this area Chios bade fair to replace Athens.

II.       

THE NAVAL WAR IN IONIA

But the counter-attack of the Athenians had already begun. They did not underestimate the defection of Chios. They knew what it meant for a fleet other than their own to be at large in the Aegean in view of the pains they had taken to keep their subject cities without sea-defences. Hence they concluded that the crisis had arrived for which the special reserve of 1000 talents had been created, and they made this sum available to speed up their naval preparations. Squadron after squadron was sent to the scene of action as quickly as they could be got ready. Chalcideus was followed to Miletus and blockaded there. As their base in Asiatic waters the Athenians chose Samos, which accordingly they felt that they must secure against defection at any cost. They therefore aided the Samian proletariat in destroying the local aristocracy root and branch; and a new state was organized in which the nobles who escaped massacre or exile were denied the right of intermarriage with citizens, and the population subdivided with a singularly un-Hellenic disregard for inherited gentile groupings. Then the Athenians restored to Samos its autonomy. Meanwhile sufficient forces had arrived to enable them to regain Teos and to send an expedition for the recovery of Lesbos. Its approach was altogether unexpected. Mitylene and Methymna fell into its hands and ten of thirteen Chian ships found there were destroyed or captured.

But Athens could not send 46 ships to Asia Minor without weakening the fleet that was blockading Peiraeus. The Peloponnesian ships there were able to force their way back to Cenchreae, and Astyochus, Spartan nauarch (admiral) for 412—1 b.c., escorted by four of them, came to Chios and made an effort to retrieve the position in Lesbos; but even when reinforced he was no match for the Athenians. They held the island, recovered Clazomenae, and then attacked Chios itself. After having driven the land forces of the defenders back within the walls, they plundered the rich country at pleasure. Since 21 Chian triremes had already been seized or destroyed and 25 others were shut up at Miletus, the people of Chios began to make trouble for the government which had got them into such a pass.

It was now well on toward autumn and the new vessels put on the stocks after the disaster in Sicily were coming into commission. Athens was the more forehanded on this occasion. It got off a fleet of 48 ships, including 25 transports, with an army of hoplites on board (1500 Argives, 1000 Athenians, and 1000 allies), the object being to invest and reduce Miletus. The landing­force succeeded in the first part of its mission. The Milesians, aided by Peloponnesian hoplites, and troops led by Tissaphernes, unwisely offered battle, and though they routed the Argives, killing one-fifth of their number, they were themselves defeated by the Athenians. The victors had already begun to throw a wall across the base of the peninsula on which Miletus lay when the approach of a powerful enemy fleet was reported. It proved to be the chief Lacedaemonian naval effort of the year, and was based on the 22 ships brought from Sicily by Hermocrates, to which the Peloponnesians had added 33 others. A Spartan, Therimenes, was its commander.

Had he come straight on from Leros he might have forced the Athenians to fight with a fair risk of losing their army. He went instead to Teichiussa on the north coast of the Iasic gulf and only sailed round to Miletus on the following day. By that time the Athenians had departed. They had been sorely tempted to risk a naval engagement rather than forfeit the advantage they had gained. But Phrynichus happened to be one of their generals, and he refused positively to give his consent to a battle where the consequences of defeat, in loss of forces and prestige, would be so great and the strength of the enemy was unknown, when by withdrawing to Samos they could concentrate their entire fleet for later action. The evacuation was effected during the night and Samos was reached safely; but the retreat was a costly one. The Argives went home angry because of their misfortune, and thenceforth Argos took no part in the war.

For the moment the initiative was left with the enemy, and they used it first to storm lasus, the headquarters of Amorges, who was taken prisoner and handed over to Tissaphernes, and then to relieve Chios. This the massing of a Lacedaemonian fleet of 80 ships in Milesian waters had accomplished of itself; for it had led the Athenians to withdraw to Samos their entire forces. The way was thus open for the Chian fleet to return home and for Pedaritus, a Spartan, to come with some troops to Chios to take charge of its defence. Astyochus tried again to dislodge the Athenians from the places they had recently re-occupied in the north; but it was with the squadron concentrated at Chios that he made the effort, and when he failed to capture Clazomenae, he was prevented from going on to Lesbos by the baulking of the Chians. So he left in high dudgeon, taking his Peloponnesian ships with him, and went to Miletus to assume command of the main fleet.

The Athenian inferiority proved only momentary. In the autumn a further squadron of 35 ships reached Samos; so that the generals there felt strong enough to divide their fleet again and dispatch 30 triremes with a landing army on board to resume the investment of Chios, while masking Miletus, where the main Peloponnesian fleet lay, with 74 others. The ships going to Chios crossed those with which Astyochus was departing. They brought along only 1000 hoplites; but Chios, being a country of great landed proprietors, merchants, and industrialists, with a slave population several times greater than the free, had few heavy­armed troops; so that, despite the presence of Pedaritus with more than 500 Peloponnesians, the small Athenian army was able to occupy Delphinium, a strong place with a harbour about nine miles north of the city, and from it deny the citizens the use of their land and entice their slaves to run away en masse. Since the sea was closed to the Chians also and Astyochus left them to their own devices, Pedaritus soon had serious disaffection on his hands. But he crushed it with vigour. All through the winter  (412—1 b.c.) the siege continued. Their slaves were so numerous that the Chians had made it their policy to cow them by severity: now they were paid back with interest; and they suffered more discriminatingly at the hands of servants turned guides, ruffians, and bandits, than at the hands of the invaders. Finally, since no help came, Pedaritus made a bold effort to relieve the city by storming Delphinium. But he lost his life in the attempt and the Chians were beaten off with great losses. By spring famine had become unendurable. Hence Leon, appointed harmost in Pe­daritus’ place, after having managed to slip through the blockade with twelve ships from Miletus, sallied out with these and 24 Chian triremes and attacked the Athenian fleet, which consisted at that moment of 32 vessels. But though the besieged gave a good account of themselves in the fighting, night intervened before a decision was reached. At this point events elsewhere compelled the Athenians to give up the blockade. Delphinium, however, they held till 406 b.c.

III.     

THE POLICY OF TISSAPHERNES

Before Astyochus arrived at Miletus Therimenes had re­opened negotiations with Tissaphernes. With a fleet of 70 triremes on his hands and a large proportion of his crews mercenaries, his need of money was met only temporarily by the plunder of Iasus and the bounty of the Milesians. Tissaphernes, too, was now disposed to reconsider his earlier agreement. He had come to appreciate the danger of allowing the King’s cities to form the habit of making contributions to Sparta. So these were forbidden in the new draft, and Tissaphernes himself undertook to shoulder the expense of the Peloponnesian fleet while it was in the King’s service. But the wages allowed by him for the future were only a trifle over half (3 obols per day) those paid for the month just past—a reduction which lessened alacrity among seamen to take or continue service with the Spartans. Yet, if paid regularly, the new wage, by which, after all, Athens was overbid, far outvalued the right of requisition which Therimenes covenanted away.

This financial transaction opened the way for the inauguration by Tissaphernes of a new general policy. By paying or withholding subsidies he acquired control over the size, efficiency and movements of the Spartan fleet; and he studied how to use it to serve his own ends. To help the Peloponnesians to an immediate and complete victory might very well mean to drive out Satan with Beelzebub. Not to help them further would doubtless permit the Athenians again to sweep the seas; for the fleet of Athens that now made cruises across from Samos was obviously superior in fighting strength to the one which lay inactive in Miletus. The wise course for Persia to follow was, he concluded, to preserve the naval equipoise in the Aegean, and let both parties wear themselves out in finances and man-power until the Persian fleet was strong enough to impose its will upon an exhausted Hellas.

In this conclusion was manifested the fine hand of Alcibiadcs, whom Sparta, suspecting treachery, had ordered Astyochus to assassinate, and the Persian Satrap, badly in need of an expert in Hellenic politics, had taken into his service (November, 412). Alcibiades’ dominant impulse was to do Sparta an injury, but the most effective way of accomplishing this—instilling into Tissaphernes’ mind sound motives for underrationing the Spartan fleet—was at the same time the most effective way of doing Athens a service. But his patriotism was not disinterested. He calculated by trafficking on Tissaphernes’ favour ultimately to secure for himself recall from exile with so strong an asset, in his supposed or real influence over Persian policy, that political ascendancy in Athens would be assured to him. Unless Tissaphernes should become his dupe there was, of course, bound to be a parting of their ways; but not immediately. And the more ostentatiously Alcibiades identified himself with Tissaphernes’ purposes—supplying for Hellenic understanding respectable arguments for Tissaphernes’ illiberality and irregularity in giving money; supplying to Tissaphernes as a guiding principle the policy of preventing land-power and sea-power in Greece from falling into the hands of the same people—the more certainly he advanced towards his own goal.

Astyochus was not unduly moved by the plight of Chios. To reach it from Miletus he would have to run the gauntlet of the Athenians at Samos and this he rightly regarded as too risky. But the way to the south was open, both to him and to Sparta. It was thither accordingly that reinforcements from home were sent. A squadron of twelve ships, including those from Thurii, commanded by the international athlete Dorieus, crossed over to Cnidus, which had recently seceded to Tissaphernes; and half of them stayed there to defend the city and half cruised off the Tri- opian promontory intercepting the grain-ships from Egypt. This promptly brought an Athenian fleet from Samos, which captured the commerce-destroyers and almost captured the city. Then a Spartan fleet of 27 ships, equipped for the account of Pharnabazus, having clashed with an Athenian patrol off Melos while en route to Ionia, and apprehending danger if it kept on its course, turned south and reached Caunus (December, 412). It had on board a commission of eleven Spartans authorized to supersede the nauarch if it saw fit, and instructed to assume general direc­tion of Lacedaemonian affairs in Asia. The commission ordered Astyochus to come to meet them. So he left a detachment behind to guard Miletus (from which subsequently Leon took twelve ships to Chios) and slipped away unobserved. Off Syme he came upon an Athenian squadron which, rashly assuming that his left wing, when it hove in sight on a rainy foggy morning, was the fleet from Caunus, attacked it vigorously, and, being itself surrounded, was lucky to escape to Halicarnassus with a loss of one-third of its strength. The two Lacedaemonian fleets then united at Cnidus; but they declined battle, though the Athenians, coming down from Samos, gave them the opportunity. They were superior in numbers (94 ships to 75), but in nothing else. For of late Tissaphernes had ceased to pay the crews regularly, and since Astyochus was suspected of having been bribed to acquiesce, discipline had fallen off, and ships showed slackness and empty benches.

The Lacedaemonian commissioners resolved to have a definite settlement with Persia. So Tissaphernes came to Cnidus for a conference with them. Lichas, the head of the mission, a blunt man but a trusted negotiator, spoke the mind of the Spartans not to honour agreements which, strictly construed, ceded to the King all Greece outside the Peloponnese, even if they had to do without Persian money altogether. Between this and the version of Alcibiades that the Spartans had come to Asia to liberate all the Greeks there was a wide discrepancy; but Tissaphernes, whose suspicions had been thoroughly aroused, read the one into the other, and broke off the negotiations abruptly.

So the fleet of Astyochus had to shift for itself. The Spartans, too, had now maritime allies and the rudiments of a tribute system. And at the moment they had a windfall. With the aid of its aristocrats they won Rhodes, where the lack of coast defences again proved the undoing of Athens. Thus Astyochus secured a large seafaring population from which to replenish his crews and a contribution of cash sufficient to tide him over the immediate crisis. The Athenians arrived too late to stop the revolt, but with their main base at Samos and advanced stations at Cos and Chalce they carried on war against the island. Astyochus did not use this revitalizing of his forces for a definite trial of strength with them. His primary object was to keep his fleet in being, and, as occasion offered, to make inroads into the Athenian Empire. But he could not support his fleet long with the resources of Rhodes; and except by risking a naval battle he could neither levy on his northern allies nor relieve Chios. So long before the winter was over his position became little short of desperate.

Though the Athenians still possessed the advantage on the sea, they felt that they could retain it and exploit it only if Persia continued to stand aside. They were so anxious to insure the complete separation of their two enemies that they let themselves be made the victims of a cruel hoax, and in the process (to use language replete with modern meaning) their front began to give way; and their home front did give way completely; but their war front, rallying splendidly, held fast and saved the whole situation.

IV.     

ALCIBIADES AND THE ATHENIAN REVOLUTION

Fear entered the hearts of the Athenians when they realized that in Sicily they had gambled away their safety. They naturally withdrew their favour from the men who had advised the expedition. Androcles and Peisander had to yield to others the primacy in the public meetings of citizens and went separate ways, the former to remain in touch with the urban masses whom the imminence of danger overawed, the latter to form new contacts with people, now much more numerous and aggressive, who thought the rule of a majority manifest folly. The Athenians were at this time critical not only of their leaders but also of their institutions. They concluded that the regime of irresponsible advisers, each one of whom tried to outbid the other for their favour had ceased to furnish the Council and Assembly with the choice of well-thoughtout measures that the gravity of the situation demanded. They therefore proceeded to shift this important function to a responsible commission of ten elderly men (among them Sophocles, the tragic poet, and Hagnon, Theramenes’ father, both associates of Pericles), selected by general vote on the ground of their special fitness for the task. Whether it was fear or the probouloi that had more to do with the efficiency of Athens in recreating a fleet of 150 triremes within a twelvemonth it is difficult to say. The office was probably important mainly because it facilitated a much more fundamental recasting of Athenian government.

The revolution that occurred in April—May 411 b.c. had been brewing for some time. It was first conceived as a war measure, designed to facilitate the recall of Alcibiades and with his aid to detach Tissaphernes and the King from Sparta and win them and their money for Athens. Alcibiades himself it was who suggested this idea. Unable to count on being ever restored by the ‘rascality’ which had outlawed him, he alleged that the King would not become a friend of Athens so long as Athens was ruled by the people. It is likely that Tissaphernes foresaw gain for Persia in having a man all-powerful in Athens who was under strong obligations to himself (thinking, no doubt, to use Alcibiades as Alcibiades thought to use him). Certainly he lent himself so far to Alcibiades’ design as to give him a powerful lever for upsetting democracy in Athens; but to be effective the lever had to have a base on which to rest within the Athenian community.

This was found, at the beginning of the intrigue (December, 412), at Samos, among the men of wealth and position serving with the fleet—the trierarchs in particular. The Athenian propertied classes were terribly shortened in their incomes by the Decelean War, through the ruin of their estates in Attica; the running away of their slaves (to the number eventually of over 20,000), with the consequent closing of mines and factories; the increased risks and diminishing returns of maritime trade; and the impossibility of attending to their business whatever it was. At the same time they were staggering under the fiscal burdens put upon them by the state—the liturgies first and foremost, by the quick repetition of which even the largest fortunes were being impaired, and the almost yearly levies that were made on income. Athens was rapidly becoming poor. The silver and gold amassed by the city and its inhabitants from the tribute and the mines and the profits of trade were being dissipated, in considerable part abroad, in payment for war-services and materials; and the profiteers were as often as not beyond the reach of the Athenian fiscus. Property-owners had no monopoly of military service; for while they furnished the cavalry patrols which wore out the stock of Athenian horses on the stony roads of Attica and the hoplites who guarded the immense circuit of the walls night and day, the lower classes now furnished most of the marines and expeditionary forces, besides manning the triremes so far as this was not done by allies and mercenaries; and thus they bore the brunt of the fighting and of the casualties. But the former had to find much of the money with which the latter were paid; and the services for which pay was received were not military alone, but also civilian. The more decisively finance came to dominate the con­duct of the war, the more the classes financially important came to demand a larger voice in its decisions than they possessed under the existing democracy.

It was on soil thus prepared that the suggestion of Alcibiades fell. And a group of outstanding men at Samos took it up; and, after suitable persons had been sounded and a definite undertaking had been received from Alcibiadcs, and the rank and file of the crews—to whom the news was conveyed that they could have the support of Persia if they restored Alcibiades and ceased to be a democracy—appeared to acquiesce, the conspirators held a meeting at which it was decided to proceed with the undertaking; but not without opposition. For Phrynichus opposed it resolutely with arguments which, as reported by Thucydides, ought to have prevailed: that Alcibiades cared for an oligarchy no more than a democracy provided he returned home; that Persia was in no position to abandon Sparta and join them; that their subject-allies were deserting them not because they were democrats but because they were masters, and would desert them all the quicker if, on becoming aristocrats themselves, the Athenians, as was proposed, established aristocracies elsewhere, thus adding domestic masters to foreign; that above all else they should avoid civil dissension.

This was the position of a statesman; and had Phrynichus dis­associated himself from the whole movement when the conspirators decided to send Peisander to Athens to win the enemies of democracy there for their design, he might have done Athens great service later. But he was rendered clear-sighted not by patriotism but by distrust of Alcibiades, whose vindictiveness he feared now that he had declared his opposition. And so unscrupulous was he, this herdsman turned advocate and general, this man of the people turned secretly club-man and oligarch, that when he could not get rid of Alcibiades by fair means he tried foul and betrayed to Astyochus the plan to win Persia for Athens. Astyochus betrayed him in turn to Alcibiades, and it was only by a scheme of almost unbelievable subtlety that Phrynichus escaped with his life from the difficult position into which he had got (December, 412 b.c.). As it was, he and another general were replaced at Samos by two of their colleagues, less unfriendly to Alcibiades.

This was the work of Peisander; who, masquerading as a democrat, laid before the Athenians the plan on which the committee in Samos was working, taking pains to characterize the new form of government required as a modified democracy that could be discarded when it had served its purpose. The protests were numerous and emphatic and concerned both the recall of Alcibiades and the abridgement of popular power. But they were overborne by the tactics of Peisander, who forced from each protestant the admission that he had no alternative by means of which, now that all their money was gone, they could hope to avoid defeat. The people with its usual intelligence recognized that safety was better than the constitution of its choice, and voted to send Peisander and ten others to arrange matters with Alci­biades and Tissaphernes.

Thus far the revolutionary movement was a response to the war situation; and men at home and men at the front had responded similarly. The price to be paid for Persian aid was to be paid to Athenians, with whom Athens could have an accounting later. But when Peisander and his colleagues came to deal with Tissaphernes they found that they had a price to pay to Persia also. For Tissaphernes, adhering to the policy of aiding the Greeks to destroy one another, concluded that it was still Sparta that needed assistance. So he made it clear that his Greek friend enjoyed his confidence yet avoided pledging help to Athens, by having Alcibiades speak for him in his interviews with the Athenian envoys and demand conditions for the King’s friendship which they could not possibly accept: the cession of all Ionia and the adjacent islands, and (on this being agreed to) the right, abandoned by the convention of Callias, of navigating with a fleet of any size everywhere in Athenian waters. No Athenian dared thus bargain away the results of Salamis, Mycale, and Eurymedon. So the envoys returned to Samos, incensed at Alcibiades, who, it seemed, had inveigled them into a dangerous movement either under false pretensions or to make sport of them. And the Samian conspirators decided to drop Alcibiades alto­

V.      

THE FOUR HUNDRED

But it was too late to drop the conspiracy also. Clubs for mutual assistance in dealing with courts and officials had been a characteristic of upper-class life in Athens for some time. Their members were sworn to secrecy, and a good deal of doubt was permissible as to their loyalty to the Constitution and the propriety of their undertakings. So far as they made their political opinions vocal, they condemned democracy; and, appreciating its interdependence with empire, they condemned this also. They made Sparta their ideal, but they were quite un-Spartan in their mode and view of life. Unable to overthrow democracy they existed to circumvent it. But this was an exasperating business; and as the war lengthened out, their methods became more and more violent. It was upon an association of this sort, consisting of 22 young men, that responsibility for the mutilation of the Hermae had finally been saddled, The populace had been reassured on that occasion to ascertain that an individual club and not an aggregate of clubs was involved; but an aggregate had been conceivable, and before leaving for Asia Peisander had bestirred himself effectively to make it a reality and to enlist all the co­ordinated clubs for the revolutionary movement. Thereby a collection of groups of ‘workers’ was won for the cause, and men of different tendencies and purposes were brought into contact with it, given a semblance of union, and implicated in whatever was undertaken.

When there was so much plotting on foot Aristophanes did not miss the occasion to utilize it for comic purposes. In the Lysistrata, presented in February 411 b.c., he too unfolded a conspiracy—a general strike of all the women of Greece, who refused restitution of conjugal rights to their husbands until they had agreed to end the war. The burlesquing of Peisander’s ‘swindle’ loses nothing by the more than Rabelaisian exploitation of the sexual situation to which the plot of the play invites. But the ribaldry is Dionysiac fretwork that runs riot round a central design. The poet’s own suggestion, for which pleaded, he urged, ancient memories, wasted girlhood, disconsolate homes and devastated cities, was for the Athenians to make friends of the Spartans and not of the Persians; to amnesty political offenders, enfranchise alien residents, and take into partnership with themselves their far-flung colonies and subjects, so as thus to enlarge the bounds of their nationalism instead of contracting them. It was the voice of a statesmanlike jester insinuating into the ear of his master the gain of enthroning intelligence and fair-dealing as the governing forces in Athenian policy in place of suspicion, rancour, pride, and—democracy. But which conflicted more with Hellenic nature, a revolt on the part of Hellenic women, or peace without victory between Athens and Sparta and a common citizenship throughout the Athenian Empire, it would be hard to say. At the Great Dionysia next following (March, 411) Aristophanes produced the Thesmophoriazusae, notable for its parody of the dramatic makeshifts of Euripides. The situation had by then become too tense for politics.

The man who more than anyone else arranged the plot of the revolution was Antiphon, a sinister figure that moved in the background like an American ‘boss,’ fertile with helpful suggestions, shrinking from no act of ruthlessness. He had been denied the ordinary outlets for great ambition, energy, and forensic talent by his avowed contempt for democratic radicalism, and had built up for himself a large practice (in aristocratic circles naturally) as a logographos or speech-writer. He preferred to square his acts with legality when possible, but would stick at nothing likely to help establish in Athens a political regime in which he could himself find scope.

The first mot d'ordre given to the ‘workers’ was to put a whole­some terror into the democrats. A gang of young ‘bloods’ assassinated Androcles, who was hateful to Alcibiades as the prime mover of his exile and to the conspirators as the most vehement champion of popular government. Whoever raised his voice in protest against the methods or objects of the ‘reformers’ was quickly put out of the way; and since the reform was supported by the probouloi themselves, by demagogues like Peisander, moderates like Aristocrates and Theramenes, and others whose faithfulness to democracy seemed assured, as well as by generals, ex-generals, trierarchs, and men of distinction in art and letters, like Melanthius, Andron, Critias, and Aristoteles, it was easy for the forces of law and order to think that all was for the best. Since, too, there was no knowing who was in the plot and who was not, the number of the participants was thought to be much larger than it really was, determination of its magnitude was impeded by the cessation of mutual confidence and discussion, and a mood of uneasy acquiescence seized hold of the uninitiated masses.

This situation the revolutionists in Samos and Athens deter­mined to exploit for oligarchic purposes notwithstanding that they had lost the leverage primarily instrumental in creating it. They had to count on defections from within their ranks. But in Phrynichus they made a gain of first-rate importance; for now that the movement was divorced from Alcibiades he put all his resoluteness and practical ability at its disposal. Nor did a proposal for restricting the franchise lack a war justification by any means. There was no escape from the problem of finance. Rather, it pressed all the more urgently for a radical solution precisely because it was not they, but Sparta, that had got Persian money.

For after breaking off negotiations with Peisander, Tissaphernes had effected a reconciliation with the Spartans. Astyochus was now in such straits from lack of funds that there was danger lest he should risk his fleet in battle and lose it altogether, or take to plundering the King’s country. Since either of these contingencies would have ruined the Satrap’s schemes, both he and the Spartans were ready for a compromise. So a definite treaty was concluded ‘on the plain of the Maeander’ to which on behalf of Persia Pharnabazus affixed his signature as well as Tissaphernes (April, 411 b.c.). No mention of the Greek cities was made, but the King’s land was acknowledged as Persian. Tissaphernes agreed to give pay for the Lacedaemonian ships at the stipulated rate, but only for those then in service and only till the arrival of the King’s fleet from Phoenicia. The old idea was here unmistakeable of keeping the Spartan fleet down to a fixed maximum and of postponing the day of definite action; and not to make Sparta over-impatient for the mentioned (but not pledged) Phoenician ships, the Spartan government was to pay its own naval bills from the date of their appearance,—if not immediately, at the end of the war. The important thing at the moment was the receipt of regular pay for the crews at Camirus. With this in hand Astyochus was able to restore the morale and complements of his ships and to sail for the relief of Chios. But the Athenians put themselves in his way, ready to fight if he persisted; so he veered off to Miletus, while they again concentrated their main fleet at Samos. At this time (April-May, 411) the oligarchic upheaval occurred.

Plans for a comprehensive reorganization of the Athenian state and Empire on aristocratic lines had been matured on Samos after the rupture with Tissaphernes. The avowed design was, by limiting the active franchise to the class which could serve the state at its own expense (specifically, ‘all the Athenians best able to render personal and financial service to the number of not less—Thucydides says not more,—than 5000’), to remove from the public pay roll the multitude of civilians whose indemnities for service in Council, courts, offices, and religious festivals were exhausting the domestic revenues of Athens, which, now that the imperial revenues had fallen off and the private fortunes available for levies on income and liturgies could stand the strain no longer, were imperatively needed for building, equipping, and maintaining triremes and otherwise waging the war. This programme commended itself widely to moderate men; but to put it into effect meant to overcome a large and deeply interested opposition. Hence, for both the inauguration and the subsequent safety and efficiency of the regime, the presence of a small body of officers (a Council of Four Hundred) was contemplated.

As concerned the Empire the reformers accepted the idea, which Phrynichus had already refuted, of putting the local ‘oligarchs’ in control of their respective cities in the belief that these malcontents, having got what they wanted from Athens, would lack a motive for plotting secession to Sparta. So five of the men in Peisander’s embassy went round among the subject cities giving power to elements whose enmity to Athens, being grounded in love of liberty quite as much as in love of authority, endured, while their capacity for harm was increased. And to this mistaken policy Athens owed the secession of Thasos, where Diitrephes, sent on from Samos to act as commandant in Thrace, overturned the democracy; and of other places as well. The other envoys accompanied Peisander to Athens, stopping on the way at various cities setting up oligarchies, and recruiting hoplites from Tenos, Andros, Carystus, and Aegina for their mission in the capital.

On their arrival they found their general programme already well advertised and the population thoroughly silenced and intimidated. Thus they had no need to proceed unconstitutionally. The Assembly voted to add to the probouloi twenty citizens over forty years of age elected by the people, so as to form a commission of thirty (syngrapheis), which, after taking account of suggestions made by volunteers and scrutinizing the ancient constitution enacted by Cleisthenes, should have full authority to lay before the people on a fixed day whatever proposals it thought requisite for public safety. This was a well established method of initiating measures for the drafting of which special competence was required; and this commission differed from others only in the latitude of its powers. On the appointed day (14th of Thargelion, April—May, 411 b.c.) a meeting was called, not, as was usual, within the fortifications, but in the sanctuary of Poseidon at Colonus, one and a quarter miles outside the walls, where it would naturally be attended by the hoplites and cavalry—so far as they could be spared from duty—and not by the unorganized urban population whom fear of the Lacedaemonians would prevent from straggling so far afield. Thus made doubly sure against untoward incidents, the commission (after having had it made compulsory for the chairmen (prytaneis) to submit all proposals relevant to the business on hand) exhausted its mandate in requesting the abrogation of the constitutional safeguards of democracy, and the imposition of the death-penalty upon any one who should attempt to revive them. This was carried. When the way was thus cleared proposals followed realizing the essential objects of the reform: the reservation of all revenues for the needs of the war; the abolition of indemnities for all civil offices and services, an exception being made in the case of the nine archons and the prytaneis in charge, who were to continue on the pay roll; the limitation, for the duration of the war, of active citizenship to ‘the Five Thousand,’ upon whom was conferred notably the power to make treaties; the election of a committee of 100 cataloguers, ten by each tribe, to enroll the Five Thousand; and the constitution of a body of Four Hundred men who should act as a Council.

Since a ‘slate’ had, of course, been prepared beforehand, the cataloguers were chosen at once, the taxeis, or tribal regiments, present acting for the tribes. On the motion of Peisander the Four Hundred were constituted then and there by the nomination of five ‘chairmen’ (proedroi), who chose 100 of the number, each of whom in turn selected three additional members, possibly from his own tribe. By pre-arrangement (with the proedroi doubtless) the 100 cataloguers were included, probably as the first hundred, the oath of their special office being administered by the Four Hundred a week later. A further part of Peisander’s motion, that the Four Hundred should convene the Five Thousand when they saw fit, completed his design of making the inner circle master of the situation. The limitation of the franchise and the abolition of indemnities naturally wrought havoc in the ranks of office-holders. Hence the offices were all declared vacant with the exception of the Council of the Five Hundred and the archonships; and to tide over the crisis a new board of generals was at once chosen.

At the time these measures were taken the reformers seem to have thought it possible for the Four Hundred to rule without reigning till regularly constituted and inducted, possibly at the end of the year (14th Scirophorion), the routine domestic services being left for the remaining month to the Archons and prytaneis, the all-important military tasks being attended to for them by their generals. But at Samos things did not go at all according to pro­gramme. Three hundred of the democrats recently installed in the government of the island were found ready to set themselves up as a new ‘aristocracy’ and dispense with the services of their humbler comrades. So they formed a conspiracy, set upon and slew Hyperbolus, who had been living among them since his ostracism, and by this and other acts of violence, in which they had the aid of Charminus, one of the Athenian generals, they sought to pave the way by intimidation for a coup d’état. But the people prepared for resistance, and enlisted the support of Leon and Diomedon, two other of the Athenian generals, and of an energetic trierarch named Thrasybulus and a hoplite named Thrasyllus, who being all four out of sympathy with the revolutionary campaign and distressed at the lot in store for their loyal Samian friends, saw to it, the former pair that Athenian triremes should be at hand in case of violence, the latter that among their crews and the soldiers stationed in the city there should be found democratic stalwarts primed to take a hand against the oligarchs should fighting ensue. In these circumstances the Three Hundred came to grief completely. Their rising was crushed and thirty of their leaders were put to death. From this time on the Four Hundred had a sword of Damocles suspended over their head.

The crew of the despatch-boat Paralus had had a prominent part in defeating this despicable project, but on their arrival in Athens with news of the incident they found to their surprise and discomfiture the reformers already in power. But not in office. The first step of the Four Hundred, for whom an entirely new situation was created by the fiasco in Samos, was to assume office immediately—an open act of violence carried through with careful premeditation. On the day fixed (22nd of Thargelion, April—May) the citizens (all of whom were in military service) piled arms and fell out as usual, but instead of going home those among them who were partisans of the Four Hundred, acting on secret instructions, waited inconspicuously in the neighbourhood, ready to seize their weapons and strike if any opposition developed. The soldiers, too, that had been brought by Peisander were standing under orders; and a band of 120 young ‘bloods’ accompanied the Four Hundred as, each with a dagger concealed on his person, they broke into the Council Hall and bade the Councillors begone. They sugar-coated this brusque dismissal by paying the allowances for the balance of the session. Their own session they opened with the usual solemnities, and they divided themselves into prytanies and used the lot to determine their sequences and daily chairman. Thus, after having been first subjected legally to the probouloi and then actually to the Four Hundred, the body was set aside completely, without a hand being raised in its defence, which, reproducing in miniature with a constantly changing personnel the entire commonwealth of Athens, was the strongest fashioner and expression of Athenian democracy. The ‘best citizens’ supplanted the ‘fair sample’ in the direction of all the administrative committees, so far as these too, like the general assembly and the popular courts of justice, were not dispensed with.

What were the powers of the new governing body? They were defined by Thucydides summarily as autocratic, and such they were in fact; but in a constitution issued as of the date Thargclion 14th and alleged to be the work of 100 men chosen at that time by the Five Thousand, thev were described as provisional, as duly derived from the Five Thousand, as exercisable only through due process of law, and as transmissible to the Five Thousand, when the crisis was past—a matter of a couple of years at least—by the allocation of the Four Hundred to their respective cadres in the larger body. This constitution represents a concession made by the extremists among the reformers to the legal sense of their more moderate associates, the fair-sounding programme with which the movement was launched, and, especially, the opposition that had declared itself in Samos. The body from which it issued, on the motion of a certain Aristomachus, was perhaps the 100 cataloguers; and it may have been intended to govern the validation of the revolutionary regime due on Thargelion 22nd or at the first of the new year (June, 411). Simultaneously an elaborate organization was drawn up for the Five Thousand—for future use and present propaganda. The constitution of the Four Hundred was retrospectively justificatory—notably in the electoral norms set down and in its assumption that the assembly at Colonus constituted a legal meeting of the Five Thousand—and deceptively conciliatory. It did not give away the substance for the shadow. The Four Hundred reserved the right (subject to the new constitution) to make laws and enact decrees with full discretion; to appoint all officials and hold them to an accounting; notably, in replacement of the generals just appointed, to designate for the year 411—10 b.c., in the presence of the soldiers assembled for inspection, a board of ten men vested with unlimited executive authority in civil and military matters. Had the constitution been allowed to work itself out, its most important consequence would probably have been the transformation of an oligarchy of four hundred into an oligarchy of ten.

The organization drawn up for the Five Thousand consti­tuted the active citizens as ‘councillors,’ thus elevating the privileged and leaving the rest, professedly, as they were. It was calculated to satisfy the large section of public opinion at home and at Samos which favoured only a moderate abatement of democracy, and this as a necessary condition to financing and winning the war. But to it the leaders of the Four Hundred did lip-service only. They had the cataloguers in their power, and if a list of the Five Thousand was ever drawn up while the oli­garchy lasted it was not divulged. The uncertainty that existed as to whether one’s neighbour was or was not a councillor kept all quiet. Nor did the Four Hundred hesitate to make an ex­ample when they thought it needed. But those whom they put to death or exiled were few. Terror did the rest.

VI.     

THE FAILURE OF THE FOUR HUNDRED

The work of the Four Hundred was simply a catalogue of failures. It failed to win the adhesion of the sailors and soldiers at Samos; it failed to negotiate an honourable peace with Sparta; it failed to stem the defection of the subject allies; it failed in the prosecution of the war; it failed to reconcile the conflict of ideas and persons in its own body. A bad record for the intelligentsia of Athens! But these failures were not isolated or disconnected: they were simply consequences of the cardinal failure at Samos—developments inseparable from the fact that, as soon as the fleet discovered that it had been deceived, the Four Hundred lost control of the military weapon.

News of the situation in Athens reached Samos through un­friendly channels coloured by fear and exaggerated for political effect. The troops, driven to fury by the misrepresentation that the Four Hundred were abusing their wives and children and holding them as hostages for their good behaviour, were only prevented from stoning the adherents of the oligarchy in their midst by the proximity of the enemy’s fleet and the influence of Thrasybulus and Thrasyllus, who bound them all, oligarchs and democrats, Athenians and Samians, by solemn oaths to stand together, uphold democracy, fight the Peloponnesians vigorously, treat the Four Hundred as enemies, and have no traffic with them. Setting themselves up as the People of Athens, they deposed their generals and replaced them with others, among them Thrasybulus and Thrasyllus. They took the view that Athens had seceded; that with Samos to fall back upon they could conduct the war with virtually undiminished resources; that, if the worst came to the worst, they could settle down elsewhere than at Athens and found a new state. In the conduct of the ‘sailor rabble’ throughout this terrible crisis—their ready response to prudent and patriotic leadership, capacity for quick self-reorganization, determination to live up to their most heroic traditions—Athenian democracy was commended by its works. Nor was their energy confined to resolutions.

They had to count on the Spartans attacking during their trouble. This was all the more certain because on the outbreak of the revolution, in order not to lose the Hellespont, where the Spartan Dercyllidas, marching overland from Miletus, had started a revolt, they had been forced to raise the blockade of Chios, thus permitting the 35 ships bottled up there to join Astyochus. By the prompt arrival in the straits of the Athenian squadron from Chios Lampsacus was regained and the secession movement confined to Abydos; but in the meanwhile the Spartans were strong enough to threaten Samos. So the Athenians recalled their squadron from the Hellespont, and pending its arrival remained in the port on Astyochus’ approach. The Spartan admiral had adopted the policy of fighting only on a certainty—a line of action that was approved at home; but not on shipboard, where it seemed like playing the game of Tissaphernes. But Astyochus was resolutely Fabian. He offered battle while the Athenians were divided and returned to his base the moment the Athenian reinforcements arrived. Thrasybulus and Thrasyllus followed him to Miletus. But he declined action though he had 112 ships to their 108. Since Tissaphernes was again at his old trick of withholding wages, Astyochus sought to reduce his mass of clamouring seamen by sending one-third of his fleet to the Hellespont to enter Pharnabazus’ service and win Byzantium, from which proposals of revolt had come. Most of the ships were driven back by a storm, but eight proceeded on their way, reached Byzantium, and took from Athens this, the key to its Black Sea trade. Eighteen Athenian ships followed them up from Samos and shut them in the port.

The remissness of Tissaphernes in supporting the fleet at Miletus was notorious. The democrats at Samos were encouraged by it to try once again to drive a wedge between the Spartans and him. With this in view, at the instigation of Thrasybulus, they recalled Alcibiades, and by electing him General they virtu­ally gave him conduct of their affairs. It was a master-stroke both for themselves and for Athens. Alcibiades doubtless knew that Tissaphernes would not turn against the Spartans, but he thought it possible that the Spartan fleet might be goaded into attacking him. So he proclaimed in the most extravagant tones the satrap’s readiness to subsidize the fleet of the Athenians if only he could be made sure of them:—how he had promised, if Alcibiades were restored to go surety for them, to raise funds for them even if he had to sell his own bed. In furtherance of this design of making Tissaphernes seem faithless Alcibiades, refusing, despite much urging, to turn his back on the Spartan fleet and sail forthwith to the Piraeus to put an end to the oligarchy, made it his first business, now that he was General and could speak for Athens with authority, to have an interview with the satrap. Had he not taught Tissaphernes so well, he might have succeeded in his difficult role. For the disaffection among the Spartan seamen, which rose to open mutiny among the free men serving on the Syracusan and Thurian ships, had now got beyond the power of Astyochus (whose term was approaching its close) to check it: they angrily demanded their pay; and when he tried to browbeat them and raised his stick against Dorieus, they came at him with a shout and he escaped stoning only by fleeing to an altar. The seamen, now thoroughly out of hand, also aided and abetted the Milesians in getting rid forcibly of the garrison which Tissaphernes had planted in their territory—an act of rebellion disavowed by Lichas but imitated not long after by Cnidus and Antandrus. But Tissaphernes was not to be moved to reply to this violence in kind. He thought it possible that if he starved the Spartan fleet into helplessness and let the Athenians destroy one another by civil war he could impose his will on all Greece. So he limited his response to the Milesian provocation to a diplomatic demarche at Sparta—in connection with which he took the opportunity to defend his conduct generally against Hermocrates of Syracuse, who went there as chief complainant on behalf of the crews (midsummer, 411). And then he made a gesture which arrested universal attention. He brought a Phoenician fleet of 147 ships up to Aspendus and went himself to that point to meet it.

And there he stayed, and the fleet came no farther; and the Spartans in Miletus went on suffering from want of funds. But the Athenians did not engage in civil war. From this calamity they were saved by Alcibiades. On his return to Samos he found emissaries of the Four Hundred there, newly arrived with the model constitutions in hand, to which they could refer for their contention that the government they represented was a government of the Five Thousand and not of the Four Hundred alone. The crews were not for hearing them at all and were not in the least appeased when they did hear them. It was little satisfaction to them to be told that 5000 was a larger number than attended even the most important Assemblies if they themselves were not included. Despite reassurances, they feared for their friends and relatives at home and suspected, not unjustly, that the oligarchs would betray the city to the Spartans. Their strong bent was to be off at once to the Piraeus, and had not Alcibiades been there with words of wisdom and super-eminent authority they would have gone, leaving all Ionia and the Hellespont to the enemy. Of the two domestic dangers imminent he had thus mastered one. Against the other—betrayal of Athens by the oligarchs—his only resource was a strong bid to the moderates among the Four Hundred to assert themselves; he had (he told them) no objection to the Five Thousand, but the Four Hundred must go and the Council of Five Hundred return; he strongly approved of any economies that would admit of more money being available for the fleet; above all they should not surrender to Sparta. As for himself he concluded that Aspendus was the right place for him to be in; for the fate of Greece was in Tissaphernes’ hands. So he set out for Aspendus with thirteen ships and the news that civil war was not going to eliminate Athens from the struggle. The Spartans too found a way of maintaining their fleet on a war footing despite the non-payment of Tissaphernes’ subsidies. So in the end the Persian fleet was sent back home as being too weak for its purpose. In a very real sense Alcibiades had arrested its advance.

Immediately after seizing power, the Four Hundred had ad­dressed themselves to the task of making peace with the Lacedaemonians. But what they counted on chiefly for success—the sympathy of Sparta with oligarchy—was more than offset by the hope the Spartans formed of profiting by Athenian dissensions. Agis, to whom they turned first, met their overtures by assembling a League army and advancing to the walls of the city; but he found no signs of weakness or confusion. So he let diplomacy follow its course. The first envoys sent to Sparta (Laispodias, Aristophon, and Melesias) started on board a trireme manned by the crew of the Paralus, who took them to Argos instead, where they were detained. But either they or others reached their destination and offered peace on the basis of the status quo. The offer was rejected. Sparta demanded the total surrender of the Athenian Empire. Such terms even a democracy could have had, and for them the Four Hundred were at this time unready. But the message sent from Samos by Alcibiades proved to be a wedge inserted at the line of an old fissure that split the Four Hundred into two sec­tions. The one, less compromised and more compromising, with Theramenes as its leader and Aristocrates as his first lieutenant, adopted the programme of establishing in fact the government of the Five Thousand. Theramenes’ motives were mixed. We may admit that he saw the writing on the wall and manoeuvred so as to safeguard a political career for himself when the restoration came. But we need not on that account deny to him credit for honestly believing that the reunion of the city and the fleet on the basis of a limited democracy was in the best interests of Athens, and that the course pursued by his colleagues—Anti­phon, Phrynichus, Archeptolemus, Onomacles, Aristarchus, Peisander, Alexicles, to mention only the leading extremists— meant utter ruin. Nor did the latter give him any chance to save them along with himself.

They too saw the rising tide of opposition; but, expecting no mercy in the event of overthrow and despairing of being able unaided to retain the safety of power if they let the Empire go and bargained with Sparta simply for autonomy, they sent Antiphon, Phrynichus, and ten others to Sparta ostensibly to make one last effort to secure an honourable peace, really to arrange secretly to admit the Spartans into Athens.

VII.    

THE END OF THE FOUR HUNDRED

The Spartans had now a home fleet in readiness at Las in South Laconia to take a hand in the long projected revolt of Euboea. The design of depriving Athens of this, its substitute Attica, had been furthered by the capture of Oropus earlier in the year, and the oligarchic upheaval in Athens and on the island brought the plans of the secessionists to a head. The outbreak simply waited on the arrival of the Spartan squadron. The Athenian oligarchs had taken precautions, of course; among others, the appointment of Polystratus, one of their own number, eight days after they assumed office, to the command at Eretria. But their partisans in the Euboic cities played them false; and when the ground began to give way under their feet in Athens, it was themselves, and not Euboea, that they thought of first.

Their plan was to fortify Eetionea—the western lip of the Piraeus,—ostensibly against the ‘rebels’ in Samos, really to give them the means of starving Athens and admitting the enemy when the occasion arose. It was over the building of this fort that the storm broke. Theramenes divined the treason contemplated, and connected with the work the fleet at Las and the negotiations of Phrynichus and Antiphon in Sparta. At first his counter-measures were secret. But Phrynichus, the right arm of the government, was struck down in the open market-place, and all the investiga­tion disclosed was that the assassin had many accomplices. When then the Spartan fleet came to Epidaurus and overran Aegina, Theramenes and Aristocrates and their supporters within and without the Four Hundred could keep quiet no longer. They openly denounced the plot. What was more important, they carried with them the soldiers in the Piraeus. These seized their general Alexicles and with the aid of the harbour population proceeded to tear down the fort they had been building, proclaiming at the same time the government of the Five Thousand. On the following day they marched to Athens. The oligarchy weakened. The Five Thousand, they agreed, should be made known and given discretion as to how Councils of 400 should be drafted in succession from their number; and a dav was fixed for a meeting in the Theatre of Dionysus to arrange the terms of a reconcilia­tion.

For a time the two factions had been on the verge of war. Agesandridas, the Spartan admiral, tried not to miss the occasion for a ‘knock out blow.’ He brought his fleet to Megara, waiting for a signal perhaps. Then on the day fixed for the meeting he was observed off Salamis. The whole population of Athens took this as confirmation of their worst suspicions and hurried to the Piraeus to man the ships and coast defences. Agesandridas rowed past and went on to Oropus, and in hot haste the Athenians got off reinforcements for their squadron at Eretria. Their crews were untrained, they had only 36 ships to the enemy’s 42, they had to fight before they were ready, and Eretria rose against them in their rear. The defeat which they sustained was complete. Twenty-two ships were lost, crews and all; and had the Spartans followed up their victory by a prompt attack on the Piraeus, the Athenian fleets abroad must have come to its defence and the whole Empire been lost. ‘But on this occasion, as on many others, the Lacedaemonians proved the most convenient of all peoples for the Athenians to have as enemies, especially in a naval war.’ So the opportunity passed; and a little later Agesandridas lost most of his fleet in a storm off Athos. But Euboea, excepting only Oreus-Histiaea, revolted, and with it Athens lost its chief nearby source of money, grain, and supplies.

The effect on the city was catastrophic. The people gathered once more in general assembly on the Pnyx and set aside the Four Hundred (early in Boedromion, August-September, 411). They had ruled for only four months. Peisander, Alexicles, and Aristarchus escaped to Decelea and were condemned as traitors in absentia. Antiphon and Archeptolemus stood their trial, and, despite the brilliancy of Antiphon’s defence, they were found guilty of high treason and executed. Phrynichus was attainted though dead and his bones cast beyond the frontier. Theramenes, Andron, and Critias were particularly active in prosecuting their former associates and they took pains that the charges brought against them were on counts for which the Four Hundred generally were not answerable.

VIII.   

THE GOVERNMENT OF THE FIVE THOUSAND

The moderates had now the upper hand. The government they established was, Thucydides thought and Aristotle agreed with him, the best Athens had ever had. It was based on the programme already issued. The changes in the ‘laws of Solon’ there called for, and the other adjustments necessary, were made in the regular way by the aid of a constituent assembly (Nomothetaff The whole freeborn male population remained citizens, but of them only those capable of bearing arms—to the number it proved of 9000—had active rights, which they exercised, on reaching their thirtieth year, as ‘councillors’—without pay. To enable so large a body to transact business (it had to act as Council and Assembly in one), it was divided into four Councils, each of which, constituted of a fair sample on the old idea that this was the best kind of representation, was to serve with plenary power for a year at a time in an order determined by lot. This was roughly how things were managed in the Boeotian cities, which were used as a model. The officiating Council was too large to be asked to sit daily as the Five Hundred had done: it, accordingly, met only once in five days and its members were constrained to be regular in attendance by being fined it absent without leave. In the in­terim it was represented by committees, still called prytanies, but constituted, not as theretofore of the members of each tribe in turn, but of fair samples of its entire membership designated by sortitions conducted by the nine archons. These quasi-prytanies were organized as usual with a tenth of the year as their term, and a succession and a chairman determined by lot, the latter anew each day. When a meeting of the Council occurred, the five chairmen thus designated since the previous session served as its presidents, of whom one was drawn, again by lot, to put the motions and announce the count of votes. The educative and equalizing features of the democratic regime were thus retained, their benefits being, of course, denied to the lower classes.

The distinction between magistrates chosen by election and those chosen by lot was upheld, but the former category, which had consisted essentially of military officials, was enlarged by the inclusion in it of the nine archons as before 487 b.c.; of two committees of ten each (hieropoioi and epimeletai) who had charge of the great religious festivals; and of the chief exchequer officials, who were consolidated in two boards, one of ten men entitled Treasurers of Athena, with charge of all sacred monies and properties, and another of twenty men entitled Hellenic Treasurers to whom were entrusted the secular funds domestic and imperial alike. The difference between these important officers, who were approximately 100 in number, and the minor magistracies, who were elected by lot, was further accentuated in that they alone were chosen, by a double process of voting, from the members of the Council in office, in the work of which they all, with the inexplicable exception of the Hellenic Treasurers, participated. The net effect of these administrative changes was closer contact between the various branches of the government, more responsible organization of the civil services that handled and spent money, and an all-round strengthening of the executive. The moderate oligarchs, it should be noted, had no quarrel on principle with election by lot, rotation in office, proportional representation, or majority rule. The essence of their programme was to secure for high civil offices men of special competence, to reserve the privileges of the commonwealth to Athenians who could afford them, and deny a voice in political decisions to such as lacked an appreciable property-stake in the community.

As in the case of the minor magistracies, so in the case of the jury-courts (dikasteria) no change was needed. The alteration of personnel that followed the exclusion of the plebs from active citizenship sufficed. And it was some compensation for the cession of political power to the officiating Council that men from the other three Councils manned the dikasteria for it was to the judiciary that the governing bodies were responsible, and the jurisdiction of the courts in high political cases, already para­mount, was increased through the suppression of the Assembly.

The constitution effected ‘a judicious blending of the “few” (magistrates, Council) and the “many” (dicasts, councillors: elves sine suffragio) that raised the state from the evil plight into which it had fallen.’ Such is the judgment of the Athenian historian who has analyzed so appreciatively the greatness of Periclean democracy. He did not complete the story that despite its success in making Athens once again mistress of the sea, this much praised polity lasted only eight months. There is no disguising the fact that, with all its rectifications of current abuses and its clever fusion of Boeotia and Cleisthenes with political theory masquerading as ancestral wisdom, it was but a makeshift. It was not a serious weakness that three-quarters of the active citizens normally looked on while the other quarter handled current business; for there was a provision of the constitution by which each member of the officiating Council might ask in another councillor on important occasions, and this probably ensured the participation in government of most of those who really cared about it. The Councils, too, were so constituted that one could be replaced by another without anything like the loss of continuity in policy that arises when one party succeeds another in the government of a modern country. Under this constitution a Themistocles or a Pericles or an Alcibiades could have been General only once in four years; and from the purely military point of view this was disadvantageous. But immediate re­election to the highest command was forbidden, in the interest of republicanism, in many Greek constitutions—those of Sparta and the Achaean League for example,—and in the case of Rome the interval of private life was as much as ten years. What denied permanency to the constitution of Theramenes was its dis­franchisement of the element (in itself a majority of all Athenians) upon which the government organized under it was dependent for protection, prosperity, and empire. The very men who were to save Athens by crushing the fleet that was strangling it to death enjoyed, to be sure, the protection of the Athenian laws and the proud status of Athenians, but otherwise they were without rights in their own country. They would acquiesce in this outrage to their every instinct so long as service abroad made the franchise of no practical value to them and the economies atten­dant on its loss highly remunerative; so long, too, as they had to give their entire attention to the enemy. But no longer. Besides, Alcibiades, whom the Five Thousand confirmed in his military command, had already declared for the restoration of the Council of the Five Hundred.

IX.     

THE STRUGGLE FOR THE HELLESPONT

Mindarus, the Spartan admiral for 411—10 b.c., shifted the scene of major naval operations from Ionia to the Hellespont. The fleet of Chios had yielded its maximum of results. The worst blow that could now be dealt Athens was to close the passage from the Black Sea. The aid paid for in advance by Pharnabazus could be withheld no longer. The farce at Aspendus and the misery at Miletus had brought complete, if tardy, illumination as to the motives of Tissaphernes. Hence, giving Samos a wide berth, Mindarus started for the Hellespont (Sept. 411), where an advance squadron of 16 ships awaited him, face to face with 18 Athenian vessels, now at Sestos. Storm-stayed for five or six days at Icaros, he found, on coming to Chios, that the Athenians were already at Lesbos, set on heading him off. An opportune revolt of Eresus drew them to the seaward side of the island, thus permitting him, by a combination of good luck, audacity, and speed, to pass through the channel of Mitylene and reach Rhoeteum. It was dead of night when he arrived. So the lights of his ships betrayed him to the Athenian squadron at Sestos, which saved itself by promptly slipping down the straits, losing four ships, however, in the run for I cm nos and Imbros. The Athenians from Eresus intervened in time, captured two ships of the pur­suers, and then concentrated their forces at Elaeus. Thrasyllus and Thrasybulus were in command. Their ships numbered 76.

They must force a passage into the Propontis if they would regain or retain Athens’ empire along its shores; for Cyzicus had already revolted and probabl) also Chalcedon and Selymbria. The attempt to do this brought on a battle at Cynossema in the Narrows—the first trial of strength of the main fleets since the naval war in the Aegean began. The details disclose only the superiority of the Athenians in speed and tactics, and the completeness of the defeat of the Lacedaemonians (September, 411). The proximity of the shore and Abydos enabled them to save their fleet, so that the losses on either side were comparable (21 ships to 15); but the moral ascendancy of the Athenians on the sea, which had been shattered by their misfortunes at Eretria and Syracuse, was restored, and the government of the Five Thousand entered on its career with an energy born of great encouragement.

The Athenians were now free to enter the Propontis. At Priapus they captured eight enemy ships from Byzantium, and since Cyzicus was unwalled it had to submit on their arrival. But though beaten, the Lacedaemonians were by no means out of the fighting. They took advantage of the absence of Thrasybulus and Thrasyllus to raid Elaeus. So the Athenians came back to the Hellespont, whither both they and their adversaries had summoned all the ships they possessed, and here, at Abydos, a second general engagement ensued (October—November, 411). Its issue was still in suspense when the arrival of Alcibiades, the only squadron­commander on either side absent at its beginning, inclined the balance in favour of the Athenians. The Lacedaemonians tried to save their fleet by running it ashore, and Pharnabazus came down into the water with foot and cavalry to aid in its defence; but, though they rescued the crews, they could not prevent the Athenians from towing off* over thirty of their vessels. The latter were now numerically as well as tactically superior; but it was near the end of the season, and the possibility did not exist of provisioning the entire fleet with the money on hand or procurable at Sestos. So the force there was reduced to forty ships and the rest scattered for the winter. Twenty went with Thrasy­bulus to Thrace, others elsewhere. Thrasyllus returned to Athens to report on the situation and secure further ships and troops for a decisive effort in the spring. Alcibiades paid a visit to Tissaphernes who had come to the Hellespont to try to get the Spartans back into his service. And therewith his relation with the Satrap ended. Taken to Sardes, for thirty days he was held prisoner and then he owed his escape to his own exertions. Thenceforth he would have to compete for power in Athens without the advantage of being thought able to influence Persian policy—unless he could reach an understanding with Pharnabazus.

As soon as the sea was navigable Theramenes himself took the ships that were ready at Athens and sailed to Chaicis to try to prevent the Boeotians and Euboeans from connecting their countries by filling in and bridging the Euripus; but when it proved that he could do nothing there, he went collecting money among the islands, to Paros notably, where he overthrew the oligarchy set up by the hour Hundred. 'Phen he lent a hand to Archelaus, since 413 b.c. king of Macedon, who was having trouble with Pydna, and whose services throughout this critical time in facilitating the export to Athens of shipbuilding materials entitled him to assistance. Before the place was reduced, however, he got a message from Thrasybulus, then operating at Thasos, that they both were needed in the Hellespont, where a crisis had supervened. So he left part of his force behind and hastened on. On his arrival at Sestos the entire Athenian fleet was reunited under the command of Alcibiades and the final operation of this fierce struggle for the mastery of the Hellespont was begun. With the aid of Pharnabazus Mindarus had just recaptured Cyzicus and it was thither that Alcibiades sailed to encounter him. He had 86 ships to Mindarus’ 60. So he feared the nauarch would decline to fight; but he masked his movements well and had a stroke of good luck. A rainstorm hid his approach. Suddenly it cleared, and he found the whole Spartan fleet practising manoeuvres well away from the harbour of Cyzicus. Unable to reach port and badly outnumbered, Mindarus beached his ships and tried to defend them. But without success. While Thrasybulus, Thymochares, and Theramenes engaged the Spartans in front, Alcibiades landed the crews of twenty triremes and made a flank attack. Mindarus fell while trying to repel it. Only the Syracusans waited long enough to burn their vessels; the rest ran away, and the Athenians captured their ships. Once again Athens was undisputed mistress of the sea (April, 410 b.c.).

X.      

THE POLICY OF CLEOPHON

The effects of Sparta’s naval collapse were at once felt at home and abroad, in Athens and Sparta, Syracuse and Susa. In Athens the citizen crews of the victorious fleet and the rest of the class to which they belonged regained their lost rights, and the Council was reduced to 500, reorganized as of old, and separated from the Assembly. The magistrates then in office seem to have been undisturbed till the end of the year. And even then some of the administrative improvements made, notably the consolidation of financial boards, were retained. Theramenes was abroad when the Five Thousand gave way and he chose to remain abroad for a time. Cleophon, a lyre-manufacturer, the man who ousted him in the confidence of the majority, sympathized with the class that had been dispossessed. He represented the Cleon-Hyperbolus tradition. Finance was his forte, and for year after year he looked after this all-important branch of the administration with skill and integrity. With the restoration of the poor to citizenship, their claim to indemnities for time spent in civilian service had to be recognized—the more readily, doubtless, because of over­confidence in the speedy rehabilitation of their revenues. Cleophon’s peculiar invention was the diobeli a, a payment of two obols per day to the people, but to whom precisely and for what we are nowhere told. It is best interpreted as a dole distributed to needy citizens not otherwise on the public pay-roll; and it may have been financed by a reduction of indemnities to a two obol level all round. Under the regime of Cleophon and his associates the right of the masses to live was further recognized by the resumption of state building-operations, notably on the Erechtheum (409 b.c.). By the diobelia impoverished gentlefolk were pri­marily affected. The construction of the Erechtheum gave em­ployment to labourers and artisans, whether they were slaves or freemen, aliens or citizens.

These expedients were directed to enabling Athens to continue the war; and for the decision so to do Cleophon bears (together with Alcibiades) the heavy responsibility. If the report of the battle of Cyzicus that reached Sparta was like the one the Athenians intercepted (‘The ships are lost. Mindarus is dead. The men starve. We know not what to do.’) the reaction of the Spartans needs no comment. They sent the head of the phil-Athenian faction, Alcibiades’ friend, Endius, to Athens with an offer of peace on the basis of the status quo—Decelea to be given up in exchange for Pylos. This meant for Athens the loss of Euboea, Andros, Rhodes, Chios, Thasos, Abdera, Perinthus, Selymbria, Byzantium, and, with the exception of two or three places, all the towns on the Asiatic coast from Pamphylia to the Pontus. Yet there were many Athenians who, judging the struggle hopeless against such great odds, wished for peace even on these terms. And the future proved their wisdom. But the rejection of the offer was almost inevitable. Its acceptance would have stopped Athens from trying to regain its lost dependencies at the very moment when, with sea-power re-established and again self-supporting, it could turn unopposed to their recovery. Nor did acceptance give complete certainty that the war would not be renewed when Sparta had got upon its feet again. Over-con­fidence in themselves and inveterate lack of faith in Sparta clouded the judgment of the Athenians and incapacitated them from seeing that, even if the respite were brief, it would suffice to end the coalition of west Greeks, east Greeks and Persians which the impression of their weakness (now proved false) had brought into being, and also to disclose to their renegade allies that the choice between them and their adversaries was the choice of two masters, not, as fondly imagined, the choice of liberty or oppression.

XI.

THE ATTEMPTED RESTORATION OF THE ATHENIAN EMPIRE

So the war continued. Alcibiades reoccupied Cyzicus, and spent the balance of the summer partly there and partly in re­establishing Athens’ authority in Perinthus, Selymbria, and the Bosporus. He had not enough soldiers to lay siege to either Chalcedon or Byzantium. So he built a fortress at Chrysopolis just north of Chalcedon and left Theramenes there with a strong squadron to keep the exit from the Pontus open and collect a 10 per cent, toll on all cargoes passing out. In general his first care was to restore to Athens its revenues; for upon these all else depended. Nine ships now sufficed to guard the Hellespont. The rest had to be scattered for this winter as for the one preceding—a fact of which Sparta took advantage. As King Agis watched from his post at Dccelea the Pontic grain-ships sailing into the Piraeus he realized as never before the importance of blocking the Bosporus. And with this in view he had a Spartan officer, Clearchus, sent with troopships to organize the defence of Chalcedon and Byzantium. Three of these the Athenian patrol destroyed in the Hellespont, but twelve reached their destination and increased enormously the military difficulties of the Athenians.

By the spring of 409 b.c. the Athenians were ready to make a strong effort to recover their lost allies. During the preceding season they had had their minds set at rest as regards Agis. The king had invited battle by leading his men from Decelea down to the city’s walls, but when Thrasyllus mustered out the Athenian army and accepted the challenge, he had beaten a hasty retreat. Athens concluded that it could spare an expeditionary force and that Thrasyllus was the man to command it. After spending the winter in preparations, this popular general set out for Ionia with 1000 hoplites and a fleet of 50 ships, among the rowers of which were 5000 peltasts. He landed at Phygela south of Ephesus, where he met and defeated the Milesians; he won Colophon north of Ephesus and despoiled Lydia; but his main objective was Ephesus itself, and here he failed signally. For he encountered not merely the Ephesians, but horse and foot in large numbers which Tissaphernes (now at length compelled to do his own fighting) had assembled from all over his satrapy, and also the crews of the entire Sicilian squadron. So Thrasyllus sailed to the Hellespont where he joined forces with Alcibiades (whose summer had been singularly uneventful), and they devoted the winter to fortifying Lampsacus and to an unsuccessful attempt on Abydos.

The elimination of the Spartan fleet had brought the Persians face to face with the Athenians. Pharnabazus had stepped manfully into the breach. He had taken some of the shipless crews into his service and equipped them for the defence of his coast. Others he had assembled at Antandrus and set to work with timber from Mt. Ida rebuilding a fleet. Money he provided to the extent of his ability. Those who took most advantage of his assistance were the Sicilians, who worked to such purpose, notwithstanding that Syracuse, chagrined at the total loss of its fleet at Cyzicus, superseded and exiled their tried generals (autumn, 410 b.c.)— Hermocrates among them—that by the spring they had replaced all their ships and were thus able to join in the defence of Ionia. Thereafter they tried unsuccessfully to reach the Hellespont. It was in Sicily fighting against the Carthaginians that they next saw service.

Their departure took the centre out of the new Lacedaemonian fleet, and permitted Alcibiades to concentrate his forces for the great object set for the 408 b.c. campaign—the winning of the Bosporus. Chalcedon was invested first. A determined effort on the part of Pharnabazus from without and the Spartan harmost from within to break the Athenian cordon failed. And to save the city from a worse fate than resumption of its old tributary relation to Athens Pharnabazus undertook to forward to Susa ambassadors to discuss peace with the King—an opportunity which the Athenians (supported by Argos) eagerly embraced. Could they obtain the neutrality of Persia they might yet win the war. Besides they were freed to proceed with the siege of Byzantium, round which too they threw a cordon. But their assaults proved fruitless. Clearchus, however, made the mistake of reserving the supplies for the garrison, whereupon certain citizens, solicitous for the civilian population, took advantage of his absence on a visit to Pharnabazus to betray the city. So Athens regained Byzantium and was relieved from anxiety for its food supply (autumn, 408 b.c.). Alcibiades had scored another striking success. And in the following May (Thargelion), after having collected 100 talents to fetch home as a sort of peace-offering, he returned to Athens, where he was received like a conquering hero, given back his property, relieved of the religious penalties imposed upon him in 415 b.c., and put in sole charge of the war for the following year. Since Thrasvbulus regained Abdera and Thasos at this same time, and the enemy did not venture to show himself anywhere on the sea, Athens, far from regretting that it had refused to make peace with Sparta three years before, rejected the proffered hand yet again, even though in the interval only a fraction of its hopes had been realized, Corcyra had fallen after a bitter struggle into the hands of its oligarchs and reverted to its pre-war policy of neutrality, and the Spartans had regained Pylos and the Megarians Nisaea.

But beyond Athens’ vision, at the King’s court at Susa, a de­cision had been reached which made its jubilation during the four months of Alcibiades’ stay at home seem like tragic irony. The house of Hydarnes, to which Tissaphernes belonged, had been overwhelmed by disaster. He had made the mistake of looking beyond victory to the settlement with Sparta that was bound to follow, and had lost victory itself. A Spartan embassy sent to Susa to complain of his duplicity had no difficulty in making out a case against him. Without waiting to hear from the Athenians and Argives, the King decided to put the financial resources of the empire squarely behind the one of the Greek contenders for power which lacked the means of maintaining a fleet without Persian assistance. And to give this idea effect and at the same time to humour his strong-minded wife, who desired, from ulterior motives, to enable Cyrus, her second son, whom she favoured, to build up for himself an independent position in the state, Darius appointed Cyrus ‘to be lord (karanos) of all those whose mustering place is Castolus,’ i,e. governor­general of Asia Minor. Over and above the revenues of this area he gave him 500 talents with which to recreate the Spartan fleet. In the spring of 407 b.c. Cyrus met at Gordium the envoys for whose journey to Susa Pharnabazus had arranged. They naturally went no farther; but they were not allowed to return to spread the news that thenceforth Athens had to contend not with the uncertain, unsupported, and unrelated efforts of jealous satraps, but with the set purpose of the whole Persian Empire. The Peloponnesian War had entered upon its final phase.

CHAPTER XII