Note 10 — Chapter XLVII · FROM THE THIRTY YEARS’ TRUCE, FOURTEEN YEARS BEFORE THE PELOPONNESIAN WAR, DOWN TO THE BLOCKADE OF POTIDÆA, IN THE YEAR BEFORE THE PELOPONNESIAN WAR.

Very excellent writers on Athenian antiquity (Boeckh, Public Econ. of Athens, c. 15, 19, b. iii; Schömann, Antiq. J. P. Att. sect. lxxiv; K. F. Hermann, Gr. Staatsalterthümer, sect. 157: compare, however, a passage in Boeckh, ch. 17, p. 421, Eng. transl., where he seems to be of an opposite opinion) accept this statement, that the tribute levied by Athenians upon her allies was doubled some years after the commencement of the Peloponnesian war,—at which time it was six hundred talents,—and that it came to amount to twelve hundred talents. Nevertheless, I cannot follow them, upon the simple authority of Æschinês, and the Pseudo-Andokidês (Æschin. De Fals. Legat. c. 54, p. 301; Andokidês, De Pace, c. 1, and the same orator cont. Alkibiad. c. 4). For we may state pretty confidently, that neither of the two orations here ascribed to Andokidês is genuine: the oration against Alkibiadês most decidedly not genuine. There remains, therefore, as an original evidence, only the passage of Æschinês, which has, apparently, been copied by the author of the Oration De Pace, ascribed to Andokidês. Now the chapter of Æschinês, which professes to furnish a general but brief sketch of Athenian history for the century succeeding the Persian invasion, is so full of historical and chronological inaccuracies, that we can hardly accept it, when standing alone, as authority for any matter of fact. In a note on the chapter immediately preceding, I have already touched upon its extraordinary looseness of statement,—pointed out by various commentators, among them particularly by Mr. Fynes Clinton: see above, chap. xlv, note 2, pp. 409-411, in the preceding volume.

The assertion, therefore, that the tribute from the Athenian allies was raised to the sum of twelve hundred talents annually, comes to us only from the orator Æschinês as an original witness: and in him it forms part of a tissue of statements alike confused and incorrect. But against it we have a powerful negative argument,—the perfect silence of Thucydidês. Is it possible that that historian would have omitted all notice of a step so very important in its effects, if Athens had really adopted it? He mentions to us the commutation by Athens of the tribute from her allies into a duty of five per cent. payable by them on their exports and imports (vii, 28)—this was in the nineteenth year of the war, 413 B.C. But anything like the duplication of the tribute all at once, would have altered much more materially the relations between Athens and her allies and would have constituted in the minds of the latter a substantive grievance, such as to aggravate the motive for revolt in a manner which Thucydidês could hardly fail to notice. The orator Æschinês refers the augmentation of the tribute, up to twelve hundred talents, to the time succeeding the peace of Nikias: M. Boeckh (Public Econ. of Athens, b. iii, ch. 15-19, pp. 400-434) supposes it to have taken place earlier than the representation of the Vespæ of Aristophanês, that is, about three years before that peace, or 423 B.C. But this would have been just before the time of the expedition of Brasidas into Thrace, and his success in exciting revolt among the dependencies of Athens: if Athens had doubled her tribute upon all the allies, just before that expedition, Thucydidês could not have omitted to mention it, as increasing the chances of success to Brasidas, and helping to determine the resolutions of the Akanthians and others, which were by no means adopted unanimously or without hesitation, to revolt.

In reference to the oration called that of Andokidês against Alkibiadês, I made some remarks in the fourth volume of this History (vol. iv, ch. xxxi, p. 151), tending to show it to be spurious and of a time considerably later than that to which it purports to belong. I will here add one other remark, which appears to me decisive, tending to the same conclusion.

The oration professes to be delivered in a contest of ostracism between Nikias, Alkibiadês, and the speaker: one of the three, he says, must necessarily be ostracized, and the question is, to determine which of the three: accordingly, the speaker dwells upon many topics calculated to raise a bad impression of Alkibiadês, and a favorable impression of himself.

Among the accusations against Alkibiadês, one is, that after having recommended, in the assembly of the people, that the inhabitants of Melos should be sold as slaves, he had himself purchased a Melian woman among the captives, and had had a son by her: it was criminal, argues the speaker, to beget offspring by a woman whose relations he had contributed to cause to be put to death, and whose city he had contributed to ruin (c. 8).

Upon this argument I do not here touch, any farther than to bring out the point of chronology. The speech, if delivered at all, must have been delivered, at the earliest, nearly a year after the capture of Melos by the Athenians: it may be of later date, but it cannot possibly be earlier.

Now Melos surrendered in the winter immediately preceding the great expedition of the Athenians to Sicily in 415 B.C., which expedition sailed about midsummer (Thucyd. v, 116; vi, 30). Nikias and Alkibiadês both went as commanders of that expedition: the latter was recalled to Athens for trial on the charge of impiety about three months afterwards, but escaped in the way home, was condemned and sentenced to banishment in his absence, and did not return to Athens until 407 B.C., long after the death of Nikias, who continued in command of the Athenian armament in Sicily, enjoying the full esteem of his countrymen, until its complete failure and ruin before Syracuse,—and perished himself afterwards as a Syracusan prisoner.

Taking these circumstances together, it will at once be seen that there never can have been any time, ten months or more after the capture of Melos, when Nikias and Alkibiadês could have been exposed to a vote of ostracism at Athens. The thing is absolutely impossible: and the oration in which such historical and chronological incompatibilities are embodied, must be spurious: furthermore, it must have been composed long after the pretended time of delivery, when the chronological series of events had been forgotten.

I may add that the story of this duplication of the tribute by Alkibiadês is virtually contrary to the statement of Plutarch, probably borrowed from Æschinês, who states that the demagogues gradually increased (κατὰ μικρὸν) the tribute to thirteen hundred talents (Plutarch, Aristeid. c. 24).