Note 127 — Chapter LXII · TWENTY-FIRST YEAR OF THE WAR. — OLIGARCHY OF FOUR HUNDRED AT ATHENS. (continued 2)

“Quadringentis ipsa dominatio fraudi non fuit; imo qui cum Theramene et Aristocrate steterant, in magno honore habiti sunt: omnibus autem rationes reddendæ fuerunt; qui solum vertissent, proditores judicati sunt, nomina in publico proposita.” (Wattenbach, De Quadringentorum Athenis Factione, p. 65.)

From the psephism of Patrokleidês, passed six years subsequently, after the battle of Ægospotamos, we learn that the names of such among the Four Hundred as did not stay to take their trial, were engraved on pillars distinct from those who were tried and condemned either to fine or to various disabilities; Andokidês de Mysteriis, sects. 75-78: Καὶ ὅσα ὀνόματα τῶν τετρακοσίων τινὸς ἐγγέγραπται, ἢ ἄλλο τι περὶ τῶν ἐν τῇ ὀλιγαρχίᾳ πραχθέντων ἔστι που γεγραμμένον, πλὴν ὁπόσα ἐν στήλαις γέγραπται τῶν μὴ ἐνθάδε μεινάντων, etc. These last names, as the most criminal, were excepted from the amnesty of Patrokleidês.

We here see that there were two categories among the condemned Four Hundred: 1. Those who remained to stand the trial of accountability, and were condemned either to a fine which they could not pay, or to some positive disability. 2. Those who did not remain to stand their trial, and were condemned par contumace.

Along with the first category we find other names besides those of the Four Hundred, found guilty as their partisans: ἄλλο τι (ὄνομα) περὶ τῶν ἐν τῇ ὀλιγαρχίᾳ πραχθέντων. Among these partisans we may rank the soldiers mentioned a little before, sect. 75: οἱ στρατιῶται, οἷς ὅτι ἐπέμειναν ἐπὶ τῶν τυράννων ἐν τῇ πόλει, τὰ μὲν ἄλλα ἦν ἅπερ τοῖς ἄλλοις πολίταις, εἰπεῖν δ᾽ ἐν τῷ δήμῳ οὐκ ἐξῆν αὐτοῖς οὐδὲ βουλεῦσαι, where the preposition ἐπὶ seems to signify not simply contemporaneousness, but a sort of intimate connection, like the phrase ἐπὶ προστάτου οἰκεῖν (see Matthiæ, Gr. Gr. sect. 584; Kühner, Gr. Gr. sect. 611).

The oration of Lysias pro Polystrato is on several points obscure: but we make out that Polystratus was one of the Four Hundred who did not come to stand his trial of accountability, and was therefore condemned in his absence. Severe accusations were made against him, and he was falsely asserted to be the cousin, whereas he was in reality only fellow-demot, of Phrynichus (sects. 20, 24, 11). The defence explains his non-appearance, by saying that he had been wounded at the battle of Eretria, and that the trial took place immediately after the deposition of the Four Hundred (sects. 14, 24). He was heavily fined, and deprived of his citizenship (sects. 15, 33, 38). It would appear that the fine was greater than his property could discharge; accordingly this fine, remaining unpaid, would become chargeable upon his sons after his death, and unless they could pay it, they would come into the situation of insolvent public debtors to the state, which would debar them from the exercise of the rights of citizenship, so long as the debt remained unpaid. But while Polystratus was alive, his sons were not liable to the state for the payment of his fine; and they therefore still remained citizens, and in the full exercise of their rights, though he was disfranchised. They were three sons, all of whom had served with credit as hoplites, and even as horsemen, in Sicily and elsewhere. In the speech before us, one of them prefers a petition to the dikastery, that the sentence passed against his father may be mitigated; partly on the ground that it was unmerited, being passed while his father was afraid to stand forward in his own defence, partly as recompense for distinguished military services of all the three sons. The speech was delivered at a time later than the battle of Kynossêma, in the autumn of this year (sect. 31), but not very long after the overthrow of the Four Hundred, and certainly, I think, long before the Thirty; so that the assertion of Taylor (Vit. Lysiæ, p. 55) that all the extant orations of Lysias bear date after the Thirty, must be received with this exception.