Note 286 — Chapter LXIV · FROM THE ARRIVAL OF CYRUS THE YOUNGER IN ASIA MINOR, DOWN TO THE BATTLE OF ARGINUSÆ. (continued 2)

Xenoph. Hellen. i. 7, 8. Οἱ οὖν περὶ τὸν Θηραμένην παρεσκεύασαν ἀνθρώπους μέλανα ἱμάτια ἔχοντας, καὶ ἐν χρῷ κεκαρμένους πολλοὺς ἐν ταύτῃ τῇ ἑορτῇ, ἵνα πρὸς τὴν ἐκκλησίαν ἥκοιεν, ὡς δὴ ξυγγενεῖς ὄντες τῶν ἀπολωλότων.

Here I adopt substantially the statement of Diodorus, who gives a juster and more natural description of the proceeding; representing it as a spontaneous action of mournful and vindictive feeling on the part of the kinsmen of the deceased (xiii, 101).

Other historians of Greece, Dr. Thirlwall not excepted (Hist. of Greece, ch. xxx, vol. iv, pp. 117-125), follow Xenophon on this point. They treat the intense sentiment against the generals at Athens as “popular prejudices;” “excitement produced by the artifices of Theramenês,” (Dr. Thirlwall, pp. 117-124.) “Theramenês (he says) hired a great number of persons to attend the festival, dressed in black, and with their heads shaven, as mourning for kinsmen whom they had lost in the sea-fight.”

Yet Dr. Thirlwall speaks of the narrative of Xenophon in the most unfavorable terms; and certainly in terms no worse than it deserves (see p. 116, the note): “It looks as if Xenophon had purposely involved the whole affair in obscurity.” Compare also p. 123, where his criticism is equally severe.

I have little scruple in deserting the narrative of Xenophon, of which I think as meanly as Dr. Thirlwall, so far as to supply, without contradicting any of his main allegations, an omission which I consider capital and preponderant. I accept his account of what actually passed at the festival of the Apaturia, but I deny his statement of the manœuvres of Theramenês as the producing cause.

Most of the obscurity which surrounds these proceedings at Athens arises from the fact, that no notice has been taken of the intense and spontaneous emotion which the desertion of the men on the wrecks was naturally calculated to produce on the public mind. It would, in my judgment, have been unaccountable if such an effect had not been produced, quite apart from all instigations of Theramenês. The moment that we recognize this capital fact, the series of transactions becomes comparatively perspicuous and explicable.

Dr. Thirlwall, as well as Sievers (Commentat. de Xenophontis Hellen. pp. 25-30), suppose Theramenês to have acted in concert with the oligarchical party, in making use of this incident to bring about the ruin of generals odious to them, several of whom were connected with Alkibiadês. I confess, that I see nothing to countenance this idea: but at all events, the cause here named is only secondary, not the grand and dominant fact of the period.