Volume 8 — CHAPTER LXIV. FROM THE ARRIVAL OF CYRUS THE YOUNGER IN ASIA MINOR, DOWN TO THE BATTLE OF ARGINUSÆ. (continued 2)

But presently arose the delicate, yet unavoidable question, “How are we to account for the omission of this sacred duty, in our official despatch to the Athenian people?” Here the generals differed among themselves, as Euryptolemus expressly states: Periklês and Diomedon carried it, against the judgment of their colleagues, that in the official despatch, which was necessarily such as could be agreed to by all, nothing should be said about the delegation to Theramenês and others; the whole omission being referred to the terrors of the storm. But though such was the tenor of the official report, there was nothing to hinder the generals from writing home and communicating individually with their friends in Athens as each might think fit; and in these unofficial communications, from them as well as from others who went home from the armament,—communications not less efficacious than the official despatch, in determining the tone of public feeling at Athens,—they did not disguise their convictions that the blame of not performing the duty belonged to Theramenês. Having thus a man like Theramenês to throw the blame upon, they did not take pains to keep up the story of the intolerable storm, but intimated that there had been nothing to hinder him from performing the duty if he had chosen. It is this which he accuses them of having advanced against him, so as to place him as the guilty man before the Athenian public: it was this which made him, in retaliation and self-defence, violent and unscrupulous in denouncing them as the persons really blamable.[281] As they had made light of this alleged storm, in casting the blame upon him, so he again made light of it, and treated it as an insufficient excuse, in his denunciations against them; taking care to make good use of their official despatch, which virtually exonerated him, by its silence, from any concern in the matter.

Such is the way in which I conceive the relations to have stood between the generals on one side and Theramenês on the other, having regard to all that is said both in Xenophon and in Diodorus. But the comparative account of blame and recrimination between these two parties is not the most important feature of the case. The really serious inquiry is, as to the intensity or instant occurrence of the storm. Was it really so instant and so dangerous, that the duty of visiting the wrecks could not be performed, either before the ships went back to Arginusæ, or afterwards? If we take the circumstances of the case, and apply them to the habits and feelings of the English navy, if we suppose more than one thousand seamen, late comrades in the victory, distributed among twenty damaged and helpless hulls, awaiting the moment when these hulls would fill and consign them all to a watery grave, it must have been a frightful storm indeed, which would force an English admiral even to go back to his moorings leaving these men so exposed, or which would deter him, if he were at his moorings, from sending out the very first and nearest ships at hand to save them. And granting the danger to be such that he hesitated to give the order, there would probably be found officers and men to volunteer, against the most desperate risks, in a cause so profoundly moving all their best sympathies. Now, unfortunately for the character of Athenian generals, officers, and men, at Arginusæ,—for the blame belongs, though in unequal proportions, to all of them,—there exists here strong presumptive proof that the storm on this occasion was not such as would have deterred any Grecian seamen animated by an earnest and courageous sense of duty. We have only to advert to the conduct and escape of Eteonikus and the Peloponnesian fleet from Mitylênê to Chios; recollecting that Mitylênê was separated from the promontory of Kanê on the Asiatic mainland, and from the isles of Arginusæ, by a channel only one hundred and twenty stadia broad,[282] about fourteen English miles. Eteonikus, apprized of the defeat by the Peloponnesian official signal-boat, desired that boat to go out of the harbor, and then to sail into it again with deceptive false news, to the effect that the Peloponnesians had gained a complete victory: he then directed his seamen, after taking their dinners, to depart immediately, and the masters of the merchant vessels silently to put their cargoes aboard, and get to sea also. The whole fleet, triremes and merchant vessels both, thus went out of the harbor of Mitylênê and made straight for Chios, whither they arrived in safety; the merchant vessels carrying their sails, and having what Xenophon calls “a fair wind.”[283] Now it is scarcely possible that all this could have taken place, had there blown during this time an intolerable storm between Mitylênê and Arginusæ. If the weather was such as to allow of the safe transit of Eteonikus and all his fleet from Mitylênê to Chios, it was not such as to form a legitimate obstacle capable of deterring any generous Athenian seaman, still less a responsible officer, from saving his comrades exposed on the wrecks near Arginusæ. Least of all was it such as ought to have hindered the attempt to save them, even if such attempt had proved unsuccessful. And here the gravity of the sin consists, in having remained inactive while the brave men on the wrecks were left to be drowned. All this reasoning, too, assumes the fleet to have been already brought back to its moorings at Arginusæ, discussing only how much was practicable to effect after that moment, and leaving untouched the no less important question, why the drowning men were not picked up before the fleet went back.

I have thought it right to go over these considerations, indispensable to the fair appreciation of this memorable event, in order that the reader may understand the feelings of the assembly and the public of Athens, when the generals stood before them, rebutting the accusations of Theramenês and recriminating in their turn against him. The assembly had before them the grave and deplorable fact, that several hundreds of brave seamen had been suffered to drown on the wrecks, without the least effort to rescue them. In explanation of this fact, they had not only no justification, at once undisputed and satisfactory, but not even any straightforward, consistent, and uncontradicted statement of facts. There were discrepancies among the generals themselves, comparing their official with their unofficial, as well as with their present statements, and contradictions between them and Theramenês, each having denied the sufficiency of the storm as a vindication for the neglect imputed to the other. It was impossible that the assembly could be satisfied to acquit the generals on such a presentation of the case; nor could they well know how to apportion the blame between them and Theramenês. The relatives of the men left to perish would be doubtless in a state of violent resentment against one or other of the two, perhaps against both. Under these circumstances, it could hardly have been the sufficiency of their defence,—it must have been rather the apparent generosity of their conduct towards Theramenês, in formally disavowing all charge of neglect against him, though he had advanced a violent charge against them,—which produced the result that we read in Xenophon. The defence of the generals was listened to with favor and seemed likely to prevail with the majority.[284] Many individuals present offered themselves as bail for the generals, in order that the latter might be liberated from custody: but the debate had been so much prolonged—we see from hence that there must have been a great deal of speaking—that it was now dark, so that no vote could be taken, because the show of hands was not distinguishable. It was therefore resolved to adjourn the whole decision until another assembly; but that in the mean time the senate should meet, should consider what would be the proper mode of trying and judging the generals, and should submit a proposition to that effect to the approaching assembly.

It so chanced that immediately after this first assembly, during the interval before the meeting of the senate or the holding of the second assembly, the three days of the solemn annual festival called Apaturia intervened; early days in the month of October. This was the characteristic festival of the Ionic race; handed down from a period anterior to the constitution of Kleisthenês, and to the ten new tribes each containing so many demes, and bringing together the citizens in their primitive unions of family, gens, phratry, etc., the aggregate of which had originally constituted the four Ionic tribes, now superannuated. At the Apaturia, the family ceremonies were gone through; marriages were enrolled, acts of adoption were promulgated and certified, the names of youthful citizens first entered on the gentile and phratric roll; sacrifices were jointly celebrated by these family assemblages to Zeus Phratrius, Athênê, and other deities, accompanied with much festivity and enjoyment. A solemnity like this, celebrated every year, naturally provoked in each of these little unions, questions of affectionate interest: “Who are those that were with us last year, but are not here now? The absent, where are they? The deceased, where or how did they die?” Now the crews of the twenty-five Athenian triremes, lost at the battle of Arginusæ, at least all those among them who were freemen, had been members of some one of these family unions, and were missed on this occasion. The answer to the above inquiry, in their case, would be one alike melancholy and revolting: “They fought like brave men, and had their full share in the victory: their trireme was broken, disabled, and made a wreck, in the battle: aboard this wreck they were left to perish, while their victorious generals and comrades made not the smallest effort to preserve them.” To hear this about fathers, brothers, and friends,—and to hear it in the midst of a sympathizing family circle,—was well calculated to stir up an agony of shame, sorrow, and anger, united; an intolerable sentiment, which required as a satisfaction, and seemed even to impose as a duty, the punishment of those who had left these brave comrades to perish. Many of the gentile unions, in spite of the usually festive and cheerful character of the Apaturia, were so absorbed by this sentiment, that they clothed themselves in black garments and shaved their heads in token of mourning, resolving to present themselves in this guise at the coming assembly, and to appease the manes of their abandoned kinsmen by every possible effort to procure retribution on the generals.[285]

Xenophon in his narrative describes this burst of feeling at the Apaturia as false and factitious, and the men in mourning as a number of hired impostors, got up by the artifices of Theramenês,[286] to destroy the generals. But the case was one in which no artifice was needed. The universal and self-acting stimulants of intense human sympathy stand here so prominently marked, that it is not simply superfluous but even misleading, to look behind for the gold and machinations of a political instigator. Theramenês might do all that he could to turn the public displeasure against the generals, and to prevent it from turning against himself: it is also certain that he did much to annihilate their defence. He may thus have had some influence in directing the sentiment against them, but he could have had little or none in creating it. Nay, it is not too much to say that no factitious agency of this sort could ever have prevailed on the Athenian public to desecrate such a festival as the Apaturia, by all the insignia of mourning. If they did so, it could only have been through some internal emotion alike spontaneous and violent, such as the late event was well calculated to arouse.

Moreover, what can be more improbable than the allegation that a great number of men were hired to personate the fathers or brothers of deceased Athenian citizens, all well known to their really surviving kinsmen? What more improbable, than the story that numbers of men would suffer themselves to be hired, not merely to put on black clothes for the day, which might be taken off in the evening, but also to shave their heads, thus stamping upon themselves an ineffaceable evidence of the fraud, until the hair had grown again? That a cunning man, like Theramenês, should thus distribute his bribes to a number of persons, all presenting naked heads which testified his guilt, when there were real kinsmen surviving to prove the fact of personation? That having done this, he should never be arraigned or accused for it afterwards,—neither during the prodigious reaction of feeling which took place after the condemnation of the generals, which Xenophon himself so strongly attests, and which fell so heavily upon Kallixenus and others,—nor by his bitter enemy Kritias, under the government of the Thirty? Not only Theramenês is never mentioned as having been afterwards accused, but, for aught that appears, he preserved his political influence and standing, with little if any abatement. This is one forcible reason among many others, for disbelieving the bribes and the all-pervading machinations which Xenophon represents him as having put forth, in order to procure the condemnation of the generals. His speaking in the first public assembly, and his numerous partisans voting in the second, doubtless contributed much to that result, and by his own desire. But to ascribe to his bribes and intrigues the violent and overruling emotion of the Athenian public, is, in my judgment, a supposition alike unnatural and preposterous both with regard to them and with regard to him.

When the senate met, after the Apaturia, to discharge the duty confided to it by the last public assembly, of determining in what manner the generals should be judged, and submitting their opinion for the consideration of the next assembly, the senator Kallixenus—at the instigation of Theramenês, if Xenophon is to be believed—proposed, and the majority of the senate adopted, the following resolution: “The Athenian people having already heard, in the previous assembly, both the accusation and the defence of the generals, shall at once come to a vote on the subject by tribes. For each tribe two urns shall be placed, and the herald of each tribe shall proclaim: All citizens who think the generals guilty, for not having rescued the warriors who had conquered in the battle, shall drop their pebbles into the foremost urn; all who think otherwise, into the hindmost. Should the generals be pronounced guilty, by the result of the voting, they shall be delivered to the Eleven, and punished with death; their property shall be confiscated, the tenth part being set apart for the goddess Athênê.”[287] One single vote was to embrace the case of all the eight generals.[288]

The unparalleled burst of mournful and vindictive feeling at the festival of the Apaturia, extending by contagion from the relatives of the deceased to many other citizens,—and the probability thus created that the coming assembly would sanction the most violent measures against the generals,—probably emboldened Kallixenus to propose, and prompted the senate to adopt, this deplorable resolution. As soon as the assembly met, it was read and moved by Kallixenus himself, as coming from the senate in discharge of the commission imposed upon them by the people.

It was heard by a large portion of the assembly with well-merited indignation. Its enormity consisted in breaking through the established constitutional maxims and judicial practices of the Athenian democracy. It deprived the accused generals of all fair trial; alleging, with a mere faint pretence of truth which was little better than utter falsehood, that their defence as well as their accusation had been heard in the preceding assembly. Now there has been no people, ancient or modern, in whose view the formalities of judicial trial were habitually more sacred and indispensable than in that of the Athenians; formalities including ample notice beforehand to the accused party, with a measured and sufficient space of time for him to make his defence before the dikasts; while those dikasts were men who had been sworn beforehand as a body, yet were selected by lot for each occasion as individuals. From all these securities the generals were now to be debarred; and submitted, for their lives, honors, and fortunes, to a simple vote of the unsworn public assembly, without hearing or defence. Nor was this all. One single vote was to be taken in condemnation or absolution of the eight generals collectively. Now there was a rule in Attic judicial procedure, called the psephism of Kannônus,—originally adopted, we do not know when, on the proposition of a citizen of that name, as a psephism or decree for some particular case, but since generalized into common practice, and grown into great prescriptive reverence,—which peremptorily forbade any such collective trial or sentence, and directed that a separate judicial vote should, in all cases, be taken for or against each accused party. The psephism of Kannônus, together with all the other respected maxims of Athenian criminal justice, was here audaciously trampled under foot.[289]

As soon as the resolution was read in the public assembly, Euryptolemus, an intimate friend of the generals, denounced it as grossly illegal and unconstitutional, presenting a notice of indictment against Kallixenus, under the Graphê Paranomôn, for having proposed a resolution of that tenor. Several other citizens supported the notice of indictment, which, according to the received practice of Athens, would arrest the farther progress of the measure until the trial of its proposer had been consummated. Nor was there ever any proposition made at Athens, to which the Graphê Paranomôn more closely and righteously applied.

But the numerous partisans of Kallixenus—especially the men who stood by in habits of mourning, with shaven heads, agitated with sad recollections and thirst of vengeance—were in no temper to respect this constitutional impediment to the discussion of what had already been passed by the senate. They loudly clamored, that “it was intolerable to see a small knot of citizens thus hindering the assembled people from doing what they chose:” and one of their number, Lykiskus, even went so far as to threaten that those who tendered the indictment against Kallixenus should be judged by the same vote along with the generals, if they would not let the assembly proceed to consider and determine on the motion just read.[290] The excited disposition of the large party thus congregated, farther inflamed by this menace of Lykiskus, was wound up to its highest pitch by various other speakers; especially by one, who stood forward and said: “Athenians! I was myself a wrecked man in the battle; I escaped only by getting upon an empty meal-tub; but my comrades, perishing on the wrecks near me, implored me, if I should myself be saved, to make known to the Athenian people, that their generals had abandoned to death warriors who had bravely conquered in behalf of their country.” Even in the most tranquil state of the public mind, such a communication of the last words of these drowning men, reported by an ear-witness, would have been heard with emotion; but under the actual predisposing excitement, it went to the inmost depth of the hearers’ souls, and marked the generals as doomed men.[291] Doubtless there were other similar statements, not expressly mentioned to us, bringing to view the same fact in other ways, and all contributing to aggravate the violence of the public manifestations; which at length reached such a point, that Euryptolemus was forced to withdraw his notice of indictment against Kallixenus.

Now, however, a new form of resistance sprung up, still preventing the proposition from being taken into consideration by the assembly. Some of the prytanes,—or senators of the presiding tribe, on that occasion the tribe Antiochis,—the legal presidents of the assembly, refused to entertain or put the question; which, being illegal and unconstitutional, not only inspired them with aversion, but also rendered them personally open to penalties. Kallixenus employed against them the same menaces which Lykiskus had uttered against Euryptolemus: he threatened, amidst encouraging clamor from many persons in the assembly, to include them in the same accusation with the generals. So intimidated were the prytanes by the incensed manifestations of the assembly, that all of them, except one, relinquished their opposition, and agreed to put the question. The single obstinate prytanis, whose refusal no menace could subdue, was a man whose name we read with peculiar interest, and in whom an impregnable adherence to law and duty was only one among many other titles to reverence. It was the philosopher Sokratês; on this trying occasion, once throughout a life of seventy years, discharging a political office, among the fifty senators taken by lot from the tribe Antiochis. Sokratês could not be induced to withdraw his protest, so that the question was ultimately put by the remaining prytanes without his concurrence.[292] It should be observed that his resistance did not imply any opinion as to the guilt or innocence of the generals, but applied simply to the illegal and unconstitutional proposition now submitted for determining their fate; a proposition, which he must already have opposed once before, in his capacity of member of the senate.

The constitutional impediments having been thus violently overthrown, the question was regularly put by the prytanes to the assembly. At once the clamorous outcry ceased, and those who had raised it resumed their behavior of Athenian citizens, patient hearers of speeches and opinions directly opposed to their own. Nothing is more deserving of notice than this change of demeanor. The champions of the men drowned on the wrecks had resolved to employ as much force as was required to eliminate those preliminary constitutional objections, in themselves indisputable, which precluded the discussion. But so soon as the discussion was once begun, they were careful not to give to the resolution the appearance of being carried by force. Euryptolemus, the personal friend of the generals, was allowed not only to move an amendment negativing the proposition of Kallixenus, but also to develop it in a long speech, which Xenophon sets before us.[293]

His speech is one of great skill and judgment in reference to the case before him and to the temper of the assembly. Beginning with a gentle censure on his friends, the generals Periklês and Diomedon, for having prevailed on their colleagues to abstain from mentioning, in their first official letter, the orders given to Theramenês, he represented them as now in danger of becoming victims to the base conspiracy of the latter, and threw himself upon the justice of the people to grant them a fair trial. He besought the people to take full time to instruct themselves before they pronounced so solemn and irrevocable a sentence; to trust only to their own judgment, but at the same time to take security that judgment should be pronounced after full information and impartial hearing, and thus to escape that bitter and unavailing remorse which would otherwise surely follow. He proposed that the generals should be tried each separately, according to the psephism of Kannônus, with proper notice, and ample time allowed for the defence as well as for the accusation; but that, if found guilty, they should suffer the heaviest and most disgraceful penalties, his own relation Periklês the first. This was the only way of striking the guilty, of saving the innocent, and of preserving Athens from the ingratitude and impiety of condemning to death, without trial as well as contrary to law, generals who had just rendered to her so important a service. And what could the people be afraid of? Did they fear lest the power of trial should slip out of their hands, that they were so impatient to leap over all the delays prescribed by the law?[294] To the worst of public traitors, Aristarchus, they had granted a day with full notice for trial, with all the legal means for making his defence: and would they now show such flagrant contrariety of measure to victorious and faithful officers? “Be not ye (he said) the men to act thus, Athenians. The laws are your own work; it is through them that ye chiefly hold your greatness: cherish them, and attempt not any proceeding without their sanction.”[295]

Euryptolemus then shortly recapitulated the proceedings after the battle, with the violence of the storm which had prevented approach to the wrecks; adding that one of the generals, now in peril, had himself been on board a broken ship, and had only escaped by a fortunate accident.[296] Gaining courage from his own harangue, he concluded by reminding the Athenians of the brilliancy of the victory, and by telling them that they ought in justice to wreath the brows of the conquerors, instead of following those wicked advisers who pressed for their execution.[297]

It is no small proof of the force of established habits of public discussion, that the men in mourning and with shaven heads, who had been a few minutes before in a state of furious excitement, should patiently hear out a speech so effective and so conflicting with their strongest sentiments as this of Euryptolemus. Perhaps others may have spoken also; but Xenophon does not mention them. It is remarkable that he does not name Theramenês as taking any part in this last debate.

The substantive amendment proposed by Euryptolemus was that the generals should be tried each separately, according to the psephism of Kannônus; implying notice to be given to each, of the day of trial, and full time for each to defend himself. This proposition, as well as that of the senate moved by Kallixenus, was submitted to the vote of the assembly; hands being separately held up, first for one, next for the other. The prytanes pronounced the amendment of Euryptolemus to be carried. But a citizen named Meneklês impeached their decision as wrong or invalid, alleging seemingly some informality or trick in putting the question, or perhaps erroneous report of the comparative show of hands. We must recollect that in this case the prytanes were declared partisans. Feeling that they were doing wrong in suffering so illegal a proposition as that of Kallixenus to be put at all, and that the adoption of it would be a great public mischief, they would hardly scruple to try and defeat it even by some unfair manœuvre. But the exception taken by Meneklês constrained them to put the question over again, and they were then obliged to pronounce that the majority was in favor of the proposition of Kallixenus.[298]

That proposition was shortly afterwards carried into effect by disposing the two urns for each tribe, and collecting the votes of the citizens individually. The condemnatory vote prevailed, and all the eight generals were thus found guilty; whether by a large or a small majority we should have been glad to learn, but are not told. The majority was composed mostly of those who acted under a feeling of genuine resentment against the generals, but in part also of the friends and partisans of Theramenês,[299] not inconsiderable in number. The six generals then at Athens,—Periklês (son of the great statesman of that name by Aspasia), Diomedon, Erasinidês, Thrasyllus, Lysias, and Aristokratês,—were then delivered to the Eleven, and perished by the usual draught of hemlock; their property being confiscated, as the decree of the senate prescribed.

Respecting the condemnation of these unfortunate men, pronounced without any of the recognized tutelary preliminaries for accused persons, there can be only one opinion. It was an act of violent injustice and illegality, deeply dishonoring the men who passed it, and the Athenian character generally. In either case, whether the generals were guilty or innocent, this censure is deserved, for judicial precautions are not less essential in dealing with the guilty than with the innocent. But it is deserved in an aggravated form, when we consider that the men against whom such injustice was perpetrated, had just come from achieving a glorious victory. Against the democratical constitution of Athens, it furnishes no ground for censure, nor against the habits and feelings which that constitution tended to implant in the individual citizen. Both the one and the other strenuously forbade the deed; nor could the Athenians ever have so dishonored themselves, if they had not, under a momentary ferocious excitement, risen in insurrection not less against the forms of their own democracy, than against the most sacred restraints of their habitual constitutional morality.

If we wanted proof of this, the facts of the immediate future would abundantly supply it. After a short time had elapsed, every man in Athens became heartily ashamed of the deed.[300] A vote of the public assembly was passed,[301] decreeing that those who had misguided the people on this occasion ought to be brought to judicial trial, that Kallixenus with four others should be among the number, and that bail should be taken for their appearance. This was accordingly done, and the parties were kept under custody of the sureties themselves, who were responsible for their appearance on the day of trial. But presently both foreign misfortunes and internal sedition began to press too heavily on Athens to leave any room for other thoughts, as we shall see in the next chapter. Kallixenus and his accomplices found means to escape before the day of trial arrived, and remained in exile until after the dominion of the Thirty and the restoration of the democracy. Kallixenus then returned under the general amnesty. But the general amnesty protected him only against legal pursuit, not against the hostile memory of the people. “Detested by all, he died of hunger,” says Xenophon;[302] a memorable proof how much the condemnation of these six generals shocked the standing democratical sentiment at Athens.

From what cause did this temporary burst of wrong arise, so foreign to the habitual character of the people? Even under the strongest political provocation, and towards the most hated traitors,—as Euryptolemus himself remarked, by citing the case of Aristarchus,—after the Four Hundred as well as after the Thirty, the Athenians never committed the like wrong, never deprived an accused party of the customary judicial securities. How then came they to do it here, where the generals condemned were not only not traitors, but had just signalized themselves by a victorious combat? No Theramenês could have brought about this phenomenon; no deep-laid oligarchical plot is, in my judgment, to be called in as an explanation.[303] The true explanation is different, and of serious moment to state. Political hatred, intense as it might be, was never dissociated, in the mind of a citizen of Athens, from the democratical forms of procedure: but the men, who stood out here as actors, had broken loose from the obligations of citizenship and commonwealth, and surrendered themselves, heart and soul, to the family sympathies and antipathies; feelings first kindled, and justly kindled, by the thought that their friends and relatives had been left to perish unheeded on the wrecks; next, inflamed into preternatural and overwhelming violence by the festival of the Apaturia, where all the religious traditions connected with the ancient family tie, all those associations which imposed upon the relatives of a murdered man the duty of pursuing the murderer, were expanded into detail and worked up by their appropriate renovating solemnity. The garb of mourning and the shaving of the head—phenomena unknown at Athens, either in a political assembly or in a religious festival—were symbols of temporary transformation in the internal man. He could think of nothing but his drowning relatives, together with the generals as having abandoned them to death, and his own duty as survivor to insure to them vengeance and satisfaction for such abandonment. Under this self-justifying impulse, the shortest and surest proceeding appeared the best, whatever amount of political wrong it might entail:[304] nay, in this case it appeared the only proceeding really sure, since the interposition of the proper judicial delays, coupled with severance of trial on successive days, according to the psephism of Kannônus, would probably have saved the lives of five out of the six generals, if not of all the six. When we reflect that such absorbing sentiment was common, at one and the same time, to a large proportion of the Athenians, we shall see the explanation of that misguided vote, both of the senate and of the ekklesia, which sent the six generals to an illegal ballot, and of the subsequent ballot which condemned them. Such is the natural behavior of those who, having for the moment forgotten their sense of political commonwealth, become degraded into exclusive family men. The family affections, productive as they are of so large an amount of gentle sympathy and mutual happiness in the interior circle, are also liable to generate disregard, malice, sometimes even ferocious vengeance, towards others. Powerful towards good generally, they are not less powerful occasionally towards evil; and require, not less than the selfish propensities, constant subordinating control from that moral reason which contemplates for its end the security and happiness of all. And when a man, either from low civilization, has never known this large moral reason,—or when from some accidental stimulus, righteous in the origin, but wrought up into fanaticism by the conspiring force of religious as well as family sympathies, he comes to place his pride and virtue in discarding its supremacy,—there is scarcely any amount of evil or injustice which he may not be led to perpetrate, by a blind obedience to the narrow instincts of relationship. “Ces pères de famille sont capables de tout,” was the satirical remark of Talleyrand upon the gross public jobbing so largely practised by those who sought place or promotion for their sons. The same words understood in a far more awful sense, and generalized for other cases of relationship, sum up the moral of this melancholy proceeding at Athens.

Lastly, it must never be forgotten that the generals themselves were also largely responsible in the case. Through the unjustifiable fury of the movement against them, they perished like innocent men, without trial, “inauditi et indefensi, tamquam innocentes, perierunt;” but it does not follow that they were really innocent. I feel persuaded that neither with an English, nor French, nor American fleet, could such events have taken place as those which followed the victory of Arginusæ. Neither admiral nor seamen, after gaining a victory and driving off the enemy, could have endured the thoughts of going back to their anchorage, leaving their own disabled wrecks unmanageable on the waters, with many living comrades aboard, helpless, and depending upon extraneous succor for all their chance of escape. That the generals at Arginusæ did this, stands confessed by their own advocate Euryptolemus,[305] though they must have known well the condition of disabled ships after a naval combat, and some ships even of the victorious fleet were sure to be disabled. If these generals, after their victory, instead of sailing back to land, had employed themselves first of all in visiting the crippled ships, there would have been ample time to perform this duty, and to save all the living men aboard, before the storm came on. This is the natural inference, even upon their own showing; this is what any English, French, or American naval commander would have thought it an imperative duty to do. What degree of blame is imputable to Theramenês, and how far the generals were discharged by shifting the responsibility to him, is a point which we cannot now determine. But the storm, which is appealed to as a justification of both, rests upon evidence too questionable to serve that purpose, where the neglect of duty was so serious, and cost the lives probably of more than one thousand brave men. At least, the Athenian people at home, when they heard the criminations and recriminations between the generals on one side and Theramenês on the other,—each of them in his character of accuser implying that the storm was no valid obstacle, though each, if pushed for a defence, fell back upon it as a resource in case of need,—the Athenian people could not but look upon the storm more as an afterthought to excuse previous omissions, than as a terrible reality nullifying all the ardor and resolution of men bent on doing their duty. It was in this way that the intervention of Theramenês chiefly contributed to the destruction of the generals, not by those manœuvres ascribed to him in Xenophon: he destroyed all belief in the storm as a real and all-covering hindrance. The general impression of the public at Athens—in my opinion, a natural and unavoidable impression—was, that there had been most culpable negligence in regard to the wrecks, through which negligence alone the seamen on board perished. This negligence dishonors, more or less, the armament at Arginusæ as well as the generals: but the generals were the persons responsible to the public at home, who felt for the fate of the deserted seamen more justly as well as more generously than their comrades in the fleet.

In spite, therefore, of the guilty proceeding to which a furious exaggeration of this sentiment drove the Athenians,—in spite of the sympathy which this has naturally and justly procured for the condemned generals,—the verdict of impartial history will pronounce that the sentiment itself was well founded, and that the generals deserved censure and disgrace. The Athenian people might with justice proclaim to them: “Whatever be the grandeur of your victory, we can neither rejoice in it ourselves, nor allow you to reap honor from it, if we find that you have left many hundreds of those who helped in gaining it to be drowned on board the wrecks without making any effort to save them, when such effort might well have proved successful.”