Volume 8 — CHAPTER LXV. FROM THE BATTLE OF ARGINUSÆ TO THE RESTORATION OF THE DEMOCRACY AT ATHENS, AFTER THE EXPULSION OF THE THIRTY.

The victory of Arginusæ gave for the time decisive mastery of the Asiatic seas to the Athenian fleet; and is even said to have so discouraged the Lacedæmonians, as to induce them to send propositions of peace to Athens. But this statement[306] is open to much doubt, and I think it most probable that no such propositions were made. Great as the victory was, we look in vain for any positive results accruing to Athens. After an unsuccessful attempt on Chios, the victorious fleet went to Samos, where it seems to have remained until the following year, without any farther movements than were necessary for the purpose of procuring money.

Meanwhile Eteonikus, who collected the remains of the defeated Peloponnesian fleet at Chios, being left unsupplied with money by Cyrus, found himself much straitened, and was compelled to leave the seamen unpaid. During the later summer and autumn, these men maintained themselves by laboring for hire on the Chian lands; but when winter came, this resource ceased, so that they found themselves unable to procure even clothes or shoes. In such forlorn condition, many of them entered into a conspiracy to assail and plunder the town of Chios; a day was named for the enterprise, and it was agreed that the conspirators should know each other by wearing a straw, or reed. Informed of the design, Eteonikus was at the same time intimidated by the number of these straw-bearers; he saw that if he dealt with the conspirators openly and ostensibly, they might perhaps rush to arms and succeed in plundering the town; at any rate, a conflict would arise in which many of the allies would be slain, which would produce the worst effect upon all future operations. Accordingly, resorting to stratagem, he took with him a guard of fifteen men armed with daggers, and marched through the town of Chios. Meeting presently one of these straw-bearers,—a man with a complaint in his eyes, coming out of a surgeon’s house,—he directed his guards to put the man to death on the spot. A crowd gathered round, with astonishment as well as sympathy, and inquired on what ground the man was put to death; upon which Eteonikus ordered his guards to reply, that it was because he wore a straw. The news became diffused, and immediately the remaining persons who wore straws became so alarmed as to throw their straws away.[307]

Eteonikus availed himself of the alarm to demand money from the Chians, as a condition of carrying away this starving and perilous armament. Having obtained from them a month’s pay, he immediately put the troops on shipboard, taking pains to encourage them, and make them fancy that he was unacquainted with the recent conspiracy.

The Chians and the other allies of Sparta presently assembled at Ephesus to consult, and resolved, in conjunction with Cyrus, to despatch envoys to the ephors, requesting that Lysander might be sent out a second time as admiral. It was not the habit of Sparta ever to send out the same man as admiral a second time, after his year of service. Nevertheless, the ephors complied with the request substantially, sending out Arakus as admiral, but Lysander along with him, under the title of secretary, invested with all the real powers of command.

Lysander, having reached Ephesus about the beginning of B.C. 405, immediately applied himself with vigor to renovate both Lacedæmonian power and his own influence. The partisans in the various allied cities, whose favor he had assiduously cultivated during his last year’s command, the clubs and factious combinations, which he had organized and stimulated into a partnership of mutual ambition, all hailed his return with exultation. Discountenanced and kept down by the generous patriotism of his predecessor Kallikratidas, they now sprang into renewed activity, and became zealous in aiding Lysander to refit and augment his fleet. Nor was Cyrus less hearty in his preference than before. On arriving at Ephesus, Lysander went speedily to visit him at Sardis, and solicited a renewal of the pecuniary aid. The young prince said in reply that all the funds which he had received from Susa had already been expended, with much more besides; in testimony of which he exhibited a specification of the sums furnished to each Peloponnesian officer. Nevertheless, such was his partiality for Lysander, that he complied even with the additional demand now made, so as to send him away satisfied. The latter was thus enabled to return to Ephesus in a state for restoring the effective condition of his fleet. He made good at once all the arrears of pay due to the seamen, constituted new trierarchs, summoned Eteonikus with the fleet from Chios, together with all the other scattered squadrons, and directed that fresh triremes should be immediately put on the stocks at Antandrus.[308]

In none of the Asiatic towns was the effect of Lysander’s second advent felt more violently than at Milêtus. He had there a powerful faction or association of friends, who had done their best to hamper and annoy Kallikratidas on his first arrival, but had been put to silence, and even forced to make a show of zeal, by the straightforward resolution of that noble-minded admiral. Eager to reimburse themselves for this humiliation, they now formed a conspiracy, with the privity and concurrence of Lysander, to seize the government for themselves. They determined, if Plutarch and Diodorus are to be credited, to put down the existing democracy, and establish an oligarchy in its place. But we cannot believe that there could have existed a democracy at Milêtus, which had now been for five years in dependence upon Sparta and the Persians jointly. We must rather understand the movement as a conflict between two oligarchical parties; the friends of Lysander being more thoroughly self-seeking and anti-popular than their opponents, and perhaps even crying them down, by comparison, as a democracy. Lysander lent himself to the scheme, fanned the ambition of the conspirators, who were at one time disposed to a compromise, and even betrayed the government into a false security, by promises of support which he never intended to fulfil. At the festival of the Dionysia, the conspirators, rising in arms, seized forty of their chief opponents in their houses, and three hundred more in the market-place; while the government—confiding in the promises of Lysander, who affected to reprove, but secretly continued instigating the insurgents—made but a faint resistance. The three hundred and forty leaders thus seized, probably men who had gone heartily along with Kallikratidas, were all put to death; and a still larger number of citizens, not less than one thousand, fled into exile. Milêtus thus passed completely into the hands of the friends and partisans of Lysander.[309]

It would appear that factious movements in other towns, less revolting in respect of bloodshed and perfidy, yet still of similar character to that of Milêtus, marked the reappearance of Lysander in Asia; placing the towns more and more in the hands of his partisans. While thus acquiring greater ascendency among the allies, Lysander received a summons from Cyrus to visit him at Sardis. The young prince had just been sent for to come and visit his father Darius, who was both old and dangerously ill, in Media. About to depart for this purpose, he carried his confidence in Lysander so far as to delegate to him the management of his satrapy and his entire revenues. Besides his admiration for the superior energy and capacity of the Greek character, with which he had only recently contracted acquaintance; and besides his esteem for the personal disinterestedness of Lysander, attested as it had been by the conduct of the latter in the first visit and banquet at Sardis; Cyrus was probably induced to this step by the fear of raising up to himself a rival, if he trusted the like power to any Persian grandee. At the same time that he handed over all his tributes and his reserved funds to Lysander, he assured him of his steady friendship both towards himself and towards the Lacedæmonians; and concluded by entreating that he would by no means engage in any general action with the Athenians, unless at great advantage in point of numbers. The defeat of Arginusæ having strengthened his preference for this dilatory policy, he promised that not only the Persian treasures, but also the Phenician fleet, should be brought into active employment for the purpose of crushing Athens.[310]

Thus armed with an unprecedented command of Persian treasure, and seconded by ascendent factions in all the allied cities, Lysander was more powerful than any Lacedæmonian commander had ever been since the commencement of the war. Having his fleet well paid, he could keep it united, and direct it whither he chose, without the necessity of dispersing it in roving squadrons for the purpose of levying money. It is probably from a corresponding necessity that we are to explain the inaction of the Athenian fleet at Samos; for we hear of no serious operations undertaken by it, during the whole year following the victory of Arginusæ, although under the command of an able and energetic man, Konon, together with Philoklês and Adeimantus; to whom were added, during the spring of 405 B.C., three other generals, Tydeus, Menander, and Kephisodotus. It appears that Theramenês also was put up and elected one of the generals, but rejected when submitted to the confirmatory examination called the dokimasy.[311] The fleet comprised one hundred and eighty triremes, rather a greater number than that of Lysander; to whom they in vain offered battle near his station at Ephesus. Finding him not disposed to a general action, they seem to have dispersed to plunder Chios, and various portions of the Asiatic coast; while Lysander, keeping his fleet together, first sailed southward from Ephesus, stormed and plundered a semi-Hellenic town in the Kerameikan gulf, named Kedreiæ, which was in alliance with Athens, and thence proceeded to Rhodes.[312] He was even bold enough to make an excursion across the Ægean to the coast of Ægina and Attica, where he had an interview with Agis, who came from Dekeleia to the sea-coast.[313] The Athenians were prepared to follow him thither when they learned that he had recrossed the Ægean, and he soon afterwards appeared with all his fleet at the Hellespont, which important pass they had left unguarded. Lysander went straight to Abydos, still the great Peloponnesian station in the strait, occupied by Thorax as harmost with a land force; and immediately proceeded to attack, both by sea and land, the neighboring town of Lampsakus, which was taken by storm. It was wealthy in every way, and abundantly stocked with bread and wine, so that the soldiers obtained a large booty; but Lysander left the free inhabitants untouched.[314]

The Athenian fleet seems to have been employed in plundering Chios, when it received news that the Lacedæmonian commander was at the Hellespont engaged in the siege of Lampsakus. Either from the want of money, or from other causes which we do not understand, Konon and his colleagues were partly inactive, partly behindhand with Lysander, throughout all this summer. They now followed him to the Hellespont, sailing out on the sea-side of Chios and Lesbos, away from the Asiatic coast, which was all unfriendly to them. They reached Elæus, at the southern extremity of the Chersonese, with their powerful fleet of one hundred and eighty triremes, just in time to hear, while at their morning meal, that Lysander was already master of Lampsakus; upon which they immediately proceeded up the strait to Sestos, and from thence, after stopping only to collect a few provisions, still farther up, to a place called Ægospotami.[315]

Ægospotami, or Goat’s River—a name of fatal sound to all subsequent Athenians—was a place which had nothing to recommend it except that it was directly opposite to Lampsakus, separated by a breadth of strait about one mile and three-quarters. But it was an open beach, without harbor, without good anchorage, without either houses or inhabitants or supplies; so that everything necessary for this large army had to be fetched from Sestos, about one mile and three-quarters distant even by land, and yet more distant by sea, since it was necessary to round a headland. Such a station was highly inconvenient and dangerous to an ancient naval armament, without any organized commissariat; since the seamen, being compelled to go to a distance from their ships in order to get their meals, were not easily reassembled. Yet this was the station chosen by the Athenian generals, with the full design of compelling Lysander to fight a battle. But the Lacedæmonian admiral, who was at Lampsakus, in a good harbor, with a well-furnished town in his rear, and a land-force to coöperate, had no intention of accepting the challenge of his enemies at the moment which suited their convenience. When the Athenians sailed across the strait the next morning, they found all his ships fully manned,—the men having already taken their morning meal,—and ranged in perfect order of battle, with the land-force disposed ashore to lend assistance; but with strict orders to await attack and not to move forward. Not daring to attack him in such a position, yet unable to draw him out by manœuvring all the day, the Athenians were at length obliged to go back to Ægospotami. But Lysander directed a few swift-sailing vessels to follow them, nor would he suffer his own men to disembark until he thus ascertained that their seamen had actually dispersed ashore.[316]

For four successive days this same scene was repeated; the Athenians becoming each day more confident in their own superior strength, and more full of contempt for the apparent cowardice of the enemy. It was in vain that Alkibiadês—who from his own private forts in the Chersonese witnessed what was passing—rode up to the station and remonstrated with the generals on the exposed condition of the fleet on this open shore; urgently advising them to move round to Sestos, where they would be both close to their own supplies and safe from attack, as Lysander was at Lampsakus, and from whence they could go forth to fight whenever they chose. But the Athenian generals, especially Tydeus and Menander, disregarded his advice, and even dismissed him with the insulting taunt, that they were now in command, not he.[317] Continuing thus in their exposed position, the Athenian seamen on each successive day became more and more careless of their enemy, and rash in dispersing the moment they returned back to their own shore. At length, on the fifth day, Lysander ordered the scout-ships, which he sent forth to watch the Athenians on their return, to hoist a bright shield as a signal, as soon as they should see the ships at their anchorage and the crews ashore in quest of their meal. The moment he beheld this welcome signal, he gave orders to his entire fleet to row across as swiftly as possible from Lampsakus to Ægospotami, while Thorax marched along the strand with the land-force in case of need. Nothing could be more complete or decisive than the surprise of the Athenian fleet. All the triremes were caught at their moorings ashore, some entirely deserted, others with one or at most two of the three tiers of rowers which formed their complement. Out of all the total of one hundred and eighty, only twelve were found in tolerable order and preparation;[318] the trireme of Konon himself, together with a squadron of seven under his immediate orders, and the consecrated ship called paralus, always manned by the élite of the Athenian seamen, being among them. It was in vain that Konon, on seeing the fleet of Lysander approaching, employed his utmost efforts to get his fleet manned and in some condition for resistance. The attempt was desperate, and the utmost which he could do was to escape himself with the small squadron of twelve, including the paralus. All the remaining triremes, nearly one hundred and seventy in number, were captured by Lysander on the shore, defenceless, and seemingly without the least attempt on the part of any one to resist. He landed, and made prisoners most of the crews ashore, though some of them fled and found shelter in the neighboring forts. This prodigious and unparalleled victory was obtained, not merely without the loss of a single ship, but almost without that of a single man.[319]

Of the number of prisoners taken by Lysander,—which must have been very great, since the total crews of one hundred and eighty triremes were not less than thirty-six thousand men,[320]—we hear only of three thousand or four thousand native Athenians, though this number cannot represent all the native Athenians in the fleet. The Athenian generals Philoklês and Adeimantus were certainly taken, and seemingly all except Konon. Some of the defeated armament took refuge in Sestos, which, however, surrendered with little resistance to the victor. He admitted them to capitulation, on condition of their going back immediately to Athens, and nowhere else: for he was desirous to multiply as much as possible the numbers assembled in that city, knowing well that the city would be the sooner starved out. Konon too was well aware that, to go back to Athens, after the ruin of the entire fleet, was to become one of the certain prisoners in a doomed city, and to meet, besides, the indignation of his fellow-citizens, so well deserved by the generals collectively. Accordingly, he resolved to take shelter with Evagoras, prince of Salamis in the island of Cyprus, sending the paralus, with some others of the twelve fugitive triremes, to make known the fatal news at Athens. But before he went thither, he crossed the strait—with singular daring, under the circumstances—to Cape Abarnis in the territory of Lampsakus, where the great sails of Lysander’s triremes, always taken out when a trireme was made ready for fighting, lay seemingly unguarded. These sails he took away, so as to lessen the enemy’s powers of pursuit, and then made the best of his way to Cyprus.[321]

On the very day of the victory, Lysander sent off the Milesian privateer Theopompus to proclaim it at Sparta, who, by a wonderful speed of rowing, arrived there and made it known on the third day after starting. The captured ships were towed off and the prisoners carried across to Lampsakus, where a general assembly of the victorious allies was convened, to determine in what manner the prisoners should be treated. In this assembly, the most bitter inculpations were put forth against the Athenians, as to the manner in which they had recently dealt with their captives. The Athenian general Philoklês, having captured a Corinthian and Andrian trireme, had put the crews to death by hurling them headlong from a precipice. It was not difficult, in Grecian warfare, for each of the belligerents to cite precedents of cruelty against the other; but in this debate, some speakers affirmed that the Athenians had deliberated what they should do with their prisoners, in case they had been victorious at Ægospotami; and that they had determined—chiefly on the motion of Philoklês, but in spite of the opposition of Adeimantus—that they would cut off the right hands of all who were captured. Whatever opinion Philoklês may have expressed personally, it is highly improbable that any such determination was ever taken by the Athenians.[322] In this assembly of the allies, however, besides all that could be said against Athens with truth, doubtless the most extravagant falsehoods found ready credence. All the Athenian prisoners captured at Ægospotami, three thousand or four thousand in number, were massacred forthwith, Philoklês himself at their head.[323] The latter, taunted by Lysander with his cruel execution of the Corinthian and Andrian crews, disdained to return any answer, but placed himself in conspicuous vestments at the head of the prisoners led out to execution. If we may believe Pausanias, even the bodies of the prisoners were left unburied.

Never was a victory more complete in itself, more overwhelming in its consequences, or more thoroughly disgraceful to the defeated generals, taken collectively, than that of Ægospotami. Whether it was in reality very glorious to Lysander, is doubtful; for it was the general belief afterwards, not merely at Athens, but seemingly in other parts of Greece also, that the Athenian fleet was sold to perdition by the treason of some of its own commanders. Of this suspicion both Konon and Philoklês stand clear. Adeimantus was named as the chief traitor, and Tydeus along with him.[324] Konon even preferred an accusation against Adeimantus to this effect,[325] probably by letter written home from Cyprus, and perhaps by some formal declaration made several years afterwards, when he returned to Athens as victor from the battle of Knidus. The truth of the charge cannot be positively demonstrated, but all the circumstances of the battle tend to render it probable, as well as the fact that Konon alone among all the generals was found in a decent state of preparation. Indeed we may add, that the utter impotence and inertness of the numerous Athenian fleet during the whole summer of 405 B.C. conspire to suggest a similar explanation. Nor could Lysander, master as he was of all the treasures of Cyrus, apply any portion of them more efficaciously than in corrupting the majority of the six Athenian generals, so as to nullify all the energy and ability of Konon.

The great defeat of Ægospotami took place about September 405 B.C. It was made known at Peiræus by the paralus, which arrived there during the night, coming straight from the Hellespont. Such a moment of distress and agony had never been experienced at Athens. The terrible disaster in Sicily had become known to the people by degrees, without any authorized reporter; but here was the official messenger, fresh from the scene, leaving no room to question the magnitude of the disaster or the irreparable ruin impending over the city. The wailing and cries of woe, first beginning in Peiræus, were transmitted by the guards stationed on the Long Walls up to the city. “On that night (says Xenophon) not a man slept; not merely from sorrow for the past calamity, but from terror for the future fate with which they themselves were now menaced, a retribution for what they had themselves inflicted on the Æginetans, Melians, Skionæans, and others.” After this night of misery, they met in public assembly on the following day, resolving to make the best preparations they could for a siege, to put the walls in full state of defence, and to block up two out of the three ports.[326] For Athens thus to renounce her maritime action, the pride and glory of the city ever since the battle of Salamis, and to confine herself to a defensive attitude within her own walls, was a humiliation which left nothing worse to be endured except actual famine and surrender.

Lysander was in no hurry to pass from the Hellespont to Athens. He knew that no farther corn-ships from the Euxine, and few supplies from other quarters, could now reach Athens; and that the power of the city to hold out against blockade must necessarily be very limited; the more limited, the greater the numbers accumulated within it. Accordingly, he permitted the Athenian garrisons which capitulated, to go only to Athens, and nowhere else.[327] His first measure was to make himself master of Chalkêdon and Byzantium, where he placed the Lacedæmonian Sthenelaus as harmost, with a garrison. Next, he passed to Lesbos, where he made similar arrangements at Mitylênê and other cities. In them, as well as in the other cities which now came under his power, he constituted an oligarchy of ten native citizens, chosen from among his most daring and unscrupulous partisans, and called a dekarchy, or dekadarchy, to govern in conjunction with the Lacedæmonian harmost. Eteonikus was sent to the Thracian cities which had been in dependence on Athens, to introduce similar changes. In Thasus, however, this change was stained by much bloodshed: there was a numerous philo-Athenian party whom Lysander caused to be allured out of their place of concealment into the temple of Heraklês, under the false assurance of an amnesty: when assembled under this pledge, they were all put to death.[328] Sanguinary proceedings of the like character, many in the presence of Lysander himself, together with large expulsions of citizens obnoxious to his new dekarchies, signalized everywhere the substitution of Spartan for Athenian ascendency.[329] But nowhere, except at Samos, did the citizens or the philo-Athenian party in the cities continue any open hostility, or resist by force Lysander’s entrance and his revolutionary changes. At Samos, they still held out: the people had too much dread of that oligarchy, whom they had expelled in the insurrection of 412 B.C., to yield without a farther struggle.[330] With this single reserve, every city in alliance or dependence upon Athens submitted without resistance both to the supremacy and the subversive measures of the Lacedæmonian admiral.

The Athenian empire was thus annihilated, and Athens left altogether alone. What was hardly less painful, all her kleruchs, or out-citizens, whom she had formerly planted in Ægina, Melos, and elsewhere throughout the islands, as well as in the Chersonese, were now deprived of their properties and driven home.[331] The leading philo-Athenians, too, at Thasus, Byzantium, and other dependent cities,[332] were forced to abandon their homes in the like state of destitution, and to seek shelter at Athens. Everything thus contributed to aggravate the impoverishment, and the manifold suffering, physical as well as moral, within her walls. Notwithstanding the pressure of present calamity, however, and yet worse prospects for the future, the Athenians prepared, as best they could, for an honorable resistance.

It was one of their first measures to provide for the restoration of harmony, and to interest all in the defence of the city, by removing every sort of disability under which individual citizens might now be suffering. Accordingly, Patrokleidês—having first obtained special permission from the people, without which it would have been unconstitutional to make any proposition for abrogating sentences judicially passed, or releasing debtors regularly inscribed in the public registers—submitted a decree such as had never been mooted since the period when Athens was in a condition equally desperate, during the advancing march of Xerxes. All debtors to the state, either recent or of long standing; all official persons now under investigation by the Logistæ, or about to be brought before the dikastery on the usual accountability after office; all persons who were liquidating by instalment debts due to the public, or had given bail for sums thus owing; all persons who had been condemned either to total disfranchisement, or to some specific disqualification or disability; nay, even all those who, having been either members or auxiliaries of the Four Hundred, had stood trial afterwards, and had been condemned to any one of the above-mentioned penalties, all these persons were pardoned and released; every register of the penalty or condemnation being directed to be destroyed. From this comprehensive pardon were excepted: Those among the Four Hundred who had fled from Athens without standing their trial; those who had been condemned either to exile or to death by the Areopagus, or any of the other constituted tribunals for homicide, or for subversion of the public liberty. Not merely the public registers of all the condemnations thus released were ordered to be destroyed, but it was forbidden, under severe penalties, to any private citizen to keep a copy of them, or to make any allusion to such misfortunes.[333]

Pursuant to the comprehensive amnesty and forgiveness adopted by the people in this decree of Patrokleidês, the general body of citizens swore to each other a solemn pledge of mutual harmony in the acropolis.[334] The reconciliation thus introduced enabled them the better to bear up under their distress;[335] especially as the persons relieved by the amnesty were, for the most part, not men politically disaffected, like the exiles. To restore the latter, was a measure which no one thought of: indeed, a large proportion of them had been and were still at Dekeleia, assisting the Lacedæmonians in their warfare against Athens.[336] But even the most prudent internal measures could do little for Athens in reference to her capital difficulty, that of procuring subsistence for the numerous population within her walls, augmented every day by outlying garrisons and citizens. She had long been shut out from the produce of Attica by the garrison at Dekeleia; she obtained nothing from Eubœa, and since the late defeat of Ægospotami, nothing from the Euxine, from Thrace, or from the islands. Perhaps some corn may still have reached her from Cyprus, and her small remaining navy did what was possible to keep Peiræus supplied,[337] in spite of the menacing prohibitions of Lysander, preceding his arrival to block it up effectually; but to accumulate any stock for a siege, was utterly impossible.

At length, about November, 405 B.C., Lysander reached the Saronic gulf, having sent intimation beforehand, both to Agis and to the Lacedæmonians, that he was approaching with a fleet of two hundred triremes. The full Lacedæmonian and Peloponnesian force (all except the Argeians), under king Pausanias, was marched into Attica to meet him, and encamped in the precinct of Acadêmus, at the gates of Athens; while Lysander, first coming to Ægina with his overwhelming fleet of one hundred and fifty sail; next, ravaging Salamis, blocked up completely the harbor of Peiræus. It was one of his first measures to collect together the remnant which he could find of the Æginetan and Melian populations, whom Athens had expelled and destroyed; and to restore to them the possession of their ancient islands.[338]

Though all hope had now fled, the pride, the resolution, and the despair of Athens, still enabled her citizens to bear up; nor was it until some men actually began to die of hunger, that they sent propositions to entreat peace. Even then their propositions were not without dignity. They proposed to Agis to become allies of Sparta, retaining their walls entire and their fortified harbor of Peiræus. Agis referred the envoys to the ephors at Sparta, to whom he at the same time transmitted a statement of their propositions. But the ephors did not even deign to admit the envoys to an interview, but sent messengers to meet them at Sellasia on the frontier of Laconia, desiring that they would go back and come again prepared with something more admissible, and acquainting them at the same time that no proposition could be received which did not include the demolition of the Long Walls, for a continuous length of ten stadia. With this gloomy reply the envoys returned. Notwithstanding all the suffering in the city, the senate and people would not consent even to take such humiliating terms into consideration. A senator named Archestratus, who advised that they should be accepted, was placed in custody, and a general vote was passed,[339] on the proposition of Kleophon, forbidding any such motion in future.

Such a vote demonstrates the courageous patience both of the senate and the people; but unhappily it supplied no improved prospects, while the suffering within the walls continued to become more and more aggravated. Under these circumstances, Theramenês offered himself to the people to go as envoy to Lysander and Sparta, affirming that he should be able to detect what the real intention of the ephors was in regard to Athens, whether they really intended to root out the population and sell them as slaves. He pretended, farther, to possess personal influence, founded on circumstances which he could not divulge, such as would very probably insure a mitigation of the doom. He was accordingly sent, in spite of strong protest from the senate of Areopagus and others,—but with no express powers to conclude,—simply to inquire and report. We hear with astonishment that he remained more than three months as companion of Lysander, who, he alleged, had detained him thus long, and had only acquainted him, after the fourth month had begun, that no one but the ephors had any power to grant peace. It seems to have been the object of Theramenês, by this long delay, to wear out the patience of the Athenians, and to bring them into such a state of intolerable suffering, that they would submit to any terms of peace which would only bring provisions into the town. In this scheme he completely succeeded; and considering how great were the privations of the people even at the moment of his departure, it is not easy to understand how they could have been able to sustain protracted and increasing famine for three months longer.[340]

We make out little that is distinct respecting these last moments of imperial Athens. We find only an heroic endurance displayed, to such a point that numbers actually died of starvation, without any offer to surrender on humiliating conditions.[341] Amidst the general acrimony, and exasperated special antipathies, arising out of such a state of misery, the leading men who stood out most earnestly for prolonged resistance became successively victims to the prosecutions of their enemies. The demagogue Kleophon was condemned and put to death, on the accusation of having evaded his military duty; the senate, whose temper and proceedings he had denounced, constituting itself a portion of the dikastery which tried him, contrary both to the forms and the spirit of Athenian judicatures.[342] Such proceedings, however, though denounced by orators in subsequent years as having contributed to betray the city into the hands of the enemy, appear to have been without any serious influence on the result, which was brought about purely by famine.

By the time that Theramenês returned after his long absence, so terrible had the pressure become, that he was sent forth again with instructions to conclude peace upon any terms. On reaching Sellasia, and acquainting the ephors that he had come with unlimited powers for peace, he was permitted to come to Sparta, where the assembly of the Peloponnesian confederacy was convened, to settle on what terms peace should be granted. The leading allies, especially Corinthians and Thebans, recommended that no agreement should be entered into, nor any farther measure kept, with this hated enemy now in their power; but that the name of Athens should be rooted out, and the population sold for slaves. Many of the other allies seconded the same views, which would have probably commanded a majority, had it not been for the resolute opposition of the Lacedæmonians themselves; who declared unequivocally that they would never consent to annihilate or enslave a city which had rendered such capital service to all Greece at the time of the great common danger from the Persians.[343] Lysander farther calculated on so dealing with Athens, as to make her into a dependency, and an instrument of increased power to Sparta, apart from her allies. Peace was accordingly granted on the following conditions: that the Long Walls and the fortifications of the Peiræus should be destroyed; that the Athenians should evacuate all their foreign possessions, and confine themselves to their own territory; that they should surrender all their ships of war; that they should readmit all their exiles; that they should become allies of Sparta, following her leadership both by sea and land, and recognizing the same enemies and friends.[344]

With this document, written according to Lacedæmonian practice on a skytalê,—or roll intended to go round a stick, of which the Lacedæmonian commander had always one, and the ephors another, corresponding,—Theramenês went back to Athens. As he entered the city, a miserable crowd flocked round him, in distress and terror lest he should have failed altogether in his mission. The dead and the dying had now become so numerous, that peace at any price was a boon; nevertheless, when he announced in the assembly the terms of which he was bearer, strongly recommending submission to the Lacedæmonians as the only course now open, there was still a high-spirited minority who entered their protest, and preferred death by famine to such insupportable disgrace. The large majority, however, accepted them, and the acceptance was made known to Lysander.[345]

It was on the 16th day of the Attic month Munychion,[346]—about the middle or end of March,—that this victorious commander sailed into the Peiræus, twenty-seven years, almost exactly, after that surprise of Platæa by the Thebans, which opened the Peloponnesian war. Along with him came the Athenian exiles, several of whom appear to have been serving with his army,[347] and assisting him with their counsel. To the population of Athens generally, his entry was an immediate relief, in spite of the cruel degradation, or indeed political extinction, with which it was accompanied. At least it averted the sufferings and horrors of famine, and permitted a decent interment of the many unhappy victims who had already perished. The Lacedæmonians, both naval and military force, under Lysander and Agis, continued in occupation of Athens until the conditions of the peace had been fulfilled. All the triremes in Peiræus were carried away by Lysander, except twelve, which he permitted the Athenians to retain: the ephors, in their skytalê, had left it to his discretion what number he would thus allow.[348] The unfinished ships in the dockyards were burnt, and the arsenals themselves ruined.[349] To demolish the Long Walls and the fortifications of Peiræus, was however, a work of some time; and a certain number of days were granted to the Athenians, within which it was required to be completed. In the beginning of the work, the Lacedæmonians and their allies all lent a hand, with the full pride and exultation of conquerors; amidst women playing the flute and dancers crowned with wreaths; mingled with joyful exclamations from the Peloponnesian allies, that this was the first day of Grecian freedom.[350] How many days were allowed for this humiliating duty imposed upon Athenian hands, of demolishing the elaborate, tutelary, and commanding works of their forefathers, we are not told. But the business was not completed within the interval named, so that the Athenians did not come up to the letter of the conditions, and had therefore, by strict construction, forfeited their title to the peace granted.[351] The interval seems, however, to have been prolonged; probably considering that for the real labor, as well as the melancholy character of the work to be done, too short a time had been allowed at first.

It appears that Lysander, after assisting at the solemn ceremony of beginning to demolish the walls, and making such a breach as left Athens without any substantial means of resistance, did not remain to complete the work, but withdrew with a portion of his fleet to undertake the siege of Samos which still held out, leaving the remainder to see that the conditions imposed were fulfilled.[352] After so long an endurance of extreme misery, doubtless the general population thought of little except relief from famine and its accompaniments, without any disposition to contend against the fiat of their conquerors. If some high-spirited men formed an exception to the pervading depression, and still kept up their courage against better days, there was at the same time a party of totally opposite character, to whom the prostrate condition of Athens was a source of revenge for the past, exultation for the present, and ambitious projects for the future. These were partly the remnant of that faction which had set up, seven years before, the oligarchy of Four Hundred, and still more, the exiles, including several members of the Four Hundred,[353] who now flocked in from all quarters. Many of them had been long serving at Dekeleia, and had formed a part of the force blockading Athens. These exiles now revisited the acropolis as conquerors, and saw with delight the full accomplishment of that foreign occupation at which many of them had aimed seven years before, when they constructed the fortress of Ecteioneia, as a means of insuring their own power. Though the conditions imposed extinguished at once the imperial character, the maritime power, the honor, and the independence of Athens, these men were as eager as Lysander to carry them all into execution; because the continuance of the Athenian democracy was now entirely at his mercy, and because his establishment of oligarchies in the other subdued cities plainly intimated what he would do in this great focus of Grecian democratical impulse.

Among these exiles were comprised Aristodemus and Aristotelês, both seemingly persons of importance, the former having at one time been one of the Hellenotamiæ, the first financial office of the imperial democracy, and the latter an active member of the Four Hundred;[354] also Chariklês, who had been so distinguished for his violence in the investigation respecting the Hermæ, and another man, of whom we now for the first time obtain historical knowledge in detail, Kritias, son of Kallæschrus. He had been among the persons accused as having been concerned in the mutilation of the Hermæ, and seems to have been for a long time important in the political, the literary, and the philosophical world of Athens. To all three, his abilities qualified him to do honor. Both his poetry, in the Solonian or moralizing vein, and his eloquence, published specimens of which remained in the Augustan age, were of no ordinary merit. His wealth was large, and his family among the most ancient and conspicuous in Athens: one of his ancestors had been friend and companion of the lawgiver Solon. He was himself maternal uncle of the philosopher Plato,[355] and had frequented the society of Sokratês so much as to have his name intimately associated in the public mind with that remarkable man. We know neither the cause, nor even the date of his exile, except so far, as that he was not in banishment immediately after the revolution of the Four Hundred, and that he was in banishment at the time when the generals were condemned after the battle of Arginusæ.[356] He had passed the time, or a part of the time, of his exile in Thessaly, where he took an active part in the sanguinary feuds carried on among the oligarchical parties of that lawless country. He is said to have embraced, along with a leader named, or surnamed, Prometheus, what passed for the democratical side in Thessaly; arming the penestæ, or serfs, against their masters.[357] What the conduct and dispositions of Kritias had been before this period we are unable to say; but he brought with him now, on returning from exile, not merely an unmeasured and unprincipled lust of power, but also a rancorous impulse towards spoliation and bloodshed[358] which outran even his ambition, and ultimately ruined both his party and himself.

Of all these returning exiles, animated with mingled vengeance and ambition, Kritias was decidedly the leading man, like Antiphon among the Four Hundred; partly from his abilities, partly from the superior violence with which he carried out the common sentiment. At the present juncture, he and his fellow-exiles became the most important persons in the city, as enjoying most the friendship and confidence of the conquerors. But the oligarchical party at home were noway behind them, either in servility or in revolutionary fervor, and an understanding was soon established between the two. Probably the old faction of the Four Hundred, though put down, had never wholly died out: at any rate, the political hetæries, or clubs, out of which it was composed, still remained, prepared for fresh coöperation when a favorable moment should arrive; and the catastrophe of Ægospotami had made it plain to every one that such moment could not be far distant. Accordingly, a large portion, if not the majority, of the senators, became ready to lend themselves to the destruction of the democracy, and only anxious to insure places among the oligarchy in prospect;[359] while the supple Theramenês—resuming his place as oligarchical leader, and abusing his mission as envoy to wear out the patience of his half-famished countrymen—had, during his three months’ absence in the tent of Lysander, concerted arrangements with the exiles for future proceedings.[360]

As soon as the city surrendered, and while the work of demolition was yet going on, the oligarchical party began to organize itself. The members of the political clubs again came together, and named a managing committee of five, called ephors in compliment to the Lacedæmonians, to direct the general proceedings of the party; to convene meetings when needful, to appoint subordinate managers for the various tribes, and to determine what propositions were to be submitted to the public assembly.[361] Among these five ephors were Kritias and Eratosthenês; probably Theramenês also.

But the oligarchical party, though thus organized and ascendant, with a compliant senate and a dispirited people, and with an auxiliary enemy actually in possession, still thought themselves not powerful enough to carry their intended changes without seizing the most resolute of the democratical leaders. Accordingly, a citizen named Theokritus tendered an accusation to the senate against the general Strombichidês, together with several others of the democratical generals and taxiarchs; supported by the deposition of a slave, or lowborn man, named Agoratus. Although Nikias and several other citizens tried to prevail upon Agoratus to leave Athens, furnished him with the means of escape, and offered to go away with him themselves from Munychia, until the political state of Athens should come into a more assured condition,[362] yet he refused to retire, appeared before the senate, and accused the generals of being concerned in a conspiracy to break up the peace; pretending to be himself their accomplice. Upon his information, given both before the senate and before an assembly at Munychia, the generals, the taxiarchs, and several other citizens, men of high worth and courageous patriots, were put into prison, as well as Agoratus himself, to stand their trial afterwards before a dikastery consisting of two thousand members. One of the parties thus accused, Menestratus, being admitted by the public assembly, on the proposition of Hagnodôrus, the brother-in-law of Kritias, to become accusing witness, named several additional accomplices, who were also forthwith placed in custody.[363]

Though the most determined defenders of the democratical constitution were thus eliminated, Kritias and Theramenês still farther insured the success of their propositions by invoking the presence of Lysander from Samos. The demolition of the walls had been completed, the main blockading army had disbanded, and the immediate pressure of famine had been removed, when an assembly was held to determine on future modifications of the constitution. A citizen named Drakontidês,[364] moved that a Board of Thirty should be named, to draw up laws for the future government of the city, and to manage provisionally the public affairs, until that task should be completed. Among the thirty persons proposed, prearranged by Theramenês and the oligarchical five ephors, the most prominent names were those of Kritias and Theramenês: there were, besides, Drakontidês himself,—Onomaklês, one of the Four Hundred who had escaped,—Aristotelês and Chariklês, both exiles newly returned, Eratosthenês, and others whom we do not know, but of whom probably several had also been exiles or members of the Four Hundred.[365] Though this was a complete abrogation of the constitution, yet so conscious were the conspirators of their own strength, that they did not deem it necessary to propose the formal suspension of the graphê paranomôn, as had been done prior to the installation of the former oligarchy. Still, notwithstanding the seizure of the leaders and the general intimidation prevalent, a loud murmur of repugnance was heard in the assembly at the motion of Drakontidês. But Theramenês rose up to defy the murmur, telling the assembly that the proposition numbered many partisans even among the citizens themselves, and that it had, besides, the approbation of Lysander and the Lacedæmonians. This was presently confirmed by Lysander himself, who addressed the assembly in person. He told them, in a menacing and contemptuous tone, that Athens was now at his mercy, since the walls had not been demolished before the day specified, and consequently the conditions of the promised peace had been violated. He added that, if they did not adopt the recommendation of Theramenês, they would be forced to take thought for their personal safety instead of for their political constitution. After a notice at once so plain and so crushing, farther resistance was vain. The dissentients all quitted the assembly in sadness and indignation; while a remnant—according to Lysias, inconsiderable in number as well as worthless in character—stayed to vote acceptance of the motion.[366]

Seven years before, Theramenês had carried, in conjunction with Antiphon and Phrynichus, a similar motion for the installation of the Four Hundred; extorting acquiescence by domestic terrorism as well as by multiplied assassinations. He now, in conjunction with Kritias and the rest, a second time extinguished the constitution of his country, by the still greater humiliation of a foreign conqueror dictating terms to the Athenian people assembled in their own Pnyx. Having seen the Thirty regularly constituted, Lysander retired from Athens to finish the siege of Samos, which still held out. Though blocked up both by land and sea, the Samians obstinately defended themselves for some months longer, until the close of the summer. Nor was it until the last extremity that they capitulated; obtaining permission for every freeman to depart in safety, but with no other property except a single garment. Lysander handed over the city and the properties to the ancient citizens, that is, to the oligarchy and their partisans, who had been partly expelled, partly disfranchised, in the revolution eight years before. But he placed the government of Samos, as he had dealt with the other cities, in the hands of one of his dekadarchies, or oligarchy of Ten Samians, chosen by himself; leaving Thorax as Lacedæmonian harmost, and doubtless a force under him.[367]

Having thus finished the war, and trodden out the last spark of resistance, Lysander returned in triumph to Sparta. So imposing a triumph never fell to the lot of any Greek, either before or afterwards. He brought with him every trireme out of the harbor of Peiræus, except twelve, left to the Athenians as a concession; he brought the prow-ornaments of all the ships captured at Ægospotami and elsewhere; he was loaded with golden crowns, voted to him by the various cities; and he farther exhibited a sum of money not less than four hundred and seventy talents, the remnant of those treasures which Cyrus had handed over to him for the prosecution of the war.[368] That sum had been greater, but is said to have been diminished by the treachery of Gylippus, to whose custody it had been committed, and who sullied by such mean peculation the laurels which he had so gloriously earned at Syracuse.[369] Nor was it merely the triumphant evidences of past exploits which now decorated this returning admiral. He wielded besides an extent of real power greater than any individual Greek either before or after. Imperial Sparta, as she had now become, was as it were personified in Lysander, who was master of almost all the insular, Asiatic, and Thracian cities, by means of the harmost and the native dekadarchies named by himself and selected from his creatures. To this state of things we shall presently return, when we have followed the eventful history of the Thirty at Athens.

These thirty men—the parallel of the dekarchies whom Lysander had constituted in the other cities—were intended for the same purpose, to maintain the city in a state of humiliation and dependence upon Lacedæmon, and upon Lysander, as the representative of Lacedæmon. Though appointed, in the pretended view of drawing up a scheme of laws and constitution for Athens, they were in no hurry to commence this duty. They appointed a new senate, composed of compliant, assured, and oligarchical persons; including many of the returned exiles who had been formerly in the Four Hundred, and many also of the preceding senators who were willing to serve their designs.[370] They farther named new magistrates and officers; a new Board of Eleven, to manage the business of police and the public force, with Satyrus, one of their most violent partisans, as chief; a Board of Ten, to govern in Peiræus;[371] an archon, to give name to the year, Pythodôrus, and a second, or king-archon, Patroklês,[372] to offer the customary sacrifices on behalf of the city. While thus securing their own ascendency, and placing all power in the hands of the most violent oligarchical partisans, they began by professing reforming principles of the strictest virtue; denouncing the abuses of the past democracy, and announcing their determination to purge the city of evil-doers.[373] The philosopher Plato—then a young man about twenty-four years old, of anti-democratical politics, and nephew of Kritias—was at first misled, together with various others, by these splendid professions; he conceived hopes, and even received encouragement from his relations, that he might play an active part under the new oligarchy.[374] Though he soon came to discern how little congenial his feelings were with theirs, yet in the beginning doubtless such honest illusions contributed materially to strengthen their hands.

In execution of their design to root out evil-doers, the Thirty first laid hands on some of the most obnoxious politicians under the former democracy; “men (says Xenophon) whom every one knew to live by making calumnious accusations, called sycophancy, and who were pronounced in their enmity to the oligarchical citizens.” How far most of these men had been honest or dishonest in their previous political conduct under the democracy, we have no means of determining. But among them were comprised Strombichidês and the other democratical officers who had been imprisoned under the information of Agoratus, men whose chief crime consisted in a strenuous and inflexible attachment to the democracy. The persons thus seized were brought to trial before the new senate appointed by the Thirty, contrary to the vote of the people, which had decreed that Strombichidês and his companions should be tried before a dikastery of two thousand citizens.[375] But the dikastery, as well as all the other democratical institutions, were now abrogated, and no judicial body was left except the newly constituted senate. Even to that senate, though composed of their own partisans, the Thirty did not choose to intrust the trial of the prisoners, with that secrecy of voting which was well known at Athens to be essential to the free and genuine expression of sentiment. Whenever prisoners were tried, the Thirty were themselves present in the senate-house, sitting on the benches previously occupied by the prytanes: two tables were placed before them, one signifying condemnation, the other, acquittal; and each senator was required to deposit his pebble openly before them, either on one or on the other.[376] It was not merely judgment by the senate, but judgment by the senate under pressure and intimidation by the all-powerful Thirty. It seems probable that neither any semblance of defence, nor any exculpatory witnesses, were allowed; but even if such formalities were not wholly dispensed with, it is certain that there was no real trial, and that condemnation was assured beforehand. Among the great numbers whom the Thirty brought before the senate, not a single man was acquitted except the informer Agoratus, who was brought to trial as an accomplice along with Strombichidês and his companions, but was liberated in recompense for the information which he had given against them.[377] The statement of Isokratês, Lysias, and others—that the victims of the Thirty, even when brought before the senate, were put to death untried—is authentic and trustworthy: many were even put to death by simple order from the Thirty themselves, without any cognizance of the senate.[378]

In regard to the persons first brought to trial, however,—whether we consider them, as Xenophon intimates, to have been notorious evil-doers, or to have been innocent sufferers by the reactionary vengeance of returning oligarchical exiles, as was the case certainly with Strombichidês and the officers accused along with him,—there was little necessity for any constraint on the part of the Thirty over the senate. That body itself partook of the sentiment which dictated the condemnation, and acted as a willing instrument; while the Thirty themselves were unanimous, Theramenês being even more zealous than Kritias in these executions, to demonstrate his sincere antipathy towards the extinct democracy.[379] As yet too, since all the persons condemned, justly or unjustly, had been marked politicians, so, all other citizens who had taken no conspicuous part in politics, even if they disapproved of the condemnations, had not been led to conceive any apprehension of the like fate for themselves. Here, then, Theramenês, and along with him a portion of the Thirty as well as of the senate, were inclined to pause. While enough had been done to satiate their antipathies, by the death of the most obnoxious leaders of the democracy, they at the same time conceived the oligarchical government to be securely established, and contended that farther bloodshed would only endanger its stability, by spreading alarm, multiplying enemies, and alienating friends as well as neutrals.

But these were not the views either of Kritias or of the Thirty generally, who surveyed their position with eyes very different from the unstable and cunning Theramenês, and who had brought with them from exile a long arrear of vengeance yet to be appeased. Kritias knew well that the numerous population of Athens were devotedly attached, and had good reason to be attached, to their democracy; that the existing government had been imposed upon them by force, and could only be upheld by force; that its friends were a narrow minority, incapable of sustaining it against the multitude around them, all armed; that there were still many formidable enemies to be got rid of, so that it was indispensable to invoke the aid of a permanent Lacedæmonian garrison in Athens, as the only condition not only of their stability as a government, but even of their personal safety. In spite of the opposition of Theramenês, Æschinês and Aristotelês, two among the Thirty, were despatched to Sparta to solicit aid from Lysander; who procured for them a Lacedæmonian garrison under Kallibius as harmost, which they engaged to maintain without any cost to Sparta, until their government should be confirmed by putting the evil-doers out of the way.[380] Kallibius was not only installed as master of the acropolis,—full as it was of the mementos of Athenian glory,—but was farther so caressed and won over by the Thirty, that he lent himself to everything which they asked. They had thus a Lacedæmonian military force constantly at their command, besides an organized band of youthful satellites and assassins, ready for any deeds of violence; and they proceeded to seize and put to death many citizens, who were so distinguished for their courage and patriotism, as to be likely to serve as leaders to the public discontent. Several of the best men in Athens thus successively perished, while Thrasybulus, Anytus, and many others, fearing a similar fate, fled out of Attica, leaving their property to be confiscated and appropriated by the oligarchs;[381] who passed a decree of exile against them in their absence, as well as against Alkibiadês.[382]

These successive acts of vengeance and violence were warmly opposed by Theramenês, both in the council of Thirty and in the senate. The persons hitherto executed, he said, had deserved their death, because they were not merely noted politicians under the democracy, but also persons of marked hostility to oligarchical men. But to inflict the same fate on others, who had manifested no such hostility, simply because they had enjoyed influence under the democracy, would be unjust: “Even you and I (he reminded Kritias) have both said and done many things for the sake of popularity.” But Kritias replied: “We cannot afford to be scrupulous; we are engaged in a scheme of aggressive ambition, and must get rid of those who are best able to hinder us. Though we are Thirty in number, and not one, our government is not the less a despotism, and must be guarded by the same jealous precautions. If you think otherwise, you must be simple-minded indeed.” Such were the sentiments which animated the majority of the Thirty, not less than Kritias, and which prompted them to an endless string of seizures and executions. It was not merely the less obnoxious democratical politicians who became their victims, but men of courage, wealth, and station, in every vein of political feeling: even oligarchical men, the best and most high-principled of that party, shared the same fate. Among the most distinguished sufferers were, Lykurgus,[383] belonging to one of the most eminent sacred gentes in the state; a wealthy man named Antiphon, who had devoted his fortune to the public service with exemplary patriotism during the last years of the war, and had furnished two well-equipped triremes at his own cost; Leon, of Salamis; and even Nikêratus, son of Nikias, who had perished at Syracuse; a man who inherited from his father not only a large fortune, but a known repugnance to democratical politics, together with his uncle Eukratês, brother of the same Nikias.[384] These were only a few among the numerous victims, who were seized, pronounced to be guilty by the senate or by the Thirty themselves, handed over to Satyrus and the Eleven, and condemned to perish by the customary draught of hemlock.

The circumstances accompanying the seizure of Leon deserve particular notice. In putting to death him and the other victims, the Thirty had several objects in view, all tending to the stability of their dominion. First, they thus got rid of citizens generally known and esteemed, whose abhorrence they knew themselves to deserve, and whom they feared as likely to head the public sentiment against them. Secondly, the property of these victims, all of whom were rich, was seized along with their persons, and was employed to pay the satellites whose agency was indispensable for such violences, especially Kallibius and the Lacedæmonian hoplites in the acropolis. But, besides murder and spoliation, the Thirty had a farther purpose, if possible, yet more nefarious. In the work of seizing their victims, they not only employed the hands of these paid satellites, but also sent along with them citizens of station and respectability, whom they constrained by threats and intimidation to lend their personal aid in a service so thoroughly odious. By such participation, these citizens became compromised and imbrued in crime, and as it were, consenting parties in the public eye to all the projects of the Thirty;[385] exposed to the same general hatred as the latter, and interested for their own safety in maintaining the existing dominion. Pursuant to their general plan of implicating unwilling citizens in their misdeeds, the Thirty sent for five citizens to the tholus, or government-house, and ordered them, with terrible menaces, to cross over to Salamis and bring back Leon as prisoner. Four out of the five obeyed; the fifth was the philosopher Sokratês, who refused all concurrence and returned to his own house, while the other four went to Salamis and took part in the seizure of Leon. Though he thus braved all the wrath of the Thirty, it appears that they thought it expedient to leave him untouched. But the fact that they singled him out for such an atrocity,—an old man of tried virtue, both private and public, and intellectually commanding, though at the same time intellectually unpopular,—shows to what an extent they carried their system of forcing unwilling participants; while the farther circumstance, that he was the only person who had the courage to refuse, among four others who yielded to intimidation, shows that the policy was for the most part successful.[386] The inflexible resistance of Sokratês on this occasion, stands as a worthy parallel to his conduct as prytanis in the public assembly held on the conduct of the generals after the battle of Arginusæ, described in the preceding chapter, wherein he obstinately refused to concur in putting an illegal question.

Such multiplied cases of execution and spoliation naturally filled the city with surprise, indignation, and terror. Groups of malcontents got together, and exiles became more and more numerous. All these circumstances furnished ample material for the vehement opposition of Theramenês, and tended to increase his party: not indeed among the Thirty themselves, but to a certain extent in the senate, and still more among the body of the citizens. He warned his colleagues that they were incurring daily an increased amount of public odium, and that their government could not possibly stand, unless they admitted into partnership an adequate number of citizens, with a direct interest in its maintenance. He proposed that all those competent, by their property, to serve the state either on horseback or with heavy armor, should be constituted citizens; leaving all the poorer freemen, a far larger number, still disfranchised.[387] Kritias and the Thirty rejected this proposition; being doubtless convinced—as the Four Hundred had felt seven years before, when Theramenês demanded of them to convert their fictitious total of Five Thousand into a real list of as many living persons—that “to enroll so great a number of partners, was tantamount to a downright democracy.”[388] But they were at the same time not insensible to the soundness of his advice: moreover, they began to be afraid of him personally, and to suspect that he was likely to take the lead in a popular opposition against them, as he had previously done against his colleagues of the Four Hundred. They therefore resolved to comply in part with his recommendations, and accordingly prepared a list of three thousand persons to be invested with the political franchise; chosen, as much as possible, from their own known partisans and from oligarchical citizens. Besides this body, they also counted on the adherence of the horsemen, among the wealthiest citizens of the state. These horsemen, or knights, taking them as a class,—the thousand good men of Athens, whose virtues Aristophanês sets forth in hostile antithesis to the alleged demagogic vices of Kleon,—remained steady supporters of the Thirty, throughout all the enormities of their career.[389] What privileges or functions were assigned to the chosen three thousand, we do not hear, except that they could not be condemned without the warrant of the senate, while any other Athenian might be put to death by the simple fiat of the Thirty.[390]

A body of partners thus chosen—not merely of fixed number, but of picked oligarchical sentiments—was by no means the addition which Theramenês desired. While he commented on the folly of supposing that there was any charm in the number three thousand, as if it embodied all the merit of the city, and nothing else but merit, he admonished them that it was still insufficient for their defence; their rule was one of pure force, and yet inferior in force to those over whom it was exercised. Again the Thirty acted upon his admonition, but in a way very different from that which he contemplated. They proclaimed a general muster and examination of arms to all the hoplites in Athens. The Three Thousand were drawn up in arms all together in the market-place; but the remaining hoplites were disseminated in small scattered companies and in different places. After the review was over, these scattered companies went home to their meal, leaving their arms piled at the various places of muster. But the adherents of the Thirty, having been forewarned and kept together, were sent at the proper moment, along with the Lacedæmonian mercenaries, to seize the deserted arms, which were deposited under the custody of Kallibius in the acropolis. All the hoplites in Athens, except the Three Thousand and the remaining adherents of the Thirty, were disarmed by this crafty manœuvre, in spite of the fruitless remonstrance of Theramenês.[391]

Kritias and his colleagues, now relieved from all fear either of Theramenês, or of any other internal opposition, gave loose, more unsparingly than ever, to their malevolence and rapacity, putting to death both many of their private enemies, and many rich victims for the purpose of spoliation. A list of suspected persons was drawn up, in which each of their adherents was allowed to insert such names as he chose, and from which the victims were generally taken.[392] Among informers, who thus gave in names for destruction, Batrachus and Æschylidês[393] stood conspicuous. The thirst of Kritias for plunder, as well as for bloodshed, only increased by gratification;[394] and it was not merely to pay their mercenaries, but also to enrich themselves separately, that the Thirty stretched everywhere their murderous agency, which now mowed down metics as well as citizens. Theognis and Peison, two of the Thirty, affirmed that many of these metics were hostile to the oligarchy, besides being opulent men; and the resolution was adopted that each of the rulers should single out any of these victims that he pleased, for execution and pillage; care being taken to include a few poor persons in the seizure, so that the real purpose of the spoilers might be faintly disguised.

It was in execution of this scheme that the orator Lysias and his brother Polemarchus were both taken into custody. Both were metics, wealthy men, and engaged in a manufactory of shields, wherein they employed a hundred and twenty slaves. Theognis and Peison, with some others, seized Lysias in his house, while entertaining some friends at dinner; and having driven away his guests, left him under the guard of Peison, while the attendants went off to register and appropriate his valuable slaves. Lysias tried to prevail on Peison to accept a bribe and let him escape; which the latter at first promised to do, and having thus obtained access to the money-chest of the prisoner, laid hands upon all its contents, amounting to between three and four talents. In vain did Lysias implore that a trifle might be left for his necessary subsistence; the only answer vouchsafed was, that he might think himself fortunate if he escaped with life. He was then conveyed to the house of a person named Damnippus, where Theognis already was, having other prisoners in charge. At the earnest entreaty of Lysias, Damnippus tried to induce Theognis to connive at his escape, on consideration of a handsome bribe; but while this conversation was going on, the prisoner availed himself of an unguarded moment to get off through the back door, which fortunately was open, together with two other doors through which it was necessary to pass. Having first obtained refuge in the house of a friend in Peiræus, he took boat during the ensuing night for Megara. Polemarchus, less fortunate, was seized in the street by Eratosthenês, one of the Thirty, and immediately lodged in the prison, where the fatal draught of hemlock was administered to him, without delay, without trial, and without liberty of defence. While his house was plundered of a large stock of gold, silver, furniture, and rich ornaments; while the golden earrings were torn from the ears of his wife; and while seven hundred shields, with a hundred and twenty slaves, were confiscated, together with the workshop and the two dwelling-houses; the Thirty would not allow even a decent funeral to the deceased, but caused his body to be carried away on a hired bier from the prison, with covering and a few scanty appurtenances supplied by the sympathy of private friends.[395]

Amidst such atrocities, increasing in number and turned more and more to shameless robbery, the party of Theramenês daily gained ground, even in the senate; many of whose members profited nothing by satiating the private cupidity of the Thirty, and began to be weary of so revolting a system, as well as alarmed at the host of enemies which they were raising up. In proposing the late seizure of the metics, the Thirty had desired Theramenês to make choice of any victim among that class, to be destroyed and plundered for his own personal benefit. But he rejected the suggestion emphatically, denouncing the enormity of the measure in the indignant terms which it deserved. So much was the antipathy of Kritias and the majority of the Thirty against him, already acrimonious from the effects of a long course of opposition, exasperated by this refusal; so much did they fear the consequences of incurring the obloquy of such measures for themselves, while Theramenês enjoyed all the credit of opposing them; so satisfied were they that their government could not stand with this dissension among its own members; that they resolved to destroy him at all cost. Having canvassed as many of the senators as they could, to persuade them that Theramenês was conspiring against the oligarchy, they caused the most daring of their satellites to attend one day in the senate-house, close to the railing which fenced in the senators, with daggers concealed under their garments. So soon as Theramenês appeared, Kritias rose and denounced him to the senate as a public enemy, in an harangue which Xenophon gives at considerable length, and which is so full of instructive evidence, as to Greek political feeling, that I here extract the main points in abridgment:—

“If any of you imagine, senators, that more people are perishing than the occasion requires, reflect, that this happens everywhere in a time of revolution, and that it must especially happen in the establishment of an oligarchy at Athens, the most populous city in Greece, and where the population has been longest accustomed to freedom. You know as well as we do, that democracy is to both of us an intolerable government, as well as incompatible with all steady adherence to our protectors, the Lacedæmonians. It is under their auspices that we are establishing the present oligarchy, and that we destroy, as far as we can, every man who stands in the way of it; which becomes most of all indispensable, if such a man be found among our own body. Here stands the man, Theramenês, whom we now denounce to you as your foe not less than ours. That such is the fact, is plain from his unmeasured censures on our proceedings, from the difficulties which he throws in our way whenever we want to despatch any of the demagogues. Had such been his policy from the beginning, he would indeed have been our enemy, yet we could not with justice have proclaimed him a villain. But it is he who first originated the alliance which binds us to Sparta, who struck the first blow at the democracy, who chiefly instigated us to put to death the first batch of accused persons; and now, when you as well as we have thus incurred the manifest hatred of the people, he turns round and quarrels with our proceedings in order to insure his own safety, and leave us to pay the penalty. He must be dealt with not only as an enemy, but as a traitor, to you as well as to us; a traitor in the grain, as his whole life proves. Though he enjoyed, through his father Agnon, a station of honor under the democracy, he was foremost in subverting it, and setting up the Four Hundred; the moment he saw that oligarchy beset with difficulties, he was the first to put himself at the head of the people against them; always ready for change in both directions, and a willing accomplice in those executions which changes of government bring with them. It is he, too, who—having been ordered by the generals after the battle of Arginusæ to pick up the men on the disabled ships, and having neglected the task—accused and brought to execution his superiors, in order to get himself out of danger. He has well earned his surname of The Buskin, fitting both legs, but constant to neither; he has shown himself reckless both of honor and friendship, looking to nothing but his own selfish advancement; and it is for us now to guard against his doublings, in order that he may not play us the same trick. We cite him before you as a conspirator and a traitor, against you as well as against us. Look to your own safety, and not to his. For depend upon it, that if you let him off, you will hold out powerful encouragement to your worst enemies; while if you condemn him, you will crush their best hopes, both within and without the city.”

Theramenês was probably not wholly unprepared for some such attack as this. At any rate, he rose up to reply to it at once:—

“First of all, senators, I shall touch upon the charge against me which Kritias mentioned last, the charge of having accused and brought to execution the generals. It was not I who began the accusation against them, but they who began it against me. They said, that they had ordered me upon the duty, and that I had neglected it; my defence was, that the duty could not be executed, in consequence of the storm; the people believed and exonerated me, but the generals were rightfully condemned on their own accusation, because they said that the duty might have been performed, while yet it had remained unperformed. I do not wonder, indeed, that Kritias has told these falsehoods against me; for at the time when this affair happened, he was an exile in Thessaly, employed in raising up a democracy, and arming the penestæ against their masters. Heaven grant that nothing of what he perpetrated there may occur at Athens! I agree with Kritias, indeed, that, whoever wishes to cut short your government, and strengthens those who conspire against you, deserves justly the severest punishment. But to whom does this charge best apply? To him, or to me? Look at the behavior of each of us, and then judge for yourselves. At first, we were all agreed, so far as the condemnation of the known and obnoxious demagogues. But when Kritias and his friends began to seize men of station and dignity, then it was that I began to oppose them. I knew that the seizure of men like Leon, Nikias, and Antiphon, would make the best men in the city your enemies. I opposed the execution of the metics, well aware that all that body would be alienated. I opposed the disarming of the citizens, and the hiring of foreign guards. And when I saw that enemies at home and exiles abroad were multiplying against you, I dissuaded you from banishing Thrasybulus and Anytus, whereby you only furnished the exiles with competent leaders. The man who gives you this advice, and gives it you openly, is he a traitor, or is he not rather a genuine friend? It is you and your supporters, Kritias, who, by your murders and robberies, strengthen the enemies of the government and betray your friends. Depend upon it, that Thrasybulus and Anytus are much better pleased with your policy than they would be with mine. You accuse me of having betrayed the Four Hundred; but I did not desert them until they were themselves on the point of betraying Athens to her enemies. You call me The Buskin, as trying to fit both parties. But what am I to call you, who fit neither of them? who, under the democracy, were the most violent hater of the people, and who, under the oligarchy, have become equally violent as a hater of oligarchical merit? I am, and always have been, Kritias, an enemy both to extreme democracy and to oligarchical tyranny. I desire to constitute our political community out of those who can serve it on horseback and with heavy armor; I have proposed this once, and I still stand to it. I side not either with democrats or despots, to the exclusion of the dignified citizens. Prove that I am now, or ever have been, guilty of such crime, and I shall confess myself deserving of ignominious death.”

This reply of Theramenês was received with such a shout of applause by the majority of the senate, as showed that they were resolved to acquit him. To the fierce antipathies of the mortified Kritias, the idea of failure was intolerable; indeed, he had now carried his hostility to such a point, that the acquittal of his enemy would have been his own ruin. After exchanging a few words with the Thirty, he retired for a few moments, and directed the Eleven with the body of armed satellites to press close on the railing whereby the senators were fenced round,—while the court before the senate-house was filled with the mercenary hoplites. Having thus got his force in hand, Kritias returned and again addressed the senate: “Senators (said he), I think it the duty of a good president, when he sees his friends around him duped, not to let them follow their own counsel. This is what I am now going to do; indeed, these men, whom you see pressing upon us from without, tell us plainly that they will not tolerate the acquittal of one manifestly working to the ruin of the oligarchy. It is an article of our new constitution, that no man of the select Three Thousand shall be condemned without your vote; but that any man not included in that list may be condemned by the Thirty. Now I take upon me, with the concurrence of all my colleagues, to strike this Theramenês out of that list; and we, by our authority, condemn him to death.”

Though Theramenês had already been twice concerned in putting down the democracy, yet such was the habit of all Athenians to look for protection from constitutional forms, that he probably accounted himself safe under the favorable verdict of the senate, and was not prepared for the monstrous and despotic sentence which he now heard from his enemy. He sprang at once to the senatorial hearth,—the altar and sanctuary in the interior of the senate-house,—and exclaimed: “I too, senators, stand as your suppliant, asking only for bare justice. Let it be not in the power of Kritias to strike out me or any other man whom he chooses; let my sentence as well as yours be passed according to the law which these Thirty have themselves prepared. I know but too well, that this altar will be of no avail to me as a defence; but I shall at least make it plain, that these men are as impious towards the gods as they are nefarious towards men. As for you, worthy senators, I wonder that you will not stand forward for your own personal safety; since you must be well aware, that your own names may be struck out of the Three Thousand just as easily as mine.”

But the senate remained passive and stupefied by fear, in spite of these moving words, which perhaps were not perfectly heard, since it could not be the design of Kritias to permit his enemy to speak a second time. It was probably while Theramenês was yet speaking, that the loud voice of the herald was heard, calling the Eleven to come forward and take him into custody. The Eleven advanced into the senate, headed by their brutal chief Satyrus, and followed by their usual attendants. They went straight up to the altar, from whence Satyrus, aided by the attendants, dragged him by main force, while Kritias said to them: “We hand over to you this man Theramenês, condemned according to the law. Seize him, carry him off to prison, and there do the needful.” Upon this, Theramenês was dragged out of the senate-house and carried in custody through the market-place, exclaiming with a loud voice against the atrocious treatment which he was suffering. “Hold your tongue (said Satyrus to him), or you will suffer for it.” “And if I do hold my tongue (replied Theramenês), shall not I suffer for it also?”

He was conveyed to prison, where the usual draught of hemlock was speedily administered. After he had swallowed it, there remained a drop at the bottom of the cup, which he jerked out on the floor (according to the playful convivial practice called the Kottabus, which was supposed to furnish an omen by its sound in falling, and after which the person who had just drank handed the goblet to the guest whose turn came next): “Let this (said he) be for the gentle Kritias.”[396]

The scene just described, which ended in the execution of Theramenês, is one of the most striking and tragical in ancient history; in spite of the bald and meagre way in which it is recounted by Xenophon, who has thrown all the interest into the two speeches. The atrocious injustice by which Theramenês perished, as well as the courage and self-possession which he displayed at the moment of danger, and his cheerfulness even in the prison, not inferior to that of Sokratês three years afterwards, naturally enlist the warmest sympathies of the reader in his favor, and have tended to exalt the positive estimation of his character. During the years immediately succeeding the restoration of the democracy,[397] he was extolled and pitied as one of the first martyrs to oligarchical violence: later authors went so far as to number him among the chosen pupils of Sokratês.[398] But though Theramenês here became the victim of a much worse man than himself, it will not for that reason be proper to accord to him our admiration, which his own conduct will not at all be found to deserve. The reproaches of Kritias against him, founded on his conduct during the previous conspiracy of the Four Hundred, were in the main well founded. After having been one of the foremost originators of that conspiracy, he deserted his comrades as soon as he saw that it was likely to fail; and Kritias had doubtless present to his mind the fate of Antiphon, who had been condemned and executed under the accusation of Theramenês, together with a reasonable conviction that the latter would again turn against his colleagues in the same manner, if circumstances should encourage him to do so. Nor was Kritias wrong in denouncing the perfidy of Theramenês with regard to the generals after the battle of Arginusæ, the death of whom he was partly instrumental in bringing about, though only as an auxiliary cause, and not with that extreme stretch of nefarious stratagem, which Xenophon and others have imputed to him. He was a selfish, cunning, and faithless man,—ready to enter into conspiracies, yet never foreseeing their consequences,—and breaking faith to the ruin of colleagues whom he had first encouraged, when he found them more consistent and thoroughgoing in crime than himself.[399]

Such high-handed violence, by Kritias and the majority of the Thirty,—carried though, even against a member of their own Board, by intimidation of the senate,—left a feeling of disgust and dissension among their own partisans from which their power never recovered. Its immediate effect, however, was to render them, apparently, and in their own estimation, more powerful than ever. All open manifestation of dissent being now silenced, they proceeded to the uttermost limits of cruel and licentious tyranny. They made proclamation, that every one not included in the list of Three Thousand, should depart without the walls, in order that they might be undisturbed masters within the city, a policy before resorted to by Periander of Corinth and other Grecian despots.[400] The numerous fugitives expelled by this order, distributed themselves partly in Peiræus, partly in the various demes of Attica. Both in one and the other, however, they were seized by order of the Thirty, and many of them put to death, in order that their substance and lands might be appropriated either by the Thirty themselves, or by some favored partisan.[401] The denunciations of Batrachus, Æschylidês, and other delators, became more numerous than ever, in order to obtain the seizure and execution of their private enemies; and the oligarchy were willing to purchase any new adherent by thus gratifying his antipathies or his rapacity.[402] The subsequent orators affirmed that more than fifteen hundred victims were put to death without trial by the Thirty;[403] on this numerical estimate little stress is to be laid, but the total was doubtless prodigious. It became more and more plain that no man was safe in Attica; so that Athenian emigrants, many in great poverty and destitution, were multiplied throughout the neighboring territories,—in Megara, Thebes, Orôpus, Chalkis, Argos, etc.[404] It was not everywhere that these distressed persons could obtain reception; for the Lacedæmonian government, at the instance of the Thirty, issued an edict prohibiting all the members of their confederacy from harboring fugitive Athenians; an edict which these cities generously disobeyed,[405] though probably the smaller Peloponnesian cities complied. Without doubt, this decree was procured by Lysander, while his influence still continued unimpaired.

But it was not only against the lives, properties, and liberties of Athenian citizens that the Thirty made war. They were not less solicitous to extinguish the intellectual force and education of the city; a project so perfectly in harmony both with the sentiment and practice of Sparta, that they counted on the support of their foreign allies. Among the ordinances which they promulgated was one, expressly forbidding every one[406] “to teach the art of words,” if I may be allowed to translate literally the Greek expression, which bore a most comprehensive signification, and denoted every intentional communication of logical, rhetorical, or argumentative improvement,—of literary criticism and composition,—and of command over those political and moral topics which formed the ordinary theme of discussion. Such was the species of instruction which Sokratês and other sophists, each in his own way, communicated to the Athenian youth. The great foreign sophists, not Athenian, such as Prodikus and Protagoras had been,—though perhaps neither of these two was now alive,—were doubtless no longer in the city, under the calamitous circumstances which had been weighing upon every citizen since the defeat of Ægospotami. But there were abundance of native teachers, or sophists, inferior in merit to these distinguished names, yet still habitually employed, with more or less success, in communicating a species of instruction held indispensable to every liberal Athenian. The edict of the Thirty was in fact a general suppression of the higher class of teachers or professors, above the rank of the elementary teacher of letters, or grammatist. If such an edict could have been maintained in force for a generation, combined with the other mandates of the Thirty, the city out of which Sophoklês and Euripidês had just died, and in which Plato and Isokratês were in vigorous age, the former twenty-five, the latter twenty-nine, would have been degraded to the intellectual level of the meanest community in Greece. It was not uncommon for a Grecian despot to suppress all those assemblies wherein youths came together for the purpose of common training, either intellectual or gymnastic; as well as the public banquets and clubs, or associations, as being dangerous to his authority, and tending to elevation of courage, and to a consciousness of political rights among the citizens.[407]

The enormities of the Thirty had provoked severe comments from the philosopher Sokratês, whose life was spent in conversation on instructive subjects with those young men who sought his society, though he never took money from any pupil. These comments had been made known to Kritias and Chariklês, who sent for him, reminded him of the prohibitive law, and peremptorily commanded him to abstain for the future from all conversation with youths. Sokratês met this order by putting some questions to those who gave it, in his usual style of puzzling scrutiny, destined to expose the vagueness of the terms; and to draw the line, or rather to show that no definite line could be drawn, between that which was permitted and that which was forbidden. But he soon perceived that his interrogations produced only a feeling of disgust and wrath, menacing to his own safety. The tyrants ended by repeating their interdict in yet more peremptory terms, and by giving Sokratês to understand, that they were not ignorant of the censures which he had cast upon them.[408]

Though our evidence does not enable us to make out the precise dates of these various oppressions of the Thirty, yet it seems probable that this prohibition of teaching must have been among their earlier enactments; at any rate, considerably anterior to the death of Theramenês, and the general expulsion out of the walls of all except the privileged Three Thousand. Their dominion continued, without any armed opposition made to it, for about eight months from the capture of Athens by Lysander, that is, from about April to December 404 B.C. The measure of their iniquity then became full. They had accumulated against themselves, both in Attica and among the exiles in the circumjacent territories, suffering and exasperated enemies, while they had lost the sympathy of Thebes, Megara, and Corinth, and were less heartily supported by Sparta.

During these important eight months, the general feeling throughout Greece had become materially different both towards Athens and towards Sparta. At the moment when the long war was first brought to a close, fear, antipathy, and vengeance against Athens, had been the reigning sentiment, both among the confederates of Sparta and among the revolted members of the extinct Athenian empire; a sentiment which prevailed among them indeed to a greater degree than among the Spartans themselves, who resisted it, and granted to Athens a capitulation at a time when many of their allies pressed for the harshest measures. To this resolution they were determined partly by the still remaining force of ancient sympathy; partly by the odium which would have been sure to follow the act of expelling the Athenian population, however it might be talked of beforehand as a meet punishment; partly too by the policy of Lysander, who contemplated the keeping of Athens in the same dependence on Sparta and on himself, and by the same means, as the other outlying cities in which he had planted his dekadarchies.

So soon as Athens was humbled, deprived of her fleet and walled port, and rendered innocuous, the great bond of common fear which had held the allies to Sparta disappeared; and while the paramount antipathy on the part of those allies towards Athens gradually died away, a sentiment of jealousy and apprehension of Sparta sprang up in its place, on the part of the leading states among them. For such a sentiment there was more than one reason. Lysander had brought home not only a large sum of money, but valuable spoils of other kinds, and many captive triremes, at the close of the war. As the success had been achieved by the joint exertions of all the allies, so the fruits of it belonged in equity to all of them jointly, not to Sparta alone. The Thebans and Corinthians preferred a formal claim to be allowed to share; and if the other allies abstained from openly backing the demand, we may fairly presume that it was not from any different construction of the equity of the case, but from fear of offending Sparta. In the testimonial erected by Lysander at Delphi, commemorative of the triumph, he had included not only his own brazen statue, but that of each commander of the allied contingents; thus formally admitting the allies to share in the honorary results, and tacitly sanctioning their claim to the lucrative results also. Nevertheless, the demand made by the Thebans and Corinthians was not only repelled, but almost resented as an insult; especially by Lysander, whose influence was at that moment almost omnipotent.[409]

That the Lacedæmonians should have withheld from the allies a share in this money, demonstrates still more the great ascendency of Lysander; because there was a considerable party at Sparta itself, who protested altogether against the reception of so much gold and silver, as contrary to the ordinances of Lykurgus, and fatal to the peculiar morality of Sparta. An ancient Spartan, Skiraphidas, or Phlogidas, took the lead in calling for exclusive adherence to the old Spartan money, heavy iron, difficult to carry; nor was it without difficulty that Lysander and his friends obtained admission for the treasure into Sparta; under special proviso, that it should be for the exclusive purposes of the government, and that no private citizen should ever circulate gold or silver.[410] The existence of such traditionary repugnance among the Spartans would have seemed likely to induce them to be just towards their allies, since an equitable distribution of the treasure would have gone far to remove the difficulty; yet they nevertheless kept it all.