Historical Parallels, vol. 3 (of 3)

by Arthur Thomas Malkin

Hermon of Megara, the pilot, or master rather of Callicratidas’s ship, observed that the Athenians were much the most numerous, and said that it would be well to retreat. Callicratidas answered, that Sparta would not be worse inhabited if he were dead, but it was shameful to run away. The battle lasted long; but when Callicratidas, who led the Spartan right wing, was thrown overboard by the shock of his own trireme against another, and the Athenian right wing gained the advantage over their opponents, the Spartan fleet betook itself to flight, with the loss of seventy ships or upwards. The victors returned to their station at Arginusæ, their number diminished only by twenty–five ships, but nearly all the crews of these had perished.

A double duty now claimed their attention: the one to save those of their countrymen who still clung to life upon the floating wreck, the other to relieve Conon and complete the destruction of the Peloponnesian fleet by surprising the squadron left to maintain the siege of Mitylene. We can detect no error in the course adopted, which was to leave forty–six ships to collect the wreck, and sail direct for Mitylene with the others. For some unexplained reason, however, none of the eight generals remained to superintend the former service, which was intrusted to Theramenes and Thrasybulus. But a violent storm came on, and confined both divisions of the fleet at Arginusæ; while Eteonicus, to whom a light vessel had conveyed the news of his commander’s defeat, seized the interval for escape thus granted to him with much readiness. Fearful of attack from Conon, now nearly equal to him in naval force, if he manifested the necessity of retreat, he bade the vessel which conveyed the news put back to sea without communicating it to any but himself, and then return crowned and decked with the symbols of victory, and shouting that Callicratidas had gotten the victory of the Athenians. He then offered the usual thanks–offering for good news, and that very night broke up the siege and departed. The Athenians seem to have been deficient in activity, for their first information of this was derived from the arrival of Conon at Arginusæ, as they were preparing to leave it. They then sailed to Chios, whither the Peloponnesians had repaired; and having done nothing, returned to their usual station at Samos.

How it happened that so powerful a fleet, under able commanders, not only did, but apparently attempted nothing, in prosecution of so signal a success, is left entirely unexplained; and we might almost suspect from the meagre statement of facts, without explanation or comment, that Xenophon knew more of the matter than for some reason or other he chose to tell. The Athenians, he continues, displaced their ten generals, excepting Conon: but the cause of their dissatisfaction is not stated. Six of the eight who had been in the battle returned home at once. On their return, Erasinides was immediately accused by Archidemus, who was at that time the popular leader, of embezzling public property and of misconduct in his command. He was committed to prison. Subsequently the other five were also committed to answer to the people for their conduct; and at the first assembly several persons, with Theramenes at their head, came forward to assert that the generals ought to be brought to trial for not saving their shipwrecked countrymen. The accused made a short answer (for they were not allowed to speak at length, as they had a right to do), stating all that had passed; how they had resolved themselves to follow up their advantage, leaving Theramenes and Thrasybulus, men of military rank and confessed ability, to perform the other service. “These, if any,” they said, “are the persons to blame; yet though they accuse us, we will not bring a false charge against them, of neglecting what the violence of the storm rendered it impossible to do.”[167] And these statements they brought forward witnesses to prove.

This short defence made a considerable impression, and many persons offered to become sureties for the accused. But the evening had now closed in, and it was said to be too dark to distinguish the show of hands. The matter was therefore adjourned to the next assembly, and it was voted that in the mean time the council should determine in what manner the generals should be tried,—a precaution which shows that they were not meant to have fair play, since the form of trial was as distinctly settled in Athens as in England; but it gave the accused full opportunity for making his defence, and therefore did not suit the purpose of the prosecutors. In the mean time came on the festival called Apaturia, at which members of the same family and the same tribe met in social intercourse; and Theramenes took advantage of the kindly feelings excited upon the occasion to raise a prejudice against his intended victims, by sending about the city men dressed in black with their heads shaven, in the character of relations of those who had been lost at Arginusæ.

At the next general assembly Callixenus explained the scheme of trial recommended by the council. “The people,” he said, “had already heard the charge and the answer to it (an answer, be it remembered, which had been limited to a few words), and might therefore proceed at once to vote. Two vases therefore would be set apart to each tribe, and those who thought the generals culpable for not saving the wrecked crews, would cast their ball into the one, those who did not think them culpable into the other. If the majority were of the former opinion, the punishment would be death and confiscation of property.” At this period a man came forward with a story that he had saved his own life on a flour–barrel, and that his dying comrades charged him, if he himself escaped, to tell the Athenians that the generals had abandoned those citizens who had so well served their country. Euryptolemus, a name which occurs in history only on this occasion, made a stand in favour of the accused, and threatened to prosecute Callixenus for submitting an illegal proposition to the assembly, and a part concurred with him; but the majority cried, that it was a fine thing if anyone should say that the people might not do as it liked: and Lyciscus proposed, that all who interfered with the proceedings of the assembly should be included in the same vote with the generals. Euryptolemus therefore was compelled to let things take their course. Still the presidents of the assembly refused to propose an illegal question; but they were frightened and overborne by clamour, except the celebrated Socrates, who steadily refused to act contrary to law. Euryptolemus made another attempt to procure the generals leave to plead their own cause, by moving an amendment to the proposition of Callixenus: but he failed; the scheme of the council was agreed to, and by a majority of votes sentence of death was passed upon the eight generals present at Arginusæ. Those six who had been unlucky enough to return to Athens were forthwith executed.

Not long after, Xenophon adds, the Athenians repented of what they had done, and voted that those who had deceived the people should be prosecuted, and find sureties for their appearance. Other civil contests arose, which gave them an opportunity of escape. Callixenus, at a later period, returned to Athens; lived for a time the object of hate to all, and died of hunger in a time of famine.[168]

The Germans, by the report of Tacitus, held solemn and deep drinking–bouts for the consideration of all important business, upon the old maxim that in wine there is no deceit; but they took care to reconsider their decision the next morning. Some court of temperate review would have preserved the Athenians from many heinous crimes, into which they were led by a temper unusually excitable, and when ruled by prejudice and passion, less fitted to judge wisely and equitably than the phlegmatic temper of the Germans, even under the influence of strong drink. With Theramenes and the accusers this was plainly a party measure, undertaken in total recklessness of right or wrong. In these corrupt motives the people could have no share; on the contrary, they seem to have been acted on at first by a right feeling of indignation at the alleged abandonment of meritorious citizens. Their fault lay in the readiness with which they discarded gratitude to entertain suspicion; in the blind fury with which, overleaping all law in jealously asserting the people’s omnipotence, they followed a mere impulse, a delusion, which the least exercise of judicial calmness would have dispelled. It is true that, when the reign of passion was over, and they returned to their senses, they rendered such amends for their precipitance as were then in their power. But such tardy repentance could neither repair nor expiate the wrong committed; and Athenian repentance generally came too late. Prompt in action, both from temper and from the forms of the state, which required no revision of a decree of the people, no assent from any concurring authority, performance followed close upon resolve. Of the many cruel edicts, repented or unrepented, uttered by the Athenian people, the revocation of the decree against the Mitylenæans, by which all male citizens were condemned to death, is the only one where repentance came in time. It seems a fitting judgment that the signal victory of Arginusæ was the last gained during the war; and that in the next year it was followed by the still more signal defeat at Ægospotami, which laid Athens prostrate at the feet of her haughty rival.

Not strictly analogous to the prosecution of the generals, but a still more memorable example of the cruelty and ingratitude to which party spirit can rouse even a phlegmatic people like the Dutch, the very antipodes of the Athenians in temper, is the murder of the brothers De Witt. Both illustrious, though not equally so, to the elder Holland owes deeper obligations than to any other of her citizens, except those great captains who burst the Spanish yoke. These obligations, and De Witt’s high qualities, are best described by a writer qualified to do justice to the subject by the affection of a friend, as well as the penetration of a statesman—Sir William Temple.

“The chief direction of the affairs of Holland had, for eighteen years, been constantly in the hands of their Pensionary De Witt, a minister of the greatest authority and sufficiency, the greatest application and industry, ever known in their state. In the course of his ministry, he and his party had reduced not only all the civil charges of the government in this province, but in a manner all the military commands of the army, out of the hands of persons affectionate to the Prince of Orange, into those esteemed more sure and fast to the interests of their more popular state. And all this had been attended for so long a course of years with the perpetual success of their affairs, by the growth of their trade, power, and riches at home, and the consideration of their neighbours abroad; yet the general humour of kindness in the people to their own form of government under the Princes of Orange, grew up with the age and virtues of the young Prince, so as to raise the prospect of some unavoidable revolutions among them, for several years before it arrived. And we have seen it grow to that height in this present year, upon the Prince’s coming to the two–and–twentieth year of his age (the time assigned him by their constitution for entering upon the public charges of their milice), that though it had found them in peace, it must have occasioned some violent sedition in their state; but meeting with the conjuncture of a foreign invasion, it broke out into so furious a rage of the people, and such general tumults through the whole country, as ended in the blood of their chief ministers; in the displacing all that were suspected to be of their party throughout the government; in the full restitution of the Prince’s authority to the highest point any of his ancestors had ever enjoyed; but withal in such a distraction of their councils and their actions, as made way for the easy successes of the French invasion; for the loss of almost five of their provinces in two months’ time, and for the general presages of utter ruin to their state.”[169]