Reflections on the Rise and Fall of the Ancient Republicks / Adapted to the Present State of Great Britain

by Edward Wortley Montagu

Alcibiades now appeared upon the stage; a man composed of a motley mixture of virtues and vices, of good and bad qualities; one who could assume even the most opposite characters; and with more ease, than a chameleon can change its colours, appear a very contrast to himself just as his interest or ambition required.[76] This state Proteus was strongly piqued at the growing power and reputation of Nicias. His lust of power was too great to bear either a superior or an equal;[77] and he determined at all events to supplant him, alike regardless either of the equity of the means, or of the consequences of it to his country. The Athenians were not a little displeased with the Spartans, who had not been very punctual in fulfilling the conditions of the treaty.[78] Alcibiades finding his countrymen in a humour very proper for his purpose, inflamed them violently against Nicias, whom he publickly accused as a secret friend and wellwisher to that people. Nicias endeavoured to ward off the blow, and prevent his countrymen from coming to an open rupture; but the intrigues of Alcibiades prevailed, who procured himself to be elected general, and fresh hostilities to be commenced against the allies of Sparta.[79]

The seventeenth year of this memorable war is remarkable for that fatal expedition against Sicily, which gave a mortal blow to the Athenian grandeur, and affords a signal instance of the terrible consequences of faction. The Egestians, a small state in Sicily, applied to the Athenians for assistance against the oppressions of the Syracusans. Alcibiades, looking upon it as an object worthy of his ambition, undertook the cause of these suppliants, and knew so well how to flatter the vanity of his countrymen, that a large armament was decreed by the people for that purpose, and Nicias, Alcibiades, and Lamachus, a daring but able officer, were elected generals.[80] Nicias was the only person who had the honesty or courage to oppose a measure which he judged not only rash, but to the last degree impolitick; but the Athenians were deaf to all his remonstrances. The relief of the Egestians was only the pretext; for the entire dominion of Sicily, as Thucydides assures us, was the real object they had in view when they gave orders for that powerful armament.[81] Alcibiades had promised them an easy conquest of that island, which he looked upon only as a prelude to much greater enterprises; and the besotted people had already swallowed up Italy, Carthage, and Africa in their idle imaginations.[82] Both factions concurred in the vigorous prosecution of this measure, though from very different motives: the friends of Alcibiades, from the view of aggrandizing their chief by that vast accession of wealth and glory which they hoped for from this expedition: his enemies, from the hopes of supplanting him in his absence, and gaining the lead in the administration.[83] Thus the true interest of the state was equally sacrificed to the selfish and private views of each party! But, in the midst of these vast preparations, an odd accident threw the whole city into confusion, and at once alarmed the superstition and jealousy of the people. The terms, or statues of Mercury, were all defaced in one and the same night by some unknown persons; nor could the Athenians ever discover the real authors of this reputed sacrilege.[84] Proclamations were issued with a free pardon, and reward for any of the accomplices who could make a discovery, and the information of strangers and slaves was allowed as legal evidence; but no information could be procured as to the true authors of that particular fact; a circumstance which to me does not appear at all surprising: for it was evidently, in my opinion, a piece of party-craft played off against Alcibiades by the opposite faction, who knew that to attack the established religion, was to touch the master-spring of the passions of their countrymen.[85] Some slaves indeed, and other low persons (suborned, as Plutarch asserts, by Androcles,[86] one of the demagogues) deposed, that long before that, some statues had been mutilated, and the most sacred mysteries of their religion ridiculed, in a drunken frolick by some wild young fellows, and that Alcibiades was of the party.[87] This information, which, according to Plutarch, was a palpable contrivance of his enemies, enabled them to fix the odium of the last action upon Alcibiades.[88] The demagogues of the opposite faction greatly exaggerated the whole affair to the people. They accused him of a treasonable design against the popular government, and produced his contemptuous ridicule of the sacred mysteries, and the mutilation of Mercury’s statues, in support of their charge; as they urged his well known libertinism, and licentious life as a proof that he must be the author of those insults upon their religion. Alcibiades not only denied the charge, but insisted upon being brought immediately to a legal trial; declaring himself ready to undergo the punishment inflicted by the laws, if he should be found guilty.[89] He beseeched the people not to receive any informations against him in his absence, but rather to put him to death upon the spot if they judged him to be the offender. He urged too, how impolitick it would be to send him with the command of so great an army, whilst he lay under the imputation of a crime of that nature, before they had taken thorough cognizance of the affair: but his accusers dreading the effect which his interest with the army, and his well known influence over the allied troops, which had engaged in the expedition from their personal attachment to him, might have upon the people, if he should be brought to immediate trial, procured other demagogues of their party to dissuade the people from a measure which they judged would disconcert their scheme. These men pleaded the dangerous delay which such a proceeding might occasion, and urged the necessity of dispatch in an enterprise of such vast importance. They proposed therefore that the fleet should sail immediately, but that Alcibiades should return when a day was appointed for his trial.[90] For their intention was, as Thucydides remarks, to recall and bring him to his trial when the popular prejudice ran strong against him, which they knew they could easily spirit up in his absence. It was decreed, therefore, that Alcibiades should depart immediately upon the expedition.

This mighty armament, which carried the flower of the Athenian forces, was the most splendid, the best fitted out, and the most expensive, that had ever sailed from any of the Grecian ports to that very time.[91] But the first thing we meet with in this expedition, is (what might naturally be expected) a disagreement between the three generals as to the manner of beginning their operations.[92] Alcibiades indeed brought them both over to his opinion; but whilst he was disputing with his colleagues in Sicily, his enemies at Athens were by no means idle. The affair of the statues, and the pollution of the sacred mysteries, were again brought upon the carpet. The people, naturally suspicious, never inquired into the character of the informers, or the validity of the evidence, but admitted all that offered without distinction; and, giving easy credit to the most abandoned wretches, apprehended several of the most eminent citizens, and committed them to prison.[93] One of these persuaded another of his fellow prisoners, who was most liable to suspicion, to take the crime upon himself, and to impeach some others as his accomplices.[94] Urging this as a reason, that whether what he confessed should be true or false, he would at least secure his own pardon, and calm the present suspicions of the people. Audocides, for that was the name of this person according to Plutarch, though it is omitted by Thucydides, was prevailed upon by this kind of reasoning to acknowledge himself guilty of defacing the statues, and to inform against some others as accomplices in the same act of impiety.[95] Upon this declaration the informer received his pardon, and all those who were not mentioned in his information their liberty:[96] but processes were made out against as many as he had named, and all who were apprehended were tried, condemned, and executed upon his single evidence. Those who escaped by flight were sentenced to die, and a price set upon their heads by a publick proclamation. Whether the persons condemned were guilty or innocent was not at all clear, according to Thucydides. Plutarch tells us, that the friends and acquaintance of Alcibiades, who fell into the hands of the people, were severely handled on this occasion.[97] It is certain therefore that the information was chiefly levelled at him by the artifice of the opposite faction; for Thucydides informs us almost in the very next sentence, that the people received the information against Alcibiades with all the fury of prejudice, at the instigation of such of his enemies as had accused him before he sailed upon the expedition.[98] And since they now had not the least doubt of his being concerned in the affair of defacing the statues, they were more than ever convinced that he was equally guilty of the pollution of the mysteries, and that both those crimes were committed by him and his associates with the same design of subverting the popular government. For a body of Spartan troops happened to make an incursion, in that very juncture, as far as the Isthmus, upon some design or other against the Bœotians. This unlucky incident confirmed the people in their suspicions that this was a scheme concerted beforehand with Alcibiades, covered with the specious pretext of attacking the Bœotians;[99] and that if the plot had not been happily discovered in time, and the execution of it prevented by the death of the conspirators, their city would most inevitably have been betrayed to the Spartans.[100] Thus on every side suspicions fell strongly upon Alcibiades, and the people determining to put him to death, sent a private express to Sicily to recall him and such of his friends as were named in the information. The officers dispatched in the Salaminian galley, which was sent on that occasion, were ordered to acquaint Alcibiades, that he was desired to return with them to Athens to clear himself of those things which were objected to him before the people; but they received a strict charge not to offer to take him or his friends into custody; not only from the dread of some mutiny amongst their own soldiers upon his account, but for fear the allied troops, whom his influence had engaged, should desert and abandon the enterprise.[101] Alcibiades obeyed the summons, and taking his friends, who were included in the information, into his own ship, left Sicily in company with the Salaminian galley, seemingly as if returning to Athens; but, whether he only suspected, or, which is more probable, had received intelligence of the measures taken by his enemies in his absence, he, with his friends, went ashore at Thuria, and gave the Athenian officers the slip, not caring to stand the sentence of the credulous and prejudiced people.[102] The officers finding all their search after him quite fruitless, returned to Athens without him, and the Athenians passed sentence of death upon him and all those who accompanied him, and confiscated their estates for non-appearance.[103] Thus, instead of uniting their joint efforts to promote the success of an enterprise upon which they had staked their all, the infatuated Athenians were intent upon nothing but the cabals and intrigues of faction; and the folly of the people, managed by their ambitious and selfish demagogues, deprived the state of the only commander from whom they could rationally hope for success in that hazardous expedition. A measure which occasioned the total ruin both of their fleet and army, and gave a fatal shock to their republick; for the soldiers were not only greatly dispirited at the loss of a chief, in whose abilities they placed the most entire confidence, but Alcibiades, in revenge for his usage, took refuge amongst the Spartans, and prevailed upon them to send such supplies to the Syracusans as completed the destruction of the Athenians in that country.[104] Nicias was taken and put to death by the enemy; not a single ship returned, and few of the men escaped either slaughter or captivity.[105] The news of this terrible defeat threw the city into the utmost consternation.[106] They at first gave up all hopes, and imagined they should quickly see the enemy's fleet in the Pyræum whilst they were in this exhausted and defenceless condition. However, the dread of the impending danger had this good effect that it made the populace extremely tractable, and ready to support their magistrates in whatever measures they judged most conducive to the common safety.[107] Nor could any thing but union and harmony amongst themselves have possibly saved them in the midst of so many enemies, with which they were surrounded. For all the Greeks in general were highly elated, as Thucydides tells us, with the ill success of the Athenians in Sicily.[108] Those who had hitherto observed a strict neutrality in this war wanted no solicitations to join in crushing that unhappy people, but rather thought it glorious to have a share in a war which they concluded would be but of short duration. The Spartan allies were more than ever desirous of delivering themselves from the calamities of war which they had so long suffered; whilst those states, which until that time had received laws from the Athenians, exerted themselves above their strength to support the revolt which they were then meditating. They judged of the situation of affairs from the blind impulse of passion, regardless of the dictates of reason, and fancied the next campaign would finish the ruin of the Athenians. The Spartans, promising themselves the certain dominion over all Greece, if the Athenians were once reduced, made vast preparations for the war, to which all their allies contributed their utmost; all got ready for opening the campaign the spring following.[109]

The Athenians, now harmony was restored in the state, recovered their spirits, and begun to act with vigour.[110] They applied themselves to the re-establishment of their marine, the repairs of their fortifications, and the care of storing their magazines with the greatest diligence and economy, retrenching all such expenses as they judged useless or superfluous. The good effects of this unanimity were visible when the campaign opened, for they found themselves in a condition to make head against their numerous enemies, though strengthened by a new alliance with the Persians, and assisted with Persian money; and they even gained some considerable advantages. An event too happened, which greatly disconcerted the measures of their enemies, and raised their state once more to its former power and lustre. Alcibiades, a thorough libertine, who never stuck at the most infamous means of gratifying his passions, debauched Timæa, the wife of Agis, king of Sparta, his great friend and protector.[111] Dreading the resentment of that prince for so shameful a breach of friendship and hospitality, as well as the jealousy of the Peloponnesians, who had sent private orders to Astyochus, the Lacedemonian admiral, to cut him off, he fled to Tissaphernes, at that time governor of the provinces in the lower Asia under the Persian monarch.[112] Alcibiades, who was a consummate master in the art of address, quickly insinuated himself into his good graces, and explained to him the true interest of the Persians with respect to the Grecian republicks.[113] He showed him the bad policy of raising one state to a superiority over all the rest, which would deprive his master of all his allies, and oblige him to contend alone with the whole power of Greece. He advised him to permit every state to enjoy its own separate independent government; and demonstrated, that by keeping them thus divided, his master might set them together by the ears, and, by playing them one against another, crush them all at last without the least danger. He added too, that an alliance with the Athenians would be more advantageous to the Persian interest, and preferable to that which he had made with the Lacedæmonians. The crafty Persian was too able a politician not to relish his advice; he paid the Peloponnesians their subsidy so ill, and put off a naval engagement so long, under pretence of waiting for the Phœnician fleet, that he wasted the strength of their navy, which was far superior to the Athenian, and ruined all their measures.[114]

Whilst Alcibiades resided with Tissaphernes, and gave the Persians the best instructions he could for regulating their conduct, he at the same time formed a scheme for procuring the repeal of his sentence, and liberty to return once more to his native country.[115] He judged the best way to obtain this favour would be to convince the Athenians of his intimacy with Tissaphernes. To effect this, he wrote to the chief officers of the Athenian forces, which then lay at Samos, directing them to inform all those of the greatest weight and authority how desirous he was of revisiting Athens if the government should be once lodged in the hands of a small number of the principal citizens; but that he could by no means think of returning whilst the democracy subsisted, and the state was governed by a parcel of abandoned wretches, who had so scandalously driven him out of his country. Upon that condition he promised to procure the friendship of Tissaphernes, and declared himself ready to accept a share with them in the administration. The event answered his expectations; for the officers and the leading men, both of the sea and land forces, which were at Samos, were eagerly bent upon subverting the democracy. Thus the treaty was set on foot at Samos, and the scheme laid for altering the government.[116] The principal men were in hopes of a share in the administration, and the inferior people acquiesced from the expectation of large subsidies from the Persians. Phrynicus, one of the generals, alone opposed it, sensible that Alcibiades cared as little for an aristocratick government as for a democracy, and had no other point in view (which, as Thucydides acknowledges, was the real truth) than to procure such a change in the present administration as might enable his friends to recall him. The terms, however, which Alcibiades offered, were agreed to by the rest, and Pisander, one of the leading men, was sent to Athens to manage the affair.[117]

Pisander at first met with violent opposition from the people;[118] and the enemies of Alcibiades in particular clamoured loudly against the violation of the laws, when his return was proposed, which they chiefly dreaded. But Pisander applied so artfully to the fears of the people, and showed them so plainly that it was the only resource they had left which could possibly save the state, that they at last agreed to it, though with great reluctance.[119] He therefore, with ten others, was appointed to settle the affair with Tissaphernes and Alcibiades as they should judge most conducive to the interest of the republick; but Tissaphernes, who dreaded the power of the Peloponnesians, was not so ready to enter into a convention with the Athenians, as they were taught to believe.[120] Alcibiades therefore, to save his credit, and conceal from the Athenians his inability to make good what he had promised, insisted, in the name of Tissaphernes, upon such high terms that the treaty broke off, and the deputies returned to Samos, enraged at the trick which they thought had been put upon them by Alcibiades. Determined however, at all events, to pursue their scheme, Pisander, with some of the deputies, returned to Athens, where their party had already made a considerable progress, for they had privately assassinated such of the leading men as were averse to an aristocracy, and though they permitted the senate and people to assemble and vote as usual, yet they would not allow any thing to be decreed but what they thought proper;[121] besides, none but those of their own faction durst venture to harangue the people; for if any one attempted to speak in opposition, he was sure to be dispatched at the first convenient opportunity; nor was any inquiry made after the assassins, or any process issued out against those who were strongly suspected of the murders. The people were so terrified with these bloody executions, that they acquiesced to whatever was proposed, and every man thought himself happy if no violence was offered him, even though he continued quiet and silent. They were deprived even of the power of bewailing the common calamity to each other, in order to concert measures for revenge: for the faction had artfully spread so strong and so universal a diffidence amongst the popular party, that no one durst venture to confide in his neighbour, but each man suspected every other as an accomplice of the crimes which were daily perpetrated.

In this situation Pisander found the city at his arrival,[122] and immediately prepared to finish what his friends had so successfully begun: convoking therefore an assembly of the people, the aristocratick faction openly declared their resolution to abolish the ancient form of government, and to lodge the supreme power in the hands of four hundred of the nobility, who should govern the state in the manner they thought best, with the power of assembling five thousand of the citizens to consult with as oft as they thought proper. Pisander was the man who acquainted the people with this definitive resolution,[123] but Antiphon was the person who formed the plan, and was chief manager of the whole affair: a man, according to the testimony of Thucydides, who knew him personally, master of the greatest abilities, and of by far the most nervous eloquence of any of his contemporaries. Thus the oligarchy was established, and the Athenians deprived of that liberty which they had enjoyed near one hundred years from the expulsion of Hippias: during which whole space they had been subject to none, but had been accustomed, above half that time, to lord it over others; for as soon as this decree had passed in the assembly without opposition,[124] the chiefs of the conspiracy artfully permitted such citizens as were upon duty, but had not been let into the secret, to go wherever they pleased; but directed their own friends to continue under arms, and disposed them in such a manner as might best favour their enterprise: for the Athenians kept at that time a constant guard upon their walls, as the Spartan army was encamped in their neighbourhood. When they had made their disposition, the four hundred nobles with poignards concealed under their habits, and attended by an hundred and twenty daring young fellows, whom they employed in their assassinations, surrounded the senators,[125] and paying them what was due upon their salaries, commanded them to depart the court. The senators tamely submitting,[126] and not the least stir happening amongst the citizens, they proceeded to elect magistrates out of their own body, and performed all the religious ceremonies usually practised upon those occasions. When they had thus got possession of the government, they did not think proper to recall those whom the people had formerly banished, for fear of being obliged to include Alcibiades in the number, whose enterprising genius they dreaded extremely; but they behaved most tyrannically to the citizens, putting some to death, throwing some into prison, and banishing others.

The spirit of liberty however is not so easily extinguished. Pisander had brought mercenary troops with him out of some of the cities which he passed through on his return to Athens, who were of great service to the new governors in their enterprise:[127] but the forces at Samos consisted of Athenian citizens, jealous even of the least attempt upon the liberty of their country, and declared enemies to every species of tyranny. The first news which these brave fellows received of the usurpation, brought such exaggerated accounts of the cruelty and insolence of the four hundred, that they were with great difficulty restrained from cutting every one to pieces who was in the interest of the oligarchy. However,[128] they took the command from their former generals, and cashiered every officer they suspected, substituting others in their places; the chief of whom were Thrasybulus and Thrasyllus. Alcibiades was recalled,[129] and unanimously declared their captain general both by the sea and land forces; which gave such a turn to affairs at Athens, that the four hundred were deposed, in spite of all their efforts to continue in power, and the publick tranquillity once more established.

The people confirmed Alcibiades in the command, and committed the whole management of the war to his conduct.[130] But his soul was too great to receive his recall from banishment, and even his high post as an act of favour.[131] He determined to merit both by some signal service, and not to revisit Athens until he could return with glory. His usual success attended him in this war, and he seemed to bring victory with him wherever he appeared; for he gained so many victories both by sea and land, and distressed the Peloponnesians so much by his address and conduct, that he once more retrieved the dominion of the sea, and returned triumphant to Athens.[132] His entry was splendidly magnificent, adorned with the trophies of two hundred ships of war, which he had destroyed or taken, and a vast number of prisoners.[133] His reception was attended with all the honours and applause he had so justly merited. The people, conscious of the late happy change in their affairs under the administration of Alcibiades, lamented with tears their miscarriage in Sicily, and other subsequent calamities; all which they imputed to their own fatal error in not trusting the sole command to so able and successful a commander.