The invention and employment of this imaginary aggregate of Five Thousand was not the least dexterous among the combinations of Antiphon. No one knew who these Five Thousand were: yet the resolution just adopted purported,—not that such a number of citizens should be singled out and constituted, either by choice, or by lot, or in some determinate manner which should exhibit them to the view and knowledge of others,—but that the Four Hundred should convene The Five Thousand, whenever they thought proper: thus assuming the latter to be a list already made up and notorious, at least to the Four Hundred themselves. The real fact was, that the Five Thousand existed nowhere except in the talk and proclamations of the conspirators, as a supplement of fictitious auxiliaries. They did not even exist as individual names on paper, but simply as an imposturous nominal aggregate. The Four Hundred, now installed, formed the entire and exclusive rulers of the state.[48] But the mere name of the Five Thousand, though it was nothing more than a name, served two important purposes for Antiphon and his conspiracy. First, it admitted of being falsely produced, especially to the armament at Samos, as proof of a tolerably numerous and popular body of equal, qualified, concurrent citizens, all intended to take their turn by rotation in exercising the powers of government; thus lightening the odium of extreme usurpation to the Four Hundred, and passing them off merely as the earliest section of the Five Thousand, put into office for a few months, and destined at the end of that period to give place to another equal section.[49] Next, it immensely augmented the means of intimidation possessed by the Four Hundred at home, by exaggerating the impression of their supposed strength. For the citizens generally were made to believe that there were five thousand real and living partners in the conspiracy; while the fact that these partners were not known and could not be individually identified, rather aggravated the reigning terror and mistrust; since every man, suspecting that his neighbor might possibly be among them, was afraid to communicate his discontent or propose means for joint resistance.[50] In both these two ways, the name and assumed existence of the Five Thousand lent strength to the real Four Hundred conspirators. It masked their usurpation, while it increased their hold on the respect and fears of the citizens.
As soon as the public assembly at Kolônus had, with such seeming unanimity, accepted all the propositions of Peisander, they were dismissed; and the new regiment of Four Hundred were chosen and constituted in the form prescribed. It now only remained to install them in the senate-house. But this could not be done without force, since the senators were already within it; having doubtless gone thither immediately from the assembly, where their presence, at least the presence of the prytanes, or senators of the presiding tribe, was essential as legal presidents. They had to deliberate what they would do under the decree just passed, which divested them of all authority. Nor was it impossible that they might organize armed resistance; for which there seemed more than usual facility at the present moment, since the occupation of Dekeleia by the Lacedæmonians kept Athens in a condition like that of a permanent camp, with a large proportion of the citizens day and night under arms.[51] Against this chance the Four Hundred made provision. They selected that hour of the day when the greater number of citizens habitually went home, probably to their morning meal, leaving the military station, with the arms piled and ready, under comparatively thin watch. While the general body of hoplites left the station at this hour, according to the usual practice, the hoplites—Andrian, Tenian, and others—in the immediate confidence of the Four Hundred, were directed, by private order, to hold themselves prepared and in arms, at a little distance off; so that if any symptoms should appear of resistance being contemplated, they might at once interfere and forestall it. Having taken this precaution, the Four Hundred marched in a body to the senate-house, each man with a dagger concealed under his garment, and followed by their special body-guard of one hundred and twenty young men from various Grecian cities, the instruments of the assassinations ordered by Antiphon and his colleagues. In this array they marched into the senate-house, where the senators were assembled, and commanded them to depart; at the same time tendering to them their pay for all the remainder of the year,—seemingly about three months or more down to the beginning of Hecatombæon, the month of new nominations,—during which their functions ought to have continued. The senators were no way prepared to resist the decree just passed under the forms of legality with an armed body now arrived to enforce its execution. They obeyed and departed, each man as he passed the door receiving the salary tendered to him. That they should yield obedience to superior force, under the circumstances, can excite neither censure nor surprise; but that they should accept, from the hands of the conspirators, this anticipation of an unearned salary, was a meanness which almost branded them as accomplices, and dishonored the expiring hour of the last democratical authority. The Four Hundred now found themselves triumphantly installed in the senate-house; without the least resistance, either within its walls, or even without, by any portion of the citizens.[52]
Thus perished, or seemed to perish, the democracy of Athens, after an uninterrupted existence of nearly one hundred years since the revolution of Kleisthenês. So incredible did it appear that the numerous, intelligent, and constitutional citizens of Athens should suffer their liberties to be overthrown by a band of four hundred conspirators, while the great mass of them not only loved their democracy, but had arms in their hands to defend it, that even their enemy and neighbor Agis, at Dekeleia, could hardly imagine the revolution to be a fact accomplished. We shall see presently that it did not stand,—nor would it probably have stood, had circumstances even been more favorable,—but the accomplishment of it at all, is an incident too extraordinary to be passed over without some words in explanation.
We must remark that the tremendous catastrophe and loss of blood in Sicily had abated the energy of the Athenian character generally, but especially had made them despair of their foreign relations; of the possibility that they could make head against enemies, increased in number by revolts among their own allies, and farther sustained by Persian gold. Upon this sentiment of despair is brought to bear the treacherous delusion of Alkibiadês, offering them the Persian aid; that is, means of defence and success against foreign enemies, at the price of their democracy. Reluctantly the people are brought, but they are brought, to entertain the proposition: and thus the conspirators gain their first capital point, of familiarizing the people with the idea of such a change of constitution. The ulterior success of the conspiracy—when all prospect of Persian gold, or improved foreign position, was at an end—is due to the combinations, alike nefarious and skilful, of Antiphon, wielding and organizing the united strength of the aristocratical classes at Athens; strength always exceedingly great, but under ordinary circumstances working in fractions disunited and even reciprocally hostile to each other,—restrained by the ascendant democratical institutions,—and reduced to corrupt what it could not overthrow. Antiphon, about to employ this anti-popular force in one systematic scheme, and for the accomplishment of a predetermined purpose, keeps still within the same ostensible constitutional limits. He raises no open mutiny: he maintains inviolate the cardinal point of Athenian political morality, respect to the decision of the senate and political assembly, as well as to constitutional maxims. But he knows well that the value of these meetings, as political securities, depends upon entire freedom of speech; and that, if that freedom be suppressed, the assembly itself becomes a nullity, or rather an instrument of positive imposture and mischief. Accordingly, he causes all the popular orators to be successively assassinated, so that no man dares to open his mouth on that side; while on the other hand, the anti-popular speakers are all loud and confident, cheering one another on, and seeming to represent all the feeling of the persons present. By thus silencing each individual leader, and intimidating every opponent from standing forward as spokesman, he extorts the formal sanction of the assembly and the senate to measures which the large majority of the citizens detest. That majority, however, are bound by their own constitutional forms; and when the decision of these, by whatever means obtained, is against them, they have neither the inclination nor the courage to resist. In no part of the world has this sentiment of constitutional duty, and submission to the vote of a legal majority, been more keenly and universally felt, than it was among the citizens of democratical Athens.[53] Antiphon thus finds means to employ the constitutional sentiment of Athens as a means of killing the constitution: the mere empty form, after its vital and protective efficacy has been abstracted, remains simply as a cheat to paralyze individual patriotism.
It was this cheat which rendered the Athenians indisposed to stand forward with arms in defence of that democracy to which they were attached. Accustomed as they were to unlimited pacific contention within the bounds of their constitution, they were in the highest degree averse to anything like armed intestine contention. This is the natural effect of an established free and equal polity, to substitute the contests of the tongue for those of the sword, and sometimes, even to create so extreme a disinclination to the latter, that if liberty be energetically assailed, the counter-energy necessary for its defence may probably be found wanting. So difficult is it for the same people to have both the qualities requisite for making a free constitution work well in ordinary times, together with those very different qualities requisite for upholding it against exceptional dangers and under trying emergencies. None but an Athenian of extraordinary ability, like Antiphon, would have understood the art of thus making the constitutional feeling of his countrymen subservient to the success of his conspiracy, and of maintaining the forms of legal dealing towards assembled and constitutional bodies, while he violated them in secret and successive stabs directed against individuals. Political assassination had been unknown at Athens, as far as our information reaches, since it was employed, about fifty years before, by the oligarchical party against Ephialtês, the coadjutor of Periklês.[54] But this had been an individual case, and it was reserved for Antiphon and Phrynichus to organize a band of assassins working systematically, and taking off a series of leading victims one after the other. As the Macedonian kings in after-times required the surrender of the popular orators in a body, so the authors of this conspiracy found the same enemies to deal with, and adopted another way of getting rid of them; thus reducing the assembly into a tame and lifeless mass, capable of being intimidated into giving its collective sanction to measures which its large majority detested.
As Grecian history has been usually written, we are instructed to believe that the misfortunes, and the corruption, and the degradation of the democratical states are brought upon them by the class of demagogues, of whom Kleon, Hyperbolus, Androklês, etc., stand forth as specimens. These men are represented as mischief-makers and revilers, accusing without just cause, and converting innocence into treason. Now the history of this conspiracy of the Four Hundred presents to us the other side of the picture. It shows that the political enemies—against whom the Athenian people were protected by their democratical institutions, and by the demagogues as living organs of those institutions—were not fictitious but dangerously real. It reveals the continued existence of powerful anti-popular combinations, ready to come together for treasonable purposes when the moment appeared safe and tempting. It manifests the character and morality of the leaders, to whom the direction of the anti-popular force naturally fell. It proves that these leaders, men of uncommon ability, required nothing more than the extinction or silence of the demagogues, to be enabled to subvert the popular securities and get possession of the government. We need no better proof to teach us what was the real function and intrinsic necessity of these demagogues in the Athenian system, taking them as a class, and apart from the manner in which individuals among them may have performed their duty. They formed the vital movement of all that was tutelary and public-spirited in democracy. Aggressive in respect to official delinquents, they were defensive in respect to the public and the constitution. If that anti-popular force, which Antiphon found ready-made, had not been efficient, at a much earlier moment, in stifling the democracy, it was because there were demagogues to cry aloud, as well as assemblies to hear and sustain them. If Antiphon’s conspiracy was successful, it was because he knew where to aim his blows, so as to strike down the real enemies of the oligarchy and the real defenders of the people. I here employ the term demagogues because it is that commonly used by those who denounce the class of men here under review: the proper neutral phrase, laying aside odious associations, would be to call them popular speakers, or opposition speakers. But, by whatever name they may be called, it is impossible rightly to conceive their position in Athens, without looking at them in contrast and antithesis with those anti-popular forces against which they formed the indispensable barrier, and which come forth into such manifest and melancholy working under the organizing hands of Antiphon and Phrynichus.
As soon as the Four Hundred found themselves formally installed in the senate-house, they divided themselves by lot into separate prytanies,—probably ten in number, consisting of forty members each, like the former senate of Five Hundred, in order that the distribution of the year to which the people were accustomed might not be disturbed,—and then solemnized their installation by prayer and sacrifice. They put to death some political enemies, though not many: they farther imprisoned and banished others, and made large changes in the administration of affairs, carrying everything with a strictness and rigor unknown under the old constitution.[55] It seems to have been proposed among them to pass a vote of restoration to all persons under sentence of exile. But this was rejected by the majority in order that Alkibiadês might not be among the number; nor did they think it expedient, notwithstanding, to pass the law, reserving him as a special exception.
They farther despatched a messenger to Agis at Dekeleia, intimating their wish to treat for peace; which, they affirmed, he ought to be ready to grant to them, now that “the faithless Demos” was put down. Agis, however, not believing that the Athenian people would thus submit to be deprived of their liberty, anticipated that intestine dissension would certainly break out, or at least that some portion of the Long Walls would be found unguarded, should a foreign army appear. While therefore he declined the overtures for peace, he at the same time sent for reinforcements out of Peloponnesus, and marched with a considerable army, in addition to his own garrison, up to the very walls of Athens. But he found the ramparts carefully manned: no commotion took place within: even a sally was made, in which some advantage was gained over him. He therefore speedily retired, sending back his newly-arrived reinforcements to Peloponnesus; while the Four Hundred, on renewing their advances to him for peace, now found themselves much better received, and were even encouraged to despatch envoys to Sparta itself.[56]
As soon as they had thus got over the first difficulties, and placed matters on a footing which seemed to promise stability, they despatched ten envoys to Samos. Aware beforehand of the danger impending over them in that quarter from the known aversion of the soldiers and seamen to anything in the nature of oligarchy, they had, moreover, just heard, by the arrival of Chæreas and the paralus, of the joint attack made by the Athenian and Samian oligarchs, and of its complete failure. Had this event occurred a little earlier, it might perhaps have deterred even some of their own number from proceeding with the revolution at Athens, which was rendered thereby almost sure of failure, from the first. Their ten envoys were instructed to represent at Samos that the recent oligarchy had been established with no views injurious to the city, but on the contrary for the general benefit; that though the Council now installed consisted of Four Hundred only, yet the total number of partisans who had made the revolution, and were qualified citizens under it, was Five Thousand; a number greater, they added, than had ever been actually assembled in the Pnyx under the democracy, even for the most important debates,[57] in consequence of the unavoidable absences of numerous individuals on military service and foreign travel.
What satisfaction might have been given, by this allusion to the fictitious Five Thousand, or by the fallacious reference to the numbers, real or pretended, of the past democratical assemblies, had these envoys carried to Samos the first tidings of the Athenian revolution, we cannot say. They were forestalled by Chæreas, the officer of the paralus; who, though the Four Hundred tried to detain him, made his escape and hastened to Samos to communicate the fearful and unexpected change which had occurred at Athens. Instead of hearing that change described under the treacherous extenuations prescribed by Antiphon and Phrynichus, the armament first learned it from the lips of Chæreas, who told them at once the extreme truth, and even more than the truth. He recounted, with indignation, that every Athenian who ventured to say a word against the Four Hundred rulers of the city, was punished with the scourge; that even the wives and children of persons hostile to them were outraged; that there was a design of seizing and imprisoning the relatives of the democrats at Samos, and putting them to death, if the latter refused to obey orders from Athens. The simple narrative of what had really occurred would have been quite sufficient to provoke in the armament a sentiment of detestation against the Four Hundred. But these additional details of Chæreas, partly untrue, filled them with uncontrollable wrath, which they manifested by open menace against the known partisans of the Four Hundred at Samos, as well as against those who had taken part in the recent oligarchical conspiracy in the island. It was not without difficulty that their hands were arrested by the more reflecting citizens present, who remonstrated against the madness of such disorderly proceedings when the enemy was close upon them.