In the established civil war which now raged in Attica, Thrasybulus and the exiles in Peiræus had decidedly the advantage; maintaining the offensive, while the Ten in Athens, and the remainder of the Thirty at Eleusis, were each thrown upon their defence. The division of the oligarchical force into these two sections doubtless weakened both, while the democrats in Peiræus were hearty and united. Presently, however, the arrival of a Spartan auxiliary force altered the balance of parties. Lysander, whom the oligarchical envoys had expressly requested to be sent to them as general, prevailed with the ephors to grant their request. While he himself went to Eleusis and got together a Peloponnesian land-force, his brother Libys conducted a fleet of forty triremes to block up Peiræus, and one hundred talents were lent to the Athenian oligarchs out of the large sum recently brought from Asia into the Spartan treasury.[442]
The arrival of Lysander brought the two sections of oligarchs in Attica again into coöperation, restrained the progress of Thrasybulus, and even reduced Peiræus to great straits by preventing all entry of ships or stores. Nor could anything have prevented it from being reduced to surrender, if Lysander had been allowed free scope in his operations. But the general sentiment of Greece had by this time become disgusted with his ambitious policy, and with the oligarchies which he had everywhere set up as his instruments; a sentiment not without influence on the feelings of the leading Spartans, who, already jealous of his ascendency, were determined not to increase it farther by allowing him to conquer Attica a second time, in order to plant his own creatures as rulers at Athens.[443]
Under the influence of these feelings, king Pausanias obtained the consent of three out of the five ephors to undertake himself an expedition into Attica, at the head of the forces of the confederacy, for which he immediately issued proclamation. Opposed to the political tendencies of Lysander, he was somewhat inclined to sympathize with the democracy, not merely at Athens, but elsewhere also, as at Mantineia.[444] It was probably understood that his intentions towards Athens were lenient and anti-Lysandrian, so that the Peloponnesian allies obeyed the summons generally: yet the Bœotians and Corinthians still declined, on the ground that Athens had done nothing to violate the late convention; a remarkable proof of the altered feelings of Greece during the last year, since, down to the period of that convention, these two states had been more bitterly hostile to Athens than any others in the confederacy. They suspected that even the expedition of Pausanias was projected with selfish Lacedæmonian views, to secure Attica as a separate dependency of Sparta, though detached from Lysander.[445]
On approaching Athens, Pausanias, joined by Lysander and the forces already in Attica, encamped in the garden of the Academy, near the city gates. His sentiments were sufficiently known beforehand to offer encouragement; so that the vehement reaction against the atrocities of the Thirty, which the presence of Lysander had doubtless stifled, burst forth without delay. The surviving relatives of the victims slain beset him even at the Academy in his camp, with prayers for protection and cries of vengeance against the oligarchs. Among those victims, as I have already stated, were Nikêratus the son, and Eukratês the brother, of Nikias who had perished at Syracuse, the friend and proxenus of Sparta at Athens. The orphan children, both of Nikêratus and Eukratês, were taken to Pausanias by their relative Diognêtus, who implored his protection for them, recounting at the same time the unmerited execution of their respective fathers, and setting forth their family claims upon the justice of Sparta. This affecting incident, which has been specially made known to us,[446] doubtless did not stand alone, among so many families suffering from the same cause. Pausanias was furnished at once with ample grounds, not merely for repudiating the Thirty altogether, and sending back the presents which they tendered to him,[447] but even for refusing to identify himself unreservedly with the new oligarchy of Ten which had risen upon their ruins. The voice of complaint—now for the first time set free, with some hopes of redress—must have been violent and unmeasured, after such a career as that of Kritias and his colleagues; while the fact was now fully manifested, which could not well have come forth into evidence before, that the persons despoiled and murdered had been chiefly opulent men, and very frequently even oligarchical men, not politicians of the former democracy. Both Pausanias, and the Lacedæmonians along with him, on reaching Athens, must have been strongly affected by the facts which they learned, and by the loud cry for sympathy and redress which poured upon them from the most innocent and respected families. The predisposition both of the king and the ephors against the policy of Lysander was materially strengthened, as well as their inclination to bring about an accommodation of parties, instead of upholding by foreign force an anti-popular Few.
Such convictions would become farther confirmed as Pausanias saw and heard more of the real state of affairs. At first, he held a language decidedly adverse to Thrasybulus and the exiles, sending to them a herald, and requiring them to disband and go to their respective homes.[448] The requisition not being obeyed, he made a faint attack upon Peiræus, which had no effect. Next day he marched down with two Lacedæmonian moræ, or large military divisions, and three tribes of the Athenian horsemen, to reconnoitre the place, and see where a line of blockade could be drawn. Some light troops annoyed him, but his troops repulsed them, and pursued them even as far as the theatre of Peiræus, where all the forces of Thrasybulus were mustered, heavy-armed, as well as light-armed. The Lacedæmonians were here in a disadvantageous position, probably in the midst of houses and streets, so that all the light-armed of Thrasybulus were enabled to set upon them furiously from different sides, and drive them out again with loss, two of the Spartan polemarchs being here slain. Pausanias was obliged to retreat to a little eminence about half a mile off, where he mustered his whole force, and formed his hoplites into a very deep phalanx. Thrasybulus on his side was so encouraged by the recent success of his light-armed, that he ventured to bring out his heavy-armed, only eight deep, to an equal conflict on the open ground. But he was here completely worsted, and driven back into Peiræus with the loss of one hundred and fifty men; so that the Spartan king was able to retire to Athens after a victory, and a trophy erected to commemorate it.[449]
The issue of this battle was one extremely fortunate for Thrasybulus and his comrades; since it left the honors of the day with Pausanias, so as to avoid provoking enmity or vengeance on his part, while it showed plainly that the conquest of Peiræus, defended by so much courage and military efficiency, would be no easy matter. It disposed Pausanias still farther towards an accommodation; strengthening also the force of that party in Athens which was favorable to the same object, and adverse to the Ten oligarchs. This opposition-party found decided favor with the Spartan king, as well as with the ephor Naukleidas, who was present along with him. Numbers of Athenians, even among those Three Thousand by whom the city was now exclusively occupied, came forward to deprecate farther war with Peiræus, and to entreat that Pausanias would settle the quarrel so as to leave them all at amity with Lacedæmon. Xenophon, indeed, according to that narrow and partial spirit which pervades his Hellenica, notices no sentiment in Pausanias except his jealousy of Lysander, and treats the opposition against the Ten at Athens as having been got up by his intrigues.[450] But it seems plain that this is not a correct account. Pausanias did not create the discord, but found it already existing, and had to choose which of the parties he would adopt. The Ten took up the oligarchical game after it had been thoroughly dishonored and ruined by the Thirty: they inspired no confidence, nor had they any hold upon the citizens in Athens, except in so far as these latter dreaded reactionary violence, in case Thrasybulus and his companions should reënter by force; accordingly, when Pausanias was there at the head of a force competent to prevent such dangerous reaction, the citizens at once manifested their dispositions against the Ten, and favorable to peace with Peiræus. To second this pacific party was at once the easiest course for Pausanias to take, and the most likely to popularize Sparta in Greece; whereas, he would surely have entailed upon her still more bitter curses from without, not to mention the loss of men to herself, if he had employed the amount of force requisite to uphold the Ten, and subdue Peiræus. To all this we have to add his jealousy of Lysander, as an important predisposing motive, but only as auxiliary among many others.
Under such a state of facts, it is not surprising to learn that Pausanias encouraged solicitations for peace from Thrasybulus and the exiles, and that he granted them a truce to enable them to send envoys to Sparta. Along with these envoys went Kephisophon and Melitus, sent for the same purpose of entreating peace, by the party opposed to the Ten at Athens, under the sanction both of Pausanias and of the accompanying ephors. On the other hand, the Ten, finding themselves discountenanced by Pausanias, sent envoys of their own to outbid the others. They tendered themselves, their walls, and their city, to be dealt with as the Lacedæmonians chose; requiring that Thrasybulus, if he pretended to be the friend of Sparta, should make the same unqualified surrender of Peiræus and Munychia. All the three sets of envoys were heard before the ephors remaining at Sparta and the Lacedæmonian assembly; who took the best resolution which the case admitted, to bring to pass an amicable settlement between Athens and Peiræus, and to leave the terms to be fixed by fifteen commissioners, who were sent thither forthwith to sit in conjunction with Pausanias. This Board determined, that the exiles in Peiræus should be readmitted to Athens, that an accommodation should take place, and that no man should be molested for past acts, except the Thirty, the Eleven (who had been the instruments of all executions), and the Ten who had governed in Peiræus. But Eleusis was recognized as a government separate from Athens, and left, as it already was, in possession of the Thirty and their coadjutors, to serve as a refuge for all those who might feel their future safety compromised at Athens in consequence of their past conduct.[451]
As soon as these terms were proclaimed, accepted, and sworn to by all parties, Pausanias with all the Lacedæmonians evacuated Attica. Thrasybulus and the exiles marched up in solemn procession from Peiræus to Athens. Their first act was to go up to the acropolis, now relieved from its Lacedæmonian garrison, and there to offer sacrifice and thanksgiving. On descending from thence, a general assembly was held, in which—unanimously and without opposition, as it should seem—the democracy was restored. The government of the Ten, which could have no basis except the sword of the foreigner, disappeared as a matter of course; but Thrasybulus, while he strenuously enforced upon his comrades from Peiræus a full respect for the oaths which they had sworn, and an unreserved harmony with their newly acquired fellow-citizens, admonished the assembly emphatically as to the past events. “You city-men (he said), I advise you to take just measure of yourselves for the future; and to calculate fairly, what ground of superiority you have, so as to pretend to rule over us? Are you juster than we? Why the demos, though poorer than you, never at any time wronged you for purposes of plunder; while you, the wealthiest of all, have done many base deeds for the sake of gain. Since then you have no justice to boast of, are you superior to us on the score of courage? There cannot be a better trial, than the war which has just ended. Again, can you pretend to be superior in policy? you, who, having a fortified city, an armed force, plenty of money, and the Peloponnesians for your allies, have been overcome by men who had nothing of the kind to aid them? Can you boast of your hold over the Lacedæmonians? Why, they have just handed you over, like a vicious dog with a clog tied to him, to the very demos whom you have wronged, and are now gone out of the country. But you have no cause to be uneasy for the future. I adjure you, my friends from Peiræus, in no point to violate the oaths which we have just sworn. Show, in addition to your other glorious exploits, that you are honest and true to your engagements.”[452]
The archons, the senate of Five Hundred, the public assembly, and the dikasteries, appear to have been now revived, as they had stood in the democracy prior to the capture of the city by Lysander. This important restoration seems to have taken place some time in the spring of 403 B.C., though we cannot exactly make out in what month. The first archon now drawn was Eukleidês, who gave his name to this memorable year; a year never afterwards forgotten by Athenians.
Eleusis was at this time, and pursuant to the late convention, a city independent and separate from Athens, under the government of the Thirty, and comprising their warmest partisans. It was not likely that this separation would last; but the Thirty were themselves the parties to give cause for its termination. They were getting together a mercenary force at Eleusis, when the whole force of Athens was marched to forestall their designs. The generals at Eleusis came forth to demand a conference, but were seized and put to death; the Thirty themselves, and a few of the most obnoxious individuals, fled out of Attica; while the rest of the Eleusinian occupants were persuaded by their friends from Athens to come to an equal and honorable accommodation. Again Eleusis became incorporated in the same community with Athens, oaths of mutual amnesty and harmony being sworn by every one.[453]