CHAPTER LXVI.
FROM THE RESTORATION OF THE DEMOCRACY TO THE DEATH OF ALKIBIADES.
The period intervening between the defeat of Ægospotami (October, 405 B.C.) and the reëstablishment of the democracy as sanctioned by the convention concluded with Pausanias, some time in the summer of 403 B.C., presents two years of cruel and multifarious suffering to Athens. For seven years before, indeed ever since the catastrophe at Syracuse, she had been struggling with hardships; contending against augmented hostile force, while her own means were cut down in every way; crippled at home by the garrison of Dekeleia; stripped to a great degree both of her tribute and her foreign trade, and beset by the snares of her own oligarchs. In spite of circumstances so adverse, she had maintained the fight with a resolution not less surprising than admirable; yet not without sinking more and more towards impoverishment and exhaustion. The defeat of Ægospotami closed the war at once, and transferred her from her period of struggle to one of concluding agony. Nor is the last word by any means too strong for the reality. Of these two years, the first portion was marked by severe physical privation, passing by degrees into absolute famine, and accompanied by the intolerable sentiment of despair and helplessness against her enemies, after two generations of imperial grandeur, not without a strong chance of being finally consigned to ruin and individual slavery; while the last portion comprised all the tyranny, murders, robberies, and expulsions perpetrated by the Thirty, overthrown only by heroic efforts of patriotism on the part of the exiles; which a fortunate change of sentiment, on the part of Pausanias, and the leading members of the Peloponnesian confederacy, ultimately crowned with success.
After such years of misery, it was an unspeakable relief to the Athenian population to regain possession of Athens and Attica, to exchange their domestic tyrants for a renovated democratical government, and to see their foreign enemies not merely evacuate the country, but even bind themselves by treaty to future friendly dealing. In respect of power, indeed, Athens was but the shadow of her former self. She had no empire, no tribute, no fleet, no fortifications at Peiræus, no long walls, not a single fortified place in Attica except the city itself. Of all these losses, however, the Athenians probably made little account, at least at the first epoch of their reëstablishment; so intolerable was the pressure which they had just escaped, and so welcome the restitution of comfort, security, property, and independence, at home. The very excess of tyranny committed by the Thirty gave a peculiar zest to the recovery of the democracy. In their hands, the oligarchical principle, to borrow an expression from Mr. Burke,[459] “had produced in fact, and instantly, the grossest of those evils with which it was pregnant in its nature;” realizing the promise of that plain-spoken oligarchical oath, which Aristotle mentions as having been taken in various oligarchical cities, to contrive as much evil as possible to the people.[460] So much the more complete was the reaction of sentiment towards the antecedent democracy, even in the minds of those who had been before discontented with it. To all men, rich and poor, citizens and metics, the comparative excellence of the democracy, in respect of all the essentials of good government, was now manifest. With the exception of those who had identified themselves with the Thirty as partners, partisans, or instruments, there was scarcely any one who did not feel that his life and property had been far more secure under the former democracy, and would become so again if that democracy were revived.[461]
It was the first measure of Thrasybulus and his companions, after concluding the treaty with Pausanias, and thus reëntering the city, to exchange solemn oaths, of amnesty for the past, with those against whom they had just been at war. Similar oaths of amnesty were also exchanged with those in Eleusis, as soon as that town came into their power. The only persons excepted from this amnesty were the Thirty, the Eleven who had presided over the execution of all their atrocities, and the Ten who had governed in Peiræus. Even these persons were not peremptorily banished: opportunity was offered to them to come in and take their trial of accountability (universal at Athens in the case of every magistrate on quitting office); so that, if acquitted, they would enjoy the benefit of the amnesty as well as all others.[462] We know that Eratosthenês, one of the Thirty, afterwards returned to Athens; since there remains a powerful harangue of Lysias, invoking justice against him as having brought to death Polemarchus, the brother of Lysias. Eratosthenês was one of the minority of the Thirty who sided generally with Theramenês, and opposed to a considerable degree the extreme violences of Kritias, although personally concerned in that seizure and execution of the rich metics which Theramenês had resisted, and which was one of the grossest misdeeds even of that dark period. He and Pheidon, being among the Ten named to succeed the Thirty after the death of Kritias, when the remaining members of that deposed Board retired to Eleusis, had endeavored to maintain themselves as a new oligarchy, carrying on war at the same time against Eleusis and against the democratical exiles in Peiræus. Failing in this, they had retired from the country, at the time when these exiles returned, and when the democracy was first reëstablished. But after a certain interval, the intense sentiments of the moment having somewhat subsided, they were encouraged by their friends to return, and came back to stand their trial of accountability. It was on that occasion that Lysias preferred his accusation against Eratosthenês, the result of which we do not know, though we see plainly, even from the accusatory speech, that the latter had powerful friends to stand by him, and that the dikasts manifested considerable reluctance to condemn.[463] We learn, moreover, from the same speech, that such was the detestation of the Thirty among several of the states surrounding Attica, as to cause formal decrees for their expulsion, or for prohibiting their coming.[464] The sons, even of such among the Thirty as did not return, were allowed to remain at Athens, and enjoy their rights of citizens, unmolested;[465] a moderation rare in Grecian political warfare.
The first public vote of the Athenians, after the conclusion of peace with Sparta and the return of the exiles, was to restore the former democracy purely and simply, to choose by lot the nine archons and the senate of Five Hundred, and to elect the generals, all as before. It appears that this restoration of the preceding constitution was partially opposed by a citizen named Phormisius, who, having served with Thrasybulus in Peiræus, now moved that the political franchise should for the future be restricted to the possessors of land in Attica. His proposition was understood to be supported by the Lacedæmonians, and was recommended as calculated to make Athens march in better harmony with them. It was presented as a compromise between oligarchy and democracy, excluding both the poorer freemen and those whose property lay either in movables or in land out of Attica; so that the aggregate number of the disfranchised would have been five thousand persons. Since Athens now had lost her fleet and maritime empire, and since the importance of Peiræus was much curtailed not merely by these losses, but by demolition of its separate walls and of the long walls, Phormisius and others conceived the opportunity favorable for striking out the maritime and trading multitude from the roll of citizens. Many of these men must have been in easy and even opulent circumstances, but the bulk of them were poor; and Phormisius had of course at his command the usual arguments, by which it is attempted to prove that poor men have no business with political judgment or action. But the proposition was rejected; the orator Lysias being among its opponents, and composing a speech against it which was either spoken, or intended to be spoken, by some eminent citizen in the assembly.[466]
Unfortunately, we have only a fragment of the speech remaining, wherein the proposition is justly criticized as mischievous and unseasonable, depriving Athens of a large portion of her legitimate strength, patriotism, and harmony, and even of substantial men competent to serve as hoplites or horsemen, at a moment when she was barely rising from absolute prostration. Never, certainly, was the fallacy which connects political depravity or incapacity with a poor station, and political virtue or judgment with wealth, more conspicuously unmasked, than in reference to the recent experience of Athens. The remark of Thrasybulus was most true,[467] that a greater number of atrocities, both against person and against property, had been committed in a few months by the Thirty, and abetted by the class of horsemen, all rich men, than the poor majority of the Demos had sanctioned during two generations of democracy. Moreover, we know, on the authority of a witness unfriendly to the democracy, that the poor Athenian citizens, who served on shipboard and elsewhere, were exact in obedience to their commanders; while the richer citizens who served as hoplites and horsemen, and who laid claim to higher individual estimation, were far less orderly in the public service.[468]
The motion of Phormisius being rejected, the antecedent democracy was restored without qualification, together with the ordinances of Drako, and the laws, measures, and weights of Solon. But on closer inspection, it was found that this latter part of the resolution was incompatible with the amnesty which had been just sworn. According to the laws of Solon and Drako, the perpetrators of enormities under the Thirty had rendered themselves guilty, and were open to trial. To escape this consequence, a second psephism or decree was passed, on the proposition of Tisamenus, to review the laws of Solon and Drako, and reënact them with such additions and amendments as might be deemed expedient. Five hundred citizens had been just chosen by the people as nomothetæ, or law-makers, at the same time when the senate of Five hundred was taken by lot: out of these nomothetæ, the senate now chose a select few, whose duty it was to consider all propositions for amendment or addition to the laws of the old democracy, and post them up for public inspection before the statues of the eponymous heroes, within the month then running.[469] The senate, and the entire body of five hundred nomothetæ, were then to be convened, in order that each might pass in review, separately, both the old laws and the new propositions; the nomothetæ being previously sworn to decide righteously. While this discussion was going on, every private citizen had liberty to enter the senate, and to tender his opinion with reasons for or against any law. All the laws which should thus be approved, first by the senate, and afterwards by the nomothetæ, but no others, were to be handed to the magistrates, and inscribed on the walls of the portico called Pœkilê, for public notoriety, as the future regulators of the city. After the laws were promulgated by such public inscription, the senate of Areopagus was enjoined to take care that they should be duly observed and enforced by the magistrates. A provisional committee of twenty citizens was named, to be generally responsible for the city during the time occupied in this revision.[470]
As soon as the laws had been revised and publicly inscribed in the pœkilê, pursuant to the above decree, two concluding laws were enacted, which completed the purpose of the citizens.
The first of these laws forbade the magistrates to act upon, or permit to be acted upon, any law not among those inscribed; and declared that no psephism, either of the senate or of the people, should overrule any law.[471] It renewed also the old prohibition, dating from the days of Kleisthenês, and the first origin of the democracy, to enact a special law inflicting direct hardship upon any individual Athenian apart from the rest, unless by the votes of six thousand citizens voting secretly.
The second of the two laws prescribed, that all the legal adjudications and arbitrations which had been passed under the antecedent democracy should be held valid and unimpeached, but formally annulled all which had been passed under the Thirty. It farther provided, that the laws now revised and inscribed should only take effect from the archonship of Eukleidês; that is, from the nomination of archons made after the recent return of Thrasybulus and renovation of the democracy.[472]