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Ephialtes, the Areopagus and the Thirty1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

Lindsay G. H. Hall
Lindsay G. H. Hall
Affiliation:
Highgate School, London
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Extract

Since the Persian Wars, the Areopagus had allegedly usurped certain ‘additional functions’. By removing them, and assigning them instead to the Council, the assembled People, and the jury-courts, Ephialtes undid the last institutional bastion of aristocratic political authority, and set the copestones on Athens' democratic order.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 40 , Issue 2 , December 1990 , pp. 319 - 328
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1990

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References

2 τ⋯ ⋯π⋯θετα. For discussions of this term, Rhodes, , Comm. pp. 287, 314Google Scholar; Cawkwell, p. 2; Wallace, , Areop. pp. 85–7Google Scholar.

3 Drawn mainly from the Aristotelian, Athenaion Politeia 25.1f.Google Scholar, with which the other sources, for what they are worth, tend to conform: Ar. Pol. 1274a7ff.; Diod. 11.77.6; Paus. 1.29.5; Plut, . Mor. 812dGoogle Scholar. Philoch. F 64 b presents difficulties which cannot be tackled here.

4 Ruschenbusch argued that Ephialtes was more a figure of fourth-century political fiction than of fifth-century political history, but did little to dent main-stream faith. For recent statements see e.g. Bleicken, , Ath. Demokr. pp. 36ff., 325fGoogle Scholar. (but note Hansen's, reservations in his review, CPh 84 (1989), 137ff., esp. 141ff.Google Scholar: Bleicken makes too little allowance for institutional developments later than Ephialtes); Cawkwell; Wallace, , Areop. pp. 77ffGoogle Scholar.

5 The first performance of the Oresteia is dated 459/8 (Philokles' archonship = Olymp. 80/2) by the hypothesis to the Agamemnon. Ath. Pol. 25.2 certifies Ephialtes' reforms for 462/1 (archonship of Konon).

6 Of modern discussions, only Macleod's resists the assumption – which is gently but firmly restated by Sommerstein, A. H. in the preface to his new edition (Cambridge, 1989) of the Eumenides, pp. 25ffGoogle Scholar.

7 One nineteenth-century scholar waxed lyrical: ‘Pries nun ein Dichter … gerade den Blutbann des Areopag als den ursprünglichen Inhalt seiner göttlichen Sendung, that er's im Ton freudigster Begeisterung und ungetrübtester Zuversicht’ (Oncken, Wilh., Die Staatslehre des Aristoteles, vol. 2 (Leipzig, 1875), p. 504Google Scholar).

8 Cf. Dodds, p. 46.

9 Wilamowitz, , Aristoteles und Athen (Berlin, 1893), ii.334Google Scholar.

10 Dover, K. J., JHS 11 (1957), 236Google Scholar.

11 Dodds' own view, pp. 48f., supported by Podlecki, A. J., The Political Background of Aeschylean Tragedy (Ann Arbor, 1966), p. 95Google Scholar; Jones, L. A., CA 6 (1987), 74fGoogle Scholar.

12 Dodds, p. 50.

13 Dodds, , CQ 3 (1953), 19fCrossRefGoogle Scholar. Jacoby, raised the objection (FGrHist III B Suppl., Notes p. 528)Google Scholar, and as Macleod remarks (p. 128 = Essays, p. 24, n. 16), Dodds', answer (ACP, p. 49 n. 1) does not convinceGoogle Scholar.

14 In Macleod's view (pp. 127–9 = Essays, pp. 23–5), Aischylos has no political concern even with the Argive alliance; but see Sommerstein, , op. cit. (n. 6), p. 30Google Scholar.

15 Dover, , op. cit., pp. 232ff.Google Scholar, followed by Macleod, p. 129 = Essays, p. 25. Pronouncing this view ‘sensible’, Wallace, , Areop. pp. 90f.Google Scholar, begs the question by saying that Aischylos' language is ‘insufficiently specific’ to refer to wider legal competence: if this was itself as unspecific as ‘guardianship of the laws’ or ‘supervision of the polity’ (Ath. Pol. 8.4, cf. Plut, . Sol. 19Google Scholar), how was Aischylos to be precise about it?

18 Macleod's formulation, p. 129 = Essays, p. 25.

17 Jones, , art. cit. (n. 11), pp. 71f.Google Scholar, for one cogent objection.

18 Chr. Meier, , Die politische Kunst der griech. Tragödie (München, 1988). p. 117Google Scholar.

19 Op. cit., p. 132. Cf. Meier's, other recent discussion, ‘Der Umbruch zur Demokratie in Athen (462/1 v. Chr.)’, in Herzog, R., Koselleck, R. (edd.), Epochenschwelle und Epochenbewuβtsein: Poetik und Hermeneutik XII (München, 1987), pp. 353–80Google Scholar.

20 Wallace, , Areop. pp. 91–3Google Scholar.

21 Wallace, himself refers (Areop. p. 93)Google Scholar to Kimon's ostracism, and cites Thuc. 1.107.4 (Athenian conservatives in 458/7 canvassing Spartan help to overturn democracy). One might add the issue of zeugite archons.

22 P. 3. This or similar opinions are espoused by: Cloché, P., La restauration démocratique à Athènes en 403 av. J.-C. (Paris, 1915), pp. 416f.Google Scholar; Bonner, R. J., CPh 21 (1926), 213f.Google Scholar; Bonner, R. J., Smith, G., The Administration of Justice from Homer to Aristotle (Chicago, 1930), i.277Google Scholar; Makkink, A. D., Andokides' Eerste Rede, met inleiding en commentaar (Amsterdam, 1932), p. 243Google Scholar; Lévy, E., Athènes devant la défaite de 404: histoire d'une crise idéologique (Paris, 1976), p. 195 and nn. 4–5Google Scholar; Krentz, , Thirty, p. 61Google Scholar; Bleicken, , Ath. Demokr. pp. 264f.Google Scholar; so too by implication Walker, E. M., CAH v (1935), pp. 99, 367Google Scholar; Hammond, N. G. L., History of Greece 3 (Oxford, 1986), p. 443Google Scholar; Ostwald, M., From Popular Sovereignty to the Rule of Law: Law, Society & Politics in Fifth-century Athens (Berkeley/Los Angeles/London, 1986), pp. 479f., 517Google Scholar.

An obvious objection, that the Thirty in fact made no practical use of the Areopagus, leads to the variant offered by Hignett, C., A History of the Athenian Constitution (Oxford, 1952), p. 288Google Scholar, followed in essentials by Day, J., Chambers, M., Aristotle's History of Athenian Democracy (Univ. of Calif. Publications in History 73, Berkeley/Los Angeles/ London, 1976), p. 129 n. 108Google Scholar, and stated at length and with refinements by Wallace, (Areop. pp. 140ff.)Google Scholar: the removal of Ephialtes' laws was by way of a captatio, a promise of restoration which the Thirty had no real intention of fulfilling.

Andrewes, (HCT v (1980), pp. 215f.)Google Scholar writes more cautiously that the repeal of Ephialtes' laws was ‘in effect a return to the constitution created by Kleisthenes’.

23 P. 372. The theory was avowedly (ibid. n. 28) not new, but had found no twentieth-century fanciers.

24 Areop. pp. 142f.

25 LSJ9 s.v. MacDowell, D. M., Athenian Homicide Law in the Age of the Orators (Manchester, 1963), p. 43Google Scholar, cited with approval by Wallace, (Areop. p. 142)Google Scholar, therefore concedes too much.

26 Better for Ruschenbusch's, case might have been Ath. Pol. 39.5Google Scholar, where among the terms of settlement in 403 is a stipulation that cases of homicide and wounding were to be conducted κατ⋯ τ⋯ π⋯τρια. But in light of Bonner, , CPh 19 (1924), 175Google Scholar, cited with approval by Loening, T. C., The Reconciliation Agreement of 403/402 BC in Athens, Hermes Einzelschr. 53 (1987), p. 40 n. 61Google Scholar, I have avoided making my argument depend upon it.

27 Though a contentious passage in certain other respects, Pol. 1273b38ff. unambiguously confirms that Aristotle believed in the courts' central importance as instruments of popular power.

28 Cf. Rhodes, , Comm. p. 162Google Scholar.

29 Cf. n. 27. Studies by Hansen, M. H. have established that this is a tolerable statement of the actual position in the fourth century, esp. The Sovereignty of the People's Court in Athens in the Fourth Century BC and the Public Action against Unconstitutional Proposals (Odense Univ. Classical Studies 4, Odense, 1974), pp. 9ff.Google Scholar; cf. GRBS 19 (1978), 127ffGoogle Scholar. = The Athenian Ecclesia: A Collection of Articles 1976–83 (Copenhagen, 1983), pp. 139ffGoogle Scholar. Though Hansen's studies are restricted to fourth-century Athens, his conclusion is valid in all senses that matter for the fifth century too, as I hope to show in a later study of Ephialtes' political legacy.

30 Against the view of the Thirty as a constitutional commission, Krentz, , Thirty, p. 50Google Scholar points out that they are always treated by our sources as a government. Quite so – in retrospect; but that bears not a whit upon the issue of what they were notionally appointed to do.

31 Cf. Krentz, , Thirty, p. 61 and n. 3Google Scholar.

32 Isocrates' Areopagitic is the prime statement; but Aristotle too regarded the Areopagus favourably as an aristocratic or oligarchic element in Solon's, ‘mixed constitution’: Pol. 1273b39fGoogle Scholar.

33 The sources agree in identifying a distinct change for the worse in the administration of the Thirty, after a spell in which their nastiness was directed only against sycophantic malefactors (Xen, . Hell. 2.3.12f.Google Scholar; Ath. Pol. 35.3f.; Diod. 14.4.2f.).

34 So Ruschenbusch, p. 372 n. 28.

35 Cf. Ruschenbusch, loc. cit.; Lehmann, G. A., ‘Die Machtergreifung der Dreiϐig und die staatliche Teilung Attikas (404–401/0 v. Chr.)’, in Lehmann, G. A., Stiehl, R. (edd.), Antike und Universalgeschichte: Festschr. H. E. Stier (Münster, 1972), 201ff. at p. 207 n. 16Google Scholar. Wallace's, attempt (Areop. p. 142)Google Scholar to reconcile this Areopagite, opposition in 405 with the orthodox interpretation of Ath. Pol. 35.2 is forcedGoogle Scholar. The thing is less of a mystery than has been thought, cf. infra.

36 I assume that the ‘archon’ of 404/3, Pythodoros, , was appointed by the Thirty or at their behest, and venture no opinion on his identity with the activist in 411 immortalised by Ath. Pol. 29.1Google Scholar.

37 Even on the lowest estimate of total Areopagite numbers I have encountered (‘about 90’: G. L. Cawkwell, per litteras), five years or so would be needed before the Thirty could regularly expect to command a majority.

38 Or perhaps more accurately, decrees with legislative effect: Rhodes, , Comm. pp. 315, 321Google Scholar.

39 Jones, , art. cit. (n. 11), pp. 62ff.Google Scholar, chews over various possibilities about what this involved.

40 Rhodes, P. J., JHS 99 (1979), 112f.Google Scholar, seems to envisage some such prescription for the conduct of εἰσαγγελ⋯αι, but draws no further inference for the form of Ephialtes' laws.

41 As often, Wilamowitz, was alert where later scholars have erred, cf. Aristoteles und Athen, ii.188Google Scholar.

42 Perhaps too some form of general νομοϕυλακ⋯α. See below.

43 Cf. Martin, J., Chiron 4 (1974), 29Google Scholar.

44 It is worth remarking here Aristotle's statement that the Areopagus', enhanced political authority after the Persian Wars proceeded from no σ⋯γμα, i.e. no enabling enactment (Ath. Pol. 23.1)Google Scholar. Which fits nicely with the burden of Cawkwell's discussion, that until Ephialtes the Areopagites had exercised a wide but unspecified discretionary jurisdiction, a cura morum in Roman terms: Ephialtes' ‘laws about the Areopagites’ will then have limited, literally, Areopagite powers by defining them.

46 Martin, J., art. cit., pp. 29ffGoogle Scholar.

46 For that matter, there may have been other changes too of which we know nothing but the name of their author, Archestratos.

47 Compare the decree of Patrokleides (Andoc. 1.76ff.), with MacDowell's, Commentary on the word ⋯ξαλεῖΨαι ad loc., p. 113Google Scholar.

48 Cf. Bonner, R. J., art. cit. (n. 26), pp. 175fGoogle Scholar.

49 Th e return from Phyle on 12th Boedromion ([Plut, .] Mor. 849f.Google Scholar) supplies a terminus post, and at least some days if not weeks must be allowed thereafter for the final hostilities, amnesty negotiations, and the organisation and conduct of bouleutic sortitions.

50 Areopagites would also be well known to many private citizens too, for during their archonships they would be in the public eye when performing ceremonial functions, and Areopagite Council sessions were open anyway (Kahrstedt, U., Stud, zum öffentl. Recht Athens (Stuttgart, 1936Google Scholar repr. Aalen, 1969), ii.295, with references).

51 For which, Kahrstedt, , op. cit., ii.109fGoogle Scholar.

52 Funke, P., Homonoia und Arche: Athen und die griechische Staatenwelt vom Ende des pelop. Krieges bis zum Königsfrieden, Historia Einzelschr. 37 (1980), pp. 12ffGoogle Scholar.

53 Krentz, , Thirty, p. 117Google Scholar.

54 Rhinon, earned himself a place in history, after his εὔθυνα, because this vindication was exceptional (Ath. Pol. 38.3f.)Google Scholar.