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Theramenes Against Lysander
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 February 2009
Extract
On the Athenian disaster at Aegospotami the reaction, suppressed half a dozen years before, against the régime responsible for the war and its calamitous results sprang up again with double force. The capture of the fleet, the loss of the empire, which had been a useful buffer between the selfish interests of the wealthier citizens and the predatory appetites of the proletariate, the bankruptcy of the treasury, the discredit of the whole democratic system, the grim privations of the blockade, and the imminent return of the exiles eager for power and vengeance, all portended the speedy downfall of the constitution, should the victorious enemy leave it standing. Yet the progress of the revolution was slower than might have been expected. In fact the oligarchs were at first crippled by the absence of their banished chiefs, andthroughout they had to reckon not only with a people which had long enjoyed liberty and empireand with a democratic administration already in office, but also with the middle party, disgusted indeed with the existing form of government but unwilling to substitute for it the rule ofa narrow privileged class, and led by a statesman of great ability and experience.
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References
page 18 note 1 Andoc. III. 12; Aristot, . Ath. Pol. 34–3Google Scholar; Xen. II. iii. 15. (When I refer to Xenophon tout court, please understand his Hellenicu.).
page 18 note 2 Xen. II. iii. 24. Cf. Thuc. VIII. 68.
page 18 note 3 Cf. Lys. XII. 43, δημοκρατíας ἔτι οὓσης; III. 7. seqq.
page 19 note 1 Lys. XII. 77, confirmed by the postscriptive position of the clause in the δ⋯γμα τ⋯ν ⋯π⋯ρων, Plut, . Lys. 14Google Scholar.
page 19 note 2 Xen. I. vii. 35; Lys. XXX. 10–14; XIII. 12 (where, by the way, Markland's conjecture ⋯ναπαυσόμενος, ‘although he was exempt from military service’, cf. Demosth. XLII. 25, 32; Isocr. VIII. 20, is preferable to the MS ⋯ναπαυσόμενος). Theramenes was absent, and had he been an accomplice, Lysias would not have omitted to note it.
page 19 note 3 Xen. II. ii. 11. Cf. Lys. XIII. 5.
page 19 note 4 Plut, . Lys. 14Google Scholar; Andoc. III. 11–12, 31, 39; Xen. II. ii. 20; Lys. XIII. 14; Diod. XIII. 107.
page 19 note 5 Aristot, . Ath. Pol. 34Google Scholar. 3; Diod. XIV. 3. Cf. Thuc. V. 77, 79; Xen. III. iv. 2.
page 19 note 6 Xen. II. iii. 7 (cf. ii. 5), III. iv. 2, 7, v. 13; Plut, . Lys. 13, 14Google Scholar; Nep, Corn.. Lys. IGoogle Scholar; Diod. XIV. 10, 13.
page 19 note 13 The negotiations, Xen. II. ii. 11–15; Lys. XIII. 8: Aeschines, II. 76, adds details on Cleophon's action, but it may be doubted whether he has not confused two occasions (cf. Aristot, . Ath. Pol. 34. 1)Google Scholar. The fears of the Athenians and their justification, Xen. II. ii. 3, 10, 14, 16, III. v. 8, VI. v. 35, 46; Andoc. I. 142, III. 21; Isocr. XIV. 31, XVIII. 29; Demosth. XIX. 65; Diod. XV. 63; Plut, . Lys. 15Google Scholar; Polyaen. I. 45. 5, Evidently there was much loose talk, and even a motion in the Peloponnesian Con- gress, about their punishment; but Cleophon had an interest in exploiting it, and it looms so large in the tradition because it had been a subject of controversy in Athenian politics; the ‘Hang the Kaiser’ clamour in 1919 supplies a parallel.
page 20 note 1 Xen. II. ii. 16; Lys. XII. 68–9, XIII. 9–10.
page 20 note 2 XII. 70, XIII. 14.
page 20 note 3 They might be suspected of going farther than the positionof the negotiations at the moment required, but they are quite compatible with the circumstances. Securities were of course the main point at issue; the walls of the Piraeus might or mightnot be included in the reference to demolitions, but the question was already implied in the Athenian claim to retain the fortress; the problem of the ships had not (so far as we are told)been expressly raised by either party, but it must have been foreseen; the veiled allusion to the constitution in the ‘precious boon’ is indubitably authentic As to the date, it is obvious that Theramenes could never have made those promises after his return from Lysander.
page 21 note 1 This is perfectly clear if Xenophon's straightforwardnarrative (II. ii. 16–19) ba compared with Lys. XIII. 9–11 and XII. 69, 70. Mark in particular παρά Λακεδαιμοιων (9), πρεσβευΤήν αὐΤοκρ⋯Τορα (9, 10), είς Λακεδαίμονα (11), πρòς Τοù πολεμίους (69), ὑπù λακεδαιμονίων (70).
page 21 note 2 Lys. XII. 50, 62, 64, 78, 84–5.
page 21 note 3 Cf. Xen. II. iv. 29; Plut, . Lys. 21Google Scholar.
page 22 note 1 Xen. II. ii. 16; Lys. XIII. II.
page 22 note 2 Xen. II. ii. 17–18. The constitutional must have been the question at issue; Lysander was dictating military capitulations every month, but when the point was a political stipulation implicated with admission to the Lacedaemonian alliance he could disclaim authority to decide it. So Agis too had referred the Athenian envoys to the Ephors.
page 22 note 3 Xen. II. ii. 17, 1922; Thuc. V. 26. For the distinction between the capitulation or armistice and the peace, and their respective dates, I may refer to my article ‘The End of the Peloponnesian War’ in C.Q. XXXI. (1937), PP 32–38Google Scholar.
page 22 note 4 C.Q. l.c..
page 22 note 5 One indication of the continuity may be seen in the reply of Theramenes and his colleagues at Sellasia to the Ephors, which is in word and in fact an answer to the reply of the Ephors to the former envoys at Sellasia (Xen. II. ii. 13, 19). The omission of any reference to the alliance in the terms of the capitulation seems to show that the proposal was taken for granted. Xenophon (20) does indeed introduce it into the terms, but he is giving the terms of the final peace.
page 23 note 1 Π⋯ς ἂν Σκύθαι ἂρισΤα πολιΤείοινΤο οὐδείς Λακε δαιμονίω βουλεύεΤαι Aristot, . Eth. Nic. III. iii. III2aGoogle Scholar.
page 23 note 2 Xen. III. iv. 2, (λύσανδρος) αὐΤός συνεζελθεῖν αὐΤῷ ⋯πως Τάς δεκαρχίας Τάς καΤασΤαθείσυς ὑπ’ ⋯κείνου ⋯ν Ταῖς πόλεσιν, ⋯κπεπΤωκυίας δ⋯ δι⋯ Τούς ήφόρους, οί Τ⋯ς παΤρίους πολιΤείαν, π⋯λιν καΤασΤησειε’ Αγησιλ⋯ου. Cf. Plut, . Lys. 21Google Scholar.
page 23 note 3 Lys. XIII. 13–17, 30.
page 24 note 1 Xen. II. iii. 2, 3. Cf. Lys. XII. 71.
page 24 note 2 Even if we could suppose, without a trace of evidence, that Theramenes attempted to revive the constitution Of the Five Thousand, why should Lysander have watered down his decarchy into the Thirty?.
page 24 note 3 E.g. among contemporaries Lysias (passim, e.g. XVIII, XXV.), Xenophon (II. iii. 17, 25–6), Andocides (I. 99), Isocrates (XVIII. 40).
page 24 note 4 Cf. Lys. XII. 76.
page 25 note 1 Lys. XIII. 7, 17, 30–34.
page 25 note 2 Xen. II. iii. 3.
page 25 note 3 Plato, (Efist. vii. 324c)Google Scholarasserts emphatically the superior authority of the Thirty and Aristotle, (Ath. Pol. 35. 1)Google Scholarimplies it; but one may doubt whether it dated from the first institution of the Ten in the Piraeus. Plato gives a very odd account of the functions of the Eleven and these Ten: Τ⋯ς μεΤαβολ⋯ς… προύσΤησαν ᾰρφονΤες, ἒνδεκα μ⋯ν ⋯ν ᾰσΤει, δήκα δ’ ⋯ν Πειραεῖ—περί Τε⋯γορ⋯ν ⋯κάΤεροι ΤούΤων ỡσα Τ’ ⋯ν Τοῖς ἂσΤεσι διοικεῖνἒδει—ΤριάκονΤα δ⋯ πάνΤων ἂρφονΤες καΤήσΤησαν αὐΤοκράΤορες. The parenthesis reads like scholiast's annotation, and are the words ⋯ν ΤοῖςᾰσΤεσι(awkward after ⋯ν ᾰσΤει) to be regarded charged with deep significance or as a solecism?.
page 25 note 4 Xen. II. iv. 38; Aristot, . Ath. Pol. 39. 6Google Scholar.
page 25 note 5 That he means to put the Eleven and the Whips in that samecategory is questionable, One would naturally understand that he does, and the inclusion of the Eleven seems in itself probable, for otherwise one should expect them to be reckoned in Τ⋯ς ἂλλας ⋯ρφ⋯ς, and tney receive the same treatment as the Ten under the amnesty. On the other hand the expression προσελόμενοι ςφίσν αὐΤοῖς seems hardly applicable to ὐπηρ⋯Ται, and it is possible that the writter having satisfied his historical conscience by the change of verb about the Ten, reverted mentally to καΤασΤήσανΤες, but felt that to repeat the word as would be clumsy.
page 25 note 6 Meritt, , The Athenian Calendar, p. 120Google Scholar.
page 26 note 1 G. G. 2 III. 2, p. 207.
page 26 note 2 Xen. II. iii. 8–9.