Book 3
Resolve also to punish them with the same penalty that has already been voted,So Steup explains. Most editors explain, “with the same penalty they would have inflicted,” following the schol. ἧ ἂν ἐτιμωρήσαντο καὶ αὐτοὶ ὑμᾶς, περιγενόμενοι ὑμῶν. and that those who have escaped the plot shall not appear to have less feeling than those who framed it, bearing in mind what they would probably have done to you had they won the victory, especially since they were the aggressors.
Indeed it is generally those who wrong another without cause that follow him up to destroy him utterly, perceiving the danger that threatens from an enemy who is left alive;
for one who has been needlessly injured is more dangerous if he escape than an avowed enemy who expects to give and take. “Do not, then, be traitors to your own cause, but recalling as nearly as possible how you felt when they made you suffer and how you would then have given anything to crush them, now pay them back. Do not become tender-hearted at the sight of their present distress, nor unmindful of the danger that so lately hung over you, but chastise them as they deserve, and give to your other allies plain warning that whoever revolts shall be punished with death. For if they realise this, the less will you have to neglect your enemies and fight against your own allies.”
Such was Cleon's speech. After him Diodotus son of Eucrates, who in the earlier meeting had been the principal speaker against putting the Mytilenaeans to death, came forward now also and stroke as follows:
"I have no fault to find with those who have proposed a reconsideration of the question of the Mytilenaeans, nor do I commend those who object to repeated deliberation on matters of the greatest moment; on the contrary, I believe the two things most opposed to good counsel are haste and passion, of which the one is wont to keep company with folly, the other with an undisciplined and shallow mind.
As for words, whoever contendsDirected at Cleon's remarks, 3.38.4 ff. that they are not to be guides of our actions is either dull of wit or has some private interest at stake—dull, if he thinks it possible by any other means to throw light on that which still belongs to the dim and distant future; self-interested, if, wishing to put through a discreditable measure, he realizes that while he cannot speak well in a bad cause, he can at least slander well and thus intimidate both his opponents and his hearers. Most dangerous of all, however, are precisely those whoLike Cleon, 3.38.2; 3.40.1, 3. charge a speaker beforehand with being bribed to make a display of rhetoric.
For if they merely imputed ignorance, the speaker who failed to carry his audience might go his way with the repute of being dull but not dishonest; when, however, the charge is dishonesty, the speaker who succeeds becomes an object of suspicion, whereas if he fails he is regarded as not only dull but dishonest as well.
And all this is a detriment to the state, which is thus robbed of its counsellors through fear. Indeed it would prosper most if its citizens of this stamp had no eloquence at all, for then the people would be least likely to blunder through their influence.
But the good citizen ought to show himself a better speaker, not by trying to browbeat those who will oppose him, but by fair argument; and while the wise city should not indeed confer fresh honours upon the man whose advice is most often salutary, it certainly should not detract from those which he already has, and as for him whose suggestion does not meet with approval, so far from punishing him, it should not even treat him with disrespect.
For then it would be least likely that a successful speaker, with a view to being counted worthy of still greater honours, would speak insincerely and for the purpose of winning favour and that the unsuccessful speaker would employ the same means, by courting favour in his turn in an effort to win the multitude to himself.
But we pursue the opposite course, and, moreover, if a man be even suspected of corruption, albeit he give the best counsel, we conceive a grudge against him because of the dubious surmise that he is corrupt and thus deprive the state of an indubitable advantage.
And it has come to such a pass that good advice frankly given is regarded with just as much suspicion as the bad, and that, in consequence, a speaker who wants to carry the most dangerous measures must resort to deceit in order to win the people to his views, precisely as the man whose proposals are good must lie in order to be believed.
And because of this excessive cleverness Athens is the only state where a man cannot do a good service to his country openly and without deceiving it; for whenever he openly offers you something good you requite him by suspecting that in some way he will secretly profit by it.
Yet even so, in view of the very great interests at stake, and in so grave a matter, we who advise must regard it as our duty to look somewhat further ahead than you who give matters only a brief consideration, especially since we are responsible advisers,It was open to any Athenian citizen to impeach any law or decree, as contrary to some existing law or as unjust or inexpedient, by a proceeding called γραφὴ παρανόμων. while you are irresponsible listeners.
Indeed, if not only those who gave advice but also those who followed it had to suffer alike, you would show greater prudence in your decisions; but as it is, whenever you meet with a reverse you give way to your first impulse and punish your adviser for his single error of judgment instead of yourselves, the multitude who shared in the error.
"But I have come forward neither as an advocate of the Mytilenaeans in opposition to Cleon nor as their accuser. For the question for us to consider, if we are sensible, is not what wrong they have done, but what is the wise course for us.
For no matter how guilty I show them to be, I shall not on that account bid you to put them to death, unless it is to our advantage; and if I show that they have some claim for forgiveness, I shall not on that account advise you to spare their lives, if this should prove clearly not to be for the good of the state.
In my opinion we are deliberating about the future rather than the present. And as for the point which Cleon especially maintains, that it will be to our future advantage to inflict the penalty of death, to the end that revolts may be less frequent, I also in the interest of our future prosperity emphatically maintain the contrary.
And I beg you not to be led by the speciousness of his argument to reject the practical advantages in mine. For embittered as you are toward the Mytilenaeans, you may perhaps be attracted by his argument, based as it is on the more legal aspects of the case; we are, however, not engaged in a law-suit with them, so as to be concerned about the question of right and wrong; but we are deliberating about them, to determine what policy will make them useful to us.
"Now the death-penalty has been prescribed in various states for many offences which are not so serious as this is, nay, for minor ones; but nevertheless men are so inspired by hope as to take the risk; indeed, no one ever yet has entered upon a perilous enterprise with the conviction that his plot was condemned to failure.
And as to states, what one that was meditating revolt ever took the decisive step in the belief that the resources at hand, whether its own or contributed by its allies, were inadequate for success?
All men are by nature prone to err, both in private and in public life, and there is no law which will prevent them; in fact, mankind has run the whole gamut of penalties, making them more and more severe, in the hope that the transgressions of evil-doers might be abated. It is probable that in ancient times the penalties prescribed for the greatest offences were relatively mild, but as transgressions still occurred, in course of time the penalty was seldom less than death.
But even so there is still transgression. Either, then, some terror more dreadful than death must be discovered, or we must own that death at least is no prevention. Nay, men are lured into hazardous enterprises by the constraint of poverty, which makes them bold, by the insolence and pride of affluence, which makes them greedy, and by the various passions engendered in the other conditions of human life as these are severally mastered by some mighty and irresistible impulse.
Then, too, Hope and Desire are everywhere; Desire leads, Hope attends; Desire contrives the plan, Hope suggests the facility of fortune; the two passions are most baneful, and being unseen phantoms prevail over seen dangers.
Besides these, fortune contributes in no less degree to urge men on; for she sometimes presents herself unexpectedly and thus tempts men to take risks even when their resources are inadequate, and states even more than men, inasmuch as the stake is the greatest of all—their own freedom or empire over others—and the individual, when supported by the whole people, unreasonably overestimates his own strength.
In a word, it is impossible, and a mark of extreme simplicity, for anyone to imagine that when human nature is wholeheartedly bent on any undertaking it can be diverted from it by rigorous laws or by any other terror.
"We must not, therefore, so pin our faith to the penalty of death as a guarantee against revolt as to make the wrong decision, or lead our rebellious subjects to believe that there will be no chance for them to repent and in the briefest time possible put an end to their error.
Consider now: according to your present policyAthens had not been accustomed to treat secession from the alliance as treason punishable with death for the men and slavery for the women and children. if a city has revolted and then realizes that it will fail, it may come to terms while still able to pay the indemnity and to keep up its tribute in the future; but, in the other case, what city, think you, will not prepare itself more thoroughly than now, and hold out in siege to the last extremity, if it makes no difference whether it capitulates quickly or at its leisure?
And as for us, how can we fail to suffer loss, incurring the expense of besieging a city because it will not surrender, and, if—we capture it, recovering one that is ruined, and losing thereafter the revenue from it— the source of our strength against our enemies?
We must not, therefore, be such rigorous judges of the delinquents as to suffer harm ourselves, but we must rather see how for the time to come, by punishing moderately, we may have at our service dependent cities that are strong in material resources; and we must deem it proper to protect ourselves against revolts, not by the terror of our laws, but rather by the vigilance of our administration. At present we do just the opposite:
whenever a free people that is forced into subjection revolts, as it naturally will, in order to recover its independence, we think that, as soon as we have subdued it, we must punish it severely.
We ought, on the contrary, instead of rigorously chastising free peoples when they revolt, to watch them rigorously before they revolt, and thus forestall their even thinking of such a thing; and when we have subdued a revolt, we ought to put the blame on as few as possible.In answer to Cleon's demand, 3.39.6.
"And do you consider, too, how great a mistake you would make in another point also by following Cleon's advice.
At the present time the populace of all the cities is well disposed to you, and either does not join with the aristocrats in revolting, or, if forced to do so, is hostile from the beginning to those who stirred up the revolt; and so, when you go to war, you have the populace of the rebellious city as your allies.
If, however, you destroy the populace in Mytilene, which took no part in the revolt, and which voluntarily put the city into your hands as soon as it got hold of arms, in the first place you will be guilty of killing your benefactors, and, in the second place, you will bring about what the influential men most wish: the next time they instigate a revolt among our allies they will at once have the populace on their side, because you will have published it abroad that the same punishment is ordained for the innocent and for the guilty.
Why, even if they were guilty, you should pretend not to know it, to the end that the only class that is still friendly to us may not become hostile.
And it is, I think, far more conducive to the maintenance of our dominion, that we should willingly submit to be wronged, than that we should destroy, however justly, those whom we ought not to destroy. And whereas Cleon claimscf. 3.40.4. that this punishment combines justice and expediency, it appears that in such a policy the two cannot be combined.
“Do you, then, recognize that mine is the better course, and without being unduly swayed by either pity or clemency—for neither would I have you influenced by such motives—but simply weighing the considerations I have urged, accede to my proposal: pass sentence at your leisure upon the Mytilenaeans whom Paches sent here as guilty,cf. 3.35.1. but let the rest dwell in peace.
Such a course will be best for the future, and will cause alarm among our enemies at once; for he who is wise in counsel is stronger against the foe than he who recklessly rushes on with brute force.”
Such was the speech of Diodotus. And after these opinions had been maintained with nearly equal force, the one against the other, the Athenians, in spite of the reaction, experienced such a conflict of opinion that in the show of hands they were about equally divided; but the view of Diodotus prevailed.