Kitap 8
It was therefore being connected by a wall with the wall which already existed somewhat inland, and in such a way that if only a few men were stationed inside it would control the entrance; for both the old wall running inland and the new inner wall that was being built facing the sea came to an end in the second of the two towers, the one that lay exactly at the mouth of the harbour, which was narrow.
They also cut off with a wall inside the harbour a portico which was very large and immediately adjoined this inland wall; and this they controlled themselves, and compelled everybody to deposit in it the corn that was already on hand as well as to discharge there that which came in by sea, and to take it from there if they wished to sell it.
Now Theramenes had been freely talking about these proceedings for some time, and after the ambassadors came back from Lacedaemon without having accomplished anything toward an agreement for the people as a whole, he kept saying that this fort would in all probability bring ruin upon the city.
For at this very time it so happened that, on the invitation of the Euboeans, ships from the Peloponnesus to the number of forty-two, among which were Italian vessels from Tarentum and Locri and some from Sicily, were already lying off Las in Laconia and preparing for their passage to Euboea, under the command of Hegesandridas son of Hegesander, a Spartan; and Theramenes declared that these were on their way, not to Euboea, but to Eetioneia to help the men who were fortifying it, adding that unless they immediately took precautions their cause would be lost before they knew it.
And in fact there was something of the kind afoot on the part of those whom he thus accused, and what he said was not altogether mere calumny. For the persons in question wished above all, preserving their oligarchy, to rule both Athens and the allies, but, failing in that, to keep their ships at least and their fortifications and be independent; and if they were debarred from this course also, at any rate not to be themselves the first to meet with destruction at the hands of the restored democracy, but actually to bring in the enemy and, giving up walls and ships, make any sort of terms as to the fate of the city, if only they might have immunity for their own persons.
It was with this object in view that they were now diligently building this fort, which was furnished with posterns and entrances and ways for letting the enemy in, and they wished to have it finished in time.
Now hitherto the talk had been confined to small groups and indulged in with some attempt at secrecy; but finally Phrynichus, after his return from his mission to Lacedaemon, was stabbed in full market as the result of a plot by a man of the frontier-patrol, and before he had gone far from the senate-chamber suddenly died. The assassin escaped, while his accomplice, an Argive fellow, was seized and put to the torture by the Four Hundred, but did not reveal the name of anyone who instigated the deed nor anything else, except that he knew many who were wont to come together in the house of the commander of the frontier-patrol and at other houses. So now at length, when no signal action had been taken in consequence of this, Theramenes and Aristocrates and all the rest of the Four Hundred and those outside that body who were of the same way of thinking, went to work more boldly.
For at this same time the Peloponnesian ships had already sailed round from Las, and after taking station at Epidaurus had overrun Aegina; and Theramenes said it was not likely, if their destination were Euboea, that they would have run up the gulf as far as Aegina and then put in to Epidaurus to anchor, unless they had come on invitation for the purposes which he himself had always been denouncing; it was therefore impossible, he concluded, to keep quiet any longer.
Finally, when there had been many other seditious speeches and insinuations, they at last took hold of the situation in earnest. The hoplites in the Peiraeus who were engaged in building the fort at Eetioneia—one of their number being Aristocrates, a taxiarch who commanded the contingent of his own tribe—arrested Alexicles, who was a general of the oligarchical faction and very favourably inclined toward the members of the political clubs, took him into a house and confined him there. Among those who took part with them in this exploit was Hermon, one of the frontier-patrol and commander of the detachment stationed at Munichia;
and, most important of all, the mass of the hoplites were in sympathy with all this.
But when the act was announced to the Four Hundred, who happened to be in session in the senate-chamber, immediately all except those who disapproved of this state of thingsie. the present conduct of the Four Hundred. were ready to rush to arms and began to threaten Theramenes and his followers. But he, justifying himself, said that he was ready to go immediately and assist in the rescue of Alexicles. So he took one of the generals who was in accord with him and proceeded to the Peiraeus; and Aristarchus and some young men of the Knights also went to the rescue. There ensued a tumult that was widespread and alarming;
for the people in the city thought that the Peiraeus had been taken and that the man under arrest had been put to death, while the people in the Peiraeus thought that the men of the city were all but upon them.
But owing to the efforts of the older men to stop those in the city who were running hither and thither and flying to their arms and also of Thucydides, the Athenian proxenus at Pharsalus, who was then in Athens and zealously threw himself in everybody's way and loudly called upon them not to ruin the state when the enemy was near at hand awaiting his turn, the people were with difficulty quieted and refrained from attacking one another.
As for Theramenes, he went to the Peiraeus (he was himself one of the generals) and, so far as shouting was concerned, showed anger at the hoplites; but Aristarchus and those who were opposed to the populace were really displeased.
Most of the hoplites, however, grappled with the task in hand and showed no change of purpose, and they asked Theramenes whether he thought that the fort was being built with any good end in view, and whether it were not better demolished. He answered that if it seemed good to them to demolish it, so it seemed to him also. Thereupon the hoplites and many of the people of Peiraeus at once mounted the fortification and began to tear it down.
And the exhortation addressed to the crowd was, “Whoever wants the Five Thousand to rule in place of the Four Hundred, let him set to work.” For in spite of everything they were still concealing their purpose under the name of the “Five Thousand,” so as not to say outright, “Whoever wants the people to rule”; for they were afraid that the Five Thousand did in reality exist and that one man in speaking to another might without knowing it get into trouble.ie. that the man to whom he suggested a democratic revolution might himself be one of the Five Thousand. And in fact this was the reason why the Four Hundred did not wish either that the Five Thousand should actually exist or that it should become known that they did not exist— because they thought, on the one hand, that to make so many men partners in the government was outright democracy, and, on the other hand, that the uncertainty would inspire fear in each against his neighbour.
On the next day the Four Hundred, though much disturbed, assembled nevertheless in the senate-chamber. But the hoplites in the Peiraeus, after they had released Alexicles, whom they had arrested, and demolished the fortification, went to the theatre of Dionysus in Munichia, and grounding arms held a meeting of the assembly; then, a vote to that effect having been passed, they proceeded straightway to the city and again halted in the Anacium.The precinct of the Dioscuri, to whom the title of ἄνακτες was applied.
But certain men came to them from the Four Hundred, who had been chosen as their delegates, and talked with them, man with man, and tried to persuade any that they saw were reasonable both to keep quiet themselves and to help to keep the rest in restraint, saying that they would publish the names of the Five Thousand, and that from these should be constituted in turn the Four Hundred in whatever way should seem best to the Five Thousand; meanwhile, they urged, they should by all means not ruin the city or drive it into the arms of the enemy.
Finally, the whole body of hoplites, as speeches were made by many and to many, was more calm than before, and was now alarmed chiefly about the general safety of the state. So they came to an agreement to hold, on an appointed day, a meeting of the assembly in the precinct of Dionysus and consider the question of concord.
When the time had come for the meeting of the assembly in the precinct of Dionysus and they had all but gathered there, it was announced that Hegesandridas with his forty-two ships had left Megara and was sailing along the coast of Salamis; and the hoplites to a man believed that this was precisely the move that had long since been predicted by Theramenes and his partycf. 8.91.2; 8.93.2. and that the ships were coming in to occupy the fort; and they felt that its demolition had served a useful purpose.
Now it may well be that Hegesandridas was acting in accordance with some prearranged understanding when he hovered about Epidaurus and that neighbourhood, but it is probable that in tarrying there he also had regard to the dissension prevailing among the Athenians, and was hopeful that possibly he might arrive in the very nick of time.
However this may be, when his movements were reported to the Athenians they immediately advanced at a run with all their forces to the Peiraeus, thinking that a new war, launched by the enemy and more serious than their own domestic feud, was not far away, nay, was actually at their port. Some went aboard the ships that were lying ready, others began launching additional ships, while others still hastened to the defence of the walls and the entrance of the harbour.
But the Peloponnesians' ships, after sailing along the coast and doubling Sunium, came to anchor between Thoricus and Prasiae, but afterwards went on to Oropus.
And the Athenians, in all haste and making use of unpractised crews under stress of necessity, inasmuch as the city was in a state of sedition and they were eager with the least delay to rally to the defence of their chief possession—for Euboea now meant everything to them, since they were debarred from Atticaie. through the occupation of Deceleia by the enemy; cf. vii. 27, 28.—sent Thymochares and some ships to Eretria.
When they arrived and were joined by those already at Euboea the fleet numbered thirty-six ships. And they were forced to fight immediately; for Hegesander had no sooner breakfasted than he led out his ships from Oropus, and Oropus is only about sixty stadia distant from the city of Eretria by sea.
When, therefore, he began his advance, the Athenians on their part began at once to man their ships, supposing that the crews were beside their vessels. But they chanced to be providing themselves with food for their breakfast, not in the market-place—for by design on the part of the Eretrians nothing was being offered for sale there —but from the houses in the furthest parts of the town; and this had been so arranged in order that while they were manning at their leisure the enemy might surprise them by their attack and force them to put to sea in haphazard fashion.
Besides, a signal had been hoisted at Eretria to apprise the Peloponnesian fleet at Oropus when to put to sea. So the Athenians put to sea under such disadvantage as regards preparation and engaged in battle off the harbour of Eretria;
for some little time, however, they nevertheless did hold their own, but afterwards turned to flight and were pursued to shore. And such of them as took refuge in the city of Eretria, assuming that it was friendly, suffered a most cruel fate, being butchered by the inhabitants; but those who escaped to the fort in Eretrian territory which the Athenians themselves held were saved, as also all the ships that reached Chalcis.
The Peloponnesians, having captured twenty-two Athenian ships and having either slain or taken prisoner their crews, set up a trophy. And not long afterwards they succeeded in persuading all Euboea to revolt except Oreus, which the Athenians themselves held, and proceeded to set in order the general affairs of the island.
When the report of what had happened in Euboea reached Athens, there was greater consternation than ever before. For neither the disaster in Sicily, great though it seemed at the time, nor any other event had ever yet so frightened them.
At a time when their army at Samos was in revolt, when there were no more ships to be had nor men to man them, when they were in a state of sedition at home and there was no telling when a conflict might break out among themselves, when, to crown all, a disaster had now come upon them of this magnitude, in which they had lost both their fleet and, worst of all, Euboea, from which they derived more benefit than from Attica—had they not every reason to be despondent?
But what alarmed them most and touched them most nearly was the possibility that the enemy, now victorious, might dare to make straight for Athens and attack the Peiraeus, which was now without ships to defend it; and they believed that they were all but there already.
And indeed, if they had been more bold, the enemy could readily have done this very thing, and they would either, by setting up a blockade, have caused the city to be still more torn by factions, or else, if they had remained and laid siege to it, would have compelled the fleet in Ionia, though hostile to the oligarchy, to come to the rescue of their own relatives and of the city as a whole; and thereby the Hellespont would have been theirs, and Ionia, and the islands, and everything as far as Euboea— indeed almost the whole empire of the Athenians.
But it was not on this occasion only that the Lacedaemonians proved the most convenient people in the world for the Athenians to make war upon, but on many others also. For being widely different in character—the one people being quick, the other slow; the one adventurous, the other timorous—it was especially in the case of a naval power that they were most helpful. And the Syracusans proved this; for it was because they were most similar in character to the Athenianscf. 7.55.2, where the same reason for the success of the Syracusans is given. that they made war upon them most successfully.
However this may be, after the announcement of their defeat the Athenians, in spite of their difficulties, manned twenty ships, and also called meetings of the assembly—one immediately, which was called to meet on that occasion for the first time in the place called Pnyx, where at other times also they had been wont to meet.ie. this was the first recognition of the Pnyx as once more the true seat of the assembly. The last assembly which had formally met had been held at Colonus (8.67.2); one appointed, but not held, was to have met at the theatre of Dionysus (8.93.3). At this meeting they deposed the Four Hundred, voted to deliver the management of affairs to the Five Thousand (and all who could furnish themselves with a hoplite's outfit were to belong to this number), and decided that no one was to receive pay for any office, the offender to be accounted accursed.
Other meetings also were held later, at frequent intervals, as a result of which they appointed supervisors of the lawsThe νομοθέται were a committee of jurors (ἡλιασταὶ) to whom ambiguities and contradictions in the laws, as well as proposed changes in them, were referred by the Senate. and voted the other measures pertaining to their form of government. And during the first period the Athenians appear to have enjoyed the best government they ever had, at least in my time; for there was a moderate blending of the few and the many, and this it was that first caused the state to recover from the wretched plight into which it had fallen.
And they also voted to recall Alcibiades and others with him; and sending envoys both to him and to the army at Samos, they urged them to take a hand in their affairs.
At this change the party of Peisander and Alexicles and all the leading supporters of the oligarchy at once secretly left the city and went to Deceleia; but Aristarchus, alone of these, since he chanced to be a general, hastily took some bowmen of the most barbarous sortThe τοξόται in question are the police or city-guard of slaves, mostly drawn from Scythia (hence βαρβαροι). See Boeckh, Oecon. i. 276-278. and proceeded to Oenoe.
It was an Athenian fortress on the borders of Boeotia, and the Corinthians, having called to their aid the Boeotians, were besieging it on their own account, because of a misfortune they had suffered at the hands of the garrison at Oenoe when they lost some men as they were returning from Deceleia.
So Aristarchus, after first making his plans known to the besiegers, deceived the garrison at Oenoe by telling them that their partisans in the city had made terms with the Lacedaemonians, and that, among other things, this garrison must surrender the place to the Boeotians; for the agreement had been made on these conditions. The garrison trusted him because he was a general, being in complete ignorance because they were in a state of siege, and evacuated the fort under a truce.