[271] Thucyd. vi, 34. Ὃ δὲ μάλιστα ἐγώ τε νομίζω ἐπίκαιρον, ὑμεῖς δὲ διὰ τὸ ξύνηθες ἥσυχον ἥκιστ’ ἂν ὀξέως πείθοισθε, ὅμως εἰρήσεται.
That “habitual quiescence” which Hermokratês here predicates of his countrymen, forms a remarkable contrast with the restless activity, and intermeddling carried even to excess, which Periklês and Nikias deprecate in the Athenians (Thucyd. i, 144; vi, 7). Both of the governments, however, were democratical. This serves as a lesson of caution respecting general predications about all democracies; for it is certain that one democracy differed in many respects from another. It may be doubted, however, whether the attribute here ascribed by Hermokratês to his countrymen was really deserved, to the extent which his language implies.
[272] Thucyd. vi, 33-36.
[273] Thucyd. vi, 32-35. τῶν δὲ Συρακοσίων ὁ δῆμος ἐν πολλῇ πρὸς ἀλλήλους ἔριδι ἦσαν, etc.
[274] Thucyd. vi, 35. παρελθὼν δ’ αὐτοῖς Ἀθηναγόρας, ὃς δήμου τε προστάτης ἦν καὶ ἐν τῷ παρόντι πιθανώτατος τοῖς πολλοῖς, ἔλεγε τοιάδε, etc.
The position ascribed here to Athenagoras seems to be the same as that which is assigned to Kleon at Athens—ἀνὴρ δημαγωγὸς κατ’ ἐκεῖνον τὸν χρόνον ὢν καὶ τῷ πλήθει πιθανώτατος, etc. (iv, 21).
Neither δήμου προστάτης nor δημαγωγὸς, denotes any express functions, or titular office (see the note of Dr. Arnold), at least in these places. It is possible that there may have been some Grecian town constitutions, in which there was an office bearing that title: but this is a point which cannot be affirmed. Nor would the words δήμου προστάτης always imply an equal degree of power: the person so designated might have more power in one town than in another. Thus in Megara (iv, 67) it seems that the oligarchical party had recently been banished: the leaders of the popular party had become the most influential men in the city. See also iii, 70, Peithias at Korkyra.
[275] Thucyd. vi, 36-40. I give the substance of what is ascribed to Athenagoras by Thucydidês, without binding myself to the words.
[276] Thucyd. vi, 36. τοὺς δ’ ἀγγέλλοντας τὰ τοιαῦτα καὶ περιφόβους ὑμᾶς ποιοῦντας τῆς μὲν τόλμης οὐ θαυμάζω, τῆς δὲ ἀξυνεσίας, εἰ μὴ οἴονται ἔνδηλοι εἶναι.
[277] Thucyd. vi, 38. Ἀλλὰ ταῦτα, ὥσπερ ἐγὼ λέγω, οἵ τε Ἀθηναῖοι γιγνώσκοντες, τὰ σφέτερα αὐτῶν, εὖ οἶδ’ ὅτι, σῴζουσι, καὶ ἐνθένδε ἄνδρες οὔτε ὄντα, οὔτε ἂν γενόμενα, λογοποιοῦσιν. Οὓς ἐγὼ οὐ νῦν πρῶτον, ἀλλ’ ἀεὶ ἐπίσταμαι, ἤτοι λόγοις γε τοιοῖσδε, καὶ ἔτι τούτων κακουργοτέροις, ἢ ἔργοις, βουλομένους καταπλήξαντας τὸ ὑμέτερον πλῆθος αὐτοὺς τῆς πόλεως ἄρχειν. Καὶ δέδοικα μέντοι μήποτε πολλὰ πειρῶντες καὶ κατορθώσωσιν, etc.
[278] Thucyd. vi, 39. φήσει τις δημοκρατίαν οὔτε ξυνετὸν οὔτ’ ἴσον εἶναι, τοὺς δ’ ἔχοντας τὰ χρήματα καὶ ἄρχειν ἄριστα βελτίστους. Ἐγὼ δέ φημι πρῶτα μὲν, δῆμον ξύμπαν ὠνομάσθαι, ὀλιγαρχίαν δὲ μέρος· ἔπειτα, φύλακας μὲν ἀρίστους εἶναι χρημάτων τοὺς πλουσίους, βουλεῦσαι δ’ ἂν βέλτιστα τοὺς ξυνετοὺς, κρῖναι δ’ ἂν ἀκούσαντας ἄριστα τοὺς πολλούς· καὶ ταῦτα ὁμοίως καὶ κατὰ μέρη καὶ ξύμπαντα ἐν δημοκρατίᾳ ἰσομοιρεῖν.
Dr. Arnold translates φύλακας χρημάτων, “having the care of the public purse,” as if it were φύλακας τῶν δημοσίων χρημάτων. But it seems to me that the words carry a larger sense, and refer to the private property of these rich men, not to their functions as keepers of what was collected from taxation or tribute. Looking at a rich man from the point of view of the public, he is guardian of his own property until the necessities of the state require that he should spend more or less of it for the public defence or benefit: in the interim, he enjoys it as he pleases, but he will for his own interest take care that the property does not perish (compare vi, 9). This is the service which he renders, quatenus, rich man, to the state; he may also serve it in other ways, but that would be by means of his personal qualities; thus he may, for example, be intelligent as well as rich (ξυνετὸς as well as πλούσιος), and then he may serve the state as counsellor, the second of the two categories named by Athenagoras. What that orator is here negativing is, the better title and superior fitness of the rich to exercise command, which was the claim put forward in their behalf. And he goes on to indicate what is their real position and service in a democracy; that they are to enjoy the revenue, and preserve the capital, of their wealth, subject to demands for public purposes when necessary, but not to expect command, unless they are personally competent. Properly speaking, that which he here affirms is true of the small lots of property taken in the mass, as well as of the large, and is one of the grounds of defence of private property against communism. But the rich man’s property is an appreciable item to the state, individually taken; moreover, he is perpetually raising unjust pretensions to political power, so that it becomes necessary to define how much he is really entitled to.
[279] Thucyd. vi, 39. Ὀλιγαρχία δὲ τῶν μὲν κινδύνων τοῖς πολλοῖς μεταδίδωσι, τῶν δ’ ὠφελίμων οὐ πλεονεκτεῖ μόνον, ἀλλὰ καὶ ξύμπαν ἀφελομένη ἔχει· ἃ ὑμῶν οἵ τε δυνάμενοι καὶ οἱ νέοι προθυμοῦνται, ἀδύνατα ἐν μεγάλῃ πόλει κατασχεῖν.
[281] Thucyd. vi, 45.
[282] Thucyd. vi, 47; Plutarch, Nikias, c. 14.
[283] Thucyd. vi, 48. Οὕτως ἤδη Συρακούσαις καὶ Σελινοῦντι ἐπιχειρεῖν, ἢν μὴ οἱ μὲν Ἐγεσταίοις ξυμβαίνωσιν, οἱ δὲ Λεοντίνους ἐῶσι κατοικίζειν.
[284] Compare iv, 104, describing the surprise of Amphipolis by Brasidas.
[285] Thucyd. vi, 49.
[286] Thucyd. vi, 50.
[287] Polyænus (i, 40, 4) treats this acquisition of Katana as the result, not of accident, but of a preconcerted plot. I follow the account as given by Thucydidês.
[288] Thucyd. vi, 52.
[289] Thucyd. vi. 53-61.
[290] Andokidês de Mysteriis, sects. 14, 15, 35. In reference to the deposition of Agaristê, Andokidês again includes Alkibiadês among those who fled into banishment in consequence of it. Unless we are to suppose another Alkibiadês, not the general in Sicily, this statement cannot be true. There was another Alkibiadês, of the deme Phegus: but Andokidês in mentioning him afterwards (sect. 65), specifies his deme. He was cousin of Alkibiadês, and was in exile at the same time with him (Xenoph. Hellen. i, 2, 13).
[291] Andokidês (sects. 13-34) affirms that some of the persons, accused by Teukrus as mutilators of the Hermæ, were put to death upon his deposition. But I contest his accuracy on this point. For Thucydidês recognizes no one as having been put to death except those against whom Andokidês himself informed (see vi, 27, 53, 61). He dwells particularly upon the number of persons, and persons of excellent character, imprisoned on suspicion; but he mentions none as having been put to death except those against whom Andokidês gave testimony. He describes it as a great harshness, and as an extraordinary proof of the reigning excitement, that the Athenians should have detained so many persons upon suspicion, on the evidence of informers not entitled to credence. But he would not have specified this detention as extraordinary harshness, if the Athenians had gone so far as to put individuals to death upon the same evidence. Besides, to put these men to death would have defeated their own object, the full and entire disclosure of the plot and the conspirators. The ignorance in which they were of their internal enemies, was among the most agonizing of all their sentiments; and to put any prisoner to death until they arrived, or believed themselves to have arrived, at the knowledge of the whole, would tend so far to bar their own chance of obtaining evidence: ὁ δὲ δῆμος ὁ τῶν Ἀθηναίων ἄσμενος λαβὼν, ὡς ᾤετο, τὸ σαφὲς, καὶ δεινὸν ποιούμενοι πρότερον εἰ τοὺς ἐπιβουλεύοντας σφῶν τῷ πλήθει μὴ εἴσονται, etc.
Wachsmuth says (p. 194): “The bloodthirsty dispositions of the people had been excited by the previous murders: the greater the number of victims to be slaughtered, the better were the people pleased,” etc. This is an inaccuracy quite in harmony with the general spirit of his narrative. It is contradicted, implicitly, by the very words of Thucydidês which he transcribes in his note 108.
[292] Andokid. de Mysteriis, sects. 27-28. καὶ Ἀνδροκλῆς ὑπὲρ τῆς βουλῆς.
[293] Andokid. de Myster. sect. 36. It seems that Diognêtus, who had been commissioner of inquiry at the time when Pythonikus presented the first information of the slave Andromachus, was himself among the parties denounced by Teukrus (And. de Mys. sects. 14, 15).
[294] Thucyd. vi, 53-60. οὐ δοκιμάζοντες τοὺς μηνυτὰς, ἀλλὰ πάντας ὑπόπτως ἀποδεχόμενοι, διὰ πονηρῶν ἀνθρώπων πίστιν πάνυ χρηστοὺς τῶν πολιτῶν ξυλλαμβάνοντες κατέδουν, χρησιμώτερον ἡγούμενοι εἶναι βασανίσαι τὸ πρᾶγμα καὶ εὑρεῖν, ἢ διὰ μηνυτοῦ πονηρίαν τινὰ καὶ χρηστὸν δοκοῦντα εἶναι αἰτιαθέντα ἀνέλεγκτον διαφυγεῖν....
... δεινὸν ποιούμενοι, εἰ τοὺς ἐπιβουλεύοντας σφῶν τῷ πλήθει μὴ εἴσονται....
[295] Andokid. de Myst. sect. 36.
[296] Plutarch (Alkib. c. 20) and Diodorus (xiii, 2) assert that this testimony was glaringly false, since on the night in question it was new moon. I presume, at least, that the remark of Diodorus refers to the deposition of Diokleidês, though he never mentions the name of the latter, and even describes the deposition referred to with many material variations as compared with Andokidês. Plutarch’s observation certainly refers to Diokleidês, whose deposition, he says, affirming that he had seen and distinguished the persons in question by the light of the moon, on a night when it was new moon, shocked all sensible men, but produced no effect upon the blind fury of the people. Wachsmuth (Hellenisch. Alterth. vol. ii, ch. viii, p. 194) copies this remark from Plutarch.
I disbelieve altogether the assertion that it was new moon on that night. Andokidês gives in great detail the deposition of Diokleidês, with a strong wish to show that it was false and perfidiously got up. But he nowhere mentions the fact that it was new moon on the night in question; though if we read his report and his comments upon the deposition of Diokleidês, we shall see that he never could have omitted such a means of discrediting the whole tale, if the fact had been so (Andokid. de Myster. sects. 37-43). Besides, it requires very good positive evidence to make us believe, that a suborned informer, giving his deposition not long after one of the most memorable nights that ever passed at Athens, would be so clumsy as to make particular reference to the circumstance that it was full moon (εἶναι δὲ πανσέληνον), if it had really been new moon.
[297] Andokid. de Myster. sects. 37-42.
[298] Considering the extreme alarm which then pervaded the Athenian mind, and their conviction that there were traitors among themselves whom yet they could not identify, it is to be noted as remarkable that they resisted the proposition of their commissioners for applying torture. We must recollect that the Athenians admitted the principle of the torture, as a good mode of eliciting truth as well as of testing depositions,—for they applied it often to the testimony of slaves,—sometimes apparently to that of metics. Their attachment to the established law, which forbade the application of it to citizens, must have been very great, to enable them to resist the great special and immediate temptation to apply it in this case to Mantitheus and Aphepsion, if only by way of exception.
The application of torture to witnesses and suspected persons, handed down from the Roman law, was in like manner recognized, and pervaded nearly all the criminal jurisprudence of Europe until the last century. I hope that the reader, after having gone through the painful narrative of the proceedings of the Athenians after the mutilation of the Hermæ, will take the trouble to peruse by way of comparison the Storia della Colonna Infame, by the eminent Alexander Manzoni, author of “I Promessi Sposi.” This little volume, including a republication of Verri’s “Osservazioni sulla Tortura,” is full both of interest and instruction. It lays open the judicial enormities committed at Milan in 1630, while the terrible pestilence was raging there, by the examining judges and the senate, in order to get evidence against certain suspected persons called Untori; that is, men who were firmly believed by the whole population, with very few exceptions, to be causing and propagating the pestilence by means of certain ointment which they applied to the doors and walls of houses. Manzoni recounts with simple, eloquent, and impressive detail, the incredible barbarity with which the official lawyers at Milan, under the authority of the senate, extorted, by force of torture, evidence against several persons, of having committed this imaginary and impossible crime. The persons thus convicted were executed under horrible torments: the house of one of them, a barber named Mora, was pulled down, and a pillar with an inscription erected upon the site, to commemorate the deed. This pillar, the Colonna Infame, remained standing in Milan until the close of the 18th century. The reader will understand, from Manzoni’s narrative, the degree to which public excitement and alarm can operate to poison and barbarize the course of justice in a Christian city, without a taint of democracy, and with professional lawyers and judges to guide the whole procedure secretly, as compared with a pagan city, ultra-democratical, where judicial procedure as well as decision was all oral, public, and multitudinous.
[299] Andokid. de Myst. sects. 41-46.
[300] Andokid. de Myst. sect. 48: compare Lysias, Orat. xiii, cont. Agorat. sect. 42.
[301] Plutarch (Alkib. c. 21) states that the person who thus addressed himself to, and persuaded Andokidês, was named Timæus. From whom he got the latter name, we do not know.
[302] The narrative, which I have here given in substance, is to be found in Andokid. de Myst. sects. 48-66.
[303] Thucyd. vi, 60. Καὶ ὁ μὲν αὐτός τε καθ’ ἑαυτοῦ καὶ κατ’ ἄλλων μηνύει τὸ τῶν Ἑρμῶν, etc.
To the same effect, see the hostile oration of Lysias contra Andocidem, Or. vi, sects. 36, 37, 51: also Andokidês himself, De Mysteriis, sect. 71; De Reditu, sect. 7.
If we may believe the Pseudo-Plutarch (Vit. x, Orator, p. 834), Andokidês had on a previous occasion been guilty of drunken irregularity and damaging a statue.
[304] Thucyd. vi, 60. ἐνταῦθα ἀναπείθεται εἷς τῶν δεδεμένων, ὅσπερ ἐδόκει αἰτιώτατος εἶναι, ὑπὸ τῶν ξυνδεσμωτῶν τινὸς, εἴτε ἄρα καὶ τὰ ὄντα μηνῦσαι, εἴτε καὶ οὔ· ἐπ’ ἀμφότερα γὰρ εἰκάζεται· τὸ δὲ σαφὲς οὐδεὶς οὔτε τότε οὔτε ὕστερον ἔχει εἰπεῖν περὶ τῶν δρασάντων τὸ ἔργον.
If the statement of Andokidês in the Oratio de Mysteriis is correct, the deposition previously given by Teukrus the metic must have been a true one; though this man is commonly denounced among the lying witnesses (see the words of the comic writer Phrynichus ap. Plutarch, Alkib. c. 20).
Thucydidês refuses even to mention the name of Andokidês, and expresses himself with more than usual reserve about this dark transaction, as if he were afraid of giving offence to great Athenian families. The bitter feuds which it left behind at Athens, for years afterwards, are shown in the two orations of Lysias and of Andokidês. If the story of Didymus be true, that Thucydidês after his return from exile to Athens died by a violent death (see Biogr. Thucyd. p. xvii. ed. Arnold), it would seem probable that all his reserve did not protect him against private enmities arising out of his historical assertions.
[305] Thucyd. vi, 60. Ὁ δὲ δῆμος ὁ τῶν Ἀθηναίων ἄσμενος λαβὼν, ὡς ᾤετο, τὸ σαφὲς, etc.: compare Andokid. de Mysteriis, sects. 67, 68.
[306] Andokid. de Myster. sect 66; Thucyd. vi, 60; Philochorus, Fragment. 111, ed. Didot.
[307] Thucyd. vi, 60. ἡ μέντοι ἄλλη πόλις περιφανῶς ὠφέλητο: compare Andokid. de Reditu, sect. 8.
[308] See Andokid. de Mysteriis, sect. 17. There are several circumstances not easily intelligible respecting this γραφὴ παρανόμων, which Andokidês alleges that his father Leogoras brought against the senator Speusippus, before a dikastery of six thousand persons (a number very difficult to believe), out of whom he says that Speusippus only obtained two hundred votes; but if this trial ever took place at all, we cannot believe that it could have taken place until after the public mind was tranquillized by the disclosures of Andokidês, especially as Leogoras was actually in prison along with Andokidês immediately before those disclosures were given in.
[309] See for evidence of these general positions respecting the circumstances of Andokidês, the three Orations: Andokidês de Mysteriis, Andokidês de Reditu Suo, and Lysias contra Andokidem.
[310] Homer, Hymn. Cerer. 475. Compare the Epigram cited in Lobeck, Eleusinia, p. 47.
[311] Lysias cont. Andokid. init. et fin.; Andokid. de Myster. sect. 29. Compare the fragment of a lost Oration by Lysias against Kinêsias (Fragm. xxxi, p. 490, Bekker; Athenæus, xii, p. 551), where Kinêsias and his friends are accused of numerous impieties, one of which consisted in celebrating festivals on unlucky and forbidden days, “in derision of our gods and our laws,”—ὡς καταλεγῶντες τῶν θεῶν καὶ τῶν νόμων τῶν ἡμετέρων. The lamentable consequences which the displeasure of the gods had brought upon them are then set forth: the companions of Kinêsias had all miserably perished, while Kinêsias himself was living in wretched health and in a condition worse than death: τὸ δ’ οὕτως ἔχοντα τοσοῦτον χρόνον διατελεῖν, καὶ καθ’ ἑκάστην ἡμέραν ἀποθνήσκοντα μὴ δύνασθαι τελευτῆσαι τὸν βίον, τούτοις μόνοις προσήκει τοῖς τὰ τοιαῦτα ἅπερ οὗτος ἐξερματεκόσι.
The comic poets Strattis and Plato also marked out Kinêsias among their favorite subjects of derision and libel, and seem particularly to have represented his lean person and constant ill health as a punishment of the gods for his impiety. See Meineke, Fragm. Comic. Græc. (Strattis), vol. ii, p. 768 (Plato), p. 679.
[312] Lysias cont. Andokid. sects. 50, 51; Cornel. Nepos, Alcib. c. 4. The expressions of Pindar (Fragm. 96) and of Sophoklês (Fragm. 58, Brunck.—Œdip. Kolon. 1058) respecting the value of the Eleusinian mysteries, are very striking: also Cicero, Legg. ii, 14.
Horace will not allow himself to be under the same roof, or in the same boat, with any one who has been guilty of divulging these mysteries (Od. iii. 2, 26), much more then of deriding them.
The reader will find the fullest information about these ceremonies in the Eleusinia, forming the first treatise in the work of Lobeck called Aglaophamus; and in the Dissertation called Eleusinia, in K. O. Müller’s Kleine Schriften. vol ii, p. 242, seqq.
[313] Diodor. xiii. 6
[314] We shall find these sacred families hereafter to be the most obstinate in opposing the return of Alkibiadês from banishment (Thucyd. viii, 53).
[315] Thucyd. vi, 53-61.
[316] Plutarch, Alkib. c. 22. Θέσσαλος Κίμωνος Λακιάδης, Ἀλκιβιάδην Κλεινίου Σκαμβωνίδην εἰσήγγειλεν ἀδικεῖν περὶ τὼ θεὼ, τὴν Δήμητρα καὶ τὴν Κόρην, ἀπομιμούμενον τὰ μυστήρια, καὶ δεικνύοντα τοῖς αὐτοῦ ἑταίροις ἐν τῇ οἰκίᾳ τῇ ἑαυτοῦ, ἔχοντα στολὴν οἵανπερ ἱεροφάντης ἔχων δεικνύει τὰ ἱερὰ, καὶ ὀνομάζοντα αὐτὸν μὲν ἱεροφάντην, Πολυτίωνα δὲ δᾳδοῦχον, κήρυκα δὲ Θεόδωρον Φηγεέα· τοὺς δ’ ἄλλους ἑταίρους, μύστας προσαγορεύοντα καὶ ἐπόπτας, παρὰ τὰ νόμιμα καὶ τὰ καθεστηκότα ὑπὸ τ’ Εὐμολπιδῶν καὶ κηρύκων καὶ τῶν ἱερέων τῶν ἐξ Ἐλευσῖνος.
[317] Thucyd. vi, 61.
[318] Xenoph. Hellen. i, 2, 13.
[319] Thucyd. vi. 61; Plutarch, Alkib. c. 22-33; Lysias, Orat. vi, cont. Andokid. sect. 42.
Plutarch says that it would have been easy for Alkibiadês to raise a mutiny in the army at Katana, had he chosen to resist the order for coming home. But this is highly improbable. Considering what his conduct became immediately afterwards, we shall see good reason to believe that he would have taken this step, had it been practicable.
[320] To appreciate fairly the violent emotion raised at Athens by the mutilation of the Hermæ and by the profanation of the mysteries, it is necessary to consider the way in which analogous acts of sacrilege have been viewed in Christian and Catholic penal legislation, even down to the time of the first French Revolution.
I transcribe the following extract from a work of authority on French criminal jurisprudence—Jousse, Traité de la Justice Criminelle, Paris, 1771, part iv, tit. 27, vol. iii, p. 672:—
“Du Crime de Leze-Majesté Divine.—Les Crimes de Leze Majesté Divine, sont ceux qui attaquent Dieu immédiatement, et qu’on doit regarder par cette raison comme les plus atroces et les plus exécrables.—La Majesté de Dieu peut être offensée de plusieurs manières.—1. En niant l’existence de Dieu. 2. Par le crime de ceux qui attentent directement contre la Divinité: comme quand on profane ou qu’on foule aux pieds les saintes Hosties; ou qu’on frappe les Images de Dieu dans le dessein de l’insulter. C’est ce qu’on appelle Crime de Leze-Majesté Divine au prémier Chef.”
Again in the same work, part iv, tit. 46, n. 5, 8, 10, 11, vol. iv, pp. 97-99:—
“La profanation des Sacremens et des Mystères de la Réligion est un sacrilège des plus exécrables. Tel est le crime de ceux qui emploient les choses sacrées à des usages communs et mauvais, en dérision des Mystères; ceux qui profanent la sainte Eucharistie, ou qui en abusent en quelque manière que ce soit; ceux qui en mépris de la Réligion, profanent les Fonts-Baptismaux; qui jettent par terre les saintes Hosties, ou qui les emploient à des usages vils et profanes: ceux qui, en dérision de nos sacrés Mystères, les contrefont dans leurs débauches; ceux qui frappent, mutilent, abattent, les Images consacrées à Dieu, ou à la Sainte Vierge, ou aux Saints, en mépris de la Réligion; et enfin, tous ceux qui commettent de semblables impiétés. Tous ces crimes sont des crimes de Leze-Majesté divine au prémier chef, parce qu’ils s’attaquent immédiatement à Dieu, et ne se font à aucun dessein que de l’offenser.”
“... La peine du Sacrilège, par l’Ancien Testament, étoit celle du feu, et d’être lapidé.—Par les Loix Romaines, les coupables étoient condamnés au fer, au feu, et aux bêtes farouches, suivant les circonstances.—En France, la peine du sacrilège est arbitraire, et dépend de la qualité et des circonstances du crime, du lieu, du temps, et de la qualité de l’accusé.—Dans le sacrilège au prémier chef, qui attaque la Divinité, la Sainte Vierge, et les Saints, v. g. à l’égard de ceux qui foulent aux pieds les saintes Hosties, ou qui les jettent à terre, ou en abusent, et qui les emploient à des usages vils et profanes, la peine est le feu, l’amende honorable, et le poing coupé. Il en est de même de ceux qui profanent les Fonts-Baptismaux; ceux qui, en dérision de nos Mystères, s’en moquent et les contrefont dans leurs débauches: ils doivent être punis de peine capitale, parce que ces crimes attaquent immédiatement la Divinité.”
M. Jousse proceeds to cite several examples of persons condemned to death for acts of sacrilege, of the nature above described.
[321] The proceedings in England in 1678 and 1679, in consequence of the pretended Popish Plot, have been alluded to by various authors, and recently by Dr. Thirlwall, as affording an analogy to that which occurred at Athens after the mutilation of the Hermæ. But there are many material differences, and all, so far as I can perceive, to the advantage of Athens.
1. The “hellish and damnable plot of the Popish Recusants,” (to adopt the words of the Houses of Lords and Commons,—see Dr. Lingard’s History of England, vol. xiii, ch. v, p. 88,—words, the like of which were doubtless employed at Athens in reference to the Hermokopids,) was baseless, mendacious, and incredible, from the beginning. It started from no real fact: the whole of it was a tissue of falsehoods and fabrications proceeding from Oates, Bedloe, and a few other informers of the worst character.
At Athens, there was unquestionably a plot; the Hermokopids were real conspirators, not few in number. No one could doubt that they conspired for other objects besides the mutilation of the Hermæ. At the same time, no one knew what these objects were, nor who the conspirators themselves were.
If before the mutilation of the Hermæ, a man like Oates had pretended to reveal to the Athenian people a fabricated plot implicating Alkibiadês and others, he would have found no credence. It was not until after and by reason of that terror-striking incident, that the Athenians began to give credence to informers. And we are to recollect that they did not put any one to death on the evidence of these informers. They contented themselves with imprisoning on suspicion, until they got the confession and deposition of Andokidês. Those implicated in that deposition were condemned to death. Now Andokidês, as a witness, deserves but very qualified confidence; yet it is impossible to degrade him to the same level even as Teukrus or Diokleidês, much less to that of Oates and Bedloe. We cannot wonder that the people trusted him, and, under the peculiar circumstances of the case, it was the least evil that they should trust him. The witnesses upon whose testimony the prisoners under the Popish Plot were condemned, were even inferior to Teukrus and Diokleidês in presumptive credibility.
The Athenian people have been censured for their folly in believing the democratical constitution in danger, because the Hermæ had been mutilated. I have endeavored to show, that, looking to their religious ideas, the thread of connection between these two ideas is perfectly explicable. And why are we to quarrel with the Athenians because they took arms, and put themselves on their guard, when a Lacedæmonian or a Bœotian armed force was actually on their frontier?
As for the condemnation of Alkibiadês and others for profaning and divulging the Eleusinian mysteries, these are not for a moment to be put upon a level with the condemnations in the Popish Plot. These were true charges, at least there is strong presumptive reason for believing that they were true. Persons were convicted and punished for having done acts which they really had done, and which they knew to be legal crimes. Whether it be right to constitute such acts legal crimes, or not, is another question. The enormity of the Popish Plot consisted in punishing persons for acts which they had not done, and upon depositions of the most lying and worthless witnesses.
The state of mind into which the Athenians were driven after the cutting of the Hermæ, was indeed very analogous to that of the English people during the circulation of the Popish Plot. The suffering, terror, and distraction, I apprehend to have been even greater at Athens: but the cause of it was graver and more real, and the active injustice which it produced was far less than in England.
“I shall not detain the reader (says Dr. Lingard, Hist. Engl. xiii, p. 105) with a narrative of the partial trials and judicial murders of the unfortunate men, whose names had been inserted by Oates in his pretended discoveries. So violent was the excitement, so general the delusion created by the perjuries of the informer, that the voice of reason and the claims of justice were equally disregarded. Both judge and jury seemed to have no other object than to inflict vengeance on the supposed traitors. To speak in support of their witnesses, or to hint the improbability of the informations, required a strength of mind, a recklessness of consequences, which falls to the lot of few individuals: even the king himself, convinced as he was of the imposture, and contemptuously as he spoke of it in private, dared not exercise his prerogative of mercy to save the lives of the innocent.”
It is to be noted that the House of Lords, both acting as a legislative body, and in their judicial character when the Catholic Lord Stafford was tried before them (ch. vi, pp. 231-241), displayed a degree of prejudice and injustice quite equal to that of the judges and juries in the law-courts.
Both the English judicature on this occasion, and the Milanese judicature on the occasion adverted to in a previous note, were more corrupted and driven to greater injustice by the reigning prejudice, than the purely popular dikastery of Athens in this affair of the Hermæ, and of the other profanations.
[322] Plutarch, Alkib. c. 22.
[323] Thucyd. ii, 65. τά τε ἐν τῷ στρατοπέδῳ ἀμβλύτερα ἐποίουν, etc.
[324] The statements respecting the age and life of Laïs appear involved in inextricable confusion. See the note of Göller ad Philisti, Fragment. v.
[325] Diodor. viii, 6; Thucyd. vi, 62. Καὶ τἀνδράποδα ἀπέδοσαν, καὶ ἐγένοντο ἐξ αὐτῶν εἴκοσι καὶ ἑκατὸν τάλαντα. The word ἀπέδοσαν seems to mean that the prisoners were handed over to their fellow-countrymen, the natural persons to negotiate for their release, upon private contract of a definite sum. Had Thucydidês said ἀπέδοντο, it would have meant that they were put up to auction for what they would fetch. This distinction is at least possible, and, in my judgment, more admissible than that proposed in the note of Dr. Arnold.
If, however, we refer to Thucyd. vi, 88, with Duker’s note, we shall see that μεταπέμπειν is sometimes, though rarely, used in the sense of μεταπέμπεσθαι. The case may perhaps be the same with ἀπέδοσαν for ἀπέδοντο.
[326] Thucyd. vi, 63; vii, 42.
[327] Thucyd. vi, 63; Diodor. xiii, 6.
[328] Thucyd. vi, 65, 66; Diodor. xiii, 6; Plutarch, Nikias, c. 13.
[329] Thucyd. vi, 67-69.
[330] Thucyd. vi, 68, 69. ἄλλως δὲ καὶ πρὸς ἄνδρας πανδημεί τε ἀμυνομένους, καὶ οὐκ ἀπολέκτους ὥσπερ ἡμᾶς· καὶ προσέτι Σικελιώτας, οἳ ὑπερφρονοῦσι μὲν ἡμᾶς, ὑπομένουσι δὲ οὔ· διὰ τὸ τὴν ἐπιστήμην τῆς τόλμης ἥσσω ἔχειν.
This passage illustrates very clearly the meaning of the adverb πανδημεί. Compare πανδαμεὶ, πανομιλεὶ, Æschylus, Sept. Theb. 275.
[331] Thucyd. vi, 70. Τοῖς δ’ ἐμπειροτέροις, τὰ μὲν γιγνόμενα, καὶ ὥρᾳ ἔτους περαίνεσθαι δοκεῖν, τοὺς δὲ ἀνθεστῶτας, πολὺ μείζω ἔκπληξιν μὴ νικωμένους παρέχειν.
The Athenians, unfortunately for themselves, were not equally unmoved by eclipses of the moon. The force of this remark will be seen in the next chapter but one.
[332] Thucyd. vi, 70.
[333] Thucyd. vi, 71. Plutarch (Nikias, c. 16) states that Nikias refused from religious scruples to invade the sacred precinct, though his soldiers were eager to seize its contents.
Diodorus (xiii, 6) affirms erroneously that the Athenians became masters of the Olympieion. Pausanias too says the same thing (x, 28, 3), adding that Nikias abstained from disturbing either the treasures or the offerings, and left them still under the care of the Syracusan priests.
Plutarch farther states that Nikias stayed some days in his position before he returned to Katana. But the language of Thucydidês indicates that the Athenians returned on the day after the battle.
[334] Thucyd. vi, 71-74.
[335] Thucyd. vi, 21-26.
[336] Thucyd. vi, 20.