[65] Thucyd. viii, 81. γενομένης δὲ ἐκκλησίας τήν τε ἰδίαν ξυμφορὰν τῆς φυγῆς ἐπῃτιάσατο καὶ ἀνωλοφύρατο ὁ Ἀλκιβιάδης, etc.

Contrast the different language of Alkibiadês, vi, 92: viii, 47.

For the word ξυμφορὰν, compare i, 127.

Nothing can be more false and perverted than the manner in which the proceedings of Alkibiadês, during this period, are presented in the Oration of Isokratês de Bigis, sects. 18-23.

[66] Thucyd. viii, 82, 83, 87.

[67] Thucyd. viii, 77-86.

[68] Thucyd. viii, 86. Εἰ δὲ ἐς εὐτέλειάν τι ξυντέτμηται, ὥστε τοὺς στρατιώτας ἔχειν τροφὴν, πάνυ ἐπαινεῖν.

This is a part of the answer of Alkibiadês to the envoys, and therefore indicates what they had urged.

[69] Thucyd. viii, 86. τῶν τε πεντακισχιλίων ὅτι πάντες ἐν τῷ μέρει μεθέξουσιν, etc. I dissent from Dr. Arnold’s construction of this passage, which is followed both by Poppo and by Göller. He says, in his note: “The sense must clearly be, ‘that all the citizens should be of the five thousand in their turn,’ however strange the expression may seem, μεθέξουσι τῶν πεντακισχιλίων. But without referring to the absurdity of the meaning, that all the Five Thousand should partake of the government in their turn,—for they all partook of it as being the sovereign assembly,—yet μετέχειν, in this sense, would require τῶν πραγμάτων after it, and would be at least as harsh, standing alone, as in the construction of μεθέξουσι τῶν πεντακισχιλίων.”

Upon this remark, 1. Μετέχειν may be construed with a genitive case not actually expressed, but understood out of the words preceding; as we may see by Thucyd. ii, 16, where I agree with the interpretation suggested by Matthiæ (Gr. Gr. § 325), rather than with Dr. Arnold’s note.

2. In the present instance, we are not reduced to the necessity of gathering a genitive case for μετέχειν by implication out of previous phraseology: for the express genitive case stands there a line or two before—τῆς πόλεως, the idea of which is carried down without being ever dropped: οἱ δ᾽ ἀπήγγελλον, ὡς οὔτε ἐπὶ διαφθορᾷ τῆς πόλεως ἡ μετάστασις γένοιτο, ἀλλ᾽ ἐπὶ σωτηρίᾳ, οὔθ᾽ ἵνα τοῖς πολεμίοις παραδοθῇ (i. e., ἡ πόλις) ... τῶν τε πεντακισχιλίων ὅτι πάντες ἐν τῷ μέρει μεθέξουσιν (i. e., τῆς πόλεως).

There is therefore no harshness of expression; nor is there any absurdity of meaning, as we may see by the repetition of the very same in viii, 93, λέγοντες τούς τε πεντακισχιλίους ἀποφανεῖν, καὶ ἐκ τούτων ἐν μέρει, ᾗ ἂν τοῖς πεντακισχιλίοις δοκῇ, τοὺς τετρακοσίους ἔσεσθαι, etc.

Dr. Arnold’s designation of these Five Thousand as “the sovereign assembly,” is not very accurate. They were not an assembly at all: they had never been called together, nor had anything been said about an intention of calling them together: in reality, they were but a fiction and a name; but even the Four Hundred themselves pretended only to talk of them as partners in the conspiracy and revolution, not as an assembly to be convoked—πεντακισχίλιοι—οἱ πράσσοντες (viii, 72).

As to the idea of bringing all the remaining citizens to equal privileges, in rotation, with the Five Thousand, we shall see that it was never broached until considerably after the Four Hundred had been put down.

[70] Plutarch, Alkibiadês, c. 26.

[71] Thucyd. viii. 86. Καὶ τἄλλα ἐκέλευεν ἀντέχειν, καὶ μηδὲν ἐνδιδόναι τοῖς πολεμίοις· πρὸς μὲν γὰρ σφᾶς αὐτοὺς σωζομένης τῆς πόλεως πολλὴν ἐλπίδα εἶναι καὶ ξυμβῆναι, εἰ δὲ ἅπαξ τὸ ἕτερον σφαλήσεται ἢ τὸ ἐν Σάμῳ ἢ ἐκεῖνοι, οὐδὲ ὅτῳ διαλλαγήσεταί τις ἔτι ἔσεσθαι.

[72] Thucyd. viii. 86. It is very probable that the Melêsias here mentioned was the son of that Thucydidês who was the leading political opponent of Periklês. Melêsias appears as one of the dramatis personæ in Plato’s dialogue called Lachês.

[73] Lysias cont. Eratosthen. sect. 43, c. 9, p. 411, Reisk. οὐ γὰρ νῦν πρῶτον (Eratosthenês) τῷ ὑμετέρῳ πλήθει τὰ ἐναντία ἔπραξεν, ἀλλὰ καὶ ἐπὶ τῶν Τετρακοσίων ἐν τῷ στρατοπέδῳ ὀλιγαρχίαν καθιστὰς ἔφευγεν ἐξ Ἑλλησπόντου τριηράρχος καταλιπὼν τὴν ναῦν, μετὰ Ἰατροκλέους καὶ ἑτέρων ... ἀφικόμενος δὲ δεῦρο τἀναντία τοῖς βουλομένοις δημοκρατίαν εἶναι ἔπραττε.

[74] Thucyd. viii, 64.

[75] Thucyd. viii, 89, 90. The representation of the character and motives of Theramenês, as given by Lysias in the Oration contra Eratosthenem (Orat. xii, sects. 66, 67, 79; Orat. xiii, cont. Agorat. sects. 12-17), is quite in harmony with that of Thucydidês (viii, 89): compare Aristophan. Ran. 541-966; Xenoph. Hellen. ii, 3, 27-30.

[76] Thucyd. viii, 89. ἦν δὲ τοῦτο μὲν σχῆμα πολιτικὸν τοῦ λόγου αὐτοῖς, κατ᾽ ἰδίας δὲ φιλοτιμίας οἱ πολλοὶ αὐτῶν τῷ τοιούτῳ προσέκειντο, ἐν ᾧπερ καὶ μάλιστα ὀλιγαρχία ἐκ δημοκρατίας γενομένη ἀπόλλυται. Πάντες γὰρ αὐθημερὸν ἀξιοῦσιν οὐχ ὅπως ἴσοι, ἀλλὰ καὶ πολὺ πρῶτος αὐτὸς ἕκαστος εἶναι· ἐκ δὲ δημοκρατίας αἱρέσεως γιγνομένης, ῥᾷον τὰ ἀποβαίνοντα, ὡς οὐκ ἀπὸ τῶν ὁμοίων, ἐλασσούμενός τις φέρει.

I give in the text what appears to me the proper sense of this passage, the last words of which are obscure: see the long notes of the commentators, especially Dr. Arnold and Poppo. Dr. Arnold considers τῶν ὁμοίων as a neuter, and gives the paraphrase of the last clause as follows: “Whereas under an old-established government, they (ambitious men of talent) are prepared to fail: they know that the weight of the government is against them, and are thus spared the peculiar pain of being beaten in a fair race, when they and their competitors start with equal advantages, and there is nothing to lessen the mortification of defeat. Ἀπὸ τῶν ὁμοίων ἐλασσούμενος, is, being beaten when the game is equal, when the terms of the match are fair.”

I cannot concur in Dr. Arnold’s explanation of these words, or of the general sense of the passage. He thinks that Thucydidês means to affirm what applies generally “to an opposition minority when it succeeds in revolutionizing the established government, whether the government be a democracy or a monarchy; whether the minority be an aristocratical party or a popular one.” It seems to me, on the contrary, that the affirmation bears only on the special case of an oligarchical conspiracy subverting a democracy, and that the comparison taken is applicable only to the state of things as it stood under the preceding democracy.

Next, the explanation given of the words by Dr. Arnold, assumes that “to be beaten in a fair race, or when the terms of the match are fair,” causes to the loser the maximum of pain and offence. This is surely not the fact: or rather, the reverse is the fact. The man who loses his cause or his election through unjust favor, jealousy, or antipathy, is more hurt than if he had lost it under circumstances where he could find no injustice to complain of. In both cases, he is doubtless mortified; but if there be injustice, he is offended and angry as well as mortified: he is disposed to take vengeance on men whom he looks upon as his personal enemies. It is important to distinguish the mortification of simple failure, from the discontent and anger arising out of belief that the failure has been unjustly brought about: it is this discontent, tending to break out in active opposition, which Thucydidês has present to his mind in the comparison which he takes between the state of feeling which precedes and follows the subversion of the democracy.

It appears to me that the words τῶν ὁμοίων are masculine, and that they have reference, like πάντες and ἴσοι, in the preceding line, to the privileged minority of equal confederates who are supposed to have just got possession of the government. At Sparta, the word οἱ ὅμοιοι acquired a sort of technical sense, to designate the small ascendent minority of wealthy Spartan citizens, who monopolized in their own hands political power, to the practical exclusion of the remainder (see Xenoph. Hellen. iii. 3, 5; Xenoph. Resp. Lac. x, 7; xiii, 1; Demosth. cont. Lept. s. 88). Now these ὅμοιοι, or peers, here indicated by Thucydidês as the peers of a recently-formed oligarchy, are not merely equal among themselves, but rivals one with another, and personally known to each other. It is important to bear in mind all these attributes as tacitly implied, though not literally designated or connoted by the word ὅμοιοι, or peers; because the comparison instituted by Thucydidês is founded on all the attributes taken together; just as Aristotle (Rhetoric, ii, 8; ii, 13, 4), in speaking of the envy and jealousy apt to arise towards τοὺς ὁμοίους, considers them as ἀντεράστας and ἀνταγωνίστας.

The Four Hundred at Athens were all peers,—equals, rivals, and personally known among one another,—who had just raised themselves by joint conspiracy to supreme power. Theramenês, one of the number, conceives himself entitled to preëminence, but finds that he is shut out from it, the men who shut him out being this small body of known equals and rivals. He is inclined to impute the exclusion to personal motives on the part of this small knot; to selfish ambition on the part of each; to ill-will, to jealousy, to wrongful partiality; so that he thinks himself injured, and the sentiment of injury is embittered by the circumstance that those from whom it proceeds are a narrow, known, and definite body of colleagues. Whereas, if his exclusion had taken place under the democracy, by the suffrage of a large, miscellaneous, and personally unknown collection of citizens, he would have been far less likely to carry off with him a sense of injury. Doubtless he would have been mortified; but he would not have looked upon the electors in the light of jealous or selfish rivals, nor would they form a definite body before him for his indignation to concentrate itself upon. Thus Nikomachidês—whom Sokratês (see Xenophon, Memor. iii, 4) meets returning mortified because the people had chosen another person and not him as general—would have been not only mortified, but angry and vindictive besides, if he had been excluded by a few peers and rivals.

Such, in my judgment, is the comparison which Thucydidês wishes to draw between the effect of disappointment inflicted by the suffrage of a numerous and miscellaneous body of citizens, compared with disappointment inflicted by a small knot of oligarchical peers upon a competitor among their own number, especially at a moment when the expectations of all these peers are exaggerated, in consequence of the recent acquisition of their power. I believe the remark of the historian to be quite just; and that the disappointment in the first case is less intense, less connected with the sentiment of injury, and less likely to lead to active manifestation of enmity. This is one among the advantages of a numerous suffrage.

I cannot better illustrate the jealousies pretty sure to break out among a small number of ὅμοιοι, or rival peers, than by the description which Justin gives of the leading officers of Alexander the Great, immediately after that monarch’s death (Justin, xii, 2):—

“Cæterum, occiso Alexandro, non, ut læti, ita et securi fuere, omnibus unum locum competentibus: nec minus milites invicem se timebant, quorum et libertas solutior et favor incertus erat. Inter ipsos vero æqualitas discordiam augebat, nemine tantum cæteros excedente, ut ei aliquis se submitteret.”

Compare Plutarch, Lysander, c. 23.

Haack and Poppo think that ὁμοίων cannot be masculine, because ἀπὸ τῶν ὁμοίων ἐλασσούμενος would not then be correct, but ought to be ὑπὸ τῶν ὁμοίων ἐλασσούμενος. I should dispute, under all circumstances, the correctness of this criticism: for there are quite enough parallel cases to defend the use of ἀπὸ here, (see Thucyd. i, 17; iii, 82; iv, 115; vi, 28, etc.) But we need not enter into the debate; for the genitive τῶν ὁμοίων depends rather upon τὰ ἀποβαίνοντα which precedes, than upon ἐλασσούμενος which follows; and the preposition ἀπὸ is what we should naturally expect. To mark this, I have put a comma after ἀποβαίνοντα as well as after ὁμοίων.

To show that an opinion is not correct, indeed, does not afford certain evidence that Thucydidês may not have advanced it: for he might be mistaken. But it ought to count as good presumptive evidence, unless the words peremptorily bind us to the contrary, which in this case they do not.

[77] Thucyd. viii, 86, 2. Of this sentence, from φοβούμενοι down to καθιστάναι, I only profess to understand the last clause. It is useless to discuss the many conjectural amendments of a corrupt text, none of them satisfactory.

[78] Thucyd. viii, 86-89. It is alleged by Andokidês (in an oration delivered many years afterwards before the people of Athens, De Reditu suo, sects. 10-15), that during this spring he furnished the armament at Samos with wood proper for the construction of oars, only obtained by the special favor of Archelaus king of Macedonia, and of which the armament then stood in great need. He farther alleges, that he afterwards visited Athens, while the Four Hundred were in full dominion; and that Peisander, at the head of this oligarchical body, threatened his life for having furnished such valuable aid to the armament, then at enmity with Athens. Though he saved his life by clinging to the altar, yet he had to endure bonds and manifold hard treatment.

Of these claims, which Andokidês prefers to the favor of the subsequent democracy, I do not know how much is true.

[79] Thucyd. viii, 89. σαφέστατα δὲ αὐτοὺς ἐπῆρε τὰ ἐν τῇ Σάμῳ τοῦ Ἀλκιβιάδου ἰσχυρὰ ὄντα, καὶ ὅτι αὐτοῖς οὐκ ἐδόκει μόνιμον τὸ τῆς ὀλιγαρχίας ἔσεσθαι. ἠγωνίζετο οὖν εἷς ἕκαστος προστάτης τοῦ δήμου ἔσεσθαι.

This is a remarkable passage, as indicating what is really meant by προστάτης τοῦ δήμου: “the leader of a popular opposition.” Theramenês, and the other persons here spoken of, did not even mention the name of the democracy,—they took up simply the name of the Five Thousand,—yet they are still called πρόσταται τοῦ δήμου, inasmuch as the Five Thousand were a sort of qualified democracy, compared to the Four Hundred.

The words denote the leader of a popular party, as opposed to an oligarchical party (see Thucyd. iii, 70; iv, 66; vi, 35), in a form of government either entirely democratical, or at least, in which the public assembly is frequently convoked and decides on many matters of importance. Thucydidês does not apply the words to any Athenian except in the case now before us respecting Theramenês: he does not use the words even with respect to Kleon, though he employs expressions which seem equivalent to it (iii, 36; iv, 21)—ἀνὴρ δημαγωγὸς κατ᾽ ἐκεῖνον τὸν χρόνον ὢν καὶ τῷ πλήθει πιθανώτατος, etc. This is very different from the words which he applies to Periklês—ὢν γὰρ δυνατώτατος τῶν καθ᾽ ἑαυτὸν καὶ ἄγων τὴν πολιτείαν (i, 127). Even in respect to Nikias, he puts him in conjunction with Pleistoanax at Sparta, and talks of both of them as σπεύδοντες τὰ μάλιστα τὴν ἡγεμονίαν (v, 16).

Compare the note of Dr. Arnold on vi, 35.

[80] Thucyd. viii, 92. τὸ μὲν καταστῆσαι μετόχους τοσούτους, ἄντικρυς ἂν δῆμον ἡγούμενοι, etc.

Aristotle (Polit. v, 5, 4) calls Phrynichus the demagogue of the Four Hundred; that is, the person who most strenuously served their interests and struggled for their favor.

[81] Thucyd. viii, 90-92. τὸ τεῖχος τοῦτο, καὶ πυλίδας ἔχον, καὶ ἐσόδους, καὶ ἐπεισαγωγὰς τῶν πολεμίων, etc.

I presume that the last expression refers to facilities for admitting the enemy either from the sea-side, or from the land-side; that is to say, from the northwestern corner of the old wall of Peiræus, which formed one side of the new citadel.

See Leake’s Topographie Athens, pp. 269, 270, Germ. transl.

[82] Thucyd. viii, 90. διῳκοδόμησαν δὲ καὶ στοὰν, etc.

I agree with the note in M. Didot’s translation, that this portico, or halle, open on three sides, must he considered as preëxisting; not as having been first built now; which seems to be the supposition of Colonel Leake, and the commentators generally.

[83] Thucyd. viii, 91, 92. Ἀλεξικλέα, στρατηγὸν ὄντα ἐκ τῆς ὀλιγαρχίας καὶ μάλιστα πρὸς τοὺς ἑταίρους τετραμμένον, etc.

[84] Thucyd. viii, 91. Ἀλλὰ καὶ τοὺς πολεμίους ἐσαγαγόμενοι ἄνευ τειχῶν καὶ νεῶν ξυμβῆναι, καὶ ὁπωσοῦν τὰ τῆς πόλεως ἔχειν, εἰ τοῖς γε σώμασι σφῶν ἄδεια ἔσται.

Ibid. ἐπειδὴ οἱ ἐκ τῆς Λακεδαίμονος πρέσβεις οὐδὲν πράξαντες ἀνεχώρησαν τοῖς πᾶσι ξυμβατικὸν, etc.

[85] Thucyd. viii, 91. ἦν δέ τι καὶ τοιοῦτον ἀπὸ τῶν τὴν κατηγορίαν ἐχόντων, καὶ οὐ πάνυ διαβολὴ μόνον τοῦ λόγου.

The reluctant language, in which Thucydidês admits the treasonable concert of Antiphon and his colleagues with the Lacedæmonians, deserves notice; also c. 94. τάχα μέν τι καὶ ἀπὸ ξυγκειμένου λόγου, etc.

[86] Thucyd. viii, 91. The statement of Plutarch is in many respects different (Alkibiadês, c. 25).

[87] Thucyd. viii, 92. τὸ δὲ μέγιστον, τῶν ὁπλιτῶν τὸ στῖφος ταῦτα ἐβούλετο.

[88] Plutarch, Alkibiad. c. 26, represents Hermon as one of the assassins of Phrynichus.

[89] See Lysias, Orat. xx, pro Polystrato. The fact that Polystratus was only eight days a member of the Four Hundred, before their fall, is repeated three distinct times in this Oration (c. 2, 4, 5, pp. 672, 674, 679, Reisk.), and has all the air of truth.

[90] Thucyd. viii, 92, 93. In the Oration of Demosthenês, or Deinarchus, against Theokrinês (c. 17, p. 1343), the speaker, Epicharês, makes allusion to this destruction of the fort at Ectioneia by Aristokratês uncle of his grandfather. The allusion chiefly deserves notice from its erroneous mention of Kritias and the return of the Demos from exile, betraying a complete confusion between the events in the time of the Four Hundred and those in the time of the Thirty.

[91] Lysias, Orat. xx, pro Polystrato, c. 4, p. 675, Reisk.

This task was confided to Polystratus, a very recent member of the Four Hundred, and therefore probably less unpopular than the rest. In his defence after the restoration of the democracy, he pretended to have undertaken the task much against his will, and to have drawn up a list containing nine thousand names instead of five thousand.

It may probably have been in this meeting of the Four Hundred, that Antiphon delivered his oration strongly recommending concord, Περὶ ὁμονοίας. All his eloquence was required just now, to bring back the oligarchical party, if possible, into united action. Philostratus (Vit. Sophistar. c. xv, p. 500, ed. Olear.) expresses great admiration for this oration, which is several times alluded to both by Harpokration and Suidas. See Westermann, Gesch. der Griech. Beredsamkeit, Beilage ii, p. 276.

[92] Thucyd. viii, 93. Τὸ δὲ πᾶν πλῆθος τῶν ὁπλιτῶν, ἀπὸ πολλῶν καὶ πρὸς πολλοὺς λόγων γιγνομένων, ἠπιώτερον ἦν ἢ πρότερον, καὶ ἐφοβεῖτο μάλιστα περὶ τοῦ παντὸς πολιτικοῦ.

[93] Thucyd. viii, 93. ξυνεχώρησαν δὲ ὥστ᾽ ἐς ἡμέραν ῥητὴν ἐκκλησίαν ποιῆσαι ἐν τῷ Διονυσίῳ περὶ ὁμονοίας.

The definition of time must here allude to the morrow, or to the day following the morrow; at least it seems impossible that the city could be left longer than this interval without a government.

[94] Thucyd. viii, 94.

[95] Lysias, Orat. xx, pro Polystrato, c. 4, p. 676, Reisk.

From another passage in this oration, it would seem that Polystratus was in command of the fleet, possibly enough, in conjunction with Thymocharês, according to a common Athenian practice (c. 5, p. 679). His son, who defends him, affirms that he was wounded in the battle.

Diodorus (xiii, 34) mentions the discord among the crews on board these ships under Thymocharês, almost the only point which we learn from his meagre notice of this interesting period.

[96] Thucyd. viii, 5; viii, 95.

[97] Thucyd. viii, 95. To show what Eubœa became at a later period, see Demosthenês, De Fals. Legat. c. 64, p. 409: τὰ ἐν Εὐβοίᾳ κατασκευασθησόμενα ὁρμητήρια ἐφ᾽ ὑμᾶς, etc.; and Demosthenês, De Coronâ, c. 71; ἄπλους δ᾽ ἡ θάλασσα ὑπὸ τῶν ἐκ τῆς Εὐβοίας ὁρμωμένων λῃστῶν γέγονε, etc.

[98] Thucyd. viii, 96. Μάλιστα δ᾽ αὐτοὺς καὶ δι᾽ ἐγγυτάτου ἐθορύβει, εἰ οἱ πολέμιοι τολμήσουσι νενικηκότες εὐθὺς σφῶν ἐπὶ τὸν Πειραιᾶ ἔρημον ὄντα νεῶν πλεῖν· καὶ ὅσον οὐκ ἤδη ἐνόμιζον αὐτοὺς παρεῖναι. Ὅπερ ἄν, εἰ τολμηρότεροι ἦσαν, ῥᾳδίως ἂν ἐποίησαν· καὶ ἢ διέστησαν ἂν ἔτι μᾶλλον τὴν πόλιν ἐφορμοῦντες, ἤ εἰ ἐπολιόρκουν μένοντες, καὶ τὰς ἀπ᾽ Ἰωνίας ναῦς ἠνάγκασαν ἂν βοηθῆσαι, etc.

[99] Thucyd. viii, 96; vii, 21-55.

[100] Thucyd. viii, 97.

[101] It is to this assembly that I refer, with confidence, the remarkable dialogue of contention between Peisander and Sophoklês, one of the Athenian probûli, mentioned in Aristotel. Rhetoric. iii, 18, 2. There was no other occasion on which the Four Hundred were ever publicly thrown upon their defence at Athens.

This was not Sophoklês the tragic poet, but another person of the same name, who appears afterwards as one of the oligarchy of Thirty.

[102] Thucyd. viii, 97. Καὶ ἐκκλησίαν ξυνέλεγον, μίαν μὲν εὐθὺς τότε πρῶτον ἐς τὴν Πνύκα καλουμένην, οὗπερ καὶ ἄλλοτε εἰώθεσαν, ἐν ᾗπερ καὶ τοὺς τετρακοσίους καταπαύσαντες τοῖς πεντακισχιλίοις ἐψηφίσαντο τὰ πράγματα παραδοῦναι· εἶναι δὲ αὐτῶν, ὁπόσοι καὶ ὅπλα παρέχονται· καὶ μισθὸν μηδένα φέρειν, μηδεμιᾷ ἀρχῇ, εἰ δὲ μὴ, ἐπάρατον ἐποιήσαντο. Ἐγίγνοντο δὲ καὶ ἄλλαι ὕστερον πυκναὶ ἐκκλησίαι, ἀφ᾽ ὧν καὶ νομοθέτας καὶ τἄλλα ἐψηφίσαντο ἐς τὴν πολιτείαν.

In this passage I dissent from the commentators on two points. First, they understand this number Five Thousand as a real definite list of citizens, containing five thousand names, neither more nor less. Secondly, they construe νομοθέτας, not in the ordinary meaning which it bears in Athenian constitutional language, but in the sense of ξυγγραφεῖς (c. 67), “persons to model the constitution, corresponding to the ξυγγραφεῖς appointed by the aristocratical party a little before,” to use the words of Dr. Arnold.

As to the first point, which is sustained also by Dr. Thirlwall (Hist. Gr. ch. xxviii, vol. iv, p. 51, 2d ed.), Dr. Arnold really admits what is the ground of my opinion, when he says: “Of course the number of citizens capable of providing themselves with heavy arms must have much exceeded five thousand: and it is said in the defence of Polystratus, one of the Four Hundred (Lysias, p. 675, Reisk.), that he drew up a list of nine thousand. But we must suppose that all who could furnish heavy arms were eligible into the number of the Five Thousand, whether the members were fixed on by lot, by election, or by rotation; as it had been proposed to appoint the Four Hundred by rotation out of the Five Thousand (viii, 93).”

Dr. Arnold here throws out a supposition which by no means conforms to the exact sense of the words of Thucydidês—εἶναι δὲ αὐτῶν, ὁπόσοι καὶ ὅπλα παρέχονται. These words distinctly signify, that all who furnished heavy arms should be of the Five Thousand, should belong of right to that body, which is something different from being eligible into the number of the Five Thousand, either by lot, rotation, or otherwise. The language of Thucydidês, when he describes, in the passage referred to by Dr. Arnold, c. 93, the projected formation of the Four Hundred by rotation out of the Five Thousand, is very different: καὶ ἐκ τούτων ἐν μέρει τοὺς τετρακοσίους ἔσεσθαι, etc. M. Boeckh (Public Economy of Athens, bk. ii, ch. 21, p. 268, Eng. Tr.) is not satisfactory in his description of this event.

The idea which I conceive of the Five Thousand, as a number existing from the commencement only in talk and imagination, neither realized nor intended to be realized, coincides with the full meaning of this passage of Thucydidês, as well as with everything which he had before said about them.

I will here add that ὁπόσοι ὅπλα παρέχονται means persons furnishing arms, not for themselves alone, but for others also (Xenoph. Hellen. iii, 4, 15.)

As to the second point, the signification of νομοθέτας, I stand upon the general use of that word in Athenian political language: see the explanation earlier in this History, vol. v, ch. xlvi, p. 373. It is for the commentators to produce some justification of the unusual meaning which they assign to it: “persons to model the constitution; commissioners who drew up the new constitution,” as Dr. Arnold, in concurrence with the rest, translates it. Until some justification is produced, I venture to believe that νομοθέται, is a word which would not be used in that sense with reference to nominees chosen by the democracy, and intended to act with the democracy; for it implies a final, decisive, authoritative determination; whereas the ξυγγραφεῖς, or “commissioners to draw up a constitution,” were only invested with the function of submitting something for approbation to the public assembly or competent authority; that is, assuming that the public assembly remained an efficient reality.

Moreover, the words καὶ τἄλλα would hardly be used in immediate sequence to νομοθέτας, if the latter word meant that which the commentators suppose: “Commissioners for framing a constitution, and the other things towards the constitution.” Such commissioners are surely far too prominent and initiative in their function to be named in this way. Let us add, that the most material items in the new constitution, if we are so to call it, have already been distinctly specified as settled by public vote, before these νομοθέται are even named.

It is important to notice, that even the Thirty, who were named six years afterwards to draw up a constitution, at the moment when Sparta was mistress of Athens, and when the people were thoroughly put down, are not called Νομοθέται, but are named by a circumlocution equivalent to Ἔδοξε τῷ δήμῳ, τριάκοντα ἄνδρας ἑλέσθαι, οἳ τοὺς πατρίους νόμους συγγράψουσι, καθ᾽ οὓς πολιτεύσουσι.—Αἱρεθέντες δὲ, ἐφ᾽ ᾧ τε συγγράψαι νόμους καθ᾽ οὕστινας πολιτεύσοιντο, τούτους μὲν ἀεὶ ἔμελλον ξυγγράφειν τε καὶ ἀποδεικνύναι, etc. (Xenophon, Hellen. ii, 3, 2-11.) Xenophon calls Kritias and Chariklês the nomothetæ of the Thirty (Memor. i, 2, 30), but this is not democracy.

For the signification of Νομοθέτης (applied most generally to Solon, sometimes to others, either by rhetorical looseness or by ironical taunt), or Νομοθέται, a numerous body of persons chosen and sworn, see Lysias cont. Nikomach. sects. 3, 33, 37; Andokidês de Mysteriis, sects. 81-85, c. 14, p. 38, where the nomothetæ are a sworn body of Five Hundred, exercising, conjointly with the senate, the function of accepting or rejecting laws proposed to them.

[103] Plutarch, Alkibiadês, c. 33. Cornelius Nepos (Alkibiad. c. 5, and Diodorus, xiii, 38-42) mentions Theramenês as the principal author of the decree for restoring Alkibiadês from exile. But the precise words of the elegy composed by Kritias, wherein the latter vindicates this proceeding to himself, are cited by Plutarch, and are very good evidence. Doubtless many of the leading men supported, and none opposed, the proposition.

[104] Thucyd. viii, 97. Καὶ οὐχ ἥκιστα δὴ τὸν πρῶτον χρόνον ἐπί γε ἐμοῦ Ἀθηναῖοι φαίνονται εὖ πολιτεύσαντες· μετρία γὰρ ἥ τε ἐς τοὺς ὀλίγους καὶ τοὺς πολλοὺς ξύγκρασις ἐγένετο, καὶ ἐκ πονηρῶν τῶν πραγμάτων γενομένων τοῦτο πρῶτον ἀνήνεγκε τὴν πόλιν.

I refer the reader to a note on this passage in one of my former volumes, and on the explanation given of it by Dr. Arnold (see vol. v, ch. xlv, p. 330.)

[105] The words of Thucydidês (viii, 97), εἶναι δὲ αὐτῶν, ὁπόσοι καὶ ὅπλα παρέχονται, show that this body was not composed exclusively of those who furnished panoplies. It could never have been intended, for example, to exclude the hippeis, or knights.

[106] Lysias, Orat. xx, pro Polystrato, c. 4, p. 675, Reisk.

[107] Thucyd. viii, 86.

[108] Thucyd. viii, 92. τὸ μὲν καταστῆσαι μετόχους τοσούτους, ἄντικρυς ἂν δῆμον ἡγούμενοι, etc.

[109] See the valuable financial inscriptions in M. Boeckh’s Corpus Inscriptionum, part i, nos. 147, 148, which attest considerable disbursements for the diobely in 410-409 B.C.

Nor does it seem that there was much diminution during these same years in the private expenditure and ostentation of the Chorêgi at the festivals and other exhibitions: see the Oration xxi, of Lysias—Ἀπολογία Δωροδοκίας, c. 1, 2, pp. 698-700, Reiske.

[110] About the date of this psephism, or decree, see Boeckh, Staatshaushaltung der Athener, vol. ii, p. 168, in the comment upon sundry inscriptions appended to his work, not included in the English translation by Mr Lewis; also Meier, De Bonis Damnatorum, sect. ii, pp. 6-10. Wachsmuth erroneously places the date of it after the Thirty; see Hellen. Alterth. ii, ix, p. 267.

[111] Andokidês de Mysteriis, sects. 95-99. (c. 16, p. 48, R.)—Ὁ δ᾽ ἀποκτείνας τὸν ταῦτα ποιήσαντα, καὶ ὁ συμβουλεύσας, ὅσιος ἔστω καὶ εὐαγής. Ὀμόσαι δ᾽ Ἀθηναίους ἅπαντας καθ᾽ ἱερῶν τελείων, κατὰ φυλὰς καὶ κατὰ δήμους, ἀποκτείνειν τὸν ταῦτα ποιήσαντα.

The comment of Sievers (Commentationes De Xenophontis Hellenicis, Berlin, 1833, pp. 18, 19) on the events of this time, is not clear.

[112] Andokidês de Mysteriis, sects. 95-99. (c. 16, p. 48, R.) Ὁπόσοι δ᾽ ὅρκοι ὀμώμονται Ἀθήνῃσιν ἢ ἐν τῷ στρατοπέδῳ ἢ ἄλλοθί που ἐναντίοι τῷ δήμῳ τῷ Ἀθηναίων, λύω καὶ ἀφίημι.

To what particular anti-constitutional oaths allusion is here made, we cannot tell. All those of the oligarchical conspirators, both at Samos and at Athens, are doubtless intended to be abrogated: and this oath, like that of the armament at Samos (Thucyd. viii, 75), is intended to be sworn by every one, including those who had before been members of the oligarchical conspiracy. Perhaps it may also be intended to abrogate the covenant sworn by the members of the political clubs or ξυνωμοσίαι among themselves, in so far as it pledged them to anti-constitutional acts (Thucyd. viii, 54-81).

[113] Andokidês de Mysteriis, sects. 95-99, (c. 16, p. 48, R.) Ταῦτα δὲ ὀμοσάντων Ἀθηναῖοι πάντες καθ᾽ ἱερῶν τελείων, τὸν νόμιμον ὅρκον, πρὸ Διονυσίων, etc.

[114] Those who think that a new constitution was established, after the deposition of the Four Hundred, are perplexed to fix the period at which the old democracy was restored. K. F. Hermann and others suppose, without any special proof, that it was restored at the time when Alkibiadês returned to Athens in 407 B.C. See K. F. Hermann, Griech. Staats Alterthümer, s. 167, note 13.

[115] Lykurgus adv. Leokrat. sect. 131, c. 31, p. 225: compare Demosthen. adv. Leptin. sect. 138, c. 34, p. 506.

If we wanted any proof, how perfectly reckless and unmeaning is the mention of the name of Solon by the orators, we should find it in this passage of Andokidês. He calls this psephism of Demophantus a law of Solon (sect. 96): see above in this History, vol. iii, ch. xi, p. 122.

[116] Thucyd. viii, 98. Most of these fugitives returned six years afterwards, after the battle of Ægospotami, when the Athenian people again became subject to an oligarchy in the persons of the Thirty. Several of them became members of the senate which worked under the Thirty (Lysias cont. Agorat. sect. 80, c. 18, p. 495).

Whether Aristotelês and Chariklês were among the number of the Four Hundred who now went into exile, as Wattenbach affirms (De Quadringent. Ath. Factione, p. 66), seems not clearly made out.

[117] Thucyd. viii, 89, 90. Ἀρίσταρχος, ἀνὴρ ἐν τοῖς μάλιστα καὶ ἐκ πλείστου ἐναντίος τῷ δήμῳ, etc.

[118] Lysias cont. Eratosthen., c. 11, p. 427, sects. 66-68. Βουλόμενος δὲ (Theramenês) τῷ ὑμετέρῳ πλήθει πιστὸς δοκεῖν εἶναι, Ἀντιφῶντα καὶ Ἀρχεπτόλεμον, φιλτάτους ὄντας αὑτῷ, κατηγορῶν ἀπέκτεινεν· εἰς τοσοῦτον δὲ κακίας ἦλθεν, ὥστε ἅμα μὲν διὰ τὴν πρὸς ἐκείνους πίστιν ὑμᾶς κατεδουλώσατο, διὰ δὲ τὴν πρὸς ὑμᾶς τοὺς φίλους ἀπώλεσεν.

Compare Xenophon, Hellen., ii, 3, 30-33.

[119] That these votes, respecting the memory and the death of Phrynichus, preceded the trial of Antiphon, we may gather from the concluding words of the sentence passed upon Antiphon: see Plutarch, Vit. x, Oratt. p. 834, B: compare Schol. Aristoph. Lysistr. 313.

Both Lysias and Lykurgus, the orators, contain statements about the death of Phrynichus which are not in harmony with Thucydidês. Both these orators agree in reporting the names of the two foreigners who claimed to have slain Phrynichus, and whose claim was allowed by the people afterwards, in a formal reward and vote of citizenship, Thrasybulus of Kalydon, Apollodorus of Megara (Lysias cont. Agorat. c. 18, 492; Lykurg. cont. Leokrat. c. 29, p. 217).

Lykurgus says that Phrynichus was assassinated by night, “near the fountain, hard by the willow-trees:” which is quite contradictory to Thucydidês, who states that the deed was done in daylight, and in the market-place. Agoratus, against whom the speech of Lysias is directed, pretended to have been one of the assassins, and claimed reward on that score.

The story of Lykurgus, that the Athenian people, on the proposition of Kritias, exhumed and brought to trial the dead body of Phrynichus, and that Aristarchus and Alexiklês were put to death for undertaking its defence, is certainly in part false, and probably wholly false. Aristarchus was then at Œnoê, Alexiklês at Dekeleia.