[1] Xenophon, Memorab. iii, 5, 18.
[2] Thucyd. v. 30: about the Spartan confederacy,—εἰρημένον, κύριον εἶναι, ὅ,τι ἂν τὸ πλῆθος τῶν ξυμμάχων ψηφίσηται, ἢν μή τι θεῶν ἢ ἡρώων κώλυμα ᾖ.
[3] Thucyd. ii, 63. τῆς τε πόλεως ὑμᾶς εἰκὸς τῷ τιμωμένῳ ἀπὸ τοῦ ἄρχειν, ᾧπερ ἅπαντες ἀγάλλεσθε, βοηθεῖν, καὶ μὴ φεύγειν τοὺς πόνους, ἢ μηδὲ τὰς τιμὰς διώκειν, etc.
[4] Plutarch, Periklês, c. 12.
[5] Plutarch, Periklês, c. 11.
[6] Aristophan. Vesp. 707.
[7] The island of Kythêra was conquered by the Athenians from Sparta in 425 B.C., and the annual tribute then imposed upon it was four talents (Thucyd. iv, 57). In the Inscription No. 143, ap. Boeckh, Corp. Inscr., we find some names enumerated of tributary towns, with the amount of tribute opposite to each, but the stone is too much damaged to give us much information. Tyrodiza, in Thrace, paid one thousand drachms: some other towns, or junctions of towns, not clearly discernible, are rated at one thousand, two thousand, three thousand drachms, one talent, and even ten talents. This inscription must be anterior to 415 B.C., when the tribute was converted into a five per cent. duty upon imports and exports: see Boeckh, Public Econ. of Athens, and his Notes upon the above-mentioned Inscription.
It was the practice of Athens not always to rate each tributary city separately, but sometimes to join several in one collective rating; probably each responsible for the rest. This seems to have provoked occasional remonstrances from the allies, in some of which the rhetor, Antipho, was employed to furnish the speech which the complainants pronounced before the dikastery: see Antipho ap. Harpokration, v. Ἀπόταξις—Συντελεῖς. It is greatly to be lamented that the orations composed by Antipho, for the Samothrakians and Lindians,—the latter inhabiting one of the three separate towns in the island of Rhodes,—have not been preserved.
[8] Xenophon, Anab. vii, 1, 27. οὐ μεῖον χιλίων ταλάντων: compare Boeckh, Public Econ. of Athens, b. iii, ch. 7, 15, 19.
[9] Aristophan. Vesp. 660. τάλαντ᾽ ἐγγὺς δισχίλια.
[10] Very excellent writers on Athenian antiquity (Boeckh, Public Econ. of Athens, c. 15, 19, b. iii; Schömann, Antiq. J. P. Att. sect. lxxiv; K. F. Hermann, Gr. Staatsalterthümer, sect. 157: compare, however, a passage in Boeckh, ch. 17, p. 421, Eng. transl., where he seems to be of an opposite opinion) accept this statement, that the tribute levied by Athenians upon her allies was doubled some years after the commencement of the Peloponnesian war,—at which time it was six hundred talents,—and that it came to amount to twelve hundred talents. Nevertheless, I cannot follow them, upon the simple authority of Æschinês, and the Pseudo-Andokidês (Æschin. De Fals. Legat. c. 54, p. 301; Andokidês, De Pace, c. 1, and the same orator cont. Alkibiad. c. 4). For we may state pretty confidently, that neither of the two orations here ascribed to Andokidês is genuine: the oration against Alkibiadês most decidedly not genuine. There remains, therefore, as an original evidence, only the passage of Æschinês, which has, apparently, been copied by the author of the Oration De Pace, ascribed to Andokidês. Now the chapter of Æschinês, which professes to furnish a general but brief sketch of Athenian history for the century succeeding the Persian invasion, is so full of historical and chronological inaccuracies, that we can hardly accept it, when standing alone, as authority for any matter of fact. In a note on the chapter immediately preceding, I have already touched upon its extraordinary looseness of statement,—pointed out by various commentators, among them particularly by Mr. Fynes Clinton: see above, chap. xlv, note 2, pp. 409-411, in the preceding volume.
The assertion, therefore, that the tribute from the Athenian allies was raised to the sum of twelve hundred talents annually, comes to us only from the orator Æschinês as an original witness: and in him it forms part of a tissue of statements alike confused and incorrect. But against it we have a powerful negative argument,—the perfect silence of Thucydidês. Is it possible that that historian would have omitted all notice of a step so very important in its effects, if Athens had really adopted it? He mentions to us the commutation by Athens of the tribute from her allies into a duty of five per cent. payable by them on their exports and imports (vii, 28)—this was in the nineteenth year of the war, 413 B.C. But anything like the duplication of the tribute all at once, would have altered much more materially the relations between Athens and her allies and would have constituted in the minds of the latter a substantive grievance, such as to aggravate the motive for revolt in a manner which Thucydidês could hardly fail to notice. The orator Æschinês refers the augmentation of the tribute, up to twelve hundred talents, to the time succeeding the peace of Nikias: M. Boeckh (Public Econ. of Athens, b. iii, ch. 15-19, pp. 400-434) supposes it to have taken place earlier than the representation of the Vespæ of Aristophanês, that is, about three years before that peace, or 423 B.C. But this would have been just before the time of the expedition of Brasidas into Thrace, and his success in exciting revolt among the dependencies of Athens: if Athens had doubled her tribute upon all the allies, just before that expedition, Thucydidês could not have omitted to mention it, as increasing the chances of success to Brasidas, and helping to determine the resolutions of the Akanthians and others, which were by no means adopted unanimously or without hesitation, to revolt.
In reference to the oration called that of Andokidês against Alkibiadês, I made some remarks in the fourth volume of this History (vol. iv, ch. xxxi, p. 151), tending to show it to be spurious and of a time considerably later than that to which it purports to belong. I will here add one other remark, which appears to me decisive, tending to the same conclusion.
The oration professes to be delivered in a contest of ostracism between Nikias, Alkibiadês, and the speaker: one of the three, he says, must necessarily be ostracized, and the question is, to determine which of the three: accordingly, the speaker dwells upon many topics calculated to raise a bad impression of Alkibiadês, and a favorable impression of himself.
Among the accusations against Alkibiadês, one is, that after having recommended, in the assembly of the people, that the inhabitants of Melos should be sold as slaves, he had himself purchased a Melian woman among the captives, and had had a son by her: it was criminal, argues the speaker, to beget offspring by a woman whose relations he had contributed to cause to be put to death, and whose city he had contributed to ruin (c. 8).
Upon this argument I do not here touch, any farther than to bring out the point of chronology. The speech, if delivered at all, must have been delivered, at the earliest, nearly a year after the capture of Melos by the Athenians: it may be of later date, but it cannot possibly be earlier.
Now Melos surrendered in the winter immediately preceding the great expedition of the Athenians to Sicily in 415 B.C., which expedition sailed about midsummer (Thucyd. v, 116; vi, 30). Nikias and Alkibiadês both went as commanders of that expedition: the latter was recalled to Athens for trial on the charge of impiety about three months afterwards, but escaped in the way home, was condemned and sentenced to banishment in his absence, and did not return to Athens until 407 B.C., long after the death of Nikias, who continued in command of the Athenian armament in Sicily, enjoying the full esteem of his countrymen, until its complete failure and ruin before Syracuse,—and perished himself afterwards as a Syracusan prisoner.
Taking these circumstances together, it will at once be seen that there never can have been any time, ten months or more after the capture of Melos, when Nikias and Alkibiadês could have been exposed to a vote of ostracism at Athens. The thing is absolutely impossible: and the oration in which such historical and chronological incompatibilities are embodied, must be spurious: furthermore, it must have been composed long after the pretended time of delivery, when the chronological series of events had been forgotten.
I may add that the story of this duplication of the tribute by Alkibiadês is virtually contrary to the statement of Plutarch, probably borrowed from Æschinês, who states that the demagogues gradually increased (κατὰ μικρὸν) the tribute to thirteen hundred talents (Plutarch, Aristeid. c. 24).
[11] Thucyd. ii, 13.
[12] Thucyd. i, 80. The foresight of the Athenian people, in abstaining from immediate use of public money and laying it up for future wants, would be still more conspicuously demonstrated, if the statement of Æschinês, the orator, were true, that they got together seven thousand talents between the peace of Nikias and the Sicilian expedition. M. Boeckh believes this statement, and says: “It is not impossible that one thousand talents might have been laid by every year, as the amount of tribute received was so considerable.” (Public Economy of Athens, ch. xx. p. 446, Eng. Trans.) I do not believe the statement: but M. Boeckh and others, who do admit it, ought in fairness to set it against the many remarks which they pass in condemnation of the democratical prodigality.
[13] Thucyd. i. 122-143; ii, 13. The πεντηκοστὴ, or duty of two per cent. upon imports and exports at the Peiræus, produced to the state a revenue of thirty-six talents in the year in which it was farmed by Andokidês, somewhere about 400 B.C., after the restoration of the democracy at Athens from its defeat and subversion at the close of the Peloponnesian war (Andokidês de Mysteriis, c. 23, p. 65). This was at a period of depression in Athenian affairs, and when trade was doubtless not near so good as it had been during the earlier part of the Peloponnesian war.
It seems probable that this must have been the most considerable permanent source of Athenian revenue next to the tribute; though we do not know what rate of customs-duty was imposed at the Peiræus during the Peloponnesian war. Comparing together the two passages of Xenophon (Republ. Ath. 1, 17, and Aristophan. Vesp. 657), we may suppose that the regular and usual rate of duty was one per cent. or one ἑκατοστὴ,—while in case of need this may have been doubled or tripled.—τὰς πολλὰς ἑκατοστάς, (see Boeckh, b. iii, chs. 1-4, pp. 298-318, Eng. Trans.) The amount of revenue derived even from this source, however, can have borne no comparison to the tribute.
[14] By Periklês, Thucyd. ii, 63. By Kleon, Thucyd. iii, 37. By the envoys at Melos, v, 89. By Euphemus, vi, 85. By the hostile Corinthians, i, 124 as a matter of course.
[15] Plutarch, Periklês. c. 20.
[16] Plutarch, Kimon. c. 14.
[17] Plutarch, Periklês, c. 19, 20.
[18] Xenophon, Rep. Ath. ii, 16. τὴν μὲν οὐσίαν ταῖς νήσοις παρατίθενται, πιστεύοντες τῇ ἀρχῇ τῇ κατὰ θάλασσαν· τὴν δὲ Ἀττικὴν γῆν περιορῶσι τεμνομένην, γιγνώσκοντες ὅτι εἰ αὐτὴν ἐλεήσουσιν, ἑτέρων ἀγαθῶν μειζόνων στερήσονται.
Compare also Xenophon (Memorabil. ii, 8, 1, and Symposion, iv, 31).
[19] See the case of the free laborer and the husbandman at Naxos, Plato, Euthyphro, c. 3.
[20] Thucyd. i. 100.
[21] Thucyd. iv, 105; Marcellinus, Vit. Thucyd. c. 19. See Rotscher, Leben des Thukydides, ch. i, 4, p. 96, who gives a genealogy of Thucydidês, as far as it can be made out with any probability. The historian was connected by blood with Miltiadês and Kimon, as well as with Olorus, king of one of the Thracian tribes, whose daughter Hegesipylê was wife of Miltiadês, the conqueror of Marathon. In this manner, therefore, he belonged to one of the ancient heroic families of Athens, and even of Greece, being an Ækid through Ajax and Philæus (Marcellin. c. 2).
[22] Thucyd. iv, 102; v, 6.
[23] Diodor. xii, 35.
[24] Diodor. xii, 11, 12; Strabo. vi, 264: Plutarch, Periklês, c. 22.
[25] The Athenians pretended to no subject allies beyond the Ionian gulf, Thucyd. vi, 14: compare vi, 45, 104; vii, 34. Thucydidês does not even mention Thurii, in his catalogue of the allies of Athens at the beginning of the Peloponnesian war (Thucyd. ii, 15).
[26] Plutarch, Periklês, c. 11.
[27] Compare the speech of Nikias, in reference to the younger citizens and partisans of Alkibiadês sitting together near the latter in the assembly,—οὓς ἐγὼ ὁρῶν νῦν ἐνθάδε τῷ αὐτῷ ἀνδρὶ παρακελευστοὺς καθημένους φοβοῦμαι, καὶ τοῖς πρεσβυτέροις ἀντιπαρακελεύομαι μὴ καταισχυνθῆναι, εἴ τῴ τις παρακάθηται τῶνδε, etc. (Thucyd. vi, 13.) See also Aristophanês, Ekklesiaz. 298, seq., about partisans sitting near together.
[28] Plutarch, Periklês, c. 8. Ὅταν ἐγὼ καταβάλω παλαίων, ἐκεῖνος ἀντιλέγων ὡς οὐ πέπτωκε, νικᾷ, καὶ μεταπείθει τοὺς ὁρῶντας.
[29] Plutarch, Periklês, c. 11. ἡ δ᾽ ἐκείνων ἅμιλλα καὶ φιλοτιμία τῶν ἀνδρῶν βαθυτάτην τομὴν τεμοῦσα τῆς πόλεως, τὸ μὲν δῆμον, τὸ δ᾽ ὀλίγους ἐποίησε καλεῖσθαι.
[30] Plutarch, Periklês, c. 12. διέβαλλον ἐν ταῖς ἐκκλησίαις βοῶντες, ὡς ὁ μὲν δῆμος ἀδοξεῖ καὶ κακῶς ἀκούει τὰ κοινὰ τῶν Ἑλλήνων χρήματα πρὸς αὑτὸν ἐκ Δήλου μεταγαγών, ἣ δ᾽ ἔνεστιν αὐτῷ πρὸς τοὺς ἐγκαλοῦντας εὐπρεπεστάτη τῶν προφάσεων, δείσαντα τοὺς βαρβάρους ἐκεῖθεν ἀνελέσθαι καὶ φυλάττειν ἐν ὀχυρῷ τὰ κοινά, ταύτην ἀνῄρηκε Περικλῆς, etc.
Compare the speech of the Lesbians, and their complaints against Athens, at the moment of their revolt in the fourth year of the Peloponnesian war (Thucyd. iii, 10); where a similar accusation is brought forward,—ἐπειδὴ δὲ ἑωρῶμεν αὐτοὺς (the Athenians) τὴν μὲν τοῦ Μήδου ἔχθραν ἀνιέντας, τὴν δὲ τῶν ξυμμάχων δούλωσιν ἐπαγομένους, etc.
[31] Plutarch, Periklês, c. 20.
[32] Thucyd. i, 10.
[33] Plutarch, Periklês, c. 11-14. Τέλος δὲ πρὸς τὸν Θουκυδίδην εἰς ἀγῶνα περὶ τοῦ ὀστράκου καταστὰς καὶ διακινδυνεύσας, ἐκεῖνον μὲν ἐξέβαλε, κατέλυσε δὲ τὴν ἀντιτεταγμένην ἑταιρείαν. See, in reference to the principle of the ostracism, a remarkable incident at Magnesia, between two political rivals, Krêtinês and Hermeias: also the just reflections of Montesquieu, Esprit des Loix, xxvi, c. 17; xxix, c. 7.
[34] Plutarch, Periklês, c. 16: the indication of time, however, is vague.
[35] Plato, Gorgias, p. 455, with Scholia; Plutarch, Periklês, c. 13: Forchhammer, Topographie von Athen, in Kieler Philologische Studien, pp. 279-282.
[36] Isokratês, Orat. vii: Areopagit. p. 153. c. 27.
[37] See Dikæarchus, Vit. Græciæ, Fragm. ed. Fuhr. p. 140: compare the description of Platæa in Thucydidês, ii, 3.
All the older towns now existing in the Grecian islands are put together in this same manner,—narrow, muddy, crooked ways,—few regular continuous lines of houses: see Ross, Reisen in den Griechischen Inseln, Letter xxvii, vol. ii, p. 20.
[38] Aristotle, Politic. ii, 5, 1; Xenophon, Hellen. ii, 4, 1; Harpokration, v, Ἱπποδάμεια.
[39] Diodor, xii, 9.
[40] Leake, Topography of Athens, Append. ii and iii, pp. 328-336, 2d edit.
[41] See Leake, Topography of Athens, 2d ed. p. 111, Germ. transl. O. Müller (De Phidiæ Vitâ, p. 18) mentions no less than eight celebrated statues of Athênê, by the hand of Pheidias,—four in the acropolis of Athens.
[42] Plutarch, Periklês, c. 13-15; O. Müller, De Phidiæ Vitâ, pp 34-60, also his work, Archäologie der Kunst, sects. 108-113.
[43] Thucyd. i, 80. καὶ τοῖς ἄλλοις ἅπασιν ἄριστα ἐξήρτυνται, πλούτῳ τε ἰδίῳ καὶ δημοσίῳ καὶ ναυσὶ καὶ ἵπποις καὶ ὅπλοις, καὶ ὄχλῳ ὅσος οὐκ ἐν ἄλλῳ ἑνί γε χωρίῳ Ἑλληνικῷ ἐστὶν, etc.
[44] Plutarch, Periklês, c. 13.
[45] Thucyd. i, 10.
[46] See Leake, Topography of Athens, Append. iii, p. 329, 2d ed. Germ. transl. Colonel Leake, with much justice, contends that the amount of two thousand and twelve talents, stated by Harpokration out of Philochorus as the cost of the Propylæa alone, must be greatly exaggerated. Mr. Wilkins (Atheniensia, p. 84) expresses the same opinion; remarking that the transport of marble from Pentelikus to Athens is easy and on a descending road.
Demetrius Phalereus (ap. Cicer. de Officiis, ii, 17) blamed Periklês for the large sum expended upon the Propylæa; nor is it wonderful that he uttered this censure, if he had been led to rate the cost of them at two thousand and twelve talents.
[47] Valer. Maxim. i, 7, 2.
[48] Thucyd. ii, 13.
[49] Plutarch, Periklês, c. 17. Plutarch gives no precise date, and O. Müller (De Phidiæ Vitâ, p. 9) places these steps for convocation of a congress before the first war between Sparta and Athens and the battle of Tanagra,—i. e., before 460 B.C. But this date seems to me improbable: Thebes was not yet renovated in power, nor had Bœotia as yet recovered from the fruits of her alliance with the Persians; moreover, neither Athens nor Periklês himself seem to have been at that time in a situation to conceive so large a project; which suits in every respect much better for the later period, after the thirty years’ truce, but before the Peloponnesian war.
[50] Thucyd. i, 115; viii, 76; Plutarch, Periklês, c. 28.
[51] Thucyd. i, 115; Plutarch, Periklês, c. 25. Most of the statements which appear in this chapter of Plutarch—over and above the concise narrative of Thucydidês—appear to be borrowed from exaggerated party stories of the day. We need make no remark upon the story, that Periklês was induced to take the side of Milêtus against Samos, by the fact that Aspasia was a native of Milêtus. Nor is it at all more credible that the satrap Pissuthnês, from good-will towards Samos, offered Periklês ten thousand golden staters as an inducement to spare Samos. It may perhaps be true however, that the Samian oligarchy, and those wealthy men whose children were likely to be taken as hostages, tried the effect of large bribes upon the mind of Periklês, to prevail upon him not to alter the government.
[52] Thucyd. i, 114, 115.
[53] Strabo, xiv, p. 638; Schol. Aristeidês, t. iii, p. 485, Dindorf.
[54] See the interesting particulars recounted respecting Sophoklês by the Chian poet, Ion, who met and conversed with him during the course of this expedition (Athenæus, xiii, p. 603). He represents the poet as uncommonly pleasing and graceful in society, but noway distinguished for active capacity. Sophoklês was at this time in peculiar favor, from the success of his tragedy, Antigonê, the year before. See the chronology of these events discussed and elucidated in Boeckh’s preliminary Dissertation to the Antigonê, c. 6-9.
[55] Diodor. xi, 27.
[56] Plutarch, Periklês, c. 26. Plutarch seems to have had before him accounts respecting this Samian campaign, not only from Ephorus, Stesimbrotus, and Duris, but also from Aristotle: and the statements of the latter must have differed thus far from Thucydidês, that he affirmed Melissus the Samian general to have been victorious over Periklês himself, which is not to be reconciled with the narrative of Thucydidês.
The Samian historian, Duris, living about a century after this siege, seems to have introduced many falsehoods respecting the cruelties of Athens: see Plutarch, l. c.
[57] It appears very improbable that this Thucydidês can be the historian himself. If it be Thucydidês son of Melêsias, we must suppose him to have been restored from ostracism before the regular time,—a supposition indeed noway inadmissible in itself, but which there is nothing else to countenance. The author of the Life of Sophoklês, as well as most of the recent critics, adopt this opinion.
On the other hand, it may have been a third person named Thucydidês; for the name seems to have been common, as we might guess from the two words of which it is compounded. We find a third Thucydidês mentioned viii, 92—a native of Pharsalus: and the biographer, Marcellinus seems to have read of many persons so called (Θουκύδιδαι πολλοὶ, p. xvi, ed. Arnold). The subsequent history of Thucydidês son of Melêsias, is involved in complete obscurity. We do not know the incident to which the remarkable passage in Aristophanês (Acharn. 703) alludes,—compare Vespæ, 946: nor can we confirm the statement which the Scholiast cites from Idomeneus, to the effect that Thucydidês was banished and fled to Artaxerxes: see Bergk. Reliq. Com. Att. p. 61.
[58] Thucyd. i, 117; Diodor. xii, 27, 28; Isokratês, De Permutat. Or. xv, sect. 118; Cornel. Nepos, Vit. Timoth. c. 1.
The assertion of Ephorus (see Diodorus, xii, 28, and Ephori Fragm. 117 ed. Marx, with the note of Marx) that Periklês employed battering machines against the town, under the management of the Klazomenian Artemon, was called in question by Herakleidês Ponticus, on the ground that Artemon was a contemporary of Anakreon, near a century before: and Thucydidês represents Periklês to have captured the town altogether by blockade.
[59] Thucyd. i, 40, 41.
[60] Thucyd. viii, 21.
[61] Compare Wachsmuth, Hellenische Alterthumskunde, sect. 58, vol. ii, p. 82.
[62] See Westermann, Geschichte der Beredsamkeit in Griechenland und Rom; Diodor. xi, 33; Dionys. Hal. A. R. v, 17.
Periklês, in the funeral oration preserved by Thucydidês (ii, 35-40), begins by saying—Οἱ μὲν πολλοὶ τῶν ἐνθάδε εἰρηκότων ἤδη ἐπαινοῦσι τὸν προσθέντα τῷ νόμῳ τὸν λόγον τόνδε, etc.
The Scholiast, and other commentators—K. F. Weber and Westermann among the number—make various guesses as to what celebrated man is here designated as the introducer of the custom of a funeral harangue. The Scholiast says, Solon: Weber fixes on Kimon: Westermann, on Aristeidês: another commentator on Themistoklês. But we may reasonably doubt whether any one very celebrated man is specially indicated by the words τὸν προσθέντα. To commend the introducer of the practice, is nothing more than a phrase for commending the practice itself.
[63] Some fragments of it seem to have been preserved, in the time of Aristotle: see his treatise De Rhetoricâ, i, 7; iii, 10, 3.
[64] Compare the enthusiastic demonstrations which welcomed Brasidas at Skiônê (Thucyd. iv, 121).
[65] Plutarch, Periklês, c. 28; Thucyd. ii, 34.
[66] A short fragment remaining from the comic poet Eupolis (Κόλακες, Fr. xvi, p. 493, ed. Meineke), attests the anxiety at Athens about the Samian war, and the great joy when the island was reconquered: compare Aristophan. Vesp. 283.
[67] Thucyd. iii, 37; ii, 63. See the conference, at the island of Melos in the sixteenth year of the Peloponnesian war (Thucyd. v, 89, seq.), between the Athenian commissioners and the Melians. I think, however, that this conference is less to be trusted as based in reality, than the speeches in Thucydidês generally,—of which more hereafter.
[68] Thucyd. iii, 47. Νῦν μὲν γὰρ ὑμῖν ὁ δῆμος ἐν ἁπάσαις ταῖς πόλεσιν εὔνους ἐστὶ, καὶ ἢ οὐ ξυναφίσταται τοῖς ὀλίγοις, ἢ ἐὰν βιασθῇ, ὑπάρχει τοῖς ἀποστήσασι πολέμιος εὐθὺς, etc.
[69] See the striking observations of Thucydidês, iii, 82, 83; Aristotel. Politic. v, 6, 9.
[70] Thucyd. iii, 27.
[71] Thucyd. viii, 9-14. He observes, also, respecting the Thasian oligarchy just set up in lieu of the previous democracy by the Athenian oligarchical conspirators who were then organizing the revolution of the Four Hundred at Athens,—that they immediately made preparations for revolting from Athens,—ξυνέβη οὖν αὐτοῖς μάλιστα ἃ ἐβούλοντο, τὴν πόλιν τε ἀκινδύνως ὀρθοῦσθαι, καὶ τὸν ἐναντιωσόμενον δῆμον καταλελύσθαι (viii, 64).
[72] Thucyd. iv, 86, 88, 106, 123.
[73] See the important passage, Thucyd. viii, 48.
[74] Xenophon. Repub. Athen. iii, 5. πλὴν αἱ τάξεις τοῦ φόρου· τοῦτο δὲ γίγνεται ὡς τὰ πολλὰ δι᾽ ἔτους πέμπτου.
[75] Xenophon. Repub. Athen. i, 14. Περὶ δὲ τῶν συμμάχων, οἱ ἐκπλέοντες συκοφαντοῦσιν, ὡς δοκοῦσι, καὶ μισοῦσι τοὺς χρηστοὺς, etc.
Who are the persons designated by the expression οἱ ἐκπλέοντες, appears to be specified more particularly a little farther on (i, 18); it means the generals, the officers, the envoys, etc. sent forth by Athens.
[76] See the expression in Thucydidês (v, 27) describing the conditions required when Argos was about to extend her alliances in Peloponnesus. The conditions were two. 1. That the city should be autonomous. 2. Next, that it should be willing to submit its quarrels to equitable arbitration,—ἥτις αὐτόνομός τέ ἐστι, καὶ δίκας ἴσας καὶ ὁμοίας δίδωσι.
In the oration against the Athenians, delivered by the Syracusan Hermokratês at Kamarina, Athens is accused of having enslaved her allies partly on the ground that they neglected to perform their military obligations, partly because they made war upon each other (Thucyd. vi, 76), partly also on other specious pretences. How far this charge against Athens is borne out by the fact, we can hardly say; in all those particular examples which Thucydidês mentions of subjugation of allies by Athens, there is a cause perfectly definite and sufficient,—not a mere pretence devised by Athenian ambition.
[77] According to the principle laid down by the Corinthians shortly before the Peloponnesian war,—τοὺς προσήκοντας ξυμμάχους αὐτόν τινα κολάζειν (Thucyd. i, 40-43).
The Lacedæmonians, on preferring their accusation of treason against Themistoklês, demanded that he should be tried at Sparta, before the common Hellenic synod which held its sitting there, and of which Athens was then a member: that is, the Spartan confederacy, or alliance,—ἐπὶ τοῦ κοινοῦ συνεδρίου τῶν Ἑλλήνων (Diodor. xi, 55).
[78] Antipho, De Cæde Herôdis, c. 7, p. 135. ὃ οὐδὲ πόλει ἔξεστιν, ἄνευ Ἀθηναίων οὐδένα θανάτῳ ζημιῶσαι.
[79] Thucyd. viii, 48. Τούς τε καλοὺς κἀγαθοὺς ὀνομαζομένους οὐκ ἐλάσσω αὐτοὺς (that is, the subject-allies) νομίζειν σφίσι πράγματα παρέξειν τοῦ δήμου, ποριστὰς ὄντας καὶ ἐσηγητὰς τῶν κακῶν τῷ δήμῳ, ἐξ ὧν τὰ πλείω αὐτοὺς ὠφελεῖσθαι· καὶ τὸ μὲν ἐπ᾽ ἐκείνοις εἶναι καὶ ἄκριτοι ἂν καὶ βιαιότερον ἀποθνήσκειν, τὸν δὲ δῆμον σφῶν τε καταφυγὴν εἶναι καὶ ἐκείνων σωφρονιστήν. Καὶ ταῦτα παρ᾽ αὐτῶν τῶν ἔργων ἐπισταμένας τὰς πόλεις σαφῶς αὐτὸς εἰδέναι, ὅτι οὕτω νομίζουσιν. This is introduced as the deliberate judgment of the Athenian commander Phrynichus, whom Thucydidês greatly commends for his sagacity, and with whom he seems in this case to have concurred.
Xenophon (Rep. Ath. i. 14, 15) affirms that the Athenian officers on service passed many unjust sentences upon the oligarchical party in the allied cities,—fines, sentences of banishment, capital punishments; and that the Athenian people, though they had a strong public interest in the prosperity of the allies, in order that their tribute might be larger, nevertheless thought it better that any individual citizen of Athens should pocket what he could out of the plunder of the allies, and leave to the latter nothing more than was absolutely necessary for them to live and work, without any superfluity, such as might tempt them to revolt.
That the Athenian officers on service may have succeeded too often in unjust peculation at the cost of the allies, is probable enough: but that the Athenian people were pleased to see their own individual citizens so enriching themselves is certainly not true. The large jurisdiction of the dikasteries was intended, among other effects, to open to the allies a legal redress against such misconduct on the part of the Athenian officers: and the passage above cited from Thucydidês proves that it really produced such an effect.
[80] Plutarch, Pelopidas, c. 20; Plutarch, Amator. Narrat. c. 3, p. 773.
[82] Xenophon, Rep. Athen, i, 18. Πρὸς δὲ τούτοις, εἰ μὲν μὴ ἐπὶ δίκας ᾔεσαν οἱ σύμμαχοι, τοὺς ἐκπλέοντας Ἀθηναίων ἐτίμων ἂν μόνους, τούς τε στρατηγοὺς καὶ τοὺς τριηράρχους καὶ πρέσβεις· νῦν δ᾽ ἠνάγκασται τὸν δῆμον κολακεύειν τῶν Ἀθηναίων εἷς ἕκαστος τῶν συμμάχων, γιγνώσκων ὅτι δεῖ μὲν ἀφικόμενον Ἀθήναζε δίκην δοῦναι καὶ λαβεῖν, οὐκ ἐν ἄλλοις τισὶν, ἀλλ᾽ ἐν τῷ δήμῳ, ὅς ἐστι δὴ νόμος Ἀθήνῃσι. Καὶ ἀντιβολῆσαι ἀναγκάζεται ἐν τοῖς δικαστηρίοις, καὶ εἰσιόντος του, ἐπιλαμβάνεσθαι τῆς χειρός. Διὰ τοῦτο οὖν οἱ σύμμαχοι δοῦλοι τοῦ δήμου τῶν Ἀθηναίων καθεστᾶσι μᾶλλον.
[83] Thucyd. i, 76, 77. Ἄλλους γ᾽ ἂν οὖν οἰόμεθα τὰ ἡμέτερα λαβόντας δεῖξαι ἂν μάλιστα εἴ τι μετριάζομεν· ἡμῖν δὲ καὶ ἐκ τοῦ ἐπιεικοῦς ἀδοξία τὸ πλέον ἢ ἔπαινος οὐκ εἰκότως περιέστη. Καὶ ἐλασσούμενοι γὰρ ἐν ταῖς ξυμβολαίαις πρὸς τοὺς ξυμμάχους δίκαις, καὶ παρ᾽ ἡμῖν αὐτοῖς ἐν τοῖς ὁμοίοις νόμοις ποιήσαντες τὰς κρίσεις, φιλοδικεῖν δοκοῦμεν, etc.
I construe ξυμβολαίαις δίκαις as connected in meaning with ξυμβόλαια and not with ξύμβολα—following Duker and Bloomfield in preference to Poppo and Göller: see the elaborate notes of the two latter editors. Δίκαι ἀπὸ ξυμβόλων indicated the arrangements concluded by special convention between two different cities, by consent of both, for the purpose of determining controversies between their respective citizens: they were something essentially apart from the ordinary judicial arrangements of either state. Now what the Athenian orator here insists upon is exactly the contrary of this idea: he says, that the allies were admitted to the benefit of Athenian trial and Athenian laws, in like manner with the citizens themselves. The judicial arrangements by which the Athenian allies were brought before the Athenian dikasteries cannot, with propriety, be said to be δίκαι ἀπὸ ξυμβόλων; unless the act of original incorporation into the confederacy of Delos is to be regarded as a ξύμβολον, or agreement,—which in a large sense it might be, though not in the proper sense in which δίκαι ἀπὸ ξυμβόλων are commonly mentioned. Moreover. I think that the passage of Antipho (De Cæde Herôdis, p. 745) proves that it was the citizens of places not in alliance with Athens, who litigated with Athenians according to δίκαι ἀπὸ ξυμβόλων,—not the allies of Athens while they resided in their own native cities; for I agree with the interpretation which Boeckh puts upon this passage, in opposition to Platner and Schömann (Boeckh, Public Econ. of Athens, book iii, ch. xvi, p. 403, Eng. transl.; Schömann, Der Attisch. Prozess, p. 778; Platner, Prozess und Klagen bei den Attikern, ch. iv, 2, pp. 110-112, where the latter discusses both the passages of Antipho and Thucydidês).
The passages in Demosthenês Orat. de Halones. c. 3, pp. 98, 99; and Andokidês cont. Alkibiad. c. 7, p. 121 (I quote this latter oration, though it is undoubtedly spurious, because we may well suppose the author of it to be conversant with the nature and contents of ξύμβολα), give us a sufficient idea of these judicial conventions, or ξύμβολα,—special and liable to differ in each particular case. They seem to me essentially distinct from that systematic scheme of proceeding whereby the dikasteries of Athens were made cognizant of all, or most, important controversies among or between the allied cities, as well as of political accusations.
M. Boeckh draws a distinction between the autonomous allies (Chios and Lesbos, at the time immediately before the Peloponnesian war) and the subject-allies: “the former class (he says) retained possession of unlimited jurisdiction, whereas the latter were compelled to try all their disputes in the courts of Athens.” Doubtless this distinction would prevail to a certain degree, but how far it was pushed we can hardly say. Suppose that a dispute took place between Chios and one of the subject islands, or between an individual Chian and an individual Thasian; would not the Chian plaintiff sue, or the Chian defendant be sued, before the Athenian dikastery? Suppose that an Athenian citizen or officer became involved in dispute with a Chian, would not the Athenian dikastery be the competent court, whichever of the two were plaintiff or defendant? Suppose a Chian citizen or magistrate to be suspected of fomenting revolt, would it not be competent to any accuser, either Chian or Athenian, to indict him before the dikastery at Athens? Abuse of power, or peculation, committed by Athenian officers at Chios, must of course be brought before the Athenian dikasteries, just as much as if the crime had been committed at Thasos or Naxos. We have no evidence to help us in regard to these questions; but I incline to believe that the difference in respect to judicial arrangement, between the autonomous and the subject-allies, was less in degree than M. Boeckh believes. We must recollect that the arrangement was not all pure hardship to the allies,—the liability to be prosecuted was accompanied with the privilege of prosecuting for injuries received.
There is one remark, however, which appears to me of importance for understanding the testimonies on this subject. The Athenian empire, properly so called, which began by the confederacy of Delos after the Persian invasion, was completely destroyed at the close of the Peloponnesian war, when Athens was conquered and taken. But after some years had elapsed, towards the year 377 B.C., Athens again began to make maritime conquests, to acquire allies, to receive tribute, to assemble a synod, and to resume her footing of something like an imperial city. But her power over her allies, during this second period of empire, was nothing like so great as it had been during the first, between the Persian and Peloponnesian wars: nor can we be at all sure that what is true of the second is also true of the first. Now I think it probable, that those statements of the grammarians, which represent the allies as carrying on δίκας ἀπὸ ξυμβόλων in ordinary practice with the Athenians, may really be true about the second empire or alliance. Bekker Anecdota, p. 436. Ἀθηναῖοι ἀπὸ ξυμβόλων ἐδίκαζον τοῖς ὑπηκόοις· οὕτως Ἀριστοτέλης. Pollux, viii. 63. Ἀπὸ συμβόλων δὲ δίκη ἦν, ὅτε οἱ σύμμαχοι ἐδικάζοντο. Also Hesychius, i, 489. The statement here ascribed to Aristotle may very probably be true about the second alliance, though it cannot be held true for the first. In the second, the Athenians may really have had σύμβολα, or special conventions for judicial business, with many of their principal allies, instead of making Athens the authoritative centre, and heir to the Delian synod, as they did during the first. It is to be remarked, however, that Harpokration, in the explanation which he gives of σύμβολα treats them in a perfectly general way, as contentions for settlement of judicial controversy between city and city, without any particular allusion to Athens and her allies. Compare Heffter, Athenäische Gerichtsverfassung, iii, 1, 3, p. 91.