As the war continued, Athens - despite some military successes - was starved of resources. In 404 bc, after yet another naval defeat, the city surrendered to Sparta. Aided by Sparta, a group of Athenian citizens formed a military dic- tatorship. This group was dubbed the Thirty Tyrants. They instituted a rule of terror. In less than a year, at least 1,500 citizens were killed without trial. If we include non-citizens, such as permanent resident aliens (called 'metics'), women and slaves, the numbers may be much higher. Anyone who seemed likely to pose a threat to the regime was summar- ily assassinated. People were encouraged to inform on one another to protect themselves and their families. The militia removed all civil rights from the majority of citizens, allow- ing only a small minority the 'privilege' of trial by jury or the right to carry arms.
The seeds of democracy had been sown in Athens in the early sixth century, by the great law-maker, statesman and poet, Solon. Solon introduced trial by jury, set up a repre- sentative Council of 400 citizens from the four major tribes of Athens, and granted all citizens (even the poor) the right to vote in the Assembly. The city moved back towards one-man rule, called 'tyranny', in the later part of the sixth century, as Peisistratus and his sons seized power. In 508,
Athens made a further movement towards democracy, when the sons of Peisistratus were overthrown, and a politician called Cleisthenes created a series of reforms which gave more power and equality to all citizens. Cleisthenes called his system, 'isonomia' - 'equality before the law'. The year 508 BC is conventionally seen as the beginning of western democracy.
It must have seemed to many Athenians, in the early months of 404, that the democratic experiment had at last failed.
But after a few terrifying months, a group of Athenians who had gone into exile in Thebes returned in force to the city and successfully overthrew the Thirty. Extraordinarily, the threat of further civil war was averted and democracy was restored. In 403-2 the Athenians drew up a set of agree- ments to rebuild civil society in the wake of the war.
The terms of the agreements tell us a great deal about the environment of the city in these years. One important provi- sion was that anybody who felt under threat in the newly restored democracy was allowed to emigrate to the neigh- bouring city of Eleusis. For those who wished to remain in Athens, there was a general Act of Oblivion or Amnesty: all except the Thirty and their immediate henchmen were exempt from any further recriminations. It became illegal to 'remember past wrongs'. The old laws were totally revised and codified: no law that had not been reinstated by the commission was active any longer. It was a period of anxiety and feeble hope - comparable, in modern times, to Germany after the Second World War or South Africa after Apartheid. Like those societies, Athens was left poor and shaken by the hostilities, even once they were over. Citizens were conscious that many of the neighbours with whom they must now be friends had probably, only a few months earlier, been willing to turn them in to the militia.
It is not surprising that people who had so recently lost a protracted and impoverishing war, and who had so narrowly escaped from a military junta, should feel wary of anybody who might threaten the brand-new democratic government. It would also not be surprising if people in such a situation were on the lookout for scapegoats.
The Act of Oblivion made it illegal to prosecute anybody for political crimes committed during the rule of the militia. But it seems at least initially plausible that politically moti- vated prosecutions might have taken place, disguised under another kind of charge - such as the crime of impiety. It is therefore tempting to believe that the 'real' charge against Socrates was lack of support for democratic government - or even sympathy with the militia. As we shall see, Socrates had some reservations about democracy. He certainly asso- ciated with both aristocrats and oligarchs.
It would be reductive to suggest that all religious anxie- ties can be translated directly into political terms. But politics played an essential part in religious prosecutions of the time. The Athenian population was particularly eager to appease the gods, in the aftermath of the recent troubles. Religion and politics were bound up with one another.
Most Athenian private houses owned at least one 'herm' - a statue representing the head and phallus of the god Hermes. Herms were believed to provide divine protection over a household. In 415 bc, immediately before the Athenian navy set out on the Sicilian expedition, all the herms in the city had been mutilated. The vandals hacked at the face and phallus of the god. Since Hermes was the god who presided over journeys, the attack was clearly a bad omen for the fleet. There were also rumours of another sacrilege. A set of particularly holy, secret religious rites, called the Eleusinian Mysteries, had been profaned. A small group of citizens, including the notorious playboy Alcibiades - of whom more later in this chapter - had apparently acted out a perverted form of the secret ritual, performing the Athenian equivalent of a Black Mass.
The troops went to sea nonetheless, but with a sense of foreboding. Their fears were fulfilled. In retrospect, it seemed as if the destruction of the herms and the profanation of the Mysteries had caused the Athenian defeat in Sicily, and perhaps were responsible for the ultimate Spartan victory in the war as a whole.
One of those accused of this sacrilege was an orator called Andocides, who escaped punishment by informing on his more famous companions. Afterwards Andocides wisely got out of town. A condition of his freedom from harsher penalties was that he was forbidden to enter temples or par- ticipate in the rites of Eleusis in the future: he was, as it were, excommunicated.
Andocides returned to Athens after democracy was restored, taking advantage of the forgiving new political climate. But around the turn of the year 400-399 bc, he was finally brought to trial, on the grounds that he had violated the terms of his baiclass="underline" he had been seen participating in reli- gious events from which he had been banned. Although the explicit charge was religious, there were clear political overtones to the trial. Those who attacked the herms had been members of an oligarchic drinking club. They were not, as is sometimes said, simply high-spirited young men having a laugh, but a group with a clear political purpose: to undermine the decision of the democratic government to send ships to Sicily. The trial of Andocides was an opportu- nity for the prosecution to blame undemocratic, oligarchic citizens for everything that had gone wrong for Athens in the past fifteen years. In his defence, Andocides cited the new amnesty laws, suggesting that it was time to forget old wrongs in the spirit of new civic harmony. He defended himself successfully and was acquitted.
The trial of Andocides illuminates the trial of Socrates in several important ways. It reminds us how closely religion and politics were connected. It also shows very clearly that the city was torn in two different directions at this moment of the rebirth of Athenian democracy. On the one hand, citi- zens hoped to avoid endless recriminations. On the other hand, they were - inevitably - interested in looking back at recent history, and trying to find a reason why things went so badly wrong for Athens.
The trial of Andocides took place in the year 400, or perhaps early in 399 bc. The prosecution of Socrates followed a few months later, in the spring - probably some time in May 399. In the context of Andocides' trial, we should be particularly mindful of the charge that Socrates 'corrupted the young'. The Athenian court had just decided that the damaging antics of the vandals in 415 bc should indeed be forgotten. Perhaps they did not act out of natural deprav- ity, but as a result of bad teaching. Socrates was already in his fifties when the Sicilian expedition began. If he was seen as the instigator of the sacrileges against the Herms and the Mysteries and as the ultimate moral source for the city's political undoing, his contemporaries might well have felt less inclined to let him off. The ideas and teaching of this (supposedly) wicked, anti-democratic old man could be seen as the true cause of the Athenian defeat.