The Four Hundred then marched to the senate house, each man with a dagger concealed under his garment, and followed by their special bodyguard of 120 young men from various Grecian cities, the instruments of the assassinations ordered by Antiphon and his colleagues. In this array they marched into the senate house, where the senators were assembled, and commanded them to depart; at the same time tendering to them their pay for all the remainder of the year—seemingly about three months or more down to the beginning of Hecatombæon, the month of new nominations—during which their functions ought to have continued. The senators were no way prepared to resist the decree just passed under the forms of legality, with an armed body now arrived to enforce its execution. They obeyed and departed, each man as he passed the door receiving the salary tendered to him. That they should yield obedience to superior force, under the circumstances, can excite neither censure nor surprise; but that they should accept, from the hands of the conspirators, this anticipation of an unearned salary, was a meanness which almost branded them as accomplices, and dishonoured the expiring hour of the last democratical authority. The Four Hundred now at last found themselves triumphantly installed in the senate house, without the least resistance, either from within its walls or even from without, by any portion of the citizens.
Thus perished, or seemed to perish, the democracy of Athens, after an uninterrupted existence of nearly one hundred years since the revolution of Clisthenes. So incredible did it appear that the numerous, intelligent, and constitutional citizens of Athens should suffer their liberties to be overthrown by a band of four hundred conspirators, while the great mass of them not only loved their democracy, but had arms in their hands to defend it, that even their enemy and neighbour Agis, at Decelea, could hardly imagine the revolution to be a fact accomplished.
The ulterior success of the conspiracy—when all prospect of Persian gold, or improved foreign position, was at an end—is due to the combinations, alike nefarious and skillful, of Antiphon, wielding and organising the united strength of the aristocratical classes at Athens; strength always exceedingly great, but under ordinary circumstances working in fractions disunited and even reciprocally hostile to each other—restrained by the ascendent democratical institutions—and reduced to corrupt what it could not overthrow. Antiphon, about to employ this anti-popular force in one systematic scheme, and for the accomplishment of a predetermined purpose, keeps still within the same ostensible constitutional limits. He raises no open mutiny: he maintains inviolate the cardinal point of Athenian political morality—respect to the decision of the senate and political assembly, as well as to constitutional maxims.
He knows, however, that the value of these meetings, depends upon freedom of speech; and that, if that freedom be suppressed, the assembly itself becomes a nullity, or rather an instrument of positive imposture and mischief. Accordingly, he causes all the popular orators to be successively assassinated, so that no man dares to open his mouth on that side; while on the other hand, the anti-popular speakers are all loud and confident, cheering one another on, and seeming to represent all the feeling of the persons present. By thus silencing each individual leader, and intimidating every opponent from standing forward as spokesman, he extorts the formal sanction of the assembly and the senate to measures which the large majority of the citizens detest. That majority, however, are bound by their own constitutional forms; and when the decision of these, by whatever means obtained, is against them, they have neither the inclination nor the courage to resist. In no part of the world has this sentiment of constitutional duty, and submission to the vote of a legal majority, been more keenly and universally felt, than it was among the citizens of democratical Athens.[57] Antiphon thus finds means to employ the constitutional sentiment of Athens as a means of killing the constitution: the mere empty form, after its vital and protective efficacy has been abstracted, remains simply as a cheat to paralyse individual patriotism.
As Grecian history has been usually written, we are instructed to believe that the misfortunes, and the corruption, and the degradation of the democratical states are brought upon them by the class of demagogues, of whom Cleon, Hyperbolus, Androcles, etc., stand forth as specimens. These men are represented as mischief makers and revilers, accusing without just cause, and converting innocence into treason. Now the history of this conspiracy of the Four Hundred presents to us the other side of the picture. It shows that the political enemies, against whom the Athenian people were protected by their democratical institutions, and by the demagogues as living organs of those institutions, were not fictitious but dangerously real. It reveals the continued existence of powerful anti-popular combinations, ready to come together for treasonable purposes when the moment appeared safe and tempting. It manifests the character and morality of the leaders, to whom the direction of the anti-popular force naturally fell. It proves that these leaders, men of uncommon ability, required nothing more than the extinction or silence of the demagogues, to be enabled to subvert the popular securities and get possession of the government. We need no better proof to teach us what was the real function and intrinsic necessity of these demagogues in the Athenian system, taking them as a class, and apart from the manner in which individuals among them may have performed their duty. They formed the vital movement of all that was tutelary and public spirited in democracy. Aggressive in respect to official delinquents, they were defensive in respect to the public and the constitution.
If that force, which Antiphon found ready made, had not been efficient, at an earlier period in stifling the democracy, it was because there were demagogues to cry aloud, as well as assemblies to hear and sustain them. If Antiphon’s conspiracy was successful, it was because he knew where to aim his blows, so as to strike down the real enemies of the oligarchy and the real defenders of the people. We here employ the term demagogue because it is that commonly used by those who denounce the class of men here under review: the proper neutral phrase, laying aside odious associations, would be to call them popular speakers, or opposition speakers. But, by whatever name they may be called, it is impossible rightly to conceive their position in Athens, without looking at them in contrast and antithesis with those anti-popular forces against which they formed the indispensable barrier, and which come forth into such manifest and melancholy working under the organising hands of Antiphon and Phrynichus.c
Greek Seals
THE REVOLT FROM THE FOUR HUNDRED
The conduct of the Four Hundred tyrants (for historians have justly adopted the language of Athenian resentment) soon opened the eyes and understanding of the most thoughtless. They abolished every vestige of ancient freedom; employed mercenary troops levied from the small islands of the Ægean, to overawe the multitude, and to intimidate, in some instances to destroy, their real or suspected enemies. Instead of seizing the opportunity of annoying the Peloponnesians, enraged at the treachery of Tissaphernes, and mutinous for want of pay and subsistence, they sent ambassadors to solicit peace from the Spartans on the most dishonourable terms. Their tyranny rendered them odious in the city, and their cowardice made them contemptible in the camp at Samos. Their cruelty and injustice were described and exaggerated by the fugitives who continually arrived in that island. Thrasybulus and Thrasyllus, two officers of high merit and distinction, though not actually entrusted with a share in the principal command, gave activity and boldness to the insurgents. The abettors of the new government were attacked by surprise: thirty of the most criminal were put to death, several others were banished, democracy was re-established in the camp, and the soldiers were bound by oath to maintain their hereditary government against the conspiracy of domestic foes, and to act with vigour against the public enemy.