Greek Terra-cotta
(In the British Museum)
According to the new regulation the Thirty presided in person over trials held by the counciclass="underline" two tables were placed in front of the benches which they occupied, to receive the balls, or tokens, by which the councillors declared their verdict, and which instead of being dropped secretly into a box, were now to be openly deposited on the board, so that the Thirty might see which way every man voted. These however were not the only cases which they brought before the council, even in the early part of their reign. The persons who before the surrender of the city had been arrested on information, partly procured by bribery, and partly extorted by fear, or by the rack, charging them with a conspiracy against the state, but who had really been guilty of no offence but that of expressing their attachment to the constitution which was now abolished, were soon after brought to a mock trial, and judicially murdered.
[404-403 B.C.]
Even such executions might be considered as among the temporary evils incident to every political revolution: and there were some of the Thirty who did not wish to multiply them more than was necessary to their safety. But the greater number, and above all Critias, did not mean to stop here: and perhaps some signs of discontent soon became visible, which gave them a pretext for insisting on the need of stronger measures, and of additional safeguards. Two of their number, Æschines and Aristoteles, were deputed by common consent to Sparta, to obtain a body of troops to garrison the citadel. The ground alleged was that there were turbulent men whom it was necessary to remove before their government could be settled on a firm basis; and they undertook to maintain the garrison as long as its presence should be required. Xenophon’s language seems to imply that Lysander had by this time returned to Sparta; if so, upwards of six months had now elapsed from the surrender of the city. Lysander, whether present or absent, exerted his influence in their behalf, and induced the ephors to send the force which they desired, under the command of Callibius, who was invested with the authority of harmost. His arrival released Critias and his colleagues from all the restraints hitherto imposed on them by their fears of their fellow citizens. They courted him with an obsequiousness proportioned to the wantonness of the tyranny which they hoped to exercise with his sanction and aid.
The footing on which they stood with him is well illustrated by a single fact. An Athenian named Autolycus, of good family and condition, who in his youth had distinguished himself by a gymnastic victory, had in some way or other offended Callibius, who, according to the Spartan usage, raised his truncheon to strike him. But Autolycus, not yet inured to such discipline, prevented the blow by bringing him to the ground. Lysander, it is said, when Callibius complained of this affront, observed that he did not know how to govern freemen. He however understood the men with whom he had principally to deal; for the Thirty soon after gratified him by putting Autolycus to death.
In return for such deference he placed his troops at their disposal, to lead whom they would to prison: and now the catalogue of political offences was on a sudden terribly enlarged. The persons who were now singled out for destruction, were no longer such only as had made themselves odious by their crimes, or had distinguished themselves on former occasions by their opposition to the ruling party, but men of unblemished character, without any strong political bias, who had gained the confidence of the people by their merits or services, and might be suspected of preferring a popular government to the oligarchy under which they were living. Xenophon seems to believe that Critias was inflamed with an insatiable thirst for blood by the remembrance of his exile. But it would appear that ambition and cupidity, rather than resentment, were the mainsprings of his conduct, and that he calculated with great coolness the fruits of his nefarious deeds. Nor was it merely political jealousy that determined his choice of his victims; the immediate profit to be derived from the confiscation of their property was at least an equally powerful inducement. It is uncertain to which of these motives we should refer the execution of Niceratus, the son of Nicias, who shared his uncle’s fate, but may have been involved in it more by his wealth than by his relation to Eucrates. It was perhaps on the like account, rather than because of the services which he had rendered to the people, that Antiphon,[1] who during the war had equipped two galleys at his own expense, was now condemned to death. And it was most probably with no other object that Leon, an inhabitant of Salamis, who seems to have been universally respected, and a great number of his townsmen, were dragged from their homes and consigned to the executioner. The case of Leon is particularly remarkable for the light it throws on the policy of the oligarchs. After the arrival of the Lacedæmonian garrison they had begun to dispense with the assistance of the council; and Leon was put to death without any form of trial. But they did not think it expedient always to employ the foreign troops on their murderous errands; they often used Athenians as their ministers on such occasions, and men who did not belong to their party, for the purpose of implicating them in the guilt and odium of their proceedings. When they had resolved on the destruction of Leon, they sent for Socrates and four other persons, and ordered them to go and fetch him from Salamis. As his innocence was no less notorious than the fate which awaited him, Socrates, on leaving the presence of the Thirty, instead of obeying their commands, returned home. The rest executed their commission.
These atrocities soon began to spread general alarm; for no one could perceive any principle or maxim by which they were to be limited for the future; there was on the contrary reason to apprehend that they would be continually multiplied and aggravated. Theramenes, who was endowed with a keen tact which enabled him readily to observe the bent of public opinion, was early aware of the danger into which his colleagues were rushing; and he remonstrated with Critias on the imprudence of creating themselves enemies by putting men to death for no other reason than because they had filled eminent stations, or performed signal services, under the democracy; for it did not follow that they might not become peaceful and useful subjects of the oligarchy, since there had been a time when both Critias and himself had courted popular favour. But Critias contended that they were now in a position which they could only maintain by force and terror; and that every man who had the means of thwarting their plans, and who was not devoted to their interest, must be treated as an enemy.
This argument seems for the time to have satisfied Theramenes. But as deeds of blood followed each other with increasing rapidity, and the murmurs of all honest citizens, though stifled in public, began to find vent in private circles, Theramenes again warned his colleagues, that it would be impossible for the oligarchy to subsist long on its present narrow basis. He wished that they might be able to dispense with the foreign garrison, and foresaw that, if they persisted in their present course, they could never safely dismiss it. His advice now produced some effect on them; but they seem to have been alarmed not so much by the danger which he pointed out as by the warning itself. They knew that he was a man who had never adhered to any party which he believed to be sinking, and suspected that he might be meditating to put himself at the head of a new revolution, as in the time of the Four Hundred. And though his character was so generally understood that he had acquired a homely nickname,[2] which expressed the readiness with which he shifted his side, and the dexterity with which he adapted himself to every change of circumstances, still he might again become a rallying-point for the disaffected. To guard against this danger they determined to strengthen themselves by an expedient similar to that which had been adopted by the former oligarchy. They made out a list of three thousand citizens, who were to enjoy a kind of franchise which perhaps was never exactly defined; but one of its most important privileges was, that none of them should be put to death without a trial before the council. All other Athenians were outlawed, and left to the mercy of the Thirty, who might deal as they thought fit with their lives and property.