The Historians' History of the World 04

Not even under these circumstances was he exasperated with them, but sent secretly, and instructed those in Piræus, with what proposals they should send ambassadors to him and the ephors who were there. They complied with his advice. He also set those in the city at variance, and advised that as many as possible should collect together and come to the Spartan officers, alleging that they did not at all want to be at war with the men in Piræus, but to be reconciled together, and both parties to be friends of the Lacedæmonians. The ephors and the committee appointed to consider the question having heard all their statements, despatched fifteen men to Athens, and ordered them, in concert with Pausanias, to effect the best reconciliation of the parties they could. So they reconciled them on condition of their making peace with one another, and returning to their several homes, with the exception of the Thirty, the Eleven, and the Ten who had commanded in Piræus. If any of those in the city should feel afraid of remaining there, it was determined that they should establish themselves at Eleusis.

These arrangements being effected, Pausanias disbanded his army, and the party from Piræus went up under arms to the Acropolis, and sacrificed to Athene. But some time afterwards, hearing that the party at Eleusis were hiring mercenaries, they took the field en masse against them; and when their commanders had come to a conference, they put them to death; but sent in to the others their friends and relatives, and persuaded them to a reconciliation. And having sworn not to remember past grievances, they lived together under the same government, the popular party abiding by their oaths.c

FOOTNOTES

[1] This Antiphon has been confounded with the celebrated orator.

[2] Cothurnus—a shoe which fitted either foot.

[3] [That is, one of the communicants in the Eleusinian mysteries.]

[4] [This curious method of intervention for Athens’ sake has been variously interpreted. Thirlwall makes quite a drama of benevolent duplicity about it. According to others, Pausanias was simply moved by a desire to nip Lysander’s ambition and to put an end to further cruelties by the Thirty who were already winning general sympathy for the common people and the democratic cause of Athens.]

Greek Terra-cotta Figure

(In the British Museum)

Grecian Buckles

(In the British Museum)

CHAPTER XXXVIII. THE DEMOCRACY RESTORED

The period intervening between the defeat of Ægospotami (October, 405 B.C.), and the re-establishment of the democracy as sanctioned by the convention concluded with Pausanias (some time in the summer of 403 B.C.), presents two years of cruel and multifarious suffering to Athens.

After such years of misery, it was an unspeakable relief to the Athenian population to regain possession of Athens and Attica; to exchange their domestic tyrants for a renovated democratical government; and to see their foreign enemies not merely evacuate the country, but even bind themselves by treaty to future friendly dealing. In respect of power, indeed, Athens was but the shadow of her former self. She had no empire, no tribute, no fleet, no fortifications at Piræus, no long walls, not a single fortified place in Attica except the city itself.

Of these losses, the Athenians made little account at the first epoch of their re-establishment; so intolerable was the pressure which they had just escaped, and so welcome the restitution of comfort, security, property, and independence at home. The very excess of tyranny committed by the Thirty gave a peculiar zest to the recovery of the democracy. In their hands, the oligarchical principle (to borrow an expression from Burke) “had produced in fact and instantly, the grossest of those evils with which it was pregnant in its nature”; realising the promise of that plain-spoken oligarchical oath, which Aristotle mentions as having been taken in various oligarchical cities—to contrive as much evil as possible to the people. So much the more complete was the reaction of sentiment towards the antecedent democracy, even in the minds of those who had been before discontented with it. To all men, rich and poor, citizens and metics, the comparative excellence of the democracy, in respect of all the essentials of good government, was now manifest. With the exception of those who had identified themselves with the Thirty as partners, partisans, or instruments, there was scarcely any one who did not feel that his life and property had been far more secure under the former democracy, and would become so again if that democracy were revived.