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Implicating the demos: a reading of Thucydides on the rise of the Four Hundred*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 February 2012

Martha C. Taylor
Affiliation:
Loyola College in Maryland

Abstract

In the midst of his account of the events, Thucydides says that it was difficult to switch Athens from democracy to the oligarchic rule of the Four Hundred (8.68.4). Most modern scholars have agreed, viewing the rise of the Four Hundred primarily as a coup effected by violence, terror and deceit. This interpretation does not conform to Thucydides' narrative (8.47-70), however, which shows that it was not very hard to end the Athenian democracy. Although terror, violence and propaganda have their place in Thucydides' account, modern treatments overemphasize them and so ignore or gloss over Thucydides' charge that the Athenian people did not resist oligarchy very strenuously and so bear a large share of responsibility for it. In Thucydides' narrative Peisander et al. are open about plans for oligarchy (if not for the extremely limited oligarchy that they eventually put in place at Kolonos) both on Samos and in Athens, and meet little resistance from democratic supporters. In addition, Thucydides' rhetoric repeatedly mutes what resistance there is, as if to underscore its weakness. Thucydides' Athenians for the most part quickly and easily abandon their democracy. There was a ‘terror’ campaign, but its scope, effect and need has been exaggerated. In particular, there is no reason to think that the location of the Kolonos meeting – where the Athenians voted the limited oligarchy of the Four Hundred into power – terrified them into doing so. Thucydides' comment on the difficulty of the task of the Four Hundred is ironic. There is a jarring contrast between Thucydides' judgement and his narrative which, when recognized, compels readers to re-examine their own assumptions and expectations. The attention modern commentators have given to Thucydides' words about intimidation and propaganda have left them deaf to the other interesting story Thucydides has to tell about the role the Athenian demos played in the move to oligarchy.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies 2002

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References

1 Translations are based on the work of Warner, R., trans., Thucydides. History of the Peloponnesian War (rev. edn, New York 1972)Google Scholar with only minor changes.

2 Thucydides here (and only here) makes an equation between ‘liberty’ – ἐλευθερία – and democracy. 8.68 begins with Peisander who was ‘most openly in favour of doing away with the democracy’ – ξυγκαταλύσας τὸν δῆμον – and, after a survey of the abilities of Peisander's co-conspirators in oligarchy, ends with the comment about putting an end to the liberty of the Athenian people. Although a strain of political thought clearly identified liberty with democracy (see, e.g., Arist. Pol. 1291b 35-6; [Xen.] Ath. Pol. 1.8), ἐλευθερία for Thucydides usually means the freedom of a state from an outsider's domination. Athenagoras (6.40.2) makes a similar equation (although less explicitly), but 8.68 is the only such usage not in a ‘character's’ voice. See below, p. 108 for a discussion of Thucydides' rhetoric here.

3 Kagan, D., The Fall of the Athenian Empire (Ithaca 1987) 145Google Scholar.

4 Hobbes, T., English Works, ed. Sir Molesworth, W. (London 1843) 8.xxiiGoogle Scholar.

5 αἱ δὲ περιουσίαι τουὺς πολέμους μᾶλλον ἢ αἱ βίαιοι ἐσφοραὶ ἀνέχουσιν (1.141.5); καὶ αὐτοὶ ἐσενεκόντες τότε πρῶτον ἐσφορὰν διακόσια τάλαλαντα (3.19).

6 Hornblower, S., A Commentary on Thucydides (2 vols, Oxford 1991-1996) on 2.65.6Google Scholar.

7 Hornblower (n.6) on 1.141.5.

8 Finley, M.I., The Ancestral Constitution (Cambridge 1971) 4Google Scholar.

9 Andrewes, A. in Gomme, A.W., Andrewes, A. and Dover, K.J. (eds), A Historical Commentary on Thucydides (Oxford 1981) 169Google Scholar.

10 Kagan (n.3) 145.

11 Andrewes (n.9) 255.

12 The subject of the important verb διέταξαν in 29.5 is either the Athenians assembled or the committee of syngrapheis. Rhodes, P.J., A Commentary on the Aristotelian Athenaion Politeia (Oxford 1993) 381Google Scholar, ultimately prefers the syngrapheis, reconciling this with Thucydides' account by supposing that ‘Pisander was one of the syngrapheis… and in introducing these proposals stated or implied that he had their support’.

13 Thucydides omits any mention of these katalogeis but there is evidence that such men were, in fact, elected. A resolution giving the state over to a body of Five Thousand was also probably adopted at this time, although Thucydides fails to mention it – presumably because he knew it was an ineffectual resolution. See Lysias 20 and Andrewes (n.9) 203-4 on these points.

14 See below (n.53 and pp. 104-7) for more on this point and on the choice of Kolonos as a meeting place.

15 Rhodes (n.12) 369 goes on: ‘what we have in these passages may be an apologia commonly resorted to in the fourth century’. This is akin to the excuse offered by a certain Sophocles when asked by Peisander (apparently during Peisander's own trial) if he had voted along with the other Probouloi to establish the 400: ‘Yes’, he said, ‘for there was nothing better to do’ (Arist. Rh. 1419a 2530). This does not deny responsibility for establishing the oligarchy, but attributes the move to political aporia. See Jameson, M., ‘Sophocles and the Four Hundred’, Historia 20 (1971) 541–68Google Scholar, where this Sophocles is identified as the famous tragedian.

16 Andrewes (n.9) 255.

17 Kagan (n.3) 145.

18 Kagan (n.3) 121. At 120 n.55, he cites McCoy, W.J., Theramenes, Thrasybulus and the Athenian Moderates (Diss., Yale 1970) 24Google Scholar, for the idea that Alcibiades and others deliberately avoided the word oligarchy because, as Kagan puts it, ‘“not to retain the democracy” could be understood differently by moderates and oligarchs but “replace the base democracy with an oligarchy” would not’.

19 Connor, W.R., Thucydides (Princeton 1984) 227Google Scholar.

20 Kagan (n.3) 121.

21 The thetes were probably denied the franchise even in the moderate oligarchy of the Five Thousand instituted after the fall of the Four Hundred. See Kagan (n.3) 203-5, Andrewes (n.9) on 8.97.1 and, especially, Rhodes, P.J., ‘The Five Thousand in the Athenian revolutions of 411 B.C.’, JHS 92 (1972) 115–27CrossRefGoogle Scholar for this interpretation.

22 Andrewes, A., ‘The beginnings of the Athenian revolution’, in Lewis, D.M., Boardman, J., Davies, J.K. and Ostwald, M. (eds), CAH 52: The Fifth Century B.C. (Cambridge 1992) 471Google Scholar.

23 Kagan (n.3) 112. Kagan believes that the critical core supporters of the movement were hoplites, insisting (140 n.30) that when Thucydides says (8.63.3) that the leaders worked to secure to τὸ στράτευμα, this means that they ‘worked to gain firmer control of the hoplites in the army, a more natural constituency than the propertyless sailors in the fleet’. But to τὸ στράτευμα does not necessarily mean ‘the army’ as opposed to the fleet. At 8.89.1 and 8.89.2 in particular it seems to mean the whole force on Samos. Since the word can mean this, one needs something compelling in the context to help one decide whether one should understand it to refer to the hoplites instead of the whole force. 8.63.3 does not include any compelling detail that allows one to choose, unless one has already decided that the hoplites must be the target of the oligarchs' effort. Kagan believes that the hoplites are for the oligarchs a ‘more natural constituency than the propertyless sailors in the fleet’. Thucydides' narrative, however, shows this opinion to be false.

24 Lintott, A., Violence, Civil Strife and Revolution in the Classical City (Baltimore 1982) 136Google Scholar.

25 Kagan (n.3) 131-2.

26 Kagan (n.3) 133.

27 Andrewes (n.9) on 8.53.3.

28 Westlake, H.D., ‘The subjectivity of Thucydides: his treatment of the Four Hundred at Athens’, in Studies in Thucydides and Greek History (Bristol 1989) 181200, at 185Google Scholar.

29 Nor need he be guilty of deliberate fraud if he used the word democracy and yet did not intend to retain a sovereign assembly open to all. An assembly open to five thousand could strike some as quite democratic.

30 Andrewes (n.9) agrees, writing on 8.54.1 that ‘περὶ τῆς ὀλιγαρχίας [about oligarchy] above shows that Thucydides thought that they understood what was at issue’.

31 Kagan (n.3) 133.

32 There is an escalation to Kagan's denial of Athenian oligarchic sentiment. In Samos, where the men accept oligarchy quite readily, so long as money shall flow, Kagan claims the decision was an anguished one of accepting a necessary evil. In Athens, where the decision might perhaps be so characterized, Kagan denies the Athenians chose oligarchy at all.

33 8.53.2 (bis): ἀντιλεγόντων δὲ πολλῶν καὶ ἄλλων πὲρι τῆς δημοκρατίας… ὁ Πείσανδρος παρελθὼν πρὸς πολλὴν ἀντιλοίαν καὶ σχετλιασμὸν… 8.54.1: ὁ δὲ δῆμς… χαλεπῶς ἔφερε τὸ περὶ τῆς ὀλιγαρχίας.

34 Andrewes (n.9) on 8.53.3. That the Athenians are lucky enough to have their belief turn out to be true does not diminish the naïveté of their belief.

35 Andrewes (n.9) on 8.53.2 recognizes that ‘the scene has been dramatized’. He denies that Thucydides was the playwright, however, because he believes that parts of Book 8 consist of Thucydides' transcriptions of his informants' reports in his own ‘characteristically complex style’ but from their point of view, not his own (373). In Andrewes' opinion (on 8.53.2), Peisander's tour de force in the assembly represents a provisional account written from the point of view of an oligarchic extremist exile who ‘relished describing to Thucydides how Peisander had routed the demagogues’. Andrewes' theory is unlikely, however, particularly because he has failed to explain why Thucydides would write in full literary style a dramatic account that he must have been able to see was false. (For example, as Andrewes points out, the procedure where Peisander takes each objector in turn fits a law court but not the assembly – a point not likely to have been lost on Thucydides, who was, of course, familiar with procedure in the assembly.) Why not write a more sparse description of the outcome of the assembly (to await further information from other sources) and leave out the obviously biased embellishment? Andrewes' theory recognizes the anti-democratic tenor of the passage but does not explain its presence unless Thucydides wanted it there. I agree that Book 8 is unfinished, but I do not think that that fact explains away the presentation and characterization of the Athenians Thucydides gives in what we have of the book. The antidemocratic tenor of this passage is consistent with Thucydides' characterization of the Athenians on Samos and elsewhere in the book and we should, therefore, reclaim the passage as Thucydides' own work.

36 Westlake (n.28) 191.

37 I am indebted to an anonymous reader of an earlier version of this paper for stressing this point.

38 Finley (n.8) 4.

39 Kagan (n.3) 143.

40 See above n.21.

41 Kagan (n.3) 144.

42 I will show below that the location alone is certainly no evidence of coercion on the part of the oligarchic conspirators.

43 Kagan (n.3) 148.

44 See, for example, Hignett, C., A History of the Athenian Constitution (Oxford 1952) 275Google Scholar.

45 Andrewes (n.9) on 8.67.2.

46 Kagan (n.3) 147. Kolonos, only one mile from the city, is unlikely to have been particularly unsettling to many.

47 Lang, M., ‘The revolution of the 400’, AJP 69 (1948) 272-89 at 280–1Google Scholar.

48 Kagan (n.3) 148-9.

49 Lang (n.47) 282. It is hard to understand why Kolonos would make the work of ‘spies’ easier, and Lang's appeal to ‘spies’ is in any case illogical. It suggests that oligarchic sympathizers were few and hidden – that they felt compelled to pretend they opposed the movement. But Thucydides' text shows that even formerly staunch democrats were openly supporting the movement. These men could report opposing votes and so intimidate democrats, if that was what happened at Kolonos. There is no need to imagine spies. Talk of spies fits Lang's preferred picture of Athens, however, and allows her to imply that most people opposed the oligarchy.

50 See Hansen, M.H., ‘How many Athenians attended the ecclesia?’, GRBS 17 (1976), 115-25 at 117–21Google Scholar, and ·id., The Athenian Assembly (Oxford 1987) 12-14. Moysey, R.A., ‘The Thirty and the Pnyx’, AJA 85 (1981) 31–7CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

51 Kagan (n.3) 156.

52 Lintott (n.24) 139.

53 Lintott (n.24) 144. Many commentators believe that the Four Hundred feared active violent resistance. They have some difficulty working with Thucydides' text, however, because it is not clear that the replacement of the democratic Council took place right after the Kolonos meeting. Thucydides describes it as occurring on ‘the appointed day’ but fails to say exactly when that day was. That the expulsion took place right after Kolonos is almost essential if one believes the Four Hundred feared active opposition, for the Boule could serve as a locus of resistance. See Hignett (n.44) 276 and Lintott (n.24) 139. Thucydides' text, however, makes the Four Hundred on ‘the appointed day’ tell their followers to stand around by the arms and also tells them ‘to allow those who were not in the secret to go home as usual’. As Andrewes (n.9) on 8.69.2 rightly notes, the ‘going home’ mentioned here does not seem to refer to citizens leaving the assembly but rather to their leaving the place where the arms are. Thus it seems to refer to men leaving from a regular daily parade under arms. See Andrewes (n.9) on 8.69.1. Thucydides thus seems to place a parade under arms right before the Four Hundred move to the Bouleuterion. As Andrewes remarks (n.9) on 8.69.2: ‘if the Four Hundred were expecting resistance… it was curiously rash of them to allow the citizens to go and take up their arms immediately after the meeting at which they had for the first time revealed their full plans’. The alternative, of course, is to suppose that the Council House was taken over on a later day, but this hardly removes the difficulty that Andrewes sees. Of the possibility that the take-over occurred on the day after Kolonos, for example, Andrewes (n.9) on 8.69.2, remarks that ‘one may still think that the Four Hundred were taking something of a chance, but by the day after Kolonos they would have a clearer idea whether trouble was likely, and it was not impossible that they took precautions on this day which were not strictly necessary’. Thucydides' text, of course, makes abundantly clear what Andrewes will only hint at most delicately. The Four Hundred took precautions on that day which were well beyond what was required.

54 If the dating of Aristotle's Ath. Pol. 32.1 is correct, we are talking about pay for a month. See Andrewes (n.9) on 8.69.4. The Four Hundred's emphasis on the pay due the Councillors contains powerful symbolism, of course. It proclaims the men unfit to rule; only men who require no pay from the government will have a share in the government of the new Athens.

55 Connor (n.20) 225.