The decision-making demos

1. The decision-making demos • 432/1 launch the war • 432/1-422/1 attack Sparta’s allies • 432/1-404/3 rein in/oppress rebellious allies (Mytilene, 428/7) • 432/1-404/3 rein in/oppress neutral poleis (Melos, 416/5) • 429 lose Pericles to illness • 422/1 lose Cleon to war; negotiate a peace • 418/7 violate the peace (Battle of Mantinea) • 415 open a western front in Sicily lose Alcibiades to political manouevering • 413 suffer the loss of an army and a navy in Sicily lose Nicias and Demosthenes to war Sparta seizes Decelea (Deceleanor Ionian War) Sparta allies with Persia • 412 defections of many allies, including Chios Athenian troop on Samos create a radical democracy led by Alcibiades(!)

2. Oligarchic coup d’état: May 411 (Arist. Ath.Pol. 29)Rule of οἱ καλοὶ κ’ἀγαθοί (hoi kaloik’agathoi): “the good and the noble” “So long as the fortune of the war continued, the Athenians preserved the democracy; but after the disaster in Sicily, when the Spartans had gained the upper hand through their alliance with the king of Persia, they were compelled to abolish the democracy and establish in its place the constitution of the 400.” “They drew up the constitution in the following manner. The revenues of the state were not to be spent on any purpose except the war. All magistrates should serve without remuneration for the period of the war, except the nine Archons and the Prytanes for the time being, who should each receive three obols a day. The whole of the rest of the administration was to be committed, for the period of the war, to those Athenians who were most capable of serving the state personally or pecuniarily, to the number of not less than 5000. This body was to have full powers, to the extent even of making treaties with whomsoever they willed; and ten representatives, over forty years of age, were to be elected from each tribe to draw up the list of the Five Thousand, after taking an oath on a full and perfect sacrifice.“

3. The new constitution: June-August 411(Ath.Pol. 31) “There should be a Council of 400 … 40 from each tribe, chosen out of candidates of more than thirty years of age, selected by the members of the tribes. This Council should appoint the magistrates and draw up the form of oath which they were to take; and in all that concerned the laws, in the examination of official accounts, and in other matters generally, they might act according to their discretion. They must, however, observe the laws that might be enacted with reference to the constitution of the state, and had no power to alter them nor to pass others.” “The generals should be provisionally elected from the whole body of the 5000 [the new demos], but so soon as the Council came into existence it was to hold an examination of military equipments, and thereon elect 10 persons, together with a secretary, and the persons thus elected should hold office during the coming year with full powers, and should have the right, whenever they desired it, of joining in the deliberations of the Council.”

4. Short-lived oligarchy: September 411 (Ath.Pol. 32-34) “The chief promoters of the revolution were Pisander, Antiphon, and Theramenes, all of them men of good birth and with high reputations for ability and judgment …. The 5000 … and the 400 … began by sending ambassadors to the Spartans proposing a cessation of the war on the basis of the existing positions; but as the Spartans refused to listen to them unless they would also abandon the command of the sea, they broke off the negotiations.” “For about four months the constitution of the 400 lasted …. On the loss of the naval battle of Eretria, however, and the revolt of the whole of Euboea except Oreus, the indignation of the people was greater than at any of the earlier disasters, since they drew far more supplies at this time from Euboea than from Attica itself. Accordingly, they deposed the 400 and and committed the management of affairs to the 5000, consisting of persons possessing a military equipment. At the same time they voted that pay should not be given for any public office …. In a very short time [410 BCE] they deprived the 5000 of their monopoly of the government.”

5. End of the Peloponnesian War:Key moments, 411-404/3 BCE • 411 • oligarchic coup – Boule of 400, Ekklesia of 5000, appointed not elected • revolts of some allies • Sparta aligns itself with Persia • Athenian demos (thetes) based on Samos led by Alcibiades • Sparta fails to capitalize • coup overthrown; some leading oligarchs killed • mixed constitution of the 5000 with democratic elections, organized by Theramenes(kothornos): “the Athenians seemed to have ordered their constitution well: it consisted now of a moderate blending, in the interests of the few and the many” which “made the city raise her head again” (Thuc. 8.97) • Thucydides’ history breaks off; Xenophon’s Hellenica (ca. 360)

6. End of the Peloponnesian War:Key moments, 411-404/3 BCE • 410 • Alcibiades destroys Spartan-Persian fleet at Cyzicus (Hellespont) • Spartan dispatch intercepted: “Ships lost. Commander dead. Men starving. Do not know what to do.” • Fleet demands restoration of full radical democracy and termination of Theramenes’ compromise government • Sparta sues for peace, requesting status quo • Kleophon, demagogos, dissuades demos from accepting Sparta’s proposal • Kleophon persuades demos to institute 2 obols/day for the poor • 410-407 • Athens recovers most of rebellious allies • Sparta fields new great strategosLysander: diplomatic, scrupulous, unbribable, and loyal to his Spartan hoplites • Albiades recalled in triumph, pardoned, hailed as hero, voted strategos

7. End of the Peloponnesian War:Key moments, 411-404/3 BCE • 406 • Athens wields new fleet • manned by freed slaves and metics • paid for with Acropolis dedications • defeat of Alcibiades at Notion; exile • victory of Conon at Arginusae • jubilant ekklesiaawards citizenship to slaves and metics • storm destroys disabled ships • crews of 25 ships (~ 5000 men) left to drown; 2 generals flee • Athens prosecutes six remaining strategoi (including the younger Pericles), condemns them to death en massecontra-constitutionally; Socrates (in Boule)opposed • Sparta sues for peace: return of Decelea + status quo Arginusae Notion

8. End of the war • 406 • Kleophon, drunk and wearing his breastplate, dissuades demos from accepting Sparta’s proposal “unless the Spartans abandoned their claims on all the cities allied with them” (Arist. Ath.Const. 34) • 405 • Battle of Aegospotamoi (“Goats’-Rivers”) on the Hellespont (entrance to Propontis / Black Sea) • Lysander captures 160 Athenian triremes, executes ~4000 Athenian soldiers/sailors; 10 ships escape, including the sacred messenger ship the Paralus, which brings the news to Athens

9. Athens reminded of her past “It was at night that the Paralus arrived at Athens with tidings of the disaster, and a sound of wailing ran from Piraeus through the long walls to the city, one man passing on the news to another; and during that night no one slept, all mourning, not for the lost [in the Battle of Aegospotamoi] alone, but far more for their own selves, thinking that they would suffer such treatment as they had visited upon the Melians,colonists of the Lacedaemonians, after reducing them by siege … and many other Greek peoples” (Xenophon Hellenica 2.2.3)

10. The death rattle • 404 • Lysander seizes most Athenian allied territory; Athenian colonists flee to Athens • Lysander besieges Athens at the ports, demands her unconditional surrender • Kleophon dissuades demos from accepting Sparta’s proposal • with no fleet to provide grain from the Black Sea, famine and panic set in • Theramenes (kothornos) negotiates surrender in the spring; Kleophon tried, sentenced to death by oligarchic faction for neglect of military duty • Thebes & Corinth demand destruction of Athens, enslavement of entire population

11. Athens saved by her past “The Lacedaemonians, however, said that they would not enslave a Greek city which had done great service amid the greatest perils that had befallen Greece [against the Persians] and they offered to make peace on these conditions: that the Athenians should destroy the long walls and the walls of Piraeus, surrender all their ships except twelve, allow their exiles to return, count the same people friends and enemies as the Spartans did, and follow the Spartans both by land and by sea wherever they should lead the way” (Hell. 2.2.20) “The Peloponnesians with great enthusiasm began to tear down the walls to the music of flute-girls, thinking that that day was the beginning of freedom for Greece” (Hell. 2.2.23)

12. The assassination of Alcibiades: ordered by Lysander “The party sent to kill him did not dare to enter his house [in Phrygia in central Asia Minor], but surrounded it and set it on fire. When Alcibiades was aware of this, he gathered together most of the garments and bedding in the house and cast them on the fire. Then, wrapping his cloak about his left arm, and drawing his sword with his right, he dashed out, unscathed by the fire, before the garments were in flames, and scattered the barbarians, who ran at the mere sight of him. Not a man stood ground against him, or came to close quarters with him, but all held aloof and shot him with javelins and arrows. Thus he fell, and when the barbarians were gone, his mistress Timandra took up his dead body, covered and wrapped it in her own garments, and gave it such brilliant and honorable burial as she could provide” (Plutarch Life of Alcibiades 39).