Hellenica (The History of the Peloponnesian War and Its Aftermath). Xenophon

ask then is the man who tenders such advice in the full light of day justly to be regarded as a traitor, and not as a benefactor? Surely Critias, the peacemaker, the man who hinders the creation of many enemies, whose counsels tend to the acquistion of yet more friends, ¹⁷ cannot be accused of strengthening the hands of the enemy. Much more truly may the imputation be retorted on those who wrongfully appropriate their neighbours' goods and put to death those who have done no wrong. These are they who cause our adversaries to grow and multiply, and who in very truth are traitors, not to their friends only, but to themselves, spurred on by sordid love of gain.

      "I might prove the truth of what I say in many ways, but I beg you to look at the matter thus. With which condition of affairs here in Athens do you think will Thrasybulus and Anytus and the other exiles be the better pleased? That which I have pictured as desirable, or that which my colleagues yonder are producing? For my part I cannot doubt but that, as things now are, they are saying to themselves, 'Our allies muster thick and fast.' But were the real strength, the pith and fibre of this city, kindly disposed to us, they would find it an uphill task even to get a foothold anywhere in the country.

"Then, with regard to what he said of me and my propensity to be for ever changing sides, let me draw your attention to the following facts. Was it not the people itself, the democracy, who voted the constitution of the Four Hundred? This they did, because they had learned to think that the Lacedaemonians would trust any other form of government rather than a democracy. But when the efforts of Lacedaemon were not a whit relaxed, when Aristoteles, Melanthius, and Aristarchus, ¹⁸ and the rest of them acting as generals, were plainly minded to construct an intrenched fortress on the mole for the purpose of admitting the enemy, and so getting the city under the power of themselves and their associates; ¹⁹ because I got wind of these schemes, and nipped them in the bud, is that to be a traitor to one's friends?

"Then he threw in my teeth the nickname 'Buskin,' as descriptive of an endeavour on my part to fit both parties. But what of the man who pleases neither? What in heaven's name are we to call him? Yes! you—Critias? Under the democracy you were looked upon as the most arrant hater of the people, and under the aristocracy you have proved yourself the bitterest foe of everything respectable. Yes! Critias, I am, and ever have been, a foe of those who think that a democracy cannot reach perfection until slaves and those who, from poverty, would sell the city for a drachma, can get their drachma a day. ²⁰ But not less am I, and ever have been, a pronounced opponent of those who do not think there can possibly exist a perfect oligarchy until the State is subjected to the despotism of a few. On the contrary, my own ambition has been to combine with those who are rich enough to possess a horse and shield, and to use them for the benefit of the State. ²¹ That was my ideal in the old days, and I hold to it without a shadow of turning still. If you can imagine when and where, in conjunction with despots or demagogues, I have set to my hand to deprive honest gentlefolk of their citizenship, pray speak. If you can convict me of such crimes at present, or can prove my perpetration of them in the past, I admit that I deserve to die, and by the worst of deaths."

      With these words he ceased, and the loud murmur of the applause which followed marked the favourable impression produced upon the senate. It was plain to Critias, that if he allowed his adversary's fate to be decided by formal voting, Theramenes would escape, and life to himself would become intolerable. Accordingly he stepped forward and spoke a word or two in the ears of the Thirty. This done, he went out and gave an order to the attendants with the daggers to stand close to the bar in full view of the senators. Again he entered and addressed the senate thus: "I hold it to be the duty of a good president, when he sees the friends about him being made the dupes of some delusion, to intervene. That at any rate is what I propose to do. Indeed our friends here standing by the bar say that if we propose to acquit a man so openly bent upon the ruin of the oligarchy, they do not mean to let us do so. Now there is a clause in the new code forbidding any of the Three Thousand to be put to death without your vote; but the Thirty have power of life and death over all outside that list. Accordingly," he proceeded, "I herewith strike this man, Theramenes, off the list; and this with the concurrence of my colleagues. And now," he continued, "we condemn him to death."

      Hearing these words Theramenes sprang upon the altar of Hestia, exclaiming: "And I, sirs, supplicate you for the barest forms of law and justice. Let it not be in the power of Critias to strike off either me, or any one of you whom he will. But in my case, in what may be your case, if we are tried, let our trial be in accordance with the law they have made concerning those on the list. I know," he added, "but too well, that this altar will not protect me; but I will make it plain that these men are as impious towards the gods as they are nefarious towards men. Yet I do marvel, good sirs and honest gentlemen, for so you are, that you will not help yourselves, and that too when you must see that the name of every one of you is as easily erased as mine."

      But when he had got so far, the voice of the herald was heard giving the order to the Eleven to seize Theramenes. They at that instant entered with their satellites—at their head Satyrus, the boldest and most shameless of the body—and Critias exclaimed, addressing the Eleven, "We deliver over to you Theramenes yonder, who has been condemned according to the law. Do you take him and lead him away to the proper place, and do there with him what remains to do." As Critias uttered the words, Satyrus laid hold upon Theramenes to drag him from the altar, and the attendants lent their aid. But he, as was natural, called upon gods and men to witness what was happening. The senators the while kept silence, seeing the companions of Satyrus at the bar, and the whole front of the senate house crowded with the foreign guards, nor did they need to be told that there were daggers in reserve among those present.

And so Theramenes was dragged through the Agora, in vehement and loud tones proclaiming the wrongs that he was suffering. One word, which is said to have fallen from his lips, I cite. It is this: Satyrus, bade him "Be silent, or he would rue the day;" to which he made answer, "And if I be silent, shall I not rue it?" Also, when they brought him the hemlock, and the time was come to drink the fatal draught, they tell how he playfully jerked out the dregs from the bottom of the cup, like one who plays "Cottabos," ²² with the words, "This to the lovely Critias." These are but "apophthegms" ²³ too trivial, it may be thought, to find a place in history. Yet I must deem it an admirable trait in this man's character, if at such a moment, when death confronted him, neither his wits forsook him, nor could the childlike sportiveness vanish from his soul.

¹ The MSS. here add "it was that year of the Olympiad cycle in which Crocinas, a Thessalian, won the Stadium; when Endius was ephor at Sparta, and Pythodorus archon at Athens, though the Athenians indeed do not call the year by that archon's name, since he was elected during the oligarchy, but prefer to speak of the year of 'anarchy'; the aforesaid oligarchy originated thus,"—which, though correct, probably was not written by Xenophon. The year of anarchy might perhaps be better rendered "the year without archons."

² This took place on 2d September B.C. 404.

³ A council of ten, or "decarchy." See Grote, "H. G." viii. 323 (1st ed.)

⁴ About 112,800 pounds.

⁵ The MSS. add "a summer, the close of which coincided with the termination of a war which had lasted twenty-eight and a half years, as the list of annual ephors,