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

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      VII

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All the above-named generals, with the exception of Conon, were presently deposed by the home authorities. In addition to Conon two new generals were chosen, Adeimantus and Philocles. Of those concerned in the late victory two never returned to Athens: these were Protomachus and Aristogenes. The other six sailed home. Their names were Pericles, Diomedon, Lysias, Aristocrates, Thrasylus, and Erasinides. On their arrival Archidemus, the leader of the democracy at that date, who had charge of the two obol fund, ¹ inflicted a fine on Erasinides, and accused him before the Dicastery ² of having appropriated money derived from the Hellespont, which belonged to the people. He brought a further charge against him of misconduct while acting as general, and the court sentenced him to imprisonment.

These proceedings in the law court were followed by the statement of the generals before the senate ³ touching the late victory and the magnitude of the storm. Timocrates then proposed that the other five generals should be put in custody and handed over to the public assembly. ⁴ Whereupon the senate committed them all to prison. Then came the meeting of the public assembly, in which others, and more particularly Theramenes, formally accused the generals. He insisted that they ought to show cause why they had not picked up the shipwrecked crews. To prove that there had been no attempt on their part to attach blame to others, he might point, as conclusive testimony, to the despatch sent by the generals themselves to the senate and the people, in which they attributed the whole disaster to the storm, and nothing else. After this the generals each in turn made a defence, which was necessarily limited to a few words, since no right of addressing the assembly at length was allowed by law. Their explanation of the occurrences was that, in order to be free to sail against the enemy themselves, they had devolved the duty of picking up the shipwrecked crews upon certain competent captains of men-of-war, who had themselves been generals in their time, to wit Theramenes and Tharysbulus, and others of like stamp. If blame could attach to any one at all with regard to the duty in question, those to whom their orders had been given were the sole persons they could hold responsible. "But," they went on to say, "we will not, because these very persons have denounced us, invent a lie, and say that Theramenes and Thrasybulus are to blame, when the truth of the matter is that the magnitude of the storm alone prevented the burial of the dead and the rescue of the living." In proof of their contention, they produced the pilots and numerous other witnesses from among those present at the engagement. By these arguments they were in a fair way to persuade the people of their innocence. Indeed many private citizens rose wishing to become bail for the accused, but it was resolved to defer decision till another meeting of the assembly. It was indeed already so late that it would have been impossible to see to count the show of hands. It was further resolved that the senate meanwhile should prepare a measure, to be introduced at the next assembly, as to the mode in which the accused should take their trial.

Then came the festival of the Aparturia, ⁵ with its family gatherings of fathers and kinsfolk. Accordingly the party of Theramenes procured numbers of people clad in black apparel, and close-shaven, ⁶ who were to go in and present themselves before the public assembly in the middle of the festival, as relatives, presumably, of the men who had perished; and they persuaded Callixenus to accuse the generals in the senate. The next step was to convoke the assembly, when the senate laid before it the proposal just passed by their body, at the instance of Callixenus, which ran as follows: СКАЧАТЬ