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Aristides at Salamis
J. B. Bury
The Classical Review / Volume 10 / Issue 09 / December 1896, pp 414 - 418 DOI: 10.1017/S0009840X0020499X, Published online: 27 October 2009
Link to this article: http://journals.cambridge.org/abstract_S0009840X0020499X
How to cite this article: J. B. Bury (1896). Aristides at Salamis. The Classical Review, 10, pp 414-418 doi:10.1017/ S0009840X0020499X
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Downloaded from http://journals.cambridge.org/CAR, IP address: 128.122.253.212 on 23 Apr 2015 414 THE CLASSICAL REVIEW.
ARISTIDES AT SAL AMIS.
§ 1. BETWEEN the invasion of Greece by that there was an linf^iporovia of the t)atis and Artaphernes and the invasion by Strategoi Kara rrjv irpvTavdav iKa(rrr)v d SOKOV- Xerxes an important change had taken place &IV KaASs apxeiv icav riva airo^eipoTov^(T(0vyri vested in the Polemarch; but in the year vaXiv apxu (c. 61). If this practice already 487-6 B.c. the method of lot was introduced prevailed in 480 B.C., the question arises for appointing the nine archons, and this whether Themistocles, after his splendid innovation necessarily involved the displace- services at Salamis, had to submit to the ment of the Polemarch from the chief indignity of such a deposition. In such a command, as that post could obviously not matter the expression of Diodorus (or be ksafely vested in a man chosen by the Ephorus) carries no weight, and the state- chances of the lottery. The control of the ment that S^afievov rov ©e/V A07jvai(i>v aTricrrqcrtv mander-in-chief, but to the body of the Ten orpaT^yias (Diod. xi. 27) is vitiated by the Strategoi, who had hitherto been merely the cause assigned for the act of the people. commanders of the contingents of the ten But it should in any case be pointed out that Cleisthenic tribes. It has been thought that it is not necessary to assume a formal the first idea was that the chief command deposition. The change in the supreme should rotate among the ten generals, each command of the fleet can be fully explained enjoying it for a day, and that a recollection by a difference in views between Themistocles of this temporary and eminently unpractical and the other leaders of the confederate arrangement has survived in the well-known army. It is recorded that Themistocles anachronistic representation which Herodotn s advocated operations in the Hellespont gives of the state of things existing at (Herodotus viii. 109), and those are doubtless Marathon. But if such an arrangement right who (like Busolt, G. G. ii2. 717) con- was ever actually adopted—for instance in nect his surrender of the command (why not the Aeginetan warJ—it had been luckily a formally voluntary surrender 1) with his condemned and abolished before the great peculiar views as to the general conduct of crisis of 480. In that year we find the the campaign. supreme command entrusted to one man, who is thus in the position of T)yti*wv § 3. In any case the supreme command in o-rpon/yos. In the earlier part of the civil the warfare of 479 B.C. was vested in the year 480-79, throughout the campaign of two ostracized statesmen Xanthippus and Aristides. When the Persian danger Artemisium and Salamis, Themistocles holds 3 this position ; in the later part of the civil threatened, a decree of amnesty was passed year—from the spring of 479 forward— permitting ostracized persons, as well as other Themistocles has given way to Xanthippus. exiles (with certain exceptions), to return to In the land-campaign of Plataea and in the their country: and the motive of this sea-campaign of Mycale we find Aristides measure must have been (as Plutarch general of the hoplites and Xanthippus suggests) the fear that powerful citizens in general of the triremes.2 Thus when the banishment might medize and do serious hurt land forces and the sea forces were operating to Athens. One expects that Xanthippus and independently, as in B.C. 479, there were two Aristides would have returned as soon as supreme commanders; but where the land they could, if they intended to return at all. forces were acting in subordination to the That Xanthippus returned some weeks at fleet, as in B.C. 480, there was one supreme least before the battle of Salamis was fought commander. This was the arrangement is assumed by the anecdote which Plutarch dictated by common sense. tells about his dog (Themist. 10). But the return of Aristides is described by Herodotus § 2. We learn from the'XOyvaitav IIoAiTeta. as having occurred in very sensational cir- cumstances on the eve of the battle of 1 It is ingeniously conjectured by Mr. Maean Salamis. The synedrion of the Greek [Herodotus 2, p. 145, n. 9) that the circumstance that the Athenian fleetarrive d one day too late on the occa- generals was sitting; the debate ' either sion of the conspiracy of Nicodromus may have been continued all night or was adjourned to an due to the existence of this absurd system in 487 B.c. 2 See Herodotus vii. 197 ; viii. 131 ; ix. 28 and 3 'KB. TTO\. 23. Comrare Stahl, Bhein. Museum, 114. 46, 253 sqq. THE CLASSICAL REVIEW. 415 hour before daybreak on the following a direct statement of Herodotus but only a morning, when an incident, interesting, as natural, if not necessary, inference from the well as important, gave to it a new turn. story. And we should have no alternative The ostracized Aristeidgs arrived at Salamis but (with or without mental reserves) to from Aegina. Since the revocation of his accept the story, as one of those rare cases sentence—a revocation proposed by Themis- in which history has trespassed on the tokles himself—he had had no opportunity domain of fiction and created an artistic of revisiting Athens, and he now for the situation by means of an improbable coinci- first time rejoined his countrymen in their dence, if it were not for a fact in the exile at Salamis; not uninformed of the subsequent narrative which supplies an discussions raging, and of the impatience of objective justification of our suspicions. the Peloponnesians to retire to the Isthmus. § 4. We must go back to the moment at He was the first to bring the news that such which the Greek fleet, having received the retirement had become impracticable from tidings of the disaster of Thermopylae, the position of the Persian fleet, which his own arrived in the Saronic gulf. The Athenians vessel in coming from Aegina ' had only had to take hasty measures for their own eluded under favour of night. He caused safety, since the confederate army of the ThemistoklSs to be invited out from the Peloponnesians was at the Isthmus and the assembled synod of chiefs, and after a invasion of Attica was imminent. Herodotus generous exordium wherein he expressed his (8, 41) says that a public proclamation hope that their rivalry would for the future ((ciflouyjua) was made to the effect: 'AOrjvalwv be only a competition in doing good to their rg rts Svvarai o-wfciv reava re KCU TOVS oi/ceras. common couutry, apprised him that the new The Constitution of the Athenians (23) sup- movement of the Persians excluded all hope plements this brief statement by the of now reaching the Isthmus, and rendered perfectly credible notice (repeated by further debate useless.' Themistooles ' de- Plutarch) that the Areopagus assisted the sired Aristeid^s to go himself into the synod citizens when leaving Attica for places of and communicate the news; for if it came refuge by a distribution of eight drachmae a from the lips of Themistokles, the Pelopon- head. But it adds the improbable suggestion nesians would treat it as a fabrication.' that the Strategoi were unequal to the occasion Thus Grote narrates, after Herodotus, the and that the council of the Areopagus took extremely dramatic meeting of the two in hand the organization of the general rivals. We must indeed modify the state- embarkation. Plutarch (and his source is ment of the revocation of the sentence of supposed to be an Atthis) speaks of a Aristides—which Grote does not derive psephism proposed by Themistocles : TTJV fiikv from Herodotus—so far as, in accordance ffoA.iv TrapaKaTaSetrOai rrj 'A6rjva TQ ' Adrjvaiov with the 'AOtjvaiwv iroXiTtia (and Plutarch,/jLtSeovfrr], TOVS 8' ev rjXuclq. iravTas e/xfiaiveiv eis Arist. 8), to speak rather of the revocation rots rptijpcis, TraiSas 8e «al ywat/cas (cat dvSpd- of the sentences of all ostracized persons. iroSa cra^eiv tuaxTTov v ovBk difficult to account for the phrase in KvpwOrjvai efievov TO irpoKetfievov irpfjyfia, dAA.' Plutarch, without disputing that his ?S Te rots yeas icremirrov xai urrta rjeipovro Strategos tocles gave. "We must place ourselves in Themistocles, commanded the ships, but the position of the Athenian government. some—at least one—must have been in The wise policy, on which they resolved, of command of the hoplites on the island of moving the whole population of Attica was Salamis. It was their—or his—business, a policy of which the execution was obviously on the day of the battle, to act according to attended by great difficulties and likely to the fortunes of the fleet, and take defensive meet with considerable and possibly obstinate or offensive measures according to the resistance from a large part of the people. exigency of the case. As it turned out, 418 THE CLASSICAL REVIEW. offensive action was called for, and such Alylvrjs Tpiyprjs)—the trireme which had action on the part of the hoplites is duly been dispatched to bring the Aeacids (c. 64). recorded by Herodotus. They crossed over The obvious conclusion is that this was the from the shore of Salamis to Psyttaleia and ship in which Aristides crossed over from slaughtered all the Persians who were on Aegina, and that he had been deputed to the islet. But we are astonished to read take charge of the mission to bring the that the hoplites act not under the direction Aeacids. of a strategos but under the command of a § 8. It is to be observed that this hypo- private person, the ostracized Aristides, who thesis does not contradict any statement of had returned from banishment only the Herodotus. That historian nowhere says night before. that the diabasis of Aristides from Aegina There is a manifest difficulty in reconciling was his first return to his country. Nor is this incident with the dramatic episode of the fundamental importance of the dialogue the first appearance of Aristides on the eve between Themistocles and Aristidesabolished, of Salamis. One could readily understand a although its dramatic effect is weakened. private person of influence and energy The significance of that dialogue still re- gathering a number of volunteers for some mains, assuming, however, the shape of a patriotic service at a critical moment, but hearty cooperation between two Strat^goi at one cannot easily conceive a private person the Synedrion in which both—Aristides as usurping the functions of the StratSgos over well as Themistocles—were entitled to take a portion of the army. part. It may be added that the hypothesis The simple solution is that Aristides was is confirmed by the political wisdom of himself one of the Stratk/oi. Herodotus did reconciling the ostracized statesmen on their not apprehend this, and, although he no- return by entrusting to them at once posts where says expressly that Aristides returned of importance. We may guess * that from exile on the eve of Salamis, his account Xanthippus too was one of the ten Strat&goi of the interview between Aristides and in the autumn of 480 B.C., and that when Themistocles most readily lends itself to in the spring of the.following year he acted such a reading. All the facts are true—the as chief admiral in place of Themistocles, he fact that Aristides brought the news that was not elected as a new Strategos but was the Greeks were surrounded, and the fact raised from a subordinate to the chief place that he managed the affair of Psyttaleia. in that portion of the Strategic board which But the suppression of the fact that he was was concerned with the fleet. In any case Strat&gos has made it possible to represent Aristides retained his Strategia throughout him as reappearing for the first time at the the campaign of the following year, and, as Synedrion of the generals on the eve of the land army was then acting independently Salamis. of the fleet, he played a part of greater § 7. But if Aristides was Strategos, how prominence than he was allowed to play at came it that he crossed over from Aegina Salamis. (e£ Alyivr]s Sie/Jij) on the night before the 1 The anecdote of his dog, left behind on the Attic battle ? We have here an illustration of coast and drowned in an attempt to swim across to the disconnected nature of the sources from Salamis, suggests that Xanthippus was remembered which Herodotus drew his material. If in connection with the removal of the Attic population Aristides was a Strategos his absence at this before the battle, and raises the presumption that he took part in organizing that removal, and therefore crisis must have been for the purpose of some that he held a public office, which may have been public service. Now Herodotus records that of stratfSgos. that a trireme had returned from Aegina, J. B. BURY. before the battle began (viii. 83 KOU fjiTHE CORINTHIAN CONSTITUTION AFTER THE FALL OP THE CYPSELIDES.
THE constitution of Corinth established fiev oKTaSa rrpofSov\v after the expulsion of the tyrants is thus konrwv fiovkriv Kare\t£ev avSpwv ff. described by Nicolaus Damascenus (Miiller, This passage has given scholars a great F.H.G. fr. 60) : CU/TOS Sk (sc. 6 Srj/ios) Trapa- deal of trouble. And, indeed, the number ToiavSe • fj.iav of members of the fiovXr) indicated in the
