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LYSANDER and the a THEN IAN CIVIL WAR (HELLEN/CA II.Iii.11-11.Iv)

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LYSANDER and the a THEN IAN CIVIL WAR (HELLEN/CA II.Iii.11-11.Iv) CHAPTER FIVE LYSANDER AND THE A THEN IAN CIVIL WAR (HELLEN/CA II.iii.11-11.iv) Whereas the event narrated in Hellenica 11.ii.23 appeared to conclude the war of the Peloponnesians and the Athenians according to the express designation of Thucydides (V.26), Xenophon seems to suggest that the ominous return of Lysander to Sparta is the truer conclusion of that war; for his account of that homecoming is followed by an annalistic ending according to the style of Thucydides (Hell. Il.iii.9-10). Even if this passage be rejected on suspicion of its being an interpolation by a later hand, the event itself, the return home of the last of the warring troops and the victorious commander, seems to common sense to put the final period to the narrative of the war. But this expectation, too, is belied when Xenophon proceeds straightway, again without editorial comment, with words implying that there can be no separating the events by which Thucydides defined the end of a distinct "motion" in human affairs from the events caused by those events: "Now the Thirty were chosen as soon as ( l1tti 'tlXXL<na) the Long Walls and those around the Peiraeus had been torn down .... " (iii.11; cf. again Thuc. V.26.1.) Thus the Athenian sequel begins just where the concluding events of the war began (iii.2-3). Xenophon perhaps indicates in this way that one can understand the war apart from its consequences as little as Thucydides could have begun his own writing at the beginning of Book II (and we might add: as little as one could justly end an account of the Second World War at the sur­ render of Germany and Japan). While the concluding narrative of the war had to do mainly with Lysander's activities before leaving Athens, in Samos, and returning to Sparta (iii.1-10), the sequel focuses on the rise and fall of the Thirty oligarchs1 in Athens (iii.ll-iv.43). But we soon find that Lysander has an important part in the latter, too, not only in having effected their appointment as legislators but also in supporting their tyrannic ambitions and in nearly providing for their victory over the people. Apart from whatever other purpose Xenophon's narration of the oligarchy and civil war in Athens might have (perhaps as part of a general treatment of Athenian politics together with I. iv .8-20, v .16-17, vii.1-35 and other 1 They are usually called the Thirty tyrants, but I have tried to reflect Xenophon's implicit suggestion that their rule at first was more aristocratic and then degenerated into tyranny. "Oligarchy" is a neutral term (see e.g., II.iii.47-48). LYSANDER AND THE ATHENIAN CIVIL WAR 81 Athenian passages in the first two books), it may also exemplify both the behavior and the difficult position of Lysander vis-a-vis the Spartan authorities in his support of the oligarchies he helped to establish in many other of the Greek cities besides Samos ( cf. III. iv. 2, v. 13). 2 Lysander assists the oligarchs on two occasions. The first is not long after their appointment, just at their turning from the popularly accepted murder of the sycophants toward more tyrannic designs (Il.iii.12-13). At this time they still conceal their design even from Lysander, telling him that they need a garrison ''just, of course (81i), until they should put the scoundrels out of the way and establish the regime . " (iii.13). Lysander uses his influence ( exactly how, we are not told) to obtain this garrison and in addition, although it was apparently not requested, a Spartan harmost over Athens ( iii .14). The oligarchs immediately begin to put this force to nefarious uses: ... they arrested whom they wished, no longer those who were scoundrels and of little worth but already those who they thought least tolerated being brushed aside and who, making any attempt to act in opposition, would obtain the most associates. (iii.14) They soon learn, however, that this is only increasing the numbers and organization of their enemies, and so begin to apply their principles more consistently by employing the Spartan garrison along with their trusted accomplices to disarm all but their newly appointed body of Three Thou­ sand "partners" (iii.17-20). Some of the worst excesses that follow are occasioned by their need for money to give to the garrison (iii. 21- merely for its "support" or "victualing," per iii.13?). When the last remaining barrier to those domestic excesses, Theramenes, has been eliminated (iii.22-56) and the tyrants have exiled large numbers from the city, the Laconian garrison is sent out with some of the Athenian cavalry to guard against plundering raids by the exiles who hold the fortress of Phyle; caught in a surprise attack by Thrasybulus, more than 120 of the hoplites are slain (II. iv .1-7). The Thirty thereupon employ a ruse to seize and bind the Eleusinians one by one in order to have that town as a refuge if necessary. To secure the complicity of the Three Thousand in the murder of these Eleusinians, i.e. to insure their loyalty through fear of common punishment, the tyrants frighten the reluctant into voting for 2 Gaston Colin compares Xenophon's narrative in these chapters with the accounts of Aristotle (in the Constitution of the Athenians), Diodorus, and others, and finds Xenophon sadly wanting in plausibility as a meticulous chronicler: Xenophon historien d'apres le livre II des Helleniques (hiver 406-405 d 401-0) (Paris, 1933). But once again we ask, Did Xenophon intend to be a chronicler? Colin makes some useful observations about the structure of Xenophon's narrative (e.g., p. 43) but passes many judgments against his factual reliability without analyzing that structure in depth. .
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