14
Alcibiades, Nicias and Hyperbolus
When Cleon died in 422, Hyperbolus, a demagogue of similar style and with a similarly activist policy for Athens, hoped to gain greater prominence for himself, and he was a member of the council in 421/0 (IG i3 82. 5 with 42, cf. Plato Com. fr. 182 Kassel & Austin). On the less activist side, the truce of 423 is associated with Laches, a general on various occasions until he died at Mantinea in 418 (Thuc. IV. 118. xi), and the peace of 421 was the work of Nicias and Laches; Alcibiades felt insulted because in spite of his family connection with Sparta he was not used in the negotiations (V. 16. i, 43. ii; on the whole of this paragraph cf. p. 128).
In the years which followed, Alcibiades set about aligning Athens with Argos and other Peloponnesian states opposed to Sparta – no doubt partly because of the perceived insult, partly because the peace was proving unsatisfactory, partly because that new alliance provided opportunities for the adventurous kind of policy which appealed to him - while Nicias tried to salvage the peace. The allies were defeated at Mantinea in 418, and it is possible that that year Athens did not participate as enthusiastically as it might have done; but Alcibiades continued to work with Argos. He was not one of the generals involved in the capture of Melos in 416/5, but both a speech to which we shall return below and Plutarch make him a supporter of the decree by which the men were killed and the women and children enslaved, and allege that he had a child by one of the women ([Andoc] IV.Alcibiades 22–3, Plut. Ale. 16. v-vi). It is no surprise to find Alcibiades eager and Nicias reluctant to undertake the Sicilian expedition of 415; the appointment of both as commanders reflects the support for both in the assembly.
As well as standing for different policies, Alcibiades the flamboyant aristocrat and Nicias the respectable emulator of the aristocrats were personal rivals. Nicias was a great performer of liturgies, and put a particular effort into leading Athens’ delegation to the Delian festival of 417 (Plut. Nie.3. v-4. i); it was probably in 416 that Alcibiades indulged in a more personal form of ostentation by entering no fewer than seven teams in the chariot race at Olympia, of which his best came first, second and fourth (Thuc. VI. 16. ii, cf. 12. ii, Plut. Ale. 11).
At some point not later than 415 what was to be Athens’ last ostracism was held. According to Plutarch, Hyperbolus proposed an ostracism, hoping that the Athenians would use it to choose between Alcibiades and Nicias, but Alcibiades and Nicias joined forces and persuaded their supporters to vote against Hyperbolus, and it was he who was ostracised; an alternative version gave the role of Nicias to the less prominent Phaeax (Plut. Nie. 11, Ale. 13 [see box], cf. Arist. 7. iii-iv). We have surviving ostraka against all of those, and various others including Cleophon, to be prominent later (cf. p. 176), and a brother of his. A fragment of Theopompus appears to say that Hyperbolus was ostracised for six years (FGrH 115 F 96. b ~ Fornara 145. B), which if we counted from his death in 412/1 (Thuc. VIII. 73. iii) would point to 418 or 417; but Theopompus may actually have said that Hyperbolus was Athens’ leading demagogue for six years until his ostracism, which if we counted from Cleon’s death in 422/1 would point to 416 or 415, and a fragmentary inscription perhaps shows Hyperbolus still active in Athens at the end of 418/7, after the spring when the ostracism would have been held (IG i3 85). Most scholars now accept that we must choose between 416 and 415.
There was a man called Hyperbolus, of Perithoidae, who was mentioned by Thucydides as a wretched man, and for each and every one of the comedians he perpetually provided material for mockery in their plays. He was unmoved by hostile comments and unaffected, because he did not care about his reputation, a trait which is in fact shamelessness and stupidity, though some people call it bravery and courage. Nobody liked him, but the people often used him when wanting to malign and accuse men of distinction. At this time they were persuaded by him to hold an ostracism, by which they regularly put down and drive out whichever of the citizens is outstanding in reputation and influence, which assuages their jealousy rather than their fear. When it became clear that the ostracism would fall on one of the three men [Alcibiades, Phaeaxand Nicias], Alcibiades brought the factions together, and after discussion with Nicias turned the ostracism against Hyperbolus. But some people say that it was not with Nicias but with Phaeax that he held a discussion, and that it was by taking over his body of supporters that he drove out Hyperbolus, who would never have expected that. (Plutarch,Alcibiades, 13. iv-viii)
Preserved with the speeches of Andocides is a speech (IV) Against Alcibiades, apparently written in the character of Phaeax for a situation in which he, Nicias and Alcibiades are the prospective victims; but, as far as we know, speeches were not delivered before the votes were cast, and there are passages in the speech which it is hard to think were written at the time. Probably the speech is a later rhetorical exercise; it does not mention the imminent Sicilian expedition, but in other respects the year envisaged is 415. An invitation to the citizens to choose between Alcibiades and Nicias would make sense in any of the possible years; since we know that the Sicilian expedition was hotly debated, and it is possible (though not certain) that the writer of the speech knew when the ostracism had been held, 415 is the likeliest year. Thucydides mentions the ostracism only in connection with Hyperbolus’ murder; but he despised Hyperbolus and the ostracism failed to resolve the clash between Alcibiades and Nicias, so his not mentioning it in its place is intelligible.
Hyperbolus would presumably have preferred Alcibiades to be ostracised, as the man whose style and policies made him the greater threat to Hyperbolus’ own position. It would be typical of Alcibiades to resort to a device which eliminated Hyperbolus, and which weakened Nicias, who could have been told that unless he cooperated with Alcibiades he might be the victim. Subsequently the assembly continued to be asked each year whether it wanted to hold an ostracism, but regularly decided against. This will be not because Hyperbolus was worthless, but because his banishment showed that ostracism was an unreliable weapon. Prosecution in the lawcourts could be aimed specifically at the intended victim, and that was done all too often over the next century.
The Herms and the Mysteries
In 415, shortly before the Sicilian expedition was due to sail, Athens was rocked by a religious scandal. Most of the herms (busts of the god Hermes on a plinth with a phallus) were damaged in a single night: ‘The affair was taken rather seriously; it seemed to be an omen for the expedition and to have been done with a view to conspiracy for revolution and the overthrow of the democracy’ (Thuc. VI. 27. iii). An enquiry elicited information not about the mutilation but about mock celebrations of the Eleusinian Mysteries in private houses, in which Alcibiades was said to have participated. Alcibiades wanted to stand trial immediately, but his enemies reckoned that with the expedition about to sail he would too easily secure acquittal, so it was resolved that he should be recalled later (Thuc. VI. 27–9). Information came in and arrests were made; Thucydides comments that no accusations were ignored but good men were considered suspect on the evidence of bad. Eventually one of the arrested men was persuaded to give information about the herms, on which Thucydides remarks that nobody could be sure either at the time or later whether he was telling the truth, but the people were greatly relieved to believe that the matter was settled (VI. 53. ii, 60). The tension was heightened by operations of the Spartan and Boeotian armies near the Athenian frontiers, and there was renewed suspicion that the profanation of the Mysteries and Alcibiades’ involvement were part of the same plot. The Salaminia, one of the state ships, was sent to Sicily to fetch him and other men accused, but he escaped to the Peloponnese (VI. 53. i, 61: cf. p. 141).
In addition to Thucydides’ account we have that of the man who turned informer, Andocides, in the speech (I) On the Mysteries which he delivered when his involvement in these matters was used against him in 400 (cf. p. 304); Lysias, VI. Against Andocides,from the same trial, is less informative. According to Andocides, a man called Dioclides gave false information, that he had seen the mutilators, about three hundred, of whom he named forty-two including Andocides and several of his relatives. These were all arrested, and one of the innocent relatives persuaded Andocides to tell what he knew in return for a promise of immunity. His story is that the mutilation was the work of a hetaireia, an association of upper-class ‘companions’, to which he belonged; it was proposed at a drinking party and he had opposed it; it was carried out later, when he had been injured in an accident and could not take part; the deed was a pistis, an act undertaken as a ‘pledge’ to cement the loyally of the participants (Andoc. I. Myst. 37–69). He says less about the Mysteries, but he admits that the men accused included his father and other relatives (17-24), and it is possible that he was himself involved.
Those who stood trial were sentenced to death, and those who fled into exile were condemned in their absence. Their property was confiscated and sold, and substantial fragments survive of the ‘Attic stelai’ recording the sale of the confiscated properly (IG i3421–30, extracts M&L 79 ~ Fornara 147. D, cf. Poll. X. 97, Philoch. FGrH 328 FF 133–4 ~ Fornara 147. A-C).The stelai give fascinating information on the possessions of rich Athenians and the prices which they could fetch when sold in these abnormal circumstances; for the economic exploitation of the Delian League by Athenians it is particularly interesting that Oeonias, known otherwise only as one of the accused men named by Andocides (I. Myst. 13), had estates in Euboea which were sold for the enormous sum of 81f talents (IG i3 422. 375–8: cf. p. 187).
Public mutilation of herms and private mocking of the Mysteries were different kinds of act, though some men were accused and convicted of both. The mutilation, at a time of heightened tension, was presumably intended to shock, and did shock; there had been previous occasions when statues were damaged by drunken young men (Thuc. VI. 28. i), but this does seem to have involved more than drunkenness and high spirits. If the plotters had hoped to overthrow the democracy, we might have expected further moves to take advantage of the initial panic, perhaps seizure of the acropolis or the council-house. There were no such moves, and although plotters can be incompetent there was probably not a plot against the democracy; but fear of such a plot shows that the stability of the 420’s (cf. p. 123) was wearing thin. More likely, perhaps, is a last-ditch and again unsuccessful attempt to stop the Sicilian expedition by creating unfavourable omens: the pious Nicias would not have tried to prevent the expedition in this way, but there may have been men who shared his disapproval of the expedition but not his piety. On the other hand, profaning the Mysteries in private was presumably intended not to become public knowledge but to amuse the participants, men who will not have been thoroughgoing atheists but who, while perhaps thinking of themselves as such, will have had enough residual religion to derive amusement and a guilty thrill from daring the gods to punish them for their mockery of religious rites.
It fits the suggestion that there was an attempt to stop the Sicilian expedition, for which Alcibiades was enthusiastic, that, when the mutilation had created the initial panic, men came forward to accuse Alcibiades and others of profanation; and there are some signs that Dioclides’ denunciations may have been an attempt to hit back at enemies of Alcibiades. The men named by Andocides as eager for the investigation were leading demagogues, Cleonymus, Pisander and Androcles (I. Myst. 27), while Alcibiades was an aristocrat challenging the demagogues at their own game (cf. pp. 163–5), and Andocides and his hetairoi seem not to have been enthusiastic democrats. On the other hand, the formal prosecutor of Alcibiades was Thessalus, one of the sons of Cimon (Plut. Ale. 19. iii, 22. iv).Thucydides’ account prompted him to a digression on the overthrow of the Pisistratid tyranny, and the connection is probably that Alcibiades was perceived both by democrats and by ‘respectable’ aristocrats as dangerously like a tyrant (and fear of Spartan involvement reminded him of the ending of the tyranny, in which Sparta had been involved). The expedition went ahead, and, ironically, the proceeds from the sales will have made a significant contribution to the funding of it. Alcibiades made his way to Sparta, whereThucydides reports him as saying that in Athens he had to accept and try to moderate the democracy; democracy is agreed folly, but a change of regime in the middle of the war would not be safe (VI. 89. iii-vi).
Euripides’ Trojan Women was produced in the spring of 415, between the capture of Melos and the sailing of the Sicilian expedition: it focuses on the disasters accompanying the destruction of Troy, and may in part have been prompted by the fate of Melos. Aristophanes’ Birds was produced in spring 414, when it was still hoped that the Sicilian expedition would succeed: two men who have had enough of Athens set out to found a new city in the sky, Cloudcuckooland; the new city turns out to possess the familiar faults of Athens’ internal and imperial politics; but it is all light-hearted, including a reference to the fate of Melos (Av. 186: cf. pp. 138–9), and attempts to see specific allusions to the Sicilian expedition or Alcibiades in the play are unconvincing. A scholium on Av.1297 infers from a passage in a play by Phrynichus produced at the same time that a man called Syracosius carried a decree ‘that people should not be comedied by name’ (cf. p. 72, on an attempt to restrain comedy in 440/39); while the attacks in Birds show that there cannot have been a total ban, the play does not name any of the men known to have been accused of involvement in the religious scandals, and some scholars have thought of a decree protecting them, but more probably there was no decree of Syracosius.
The principal item in Athens’ building history in this period is the beginning of the Erechtheum, the complex temple on the northern part of the acropolis (the name is used rarely in ancient texts, but see Paus. I. 26. v).The building accounts for 409/8 (IG i3 474) start with a reference to a decree of the beginning of that year authorising the resumption of work which was already well advanced, and scholars assume that construction began shortly after the Peace of Nicias and was suspended perhaps when resources were concentrated on the Sicilian expedition, perhaps when economy measures were taken after the expedition’s failure.
The Four Hundred and the Five Thousand
In 415 the stability of the democracy was wearing thin; in 411 the democracy was overthrown, only to be restored in 410.
The Sicilian expedition of 415–413, debated and approved by the assembly, ended in disaster; and by the time it ended the Spartans were established in their fort at Decelea, in the north of Attica. The Athenians nevertheless decided to fight on, but ‘to restrain matters in the city somewhat with a view to economy’, and they appointed an emergency committee often older citizens as probouloi, to make preliminary proposals to the assembly as was traditionally done by the council (Thuc. VIII. 1. iii, cf. Ath. Pol. 29. ii). We do not know how their duties were dovetailed with those of the council: in Aristophanes’ Lysistrata we encounter a proboulos, attended by Scythian archers, where we should expect to encounter the prytaneis, the tribal contingent serving as the council’s standing committee (387-610); he is a pompous official but is not something new and dangerous; he has obtained wood for oars and needs to arrange for payment (421-3). Probably the probouloi had to be over 40; we know two of them, the tragedian Sophocles, who was born c.496 and had a civic as well as a literary career, and Hagnon, who was born before 470, was a supporter of Pericles and served as general several times between 440/39 and 429/8 (cf. pp. 123; 72, 75, 118). With the need for economy we might be tempted to link the creation of a board of poristai, ‘providers’ of funds, but they are first attested as early as 419, when Athens was not in financial difficulties (Antiph.VI. Chor. 49).
By the end of 415 Alcibiades was in Sparta; after prompting Sparta to concentrate its effort in the Aegean rather than the Hellespont, by the end of 412 he had moved to the court of Tissaphernes and had made contact with sympathetic Athenians in the fleet at Samos (Thuc. VIII. 45–9). About the end of December a deputation was sent to Athens headed by Pisander, who in 415 had been a demagogue eager for investigation of the religious scandals (cf. p. 167), claiming that ‘if Alcibiades were recalled and they did not keep to the same style of democracy they could have the King as an ally and get the better of the Peloponnesians’. This was opposed at first, especially by the families responsible for the Eleusinian cult, whose Mysteries Alcibiades had mocked, but was finally accepted as Athens’ only hope. Pisander encouraged the het-aireiai of politically minded upper-class men to work together for the oligarchic movement, obtained the deposition of Phrynichus (who had been working against Alcibiades: cf. p. 152) and another general, and the sending of replacements, and returned to Samos with men authorised to negotiate with Alcibiades and Tissaphernes (VIII. 53–4). The negotiations with Tissaphernes broke down, and about the end of March 411 the Persians made a new treaty with Sparta (cf. p. 152).The champions of oligarchy in the fleet decided to go ahead without Alcibiades; they won over some of the Samians (despite their recent restoration of democracy: cf. p. 151); they sent some men to allied states to set up oligarchies there, and Pisander and others back to Athens (VIII. 63. iii-65. i). Pisander and his colleagues reached Athens about April/May The oligarchic movement was under way: Androcles (cf. p. 167) and some other democrats had been assassinated; an oligarchic programme was circulating, that civilian stipends should be abolished and political rights limited to not more than five thousand men ‘able to serve with their wealth and their bodies’, i.e. those of hoplite class and above; the democratic political processes were still functioning but were dominated by the oligarchs (VIII. 65. ii—66).
For what follows we have two accounts: in Thucydides, VIII, interspersed with his narrative of other events, and, since he was in exile, based on what others told him; and in Ath. Pol. 29–33, which is partly based on Thucydides, partly derived from a source with access to documents in which the oligarchic revolutionaries tried to make their actions look respectable by democratic criteria of respectability. How we are to reconstruct what happened has given rise to much controversy.
An assembly was held at which syngrapheis, a drafting committee (used on other occasions in the fifth century: cf. p. 62), were appointed to draw up proposals. Ath. Pol., which cites the decree, probably has the details right: the ten probouloi were to be joined by twenty others; other citizens could submit proposals; and an amendment called on the syngrapheis ‘to look for the traditional laws which Cleisthenes enacted when he established the democracy’ (Thuc. VIII. 67. i, Ath. Pol. 29. ii-iii).The word ‘oligarchy’ was being avoided, as on Pisander’s first visit, and the propaganda offered a democracy purged of its recent excesses; the council was to be of four hundred because that was the size of Solon’s council. There was much talk now and later of the patrios politeia, the ‘traditional constitution’: this was useful propaganda for the oligarchs, and probably some of them believed it themselves, but to committed democrats the traditional constitution was the democracy under which they lived until 411.
The syngrapheis reported to a later assembly, held according to Thucydides at Colonus, about a mile (1.5km.) outside the city: modern scholars have suspected that, with the Spartans in Attica, poorer men who could not afford arms would be more reluctant to attend than richer, but at that distance the danger cannot have been great, and there must have been a respectable pretext for meeting there. The poorer citizens will in any case have been under-represented, since many of them will have been with the fleet at Samos. Our sources agree that the syngrapheis began by suspending all the normal safeguards against improper legislation and insisting that all proposals should be put to the vote. They then diverge. Thucydides attributes the positive proposals emphatically to Pisander,Ath. Pol. by implication to the syngrapheis, and both may be true if Pisander was one of the syngrapheis and claimed to be speaking on behalf of all. Almost all civilian stipends were abolished, as in the programme already circulating. Thucydides, who has already mentioned that programme, then mentions the appointment of the Four Hundred - five men to choose a hundred, who were to choose the remaining three hundred - as a body who were to rule with full power and convene the Five Thousand when they saw fit. Ath. Pol. mentions the entrusting of the state for the duration of the war to not less than five thousand, and the appointment of a hundred men to draw up a register of them; it defers the Four Hundred to a document quoted later. The two accounts should be combined: what was proposed now was a citizen body of five thousand, with residual sovereignly, and a powerful council of four hundred; the Four Hundred were probably appointed on the spot by Thucydides’ method (Thuc. VIII. 67–68. i, Ath. Pol. 29. iv-v [see box]).
First they assembled the people and made the proposal that they should appoint ten men as drafters [xyngrapheis] with full power [autokratores], who should draft a proposal and bring it to the people on a stated day about how the city should best be governed. Then when the day came they summoned the assembly at Colonus (this is a sanctuary of Poseidon outside the city, about ten stades away). The drafters proposed nothing else but just this, that it should be open to any of the Athenians to make any proposal he wished with impunity; and if anybody charged the proposer with making an illegal proposal [in a graphe paranomon] or harmed him in any other way, they prescribed heavy penalties for that. Then it was said openly that no official should continue to hold office on the existing basis or to draw a stipend; and that they should choose five men to be presidents [proedroi], these should choose a hundred men and each of the hundred should choose three in addition to himself. These four hundred should go into the council-house and rule as they thought best with full power, and they should assemble the five thousand when they thought fit. The man who made this proposal was Pisander, who was in general most eager in public to join in the overthrow of the democracy. (Thucydides, VIII. 67–68. i)
***
The decree of Pythodorus was as follows: the people were to choose in addition to the existing ten probouloi twenty others from those over the age of forty, who were to swear that they would draft what they thought best for the city, and to make a draft about salvation; anybody else who wished could make proposals too, so that they should choose the best out of all. Cleitophon proposed otherwise in accordance with Pythodorus [the standard formula for proposing an amendment] but that the men chosen should seek out also the traditional laws which Cleisthenes enacted when he established the democracy, so that they should hear these too and deliberate for the best (his reason being that Cleisthenes’ constitution was not populist but much like that of Solon).
Those who were chosen first proposed that the chairmen [prytaneis] should be obliged to put to the vote all proposals made about salvation; and then they suspended the prosecutions for illegal proposal [graphaiparanomon], impeachments [eisangeliai] and summonses [proskleseis], so that those of the Athenians who wished could deliberate about what was laid before them. If anybody on these grounds imposed a fine or made a summons or brought a man to court, he should be liable to indication and haling [endeixis, apagoge: procedures of summary justice] to the generals, and the generals should hand them over to the eleven to be punished with death. After this they organised the constitution in the following way: incoming money was not to be spent for any purpose other than the war, and all the officials were to serve without pay while the war lasted, apart from the nine archons and whatever prytaneis there might be; they were to receive 3 obols a day each. All the rest of the state’s government was to be entrusted to the Athenians most able to serve with their bodies and their wealth, numbering not less than five thousand, while the war lasted: these should have authority to make treaties with whoever they liked. In addition they were to choose from each tribe ten men over the age of forty, who were to swear over sacred victims and register the five thousand. That is what was drafted by the men who were chosen. {Athenian Constitution, 29. ii—30. i)
The Four Hundred did not take over the state immediately. Ath. Pol. 30–1 has a second committee of a hundred appointed, to work out the details of the constitution (credible enough, after the basic principles had been decided at Colonus), and two constitutional documents, one ‘for the future time’ and a second ‘for the immediate crisis’. Probably the committee set to work in the days after Colonus, and a split opened between moderates who were seriously interested in a different kind of constitution (the future constitution divides the restricted citizen body into quarters in the manner of the Boeotian constitutions: cf. p. 281) and extremists who wanted to seize power for themselves (the immediate constitution includes a mechanism for the appointment of the Four Hundred, which will explain why Ath. Pol. has not mentioned them earlier); the extremists insisted that in the present crisis things must be done their way, but to appease the moderates offered the possibility of another kind of constitution later.
When they were ready the Four Hundred occupied the council-house by force, giving the democratic council its pay for the remainder of its year of office (about a month). Ath. Pol. dates the dissolution of the old council to 14 Thargelion (xi) (c.9 June) and the ‘entry’ of the Four Hundred to 22Thargelion (c. 17 June); Thucydides refers to the Four Hundred’s prayers and sacrifices (Thuc. VIII. 69–70. i, Ath. Pol. 32. i). Presumably the old council was dismissed and the Four Hundred took over de facto on the 14th, and the new regime was formally inaugurated, and the constitutional documents were perhaps published, on the 22nd.
Four men are named as particularly responsible for the revolution (Thuc. VIII. 68, Ath. Pol. 32. ii: the absence of Phrynichus from the papyrus text of Ath. Pol. is probably due to a copyist’s error): Pisander, who played the leading role in public; Antiphon, theeminence grise in the background (scholars argue over whether he is the same man as ‘Antiphon the sophist’, but probably he is not; Thucydides admired the speech which he made when put on trial after the fall of the Four Hundred); Phrynichus, who particularly distrusted Alcibiades, and joined the oligarchs when they broke with Alcibiades; and Theramenes, son of the proboulos Hagnon, who proved to be unhappy both with democracy and with extreme forms of oligarchy. The original argument for a change to oligarchy had been that it would enable Athens to bring back Alcibiades and obtain Persian help in defeating Sparta; but Persian help had not been obtained, the oligarchs had broken with Alcibiades, and they were to attempt to make peace with Sparta. Richer citizens could easily be persuaded that a democracy in which they had to share power with poorer citizens was not in their interests (cf. the Old Oligarch, pp. 122–3); after the failure in Sicily democratic Athens could no longer be represented as successful; when Athens was short of money an oligarchic regime in which the citizens did not have to be paid for public service had the attraction of cheapness; and (though the movement began at Samos) the absence of the fleet and its oarsmen will have tilted the social and political balance in Athens. Probably some men sincerely believed that the democracy had gone too far and a more restrained form of constitution would be better, while others wanted power for themselves and their friends. No doubt different men supported or acquiesced in the oligarchy for different combinations of these reasons. While Thucydides represents the establishment of the oligarchy as due to conspiracy and intimidation, he also suggests that nobody tried very hard to preserve the democracy.
Once they were in power, the Four Hundred ruled by force, killing, exiling or imprisoning some of their opponents (Thuc. VIII. 70, Ath. Pol. 32. ii).The register of the Five Thousand was begun but never completed - a speech in defence of a man who was one of the Four Hundred and one of the registrars claims that he tried to enrol as many as nine thousand (Lys. XX. Polystratus 13) - and no assemblies of the Five Thousand were held (Thuc. VIII. 92. xi, 93. ii, cf. 89. ii; Ath. Pol. 32. iii, 33. ii).
Far from prosecuting the war against Sparta, the Four Hundred tried to make peace. First they approached Agis at Decelea, but he responded by attacking Athens; later with Agis’ support they sent a series of embassies to Sparta, the last headed by Antiphon and Phrynichus, but achieved nothing (Thuc. VIII. 70. ii-71, 8 6. ix, 9 0. ii, 91. i). A th. Pol. 3 2. iii claims that Sparta was demanding that Athens should give up its empire: that may well be true, and there was the additional problem that the regime at Athens could not commit the fleet at Samos.
The Four Hundred had sent envoys to Samos to announce the change of regime, with an assurance that all of the Five Thousand would be involved in affairs (Thuc. VIII. 71). However, about the time when the Four Hundred came to power in Athens, the fleet reverted to democracy. In the pollsof Samos the men won over by the Athenian oligarchs were plotting against their democracy, and had assisted in the murder of Hyperbolus, living there since his ostracism, but with the help of democratically minded Athenians the plot was frustrated. While the Four Hundred’s envoys were travelling to Samos, the state ship the Paralus was sent with the news from Samos to Athens: there most of the crew were transferred to another ship, but the messenger Chaereas got back to Samos with an exaggerated account of what had happened in Athens. In the fleet Thrasybulus and Thrasyllus emerged as democratic leaders. The Athenians and the Samians swore to be loyal to the democracy and to persevere in the war against Sparta. The fleet behaved as a pollsin exile, electing new officials including Thrasybulus and Thrasyllus as generals; it recalled Alcibiades, who still claimed that he could obtain Persian support, and made him general too (Thuc. VIII. 73–7, 81–2). The envoys from Athens, hearing the news from Samos, delayed but eventually arrived and were allowed to make a statement, in which they denied any intention of surrendering to Sparta. Alcibiades was now in Samos; Thucydides praises him for arguing against abandoning the Aegean to the Spartans in order to return to Athens and restore the democracy there (cf. VIII. 82. ii), and the envoys were sent back with the message that Alcibiades approved of the Five Thousand and of the abolition of civilian stipends, but not of the Four Hundred (VIII. 77, 86. i-vii).
The return of the envoys stimulated discontent among the ordinary citizens in Athens; the lead was taken byTheramenes (cf. p. 172) and by Aristocrates, a man from an old-established family, who commanded a tribal regiment under the Four Hundred and was a general both before and after the oligarchy. The Four Hundred started to build a wall at Eetionea, on the north-west of the Piraeus (cf. map 3), allegedly to defend Athens against an attack by the Athenian fleet from Samos but in reality, Theramenes argued, to let the Peloponnesians in. When it was learned that Peloponnesian ships were on their way to Euboea (cf. p. 153), he suggested they were actually bound for Athens. When Phrynichus returned from the last, unsuccessful, embassy to Sparta, he was assassinated in the agora. As the ships came nearer to Athens, there was a mutiny among the hoplites building the wall, which ended with their demolishing it and claiming that the Five Thousand rather than the Four Hundred should rule. The Four Hundred offered to convene an assembly; but on the day in question the ships, which had been to Megara, were sighted sailing past Salamis. The Athenians rushed down to the Piraeus; when the ships moved on to the Euripus, the Athenians manned ships which followed them and were defeated in a battle; but the Peloponnesians did not seize the opportunity to sail back and attack Athens (Thuc. VIII. 89–96). This was about the beginning of Boedromion (iii) 411/0, late September (Ath. Pol. 33. i).
In an ad hoc assembly on the Pnyx, the regular meeting-place, the Athenians voted to depose the Four Hundred and entrust the state to the Five Thousand; and this was followed by a series of further meetings. Thucydides and Ath. Pol. express approval of the government of Athens under this intermediate regime, but they do not give details: the abolition of civilian stipends was upheld, and Thucydides writes of ‘a reasonable mixture with regard to the few and the many’ (Thuc. VIII. 97. i-ii [see box], Ath. Pol. 33). Some have suggested that the future constitution of Ath. Pol. 30 was now put into effect, but what little evidence we have does not support that. Others, emphasising the shortage of evidence for the restoration of the democracy later (cf. p. 175), have argued that this regime was almost identical with the democracy. More probably this regime combined the democratic principle that power should reside in the assembly rather than in the council (and perhaps reverted to a council of five hundred, but elected rather than allotted) with the oligarchic principle that the citizen body should be limited to those ‘able to serve with their wealth and their bodies’. The intermediate regime voted to persevere with the war, recalling Alcibiades and seeking a reconciliation with the fleet at Samos. Some of the extremists escaped to the Spartans at Decelea (Thuc. VIII. 97. iii-98); others including Antiphon stayed in Athens, and were put on trial and condemned (Craterus PGrH 342 F 5; [Plut.] X Orat. 833 D-834 B ~ Fornara 151; fragments of Antiphon’s speech fr. B. 1 in the Loeb Minor Attic Orators, i).
On the receipt of the news, then, the Athenians nevertheless manned twenty ships and convened an assembly, one immediately at this first point, on what is called the Pnyx, where they used to meet at other times, and in this they deposed the Four Hundred and voted to entrust affairs to the Five Thousand (who were to comprise all those who bore arms), and that nobody should receive a stipend for any office: anybody who contravened that was to be accursed. Subsequently there were frequently other assemblies, as a result of which they voted for law-makers [nomothetai] and other things with regard to the constitution. And it is clear not least that then, for the first time (at least during my life), the Athenians were well governed: for there was a reasonable mixture with regard to the few and the many, and it was this which first lifted the city out of the wretched state it had fallen into. (Thucydides, VIM. 97. i-ii)
The full democracy was restored in 410, probably after the battle of Cyzicus had once more demonstrated the importance of the navy for Athens. Thucydides’ narrative ends in the autumn of 411 (cf. p. 153); neither Xenophon nor Diodorus mentions the restoration; Ath. Pol. 34. i begins a short and inaccurate passage bridging 410–404 with what is probably an allusion to it. The best evidence for the restoration is a decree quoted by Andocides (I. Myst. 96–8) which is dated to the first prytany of 410/09, goes out of its way to refer to ‘the council of five hundred appointed by lot’, and reaffirms the law against the overthrow of the constitution; probably the calendar was adjusted so that a new year for the council began at the restoration.
We have seen above that there was a mixture of motives for overthrowing the democracy in 411. The way in which the regime of the Four Hundred developed could not please those who were hoping for more effective prosecution of the war or for a moderation of democracy’s recent excesses, and the reversion of the fleet at Samos to democracy produced a fatal split between the Athenians in Athens and those at Samos. Those who were dissatisfied included Theramenes, who had been one of the leaders of the original revolution, and Aristocrates, a member of and a military officer under the Four Hundred. The collapse of that regime after the battle in the Euripus is no cause for surprise. The lack of Thucydides’ narrative makes it harder to pronounce on the end of the intermediate regime; but it followed a success, not a failure, and Theramenes and Aristocrates were not put on trial. We shall see some signs of friction, but this was apparently a much less traumatic change.
The Restored Democracy
In terms of personalities, there seems superficially to be a considerable degree of continuity between the intermediate regime and the democracy. The commanders of the Hellespont fleet at Cyzicus, including Alcibiades, and also Theramenes, who had joined it in 410, remained with it until it returned to Athens in 407. However, Alcibiades, who had his rights restored by the intermediate regime in 411, did not have them restored by the democracy until 407, and neither he nor Theramenes or Thrasybulus seems to have been elected general by the democracy: they continued to command the fleet because they were acceptable to the fleet. Aristocrates, however, was elected general for 410/09, and so was Thrasyllus, who had returned from Samos to Athens in 411. On the chronology adopted in this book, Thrasyllus stayed in Athens in 410, began 409 campaigning separately in the Aegean, and was not wholly welcome when he rejoined the main fleet in the autumn (cf. pp. 155–6).
Those who had killed Phrynichus were now honoured (M&L 85 = IG i3 102 ~ Fornara 155, Lys. XIII. Agoratus 70–6, Lycurg. Leocrates 112–15); and Phrynichus himself was posthumously condemned, either now or earlier, under the intermediate regime. The prosecutor was Critias (Lycurg.Leocrates 113), related both to Andocides and to the philosopher Plato, and tenuously to the early sixth-century reformer Solon. The leading demagogue in this period was Cleophon, regularly referred to as a lyre-maker (e.g. Andoc. I. Myst. 146, Ath. Pol. 28. iii); ostraka show that he and a brother attracted votes in 415; their father Cle’ippides was a general in 429/8 and a candidate for ostracism in the 440’s. He introduced the diobelia (Ath. Pol. 28. iii), a 2-obol grant whose basis is unclear but which must have been some kind of state support for men unable to maintain themselves while the Spartans were at Decelea. He was strongly opposed to peace with Sparta, and still unwilling to come to terms after Athens’ defeat at Aegospotami (cf. pp. 159, 178).
Draco in 621/0 and Solon in 594/3 had been specially commissioned lawgivers; but since then laws had been enacted by decrees of the assembly, which were not systematically dated and preserved. By the end of the fifth century it must have been hard to discover what the current law on a particular matter was; and the oligarchic revolution of 411 will have exposed that fact, as men who were distressed at what had happened thought that there must surely be laws to prevent such happenings. We have noticed that in 410/09 the law against overthrow of the constitution was reaffirmed (cf. p. 175); and in the same year, to guard against the formation of claques, members of the council were required to sit in the seats allocated to them (Philoch. PGrH 328 F 140). At the same time the restored democracy embarked on a recodification of Athens’ laws. We learn from a speech of Lysias for the prosecution of Nicomachus, one of the commissioners appointed for the purpose, that what was envisaged as a short and simple task, ‘to write up the laws of Solon’, was still unfinished when the democracy was overthrown again in 404; it was resumed in 403 and finally completed in 400/399 (Lys. XXX. Nicomachus, esp. 2–5; for the later stages cf. pp. 296–7). Now and later the Athenians tended to refer to all their current laws as ‘the statutes of Draco [on homicide: cf. Ath. Pol. 7. i] and the laws of Solon’, and the task will have taken time because of the difficulty of finding and identifying those more recent enactments which modified the original laws of Draco and Solon and were currently valid. There survive from the first phase of the commissioners’ work an inscription of 409/8 giving Draco’s homicide law (M&L 86 = IG i3 104 ~ Fornara 15) and an inscription collecting various laws about the council of five hundred (IG i3 105).
After the successes of the Hellespont fleet in 410–408 (cf. pp. 155–6), it returned to Athens in 407. It was Thrasyllus, trusted by the democracy, who brought the main fleet: Alcibiades came by an indirect route and did not arrive until he had been elected general for 407/6. Thrasyllus was elected general (Diodorus here and elsewhere wrongly calls himThrasybulus), but as far as we know Thrasybulus and Theramenes were not. Alcibiades was cleared of the religious charges made against him in 415, treaties he had made in the field were ratified (cf. p. 157), and unprecedentedly he was made commander-in-chief, superior to the other generals. Ever since the Spartans had occupied Decelea, the normal procession from Athens to Eleusis for the Mysteries had been replaced by a journey by sea; but this year Alcibiades paid his debt to the Eleusinian goddesses by using a detachment of soldiers to escort the traditional procession (Xen. Hell. I. iv. 8–21, Diod. Sic. XIII. 68–69. iii, Plut. Ale. 32–4). Either on this occasion or under the intermediate regime a decree for his recall was proposed by Critias (Plut. Ale. 33. i).
The run of successes, for Athens and for Alcibiades, ended with the battle of Notium, early in 406 (cf. p. 157). Possibly Alcibiades was formally deposed (Nep. VII. Ale. 7. iii, Plut. Lys. 5. iii); possibly he was prosecuted by Cleophon (Phot. Bibl. 377 A 18–19); certainly he withdrew into exile in Thrace. It was perhaps because of his links with Alcibiades that Critias was exiled at the same time, on the proposal of Cleophon: he went to Thessaly, where he is said to have worked for democracy and to have supported the serfs known as penestai against their masters (Xen. Hell. II. iii. 15, 36, Mem. I. ii. 24, Arist. Rh. I. 1375 B 31–4). The generals elected for 406/5 included Conon, who took over Alcibiades’ fleet, Aristocrates and Pericles (son by Aspasia of the famous Pericles), all re-elected from the previous year; also Thrasyllus; but not Thrasybulus, another man associated with Alcibiades.
Conon was blockaded in the harbour of Mytilene by the Spartan Callicratidas; and to rescue him Athens made a supreme effort, melting down gold dedications for coinage, liberating slaves who were willing to row, equipping and manning another 110 ships (to which others were added from the allies) and sending with them all eight available generals. The battle of Arginusae was won, but in bad weather, and the Athenians did not pick up corpses or shipwrecked survivors (cf. pp. 157–8). That news, arriving after the news of the victory, led to a great outburst of anger in Athens: two of the eight generals did not return; by an irregular procedure the six who did return were all condemned to death by the assembly. Xenophon has a dramatic account in which this was the result of a campaign orchestrated by Theramenes (he and Thrasybulus had been serving in the fleet as trierarchs, commanders of individual ships, and the generals claimed to have given them the job of picking up); Diodorus has a less sinister and more credible account in which the trierarchs and the generals each tried to save themselves by blaming the other party. The story has gained additional notoriety from the fact that one of the prytaneis (the presiding committee comprising one tribal contingent of councillors: cf. pp. 62–3), who tried in vain in an emotional meeting to insist on lawful procedure, was the philosopher Socrates. The formal proposer of the motion to condemn the generals was Callixenus, not otherwise known; the demagogue Cleophon plays no part in the story. Once the generals had been killed, the Athenians’ mood changed, and Callixenus and others were arrested and charged with deceiving the people; but in the turmoil at the end of the war they escaped trial (Xen. Hell. I. vii, Diod. Sic. XIII. 101–103.ii).
Conon, to rescue whom the battle had been fought, survived, retained command of the fleet, and was re-elected for 405/4. Theramenes, who had not been elected since the restoration of the democracy, was elected now but rejected in the dokimasia which men had to undergo before entering office (Lys. XIII. Agoratus 10; for the procedure cf. p. 42); there is no mention of Thrasybulus. At Aegospotami in 405 Alcibiades tried to join the Athenians once more, but they would not have him; in the more probable account of the battle, Philocles was the general who attempted to trap Lysander but was trapped by him. He and other generals were captured by Lysander, and he was put to death; but Conon escaped to Evagoras of Salamis in Cyprus, and was to play an important part in the history of the 390’s (cf. p. 158, and for Conon’s later career pp. 227, 242–4, 245, 257, 261–2).
While Athens was blockaded, during the winter of 405/4 (cf. p. 159), those who for various reasons had been made atimoi, deprived of rights, had their rights restored (cf. Andoc. I. Myst. 73–9). A first attempt to come to terms with Sparta was unsuccessful; but a member of the council who proposed accepting Sparta’s demand for the demolition of the long walls was imprisoned, and Cleophon was opposed to surrender (cf. Aeschin. II. Embassy 76).Theramenes had himself sent to talk to Lysander, and spent three months with him at Samos. During his absence a legal ‘discovery’ enabled the council to add itself to a normal jury and condemn Cleophon on a technical charge of desertion (cf. Lys. XIII. Agoratus 7–12, XXX. Nicomachus 10–14). Theramenes then headed a formal delegation to Sparta, and brought back terms which were reluctantly accepted. All exiles were recalled (Xen. Hell. II. ii. 10–23: cf. p. 159). Lysander returned to Athens, and at his prompting the oligarchic regime of the Thirty was instituted (cf. pp. 293–6).
The democracy had lost the war; while Cleophon tried to prevent a settlement Theramenes obtained one, under which Athens’ navy and oarsmen were not going to be significant. Lysander himself was particularly fond of narrow oligarchies: it is no surprise that Athens was to undergo another bout of oligarchy. In the last years of the war Theramenes and Thrasybulus had been suspect, primarily, it seems, because of their links with Alcibiades. Afterwards it could be alleged that oligarchic sympathisers had been disloyal in the last campaigns (Lys. XII. Eratosthenes 36) and that the council of 405/4 was full of oligarchs (Lys. XIII. Agor. 20), but those charges may be the result of hindsight: until the war was over, the war and personalities seem to have counted for more than forms of constitution. As for Alcibiades, after the defeat of Athens he made his way to the court of Pharnabazus, hoping to be escorted to the Persian King, but at the prompting of the Thirty in Athens and Lysander Pharnabazus had him killed (Diod. Sic. XIV. 11. i-iv, Plut.Ale. 37. vi-39, cf. Xen. Hell. II. iii. 42).
Not surprisingly, there is more of an atmosphere of crisis in the comedies produced in the later years of the war than earlier. Eupolis’ Denies, commonly dated 412 though some would put it slightly earlier, does not survive complete, but there are papyrus fragments which allow a reconstruction (see Loeb Select Papyri, iii, no. 40): Myronides (who commanded Athenian armies in the 450’s but is not attested subsequently) has recently died, and on arrival in the underworld reports on the parlous state of Athens; Solon, Miltiades, Aristides and Pericles are chosen to investigate and Myronides escorts them back to contemporary Athens; they are met perhaps by a proboulos (but this speaker is left unidentified in the latest edition, Eupolis fr. 99 Kassel & Austin), who cannot offer generous hospitality, and they deal with rogues of various kinds. Aristophanes’ Lysistrata andThesmophoriazusae are probably to be dated to January/February and March/April 411 respectively. In Lysistrata the women, to force their husbands to make peace, refuse to have sexual intercourse with them, and seize the acropolis and the treasuries on it; in this play, certainly, a proboulosplays the part which would normally be played by the prytaneis (cf. pp. 62–3, 168); Pisander (11. 489–91) is still perceived as a demagogue. Thesmophoriazusae, if the normal dating is correct, is nearer to but still before the oligarchic coup: the women hold an assembly to discuss punishing Euripides for his travesties of them; current politics are largely avoided, but there are allusions to fear of an alliance with the Persians (11. 336–7, 365–6) and of tyranny (11. 338–9, 1143–4, cf. 361–2), behind which may lie a suspicion that Alcibiades might return as a Persian-backed tyrant.
Of contemporary tragedies, Euripides’ Iphigenia Among the Taurians (413), Helen (412) and Ion (412?) have tended to be regarded as ‘escapist’, though the focus of Ion on the Ionianness of Athens has recently been stressed; Orestes (408?) and Iphigenia atAulis(408-406) are more melodramatic. From antiquity onwards readers have tried to see Cleophon and others behind the characters of Orestes: the characters are better seen as types than as identifiable individuals, but the play undoubtedly presents a pessimistic view of public processes and private agendas.Phoenician Women (c.409) focuses on the personal ambition and absolute power of Eteocles, and may have been inspired by the selfish lust for power of men in Athens. Sophocles’ Philoctetes was produced in 409: reflections of a particular context are always hard to find in his plays, but some modern scholars have been inclined to see in the need to reintegrate Philoctetes into society an allegory for the problem of Alcibiades. Euripides (it is usually believed but has recently been doubted) left Athens for the court of Archelaus of Macedon, and he and Sophocles both died in 406. Aristophanes’ Frogs (405) is a reaction to their deaths: there are no good tragedians left in Athens, so Dionysus goes to the underworld to bring one back; Sophocles is uninterested, so the play turns into a contest between Aeschylus and Euripides, in which Aeschylus is the winner. Aristophanes had always preferred upper-class leaders to upstarts (cf. p. 125); as we might expect, he is hostile to Cleophon (11. 678, 1504, 1532–3); he deals gently withTheramenes’ wavering between democracy and oligarchy (11. 534–41, 967–70); more generally, in passages which appear serious he complains that the city is relying on worthless men rather than good (11. 718–37, 1446–58), and, while approving of the liberation of slaves who rowed at Arginusae, argues that men who have lost their rights [mostly men involved in the oligarchy of 411–410] should have them restored. By now Alcibiades had gone into exile for the second time, and in the contest the first question put to each poet as a test of their value to Athens is, ‘What should be done about Alcibiades?’ (11. 1418–23). The state’s need to economise had impinged on the poets: Frogs 367 (cf. schol.) alludes to a reduction in the fee paid to competing dramatists.
We noted above that work on the Erechtheum was suspended c. 415–413 but resumed in 409: that was a time when it seemed possible that Athens might yet win the war, and those given employment on the work will have been glad of it; apart from a few details, the temple was finished by the end of the war. Xen. Hell. I. vi. 1 reports that in 406/5 the ‘old temple of Athena’ was destroyed by fire: that was perhaps the opisthodomos, reconstructed as a treasury on the site of an older temple between the Parthenon and the Erechtheum (cf. M&L 58 = IG i3 52 ~ Fornara 119, A. 15–18, B. 23–5, and for the fire Dem. XXIV. Timocrates 136); an inscription which has been thought to show that the fire spread to the Erechtheum (IG ii2 1654) is more probably of about the 370’s.
Ill. 15 Athens: reconstruction of buildings on the west side of the agora. American School of Classical Studies at Athens: Agora Excavations
The assembly met on the Pnyx to depose the Four Hundred in 411 (cf. p. 174), but the retaining wall may have collapsed soon afterwards: shortly before the installation of the Thirty it met in the theatre at Munichia (Piraeus) (Lys. XIII. Agoratus 32, 55; cf. the ad hoc meeting in 41 l,Thuc. VIII. 43. i), and the only assembly known to have been convened by the Thirty met in the odeum (Xen. Hell. II. iv. 9–10) (cf. map 3). The Thirty are alleged to have rebuilt the Pnyx, changing its orientation (so that speakers faced inland instead of seawards: Plut. Them. 19. vi) and increasing its area by about 40 per cent, but they were not much interested in assemblies, and this is more probably the work of the restored democracy. In the agora a new council-house was built to the west of the old, probably in the last years of the war: the old council-house remained standing, and came to be used as a repository for records and to be known as the Metroum, sanctuary of the Mother of the Gods (cf. ill. 15).
At the end of this chapter it must be stressed that 413–404 was a period of considerable hardship for individual Athenians - largely (cf. pp. 147–8) deprived of the use of the countryside throughout the year (but the smaller population and the absence of many ships for most of the time will have made Athens less crowded than in the early summers of the war), and having to buy imported food. Nevertheless, dramatic and other festivals continued to be celebrated, and building work proceeded and provided employment for some of the men.
NOTE ON FURTHER READING
On Alcibiades see Ellis, Alcibiades; Rhodes, ‘What Alcibiades Did or What Happened to Him’.
On the ostracism of Hyperbolus, Theopompus FGrH 115 F 96 (b) = Fornara 145B was reinterpreted by A. E. Raubitschek, ‘Theopompos on Hyperbolos’, Phoen. ix 1955, 122–6 = his Tie School of Hellas, ch. 40. Ostracism in 416 was argued for by C. Fuqua, ‘Possible Implications of the Ostracism of Hyperbolus’, TAPA xcvi 1965, 165–79; in 415 by Rhodes, ‘The Ostracism of Hyperbolus’, in Ritual, Finance, Politics… D. Lewis, 85–98; 417 has been defended by some continental scholars. On Plutarch’s treatments of the story see Pelling, Literary Texts and the Greek Historian,ch. 3.
On the religious scandals of 415: the fullest study is Furley, Andokides and the Herms; on the approaches of Thucydides and Andocides see Pelling, Literary Texts and the Greek Historian, ch. 2. On the alleged decree of Syracosius restricting attacks in comedy see A. H. Sommerstein, ‘Comedy and the Unspeakable’, in Law, Rhetoric and Comedy in Classical Athens… D. M. MacDowell, ch. 13.
The revolutions of 411 are discussed thoroughly by Hignett, A History of the Athenian Constitution, ch. 10 and app. 12. The failure of democrats to resist the oligarchs is stressed by M. C.Taylor, ‘Implicating the Demos: A Reading ofThucydides on the Rise of the Four Hundred’, JHS cxxii 2002, 91–108. That what I call the intermediate regime of 411–410 scarcely differed from the democracy was argued by G. E. M. de Ste. Croix, ‘The Constitution of the Five Thousand’, Hist, v 1956, 1–23, and rejected by Rhodes, ‘The FiveThousand in the Athenian Revolutions of 411 BC‘,JHS xcii 1972, 115–27; the view that it was an embodiment of the ‘future’ constitution of Ath. Pol. 30, popular in the early twentieth century, has been revived by E. M. Harris, ‘The Constitution of the Five Thousand’, HSCP xciii 1990, 243–80. Antiphon the speech-writer and Antiphon the sophist are considered to be the same man by Gagarin, Antiphon the Athenian, to be different men by Pendrick, Antiphon, of Athens.
On the revision of the laws begun in 410/09 when the democracy had been restored see Rhodes, ‘The Athenian Code of Laws, 410–399 BC‘, JHS cxi 1991, 87–100.
On the differing treatments by Xenophon and Diodorus of the sequel to Arginusae see A. Andrewes, ‘The Arginousai Trial’, Phoen. xxviii 1974, 112–22.
On Eupolis see Storey, Eupolis, Poet of Old Comedy: at 112–14 he suggests a date of 417 or perhaps 416 for Demes. On Euripides’ Ion, with a date of 412 and a stress on Ionianness, see Zacharia, Converging Truths.
Attribution of the rebuilding of the Pnyx to the restored democracy in and after 403 (rather than to the Thirty, as in Plut. Them. 19. vi) is due to R A. Moysey, ‘The Thirty and the Pnyx’, AJA2 lxxxv 1981, 31–7.