7
20. Pentekontaeitia
The fifty years between the establishment of the League of Delos and the outbreak of the Peloponnesian War were the golden age of democratic Athens. This long period of imperial dominance, democratic development and cultural achievement usually goes by the name of pentekontaeitia (‘fifty years’ in Greek). The term is drawn from the final paragraph of the excursus on the imperial expansion of Athens contained in the first book of Thucydides’ Histories.
Thuc. 1.118.2–3: From the Persian Wars to the conflict with Sparta, Athens’ golden age
All these actions carried out by the Greeks against each other and against the barbarians took place in the fifty years between the retreat of Xerxes and the outbreak of the present conflict. In these years the Athenians made their empire more secure and raised their authority to a great height. The Spartans were aware of these developments. Occasionally they tried to oppose them, but for the most time they remained inactive. For they were traditionally slow to engage in wars, unless they were compelled by necessity, and at the present time they were constrained by internal conflicts. But when the rise of the Athenian empire could no longer be ignored, and had become a threat to their own confederacy, the Spartans then realized that they could not endure any longer, and so they resolved to do everything in their power to put down this hostile force by undertaking this war.
21. Democracy accomplished: The reforms of Ephialtes
The Constitution of the Athenians says that in the years after the Persian Wars the council of the Areopagus, the aristocratic conclave of the former archons, was in control of Athenian politics. The moral guidance of the Areopagus was important to rein in the bold enthusiasm engendered by democracy, the victory over the Persians and the growth of the polis’ Aegean power.
This situation came to an end in 462, when the ekklesia approved Ephialtes’ proposal to transfer the constitutional ‘additional powers’ of the Areopagus to the assembly and a newly formed body of nomophylakes (‘custodians of the laws’) [a, b]. These powers arguably concerned the procedure of eisangelia, a form of indictment for crimes against the state, and the so-called the examination of the conduct of magistrates at the end of their mandate. The Areopagus continued to operate exclusively as a tribunal for the trials of intentional homicide. Judging from the account of the Constitution, an epochal reform seems once again to have been inspired more by personal enmities than any far-reaching political vision. The curtailing of the powers of the Areopagus paved the way to a series of other reforms, which furthered the progress of democratization. This was somehow favoured by a certain lack of leadership within the faction of the notables following the ostracism of Cimon, who had been the leading figure of Athenian politics in the years of the ascendancy of the Areopagus. The atmosphere was tense in Athens in 461 Ephialtes was assassinated. Five years after his death, the citizens of the zeugitai class were admitted to the ballot for the office of archon.
Released from the moral and political guidance of the Areopagus, the Athenian populace inevitably grew more arrogant and less disciplined.
[a] [Arist.] Ath. Const. 25: Ascendancy and decline of the Areopagus
The constitution remained under the control of the Areopagus for about seventeen years after the Persian Wars, although its ascendancy gradually declined. For as the population increased, Ephialtes, son of Sophonides, a man reputed to be incorruptible and honest in political matters, having become the leader of the people, began to attack the council. Ephialtes first made away with many of its members by bringing charges against them regarding their administration; then, in the archonship of Conon, he stripped the Areopagus of all the additional powers which made it the guardian of the constitution. Some of these powers he transferred to the assembly and others to the law-courts. Ephialtes accomplished these things with the assistance of Themistocles, who was a member of the Areopagus, but was to be put on trial for conspiring with the Persians. Themistocles wanted the council to be put down, and so he told Ephialtes that the Areopagites were about to arrest him, and the Areopagites that he had information about a conspiracy to subvert the constitution. Also, he took some selected members of the council to the place where Ephialtes lived to show them the people who were gathering there, and talked with them intently. Ephialtes was dismayed at the sight of all this, so he rushed off wearing only a tunic, and sought sanctuary at the altar. Everybody was astonished by these events and afterwards, at a meeting of the Five Hundred, Ephialtes and Themistocles spoke against the Areopagus and then addressed the assembly in the same manner, until they deprived the council of its authority. After a short while however, Ephialtes was also made away with, when he was treacherously murdered by Aristodicus of Tanagra.
In this manner the Areopagus was deprived of its political responsibilities. Following these events, it so happened that the government of the city became more and more lenient owing to the zeal of the popular leaders. In those times the upper classes happened to be without leader, because the most prominent man among them, Cimon, son of Miltiades, was still very young and had only recently entered political activity. Add to all this the sufferings that the war had inflicted upon the populace: in those days expeditionary contingents were drawn from an enrolment register and put under the command of generals who had no military experience, but had been promoted only in reason of the reputation of their families. Therefore, any expedition would result in as many as two or three thousand casualties, and so both the upper classes and the commons got deprived of their most notable men.
In all respects the administration of the city was no longer conducted with the same attention to the laws as before. The method for the election of the nine archons was not modified, but five years after the death of Ephialtes they decided to include the zeugitai in the preliminary list for the election of the archons. The first of that class to hold the archonship was Mnesthides. All the archons had hitherto drawn from the knights and the pentacosiomedimni, whereas the zeugitai could only hold the ordinary magistracies, unless the dispositions of the laws were ignored. Four years later, in the archonship of Lysicrates, the thirty judges known as local justices were re-established.
[b] Philochorus FGH 328 F64b (= LexRhetCant p. 351, 10N nomophylakes)
The nomophylakes, or ‘guardians of the laws’ were seven in number, and were established, as reported by Philochorus, at the time when Ephialtes left the council of the Areopagus in charge only of the trials for intentional homicide.
22. The new democracy on stage: Aeschylus’ Suppliant Women and Eumenides
Religion in ancient Athens was a public and political matter. Priesthoods were state magistracies, usually bestowed upon the members of the most prestigious families of the polis. Likewise, the annual festivals in honour of Athena and Dionysus were eminently political events, organized and financed by private individuals on behalf of the city community, to celebrate the polis and its identity.
Aeschylus is the earliest of the three tragediographers whose work has come down to us. His extant tragedies mostly date between 472 and 458, and feature many references to the development of democracy. Two tragedies, Suppliant Women and Eumenides, are particularly relevant in this regard.
The Suppliant Women was staged some time between 470 and 459. The suppliants in question are the daughters of Danaus, the mythical king of Egypt, who have reached their ancestral home of Argos to escape forced marriage with their cousins. The Egyptian women supplicate Pelasgus, the king of the city, to give them protection, but the king refuses to grant them sanctuary pending the sovereign verdict of the demos. The Argive people eventually decide to grant sanctuary to the supplicants. After the deliberation of the assembly, a messenger comes from Egypt to force the return of the suppliants, but Pelasgus replies that the women have been granted sanctuary by the vote of the Argive assembly, and invites them within the walls of his city. This tragedy is a celebration of the sovereignty of the assembly’s decrees, of rule by public debate, and of the mighty power of persuasion. Upon hearing the supplications of the Egyptian women, the first concern of Pelasgus is that their unexpected arrival and request may bring disorder into the polis [a]. Then Pelasgus conducts Danaus to the Argive assembly to plead the case of his daughters, and he warns the supplicants that whether their father will succeed or not will depend on his ability to persuade the citizens of Argos with convincing arguments [b]. When Danaus returns on stage to announce the positive response of the assembly to his daughters, he praises the binding power of the assembly’s decrees [c], and so does Pelasgus when the Egyptian messenger comes to abduct the suppliants: the assembly has decreed to grant them asylum, and nobody will ever take away from Argos without their consent [d].
In 458, Aeschylus won the first prize at the festival of the Dyonisia with a trilogy of tragedies on the story of Orestes, the son of Agamemnon who killed his mother Clytemnestra and her lover Aegystus to avenge the assassination of his father Agamemnon. Eumenides, the last play of the trilogy, is set in Athens, and shows Orestes lying at the feet of the statue of Athena as a suppliant. Orestes is chased by the Furies, the deities who punish matricide and patricide. As the Furies surround Orestes, Athena, the dea ex machina, descends onto the stage, accompanied by eleven Athenian citizens who will judge the case of Orestes. This is the first trial of history: Apollo speaks in Orestes’ defence, and the Furies against him. At the end of the trial, the jurors and the goddess cast their votes in equal numbers for and against Orestes, and so the defendant is acquitted. The plot of Eumenides is clearly inspired by the reforms of Ephialtes and celebrates the new role of the Areopagus as a homicide tribunal. Before the jurors cast their vote, Athena delivers them (and to the Athenian audience) a warning: the new Areopagus may have lost its political prerogatives, but it is still there to serve as a guardian to the city, and to ensure that the citizens make good use of their new power and responsibilities [e].
[a] Aesch. Supp. 355–405: The sovereign people ruling the city
PELASGUS: I see an assembly of contending gods, under the shadow of fresh-plucked boughs. May this matter of claimants to the public friendship of our city bring no harm. May no strife fall upon the city from unforeseen and unexpected causes, for the city does not need such things.
CHORUS: Indeed! May Justice, the daughter of Zeus the Apportioner, guardian of the suppliants, look upon our flight. But you, who possess the wisdom of age, learn from a younger woman. If you are merciful to a suppliant … from a holy man …
P.: It is not my house at whose hearth you are sitting. If the city, the common home, is stained with pollution, let the people strive in common to find a cure. I will make no promise until I report these events to all the citizens.
C.: You are the city, you are the people, you are sovereign and subject to no judgment, you rule the altar, you accomplish everything by giving vote autonomously. Defend your sanctity!
P.: Pollution on my foes! I don’t know how to bring aid to you without causing harm, but I cannot dishonour these supplications with a light heart. I don’t know what to do, and fear has taken hold of my heart: to act or not to act, or take what fate brings?
C.: Look upon him, the man who looks down from above, the guardian of much-labouring mortals, who appeal to their neighbours, without obtaining the justice which they are entitled to obtain. The wrath of Zeus, the god of the suppliants, will remain, untouched by the wailing of a sufferer.
P.: If the sons of Aegyptus have power over you by the laws of your nation, as they claim to be your next of kin, who is going to oppose them? You should plead in your defence that, according to the laws of the country which you have fled, they have no authority over you.
C.: May I never fall subject to the will of these men. I am determined to escape the sorrowful union, and the stars will be my guide. Choose justice as your ally, and judge the cause honoured by the gods!
P.: This case is not easy to settle. Don’t be the judge. I have already said that, even though I am the ruler, I cannot effect this without the consent of the people, lest later anybody might say, if the city is struck by evil: ‘the foreigners you have honoured have brought destruction upon the city’.
C.: Zeus, related by blood to both sides, looks upon the two of them, inclining now to one and then to the other, and commeasuring the evil deeds of the unjust, and the good actions of the just. If you measure these in fairness, how can you feel remorse for acting unjustly?
[b] Aesch. Supp. 517–23: The democratic city and the importance of persuasion
KING: Your father will not leave you here alone for too long. Now I will summon the people of the country, and I will make the community benevolent to you. I will teach your father what is necessary to say. But now remain here and beg the gods of this land with prayers to give you what you desire, while I go to plead your cause. May persuasion and good fortune follow me!
[c] Aeschylus, Supp. 600–1: The power of the decrees of the assembly
DANAUS: Lift your spirits, my children: everything proceeds well on the part of the citizens. The people have passed all-powerful decrees.
[d] Aesch. Supp. 938–49: Pelasgus to the Egyptian messenger; the people are sovereign in Argos
PELASGUS: Why should I tell you my name? You will learn it in due time, you and your companions. As for these women, if you manage to persuade them with god-fearing words, and they consent to come with you by their own will and intention, you can take them. But a decree has already been passed on this matter by the unanimous vote of the people, that these should never be abducted by force from this city. The nail has been fixed tight and firm by their determination. These words have not been inscribed on tablets, nor have they been sealed in the pages of a book. But now get out of my sight immediately.
[e] Aesch. Eum. 681–710: The tribunal of the Areopagus
ATHENA: Hear my ordinance, people of Attica, as you are to pass your first verdict on a trial for bloodshed. This council of judges will serve the people of Agaeus, for the future and forever, on this Hill of Ares, the sitting-place camp of the Amazons, when, filled with resentment, they led their army against Theseus, and built this new high-towered citadel to rival his, and made sacrifices to Ares, who gave the name to this rock: Areopagus. Here, the reverence of the city, and fear, its cognate, will hinder them from committing injustice, by day and by night, provided that the citizens do not pollute the laws with malefic streams: if you stain clear water with filthy mud, you will never have anything to drink.
I ask the citizens to support and honour neither anarchy nor tyranny, and never to drive fear completely out of the city. For no mortal can be righteous when he fears nothing. As long as you stay in awe of this majesty, you will have protection for your land and a safety for the city such as no other man has, in Scythia or in the land of Pelops.
I hereby establish this venerable tribunal, untouched by greed, quick to wrath, vigilant for those who sleep, a guardian for the land.
This is my advice to my citizens for the future; but now you have to stand up and take a ballot to decide the case, in fulfilment of your oath.
My word has been spoken.