Death to Tyrants! (25 page)

30
Ober (2005b: 43–68).

31
It should be noted that Ober presents the scenario differently. In the dynamic presented above, individual A appeals to the moral authority of individual B in order to persuade individual C. In Ober's dynamic, individual B accepts a decision made by individual A because of individual A's moral authority. The variation on Ober's presentation is made because it brings this type of use of moral authority (i.e., “record of past judgment”) in line with the following two types mentioned below in the text. The fundamental dynamic is not changed. Indeed, the altered presentation is in line with Ober's general configuration on the borrowing of moral authority: “So the social fact of moral authority emerges from a three-way relationship: an external source, an individual or institutional borrower, and the public that determines whether or not the loan is valid” (Ober [2005b: 51]).

32
For the Areopagos council, see Wallace (1989). The stripping of the Areopagos's power was part of the full democratization of Athens: henceforth, there would be no check on the assembly.

33
On the
apophasis
, see Wallace (1989: 113–15); Worthington (1992: 357–62); Hansen (1999: 292–94).

34
Wallace (1989: 113–15) sought to reconcile Demosthenes's account of the Antiphon affair with Plutarch (
Dem
. 14.4). Thus he concludes that Demosthenes brought Antiphon before the Areopagos; the Areopagos, that is, did not initiate the matter. That is debatable since, according to the known rules, either the assembly or the Areopagos initiated an
apophasis
procedure.

35
See Hansen (1999: 291–92). Wallace (1989: 115–19) presents the possibility that Demosthenes's decree was the decree that instituted
apophasis
—that is, the powers of the Areopagos council were augmented once, not twice, during the period of Athenian resistance to Macedonian imperialism. But Wallace himself acknowledges the difficulties posed by that conclusion (especially Deinarchos's claim that, pursuant to Demosthenes's decree, the Areopagos had “absolute authority to punish”). Hansen's conclusion should be accepted.

36
Mossé (1970: 75–76).

37
Sealey (1958) and
RO
(79) advance this view.

38
For example, Aischin. 3.20, 1.92; Dem. 23.65; Lykourg,
Leok
. 12; Din. 1.9.

39
Schwenk (1985: 33–41). It should be noted that Wallace (1989: 267n13) refers to Schwenk's conclusion. He states that she accepted answer number one (i.e., that advanced by Meritt and Ostwald).

40
Noted by Knoepfler (2001b: 215n94).

41
One might also note that, around the middle of the fourth century, the Athenians started to rely on expert management of important governmental affairs (e.g., the Controller of the Finances and the Board for the Theoric Fund). Appointing the Areopagos to watch for subversive activity would be in line with that trend.

42
The council met on the terrace just north of the summit of the “hill of Ares”: Wallace (1989: 215–18). Also important is the fact that the Areopagites were very prominent individuals—all were ex-archons—and many would have served in the council for years. Consequently, individuals who did not go to the agora would also quickly notice or learn of the councilors' refusal to convene. One might also note, of course, that individual Areopagites could publically announce why they had chosen not to “climb the hill of Ares.”

43
One should note, however, that if the democracy were clearly overthrown by intimidation and force, it would take an individual with a low threshold to “go first” and not climb the hill of Ares; it would be tantamount to rebelling against a regime.

44
Attic Stelai:
ML
79. Other well-known, similar monuments include the “stele commemorating the wrong-doing of the tyrants [i.e., the Peisistratidai] that was set up on the acropolis of Athens” (Thuc. 6.55.1); a stele recording the banishment of the followers of Isagoras due to their attempt at tyranny (Schol. Aristoph.
Lys
. 273); decrees concerning Phrynichos and other prominent members of the Four Hundred ([Plut.],
X orat
. 834b). And although not concerning an Athenian, the
dēmos
's decree against Arthmios of Zeleia was quite popular (Dem. 9.41–45; 19.271–72; Aischin. 3.258; Din. 2.24). For the decree against Arthmios of Zeleia, see Worthington (1992: 309–10).

45
On the sculptured relief, see Lawton (1995: 99–100n38, with plate 20); Blanshard (2004); Ober (2005c: 222–24).

46
In Homer's
Iliad
, Odysseus articulates the ideology of kingship particularly well (2.204–6): “No good thing is a multitude of leaders; let there be one leader, one king, to whom the son of crooked-counseling Kronos has given the scepter and
themistai
so that he may take counsel for his people.” It is interesting to note that, according to Theophrastos (
Char
. 26.2) the only Homeric line known by the “oligarchic man” is the line just quoted. Perhaps the sculptured relief adorning Eukrates's law is to be interpreted as the
dēmos
(the collective) agreeing with that basic sentiment but for democratic ends:
dēmos
is the one, unitary ruler in Athens. On the power of kings' speech in Archaic Greece, see Detienne (1996).

47
See Ober (1989: 145–46) on the conflation of
dēmos
and
dikastai
.

48
Laws preserve democracy: Aischin. 3.6; Dem. 21.188, 24.206. Note that Aristotle (
Pol.
1285b30) describes an absolute monarch as
πάντων κύριος
. That is how Demosthenes (21.223) described the jurors. And note, too, that Demosthenes (18.201) describes Philip as
κύριος ἁπάντων
.

49
Hdt. 3.82 is the classic, early formulation, admittedly articulated by a non-Athenian. An early Athenian discussion is Eur.
Supp.
411–25.

50
Kingship seen as the optimal regime in the mid-fourth century: Plato,
Resp
. 473B–D; Isok. 3.16–26. Also note that Isokrates (5.14–16) called on Philip to unite the Greeks because he, as king, was powerful enough to do so.

51
Note Demosthenes's (18.120) observation that the
dēmos
publically proclaims the granting of crowns in order to encourage other individuals to serve the polis.

52
In 333/2, the
boulē
erected a statue of Dēmokratia; the
strategoi
are known to have sacrificed to Dēmokratia in 332/1 and 331/0. See Raubitschek (1962: 238–43).

53
It should also be noted that, if Pnyx III had not yet been completed by 337/6—a reasonable possibility—there would have been two entrances to the Pnyx (i.e., to Pnyx II). See Hansen (1999: 353–54).

54
Kourouniotes and Thompson (1932: 162).

55
Ober (2005a: 21–22) makes this important point.

56
For the overthrow of the Athenian democracy in 322, see Diod. Sic. 18.18.4–5; Plut.
Phok
. 27–28.

57
For pro-Macedonian, anti-democratic coups after the battle of Chaironeia, see the section of
chapter 2
titled “Stability.” One should note here that Demosthenes, likely shortly before his trial concerning the Harpalos affair (spring of 323), impeached Kallimedon for consorting with Athenian exiles in Megara with the intention of overthrowing the democracy. He also alleged that there was a conspiracy threatening the dockyards (Din. 1.94–95). See Worthington (1992: 264–66). Other evidence alleging the existence of pro-Macedonians after the battle of Chaironeia: Hyp.
Euxen
. 22; Hyp.
Phil
. 8–9; Dem. 18.52, 297, 323.

III

Tyrant-Killing Legislation in the Early Hellenistic Period

4

The Anti-Tyranny Dossier from Eresos

Introduction

The earliest extant inscriptions from Eresos record punitive actions taken by the Eresian
dēmos
against tyrants and their descendants. There are, in all, six texts—five of which are fragmentary—written on two nearly identically sized stones.
¹
The first two texts concern a trial, ordered by Alexander the Great, of Agonippos and Eurysilaos, two men who ruled Eresos as “tyrants” in 333. The third, fourth, and fifth texts record the official responses to the requests of certain descendants of tyrants—the two aforementioned tyrants and others who ruled as tyrants before Agonippos and Eurysilaos—to return to Eresos: text 3 (circa 324) establishes a public trial on the matter pursuant to an order of Alexander the Great; text 4 (circa 317) is a royal transcript from King Philip Arrhidaios forbidding the return of the exiles; text 5 (circa 305) is a fragment of a letter from King Antigonos to the people of Eresos wherein he apparently supports the Eresians' decision to refuse the exiles' return. The sixth text, dated circa 300, is a decree of the
dēmos
validating all the actions taken by the Eresians against the tyrants and their descendants during the previous three decades.

This dossier is arguably more challenging to interpret than the texts examined in the previous three chapters. The decree of Demophantos, the Eretrian tyrant-killing law, and the law of Eukrates are single enactments, promulgated in a single moment in time. Their interpretation, therefore, required a rather straightforward negotiation of one text and its particular historical
context. The dossier from Eresos, however, contains several different types of texts (decrees of the
dēmos
, a royal letter, a royal transcript) inscribed over a thirty-year period characterized by extraordinary change: 332, the likely date of the first text, was a quite different world than 300, the rough date of the last text. Yet the events documented in the dossier are clearly related, part of a single story or experience: a point emphasized by the fact that the Eresians had the texts inscribed on the same stones. The challenge, then, is to create a single, unified interpretation of the dossier that accounts both for the whole and its particular parts.

I argue below that the “anti-tyranny dossier” documents Eresos's transition from an unstable, nondemocratically governed polis to a stable polis governed by an authoritative
dēmos
. The argument is presented in three parts. The first and longest part interprets the actions recorded in the first two texts of the dossier. Therein I argue that Alexander ordered the Eresians to try the two tyrants in order to establish the pro-democrats' threat credibility and thus stabilize the new democratic regime. The second part interprets the actions recorded in the third, fourth, and fifth texts. The argument in that section is that the exiles' attempts to return to Eresos were potentially destabilizing because they suggested that exogenous factors (i.e., events outside of Eresos's new unilateral deterrence game set up by the trial) might undermine the
dēmos
's threat credibility. The third part interprets the action documented in the sixth text. I argue that the pro-democrats, now confident that the kings would not intervene on behalf of tyrants, proactively ended their potentially destabilizing struggle with tyrants by definitively proclaiming the permanent credibility of their threat.

Establishment of a New Game

This section interprets the actions recorded in the earliest two texts of the dossier. Here are the texts and translations of Rhodes and Osborne (
RO
83).

TEXT 1

ΣΤΟΙΧ
. 17

[παρ]ήλετο τὰ ὄπλ[α καὶ | ἐξ]εκλάισε ἐκ τᾶς [πό|λι]ος πανδάμι,

5    
ταὶ[ς | δὲ] γύναικας καὶ τ[αὶς || θ
]
υ̣γάτερας συλλάβ[ων | ἦ]ρξε εἰς

τὰν ἀκρόπ[ο|λ]ιν· καὶ εἰσέπραξε | δισχιλίοις καὶ
τρι[α]|κ̣οσίοις

10  
στάτηρα〈ς〉· τὰ̣[ν] || δ̣ὲ πόλιν καὶ τὰ ἶρα [δι|α]ρπάξαις μετὰ τῶν|

[λ]αίσταν ἐνέπρησ[ε | κ]αὶ συγκατέκαυσε | σ̣ώματα τῶν πολί[ταν.||

15  
κ]ρίνναι μὲν αὖτον | [κ]ρύπται ψάφιγγι [κα|τ]ὰ τὰν διαγράφαν τ[ῶ|

20  
β]ασιλέω̣
ς Ἀλεξάνδ[ρω | κ]αὶ τοὶς νόμοις· [αἰ δέ || κ]ε

καταψαφίσθηι [κα|τ᾿] αὔτω θάνατος, ἀ̣[ντι|τι]μασαμένω

25  
Εὐρυ̣[σι|λ]ά̣ω τὰν δευτέραν [κρί|σ]ιν ποήσασθαι διὰ || [χ]ειροτονίας,

τίνα | [τ]ρόπον δεύει αὖτον̣ [ἀ|π]οθάνην. λάβεσθαι δ[ὲ | κ]αὶ

30  
συναγόροις τὰ[ν] | πόλιν δέκα, οἴτινε[ς || ὀ]μόσαντες Ἀπόλ[λω|ν]α

Λύκειον ὄ[μ]α σ̣[υνα|γ]ορήσοισι [τᾶ πόλι ὄπ|πω]ς̣ κε δύνα[νται ---]|

—he seized their arms and shut them all out of the city, and he arrested their women and their daughters and confined them in the acropolis; and exacted two thousand three hundred staters; and he looted the city and the sanctuaries with the pirates and set fire to them and burned the bodies of the citizens. Try him by a secret ballot according to the transcript (
diagraphē
) of king Alexander and the laws; and, if he is condemned to death, when Eurysilaos has made his counter-assessment a second trial shall be held by show of hands, on the manner by which he is to be put to death. The city shall take ten advocates (
synagoroi
), who shall swear by Apollo Lykeios that they will perform their advocacy for the city as best they can ---