Death to Tyrants! (26 page)

TEXT 2

ΣΤΟΙΧ
. 36

[----------17----------τοὶς πολ]ιορκήθε[ντας]

[εἰς τὰν] ἀ̣[κρ]ό̣πολιν̣ [ἀ]νοιν̣ο̣[μ]ό[λη]σε·

²
καὶ τοὶ[ς πο]-

[λίτα]ις δισμυρίοις στάτηρας εἰσέπραξε· [καὶ]

[τοὶ]ς Ἔλλανας ἐλαίζετ̣[ο]· καὶ τοὶς βώμοις ἀ̣[νέ]-

5    
[σ]καψε τῶ Δίος τῶ [Φ]ιλιππί[ω]· καὶ πόλεμον ἐξε[νι]-

[κ]άμενος πρὸς Ἀλέξανδρον καὶ τοὶς Ἔλλανας

τοὶς μὲν πολίταις παρελόμενος τὰ ὄπλα ἐξε-

κλάισε ἐκ τᾶς πόλιος [πα]νδ̣άμι, ταὶς δὲ γύνα[ι]-

κας καὶ ταὶς θυγάτερας συλλάβων καὶ ἔρξα[ις]

10  
ἐν τᾶ ἀκρόπολι τρισχιλίοις καὶ διακοσίο[ις]

στάτηρας εἰσέπραξε· τὰν δὲ πόλιν καὶ τὰ ἶρ[α]

διαπράξαις μετὰ τῶν [λα]ίσταν ἐνέπρησε κα[ὶ]

σ[υ]γκατέκαυσε σώματα̣ [τῶν] πολίταν· καὶ τὸ τ[ε]-

λεύταιον ἀφικόμενος πρὸς Ἀλέξανδρον κατ[ε]-

15  
ψεύδετο καὶ διέβαλλε τοὶς πολίταις. κρῖνα[ι]

[μ]ὲν αὖτον κρύπται ψάφιγγι ὀμόσαντας περ[ὶ]

[θ]ανάτω· αἰ δέ κε καταψαφίσθη θάνατος, ἀντιτ[ι]-

μασαμ[έ]νω Ἀγωνίππω τὰν δευτέραν διαφόραν

ποήσασθαι, τίνα τρό[π]ον δεύει αὖτον ἀποθα-

20  
νην. αἰ δέ κε καλλάφθε[ν]τος Ἀγωνίππω τᾶ δίκα

κατάγη τίς τινα τῶν Ἀγωνίππω ἢ εἴπη ἢ πρόθη

περὶ καθόδω ἢ τῶν κτημάτων ἀποδόσιος, κατά̣-

ρατον ἔμμεναι καὶ αὖτον καὶ γένος τὸ κήνω

[κ]αὶ τἆλλα ἔ[ν]οχος ἔστω τῶ νόμω [τῶ] 〈ἐπὶ τῶ〉 τὰν στάλλαν

25  
ἀνέλοντι̣ τὰν περὶ τῶν τυράννων καὶ τῶν ἐκγ[ό]-

[ν]ων. ποήσασθαι δὲ καὶ ἐπάραν ἐν τᾶ ἐκλησία α[ὔ]-

[τικ]α̣ τῶ μὲν δικάζοντι καὶ βαθόεντι τᾶ πόλε[ι]

κ̣αὶ τᾶ δικαία εὖ ἔμμεναι, τοῖς δὲ παρὰ τὸ δίκα[ι]-

[ο]ν τὰν ψᾶφον φερόντεσσι τὰ ἐνάντια τούτων.

30  
ἐδικάσθη. ὀκτω̣κόσιοι ὀγδοήκοντα τρεῖς· ἀπ[ὸ]

τ̣αύταν ἀπέλυσαν ἔπτα, αἰ δὲ ἄλλαι κατεδίκασ̣-

σ̣αν.
     
vacat

—he—those who had been besieged in the acropolis; and he exacted twenty thousand staters from the citizens; and he committed piracy against the Greeks; and he dug up the altars of Zeus Philippios; and he made war on Alexander and the Greeks, and from the citizens he seized their arms and shut them all out of the city, and he arrested their women and daughters and confined them in the acropolis; and he exacted three thousand two 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; and finally he arrived before Alexander and told lies against and slandered the citizens. Men on oath shall try him on a secret ballot for death; and, if he is condemned to death, when Agonippos has made his counter-assessment the second disputation shall be held, on the manner by which he is to be put to death. If, when Agonippos has been convicted in the trial, any one restores any of Agonippos' family or speaks or makes a proposal concerning return or the restoration of possessions, he shall be accursed, both himself and his descendants, and in other respects he shall be liable to the law against one who destroys the stele about the tyrants and their descendants. A solemn prayer shall be made in the assembly immediately, that it may be well with one who judges and supports the city with a just vote, but with those who cast their vote contrary to justice the opposite of these things. It was judged: eight hundred and eighty-three [voters]; of these seven [votes] acquitted, the others condemned.

These two texts concern a trial, ordered by Alexander the Great, of Agonippos and Eurysilaos, two men who ruled Eresos as “tyrants” in 333. There are several significant aspects of this trial. And we will have the opportunity to discuss many of them later in this chapter. But two preliminary points are particularly important for present purposes.

First, it is quite likely that all or at least most of the citizens of Eresos served as jurors in these trials. In defense of that assertion, note, first, that 883 people cast a vote (text 2, line 30). The exact population of Eresos is unknown, of course. But it was a small polis. And 883 is a relatively large
number—too big to have represented a real subset of the citizen population.
³
One should also note that, according to the indictment, the two men looted “the city” (text 1, lines 9–12; text 2, lines 11–12), seized weapons from “the citizens” (text 1, line 1 [implied]; text 2, line 7), exacted ransom money from “the citizens” (text 1, lines 7–9 [implied]; text 2, lines 2–3), burned the bodies of “citizens” (text 1, lines 13–14; text 2, line 13), and—at least with respect to Agonippos—slandered “the citizens” before Alexander (text 2, lines 13–15). Since all of the citizens were victims either directly or indirectly of the alleged crimes, it is reasonable to suppose that virtually all of them wanted to sit in judgment of the accused.
⁴

Second, Agonippos and Eurysilaos were likely accused (inter alia) of breaking a law against tyranny. Again, this is not explicitly stated in the dossier. However, as text 6 makes clear, the Eresians conceived of the trials against Agonippos and Eurysilaos as trials against tyrants: the two are explicitly called tyrants (lines 6–7, 29–30) and reference is made about the “votes against the tyrants” (line 35). In addition, the Eresians clearly had a “law against tyrants”—it is mentioned in the dossier three times.
⁵
And finally, text 6 states that the law against tyrants played a role in the trial of Agonippos and Euysilaos: it states (lines 15–17) that “their descendants should be liable to the law on the stele” (i.e., the law against tyrants). One thus might conclude that the Eresians recorded Agonippos's and Eurysilaos's crimes in texts 1 and 2 in order to support the charge that those two men actually did rule as tyrants and thus violated the anti-tyranny law.

Very little is known for certain about Eresos's law against tyranny. Since it is mentioned in the indictment of Agonippos (text 2, lines 24–25), it must have been promulgated sometime before his trial (i.e., before 332).
⁶
A reasonable
guess would be 336, just after Eresos joined the Korinthian League: (1) cities that joined the league were obliged to maintain the regime that was in power when they joined ([Dem]. 17.10); (2) anti-tyranny legislation was promulgated in order to preserve (democratic) regimes; (3) anti-tyranny legislation appears to have been somewhat popular on the Greek mainland at that time.
⁷
With respect to the law's content, all that can be said definitively is that it mandated both that the descendants of tyrants be exiled and that the property belonging to the tyrants and to the descendants of tyrants be confiscated (text 6, lines 14–18, 23–28; text 2, lines 20–26).
⁸

One might speculate about the content of the Eresians' anti-tyranny law. First, the law likely was against tyranny in general and not only against particular individuals who ruled Eresos as “tyrants” before the law was promulgated. It is true that the law is referred to in the dossier as the law against “the” tyrants (
τόν τε νόμον τὸμ περὶ
[
τ
]
ῶν τυράννων
: text 6, line 31;
τόν τε ν
[
ό
|
μο
]
ν τὸν κατὰ τῶν τυράννων
: text 6, lines 26–27). One might be tempted to conclude, therefore, that the law from Eresos was roughly similar to the well-known mid-fifth-century decree from Miletos (
ML
43). That decree outlawed at least three named men—almost certainly for political crimes—and offered a reward to anybody who might kill them. But several points argue against comparing too closely the law from Eresos and the decree from Miletos. To begin with, there is no reason to suppose that the law from Eresos contained the names of particular men: it is always referred to simply as the law against the tyrants. Second, all known laws against tyranny—that is, laws that explicitly use the word tyranny or tyrant—are against tyranny in general. Third, the decree recorded as text 6 of the dossier—a text that dates to circa 300—states (lines 29–32) that the law against the tyrants shall remain
kurios
(permanently valid): that certainly could suggest that the law was of a general nature, not just aimed at men who perhaps were dead in 300. And finally, the
Ath. Pol
. refers (16.10) to Athens's earliest anti-tyranny laws as (literally) “the laws concerning the tyrants” (
οἱ περὶ τῶν τυράννων
νόμοι
); and it certainly appears that those laws addressed tyranny in general, not specific tyrants.
⁹

It is also likely that the law from Eresos sanctioned the assassination of a tyrant or anybody who makes an attempt to become a tyrant. In support of that assertion, one might simply note that all known laws against “tyranny” sanction such an assassination. And the aforementioned decree from Miletos also sanctioned assassination. In fact, it appears that sanctioning the assassination of men who committed crimes against the state was commonplace in Greek poleis.
¹⁰

Alexander's rationale for ordering (all of) the Eresians to try the two tyrants is not self-evident and thus needs to be explained. As is noted below, the king had physical control of both Agonippos and Eurysilaos while he was in Egypt. The easiest and most efficient means to eliminate them, therefore, would have been to kill them right there.
¹¹
Alexander also could have ordered the two men to stand trial before the
synedrion
of the Korinthian League. Eresos, after all, was a member state of that league before Agonippos and Eurysilaos staged their coup. And the league's charter specifically forbade regime change among its member states ([Dem.] 17.10). Thus Agonippos and Eurysilaos had broken the law, as it were: a transgression that the
synedrion
would adjudicate. And it is quite important to note that Alexander likely did use the
synedrion
to adjudicate such crimes: that body might have determined the fate of Thebes in 335 (Diod. Sic. 17.14.1);
¹²
and—perhaps in 334 (or in 332)—Alexander ordered the
synedrion
to try the participants of a coup in Chios (
RO
84 lines 14–15).
¹³
Nevertheless, Alexander chose neither
course of action. Instead, he decided to send Agonippos and Eurysilaos to Eresos to stand trial before (all of) its citizens for (inter alia) breaking an anti-tyranny law. Why did he do that? What was his objective, and how would the trial obtain it?

It is argued below 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 first part of the argument briefly presents the historical context within which Alexander issued the order and demonstrates that that one might reasonably suspect—even before explicitly considering the trial's sociopolitical effect—that Alexander's goal in ordering the trial was to stabilize the polis: to prevent, that is, attempts at regime change. The argument's second part explains how the trial could help achieve that end.

HISTORICAL CONTEXT

The Macedonian conquest of western Asia Minor provides the historical context within which the “tyranny trials” in Eresos must be interpreted.
¹⁴
Philip II began the invasion in the spring of 336 with great fanfare: it was authorized by the
synedrion
of the Korinthian League and advertised as a campaign both to punish the Persians for their ancient crimes (Diod. Sic. 16.89) and to liberate the Greek cities of Asia Minor (Diod. Sic. 16.91.2; cf. Isok. 5.123). But the king was assassinated only a couple of months later (around July 336) leaving the campaign's future—indeed the future of the Macedonian state—in doubt. But Alexander, Philip's son, quickly demonstrated, to both his domestic and foreign enemies alike, that he firmly controlled Macedon.
¹⁵
Thus the aforementioned
synedrion
dutifully gave him permission to continue the invasion of Persia (Diod. Sic. 17.4.9; Arr.
Anab.
1.1.2).
¹⁶
And he, of course, brought it to a successful conclusion.

It is helpful to conceptualize the war in western Asia Minor as consisting of simultaneously played and interrelated “games.” One game was “exterior.”
It was played by Persia and Macedon on the big board of western Asia Minor and the eastern Aegean. The goal of that game was to dominate an entire region. The other games were “interior.” They were played inside the various Greek poleis located on the aforementioned big board. Those games also had two players: an anti-democrat faction and a pro-democratic faction. The goal of both of those collective players was to dominate their polis. Very importantly, both Persia and Macedon actively supported opposing players of the various interior games: Persia supported the anti-democrats; Macedon supported the pro-democratic faction.