Death to Tyrants! (6 page)

I would like to suggest, if only for heuristic purposes, that the threshold sequence discussed above—{1, 1, 2, 3, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 10}—plausibly models the population in Athens at the time of the coup of the Four Hundred, when most of the
thetes
were with the fleet at Samos. This suggestion cannot be fully proven, of course, but three points argue in its favor. First, the sequence describes a population in which a slim majority of the population opposes the regime but does not take action: 60 percent of the population has a revolutionary threshold below 5 (the number at and above which generally indicates support for the status quo), while nobody has a revolutionary threshold of 0 (which indicates that an individual will oppose the status quo before anybody else does).
²³
Second, that threshold sequence describes a population in which a large minority supports the regime: 40 percent of the population has a revolutionary threshold of 5 or above. Third, the sequence describes a population susceptible to the type of revolutionary action analyzed in the following section.

MOBILIZATION

Thucydides strongly suggests (8.72.2) that fear felt by the leaders of the regime for the Athenian naval forces stationed at Samos was the ultimate cause for the collapse of the regime of the Four Hundred. They had reason to be afraid: when word of the coup came to Thrasyboulos—the soon-to-be general and future democratic hero—he had all the soldiers and sailors stationed at Samos swear an oath to (inter alia) support democracy and oppose the Four Hundred (Thuc. 8.75.2). They even threatened to kill ambassadors sent to them by the Four Hundred (8.86.2) because they “overthrew the democracy.” When the members of the Four Hundred learned of that determination, a split within their leadership emerged. Some—the so-called moderates—wanted to empower five thousand men to govern Athens in fact, not only in name, as had been the case up to that point, arguing that by doing so they would placate many of the Athenians stationed at Samos and thereby allow Athens to continue fighting Sparta and maintain the Athenian Empire. Others—“the most influential men” (
hoi dunatōtatoi
), as Thucydides refers to them—wanted to make peace with Sparta quickly. They clearly concluded that, should they ally with the Spartans, they could defeat the forces at Samos and maintain control of Athens, thereby saving their own lives. The members of this latter group thus sent ambassadors to Sparta to negotiate an end to the war and fortified Eetionia in order to facilitate the entry of Spartan ships into the Piraeus (Thuc. 8.90–91).

As described by Thucydides (8.92.2), the immediate cause for the collapse of the Four Hundred was the assassination of Phrynichos, a leading member of the Four Hundred and a participant in the embassy to Sparta. He wrote that, before the return of Phrynichos from the diplomatic mission, conversations critical of the regime were conducted in secret and between only a few individuals—and this despite the fact that the hard-liners were fortifying Eetionia more energetically and thereby increasing the probability that their city would be subjected to Spartan rule. Thucydides continues,

But finally, Phrynichos, after his return from his mission to Lacedaemon, was stabbed in the full agora as the result of a plot by a man of the frontier patrol, and before he had gone far from the council chamber suddenly died. The assassin escaped, while his accomplice, an Argive, was seized and tortured by the Four Hundred, but did not reveal the name of anyone who instigated the deed nor anything else, except that he knew that many used to assemble in the house of the commander of the frontier patrol and at other houses.
²⁴

Significantly, Thucydides causally connects the conspicuous assassination of Phrynichos with a large-scale uprising against the regime in the Piraeus. The
uprising had three stages, each of which was defined by the status and number of its participants. Those who took part in the first stage were “moderate” regime members. Thucydides (8.92.2) clearly connects the commencement of this stage with the assassination of Phrynichos: “then [i.e., after the assassination], when no single action had been taken in consequence of this, Theramenes and Aristokrates and all the rest who were of the same way of thinking went to work more boldly.” And in another marked phrase (8.92.3), which echoes and inverts an important leitmotif of his account of the coup, he asserts that Theramenes concluded that “it is not possible to keep quiet any longer.” The moderates then acted in earnest.

The second stage of the uprising involved the hoplites who had been fortifying Eetionia. After Theramenes and his allies had broken their silence, those forces—men who had been working to advance the interests of the hard-line conspirators—arrested Alexikles, a general of the oligarchic regime and “very favorably inclined toward the members of the political clubs” (Thuc. 8.92.4). Significantly, Thucydides adds (8.92.5) that “most important of all, the mass of the hoplites were in sympathy with all this.”

The final stage of the uprising drew in everybody else. After the arrest of Alexikles, chaos erupted both in the Piraeus and in the city. “Thereupon,” Thucydides reports, “the hoplites and many of the people of Piraeus at once mounted the fortification [at Eetionia] and began to tear it down.” The rioters shouted “whoever wants the Five Thousand to rule in place of the Four Hundred, let him set to work,” but Thucydides explicitly states that what they really meant was “whoever wants the
dēmos
to rule” (8.92.6–11). Clearly nobody was “keeping quiet” anymore.

The next day, the Athenians who were dissatisfied with the political status quo mobilized to overthrow the regime of the Four Hundred. They first held an assembly in the theater of Dionysos near Mounichia. There is no word on what they discussed there, yet they obviously articulated a consensus and formulated a battle plan. They then marched on the city. The regime members, quickly realizing that they had no chance to defeat such a large number of coordinated men, offered to surrender and turn over control of the city to the Five Thousand. The mobilized hoplites, concerned for the safety of the state (a Spartan fleet was set to sail), agreed to meet in the theater of Dionysos on the south slope of the Acropolis to discuss the restoration of concord (Thuc. 8.93.3). And in a latter assembly meeting, held in the Pnyx, the Four Hundred were formally deposed and the Five Thousand installed (Thuc. 8.97.1).
²⁵
Thus, wrote Thucydides (8.98.4), “the oligarchy and stasis came to an end.”

Kuran's work helps to account for the remarkable series of events described by Thucydides. As noted above, the threshold sequence {1, 1, 2, 3, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 10}—a sequence that I have suggested might apply (very roughly) to the population in Athens at the time of the coup of the Four Hundred—describes a stable status quo in spite of fairly widespread dissatisfaction with the ruling regime. Suppose, however, that the person represented on the far left of the threshold sequence with the revolutionary threshold of 1 lowered his revolutionary threshold to 0. The cause for that change could be virtually anything: he witnessed a gross injustice carried out by the regime, for example. The population's threshold sequence would then look like this: {0, 1, 2, 3, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 10}. Now that person represented on the far left would not wait for somebody else to “go first” before he publicly displayed his opposition to the regime; he would, instead, act immediately. After he acts, the person represented second from the left will stop falsifying his preference and publicly express his opposition to the regime as well, because his revolutionary threshold has been met. The person represented third from the left will then act, and so on. Thus, using Kuran's terminology, the first person's action was a “spark” that ignited a “revolutionary bandwagon.”
²⁶

It is reasonable to conclude that the assassination of Phrynichos was the spark that ignited the revolutionary bandwagon that ultimately brought down the regime of the Four Hundred. Before that act, opponents of the Four Hundred, despite the fact that they constituted a majority of the citizen population then in Athens, were handicapped by pluralistic ignorance and thus unable to rise up en masse against their oppressors. But the assassination radically altered the underlying strategic dynamic. Once individual B (with revolutionary threshold of 1) became aware of what individual A (with a revolutionary threshold of 0) had done, and thus knew what he thought, he too aligned his public and private preferences and publicly opposed the regime. Then individual C (with a revolutionary threshold of 2), seeing what individuals A and B did “no longer stays quiet,” but instead joined in the uprising as well. Thus a “knowledge cascade” swept through the Piraeus: the greater the number of individuals who aligned their preferences and acted out publicly against the regime, the more the remaining individuals knew that, despite earlier appearances to the contrary, others opposed the regime and were willing to actively oppose it. In short, pluralistic ignorance was quickly replaced by common knowledge, and that knowledge allowed the
supporters of democracy to coordinate their efforts to overthrow the Four Hundred.

This account of the collapse of the Four Hundred places great causal weight on the action of a single individual. The analysis is grounded in a seemingly plausible theory of collective action.
²⁷
Nevertheless, one might ask whether or not the Athenians also considered the assassination of Phrynichos to have been such a significant event in the history of their democracy. Two pieces of evidence demonstrate that they did. First, as attested by an extant inscription dated to 409 (
ML
85), the
dēmos
, at the very first Dionysia after the restoration of the democracy, publically honored Phrynichos's assassins and their accomplices.
²⁸
(Significantly, that particular Dionysia is explicitly associated with the oath of Demophantos, discussed below, in which all Athenians swore to kill tyrants and reward tyrant killers.) Second, as is made clear by Lykourgos (
Leok
. 112–14), the assassination of Phrynichos was still remembered as an important event eighty years after the fall of the Four Hundred.
²⁹

The Athenians must have considered themselves fortunate in that Phrynichos was assassinated before the conspirators surrendered the polis to the Spartans. It is impossible, of course, to know what would have happened if the Spartans had actually gained control of the polis in 411, but, according to Thucydides (8.76.7), the Athenian sailors stationed at Samos considered the possibility that they might be forced to abandon Athens and establish a new city. It is thus reasonable to suspect that Athenian democrats, after reclaiming control of the polis, sought to ensure that, if they should be overthrown again, history could be repeated: someone, that is, would “go first,” initiate a revolutionary bandwagon, and thereby enable democrats to coordinate a mobilized response in defense of their democracy. The mechanism by which they hoped to achieve this was the oath of Demophantos.

The Oath of Demophantos

The earliest known piece of legislation promulgated (perhaps in June of 410) by the Athenian
dēmos
after they regained control of their polis following the coup of the Four Hundred is the decree of Demophantos. Unfortunately, the stone upon which that decree was inscribed has not been found.
³⁰
An apparently verbatim quotation, however, is preserved in Andokides's speech
On the Mysteries
, which the orator delivered in 399.
³¹

Ἔδοξε τῇ βουλῇ καὶ τῷ δήμῳ
·
Αἰαντὶς ἐπρυτάνευε, Κλειγένης ἐγραμμάτευε, Βοηθὸς ἐπεστάτει
.
τάδε Δημόφαντος συνέγραψεν
.
ἄρχει χρόνος τοῦδε τοῦ ψηφίσματος ἡ βουλὴ οἱ πεντακόσιοι λαχόντες τῷ κυάμῳ
,
οἷς Κλειγένης πρῶτος ἐγραμμάτευεν
.
ἐάν τις δημοκρατίαν καταλύῃ τὴν Ἀθήνησιν
,
ἢ ἀρχήν τινα ἄρχῃ καταλελυμένης τῆς δημοκρατίας
,
πολέμιος ἔστω Ἀθηναίων καὶ νηποινεὶ τεθνάτω
,
καὶ τὰ χρήματα αὐτοῦ δημόσια ἔστω
,
καὶ τῆς θεοῦ τὸ ἐπιδέκατον
·
ὁ δὲ ἀποκτείνας τὸν ταῦτα ποιήσαντα καὶ ὁ συμβουλεύσας ὅσιος ἔστω καὶ εὐαγής
.
ὀμόσαι δ᾿Ἀθηναίους ἅπαντας καθ᾿ ἱερῶν τελείων κατὰ φυλὰς καὶ κατὰ δήμους
,
ἀποκτενεῖν τὸν ταῦτα ποιήσαντα
.
ὁ δὲ ὅρκος ἔστω ὅδε
· “
κτενῶ 〈καὶ λόγῳ καὶ ἔργῳ καὶ ψήφῳ καὶ〉 τῇ ἐμαυτοῦ χειρί
,
ἂν
δυνατὸς ὦ
,
ὃς ἂν καταλύσῃ τὴν δημοκρατίαν τὴν Ἀθήνησι
,
καὶ ἐάν τις ἄρξῃ τιν᾿ ἀρχὴν καταλελυμένης τῆς δημοκρατίας τὸ λοιπόν
,
καὶ ἐάν τις τυραννεῖν ἐπαναστῇ ἢ τὸν τύραννον συγκαταστήσῃ
.
καὶ ἐάν τις ἄλλος ἀποκτείνῃ
,
ὅσιον αὐτὸν νομιῶ εἶναι καὶ πρὸς θεῶν καὶ δαιμόνων
,
ὡς πολέμιον κτείναντα τὸν Ἀθηναίων
,
καὶ τὰ κτήματα τοῦ ἀποθανόντος πάντα ἀποδόμενος ἀποδώσω τὰ ἡμίσεα τῷ ἀποκτείναντι
[
καὶ λόγῳ καὶ ἔργῳ καὶ ψήφῳ
],
καὶ οὐκ ἀποστερήσω οὐδέν
.
ἐὰν δέ τις κτείνων τινὰ τούτων ἀποθάνῃ ἢ ἐπιχειρῶν
,
εὖ ποιήσω αὐτόν τε καὶ τοὺς παῖδας τοὺς ἐκείνου
,
καθάπερ Ἁρμόδιόν τε καὶ Ἀριστογείτονα καὶ τοὺς ἀπογόνους αὐτῶν
.
ὁπόσοι δὲ ὅρκοι ὀμώμονται Ἀθήνησιν ἢ ἐν τῷ στρατοπέδῳ ἢ ἄλλοθί που ἐναντίοι τῷ δήμῳ τῷ Ἀθηναίων
,
λύω καὶ ἀφίημι
.”
ταῦτα δὲ ὀμοσάντων Ἀθηναῖοι πάντες καθ᾿ ἱερῶν τελείων
,
τὸν νόμιμον ὅρκον
,
πρὸ Διονυσίων
·
καὶ ἐπεύχεσθαι εὐορκοῦντι μὲν εἶναι πολλὰ καὶ ἀγαθά
,
ἐπιορκοῦντι δ᾿ ἐξώλη αὐτὸν εἶναι καὶ γένος
.