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in the battle, and obliged Callixenes to accuse the generals in the senate. It was decreed in consequence, that as the accusation and defence had been heard in the last assembly, the people by their respective tribes should give their voices, and if the accused were found guilty, they should be punished with death, their estates confiscated, and the tenth part consecrated to the goddess. Some senators opposed this decree as unjust, and contrary to the laws: but as the people, at the instigation of Callixenes, threatened to include the opposers in the same cause and crime with the generals, they were so mean as to desist from their opposition, and to sacrifice the innocent generals to their own safety, by consenting to the decree. Socrates, the celebrated philosopher, was the only one of the senators, who stood firm, and persisted obstinately in opposing a decree, so notoriously unjust, and so contrary to all laws. The orator, who mounted the tribunal, in defence of the generals, showed, "That they had failed in nothing of their duty, as they had given orders that the dead bodies should be taken up. That if any one were guilty, it was he, who, being charged with these orders, had neglected to put them in execution: but that he accused no body; and that the tempest, which came on unexpectedly at the very instant, was an unanswerable apology, and entirely discharged the accused from all guilt. He demanded that a whole day should be allowed them to make their defence, a favour not denied to the most criminal, and that they should be tried separately. He represented, that they were not in the least obliged to precipitate a sentence, wherein the

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lives of the most illustrious of the citizens were concerned; that it was in some measure attacking the gods to make men responsible for the winds and weather; that they could not, without the most flagrant ingratitude and injustice, put the conquerors to death, to whom they ought to decree crowns and honours, or rage of give up the defenders of their country to the those who envied them; that if they did so, their unjust judgment would be followed with a sudden, but vain repentance, which would leave behind it the sharpest remorse, and cover them with eternal shame and infamy." The people seemed at first to be moved with these reasons; but animated by the accusers, they pronounced sentence of death against eight of their generals; and six of them, who were present, were seized in order to their being carried to execution. One of them, Diomedon, a person of great reputation for his valor and probity, demanded to be heard. "Athenians," said he, "I wish the sentence you have passed upon us may not prove the misfortune of the republic; but I have one favour to ask of you in behalf of my colleagues and myself, which is, to acquit us before the gods of the vows we made to them for you and ourselves, as we are not in a condition to discharge them; for it is to their protection, invoked before the battle, we acknowledge that we are indebted for the victory gained by us over the enemy." There was not one good citizen, that did not melt into tears at this discourse so full of goodness and religion, and admire with surprise the moderation of a person, who

w Quem adeo iniquum, ut sceleri assignet, quod venti et fluctus deliquerint? Tacit. Annal. l. xiv. c. 3.

seeing himself unjustly condemned, did not however vent the least resentment, or even conplaint, against his judges, but was solely intent, in favour of an ungrateful country, which had doomed them to perish, upon what it owed the gods in common with them for the victory they had lately obtained.

The six generals were hardly executed, when the people opened their eyes, and perceived all the horror of that sentence; but their repentance could not restore the dead to life. Callixenes, the orator, was put in prison, and refused to be heard. Having found means to make his escape, he fled to Decelia to the enemy, from whence he returned some time after to Athens, where he died of hunger, universally detested and abhorred by all the world, as all false accusers and slanderers ought to be. Diodorus remarks, that the people themselves were justly punished for their crime by the gods, who abandoned them soon after, not to a single master, but to thirty tyrants, who treated them with the utmost rigor and cruelty,

* The disposition of a people is very naturally imag ed in this account; and Plato, upon the same event, draws their character in few words, with much spirit and resemblance. The commonality," says he, is an inconstant, ungrateful, cruel, suspicious animal, incapable of submitting to the government of reason; which is no wonder, adds he, as it is commonly composed of the dregs of a city, and is a monstrous assemblage, without form or order, of all that is worst in it.

* Plut. in Axioch. p 368, 369.

* Δημος αψίκορον, αχάρισον ωμον, βασκανον, απαιδεύτον.

The same relation shows what effect fear can have upon the minds of men, even upon those who pass for the wisest; and how few there are, who are capable of supporting inflexibly the view of present danger and disgrace. Though the justness of the generals' cause was perfectly known in the senate, at least by the major part of it, as soon as the people's rage was mentioned, and the terrible menaces they murmured, those grave senators, most of whom had commanded armies, and who all of them had frequently exposed themselves to the greatest dangers of war, instantly changed sides, and came over to the most notorious calumny, and crying injustice, that ever had being. An evident proof, that there is a courage, though very rare, which infinitely transcends the valor, that induces so many thousands of men every day to confront the most terri. ble dangers in battle.

Among all the judges, only one, truly worthy of his reputation, the great Socrates, in this general treason and perfidy, stood firm and immoveable; and though he knew his suffrage and unaided voice would be of little or no consequence to the accused, he thought them a just homage to oppressed innocence, and that it was unworthy an honest man to govern himself by the fury of a blind and frantic people. We see in this instance how far the cause of justice may be abandoned. We may conclude it was not better defended before the people. Of more than three thousand citizens, who composed the assembly, two only took upon them the defence of their generals, Euriptodemus, and Axiochus. Plato has preserved their names, and given

7 Ου γαρ εφαίνετο μοι σεμνον δημω μαινομένω συνεξαρχειν.

that of the latter to the dialogue, from whence part of these reflections are taken.

* The same year the battle of the Arginusæ was fought, Dionysius possessed himself of the tyranny in Sicily. I shall defer speaking of him till book xi. in which I shall treat the history of Syracuse at large.

SECTION VI.

LYSANDER COMMANDS THE

LACEDEMONIAN FLEET. HIS

CELEBRATED VICTORY OVER THE ATHENIANS.

b

AFTER the defeat at the Arginusæ, the affairs of the Peloponnesians declining, the allies, supported by the credit of Cyrus, sent an embassy to Sparta, to demand that the command of the fleet should again be given to Lysander, with the promise of serving with more affection and courage, if their request were granted. As it was contrary to the laws of Sparta that the same person should be twice admiral, the Lacedemonians, to satisfy the allies, gave the title of admiral, to one Arachus, and sent Lysander with him, whom in appearance they commissioned only as vice admiral, though in effect with all the authority of the supreme command.

All those who had the greatest share in the government of the cities, and were of most authority in them, saw him arrive with extreme joy; promising themselves, from his influence, the final subversion of

A. M. 3598. Ant. J. C. 406.

Xenoph. Hellen. 1. ii. p. 45. Plut. in Lys. 1. ix. 436, 437. Diod. 1. xiii. p. 223. p.2 A. M. 8599. Ant. J. C. 405.

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