Alkibiadês

is summon

take his

trial.

and took moorings off the shore, while a herald was sent up to the city. But the Kamarinæans declined to admit the army, and declared that they would abide by the existing treaty; which bound them to receive at any time one single ship-but no more, unless they themselves should ask for it. The Athenians were therefore obliged to return to Katana. Passing by Syracuse both going and returning, they ascertained the falsehood of a report that the Syracusans were putting a naval force afloat; moreover they landed near the city and ravaged some of the neighbouring lands. The Syracusan cavalry and light troops soon appeared, and a skirmish with trifling loss ensued, before the invaders retired to their ships'—the first blood shed in this important struggle, and again at variance with the advice of Lamachus.

Serious news awaited them on their return to ed home to Katana. They found the public ceremonial trireme, called the Salaminian, just arrived from Athens— the bearer of a formal resolution of the assembly, requiring Alkibiadês to come home and stand his trial for various alleged matters of irreligion combined with treasonable purposes. A few other citizens specified by name were commanded to come. along with him under the same charge; but the trierarch of the Salaminian was especially directed to serve him only with the summons, without any guard or coercion, so that he might return home in his own trireme2.

This summons, pregnant with momentous results both to Athens and to her enemies, arose out of the

1

1 Thucyd. vi. 52.

2

Thucyd. vi. 53-61.

and pro

Athens

since the

of the ar

mutilation of the Hermæ (described a few pages Feelings back) and the inquiries instituted into the author- ceedings at ship of that deed, since the departure of the armament. The extensive and anxious sympathies con- departure nected with so large a body of departing citizens, mament. combined with the solemnity of the scene itself, had for the moment suspended the alarm caused by that sacrilege. But it speedily revived, and the people could not rest without finding out by whom the deed had been done. Considerable rewards, 1000 and even 10,000 drachms, were proclaimed to informers; of whom others soon appeared, in addition to the slave Andromachus before mentioned. A metic named Teukrus had fled from Athens, shortly after the event, to Megara, from whence he sent intimation to the senate at Athens that he had himself been a party concerned in the recent sacrilege concerning the mysteries, as well as cognizant of the mutilation of the Hermæ-and that if impunity were guaranteed to him, he would come back and give full information. A vote of the senate was immediately passed to invite him. He denounced by name eleven persons as having been concerned, jointly with himself, in the mock-celebration of the Eleusinian mysteries; and eighteen different persons, himself not being one, as the violators of the Hermæ. A woman named Agaristê, daughter of Alkmæonidês—these names bespeak her great rank and family in the city-deposed farther that Alkibiadês, Axiochus, and Adeimantus, had gone through a parody of the mysteries in a similar manner in the house of Charmidês. And lastly Lydus, slave of a citizen named Phereklês, stated that the like scene had been enacted in the

house of his master in the deme Thêmakus-giving the names of the parties present, one of whom (though asleep and unconscious of what was passing) he stated to be Leogoras, the father of Andokidês'.

Of the parties named in these different depositions, the greater number seem to have fled from the city at once; but all who remained were put into prison to stand future trial2. The informers received

1 Andokides de Mysteriis, sect. 14, 15, 35. In reference to the deposition of Agaristê, Andokidês again includes Alkibiadês among those who fled into banishment in consequence of it. Unless we are to suppose another Alkibiadês, not the general in Sicily-this statement cannot be true. There was another Alkibiadês, of the deme Phegus: but Andokidês in mentioning him afterwards (sect. 65), specifies his deme. He was cousin of Alkibiadês, and was in exile at the same time with him (Xenoph. Hellen. i. 2, 13).

2 Andokidês (sect. 13-34) affirms that some of the persons, accused by Teukrus as mutilators of the Hermæ, were put to death upon his deposition. But I contest his accuracy on this point. For Thucydidês recognises no one as having been put to death except those against whom Andokidês himself informed (see vi. 27, 53, 61). He dwells particularly upon the number of persons, and persons of excellent character, imprisoned on suspicion; but he mentions none as having been put to death except those against whom Andokidês gave testimony. He describes it as a great harshness, and as an extraordinary proof of the reigning excitement, that the Athenians should have detained so many persons upon suspicion on the evidence of informers not entitled to credence. But he would not have specified this detention as extraordinary harshness, if the Athenians had gone so far as to put individuals to death upon the same evidence. Besides, to put these men to death would have defeated their own object-the full and entire disclosure of the plot and the conspirators. The ignorance in which they were of their internal enemies, was among the most agonising of all their sentiments; and to put any prisoner to death until they arrived, or believed themselves to have arrived, at the knowledge of the whole-would tend so far to bar their own chance of obtaining evidence—ὁ δὲ δῆμος ὁ τῶν ̓Αθηναίων ἄσμενος λαβὼν, ὡς ᾤετο, τὸ σαφὲς, καὶ δεινὸν ποιούμενοι πρότερον εἰ τοὺς ἐπιβου λεύοντας σφῶν τῷ πλήθει μὴ εἴσονται, &c.

Wachsmuth says (p. 194)-"The bloodthirsty dispositions of the people had been excited by the previous murders: the greater the number of victims to be slaughtered, the better were the people pleased," &c. This is an inaccuracy quite in harmony with the general spirit of his narrative. It is contradicted, implicitly, by the very words of Thucydidês which he transcribes in his note 108.

the promised rewards, after some debate as to the parties entitled to receive the reward; for Pythonikus, the citizen who had produced the slave Andromachus, pretended to the first claim, while Androklês, one of the senators, contended that the senate collectively ought to receive the moneya strange pretension, which we do not know how he justified. At last however, at the time of the Panathenaic festival, Andromachus the slave received the first reward of 10,000 drachms-Teukrus the metic, the second reward of 1000 drachms.

citizens im

suspicion

the public

A large number of citizens, many of them of the Number of first consideration in the city, were thus either lying prisoned on But the alarm, increased in prison or had fled into exile. the agony, and the suspicion, in the public mind, agony of went on increasing rather than diminishing. The mind. information hitherto received had been all partial, and with the exception of Agaristê, all the informants had been either slaves or metics, not citizens; while Teukrus, the only one among them who had stated anything respecting the mutilation of the Hermæ, did not profess to be a party concerned, or to know all those who were2. The people had heard only a succession of disclosures-all attesting a frequency of irreligious acts, calculated to insult and banish the local gods who protected their country and constitution-all indicating that there were many powerful citizens bent on prosecuting such designs, interpreted as treasonable-yet none com

1 Andokid. de Mysteriis, sect. 27-28. καὶ ̓Ανδροκλῆς ὑπὲρ τῆς βουλῆς. * Andokid. de Myster. sect. 36. It seems that Diognêtus, who had been commissioner of inquiry at the time when Pythonikus presented the first information of the slave Andromachus, was himself among the parties denounced by Teukrus (And. de Myst. sect. 14, 15).

Peisander and Chariklês the commis

sioners of inquiry.

municating any full or satisfactory idea of the Hermokopid plot, of the real conspirators, or of their farther purposes. The enemy was among themselves, yet they knew not where to lay hands upon him. Amidst the gloomy terrors, political blended with religious, which distracted their minds, all the ancient stories of the last and worst oppressions of the Peisistratid despots, ninety-five years before, became again revived. Some new despots, they knew not who, seemed on the point of occupying the acropolis. To detect the real conspirators, was the only way of procuring respite from this melancholy paroxysm: for which purpose the people were willing to welcome questionable witnesses, and to imprison on suspicion citizens of the best character, until the truth could be ascertained'.

The public distraction was aggravated by Peisander and Chariklês, who acted as commissioners of investigation; furious and unprincipled politicians, at that time professing exaggerated attachment to the democratical constitution, though we shall find both of them hereafter among the most unscrupulous agents in its subversion. These men loudly proclaimed that the facts disclosed indicated the band of Hermokopid conspirators to be numerous, with an ulterior design of speedily putting down the democracy. They insisted on pressing

1 Thucyd. vi. 53-60. οὐ δοκιμάζοντες τοὺς μηνυτὰς, ἀλλὰ πάντας ὑπόπτως ἀποδεχόμενοι, διὰ πονηρῶν ἀνθρώπων πίστιν πάνυ χρηστοὺς τῶν πολιτῶν ξυλλαμβάνοντες κατέδουν, χρησιμώτερον ἡγούμενοι εἶναι βασανίσαι τὸ πρᾶγμα καὶ εὑρεῖν, ἢ διὰ μηνυτοῦ πονηρίαν τινὰ καὶ χρηστὸν δοκοῦντα εἶναι αἰτιαθέντα ἀνέλεγκτον διαφυγεῖν......

......δεινὸν ποιούμενοι, εἰ τοὺς ἐπιβουλεύοντας σφῶν τῷ πλήθει μὴ εἴσονται......

2 Andokid. de Myst. sect. 36.