Xenophon tells us that the superiority in sailing, or rather rowing, which had enabled the Athenians at the commencement of the war to gain such distinguished successes under the command of Phormion and others, was now reversed: and that from the greater swiftness of their ships, the LacedÆmonians were more likely to profit by the rapid evolutions, in which the naval science of that time was shown; especially that called the diecplus, which seems to have consisted in dashing through the enemy’s line, avoiding the direct shock of his beak, but sweeping away his oars if possible by an oblique attack. To guard against this danger the Athenians adopted the following disposition of their fleet: in either wing were four squadrons, each of fifteen ships, and each commanded by one of the generals, eight of whom were on board the fleet, drawn up in a double line. The left of the centre was held by ten Samian ships; then came ten Athenian ships, each containing a military officer of rank, called taxiarch, which seems to correspond in grade most closely to the rank of colonel; next to them, each in his own ship, three navarchs or admirals, two of whom, Thrasybulus and Theramenes, are names well known in the history of the time, and the few allied ships, which were not elsewhere stationed. All these were in single line. We have here a good illustration of the close connection between the military and naval service, and may infer that officers of distinction in the one were not expected to serve in inferior situations in the other. The distribution of the fleet will be more readily understood from the annexed diagram.

The LacedÆmonian fleet was formed in a single line.

Hermon of Megara, the pilot, or master rather of Callicratidas’s ship, observed that the Athenians were much the most numerous, and said that it would be well to retreat. Callicratidas answered, that Sparta would not be worse inhabited if he were dead, but it was shameful to run away. The battle lasted long; but when Callicratidas, who led the Spartan right wing, was thrown overboard by the shock of his own trireme against another, and the Athenian right wing gained the advantage over their opponents, the Spartan fleet betook itself to flight, with the loss of seventy ships or upwards. The victors returned to their station at ArginusÆ, their number diminished only by twenty–five ships, but nearly all the crews of these had perished.

A double duty now claimed their attention: the one to save those of their countrymen who still clung to life upon the floating wreck, the other to relieve Conon and complete the destruction of the Peloponnesian fleet by surprising the squadron left to maintain the siege of Mitylene. We can detect no error in the course adopted, which was to leave forty–six ships to collect the wreck, and sail direct for Mitylene with the others. For some unexplained reason, however, none of the eight generals remained to superintend the former service, which was intrusted to Theramenes and Thrasybulus. But a violent storm came on, and confined both divisions of the fleet at ArginusÆ; while Eteonicus, to whom a light vessel had conveyed the news of his commander’s defeat, seized the interval for escape thus granted to him with much readiness. Fearful of attack from Conon, now nearly equal to him in naval force, if he manifested the necessity of retreat, he bade the vessel which conveyed the news put back to sea without communicating it to any but himself, and then return crowned and decked with the symbols of victory, and shouting that Callicratidas had gotten the victory of the Athenians. He then offered the usual thanks–offering for good news, and that very night broke up the siege and departed. The Athenians seem to have been deficient in activity, for their first information of this was derived from the arrival of Conon at ArginusÆ, as they were preparing to leave it. They then sailed to Chios, whither the Peloponnesians had repaired; and having done nothing, returned to their usual station at Samos.

How it happened that so powerful a fleet, under able commanders, not only did, but apparently attempted nothing, in prosecution of so signal a success, is left entirely unexplained; and we might almost suspect from the meagre statement of facts, without explanation or comment, that Xenophon knew more of the matter than for some reason or other he chose to tell. The Athenians, he continues, displaced their ten generals, excepting Conon: but the cause of their dissatisfaction is not stated. Six of the eight who had been in the battle returned home at once. On their return, Erasinides was immediately accused by Archidemus, who was at that time the popular leader, of embezzling public property and of misconduct in his command. He was committed to prison. Subsequently the other five were also committed to answer to the people for their conduct; and at the first assembly several persons, with Theramenes at their head, came forward to assert that the generals ought to be brought to trial for not saving their shipwrecked countrymen. The accused made a short answer (for they were not allowed to speak at length, as they had a right to do), stating all that had passed; how they had resolved themselves to follow up their advantage, leaving Theramenes and Thrasybulus, men of military rank and confessed ability, to perform the other service. “These, if any,” they said, “are the persons to blame; yet though they accuse us, we will not bring a false charge against them, of neglecting what the violence of the storm rendered it impossible to do.”[167] And these statements they brought forward witnesses to prove.

This short defence made a considerable impression, and many persons offered to become sureties for the accused. But the evening had now closed in, and it was said to be too dark to distinguish the show of hands. The matter was therefore adjourned to the next assembly, and it was voted that in the mean time the council should determine in what manner the generals should be tried,—a precaution which shows that they were not meant to have fair play, since the form of trial was as distinctly settled in Athens as in England; but it gave the accused full opportunity for making his defence, and therefore did not suit the purpose of the prosecutors. In the mean time came on the festival called Apaturia, at which members of the same family and the same tribe met in social intercourse; and Theramenes took advantage of the kindly feelings excited upon the occasion to raise a prejudice against his intended victims, by sending about the city men dressed in black with their heads shaven, in the character of relations of those who had been lost at ArginusÆ.

At the next general assembly Callixenus explained the scheme of trial recommended by the council. “The people,” he said, “had already heard the charge and the answer to it (an answer, be it remembered, which had been limited to a few words), and might therefore proceed at once to vote. Two vases therefore would be set apart to each tribe, and those who thought the generals culpable for not saving the wrecked crews, would cast their ball into the one, those who did not think them culpable into the other. If the majority were of the former opinion, the punishment would be death and confiscation of property.” At this period a man came forward with a story that he had saved his own life on a flour–barrel, and that his dying comrades charged him, if he himself escaped, to tell the Athenians that the generals had abandoned those citizens who had so well served their country. Euryptolemus, a name which occurs in history only on this occasion, made a stand in favour of the accused, and threatened to prosecute Callixenus for submitting an illegal proposition to the assembly, and a part concurred with him; but the majority cried, that it was a fine thing if anyone should say that the people might not do as it liked: and Lyciscus proposed, that all who interfered with the proceedings of the assembly should be included in the same vote with the generals. Euryptolemus therefore was compelled to let things take their course. Still the presidents of the assembly refused to propose an illegal question; but they were frightened and overborne by clamour, except the celebrated Socrates, who steadily refused to act contrary to law. Euryptolemus made another attempt to procure the generals leave to plead their own cause, by moving an amendment to the proposition of Callixenus: but he failed; the scheme of the council was agreed to, and by a majority of votes sentence of death was passed upon the eight generals present at ArginusÆ. Those six who had been unlucky enough to return to Athens were forthwith executed.

Not long after, Xenophon adds, the Athenians repented of what they had done, and voted that those who had deceived the people should be prosecuted, and find sureties for their appearance. Other civil contests arose, which gave them an opportunity of escape. Callixenus, at a later period, returned to Athens; lived for a time the object of hate to all, and died of hunger in a time of famine.[168]

The Germans, by the report of Tacitus, held solemn and deep drinking–bouts for the consideration of all important business, upon the old maxim that in wine there is no deceit; but they took care to reconsider their decision the next morning. Some court of temperate review would have preserved the Athenians from many heinous crimes, into which they were led by a temper unusually excitable, and when ruled by prejudice and passion, less fitted to judge wisely and equitably than the phlegmatic temper of the Germans, even under the influence of strong drink. With Theramenes and the accusers this was plainly a party measure, undertaken in total recklessness of right or wrong. In these corrupt motives the people could have no share; on the contrary, they seem to have been acted on at first by a right feeling of indignation at the alleged abandonment of meritorious citizens. Their fault lay in the readiness with which they discarded gratitude to entertain suspicion; in the blind fury with which, overleaping all law in jealously asserting the people’s omnipotence, they followed a mere impulse, a delusion, which the least exercise of judicial calmness would have dispelled. It is true that, when the reign of passion was over, and they returned to their senses, they rendered such amends for their precipitance as were then in their power. But such tardy repentance could neither repair nor expiate the wrong committed; and Athenian repentance generally came too late. Prompt in action, both from temper and from the forms of the state, which required no revision of a decree of the people, no assent from any concurring authority, performance followed close upon resolve. Of the many cruel edicts, repented or unrepented, uttered by the Athenian people, the revocation of the decree against the MitylenÆans, by which all male citizens were condemned to death, is the only one where repentance came in time. It seems a fitting judgment that the signal victory of ArginusÆ was the last gained during the war; and that in the next year it was followed by the still more signal defeat at Ægospotami, which laid Athens prostrate at the feet of her haughty rival.

Not strictly analogous to the prosecution of the generals, but a still more memorable example of the cruelty and ingratitude to which party spirit can rouse even a phlegmatic people like the Dutch, the very antipodes of the Athenians in temper, is the murder of the brothers De Witt. Both illustrious, though not equally so, to the elder Holland owes deeper obligations than to any other of her citizens, except those great captains who burst the Spanish yoke. These obligations, and De Witt’s high qualities, are best described by a writer qualified to do justice to the subject by the affection of a friend, as well as the penetration of a statesman—Sir William Temple.

“The chief direction of the affairs of Holland had, for eighteen years, been constantly in the hands of their Pensionary De Witt, a minister of the greatest authority and sufficiency, the greatest application and industry, ever known in their state. In the course of his ministry, he and his party had reduced not only all the civil charges of the government in this province, but in a manner all the military commands of the army, out of the hands of persons affectionate to the Prince of Orange, into those esteemed more sure and fast to the interests of their more popular state. And all this had been attended for so long a course of years with the perpetual success of their affairs, by the growth of their trade, power, and riches at home, and the consideration of their neighbours abroad; yet the general humour of kindness in the people to their own form of government under the Princes of Orange, grew up with the age and virtues of the young Prince, so as to raise the prospect of some unavoidable revolutions among them, for several years before it arrived. And we have seen it grow to that height in this present year, upon the Prince’s coming to the two–and–twentieth year of his age (the time assigned him by their constitution for entering upon the public charges of their milice), that though it had found them in peace, it must have occasioned some violent sedition in their state; but meeting with the conjuncture of a foreign invasion, it broke out into so furious a rage of the people, and such general tumults through the whole country, as ended in the blood of their chief ministers; in the displacing all that were suspected to be of their party throughout the government; in the full restitution of the Prince’s authority to the highest point any of his ancestors had ever enjoyed; but withal in such a distraction of their councils and their actions, as made way for the easy successes of the French invasion; for the loss of almost five of their provinces in two months’ time, and for the general presages of utter ruin to their state.”[169]

At the early age of twenty–eight, the firmness and talents displayed by John de Witt in public life had raised him to the chief magistracy of the United Provinces, at a difficult period, when they were engaged in war with England, then under the vigorous direction of Cromwell. That honourable station De Witt held for twenty years, during which that severe war between England and Holland broke out, which was terminated, much to the glory of the latter country, by the expedition up the Medway, and the burning of the English fleet at Sheerness. Of this bold attempt he was himself the adviser. Republican by birth (for his father had been imprisoned in consequence of his steady opposition to the house of Orange), the whole bent of his policy was to frustrate the attempts of the Orange party, who wished to reinstate the young Prince, afterwards William III. of England, in the power and dignities possessed of old times by his family; and as the interests of William were espoused by Charles II. of England, De Witt was induced to seek a counterpoise by cultivating the friendship of France. In consequence of this predilection the war of 1665 broke out, which, after a series of severely contested battles, was terminated by the expedition above mentioned.

De Witt’s steady resistance to the elevation of the house of Orange of course procured for him the sincere hatred of the Orange party, who were powerful enough, at different periods, to embarrass his government; still for fifteen years he held his high office of Grand Pensionary of Holland, and at the end of that time was re–elected for a further term of five years. But in the last year, in 1672, the French and English united to declare war against Holland; a powerful army invaded the United Provinces, and William, upon whom the chief military command was conferred, was utterly unable to make head against them. A loud outcry was now raised against all who had ever shown any disposition to support French politics, and De Witt, above all others, became the object of popular hatred. One night he was attacked and severely wounded by a party of assassins, a danger to which the simplicity of his habits, well befitting the chief magistrate of a republic, gave free access. For “his habit was grave, plain, and popular; his table what only served turn for his family, or a friend; his train was only one man, who performed all the menial service of his house at home, and upon his visits of ceremony, putting on a plain livery cloak, attended his coach abroad; for upon other occasions he was seen usually in the streets on foot and alone, like the commonest burgher of the town. Nor was this manner of life affected, but was the general fashion and mode among all the magistrates of the state.”[170]

While De Witt was kept at home by his wounds, the people of Holland demanded universally the repeal of the perpetual edict, as it was called, by which the Prince of Orange was for ever excluded from the stadtholdership of that province; and it was accordingly repealed. Cornelius De Witt, the brother of John, a man distinguished both in the naval and civil service of his country, was with difficulty induced to sign the revocation of the edict. When told that an armed crowd surrounded his house, threatening his life, if he did not consent to the repeal, “So many bullets,” he said, “passed over my head in the late engagement, that I have no fear left, and I would rather wait for another than sign this paper.” Shortly after, this brave and manly soldier was charged with being concerned in a plot to murder the Prince of Orange. The informer and only witness, Tichelaer, was a person of infamous character; yet on such evidence as this Cornelius De Witt was thrown into prison at the Hague, and cruelly tortured to extort confession of a plot, the very existence of which, without such a forced confession, could not be established. He bore the trial with unshaken constancy, protesting that if they cut him to pieces, they should not make him confess a thing which he had never even thought of. It is said that under the hands of the executioner he repeated the celebrated lines of Horace—

Justum et tenacem propositi virum
Non civium ardor prava jubentium,
Non vultus instantis tyranni,
Mente quatit solida, &c.

Finding it impossible to extort a confession, the court before which he was tried proceeded to pass sentence to the following effect: “The Court of Holland, having examined the documents presented to it by the public prosecutor, the examinations and cross–examinations of the prisoner, and his defence, and having examined all that can throw light on this matter, declares the prisoner stripped of all his offices and dignities, banishes him from the provinces of Holland and West Friesland, without leave ever to return on pain of a severer punishment, and orders him to pay the costs of the prosecution.”[171]

From the technical form in which this document is given in the original, and the signatures appended to it, it appears to be a literal copy of the sentence as delivered by the court. We may observe, therefore, that neither the nature of the charge against De Witt, nor the extent to which it was proved against him, are specified. This is strong evidence of an intent to oppress him to the utmost. Where all is honest, men do not seek to hide the grounds of their decrees. The sentence is every way unjustifiable: if De Witt was guilty, he deserved death, and there can be no doubt but that, could a conviction have been procured, the extreme punishment would have been inflicted; if not, he was entitled to a free acquittal. To inflict infamy and banishment for a suspected crime, even granting too charitable a supposition, that suspicion was entertained, was to graft the worst prerogative of tyranny upon republican institutions. Yet unjustifiable as the sentence was, its leniency gave great offence to the people, who were devoted at this period to the house of Orange, and possessed with a full belief of Cornelius De Witt’s guilt.

ill211

John De Witt meanwhile had recovered from his wounds, and finding that in the then state of public feeling, his continuance at the head of affairs was alike undesirable for himself and unpleasing to the country, he resigned his office. When his brother was sentenced to exile, he went himself to receive him on his delivery from prison, and probably to do him more honour and testify his own sense of the malice of the charge, and the unworthiness of the treatment which he had received, repaired to the Hague in his coach and four, a state which, as we have said, he was not used to affect. This bravado, though natural, was against the advice of his friends, and not consistent with the usual temper of the man; and it proved even more unfortunate than ill judged. The people, collected by the unusual spectacle, began to murmur at the presumption of one suspected traitor coming in state to insult the laws, and triumph in the escape of a traitor brother from a deserved death. De Witt went to the prison to receive his brother, and convey him to his own house; but Cornelius, with his customary high spirit, replied, that having suffered so much, being innocent, he would not leave the prison like a culprit, but rather remain and appeal from the sentence. John De Witt endeavoured to shake his resolution, but without effect.

ill212

Meanwhile Tichelaer the informer, at the instigation, as we are led to believe, of some more powerful persons whose names are studiously concealed, was busily employed in stirring up the populace to riot. Apprehending some disturbance, the states of Holland and West Friesland, which at the time were sitting at the Hague, requested the Prince of Orange to repair thither with a military force. Meanwhile the tumult spread from the lowest people to the burghers, and a furious mob collected round the gates of the prison in which the brothers were still remaining. The military force which had been sent for did not arrive, and that which was in the city was drawn off by the orders of some unnamed person. Actuated by fear, or some worse motive, the gaoler opened the gates, a few of the ringleaders burst in, the brothers were dragged with violence from their chamber, and brutally massacred as soon as they reached the street. We abstain from giving the details of the murder, still more from relating the unequalled atrocities which were perpetrated upon the corpses. But they were dragged to the gibbet, mutilated, and publicly suspended naked by the feet with the heads downward; and the mangled limbs of these upright and patriotic men were offered for sale, and bought at prices of fifteen, twenty, and thirty sols.

According to one story, the gaoler induced John De Witt to visit his brother by a false message, and being in the prison he was not allowed to quit it. A similar message was sent to their father, but being absent from home he escaped the snare. The gaoler, it is said, acted under the orders of a “person of such quality, that he was obliged to obey.” In this account, as well as in that which we have above followed, there is an evident wish to throw the blame of the murder on the Prince of Orange, or at least on the leaders of his party. It is asserted, however, that he never spoke of it without the greatest horror. Charges of such magnitude should not be lightly made; nor is there any evidence to fix guilt upon that distinguished monarch. But that there was culpable neglect, if not wilful connivance, seems certain; and the proceedings of the court which sentenced Cornelius, show that the agents of government were nowise squeamish, whatever was the conduct of their chief. Nor did William’s subsequent conduct betray much concern either for the interests of justice or of his own reputation; for though the states of Holland voted the murder “detestable in their eyes, and the eyes of all the world,” and requested the stadtholder to take proper measures to avenge it, none of the murderers were ever brought to justice. The flimsy pretext for this neglect was, that it would be dangerous to inquire into a deed in which the principal burghers of the Hague were concerned.[172]

After De Witt’s death all his papers were submitted to the most rigorous examination in hope of discovering something which should confirm the popular notion of his being traitorously in league with France. One of the persons appointed to perform this service being asked what had been found in De Witt’s papers, replied, “What could we have found?—nothing but probity.”[173]

We cannot better conclude than with the reflections of the greatest of modern orators upon this event. “The catastrophe of De Witt—the wisest, best, and most truly patriotic minister that ever appeared upon the public stage, as it was an act of the most crying injustice and ingratitude, so likewise it is the most completely disencouraging example that history affords to the lovers of liberty. If Aristides was banished, he was also recalled. If Dion was repaid for his service to the Syracusans by ingratitude, that ingratitude was more than once repented of. If Sidney and Russell died upon the scaffold, they had not the cruel mortification of falling by the hands of the people; ample justice was done to their memory, and the very sound of their names is still animating to every Englishman attached to their glorious cause. But with De Witt fell also his cause and his party; and although a name so respected by all who revere virtue and wisdom when employed in their noblest sphere—the political service of the public, yet I do not know that even to this day any public honours have been paid by them to his memory.”[174]

The conclusion and the result of the Peloponnesian war may here be given in a very few words. The battle of ArginusÆ was fought B.C. 406, in the autumn. It seemed to restore the sovereignty of the sea to Athens, and to replace her in that commanding position which had been lost in consequence of the unfortunate expedition to Sicily. So severely was the defeat felt at Sparta, that the LacedÆmonians again made overtures for peace, which were rejected through the instrumentality of Cleophon, a popular leader of the day,[175] as formerly similar overtures had been rejected by the influence of Cleon. But the government of Athens, though elated by success, does not appear to have been such as to render a continuance of it probable, as far as we can judge from the scanty records which exist of this period. The rapid and violent changes which had taken place, and such acts as the execution of the generals who commanded at ArginusÆ, were of a nature to destroy all concord and all feeling of confidence; and the administration again resorted to the inefficient course of appointing a board of generals to command the fleet. Of the six who composed it, Conon alone is known to us, except in reference to this transaction. The LacedÆmonian fleet in the Asiatic seas was now under the able guidance of Lysander; and by his good management, and in consequence of the culpable negligence of the Athenian generals, the Athenian fleet of 180 triremes was surprised while lying in the Hellespont at Ægospotami, and captured, with the sole exception of nine ships belonging to the division of Conon, who escaped in consequence of being more on his guard. “After this Lysander, calling a meeting of the confederates, proposed for their consideration the question, what was to be done with the prisoners. Then many accusations were brought against the Athenians, both for what they had already done amiss, and for what they had decreed to do if they got the victory—that they would cut off the right hand of every man taken alive; and that, having captured two triremes, one of Corinth and one of Andros, they had thrown overboard the crews of them. And it was Philocles (one of the Athenian generals) who put to death these men. And many other things were said, and it was resolved to put to death as many of the prisoners as were Athenians, except Adeimantus (another of the generals), who in the assembly had alone opposed the vote for cutting off the hands. And he, indeed, was accused by some of having betrayed the fleet. And Lysander, having first questioned Philocles how that man ought to be treated who had thrown overboard the Corinthians and Andrians, thus being the first to ill–use Greeks against national law, slew him.”[176]

The number of those who thus perished, according to Plutarch,[177] was 3000—a wholesale destruction, in cold blood, from which the mind revolts. It admits of no palliation from the alleged pretext of the violation of international law; for it is hard to say which party commenced that system of military execution which forms the especial stigma of this portion of Greek history, and it is at least certain that in this stage of the contest neither belligerent could have a right to upbraid the other with aggravating the evils of war by unnecessary cruelty. The defeat of Ægospotami was conclusive. Conon, not daring to appear in Athens after the example of ArginusÆ, and aware probably that further resistance was hopeless, bent his course to Cyprus, despatching the sacred ship Paralus to carry news of the defeat to Athens. It arrived by night, and the calamity being announced, “the wailing passed from PeirÆus to the city, along the long walls, from one person to another; so that in this night no one slept, not only through grief for the dead, but far more because the living expected to meet the same treatment as they had given to the Melians—a colony of LacedÆmon, after having besieged and taken their city, and to the citizens of Histioea, and Scione, and Torone, and Ægina, and to many other of the Greeks. And the next day a meeting was held at which it was resolved to block up all the harbours save one, and to put the walls into good condition, and set guards, and to prepare the city in all respects for a siege.”[178]

These were the efforts of despair. Certain of success, since there was now no enemy to raise the siege, or to effect a diversion, the LacedÆmonians blockaded Athens by land and sea, and in a few months the spirit of the people was so subdued by famine that they surrendered on humiliating terms, shortly after the expiration of the twenty–seventh year of the war. The walls of the city were destroyed; her ships of war, with the exception of twelve, were given up; it was covenanted to follow the guidance of LacedÆmon as subordinate allies; and, under the superintendence of the LacedÆmonian army the democracy, the pride of the Athenians, was exchanged for the short–lived form of government known in Greek history by the name of the Tyranny of the Thirty. This state of subjection did not last long, but the history of the circumstances under which it was shaken off belongs not to our present subject.