The Thirty and Fascism

All right, now for the rundown of the Thirty and fascism.

Middle class populist movement that punches up, but predominantly kicks down.  Aside from the kicking down part (well, and some punching up at prominent democratic leaders), none of these apply.  The Thirty were ultimate elitists seeking to create a very narrow, very tight, oligarchy.  There was nothing middle class or populist about them.  Theramenes, it is true, appears to have favored a moderate oligarchy that would admit all men of hoplite status or above.  Given different circumstances, one can imaging him inciting the hoplites to resent that navy rabble that ruined the city by getting them into this senseless war and refused to get out when the going was good.*  In such a case, Theramenes might have made a pretty good right-wing populist, or even a proto-fascist. But it would also be unthinkable in the context of Ancient Greece, where "respectable" figures like Theramenes despised rabble rousers, and the whole idea of a populist movement based mostly on kicking down does not seem to have occurred to anyone.

Driven by both fear and ambition, but fear predominates.  Once again, oligarchy in Classical Greek appears to have been altogether driven by ambition.

A paramilitary party seizing power and claiming an effective monopoly on political activity.  That is a fair description of the 400.  The Thirty went through the outward forms of participating in the democracy before seizing power, but they were effectively agents of a foreign power.

A.  The fascist negations:

Anti-radical:  Fear of radical revolution does not seem to have been at issue, so no.  If anything, the Thirty were the radicals.

Anti-liberal:  If by this we mean seeking to narrow the circle of people who morally matter, then yes, the Thirty were anti-liberal, in the extreme.

Anti-conservative:  Although minimal lip service was paid to the "ancestral constitution," it is clear that Critias in particular, and no doubt many others, had no respect whatever for tradition, for traditional values, conventional religion and morality, and the like.  They are quite properly described as anti-conservative.

B.  Ideology and goals:
-- Creation of a new nationalist authoritarian state based not merely on traditional principles or models
-- Organization of some new kind of regulated, multiclass, integrated national economic structure, whether called national corporatist, national socialist, or national syndicalist
-- The goal of empire or a radical change in the nation’s relationship with other powers
-- Specific espousal of an idealist, voluntarist creed, normally involving the attempt to realize a new form of modern, self-determined, secular culture.
Except for the part about empire or radical change in international relations, there are all modern concepts quite foreign to Ancient Greece.  They presuppose a society in which all members are citizens (though not participants in the decision-making process).  As for international matters, the Thirty showed no interest in the subject and were faithfully subservient to Sparta.

C.  Style and organization:

- Emphasis on aesthetic structure of meetings, symbols, and political choreography, stressing romantic and mystical aspects.  There is nothing to suggest this, nor should we expect it.  This is a populist feature of fascism, and the Thirty were anything but populist.

-- Attempted mass mobilization with militarization of political relationships and style and with the goal of a mass party militia.  Once again, no.  The goal was a narrow military rule over a passive population.

-- Positive evaluation and use of, or willingness to use, violence.  Taken to the extreme.  The Thirty were nothing if not violent.

-- Extreme stress on the masculine principle and male dominance, while espousing the organic view of society.  On the one hand, I would say no more than any other Ancient Greeks.  On the other hand, if this means the sort of organization that sees reason, morality, constraint, and even thought as emasculating, I suppose you might see it to some extent among the Thirty.

-- Exaltation of youth above other phases of life, emphasizing the conflict of generations, at least in effecting the initial political transformation.  This is a bit hard to say, although there are some hints that the Thirty, like the 400 before them, drew their support particularly among the young.  First and foremost, the extreme violence of their government suggests that it was one of young men.  Second is simply the vague impression that it would be young men, who never saw the democracy in its glory day but only in its ruin under the Peloponnesian War who would be most likely to be disillusioned with democracy and think an oligarchy could do better.  And there were the audacious young men with daggers sent to intimidate the Council.  So maybe.

-- Specific tendency toward an authoritarian, charismatic, personal style of command, whether or not the command is to some degree initially elective.   There appears to have been at least some degree of this with Critias, who offered a very person, authoritarian style of leadership.  The movement appears to have started to break down once he was killed.  And Theramenes, in saying that Critias made enemies of democrats and oligarchs alike, seems to have been accusing him of wanting a personal dictatorship.  But he never quite achieved that.  He still had to carry the approval of at least a majority of the Thirty.

Mobilizing passions of fascism:

-- a sense of overwhelming crisis beyond the reach of any traditional solutions; No, at least not at first.  This is part of the fear side of fascism, and the Thirty were based mostly on ambition.  Then again, when Thrasybulus and the exiles showed up and started defeating them, this sense of crisis did begin.  And Critias certainly felt no restriction to "traditional solutions"!

-- the primacy of the group, toward which one has duties superior to every right, whether universal or individual, and the subordination of the individual to it;  This seems like a fair description of Critias' outlook, at least to the extent  of placing his group (whether the Thirty or his small citizen body) ahead of any individual or universal right and giving zero moral weight to anyone who stood in their way.  Subordination of the individual -- probably yes, unless that individual is named Critias!  Most others, by contrast, were probably not prepared to take things so far.

-- the belief that one's group is a victim, a sentiment which justifies any action, without legal or moral limits, against the group's enemies, both internal and external;  Clearly Critias was ready to take any action, without legal or moral limits, against his group's enemies, internal or external.  Most of the others were probably not prepared to go quite so far.  But seeing one's group as a victim is more of the overall fear-based aspect of fascism, which does not seem to have applied as much here.  More at work was the belief that the oligarchs were the best rulers (in the case of some), or simply raw lust for power (in the case of Critias, and perhaps others).  

-- dread of the group's decline under the corrosive effect of individualistic liberalism, class conflict, and alien influences;  Probably.

-- the need for closer integration of a purer community, by consent if possible, or by exclusionary violence if necessary;  Yes, I would say.  Not in the same manner as modern fascism, but the Thirty were shrinking the citizen body down to 3000 like-minded eligible participants, with the tight bond of mutual criminality and fear of retaliation.

-- the need for authority by natural leaders (always male), culminating in a national chief who alone is capable of incarnating the group's destiny;  Well, Critias saw things in those terms anyhow.  Not so sure about the others.

-- the superiority of the leader's instincts over abstract and universal reason; Ditto.

-- the beauty of violence and the efficacy of will, when they are devoted to the group's success;  In spades!

-- the right of the chosen people to dominate others without restraint from any kind of human or divine law, right being decided by the sole criterion of the group's prowess in a Darwinian struggle. Well, once again, that seems like a fair description of how Critias saw things.  Most oligarchs, it seems reasonable to say, were not prepared to go so far and preferred to ground their claimed right to power on moral grounds, particularly the claim that they were "the good and the fair" and other such terms the applied to themselves, basically, on claims of moral superiority.  But there is ample evidence that, like elites everywhere and always, the aristocracy in classical times confused its own privileges with the public good.  When they claimed to better serve the public good, most aristocrats did not classify the lower classes as part of the "public."**

In short, the Thirty had none of the populist features of fascism, few of its fear-based features (and then only when they had so provoked the general public as to give themselves ample grounds for fear), and probably not most of its paramilitary features, as fascist paramilitaries are essentially populist.  What it had in common with fascism was (1) violence, (2) a powerful leader, and (3) its amorality, or at least definition of morality solely in terms of advancing the interest of one's group. But while fascism defines its "group" as a nation, the Thirty defined it as, at best, a narrow and tight oligarchy and at worst (by Critias) a clique of conspirators.

Yet surprisingly, the Thirty has a different trait in common with some of the lesser-known and less successful fascist movements, ones like the Hungarian Arrow Cross, the Romanian Iron Guard, and the Croatian Ustasha.  These were fascist movement that never acquired the sort of popular following seen in Germany or Italy and were never able to take power on their own.  But they were installed in power by Nazi occupiers and had brief but extraordinarily savage reigns as despised collaborationists. This was particularly ironic in the case of modern fascism, which is a form of hyper-nationalism. Critias and the Thirty were not nationalists, and Critias at least was a known Laconophile (Spartophile), so the irony is not present in their case.  Nonetheless, although the Thirty had little in common with modern fascism, it is well to keep those movements in the back of one's mind, just as reminders that even fascism is not always what we expect.

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*Of course, this would go contrary to actual, historical fascism, which is quite militaristic.
**Just as most democrats did not fit slaves into that category, and all invariably saw the best role of women as maximum subjugation to men).

My Standard Analysis of The Thirty and Failures of Democracy

All right, now for my usual analysis of how democracies fail, applied to the reign of the Thirty.  It doesn't fit all that well.

Extreme polarization and strife:  The Thirty were imposed by foreign conquest, and to that extent cannot be considered the result of domestic polarization and strife.  But even when a democracy is overthrown by foreign invaders, the question remains of how much collaboration and support the invaders have.  Some Athenians had gone into exile following the failed coup by the 400. Most of these went over directly to the Spartans.  During the city's final days, under siege and facing mass starvation, no one seems to have directly favored the besiegers, but there was considerable strife over whether to make peace and on what terms, to the extent that one man was imprisoned for proposing that Athens accept the Spartan terms, and later, when anything better was clearly hopeless and any peace was better than continued starvation, a few bitter-enders continued to hold out, such that Cleophon was executed and two generals arrested for opposing the terms.  Further evidence that there was a non-trivial degree of support for an oligarchy among prospective oligarchs are that, according to Lysias, a majority of the Council before surrender went on to hold seats under the Thirty, and that at least one member of the Council went on to be one of the Thirty and another to be their chief executioner.  Add to that the role Xenophon ascribed to the cavalry suggests that enough Athenians favored an oligarchy that we can fairly say the Thirty were aided by polarization.  Obviously, most of the oligarchs had in mind something a good deal milder and more respectful of law than what Critias established.  Nonetheless, according to my modern footnotes (citing a source I was unable to find), even after all the horrors of the Thirty, Critias' friends build a monument to him, showing Oligarchy putting a torch to Democracy, with the inscription, "This memorial is for the gallant gentlemen who briefly checked the insolence of the Athenian mob."

Abandonment of procedural norms.  Athenian procedural norms had been crumbling for some time.  They weakened themselves every time a general was put on trial for losing a battle.  They took a major hit in the moral panic that followed the vandalism of the herms.  They were further weakened when Anytus bribed a jury (unjust though the accusations against him were),  And they took a devastating blow when the Assembly sentenced six generals to death in a single vote. Seen in this light, the execution of Cleophon and the arrest of Strombichides and Dionysodorus may be seen as coming late to the party, and desperate measure to prevent the whole city from dying of starvation. In short, procedural norms were undermined, but this does not seem to have been a major factor.

Political violence.  This clearly attended the coup by the 400.  Domestic political violence does not appear to have been a significant factor in the Thirty coming to power, although they obviously used a lot of it once they were in power.  Rather, it was the threat by the Spartan forced the persuaded Athens to cede power to the Thirty.

Paramilitaries.  The Thirty appear to have used a paramilitary (young men noted for their audacity, armed with daggers) to intimidate the Council into executing Theramenes.  Aristotle says that they were initially supported by 300 retainers carrying whips, which sounds very much like a paramilitary.  The Thirty arrested metics in person, accompanied by some sort of attendants who might be considered a paramilitary.  And they forced ordinary citizens into taking part in the arrests. But the takeover had nothing to do with private paramilitaries and everything to do with the presence of the Spartan army and navy.  And their power appears to have rested on the regular military, reduced to the cavalry and a few select hoplites, backed by the Spartan garrison.  (Aristotle places the Spartan garrison after the execution of Theramenes and the beginning of the Phyle revolt, but all other sources disagree).

The danger lies on the right.  Assuming one treats oligarchy as right-wing and populism as "left" (as seems reasonably in Classical Antiquity), this fits.  It was the prospective oligarchs, not just the Thirty, but their supporters among the cavalry, who wanted an oligarchy.  This is not to let the Athenian "left" off by any means.  They blundered into the Sicilian expedition, terrorized Athens' leading citizens in the wake of the herm mutilation, executed six generals by a single vote of the Assembly, and refused peace when they had the opportunity for it.  But they were not threatening to dispossess the upper classes.  Except in the moral panic over the herms, which was fully squelched when Andocides came forward, they did not punch up in a way the oligarchy even pretended to see as threatening.  Which leads to the next point.

Fear is a greater danger than ambition.  This does not appear to have been the case in Ancient Greece.  There is nothing to suggest that the Thirty or their supporters were acting out of fear. Athens was beaten.  No radical reforms were being proposed.  The democracy had not done anything even remotely threatening to the oligarchy since the herm panic ten years earlier.  Ambition, not fear, was the motivating factor.

The importance of a middle class.  Does not appear to have been a factor, nor was the issue of radical reforms.

The importance of understanding political parties and a loyal opposition.  Political parties in the modern sense did not exist in Classical times, but the Athenians appear to have been beginning, at least, to understand that long-term disagreement was normal, and that opposing politicians could exist within the city, each intending the city's best interests, and not needing to fight.  The practice ostracism (banishing the loser of a political dispute) was used for the final time in 415 BC, ten years before the coup, and had not been used for 25 years before that.  This was not a case of party strife tearing a community asunder because no one understood that it was normal.  In fact, if anyone was unable to tolerate disagreement and party strife, it was the Thirty, hence the deadly split between Critias and Theramenes.

Traits of a right-wing failure of democracy:

Driven by fear, a middle class being squeezed out, and inability to tell radical from moderate reformers:  None of these appear to have been at work.  The oligarchy simply decided that the democracy had failed altogether and the rightful rulers were seizing power.  Critias' motives were even more self serving.  He wanted power; others stood in his way; the others must go.

Not dependent on a charismatic leader:  It is hard to say whether Critias was a charismatic leader. Certainly, although he was not a sole dictator, he was a strong leader and not first among equals.

Triggered by economic crisis or military defeat:  Actually, the Thirty coming to power could not strictly be said to have been "triggered" by anything, since that suggests a strong underlying predisposition in that direction.  The Thirty were not "triggered" by military defeat in the same way that the 400 were; they were installed by an invading army.

Conclusion:  Once again, whatever its merits in modern times, and even in Ancient Rome, my model just doesn't seem to work in Ancient Greece.  Oligarchy was seen as much more legitimate then than it is now.  As a result, oligarchs did not just lash out in fear when they saw their prerogatives threatened; they acted openly out of desire for power and the belief that oligarchy was morally superior to democracy.  The reign of the Thirty put an end to oligarchic plots in Athens precisely because its casualties included the oligarchs' claim to any sort of moral authority.

On the Athenian Amnesty

So, the most obvious questions about the amnesty the Athenians declared are, why did they do it?  And was it the right thing to do?

As for why they did it, the answer is clear enough.  It was the quickest and easiest way to end the civil war, allow the exiles to return, and restore the democracy.  The oligarchs held the city, which was so strongly fortified that there was no real prospect of taking it by storm.  The Spartans in the past had made a few half-hearted efforts, all easily repulsed, and ended up prevailing by blockade. Besides, the exiles did not want to damage the city if they could avoid it since it was, after all, their  city. As for the Spartans, they had, after all, headed north to intervene on behalf of the oligarchs. They were willing to negotiate a settlement, but would probably intervene to prevent their allies from being defeated by force.  And, one can well imagine, they might not have minded sacrificing 30 (or  51) of Lysander's creatures who certainly deserved it, but allowing whole-scale revenge against the entire aristocracy would be another matter altogether.  According to the Second Century AD geographer Pausanias (no relation to the king), even that was enough to get King Pausanias put on trial before the Council and acquitted by a tie vote.  It seems unlikely.  No other source mentions such a trial and Xenophon makes clear that the settlement had the approval of the Ephors and Assembly in Sparta and was thus indisputably lawful.

But if fear of retaliation from Sparta explains why the Athenians initially agreed to the deal, it cannot explain why it held.  It was not long before Sparta's power as dominant hegemon was being challenged, the Greek city-states were at war again, and Sparta's hand were more than full, leaving no time to intervene in Athens' internal affairs.  If the Spartans get credit (or blame) for instituting the amnesty, to the Athenians goes credit (or blame) for sticking with it and achieving a genuine reconciliation that allowed the democracy to become stable, endure, and ultimately only succumb, not to internal strife, but to foreign conquest.

So, once again, that raises the question of whether the amnesty was the right thing to do.  That is, after all, a very significant question to this day.  In our own times, when dictators have been overthrown the question of how to deal with their past crimes has been one of the most controversial subjects around.  To forgive and forget is to let serious crimes go unpunished.  But to punish is to invite retaliation, and perhaps even an attempt to restore the dictatorship out of pure motives of fear and self-preservation.  Fear and self-preservation were the main reasons the small citizen body held out as long as it did, and why settlement had to be negotiated by an outside power.  Besides, one man, or thirty (or even 51), even when backed by a foreign garrison, cannot possibly rule all by themselves. They will necessarily have accomplices in the broader public.  Attempts to bring all accomplices to justice can tear a country asunder and lead to endless revenge and recrimination between citizens.

The amnesty was clearly the right thing to do in at least one sense.  It worked. The rival factions did reconcile and no further attempts were made to institute an oligarchy.  It stands in remarkable contrast to Samos, where the democrats massacres some 200 oligarchs, exiled 400, and disenfranchised the rest, and later chose mass exile over whatever revenge the oligarchs might have in mind.  It stands in remarkable contrast to Argos, where the popular party killed or expelled the oligarchs, and the oligarchs appealed to Sparta for aid.  It stands in remarkable contrast to Corcyra,  where democrats slaughtered oligarchs en masse, not even sparing the ones who took refuge in temples.  The surviving oligarchs who escaped returned and burned their boats to prevent themselves from retreating, and pillaged the countryside.  When the invading oligarchs were defeated, the Corcyrians slaughtered them to the last man.  If the amnesty saved Athens such horrors, then the injustice of letting the oligarchy's crimes go unpunished seems a small price to pay!

Besides, its supporters were (presumably) a mixed bag.  Xenophon describes the actions of the cavalry enough to give the distinct impression that he was one of the cavalry who took part, sometimes in immistakable crimes.  Likewise, Plato was an initial supporter of the new government, whose leaders included some of his relatives, and "imagined that they would administer the State by leading it out of an unjust way of life into a just way."  Young aristocrats like Xenophon and Plato had reason to be disillusioned with the democracy.  They were too young to remember its glory days when it led the war against the Persians, liberated the Asian Greeks, and established voluntary defensive league.

What they saw, instead, was the government that massacred and enslaved the populations of Melos and Scione, that was talked into the reckless Sicilian expedition, that succumbed to such moral panic over the vandalism of the herms that no leading citizen was safe, that refused honorable offers of peace when the going was good, that sentenced six generals to death in a single vote after they had won a nearly miraculous victory, and that remained in deep denial even when it was obvious that all was lost.  Such men might understandably believe, at first, that government by more "enlightened" men would offer a better rule, and might be unable to believe that a man as cultured and polished and Critias undoubtedly was could be an utter psychopath.

As has been all to often the case, no doubt they applauded when the Thirty executed men they regarded as vile demagogues, and rationalized when they moved on to more respectable prey, convinced themselves that some undoubtedly indefensible measures were temporary expedients and, after all, you can't make omelets without breaking eggs.  By the time such rationalization became impossible to sustain, the 3000 were too mired in the Thirty's crimes to hope for any reconciliation with their fellow countrymen.  The Thirty were eager to implicate as many as possible in their crimes.  Many no doubt went along out of fear. Perhaps complicity was an initiation rite required for citizenship.  Even some of the Thirty themselves capitulated to their colleagues out of fear.  Most of the 3000 doubtless saw themselves as  victims of the Thirty, compelled to share in their crimes without receiving any advantage.

It was a self-serving outlook, no doubt, that covered many a crime, and offered the usual excuse of "just following orders."  But given the endless division, the bitter recrimination, and the possibility of civil war that might have followed any attempt to prosecute the accomplices of the Thirty, an amnesty was doubtless the least possible evil.

The amnesty does raise an interesting question.  Besides Xenophon, our leading source of information about the Thirty is from speeches given afterward, sometimes to the Assembly, but mostly in lawsuits.*  There were numerous suits in the years following the overthrow of the Thirty in which their actions became an issue, the most famous, of course, being the trial of Socrates. How could there be lawsuits about events under the Thirty if there was a general amnesty in place?  In Athens, as ever since, people looked for loopholes and found a number.  The most obvious was that the Thirty themselves were not exempt from trial.  At least one (Eratosthenes) actually was tried (outcome unknown).  Another was the argument that the amnesty was reached between the city and Piraeus, and that anyone implicated in the Thirty's crimes who nonetheless defected to Piraeus was not covered by the amnesty.  (Assuming one wants to encourage defections, this sounds like very poor reasoning).  Another was that supporters of the Thirty, though not subject to criminal penalties, could be excluded from certain offices, so someone seeking to disqualify a candidate might raise that issue.  There were also private suits for defamation over an allegation that one collaborated with the Thirty.  Or, most controversially, it could be used to create prejudice in a suit on an unrelated matter.  In the case of Socrates, his real "crime" was almost certainly his association with Critias, but this was protected under the amnesty, so the accusers had to resort to vague charges of irreligion and corrupting the youth of Athens.

Finally, Thrasybulus, the leader of the democratic restoration, really deserves a few words.  Aristotle pair aristocratic and popular politicians and names Theramenes as if he were just another conservative politician like Kimon or Nicias, both of whom were loyal to the democracy even if they did want some brakes on it.  He even names Theramenes with Nicias as one of the "best" political leaders after those of early times, completely glossing over his role in twice overthrowing the democracy!  As for popular politicians, he names Cleon and Cleophon as Theramenes' rivals and says, "From Cleon onward the leadership of the People was handed on in an unbroken line by the men most willing to play a bold part and to gratify the many with an eye to immediate popularity." He never so much as mentions Thrasybulus in his list of democratic leaders!  He does briefly mention him as leading the exiles, but his main judgment is one of disapproval for his willingness to extent citizenship to extend citizenship to anyone taking part in the restoration, even slaves.  He gives credit to Archinus for the reconciliation, but does not include him on the list of pairing politicians.

Others have been more generous in their assessment.  Xenophon praises his tactical skill, his  inspiring leadership, his piety, his patriotism, his forbearance in not stripping the dead because they were countrymen, and his role in reconciliation (without so much as mentioning Archinus).  The geographer Pausanias says that his grave is first among all Athenians, even ahead of Pericles, and calls him, "in all respects the greatest of all famous Athenians, whether they lived before him or after him" for his role in overthrowing the Thirty and effecting a reconciliation afterward.  The Roman biographer Cornelius Nepos says of Thrasybulus:

If merit is to be valued by itself, without regard to fortune, I doubt whether I ought not to place him first of all the Greek commanders. This I can say without hesitation, that I set no man above him in integrity, firmness, greatness of mind, and love for his country; for while many have wished, and few have been able, to deliver their country from one tyrant, it was his lot to restore his country, oppressed by thirty tyrants, from slavery to freedom. But though no man excelled him in these virtues, many, I know not how, surpassed him in fame.

 Plutarch did not write a Life of Thrasybulus, which is a shame, although it is hard to tell who he would have compared him to.  Perhaps whoever restored the Roman Republic after the fall of Sulla?  But that (as I understand it) was Pompey and Crassus, both of whom played a major part in its later and permanent downfall, through their own lust for power (and alliance with Caesar, of course). Thrasybulus was a different matter altogether.  If anyone had the opportunity to establish himself as a left-wing populist dictator, championing the common people against the proven oppression of the oligarchs, it was Thrasybulus.**  He even had the opportunity to emulate Pisistratus and establish himself on the benevolent wing of such rulers.  But he made no such attempt, setting the democracy on a firm basis and willingly yielding place if other leaders proved more popular than he was.  Wikipedia, at least, attributes his eclipse to being too ardent a democrat, not only in wanting to extend citizenship to everyone who fought at Piraeus, but also in wanting to restore pay for political office.  (I have not found a source for that latter).

Be that as it may, the democracy in Athens did continue to flourish, did restore pay for offices, and even started offering pay for attending the Assembly.  But at the same time, it managed to establish a much-needed brake on the democracy, without resorting to an aristocratic institution like the old Areopagus.  This brake took the form of the graphe paranomon, roughly an allegation of unconstitutionality.  Given that the last time the graphe paranomon was suspended, the 400 established their oligarchy, and the last time the Assembly ignored an allegation of graphe paranomon they sentenced six generals to death in a single vote and later came to regret it, this device must have been cherished much as we cherish appeals to constitutionality.  Suit was before a jury of ordinary citizens, but in a more deliberative fashion than the assembly, and after hearing of the case.  If a measure was found unconstitutional within a year of enactment, the law was rescinded and the author(s) penalized, usually by a fine.  If it was found unconstitutional within five years, no penalty was imposed, but the measure became invalid.  After five years, the measure was no longer available.

Democracy flourished in Athens thereafter until it succumbed to conquest  by the Macedonians.  But we are not there yet.

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*With the caveat that these speeches invariably had an ax to grind and should not be taken as gospel truth.
**Except, perhaps, for the watchful presence of the Spartans.  They may have been willing to tolerate the presence of a democracy, but probably not a left-wing populist dictator.

Downfall of the Thirty (403 BC)

When Theramenes warned Critias against the course he was taking, he refrained from making moral arguments, since it was obvious that morality meant nothing to Critias.  Instead, he argued that it was unwise to make so many enemies.  And so it would turn out to be.

Among the enemies Theramenes named were Thrasybulus, Anytus, and Alcibiades.  Thrasybulus was one of the admirals who rallied the fleet against the coup of the 400 and led it to its series of victories in the Propontis.  Anytus had been sent to relieve the siege of Pylos but been defeated by a storm, was put on trial and escaped by bribing the jury.  The experience can hardly have endeared the democracy to him, and Aristotle names him at first with Theramenes, Archinus and others as wanting to reign in the democracy but not belonging to any conspiracies.*  Alcibiades appears to the son of the Alcibiades, who had been murdered in exile under uncertain circumstances, but possibly on the order of either Lysander or Critias.  It is unclear whether they were formally sentenced to exile, left voluntarily, or fled for their lives.

Whatever the case, Thrasybulus had taken refuge in Thebes and marched out in the winter with 70 men to seize the fortress of Phyle.  The Thirty and their forces marched against them but were thwarted by a  late snowstorm. The Thirty returned to Athens but left most of the Spartan garrison and two divisions of cavalry to guard the fort.  Thrasybulus' men, now numbering  700, launched a surprise attack on the camp and scattered them,** before returning to the fort.

The Thirty then became increasingly fearful for their power and decided  to secure a place of refuge.  They took the cavalry** to the village of Eleuis on the pretext of registering them men there for military service.  After each man was registered, he was told to march out the gate, where the cavalry and their attendants were waiting.  They seized and bound each man, took them back to Athens, and delivered them to the executioners.  Something similar was done at Salamis, but Xenophon was apparently not present, so we do not have a detailed account.  The Thirty then summoned the Assembly, perhaps the only time they ever did so.  Critias told them that if they were to share in the benefits of the oligarchy, they must share in the dangers and prove their loyalty by voting the death sentence on these men, totaling 300.***  With the Spartan garrison present, fully armed, no one dared refuse, but by now the participants had come to look upon the Thirty with horror and revulsion.

The exiles, now numbering a thousand, advanced to the Piraeus and seized a strongly defensible hill called the Munichia. And, at least according to Diodorus, the Thirty sought to buy Thrasybulus off by offering to admit him to replace Theramenes.  He indignantly refused.  The Thirty attacked with the Spartans, the cavalry, and their selected hoplites.  The exiles, though outnumbered, were able to hold their strong position.  The forces of the Thirty were driven back and Critias was killed, along with Hippomachus, another of the Thirty, and Critias' cousin and fellow Socratic pupil Charmides, one of the ten given command of the Piraeus.  Here Thrasybulus departed from the usual custom, which was to raise a trophy, strip the dead, and granted the losers a truce to retrieve the bodies.  He took the arms from the dead, which his forces were sorely lacking, but returned them without stripping them and apparently did not raise a trophy.  This was intended as a display of respect for his fellow countrymen.  The herald called on the forces as fellow countrymen to turn against the Thirty.

And in fact, the 3000 began quarreling among themselves,** some wanting to allow the exiles to return and others fearing retaliation if they did.  In the end, they deposed the Thirty and elected ten to end the war.  The remaining Thirty fled, except for Pheidon, who joined the Ten, and Eratosthenes, deemed a moderate.  But the Ten continued the policies of the Thirty, and the war continued.  The exiles swelled in number, though many were lightly armed, and vowed to exempt any foreigner in their number from special taxes on non-citizens.  They foraged the countryside for food, harassed by the cavalry.  The cavalry commander killed one such party, when even many of his own men were opposed.**  The exiles retaliated by killing a cavalryman and even began attacking the walled city.

The Thirty, or the Ten, sent to Sparta to ask for relief forces, commanded by Lysander.  Instead of providing men, the Spartans lent the oligarchs 100 talents, which they used to hire a mercenary force, commanded by Lysander, with his brother commanding a fleet.  They proceeded to blockade the men at Piraeus and might perhaps have won, but the government at Sparta began having other ideas.  The brutality of the Thirty had sickened them no less than anyone else, and they were beginning to get nervous about all the power Lysander had amassed by installing juntas all across the empire that were loyal to him personally rather than to Sparta.

Pausanias, one of the two kings, persuaded three of the five Ephors to send him out with the regular army.  Diognetus, Nicias' last surviving brother, presented the children of Nicias' murdered son and brother to Pausanias and begged for his support and began to win him over.  Pausanias went through the motions or ordering the men at the Piraeus to disburse.  When they did not, he gave battle, losing important officers in the fighting and was  ultimately (though minimally) victorious.  He encouraged both the city and the Piraeus to send ambassadors to him and seek to negotiate.  The men in the city overthrew the Ten and replaced them with a new body who genuinely wanted to end the war. They sent envoys to the Piraeus, and all parties sent envoys to Sparta.  The Ephors and Assembly sent mediators, who worked with Pausanias to negotiate a peace between the parties.

The terms were extraordinarily generous.  Everyone was to be granted amnesty for any actions he had done, except the Thirty, the Ten (who ruled the Piraeus) and the Eleven (the executioners).  Whoever did not trust these terms would be allowed to retire to Eleusis.  Anyone currently holding office under the oligarchy was to present an accounting to the democracy.  Eleusis was to be allowed self-government any anyone withdrawing there would retain full rights, except that they could not go to Athens, nor the people of Athens go to Eleusis, except for religious rituals.  Provisions were even made for how to determine the price of a house being bought in Eleusis.

Thrasybulus crowned for his reconciliation

Pausanias then disbanded his army and withdrew.  Thrasybulus, entering the city, gave the oligarchs a thorough tongue-lashing, telling them that any grounds they might have for proclaiming the superiority of oligarchy to democracy were decisively disproven.  Compared to the democracy, the oligarchy showed less respect for wealth and property, less military might, and less support from Sparta.  Nonetheless the amnesty held.  Those wishing to withdraw to Eleusis were given a fixed date to register the move.  Most of them postponed it until the last minute, which allowed Archinus (remember him?  Named by Aristotle as wanting to restrict democracy but not part of any conspiracy) to abruptly cancel the remaining days and compel most of the oligarchs to remain. Nothing happened to them.  Aristotle approved of this act.  He also approved of Archinus striking down as unconstitutional Thrasybulus' decree extending citizenship to anyone who took part in the Piraeus revolt, even slaves. He also approved of Archinus persuading the Council to execute, without trial, the first man to try to stir up trouble between the oligarchs and the returnees.  Shocking as this last act was, it proved effective.  No one violated the amnesty again.  The Athenians even agreed to repay the 100 talents the oligarchs had borrowed, on the grounds that it set the city on the course of reconciliation. Aristotle regarded this degree of statesmanship as unprecedented and, although generally a skeptic of democracy, concedes it as "just" in this case because the people accomplished its own return.

There was one little blemish on the reconciliation.  Aristotle passes it over with the euphemism,  "They also made a reconciliation with those that had settled at Eleusis two years after the migration."  Xenophon does not mince words.  Two years later (401 BC), the exiles at Eleusis hired mercenaries  with the presumed intent of either seizing power once again, or at least complete secession.  The whole Athenian army marched out against Eleusis, invited the generals to a conference, and then killed them.  They then reincorporated Eleusis back into Athens with no further retaliation.  Archinus might be considered vindicated.  Separation was more dangerous than integration.

Next: Reflections on the amnesty

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*But Antyus is best known to posterity as one of the accusers of Socrates.
**Based on Xenophon's account.  This degree of detail suggests that he was present, among the cavalry.
***Perseus likens this to the vote sentence the generals to death, but the comparison is absurd.  Six lives were at stake in the case of the generals; 300 in this case.  In the case of the generals, a population distraught over their failure to rescue the survivors of a naval battle accused them, however unjustly, of negligence in the failure.  The massacre here was cold blooded murder of men no one pretended were guilty of anything.  The generals were at least given a hearing, however inadequate, before the Assembly.  No pretense of trial was offered in this case.

Reflections on the Rule of the Thirty

So, under the Thirty, citizenship was restricted to a small body of 3000 eligible participants -- the cavalry and a few members of the infantry chosen for their political reliability.  Above this small citizen body was a Council of 500 members and the Thirty.  Anyone not on the short list of citizens could be executed without trial on orders of the Thirty.  Only full citizens had the right to trial, which took place before the Council.

Does any of this sound familiar?  These institutions were, in all probability, borrowed from Sparta. Recall that Sparta had a small citizen body compared to the total population, a Council of thirty (required to be over 60 and elected for life by voice vote), and five Ephors, elected to a single one-year term.  The Ephors had the semi-despotic power to remove any lesser magistrate from office before his term was up, and to impose minor punishments on citizens without trial and in their own judgment, and the despotic power to order the execution without trial of any non-citizen.  Citizens facing major charges (presumably, anything carrying a sentence of execution, exile, or imprisonment) had the right to trial.  Trial was by the Council.  Nor should this be surprising, Critias, after all admired Sparta and called theirs "the best of all constitutions."  Presumably the Thirty were based on the five Ephors, and both trial by the Council and allowing executive powers to order any non-citizen executed without trial were borrowed from similar provisions in Sparta.

Obviously there were differences.  The Thirty had a Council of 500 members, as opposed to the Spartan Council of 30.  How the Thirty's Council was chosen and the length of their terms is not told. Perhaps the Thirty were not in power long enough to iron out that sort of detail.  Likewise, Sparta had five Ephors, and they were elected to a single one-year term.  Presumably knowing that they would permanently return to being private citizens when their one-year term was up restrained the Ephors from the sorts of abuse of power that would otherwise have been tempting to near-despots.  The Thirty had no such constraints.  We are not told if they even considered setting a term or system of election, but to judge from their behavior, probably not.  Nor are we told how the number of thirty was decided.  Since Athens had ten tribes and chose most offices by a certain number of holders per tribe, it is certainly possible that the Thirty were three from each tribe.  But it is also possible that the number was based on the Spartan Council.

The Ephors' authority to order a non-citizen executed without trial was a brutal one.  Many seemingly random killings of helots were probably targeted killings ordered by the Ephors.  Thucydides recounts a shocking mass killing, and smaller scale instances may have happened on occasion.  Could the Ephors order an ex-citizen executed without trial?  And who decided to strip a Spartan of his citizenship, and how?  I did not find the answer to either of these questions; most likely we do not know.  It seems unlikely that the Ephors could have an ex-citizen executed without trial.  Loss of citizenship in Sparta was not necessarily for any infamous act.  Sometimes it was simply because a participant could no longer afford to pay for his meals at the common dining hall.  As for the procedure required to disenfranchise a citizen, who knows.  But it seems safe to assume that it would have been unheard-of and unthinkable for the Ephors to arbitrarily strip one of their own number of his citizenship and have him executed almost on the spot!  In short, although the Ephors' power over non-citizens was a despotic one, and although their minor punishments of citizens may see arbitrary  to us, but they never descended into the sort of unrestrained lawlessness we see by the Thirty.

The expression narrow and tight oligarchy certainly applies to the Thirty.  Recall the estimate that Attica (Athens and the surrounding countryside that made up the state) had approximately 300,000 inhabitants, of with about 100,000 (a third of the total) were citizen families, and about 30,000 adult male citizens, i.e., eligible participants.  If correct, that would make eligible participants about 10% of the population.  The Thirty would have reduced the number of eligible participants to 3,000, making up about a tenth of their former number, and about 1% of the total population.  This is a narrow oligarchy.  And the Thirty seem to have made it very tight indeed.  They replaced trial by jury with trial by the Council in criminal cases, and restricted the jury's discretion in civil cases.  They apparently had the Council pass laws without recourse to the Assembly, an unheard-of thing for Greek city-states.  And there is rather strong evidence that the Thirty reduced even the Council to a mere rubber stamp.  They were "ordered" to pass this measure; of all those tried before the Council, only one was acquitted,* and above all, the conviction of Theramenes, procured at dagger-point, made clear that the real power lay with the Thirty and their bully-boys, and the Council were no more than window dressing.  The Thirty were so narrow and tight an oligarchy they might better be termed a junta, or at least a triandarchy.  And it seems most plausible that Critias would have preferred a personal dictatorship.

Then there were the 1500 killed, more men killed without trial in three months, says the orator than the total number of allies the Athenians compelled to go to Athens for trial throughout the duration of her empire.  I must admit with some shame that my first reaction to this was that by standards of modern-day totalitarianism, it doesn't sound like all that much.  Even granting that the population was much smaller in those days, 1500 amounts to one-half of one percent of the total population, or about 5% of the number of eligible participants.**  But clearly the number shocked contemporaries, who found their own points of comparison.  Isocrates, as we have seen, called it more than the total number of allies brought to Athens for trial for the duration of the empire. Xenophon calls it "almost more" that the Peloponnesians killed in ten years of war.***

And what of the 5000 who fled the city?  This is hard to say.  Presumably after Athens surrendered large numbers of rural residents who had been forced to take refuge in the city walls left voluntarily. And, if Xenophon is to be believed, everyone not on the list of 3000 (and their immediate households, of course) was ordered to leave.  Still, even with the understanding that "the plural of anecdote is not data," I think our best understanding of what Athens must have looked like during the declining days of the oligarchy must come from Xenophon's Memorabilia.  A friend lamented that so many of kinsmen had fled to the Piraeus and left their womenfolk in his care that he now had 14 people in the house, not counting slaves, and there were so few people left in the city that he could not get anything out of his house property (presumably meaning that there was no one to rent to). This is probably the most vivid portrait we have of Athens in the final days before the oligarchy fell.

A subject I will address in my next post.

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*Again, though, it is not clear whether that means total, or only in the case of this particular batch of defendants.
**Then again, it was half the size of the number of participants the Thirty would have allowed, which is considerable.
***If so, then clearly reports of a massacre of 3000 or 4000 captured sailors after Athens' final defeat are a gross exaggeration.

The Thirty in Power (404 BC)

The Thirty started by appointing supporters to the Council and various magistracies, including ten governors to the Piraeus (the outlying port), eleven guardians of the prison, and three hundred retainers carrying whips.  The ten at Piraeus include Charmides, son of Glaucon, the cousin of Critias and Plato and pupil of Socrates.*  The Eleven were headed by Satyrus, "most audacious and shameless," who had arranged the execution of Cleophon and the arrest of Stombichides for opposing the peace. As for the Council, it had 500 members as before, including a majority of members of the old Council.

Xenophon and Diodorus agree that they delayed drawing up and publishing law, although Aristotle names a few changes that appear to meet with his approval.  They restored the old powers of the Aeropagus and took away many of the uncertainties in law that gave discretion to popular jurors, such as allowing a will to be invalidated if the testator was insane, senile, or under the influence of a woman, and other such instances that Aristotle did not name.  This would appear to indicate that they continued to use juries in civil matters.  Criminal matters were transferred from juries to the Council; at least all criminal trials mentioned under the Thirty were by the Council.  Xenophon, it should be added, says that Critias and Charicles were primarily responsible for drawing the new laws and mentions a significant one.  They banned teaching the "art of words." Xenophon sees this as a  calculated insult to Socrates for upbraiding Critias for being overly enamored with one of Socrates' younger pupils.  Presumably they also saw the "art of words" as potentially politically subversive as well.

They began by executing malicious informants and demagogic politicians, after trial by the Council and, our three historians assure us, the people as a whole approved, or were at least indifferent.  First they came for the Communists. . . .**  Of course, the families and friend of these victims saw them in rather another light.  They included Dionysodorus, Strombichides and their alleged co-conspirators  who opposed the terms of the peace.  Ordered to be tried by jury, they were instead tried by the Council, voting openly in the presence of the Thirty.  We are told that "all those who had entered that Council chamber for their trial were condemned to death: not one was acquitted," except the informant.  It is not clear whether that means throughout the duration of the Thirty, or only of this alleged conspiracy.

Seeking, then, to consolidate their power, they sent two of the Thirty (Aristotles and Aeschines) to Sparta to ask Lysander for a garrison to support them, which they promised to pay in order to save Sparta the expense.***  Lysander sent a garrison of 700, commanded by Callibius, who the Thirty proceeded to win over with bribes and flattery.  Plutarch gives the example of Autolycus, an athlete who threw Callibius down. Callibius struck him with his staff.  At the time, Lysander disapproved, saying that was no way to treat a free man, but the Thirty soon executed Autolycus to gratify Callibius.  Keep in mind that to the Greeks, sports were sacred activities, and a Olympian athlete's standing dwarfed even what we give sports stars today.  Now imagine what safety anyone else could find under the Thirty.

The Thirty then proceeded to execute any leading politician, even the most conservative, who they saw as a potential threat.  Nicias' brother, Eucrates, came from a most conservative political family and was wrongfully arrested over the vandalism of the herms, which cannot have endeared the democracy to him.  But when offered a place in the Thirty he indignantly refused and was executed, as was Nicias' son, Niceratus.  Other victims named included Antiphon, who supplied the city with two rapid warships, and Leon of Salamis (hold onto that name).  Needing money to pay the Spartan garrison, Theognis and Peison, members of the Thirty, proposed executing wealthy metics on false charges to seize their property.  They proposed to kill ten, including two poor people to disguise their intent (Lysias), or one each (Xenophon), or two each (Diodorus).

We have information on two of such arrests.  Lysias, later a professional speech writer, was a wealthy metic whose family had a shield factory.  Peison and others of the Thirty showed up in person to make the arrest, accompanied by their retainers, of course.  Lysias bribed Peison into letting him go. Peison did not dare release him at once because others of the Thirty showed up, but took him to a house for holding, where Theognis was guarding others.  Lysias asked the owner to bribe him as well and, while he was distracted, slipped out an unlocked back door and fled.  His brother was less fortunate; he was arrested in the street, executed without trial (by hemlock), and denied even a cloak  for his funeral.  The Thirty took even his wife's earrings.

As for Leon, the Thirty summoned five men, including Socrates and ordered them to arrest him, in order to force as many to be their accomplices as possible.  The other four proceeded; Socrates returned home. The Thirty gave many such orders, wishing for as many accomplices as possible in their crimes.  This is not the only mention we have of Leon.  Andocides in a later speech attempts to discredit his accuser by pointing out that he took part in the arrest of Leon and his therefore responsible for his execution without trial.  Theramenes names him, along with the son of Nicias as  "men of worth and standing" who should not have been executed.

This had led to a certain curiosity about who Leon of Salamis was.  The journalist I.F. Stone, in his Trial of Socrates (p. 113) simply assumes that he was a wealthy metic, like Lysias.  I assume that the reasons for his assumption are (1) "of Salamis" implies a foreign origin, (2) the absence of a trial implies a non-citizen, and (3) Stone is eager to portray all of Athens' aristocracy as supporting the Thirty.  And certainly killing a metic who had done no wrong simply for his money was an injustice and would have been recognized by the Athenians as such.  Socrates might boast of his refusal to arrest a metic as proof of his commitment to justice or Andocides hold out the wrongful arrest of a metic as something to discredit his accuser. But it seems unlikely that Theramenes would have named a metic as on a par with the son of Nicias.  To be named along with Nicias' family implies a citizen, and a prominent one at that.  And Salamis was an island just off the coast of Athens, under Athens' control since Solon's time.  A citizen could certainly have been of Salamis.  All the historian emphasize the wealth and prominence of the Thirty's victims.  This has led modern historians to speculate that he may have been the admiral who  commanded during the war, rallied the fleet against the oligarchic coup in 411 BC, was elected after Alcibides was deposed, and was last seen with Conon, trapped at Lesbos.  The speculation was that he was on one of the two ships that tried to carry the message to Athens but was captured and repatriated after the war.

Theramenes, though originally a supporter of Critias and his measures increasingly began to protest,  saying that it was not reasonable to execute politicians who were not populists simply because they were popular.  Critias answered that anyone who was popular was dangerous because he was a possible source of leadership for people who opposed the Thirty.  But it became increasingly clear  that even if the Thirty eliminated any outsider who might offer leadership to their opponents, a new  potential leader of their enemies was arising -- Theramenes himself.  Critias and the rest tried at first to conciliate him by proposing a citizen body of 3000.  They then kept postponing listing the names. To Theramenes, this must have looked like history repeating itself.  Recall that at the time of 400, they had promised to create a larger citizen body with 5000 eligible participants, but kept postponing it, wanting all power to remain with the 400.

While historians generally agree that the 5000 were not meant literally and ultimately meant all men of hoplite status or higher, the 3000 appear to have been meant quite literally, and to have consisted of (most of) the cavalry and some hoplites selected as politically reliable.  Theramenes protested that there was no way to limit worthy participants to any fixed number.  As with the 400, the Thirty postponed publishing their list of the 3000 and kept changing who was on it to keep the people in suspense.  It is pure speculation on my party, but this leads me to suspect that when the Thirty sent out citizen's posses to make arrests, like the one that Socrates was on, there may have been a carrot at work as well as a stick.  They may have been offering hoplites a chance to "earn" their citizenship, or watching their reaction to see who to admit.

Theramenes also protested that the Thirty were trying to do two contrary things -- to build their government on force, and to make the rulers weaker than the ruled.  The rule based on force is straightforward enough.  I never understood what he meant by saying that the rulers were weaker than the ruled.  But I am inclined to think that George Grote (p. 466) gets it right, saying that he meant that the rulers were outnumbered by an armed and angry populace. The Thirty resolved that latter problem in much the same way as Pisistratus over a century earlier.  They called out the soldiers for review, taking care to assemble all the ones on their short list in the agora and to scatter the rest.  When they set down their arms and went to eat, the Spartan garrison and the 3000 gathered them up and took them to the temple.  The Thirty introduced a law to the Council "with orders to pass," allowing anyone not on the list of the 3000 to be executed without trial on the orders of the Thirty.

The Thirty then summoned the Council and had young men noted for their audacity present, with hidden daggers.  Critias accused Theramenes before the Council of being a danger to their government.  He minced no words.  If their government was violent, well, you can't make omelets without breaking eggs.  The common people would not agree to their form of government; it must therefore be imposed by force. Theramens opposed the oligarchy, let him suffer the consequences. He mocked Theramenes for his willingness to change sides, trying to please both oligarchs and democrats and only showing that he could be trusted by neither.  Theramenes replied, making clear that he approved the first wave of executions but not of executing respectable citizens, of killing metics for their wealth, of disarming the citizenry or imposing a foreign garrison.  He denounced these things, not so much on moral grounds (morality obviously meant nothing to Critias), but as making needless  enemies.  And he said that while he might be accused of favoring both sides, Critias favored neither,  offending the common people under the democracy and the aristocracy under the oligarchy.  That sounds very much like an accusation (probably accurate) of aspiring to be a one-man dictator.   The Council applauded, and Theramenes was clearly going to be acquitted.  Critias and the others then summoned their bully-boys, and Critias declared that since anyone not on the list of the 3000 could be executed without trial on the orders of the Thirty, he was excommunicating Theramenes from the citizen body and sentencing him to death.  Theramenes seized the hearth, (all hearths were sacred to Hestia and therefore sanctuary), warning the Council that if the Thirty could deal so arbitrarily with one of their own, then none of them were safe, and saying that he did not expect Critias to respect sanctuary, but wanted to force him to incur the wrath of the gods.  And, indeed, the Eleven dragged Theramenes from sanctuary.  The Council, intimidated by the bully boys,  dared not intervene.  Theramenes drank his hemlock as a toast, in poison, to Critias.

Aristotle, incidentally, gives events in a different sequence, saying that the disarmament of the citizens and introduction of the garrison happened after Theramenes was executed, and that the pretext for removing him from the 3000 was a new law barring from citizenship anyone who opposed the 400.

All sources agree that the execution of Theramenes removed the last constraint on the Thirty.  They  evicted everyone not on the list of the 3000 from the city proper.  Many fled to the countryside, or to the Piraeus (the outlying port), but they were not even safe there, as many were driven from their lands so that the Thirty could seize them, or evicted from the Piraeus.  Refugees streamed from Athens.  The Spartans forbade receiving any Athenians exiles and ordered them to be delivered up to the Thirty, imposing a five-talent fine on any city that disobeyed.  Smaller states obeyed, but the  Argives defied them, as did the Thebans (who had only recently favored turning Athens into pasture and selling its people as slaves).  Aristotle estimates the total number of executions at 1500, a figure also given by the orator Isocrates,  who also estimates that some 5,000 fled.  Diodorus, with obvious exaggeration, says that half the citizens fled.

Next: Reflections on the Thirty

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*Presumably counted among the youth that Socrates "corrupted."  
**I actually got a whole new perspective on this famous poem from a speech by, of all people Julius Caesar.  Originally I had simply thought of it as a warning that freedom is indivisible, that if you ignore wrongs done to others, others will ignore wrongs done to you.  Later, when Jonah Goldberg war arguing that Hitler was a left-winger, this poem was an obvious refutation, showing how his victims marched a steady stream from left to right, from Communists to Socialists, to unions to Jews to Catholics.  Bur reading Caesar's speech arguing that even the worst offenders should not be executed without trial, I realized it had another significance.  The Communists were not very sympathetic victims to most Germans.  Many were no doubt not merely indifferent but glad to seem them dragged away.  
***Aristotle sets the arrival of the garrison later, after a revolt had begun.  In this he appears either to be confusing the arrival of the garrison with a later request for aid or (my version suggests) whitewashing Theramenes by post-dating most of the Thirty's worst atrocities to after his execution.