Death to Tyrants!

by Teegarden, David

  5 The concept of the revolutionary bandwagon (a term coined by Kuran [1991: 20]) is discussed in detail below, in the section titled “Mobilization.”

  6 Kuran (1989 and 1991).

  7 It is to be noted that the following analysis treats Thucydides’s narrative of the coup of the Four Hundred as an acceptably accurate description of actual events. Such an approach might be defended on two complementary grounds: the events described are quite plausible (indeed, as discussed below, they support modern social scientific theory), and no extant source contradicts Thucydides’s account. The author of the Ath. Pol., which preserves the only other surviving narrative of the coup, complements Thucydides by focusing virtually exclusively on formal, constitutional arrangements. It is certainly possible, of course, that Thucydides took great historiographic liberty in his account of the coup. But the burden of proof must be on those who come to such a conclusion.

  8 The Athenians began to station their naval forces on Samos in the summer of 412 (Thuc. 8.16.1). By winter, there were seventy-four Athenian ships stationed there (Thuc. 8.16.1, 30.2; see Gomme, Andrewes, and Dover [1981: 28–29, 73]). The Athenians stationed their navy on Samos in order to quash revolts in Chios, Miletos, Klazomenai, and Lesbos.

  9 As Gomme, Andrewes, and Dover argue (1981: 126), this embassy was not empowered to promise a constitutional change in Athens.

  10 On the xynomosiai, see Gomme, Andrewes, and Dover (1981: 128–31); Rhodes (2007: 17–19).

  11 The sequence of events that led to and immediately followed the formal overthrow of the Athenian democracy is notoriously difficult to recreate, and the historicity of some events is uncertain. Thucydides and the Ath. Pol., the two major sources, are difficult to reconcile; indeed, they are virtually impossible to reconcile on the existence (or nonexistence) of the Five Thousand during the rule of the Four Hundred. For the problems, see Rhodes (1993: 362–415) and Gomme, Andrewes, and Dover (1981: 184–256). For a detailed diachronic narrative with commentary, see Ostwald (1986: 337–411) and Shear (2011: 22–51).

  12 On coordination problems in general, see Chwe (2001: 11–13 and passim) and Ober (2008: 168–210).

  13 One might be skeptical initially about the applicability of a theory used to analyze modern nation-states to the study of democratic Athens. Athens was certainly a smaller and more traditional state, but while the Athenians may not have encountered the difficulties of information management that confront modern states, Thucydides (8.66.3) clearly concluded that they did have analogous problems (“owing to the size of the city and their lack of knowledge of one another”). It is thus reasonable to suspect—although it certainly must be demonstrated—that various Athenian institutions and practices may be analyzed profitably in light of modern theories that explore information exchange. Josiah Ober’s most recent book (2008) demonstrates the potential benefits of such an approach.

  14 Kuran (1991: 16–17).

  15 Of course, not all unpopular regimes will necessarily follow this general rule. A regime might tolerate a small percentage of the population engaging in public dissent, for example, and clamp down only when that percentage increases beyond a certain threshold. But, generally speaking, the nature of a regime’s response to public dissent is contingent on the strength of the dissent movement.

  16 Kuran (1991: 17–19).

  17 Kuran (1991: 19–25).

  18 Kuran uses units of ten in his thresholds. Thus Kuran would write the threshold sequence given above as {10, 10, 20, 30, 30, 40, 50, 60, 80, 100}. He does so because, at times, he considers each of the numbers as representing 10 percent of the population, while at other times as representing a single person in a state with a population of ten. The analysis is the same. But, for simplicity, I use single numerals.

  19 Different individuals will have higher or lower thresholds depending on a variety of factors. But it ultimately comes down, one would think, to a combination of personality type and experience.

  20 According to Kuran (1991: 20n34), the term “pluralistic ignorance” was first used in print by Richard Schanck (1932: 101).

  21 For a very different interpretation of the dēmos’s response to the coup of the Four Hundred, see Taylor (2002a). In that article, Taylor accuses the dēmos of cowardice and lack of commitment to the democracy, and of being more interested in money. In support of this view, she rather aggressively reads between the lines of Thucydides’s account of the coup. Thucydides’s direct statement (8.68.4), for example, that “it was difficult … to deprive of their liberty the Athenian people” rises, in Taylor’s view (p. 108), “to the pitch of sarcasm.” To validate her thesis on the dēmos’s complicity in the overthrow of the democracy, she analyzes five significant moments when Athenian democrats could have objected to the coup, but did not: at Samos, during Peisandros’s address to the Athenian assembly, while the conspirators implemented their strategy of intimidation and disinformation (8.66), the assembly meeting at Kolonos, and the takeover of the boulē. At each of these moments, she concludes that the democrats were either complacent or cowardly.

  Taylor’s analysis, however, is debatable. First and most important, it does not take into account the (apparent) underlying operative dynamic in Athens at that time (i.e., how fear and disinformation affect behavior of individuals and thus of groups). Second, it ignores subsequent fervor for democracy described in Thucydides’s text, including the uprising in the Piraeus (8.92) and the oath of the Athenian soldiers on Samos (8.75.2). Third, it ignores the decree of Demophantos and other texts that show strong support for democracy (e.g., ML 85, honoring the killers of Phrynichos and their accomplices).

  22 On the demographic reality, see Munn (2000:138, 390n24). Munn suggests that 9,000–10,000 Athenians were killed or captured at Sicily and that two-thirds of that number were thetes. He also suggests that most of the remaining population of thetes was, after the disaster at Sicily, with the Ionian fleet and thus not in Athens. For Athenian demography between 431 and 395, see Strauss (1986: 70–86).

  23 It should be noted that a revolutionary threshold above 5 does not necessarily indicate support for the regime. A person with a threshold of 6, for example, might oppose the regime, but nevertheless be quite timid and thus require a very large percentage (in this case, 60 percent) of the population to act in opposition before he does. And, on the other hand, a supporter of the regime could have a threshold lower than 5, if, for example, he is afraid that the regime is vulnerable, and would thus act with the opposition in the early stages of a revolt. Nevertheless, a person with a threshold above 5 would not act in opposition to the regime unless over half of the population has already done so. And such behavior is consistent with someone who supports the status quo—thus the general rule asserted (without argument) by Kuran (1991: 23).

  24 Thuc. 8.92.2. The translation is slightly modified from the Loeb.

  25 The meeting in the Pnyx wherein the Four Hundred were officially deposed took place after a devastating Athenian defeat at Eretria (Thuc. 8.95). Thucydides wrote (8.96.1) that, after that defeat (and subsequent revolt throughout Euboia, except Oreos), “there was greater consternation than ever before.”

  26 Kuran (1989: 60; 1991: 20). In Kuran’s model, each person’s action is as significant as the action of any other individual. In reality, of course, that is not the case: a prominent person’s act, in most circumstances, is more influential than the action of an obscure one. That important nuance does not invalidate the operative dynamic of Kuran’s model: one need only to suppose that, should an influential individual join in a protest, an ordinary individual would consider that act to be equivalent to, say, the actions of two ordinary people. Granovetter (1978: 1428) comes close to this observation when he discusses the significance of “the effects of friendship and influence.”

  27 The seminal early essay on threshold modeling is Granovetter (1978). Kuran (1989 and 1991), because his focus was high-stakes political revolution (whereas Granovetter’s analysis was generic), introduced the import
ant psychological element of preference falsification. That psychological element is important (inter alia) in accounting for the fact that people do not necessarily free ride in revolutionary situations (as would be expected, according to rational choice theory—see Olson [1965] for the classic formulation). Lohmann (1994) also employed threshold modeling in studying the fall of communism in East Germany. She criticizes Kuran’s model as being “monotonic” (pp. 87–88): i.e., it suggests that the number of individuals engaged in anti-regime activity simply increases until it stops. Her analysis of the Monday Demonstrations in Leipzig (pp. 65–84), however, shows that the number of individuals protesting fluctuated: sometimes it was very high, sometimes significantly lower. Lohmann also downplays the role of radicals in protest movements, stressing instead the importance of “activist moderates.” Those later individuals, she asserts, provide more information to the whole public concerning the amount and nature of support for the protest (pp. 53–54). It is important to recognize the difference, however, between demonstrations or protests against a modern government and an armed rebellion against an ancient regime. First, in the latter case, radicals are essential—and even in modern protests against oppressive governments, activist moderates would not join if radicals have not already acted. Second, individuals who join in the armed rebellion against an ancient regime on one day likely would not go home the next day (as in modern demonstrations). Lohmann’s objections thus do not invalidate Kuran’s theory as applied to the armed uprising in Athens. And it is to be noted that Lohmann sought to combine her theory with Kuran’s (pp. 54–55). For further reading on threshold models, see Kuran and Sunstein (1999); Bikhchandani, Hirshleifer, and Welch (1992). For an overview on the modern study of revolutions, see Goldstone (2001). For a brief critique of the use of game theory to analyze collective behavior, see Granovetter (1978: 1433–35).

  28 The restoration of the Dionysia in line 13 of the inscription is nearly universally accepted; see Wilson (2009: 1–16) for a discussion.

  29 The sources on the identity of the assassins and their accomplices, as well as on other details, are difficult to reconcile: see ML 85; Lykourg. Leok. 112–14; Lys. 13.71; the comments in Gomme, Andrewes, and Dover (1981: 309–11); the comments in ML 85. Further (indirect) evidence for the conclusion that the Athenians considered the assassination of Phrynichos to have been an important moment in their political history is found in the verdict pronounced against Archeptolemos and Antiphon ([Plut.] X orat. 834b). The verdict was delivered after the fall of the Four Hundred and before the reinstatement of the democracy—that is, during the regime of the Five Thousand (411); it concludes, “This sentence shall be inscribed upon a pillar of bronze and set up in the same place as the decrees concerning Phrynichos.”

  30 The decree was certainly inscribed. Andokides, Myst. 95, wrote that the stele was placed “in front of the Bouleuterion.” Lykourgos, Leok. 124, wrote that the stele was “in the Bouleuterion.” Demosthenes (20.159) refers to “the stele of Demophantos,” but not its location.

  31 The text for the decree of Demophantos: Andok. Myst. 96–98. The date for the decree is based on information provided in ML 84, lines 1–3, where it is stated that Klegenes (Kleigenēs in Andokides’s text) was secretary while Glaukippos was Archon (i.e., in 410–409) and that Aiantis, the tribe in prytany when the decree of Demophantos was promulgated, held the first prytany of that year.

  32 Trans. MacDowell (1962: 134–35), slightly modified. For earlier scholarship on the decree of Demophantos, see Droysen (1873); Günzler (1907); Friedel (1937: 56–58); Ostwald (1955; 1986: 414–18); McGlew (1993: 185–87); Shear (2007; 2011: 71–75, 96–106, 136–41, and passim). MacDowell (1962: 134–36) provides a brief commentary on the decree. Each of these works is an important contribution. But none of them explains either how the oath would help defend the Athenian democracy or whether or not the oath actually did facilitate the Athenians’ attempt to do so.

  33 See Thuc. 6.54–59 and Ath. Pol. 18–19 for a narrative of Harmodios and Aristogeiton’s act. The democrats’ version of that assassination—what happened, why it happened, and its consequence—was challenged in the fifth century by citizens of a less democratic persuasion. Thucydides (1.20.2–3; 6.54.1) and Herodotos (6.123.2) explicitly challenge the popular and thus democratic version. The debate over the true history of the tyrannicides continued into the later fourth century: the author of the Ath. Pol. (18.5) states that “democrats” had one version, while “some” had another. For Athenian democrats’ views of Harmodios and Aristogeiton, see Taylor (1981); Raaflaub (2003: 63–70); Ober (2005c).

  34 It might appear as though the reference to tyranny (and thus tyrannicide) in the oath of Demophantos is anachronistic. But, as is well known, later fifth-century Athenians considered any nondemocratic regime to be a “tyranny,” and thus the assassination of any high-profile member of a nondemocratic regime would be an act of tyrannicide. Thucydides (6.60.1), for example, asserts that the Athenians were so frightened by the mutilation of the Herms (415) because “the whole thing seemed to them to have been done in connection with an oligarchic and tyrannical conspiracy.” And Andokides (Myst. 75) referred to the period of the Four Hundred’s domination as “during the time of the tyrants.”

  35 The earliest statues of Harmodios and Aristogeiton were sculptured by Antenor in, according to Pliny the Elder (NH 34.17), 509. Those statues were stolen by Xerxes’s forces in 478 and returned to Athens by either Alexander the Great (Arr. Anab. 3.16.7–8 [referring to 331]; Arr. Anab. 7.19.2 [referring to 325/4]), or Antiochos I (Paus. 1.8.5), or Seleukos (Val. Max. 2.10, ext. 1). Very little can be said about them; see Taylor (1981: 34–37). A second pair of statues was made by Kritios and Nesiotes in 477/6 (Marmor Parium, A, ep. 54 [FGrH 239 A54, lines 70–71]); the earliest references to them are Ar. Lys. 631–35 and Ar. Eccl. 681–83. For this statue group, see esp. Brunnsåker (1971) and Taylor (1981: 33–50). See Figure 1 for a picture of a Roman copy of the Greek original. The earliest evidence for the Athenian tyrannicide cult is Ath. Pol. 58.1. The date for the foundation of this cult cannot be determined with any specificity beyond the obvious fact that it must antedate the composition of the Ath. Pol. But it is not unreasonable to suppose that the Athenians started the cult in the early to middle fifth century, perhaps soon after the foundation of the Kleisthenic democracy, perhaps after the erection of the Kritios and Nesiotes statue group, perhaps in the context of the promulgation of the “Prytaneion decree” (for which, see the next note).

  36 IG I3 131 (ca. 440–432). On this decree—the “Prytaneion decree”—and its substance, see Taylor (1981: 10–12) with literature cited in the notes.

  37 This speculation is based on the decree of Theozotides (Stroud 1971). Promulgated after the fall either of the Four Hundred or (more likely) of the Thirty, the decree provides for the sons of those Athenians who, “during the oligarchy, died a violent death helping the democracy.”

  38 On the oath in Athenian political culture, see Cole (1996), Rhodes (2007), and the essays in Sommerstein and Fletcher (2007). The Athenians also used the oath as an instrument of imperial control. For the texts of such oaths, see Meiggs (1972: 579–82); for a discussion, see Bolmarcich (2007).

  39 “Of themselves, the Athenians could not do so [sc., abrogate any of Solon’s laws)] since they had bound themselves by great oaths that for ten years they would live under whatever laws Solon would enact” (Hdt. 1.29, trans. Grene, Chicago, 1987). Cf. Ath. Pol. 7.1: “they wrote up the laws on the kyrbeis and placed them in the Royal Stoa, and all swore to use them.”

  In two publications, P. J. Rhodes (1993: 135; 2007: 18–22) has identified several examples where all the citizens of a polis took the same oath: Thera, late seventh century (ML 5); Kyzikos, late sixth century (Syll.3 4); Naupaktos, circa 500 (ML 20); Teos and its colony Abdera, circa 480–450 (SEG xxxi 985); Erythrai, circa 450 (ML 40); Chalkis, 446/5 (ML 52); Megara, 424 (Thuc. 4.74.2–3); Thasos, 407/6 (SEG xxxviii 851); Kyrene, 400 (Diod. Sic. 14.34.3–
6); sympoliteia of Euaimon and Arkadian Orchomenos, 378 (IG V 2, 343; SdA 2, 297); Keos, 363/2 (RO 39); Xanthus, 337 (RO 78); Mytilene, 324 (RO 85); Tegea, 324 (RO 101); Tauric Chersonese, circa 300 (Syll.3 360); Itanos in Crete, circa 300 (Syll.3 526); Absorption of Magnesia-by-Sipylos into Smyrna, post-243 (OGIS 229); Kos and Kalymna, end of third century (SdA 3, no. 545). There are other instances of such mass public oaths not noted by Rhodes: Halieis, 424/3 (IG I3 75); Selymbria, 407 (ML 87). It is also possible, though unlikely, that all Athenians swore a mass public oath pursuant to the decree of Patrokleides in 405 (Andok. Myst. 76) and their surrender to the Spartans in 404 (Andok. 3.22). The most celebrated example of all mass public oaths is the amnesty oath that the Athenians swore after the fall of the Thirty (Andok. Myst. 90), discussed below.

  40 On τέλειος, meaning “fully grown,” in the sense that the victim has a complete set of teeth, see Rosivach (1994: 91–93, 148–53).

  41 Cole (1996: 230). See also Plescia (1970: 10) for movements that accompanied oath rituals.

  42 Günzler (1907: 5) concluded that an individual swore the oath twice, once with his deme and once with his tribe. As Whitehead (1986: 109) notes, that is quite unlikely; he suggests that the oath was sworn at each tribe’s tribal assembly.

  43 Julia Shear (2007; 2011: 136–41) has argued that all Athenians, except for those away on campaign, swore the oath in the agora on 9 Elaphebolion, (probably) the day before the first day of the Dionysia. More recently, Wilson (2009) has argued that all Athenians swore the oath in the theater of Dionysos just before the tragic competitions and before the dēmos honored the assassins of Phrynichos.