in the late victory two never returned to Athens: these were
Protomachus and Aristogenes. The other six sailed home. Their names
were Pericles, Diomedon, Lysias, Aristocrates, Thrasylus, and
Erasinides. On their arrival Archidemus, the leader of the democracy
at that date, who had charge of the two obol fund,[1] inflicted a fine
on Erasinides, and accused him before the Dicastery[2] of having
appropriated money derived from the Hellespont, which belonged to the
people. He brought a further charge against him of misconduct while
acting as general, and the court sentenced him to imprisonment.

[1] Reading {tes diobelais}, a happy conjecture for the MSS. {tes
    diokelias}, which is inexplicable. See Grote, "Hist. of Greece,"
    vol. viii. p. 244 note (2d ed.)

[2] I.e. a legal tribunal or court of law. At Athens the free citizens
    constitutionally sworn and impannelled sat as "dicasts"
    ("jurymen," or rather as a bench of judges) to hear cases
    ({dikai}). Any particular board of dicasts formed a "dicastery."

These proceedings in the law court were followed by the statement of
the generals before the senate[3] touching the late victory and the
magnitude of the storm. Timocrates then proposed that the other five
generals should be put in custody and handed over to the public
assembly.[4] Whereupon the senate committed them all to prison. Then
came the meeting of the public assembly, in which others, and more
particularly Theramenes, formally accused the generals. He insisted
that they ought to show cause why they had not picked up the
shipwrecked crews. To prove that there had been no attempt on their
part to attach blame to others, he might point, as conclusive
testimony, to the despatch sent by the generals themselves to the
senate and the people, in which they attributed the whole disaster to
the storm, and nothing else. After this the generals each in turn made
a defence, which was necessarily limited to a few words, since no
right of addressing the assembly at length was allowed by law. Their
explanation of the occurrences was that, in order to be free to sail
against the enemy themselves, they had devolved the duty of picking up
the shipwrecked crews upon certain competent captains of men-of-war,
who had themselves been generals in their time, to wit Theramenes and
Tharysbulus, and others of like stamp. If blame could attach to any
one at all with regard to the duty in question, those to whom their
orders had been given were the sole persons they could hold
responsible. "But," they went on to say, "we will not, because these
very persons have denounced us, invent a lie, and say that Theramenes
and Thrasybulus are to blame, when the truth of the matter is that the
magnitude of the storm alone prevented the burial of the dead and the
rescue of the living." In proof of their contention, they produced the
pilots and numerous other witnesses from among those present at the
engagement. By these arguments they were in a fair way to persuade the
people of their innocence. Indeed many private citizens rose wishing
to become bail for the accused, but it was resolved to defer decision
till another meeting of the assembly. It was indeed already so late
that it would have been impossible to see to count the show of hands.
It was further resolved that the senate meanwhile should prepare a
measure, to be introduced at the next assembly, as to the mode in
which the accused should take their trial.

[3] This is the Senate or Council of Five Hundred. One of its chief
    duties was to prepare measures for discussion in the assembly. It
    had also a certain amount of judicial power, hearing complaints
    and inflicting fines up to fifty drachmas. It sat daily, a
    "prytany" of fifty members of each of the ten tribes in rotation
    holding office for a month in turn.

[4] This is the great Public Assembly (the Ecclesia), consisting of
    all genuine Athenian citizens of more than twenty years of age.

Then came the festival of the Aparturia,[5] with its family gatherings
of fathers and kinsfolk. Accordingly the party of Theramenes procured
numbers of people clad in black apparel, and close-shaven,[6] who were
to go in and present themselves before the public assembly in the
middle of the festival, as relatives, presumably, of the men who had
perished; and they persuaded Callixenus to accuse the generals in the
senate. The next step was to convoke the assembly, when the senate
laid before it the proposal just passed by their body, at the instance
of Callixenus, which ran as follows: "Seeing that both the parties to
this case, to wit, the prosecutors of the generals on the one hand,
and the accused themselves in their defence on the other, have been
heard in the late meeting of the assembly; we propose that the people
of Athens now record their votes, one and all, by their tribes; that a
couple of voting urns be placed for the convenience of each several
tribe; and the public crier in the hearing of each several tribe
proclaim the mode of voting as follows: 'Let every one who finds the
generals guilty of not rescuing the heroes of the late sea fight
deposit his vote in urn No. 1. Let him who is of the contrary opinion
deposit his vote in urn No. 2. Further, in the event of the aforesaid
generals being found guilty, let death be the penalty. Let the guilty
persons be delivered over to the eleven. Let their property be
confiscated to the State, with the exception of one tithe, which falls
to the goddess.'"

[5] An important festival held in October at Athens, and in nearly all
    Ionic cities. Its objects were (1) the recognition of a common
    descent from Ion, the son of Apollo Patrous; and (2) the
    maintenance of the ties of clanship. See Grote, "Hist. of Greece,"
    vol. viii. p. 260 foll. (2d ed.); Jebb, "Theophr." xviii. 5.

[6] I.e. in sign of mourning.

Now there came forward in the assembly a man, who said that he had
escaped drowning by clinging to a meal tub. The poor fellows perishing
around him had commissioned him, if he succeeded in saving himself, to
tell the people of Athens how bravely they had fought for their
fatherland, and how the generals had left them there to drown.

Presently Euryptolemus, the son of Peisianax, and others served a
notice of indictment on Callixenus, insisting that his proposal was
unconstitutional, and this view of the case was applauded by some
members of the assembly. But the majority kept crying out that it was
monstrous if the people were to be hindered by any stray individual
from doing what seemed to them right. And when Lysicus, embodying the
spirit of those cries, formally proposed that if these persons would
not abandon their action, they should be tried by the same vote along
with the generals: a proposition to which the mob gave vociferous
assent; and so these were compelled to abandon their summonses. Again,
when some of the Prytanes[7] objected to put a resolution to the vote
which was in itself unconstitutional, Callixenus again got up and
accused them in the same terms, and the shouting began again. "Yes,
summons all who refuse," until the Prytanes, in alarm, all agreed with
one exception to permit the voting. This obstinate dissentient was
Socrates, the son of Sophroniscus, who insisted that he would do
nothing except in accordance with the law.[8] After this Euryptolemus
rose and spoke in behalf of the generals. He said:--

[7] Prytanes--the technical term for the senators of the presiding
    tribe, who acted as presidents of the assembly. Their chairman for
    the day was called Epistates.

[8] For the part played by Socrates see further Xenophon's
    "Memorabilia," I. i. 18; IV. iv. 2.

"I stand here, men of Athens, partly to accuse Pericles, though he is
a close and intimate connection of my own, and Diomedon, who is my
friend, and partly to urge certain considerations on their behalf, but
chiefly to press upon you what seems to me the best course for the
State collectively. I hold them to blame in that they dissuaded their
colleagues from their intention to send a despatch to the senate and
this assembly, which should have informed you of the orders given to
Theramenes and Thrasybulus to take forty-seven ships of war and pick
up the shipwrecked crews, and of the neglect of the two officers to
carry out those orders. And it follows that though the offence was
committed by one or two, the responsibility must be shared by all; and
in return for kindness in the past, they are in danger at present of
sacrificing their lives to the machinations of these very men, and
others whom I could mention. In danger, do I say, of losing their
lives? No, not so, if you will suffer me to persuade you to do what is
just and right; if you will only adopt such a course as shall enable
you best to discover the truth and shall save you from too late
repentance, when you find you have transgressed irremediably against
heaven and your own selves. In what I urge there is no trap nor plot
whereby you can be deceived by me or any other man; it is a
straightforward course which will enable you to discover and punish
the offender by whatever process you like, collectively or
individually. Let them have, if not more, at any rate one whole day to
make what defence they can for themselves; and trust to your own
unbiased judgment to guide you to the right conclusion.

"You know, men of Athens, the exceeding stringency of the decree of
Cannonus,[9] which orders that man, whosoever he be, who is guilty of
treason against the people of Athens, to be put in irons, and so to
meet the charge against him before the people. If he be convicted, he
is to be thrown into the Barathron and perish, and the property of
such an one is to be confiscated, with the exception of the tithe
which falls to the goddess. I call upon you to try these generals in
accordance with this decree. Yes, and so help me God--if it please
you, begin with my own kinsman Pericles for base would it be on my
part to make him of more account than the whole of the State. Or, if
you prefer, try them by that other law, which is directed against
robbers of temples and betrayers of their country, which says: if a
man betray his city or rob a sacred temple of the gods, he shall be
tried before a law court, and if he be convicted, his body shall not
be buried in Attica, and his goods shall be confiscated to the State.
Take your choice as between these two laws, men of Athens, and let the
prisoners be tried by one or other. Let three portions of a day be
assigned to each respectively, one portion wherein they shall listen
to their accusation, a second wherein they shall make their defence,
and a third wherein you shall meet and give your votes in due order on
the question of their guilt or innocence. By this procedure the
malefactors will receive the desert of their misdeeds in full, and
those who are innocent will owe you, men of Athens, the recovery of
their liberty, in place of unmerited destruction.[10]

[9] "There was a rule in Attic judicial procedure, called the psephism
    of Kannonus (originally adopted, we do not know when, on the
    proposition of a citizen of that name, as a psephism or decree for
    some particular case, but since generalised into common practice,
    and grown into great prescriptive reverence), which peremptorily
    forbade any such collective trial or sentence, and directed that a
    separate judicial vote should in all cases be taken for or against
    each accused party." Grote, "Hist. of Greece," vol. viii. p. 266
    (2d ed.)

[10] Reading {adikos apolountai}.

"On your side, in trying the accused by recognised legal procedure,
you will show that you obey the dictates of pious feeling, and can
regard the sanctity of an oath, instead of joining hands with our
enemies the Lacedaemonians and fighting their battles. For is it not
to fight their battles, if you take their conquerors, the men who
deprived them of seventy vessels, and at the moment of victory sent
them to perdition untried and in the teeth of the law? What are you