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Xenophon, Critias and Theramenes Author(s): S. Usher Source: The Journal of Hellenic Studies, Vol. 88 (1968), pp. 128-135Published by: The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic StudiesStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/628676Accessed: 12-05-2015 21:47 UTC

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XENOPHON, CRITIAS AND THERAMENES

THE speeches of Critias and Theramenes form the central tableau of Xenophon's account of the reign of terror of the Thirty at Athens in 404-3 B.C. The purpose of the present paper is to examine the style and content of these speeches, in order to discover to what extent they may have been based on the texts of the original speeches. The vividness and pathos of the narrative of the siege of Athens, her surrender, the establishment of the Thirty and their expulsion' have seemed to some commentators to have the quality of personal reminiscence.2 Recently the case for Xenophon's having been a witness of some of the events of this period has been argued anew, and in the present writer's view con- vincingly, by E. Delebecque,3 who refers to several passages which seem to convey personal impressions of events. Delebecque also argues,4 to the satisfaction of Sir Frank Adcock,5 that Xenophon composed this part of the Hellenica before setting out on the Cyreian Expedition. The acceptance of both these theses would add some weight to the present argument; but the possibilities here envisaged do not depend upon their support.

According to Xenophon's account, both speeches were delivered before the A3ovAr.6 The members of this body had been chosen by the Thirty,7 so that it seems certain that they were men who were known to favour the oligarchy. But whatever were Xenophon's political views at the time, it is unlikely that he was old enough to be a member in 404 B.C.8 Hence it is improbable that he heard either speech. Four possibilities may therefore be considered:

(I) That the substance of the speeches was reported to him from memory by a member, who perhaps took special pains to remember some of the purple passages.

(2) That his informant took the speeches down in shorthand. (3) That Xenophon obtained complete copies of the speeches, and condensed them.

(Both speeches as they stand are too short to be historical.) (4) That the speeches in the Hellenica are entirely the product of his imagination.

It is hoped that the unlikelihood of the fourth possibility will become apparent in. the course of the following discussion, and that a reasonable degree of probability will be established for the first in the case of the speech of Theramenes, and the third in the case of the speech of Critias.

Part of the discussion concerns the characters and reputations of the two antagonists. In this regard we are better informed about Critias than about Theramenes. His very name aroused in the minds of contemporary and later democrats feelings of the deepest detestation. As a member of one of the oldest aristocratic families he championed extreme oligarchy, and was realistically Macchiavellian in his methods of achieving and maintaining it, openly admitting that the same ruthlessness must be employed as that necessary for a tyrant to keep his power.9 From the surviving remains of his considerable literary output,1' which includes AaKES&aqOVLoW v HoAL7E-Zc in prose and verse, it is evident that he admired

1 Hell. ii 2.3-end. 2 See Biichsenschiitz, Xenophons Griechische Ges- chichte (Leipzig, 1876) I ; Schwarz, Rhein. Mus. xliv (1889) 165; Luccioni, Les Idees Sociales et Politiques de Xdnophon (Ophrys, 1947) I I.

3 Essai sur la Vie de Xenophon (Paris, 1957) 61. 4 Op. cit. 29-39. 5 Thucydides and his History (Cambridge, 1963) 99.

6 Hell. ii 3.23. 7 Id. ii 3.11. 8 Thirty was the minimum age for membership

(see Hignett, Ath. Constit. 224); Xenophon was probably born around 427 B.C. (see Delebecque, op. cit. 23-4).

9 Hell. ii 3.16. 10 See Diels, Fragmente der Vorsokratiker ii 308-329-


XENOPHON, CRITIAS AND THERAMENES 129

Sparta for the stability of her constitution and the insistence on moderation in her social institutions. That his character was forthright and direct rather than subtle and scheming is suggested by the violence with which later writers condemn him," and may well account for the minor part which he played in the earlier oligarchic revolution of 411 B.c., for the success of which, in an Athens still free, patient and clandestine planning was essential. In 404 B.C., with Spartan backing, the forcible imposition of an oligarchy upon a cowed

840o was a straight-forward matter, and much more to his taste. But although he was

ruthless, and regarded political power as the meed of his aristocratic birth (like his friend Alcibiades), he appears, among his other literary activities, to have studied oratory, at least to the extent of composing some rhetorical exercises (SrtP)yoptK4 /rpoo001ta).12 Although his memory was almost eclipsed in the fourth century,a3 some of his speeches were extant in the time of Cicero,14 and survived into the Second Sophistic, when interest in them was revived by Herodes Atticus.15 When it is remembered that that celebrated orator said 'AvSOKI3OV pEv PE7ATLV

ELL, when replying in a spirit of humorous self-deprecation to the

praises of his admirers, meaning that he admitted to being not the worst of orators, we may safely deduce that Critias also possessed qualities which placed him above the least dis- tinguished of the recognised orators in the opinion of Herodes. Other critics support this judgment. Dionysius of Halicarnassus compares him with Lysias,16 Hermogenes of Tarsus compares him favourably with Antiphon,'7 and accords him more space than, for example, Lysias; and in none of the critiques is any fault imputed to his style. Two of these critiques describe its qualities in considerable detail, and these passages form the basis of the stylistic part of the present examination. This is made possible by the fact that all the terms which Hermogenes uses are explained by examples elsewhere in his own writings, and also that there is a high degree of agreement among the critics of his time as to the meanings of the words most generally used. Thus the procedure will be to examine Critias' speech for the specific qualities attributed to his style in the two critiques. If these qualities are present to a marked degree, there will be good stylistic grounds for suspecting that Xenophon was using an original copy of the speech, especially if his own stylistic practice is also found to be infringed.'s The two critiques are best quoted in full:

"Ecr t yap Kat ov'0 - vowo

yELs ,v

rapa-rrrtKlos 7TOTA 'Avl p-VTt, KaO 7r7p Evos 7Tpos oyKovY Kal, 7T 7roAha'd Ayov d rodavThKEL K capWovTEpo S -TTV AEey , Kal A o0TE TEpLtdAAOtO &EVKpLVW-V, WU'cTE ElVa e Kat c0aq2) c Tpo /LEYEE Kat EvoKptV-'S. XEt S

-n-oAAaMoV- Kat c 1kAta-a EV Tots T8J1YOPtK0tS 7rpooqtdIoLS Kal T oAqOtvhdv 'TE Kal IT Oavov. E'7qEACqs & W

,v 003 3/.ETpliWS, O s X a ox dTA Xpiqrat

.co TOtOVT(0) KO;tkW, OVOE Kam To TOY JvTUWvTaL -P0r--r-'-p Kat aa- qTTv EItT T)OEVULV EV XOvtL, alAA WOTE

IrETEXEtY KOTTa TOVTO "TOy OA760 v5.9

'rev SE iSEav toi Aoyov Soya-ras~J Kpt-rdas Kat' rroAvyv),wv o'JV tvoAoyTct TE

LKaLVr'TLTos oV

rT-v 8c~vpCtkLq%%r) cTE/vOAOy1taV, OVE' KcTaSbEVyovcav E's Ta EK '

7T0VTtKT)S oVocLTka, c5AA EK TWoY KVUtoL-TWV oVyKEqJEVrqV Katl KamT or

E 'tv EXoavU . opw OY cTv dpvpa Ka'L /paXvAoyoVvTa ?KavWs Kat 8 ECvWs

KacaLrdLEvoEVov E)a JiOAoyla5g 7'E7. aTTtK1L0VTa TE OVK aKpa-s.

.,

OV3& EK''AWS

(To yap ..7ELpOKaAoV Ev i-w aT-TLKLCEtV /3Jpflapov), ctAA WcTITEP ELKt1LVWV aiyat ra 'ATTLKd ovo'para Staoalv & cU Toy^ Ao'yov.

KacU -r dauvv8-ws Xooplov Xoop, -poc/3cLaE'v Kpt-i7ov wpa, Ka, Tr

c r1cpact8 )s

,v JEVVVU=7ft7VrcU, nrapaso'ws s34 LTcrayytAat Kpcrtov Jy(Av, "7"c 3 i-o Adyov "TrvEVOja :AAu-r'crTEpov ,.v, p3b V~ Kat AEZov,

11 Xen. Mem. i 2.25; Justin v 9.15; Philostr. Vit. soph. i 16.

12 Hermog. Hepi "I6SdCo 2, I (Rhet. Graec. Spengel ii 415, 27). a13 Arist. Rhet. iii 16.I4I6b, 26. 14 De Oratore ii 22.93; Dion. Hal. De Lysia 2~ 1, Philostr. Vit. soph. ii 1.-I4.

16 Loc. cit. 17 Loc. cit. 18 The reliability of Hermogenes' judgments has

been established statistically in a previous article, AJPh lxxxi (1960) 369-72. 1' Hermog. loc. cit.

20 Philostr. Vit. soph. i I6. VOL. LXXXVIII. F


130 S. USHER The qualities attributed to Critias will most conveniently be treated under separate headings.

aELvdr-qs, 'dignity', involves the use of nominal sentences, excluding or minimising the use of finite verbs.21 It may be taken in conjunction with

roAuvyvLwv. Two passages in

the speech have this quality to a marked degree:

7TAEYTOV's a

Jvayricq 6va&

'7TrroAE(.kovs1 Etvac 'ro-Zs EtS Atyapxiav tkEO0tcrTact

&c rE 7ToAvavOpW7rro- -rcdrnv

'ri v 'EAqvd7Swv ?-rCjv gAw Etuvat

Ka &4 r-

IrrTAa-rov Xpdvov v EAEvOEp1l Orv &yit ov rETpcIa4c.22

Ka-rL 70o0- TOcovr P VELVOd7EpOV pOTPo00aca oA 7TOtov, iUCp XaAET 7EPO' V UqvActjaOac - r6 7 avSm Tro0 #avEpoo, -roaoVrC0 8

X'

'otov, 3aw ITOAEoOtSo

pt v cLvOpwrTroT

aTETovraPT Kat aOv , 1ro

yvovra,, iv

'vv

rpo8s"dv'a Aalctp'cvwcn,

0Vrov O'7E E7TEao raO- oTrofTOT-E OVoEtgS Ov7VEr ovOLO^.23 Two further statements have a gnomic character. These are:

KaC EUL a(pv y &rov Orr TaL cLETra3oAcPO 7rTOAtTEtWV

Oaa7 q0dpOL24 and KaAAT-r7 l'Ev yaLp &rOv 80oKEvo ITO7AtTEt EiC Lt 7 lAcKE LqLOVt'OV.' 25

yrKOs, 'elevation', is achieved (a) by means of metaphorical expressions; (b) by the use of the plural for a more natural singular; (c) by the emphatic instead of attributive position of possessive adjectives.26 Critias' speech contains two metaphors: v 8 E' r avTtKdOr7Tr

7 and wTTor Lot cv 7dS ~ArTo8aS.28

The latter also contains the second charac- teristic, to which may also be added peLrEaoAS,29 where 'fickleness' may be the meaning rather than 'changes'. Examples of (c) are lacking, but a very similar effect is achieved by the use of personal pronouns in the first and second person plural used in conjunction30 and singly,31 which underline the earnestness and authority with which Critias impresses upon the 3ovA4 their involvement in the fortunes of the Thirty.32 Their use is peculiarly suited to his purpose, and their effect is to elevate the sociative theme to the status of a leitmotif.

&aofavr-TK

XENOPHON, CRITIAS AND THERAMENES 131

although it is by no means certain that all his audience shared his opinion. Nowhere throughout the speech is any statement worded in such a way as to admit doubt or uncertainty (e.g. by being introduced as a matter of personal opinion, with o'aL or Wd' 4wotLy 8oKE); the style, moreover, is predominantly direct and simple.

By E'I'AMELa Hermogenes means 'attention to ornamentation', the product of which is KaAAos. Among the devices for achieving KAAos

are the balancing figure of parison and the coordinating figures of anaphora and antistrophe. Critias' speech in the Hellenica contains some good examples of parison, the best being Jd pv

8tor ovrro-r' a'v Log y"voEro, 0d 8~

fle'Artcrot a Et cv

owtro' aTEAoZEV42 and

o l/Ev ITAEOVEKTE'V aJEL'E 77ILLEAOEVOS , TO) 8 E KcLAOV Kal

rvy LAwv 8v VTp-PrreJ7T0e OS43

to which three further examples may be added.44 In 32 there is an example of parison and anaphora combined: rAedaroS/E secy [tra-l'ro Elt

I oAtyapXltas grT

7ro0o 8l, pov

daroAwAEvat, rrA~ElT, Crot8' E'K 8%rlfoKpatlcags Vro 'TCWv

/,eArtovmv. There

are two further examples of anaphora: yvdvTreS v ... yVd,,,ES

E .

..,4 and avi h ..E .

arsro 86E.46 Hermogenes also lists hyperbaton as a device to produce K\ad

:47 this short

speech contains three good examples of a figure which is by no means common in Xenophon.48 Hermogenes, and more especially Philostratus, refer to the Atticism of Critias' diction;

but the latter qualifies his statement by describing Critias as dTT77KOV7a OVK Kdcpa7co Oi;8

EKvAcowS- not purely or unnaturally', which implies that he was prepared to employ words not current in everyday speech in order to express what he wanted to say. Hermogenes' description of him as KaGapo7Epos 7Too 'Av'rttO Cvro leaves a similar margin for impurities. It will also be remembered that Critias wrote tragic and lyric poetry, unlike any other extant Attic prose author. The words Oava-r-ydpot, E ErdafloAo0, EdVrp7rO/dLEvo and zVTroTE`do in Xenophon's version of the speech are all unusual and are found nowhere else in Xenophon. Oavar-9d'pos49 is found twice in Aeschylus, once in Sophocles, not in Euripides or Aris- tophanes. Among prose writers it is found in the Hippocratic corpus, but elsewhere only once, in Plato. EVIdETLoAos50 appears to be a rare prose word: it is found three times in Plato, once in Isocrates and nowhere else in Attic prose or poetry (even including Thucydides, who is partial to compounds of this kind). dvrpi Olats5 (= 'curare') is mainly poetic, occurring twice in Homer, three times in Sophocles and once in Euripides; of prose writers Plato is the only user, on two occasions.

oI-TEvVEW5 in the metaphorical sense is very

rare, not being found in poetry, and only once in Herodotus. Turning from style to content, our first task is to discover whether any of the sentiments

expressed in the speech are paralleled in the extant fragments of Critias. In view of the paucity of these, only a limited amount of evidence may be expected. The danger of 'r

Jcbavs to the security of a state or a regime, which is the theme of Critias' central

argument,53 finds a general parallel in a fragment of his satyr-play Sisyphus,54 in which he says that men have always been able to hinder the operation of law and justice by recourse to secrecy; and that for this reason a certain wise man invented the gods, and persuaded men that they live among them and know their innermost thoughts. (It is perhaps indicative of Critias' atheism that he never swears by the gods.) The statement that the Spartan constitution is the best receives ample confirmation from the several fragments in prose and verse in which Critias enlarges on this theme.55

41 Op. cit. I, I2 (Sp. ii 330 ff.) KclAog and ~nEpdAsta are here not differentiated, but the relatively abstract meaning of the former seems to suggest that the latter is the means by which it is achieved.

42 Hell. ii 3-25- ~3 Id. 33. 44 Id. 28; 29; 34. 45 Id. 25. 4 Id. 28. 4 Loc. cit. (337-8).

48 ;rAeioov; ... oA epiovg (24); rtvd . . . rwv dr~yaycowyv (27); no~Ro

..

.j. jy 8,vavta ytyVwaKOVTCOV

(34). 49 Id. 32. 50 Ibid. 51 Id. 33. 5 Id. 34-. 53 Id. 28-9. 54 Diels, op. cit. 320-1. 55 Op. cit. 316-17; 323-5.


132 S. USHER To these instances of actual parallels we may add the several statements which may be

thought to derive from an original utterance. We return first to the twice-expressed sentiment that revolutions necessarily bring bloodshed. To begin with, it is a decidedly un-Xenophontine sentiment: throughout his writings Xenophon shows a tendency, even when describing battles, to pass over the actual details of violence, for which he shows distaste; with regard to political change his attitude is firmly optimistic, not cynical, a fact best illustrated in the dialogue Hiero, in which he sets out to explain how tyranny can be made tolerable to ruler and subject alike.56 Secondly, it is an extremely unorthodox sentiment with which to begin a speech which otherwise conforms roughly to accepted rhetorical practice,5' lacking the customary conciliatory tone. But most striking is its apparent uniqueness when viewed against the considerable volume of literature of the time which was written on the subject of political change.58 The political theorists have plenty to say about the destructive consequences of u-radcs; but the word itself has an evil connotation which colours judgment about it: it is the internecine principle, the opposite of

1tcdvota.59 pETrao0A') is, by contrast, a neutral concept, meaning 'change' merely, and

this neutrality renders its association with violence and death shocking in addition to being unparalleled. For these reasons Critias, the frankly cynical revolutionary, and not Xenophon, the aristocratic but humane spectator, is the more likely author of the whole of the proemium, since the arguments follow closely upon one another. The ensuing argu- ment60 centres around the antithesis between rroA`Ltos (JxOpcS) and rTpo8dr'qs (7rovqpds'). This was probably a commonplace in sophistic writings of the day;61 but its application to the case of Theramenes is adroit, and is consistent with Critias' conception of the Athenian oligarchy as an exclusive club whose members owed it undivided loyalty, the betrayal of which, even by a man who thought he was acting in the wider interests of the state, was tantamount to treason. The passage contains a further interesting feature: section 28 contains two harsh anacolutha which, in view of the above evidence, may be explained as indications either of the limitations of Xenophon's source as a shorthand scribe, or of Xenophon's own deficiency, perhaps writing under pressure of time before his departure for Asia, as an epitomist. In either case the tendency would have been to make sure that the memorable phrases were recorded: here the sarcastic tone of odKd7-' advc2- T yyvdlova paEUKEL would

have stuck in the mind, and the fact that adv-rs has already been made the subject would have been overlooked, as would the fact that the J7rrws clause has no true antecedent. In the same way the

rrposoaua-rarAEoso antithesis stood a good

chance of being recorded in full, including the arresting contrast between the present and aorist tenses in the concluding pairs of antithetical clauses:

ardv8ovrat... ylyvov-ra ...

oUvE u arrtaaro....T o'7 airrEva'E. The

reference to Theramenes' nickname KdOOpVOS cannot, in spite of its relevance, be assumed independently to have been taken from the original speech, since that sobriquet was common currency, and was used by extremists of both left- and right-wing persuasion. But the following apostrophe with its menacing &v3pa -r7v Lvtov v, and more especially the nautical metaphor

av-tKdoo'7T-62 together with

the nautical simile which follows, bears the stamp of originality, but not on the part of Xenophon.63 The concluding paragraph of the speech must be considered in the light of the absence, at this stage of the Hellenica, of any pro-Spartan sympathies on Xenophon's

56 Cf. Cyrop. i I.I, where the process of constitu- tional change is described without mention of violence.

" See E. Vorrenhagen, De Orationibus quae sunt in X. Hellenicis (Diss. Elberfeld, 1926) 25-27.

68 See H. Ryffel, Me-afloA) HoAsetCov (Berne, 1949) x8, 44 ff. 9 See Diels, op. cit. ii 55B245, 249.

so 27-29.

61 See Diels, op. cit. 339 11.19-21 and Gorgias, Palamedes 17 for contemporary views on treason.

62 A nautical metaphor survives in a fragment of Critias, Diels ii 8IB6, 1.2o (iLtCva).

6s The word occurs once only elsewhere in Xenophon, in a passage which could have been recently written (Hell. ii 3.I5), when the author had Critias' speech in mind.


XENOPHON, CRITIAS AND THERAMENES 133 part. Critias advises the council to follow the supposed Spartan practice of not tolerating opposition to the will of the majority of the ruling body. The same argument applies to this as to the introductory paragraph: the very unpalatability of the theme-in this case the adduction of an example of the practice of their recent conquerors, with whom by no means all the councillors shared Critias' ardent sympathies-argues strongly in favour of its being the actual utterance of the man himself. This predilection for attacking awkward or embarrassing subjects head-on may be the quality of

r-- rrapdco0ov to which

Philostratus is alluding. There thus seems little in either style or subject-matter that cannot, with greater or

lesser degrees of certainty, be traced back to the original speaker. The third of the four original possibilities, that Xenophon obtained a copy of the speech and condensed it,64 therefore seems the most likely. It is more than credible that Critias had copies made and multiplied immediately after the death of Theramenes in order to justify his action and confirm his position at what must have been a difficult time. Theramenes had clearly enjoyed much sympathy, if not support, and it was among moderate oligarchs like Xenophon and his friends that it was most necessary for Critias to canvass.

The speech of Theramenes poses a different set of problems arising from the different position of the speaker. In the first place, we read that Critias and his supporters arranged for an armed band of young bravos to be present at the meeting in order to intimidate those who sympathised with Theramenes.65 This function would automatically include preventing anyone from writing down what Theramenes said, since the subsequent publica- tion of his speech would be more damaging to Critias' precarious position than his present victory in a battle of words, which could be invalidated by force. There remains the possibility that copies were made of the original speech, but since Theramenes had to reply to charges the precise nature of which he could not know until his opponent had spoken, it is unlikely that he prepared a full written defence; and he had no time to write it out afterwards.

The tradition concerning Theramenes' writings, though confused, gives little reason for believing that any of his speeches were transmitted.66 Indeed, when his reputation for dexterity and resourcefulness as a speaker67 is added to the tradition prevalent in the Second Sophistic68 that he was an exponent only of the y}vos avJfloovAEv7rKdV, in which medium speakers were required by convention to speak ex tempore,69 it is difficult to imagine by what means his oratory could have been preserved. No critique of his style survives.

The reference to Theramenes' speech in Lysias' In Eratosthenem70 contains statements which do not occur in Xenophon's version; but we should not jump to extreme conclusions on this evidence. The first argument against the hypothesis that the speech is the free creation of Xenophon himself is the presence in it of references to specific individuals who fell victims of the Thirty-Leon of Salamis, Niceratus, son of Nicias, and Antiphon.71 Since these men are important only as examples of the excesses of the Thirty, why are they

64 Diodorus Siculus implies that Critias' speech was long (xiv 4.5 7 o;AA KaTrnyoprj7avtro).

65 Hell. ii 3.23. Their presence proved necessary (id. 50).

66 Cic. De Orat. ii 22.93: multa Lysiae sunt, nunnulla Critiae, de Theramene audimus. The distinction between Theramenes and the writers known to have survived seems plain. Radermacher points out (Artium Scriptores [Vienna, I951] I 5) that Cicero could have said the same of Pericles, of whom there is a firm tradition that he wrote no political speeches.

67 Aristoph. Frogs 534 if. 68 Proleg. Sylloge 34, 129-30, 327- 69 See Hudson-Williams, 'Political Speeches in

Athens' in CQ n.s. i (i95I) 68-73- 70 77, in which Theramenes is said to have

reproached the returned exiles and those who had been given a share in the government.

71 Hell. ii 3.29-40.


134 S. USHER chosen by Xenophon if they were not used by Theramenes himself? There are also certain memorable highlights, as when, early in the speech,72 Theramenes turns the tables on Critias by referring to the latter's sojourn in Thessaly, where he helped the democrats to overthrow the barons; and the three passages in which apostrophe occurs with rhetorical questions,'73 each contain something memorable: in the first the alternatives E'CES' and -rpo8oT-qS and the antithesis oiX ol dxOpovs, C Kpt'rla, KwAvOov7ES aO'rr~oOS r

7roLEuOa, O;83 Od

av/ptXovv' TrA'ovUS 8t8UaKovTEs K'Ta7OatC

. . . in the second, the high-point of the speech, the display of wit in which Theramenes contrasts his own policy of the Middle Way with that of Critias, which contrives to be unacceptable to all; 4 and the final sentence, in which he defies Critias to prove him guilty of depriving the worthiest citizens of their rightful share in the government. This is the kind of material which an intelligent and attentive listener, perhaps one whose memory had had some training through acting or public speaking, might be expected to retain in his mind long enough to commit it to writing soon after the trial.

But Xenophon, who approved of Theramenes' moderate policy and his stand against the extremists, desired, both in order to lend his own support and to render Theramenes' verbal victory credible to his readers, that his speech should carry the fullest possible con- viction. This he could scarcely achieve with the material from the actual speech that was available to him. He therefore incorporated statements of Theramenes' policy which had no direct bearing on the charges made against him by Critias. Thus we read of his reasons for disapproving of the disarmament of the citizens and the introduction of a Spartan garrison-that such a policy was in the interests neither of Athens, who would be thus weakened internally while her dissident citizens would find new leaders, nor of Sparta, who looked upon Athens as a potential ally against her other enemies.75 Later we read one of the most lucid extant summaries of his political position: that neither a democracy in which paupers, whose judgment will be swayed by venal motives, exercise sovereign power, nor an oligarchy in which the few tyrannise the many, has any appeal for him. He would entrust the state's affairs to men who were able actively to fight for her, supplying their own horses and arms.76 In this statement the unusual phrase

S'cioplav SpayjLq

could well have been used by Theramenes in one of his important political speeches.77 Otherwise, however, the speech contains no words or phrases that occur nowhere else in Xenophon; on the contrary, in three passages the wording is the same as in the passages on Xenophon's narrative where the same subject has been previously raised:

rrpoar-axO'v ot . .

. odK lVEAEUOaL78 echoes the original defence of the generals: ir7-v 8 cvaC'PEOUL r WTv

vavay,5v -rpoucr'eauv and I7TEpt 1-r LVcpE'UEOJS' ... 0 t

'ITpOUEI-X o

'OVKOVV [EXPL tEV TOyV LS'

TE KaraoTrvau tE nv TV AO ElaV80 appears as an awkward rephrasing of flovA'iv .8 Kai 7~a Aas E &pXds KG~aTraav . .. ; 81 and Ar

TAa 0o

rAOovs 'rapqpovv-ro82 has as its antecedent 'ra ora rl "'Aov-ro

.

83 S.

.

A i7"a orravwv 7rA'Tv

q'wv 7 -VptuX ,,v t7apEuOvT"O. Xenophon's version of Theramenes' speech thus seems to derive from different sources,

and to fulfil a different purpose in the historian's mind from that of Critias. Lacking an original full text of the speech, but desiring for both personal and artistic reasons to do full justice to Theramenes' performance, he composed the oration from a mixture of an eyewitness's memory of the highlights of the actual speech and Theramenes' statements

72 Id. 36. 73 Id. 43, 47, 49. t 6

't 6 1~8T PdeO'ipotg dpe'K, . .. 75 Id. 4I-2. 76 Id. 48. 77 Cf the close verbal correspondence between

Hell. ii 3.I9 and Aristotle Ath. Pol. 36.2 (See Wila- mowitz, Aristoteles und Athen i 165-6).

78 Hell. ii 3-35. 79 Hell. i 7.5-6. 80 Hell. ii 3.38. 81 Id. II. 82 Id. 41. 83 Id. 20.


XENOPHON, CRITIAS AND THERAMENES I35 of his political views on previous occasions. The effect of this fusion is a forceful and coherent apologia pro vita sua, in which the immediate narrow issues of the contest are transcended, and the speaker appears to be unselfishly concerned with the establishment of a stable constitution which will benefit the state at large. Although Theramenes clearly regards the contest as personal,s4 his speech is as much concerned with positive statements of his own views as with obloquy. Critias' speech is more specifically directed towards personal attack on the narrow front of blind loyalty to the oligarchy, to which he contends personal opinion and conscience must be subordinated. The Socratic parallel with the situation was probably not lost on the historian. He could scarcely have projected it more effectively than by the contrast which he draws between these two speeches, perhaps at the slight expense of historicity.

S. USHER. Royal Holloway College, University of London.

84 Id. 37.


Article Contentsp. [128]p. 129p. 130p. 131p. 132p. 133p. 134p. 135

Issue Table of ContentsJournal of Hellenic Studies, Vol. 88 (1968), pp. 1-283Front Matter [pp. 277-283]Island Gems Aftermath [pp. 1-12]The Campaign and the Battle of Marathon [pp. 13-57]The Portland Vase again [pp. 58-72]The Structure and Function of the Melian Dialogue [pp. 73-77]Plato as a Natural Scientist [pp. 78-92]The Relation of Anaxagoras and Empedocles [pp. 93-113]Derived Light and Eclipses in the Fifth Century [pp. 114-127]Xenophon, Critias and Theramenes [pp. 128-135]NotesA Revolution in Classical Scholarship? [pp. 136-137]Content Analysis and Classical Scholarship [pp. 137-138]An Athletic [pp. 138-139]An Etruscan Inscription in Reading [pp. 139-140]A Corinthian Cup and a Euboean Lekythos [pp. 140-141]

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Books Received [pp. 267-276]Back Matter

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