Given their vulnerability, it is not at all surprising to discover that the Athenians went to great lengths to obtain and retain the goodwill of prominent Macedonians or friends of such Macedonians. The currency was public honor. As would be expected, the Athenians honored Philip lavishly. Among his many honors, the Athenians placed an equestrian statue in his likeness in the agora (Paus. 1.9.4).12 But the Athenians’ “flattering policy,” as suggested, was much more broadly based. There exist, for example, two inscriptions honoring two different Macedonians that date to the archonship of Phrynichos: Tod 180 (for Alkimachos); Tod 181 (for a man in Philip’s court whose name is lost). And it is quite possibly in that same year (337/6) that the Athenians notoriously honored a number of Macedonians en bloc (Hyp., Ag. Philippides). More examples could be mentioned.13 Now, the overwhelming majority of the Athenians hated the Macedonians, of course; indeed, they publically honored Philip’s assassin (Aischin. 3.160; Plut. Dem. 22.2). The Athenians engaged in such activity simply because they thought that it would buy them security.14
The tyrannical threat confronting the Athenians in 336 was that individuals might take advantage of Athens’s dependency on Macedonian goodwill in order to insinuate themselves into positions of extralegal authority. Again, a friendly relationship with the hegemonic power was an essential precondition for Athenian security. It is obvious, however, that hard-line anti-Macedonians—those prominent in the pre-Chaironeia period—could not secure such a relationship: they had led Athens to war against Philip, rejecting his repeated attempts to make peace. It was their political opponents, men accused by leading democrats in previous years of being traitors, who will have performed that function. Consequently, Athenian democrats were caught in a catch-22: the success of such (potentially subversive) men was necessary for the security of the democracy; yet, if those men were too successful in gaining Macedon’s goodwill, they could undermine the democracy since democrats would be beholden to them. Such men could become de facto above the law; and in democratic Athens, a man above the law was considered a tyrant.15
Two speeches delivered after the battle of Chaironeia and (perhaps) more or less contemporarily with the promulgation of the law of Eukrates support the explanation of the tyrannical threat just stated. The first speech is [Demosthenes’s] On the Treaty with Alexander (delivered in the assembly). The second speech is Hypereides’s Against Philippides (delivered in a dikasterion).16
In On the Treaty with Alexander, [Demosthenes] argued that the Athenians should declare war on Alexander (30). The justification for that conclusion was that Alexander had transgressed the formal terms (synthēkai) of the Korinthian League’s charter: he intervened in the political affairs in Messene, Pellene, and Sikyon; he intercepted Athens’s grain fleet in the Black Sea; he sailed a ship into the Piraeus. Much of the speech, however, focuses on the purportedly subversive, enabling activity conducted inside Athens by men who the speaker claims are Macedonian sympathizers. Significantly, the orator refers to such men as οἱ τυραννίζοντες (7)—“those in the tyrant’s faction.” (It will be recalled that Knoepfler restored that participle in the Eretrian tyrant-killing law [line 6, old fragment].) Also, the speaker claims that those men have “the armies of tyrants as their bodyguard” (25). The actions of those men constituted Athens’s tyrannical threat.
According to [Demosthenes], the pro-Macedonians worked to gradually subvert the Athenian democracy—the operative concept thus being subversion by evolution rather than subversion by revolution. He notes two complementary methods of attack. The first method was to urge the Athenians to uphold their treaty obligations with Macedon (5, 12, 21) despite the fact that, as noted above, Alexander repeatedly transgressed its terms, often to the detriment of the Athenians. Such subversive individuals (cynically) made arguments grounded in concerns over justice: the Athenians, they asserted, would violate the terms of their sacred oath should they wage war against Macedon and thus would rightly be punished. [Demosthenes], however, believed that their objective was sinister: to normalize Athenian acquiescence such that, over time and gradually (κατὰ μικρόν: 27), they would become accustomed to such a state of affairs and totally subservient to Macedon.
Whereas the first method of attack focused on Athens’s foreign policy, the second complementary method focused on her domestic matters, in particular the rule of law. Apparently, pro-Macedonians compelled the Athenians to rescind certain laws, to release men condemned in the courts, and to countenance other illegal acts (12). [Demosthenes] did not explain how they did that. But if the allegations were true, those actions represented a serious attack on the Athenian democracy: some people (both those who did the compelling and those subsequently freed) would be essentially above the law—thus the dēmos not fully in control of the polis’s domestic affairs (i.e., not kurios).17 It is important to realize, however, that the speaker is not only concerned that the rule of law (and thus the power of the dēmos) is being undermined. He is concerned that his fellow citizens do not realize that that is happening. They are, he asserts, too lazy to understand the cumulative effects. And that ill-informed quiescence, according to the speaker, is precisely what the Macedonian sympathizers hope to capitalize on. As he puts it, they hope that the democrats will not “be sensible of the change from democracy to tyranny or of the overthrow of a free constitution” (14).
Hypereides wrote his speech Against Philippides in response to the Athenians’ grant of an honorary crown to an unknown number of prominent Macedonians. For reasons now unknown, the grant of those crowns was technically illegal (4–5).18 Nevertheless, the proedroi put the motion to a vote in the ekklesia. Hypereides suggests that they did so out of a sense of compulsion (5). He does not elaborate on that suggestion, but it is almost certainly the case that the Athenians considered such gestures essential for maintaining good relations with Macedon. The most important point here, however, is that Philippides later proposed that the dēmos crown the proedroi for—of all things—“being just toward the dēmos of Athens and following the law”
(6). In response to that subversive and insincere pretext, Hypereides accused Philippides of making an illegal motion and delivered his speech Against Philippides in order to persuade a jury to convict him.
Philippides’s proposal to honor the proedroi clearly threatened to make a mockery of the rule of law. Why did he do it? Hypereides had an answer: “he has chosen to be the slave to tyrants and give orders to the dēmos” (10). That is, as author of the proposal, he could become more influential with prominent Macedonians and thus, because Athenian security depended on the goodwill of Philip, more powerful in Athens and potentially (per this chapter’s hypothesis) above the law. This interpretation is strengthened by Hypereides’s fear that the dēmos might let Philippides get away with it and thus mock the rule of the law because he is “useful” (χρήσιμος: 10); that is, he could (likely continue to) secure Macedonian goodwill. One might suppose, then, that Philippides was testing the extent to which the dēmos would bend the rule of law. If he got away with it once, the reasoning goes, he could do so again. Soon such paranomia (illegality) would become acceptable to his and his associates’ benefit; they could become tyrants.19
Based upon the evidence presented above, the tyrannical threat of 337/6 is fairly intelligible: individuals might take advantage of Athens’s dependency on Macedonian goodwill in order to insinuate themselves into positions of extralegal authority.20 It was a subtle threat and moved gradually. It would have, however, a profound cumulative effect: people might be afraid or otherwise reluctant to lodge an eisangelia or a graphē paranomōn against a man with close ties to prominent Macedonians, for example; and if someone did lodge an eisangelia or a graphē paranomōn, people might be unwilling to convict. Over time, the notion of the rule of law would be eroded; there would be a handful of people above the law. Athens would still look like a democratically governed polis. But it would really be an oligarchic Macedonian client state.21
Euk
rates’s Solution
The comments presented in this section explain how the promulgation of the law of Eukrates addressed the tyrannical threat identified in the previous section. Generally speaking—and as one might reasonably expect after reading the analysis of the decree of Demophantos and the Eretrian tyrant-killing law—the law deterred anti-democrats from defecting from the democratic status quo by facilitating mass action in support of the democracy. It is the particular means by which Eukrates’s law achieved that general end that must be elucidated.
NOMOTHESIA: GENERATION OF COMMON KNOWLEDGE
Since the end of the fifth century, the Athenians distinguished sharply between a decree (psēphisma) and a law (nomos). Decrees were promulgated by a simple majority in the assembly and addressed particular, nonrecurring matters. It was pursuant to a decree, for example, that the Athenians honored an individual or mobilized for battle. Laws, on the other hand, articulated general norms to which all Athenians were beholden. Thus murder or theft (inter alia) were prohibited by law, not by decree. And unlike decrees, laws were not promulgated by the assembly. They were promulgated by the nomothetai in a rather lengthy and very public procedure called nomothesia.22
There were three primary stages in the nomothesia procedure that ended with the ratification of Eukrates’s law.23 In the first stage, Eukrates wrote his proposed legislation on white boards that were then placed in front of the statues of the Eponymous Heroes (in the southwest corner of the agora). As noted by Demosthenes (24.36; cf. 20.94) the purpose of that practice was to inform the citizens of the possible legislation before the matter was discussed in a more formal setting. Subsequent, informal, conversations would allow individuals to consider both the spirit and letter of Eukrates’s law: to discuss the tyrannical threat and how the law might counter it. The Athenians thus formulated and sharpened the arguments that would be employed in the subsequent stages.
In the second stage, Eukrates’s proposal to change existing law on katalusis tou dēmou (overthrow of the dēmos) was discussed in the assembly on at least two different occasions. The first discussion considered the question of whether or not to proceed with the nomothesia process (Dem. 3.10–13; Dem. 20.94). Since Eukrates’s law was eventually ratified, the dēmos obviously considered his proposal worthy of further discussion.24 At the second meeting of the assembly, the dēmos determined the number of nomothetai (law commissioners: those who ultimately ratified Eukrates’s legislative proposal), their pay, and, likely, when they would meet.25
In the third stage, Eukrates prosecuted and five men defended the current law (again, on katalusis tou dēmou) before the panel of nomothetai. It is not known how many nomothetai sat in judgment, but, given the importance of Eukrates’s law, it was likely over one thousand. After hearing the arguments on both sides, a majority of nomothetai voted by a show of hands in favor of Eukrates’s proposal and it became law on the spot (Dem. 24.33).
It is thus clear that, as a result of the nomothesia process, discussion of both the letter and the spirit of Eukrates’s law would have permeated Athenian political discourse.26 It is not a stretch to assume, then, that much of the important content of that discourse was common knowledge. The exact content of that discourse is obviously unknown. It is reasonable to suppose, however, that two major issues—corresponding to the two basic sections of the law—dominated: (1) tyrant killing (lines 7–11), in particular the relationship between the law of Eukrates and the decree of Demophantos; and (2) the activities of the Areopagos (lines 11–22). Thus the following comments offer informed speculation on what the Athenians might have said about those two issues during the lengthy nomothesia procedure.
TYRANT KILLING
Since the law of Eukrates explicitly echoes language found in the oath of Demophantos, we can assume that there was a considerable amount of public discussion about that oath (and decree) during the nomothesia procedure that ultimately ratified Eukrates’s law. What did the Athenians talk about? Fortunately, two fourth-century speeches contain some analysis of that decree and oath: Lykourgos’s Against Leokrates, 124–27 (330 BCE) and Demosthenes’s Against Leptines, 159–62 (355 BCE).
Lykourgos delivered his speech Against Leokrates in order to persuade an Athenian jury to convict a certain Leokrates for treason (prodosia). The alleged treasonous act was leaving Athens immediately after the Athenian defeat at the battle at Chaironeia. Leokrates first sailed to Rhodes. Two years later, he moved to Megara, where he lived for six years working as a grain merchant. Then, finally, after eight years abroad, he returned to Athens. Lykourgos subsequently indicted him.
Lykourgos faced a significant obstacle in his effort to gain a conviction: Leokrates likely did not break a law that existed at the time that he left Athens.27 Lykourgos countered this difficulty by suggesting to the jurors that no applicable law existed at that time because previous lawmakers could not even have imagined that an Athenian would commit such a crime. If they had experienced such traitorous activity—the logic goes—they certainly would have criminalized it. Thus Lykourgos had to argue that the jurists should condemn Leokrates based upon what their ancestors would have done—that there was an implied precedent. Consequently, much of the speech attempts to demonstrate the existence of that precedent.
Lykourgos read five inscriptions to the jury, each of which recorded a death sentence against a traitor, in an attempt to demonstrate that the jurors’ ancestors would have executed Leokrates. The first inscription recorded the Athenians’ action taken against Phrynichos, a prominent figure of the Four Hundred (411).28 After his burial, the Athenians dug up his body, convicted him of treason, and removed his bones from Attic soil; they even executed and denied burial to the two men who defended him in his posthumous trial (112–14). The second inscription authorized the Athenians to melt down a statue of Hipparchos, the first Athenian ostracized (487 BCE), and to turn it into a pillar on which to inscribe the names of traitors (117). The third inscription recorded a decree of the dēmos that condemned to death any Athenian who moved to then (i.e., post-413) Spartan-occupied Dekeleia (an Attic deme) during the Peloponnesian War (121). The fourth inscription recorded the fact that, before the battle of Salamis (480), the bouleutai killed with their bare hands an Athenian who merely attempted to speak treasonously (122). And the last inscription Lykourgos read recorded the decree of Demophantos.
Lykourgos explained to the jurors that, after the coup of the Four Hundred, their ancestors sufficiently understood the method utilized by defectors and thus crafted an adequate solution to it (124–25).29 First, they established by decree and oath that anyone who kills a man who aims at tyranny or katalusis tou dēmou shall be hosios (blameless). The orator explained that their ancestors wanted all citizens to live in such a way as to avoid any suspicion of subversive activity. To put it another way, they realized that, if widespread commitment to killing defectors were common knowledge, men would be deterred from even appearing to act undemocratically. Second, after swearing the oath, they inscribed its text on a stele and placed it in the Bouleuterion to be a reminder of what one’s attitude toward traitors should be. Lykourgos concludes his discussion of the decree of Demophantos with the following exhortation.
You have memorials (hypomnēmata), you have examples (paradeigmata) of the punishments they meted out, embodied in the decrees concerning criminals. You have sworn in the decree of Demophantos to kill the man who betrays his country, whether by word or deed, hand or vote. I say “you”; for you must not think that, as heirs to the riches bequeathed by your ancestors, you can yet renounce your share in their oaths or in the pledge your fathers gave as a security to the gods, thereby enjoying the prosperity of their city. (127)
Josiah Ober’s essay “Historical Legacies: Moral Authority and the Useable Past” presents some useful concepts with which one might more fully appreciate the persuasive force of Lykourgos’s exhortation.30 As implied by the title, the essay examines how one might borrow positive moral authority (of the past) in order to p
ersuade an individual or individuals to perform a particular act. Ober focuses on three types of appeals to past action. He calls the first use “record of past judgments.” This is basically an appeal to someone’s reputation: if some individual is known to have been correct and fair many times and on many issues in the past, one might cite his or her assessment on the given topic (i.e., borrow his or her authority) in order to bolster one’s own argument. For example, one might cite former chairman of the Federal Reserve Paul Volcker’s assessment of America’s struggling economy in order to convince another person of the validity of one’s own assessment on the subject (“my opinion is similar to Paul Volcker’s”).31 He calls the second use “precedent.” This is an appeal to a past action or decision and its consequences in order to bolster one’s own argument about something else that, although perhaps somewhat different, is analogous in some important way. For example, the supporters of the modern gay rights movement might co-opt the powerful logic behind the civil rights movement of decades ago. But it is the third use, called “action as exemplum and legacy gift,” that is directly relevant here.
The effectiveness of a citation of a past “action as an exemplum and legacy gift” results from the belief that certain actions committed by members of a previous generation have given the present generation something of considerable value. The present generation thus possesses that valuable possession as a legacy gift. Consequently, out of respect, the members of the present generation feel compelled to act in a certain way (to imitate) in response: to deem the past action as an exemplum and to commit to pass on the legacy (i.e., the valuable possession) to future generations. One who wishes to persuade members of the present generation to act in a certain way thus might appeal to the moral authority of those past actions to bolster his or her argument.
Death to Tyrants! Page 15
