Death to Tyrants!
Page 20
335
Persian success
Anti-democrats’ success
Philip II is assassinated (July 336) only months after Parmenion began his campaign (Diod. Sic. 16.93). Alexander is thus forced to secure his control of Europe. Memnon, Darius’s admiral, taking advantage of the disorder, erases nearly all of Macedon’s gains of the last year. Parmenion likely retained control only of the area around Abydos, an essential beachhead for the Macedonians on the east side of the Hellespont (Arr. Anab. 1.11.6).
The recently established democratic regime is quite likely deposed and the aforementioned “former tyrants” reestablished as masters of Eresos.
334
Macedonian success
Democrats’ success
This year’s campaign—the first in which Alexander personally participated—starts out auspiciously with the Macedonian victory at the river Granikos (May/June 334) (Arr. Anab. 1.13–16).b Alexander then marches through the interior of Asia Minor and, after a brief stay at Sardeis, arrives in Ephesos.c After overseeing the reestablishment of a democracy there (Arr. Anab. 1.17.10), he sends Alkimachos with a force to the Aeolic and Ionian cities still subject to Persian rule. According to Arrian (Anab. 1.18.1–2), “He ordered oligarchies everywhere to be overthrown and democracies to be established. He restored the laws in each city and ended tribute.” The mission is attested at Erythrai, Kolophon, Priene, and Pontos.d (Alexander then takes Miletos and engages in a costly and ultimately fruitless siege of Halikarnassos.)
The “former tyrants” are once again—that is the second time—deposed and the dēmos once again—also for the second time—put in control of Eresos. It is quite possible that the former tyrants are exiled on the order of Alexander; the situation thus parallels that in Chios (RO 84, lines 10–14).
333
Persian success
Anti-democrats’ success
In the spring of this year, Memnon, with 300 ships (Diod. Sic. 17.29.2), leads a very extensive naval counter offensive in the Aegean “to divert the war into Macedon and Greece” (Arr. Anab. 2.1.1). The success is massive. All the cities in Lesbos are taken (Mytilene after a protracted siege during which Memnon dies of illness), Tenedos (Arr. Anab. 2.2.3) and Chios fall (Arr. Anab. 3.2.3), most of the Cyclades send envoys in submission (Diod. Sic. 17.29.2), and there are Persian gains as far south as Miletos (Curt. 4.1.37), Kos (Arr. Anab. 2.13.4), and Halikarnassos (implied in Arr. Anab. 2.13.6).e (Alexander was in Pamphylia, then Phrygia, then Cilicia.)
Arrian simply writes (Anab. 2.1.1) that Memnon “won over” (prosēgageto) the cities of Lesbos with the exception of Mytilene. But, as texts 1 and 2 of the “anti-tyranny dossier” show, the Eresian dēmos was violently overthrown and Agonippos and Eurysilaos installed as heads of a new regime.f
332
Macedonian success
Democrats’ success
Alexander’s victory at Issos (circa November 333) marks the beginning of the end of the exterior game in the Aegean and coastal Asia Minor.g Around the time of the siege of Tyre (which began around July 332), he orders massive cleanup operations on land (e.g., Paphlagonia, Lykaonia) and sea (e.g., Tenedos, Chios, Mytilene, Kos, Lesbos) (Arr. Anab. 3.2.3–6; Curt. 4.5.13–18).
Fortunately, Arrian notes activity on Lesbos at this time. Hegelochos, he wrote, “won over the other cities by agreement (homologia prosēgageto: Anab. 3.2.6).” Like earlier (i.e., 333, interior game), this word almost certainly glosses over the harsh, violent reality; there likely was an internal struggle like that which occurred at that time, in similar circumstances, in Chios (Curt. 4.5.14–18). Regardless, Agonippos and Eurysilaos are ousted and the dēmos is—for the third time—put in control of the polis.
a. It is to be noted that, during this campaign, Parmenion “took by storm the (Greek) city of Gryneion and sold its inhabitants as slaves.” And he also besieged Pitane (Diod. Sic. 17.7.9). There clearly were limits to Macedon’s policy of “liberation.”
b. Arrian (Anab. 1.11.3) wrote that Alexander marched to the Hellespont with “not much more than 30,000” infantry “and over 5,000 cavalry.” For the size of Alexander’s army, see pp. lxix–lxxxii in the first volume of Brunt’s Loeb translation of Arrian’s Anabasis and Bosworth (1980: 98–99).
c. At Sardeis, Alexander granted the Lydians their ancestral laws and declared them free. But there was still to be a satrap (Asander) and tribute. For this development, see Bosworth (1980: 128–29) and Badian (1966: 44–45).
d. For the evidence of Alkimachos’s mission, see Bosworth (1980: 134–36). Badian (1966: 53) concluded that Alkimachos’s order was to join the cities of Ionia and Aeolis to the Korinthian League. One should also interpret the decree of the dēmos of Zeleia (Syll.3 279) in this context: Dittenberger suggests that its tyrant Nikagoras (Ath. 7 289c; Clem. Alex. Protr. 4 54) was overthrown after Granikos.
e. For this campaign, see appendix II (pp. 453–56) in vol. 1 of Brunt’s Loeb edition of Arrian’s Anabasis. Badian (1966: 48–49) argues that the Persians attacked Priene and might even have taken Naulochos: he interprets the Priene decree (RO 86)—a decree wherein Alexander hands over to the (Greek) citizens of Priene the harbor town Naulochos while laying personal claim to the countryside and the land of the (non-Greek) Myrseloi and Pedieis—as punishing Priene’s non-Greek community for cooperating with Memnon.
f. The events recorded in texts 1 and 2 of the dossier are remarkably similar to contemporaneous events in Mytilene recorded by Arrian (Anab. 2.1.5), a nice check on Arrian.
g. Date of the battle of Issos: Bosworth (1980: 219).
At the conclusion of his naval campaign, Hegelochos brought the captured leaders of the pro-Persian regimes in his theater of operation to Alexander, who was then in Egypt. According to Arrian (Anab. 3.2.7), Alexander then made the following interesting and historically significant decision: “Alexander,” he wrote, “sent the tyrants to the cities from which they came, to be treated as the citizens pleased.” This is when and how the “tyrants” Agonippos and Eurysilaos ended up on trial in Eresos.
Thus, by 332, Alexander had essentially conquered the Aegean and western Asia Minor. Yet the recently conquered territory was volatile, littered with Greek poleis torn apart by years of stasis. Such a situation constituted a potential threat: the regimes in those cities could be overthrown and the cities subsequently ally with Persia and/or cities on the Aegean mainland. Supply routes from the west could be threatened. One would certainly expect, then, that Alexander sought to secure the dominance of his favored players (i.e., pro-democrats) in the various cities.18
There is a considerable amount of evidence that demonstrates Alexander’s involvement in postconquest stabilization efforts (i.e., efforts to consolidate the pro-democrats’ control of the Greek poleis in western Asia Minor). Cases are known, for example, in Priene, Mytilene, Ephesos, Chios, and (likely) Erythrai and Zeleia.19 Alexander’s well-known “First Letter to the Chians” (RO 84) is a particularly good example. Therein the king made it clear (line 17) that his desired end was reconciliation, apparently between two factions: the few, who were supported by Persia during the previous several years (many of whom had since been exiled), and the many who were supported by Macedon. However, Alexander insisted that the Chians have a democracy and that they elect law drafters who were to craft laws “so that nothing may be contrary to the democracy or to the return of the exiles” (lines 5–6). Interestingly—and a sign of Alexander’s then micromanaging style—the new laws were to be brought to Alexander; presumably he intended to inspect them himself.
It is thus reasonable—in light of the known historical context and both literary and epigraphic sources—to suspect that Alexander ordered the Eresians to try their tyrants (332) in order to stabilize the polis under the newly established democratic regime. It was an attempt, that is, to make his “player” dominant in Eresos’s particular interior game. The next question, then, is clear: how could the trials help achieve political stability?
ANALYSIS
In order for the tyranny trials to have any stabilizing impact, they ultimately had to convince individual democrats to lower their revolutionary thresholds. That assertion is based, first, on the simple fact that, in order to stabilize their regime, the pro-democrats required a credible threat: they needed to convince anti-democrats that any coup attempt would fail and its participants would be harshly punished. Anti-democrats thus would be deterred from attempting a coup. Second, to acquire such a credible threat, the pro-democrats had to ensure that they could quickly mobilize a sufficient number of men in response to an anti-democratic coup. They had to ensure, that is, that they would not be handicapped by a revolutionary coordination problem wherein each individual waits for a prohibitively large percentage of the population to act in defense of the democracy before he does.
The cumulative effect of three important phases of the tyranny trials would have convinced Eresian pro-democrats to lower their personal revolutionary thresholds and thus would have established a credible threat. The first phase was the presentation of the advocates’ (συναγόροι: text 1, line 28) case. The presentation of that case should not be viewed as an attempt to “prove” to the citizens of Eresos that Agonippos and Eurysilaos committed the acts listed in texts 1 and 2 of the dossier: everybody knew that they did. Instead, the advocates’ task was to explain why the citizens of Eresos should punish the two “tyrants.”20 There is no way to know how they made their case. But they likely stressed that the citizens, should they vote to condemn the two men, would send a message to everybody—pro-democrats and anti-democrats alike—that the citizens of Eresos will defend their democracy and enforce the anti-tyranny law. As a result of this phase of the trial, then, every Eresian would have known what message he would be sending with his vote; the final verdict would thus be clearly interpreted by all.
The second important phase of the trials was the announcement of the verdict. The vote was overwhelming, of course: 876 to 7. Equally important, however—perhaps more important—is the fact that the vote was taken by secret ballot (text 1, lines 15–16; text 2, lines 15–16). Thus there was no “voter intimidation.” Each individual therefore understood that the verdict revealed the genuine private preferences of the citizens of Eresos. Consequently, the verdict generated common knowledge of widespread, genuine support for enforcing their anti-tyranny law and defending the democracy from its internal enemies. The Eresians thus sent the message identified in the preceding paragraph.
The third important phase of the trial is the application of the punishment. The texts do not indicate how the two men were executed; they just state that the citizens of Eresos were to vote to determine the manner of execution (text 1, lines 19–27; text 2, lines 17–20). It certainly would be helpful for this section’s argument if the tyrants were executed publically in front of a large and cheering crowd. One might note, in this regard, Polybios’s opinion about what should have happened to Aristomachos, the tyrant of Megalopolis: “He should have been led round the whole Peloponnesus and tortured as a deterrent spectacle” (2.60.7).21 And it is certainly reasonable to suppose that the Eresians wanted everybody to see for himself the harsh fate that awaits tyrants. According to Plutarch (Tim. 34), for example, the people of Messana brought their children to the theater to witness the torture and execution of their former tyrant Hippo. Regardless of the manner of their execution, however, the execution, banishment of family, and confiscation of property would have demonstrated to all—and was thus made common knowledge—that the pro-democratic majority will back up the threats codified in their anti-tyranny law; they will defend their democracy.
After the trial was completed, the Eresians inscribed the indictments, a description of the trial’s procedure, and the verdict on a stone stele that was almost certainly placed in a conspicuous location. That act of commemoration performed a very important service: it maintained as common knowledge the widespread commitment to defend the democracy and enforce the anti-tyranny law—the commitment that was made in the trial. If nothing were done to retain the memory of the trial, people might soon wonder whether or not the pro-democrats were still fully committed to defending their regime. Should there be such doubt, individuals would be less certain that, should they act in defense of the democracy, a sufficient number of individuals would follow them. They would thus raise their revolutionary thresholds, thereby undermining the pro-democrats’ threat credibility. But the presence of the stone stele worked against such “memory decay.” Just seeing the stone maintained the common knowledge of the trial, of course. And citizens in various political settings could refer to the stone and what it represented. The message: “We all know that we are still committed.” As a result, each individual would maintain his (post-trial) relatively low revolutionary threshold and the credibility of the pro-democrats’ threat would thereby be upheld.
The tyranny trials were a major, complex political event in Eresos’s history and thus might be viewed from a number of perspectives. From a symbolic perspective, the trials constituted a collective act of “tyrannicide” and thus placed the refoundation of their democracy within a well-established political narrative. In this light, it is interesting to compare the tyrannicide in Eresos with that of Harmodios and Aristogeiton (the tyrannicide model). Harmodios and Aristogeiton individually killed a tyrant and the Athenians subsequently erected statues of the two that proudly displayed how they killed the tyrants and thereby brought democracy to Athens. In the case of Eresos, the community of citizens killed the tyrants. Thus the Eresians erected a symbol of the democratic community: a stele. And it, too, indicated how the tyrants were killed: by a trial.
Viewed from another perspective, the tyranny trials laid the foundation for the rule of law in democratic Eresos. The Eresians were likely tempted to murder Agonippos and Eurysilaos right away, in which case they would have been, essentially, a lynch mob that got the right men.22 The dossier, however, emphasizes the democratic principles of the rule of law and established procedure—that is, principles of governmental restraint. And the trial of Agonippos and Eurysilaos was a particularly good object lesson: (1) those two would have been considered the least deserving of a trial according to the laws; (2) the correct outcome was reached: a guilty verdict and subsequent execution. The trial thus built respect for law and the institution of the dikasterion. The system “worked.”
The significance of such interpretations notwithstanding, the primary function of the tyranny trials was to establish the democrats’ threat credibility and thus deter anti-democrats from staging a coup. We must remember that, at the time of the trials, the Eresian pro-democrats had only recently reestablished their regime. And it is reasonable to assume that there were individuals who wanted the democracy to fail. Thus the dominant question of the day must have been, are the pro-democrats sufficiently committed to defend their regime? The trials, like Athens’s oath of Demophantos, were the mechanism whereby they generated and publicized that commitment. As a result, an individual could be reasonably sure that, if he acted to defend the new regime, others would follow him.
Basis of the New Game Questioned
This section interprets the historical significance of the actions recorded in texts 3, 4, and 5 of the dossier. The texts and translations are of Rhodes and Osborne.23
TEXT 3
ΣΤΟΙΧ. 36
[ἔ]γνω δᾶμ[ο]ς. περὶ ὦν οἰ πρέσβεες ἀπαγγέλλοισ[ι]
[ο]ἰ πρὸς Ἀλέξανδρον ἀποστάλεντες καὶ Ἀλέ-
35 ξανδρος τὰν διαγράφαν ἀπέπεμψε· ἀφικομέ-
νων πρὸς αὖτον τῶν 〈τῶν〉 πρότερον τυράννων ἀπογ[ό]-
νων Ἡρωίδα τε τῶ Τερτικωνείω τῶ Ἠραείω κα[ὶ Ἀ]-
γησιμένεος τῶ Ἐρμησιδείω, καὶ ἐπαγγελλα[νέ]-
[ν]ων πρὸς Ἀλέξανδρον ὄτι ἔτοιμ
οί ἐστι δίκ[αν]
40 [ὐ]ποσκέθην περὶ τῶν ἐγκαλημένων ἐν τῶ δά[μω]·
[ἀγάθα τύχα δ]έ[δο]χ̣θ̣[αι] τῶ δάμω· ἐπειδ̣ὴ̣ ἀ̣[ --6-- ]
-----------------------
TEXT 3, CONCLUDED
ΣΤΟΙΧ. 17
[-------- c. 14 -------- ποή|σασθαι δὲ καὶ ἐπάραν | ἐν τᾶ ἐκλησία αὔτι|κα
τῶ μὲν δικ]α̣ίω [ὐπ|άρχο]ντι καὶ βαθόεν|[τι τᾶ] πόλει καὶ
5 τοῖς | [νόμο]ισι τᾶ δικαία εὖ || [ἔμμε]ναι καὶ αὔτοισι | [καὶ ἐκγόνοισι],
τῶ δὲ | [πα]ρὰ τοὶς νόμοις κα[ὶ] | τὰ δίκαια δικαζόν|τεσσι τὰ
10 ἐνάντια. ὄ||μνυν δὲ τοὶς πολίτ̣[αις] | τοὶς δικάζοντας· | [ν]αὶ
δικάσσω τὰν [δί̣καν | ὄ]σσα μὲν ἐν τοῖς [νό|μ]οισι ἔνι κὰτ τοὶ[ς
15 νό||μο]ις, τὰ δὲ ἄλλα ἐκ̣ [φιλο|π]ονίας ὠς ἄριστα κ[αὶ | δ]ικαι〈ό〉τατα·
καὶ τιμά|[σ]ω, αἴ κε κατάγνω, ὄρθω[ς] | κ̣αὶ δι〈καί〉ως. οὔτω ποήσω||
20 ναὶ μὰ Δία καὶ Ἄλιον.
The damos decided. Concerning what is reported by the envoys sent to Alexander, and Alexander sent back his transcript; when there arrived before him the descendants of the former tyrants, Heroidas son of Tertikon son of Heraios and Agesimenes son of Hermesidas, and they offered to Alexander that they were willing to submit to judgment before the damos concerning the charges: For good fortune be it resolved by the damos: Since … A solemn prayer shall be made in the assembly immediately, that with one who is just and supports the city and the laws with a just vote it may be well, both with him and with his descendants, but with one who judges contrary to the laws and justice the opposite. The citizens who are judging shall swear: “I shall judge the case, as far as it lies within the laws, according to the laws, and in other respects industriously, as well and as justly as possible; and if I condemn I shall assess rightly and justly. I shall do this, by Zeus and Sun.”