The Fall of the Athenian Empire-(A New History of the Peloponnesian War) Donald Kagan - (1987)

THE COUP
I5'
About Peisander's motives Thucydides says nothing, pointing out
only that he was the most publicly visible of the conspirators, "in all
respects openly the most zealous in the plot to destroy the democracy.""
His reputation as a demagogue dates from the 420s, and his
extravagantly zealous behavior in the witch hunts surrounding the
scandals of 4I 5 is consistent with that reputation. He may have become
a sincere convert to oligarchy after the Sicilian disaster, or he may
have seen the oligarchic movement as a rare opportunity for personal
advancement. Certainly, there is nothing in his career before 4 I I to
suggest a commitment to constitutional change, and his actions are
consistent with the charge of opportunism. 78
Antiphon was a different sort of person. Whereas Phrynichus and
Peisander had been active and highly visible politicians well before the
coup, Antiphon worked behind the scenes. He seems to have been the
first professional speech writer in Athens. Thucydides calls him "the
one man most able to help someone contesting both in the law courts
and in the assembly." Presumably, this talent was used chiefly on
behalf of the upper classes, for we are told that he became "an object
of suspicion to the masses because of his reputation for dangerous
cleverness." 79 Perhaps because of this suspicion he himself did not take
part in the tumult of political life in the Athenian democracy or in the
arena of the law courts. He had spent much time in planning ways to
overthrow the democracy, and he "had devised the whole affair and
had established the way in which it had been brought to this point."
The picture that emerges is that of the mastermind behind the plot
for whom men like Peisander were tools to be manipulated. What we
know of him is entirely consistent with the view that he was sincerely
devoted to the overthrow of democracy and its replacement by a true,
narrow oligarchy; prepared to wait long and work hard for the day of
vindication; and ready to act ruthlessly when that day came. Thucydides
expresses extraordinary admiration for him as a man "inferior
to no one in his own time in arete and the very best both in conceiving
77 8.68.1.
78 For useful discussions of Peisander, see HCF V, 1 16; Rhodes, Commentary, 407-
408; and A. G. Woodhead, AJP LXXV (•954), q•-•46.
79 8.68.1. I have translated the word 8ELVbr'TJo;; as "dangerous cleverness." I think the
suspicion he aroused was of the same kind as that which arose against Socrates who
was thought to be 8eLv0o;; Ai)IELV, a dangerously clever speaker (Plato, Apology 17b).
For the suggestion that the people's suspicion arose from Antiphon's oligarchic views,
see G. Gilbert, Beitriige zur innern geschichte Athens im zeitalter des peloponnesischen Krieges
(Leipzig, •B77), 309·