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

THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE FIVE THOUSAND 209
against three of the leading oligarchs, Archeptolemus, Onomacles, and
Antiphon. It is dated to the twenty-first day of the prytany, so the
moderates had waited at least three weeks after the collapse of the
Four Hundred before attacking the ablest of the extremists. The generals
brought charges of treason against the three men for their role
as ambassadors who negotiated with the Spartans "to the detriment
of the state." Andron, who had been a member of the Four Hundred
and was now a member of the new council, proposed a decree ordering
the generals and ten councillors whom they would choose to arrest the
accused and bring them to trial. 72 Lysias later placed the chief responsibility
for this action on Theramenes, who was one of the generals:
he accused these men and had them put to death, "wishing to
appear trustworthy to you, the people."" Although these remarks are
part of a tendentious and hostile attack on Theramenes, they contain
a considerable measure of truth. Like the other moderates, Theramenes
was eager to separate himself from his former colleagues, and this trial
allowed him to do so. At the same time, we need not doubt that he
and the moderates, no less than the other Athenians, were eager to
rid the Athenians of traitors, actual and potential.
Onomacles seems to have fled, but Archeptolemus and Antiphon
stayed to defend themselves, the latter making the finest defense of
any Thucydides ever heard. 74 Even after the conviction of Phrynichus,
there was evidently reason for Archeptolemus and Antiphon to hope
for a favorable verdict. Polystratus, a member of the Four Hundred
and one of their katalogeis, had gotten off with a fine, and many others
appear to have been acquitted. 75 But the two oligarchs did not escape.
They were sentenced to death and executed. Their property was confiscated,
their houses torn down, their bodies denied burial in Attica
or any land under Athenian control, and they and their descendants
and any one who might adopt their descendants deprived of the rights
of citizenship. Their condemnation and punishment were to be in-
Although the evidence is inadequate to allow confidence, the reconstruction is at least
plausible.
n[Plut.] Mor. Sne-f. For Andron's membership in the Four Hundred, see FGrH
Ill, 342 Fr. p.
73 Lys. 12.67: ~ouAof.LEvoc; 8€ 1'4' ilf.LE'TE.pq.J 1TA:ft6et 8oKetv 1TW"r0c; etvm.
74
8.68.2. Thucydides says that the charge was taking part in establishing the Four
Hundred. That could not have been the formal charge, which was the one made in
the motion of Andron, but it was widely believed m be the undeclying complaint. See
HCT V, 1]6, I98-20J.
75 Lys. 20. 14; Jameson, Historia XX (I9JI), 553-555·