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

266 - THE FALL OF THE ATHENIAN EMPIRE
torious generals, for it freed the democrats from their fear of the enemy
that alone made them tolerate the Five Thousand_ "The first thought
of the restored democrats was to safeguard themselves against another
revolution, and they were in no mood to be fair to the men of the
sooo. " 77 As part of the plan they held new elections for generals,
choosing ten loyal democrats and "passing over Alkibiades and Theramenes,
probably Thrasybulus also."" They did not recall the generals
in the Hellespont but allowed them to continue to operate in that
region for the next few years with an "irregular" command. The second
part of the democratic political scheme was to send out Thrasyllus at
the head of an armed force in 409 not to the Hellespont but to lonia.
"The expedition to Ionia was their solution to the problem, and had
an ideological as well as a purely military purpose: no doubt Thrasyllos
honestly hoped to damage the Spartans and recover a rich area for
Athens, but he also wanted to improve the city's position against the
victors of Kyzikos, to show that loyal democratic generals could win
their victories, too. " 79
This explanation is ingenious but mistaken. We have little reason
to believe that there was a significant political division between the
city of Athens and its generals in the Hellespont from 410 to 407.
Although the argument from silence cannot be decisive here, we must
notice that none of our ancient sources speaks of such a rift. On the
contrary, both Xenophon and Diodorus show all three of the generals
in question leading Athenian forces on land and sea in each of the
years between 410/9 and 408/7 without suggesting any change in their
status. 80 Apart from the facts, it hardly seems likely that the democrats
in Athens would have been at odds with the thoroughly democratic
fleet and its generals. One of those generals was Thrasybulus, the
leader, in collaboration with Thrasyllus, of the defense of democracy
on Samos: he had sworn his troops on that island to an oath in defense
of democracy even before democracy returned to Athens. Why should
the Athenian democrats trust him less than Thrasyllus?" Alcibiades
was different, but he, too, like Thrasybulus and Thrasyllus, had been
elected general by the fleet at Samos." The speaker in Lysias' speech
"Andrewes,}HS LXXIII (I95J), 4·
78
lbid.
79Ibid., 4-5·
110 Xen. LJ.J, 1.4.8-g; Diod. q.64.2-3, 66.1, 68.1. See Fornara, Generals, 68-6g.
~•see above, I69-I73·
81
See above, 178.