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

THE TRIAL OF THE GENERALS 367
persuasive. 41 More basic and universal human motives are at hand.
Theramenes, Thrasybulus, and their associates were angry and frightened.
The second series of letters sent to Athens by the generals shifted
the burden of responsibility from themselves to the captains and put
them in great danger. In the minds of the captains, the implications
of those letters were false and the letters themselves a breach of an
agreement that was at least tacit and possibly overt. Anger, the determination
to clear their own names and place guilt where it belonged,
and a desire for revenge for betrayal all come to mind as motives for
the captains' actions. Beyond that, there was reason to fear that merely
blaming the storm would not work as a defense. As long as no details
of the events after the battle were known, it might be possible to blame
the storm alone. By now, however, the Athenians had been told of
the assignment given to the captains, the conference, the positions
taken in it, and the final decision. Having heard these things, and
probably more, an Athenian court had convicted one general and the
Council of 500 had indicted the others. Theramenes and his colleagues,
on the other hand, had averted the wrath of the Athenians by turning
it against the generals. They could hardly be expected to change their
story at this point, for to do so would destroy their own credibility.
The likely outcome might well be their own condemnation along with
the generals'.
The charges made by Theramenes and his associates had a strong
effect. Defenders of the ge11erals were interrupted and shouted down,
and the generals themselves were not given the full time prescribed
by law to defend themselves. 44 The assaults of Theramenes forced the
generals to alter their original line of defense. It was no longer possible
to omit details and talk only of the storm. Since the captains had held
them responsible, they had no choice but to point out that the assignment
to rescue the survivors and pick up the bodies had been the
captains'. The generals had sailed off to seek out the enemy, leaving
the task of rescue and recovery to competent officers who had been
generals, to Theramenes and Thrasybnlus and men like them: "If it
were necessary to blame any one in respect to the recovery, there was
no one else to blame than those to whom the task had been assigned."
Still, the generals refused to place the blame on the captains, although
they had been accused by them, and insisted that "the violence of the
"Beloch, AP, 85-89; Cloche, RH CXXX (1919), 39-40.
44
Diod. IJ.IOI.6; Xen. 1.7.5·