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

374 THE FALL OF THE ATHENIAN EMPIRE
others were convicted of deceiving the people. 69 From ancient times
critics have denounced the treatment of the generals. Diodorus drew
a moral lesson from it, saying that the outcome was like an expression
of divine anger and that the imposition of the despotism of the Thirty
Tyrants after the war was the punishment for their error. 70 Grote, the
great champion of Athenian democracy, defended the Athenians by
declaring the generals guilty as charged, but even he was forced to
admit the impropriety of the trial, referring to it as "the guilty proceedings"
to which the passionate grief the Athenians felt for their
drowned men drove them. 71 Excesses and illegalities are all too common
in the history of peoples and governments roused to anger by sorrow,
tension, and passion. In despotisms they rouse little attention and are
not long remembered, for arbitrary and excessive behavior is their
normal pattern of life. In constitutional, moderate, lawful states, however,
they are seized upon as outrages and never forgotten, precisely
because they stand out so sharply as contrary to what is usual. So
Englishmen remember with shame Titus Oates and the Popish plot,
the bloody assizes of Judge Jeffries, the execution of Admiral Byng,
"pour encourager les autres," as Voltaire put it; Frenchmen are embarrassed
by the judicial butchery carried out by Robespierre and the
revolutionary tribunals; Americans painfully recall the witch trials in
Salem, Massachusetts, and the unjustified internment of Japanese­
Americans in the Second World War. So, too, did the Athenians regret
the trial and execution of the Arginusae generals, so shocking because
it was so sharp a departure from the respect for law, fairness, and due
process that normally characterized the Athenian democracy.
For this lapse the Athenians paid a high price. The eight generals
killed or exiled as a result of the trial were not available for service in
405/4, which turned out to be the last year of the war. The ill will
and suspicion raised by the affair also deprived the Athenians of Theramenes'
experienced services, for although he was elected general for
that year, he was rejected at the regular scrutiny of the qualifications
of the newly elected officials (dokimasia). 72 Thrasybulus; likewise, suffered
from the same animus and was not even elected. The skill and
69 Xen. 1.7.35; Diod. IJ.IOJ.I-2. The date of the Athenians' change of heart is
unclear, bur Andrewes (Phoenix XXVIII [1974], 121) is probably right in saying that
"an immediate revulsion seems intrinsically the most likely."
70 IJ.IOJ.I-l.
71
VIII, 209.
72 Lys. IJ. IO.