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Androtion and the Four Hundred

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 February 2013

A. Andrewes
A. Andrewes
Affiliation:
New College, Oxford.
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Extract

This paper should have had a longer and more explanatory title. I am not overmuch concerned with the interesting general question of the influence exerted by the Atthis of Androtion on subsequent accounts, primarily of course on that of the Aristotelian Athenaion Politeia: the specific problem I wish to discuss is the use of documents in these chapters of AP, and the possibility that they were transmitted by Androtion. Jacoby in his introduction to that author (n. 86) treats it as ‘fairly certain’ that ‘A. supplied the documents for the reform of the constitution in 412/1 B.C. (AP 29–33) in detail and evidently with approval as a kind of model constitution’. He was not alone in this opinion, which needs examination. The argument is necessarily speculative, a weighing of probabilities, and the only statement for which I claim certainty is that Wilamowitz was wrong in one detail.

In the first excitement of the publication of AP some eminent scholars, headed by Wilamowitz and Köhler, acclaimed the data found in AP as authentic documents which could be used to ‘correct’ Thucydides. The counter-attack by Ed. Meyer concentrated on the argument that official documents are not the best guide to what actually happens in a revolution: that is, Meyer still accepted the documents as authentic, but he upheld the narrative of Thucydides against them. To the best of my knowledge it was not till 1907 that the question was raised, by Judeich, whether any authentic documents would have survived the restoration of democracy.

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Type
Research Article
Information
Proceedings of the Cambridge Philological Society (Second Series) , Volume 22 , 1976, pp. 14 - 25
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s). Published online by Cambridge University Press 1976

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References

NOTES

1. Aristoteles und Athen (1893), esp. II.113–25Google Scholar.

2. Sb.Berl. 1895.1.451–68, 1900.2.803–17.

3. Forschungen zur alten Geschichte II (1899) 406–36Google Scholar, with his customary wealth of modern parallels, here mainly from the French Revolution.

4. Rh.Mus. 62 (1907) 306Google Scholar.

5. On this see Boegehold, A.L., AJA 76 (1972) 23–30CrossRefGoogle Scholar. The addition of , as in Meiggs, R. and Lewis, D.M., Greek historical inscriptions (1969)Google Scholar (hereafter ML) 94.30, shows that the reference is not to a single central archive, but to a range of scattered public offices.

6. Cf. Ferguson, W.S., Treasurers of Athena (1932) 145 n.1CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

7. If he is, as usually, identified with the member of the Thirty in the list at Xen.Hell.2.3.2, it is likely enough that he was one of the extremists who at this point went into exile.

8. This depends on the interpretation argued by Meritt, B.D. in Athenian financial documents (1932) 97–108CrossRefGoogle Scholar, which is widely accepted but contested by Pritchett, W.K. in BCH 88 (1964) 474–9CrossRefGoogle Scholar and The Choiseul marble (1970) 104–16Google Scholar.

9. Jacoby was also concerned to rebut the implausible theory that Androtion was the author of the Hellenica Oxyrhynchia, a polemical consideration that can be neglected here.

10. For the divergent and most ingenious theory of Lang, M., AJP 69 (1948) 272–89, 88 (1967) 176–87Google Scholar, see Hignett, C., History of the Athenian constitution (1952) 362–4Google Scholar; Lang in the later article answers only the chronological part of his criticism.

11. The language is not by itself a safe argument. Steup at this point cited 1.126.8, where no one will suppose that Thucydides is citing a document preserved from the time of the conspiracy of Kylon; this only illustrates how easy it is to drop into the style of later decrees when describing a decision of state.

12. On this see Fuks, A., The ancestral constitution (1953) ch.1Google Scholar. Wilamowitz, I.102 with n.8, noted that Kleitophon's views would be known in the school of Plato.

13. For convincing argument that 20.1–10 and 11 ff. are from two distinct speeches, see Wilamowitz II.363–4.

14. On this formula see Rhodes, P.J., The Athenian Boule (1972) 232–4Google Scholar. But though a debate might formally be pronounced to be a debate ‘about the safety (of the state)’, I doubt if this made any substantive difference to the constitutional position; the wealth of detail in AP 29.4 suggests that more than this was needed to lift constitutional safeguards, and the point of the formula is rather the feeling evoked.

15. E.g. Wade-Gery, H.T., Essays in Greek history (1958) 141Google Scholar.

16. So preposterous, that one has to ask how anyone could have put such a proposal forward, especially as this is purportedly in time of war. The most plausible answer is Larsen, J.A.O.'s (Representative government (1955) 197 n.30Google Scholar) extreme doctrinaire insistence on rotation among equals; and if these proposals were in fact published by the Four Hundred (see below), this was a sop to ‘moderate’ theoreticians and it was firmly intended that the ‘constitution for the future’ should never be activated.

17. On the amalgamation of the treasurers of Athena with those of the other gods, see Ferguson, , Treasurers of Athena 4–7Google Scholar; Thompson, W.E., Hesperia 39 (1970) 61–3Google Scholar. On the doubling of the numbers of the hellenotamiai, see ATL III.359–65Google Scholar; ML p.258.

18. It has often been argued that a meeting outside the walls would have to be held under arms, or with an armed guard, and this has encouraged belief that this was in effect a hoplite assembly. But the enemy did not normally come so close in as Kolonos, at most 1.5 km. from the walls; and if a movement from Dekeleia were sighted there would be ample time to escape.

19. 360, 373; adding that justification would be more urgent if they had already heard of the counter-movement at Samos.

20. At the meeting to which this, paper was read, it was objected that in that close society the deception involved would be too transparent for the manoeuvre to have any value to the Four Hundred. It is true that those with extensive acquaintance among the upper classes and potential oligarchs would readily see through the deception, but Thucydides makes it plain that the ordinary man was very much in the dark about the extent of the conspiracy, both before the coup (8.66.5) and shortly before the fall of the Four Hundred, when they were seriously afraid that the Five Thousand might really exist (92.11). In these conditions even the assertion that two meetings of the Five Thousand had taken place (AP 30.1,32.1) could not be securely refuted among the mass of citizens; and the proclamation would further be valuable in dealing with the Athenians at Samos, who had no opportunity to check the facts (cf.8.72.1. and n.19 above). Further, regimes set up irregularly are not always logical about the means they adopt to justify themselves.

21. The name is not uncommon, but we cannot point to a particular Aristomachos of this period who would be suitable here.

22. The crucial question is of the daily parade of the citizens in arms. Thucydides makes it plain that the parade on this day was not followed by a meeting of the assembly, and unlikely that the Kolonos meeting was followed by such a parade; on the day of the dissolution of the Council the conspirators were still afraid of resistance (69.2–4), and they would not have wanted the citizens in arms immediately they had put through their coup at Kolonos. A few days later they could be a little bolder.

23. There would be no point in inventing or unearthing this very peripheral item at a later date, and to that extent a contemporary source is more likely, and the information likely to be correct–a point of some importance for studies of the Athenian calendar.

24. I would like to express here my particular gratitude to K.J.Dover and D.M.Lewis. Neither was consulted during the preparation of this paper or bears any responsibility for its faults, but over the years I have benefited very greatly from discussing with them the many problems connected with the Four Hundred.