After the Athenians put an end to their civil war in 403, they decided ‘not to recall past wrongs’ (μὴ μνησικακεῖν). Most scholars have interpreted this to mean that both sides swore not to bring cases to court about the past. In a series of recent essays, C. has attempted to argue that this pledge was ‘not a blanket pledge of forgiveness’ but only a promise to abide by the terms of the agreements concluded in 403 and later (p. 19). C.'s views have drawn much criticism (see especially C.J. Joyce in Antichthon 48 [2014], 37–54, which is decisive against C.'s views). C.'s attempt to defend them in this book is not successful.
Chapter 1 briefly introduces the topic of amnesty and the main arguments of the book. Chapter 2 reviews previous work on the amnesty. Chapter 3 collects the evidence for amnesties in other Greek poleis. Unfortunately for C.'s thesis, several of these connect the promise not to recall past wrongs with bans on prosecution for previous offences (see especially the recently published inscription from Dikaia). Chapter 4 is based on C.'s essay in CQ 56 (2006), 57–76, which has been rightly criticised by Joyce, CQ 58 (2008), 507–18. C. tries unconvincingly to find elements of two different agreements in Ath. Pol. 39 (pp. 70–81) and then confuses the laws of Andocides 1.85–7 with the Reconciliation Agreement of 403 (pp. 81–90). On p. 88 C. invents a clause of the agreement for which there is no evidence.
Chapter 5 examines Isocrates' speech Against Callimachus. Most of the speech is irrelevant to the issue of the Amnesty, and one passage (Isoc. 18.32) directly contradicts C.'s main thesis. C. follows H.J. Wolff's controversial view of Greek contracts and believes that the homologia ‘simply acknowledges aloud a disposition of the assets’ (p. 103). But building contracts (e.g. IG ii2 244) do not contain such acknowledgments, but rather promises to perform tasks. Liability arises not from misuse of an object but from failure to carry out a promise (e.g. Dem. 35.18, 21). The same is true for the contract of personal security (engye) where there is no disposition of assets, but a promise. Chapter 6 is a very confusing presentation of the legal issues in Lysias' speech Against Agoratus. The chapter lacks a clear analysis of the apagoge procedure used against Agoratus and does not explain how the defendant can be charged with murder (not just complicity). C.'s approach to the speech also contradicts his own interpretation of Ath. Pol. 39.5–6, and the argument presented at pp. 88–90 goes against his view of the amnesty. In footnote 25 on page 126 C. misrepresents Hansen's analysis of the term ep'autophoro and my criticisms of it. Chapter 7 argues that the agreements in the amnesty barred accusations against defendants who plotted to kill. C. claims that in the lost speech On the Thirty (of which no fragments survive) Lysias unsuccessfully attempted to overturn this rule. As a result, he could not bring his case against Eratosthenes to court for causing his brother's death, and the speech Against Eratosthenes was written for a trial that never took place. Chapter 8 discusses the case of impiety against Andocides in 400/399. Once more the evidence contradicts C.'s main thesis. [Lys.] 6.37–41 may be a fallacious argument, but it depends on the amnesty being understood as a ban on prosecutions for past actions. This is also clearly implied at Andoc. 1.81, a passage C. attempts in vain to explain away. C. admits that the documents in On the Mysteries contain many errors but tries to defend their reliability as sources by conjuring a work that preserved these documents, which was then excerpted by an editor in Late Antiquity who composed them and inserted them into the text of Andocides. The title, author and nature of this mysterious work are secrets that C. keeps to himself. But this convoluted hypothesis cannot explain all the errors in these documents and the contradictions between the contents of the inserted documents on the one hand and the summaries given by Andocides and the contemporary sources on the other. It is also refuted by the evidence of papyri from the first century b.c.e., which reveal that the texts of the orators already contained the inserted documents by this time. Chapter 9 examines the trial of Socrates in the context of the Amnesty. Some scholars have argued that Socrates was condemned for his influence on the Thirty, but this would have been a violation of the traditional interpretation of the pledge not to recall past wrongs. For C. the trial poses no problem because in his view there was not general amnesty (p. 206). But we do not have the speeches of Socrates' accusers (which does not prevent C. from speculating about their contents [p. 211]), and the indictment appears to have scrupulously avoided any mention of the Thirty and focuses on Socrates' actions in the present. C.'s analysis of the case is undermined by his failure to distinguish between the motives of the accusers and the legal grounds for their case. On pp. 229–31 the terms of the Judicial Oath are misrepresented.
Chapter 10 discusses the case against Nicomachus (Lys. 30) and speculates about the relationship between the speech and the fragments attributed to the work of the anagrapheis between 410/9 and 400/399. C. believes that an erasure in one of the fragments was made to delete sacrifices added by Nicomachus beyond his remit (Lys. 30.17–22); one wonders how C. can determine what was in the text before the erasure (pp. 246–7). C. also thinks that all the fragments were part of a single wall, but I share the scepticism of Lambert who notes that the fragments are of unequal thickness (I can confirm his observation from autopsy). Chapter 11 examines ‘The Legacy of the Reconciliation’. C. claims that the Reconciliation of 403 gave rise to a new attitude to law, which was now viewed as a contract, but does not explain how this differed from the previous conception of law. His account of the new procedures for legislation does not examine the main sources in detail and is very confusing. For a clear analysis of the issues and a convincing solution see Canevaro, CQ 63.1 (2013), 139–60.
C.'s arguments are often very difficult to follow; after reading some pages two or three times, I was still not sure that I had caught his drift. Readers looking for a clear analysis of the issues surrounding the Amnesty of 403–1 are recommended to consult Loening's The Reconciliation Agreement of 403/402 in Athens.
