The Fall of the Athenian Empire

Donald Kagan

• Publisher: Cornell University Press
• Year: 2013
• Print ISBN: 9780801499845
• eBook ISBN: 9780801467264
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Greek Ancient History
• Index: History

"The fourth volume in Kagan's history of ancient Athens, which has been called one of the major achievements of modern historical scholarship, begins with the ill-fated Sicilian expedition of 413 B.C. and ends with the surrender of Athens to Sparta in 404 B.C. Richly documented, precise in detail, it is also extremely well-written, linking it to a tradition of historical narrative that has become rare in our time."
? Virginia Quarterly Review

In the fourth and final volume of his magisterial history of the Peloponnesian War, Donald Kagan examines the period from the destruction of Athens' Sicilian expedition in September of 413 B.C. to the Athenian surrender to Sparta in the spring of 404 B.C. Through his study of this last decade of the war, Kagan evaluates the performance of the Athenian democracy as it faced its most serious challenge. At the same time, Kagan assesses Thucydides' interpretation of the reasons for Athens’ defeat and the destruction of the Athenian Empire.

1. After the Sicilian Disaster

The Athenian attack on Sicily, launched with such great expectations, ended in total failure. Nicias surrendered the pitiful remnants of his army to the Syracusans in mid-September of 413, so news of the defeat could not have reached Athens much before the end of the month.1 An ancient story says that the first report came from a foreigner who arrived at a barber shop in the Piraeus. Assuming that the Athenians had already heard of the disaster, he began talking about the details. The barber ran to Athens with the news, but no one would believe him. He was thought to be a fabricator and trouble-maker and was put to the rack before witnesses arrived to confirm the story.2 We need not believe such tales, but the picture they paint of general incredulity is surely right. Thucydides tells us that even when the very soldiers who had managed to escape from Sicily reported the extent of the disaster, they were for a long time disbelieved.3

When finally the truth could not be denied, the Athenians responded first in anger and then in fear. First, they lashed out at the politicians who had proposed and argued for the Sicilian expedition (Thucydides bitterly remarks, “as if they had not voted for it themselves”); they were furious with the seers who had predicted success. Next, they grieved over the men lost in Sicily. Finally, they feared for their own safety when they calculated their own losses and the enemy’s gains. They expected that the Peloponnesians, joined by their new allies in Sicily, would sail directly for the Piraeus and attack Athens by land and sea, joined by Athens’ allies, who would now surely rebel.4

In the panic of the moment, they exaggerated the enemy’s capacity to take effective action, but they had good reason for concern over the condition of Athens and its ability to carry on the war. The most obvious problem was manpower.5 At the start of the war, the Athenians had 13,000 citizen hoplites of fighting age and another 16,000 for garrison duty, of whom about 8,000 were citizens above and below the age for battle and 8,000 were metics. There were 1,200 cavalrymen and 1,600 bowmen; the number of thetes available for service as rowers and marines was between 20,000 and 25,000.6 The plague appears to have killed about a third of the population and to have crippled and disabled still others.7 These losses could have been only partially replaced by the time of the Sicilian disaster, which probably killed at least 3,000 hoplites and 9,000 thetes as well as thousands of metics.8 When account is taken of other casualties suffered between 431 and the autumn of 413, it is reasonable to believe that in 413 the Athenians may have been reduced to no more than 9,000 adult male citizens of the hoplite class of all ages; perhaps 11,000 thetes; and 3,000 metics,—a stunning reduction in the number of men available to fight the war.9

At least 216 triremes, of which 160 were Athenian, had been lost in Sicily, and no more than about 100, in different stages of disrepair, were still in the docks at Piraeus.10 They would be hard-pressed to find crews, even unskilled and inexperienced ones, from the available thetes. Perhaps as serious a problem was the lack of money to repair the ships, build new ones, and pay their crews. Thucydides’ statement that the Athenians “saw no money in the treasury” is probably rhetorical.11 But from the approximately 5,000 talents available in the public treasury in 431 (excluding the 1,000 talents set aside for extreme emergency “in case the enemy should attack the city with a fleet”12), surely fewer than 500 talents remained in 413.13 Nor could Athens hope to replenish its funds with increased income from the empire. The defeat in Sicily would likely cause rebellions that would reduce tribute payments and increase expenses by requiring expeditions to subdue the uprisings.

At the same time, the domestic economy of Athens was badly hurt. The Spartan fort at Decelea wore the Athenians down financially as well as physically and psychologically. They lost more than 20,000 slaves, they were prevented from working their silver mines, their capacity to use any of their farmland was reduced, and their houses in the country were stripped and stolen by the Boeotians along with any cattle and pack animals that could not be removed to Euboea for safekeeping. They had to import what they needed by a longer route, which increased its cost, and they had to support an armed force needed to guard the walls night and day.14 Deprived of their means of livelihood, more citizens were compelled to crowd into the city. The increased demand for and the higher cost of importing food and other necessities could not fail to drive up prices. This put a further strain on the public treasury, for the state somehow had to support the needy widows and orphans created by the war.15

The propertied classes also suffered from the misfortunes of war. They, too, were compelled to abandon the farms that provided their income, and their houses were vandalized by the marauding Boeotians. We have some clues to the strain they felt. The trierarchy, a public service that the wealthier Athenians performed in turn, required the men appointed trierarchs not only to command a warship but also to fit it out and even to supplement the pay of its rowers. Until the Sicilian expedition, one trierarch had always been appointed for each ship, but soon after the disaster the syntrierarchy was introduced, allowing two men to share the expense.16 By the end of the war, and perhaps as early as 413, a similar sharing was introduced for the liturgy that provided choruses for dramatic performances.17 Men of sufficient wealth to perform basic military and religious services for the state were clearly in short supply, so there was little help to be expected from the imposition of the direct war tax, the eisphora. We can be sure of only one such levy, in 428, which raised 200 talents, apparently as much as could be collected.18 The eisphora may have been levied again in the years before 425 and, perhaps, also to send reinforcements to Sicily.19 After the fortification of Decelea, the thorough devastation of Attica, and the Sicilian disaster, the imposition of a direct tax on the reduced fortunes of the Athenian middle and upper classes would have paid for few costs of the war at great expense to morale. The Athenians appear not to have resorted to it again until the very last years of the war, after the emergency reserve fund had been exhausted.20

Apart from the shortage of men, ships, and money, Athens also lacked leadership, both military and political. The Sicilian expedition had carried off Athens’ most experienced and ablest generals: Demosthenes, Lamachus, Nicias, and Eurymedon. None of the other four generals in 413/12 whose names we know appears to have held a previous command. Alcibiades was in exile in Sparta, the men on whom Athens had relied to command its forces on land and sea were gone, and no one of comparable experience and demonstrated ability was at hand.

The vacuum in political leadership was just as great. Athens’ leading politician, Nicias, was dead; Alcibiades and Hyperbolus were in exile; and the demagogues who had supported the Sicilian venture were in disrepute. In these circumstances, the Athenians invented a new device to provide guidance and stability to their government. They voted “to elect a board of older men to serve as probouloi, offering advice and proposing legislation, concerning current problems as the situation may require.”21 There were ten probouloi, one from each tribe, and their minimum age was probably forty.22 Their powers and responsibilities are unclear and were probably never precisely defined. If Thucydides’ language is taken most literally and legalistically, they apparently had the power to present a bill to the assembly, thereby replacing the council in this primary function. Some scholars have taken this view of the probouloi controlling or replacing the council.23 But another idea is that the probouloi worked together with the council and were really “a sub-committee of the larger body.”24 Others would give them even greater powers, including those of the Prytanies to call meetings of the council and to set its agenda and control the administration of funds, especially in regard to the preparation of the fleet.25 Belief in these broader powers is not securely based, resting on interpretations of passages in Aristophanes.26 No one doubts, however, that their unique status, the unusually high minimum age for the office, the fact of their election, their unlimited term of office, and the very vagueness and generality of their commission gave the probouloi unprecedented influence and power.

The election of probouloi changed the character and function of Athens’ normal democratic constitution. Aristotle, moreover, regarded the institution of probouloi as an oligarchic element in any constitution.27 Some scholars, therefore, influenced also by the knowledge that the probouloi played a role in the introduction of the oligarchic constitution of the Four Hundred in 411, believe that their election in 413 was already a movement toward oligarchy.28 There is, however, no reason to believe that the probouloi were in any way favorable to oligarchy in 413. The commission was created in a thoroughly democratic way, no...

Table of contents

• Maps
• Abbreviations and Short Titles
• 1. After the Sicilian Disaster
• 2. The War in the Aegean
• 3. Athens Responds
• 4. Sparta’s Riposte
• 5. The Revolutionary Movement
• 6. The Coup
• 7. The Four Hundred in Power
• 8. The Establishment of the Five Thousand
• 9. The War in the Hellespont
• 10. The Restoration
• 11. The Return of Alcibiades
• 12. Cyrus, Lysander, and the Fall of Alcibiades
• 13. The Battle of Arginusae
• 14. The Trial of the Generals
• 15. The Fall of Athens
• 16. Conclusions
• Bibliography
• General Index
• Index of Ancient Authors and Inscriptions
• Index of Modern Authors