The Thirty Tyrants

How the Athenian Democracy became a Dictatorship

This (modified) excerpt from How to Think Like Socrates, relates some of the events that occurred following the surrender of Athens at the conclusion of the Peloponnesian War.

Theramenes, after meeting with the Spartans, returned with the news that Athens would be spared if the Long Walls and fortifications of Piraeus were leveled and all but twelve of their ships given up. The Athenians, the terms read, must have “the same friends and enemies” as the Spartans, and be led by them in war, on land or sea. Finally, all exiles must be recalled, including aristocrats sympathetic to Sparta, who would form an oligarchic government. The Assembly was forced to accept. The Spartans proclaimed they had set all of Greece free from Athenian tyranny. While flute girls played in celebration, the defeated citizens of Athens were forced to tear down their precious defenses with their own hands.

The Athenian Assembly met, surrounded by soldiers, and appointed thirty Oligarchs to revise the constitution, modelling it on that of Sparta. The leaders were to be Critias, the former student of Socrates and friend of Alcibiades; Charicles, a radical who had led prosecutions over the scandal of the herms; and Theramenes, the moderate who had served as a general under Alcibiades and had been the first to call for his return from exile following the Sicilian Expedition. The Spartans left this junta to govern Athens on their behalf— they would later become infamous as the “Thirty Tyrants.”

Critias soon became intoxicated by his newfound power and, still bitter over his recent exile, he claimed his revenge. The Oligarchs’ first step was to appoint their own magistrates. In a move that earned praise from most of the citizens, they began prosecuting the paid informers used by Cleon and other demagogues. Before long, however, the Oligarchs also recruited three hundred lash- bearers to enforce their decrees. The citizens, too afraid to complain, watched powerless as the Thirty took the opportunity to settle old scores, putting to death anyone who had testified against them during the democracy, commencing with the most vulnerable citizens. Next, they asked Sparta to provide a garrison of soldiers, who acted as their bodyguards and emboldened Critias and the other Oligarchs to start arresting more prominent citizens, including not only their personal enemies but those whose wealth or reputation they saw as a threat to their regime.

“We have no choice”, he said, “but to rid ourselves of those most likely to oppose our rule.”

When Theramenes saw his colleagues exploiting their power to seek revenge, he tried to counsel moderation. “What sense is there,” he asked Critias, “in putting to death those men who supported the democracy but never harmed the aristocrats?” “Both you and I,” he said, “did things in the past to curry favor with the people.” That was how politics worked, after all, under the democracy— everyone, at times, had acted like a demagogue. Critias sighed. “You are being naive, my friend, if you think that just because there are thirty of us, we don’t have to watch our backs as carefully as a tyrant does, who rules alone. We have no choice but to rid ourselves of those most likely to oppose our rule.”

To prevent any attempts at resistance, Critias decreed the exiled Democrat leaders to be outlaws— any man could take their lives with impunity. Alcibiades, though once his friend, had been the first to be killed. Next on the list was Thrasybulus, the Democrat general, now exiled to Thebes, who had fought alongside Alcibiades and Theramenes. When news reached Thrasybulus of his friend Alcibiades’s assassination and the worsening situation at Athens, he acted decisively. Braving the winter cold, he led a squadron of seventy handpicked men up the slopes of Mount Parnes, where they were able to take the Athenian fortress of Phyle by surprise. The rebels now controlled one of the most secure strongholds in the region, atop a steep rock overlooking the road between Thebes and Athens.

The Thirty responded by tightening their grip. More than fifteen hundred people, in all, would be summoned to a public building in the Agora called the Stoa Poikile and put to death for alleged crimes against the regime. Theramenes urged restraint. “The oligarchy will not survive,” he warned, “if we continue like this. We must share power with more citizens, otherwise the people will mistake us for tyrants.”

“Our actions appear ridiculous to me because we are doing two inconsistent things,” he said, “by organizing a government based on force, and the rule of the strong, while keeping it so small as to be weaker than its subjects.” This made Critias’s lip curl; it brought back the pain of having similar contradictions pointed out by Socrates. Afraid that Theramenes might create an opposition faction, he ordered the three thousand hoplites most loyal to the oligarchy to parade under arms in the Agora, as a show of strength. All other residents of Athens were disarmed and their weapons locked in the Parthenon temple on the Acropolis. Now the Thirty were free to do as they pleased. Critias passed a law allowing anyone not on his list of loyalists to be summarily executed. The Oligarchs exploited this not only to silence opposition but also to enrich themselves by seizing the property of victims.

The Thirty now marched against Thrasybulus, with their private army of three thousand hoplites. Unable to take the fortress of Phyle by storm, they prepared for a siege. The gods smiled on the rebels, however, when an unexpectedly heavy snowfall forced the Thirty to return to Athens. This gave Thrasybulus the time he needed to plan a full armed rebellion.