The Samian people confiscated and divided among themselves the property of such of the Geômori as were slain or banished': the survivors were deprived of all political privileges, and the other citizens (the Demus) were forbidden to intermarry with them2. We may fairly suspect that this latter 1 Thucyd. viii. 21. Εγένετο δὲ κατὰ τὸν χρόνον τοῦτον καὶ ἡ ἐν Σάμῳ ἐπανάστασις ὑπὸ τοῦ δήμου τοῖς δυνατοῖς, μετὰ ̓Αθηναίων, οἳ ἔτυχον ἐν τρίσι ναυσὶ παρόντες. Καὶ ὁ δῆμος ὁ Σαμίων ἐς διακοσίους μέν τινας τοὺς πάντας τῶν δυνατῶν ἀπέκτεινε, τετρακοσίους δὲ φυγῇ ζημιώ σαντες, καὶ αὐτοὶ τὴν γῆν αὐτῶν καὶ οἰκίας νειμάμενοι, 'Αθηναίων τε σφίσιν αὐτονομίαν μετὰ ταῦτα ὡς βεβαίοις ἤδη ψηφισαμένων, τὰ λοιπὰ διῴκουν τὴν πόλιν, καὶ τοῖς γεωμόροις μετεδίδοσαν οὔτε ἄλλου οὐδενὸς, οὔτε ἐκδοῦναι οὐδ ̓ ἀγαγέσθαι παρ' ἐκείνων οὐδ ̓ ἐς ἐκείνους οὐδενὶ ἔτι τοῦ δήμου ἐξῆν. 2 Thucyd. viii. 21. The dispositions and plans of the "higher people" at Samos, to call in the Peloponnesians and revolt from Athens, are fully admitted even by Mr. Mitford; and implied by Dr. Thirlwall, who argues that the government of Samos cannot have been oligarchical, because, if it had been so, the island would already have revolted from Athens to the Peloponnesians. Mr. Mitford says (ch. xix. sect. iii. vol. iv. p. 191)--"Meanwhile the body of the higher people at Samos, more depressed than all others since their reduction on their former revolt, were proposing to seize the opportunity that seemed to offer through the prevalence of the Peloponnesian arms, of mending their condition. The lower people, having intelligence of their design, rose upon them, and with the assistance of the crews of three Athenian ships then at Samos, overpowered them," &c. &c. &c. "The massacre and robbery were rewarded by a decree of the Athenian people, granting to the perpetrators the independent administration of the affairs of their island; which since the last rebellion had been kept under the immediate control of the Athenian government." To call this a massacre is perversion of language. It was an insurrection and intestine conflict, in which the higher people" were vanquished, but of which they also were the beginners, by their conspiracy (which Mr. Mitford himself admits as a fact) to introduce a foreign enemy into the island. Does he imagine that the "lower people" were bound to sit still and see this done? And what means had they of preventing it, except by insurrection? which inevitably became bloody, because the "higher people" were a strong party, in possession of the powers of government, with great means of resistance. The loss on the part of the assailants is not made known to us, nor indeed the prohibition is only the retaliation of a similar exclusion, which the oligarchy, when in power, had enforced to maintain the purity of their own blood. loss in so far as it fell on the followers of the Geômori. Thucydidês specifies only the number of the Geômori themselves, who were persons of individual importance. I do not clearly understand what idea Mr. Mitford forms to himself of the government of Samos at this time. He seems to conceive it as democratical, yet under great immediate control from Athens-and that it kept the "higher people" in a state of severe depression, from which they sought to relieve themselves by the aid of the Peloponnesian arms. But if he means by the expression "under the immediate control of the Athenian government," that there was any Athenian governor or garrison at Samos, the account here given by Thucydidês distinctly refutes him. The conflict was between two intestine parties, “the higher people and the lower people." The only Athenians who took part in it were the crews of three triremes, and even they were there by accident (oi tvxov napóvtes), not as a regular garrison. Samos was under an indigenous government; but it was a subject and tributary ally of Athens, like all the other allies, with the exception of Chios and Methymna (Thucyd. vi. 85). After this resolution, the Athenians raised it to the rank of an autonomous ally-which Mr. Mitford is pleased to call "rewarding massacre and robbery;" in the language of a party orator rather than of an historian. But was the government of Samos, immediately before this intestine contest, oligarchical or democratical? The language of Thucydidês carries to my mind a full conviction that it was oligarchical-under an exclusive aristocracy called the Geômori. Dr. Thirlwall however (whose candid and equitable narrative of this event forms a striking contrast to that of Mr. Mitford) is of a different opinion. He thinks it certain that a democratical government had been established at Samos by the Athenians, when it was reconquered by them (B.C. 440) after its revolt. That the government continued democratical during the first years of the Peloponnesian war, he conceives to be proved by the hostility of the Samian exiles at Anæa, whom he looks upon as oligarchical refugees. And though not agreeing in Mr. Mitford's view of the peculiarly depressed condition of the "higher people" at Samos at this later time, he nevertheless thinks that they were not actually in possession of the government. "Still (he says) as the island gradually recovered its prosperity, the privileged class seems also to have looked upward, perhaps contrived to regain a part of the substance of power under different forms, and probably betrayed a strong inclination to revive its ancient pretensions on the first opportunity. That it had not yet advanced beyond this point, may be What they had enacted as a privilege was now thrown back upon them as an insult. On the other hand, the Athenian blockading fleet regarded as certain; because otherwise Samos would have been among the foremost to revolt from Athens: and on the other hand, it is no less clear, that the state of parties there was such as to excite a high degree of mutual jealousy, and great alarm in the Athenians, to whom the loss of the island at this juncture would have been almost irreparable" (Hist. Gr. ch. xxvii. vol. iii. p. 477, 2nd edit.). Manso (Sparta, book iv. vol. ii. p. 266) is of the same opinion. Surely the conclusion which Dr. Thirlwall here announces as certain, cannot be held to rest on adequate premises. Admitting that there was an oligarchy in power at Samos, it is perfectly possible to explain why this oligarchy had not yet carried into act its disposition to revolt from Athens. We see that none of the allies of Athens-not even Chios, the most powerful of all-revolted without the extraneous pressure and encouragement of a foreign fleet. Alkibiadês, after securing Chios, considered Milêtus to be next in order of importance, and had moreover peculiar connections with the leading men there (viii. 17); so that he went next to detach that place from Athens. Milêtus, being on the continent, placed him in immediate communication with Tissaphernês, for which reason he might naturally deem it of importance superior even to Samos in his plans. Moreover, not only no foreign fleet had yet reached Samos, but several Athenian ships had arrived there for Strombichidês, having come across the Ægean too late to save Chios, made Samos a sort of central station (viii. 16). These circumstances, combined with the known reluctance of the Samian Demos or commonalty, are surely sufficient to explain why the Samian oligarchy had not yet consummated its designs to revolt. And hence the fact, that no revolt had yet taken place. cannot be held to warrant Dr. Thirlwall's inference, that the government was not oligarchical. We have no information how or when the oligarchical government at Samos got up. That the Samian refugees at Anæa, so actively hostile to Samos and Athens during the first ten years of the Peloponnesian war, were oligarchical exiles acting against a democratical government at Samos (iv. 75), is not in itself improbable; yet it is not positively stated. The government of Samos might have been, even at that time, oligarchical; yet, if it acted in the Athenian interest, there would doubtless be a body of exiles watching for opportunities of injuring it, by aid of the enemies of Athens. Moreover, it seems to me, that if we read and put together the passages of Thucydidês, viii. 21, 63, 73, it is impossible without the greatest violence to put any other sense upon them, except as meaning that the sian fleet at Peloponne- was surprised and defeated, with the loss of four Kenchree triremes, by the Peloponnesian fleet at Peiræum, which was thus enabled to get to Kenchreæ, and to as Spartan refit in order that it might be sent to Ionia. The -Astyo chus is sent admiral to Ionia. sixteen Peloponnesian ships which had fought at Syracuse had already come back to Lechæum, in spite of the obstructions thrown in their way by the 66 government of Samos was now in the hands of the oligarchy or Geômori, and that the Demos rose in insurrection against them, with ultimate triumph. The natural sense of the words ἐπανάστασις, ἐπανίσταμαι, is that of insurrection against an established government: it does not mean a violent attack by one party upon another”—still less does it mean, "an attack made by a party in possession of the government;" which nevertheless it ought to mean, if Dr. Thirlwall be correct in supposing that the Samian government was now democratical. Thus we have, in the description of the Samian revolt from Athens-Thucyd. i. 115 (after Thucydides has stated that the Athenians established a democratical government, he next says that the Samian exiles presently came over with a mercenary force)-καὶ πρῶτον μὲν τῷ δήμω ἐπανέστησαν, καὶ ékpátŋoav tŵy theiστwv, &c. Again, v. 23—about the apprehended insurrection of the Helots against the Spartans-ὴν δὲ ἡ δούλεια ἐπο aviorηtai: compare Xenoph. Hellen. v. 4, 19; Plato, Republ. iv. 18, p. 444; Herodot. iii. 39-120. So also duvaroì is among the words which Thucydidês uses for an oligarchical party, either in government or in what may be called opposition (i. 24; v. 4). But it is not comceivable to me that Thucydidês would have employed the words ǹ èñανάστασις ὑπὸ τοῦ δήμου τοῖς δυνατοῖς—if the Demos had at that time been actually in the government. Again, viii. 63, he says, that the Athenian oligarchical party under Peisander αὐτῶν τῶν Σαμίων προὐτρέψαντο τοὺς δυνατοὺς ὥστε πειρᾶσθαι μετὰ σφῶν ὀλιγαρχηθῆναι, καίπερ ἐπαναστάντας αὐτοὺς ἀλλήλοις ἵνα μὴ ὀλιγαρχώνται. Here the motive of the previous ἐπανάστασις is clearly noted—it was in order that they might not be under an oligarchical government: for I agree with Krüger (in opposition to Dr. Thirlwall), that this is the clear meaning of the words, and that the use of the present tense prevents our construing it, "in order that their democratical government might not be subverted, and an oligarchy put upon them"-which ought to be the sense, if Dr. Thirlwall's view were just. Lastly, viii. 73, we have οἱ γὰρ τότε τῶν Σαμίων ἐπαναστάντες τοῖς δυνατοῖς καὶ ὄντες δῆμος, μεταβαλλόμενοι αὖθις-ἐγένοντά Athenian squadron under Hippoklês at Naupaktus'. The Lacedæmonian admiral Astyochus was sent to Kenchreæ to take the command and proceed to Ionia as admiral in chief: but it was some time before he could depart for Chios, whither he arrived with only four triremes, followed by six more afterwards2. τε ἐς τριακοσίους ξυνωμόται, καὶ ἔμελλον τοῖς ἄλλοις ὡς δήμῳ ὄντι ἐπιθήσεσθαι. Surely these words-οἱ ἐπαναστάντες τοῖς δυνατοῖς καὶ ὄντες Snμos-"those who having risen in arms against the wealthy and powerful, were now a Demos or a democracy "—must imply that the persons against whom a rising had taken place had been a governing oligarchy. Surely also, the words μeraßaλdóμevoi avðis, can mean nothing else except to point out the strange antithesis between the conduct of these same men at two different epochs not far distant from each other. On the first occasion, they rose up against an established oligarchical government, and constituted a democratical government. On the second occasion, they rose up in conspiracy against this very democratical government, in order to subvert it, and constitute themselves an oligarchy in its place. If we suppose that on the first occasion, the established government was already democratical, and that the persons here mentioned were not conspirators against an established oligarchy, but merely persons making use of the powers of a democratical government to do violence to rich citizens-all this antithesis completely vanishes. On the whole, I feel satisfied that the government of Samos, at the time when Chios revolted from Athens, was oligarchical like that of Chios itself. Nor do I see any difficulty in believing this to be the fact, though I cannot state when and how the oligarchy became established there. So long as the island performed its duty as a subject ally, Athens did not interfere with the form of its government. And she was least of all likely to interfere, during the seven years of peace intervening between the years 421-414 B.C. There was nothing then to excite her apprehensions. The degree to which Athens intermeddled generally with the internal affairs of her subject-allies, seems to me to have been much exaggerated. The Samian oligarchy or Geômori, dispossessed of the government on this occasion, were restored by Lysander, after his victorious close of the Peloponnesian war-Xenoph. Hellen. iii. 3, 6-where they are called οἱ ἀρχαῖοι πολῖται, 1 1 Thucyd. viii. 13. 2 Thucyd. viii. 20-23. |