The Rise of Athens

Socrates happened to be sitting Plato Apol 32b–c.

discharge the vows to the gods Diod 13 102 2.

“the masses…from making peace” Arist Con 34 1. There is some doubt whether this episode should be attributed to Sparta’s earlier peace offer after the Battle of Cyzicus.

A horseman trotted My account of Aegospotami draws on Xen Hell 2 1 22–29, Plut Alc 36 4–37 1–4, Nep Alc 8–9, and Diod 13 105–6.

“they would incur the blame for any defeat” Diod 13 105 4.

“We are the admirals now” Xen Hell 2 1 26.

thirty Athenian triremes set out I follow Diod 13 106, whose account is more plausible than that of Xen 2 1 27–28.

“Lysander first asked him” Xen Hell 2 1 32.

“A sound of wailing” Ibid., 2 2 3.

“root and branch”

Paus 3 8 6.

“They could not be sure of the loyalty” Isoc 16 40.

Critias had once boasted in a poem Plut Alc, 33 1.

“Unless you cut off Alcibiades” Nep Alc 10.

Plutarch reports that a hetaira Plutarch reports the death of Alcibiades at Plut Alc 39. According to Ath 13 34, a monument was erected at the scene of his death and the emperor Hadrian had a statue of him placed on it. He also ordered yearly sacrifices in his honor.

21. SPARTA’S TURN

Xenophon’s Hellenica is this chapter’s main source, together with Plutarch’s lives of Lysander and Agesilaus. The trial and death of Socrates are covered by Xenophon’s and Plato’s Apologies, also Plato’s Crito

and Phaedo.

The city’s economy had collapsed The Greeks paid little attention to recording their economic history and modern scholars have to derive tentative generalizations from scrappy evidence. For the impact of the Peloponnesian War on Athens I am mainly indebted to Strauss, pp. 42–54. Many of the numbers I give in this section are at the right level of magnitude, but are necessarily estimates.

the value of whose estate Lys 19 45.

“When I heard reports about Athens” Isoc 17 4.

One afternoon in 404 Lysias For the persecution of Lysias and Polemarchus, as described here, see Lysias’s own account given in a court speech towards the end of 403 against a member of the Thirty, Lys 12 3–17.

“To Polemarchus, the Thirty” Ibid., 12 17.

a democracy, of all things, in Thessaly Xen Hell 2 3 36.

“Some shrewd man first” Sex Emp 9 54 12–15.

Socrates was ordered Plato Apol 32c–d.

a respectable former military officer

I follow W. James McCoy, “The Identity of Leon,” American Journal of Philology, Summer 1975, pp. 187–99.

“If it’s not crude of me” Plato Apol 32c–32d.

“Here’s to the lovely Critias!” Xen Hell 2 3 56.

“he had destroyed the power” Delphes 3 1 50.

an admiral at Aegospotami For the account of Conon, the brief life by Cornelius Nepos is untrustworthy but helpful.

Great King was content to allow the Ionians Modern scholars suppose an agreement to this effect in 407, the Treaty of Boiotios.

the queen mother had other ideas The palace intrigues are reported in Plut Art 2–4 and Xen Ana 1 1 1–6.

“And now it was midday” Xen Ana 1 8 8–9.

“Get out of the way!…Artaxerxes was wounded and unhorsed”

Plut Art 11 2–3.

imitate the nightingale’s song Plut Age 21 4.

“the person of the Great King” Ibid., 15 1.

“The Spartans…lost their supremacy” Isoc 9 56.

“I don’t know what effect my accusers” Plato Apol 17a. This section on the trial and death of Socrates is indebted to Robin Waterfield’s introductory material to his and Hugh Tredinnick’s translations in Xenophon, Conversations of Socrates, Penguin Classics, London, 1990.

“This indictment and affidavit” Diog Laer 2 5 40.

“a hooked nose” Plato Euth 2b.

whom Aristophanes attacked Ar fragments 117, 156 Kassel-Austin

in a rather offhand manner Xen Apol 1.

“Men of Athens, I respect you” Plato Apol 29d.

When his wife complained Diog Laer 2 5 35.