[wg-review] New Athens or Washington.
Dictatorships of the Right are no different than ones of the Left. Washington or Moscow? Athens or Sparta? The story is an old one, shall we learn from past mistakes or are we condemned to repeating them? The piece below is excerpted from "The Peloponnesian War" by Thucydides... this quote details events of circa 411BC and deals with the Oligarchic coup in ancient Athens. I have chosen to stress certain points in the text, thus all underlines/bolds/asterisks/brackets were added by me. ..."However, the Assembly and the Council chosen by Ballot still convened, although they discussed nothing that was not approved of by the conspirators, who both supplied the speakers and reviewed in advance what they were to say. Fear, and the sight of the numbers of the conspirators, closed the mouths of the rest; or if any ventured to rise in opposition, he was presently put to death in some convenient way, and there was neither search for the murderers nor justice to be had against them if suspected; but the people remained motionless, being so thoroughly cowed that men thought themselves lucky to escape violence, even when they held their tongues. An exaggerated belief in the numbers of the conspirators also demoralized the people, rendered helpless by the magnitude of the city, and by their want of intelligence with each other, and being without means of finding out what those numbers really were. For this same reason it was impossible for any one to open his grief to a neighbour and to coordinate measures to defend himself, as he would have had to speak either to one whom he did not know, or whom he knew but did not trust. Indeed all the popular party approached each other with suspicion, each thinking his neighbour concerned in what was going on, the conspirators having in their ranks persons whom no one could ever have believed capable of joining an oligarchy; and these it was who made the many so suspicious, and so helped to procure impunity for the few, by confirming the commons in their mistrust of one another. (Now is this relevant or what?!) At this juncture arrived Pisander and his colleagues, who lost no time in doing the rest. First they assembled the people, and moved to elect ten commissioners with full powers to frame a constitution, and that when this was done they should on an appointed day lay before the people their opinion as to the best mode of governing the city. (Wait till you hear what they proposed!) Afterwards, when the day arrived, the conspirators enclosed the assembly in Colonus, a temple of Poseidon, a little more than a mile outside the city; when the commissioners simply brought forward this single motion, that *any Athenian might propose with impunity whatever measure he pleased, heavy penalties being imposed upon any who should indict for illegality, or otherwise molest him for so doing.* (how's that for disregarding corporation codes!?!) The way thus cleared, it was now plainly declared that all tenure of office and receipt of pay under the existing institutions were at an end, and that five men must be elected as presidents, who should in their turn elect one hundred, and each of the hundred three apiece; and that this body thus made up to four hundred should enter the council chamber with full powers and govern as they judged best, and should convene the five thousand whenever they pleased. The man who moved this resolution was Pisander, who was throughout the chief ostensible agent in putting down the democracy. But he who concerted the whole affair, and prepared the way for the catastrophe, and who had given the greatest thought to the matter, was Antiphon (Joe Sims?!), one of the best men of his day in Athens; who, with a head for contriving laws and a tongue to recommend them, did not willingly come forward in the assembly or upon any public scene, as he was mistrusted by the multitude owing to his reputation for cleverness; and who yet was the one man best able to aid in the courts, or before the assembly, the suitors who required his opinion. Indeed, when he was afterwards himself tried for his life on the charge of having been concerned in setting up this very government, when the Four Hundred were overthrown and harshly dealt with by the commons, he made what would seem to be the best defence of any known up to my time. (I wonder what the rest did?) Phrynichus also went beyond all others in his zeal for the oligarchy. Afraid of Alcibiades, and assured that he was no stranger to his intrigues with Astyochus at Samos, he held that no oligarchy was ever likely to restore him, and once embarked in the enterprise, proved, where danger was to be faced, by far the staunchest of them all. Theramenes, son of Hagnon, was also one of the foremost of the subverters of the democracy- a man as able in council as in debate. Conducted by so many and by such sagacious heads, the enterprise, bold though it was, succeeded; although it was no light matter to deprive the Athenian people of its freedom, almost a hundred years after the deposition of the Tyrants, when it had not only been free from any during the whole of that period, but was accustomed during more than half of it to rule over subjects of its own."... Does any of the foregoing sound familiar? Make no mistake about it, history repeats itself, if we allow it! The Enemy Within is always more dangerous than those outside your walls.. Sotiris Sotiropoulos Hermes Network, Inc. |