again by the adjacent empire of Persia. But power has a tendency to corrupt societies, including newly democratic societies, and Athens proved to be no exception. With nothing but a night's sleep, and a change of mind the next morning to guard against precipitate decision-making, the Assembly was led by charismatic, populist demagogues (the most famous being Cleon) into making decisions that might have been dangerous at any time, but proved calamitous during the twenty-seven year war that followed the fifty years of peace, when Athens found herself in a conflict to the death with her highly disciplined, autocratic rival, Sparta, aided and abetted by a good number of her long-suffering allies, tired of paying ‘protection' money which seemed to finish up so often as payment for yet another marvel, such as the Parthenon, to beautify the city of Athens. The decline began almost immediately, when the Assembly voted the death penalty for all adult males, and the enslavement of all women and children on the recalcitrant island of Mitylene. (The name of the brutal policy was andrapodismos). A ship full of soldiers set sail at once to carry out the deed. The next morning the Assembly had second thoughts about their decision, and hurriedly sent off another ship with orders to countermand it. They got there just in time, and Mitylene was saved at the last moment. A few years later, after the city had declared andrapodismos on the allied cities of Scione and Mende, there were no second thoughts. However, a Spartan commander, Brasidas, happened to be in the region, and saved both cities from a ghastly fate. But the Assembly was not to be stopped, and a decree of andrapodismos on the island of Melos in 416 was finally, dreadfully, carried through. But the Assembly saved the worst of its decisions till a few years later. In 406 their eight generals won a big battle for them at Arginusae, but unfortunately the Athenian casualty list was greatly increased by the numbers of their soldiers drowned afterwards during a great storm at sea. Led on by demagogues of the day, the 56
La Presa, Issue 2, May 2017
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