IDENTIFYING ARCHEDEMUS

Despite its brevity, Xenophon's description must be taken as the starting-point for any attempt to identify Archedemus and thus to reconstruct his political career. It is by far the most explicit characterization of Archedemus as a political actor, in terms both of his official office-holding (‘overseer of the diōbelia’) and of his unofficial political status (‘leader of the dēmos in Athens’). Because Xenophon provides neither patronymic nor demotic for Archedemus, we ought first to establish which references to Archedemus in other sources either definitely or plausibly refer to the same man.

The references to Archedemus in Aristophanes' Frogs (416–21, 588) are the simplest to establish. The play was first performed at the Lenaea of 405, only a few months after the Arginusae trial in the autumn of 406.Footnote ⁷ After indulging in the common comic topos of implying foreign birth, Aristophanes identifies Archedemus as a demagogue, who is still alive and is ‘first in wickedness’ (416–21).Footnote ⁸ He is also subsequently (588) referred to as ὁ γλάμων, ‘The Blear-Eyed’.

The Archedemus referred to by Lysias (14.25) must also be the same man. The speaker asserts to his audience of jurors that the younger Alcibiades was known in his youth to have frequented the house of ‘Archedemus, the Blear-Eyed, who stole not a little from you’. The identifying epithet ὁ γλάμων alone makes this identification very probable; the implicit accusation of stealing from the dēmos—a commonplace accusation against Athenian politicians, although one which we need not necessarily believe to be true—confirms it.Footnote ⁹ Lysias provides no precise chronology, but these events would seem to be roughly contemporaneous with the Arginusae trial and the staging of the Frogs, given the younger Alcibiades' likely birth-date in c. 417/6.Footnote ¹⁰ The use of the perfect tense (ὑϕῃϱημένῳ) to refer to Archedemus' alleged financial misdeeds would also seem to suggest that Archedemus was, by the time of the speech (395), either dead or otherwise politically inactive.

A scholion on Frogs (418) explicitly attests that Archedemus was mocked in Eupolis' Dyers: ‘is he native or from some foreign land?’.Footnote ¹¹ The imputation of foreign birth or ancestry was a stock-in-trade of Old Comedy, and so far as Archedemus' actual parentage is concerned, obviously neither Aristophanes nor Eupolis should be taken at face value.Footnote ¹² None the less, that Archedemus was sufficiently well known to merit such mockery is a significant datum in and of itself. Dyers is usually dated to 416/5 or the surrounding years, on the strength of numerous testimonia which connect it to Alcibiades.Footnote ¹³ It would seem safe to assume that Archedemus must have reached adulthood by this point; this necessitates a birth-date of c. 435 at the very latest, and—unless one posits that Archedemus was already sufficiently well known to be mocked in comedy in his early twenties, and became ‘overseer of the diōbelia’ at barely thirty—at least a few years earlier, in the 440s.Footnote ¹⁴

A second fragment of Eupolis, also recorded in an Aristophanic scholion (Wasps 902b), has often been taken to refer to Archedemus.Footnote ¹⁵ In this case, however, the identification is far more questionable. The scholion comments on the phrase ποῦ δὲ ὁ διώκων (‘where is the prosecutor’), and notes that it also appears in the Nanny-goats of Eupolis, in connection with the phrase τὴν πανδοκεύτϱιαν γὰϱ ὁ γλάμων ἔχει (‘the Blear-Eyed has the landlady for a wife’). The presence of ὁ γλάμων is the only indication that Archedemus may be the subject of this particular joke, but this is by itself wholly insufficient for a reliable identification. First, the manuscripts of the scholion read alternatively τλήμων and γλήμων; γλάμων is a correction (albeit a widely accepted one) by modern editors.Footnote ¹⁶ Second, given that Nanny-goats is conventionally dated to the period 429–422, there is absolutely no guarantee that ὁ γλάμων—assuming that the scholion was meant to read thus—refers to Archedemus, since it belongs at least fifteen years earlier than the explicit attributions of the epithet to him in Aristophanes and Lysias.Footnote ¹⁷

The use of ὁ γλάμων elsewhere in Aristophanes is particularly instructive. In Assemblywomen (254, 398)—which was itself staged about fifteen years after Frogs—the epithet is used to refer to an entirely different individual, Neocleides.Footnote ¹⁸ By itself, this provides a further indication (on top of that provided by Lysias) that Archedemus was either dead or politically inactive by the late 390s; at the very least he must surely have lacked the political prominence which he had possessed in 406/5 for the epithet to be thus transferred. Just as importantly, the very fact that Aristophanes was able to transfer the epithet from one demagogue to another within such a timeframe indicates that the same possibility applies a fortiori to the use of ὁ γλάμων by Eupolis in the 420s and of Archedemus ὁ γλάμων in the Frogs.

Another common identification, whether firmly or speculatively made, is with the ‘Archedemus of Pelekes’ referred to by Aeschines (3.139).Footnote ¹⁹ This Archedemus is identified as δυνατὸς εἰπεῖν καὶ πολλὰ κεκινδυνευκὼς ἐν τῇ πολιτείᾳ διὰ Θηβαίους—‘powerful in speech and having faced many political dangers on account of Thebans’. Aeschines lists five other pro-Theban Athenians. Of these, two (Thrasybulus of Collytus, Pyrrhandrus of Anaphlystus) are listed as ambassadors to Thebes in the founding-charter of the ‘Second Athenian League’ in 378/7.Footnote ²⁰ A third, Thrason of Erchia, is implicitly connected by Dinarchus (1.38) with the liberation of Thebes in 378. This Archedemus is thus very likely the same as the ‘Archedamus’ of Plutarch's De Genio Socratis—a dialogue set shortly after the liberation of Thebes—who comments that his fellow-Athenians consider him unduly pro-Theban.Footnote ²¹ It is not impossible that ‘Archedemus of Pelekes’ is the same as the ‘Blear-Eyed’ demagogue; although he would have to be almost sixty years old at the very least, the case of Aristophon of Azenia (who is, incidentally, one of the five others named by Aeschines), who was born in the 430s and was nearly a hundred years old when he died, provides a possible parallel.Footnote ²² Yet it seems highly unlikely. By c. 390, we can already see the transfer of the epithet ὁ γλάμων by Aristophanes and the reference to Archedemus' embezzlement in the perfect tense by Lysias. The simplest and most logical conclusion is that they are two different men.

Lastly, we have the Archedemus identified in Xenophon's Memorabilia (2.9) as a ‘guard-dog’ of Socrates' friend Crito, who protected Crito from sycophants in exchange for material support. Curiously, it seems to be a standard assumption that this Archedemus and his namesake in the Hellenica are one and the same.Footnote ²³ Chronologically, this is plausible—it must pre-date Socrates' death in 399—with the reference to Crito storing the produce of his fields (τῶν ἐν ἀγϱῷ γιγνομένων χϱησίμων) perhaps suggesting a date prior to the Decelean War. In all other respects, however, the identification makes very little sense. Xenophon records elsewhere in the Memorabilia (1.1.18, 4.4.2), as well as in the Hellenica (1.7.15), Socrates' role in the Arginusae trial in refusing to put to the vote the motion that the generals be tried collectively.Footnote ²⁴ Although this would not have brought him into direct conflict with Archedemus (see below), if this was the same man as Crito's ‘guard-dog’—whom Socrates had taken part in choosing—then one might have expected Xenophon to note the connection at some point. Similarly, if the two men were the same, it would be somewhat strange for Aristophanes—who more than once has his protagonists or choruses lament the widespread presence of sycophancy and sycophants—seemingly to take no notice and make no mention of Archedemus as a scourge of sycophants, and go ahead with the entirely standard caricature of a demagogue ‘first in wickedness’ and of questionable birth.Footnote ²⁵ Of course, absence of evidence is not necessarily evidence of absence; the incongruity of both Xenophon's and Aristophanes' failure to mention these connections is indicative, but not conclusive.

It is the basic social and economic incompatibility of the Archedemus in the Memorabilia with his namesake in the Hellenica that proves decisive in distinguishing between them. Crito's Archedemus is described as πάνυ μὲν ἱκανὸν εἰπεῖν τε καὶ πϱᾶξαι, πένητα δέ—‘very capable in speech and action, but poor’—and he apparently saw Crito's house as a place of refuge. This fits very poorly with the ‘Blear-Eyed’ Archedemus described by Lysias, who was obviously sufficiently well-off that the younger Alcibiades—a notorious hedonist, if ever there was one—was willing to visit his house to indulge in drink. It also stands fundamentally at odds with the ‘leader of the dēmos in Athens' of the Hellenica. The ‘profession’ of demagogue was a full-time one; as Ober has noted, ‘in every known case, by the time an orator was a recognized political expert—by the time he was addressing the Assembly frequently on major issues and involving himself in high-visibility, public legal actions—he was unquestionably a member of the leisure class’.Footnote ²⁶ It is inconceivable that the Archedemus of the Hellenica was dependent on gifts of produce from Crito and his philoi—‘gifts’ which were, in effect, a salary for frequent legal activity against Crito's enemies. The alternative—to posit that his service with Crito comprises an earlier stage in the career of the demagogue, before he attained leisure-class status—causes as many problems as it solves. It largely negates the argument for identifying him with the demagogue of 406/5 on the basis of his description as ‘very capable in speech and action’, since by this logic it no longer implies political prominence. There is also nothing in the Memorabilia that suggests that Crito's ‘guard-dog’ gained economic independence; the end result of his successful activities on Crito's behalf (and subsequently on behalf of Crito's philoi) is to be counted among Crito's philoi. Even if, against all these considerations, Archedemus did make a transition from personal ‘guard-dog’ of Crito to ‘leader of the dēmos in Athens’, it would have left him very susceptible to accusations of bribery—how else could he have acquired the wealth necessary to engage in politics on a full-time basis?—or of divided loyalties between his former patron(s) and the dēmos.Footnote ²⁷ When one adds to this that Archedemus successfully prosecuted Erasinides over (in part) the mismanagement of public money (see below), and that he himself possessed a position of financial trust as ‘overseer of the diōbelia’, the rags-to-riches—or rather, guard-dog to demagogue—reconstruction appears implausible in the extreme.

I have not dealt here with the epigraphic evidence for identifying Archedemus; although it is not too uncommon a name, the lack of a known patronymic or demotic renders most such attempts at identification hopelessly speculative. There are only two inscriptions where a combination of date and subject-matter positively indicates a potential identification with the ‘Blear-Eyed’ demagogue of the Hellenica, and even then both possible identifications are speculative and highly context-dependent. One of these (IG I³ 377) pertains to the diōbelia, the other (IG I³ 11) to the broader trajectory of Archedemus' political career; both will therefore be dealt with during the appropriate sections below. Neither fundamentally alters (and, indeed, both are quite in keeping with) the basic outline that has emerged thus far:

1. i) Archedemus was born c. 435 at the latest, and probably before 440.

2. ii) He was sufficiently wealthy to undertake a political career.

3. iii) He was active in public life by c. 416.

4. iv) He was quite widely known as ὁ γλάμων, ‘The Blear-Eyed’.

5. v) He was ‘leader of the dēmos in Athens and overseer of the diōbelia’ in 406/5.

6. vi) He was very likely either dead or politically inactive by the late 390s.

With this in mind, we may return to the aftermath of the battle of Arginusae, with which we began: how and why do Archedemus' actions and their broader context serve to illustrate and validate Xenophon's brief yet emphatic description of him?

ARCHEDEMUS AND THE ARGINUSAE TRIAL

Xenophon's is not the only extant account of the Arginusae trial. The other main source available is that of Diodorus, based presumably on Ephorus. The indictment of Erasinides by Archedemus does not feature in Diodorus' account of the Arginusae trial. In fact, neither man appears at all—although the absence of Erasinides, as one of the six generals ultimately convicted and executed, can be fairly straightforwardly explained as an error by either Diodorus or (presumably) Ephorus.Footnote ²⁸ Diodorus' silence does not weaken Xenophon's credibility on this particular point; his account of the trial itself is far more truncated than Xenophon's account, and there is nothing in his account that contradicts or conflicts with Archedemus' indictment of Erasinides.

In so far as Archedemus' absence in Diodorus has any significance, it is that it tends to support the conclusion that Archedemus was not substantively involved with the Arginusae trial proper.Footnote ²⁹ In Xenophon's account (1.7.3), it is only after the imprisonment of Erasinides that the returning generals make their report before the Council, and, following a proposal by Timocrates, are imprisoned to await trial by the Assembly. The first of Archedemus' accusations—concerning Erasinides' apparent embezzlement of money from the Hellespont—is corroborated by a named authority (Demetrius) in a scholion to Aristophanes' Frogs, and neither Xenophon nor Diodorus mentions any such accusation during their accounts of the collective trial of the generals.Footnote ³⁰ The actions brought by Archedemus and Timocrates must therefore be understood as both procedurally and substantively distinct from one another.Footnote ³¹

This distinction is crucial when considering the aftermath of the Arginusae trial—especially the supposed regret of the dēmos for having executed the generals, and the decision to punish those deemed responsible for misleading them into making this decision. Both Xenophon (1.7.35) and Diodorus (13.103.1-2) are in fundamental agreement on this point. Both name Callixenus, who, according to Xenophon, had proposed the crucial motion that the generals be tried collectively (1.7.9) and subsequently threatened to indict the prytaneis on the same basis if they persisted in their refusal to put his motion to the vote (1.7.14). The dēmos was not reacting against the decision to put the generals on trial per se, but rather against the manner of their trial—above all, the collective verdict. Euryptolemus' speech, as recounted by Xenophon, certainly assumes as much; he makes no attempt to reject the validity or necessity of a trial, merely proposing (1.7.20-3) that an alternative procedure be used (the ‘decree of Cannonus’) which guaranteed an individual trial for each general. Both Xenophon's and Plato's accounts of Socrates' role in the trial (see above) emphasize his principled stand against Callixenus' motion; the Platonic Apology in particular has Socrates remark (32b) that ‘this [motion] was contrary to the laws (παϱανόμως), as all of you subsequently resolved’. The brief reference to the trial in the Aristotelian Ath. Pol. (34.1) asserts that the generals ‘were all condemned in a single vote, though some had not taken part in the battle and others had lost their own ships and had been saved by other ships: the dēmos was deceived by those who stirred up their anger’.Footnote ³²

Xenophon states (1.7.35) that ‘four others’ besides Callixenus were subsequently indicted. Lang has suggested that Archedemus was one of these ‘four others’, but this is prima facie implausible.Footnote ³³ The only concrete argument in favour of this hypothesis is that, since Theramenes cannot (in light of his later political activities) be one of the ‘four others’ thus indicted, this group must therefore comprise the four named individuals who took action against the generals besides Theramenes and Callixenus: namely, Archedemus, Timocrates, Lyciscus and Menecles. Lyciscus and Menecles, both of whose interventions followed and were in support of Callixenus' motion, certainly fit the bill.Footnote ³⁴ Timocrates may well also be one of the ‘four others’, although this is very far from certain. His original proposal was merely to have the generals collectively imprisoned and handed over to the Assembly; this need not have entailed or deliberately anticipated the subsequent proposal that the generals be tried collectively, for which Callixenus was eventually indicted.

In the case of Archedemus, what evidence we have points overwhelmingly against the possibility that he was a victim of the popular backlash. For a start, Lang's reason for excluding Theramenes as one of the ‘four others’ would seem to apply to Archedemus as well; both men were mocked in the Frogs several months later in a manner which clearly suggests that they were alive and politically active, not condemned and disgraced.Footnote ³⁵ Moreover, the accusation of embezzlement against Erasinides was, as noted above, quite distinct from the subsequent trial of all six generals together. The second, and somewhat vaguer, of Archedemus' charges against Erasinides—πεϱὶ τῆς στϱατηγίας—might bear some relation to the charges subsequently brought against the generals collectively, although the fact that Archedemus brought both accusations against Erasinides alone would seem to militate against this. There is, in any event, a plausible explanation available, as with the accusation of embezzlement, as to why this accusation was directed against Erasinides specifically. In Xenophon's account, Euryptolemus asserts in his speech (1.7.29) that, following the victory at Arginusae, Erasinides had proposed that the fleet immediately sail against the enemy at Mytilene, whereas Diomedon had proposed rescuing the shipwrecked sailors, and Thrasyllus had suggested dividing the fleet in order to accomplish both objectives simultaneously. Diodorus (13.100.1) describes a similar debate among the generals, albeit without ascribing names to either position, or mentioning Thrasyllus' proposed ‘third way’. As Euryptolemus himself stated at the outset of his speech (1.7.16), Diomedon was his philos, so we should not be surprised that he would present him as favourably as possible, by associating him with the proposed course of action (rescuing the shipwrecked sailors) that would elicit most approval from the emotionally charged audience in the Assembly. Archedemus' second accusation against Erasinides could be understood as the reverse of Euryptolemus' attempt to exculpate Diomedon—namely, an accusation that Erasinides in particular had been guilty of proposing to abandon the shipwrecked sailors. At any rate, Archedemus simply does not fit the profile of the ‘four others’. It had been a jury-court, rather than the Assembly, which had considered his accusations and acted upon them; unlike the Arginusae trial itself, there is no indication that this procedure was irregular, and no definite sentence was passed upon Erasinides at this point. It was Callixenus' proposal—it was he and the others who pushed for the generals to be tried immediately and collectively—that angered the dēmos in hindsight.

That Archedemus' prosecution of Erasinides was (unlike the Arginusae trial proper) not a mere flush of democratic anger, quickly regretted and repented, serves to highlight an obvious question: why might Archedemus have accused Erasinides in the first place, and—perhaps more importantly—why was a democratic jury-court inclined to listen to him? To understand this, we must understand the potential significance of Archedemus' position as ‘overseer of the diōbelia’, and how it may have contributed to his less concretely defined status as ‘leader of the dēmos in Athens’.

‘OVERSEER OF THE DIŌBELIA’

The most detailed account of the diōbelia—the ‘two-obol grant’—is to be found in the Aristotelian Ath. Pol. (28.3):

This account is not without its problems, but it does at least provide an approximate chronological framework for the diōbelia. The earliest significant indications of Cleophon's political significance are eight ostraca bearing his name, which must belong to the last ever ostracophoria in c. 416 that resulted in the ostracism of Hyperbolus.Footnote ³⁷ His first appearance as a kōmōdoumenos in Aristophanes comes in Thesmophoriazusae (805), which is most commonly dated to the Dionysia of 411.Footnote ³⁸ His comic apogee was reached at the Lenaea of 405, when he not only merited multiple mentions in Aristophanes' Frogs (678–85, 1504, 1532–3), but an entire play named for him in the Cleophon of Plato Comicus.Footnote ³⁹ Although it would probably be fair to say that ‘Cleophon is not a new figure on the political scene in 411’, it is only in the years 410–404 that we have any affirmative evidence of his status as a political leader of the first rank.Footnote ⁴⁰ Diodorus (13.53), Philochorus (FGrHist 328 F139), Androtion (FGrHist 324 F44), Aeschines (2.76) and the subsequent narrative of the Ath. Pol. (34.1) all ascribe to Cleophon the responsibility for the rejection of a Spartan peace-offer. The precise dating (and, indeed, whether there were multiple Spartan peace-offers in this period in whose rejection Cleophon was instrumental) is uncertain, but they all belong to this relatively brief period.Footnote ⁴¹ Callicrates is otherwise unknown, although the fact that the Ath. Pol. groups his condemnation together with that of Cleophon might suggest that it belongs at the same time, namely, the period immediately surrounding the surrender of Athens and the establishment of the rule of the ‘Thirty Tyrants' in 404.Footnote ⁴²

The epigraphic evidence for the diōbelia, which covers the years 410/9–405/4, thus matches the implicit dating of the Ath. Pol. almost exactly.Footnote ⁴³ The exact purpose of the diōbelia remains impossible to establish with certainty. I am broadly inclined to accept the hypothesis, first advanced by Wilamowitz, that the diōbelia was a form of subsistence-grant to the poorest Athenian citizens.Footnote ⁴⁴ The principal alternatives seem to me to run afoul of Ockham's Razor; if the diōbelia was either a new name for restored jury-pay, or an early form of the fourth-century theōrikon, then how are we to explain its short lifespan and abolition c. 404? The simpler explanation is that it was a separate and distinct institution.

The specific role and responsibilities of Archedemus as ‘overseer of the diōbelia’ also remain unclear. Xenophon uses the verb ἐπιμελέομαι elsewhere to indicate such variegated institutional arrangements as control of the garrison at Chrysopolis by the generals Theramenes and Eumachus (1.1.22), the rule of Athens by the Thirty (2.3.16) and delegated responsibility for ‘the affairs of the coast’ in Ionia by the Persian Struthas (4.8.17). The noun ἐπιμελητής occurs only once (3.2.11), when the Spartan Dercylidas appoints Dracon of Pellene as ‘overseer’ of Atarneus. It is possible that Archedemus occupied an office entitled ἐπιμελητὴς τῆς διωβελίας—similar titles for several other types of Athenian officials are attested in the late fifth and fourth centuries.Footnote ⁴⁵ Ultimately, however, Xenophon's terminological vagueness precludes a firm identification. Antiphon (5.17) provides a cautionary parallel; there, οἱ ἐπιμεληταὶ τῶν κακούϱγων (‘the overseers of wrongdoers’) surely denotes the Eleven, rather than a separate board of officials.Footnote ⁴⁶

Two other specific possibilities are worth considering. The first is that Archedemus was one of a board of ποϱισταί (‘providers’). The evidence here is even more speculative than for an office of ἐπιμελητής. The existence of the ποϱισταί in the late fifth century is attested by Antiphon (6.48) and Aristophanes (Ran. 1505), but the specific connection hinges on Ath. Pol. 28.3 and its use of the verb ἐπόϱισε to denote Cleophon's establishment of the diōbelia.Footnote ⁴⁷ Cleophon is clearly distinguished from the ποϱισταί in Frogs (1504), so it is possible that he initially sat on the board of ποϱισταί (in c. 410), but could not do so a second time; this in turn might tentatively support a reconstruction of Archedemus as a political ally of Cleophon. However, this connection cannot be pursued with any certainty; indeed, the decidedly non-specific use of the same verb by Demosthenes (4.33)—‘if, men of Athens, you first provide (ποϱίσητε) the money as I say …’—should warn us against any certain identification of Cleophon, let alone Archedemus, as ποϱιστής.

The final, and perhaps most interesting, possibility—because it also provides a possible demotic—is that Archedemus held office as one of the board of λογισταί (‘auditors’). The key piece of evidence here is not literary, but epigraphic: the reverse face of the Choiseul Marble (IG I³ 377). There are, even on very conservative reconstructions of the text, two separate men named Archedemus clearly attested on this inscription, who are distinguished by their demotics—one of Marathon, the other of Paionidai—and both of whom are identified as one of the λογισταί.Footnote ⁴⁸ This inscription also includes numerous records of expenditure ἐς τὲν διοβελίαν.Footnote ⁴⁹ The problem is that neither Archedemus is ever identified as receiving money for this purpose; all such disbursements are handled via the ἑλληνοταμίαι (‘Treasurers of the Greeks’) instead.Footnote ⁵⁰ Archedemus of Paionidai is, however, identified multiple times in connection with payments ‘for the obol’ (ἐς τὸν ὀβολόν). The relationship (if any) between this and the diōbelia rests to a very large degree on the contested dating of IG Ι³ 377. If one follows Meritt, who dates the entirety of the reverse face to 407/6—and thus the involvement of Archedemus of Paionidai to the last few months of that year—then it is plausible that ἐς τὸν ὀβολόν represents ‘a poverty measure when there was not money enough … to continue the dole at the rate of two obols', since it would match the parlous state of Athenian finances between Notium and Arginusae (see below, including n. 60).Footnote ⁵¹ However, it seems more likely that the reverse face records consecutive expenditures over several months from 408/7–407/6, which would place Archedemus of Paionidai in the last months of 408/7 and the expenditures on the diōbelia in the early months of 407/6.Footnote ⁵² Both the internal logic of IG Ι³ 377 (including the fact that all payments ἐς τὲν διοβελίαν are recorded as being paid through the ἑλληνοταμίαι, rather than the λογισταί) and the external evidence of Athenian finances would thus seem to suggest that the diōbelia continued to be paid at its normal rate, and that ‘the obol’ was (procedurally, at least) a separate fund entirely.Footnote ⁵³

A reliable identification of either Archedemus of Paionidai or Archedemus of Marathon (between the two, the former being marginally the more likely) with Xenophon's ‘overseer of the diōbelia’ is therefore not possible, but nor can we dismiss the possibility outright. Meritt explicitly rejected such an identification, based on his conclusion that the λογισταί held office for a Panathenaic quadrennium, and thus neither Archedemus could have still been in office by the time of the Arginusae trial in the autumn of 406/5.Footnote ⁵⁴ By contrast, Pritchett's reading of the Choiseul Marble led him to advocate the possibility of iteration for both ἑλληνοταμίαι and λογισταί—although this has been disputed, and indeed Pritchett (see above, n. 45) does not suggest that Archedemus' position as ‘overseer of the diōbelia’ denotes membership of the board of λογισταί.Footnote ⁵⁵ None the less, even if one rejects the possibility of iteration, it remains entirely possible that the same Archedemus may have held a different office—possibly as ἐπιμελητής or ποϱιστής—in 406/5 than (depending on how one dates IG Ι³ 377) either 408/7 or 407/6. Nor does this possibility substantially depend upon the interpretation of ἐς τὸν ὀβολόν. The younger Pericles provides a clear and contemporaneous potential parallel of moving between quite different offices. He served as one of the ἑλληνοταμίαι in 410/9—and is recorded on the obverse face of the Choiseul Marble (IG I³ 375) as handling money ἐς τὲν διοβελίαν in this capacity—before subsequently serving as general at Arginusae in 406/5.Footnote ⁵⁶ A change of office from one of the λογισταί overseeing ‘the obol’ to ‘overseer of the diōbelia’ is rather modest a shift in comparison; it might even be the case that involvement in multiple different financial offices, rather than any one in particular, lies behind Xenophon's vague and non-specific ἐπιμελόμενος. Ultimately, any identification of Archedemus of Paionidai (or Marathon) with our ‘overseer of the diōbelia’ remains highly and frustratingly speculative, but it is at least—unlike those with his namesake of Pelekes and Crito's ‘guard-dog’—both plausible and broadly compatible with what else we know of Archedemus' career.

Moreover, even if the specifics of Archedemus' position as its ‘overseer’ remain uncertain, that the diōbelia belonged to the period of the Decelean War, and involved a significant distribution of resources to at least some poor Athenians, remains undeniable. These two facts alone allow us to construct a cogent explanation as to why Archedemus' prosecution of Erasinides in 406 was especially likely to succeed.

Thucydides noted the acute strain placed on Athenian finances by the Spartan occupation of Deceleia in 413 (7.27-8), which among other things led the Athenians to replace their traditional system of monetary tribute with a five per cent tax on imports and exports.Footnote ⁵⁷ This was followed shortly thereafter by news of the defeat in Sicily (8.1), which not only represented huge losses of manpower and materiel, but also triggered a rash of revolts from Athens' remaining ‘allies’. The need for extraordinary sources of revenue shaped Athenian activity throughout the Decelean War. Both Xenophon (1.1.22) and Diodorus (13.64.2) record the establishment of a customs-house at Chrysopolis to facilitate the levying of a ten per cent tax on cargoes through the Hellespont.Footnote ⁵⁸ Both also record numerous instances in the years 411–407 of naval expeditions—many of them in the vicinity of the Hellespont—for which the acquisition of money (whether by extortion, plunder or semi-official tribute) was an important or even primary motivation.Footnote ⁵⁹

After the Athenian defeat at Notium in the spring of 406, however, even such extraordinary sources of revenue were no longer available.Footnote ⁶⁰ There is only one rather underwhelming reference in Xenophon (1.5.20) to Conon carrying off plunder from enemy territory—and soon thereafter he would find himself blockaded in Mytilene, requiring the hastily assembled fleet which triumphed at Arginusae to relieve him. Moreover, assembling the fleet which fought the battle required a resort to desperate measures to make good a lack of manpower, including the use of hippeis in the fleet, and promising grants of citizenship to a number of metics and slaves in return for their service.Footnote ⁶¹

Small wonder, then, that a democratic jury-court would be extremely suspicious of any general who might plausibly be thought guilty of embezzling money which ought to benefit the dēmos at a time when Athenian finances were in such dire straits. Archedemus' two accusations can thus be seen to have been almost ideally calibrated not only to his position as ‘overseer of the diōbelia’ but also to the primary concerns of the dēmos in 406—namely, lack of money and lack of manpower.

‘LEADER OF THE DĒMOS IN ATHENS’

Xenophon's description of Archedemus as τοῦ δήμου τότε πϱοεστηκὼς ἐν Ἀθήναις is no more precise than the τῆς διωβελίας ἐπιμελόμενος, which accompanies it. Both the verb πϱοίστημι and its cognate noun πϱοστάτης are used in the Hellenica to denote various types of leadership, including command of troops (3.2.7), control of the shrine of Olympian Zeus (3.2.31; 7.4.28; 7.4.35) and the hegemony of one polis over others (3.1.3; 3.5.10; 3.5.14; 4.8.28; 5.1.36). The noun πϱοστάτης is used several times to denote the ‘leaders’ of individual poleis, but the only Athenian besides Archedemus to be identified in this fashion is Critias (2.3.51), who identifies himself as such in a speech. The qualifier τοῦ δήμου is used in two other places: Thrasydaeus, ‘leader of the dēmos' in Elis in 398 (3.2.27), and the unnamed ‘leaders of the dēmos' in Mantineia in 385 (5.2.3; 5.2.6). In both of these cases, it is clear that Xenophon is using dēmos to denote only the poor majority of the citizenry. At Elis, Thrasydaeus is attacked by ‘the followers of Xenias’ (οἱ πεϱὶ Ξενίαν), a man identified as exceptionally wealthy; at Mantineia, the leaders of the dēmos are opposed by ‘the best men of Mantineia’ (οἱ βέλτιστοι τῶν Μαντινέων).

Should we read Xenophon's description of Archedemus in the same fashion? His position as ‘overseer of the diōbelia’ would, one imagines, provide a useful basis for burnishing his standing with the poor majority of Athenian citizens. The problem is with identifying any Athenian political leaders of the time who would not style themselves in this way—the equivalent of Xenias at Elis or the unnamed aristocrats at Mantineia.Footnote ⁶² Erasinides himself, a few years before his prosecution by Archedemus, had proposed the decree which honoured the assassins of Phrynichus—about as forceful a statement of democratic intent as one could make in the aftermath of the rule of the Four Hundred.Footnote ⁶³ Several of the other generals condemned by the Arginusae trial could make similar claims. Pericles as one of the ἑλληνοταμίαι in 410/9 has already been mentioned above. Diomedon, according to Thucydides (8.73.4), was ‘esteemed by the dēmos’ (τιμᾶσθαι ὑπὸ τοῦ δήμου) and aided the Samian democrats in their counter-revolution in 411. Thrasyllus—although at that time a mere hoplite, rather than a general—was similarly active on Samos, and displayed consistent opposition to the Four Hundred thereafter.Footnote ⁶⁴

Whether or not Xenophon intended to imply as much, Athenian politics in this period cannot be reduced to a clash between ‘leaders of the dēmos’ and their opponents. The Ath. Pol.'s characterization (28.3) of Athenian politics in this period—‘Theramenes son of Hagnon was leader of the others and Cleophon the lyre-maker was leader of the dēmos’—provides a clear example of such a flawed schematization of political groups. Superficially, it might be tempting to assign Archedemus to the ‘party’ of Cleophon based on their connection via the diōbelia (see above)—and thus in opposition to Theramenes—but to do so would be foolish. The list of Athenian πϱοστάται at Ath. Pol. 28.2-3 is, as Rhodes has noted, ‘naïvely over-simple in its assumption of a permanent opposition between γνώϱιμοι and πλῆθος … each pairing seems to be based on one notorious occasion of conflict’: in this instance, the occasion of conflict is clearly between Cleophon's continued opposition to peace even after Aegospotami and Theramenes' embassy to Sparta.Footnote ⁶⁵ Theramenes does seem to have been viewed with some suspicion in 406/5, if not earlier, for that remarkable proclivity for political realignment that earned him the nickname of ὁ κόθοϱνος—‘the buskin’, the stage-boot which fitted equally on both feet; yet, like Archedemus, he was clearly not a victim of the immediate post-trial backlash, as seen by the manner of his mockery in Frogs.Footnote ⁶⁶ The best starting-point for any attempt to understand the principal alignments and fault-lines in Athenian politics at this time lies with neither of the artificially contrasted πϱοστάται of the Ath. Pol. but rather with that remarkable character who (bizarrely) does not feature in the Ath. Pol. at all: Alcibiades.Footnote ⁶⁷

The influence of Alcibiades—both real and imagined—had played a critical role in the events of 411/10. Peisander, in his attempt to win over (or, rather, deceive) the dēmos with the lure of Persian subsidy, had claimed that the recall of Alcibiades was necessary, because he was ‘the only man at present who could bring this to pass’.Footnote ⁶⁸ After Alcibiades failed to deliver on his promises, and ended up aligned with the army on Samos rather than with the oligarchs at Athens, he none the less succeeded in preventing the army from launching an outright civil war: Thucydides asserts (8.86.5) that ‘no other man would have been capable of holding back the mob’. For the next few years Alcibiades, together with Thrasybulus and Theramenes, appears to have effectively served as general without being officially elected by the dēmos at Athens.Footnote ⁶⁹ The activities of Thrasyllus in particular—who was one of the ‘city’ generals during these years—strongly indicate a certain lack of cooperation and lingering tension between the two groups.Footnote ⁷⁰ It was not until 408/7, when Alcibiades finally returned to Athens—and was subsequently elected ‘leader with full powers’ (ἁπάντων ἡγεμὼν αὐτοκϱάτωϱ) over the rest of the generals—that the division between ‘army’ and ‘city’ was formally ended.Footnote ⁷¹

However, this show of unity was short-lived. Defeat at Notium resulted in Alcibiades' exile and the election of a new board of generals—which included neither Thrasybulus nor Theramenes—for 406/5.Footnote ⁷² In Xenophon's account (1.7.8), Theramenes and his associates directly manipulate the festival of the Apaturia to inflame the dēmos against the generals, and moreover bribe Callixenus to initiate the collective trial. In Diodorus, by contrast (13.101), the generals accidentally bring about their own downfall by their pre-emptive attempts to scapegoat Theramenes and Thrasybulus for the failure to rescue the shipwrecked men; the families of the dead are treated as distinct from the supporters of Theramenes. Regardless of how one chooses to weigh the relative culpability of the generals and Theramenes for the outcome—given the lack of any immediate backlash against Theramenes after the trial, I am inclined to follow both Andrewes and Lang in preferring Diodorus' account on this point—the hostility between the two is unmistakable.Footnote ⁷³

To return to Archedemus: in so far as he can be identified with either ‘side’ here, it is with that represented by the former colleagues of Alcibiades. The reference in Lysias (14.25) to Archedemus associating with the younger Alcibiades would seem to support at least a vague political alignment between the two.Footnote ⁷⁴ The possible restoration of an Archedemus as the proposer of IG I³ 11, the decree recording Athens' alliance with Egesta—a decree whose dating to 418/7, rather than the middle of the fifth century, was only firmly established within the last twenty years or so—adds another possible connection.Footnote ⁷⁵ Cataldi has attempted to locate Archedemus' position within Athenian political life in the years leading up to the Sicilian Expedition on the basis of this reading.Footnote ⁷⁶ Most of this reconstruction I consider as mere speculation; beyond the immediate context of the suggested restoration of Archedemus as the proposer of the decree, it essentially relies on an over-confident reading of the Eupolis fragments—not only as regards the identity of the unnamed ὁ γλάμων of Nanny-goats and the significance of the imputation of foreign birth in Dyers, but also in a more general tendency to infer that kōmōdoumenoi from the same play were politically connected with each other.Footnote ⁷⁷ It also assumes throughout the identifications with Archedemus of Pelekes and Crito's ‘guard-dog’. None the less, the suggestion that Archedemus was a supporter of Alcibiades in the run-up to the Sicilian Expedition—and continued to pursue an ‘imperialist and anti-Spartan’ policy thereafter—is certainly plausible.Footnote ⁷⁸

It should be stressed that the evidence for this connection is very much one of persons, not of political programmes per se. Indeed, when we look at other possible ‘leaders of the dēmos’ during the later years of the Peloponnesian War, we see much the same. Take, for instance, the demagogue Androcles, described by Thucydides (8.65.2) in 411 as ‘the foremost leader of the dēmos (τοῦ δήμου μάλιστα πϱοεστῶτα) … who had done the most to banish Alcibiades'. The extent of Alcibiades' actual guilt is open to debate, but the attack on him by Androcles and others was clearly not a matter of ‘policy’ in any broader sense.Footnote ⁷⁹ Indeed, Thucydides notes (6.61.5) that care was taken when he was recalled to stand trial to minimize the disruption to the Sicilian Expedition itself; the Athenian response to Nicias' letter in the winter of 414/3 (Thuc. 7.16) surely indicates the continued support of ‘leaders of the dēmos’, such as Androcles, for the enterprise. Much the same could be said of Hyperbolus, who so far as we can tell favoured a similarly aggressive policy to that of Alcibiades, and likely pushed for the ostracophoria of 416 aiming ‘to remove … and then to replace Alcibiades as a populist leader and champion of a more active policy’.Footnote ⁸⁰ Cleophon likewise is principally attested in the Decelean War as a staunch opponent of peace with Sparta—but until the defeat at Aegospotami and his clash with Theramenes, there is no substantive indication that any ‘leaders of the dēmos’ advocated peace with Sparta.Footnote ⁸¹ Thucydides' narrative makes it clear that only the Four Hundred (8.70-1) attempted to seek peace with Sparta, whereas both the army on Samos (8.77) and the intermediate regime of the Five Thousand at Athens (8.97) were committed to continuing the war; this is hardly surprising, given the Athenians' earlier resolution in 413 (8.1) to keep fighting after the destruction of the Sicilian Expedition. Even if the Ath. Pol. (34.1) is correct in identifying a Spartan peace-offer after Arginusae, the dēmos was not meaningfully ‘deceived’ by Cleophon's exhortations to reject it, but was naturally inclined to fight on anyway—just as they had been in dispatching the fleet which won the battle.

It is thus futile to try to pin down Archedemus—or indeed any other ‘leader of the dēmos’ in this period—to a distinctive political programme, for they all fundamentally advocated, whether from sincere conviction or mere expedience, the same basic policies: a rejection of oligarchy at home, and continued war with Sparta abroad. What most likely distinguished Archedemus, and elevated him politically, was the concatenation of several related events during 406. The fall of Alcibiades, around whom so many strands of Athenian politics had revolved since 411—and with whom he may well may have cooperated politically—must surely have created something of a political vacuum. Concomitantly, the downturn in Athenian finances after Notium would have provided the ideal situation for the ‘overseer of the diōbelia’, on whose efforts many poor Athenians depended for their sustenance, to come to the fore as ‘leader of the dēmos in Athens' in general, and the prosecutor of Erasinides in particular.Footnote ⁸²

Perhaps unsurprisingly, Archedemus does not seem to have held on to this position of prominence for very long. Perhaps his tenure as ‘overseer of the diōbelia’ came to an end at the beginning of 405/4, greatly reducing his influence. Or perhaps the final defeat at Aegospotami, and the utter collapse of Athenian revenues that inevitably followed it, rebounded on him politically. Perhaps—Lysias (14.25) might have meant to imply this—he was formally accused of embezzlement, just as he had himself accused Erasinides. We cannot say for certain. At any rate, it was left to Theramenes to once again switch his allegiance to oligarchy, and to Cleophon to perform the final and futile act of resistance on behalf of the democracy in 404.

Yet the broader significance of Archedemus' rise to prominence and prosecution of Erasinides would endure throughout the fourth century. Until Alcibiades' second exile in 406, holding office as general was very much the norm for Athenian politicians of the first rank. Of the twelve fifth-century πϱοστάται listed at Ath. Pol. 28.2-3, most held the office multiple times; even Cleon ultimately sought election for his Thraceward campaign in the late 420s, and only Cleophon seems to have avoided holding the office entirely.Footnote ⁸³ The twin defeats of Notium and Arginusae, however, set the seal on the collapse of this long-standing convention. In the fourth century, the common formula ῥήτοϱες καὶ στϱατηγοί (‘orators and generals’) increasingly delineated two distinct groups.Footnote ⁸⁴ More to the point, the political subordination of the generals to the ‘civilian’ political elite was openly recognized. The general Chabrias, for instance, was reputed for his hot-headedness and lack of calm in battle.Footnote ⁸⁵ Yet, when he commanded at the battle of Naxos in 376—the first major Athenian naval victory since Arginusae—he apparently sacrificed his chances of a greater victory to ensure that he picked up his own shipwrecked sailors, in order to avoid suffering the same fate as Erasinides and his colleagues thirty years previously.Footnote ⁸⁶ Even the most prominent fourth-century generals such as Iphicrates and Timotheus never succeeded in establishing themselves independently of their ‘civilian’ political allies, and when their campaigns stalled or failed, they frequently turned on each other for their own self-preservation.Footnote ⁸⁷ Demosthenes twice (2.29, 13.20) deploys a metaphor of political groupings as trierarchic symmories, in a manner that makes this hierarchy explicit: ‘each with an orator as leader, a general under him and three hundred shouting’. The theōrikon may well have had no formal relation to the diōbelia (see above), but in this respect at least it was indubitably its spiritual successor. Pace Henri Pirenne, ‘without Archedemus, Eubulus and Lycurgus might have been inconceivable’.Footnote ⁸⁸