The Athenian reconciliation of 403 BCE has received much attention because it is remarkable that Athens escaped from the cycle of revenge and retribution that many Greek poleis encountered once they plunged into civil war. From the political and social dynamics of fourth-century Athens to its legal and cultural institutions, scholars have advanced a wide variety of explanations for Athenian exceptionalism. Joyce falls firmly in the legal camp. He attributes the stability of the restored democracy to Athenian adherence to the amnesty and the laws that the Athenians adopted to restore the rule of law and strengthen democratic institutions. For Joyce, events of the last quarter of the fifth century provided the Athenians with the impetus to embrace moral principles and reform their laws to prevent the misuse of the courts for political purposes (16). The Athenian reconciliation thus served as a paradigm for the ancient Greek world and is a useful exemplum for modern states in their efforts to heal the divisions that threaten their stability after extended periods of political and social unrest (vii).
In Chapter 1, Joyce reviews the modern literature on the Athenian reconciliation, discusses the methods that he applies to his study of the sources, and provides an overview of his findings. He is critical of recent studies for placing too much emphasis on the utilitarian functions of the Athenian reconciliation and for failing to give adequate attention to the moral principles that motivated the Athenians to observe the reconciliation agreement. Although the agreement could not prevent Athenians from holding grudges for what they had suffered during the civil war and their anger continued to surface, Joyce maintains that the agreement prevented them from carrying out vendettas through the courts (6). Furthermore, the Athenians did not turn to extra-legal solutions to address these grievances—or such occurrences were not so frequent as to undermine the democracy—because the community fostered and promoted the rule of law (12).
Chapter 2 concerns the Athenian civil war of 404–403. The sources are notoriously difficult to reconcile, and Joyce does an excellent job explaining the discrepancies in the various accounts and his reasons for adopting particular readings. Although Sparta clearly imposed the rule of the Thirty on the Athenians, Joyce believes that the abuses of the courts for political gain that took place at the end of the Peloponnesian war helped pave the way for the oligarchic takeover (45). He also argues that ideological divisions, and not social or economic conflicts, explain the struggles between the democratic loyalists and the oligarchic sympathizers. Opposition to the Thirty clearly included Athenians of high social status. It is also true that the oligarchs targeted wealthy citizens and metics, and they forced outsiders of low social status to be complicit in their crimes. However, the evidence suggests that membership in the Three Thousand was restricted to those wealthy Athenians who were least likely to oppose the Thirty. So, the conflict was clearly more than just an ideological disagreement. Given the number of people whom the Thirty placed in their crosshairs, their regime could not last for very long. Still, the democratic return to power was only possible, as Joyce rightly notes, after Sparta withdrew its support from the oligarchs because of the internal rivalry between Pausanias and Lysander and dissension within the Peloponnesian League. Thus, the reconciliation agreement should, in many ways, be viewed as a Spartan mandate that the democrats and oligarchs were forced to accept (66–68).
Chapters 3 and 4 examine the reconciliation agreement, the terms of the amnesty, and the scrutiny of the laws that took place after the restoration of the democracy. Joyce follows the Ath. Pol. in dating the amnesty to the restoration of the democracy in 403 over Xenophon who does not mention the amnesty until the destruction of the oligarchic stronghold in Eleusis in 401. In response to Carawan’s recent work, Joyce offers compelling arguments for the traditional interpretation of μὴ μνησικακεῖν as a provision granting amnesty for offences committed during the civil war.[1] Joyce accepts Gray’s new reading of Ath. Pol. 39.5 as a restriction on the autonomy of the Eleusinian community, and not as an exception to the amnesty mentioned in 39.6.[2] Although this is a more natural reading of the Ath. Pol., the text is corrupt. If the agreement did not include an exception to the amnesty for murder by one’s own hands (αὐτοχειρίᾳ), it becomes unclear why the prosecutor of Lysias 13 goes to the trouble of arguing that Agoratus, who did not lay his hands on the individuals whom he denounced, is just as guilty of murder as a person caught stabbing his victims.[3] Next, Joyce turns to the scrutiny of the laws. He provides a very helpful introduction to the many intractable debates regarding the epigraphical evidence and the references to the law reforms in Andocides 1 and Lysias 30, and he tends to support those interpretations where there is the most consensus. In addition, he persuasively concludes that these reforms should not be viewed as restricting the democracy, so that there is no reason to believe that fourth-century Athens was more “moderate” because of these changes (90–91).
In Chapters 5 and 6, Joyce argues that the disputes heard in Athenian courts after the restoration of the democracy have been mistakenly viewed as political show trials that provided the Athenians with the opportunity to vent their anger. Instead, he suggests that close examination of Lysias 12 and 13, Isocrates 18, and the trial of Socrates reveals how legal principles were the primary focus of each of these trials (127). Because Joyce believes the amnesty granted immunity for all crimes during the civil war with the exception of those committed by Thirty, the Ten, and the Eleven, Lysias 13 would seem to be a clear violation of the amnesty. Joyce suggests the public nature of Agoratus’ offenses gave the prosecutor the opportunity to argue that the amnesty did not apply to Agoratus because the intent of the amnesty was to prohibit the prosecution of only private grievances (146). However, the prosecutor does not make this argument. Instead, the prosecutor claims that the amnesty was irrelevant because Agoratus was a member of the Peiraeus party while the agreement was between the men of Peiraeus and the men of the city. Nevertheless, the fact that the prosecutor was forced to make arguments that were clearly fallacious and turned to loopholes to justify his prosecution suggests that prosecutors could not completely disregard or ignore the amnesty when seeking redress for wrongs committed during the civil war (158).
Lysias 12 is, in many ways, unproblematic because Eratosthenes was a member of the Thirty seeking to enjoy the privileges of the amnesty by undergoing an audit as mandated by the agreement. Thus, the trial actually shows how the Athenians restored the rule of law because they relied on the normal operations of their legal system to enforce the terms of the reconciliation agreement (157). In addition, Lysias presents the men of the city as victims of the Thirty so that his speech had a unifying effect (156). Absent from Joyce’s discussion is the rhetoric in the speech regarding fear of further civil unrest that could have had the opposite effect.
Isocrates 18 and the trial for Socrates creates problems for Joyce’s argument because they show how vendettas could be pursued despite the amnesty. In both cases, the substantive legal questions do not concern wrongs committed during the civil war, but offenses that happened after the restoration of the Athenian democracy. In the case of Isocrates 18, Callimachus was suing the other party after he had already agreed to a settlement. The central issue was, therefore, the principle of res iudicata, and not the amnesty (165). However, the settlement, which happened after the restoration of the democracy, concerns money taken from Callimachus during the rule of the Thirty. It is quite possible that Callimachus decided to violate the terms of the agreement because he believed the jury would be sympathetic to him because the offense happened under the Thirty. Although we cannot be certain, other speeches delivered during this time suggest that Callimachus was planning to accuse the speaker of aiding the oligarchs. Isocrates 18, therefore, shows that at least some Athenians pursued legal vendettas despite the amnesty.
The review of the questions surrounding the trial of Socrates is fair and balanced, and I agree with Joyce that there is no reason to believe that the prosecutors accused Socrates of impiety to circumvent the amnesty (172). However, it would be misleading to view impiety as a strictly religious offense. Since many of those involved in the mutilation of the Herms and the profanation of the Mysteries also participated in the rule of the Four Hundred and the Thirty, the Athenians did not have to associate Socrates directly with Critias or even blame him for the rule of the Thirty to fear that he was a threat to the democracy. It is also worth noting that Socrates’ trial took place after 403 and not before. The events of the last quarter of the fifth century fueled the very suspicions that resulted in his conviction and execution, and there are reasons to believe that this concern extended beyond Socrates.[4]
Chapter 7 surveys the reconciliation agreements of other Greek poleis from the Classical and Hellenistic periods to show why the Athenian version became a paradigm. Before concluding, Joyce discusses Aristotle’s account of the Athenian law reforms and new studies on nomothesia to further support his argument in Chapter 4 about the relationship between the Athenian democracy and the rule of law. It is surprising that the book does not discuss the dokimasia speeches from the corpus of Lysias. Even if the juries disregarded the raking up of the past that happened at these hearings, the dokimasia provided Athenians with the opportunity to publicly embarrass their enemies for their actions under the Thirty. This public shaming could make it difficult for Athenians to move on, and there was always the danger that some might turn to extra-legal options in their efforts to settle the score if they became frustrated by their inability to seek redress through the courts. The rule of law could not in itself prevent Athens from returning to a state of civil unrest. One must also consider the political, social, and cultural dynamics of fourth-century Athens to understand why the reconciliation was successful.
Still, it is clear that the Athenians turned to law to strengthen their democracy because twice oligarchic conspirators seized control of Athens from within the very institutions that were supposed to protect the democracy. Joyce provides a comprehensive study of the legal questions that were addressed after the oligarchs were removed from power. His examination of the terms of the reconciliation agreement, the amnesty, and the subsequent law reforms is thorough and compelling. Anyone interested in this period of Athenian history needs to consult his work.
Notes
[1] E. Carawan, “The Athenian Amnesty and Scrutiny of the Laws,” JHS 122 (2002): 1–23; “The Meaning of Μὴ Μνησικακεῖν,” CQ 62 (2012): 567–81; and The Athenian Amnesty and Reconstructing the Law (Oxford 2013).
[2] See the appendix of B. Gray, “Justice or Harmony? Reconciliation after Stasis in Dikaia and the Fourth-Century BC Polis,” REA 115 (2013): 369–401.
[3] S. C. Todd, A Commentary on Lysias, Speeches 12–16 (Oxford 2020), 28–29.
[4] See W. R. Connor, “The Other 399: Religion and the Trial of Socrates,” in Georgica: Greek Studies in Honour of George Cawkwell, edited by M. Flower and M. Toher (London 1991), 49–56.