[422] Compare this speech of Diodotus with the views of punishment implied by Xenophon in his Anabasis, where he is describing the government of Cyrus the younger:—
“Nor can any man contend, that Cyrus suffered criminals and wrong-doers to laugh at him: he punished them with the most unmeasured severity (ἀφειδέστατα πάντων ἐτιμωρεῖτο). And you might often see along the frequented roads men deprived of their eyes, their hands, and their feet: so that in his government either Greek or barbarian, if he had no criminal purpose, might go fearlessly through and carry whatever he found convenient.” (Anabasis, i, 9, 13.)
The severity of the punishment is, in Xenophon’s mind, the measure both of its effects in deterring criminals, and of the character of the ruler inflicting it.
[423] Thucyd. iii, 47. Νῦν μὲν γὰρ ὑμῖν ὁ δῆμος ἐν πάσαις ταῖς πόλεσιν εὔνους ἐστὶ, καὶ ἢ οὐ ξυναφίσταται τοῖς ὀλίγοις, ἢ ἐὰν βιασθῇ, ὑπάρχει τοῖς ἀποστήσασι πολέμιος εὐθὺς, καὶ τῆς ἀντικαθισταμένης πόλεως τὸ πλῆθος ξύμμαχον ἔχοντες ἐς πόλεμον ἐπέρχεσθε.
This speech is that of a man who feels that he has the reigning and avowed sentiment of the audience against him, and that he must therefore win his way by appeals to their reason. The same appeals, however, might have been made, and perhaps had been made, during the preceding discussion, without success; but Diodotus knew that the reigning sentiment, though still ostensibly predominant, had been silently undermined during the last few hours, and that the reaction towards pity and moderation, which had been growing up under it, would work in favor of his arguments, though he might disclaim all intention of invoking its aid. After several other discourses, both for and against,—the assembly came to a vote, and the proposition of Diodotus was adopted; but adopted by so small a majority, that the decision seemed at first doubtful.[425]
[425] Thucyd. iii, 49. ἐγένοντο ἐν τῇ χειροτονίᾳ ἀγχώμαλοι, ἐκράτησε δ᾽ ἡ τοῦ Διοδότου.
But the trireme carrying the first vote had started the day before, and was already twenty-four hours on its way to Mitylênê. A second trireme was immediately put to sea, bearing the new decree; yet nothing short of superhuman exertions could enable it to reach the condemned city before the terrific sentence now on its way might be actually in course of execution. The Mitylenæan envoys stored the vessel well with provisions, promising large rewards to the crew if they arrived in time; and an intensity of effort was manifested, without parallel in the history of Athenian seamanship,—the oar being never once relaxed between Athens and Mitylênê, and the rowers merely taking turns for short intervals of rest, with refreshment of barley-meal steeped with wine and oil swallowed on their seats. Luckily, there was no unfavorable wind to retard them: but the object would have been defeated, if it had not happened that the crew of the first trireme were as slow and averse in the transmission of their rigorous mandate, as those of the second were eager for the delivery of the reprieve in time. And, after all, it came no more than just in time; the first trireme had arrived, the order for execution was actually in the hands of Pachês, and his measures were already preparing. So near was the Mitylenæan population to this wholesale destruction:[426] so near was Athens to the actual perpetration of an enormity which would have raised against her throughout Greece a sentiment of exasperation more deadly than that which she afterwards incurred even from the proceedings at Melos, Skiônê, and elsewhere. Had the execution been realized, the person who would have suffered most by it, and most deservedly, would have been the proposer, Kleon. For if the reaction in Athenian sentiment was so immediate and sensible after the mere passing of the sentence, far more violent would it have been when they learned that the deed had been irrevocably done, and when all its painful details were presented to their imaginations: and Kleon would have been held responsible as the author of that which had so disgraced them in their own eyes. As the case turned out, he was fortunate enough to escape this danger; and his proposition, to put to death those Mitylenæans whom Pachês had sent home as the active revolting party, was afterwards adopted and executed. It doubtless appeared so moderate after the previous decree passed but rescinded, as to be adopted with little resistance, and to provoke no after-repentance: yet the men so slain were rather more than one thousand in number.[427]