Aristotle on the Oligarchic Coup


The Constitution of the Athenians includes a rather technical account of the oligarchic coup that surprised Athens in 411 and was justified with the argument that the democrats were not successfully conducting the Decelean or Ionian War. The coup took place in a climate of terror, but more or less along constitutional lines. First, a law was made that lifted the ban on unconstitutional proposals. Then, powers were handed over to a group of oligarchs, called the Four Hundred, who would draft a new constitution for a moderate oligarchy, the Five Thousand. As it turned out, the Four Hundred did intend to give up power, ruled by an emergency decree, until the loss of Euboea discredited them too, and the Five Thousand came to power. So, in the next fragment, reference is made to several constitutions:

  1. The intended constitution of the Four Hundred
  2. The emergency decree of the Four Hundred
  3. The moderate constitution of the Five Thousand

Ps.-Aristotle's account contradicts, and is often contradicted by, the story in Thucydides's History of the Peloponnesian War. This makes the Constitution of the Athenians a very important source. The translation of sections 29-33 was made by F.G. Kenyon.

Ps.-Aristotle on the Oligarchic Coup (411)

[29] So long as the fortune of the war continued even, the Athenians preserved the democracy; but after the disaster in Sicily, when the Spartans had gained the upper hand through their alliance with the king of Persia, they were compelled to abolish the democracy and establish in its place the constitution of the Four Hundred.



Clitophon concurred with the motion of Pythodorus, but moved that the committee should also investigate the ancient laws enacted by Clisthenes when he created the democracy, in order that they might have these too before them and so be in a position to decide wisely; his suggestion being that the constitution of Clisthenes was not really democratic, but closely akin to that of Solon.



[30] These were the recommendations of the committee; and when they had been ratified, the Five Thousand elected from their own number a hundred commissioners to draw up the constitution. They, on their appointment, drew up and produced the following recommendations.



The chief promoters of the revolution were Pisander, Antiphon, and Theramenes, all of them men of good birth and with high reputations for ability and judgment. When, however, this constitution had been established, the Five Thousand were only nominally selected, and the Four Hundred, together with the ten officers on whom full powers had been conferred, occupied the Council-house and really administered the government. They began by sending ambassadors to the Spartans proposing a cessation of the war on the basis of the existing positions; but as the Spartans refused to listen to them unless they would also abandon the command of the sea, they broke off the negotiations.



[34] The people, however, in a very short time deprived the Five Thousand of their monopoly of the government.note