Page:History of Greece Vol VIII.djvu/229

 CAUSES OF THE UNJUST SENTENCE. JQ7 gaib of mourning and the shaving of the head phenomena un- known at Athens, either in a political assembly or in a religious festival were symbols of temporary transformation in the in- ternal man. He could think of nothing but his drowning rela- tives, together with the generals as having abandoned them to death, and his own duty as survivor to insure to them vengeance and satisfaction for such abandonment. Under this self-justifying impulse, the shortest and surest proceeding appeared the best, whatever amount of political wrong it might entail: 1 nay, in this case it appeared the only proceeding really sure, since the interposition of the proper judicial delays, coupled with sever- ance of trial on successive days, according to the psephism of Kannonus, would probably have saved the lives of five out of the six generals, if not of all the six. When we reflect that such absorbing sentiment was common, at one and the same time, to a large proportion of the Athenians, we shall see the explana- tion of that misguided vote, both of the senate and of the ek- kloia, which sent the six generals to an illegal ballot, and of the subsequent ballot which condemned them. Such is the natural behavior of those who, having for the moment forgotten their sense of political commonwealth, become degraded into exclusive family men. The family affections, productive as they are of so large an amount of gentle sympathy and mutual happiness in the interior circle, are also liable to generate disregard, malice, sometimes even ferocious vengeance, towards others. Powerful towards good generally, they are not less powerful occasionally towards evil; and require, not less than the selfish propensities, f mstant subordinating control from that moral reason which con- templates for its end the security and happiness of all. And 1 If Thucydides had lived to continue his history so far down as to in- vlmle this memorable event, he would have found occasion to notice ri> i-vy- / evef, kinship, as being not less capable of u7rpo(j>u.ata-of ro/ifta, unscrupu- I'.'.i- daring, than rb eraipucov, faction. In his reflections on the Korkyntan di-tiirlianccs (iii, 82), he is led to dwell chiefly on the latter, the antipathies of faction, of narrow political brotherhood or conspiracy for the attainment and maintenance of power, as most powerful n generating evil deeds : had he described the proceedings after the battle of Arginusa:, he would hav Been that the sentiment of kinship, looked at on its antipathetic or vindio tire side, is prcg-iant with the like tendencies.