Page:History of Greece Vol VIII.djvu/204

182 HISTORY OF GREECE. when he denied the justification which the generals had set up founded on the severity of the storm. According to him, the} might have picked up the drowning men, and ought to have done 30 : either they might have done so before the storm came on, or there never was any storm of sufficient gravity to prevent them : upon their heads lay the responsibility of omission. 1 Xen- ophon, in his very meagre narrative, does not tell us, in express words, that Theramenes contradicted the generals as to the storm. But that he did so contradict them, point blank, is implied dis- tinctly in that which Xenophon alleges him to have said. It seems also that Thrasybulus another trierarch at Arginusae, and a man not only of equal consequence, but of far more esti- mable character concurred with Theramenes in this same accusation of the generals, 2 though not standing forward so prom- inently in the case. He too therefore must have denied the real- ity of the storm ; or at least, the fact of its being so instant after the battle, or so terrible as to forbid all effort for the relief of these drowning seamen. The case of the generals, as it stood before the Athenian pub- lic, was completely altered when men like Theramenes and Thrasybulus stood forward as their accusers. Doubtless what was said by these two had been said by others before, in the sen- ate and elsewhere ; but it was now publicly advanced by men of influence, as well as perfectly cognizant of the fact. And we are thus enabled to gather indirectly, what the narrative of Xen- ophon, studiously keeping back the case against the generals, 1 Xenoph. Hellen. i, 7, 4. Meru 6s raCra, kKK^rjaia tyevero, iv $ TUV orparT/yuv Karijyopovv uhho i re Kai &TJ pa/j.v q f fiu^iara, elvai Aeywv T^oyov i> Ttoaxel v , &LOTL OVK avei~ T o i> f vavay oil . 'On fjiev yap ovdevbf u%.%.ov Katfjynrov-o, emarofajv iiredeiicvve fiaprvpiov ical tTTFfnpav ol arparriyoi if TTJV }ovl.7jv Kal ef Tbv 6r]p.ov, aXAo ovdev alriufievoL f} rbv ^//uva. 2 That Thrasybulus concurred with Theramenes in accusing the generals, is intimated in the reply which Xenophon represents the generals to have made (i, '7, 6) : Kai ov%, &TI ye KOTJJ yo pov aiv fyfiuv, etyaaav, cKovreQ av T oi) f a IT iov f elvac, d/l/la rd fieyedof rov elvai rb Ku'Xvaav TTJV avaipeaiv. The plural KaTijyopovaiv shows that Thrasybulus as well as Theramenes stood fonvard to accnsc th e generals, thcugh the latter was the most promi- nent and violent.