Both warring factions sent envoys to Sparta, and the Spartans sent a peace commission to Athens to mediate. The general terms of the agreement stipulated that everyone might return home except for the Thirty, the Eleven, and the Ten who had ruled in the oligarchy. The former rulers, however, and anyone else who feared reprisals might reside in Eleusis, where most of the former rulers had retired already, or they might undergo a judicial review to rehabilitate themselves if they had not acted maliciously. There was to be a general amnesty for all others.[57]
According to the Amnesty, ordinary citizens would not be liable for crimes they might have committed, often under duress (but sometimes out of greed or vengefulness), under the rule of the Thirty. The people swore not to harbor grudges from past wrongdoing (mē mnēsikakein), to bury the hatchet.[58] There was, however, one piece of unfinished business: the surviving oligarchs, holed up in the town of Eleusis, far from cooperating with the new government, started hiring mercenary soldiers to attack the Athenians. The new government of Athens gathered an army which marched against Eleusis (401 BC). When the leaders of the oligarchic army came out to negotiate, they were summarily executed and the remainder were persuaded to lay down their arms.[59] With the enemies of democracy neutralized, the people of Athens set about to rebuild their ruined government, and, after a disastrous experiment of rule by the Few, to restore power to the Many.
During the transition period between the rule of the Thirty and the restoration of democracy, a Board of Ten regents ruled Athens.[60] One of them, the king archon, was Patrocles of Alopece, who may have been Socrates’ half-brother (see ch. 16*). During this time, Patrocles ran into a man named Callimachus, who was carrying a bag of money. Patrocles, apparently thinking Callimachus had stolen the money from government funds, seized it and turned it over to the government. A year later, soon after the restoration of the democracy, Callimachus sued Patrocles and some associates for return of what he claimed was his own money. He was awarded ten pounds from Patrocles by a court. He later sued Patrocles and his associates again, causing them to reply that the case had already been settled.[61]
Evidently Patrocles took advantage of an option to clear himself of serious wrongdoing under the oligarchy. He could not thereafter be charged with crimes allegedly committed by the government, but citizens could sue him and other former officials for the recovery of property confiscated. The incident illustrates how the upheavals of the Thirty continued to drag on into the new regime. Enmities from the oligarchy were suppressed but not forgotten.
Athens had survived the Peloponnesian War and the fall of its constitution. The city now needed to rebuild its government and restore civic harmony. By law the new government had forgiven its wayward citizens—all who had collaborated with the oligarchy. But the Athenian people, who in both theory and practice were the government, and who in principle had forgiven past wrongs, had not forgotten those who in their view had betrayed their way of life; and they had ways of paying back their perceived enemies.
[57].Xenophon Hellenica 2.4.35-38; Diodorus Siculus 14.33.6; Aristotle Constitution of Athens 39.
[58]. Xenophon Hellenica 2.4.43; see Loening 1987; Wolpert 2002:77-78; Carawan 2013. The Amnesty was not a decree, but it may have been a treaty (Loening pp. 28-30; affirmed by oath, 54-56) or a public oath (Carawan p. 33).
[59]. Xenophon Hellenica 2.4.43.
[60]. There is, however, evidence that a first Board of Ten (one member chosen from each tribe), which was pro-oligarchy, was replaced by a second Board of Ten, which was pro-democracy: Aristotle Constitution of Athens 38. The details of this transition are controversial; see Munn 2000: 416 n. 54. In any case the first Ten ruled the city after the departure of the Thirty; they seem to have been replaced by a more conciliatory Board of Ten who then worked out a reconciliation with the rebels under the direction of the Spartans. Presumably Patrocles was a member of the second Ten.
[61]. A defense speech for the latter case was written by Isocrates: Isocrates Against Callimachus 5-8, with Nails 2002: 219-222.