TREATMENT OF DORIEUS. 273 grand and sacred personality of the Hieronike Dorieus, when ex- hibited to the senses of the Athenian multitude, the spectacle of a man in chains before them, who had been proclaimed victor and crowned on so many solemn occasions before the largest as- semblages of Greeks ever brought together, produced an over- whelming effect upon their emotions ; sufficient not only to efface a strong preestablished antipathy founded on active past hostility, but tc countervail a just cause of revenge, speaking in the lan- guage of that day. But the same appearance produced no effect at all on the Spartan ephors and senate ; not sufficient even to hinder them from putting Dorieus to death, though he had given them no cause for antipathy or revenge, simply as a sort of retri- bution for the revolt of the island. Now this difference depended partly upon the difference between the sentiment of Athenians and Spartans, but partly also upon the difference between the sentiment of a multitude and that of a few. Had Dorieus been brought be- fore a select judicial tribunal at Athens, instead of before the Athenian public assembly, or, had the case been discussed before the assembly in his absence, he would have been probably con- demned, conformably to usage, under the circumstances ; but the vehement emotion worked by his presence upon the multitudinous spectators of the assembly, rendered such a course intolerable to them. It has been common with historians of Athens to dwell upon the passions of the public assembly as if it were susceptible of excitement only in an angry or vindictive direction ; whereas> the truth is, and the example before us illustrates, that they were open-minded in one direction as well as in another, and that the present emotion, whatever it might be, merciful or sympathetic as well as resentful, was intensified by the mere fact of multitude. And thus, where the established rule of procedure happened to be cruel, there was some chance of moving an Athenian assembly to mitigate it in a particular case, though the Spartan ephors or senate would be inexorable in carrying it out, if, indeed, they did not, as seems probable in the case of Dorieus, actually go beyond it in rigor. While Konon and the Rhodians were thus raising hostilities against Sparta by sea, Agesilaus, on recei ring at Kyme the news of his nomination to the double command, immediately despatched crders to the dependent maritime cities and islands, requiring the VOL. ix. 12* 18oc,
