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Thucydides and Aristotle also describe at length the oligarchic coup d’état in 411, when the democracy was overthrown and replaced for a short time by an oligarchy. The role of the Council, and changes to its composition and powers, played a prominent part in these events.

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Thucydides (Thuc.).
 
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Sicily.
Attica.
Athens.
Euboea.

This oligarchic coup began after the Athenian expedition against Sicily ended in disaster in 413 (these events are described in Thuc. 6-7). After news of the defeat came to Athens, the Athenians were certain that the Sicilians would send a fleet to invade Attica (Thuc. 8.1.2). Thucydides describes Athens’ response to this crisis: “Nevertheless, with such means as they had, it was determined to resist to the last, and to provide timber and money, and to equip a fleet as they best could, to take steps to secure their confederates and above all Euboea, to reform things in the city upon a more economical footing, and to elect a board of elders to act as preliminary advisers regarding the state of affairs as occasion should arise. In short, as is the way of a democracy, in the panic of the moment they were ready to be as prudent as possible.” (Thuc. 8.1.3-4).

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Aristotle (Aristot. Pol.).
 
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Athens.

This “board of elders” (ἀρχήν τινα πρεσβυτέρων ἀνδρῶν) were “to be preliminary councillors” (προβουλεύσουσιν) to Athens. Aristotle, in his work on politics, has an interesting and relevant discussion of Councils (βουλαί) and Boards of Preliminary Councillors (Aristot. Pol. 1299b): “But there are also some offices peculiar to special forms of constitution, for instance the office of Preliminary Councillors. This is undemocratic, although a Council is a popular body, for there is bound to be some body of this nature to have the duty of preparing measures for the popular assembly, in order that it may be able to attend to its business; but a preparatory committee, if small, is oligarchical, and Preliminary Councillors must necessarily be few in number, so that they are an oligarchical element. But where both of these magistracies exist, the Preliminary Councillors are in authority over the Councillors, since a councillor is a democratic official, but a preliminary councillor is an oligarchic one. Also the power of the Council is weakened in democracies of the sort in which the people in assembly deals with everything itself.”

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Thucydides (Thuc.).
 
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Athens.

So, according to Aristotle’s understanding of politics in Greek cities, the addition of a board of “probouloi,” Preliminary Councillors, was an move away from democracy and toward oligarchy. Returning to Thucydides, then, it seems from his comment that in this crisis Athens was “ready to be as prudent as possible” (Thuc. 8.1.4) suggests that, in the historian’s eyes, less democracy equalled greater prudence.

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Aristophanes (Aristoph. Lys.).
 
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Athens.

The only evidence that we have for the powers of these Preliminary Councillors is a scene from Aristophanes’ Lysistrata, and since this is a comic play, it is not the most reliable historical evidence. Nevertheless, it is interesting. In this play, produced and performed for an Athenian audience in 411 BCE (source for date: OCD³), there is a character who is one of the Preliminary Councillors (πρόβουλος). We see him, in one scene, going up to the Acropolis to get some public funds to purchase supplies for the navy (Aristoph. Lys. 420-423). In another scene he orders the Scythian Archers (τοχόται) to arrest someone (Aristoph. Lys. 430-466). Still elsewhere, he orders a herald to arrange for the Spartans to send ambassadors to Athens, and says that he himself will order the Council to appoint Athenian ambassadors (Aristoph. Lys. 590-610). If this portrayal of a Preliminary Councillor is at all based on the reality of Athens in 411 BCE, it suggests that the Preliminary Councillors had taken over many of the responsibilities formerly belonging to the Council: funding the navy, enforcing order, arranging ambassadors.

The events of the year 411 BCE support Aristotle’s assertion that, while the Council was a democratic institution, these Preliminary Councillors leaned toward oligarchy (source for date: OCD³). These men, the Probouloi (προβοῦλοι), seem to have been instrumental in establishing the so-called “Oligarchy of 400” (οἱ τετρακόσιοι); we have an anecdote in Aristotle’s Rhetoric in which a certain Sophocles, one of the Preliminary Councillors appointed in 413, admitted to overthrowing the democracy (note that Aristotle is interested in rhetoric here, not history):

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Aristotle (Aristot. Rh.).

“If a conclusion is put in the form of a question, we should state the reason for our answer. For instance, Sophocles being asked by Pisander whether he, like the rest of the Preliminary Councillors (τοῖς ἄλλοις προβούλοις), had approved the setting up of the Four Hundred, he admitted it. ‘What then?’ asked Pisander, ‘did not this appear to you to be a wicked thing?’ Sophocles admitted it. ‘So then you did what was wicked?’ ‘Yes, for there was nothing better to be done.’” (Aristot. Rh. 1419a)

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Lysias (Lys. 12).

Also, the orator Lysias describes how Theramenes was a leading proponent of the oligarchy in 411, “And also his father, being one of the Preliminary Councillors, was active in this business” (καὶ ὁ μὲν πατὴρ αὐτοῦ τῶν προβούλων ὢν ταὔτ᾽ ἔπραττεν) (Lys. 12.65).

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Thucydides (Thuc.).
Aristotle (Aristot. Ath. Pol.).
 
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Athens.

The Athenians brought an end to their democracy and instituted an oligarchy by, first, appointing ten “Commissioners” (συγγραφεῖς) who were charged with re-writing the constitution of Athens (Thuc. 8.67.1). Aristotle says that there were twenty of these, and that they were in addition to the ten Preliminary Councillors already in office (Aristot. Ath. Pol. 29.2).

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Thucydides (Thuc.).
Aristotle (Aristot. Ath. Pol.).

This is not the place to give all the details of the reforms that the oligarchs put in place after the coup of 411 BCE. For our purposes, it is enough to note that these Commissioners proposed a new Council, consisting of 400 men; there would be no more stipends, which allowed poorer citizens to serve in public offices; five men would be chosen as “Presidents” (προέδροι); these would each choose 100 men for the Council, and each of those 100 would choose three others, thus creating the Council of 400 (Thuc. 8.67.3; Aristot. Ath. Pol. 29.5). This new government claimed that a Council of 400 was “according to the ancestral constitution” (κατὰ τὰ πάτρια) (Aristot. Ath. Pol. 31.1). This Council of 400 would have the power to choose 5000 Athenians who would be the only citizens eligible to participate in assemblies (Thuc. 8.67.3; Aristot. Ath. Pol. 29.5).

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Thucydides (Thuc.).
Aristotle (Aristot. Ath. Pol.).

Thucydides describes how this new Council of 400 collected an armed gang, confronted the “Councillors who had been chosen by lot” (τοῖς ἀπὸ τοῦ κυάμου* βουλευταῖς), that is, the democratic Council, paid them their stipends, and send them home (Thuc. 8.69.4; Aristot. Ath. Pol. 32.1).

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Thucydides (Thuc.).
Aristotle (Aristot. Ath. Pol.).
 
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Athens.

What is significant for our understanding of the role of the Council is that, according to both Aristotle and Thucydides, democracy at Athens came to an end when the democratic Council (the one chosen by lot) was dissolved (Thuc. 8.69.4; Aristot. Ath. Pol. 32.1-2). It is also significant that this oligarchy seems to have been put in place—the Preliminary Councillors and Commissioners appointed, stipends ended, the democratic Council dissolved—with the cooperation, or at least without opposition, from the democratic Assembly. Thucydides says that the democratic Assembly cooperated in its own destruction: “…the Assembly, when it had ratified these other things, with no one speaking against them, was dissolved” (…ἡ ἐκκλησία οὐδενὸς ἀντειπόντος, ἀλλὰ κυρώσασα ταῦτα διελύθη) (Thuc. 8.69.1). Aristotle says that the new constitution was ratified “by the masses” (ὑπὸ τοῦ πλήθους) (Aristot. Ath. Pol. 32.1).

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Thucydides (Thuc.).
Aristotle (Aristot. Ath. Pol.).
Plutarch (Plut. Sol.).

There is an interesting contrast, with the Assembly cooperating in creating a limited, oligarchic government (Thuc. 8.69.1; Aristot. Ath. Pol. 32.1), but the Council having to be evicted by an armed gang (Thuc. 8.69.4; Aristot. Ath. Pol. 32.1). This contrast brings to mind Solon, who, according to Plutarch, established the Council to prevent the People from damaging the constitution (Plut. Sol. 19.1-2).

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