See also a striking passage (in Lysias Orat. xxviii, cont. Ergokl. s. 5) about the advice given to Thrasybulus by a discontented fellow-citizen, to seize Byzantium, marry the daughter of Seuthes, and defy Athens.
[225] Æschines, Fals. Leg. c. 13. p. 249.
At what time this adoption took place, we cannot distinctly make out; Amyntas died in 370 B.C., while from 378-371 B.C., Iphikrates seems to have been partly on service with the Persian satraps, partly in command of the Athenian fleet in the Ionian Sea (see Rehdantz, Vitæ Iphicratis, etc. ch. 4). Therefore, the adoption took place at some time between 387-378 B.C.; perhaps after the restoration of Amyntas to his maritime dominions by the Lacedæmonian expedition against Olynthus—382-380 B.C. Amyntas was so weak and insecure, from the Thessalians, and other land-neighbors (see Demosth. cont. Aristokrat. p. 657. s. 112), that it was much to his advantage to cultivate the favor of a warlike Athenian established on the Thracian coast, like Iphikrates.
[226] From these absences of men like Iphikrates and Chabrias, a conclusion has been drawn severely condemning the Athenian people. They were so envious and ill-tempered (it has been said), that none of their generals could live with comfort at Athens; all lived abroad as they could. Cornelius Nepos (Chabrias, c. 3) makes the remark, borrowed originally from Theopompus (Fr. 117, ed. Didot), and transcribed by many modern commentators as if it were exact and literal truth—“Hoc Chabrias nuntio (i. e. on being recalled from Egypt, in consequence of the remonstrance of Pharnabazus) Athenas rediit neque ibi diutius est moratus quam fuit necesse. Non enim libenter erat ante oculos civium suorum, quod et vivebat laute, et indulgebat sibi liberalius, quam ut invidiam vulgi posset effugere. Est enim hoc commune vitium in magnis liberisque civitatibus, ut invidia gloriæ comes sit, et libenter de his detrahant, quos eminere videant altius; neque animo æquo pauperes alienam opulentium intuentur fortunam. Itaque Chabrias, quoad ei licebat, plurimum aberat. Neque vero solus ille aberat Athenis libenter, sed omnes fere principes fecerunt idem, quod tantum se ab invidiâ putabant abfuturos, quantum a conspectu suorum recessissent. Itaque Conon plurimum Cypri vixit, Iphicrates in Thraciâ, Timotheus Lesbi, Chares in Sigeo.”
That the people of Athens, among other human frailties, had their fair share of envy and jealousy, is not to be denied; but that these attributes belonged to them in a marked or peculiar manner, cannot (in my judgment) be shown by any evidence extant,—and most assuredly is not shown by the evidence here alluded to.
“Chabrias was fond of a life of enjoyment and luxurious indulgence.” If instead of being an Athenian, he had been a Spartan, he would undoubtedly have been compelled to expatriate in order to gratify this taste; for it was the express drift and purpose of the Spartan discipline, not to equalize property, but to equalize the habits, enjoyments, and personal toils, of the rich and poor. This is a point which the admirers of Lykurgus,—Xenophon and Plutarch,—attest not less clearly than Thucydides, Plato, Aristotle, and others. If then it were considered a proof of envy and ill-temper, to debar rich men from spending their money in procuring enjoyments, we might fairly consider the reproach as made out against Lykurgus and Sparta. Not so against Athens. There was no city in Greece where the means of luxurious and comfortable living were more abundantly exhibited for sale, nor where a rich man was more perfectly at liberty to purchase them. Of this the proofs are everywhere to be found. Even the son of this very Chabrias, Ktesippus, who inherited the appetite for enjoyment, without the greater qualities of his father,—found the means of gratifying his appetite so unfortunately easy at Athens, that he wasted his whole substance in such expenses (Plutarch, Phokion, c. 7; Athenæus, iv, p. 165). And Chares was even better liked at Athens in consequence of his love of enjoyment and license,—if we are to believe another Fragment (238) of the same Theopompus.
The allegation of Theopompus and Nepos, therefore, is neither true as matter of fact, nor sufficient, if it had been true, to sustain the hypothesis of a malignant Athenian public, with which they connect it. Iphikrates and Chabrias did not stay away from Athens because they loved enjoyments or feared the envy of their countrymen; but because both of them were large gainers by doing so, in importance, in profit, and in tastes. Both of them were men πολεμικοὶ καὶ φιλοπόλεμοι ἐσχάτως (to use an expression of Xenophon respecting the Lacedæmonian Klearchus—Anab. ii, 6, 1); both of them loved war and had great abilities for war,—qualities quite compatible with strong appetite for enjoyment; while neither of them had either taste or talent for the civil routine and debate of Athens when at peace. Besides, each of them was commander of a body of peltasts, through whose means he could obtain lucrative service as well as foreign distinction; so that we can assign a sufficient reason why both of them preferred to be absent from Athens during most part of the nine years that the peace of Antalkidas continued. Afterwards, Iphikrates was abroad three or four years, in service with the Persian satraps, by order of the Athenians; Chabrias also went a long time afterwards, again on foreign service, to Egypt, at the same time when the Spartan king Agesilaus was there (yet without staying long away, since we find him going out on command from Athens to the Chersonese in 359-358 B.C.—Demosth. cont. Aristokr. p. 677, s. 204); but neither he nor Agesilaus, went there to escape the mischief of envious countrymen. Demosthenes does not talk of Iphikrates as being uncomfortable in Athens, or anxious to get out of it; see Orat. cont. Meidiam, p. 535, s. 83.
Again, as to the case of Konon and his residence in Cyprus; it is truly surprising to see this fact cited as an illustration of Athenian jealousy or ill-temper. Konon went to Cyprus immediately after the disaster of Ægospotami, and remained there, or remained away from Athens, for eleven years (405-393 B.C.) until the year after his victory at Knidus. It will be recollected that he was one of the six Athenian generals who commanded the fleet at Ægospotami. That disaster, while it brought irretrievable ruin upon Athens, was at the same time such as to brand with well-merited infamy the generals commanding. Konon was so far less guilty than his colleagues, as he was in a condition to escape with eight ships when the rest were captured. But he could not expect, and plainly did not expect, to be able to show his face again in Athens, unless he could redeem the disgrace by some signal fresh service. He nobly paid this debt to his country, by the victory of Knidus in 394 B.C.; and then came back the year afterwards, to a grateful and honorable welcome at Athens. About a year or more after this, he went out again as envoy to Persia in the service of his country. He was there seized and imprisoned by the satrap Tiribazus, but contrived to make his escape, and died at Cyprus, as it would appear, about 390 B.C. Nothing therefore can be more unfounded than the allegation of Theopompus, “that Konon lived abroad at Cyprus, because he was afraid of undeserved ill-temper from the public at Athens.” For what time Timotheus may have lived at Lesbos, we have no means of saying. But from the year 370 B.C. down to his death, we hear of him so frequently elsewhere, in the service of his country, that his residence cannot have been long.
[227] Æschines, Fals. Leg. c. 40, p. 283.
[228] The employment of the new word συντάξεις, instead of the unpopular term φόρους, is expressly ascribed to Kallistratus,—Harpokration in Voce.