Plutarch’s narrative is misleading, inasmuch as it seems to imply that Harpalus gave this money to Charikles after his arrival at Athens. We know from Theopompus (Fr. 277) that the monument had been finished some time before Harpalus quitted Asia. Plutarch treats it as a mean structure, unworthy of the sum expended on it; but both Dikæarchus and Pausanias describe it as stately and magnificent.
[698] Curtius, x. 2, 1.
[699] Curtius, x. 2, 1. “Igitur triginta navibus Sunium transmittunt” (Harpalus and his company), “unde portum urbis petere decreverunt. His cognitis, rex Harpalo Atheniensibusque juxta infestus, classem parari jubet, Athenas protinus petiturus.” Compare Justin, xiii. 5, 7—who mentions this hostile intention in Alexander’s mind, but gives a different account of the cause of it.
The extract from the drama Agên (given in Athenæus, xiii. p. 596) represents the reports which excited this anger of Alexander. It was said that Athens had repudiated her slavery, with the abundance which she had before enjoyed under it,—to enter upon a struggle for freedom, with the certainty of present privations and future ruin:—
A. ὅτε μὲν ἔφασκον (the Athenians) δοῦλον ἐκτῆσθαι βίον,
ἱκανὸν ἐδείπνουν· νῦν δὲ, τὸν χέδροπα μόνον
καὶ τὸν μάραθον ἔσθουσι, πυροὺς δ᾽ οὐ μάλα.
B. καὶ μὴν ἀκούω μυριάδας τὸν Ἅρπαλον
αὐτοῖσι τῶν Ἀγῆνος οὐκ ἐλάττονας
σίτου παραπέμψαι, καὶ πολίτην γεγονέναι.