The Anabasis of Alexander/Book I/Chapter X

by Arrian

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CHAPTER X.

Alexander's Dealings with Athens.

As soon as news of the calamity which had befallen the Thebans reached the other Greeks, the Arcadians, who had set out from their own land for the purpose of giving aid to the Thebans, passed sentence of death on those who had instigated them to render aid. The Eleans also received back their exiles from banishment, because they were Alexander's adherents; and the Aetolians, each tribe for itself, sent embassies to him, begging to receive pardon, because they also had attempted to effect a revolution, on the receipt of the report which had been spread by the Thebans. The Athenians also, who, at the time when some of the Thebans, escaping from the carnage, arrived at Athens, were engaged in celebrating the Great Mysteries,^[1] abandoned the sacred rites in great consternation, and carried their goods and chattels from the rural districts into the city. The people came together in public assembly, and, on the motion of Demades, elected from all the citizens ten ambassadors, men whom they knew to be Alexander's special adherents, and sent them to signify to him, though somewhat unseasonably, that the Athenian people rejoiced at his safe return from the land of the Illyrians and Triballians, and at the punishment which he had inflicted upon the Thebans for their rebellion. In regard to other matters he gave the embassy a courteous reply, but wrote a letter to the people demanding the surrender of Demosthenes and Lycurgus, as well as that of Hyperides, Polyeuctus, Chares, Charidemus, Ephialtes, Diotimus, and Moerocles;^[2] alleging that these men were the cause of the disaster which befell the city at Chaeronea, and the authors of the subsequent offensive proceedings after Philip's death, both against himself and his father.^[3] He also declared that they had instigated the Thebans to revolt no less than had those of the Thebans themselves who favoured a revolution. The Athenians, however, did not surrender the men, but sent another embassy to Alexander,^[4] entreating him to remit his wrath against the persons whom he had demanded. The king did remit his wrath against them, either out of respect for the city of Athens, or from an earnest desire to start on the expedition into Asia, not wishing to leave behind him among the Greeks any cause for distrust. However, he ordered Charidemus alone of the men whom he had demanded as prisoners and who had not been given up, to go into banishment. Charidemus therefore went as an exile to King Darius in Asia.^[5]

1. The Great Mysteries of Demeter were celebrated at Eleusis, from the 15th to the 23rd of the month Boedromion, our September.
2. All these nine men were orators except Chares, Charidemus, and Ephialtes, who were military men. Plutarch (Life of Demosthenes, 23) does not mention Chares, Diotimus, and Hyperides, but puts the names of Callisthenes and Damon in the list.
3. See Aeschines (Adversus Ctesiphontem, pp. 469, 547, 551, 603, 633); Plutarch (Demosthenes, 22; Phocion, 16); Diodorus, xvii. 5.
4. At the head of this embassy was Phocion.
5. He was put to death by Darius shortly before the battle of Issus, for advising him not to rely on his Asiatic troops in the contest with Alexander, but to subsidize an army of Grecian mercenaries. See Curtius, iii. 5; Diodorus, xvii. 30.