Lives of the Ten Orators (12)

IN the magistracy of Pytharatus,[*] Laches, the son of Demochares of Leuconoe requires of the Athenian senate that a statue of brass be set up for Demochares, the son of Laches of Leuconoe, in the market-place, and table and diet in the Prytaneum for himself and the eldest of his progeny successively, and the first seat at all public shows; for that he had always been a benefactor and good counsellor to the people, and had done these and the like good offices to the public: he had gone in embassies in his own person; had proposed and carried in bills relating to his embassage; had been chief manager of public matters; had repaired the walls, prepared arms and machines; had fortified the city in the time of the four years’ war, and composed a peace, truce, and alliance with the Boeotians; for which things he was banished by those who overturned and usurped the government;—and being called home again by a decree of the people, in the year of Diocles, he had contracted the administration, sparing the public funds; and going in embassage to Lysimachus, he had at

one time gained thirty, and at another time a hundred talents of silver, for the use of the public; he had moved the people to send an embassage to Ptolemy, by which means the people got fifty talents; he went ambassador to Antipater, and by that got twenty talents, and brought it to Eleusis to the people,—all which measures he persuaded the people to adopt while he himself carried them out; furthermore, he was banished for his love for the commonwealth, and would never take part with usurpers against the popular government; neither did he, after the overthrow of that government, bear any public office in the state; he was the only man, of all that had to do in the public administration of affairs in his time, who never promoted or consented to any other form of government but the popular; by his prudence and conduct, all the judgments and decrees, the laws, courts, and all things else belonging to the Athenians, were preserved safe and inviolate; and, in a word, he never said or did any thing to the prejudice of the popular government.