Against Aristocrates (151-155)

He ought to have been grateful to you because his life was spared when he might justly have been put to death; but instead of that the city, as though she owed gratitude to him, has bestowed upon him crowns and franchise and favours known to you all.—To prove the truth of these allegations, please read the decree respecting the hostages, the dispatch of Iphicrates, the dispatch of Timotheus, and lastly this deposition.—You will find that what I am telling you is not mere gossip and recrimination, but the plain truth.—Read.

(The Decree, the Dispatches, and the Deposition are read.)

You have heard the evidence of the dispatch and the deposition, proving that at the outset Charidemus sold his services to a country where he expected to fight against you, though he had the choice of many other markets; that later, finding that in that country he could do you no harm, he sailed back to a place where he had a chance of operating against Athens; and that he was the chief cause of your failure to take Amphipolis. Such were the early exploits of Charidemus. You must now look at his later conduct.

After a certain lapse of time, when the war with Cotys had already broken out, he sent a letter to you; or rather, not to you but to Cephisodotus, for, being conscious of his transgressions, he was very much of the opinion that the beguilement of Athens was a task beyond his own powers. In this letter he undertook to recover the Chersonesus for Athens; but his real intention was exactly the opposite. You must be informed of the nature of this epistolary transaction,—it is not a long story—and so get an insight into the fashion of this man’s dealings with you from first to last.

Being at that time discharged from the service of Timotheus, he withdrew from Amphipolis, crossed the straits to Asia, and there, because of the recent arrest of Artabazus by Autophradates, he hired out his forces and himself to the sons-in-law of Artabazus. He had taken and given pledges, but he ignored and broke his oaths, and, finding the inhabitants of the country, who thought they were dealing with a friend, off their guard, he seized their towns, Scepsis, Cebren, and Ilium.

Having taken possession of these strongholds, he had a misadventure into which even an ordinary person, not to say a man calling himself a commander, could never have blundered. Although he held no position on the sea-coast, and had no means of supplying his troops with provisions, and although he had no food in the towns, he remained within the walls, instead of looting the towns and making off in pursuance of his intention to do mischief. But Artabazus, having been released by Autophradates, collected an army, and appeared on the scene; and he could draw supplies from the friendly countries of upper Phrygia, Lydia, and Paphlagonia, while for Charidemus nothing remained but to stand a siege.