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The story is told that in the drinking after dinner Philip downed a large amount of unmixed wine and forming with his friends a comus in celebration of the victory paraded through the midst of his captives, jeering all the time at the misfortunes of the luckless men.1 Now Demades, the orator, who was then one of the captives, spoke out boldly2 and made a remark able to curb the king's disgusting exhibition. [2] He is said to have remarked: "O King, when Fortune has cast you in the role of Agamemnon, are you not ashamed to act the part of Thersites?" Stung by this well-aimed shaft of rebuke, Philip altered his whole demeanour completely. He cast off his garland, brushed aside the symbols of pride that marked the comus, expressed admiration for the man who dared to speak so plainly, freed him from captivity and gave him a place in his own company with every mark of honour. [3] Addressed by Demades with Attic charm, he ended by releasing all of the Athenian prisoners without ransom and, altogether abandoning the arrogance of victory, sent envoys to the people of Athens and concluded with them a treaty of friendship and alliance. With the Boeotian she concluded peace but maintained a garrison in Thebes.

1 Plut. Demosthenes 20.3 tells of Philip's revelling and reciting the beginning of the decree introduced by his rival as if it were verse: "Demosthenes, the son of Demosthenes, Paeanian, thus proposeth." Justin 9.5.1, in constrast, speaks of Philip as bearing his victory modestly. Cp. also Plut. Moralia 715c.

2 Philostratus Vita Apollonii Tyanensis 7.2 names Diogenes of Sinope as the hero of this anecdote. Demad. 9-10 gives his own report of these events.

Diodorus Siculus. Diodorus of Sicily in Twelve Volumes with an English Translation by C. H. Oldfather. Vol. 4-8. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press; London: William Heinemann, Ltd. 1989.

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    • Plutarch, Demosthenes, 20.3
    • Plutarch, Quaestiones Convivales, 715c
    • Philostratus the Athenian, Life of Apollonius of Tyana, 7.2
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