Hide browse bar Your current position in the text is marked in blue. Click anywhere in the line to jump to another position:
book:
chapter:
The Seventeenth Book of Diodorus: in Two Parts
chapter 1chapter 2chapter 3chapter 4chapter 5chapter 6chapter 7chapter 8chapter 9chapter 10chapter 11chapter 12chapter 13chapter 14chapter 15chapter 16chapter 17chapter 18chapter 19chapter 20chapter 21chapter 22chapter 23chapter 24chapter 25chapter 26chapter 27chapter 28chapter 29chapter 30chapter 31chapter 32chapter 33chapter 34chapter 35chapter 36chapter 37chapter 38chapter 39chapter 40chapter 41chapter 42chapter 43chapter 44chapter 45chapter 46chapter 47chapter 48chapter 49chapter 50chapter 51chapter 52chapter 53chapter 54chapter 55chapter 56chapter 57chapter 58chapter 59chapter 60chapter 61chapter 62chapter 63chapter 64chapter 65chapter 66chapter 67chapter 68chapter 69chapter 70chapter 71chapter 72chapter 73chapter 74chapter 75chapter 76chapter 77chapter 78chapter 79chapter 80chapter 81chapter 82chapter 83chapter 84chapter 85chapter 86chapter 87chapter 88chapter 89chapter 90chapter 91chapter 92chapter 93chapter 94chapter 95chapter 96chapter 97chapter 98chapter 99chapter 100chapter 101chapter 102chapter 103chapter 104chapter 105chapter 106chapter 107chapter 108chapter 109chapter 110chapter 111chapter 112chapter 113chapter 114chapter 115chapter 116chapter 117chapter 118
This text is part of:
Search the Perseus Catalog for:
After this he sent men to Athens to demand the surrender of ten1 political
leaders who had opposed his interest, the most prominent of whom were Demosthenes and Lycurgus.
So an assembly was convened and the ambassadors were introduced, and after they had spoken, the
people were plunged into deep distress and perplexity. They were anxious to uphold the honour
of their city but at the same time they were stunned with horror at the destruction of Thebes
and, warned by the calamities of their neighbours, were alarmed in face of their own danger.
[2]
After many had spoken in the
assembly, Phocion, the "Good," who was opposed to the party of Demosthenes, said that the men
demanded should remember the daughters of Leos and Hyacinthus2 and gladly endure death so that their
country would suffer no irremediable disaster, and he inveighed against the faint-heartedness
and cowardice of those who would not lay down their lives for their city. The people
nevertheless rejected his advice and riotously drove him from the stand,
[3]
and when Demosthenes delivered a carefully prepared discourse, they were
carried away with sympathy for their leaders and clearly wished to save them.In the end, Demades, influenced, it is reported, by a bribe of five silver
talents from Demosthenes's supporters, counselled them to save those whose lives were
threatened, and read a decree that had been subtly worded. It contained a plea for the men and
a promise to impose the penalty prescribed by the law, if they deserved punishment.
[4]
The people approved the suggestion of Demades, passed the decree and
dispatched a delegation including Demades as envoys to the king, instructing them to make a
plea to Alexander in favour of the Theban fugitives as well, that he would allow the Athenians
to provide a refuge for them.
[5]
On this mission, Demades
achieved all his objectives by the eloquence of his words and prevailed upon Alexander to
absolve the men from the charges against them and to grant all the other requests of the
Athenians.3
1 This number is given by Plut. Demosthenes, 23.3 as from Idomeneus and Duris, but he thinks eight rather, whom he names.
2 The Attic hero Leos sacrificed his daughters to avert danger to the city; so also Erechtheus, whose name may lie behind the unknown Hyacinthus. Cp. Lyc. 98-99; Demad. 37; Aeschin. 3.161; Plut. Phocion 17.
3 Justin (11.4.9-12) adds that the exiled Athenian leaders went off to Persia, and Arrian. 1.10.6 speaks particularly of Charidemus, while failing to mention the part played in this embassy by Demades. Plut. Alexander 13 states that Alexander was moved by his own clemency. The mission of Demades is described by Plut. Demosthenes 23.5.
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.
The Annenberg CPB/Project provided support for entering this text.
Purchase a copy of this text (not necessarily the same edition) from Amazon.com
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.
An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.
show
Browse Bar
hide
Places (automatically extracted)
View a map of the most frequently mentioned places in this document.
Download Pleiades ancient places geospacial dataset for this text.
hide
References (13 total)
- Cross-references to this page
(5):
- Smith's Bio, Calli'sthenes
- Smith's Bio, Charide'mus
- Smith's Bio, Dema'des
- Smith's Bio, Ephialtes
- Smith's Bio, Pho'cion
- Cross-references in notes from this page (7):
- Cross-references in general dictionaries to this page
(1):
- LSJ, τηρ-έω
hide
Search
hideStable Identifiers
hide
Display Preferences