Chares of Athens

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Chares (in Greek Χαρης; lived 4th century BC) was an Athenian general, who for a long series of years contrived by profuse corruption to maintain his influence with the people, in spite of an alleged disreputable character.

Contents 1 First campaigns 2 Against the Macedonians 3 Appraisal 4 References 5 Notes

[edit] First campaigns

We first hear of him in 367 BC, as being sent to the aid of the city of Phlius, which was hard pressed by the Arcadians and Argives, assisted by the Theban commander at Sicyon. His operations were successful in relieving it, and it was in this campaign under him that Aeschines, the orator, first distinguished himself.¹ From this scene of action he was recalled to take the command against Oropus; and the recovery of their harbour by the Sicyonians from the Spartan garrison, immediately on his departure, shows how important his presence had been for the support of the Spartan cause in the north of the Peloponnese.² In 361 BC he was appointed to succeed Leosthenes, after the defeat of the latter by Alexander of Pherae, and, sailing to Corcyra, he gave his aid to an oligarchical conspiracy there, whereby the democracy was overthrown with much bloodshed — a step by which he of course excited a hostile disposition towards Athens on the part of the ejected, while he failed at the same time to conciliate the oligarchs.³ The necessary consequence was the loss of the island to the Athenians when the Social War broke out. In 358 Chares was sent to Thrace as general with full power, and obliged Charidemus to ratify the treaty which he had made with Athenodorus. In the ensuing year he was appointed to the conduct of the Social war, in the second campaign of which, after the death of Chabrias, Iphicrates and Timotheus were joined with him in the command, 356 BC. According to Diodorus, his colleagues having refused, in consequence of a storm, to risk an engagement for which he was eager, he accused them to the people, and they were recalled and subsequently brought to trial. As Cornelius Nepos tells it, Chares appears to have actually attacked the enemy in spite of the weather, was worsted, and, in order to screen himself, charged his colleagues with not supporting him. In the prosecution he was aided by Aristophon.⁴ Being now left in the sole command, and being in want of money, which he was afraid to apply for from home, he relieved his immediate necessities by entering, compelled perhaps by his mercenaries, into the service of Artabazus, the revolted satrap of Hellespontine Phrygia. The Athenians at first approved of this proceeding, but afterwards ordered him to drop his connexion with Artabazus on the complaint of the Persian king Artaxerxes III Ochus; and it is probable that the threat of the latter to support the confederates against Athens hastened at least the termination of the war, in accordance with the wishes of Eubulus and Isocrates, and in opposition to those of Chares and his party.⁵ 353 BC Chares was sent against Sestus, which, as well as Cardia, seems to have re­fused submission notwithstanding the cession of the Thracian Chersonese to Athens in 357. He took the town, massacred the men, and sold the women and children for slaves.⁶

[edit] Against the Macedonians

In the Olynthian war, 349 BC, he was appointed general of the mercenaries sent from Athens to the aid of Olynthus; but he seems to have effected little or nothing. The command was then entrusted to Charidemus, who in the ensuing year, 348, was again superseded by Chares. In this campaign he gained some slight success on one occasion over king Philip II of Macedon's mercenaries, and celebrated it by a feast given to the Athenians with a portion of the money which had been sacrilegiously taken from Delphi, and some of which had found its way into his hands.⁷ On his euthyne (the public scrutiny to which every public officer was submitted after having discharged his duties) he was impeached by Cephisodotus, who complained, that "he was endeavouring to give his account after having got the people tight by the throat"⁸, an allusion perhaps merely to the great embarrassment of Athens at the time. In 346 BC we find him com­manding again in Thrace; and, when the king of Macedon, Philip, was preparing to march against Cersobleptes, complaints arrived at Athens from the Chersonese that Chares had withdrawn from his station, and was nowhere to be found; and the people were obliged to send a squadron in quest of him with the extraordinary message, that "the Athenians were surprised that, while Philip was marching against the Chersonese, they did not know where their general and their forces were." That he had been engaged in some private expedition of plunder is probable enough. In the same year, and before the departure of the second embassy from Athens to Macedonia on the subject of the peace, a despatch arrived from Chares stating the hopeless condition of the affairs of Cer­sobleptes.⁹ After this we lose sight of Chares for several years, during which he probably resided at Sigeum, which, ac­cording to Theopompus¹⁰, was with him a favourite residence. But in a speech of Demosthenes delivered in 341 BC¹¹ he is spoken of as possessing much influence at that time in the Athenian councils; and we may consider him therefore to have been one of those who authorized and defended the proceedings of Diopeithes against king Philip in Thrace. In 340 BC he was appointed to the command of the force which was sent to aid Byzantium against Philip; but his character excited the suspicions of the Byzantines, and they refused to receive him. Against the enemy he effected nothing: his only exploits it is said were against the allies of Athens, whom he appears to plundered unscrupulously. He was accordingly superseded by Phocion, whose success was brilliant.¹² In 338 he was sent to the aid of Amphissa against Philip, who defeated him together with the Theban general, Proxenus. Of this defeat, which is mentioned by Aeschines, Demosthenes in his reply says nothing, but speaks of two battles in which the Athenians were victorious.¹³ In the same year Chares was one of the commanders of the Athenian forces at the battle of Chaeronea, for the disastrous result of which he escaped censure, or at least prosecution, though Lysicles, one of his colleagues, was tried and condemned to death.¹⁴ He is mentioned by Arrian among the Athenian orators and generals whom Alexander required to be surrendered to him in 335 BC, though he was afterwards prevailed on by Demades not to press the demand against any but Charidemus. Plutarch, however, omits the name of Chares in the list which he gives us.¹⁵ When Alexander invaded Asia in 334 BC, Chares was living at Sigeum, and he is mentioned again by Arrian¹⁶ as one of those who came to meet the king and pay their respects to him on his way to Troy. Yet we afterwards find him commanding for Darius Codomannus at Mytilene, which had been gained in 333 BC by Pharnabazus and Autophradates, but which Chares was compelled to surrender in the ensuing year.¹⁷ From this period we hear no more of him, but it is probable that he ended his days at Sigeum.

[edit] Appraisal

As a general, Chares has been charged with rashness, especially in the needless exposure of his own person¹⁸; this said he appears to have been, during the greater portion of his career, the best commander that Athens had. In politics we see him connected throughout with Demosthenes.¹⁹ Morally he must have been an incubus on any party to which he attached himself, notwithstanding the assistance he might sometimes render it through the orators whom he is said to have kept constantly in pay. His alleged profligacy, which was measureless, he unblushingly avowed and gloried in, openly ridiculing the austere Phocion. His bad faith passed into a proverb; and his rapacity was extraordinary, even amidst the system then prevailing, when the citizens of Athens would neither fight their own battles nor pay the men who fought them, and her commanders had to support their mercenaries as best they could. His triumphal career under the banners of the repubblic may be seen as a symptom of the decline of Athens' values and power.²⁰

[edit] References

• Smith, William (editor); Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, "Chares", Boston, (1867)

[edit] Notes