Page:History of Greece Vol X.djvu/131

TIMOTHEUS. - KALLISTRATUS. 109 Iphikrates being thus abroad, the Athenians joined with Cha- brias, in the mission and measures for organizing their new confed- " Chabrias was fond of a life of enjoyment and luxurious indulgence." If instead of being an Athenian, he had been a Spartan, he would undoubt- edly have been compelled to expatriate in order to gratify this taste ; for it was the express drift and purpose of the Spartan discipline, not to equalize property, but to equalize the habits, enjoyments, and personal toils, of the rich and poor. This is a point which the admirers of Lykurgus, Xeno- phcn and Plutarch, attest not less clearly than Thucydides, Plato, Aris- totle, and others. If then it were considered a proof of envy and ill-temper, to debar rich men from spending their money in procuring enjoyments, we might fairly consider the reproach as made out against Lykurgus and Sparta. Not so against Athens. There was no city in Greece where the means of luxurious and comfortable living were mors abundantly exhibited for sale, nor where a rich man was more perfectly at liberty to purchase them. Of this the proofs are everywhere to be found. Even the son of this very Chabrias, Ktesippus, who inherited the appetite for enjoyment, with- out the greater qualities of his father, found the means of gratifying his appetite so unfortunately easy at Athens, that he wasted his whole sub- stance in such expenses (Plutarch, Phokion, c. 7 ; Athenaeus, iv, p. 165). And Chares was even better liked at Athens in consequence of his love of enjoyment and license, if we are to believe another Fragment (238) of the same Theopompus. The allegation of Theopompus and Nepos, therefore, is neither true as matter of fact, nor sufficient, if it had been true, to sustain the hypothesis of a malignant Athenian public, with which they connect it. Iphikrates and Chabrias did not stay away from Athens because they loved enjoyments or feared the envy of their countrymen ; but because both of them were large gainers by doing so, in importance, in profit, and in tastes. Both of them were men iro7,e(j.LK.ol /cat Qifanrofapoi ka%u.Tuq (to use an expression of Xenophon respecting the Lacedaemonian Klearchus Anab. ii, 6, 1) ; both of them loved war and had great abilities for war, qualities quite com- patible with strong appetite for enjoyment ; while neither of them had either taste or talent for the civil routine and debate of Athens when at peace. Besides, each of them was commander of a body of peltasts, through whose means he could obtain lucrative service as well as foreign distinction ; so that we can assign a sufficient reason why both of them preferred to be ab- sent from Athens during most part of the nine years that the peace of An- talkidas continued. Afterwards, Iphikrates was abroad three or four years, in service with the Persian satraps, by order of the Athenians ; Chabrias also went a long time afterwards, again on foreign service, to Egypt, at the same time when the Spartan king Agesilaus was there (yet without staying long away, since we find him going out on command from Athens to the Chersonese in 359-358 B. c. Demosth. cont. Aristokr. p. 677, s. 204) ; but neither he nor Agesilaus, went tfaere tc escape the mischief of envious