Page:History of Greece Vol X.djvu/397

ASSASSINATION OF KOTYS. 37o Charidemus was enabled, through a truce unexpectedly granted to him by the satrap, to cross over from Abydos to Sestos without any Athenian ships. But as soon as he found himself in the Chersonese, far from aiding Athens to recover that peninsula, he actually took service with Kotys against her ; so that Elaeus and Krithote, her chief remaining posts, were in greater peril than ever. 1 The victorious prospects of Kotys, however, were now unex pectedly arrested. After a reign of twenty-four years he was assassinated by two brothers, Python and Herakleides, Greeks from the city of JEnus in Thrace, and formerly students under Plato at Athens. They committed the act to avenge their father ; upon whom, as it would appear, Kotys had inflicted some brutal insult, under the influence of that violent and licentious temper which was in him combined with an energetic military character. 2 1 Demosthen. cont. Aristokrat. p. 672, 673. The orator reads a letter (not cited however) from the governor of Kri- thote, announcing the formidable increase of force which threatened the place since the arrival of Charidemus. 8 Aristotle (Politic, v, 8, 12) mentions the act and states that the two young men did it to avenge their father. He does not expressly say what Kotys had done to the father ; but he notices the event in illustration of the general category, Holi^al 6' m-&eai yeyivrjVTai Kal 6iu TO elf TO ati/ia aiffi(vva'&ai TUV fj,ovup%uv TLVUS (compare what Tacitus says about mos re* gius Annal. vi, 1). Aristotle immediately adds another case of cruel mutilation inflicted by Kotys, 'Adu^/af <5' aniarr] Koryof dia TO KT/Lt.?]&7}vai {ITT' OVTOV naif >v, uf v[3pia[iEvo<;. Compare, about Kotys, Theopompus, Fragm. 33, ed. Didot, ap. Athen. xii, p. 531, 532. Bohnecke Forschungen auf dem Gebiete der Geschichte, p. 725, 726) places the death of Kotys in 359 B. c. ; and seems to infer from Athenaeus (vi, p. 248 ; xii, p. 531 ) that he had actual communication with Philip of Macedon as king, whose accession took place between Midsummer 360 and Midsummer 359 B. c. But the evidence does not appear to me to bear out such a conclusion. The story cited by Athenaeus from Hegesander, about letters reaching Philip from Kotys, cannot be true about this Kotys ; because it seems im- possible that Philip, in the first year of his reign, can have had any such flatterer as Kleisophus ; Philip being at that time in the greatest politi- cal embarrassments, out of which he was only rescued by his indefatigable energy and ability. And the journey of Philij to Onokarsis, also men- tioned by Athenanis out of Theopompus, does iu knply any personal com- munication with Kotys.