Page:History of Greece Vol VIII.djvu/202

180 HISTORY OF GREECE. call at Samos, and came home in consequence ; reaching Athens seemingly about the end of September or beginning of October, the battle of Arginusae having been fought in August 406 B.C. Two of the generals, however, Protomachus and Aristogenes, declined to come : warned of the displeasure of the people, and not confiding in their own case to meet it, they preferred to pay the price of voluntary exile. The other six, Perikles, Lysias, Diomedon, Erasinides, Aristokrates, and Thrasyllus, Arche- stratus, one of the original ten, having died at Mitylene, 1 came without their two colleagues ; an unpleasant augury for the result. On their first arrival, Archedemus, at that time an acceptable popular orator, and exercising some magistracy or high office which we cannot distinctly make out,' 3 imposed upon Erasinides a fine to that limited amount which was within the competence of magistrates without the sanction of the dikastery, and accused him besides before the dikastery ; partly for general misconduct in his command, partly on the specific charge of having purloined some public money on its way from the Hellespont. Erasinides was found guilty, and condemned to be imprisoned, either until the money was made good, or perhaps until farther examination could take place into the other alleged misdeeds. This trial of Erasinides took place before the generals were 1 Lysias, Orat. xxi ('ATroAoyta Awpo(5o/a'af),sect. vii. 5 Xenoph. Hellen. i, 7, 2. Archedemus is described as r?)f At/ccAetaj em;- /j.e?iov/tevof. What is meant by these words, none of the commentators can explain in a satisfactory manner. The text must be corrupt. Some con- jecture like that of Dobree seems plausible ; some word like rrif dtau^rif or 1% deKdTEvaeuf, having reference to the levying of the tithe in the Hellespont ; which would furnish reasonable ground for the proceeding of Archedemus against Erasinides. The office held by Archedemus, whatever it was, must have been suffi- ciently exalted to confer upon him the power of imposing the fine of limited amount called k-mfioSi.!]. I hesitate to identify this Archedemus with the person of that name men- tioned in the Memorabilia of Xenophon, ii, 9. There seems no similarity at all in the points of character noticed. The popular orator Archedemus was derided by Eupolis and Aris- tophanes as having sore eyes, and as having got his citizenship without i proper title to it (see Aristophan. Ran. 419-588, with the Scholia). He ia also charged, in a lino of an oration of Lysias, with having embezzled thfl public money (Lysiag cent, Alkibiad. sect. 25, Orat. xiv).