Antidosis

Well, then, I do not see how I could show more clearly that the charges filed against me are false and that I am not guilty of corrupting my associates. My accuser has mentioned also the friendship which existed between me and Timotheus,[*](Timotheus, the son of Conon and the favorite pupil of Isocrates, was first appointed to an important command in 378 B.C. From that time on for twenty-two years he was one of the prominent generals in Athenian campaigns. In 357 he was associated with Iphicrates, Menestheus, and Chares in command of the Athenian navy. For his alleged misconduct in this command he was tried in Athens (356 B.C. according to Diodorus) and condemned to pay an enormous fine of 100 talents. See § 129 and note. Unable to pay this, he withdrew to Chalcis in Euboea, where he died shortly after. See Grote, History, vol. xi. pp. 27 ff. The eulogy of Timotheus here is a characteristic “digression.” See General lntrod. p. xvi.) and has attempted to calumniate us both, nor did any sense of shame restrain him from saying slanderous and utterly infamous things about a man who is dead, to whom Athens is indebted for many services.

But I, for my part, should have thought that even if I were proved guilty beyond a doubt, yet because of my friendship with him I should be entitled to go free. But since Lysimachus is attempting to hurt me by the very means which ought to help my case, I am compelled to go into this question. I must explain that I did not mention Timotheus when I named my other associates because he was in very different case from them.

For, in the first place, my accuser has not dared to say anything derogatory of my other friends, while he has laid greater stress upon his arraignment of Timotheus than upon the charges which he has preferred in his indictment. In the next place, my other friends were entrusted with only a few commissions, although in every case they discharged the duties assigned to them in such a manner that they won the honor which I mentioned a moment ago,[*](See Isoc. 15.94.) while Timotheus had the responsibility of many affairs of great importance and over a long period of time. It would not, therefore, have been fitting to discuss him and the others in one group, but it was necessary to separate and segregate them as I have done.

You must not think, however, that what I say in behalf of Timotheus is irrelevant to the present case, nor that I am straying beyond the limits of the indictment; for while it is proper for the layman to say what he has to say in defense of his own actions and then take his seat or else to be thought to overdo his case, yet when anyone occupies a position in the eyes of the public as a counsellor and teacher, he must then justify his followers as well as himself, especially if he is being tried on this charge—which is exactly the position in which I have been placed.

Now any other man might be satisfied to say that it is not fair that he should share the blame for any mistakes which Timotheus may have made, on the ground that he was given no share in the rewards or the honors which were voted to Timotheus, nor was he even thought worthy by any orator of being commended as an adviser of the latter, and that it is only fair that one should either share the good fortunes of another, or have no part in his misfortunes.

I, however, should be ashamed to make this plea, and I make you the same proposition regarding Timotheus as I made regarding my other associates. For I ask that if it turns out that Timotheus was a bad man and committed many wrongs against you—I ask to be allowed to share the blame, to pay the penalty, and to suffer whatever is meted out to the guilty; but if, on the other hand, it is shown that he was both a good citizen and a greater general than any other within our knowledge, then I hold that you should praise him and be grateful to him, while as to this indictment against me, you should pass whatever judgement you may deem fair in the light of what I, myself, have done.

The facts, then, about Timotheus I can put most concisely and in the most comprehensive terms by saying that he has taken more cities by storm than any other man has ever done, and I include all generals who have led armies into the field whether from Athens or from the rest of Hellas. And among these cities were some whose capture compelled all the surrounding territory to make terms with Athens; so great was their importance in each case.

For who does not know that Corcyra has the best strategic position among the cities in the neighborhood of the Peloponnese; Samos, among the cities of Ionia; Sestos and Crithôte, among those in the Hellespont; and Potidaea and Torône among the settlements in Thrace? All these cities he has taken and presented to you, with no great outlay of money, without imposing burdens upon your present allies, and without forcing you to pay many taxes[*](Special taxes levied for military purposes.) into the treasury.

Indeed, for the voyage of the fleet around the Peloponnese, Athens allowed him only thirteen talents and fifty triremes,[*](Sixty, according to Xen. Hell. 5.4.63.) and yet he captured Corcyra, a city with a fleet of eighty triremes, and about the same time he won a naval battle over the Lacedaemonians and forced them to agree to the terms of the present peace—a peace which has so changed the relative positions of Athens and of Lacedaemon

that from that day to this we celebrate the peace with sacrifices every year because no other treaty has been so advantageous to our city;[*](This campaign took place in 375. It was followed up the next year by a peace patched up between Athens and Sparta. Nothing is known about the terms of this peace, but in any case it was promptly broken. See Grote, History, vol. ix. pp. 348 ff. Isocrates seems to refer, not to that temporary truce, but to the important “Peace of Callias” in 371, which virtually gave Athens the command of the sea, limiting Sparta to the land, and weakening her, according to Isocrates, for the decisive clash with the Theban power at Leuctra in the same year. See Grote, History, vol. ix. pp. 381 ff.) while, as for the Lacedaemonians, no man since that time has seen a ship of theirs voyage this side of Malea[*](The southern cape of the Peloponnesus.) nor any land force advance beyond the Isthmus, and anyone can see in this fact the cause of their disaster at Leuctra.

After these exploits he led an expedition against Samos;[*](Captured by Timotheus in 366 B.C. For the campaign see Grote, History, vol. x. pp. 54 ff.) and that city which Pericles, renowned above all others for his wisdom, his justice, and his moderation, reduced with a fleet of two hundred ships and the expenditure of a thousand talents,[*](Pericles was one of the generals who put down the revolt of Samos from the Athenian Confederacy in 440 B.C. See Thuc. 1.116.) Timotheus, without receiving from you or collecting from your allies any money whatsoever, captured after a siege of ten months with a force of eight thousand light-armed troops and thirty triremes, and he paid all these forces from the spoils of war.

And if you can point to any other man who has done a like thing, I stand ready to admit my folly in attempting to praise superlatively one who has done no more than others. Well, then, from Samos he sailed away and captured Sestos and Crithôte,[*](Sestos and Crithôte were acquired for Athens by Timotheus as a part of the Samos (Asia Minor) campaign.) forcing you, who up to that time had been careless of your interests in the Chersonese, to give your attention to that territory.

And finally he took Potidaea, upon which Athens had in times past squandered twenty-four hundred talents, and he met the expense from money which he himself provided and from contributions of the Thracians; and, for full measure, he reduced all the Chalcideans to subjection.[*](The “Thracian” campaign, in the course of which he won over the cities in the Chalcidean peninsula, took place in 365-364. See Grote, History, vol. x. pp. 60 ff.) To speak, not in detail, but in summary, he made you masters of twenty-four cities and spent in doing so less than your fathers paid out in the siege of Melos.

I could wish that just as it has been quite easy to recount his exploits, so it were possible to picture briefly the circumstances under which each of them was accomplished—what the situation was in Athens in each case and what the strength of our foes—, for you would then have been made to appreciate much more highly the worth of his achievements and of the man himself. As it is, the subject is so large that I must leave it untouched.

But I think you would like to have me explain to you why in the world it is that some of the generals who have a high reputation among you and are thought to be great fighters have not been able to take even a village, while Timotheus, who lacks a robust physique and has not knocked about with itinerant armies but has shared with you the duties of a citizen, has accomplished such great things. What I have to say on this question will no doubt be offensive, but it will not be without profit for you to hear it.

Timotheus was superior to all the rest in that he did not hold the same views as you with regard to the affairs of the Hellenes and of your allies and the manner in which they should be directed. For you elect as your generals men who have the most robust bodies[*](With specific reference to Chares, the rival and enemy of Timotheus. See Plut. Mor. 187-188.) and who have served in many campaigns with foreign armies, thinking that under their leadership you will have some success. Timotheus, on the other hand, used these men as captains and division-commanders,

while he, himself, showed his ability in the very things which it is necessary for a good general to know. What, then, are the requisites of a good general and what ability do they involve? For they cannot be summed up in a word, but must be explained clearly. First of all is the ability to know against whom and with whose help to make war; for this is the first requisite of good strategy, and if one makes any mistake about this, the result is inevitably a war which is disadvantageous, difficult, and to no purpose.

Well, in this kind of sagacity there has never been anyone like him or even comparable with him, as may easily be seen from his deeds themselves. For, although he undertook most of his wars without support from the city, he brought them all to a successful issue, and convinced all the Hellenes that he won them justly. And what greater or clearer proof of his wise judgement could one adduce than this fact?

What, then, is the second requisite of a good general? It is the ability to collect an army which is adequate to the war in hand, and to organize and to employ it to good advantage. Now, that Timotheus understood how to employ his forces to good purpose, his achievements themselves have shown; that in the ability to recruit armies which were splendidly equipped and reflected honor upon Athens he excelled all other men, no one even of his enemies would dare to gainsay;

and, furthermore, in the power both to bear the privations and hardships of army life, and again to find abundant resources, who of the men who were with him in the field would not pronounce him incomparable? For they know that at the beginning of his campaigns, owing to the fact that he received nothing from Athens, he found himself in great extremities, but that, even with this handicap, he was able to bring his fortunes round to the point where he not only prevailed over our enemies but paid his soldiers in full.