Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1870) - Volume 1.djvu/700

682 which is our only authority for his date. Suidas quotes an epigram, beginning ElfA Xa/?a| lepius yepa-piis drrd Ufpyauov dKprjs, which gives his country and profession. He is frequently referred to by Stephanus Byzantinus. He is mentioned by Euagrius {Hint. EccL v. extr.) among those historians who mixed fable with his- tory, and this is confirmed by the anonymous writer of the " De Rebus Incredibilibus" (cc. 15, 16). (Comp. Vossius, de Hist. Graec. p. 414, ed. Westermann.) [G. E. L. C]

CHARAXUS of Mytilene, son of Scaraandronymus and brother of the famous Sap- pho, fell desperately in love with Rhodopis the hetaera at Naucratis in Egypt, ransomed her from slavery for a large sum of money, and, according to Suidas (s. r. 'loS/icoi'), married her. For this, He- rodotus tells us, he was vehemently satirized by his sister on his return to Mytilene, though indeed the passage is capable of another interpretation, and may mean, that the woman who had infatuated him was the object of Sappho's attack. Athenaeus, contradicting Herodotus, calls the hetaera in ques- tion Dorica ; and Suidas tells us (s. v. 'PoSdmSos am0i7ua), that Doricha was the name which Sappho called her in her poem. (Herod, ii. 135 ; Suid. s.v. "Xaircpw ; Athen. xiii. p. 596, b. ; Stnib. xvii. p. 808 ; Miiller, Lit. of Greece^ ch- xiii. § 6 ; Ov. Her. xv. 117.) [E. E.)

CHARES an Athenian general, who for a long series of years contrived by profuse cor- ruption to maintain his influence with the people, in spite of his very disreputable character. We first hear of him in 367, as being sent to the aid of the Phliasians, who were hard pressed by the Arcadians and Argives, assisted by the Theban commander at Sicyon. His operations were suc- cessful in relieving them, and it was in this cam- paign under him that Aeschines, the orator, first distinguished hunself. (Xen. Hell. vii. 2. §§18-23 ; Diod. XV. 75 ; Aesch. de Fals. Leg. p. 50.) From this scene of action he was recalled to take the command against Oropus [Callxstratus, No. 3] ; and the recovery of their harbour by the Sicyonians from the Spartan garrison, immediately on his de- parture, shews how important his presence had been for the support of the Lacedaemonian cause in the north of the Peloponnesus. (Xen. Hell. vii. 4. § 1, comp. vii. 3. § 2.) [Euphron, Pasimelus.] In 361 he was appointed to succeed Leosthenes, after the defeat of the latter by Alexander of Phe- rae [p. 125, a,], and, sailing to Corcyra, he gave his aid, strange to say, 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. (Diod. xv. 95.) 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 Athe- nodorus. [Charidemus.] 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. According to Diodorus, his colleagues having refused, in con- sequence of a storm, to risk an engagement for whkh he was eager, he accused them to the people, and they were recalled and subsequently brought to trial As C. Nepos tells it. Chares ac- tually 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, the Azenian. (Diod. xvi. 7, 21 ; ISIep. Tim. 3; Arist Rhet. ii. 23. § 7, iii. 10. § 7 ; Isocr. § 137; Deinarch. c. Polyd. § 17.) 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 Western Asia. The Athenians at first approved of this proceeding, but afterwards ordered him to drop his connexion with Artabazus on the com- plaint of Artaxerxes III. (Ochus) ; and it is pro- bable 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. (Diod. xvi. 22 ; Dem. PhUipp. i. p. 46 ; Isoc. de Pac. ; Arist. Rhet. iii. 17. § 10.) In 353 Chares was sent against Sestus, which, as well as Cardia, seems to have re- fused submission notwithstanding the cession of the Chersonesus to Athens in 357. [Cersobleptbs,] He took the town, massacred the men, and sold the women and children for slaves. (Diod. xvi. 34.) In the Olynthian war, 349, he was ap- pointed general of the mercenaries sent from Athens to the aid of Olynthus ; but he seems to have ef- fected 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 Philip'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. (Diod. xvi. 52 — 55 ; Philochor. ap. Dionys. p. 735 ; Theopomp. and Heracleid. ap. Athen. xii. p. 532.) On his he was impeached by Cephisodotus, who complained, that “he was endeavouring to give his account after having got the people tight by the throat” (Arist. Rhet. iii. 10. § 7), an allusion perhaps merely to the great embarrassment of Athens at the time. (See a very unsatisfactory explanation in Mitford, ch. 39, sec. 2.) In 346 we find him com- manding again in Thrace ; and, when Philip was preparing to march against Cersobleptes, complaints arrived at Athens from the Chersonesus 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 yejir, and before the departure of the second embassy from Athens to Macedonia on the subject of the peace, a despatch arnved from Chares stating the hopeless condition of the affairs of Cer- sobleptes. (Dem. de Fals. Leg. pp. 390, 391, 447; Aesch. de Fals. Leg. pp. 29, 37, 40.) After this we lose sight of Chares for several years, during which he probably resided at Sigeum, which, ac- cording to Theopompus (ap. Athen. xii. p. 532),