Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1870) - Volume 1.djvu/701

Rh was with him a favourite residence, as supplying more opportunity for the indulgence of his profligate propensities than he could find at Athens, liut in a speech of Demosthenes delivered in u. c. 341 (de Chers. p. 97) he is spoken of as possessing much iniUience at that time in the Athenian coun- cils ; and we may consider him therefore to have been one of those who authorized and defended the proceedings of Diopeithes against Pliilip in Thrace. In 340 he was appointed to the command of the force which was sent to aid By- zantium against Philip; but his character excited the suspicions of the Byzantians, and they refused to receive him. Against the enemy he effected nothing: his only exploits were against the allies of Athens, and these he plundered unscrupulously. He was accordingly superseded by Phocion, whose success was brilliant. (Died. xvi. 74, &c.; Phil. Ep. ad Ath. ap. Dein. p. 163; Plut. Phoc. 14.) In 338 he was sent to the aid of Araphissa against Philip, who defeated him together with the The- ban general, Proxenus. Of this defeat, which is mentioned by Aeschines, Demosthenes in his reply says nothing, but speaks of two battles in which the Athenians were victorious. (Polyaen. iv. 2 ; Aesch. c. Cles. p. 74 ; Dem. de Cor. p. 300 ; see Mitford, ch. 42, sec. 4 ; Clinton, Fast. ii. pp. 293, 294.) In the same year Chares was one of the commanders of the Athenian forces at the battle of Chaeroneia, for the disastrous result of which he escaped censure, or at least prosecution, though Lysicles, one of his colleagues, was tried and con- demned to death. (Diod. xvi. 85, 88 ; Wess. ad loc.) He is mentioned, by Arrian among the Athe- nian orators and generals whom Alexander required to be surrendered to him in 335, though he was afterwards prevailed on by Demades not to press the demand against any but Charidemus. Plutarch, however, omits the name of Chares in the list which he gives us. (Arr. Anah. i. 10 ; Plut. Dem. 23.) When Alexander invaded Asia in 334, Chares was living at Sigeum, and he is mentioned again by Arrian {Anab. i. 12) as one of those who came to meet the king and pay their respects to him on his way to Ilium. Yet we afterwards find him commanding for Dareius at Mytilene, which had been gained in 333 by Pharnabazus and Autophradates, but which Chares was compelled to surrender in the ensuing year. (Arr. Anab. ii. 1, iii. 2.) From this period we hear no more of him, but it is probable that he ended his days at Sigeum. As a general. Chares has been charged with rashness, especially in the needless exposure of his own person (Plut. Felop. 2) ; and he seems indeed to have been possessed of no very superior talent, though perhaps he was, during the greater portion of his career, the best commander that Athens was able to find. In politics we see him connected through- out with Demosthenes (see Dem- de Fals. Leg. p. 447), — a striking example of the strange associa- tions which political interests are often thought to necessitate. Morally he must have been an incu- bus on any party to which he attached himself, notwithstanding the apparent assistance he might sometimes render it through the orators whom he is said to have kept constantly in pay. His pro- fligacy, which was measureless, he unblushingly avowed and gloried in, openly ridiculing, — what might have abashed any other man, — the austere yirtue of Phocion. His bad faith passed into a proverb ; and his rapacity was extraordinary, even amidst the miserable system then prevailing, when the citizens of Athens would neither fight their own battles nor pay the men who fought them, and her commanders had to support their mercenaries as best they could. In fact, his character presents no one single point on which the mind can rest with pleasure. He lived, as we know, during the period of his country's decline, and may serve, indeed, as a specimen of a class of men whose in- fluence in a nation is no less a cause than a symp- tom of its fall. (Plut. Phoc. 5; Theopomp. ap. Allien. I. c. ; Isocr. de Pace ; Aesch. de FaU. Leq. p. 37; Eubul ap. Arist. Wuit. i. 15. § 15 ; Suid. s. V. Xap-nros liTroffxeVets.) [E. E.]

CHARES (XapTjs) of Mytilene, an officer at the court of Alexander the Great, whose duty it was to introduce strangers to the king {u(Tay'yeevs)y wrote a history or rather a collection of anecdotes concerning the campaigns and the private life of Alexander (nepl 'AAe^avSpov laTopiai) in ten books, fragments of which are preserved by Athenaeus (i. p. 27, d., iii. p. 93, c, p. 124, c, iv. p. 171, b., vii. p. 277, a., x. p. 434, d., 436, f., xii. p. 513, f., 514, f., 538, b., xiii. p. 575), by Plutarch (Alea-. 20, 24, 46, 54, 55, 70, de Fort. Alex. ii. 9). He is also quoted by Pliny (H. N. xii. xiii. tiible of contents, xxxvii. 2) and A. Gellius (v. 2). [P.S.]

CHARES, of Lindus in Rhodes, a statuary in bronze, was the favourite pupil of Ly- sippus, who took the greatest pains with his edu- cation, and did not grudge to initiate him into all the secrets of his art. Chares flourished at the beginning of the third century (Anon, ad Herenn. iv. 6 ; printed among Cicero's rhetorical works.) He was one of the greatest artists of Rhodes, and indeed he may be considered as the chief founder of the Rhodian school of sculpture. Pliny {H. N. xxxiv. 7. s. 18) mentions among his works a colossal head, which P. Lentulus (the friend of Cicero, cos. b. a 57) brought to Rome and placed in the Capitol, and which completely threw into the shade another admirable coloss;il head by Decius which stood beside it. (The ap- parently unnecessary emendation of Sillig and Thiersch, improbabilis for probabilis, even if adopt- ed, would not alter the general meaning of the sentence, at least with reference to Chares.) But the chief work of Chares was the statue of the Sun, which, under the name of " The Colossus of Rhodes," was celebrated as one of the seven wonders of the world. Of a hundred colossal statues of the Sun which adorned Rhodes, and any one of which, according to Pliny, would have made femous the place that might possess it, this was much the largest. The accounts of its height ditFer slightly, but all agree in making it upwards of 105 English feet, Pliny (/. c), evidently re- peating the account of some one who had seen the statue after its fall, if he had not seen it himself, says that few could embrace its thumb ;. the fingers were larger than most statues ; the hollows within the broken limbs resembled cave»; and inside of it might be seen huge stones, which had been inserted to make it stand finn. It was twelve years in erecting ( 292 — 280), and it cost 300 talents. This money was obtained by tlie sale of the engines of war which Demetrius Poliorcetes presented to the Rhodians after they had compelled him to give up his siege of their city. ( 303.) The colossus stood