Page:History of Greece Vol X.djvu/302

 280 HISTORY OF GRKKCK. Pelopidas, since there now subsisted much coldness beiween th Thebans and Arcadians. Leon the Athenian protested against the Persian rescript observing aloud when he heard it read, " By Zeus, Athenians; I think it is time for you to look out for some other friend than the Great King." This remark, made in the King's hearing and interpreted to him, produced the following addition to the rescript : " If the Athenians have anything juster to propose, let them come to the King and inform him." So vague a modification, however, did little to appease the murmurs of the Athenians. On the return of their two envoys to Athens, Leon accused his colleague Timagoras of having not only declined to associate with him dur- ing the journey, but also of having lent himself to the purposes of Pelopidas, of being implicated in treasonable promises, and of receiving large bribes from the Persian King. On these charges Timagoras was condemned and executed. 1 The Arcadian envoy Antiochus was equally indignant at the rescript ; refusing even to receive such presents of formal courtesy as were tendered to all, and accepted by Pelopidas himself, who however strictly declined everything beyond. The conduct of this eminent The- ban thus exhibited a strong contrast with the large acquisitions of the Athenian Timagoras. 2 Antiochus, on returning to Arcadia, uof,oTi npovrifj.rjffe Trjv *H/Uv n-pd TUV 'A.pKu6uv, kirfjvei TU. TOV Bamheuf 6 6' 'Avrioxof, OTI rjTiar TOVTO TO 'ApicadiKdv, ovre TO. 6<J- pa tSeZaro, etc. 1 Demosthen. Fals. Leg. c. 42, p. 383. In another passage of the same oration (c. 57, p. 400), Demosthenes says that Leon had been joint envoy with Timagoras for four years. Certainly this mission of Pelopidas to the Persian court cannot have lasted four years ; and Xenophon states that the Athenians sent the two envoys when they heard that Pelopidas was going thither. I imagine that Leon and Timago- ras may have been sent up to the Persian court shortly after the battle of Leuktra, at the time when the Athenians caused the former rescript of the Persian /.ing to be resworn, putting Athens as head into the place of Sparta (Xen. Hellen. vi, 5, 1, 2). This was exactly four years before (371-307 n. c.). Leon and Timagoras having jointly undertaken and perhaps recently returned from their first embassy, were now sent jointly on a second. Do- niosthenes has summed up the time of the two as if it were < ne. ' Plutarch, Pelopidas, c. 30. Demosthenes speaks of the amount received, in money, by Timagoras from the Persian kinjj as having been forty talents, (if 'Ai-ysraL (Fals. Leg