Page:History of Greece Vol XII.djvu/328

 2yf HISTORY OF GREECE. wluMi Harpalus found it convenient to quit Asia, about the be* s;inuin"- of 324 B. c, he had already acquired some hold both on the i)ublic of Athens and on some of her leading men. He sailed with his treasure and his armament straight to Cape Sunium in Attica, from whence he sent to ask shelter and protection in that city.* The first reports transmitted to Asia appear to have pro- claimed that the Athenians had welcomed Harpalus as a friend and ally, thrown off the Macedonian yoke, and prepared for a M^ar to re-establish Hellenic freedom. Such is the color of the case, as presented in the satiric drama called Agen, exhibited before Alexander in the Dionysiac festival at Susa, in Febniary or March 324 b. c. Such news, connecting itself in Alexander's mind with the recent defeat of Zbpyrion in Thrace and other disorders of the disbanded mercenaries, incensed him so much, that he at first ordered a fleet to be equipped, determining to cross over and attack Athens in person.^ But he was presently • Curtius, X. 2, 1. palus and his company), " unde portum urbis petere decreveiunt. His cognitis, rex ILirpalo Atheniensibusque juxta infestus, classem parariju- bet, Athenas protinus petiturus." Compare Justin, xiii. 5, 7 — who men- tions tliis hostile intention in Alexander's mind, but gives a different ac- count of the cause of it. The extract from the drama AgSn (given in Athenaeus, xiii. p. 596) repre- sents the reports which excited this anger of Alexander. It was said that Athens had repudiated her slavery, with the abundance which she had be- fore enjoyed under it, — to enter upon a struggle for freedom, with the cer- fciinty of present privations and future ruin : — A. ore fxev iiaaKov (the Athenians) 6ov7.ov EKU/adai jiiov, iKavbv eSelTTvovv vvv 6 e, tov xt(^poTra fiovov Kal TOV fiupa'&ov ea'd ova l, nvpov^ 6' ov uuka. B. Kal nTjv uKovu fivpiuSag tov "ApiraTiov avTolai Twv 'Ay;;vof o'vn kXiiTTovaq aiTOv TvapaTre/irpac, Kal ■^toUtjiv yeyovtvai. . A. T?.vKipac 6 alroc ovTog r/v egtIv (5' laug avToiaiv o/iE'&pov kovk haipag uf)f)aj3(jv. I conceive this drama Agen to have been represented on the banks of the ChoasfKi (not the Ui/duspes — see my note in the Cliapter immediately pre ceding, p, 240), tiiat is, at Susa, in the Dionysia of 324 B c. It is interest ing as a record of the feelings of the time.
 * Curtius, X. 2, I. " Igitur triginta navibus Sunium transmittunt" (Ilar-