Arthmius of Zelea
historical figure · 2 works · 2 mentions · 2 anchored passages
Arthmius · Arthmius, son of Pythonax, of Zelea · son of Pythonax
in the texts
On the False Embassy
Man condemned by an Athenian public inscription for carrying foreign gold to Greeks.
You hear, men of Athens, the record which declares Arthmius, son of Pythonax, of Zelea, to be enemy and foeman of the Athenian people and their allies, him and all his kindred.
although the whole of our citadel is a holy place, and although its area is so large, the inscription stands at the right hand beside the great brazen Athene which was dedicated by the state as a memorial of victory in the Persian war, at the expense of the Greeks.
(A Public Inscription is read)
Third Philippic
A man of Zelea condemned by ancestral Athenians for conveying Persian gold.
They proscribed as their enemy and the enemy of their allies, disfranchising him and his family, a man of Zelea, one Arthmius, a slave of the Great King (for Zelea is in Asia), because in the service of his master he conveyed gold, not to Athens but to the Peloponnese.
Arthmius of Zelea, it says, son of Pythonax, outlaw and enemy of the people of Athens and of their allies, himself and his family.
This simply means that anyone slaying a member of Arthmius’s family would be free from blood-guilt.