Harpalus
historical figure · 4 works · 5 mentions · 7 anchored passages
in the texts
Letters
Former treasurer under Alexander whose flight to Athens with stolen funds provoked the scandal in which Demosthenes was accused and convicted despite denying any friendship or complicity with him.
For I shall never be shown to have been one of the friends of Harpalus, and among the decrees that were passed concerning him only those proposed by me have afforded the State a clean record.
Neither will you ever show that I received money from Harpalus, for neither was I tried and proved guilty nor did I take money, and if you are looking for excuse to the notorious decision of the Council or to the Areopagus, recall to mind the trial of Aristogeiton and hide your heads in shame;
On the Nature of the Gods
Robber described as fortunate and long-prospering, cited by Diogenes as evidence against the gods.
Diogenes the Cynic, indeed, was wont to say that Harpalus, who in those days was held a fortunate robber, bore witness against the gods, because he lived so long in that fortune.
Against Aristocrates
Person from whom Iphicrates took Amphipolitan hostages.
When you had cashiered Iphicrates, and dispatched Timotheus as commander-in-chief to Amphipolis and the Chersonesus, the man’s first performance was to surrender to the Amphipolitans those hostages of theirs whom Iphicrates had taken from Harpalus, and put under his care, although you had ordered them to be conveyed to Athens.
Against Demosthenes
Alexander the Great's fugitive treasurer, who fled to Athens with a large sum of money and whose bribes to Athenian politicians are the basis of the trial.
The people accused you, Demosthenes, of having accepted twenty talents illegally, against the interests of the state.
Because the private individuals were given the money by Harpalus for safe-keeping, but the generals and orators have accepted it with some policy in view.
In my opinion the fact that you took the gold is proved to the jury well enough by your being condemned by the council to which you entrusted yourself When Harpalus arrived in Attica, gentlemen of the jury, and the envoys from Philoxenus demanding him were, at the same time, brought into the Assembly, Demosthenes came forward and made a long speech in which he argued that it was not right for Athe …