Timotheus

They say that once, when the flute-player Timotheus first gave a performance before King Alexander, he played in the king's own manner, with great skill and musicianship — no soft melody, nor a relaxed one, nor any of the kind that lead to ease and indolence, but, I believe, the very strain that is called the orthian, the air sacred to Athena.

Timotheus, at any rate, if, just as he knew how to render some martial strain, he had also understood a melody that could make the soul just and prudent and temperate and humane — driving it not toward arms alone, but toward peace and concord and the honouring of the gods and care for men — would have been worth everything to Alexander, to attend him and play for him, and not only when he sacrificed,

For Sardanapallus would never have been roused from his chamber and from among his women, not only not by a Timotheus or any other of the younger musicians, but not even by Marsyas himself or Olympus;

And the Athenians, angry as they were with the Lacedaemonians on account of Sphodrias’ act, did eagerly dispatch the expedition around Peloponnesus, manning sixty ships and choosing Timotheus as their commander.

As for Timotheus, after he had sailed round Peloponnesus he brought Corcyra at once under his control;

When, however, Timotheus finished refitting the ships which he had and had manned, besides, others from Corcyra, the whole number of his ships now amounting to more than seventy, he was far superior to the enemy in the size of his fleet.

All will answer with one voice, that they honored Chabrias for the battle of Naxos, and Iphicrates because he destroyed a regiment of the Lacedaemonians, and Timotheus because of his voyage to Corcyra, and other men, each because of many a glorious deed in war.

In the course of the war our general succeeded in losing seventy-five allied cities, which Timotheus, the son of Conon, had won over and made members of the synod—I am determined, as you see, to speak right out, and to seek safety in frank and truthful speaking;

By this very art, indeed, it is said that once, when he piped the Phrygian strain to Alexander, he made him spring up to arms in the midst of his dinner, and then brought him back again to his fellow-banqueters by relaxing the harmony.

Nor again did Timotheus, on the other hand, give up melody and spend his time in the wrestling-schools;

They say that Timotheus, a famous man at Athens and a chief of the state, when he had supped at Plato's and had been greatly delighted with that banquet, and had seen him the next day, said:

Likewise too Theodotus the Pythagorean did, and Paulus the acquaintance of Lacydes, as Timotheus of Pergamum says in his work On the Courage of the Philosophers, and Achaeus in his Ethics.

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.

Again, when Timotheus was held to have served your needs in some way, besides conferring on him all manner of great rewards, they associated with him Phrasierides and Polysthenes, who were not even free-born, but were blackguards whose conduct had been such as any man of good feeling will be loth to describe.

—To prove the truth of these allegations, please read the decree respecting the hostages, the dispatch of Iphicrates, the dispatch of Timotheus, and lastly this deposition.

If, however, he declares that he offered to turn over all matters at issue between us to Conon, son of Timotheus, for arbitration, and that I refused to submit them, be sure that he will be trying to mislead you.

and again, when giving your reward to Timotheus, you also for his sake rewarded Clearchus and some others with the citizenship;

For it is inconsistent to seem so generous, when the benefits are recent, that you honor not the benefactors only but their friends as well, but, when a short time has elapsed, to take away even the rewards that you have given to the benefactors.

Now, if at the time when he was receiving his reward, he had claimed that as you had rewarded others for the sake of Iphicrates and Timotheus, so for his sake you should reward some of those men who have actually received the immunity, but to whom our opponents object so strongly that they want all alike to be deprived of it, would you not have granted him that boon?

But, men of the jury, the copper was not given as security, nor did the Boeotian admiral borrow the thousand drachmae from my father, but this man Timotheus borrowed them, being in great distress;

The first loan, then, which Timotheus contracted at the time of his going to sea, when he was serving as general the second time, was for this amount.

On the contrary, when I have called to your minds the occasion on which the loan was contracted and the events in which the defendant was at that time involved and the straits to which he was reduced, you will then hold that my father was most generous to Timotheus, and that the defendant is not only ungrateful, but is the most dishonest of humankind;

or Timotheus?

You are the men, Athenians, who once sent Timotheus to the help of Ariobarzanes, adding this clause to your instructions, provided that he does not violate our treaty with the King.

But now we often hear it said that Timotheus took Corcyra, that Iphicrates cut up the Spartan detachment, or that Chabrias won the sea-fight off Naxos.

For you know, of course, that the famous Timotheus once harangued you to the effect that you ought to send an expedition to save the Euboeans, when the Thebans were trying to enslave them, and his words ran something like this:

But if Timotheus had given you the best advice he could (as indeed he did), but you had shirked your duty and paid no heed to him, would the State have reaped any of the effects that then followed?

Yes, the power and sovereignty of Macedonia is indeed, as an adjunct, no slight contribution, as you found it when on your side against Olynthus in the days of Timotheus.

But not to spend our time rehearsing ancient examples while others are available closer to our own times, you will discover that Timotheus was deemed worthy of the highest repute and numerous honors, not because of his activities as a younger man, but because of his performances after he had studied with Isocrates.

Phanostratus was on the point of setting out with Timotheus in command of a trireme, and his ship lying at anchor at Munychia, and his brother-in-law Chaereas was there bidding him farewell.

In the next place, my other friends were entrusted with only a few commissions, although in every case they discharged the duties assigned to them in such a manner that they won the honor which I mentioned a moment ago, while Timotheus had the responsibility of many affairs of great importance and over a long period of time.

My accuser has mentioned also the friendship which existed between me and Timotheus, and has attempted to calumniate us both, nor did any sense of shame restrain him from saying slanderous and utterly infamous things about a man who is dead, to whom Athens is indebted for many services.

I must explain that I did not mention Timotheus when I named my other associates because he was in very different case from them.

For when all Hellas fell under the power of Athens, after the naval victory of Conon and the campaign of Timotheus, we were not able to hold our good fortune any time at all, but quickly dissipated and destroyed it.

And I think that, if Conon and Timotheus were still alive, and Diophantus had returned from Asia, they would have supported me most enthusiastically, since they would wish that I might obtain all I request.

but if you already have enough of these and wish virtue, fair reputation, and the goodwill of your subjects in general, you should heed my words and emulate those rulers who govern their states well and should endeavor to surpass them.

but you I esteem and I should highly value your friendly disposition toward myself.

And do not marvel that I am so ready to write to you, though I never made any request of your father Clearchus.