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In the second place, will you not wrong
Archebius and Heraclides, who by putting Byzantium into the hands of Thrasybulus made you masters of the
Hellespont, so that you farmed out
the toll of ten per cent,1 and thus being
well furnished with money forced the Lacedaemonians to conclude a peace
favorable to you?2 When subsequently they were banished, you,
Athenians, passed what I think was a very proper decree in favor of men exiled
through devotion to your interests, conferring on them the title of Friends of
the State3 and Benefactors, together with
immunity from all taxes. For your sakes they were in exile, from you they
received a just recompense; and are we now to let them be robbed of this, though
we can charge them with no fault? But that would be scandalous.
1 Levied by the Byzantines on the value of the cargo of every ship passing through the Bosporus.
2 The Athenians gained Byzantium and Chalcedon in 390 B.C. It is strange to find the notorious peace of Antalcidas mentioned with approval.
3 A proxenus was a foreigner who, in his own state, looked after Athenian interests. These men, being exiles resident at Athens, could not perform this duty. The title was an honorary one, giving them rank and privileges above the ordinary resident aliens.
Demosthenes. Demosthenes with an English translation by C. A. Vince, M. A. and J. H. Vince, M.A. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1926.
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