Chares

• I The Athenian general, Nep. Timoth. 3 sq.; id. Phoc. 2, 3.—
• II A statuary of Lindos in Rhodus, the favorite pupil of Lysippus, Auct. Her. 4, 6, 9; Plin. 34, 7, 18, § 41. —
• III A Grecian writer of Mitylene, Plin. 37, 2, 11, § 33; Gell. 5, 2, 2.

(Χάρης), an Athenian general, who for a long series of years contrived by profuse corruption to maintain his influence with the people, in spite of his very disreputable character. We first hear of him in B. C. 367, as being sent to the aid of the Phliasians, who were hard pressed by the Arcadians and Argives, assisted by the Theban commander at Sicyon. His operations were successful in relieving them, and it was in this campaign under him that Aeschines, the orator, first distinguished himself. (Xen. Hell. 7.2. §§ 18-23 ; Diod. 15.75; Aesch. de Fals. Leg. p. 50.) From this scene of action he was recalled to take the command against Oropus [Callistratus, No. 3]; and the recovery of their harbour by the Sicyonians from the Spartan garrison, immediately on his departure, shews how important his presence had been for the support of the Lacedaemonian cause in the north of the Peloponnesus. (Xen. Hell. 7.4.1, comp. 7.3.2.) [Euphron; Pasimelus.] In 361 he was appointed to succeed Leosthenes, after the defeat of the latter by Alexander of Pherae [p. 125,a.], and, sailing to Corcyra, he gave his aid, strange to say, to an oligarchical conspiracy there, whereby the democracy was overthrown with much bloodshed,--a step by which he of course excited a hostile disposition towards Athens on the part of the ejected, while he failed at the same time to conciliate the oligarchs. (Diod. 15.95.) The necessary consequence was the loss of the island to the Athenians when the Social war broke out. In 358 Chares was sent to Thrace as general with full power, and obliged Charidemus to ratify the treaty which he had made with Athenodorus. [Charidemus.] In the ensuing year he was appointed to the conduct of the Social war, in the second campaign of which, after the death of Chabrias, Iphicrates and Timotheus were joined with him in the command, B. C. 356. According to Diodorus, his colleagues having refused, in consequence of a storm, to risk an engagement for which he was eager. he accused them to the people, and they were recalled and subsequently brought to trial. As C. Nepos tells it, Chares actually attacked the enemy in spite of the weather, was worsted, and, in order to screen himself, charged his colleagues with not supporting him. In the prosecution he was aided by Aristophon, the Azenian. (Diod. 16.7, 21; Nep. Tim. 3; Arist. Rhet. 2.23.7, 3.10.7; Isocr. περὶ Ἄτνιδ. § 137; Deinarch. c. Polycl. § 17.) Being now left in the sole command, and being in want of money, which he was afraid to apply for from home, he relieved his immediate necessities by entering, compelled perhaps by his mercenaries, into the service of Artabazus, the revolted satrap of Western Asia. The Athenians at first approved of this proceeding, but afterwards ordered him to drop his connexion with Artabazus on the complaint of Artaxerxes III. (Ochus); and it is probable that the threat of the latter to support the confederates against Athens hastened at least the termination of the war, in accordance with the wishes of Eubulus and Isocrates, and in opposition to those of Chares and his party. (Diod. 16.22; Dem. Philipp. i. p. 46; Isoc. de Pac.; Arist. Rhet. 3.17.10.) In B. C. 353 Chares was sent against Sestus, which, as well as Cardia, seems to have refused submission notwithstanding the cession of the Chersonesus to Athens in 357. [Cersobleptes.] He took the town, massacred the men, and sold the women and children for slaves. (Diod. 16.34.) In the Olynthian war, B. C. 349, he was appointed general of the mercenaries sent from Athens to the aid of Olynthus; but he seems to have effected little or nothing. The command was then entrusted to Charidemus, who in the ensuing year, 348, was again superseded by Chares. In this campaign he gained some slight success on one occasion over Philip's mercenaries, and celebrated it by a feast given to the Athenians with a portion of the money which had been sacrilegiously taken from Delphi, and some of which had found its way into his hands. (Diod. 16.52-55; Philochor. apud Dionys. p. 735; Theopomp. and Heracleid. apud Athen. xii. p. 532.) On his εὐθύνη he was impeached by Cephisodotus, who complained, that "he was endeavouring to give his account after having got the people tight by the throat" (Arist. Rhet. 3.10.7), an allusion perhaps merely to the great embarrassment of Athens at the time. (See a very unsatisfactory explanation in Mitford, ch. 39, sec. 2.) In B. C. 346 we find him commanding again in Thrace; and, when Philip was preparing to march against Cersobleptes, complaints arrived at Athens from the Chersonesus that Chares had withdrawn from his station, and was nowhere to be found; and the people were obliged to send a squadron in quest of him with the extraordinary message, that " the Athenians were surprised that, while Philip was marching against the Chersonese, they did not know where their general and their forces were." That he had been engaged in some private expedition of plunder is probable enough. In the same year, and before the departure of the second embassy from Athens to Macedonia on the subject of the peace, a despatch arrived from Chares stating the hopeless condition of the affairs of Cersobleptes. (Dem. de Fals. Leg. pp. 390, 391, 447; Aesch. de Fals. Leg. pp. 29, 37, 40.) After this we lose sight of Chares for several years, during which he probably resided at Sigetiu, which, according to Theopompus (apud Athen. xii . p. 532,) was with him a favourite residence, as supplying more opportunity for the indulgence of his profligate propensities than he could find at Athens. But in a speech of Demosthenes delivered in B. C. 341 (de Chers. p. 97) he is spoken of as possessing much influence at that time in the Atlenian councils ; and we may consider him therefore to have been one of those who authorized and defended the proceedings of Diopeithes against Philip in Thrace. In B. C. 340 he was appointed to the command of the force which was sent to aid Byzantium against Philip; but his character excited the suspicions of the Byzantians, and they refused to receive him. Against the enemy he effected nothing: his only exploits were against the allies of Athens, and these he plundered unscrupulously. He was accordingly superseded by Phocion, whose success was brilliant. (Diod. 16.74, &c.; Phil. Ep. ad Ath. ap. Dem. p. 163; Plut. Phoc. 14.) In 338 he was sent'to the aid of Amphissa against Philip, who defeated him together with the Theban general, Proxenus. Of this defeat, which is mentioned by Aeschines, Demosthenes in his reply says nothing, but speaks of two battles in which the Athenians were victorious. (Polyaen. 4.2; Aesch. c. Ctes. p. 74; Dem. de Cor. p. 300; see Mitford, ch. 42, sec. 4; Clinton, Fast. ii. pp. 293, 294.) In the same year Chares was one of the commanders of the Athenian forces at the battle of Chaeroneia, for the disastrous result of which he escaped censure, or at least prosecution, though Lysicles, one of his colleagues, was tried and condemned to death. (Diod. 16.85, 88; Wess. ad loc.) He is mentioned by Arrian among the Athenian orators and generals whom Alexander required to be surrendered to him in B. C. 335, though he was afterwards prevailed on by Demades not to press the demand against any but Charidemus. Plutarch, however, omits the name of Chares in the list which he gives us. (Arr. Anab. 1.10 ; Plut. Dem. 23.) When Alexander invaded Asia in P. 100.334, Chares was living at Sigeum, and he is mentioned again by Arrian (Arr. Anab. 1.12) as one of those who came to meet the king and pay their respects to him on his way to Ilium. Yet we afterwards find him commanding for Dareius at Mytilene, which had been gained in B. C. 333 by Pharnabazus and Autophradates, but which Chares was compelled to surrender in the ensuing year. (Arr. Anab. 2.1, 3.2.) From this period we hear no more of him, but it is probable that he ended his days at Sigeum.

As a general, Chares has been charged with rashness, especially in the needless exposure of his own person (Plut. Pel. 2); and he seems indeed to have been possessed of no very superior talent, though perhaps he was, during the greater portion of his career, the best commander that Athens was able to find. In politics we see him connected throughout with Demosthenes (see Dem. de Fals. Leg. p. 447), --a striking example of the strange associations which political interests are often thought to necessitate. Morally he must have been an incubus on any party to which he attached himself, notwithstanding the apparent assistance he might sometimes render it through the orators whom he is said to have kept constantly in pay. His profligacy, which was measureless, he unblushingly avowed and gloried in, openly ridiculing,--what might have abashed any other man,--the austere virtue of Phcion. His bad faith passed into a proverb; and his rapacity was extraordinary, even amidst the miserable system then prevailing, when the citizens of Athens would neither fight their own battles nor pay the men who fought them, and her commanders had to support their mercenaries as best they could. In fact, his character presents no one single point on which the mind can rest with pleasure. He lived, as we know, during the period of his country's decline, and may serve. indeed, as a specimen of a class of men whose influence in a nation is no less a cause than a symptom of its fall. (Plut. Phoc. 5; Theopomp. apud Athen. l.c.; Isocr. de Pace; Aesch. de Fals. Leg. p. 37; Eubul. apud Arist. Rhet. 1.15.15; Suid. s. v. Χάρητος ὑποσχέσεις.) [E.E]

(Χάρης) of Mytilene, an officer at the court of Alexander the Great, whose duty it was to introduce strangers to the king (εἰσαγγελεύς). Works Anecdotes Concerning the Campaigns and the Private Life of Alexander (περὶ Ἀλέξανδρον ἱστοριαί)

Chares wrote a history or rather a collection of anecdotes concerning the campaigns and the private life of Alexander (περὶ Ἀλέξανδρον ἱστοριαί) in ten books. Editions

Fragments of this work are preserved by Athenaeus (i. p. 27d., iii. p. 93c., p. 124c., iv. p. 171b., vii. p. 277a,, x. p. 434d., 436, f., xii. p. 513f., 514, f., 538, b., xiii. p. 575), by Plutarch (Plut. Alex. 20, 24, 46, 54, 55, 70, de Fort. Alex. 2.9). He is also quoted by Pliny (H. N. xii. xiii. table of contents, 37.2) and A. Gellius (5.2). [P.S]

(Χάρης), of Lindus in Rhodes, a statuary in bronze, was the favourite pupil of Lysippus, who took the greatest pains with his education, and did not grudge to initiate him into all the secrets of his art.

Chares flourished at the beginning of the third century B. C. (Anon. ad Herenn. 4.6; printed among Cicero's rhetorical works.) He was one of the greatest artists of Rhodes, and indeed he may be considered as the chief founder of the Rhodian school of sculpture. Pliny (Plin. Nat. 34.7. s. 18) mentions among his works a colossal head, which P. Lentulus (the friend of Cicero, cos. B. C. 57) brought to Rome and placed in the Capitol, and which completely threw into the shade another admirable colossal head by Decius which stood beside it. (The apparently unnecessary emendation of Sillig and Thiersch, improbabilis for probabilis, even if adopted, would not alter the general meaning of the sentence, at least with reference to Chares.)

But the chief work of Chares was the statue of the Sun, which, under the name of " The Colossus of Rhodes," was celebrated as one of the seven wonders of the world. Of a hundred colossal statues of the Sun which adorned Rhodes, and any one of which, according to Pliny, would have made famous the place that might possess it, this was much the largest. The accounts of its height differ slightly, but all agree in making it upwards of 105 English feet. Pliny (l.c.), evidently repeating the account of some one who had seen the statue after its fall, if he had not seen it himself, says that few could embrace its thumb ; the fingers were larger than most statues; the hollows within the broken limbs resembled caves ; and inside of it might be seen huge stones, which had been inserted to make it stand firm. It was twelve years in erecting (B. C. . 292-280), and it cost 300 talents. This money was obtained by the sale of the engines of war which Demetrius Poliorcetes presented to the Rhodians after they had compelled him to give up his siege of their city. (B. C. 303.) The colossus stood at the entrance of the harbour of Rhodes. There is no authority for the statement that its legs extended over the mouth of the harbour. It was overthrown and broken to pieces by an earthquake 56 years after its erection. (B. C. 224, Euseb. Chron., and Chron. Pasch. sub Ol. 139. 1; Plb. 5.88, who places the earthquake a little later, in B. C. 218.) Strabo (xiv. p.652) says, that an oracle forbade the Rhodians to restore it. (See also Philo Byzant. de VII Orbis Miraculis, c. iv. p. 15.) The fragments of the colossus remained on the ground 923 years, till they were sold by Moawiyeh, the general of the caliph Othman IV., to a Jew of Emesa, who carried them away on 900 camels. (A. D. 672.) Hence Scaliger calculated Considering the mechanical difficulties both of modelling and of casting so large a statue, the nicety required to fit together the separate pieces in which it must necessarily have been cast, and the skill needed to adjust its proportions, according to the laws of optics, and to adapt the whole style of the composition to its enormous size, we must assign to Chares a high place as an inventor in his art.

There are extant Rhodian coins, bearing the head of the Sun surrounded with rays, probably copied from the statue of Chares or from some of the other colossal statues of the sun at Rhodes. (Eckhel, Doct. Num. ii. pp. 602-3; Rasche, Lex. Univ. Rei Num. s. v. Rhodus, A., b., 11, &c.) There are two epigrams on the colossus in the Greek Anthology. Further Information

Brunck, Anal. i. p. 143, iii. pp. 198-9; Jacobs, 1.74, 4.166. Respecting these epigrams, and the question whether Laches completed the work which Chares commenced, see Jacobs, Comment. 1.1, pp. 257-8, 3.2, p. 8, and Böttiger, Andeutungen zu 24 Vorträgen über die Archäologie, pp. 199-201. [P.S]

(Χάρης). (1) An Athenian general, who succeeded to the command after the condemnation and death of Leosthenes. He was sent by the Athenians against Alexander, tyrant of Pherae, but, instead of coming to action with the foe, he harassed the Athenian allies to such a degree by his extortions and oppression that the Social War was the result (B.C. 358). Some time after, he was sent to aid Byzantium against Philip of Macedon, but he only incurred the contempt of his foe, and excited the discontent of the allies, so that the Athenians finally recalled him, and put Phocion in his place. This, however, did not prevent them from choosing him for their general at the battle of Chaeronaea, where his ignorance and incapacity mainly contributed to the loss of the day. He was one of those whom Alexander ordered to be delivered up to him after the destruction of Thebes; but he succeeded in mollifying the conqueror, and was permitted to live at Athens.

(2) Of Mitylené. A Greek historian, chamberlain of Alexander the Great. He was the author of a comprehensive work, containing at least ten books, upon the life—chiefly the domestic life—of this monarch. This history had the reputation of being trustworthy and interesting. Only a few fragments of it remain, ed. by Geier (Leipzig, 1844).

(3) Of Lindos in Rhodes. A Greek artist, a pupil of Lysippus. In B.C. 280 he produced the largest statue known in antiquity—the colossal image of the Sun, 120 feet high, placed at the entrance of the harbour of Rhodes, and generally known as the Colossus of Rhodes. This was destroyed by an earthquake as early as B.C. 224. The thumbs were thicker than the average span of a man's hand, the fingers larger than many ordinary statues. See Colossus; Seven Wonders of the World.