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And to make matters worse, as soon as you had decreed that an inventory be made of the sums obtained from the cities, and that his fellow-commanders should sail home to undergo their audit, Ergocles said that there you were at your slander-mongering and hankering after the ancient laws,Which regulated the collection of tribute from the states subject to Athens down to the time of the Peloponnesian War. and he advised Thrasybulus to occupy Byzantium, keep the ships, and marry Seuthes’A prince of Thrace friendly to Thrasybulus. daughter:
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by this means, he told him, you will cut short their slander-mongering; for you will make them sit still, contriving no harm against you and your friends, but full of fear for themselves. So far did they go, men of Athens,—as soon as they had gorged themselves and were regaled with your possessions,—in regarding themselves as alien to the city.
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No sooner are they rich than they hate you; they plan thenceforth, not to be your subjects, but to be your rulers, and, apprehensive for the fruits of their depredations, they are ready to occupy strongholds, establish an oligarchy, and seek every means of exposing you, day after day, to the most awful dangers. The result will be, they expect, that you will cease paying attention to their particular offences and, in terror for yourselves and for the city, will leave them in peace.
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Now, as for Thrasybulus, men of Athens,—for there is no need to say more about him,—he did well to end his life as he didHe was killed in a riot at Aspendus, 389-388 B.C.: for it was not right for him either to live in the prosecution of such schemes or to suffer death at your hands with his repute of having served you well in the past, but rather to settle his account with the city in that sort of way.
