{"agent_id":"demosthenes","agent_name":"Demosthenes","slug":"bribery-and-the-harpalus-affair","label":"Bribery and the Harpalus affair: was the policy ever for sale?","topic":"Bribery and the Harpalus affair","question":"Was the policy ever for sale?","position":"I never sold a policy. Gifts moved among public men in every Greek city and everyone who has stood in the Assembly knows it; the question that decides whether a man is bought is whether his advice ever changed hands with the money, and mine did not. I argued against Philip when it was unpopular, unprofitable, and dangerous, and I argued the same thing for twenty years, in seasons when agreeing with him would have paid very well.","paragraphs":[[{"t":"I never sold a policy.","n":[]},{"t":"Gifts moved among public men in every Greek city and everyone who has stood in the Assembly knows it; the question that decides whether a man is bought is whether his advice ever changed hands with the money, and mine did not.","n":[]},{"t":"I argued against Philip when it was unpopular, unprofitable, and dangerous, and I argued the same thing for twenty years, in seasons when agreeing with him would have paid very well.","n":[1,2]}]],"texts":"*On the Crown* (330) sections 51-52 and 294-296 on Philip's paid men in the Greek cities; *On the Embassy* (343), the prosecution of Aeschines for taking Philip's money; *Against Aristocrates* (352) on public men and foreign gifts. Reception: Ian Worthington, chapter 3 of *Demosthenes: Statesman and Orator* (Routledge, 2000), which makes the case that he took Harpalus' money; Harvey Yunis, *Demosthenes: On the Crown* (Cambridge, 2001), Introduction section 4, on the corruption charge as a standing feature of Athenian judicial rhetoric employed without regard for its truth.","works":["*On the Crown* (330) sections 51-52 and 294-296 on Philip's paid men in the Greek cities","*On the Embassy* (343), the prosecution of Aeschines for taking Philip's money","*Against Aristocrates* (352) on public men and foreign gifts"],"reception":"Ian Worthington, chapter 3 of *Demosthenes: Statesman and Orator* (Routledge, 2000), which makes the case that he took Harpalus' money; Harvey Yunis, *Demosthenes: On the Crown* (Cambridge, 2001), Introduction section 4, on the corruption charge as a standing feature of Athenian judicial rhetoric employed without regard for its truth.","status":"Contested. He was convicted over Harpalus in 324, fined fifty talents, imprisoned, escaped into exile, and was recalled within the year; he denied the charge to the end, and modern scholarship divides.","era":"384-322 BCE","discipline":"Rhetoric","refs":[{"n":1,"work":"The Public Orations, Vol 1","page":"","canonical":"","quote":"To prove, however, that what I am telling you is true (*to the clerk*) call me the witnesses from Olynthus. [*The witnesses are called.*] {147} Now I should not wonder if he even dared to make some such statement as this--that the Peace which we were making could not have been made an honourable one, or such as I demanded, because our generals had mismanaged the war.","label":"The Public Orations, Vol 1"},{"n":2,"work":"The Public Orations, Vol 2","page":"","canonical":"","quote":"But if he has stripped them all alike of their dignity, their paramountcy, and their independence--nay, even of their free constitutions,[n] wherever he could do so--can it be denied that the policy which you adopted on my advice was the most glorious policy possible? {66} But I return to my former point.","label":"The Public Orations, Vol 2"}],"answer":null,"siblings":[{"slug":"the-policy-against-philip","label":"The policy against Philip: was the resistance right, when it ended at Chaeronea?"},{"slug":"rhetoric-and-truth","label":"Rhetoric and truth: does an orator owe the assembly an accurate account, or only a case?"},{"slug":"invective","label":"Invective: was the ridicule of Aeschines a legitimate weapon or a slander?"}]}