IN the magistracy of Pytharatus,[28] Laches, the son of Demochares of
Leuconoe requires of the Athenian senate that a statue of brass be set
up for Demochares, the son of Laches of Leuconoe, in the market-place,
and table and diet in the Prytaneum for himself and the eldest of his
progeny successively, and the first seat at all public shows; for that
he had always been a benefactor and good counsellor to the people, and
had done these and the like good offices to the public: he had gone in
embassies in his own person; had proposed and carried in bills relating
to his embassage; had been chief manager of public matters; had
repaired the walls, prepared arms and machines; had fortified the city
in the time of the four years’ war, and composed a peace, truce, and
alliance with the Boeotians; for which things he was banished by those
who overturned and usurped the government;—and being called home again
by a decree of the people, in the year of Diocles, he had contracted
the administration, sparing the public funds; and going in embassage
to Lysimachus, he had at one time gained thirty, and at another time a
hundred talents of silver, for the use of the public; he had moved the
people to send an embassage to Ptolemy, by which means the people got
fifty talents; he went ambassador to Antipater, and by that got twenty
talents, and brought it to Eleusis to the people,—all which measures
he persuaded the people to adopt while he himself carried them out;
furthermore, he was banished for his love for the commonwealth, and
would never take part with usurpers against the popular government;
neither did he, after the overthrow of that government, bear any public
office in the state; he was the only man, of all that had to do in
the public administration of affairs in his time, who never promoted
or consented to any other form of government but the popular; by his
prudence and conduct, all the judgments and decrees, the laws, courts,
and all things else belonging to the Athenians, were preserved safe
and inviolate; and, in a word, he never said or did any thing to the
prejudice of the popular government.