The allegation of Theopompus and Nepos, therefore, is neither true as matter of fact, nor sufficient, if it had been true, to sustain the hypothesis of a malignant Athenian public, with which they connect it. Iphikrates and Chabrias did not stay away from Athens because they loved enjoyments or feared the envy of their countrymen; but because both of them were large gainers by doing so, in importance, in profit, and in tastes. Both of them were men πολεμικοὶ καὶ φιλοπόλεμοι ἐσχάτως (to use an expression of Xenophon respecting the Lacedæmonian Klearchus—Anab. ii, 6, 1); both of them loved war and had great abilities for war,—qualities quite compatible with strong appetite for enjoyment; while neither of them had either taste or talent for the civil routine and debate of Athens when at peace. Besides, each of them was commander of a body of peltasts, through whose means he could obtain lucrative service as well as foreign distinction; so that we can assign a sufficient reason why both of them preferred to be absent from Athens during most part of the nine years that the peace of Antalkidas continued. Afterwards, Iphikrates was abroad three or four years, in service with the Persian satraps, by order of the Athenians; Chabrias also went a long time afterwards, again on foreign service, to Egypt, at the same time when the Spartan king Agesilaus was there (yet without staying long away, since we find him going out on command from Athens to the Chersonese in 359-358 B.C.—Demosth. cont. Aristokr. p. 677, s. 204); but neither he nor Agesilaus, went there to escape the mischief of envious countrymen. Demosthenes does not talk of Iphikrates as being uncomfortable in Athens, or anxious to get out of it; see Orat. cont. Meidiam, p. 535, s. 83.