[555] Plutarch, Demosth. c. 4; Æschines adv. Ktesiph. p. 78.
c. 57; Demosth. cont. Aphob. B. p. 835. According to Æschines,
Gylon was put on his trial for having betrayed Nymphæum to the
enemy; but not appearing, was sentenced to death in his absence,
and became an exile. He then went to Bosphorus (Pantikapæum),
obtained the favor of the king (probably Satyrus—see Mr.
Clinton’s Appendix on the kings of Bosphorus—Fasti Hellenic.
Append. xiii, p. 282), together with the grant of a district
called Kepi, and married the daughter of a rich man there; by
whom he had two daughters. In after-days, he sent these two
daughters to Athens, where one of them, Kleobulê, was married
to the elder Demosthenes. Æschines has probably exaggerated the
gravity of the sentence against Gylon, who seems only to have
been fined. The guardians of Demosthenes assert no more than that
Gylon was fined, and died with the fine unpaid, while Demosthenes
asserts that the fine _was_ paid.
Upon the facts here stated by Æschines, a few explanatory remarks
will be useful. Demosthenes being born 382-381 B. C., this would
probably throw the birth of his mother Kleobulê to some period
near the close of the Peloponnesian war, 405-404 B. C. We see,
therefore, that the establishment of Gylon in the kingdom of
Bosphorus, and his nuptial connection there formed, must have
taken place during the closing years of the Peloponnesian war;
between 412 B. C. (the year after the Athenian catastrophe at
Syracuse) and 405 B. C.
These were years of great misfortune to Athens. After the
disaster at Syracuse, she could no longer maintain ascendency
over, or grant protection to, a distant tributary like Nymphæum
in the Tauric Chersonese. It was therefore natural that the
Athenian citizens there settled, engaged probably in the export
trade of corn to Athens, should seek security by making the best
bargain they could with the neighboring kings of Bosphorus. In
this transaction Gylon seems to have stood conspicuously forward,
gaining both favor and profit to himself. And when, after the
close of the war, the corn-trade again became comparatively
unimpeded, he was in a situation to carry it on upon a large and
lucrative scale. Another example of Greeks who gained favor,
held office, and made fortunes, under Satyrus in the Bosphorus,
is given in the Oratio (xvii.) Trapezitica of Isokrates, s. 3,
14. Compare also the case of Mantitheus the Athenian (Lysias pro
Mantitheo, Or. xvi. s. 4), who was sent by his father to reside
with Satyrus for some time, before the close of the Peloponnesian
war; which shows that Satyrus was at that time, when Nymphæum was
probably placed under his protection, in friendly relations with
Athens.
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