Note 625 — Chapter LXXIX · FROM THE FOUNDATION OF MESSENE AND MEGALOPOLIS TO THE DEATH OF PELOPIDAS.

This second mission of the Athenians to the Persian court (pursuant to the invitation contained in the rescript given to Pelopidas, Xen. Hellen. vii, 1, 37), appears to me implied in Demosthenes, Fals. Leg. p. 384, s. 150, p. 420, s. 283; Or. De Halonneso, p. 84, s. 30.

If the king of Persia was informed that Timagoras had been put to death by his countrymen on returning to Athens,—and if he sent down (κατέπεμψεν) a fresh rescript about Amphipolis,—this information can only have been communicated, and the new rescript only obtained, by a second embassy sent to him from Athens.

Perhaps the Lacedæmonian Kallias may have accompanied this second Athenian mission to Susa; we hear of him as having come back with a friendly letter from the Persian king to Agesilaus (Xenophon, Enc. Ages. viii, 3; Plutarch, Apophth. Lacon. p. 1213 E.), brought by a Persian messenger. But the statement is too vague to enable us to verify this as the actual occasion.