Book 6
3.3
Callistratus, the popular orator, also went with the embassy; for he had promised Iphicrates that if he would let him go home, he would either send money for the fleet or bring about peace, and consequently he had been at Athens and engaged in efforts to secure peace; and when the ambassadors came before the assembly of the Lacedaemonians and the representatives of their allies, the first of them who spoke was Callias, the torch-bearer. Of the Eleusinian mysteries.cp. II. iv. 20. He was the sort of man to enjoy no less being praised by himself than by others, and on this occasion he began in about the following words:
3.4
Men of Lacedaemon, as regards the position I hold as your diplomatic agent, I am not the only member of our family who has held it, but my father’s father received it from his father and handed371 B.C. it on to his descendants; and I also wish to make clear to you how highly esteemed we have been by our own state. For whenever there is war she chooses us as generals, and whenever she becomes desirous of tranquillity she sends us out as peacemakers. I, for example, have twice before now come here to treat for a termination of war, and on both these embassies I succeeded in achieving peace both for you and for ourselves; now for a third time I am come, and it is now, I believe, that with greater justice than ever before I should obtain a reconciliation between us.
