ABSTRACT
Leosthenes perceived that the whole of Greece was humiliated and cowed, corrupted by men who were accepting bribes from Philip and Alexander against their native countries. The death of Philip, the punishment inflicted on Thebes by Alexander, the desperate endeavour of Agis, King of Sparta, inevitably aroused echoes in Athens, where political passions and personal antagonisms prevailed all the more powerfully in that the chief actors of the preceding period still held the forefront of the stage. The Harpalos affair finds a place in the political history of Athenian democracy in its decline, and reveals the contradictions within that democracy. Originally a banal incident devoid of immediate significance, it reflects the political atmosphere that prevailed in Athens on the eve of the Lamian war. The Athens whose destinies Lykourgos had taken in hand were not the Athens of the previous century, and people cannot fail to be struck by the notable differences that bespeak a new world.
