Callixenus

Role: accuser · First appears: Book 1, section 7, part 1/2

At Athens during the festival of the Aparturia, Theramenes’s party arranged for disguised mourners to appear before the assembly and persuaded Callixenus to accuse the generals. He proposed that they be judged by a tribal vote, with death and confiscation of property as penalties if found guilty.

Euryptolemus and others challenged Callixenus’s proposal as unconstitutional. When Lysicus proposed that the challengers be tried alongside the generals unless they dropped their summonses, they abandoned them; Socrates alone insisted he would act only according to law. Not long after, the Athenians authorised prosecution of those who had deceived the people, and Callixenus was committed for trial and imprisoned with four others. They escaped before trial during the sedition in which Cleophon was killed. At the date of the amnesty, Callixenus returned to the city with the party from Piraeus and died of hunger.