The Price of Impiety
Jan. 9th, 2024 03:53 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sdiI can't help but love this act of the Athenians: once, in a public assembly, Demades introduced a motion that Alexander the Great should be recognized by the state as the thirteenth Olympian. However, the people, unable to bear his ludicrous impiety, fined him a hundred talents for attempting to count a mortal among the Celestials.
(Ælian, Varia Historia V xii)
Demades was a well-known agent of Macedon among the Athenians—while his antics caused a lot of grief, he did manage to prevent Alexander from razing Athens to the ground as he did with Thebes. A hundred talents was 2.6 metric tons of pure silver, worth around two million dollars today. I figure Demades got off easy—consider the price Niobe paid!