- Callias
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▪ Greek statesman [4th century BC]flourished 4th century BCAthenian ridiculed by the comic poets for his youthful extravagance; later in life he was a successful military commander and diplomat. The grandson of the Callias described above, he was the butt of jokes in the plays of Aristophanes and other poets and was attacked by the orator Andocides in his speech “On the Mysteries.” But Callias was on friendly terms with the Athenian philosphers, and his home was the scene of Xenophon's Symposium and Plato's Protagoras. In 390, during the Corinthian War (Sparta versus Athens and her allies, 395–387), he commanded the heavy infantry that helped Iphicrates annihilate a Spartan regiment near Corinth. In 371 Callias headed an embassy to Sparta that was credited with devising a treaty to end a seven-year war between Sparta and Athens.▪ Greek statesman [5th century BC]flourished 5th century BCdiplomat and a notable member of one of the wealthiest families of ancient Athens.Callias is usually credited with negotiating the peace treaty of 450/449 between the Greeks and the Persians—called the Peace of Callias. This treaty officially concluded the long but intermittent Greco-Persian Wars. Callias is said to have distinguished himself in the Greek victory over the invading Persians at Marathon (490) and to have won the chariot race at the Olympic games three times. In addition to his probable role in negotiating the Peace of Callias, he seems to have helped formulate the Thirty Years' Treaty between Athens and Sparta in 446/445.
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Universalium. 2010.
