CALLIAS and HIPPONICUS, two names borne alternately by the heads of a wealthy Athenian family. During the 5th and 4th centuries B.C. the office of daduchus or torch-bearer at the Eleusinian mysteries was the hereditary privilege of the family. The following members deserve mention.
the second of the name, fought at the battle of Marathon (490). After the accession of Artaxerxes he was sent on an embassy to the Persian court (Herod. vii. 151). This visit has been connected with the Peace referred to by the orators and Diodorus as the "Peace of Callias," but the contradictory nature of their statements about its date and terms, and the silence of Thucydides, make it doubtful whether any formal peace was concluded. (See CIMON.) At all events Callias's mission does not seem to have been successful; he was indicted for high treason on his return and sentenced to a fine of fifty talents. See Grote, who refers to the ancient authorities, and accepts the treaty as a historical fact, History of Greece, ch. xlv., Curtius, bk. iii. ch. ii., denies the conclusion of any formal treaty ; see also Ed. Meyer, Forschungen, ii.; J. B. Bury in Hermathena, xxiv. (1898) ; E. M. Walker, note 3, "The Peace of Callias," in Camb. Anc. Hist. vol. v.
son of the above. Together with Eurymedon he commanded the Athenian forces in the incursion into Boeotian territory (426 B.c.) and was slain at the battle of Delium (424). See Thucydides iii. 91 ; Diod. Sic. xii. 65; Andocides, Contra Alcibiadem, 13.
son of the above, was notorious for his profligacy and extravagance, and was ridiculed by the comic poets (Aris tophanes, Frogs, 429, Birds, 283, and schol. Andocides, De Mys teriis, 110-131). His house is the scene of Xenophon's Sym posium and Plato's Protagoras (Var. Hist. iv. 23). In 392 he was in command of the Athenian hoplites at Corinth, when the Spartans were defeated by Iphicrates. In 371 he was at the head of the embassy which made the "Peace of Callias." See Xenophon, Hellenica, iv. 5, vi. 3; and DELIAN LEAGUE.
