Χαίρων

A Spartan, who went on an embassy to Rome; a man both intelligent and practical, but young and of humble origins with a commonplace level of education. This man, pandering to the mob and innovating in ways nobody else had ventured, quickly acquired a successful image with the masses. And first of all he took away from the sisters and wives and mothers and children left behind by the tyrants the lands which the tyrants had given them, and gave it to the poor, at random and unfairly, as his own inclination dictated. After this, using public money as if it were his own, he spent the revenues, without reference to any law or community decree or official. At this [some people] were indignant and took steps to have themselves appointed auditors of the public funds, as the laws required. Seeing what had happened and conscious that he had misused city property, Chairon murdered Apollonidas, the most distinguished of the auditors and the one most capable of exposing his greed, as he returned during the daytime from his trip to the bath-house. The [Achaian] people were outraged at these events, and the general set off for Sparta↗, where he put Chairon on trial for the murder of Apollonidas; and having secured his conviction he imprisoned him, while encouraging the remaining auditors to pursue their serious investigation of public affairs, and to see to it that the relatives of the exiles recovered the properties of which Chairon had recently robbed them.