<head>Chaeron of <a class="linkToPlace" target="_blank" href="/place?placename=Sparta&groupId=660&placeId=1208">Sparta</a> (Cp. Suid.)</head>Just about the same time there was in <a class="linkToPlace" target="_blank" href="/place?placename=Sparta&groupId=660&placeId=1208">Sparta</a> a certain Chaeron, who had been a member of the embassy to <a class="linkToPlace" target="_blank" href="/place?placename=Rome&groupId=935&placeId=1669">Rome</a> in the previous year. He was a sharp and able man, but he was young and of humble station, and had received a vulgar education.
This man, courting the mob and making innovations upon which no one else ventured, soon acquired some reputation with the populace.
The first thing he did was to take away from the sisters, wives, mothers, and children that the exiles had left behind them the property granted them by the tyrants, and distribute it among men of slender means at random, unfairly, and just as he chose.
After this he began to use public moneys as if they were his own, and spent all the revenue without reference to laws, public decrees, or magistrates.
Some citizens were indignant at this and took steps to get themselves appointed auditors of the public accounts as the law enjoined.
Chaeron, seeing this and conscious that he had misused the public funds, when Apollonidas, the most notable of the auditors and most capable of exposing his rapacity, was one day in broad daylight on his way from a bath, sent some men and killed him.
Upon this becoming known to the Achaeans, the people were exceedingly indignant, and the strategus started off at once for <a class="linkToPlace" target="_blank" href="/place?placename=Sparta&groupId=660&placeId=1208">Sparta</a>, where he put Chaeron on his trial for the murder of Apollonidas, and upon his being found guilty, put him in prison,
encouraging at the same time the other auditors to inquire seriously into the management of the public funds and to see that the relatives of the exiles recovered the property of which Chaeron had recently robbed them.
Walbank Commentary