Epicrates was a citizen of ancient Athens

Classical Athens

The city of Athens during the classical period of Ancient Greece was a notable polis of Attica, Greece, leading the Delian League in the Peloponnesian War against Sparta and the Peloponnesian League. Athenian democracy was established in 508 BC under Cleisthenes following the tyranny of Hippias...

 who took a prominent part in public affairs after the end of the Peloponnesian War

Peloponnesian War

The Peloponnesian War, 431 to 404 BC, was an ancient Greek war fought by Athens and its empire against the Peloponnesian League led by Sparta. Historians have traditionally divided the war into three phases...

.

He was a zealous member of the democratical party, and had a share in the overthrow of the Thirty Tyrants

Thirty Tyrants

The Thirty Tyrants were a pro-Spartan oligarchy installed in Athens after its defeat in the Peloponnesian War in 404 BC. Contemporary Athenians referred to them simply as "the oligarchy" or "the Thirty" ; the expression "Thirty Tyrants" is due to later historians...

. But afterwards, when sent on an embassy to the Persian king Artaxerxes

Artaxerxes II of Persia

Artaxerxes II Mnemon was king of Persia from 404 BC until his death. He was a son of Darius II of Persia and Parysatis.-Reign:...

, he was accused not only of corruption, in receiving money from Artaxerxes, but also of peculation. Hegesander and Plutarch

Plutarch

Plutarch then named, on his becoming a Roman citizen, Lucius Mestrius Plutarchus , c. 46 – 120 AD, was a Greek historian, biographer, essayist, and Middle Platonist known primarily for his Parallel Lives and Moralia...

 say that he so grossly flattered Artaxerxes as to propose that instead of nine archon

Archon

Archon is a Greek word that means "ruler" or "lord", frequently used as the title of a specific public office. It is the masculine present participle of the verb stem ἀρχ-, meaning "to rule", derived from the same root as monarch, hierarchy, and anarchy.- Ancient Greece :In ancient Greece the...

s, nine ambassadors to the Persian king should be annually chosen by the Athenians. Plutarch also says that he did not deny the charge of corruption. He seems, however, to have been acquitted, probably through the powerful interest possessed by himself and by his fellow criminal, Phormisius. He had been guilty of corruption on a former occasion also, but had been equally fortunate in escaping punishment.

This first offence of his was probably on the occasion when Timocrates of Rhodes

Timocrates of Rhodes

Timocrates of Rhodes was a Rhodian Greek sent by the Persian satrap Pharnabazus in 396 or 395 BC to distribute money to Greek city states and foment opposition to Sparta. He visited Athens, Thebes, Corinth, and Argos...

 was sent by Tithraustes

Tithraustes

Tithraustes was the Persian satrap of Sardis for several years in the early 4th century BC. Due to scanty historical records, little is known of the man or his activities...

 to bribe the Greek states to attack Sparta

Sparta

Sparta or Lacedaemon, was a prominent city-state in ancient Greece, situated on the banks of the River Eurotas in Laconia, in south-eastern Peloponnese. It emerged as a political entity around the 10th century BC, when the invading Dorians subjugated the local, non-Dorian population. From c...

 in 395 BC. For though Xenophon

Xenophon

Xenophon , son of Gryllus, of the deme Erchia of Athens, also known as Xenophon of Athens, was a Greek historian, soldier, mercenary, philosopher and a contemporary and admirer of Socrates...

 asserts that the Athenians did not receive any money from Timocrates (a statement suspicious on the face of it), Pausanias has preserved an account that at Athens bribes were taken by Cephalus

Cephalus

Cephalus is an Ancient Greek name, used both for the hero-figure in Greek mythology and carried as a theophoric name by historical persons. The word kephalos is Greek for "head", perhaps used here because Cephalus was the founding "head" of a great family that includes Odysseus...

 and Epicrates.

The above statement of the acquittal of Epicrates on the charge of corruption in his embassy to Artaxerxes, seems at first sight opposed to the statement of Demosthenes

Demosthenes

Demosthenes was a prominent Greek statesman and orator of ancient Athens. His orations constitute a significant expression of contemporary Athenian intellectual prowess and provide an insight into the politics and culture of ancient Greece during the 4th century BC. Demosthenes learned rhetoric by...

 that he was condemned to death, and that he was actually banished. But, in fact, Demosthenes seems to be referring to a distinct and third occasion on which Epicrates was charged with corruption. For in his repetition of the charge there is the important head, katapseudomenoi tôn summachôn, of which we find nothing in the oration of Lysias

Lysias

Lysias was a logographer in Ancient Greece. He was one of the ten Attic orators included in the "Alexandrian Canon" compiled by Aristophanes of Byzantium and Aristarchus of Samothrace in the third century BC.-Life:According to Dionysius of Halicarnassus and the author of the life ascribed to...

, but which is just the charge we should expect to be made against the Athenian envoy who took part in accepting the peace of Antaleidas (387 BC). That Epicrates was really that envoy is the more probable from the fact, which is expressly stated, that it was Epicrates who recommended that peace to the Athenians.

Epicrates and Phormisius were attacked by Aristophanes

Aristophanes

Aristophanes , son of Philippus, of the deme Cydathenaus, was a comic playwright of ancient Athens. Eleven of his forty plays survive virtually complete...

 and by Plato

Plato (comic poet)

Plato was an Athenian comic poet and contemporary of Aristophanes. None of his plays survive intact, but the titles of thirty of them are known, including a Hyperbolus , Victories , Cleophon , and Phaon . The titles suggest that his themes were often political...

, the comic poet, who made their embassy the subject of a whole play, the Presbeis. Both are ridiculed for their large beards, and for this reason Epicrates was called sakesphuros.