Autocles son of Strombichides, was one of the Athenian

Athens

Athens , is the capital and largest city of Greece. Athens dominates the Attica region and is one of the world's oldest cities, as its recorded history spans around 3,400 years. Classical Athens was a powerful city-state...

 envoys empowered to negotiate peace with 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 371 BC

371 BC

Year 371 BC was a year of the pre-Julian Roman calendar. At the time, it was known as the Fifth year without Tribunate or Consulship...

. 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...

 reports a somewhat injudicious speech of his, which was delivered on this occasion before the congress at Sparta, and which by no means confirms the character, ascribed to him in the same passage, of a skilful orator. It was perhaps this same Autocles who, in 362 BC

362 BC

Year 362 BC was a year of the pre-Julian Roman calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Ahala and Aventinensis...

, was appointed to the command in Thrace

Thrace

Thrace is a historical and geographic area in southeast Europe. As a geographical concept, Thrace designates a region bounded by the Balkan Mountains on the north, Rhodope Mountains and the Aegean Sea on the south, and by the Black Sea and the Sea of Marmara on the east...

, and was brought to trial for having caused, by his inactivity there, the triumph of Cotys over the rebel Miltocythes. Aristotle

Aristotle

Aristotle was a Greek philosopher and polymath, a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great. His writings cover many subjects, including physics, metaphysics, poetry, theater, music, logic, rhetoric, linguistics, politics, government, ethics, biology, and zoology...

refers to a passage in a speech of Autocles against Mixidemides, as illustrating one of his rhetorical topoi

Literary topos

Topos , in Latin locus , referred in the context of classical Greek rhetoric to a standardised method of constructing or treating an argument. See topos in classical rhetoric...

.