CHAPTER VIII .

THE RISE OF MACEDONIA

I.

THE GREEK WORLD AT THE ACCESSION OF PHILIP

 

IN the year 360 BC the position of Athens in the Greek world was, to all appearance, a very strong one. The battle of Mantinea had put an end for the time to the rivalry of Thebes; the influence of Sparta even in the Peloponnese itself was held in check by the recently established powers of Messene and Megalopolis; the Athenians had made up their differences with the minor Peloponnesian states; there was no city which could at the moment compete with Athens in naval and military strength or in the number of its allies. Nevertheless there were difficulties which she had to face, and some of which were destined to test severely both her statesmanship and her military capacity.

The failure of one Athenian general after another in the hostilities against Cotys, king of the Odrysian Thracians, had led to a most unsatisfactory situation, which was complicated by the inconstant behaviour of the mercenary captains, Iphicrates and Charidemus, who were taking part in the operations. Iphicrates, indeed, though son-in-law to Cotys, did not forget that he was an Athenian, and would not assist his father-in-law except in defensive measures; and after the siege of Sestos by Cotys (probably at the beginning of 360) he refused to proceed with him against Elaeus and Crithote, which had come into Athenian hands about 364, and retired into temporary inactivity in Lesbos, where he was of no service to either side. Charidemus, on the other hand, was unashamedly treacherous. When Cephisodotus was sent from Athens in 360, in succession to a number of unsuccessful commanders, to protect her possessions in the Chersonese and to support Miltocythes, a prince who was in revolt against Cotys, Charidemus (who had been engaged for a year or two in trying to found a little kingdom of his own in the Troad, and was finding the attempt unlikely to succeed) wrote to Cephisodotus and offered to help the Athenians against Cotys, if he and his men could be transported across the Hellespont in Athenian ships. As it happened, circumstances enabled him to cross without this help, and he promptly joined Cotys at Sestos against Cephisodotus, besieged Elaeus and Crithote, and (now or later) married Cotys’ daughter.

In other quarters also Athens was in difficulties. The dispute for the possession of Amphipolis was unsettled. Perdiccas III, though he had until recently been friendly to Athens, and (probably with a view to setting up some counter-influence to that of Olynthus) had helped the Athenians to establish themselves in the towns on the coast of the Thermaic Gulf, was not prepared to give up his claim to Amphipolis, and Timotheus had failed to take the place.

Finally, the Athenian alliance was weakened by the retirement from it of Corcyra (about 361), and the discontent, which in two or three years led to the outbreak of war between Athens and her allies, must already have begun to show itself.

It is the development of these difficulties which we have now to trace.

 

 

Before the end of the year 360 Cotys was murdered, to avenge a private quarrel, by two Greeks from Aenus, who were crowned with gold by the Athenians for their action, and given the citizenship of Athens. He was succeeded by his son Cersobleptes, whom Charidemus supported, as he had supported Cotys. The request of Cephisodotus for the fulfilment of Charidemus’ promises was met by fresh acts of hostility; Charidemus inflicted heavy loss on the crews of ten Athenian ships while they were breakfasting on shore at Perinthus; and when Cephisodotus was attempting to exterminate a nest of pirates at Alopeconnesus (on the western shore of the Chersonese), Charidemus marched to their assistance down the Chersonese. Finally, after some months of hostilities, he obliged Cephisodotus to conclude a treaty with him, in which, among other provisions dishonourable to Athens, the town of Cardia, the key of the Chersonese and already hostile to Athens, was handed over to Charidemus as his own possession. The Athenians deprived Cephisodotus of his command, fined him five talents, and repudiated the treaty. Among the witnesses against him was the young Demosthenes, who had sailed in the expedition as trierarch, taking the General on his ship.

Cersobleptes was but a youth, and despite the support of Charidemus, his succession to the Odrysian kingdom did not go unchallenged. Two rivals, Amadocus, a prince of the royal house, and Berisades, whose origin is unknown, each claimed a portion, and each was supported by Greek generals whom they bound to them (as Iphicrates and Charidemus had been bound to the house of Cotys) by ties of intermarriage, Berisades being aided by Athenodorus, an Athenian who had a considerable estate in the Chersonese itself or not far off, Amadocus by Simon and Bianor. A miscalculation on the part of Charidemus himself helped their cause. Miltocythes was betrayed into his hands by a certain Smicythion. Instead of handing him over to Cersobleptes, who, true to the Thracian dislike of political murders, would have saved his life, he delivered him to the Cardians, who took him out to sea and drowned him, after killing his son before his eyes. This brutal act roused the feelings of the Thracians very strongly against Charidemus. Berisades and Amadocus joined forces, with Athenodorus as commander, and sent to Athens for aid; and Athenodorus was able to force Cersobleptes to agree to divide the Odrysian Kingdom with his two rivals, the eastern portion, from the Hebrus to Byzantium, going to Cersobleptes, the western, as far as the neighbourhood of Amphipolis, to Berisades, and the coast between Maronea and the Chersonese to Amadocus.

By the same treaty the Chersonese was to be surrendered to Athens, and Chabrias was sent from Athens with a single ship to receive the surrender. But, though it must have been obvious that the treaty would not be respected unless it were maintained by force, the Athenians, by failing to contribute the necessary funds to Athenodorus, obliged him to dismiss his army; and Chabrias was reduced to consenting to a revision of the treaty, in the same terms as those previously accepted by Cephisodotus. The Athenians again repudiated these terms, and sent commissioners to demand the formal renewal on oath of the treaty of Athenodorus; but, despite the repeated charges of bad faith made against them by Berisades and Amadocus, they still failed to supply men or money, and it was probably not before the latter half of 357—after the Euboean expedition, to be described shortly—that Chares sailed with a considerable fleet and enforced the surrender of the Chersonese to Athens, though Cardia still remained de facto in the hands of Charidemus.

In the meantime the deaths of three monarchs had taken place, bringing changes which were of great moment for the history of the next years. Artaxerxes Mnemon had died, and the Persian throne was ascended, probably in the year 358, by his son Artaxerxes Ochus. Alexander of Pherae had been murdered by Tisiphonus, Lycophron and Peitholaus, the brothers of his wife Thebe, who had been alienated by his savagery and herself directed the plot. Perdiccas III of Macedon had also fallen; whether by assassination instigated by his mother Eurydice, or in consequence of a wound received in battle with the Illyrians, remains uncertain.

The new Persian sovereign was less inclined than his predecessor to submit to any encroachments upon his power either by his own satraps or by the Greeks; this will appear in the sequel. The despotism which had been exercised by Alexander was at first shared by Thebe and Tisiphonus, but a few years later Lycophron and Peitholaus appear as tyrants of Pherae, and the former is frequently mentioned alone. It appears also that the position of the princes of Pherae in Thessaly was no longer unchallenged, as it had been, and that the way was open for any external power to play upon the divisions which arose.

But it was the death of Perdiccas which was fraught with the most momentous consequences. His son Amyntas was an infant, and Philip, the younger brother of Perdiccas, and, like him, the son of Eurydice, assumed the regency as the infant’s guardian. But there were five other actual or possible claimants to the crown—Archelaus, Arrhidaeus and Menelaus, half-brothers of Philip; Pausanias, also of royal descent, who had been prevented by Iphicrates from snatching the royal power from Perdiccas at his accession; and Argaeus, who was favoured by Athens. In view of these difficulties, as well as of the constant danger from neighbouring tribes, the Macedonians obliged Philip to take the monarchy himself. He at once put Archelaus to death; Arrhidaeus and Menelaus fled from the country; the chances of Pausanias were undermined by gifts and promises to the Thracians—probably Berisades and his subjects—on whom he chiefly relied; and the Athenians were weakened in their support of Argaeus by the skill with which Philip conducted himself towards them.

Argaeus had promised the Athenians Amphipolis, if he should succeed in getting the crown. Philip countered this promise by actually withdrawing the Macedonian force with which Perdiccas had garrisoned the town, and dispatched a letter to Athens, asking for an alliance such as his father Amyntas had had with her. Consequently the Athenians did no more for Argaeus than to escort him to Methone with a considerable number of ships; and when he attempted to make his way to the old Macedonian capital of Aegae, he had but a few Athenian volunteers to reinforce his mercenary troops and the Macedonian exiles who were with him. The people of Aegae would have nothing to say to him, and he attempted to return to Methone, but on the way was overpowered by Philip. The Athenians who were captured with him were treated with great generosity, and restored to Athens with polite messages; and a formal peace was made, probably early in 358, in which Philip admitted the Athenian claim to Amphipolis.

 

II.

THE EARLY YEARS OF PHILIP’S REIGN, 359-356 BC

 

Such was the beginning of one of the most remarkable reigns recorded in history. For it is the personality of Philip, now about twenty-three years old, that dominates the course of events from this time till his death. In 367 he had been taken to Thebes as a hostage for the good behaviour of Macedonia towards Thebes, and there, in the house of Pammenes, he had learned to know Epaminondas and Pelopidas, and had acquired an unbounded admiration for the former. It was doubtless from Epaminondas that he learned, through precept and example, the value of new ideas in military organization and tactics,—while at the same time he came to appreciate that fine Hellenic culture which was already in favour at the court of Perdiccas, but was still regarded by the more warlike Macedonians as a form of degeneracy. (Whether or not the Macedonians as a whole were closely akin to the Hellenic stock is a question which will probably never be settled. Demosthenes speaks of them, and of Philip, as barbarians, when he is in the mood to do so; but the royal house at least was in part of Hellenic blood). On his return from Thebes after about three years’ sojourn, Philip was entrusted with the administration of a district in Macedonia, and he had organized a military force there in accordance with his own ideas, when he was called to the throne.

As soon as he had got rid of all possible rivals, it became necessary for him to secure himself against the aggressions of neighbouring tribes. The Paeonians, to the north, he had already bought off temporarily by presents and promises, when they invaded Macedonia on the death of Perdiccas, and now, their king Agis having died, he reduced them to subjection. Alarmed at this, the Illyrian king Bardylis, who had overrun a great part of Western Macedonia, offered to make terms on condition that each power should retain what it held at the moment. Philip refused, and a battle was fought, probably in the neighbourhood of the modern Monastir, in which Philip was victorious, his cavalry encircling the Illyrian left wing, and so attacking the Illyrian army in front and rear at once. After a very fierce struggle Bardylis was forced to yield all the territory east of the lake Lychoridus (Ochrida); the semi-independent princes of the regions of Lyncestis and Orestis, who had helped the Illyrians, were reduced to definite subjection, and probably other district-princes were similarly brought within a definite organization.

The success of Philip against the Paeonians and Illyrians was probably due in the main to that re-organization of the Macedonian army which must have been one of his first undertakings on coming to the throne. It is not possible, indeed, to trace the steps by which the new model was brought to perfection, but its main features are clear. Before this time the strength of the army had lain in its cavalry, composed of the ‘Companions’ of the sovereign—a hereditary aristocracy of land-holders; the infantry had been an ill-organized mass. Philip retained the ‘Companions,’ and took special measures to attach the nobility to himself, surrounding himself in court and camp with the sons of the chief houses as his personal attendants, and forming an inner circle of noble ‘Companions of the King’s Person,’ whose position was the most coveted of all. The ‘Companions’ also remained a most important part of the army; but there was now to be, in addition, a well-organized infantry. Part of this force, the Hypaspistae, are commonly thought to have been armed after the manner of Iphicrates’ peltasts, who had become the model for mercenary troops generally, though the fact that Alexander employed them in the East as heavy infantry, no less than the phalanx, makes this somewhat doubtful. The phalanx itself, which became the most notable element in the Macedonian army, was certainly furnished with a weapon strange to Greek troops, the long pike or sarissa, which gave it the advantage of the first blow. Moreover, it was formed into a less dense mass than the conventional Greek hoplite force, its object being no longer to carry the day by sheer weight, but to give room for a more skilled play of weapons, and to keep the enemy’s front engaged, while other troops won the victory by freer movements. To the new infantry was given the name of ‘Foot-Companions,’ which assimilated their position in relation to the king to that of the Companions, and so gave them a pride in their status and an incentive to loyalty. At the same time Philip consulted Macedonian sentiment by retaining within these larger units the territorial or tribal organization which was traditional. The armies of the Greek city-states were in the main composed of heavy infantry, though most of them had a small cavalry-corps, and the mercenaries whom they employed often possessed greater mobility. It was Philip who first created a national army on a broad basis, and planned out carefully the relation to one another, not only of cavalry and infantry, but of archers and all kinds of light-armed troops, so that he had at his disposal many mobile elements, which could be used in a great variety of ways in conjunction with the heavier phalanx.

Philip appears to have followed normally the principle, developed by Epaminondas, of strengthening one wing in particular for his main attack, and of using cavalry, in combination with infantry, for this purpose, as had been done both by Pelopidas at Cynoscephalae, and by Epaminondas afterwards; but he went far beyond the Theban generals in the tactical use of a very varied force for a carefully planned end. It was the elasticity which his new organization rendered possible that was so immense an advantage, as against the more rigid methods of ordinary Greek armies; and the infusion of a spirit of loyalty to himself gave his troops the inspiration which was so often lacking to the forces of the Greek city-states, particularly when composed, as they often were, largely of mercenaries.

Moreover Philip’s army was kept constantly at work, and never allowed to fall out of practice; and though Demosthenes once hints that this continual labour was not exacted without arousing great discontent, there is no confirmation of such a view, nor any reason to believe that Philip overtaxed the loyalty of his men. The armies of most of the Greek states, which were only accustomed to operate during certain regular campaigning seasons, and were very unwilling to be away from home for long periods, could hardly hope to compete with one so trained. The military reorganization of Macedonia seems to have been accompanied, by a thorough reorganization of the internal Government, which, without departing from the territorial principle, effected a much greater centralization of political and financial control. Financial reforms had already been begun by Callistratus, who, when exiled from Athens, was called in to his aid by Perdiccas. Security was given to the new order of things by the foundation of new towns or fortresses in various parts of the country.

It was not long before the advantages of the new regime in Macedonia were to be strikingly displayed in contrast with the characteristic vacillation and ineffectiveness of democratic Athens. Early in 357 Philip took advantage of the opportunity offered by some unfriendliness on the part of the Amphipolitans to lay siege to Amphipolis, which, a year or two before, he had acknowledged to be an Athenian possession. The Athenians had apparently been content with this acknowledgment, and had taken no steps to make good their claim by sending a garrison to the town. It is true that they had, at least for a short time, had other employment for their troops. For the Euboeans, who had been under the domination of Thebes since the battle of Leuctra, had grown restless, and on the appearance of a Theban army to crush their rising, had appealed to Athens. Timotheus supported the appeal in an energetic speech; the Athenians were roused to enthusiasm; volunteers came forward eagerly (Demosthenes among them) to serve as trierarchs; within five days a naval and military armament was ready; by the end of a month the Thebans had been forced to leave Euboea, and Chares, who had joined in the expedition with a mercenary force, was set free to go to the Chersonese, where, as has already been narrated, he brought Charidemus to terms. The Euboean cities became members of the Athenian confederacy.

But the expedition to Euboea took place only very shortly before Philip’s attack on Amphipolis, and does not explain the neglect of the Athenians to garrison the town, nor their blind credulity in regard to Philip’s assurances, when, to counteract the appeal made on behalf of the Amphipolitans to Athens by their envoys Hierax and Stratocles, he affirmed his intention of giving it up to Athens as soon as he had captured it. Negotiations followed, and an arrangement was made by which the Athenians were to receive Amphipolis, and were to hand over to Philip in exchange the sea-port of Pydna, which had been taken by Timotheus. But, as it was known that Pydna would not willingly consent to this, the arrangement was kept secret even from the Athenian Assembly, the Council only having cognizance of it. The arrangement was not carried out. Amphipolis resisted bravely, but in the latter half of 357 Philip obtained possession of the town with the aid of traitors from within, and got rid of his enemies there, while treating the inhabitants as a whole with kindness; but as the Athenians did not fulfil their part of the dishonourable bargain, he did not give them Amphipolis. So confident, however, were the Athenian statesmen even now in Philip’s intentions, that they persuaded the Assembly to reject the overtures made by the inhabitants of Olynthus, who appealed to Athens in alarm at the evidences of Philip’s power. Thus disappointed, the Olynthians thought it prudent to make terms with Philip himself, according to which neither side was to make a treaty with Athens apart from the other.

The Athenians were by this time involved in the war with their own allies, and Philip had no need to hesitate. Instead of waiting for the Athenians to give him Pydna, he seized it by force, again aided by treachery (early in 356). Then, assisted by the Olynthians, he took Potidaea, though not without trouble, and handed both it and Anthemus over to the Olynthians, who seemed so far to have derived nothing but benefit from their alliance with him. At the same time, Philip did not confess to any hostility to Athens; in the attack on Potidaea he professed to be acting as the ally of Olynthus, and the Athenian settlers captured in the town were allowed to return in safety to Athens. The Athenians themselves appear to have done nothing to oppose Philip’s conquests, except to order an expedition to Potidaea when it was too late, though this at least showed that their faith in his friendship had at last been shaken.

The possession of Amphipolis was of the utmost value to Philip; for beyond the town stood the Pangaean Mountain, which was being developed as a field for gold-production by settlers from Thasos. A few years before this they had founded the town of Crenides as the centre of their operations, being accompanied and probably inspired by the exiled Callistratus, before the ill-advised attempt to return to Athens, which ended in his execution. Crenides was within the district which formed part of the kingdom of Berisades, and which, on his death in 357 and the distribution of his kingdom between his sons, fell to Cetriporis, the eldest of them. Cetriporis’ ownership was already being threatened by Cersobleptes, when Philip came on the scene and occupied Crenides, settling large numbers of his own subjects there and renaming it Philippi. He at once began to produce gold on a very large scale, and before long derived as much as 1000 talents a year from this one source; while the forests of the neighbourhood gave him abundance of timber for ships. He was thus provided with the two things which he most needed—a large and steady revenue, and a fleet, with which he could annoy the Athenians on their own element. The Athenians were at present unable to retaliate, owing to the war with their allies, but they endeavoured to check Philip by making an alliance with Cetriporis in the summer of 356. Two other princes, the Paeonian Lyppeius and the Illyrian Grabus, were joined with them in the treaty; but the alliance had little effect. Philip at once took military measures against both Paeonians and Illyrians, and it was doubtless the victory of his general, Parmenion, over the Illyrians in this campaign that was reported to Philip shortly after mid­summer, 356, along with the news of the birth of Alexander, his son by Olympias, and of the victory of his horse at Olympia. It was possibly at this time that the Nestus was made the recognized boundary between the Macedonian and Thracian kingdoms.

The gold-works on the Pangaean Mountain also enabled Philip to introduce a new coinage, in which were included both the gold staters, named after himself, and a silver coinage bearing a fixed relation to them. This new coinage not only helped to unify his own kingdom, but also to increase its economic importance, as against both Athens and Persia, the two states whose money had hitherto been most widely current in the Greek world.

 

III. 

THE WAR OF ATHENS AND HER ALLIES 357-355 BC

 

We must now return and consider the main cause of the failure of the Athenians to take any effective steps against Philip. In the latter half of the year 357, three members of the Athenian League, Chios, Rhodes and Byzantium, formed a separate alliance, in which they were soon afterwards joined by Cos. It may be that the seed sown by Epaminondas in his naval expedition in 364 was now bearing fruit, or that the allies had been alarmed by the establishment in 365 of Athenian cleruchs in Samos (which had remained outside the Athenian League till then), and their reinforcement by new settlers in 361. The recent subjection of Ceos and Naxos to the jurisdiction of the Athenian Courts may also have had its effect in arousing suspicion. But the immediate cause of the revolt was probably the instigation of Mausolus, satrap of Caria, who gave it open aid.

Mausolus is one of the more striking figures of this period. While nominally a satrap of the Persian king, he had virtually an independent princedom, founded by his father Hecatomnus of Mylasa, and extending not only over Caria, but over a considerable part of Ionia and Lycia. His own capital was at Halicarnassus, a more convenient base of operations than Mylasa; and, with a large fleet at his disposal, he had begun to threaten the independence of the Greek islands adjacent to the Asiatic coast. The union of the inhabitants of Cos into one community in 366—5 was probably a precautionary measure against his possible encroachments. Only the Athenian League appeared to stand in the way of his ambition, and in order to get rid of this obstacle, he determined to break it up by detaching from it its most powerful members. His intrigues succeeded, and the war of these allies against Athens (357—5 BC) was the result.

The fleets of the disaffected allies met at Chios, and Athens sent against them a large naval force, of which Chabrias was in command, and a considerable body of mercenaries under Chares. The latter landed at Chios and attacked the town, while Chabrias engaged the hostile fleet. Both failed, and Chabrias was killed while dashing ahead, apparently without adequate support from the rest of the Athenian fleet, which afterwards sailed away, taking Chares and his troops with it.

This disaster caused the revolt to spread more widely; Sestos and other towns joined the allies, and a fleet of 100 ships led by the Chians did much damage to Lemnos, Imbros and other places which had remained true to Athens, and (probably early in 356) laid siege to Samos. To meet the expense of the war, the Athenians passed a law proposed by Periander, providing a more businesslike and expeditious method of obtaining the funds required for the equipment of the fleet, by transferring the responsibility for trierarchy to twenty Boards or Symmories of sixty persons each. The new plan was open to abuses, since the wealthier members of each Board had the practical management, and did not act fairly towards their poorer associates in the apportionment of contributions; but it appears to have worked at least as well as the method of collecting the war-tax, on which it was modelled.

Chares, with only sixty ships, had been unable to oppose the 100 ships of the enemy; but apparently it was not till the middle of 356 that the Athenians sent out a large naval armament to join him, under the command of Iphicrates, his son Menestheus, and Timotheus. To divert the allies from Samos, and to secure the route followed by the Athenian corn-trade, the combined fleet proceeded to threaten Byzantium. The allies left Samos, and came up with the Athenian fleet in the Hellespont, but, when the Athenians offered battle, withdrew again till they reached Embatum, in the strait between Chios and Erythrae. Here the Athenian generals arranged a plan of attack; but Iphicrates and Timotheus were deterred by the stormy sea, and Chares unwisely led his ships into battle without them, and was driven back. He at once prosecuted his colleagues for treachery, alleging that they had been bribed by the enemy to desert him, and he was joined in the prosecution by Aristophon, who had been the leading statesman in Athens since the fall of Callistratus. It is uncertain whether the trial was concluded within the year, or whether it dragged on until 354; but in the result, Iphicrates and Menestheus were acquitted; their defence appears to have been both spirited and businesslike; Timotheus, who was already unpopular in Athens owing to his haughty demeanour, was fined the enormous sum of 100 talents, and withdrew to Chalcis, where, in 354, he died. The fine was never paid; but his son Conon, on spending one-tenth of the sum on the repair of the fortifications of the city, was granted a discharge from the debt. Iphicrates lived a few years longer, but was never again given a command. In this way Athens treated the two commanders of real genius whom she possessed.

Chares was now in sole command, but instead of taking further steps against the enemy, he gave his services to Artabazus, satrap of Hellespontine Phrygia, who was in revolt against the Persian king and was being hard pressed by the other satraps whom Artaxerxes Ochus had sent against him. Chares won a great victory, and was richly rewarded and so enabled to pay his troops. Moreover, in return for his services he appears to have been given possession of Sigeum, and perhaps of Lampsacus also. But there were some who saw in his action an illustration of the excessive independence of mercenary armies, and more who were not free from the dread of Persia; and when news was brought that Artaxerxes, who had already dispatched strong protests to Athens, was preparing an immense force, it was assumed that its object was to take revenge upon Athens for the action of Chares. Consequently the Athenians thought it prudent to recall him and to come to terms with the allies; and in the course of the year 355—4 peace was made, and the independence of Chios, Cos, Byzantium and Rhodes was recognized.

Athenian feeling, however, was not unanimous. There were orators who saw an opportunity for urging again the policy which they liked to think of as traditional for Athens, and calling upon the Greeks to attack Persia in force. Fortunately the leading statesmen in Athens had the good sense to resist this suggestion, and it is interesting to find Demosthenes, who was now beginning to take part in public affairs, speaking on the side of prudence, and at the same time proposing (though without effect) some modifications of the Law of Periander, in order to get rid of the abuses which were possible under that law. Others, and particularly Isocrates, whose speech or essay On the Peace belongs to the year 355, thought that Athens should abandon all claim to maritime empire, and free herself and her allies from the evils attendant upon the employment of unreliable mercenary armies.

The war with the allies had in fact brought Athens to the verge of exhaustion. It had cost her over a thousand talents. Not only had she lost the allies who revolted, but others soon declared their independence—among them Perinthus and Selymbria, Mitylene and Methymna; and both her prestige and her revenues were very greatly diminished. Only Euboea, with the islands in the Northern Aegean and a few towns on the Thracian coast, now remained to her.

Yet it was not long before some of the allies themselves had reason to regret that they had listened to Mausolus, who, having rid himself of the Athenians, proceeded to act according to his plan. Within a year or two he had mastered Cos and Rhodes, driving out the partisans of democracy, and establishing oligarchies obedient to himself. In Chios also there was an oligarchic revolution, and ultimately the island came under the power of the Carian dynasty. In 353 Mausolus died and was succeeded by his widow Artemisia, who reigned two years and then succumbed to her inconsolable grief for his loss, before even the magnificent monument was completed which has perpetuated his name in many modern languages. After her accession the exiled Rhodian democrats appealed to Athens for restoration, and were supported by Demosthenes, who spoke eloquently in the name of Democracy. But the Athenians could hardly forget that it was this same party that had led the revolt in 357, nor would it have been safe to underrate (with Demosthenes) the danger of hostile action by the Carian or Persian powers. Accordingly Rhodes was suffered to remain subject to the Carian house.

 

IV. 

THE SACRED WAR DOWN TO 353 BC

 

But long before the events last described, a new conflict had begun, which was fated to transform the whole aspect of the Greek world. The Council of the Amphictyonic League, originally a religious association which had the care of the temple and oracle of Delphi, was so composed that the Thebans and the leading Thessalians, with the insignificant neighbouring tribes who were virtually at their mercy, could, if united, determine its decisions; and they had little scruple about making use of the religious prestige of the Council for political ends. The so-called ‘Sacred War’ originated in such an attempt. Thebans and Thessalians alike were natural enemies of their Phocian neig­bours, and it was probably by some of their representatives that a charge was brought before the Council against the Phocians in 357 or 356, to the effect that they had been cultivating part of the land which was consecrated to Apollo. Other charges may have been added, and a fine of many talents was imposed.

As this remained unpaid, the Amphictyonic Council resolved, probably early in April 355, that unless the debt were discharged, the territory of the Phocians should be confiscated and dedicated to the god. At the same time the Council ordered the payment of the fines which they had imposed upon other states, one of these being Sparta, which had been condemned to pay a large sum for the seizure of the Cadmea at Thebes in 382. Upon this, Philomelus of Ledon, a prominent Phocian, persuaded his fellow- countrymen, who could not pay so large a sum, not to submit tamely to the loss of their territory, but to retort by claiming from the Council, as by ancestral right, the control of the oracle of Delphi, and to appoint him general with full powers of action. This done he went to Sparta and interviewed the king Archidamus, urging that both Spartans and Phocians were in the same case, and promising that, if successful, he would get the Amphictyonic sentence on Sparta annulled. Archidamus would not at present promise open assistance, Sparta having traditionally taken sides with the inhabitants of Delphi in opposition to the claims of the Phocians; but he undertook to send funds and mercenaries secretly. With fifteen talents from Archidamus, and much more provided by himself, Philomelus hired a body of mercenaries; and with these and a picked band of 1000 Phocian peltasts he seized the temple, probably towards the end of May, 355. Pie destroyed the clan of the Thracidae, who opposed him, and confiscated their property. (Only the intercession of Archidamus prevented much greater brutality.) He compelled the priestess of the oracle to mount the tripod and to pronounce as to his future prospects, and while protesting against this violation of religious custom, she impatiently exclaimed that he could do what he liked. This utterance he proclaimed as oracular before the assembled Delphians, and declared that they need have no fears of him. He was further encouraged by a good omen—an eagle which chased and carried off some of the doves that flew about the altar of Apollo.

Upon this the Locrians of Amphissa and the neighbourhood (old rivals of the Phocians and friends of Thebes) attempted to drive Philomelus out of Delphi, and a battle was fought above the Phaedriades, the great cliffs by which Delphi is dominated. Philomelus was victorious, taking many of the enemy prisoners, and forcing others to throw themselves over the cliffs. About the same time he despatched messengers to the chief Greek states, and especially to Athens, Sparta and Thebes, to declare that he had no lawless intentions, but was asserting the ancient right of his people, proved by lines of Homer himself, to the possession of Delphi; he promised to be strictly accountable for the temple­treasures, and asked the states for military assistance, or, at worst, for neutrality. The formal appeal to the government of the states was probably combined with informal propaganda. In response to this appeal Athens and Sparta each made an alliance with the Phocians, though they did not follow it up by action, and the Athenians appear to have halted between the two sentiments of abhorrence of the sacrilege, and anxiety lest the Phocian people should be exterminated. On the other hand, the Thebans (to whom the defeated Locrians had also sent an appeal), together with the Locrians of the Eastern or Epicnemidian branch and some other tribes, resolved to oppose the Phocians in the name of the god of Delphi.

The next step, which was doubtless taken on the instigation of the Thebans, was to procure the formal declaration of war by the Amphictyonic Council against the Phocians. This probably was done at a special meeting, after midsummer in 355, and was followed by embassies from Thebes to the Thessalians and the smaller tribes who were members of the Amphictyonic League. These all declared war upon the sacrilegious Phocians, and in the meantime Philomelus, seeing that the danger was now serious, threw a wall round the temple-precinct, and collected as large a mercenary force as possible by offering half as much again as the ordinary rate of pay, at the same time enrolling all the fittest of the Phocians. His whole force amounted to some 5000 men. He obtained funds by extorting all that he could from the most prosperous of the inhabitants of Delphi, and made clear that he would tolerate no opposition from them to the Phocian cause.

When his army was complete, probably in the autumn of 355, Philomelus invaded the territory of the Eastern Locrians, which lay upon the routes by which the Thessalians and Boeotians would naturally join forces. After devastating much of the country, he laid siege to a stronghold by a river, but, failing to take it, raised the siege, and in a battle with the Locrians lost twenty men, whose bodies the Locrians refused to give up, as Greek religious principles required, for burial, on the ground that they were those of sacrilegious robbers. Philomelus, however, in a further attack, killed some of the enemy, and refused in turn to give up their bodies till the Locrians consented to an exchange. Then, after over-running the open country and providing his mercenaries with plenty of plunder, he returned to Delphi for the winter. The Boeotians—whether because they were naturally slow to move, or because, as is likely, they were in financial difficulties—had taken no steps to oppose Philomelus in the field, but it was clear that they intended to do so with a great force; and, in order to be prepared to meet them, he now at last began to lay hands on the offerings dedicated in the temple, and with the proceeds to collect a larger mercenary army, composed, Diodorus tells us, mainly of unscrupulous men, on whom the impiety of his actions had no deterrent effect, and numbering 10,000 in all. With this force he again invaded Eastern Locris, probably in the spring of 354, and got the better of the Boeotian and Locrian troops in a cavalry battle. A force of 6000 Thessalians and other Northern Greeks was next defeated by the hill Argolas. Then the Boeotians confronted him with 13,000 men; 1500 Achaeans from the Peloponnese joined the Phocians, and the two armies encamped opposite each other at a short distance. After some .acts of ferocity on both sides towards prisoners casually taken, both the armies shifted their ground, and the foremost troops in each suddenly found themselves entangled with one another in a rough wooded place by Neon, on the north side of Mount Parnassus. A general engagement followed, in which the Boeotians were victorious by weight of numbers; and in attempting to escape over precipitous ground many of the Phocians and their mercenaries were cut to pieces. Philomelus, after fighting with the courage of despair and sustaining many wounds, threw himself over a cliff and perished. His colleague Onomarchus took the survivors of the Phocian army back to Delphi, and the Boeotians, thinking their victory decisive, also returned home.

The battle of Neon probably was fought about August, 354; but the whole chronology of the Sacred War is keenly disputed, owing to the contradictions between the ancient authorities, and the uncertainty as to the precise events to which some of them refer as the ‘beginning’ and ‘end’ of the war, and in relation to which other events must be dated. Accordingly the dates given in this chapter can be regarded only as probable. Some modern authorities date the whole of the events just recorded about a year earlier, and place the occupation of Delphi by Philomelus in June, 356, rearranging the intervals between subsequent events in various ways in consequence. There is in fact no absolutely fixed date until we come to the trial of Aristocrates and the siege of Heraeon Teichos, and calculations based upon the length of time which certain expeditions ‘must have taken’ are very untrustworthy. But the general sequence of events is fairly certain and intelligible, and there are only one or two occurrences, the place of which in the series is really open to doubt.

The defeat of Philomelus gave those of the Phocians who had scruples about the war an opportunity of urging that peace should be made; but Onomarchus, who was one of those upon whom the fines imposed by the Amphictyonic Council would have fallen most disastrously, made a carefully prepared speech in defence of the Phocian claim to the temple, and secured a vote for the continuance of the war under his own supreme command. Encouraged by a dream, he at once began to fill up the depleted ranks of his army, and made free use of the temple treasures, turning the bronze and iron into armour, and the gold and silver into coin, which he distributed freely to the allied cities and their leading citizens 2. He also used bribes to secure the support or the neutrality of some of those who, like Lycophron of Pherae, had been hostile to the Phocian cause. At the same time he arrested the Phocians who were opposed to his plans, and confiscated their property.

His preparations having been made, he invaded Eastern Locris once more, probably early in 353, and besieged and took Thronium, one of the towns commanding the Pass of Thermopylae, of which he must have obtained control. Then he made an attack upon Amphissa, and terrified the inhabitants into subjection, and next proceeded to overrun Doris, sacking the towns and ravaging the country. He then invaded Boeotia itself, and took Orchomenus, but failed in the siege of Chaeronea, and was forced to return into Phocis, probably about the end of August, 353.

His failure at the end of so successful a campaign was perhaps due to a division of forces which he had been led to make in consequence of the appearance of Philip in Thessaly.

 

V. 

PHILIP’S ACTIVITIES IN THRACE AND THESSALY DOWN TO 352 BC. THE SACRED WAR CONTINUED

 

Our survey of Philip’s actions was broken off at the point at which he had delivered his counterstroke to the Athenian alliance with Cetriporis, Lyppeius and Grabus, by a victorious campaign against the Illyrian and Paeonian members of the alliance (356—5). We have no clear view of him again, until we find him, probably late in the summer of 354, capturing the Thracian coast-towns of Abdera and Maronea, and, apparently, intervening in the long-standing dispute between Amadocus and Cersobleptes, the latter of whom, supported by Charidemus, was as anxious as ever to extend his dominions at the expense of the other Thracian princes. On this occasion Philip appears to have favoured Cersobleptes, in so far as he accepted the pledges of friendship which Cersobleptes offered him by the hand of Apollonides of Cardia. Both Cersobleptes and the Cardians were enemies of Athens, while Amadocus was in friendly relation with her; and it is clear that the event would emphasize the increasing incompatibility of the interests of Athens in Thrace with those of Philip.

Cersobleptes is said to have given pledges at the same time to Pammenes, who had been dispatched from Thebes under somewhat remarkable circumstances. Artabazus, as we have seen, had lost the assistance of Chares in his revolt against the Persian king, and in his anxiety for a new ally he had applied to Thebes. The application probably came just at the moment when the defeat and death of Philomelus seemed likely to relieve the pressure of the war with the Phocians; and although the Thebans were generally on good terms with the Persian king (and indeed were so once more within three years or so of this time), it may have been the case that they were short of funds, and were glad to give Artabazus the use of Pammenes and 5000 men for a sufficient recompense. So Pammenes marched through Thrace, and met Philip, his former guest, at Maronea, where he joined him in accepting the overtures of Cersobleptes. When he arrived in Asia Minor, Pammenes won two victories over the satraps sent by the Persian king to quell the revolt of Artabazus; but he appears to have subsequently been suspected of disloyalty, and arrested by Artabazus himself. He was afterwards released, and doubtless was allowed to return home with his men; but it was not long before Artabazus was himself obliged to take flight, and we find him later at Philip’s court in Macedonia.

Philip may have intended to proceed beyond Maronea; but his march was opposed by Amadocus, and, for whatever reason, he thought it better to return. At Neapolis, Chares, who had perhaps been sent in answer to an appeal from Neapolis some time before, endeavoured to intercept Philip’s ships; but Philip evaded him by a ruse and got safely away. It must have been at about this time that Chares gained a victory over a body of Philip’s mercenaries under Adaeus, a general who was nicknamed ‘the cock,’ and was ridiculed by the comic poets as a Miles Gloriosus, Chares had participated in the distribution of the Delphic treasures by Onomarchus, and used his share to feast the people of Athens in celebration of this victory.

Early in the spring of 353, Cersobleptes, perhaps disappointed at receiving so little aid from Philip against Amadocus, and distrustful of the king’s future intentions, once more returned to Athens, and sent Aristomachus to declare the friendly feeling of himself and his general Charidemus towards the Athenians, and to promise that if Athens would elect Charidemus their general, he would capture Amphipolis for them from Philip. Possibly the former treaty between Athens and Cersobleptes was confirmed, by which the latter acknowledged the title of Athens to the towns of the Chersonese, with the exception of Cardia. An Athenian named Aristocrates went so far as to propose that anyone who killed Charidemus should be liable to summary arrest in any place within the dominions of Athens. Such a decree must necessarily have been taken as an unfriendly act by the other Thracian princes and their generals, against whom Charidemus had been fighting; and Aristocrates was indicted for the illegality of the decree by one Euthycles: its operation was suspended in consequence, and as the indictment did not come to trial for over a year later, the decree, in accordance with Athenian law, fell to the ground. Demosthenes spoke on behalf of the prosecution, and his speech is an invaluable source of information both as to events in Thrace, and as to Athenian policy. It is not known what was the result of the trial; but the action of Athens was not without its adverse effects; for when Philip appears again in Thrace, we shall find that Amadocus is in alliance with him against Cersobleptes. In the summer of 352 Chares reoccupied Sestos (which had revolted in 357 or 356) in the name of Athens, after meeting with stout resistance from the inhabitants, whom he proceeded to slay or sell into slavery. Shortly afterwards the Athenians sent cleruchs to occupy the town.

After leaving the Thracian coast in the autumn of 354, Philip may have returned to Macedonia. The next act of war on his part which is recorded is the taking of Methone, which fell after a long siege, probably in the early summer of 353. The inhabitants were expelled. Methone was the last Athenian stronghold on the Thermaic Gulf, and after its capture Philip virtually controlled the whole coast from Mount Olympus to the mouth of the Nestus. In the course of the siege of Methone he lost an eye.

It must again be noted that the chronology of these events is uncertain, and that the evidence admits of no more definite conclusions. It is possible that Methone fell a year earlier, before Philip marched against Abdera and Maronea, and there is some slight ground for thinking that it was at least threatened in the last days of 355. The mission of Pammenes to Asia and his meeting with Philip at Maronea may belong to the early spring of 353, though the meeting must have occurred before the overtures of Cersobleptes to Athens. But not much turns on the precise chronological order of these events, and whether he came im­mediately from Macedonia or Thrace or Methone, in the summer of 353 Philip appeared in Thessaly.

It seems that (probably ever since the death of Alexander of Pherae) Philip had taken the opportunity of fostering the divisions which already existed among the Thessalians; and now his aid had been invoked by Eudicus and Simus, the princes of Larissa, of the house of the Aleuadae, against Lycophron of Pherae, once the enemy and now, thanks to Onomarchus, the friend of the Phocians. Lycophron at once appealed for aid to Onomarchus, who sent his brother Phayllus to Thessaly with a force of 7000 men. Phayllus was defeated by Philip and ejected from Thessaly. Thereupon Onomarchus, probably soon after his retirement from Boeotia, went with his whole army to the aid of Lycophron, and being superior in numbers to Philip and his Thessalian allies, defeated them in two battles, in which the Macedonian troops lost so heavily that his mercenaries were inclined to abandon Philip. But he succeeded in reviving their spirit, and withdrew into Macedonia, as he said, ‘like a ram, to butt the harder next time’.’ He did not fail to carry out his intention. Early in the spring of 352 Onomarchus again invaded Boeotia, and he had taken Coronea and Corsiae, when he was once more called away to oppose Philip in Thessaly. Philip had succeeded in persuading most of the Thessalians to abandon their mutual hostilities and make common cause against Lycophron’s sacrilegious allies; and Onomarchus had only 20,000 infantry and 500 cavalry, to oppose a somewhat larger number of infantry and as many as 3000 cavalry. Philip inspired his men with a kind of religious zeal against the temple-robbers and decorated them with laurel as the champions of the injured god. In the battle which ensued Philip was victorious, thanks to the decisive action of his cavalry. The Phocian soldiers were driven to the sea with great slaughter. Some threw off their armour and tried to swim out to an Athenian squadron, commanded by Chares, which happened to be sailing past; but over 6000 perished, including Onomarchus himself, who, according to one account, was killed by his own men, as being the cause of the defeat; and the 3000 who were captured were thrown into the sea by Philip’s orders, on the pretext of their impiety.

Philip now took Pherae, and besieged the important town of Pagasae. The inhabitants of Pagasae appealed to Athens, and an expedition was ordered to go to their relief, but did not move in time. The town passed into Philip’s possession, as did the whole of Magnesia. He was now able to make such arrangements as would secure his control of Thessaly; but, when he advanced towards Thermopylae—probably about August, 3521—he found that the Athenians, at last aroused, had sent an expedition under Nausicles to defend the pass. History had shown that even a small force could hold the gates of Thermopylae against a very large one, and Philip, not wishing to face such a conflict, returned to Macedonia, and thence in the autumn marched once more along the Thracian coast.

The precise order of events is again uncertain; but in November, 352, he was besieging Heraeon Teichos, which (though its exact position is now unknown) was a stronghold of great importance in the neighbourhood of the Chersonese, and was now held by Cersobleptes. The Athenians once more had a fit of alarm, and resolved to send forty ships, carrying citizen troops, and to raise sixty talents by special taxation. But Philip fell ill and was obliged to raise the siege; a rumour of his death reached Athens; the armament was disbanded, and it was nearly a year before the Athenians took any further step.

So much is certain. It is also certain that in his hostilities against Cersobleptes Philip was now allied with Amadocus, as well as with Byzantium and Perinthus. The combined forces were victorious, and Cersobleptes was forced to give his son to Philip as a hostage. Philip also made alliance with Cardia, and the campaign served to make it plain that, unless some diplomatic settlement could be achieved, a struggle must almost inevitably take place between Philip and the Athenians for the control of the Chersonese. But in order to explain the policy of Athens during this period, it is necessary to go back a few years.

 

VI. 

ATHENIAN POLICY: ARISTOPHON, EUBULUS, DEMOSTHENES

 

After the banishment of Callistratus, about the year 361, the leading statesman in Athens was Aristophon, whose policy seems to have been in accordance with the imperialistic and militant predilections of the democracy, and to have been carried out, to a great extent, in conjunction with Chares, who was a hero to the masses. Thus he fought the disaffected allies, instead of meeting their suspicions in more peaceable ways, and when the allies were successful, he prosecuted the generals in true democratic style, and secured the condemnation of the unpopular Timotheus. When funds ran short, he had recourse to measures which would chiefly trouble the wealthier citizens, such as a commission to enquire into debts of the State, and the abolition of grants of immunity from taxation—a measure proposed by Leptines, but supported by Aristophon, and made more famous than its intrinsic importance would warrant by a striking speech of Demosthenes against it. Finally, when the Messenians, whose independence helped to neutralize the power of Sparta in the Peloponnese, applied to Athens for alliance (about the year 355, when Thebes, their old ally, was too much occupied with the Sacred War to attend to Peloponnesian affairs), it was probably Aristophon who secured that the request should be granted, though it might easily involve hostilities with Sparta.

But the failure of Athens against the allies, and the military and financial exhaustion which it entailed, gradually discredited the military party; and in the latter part of 355 Eubulus begins to come into prominence. His official position was that of a member of the Board which controlled the Theoric Fund. This fund consisted of the sums allocated for distribution to the people, nominally to enable them to attend the public festivals—a system which had been begun by Pericles, and was apparently renewed in the fourth century and then fused with the distribution of two obols a head to the citizens, instituted towards the end of the fifth century by the demagogue Cleophon. The mass of the people were naturally greatly attached to the distributions of festival-money; these not only ministered to their pleasure, but also symbolized the democratic principle that all alike were entitled to share in the profits of State-management; they were, as Demades called them, the ‘cement of the democracy’. Now the aim of Eubulus was, above all, financial recuperation; and this required a change in the attitude of Athens to Hellenic affairs generally. The fact that the members of the Theoric Board held office for four years made some continuity of policy possible, and the reputation of Eubulus was such that his supporters came to fill most of the administrative posts to which appointment was made by election. This popularity Eubulus obtained by giving security to the theoric distributions. Much might be said against such a spending of public funds upon pleasures, even though some religious sentiment may still have attached itself to the festivals; and we find it said in strong terms by Demosthenes and by Aristotle. But Eubulus evidently thought it right to pay this price for the provision which he obtained thereby for the real needs of the State.

It appears that, according to the system in force, certain portions of the revenue were permanently allocated by the laws to the regular departments of State-expenditure. Whether these allocations understanding laws were supplemented by annual budgets, taking into account expenditure not covered by these laws, is uncertain. In any case, the allocations having been made, the surplus was at the disposal of the people, who could vote money from it at pleasure for military expeditions or for any object; and no doubt the Theoric Fund got its share when it was possible. Eubulus appears to have carried a law, perhaps two or three years after his election to office, that the whole surplus should always go to the Theoric Fund; but at the same time, by good administration and skilful budgeting, he secured sufficient funds to put the city into a thoroughly sound financial and military condition. He brought the number of the fleet again up to 300 triremes; he repaired the docks and fortifications; he took care, by exercising strict surveillance over officials, that the State should really receive the income to which it was entitled; he conferred benefits on trade and commerce by unobtrusive changes, such as a better procedure for the settlement of trading disputes; he improved the roads of Attica, and gave the city a good water­supply. (His predecessors had probably starved such public services in their anxiety to secure a large surplus for war.) But though he maintained a large fleet as a security for peace, he provided no funds for ambitious military designs. The Theoric Fund was to have the whole surplus; so that if any great war were undertaken, money would have to be raised by special taxation; and this also was to some extent a guarantee of peace.

The ascendancy of Eubulus, when combined with the great reluctance of the Athenians to serve in the army in person, except on short and sharp expeditions, explains in a great measure the failure of Athens to act energetically, or even to send mercenary forces to represent her, since mercenaries were very expensive. His policy was plainly justified by the condition in which Athens found herself at the end of 355. Whether it was compatible with a proper attitude towards Philip is another question; and it was upon this question that, from about 352 onwards, Athenian politicians were most sharply divided, until at last the opposite view to that of Eubulus once more prevailed.

At first Eubulus was successful enough. The peace with the allies was probably due to his influence, as well as the recall of Chares from Asia Minor, and the rejection of the appeal of the Rhodian democrats. Athens could not risk hostilities with Persia. Nor would it have been well for her to be led into war with Sparta. Consequently when the people of Megalopolis appealed to Athens for help, probably in the winter of 353—2, they met with a different reception from that which Aristophon had given to the Messenians. The cause of the appeal was an astute move made by the Spartans, who, seeing that Thebes, the chief supporter of the anti-Spartan States in the Peloponnese, was deeply involved in the Sacred War, made a proposal to the Greek States generally for the restitution of territory to its original possessors. The aim of Sparta was the recovery of her own control over Messenia and Arcadia, and she might well hope for support, not only from Elis and Phlius, parts of whose former territory were in the hands of the Arcadians and the Argives respectively, but above all from Athens; for the Athenians had never ceased to resent the Theban occupation of Oropus, and the suppression of the Boeotian towns which had been friendly to her—Orchomenus, Thespiae and Plataea; and Athens was also an ally, at least in name, of the Phocians against Thebes. But these considerations could not weigh with Eubulus against the danger of unnecessary war with Sparta, and the people of Megalopolis went away unsatisfied. At the same time Eubulus was no undiscerning peace-fanatic. He was ready to acquiesce in Philip’s conquests at Amphipolis and about the Thermaic Gulf; but Philip’s approach to Thermopylae was another matter, and the expedition of Nausicles was sent promptly and with good results. The encroachments of Philip along the Thracian coast might be endured, and Cersobleptes, fortified by his understanding with Athens, might be left to resist Philip as well as he could; but the safety of the corn-route was of vital importance, and the recovery of Sestos was doubtless favoured by Eubulus, who appears to have been, on the whole, a wise and level-headed statesman, such as the time required.

It was during the early years of Eubulus’ administration that Demosthenes came forward on to the political stage. He had made himself an orator by heroic persistence in overcoming his physical defects, and by persistent study of history and rhetoric; and he acquired practice in private cases, mostly of no political importance. A man of strong public spirit, he had already served twice as trierarch; and though he appears to have been personally unattractive, and was uncompromising both in his enthusiasms and his dislikes, he was filled with an intense belief in Athens as the champion of freedom—which meant, at that time, of democracy—whether against orators and generals whom he believed to be making profit for themselves instead of maintaining the traditions of the city, or against any who, like Philip and his supporters, appeared to threaten the autonomous city-state with what seemed like servitude; though men of wider outlook, like Isocrates, might see in the movement of events a progress towards the realization of Hellenic unity.

At first he seems to have supported Eubulus, so far at least as practical policy was concerned. He deprecated the idea of military preparations against Persia in 354; and, if the speech which has come down to us as the thirteenth in the Demosthenic Corpus is a true representation of his views, he had no objection in principle to the theoric distributions; in fact he himself joined in renewing them after the battle of Chaeronea, when the need for their suspension was over. But his whole bent was towards active measures: the very debate upon Persian affairs he made an occasion for suggesting (without success) a drastic reform of the trierarchic system, which would bear heavily upon citizens of substance; in the speech for the Rhodians he was ready to give active help to the exiled democrats, and was unduly confident that there was no need to fear embroilment with Caria or Persia; and throughout, while admitting the claim of the citizens to the funds of the State, he insisted that they should earn their share by practical work, and above all by service in the army. It is clear that his main object was to raise a standing army, ready to fight whenever it might be required, and throughout his early career he regarded the gratuitous distributions of festival-money as the great obstacle to this. In the matter of the appeal of Megalopolis he spoke, with an air of impartiality, but with complete conviction, in favour of the suppliants, and discounted the risk of war with Sparta; and in speaking against the law of Aristocrates he showed his desire to support the rivals of Cersobleptes, and so to neutralize the danger to Athenian interests from him and from Charidemus, whose untrustworthiness was abundantly proved. In both these speeches he made much use of the idea of the Balance of Power as the right principle of Athenian policy—the maintenance of an equipoise between Thebes and Sparta, between Amadocus and Cersobleptes—with armed intervention, if necessary, to adjust the balance. Prudence was clearly on the side of Eubulus; but when the danger to Athens from Philip seemed to be unmistakable, Demosthenes claimed to stand for a higher principle than prudence—the maintenance of the great traditions of Athens, and above all, of autonomy against tyranny. Whether he was right is a question which is not easily settled by argument; and we may conveniently return to the consideration of the course of events during the year 352.

 

VII. 

THE SACRED WAR CONTINUED, 352-347 BC

 

In the course of that year the Spartans invaded the territory of Megalopolis, perhaps some months after the rejection of the latter by Athens. The Megalopolitans, with troops sent to their aid by Argos, Sicyon and Messene, encamped near the sources of the Alpheus, and awaited the help which they had asked for from Thebes. The Spartans, on the other hand, received at once the aid of 3000 infantry from the Phocians—perhaps mercenaries who transferred their services to Sparta in the interval between the defeat of Onomarchus and the resumption of hostilities by Phayllus in the autumn of 352; and also of a small squadron of cavalry from Lycophron and Peitholaus, whom Philip had allowed to depart unharmed from Pherae. The combined Spartan army encamped near Mantinea, whence they made a surprise attack upon the Argive town of Orneae and took it, defeating the Argives who came to its assistance. The Thebans, perhaps because they had their eyes on the energetic preparations being made by Phayllus, had as yet made no move to help Megalopolis; and it was probably not until the spring of 351, when the hostility of the Phocians appeared to be less formidable, that Thebes sent 4000 infantry and 500 cavalry to join the Megalopolitans. After a doubtful battle, in which the superior numbers of the Megalopolitan and Theban army were neutralized by their inferiority in discipline, the Argives and other Peloponnesian allies of Megalo­polis went home, and after storming Helissus in Arcadia, the Spartans also returned to Laconia. After an interval, hostilities were renewed; the Thebans defeated a Spartan division at Telphussa and gained the advantage in two other engagements. Then the Spartans won a considerable victory and made a truce with Megalopolis, which, however, retained its independence. The Theban forces returned to Boeotia, where they were once more required to deal with the Phocians.

Phayllus had succeeded to the command of the Phocian forces after the death of Onomarchus. Even the loss of 9000 men in the recent engagement seems not to have daunted him; the temple­treasures appeared to be inexhaustible, and he used them unscrupulously to obtain allies and mercenaries, even coining into money the blocks of gold dedicated by Croesus. From Sparta came 1000 men, from the Achaeans 2000, from Athens 5000 men and 400 cavalry under Nausicles. Lycophron and Peitholaus also joined him with 2000 mercenaries, and the gold given to the leading men in the smaller States brought its reward in troops. It was probably towards autumn (352) when he invaded Boeotia. He was defeated with considerable loss near Orchomenus, and again in a battle near the Cephisus, and a few days later at Coronea. On this he seems to have changed his plan, and to have invaded Eastern Locris. After capturing all the other towns in this district, he was driven out of Naryx, which he had taken one night with the help of treachery. He then encamped near Abae, but the Boeotian troops inflicted great loss upon him in a night attack, and then, elated by their victory, proceeded to ravage Phocis itself and acquired rich booty. In the meantime he had renewed the attack on Naryx; the Boeotians, returning from Phocis, tried to relieve it, but were routed by Phayllus, who now took and destroyed the town. This, however, was his last success. He fell ill, and, after a long sickness, died in the course of the winter, leaving Phalaecus, the younger son of Onomarchus, in command, with Mnaseas as his guardian. But Mnaseas soon fell in a night affray, and not long afterwards (probably in the spring of 351) Phalaecus himself was worsted in a cavalry battle near Chaeronea. Little seems to have been effected by either side during most of the year, and we have seen that a Theban force was engaged in the Peloponnese. Late in the year Phalaecus succeeded in taking Chaeronea, but was expelled by the Thebans, perhaps after the troops sent to the Peloponnese had returned; and the Boeotian army once more overran Phocis, taking much plunder and destroying some of the local fortresses.

But both sides were more or less, exhausted, and in the next year (350) only desultory fighting and occasional forays occurred. The Thebans, however, who were in great financial straits, sent ambassadors to Artaxerxes to ask for aid; he responded gladly, and sent them 300 talents. Evidently the expedition of Pammenes could be overlooked, and Artaxerxes, who was anxious to recover his lost empire over Egypt, Phoenicia and Cyprus, was doubtless eager for assistance from Greek troops, like that which had been so invaluable to the provinces in their revolt. Nor was he wholly disappointed.

We know little of the course of the Sacred War from this point onwards. Our chief authority, Diodorus XVI, 56 sqq., crowds into the one year 347—6 events which certainly belong in part to the two years preceding. The Boeotians (according to his narrative) once more ravaged Phocis, and won a victory at Hyampolis, but were defeated, probably in 349, near Coronea by the Phocians, who, besides Coronea, held Orchomenus and Corsiae in Boeotian territory. Next we hear of the Boeotians destroying the standing corn in Phocis—this must have been in the early summer of 348 or 347—and of the Phocians ravaging Boeotia from the strongholds which they occupied; and Demosthenes also mentions engagements at Neon and Hedyleum. Phalaecus and his treasurer Philon seem to have outdone their predecessors in their disregard for the sanctity of Delphi, and Philon had actually begun excavations within the temple walls and beneath the sacred tripod in the hope of finding treasure, when a terrible earthquake, which was taken by pious minds to be a sign of the anger of Apollo, put a stop to the operations. But the concluding scenes of the Sacred War are so closely bound up with the movements of Philip that we must return to these.

 

VIII.

THE OLYNTHIAN WAR

 

We have seen that in 352, and perhaps during some portion of 351, Philip was in Thrace. The order of events from the beginning of 351 to the end of 349 has been the subject of endless controversy, which the evidence is not sufficient to settle. It seems, however, that the Olynthians, who had agreed not to make alliance with Athens apart from Philip, had become mistrustful of him, and had not only begun to solicit the friendship of Athens, but had given an asylum to Arrhidaeus, who had been one of Philip’s rivals for the throne, and his brother Menelaus. Philip is said to have warned them not to invite War and Violence within their borders, and he doubtless began to foster a Macedonian party within the city. He seems also to have marched through Olynthian territory on his way back from Thrace, thus making a demonstration, though one unaccompanied by hostile action; perhaps this took place in the course of a campaign against the Bisaltae, who overlapped the Chalcidic peninsula. Besides this, he was probably occupied for some time in establishing fortresses in Illyrian territory, and he made an expedition against Arybbas, king of the Molossians, by the subjugation of whom he became virtual master of a great part of Epirus. It was during the same period that his ships began to interfere seriously with the Athenians. They raided Lemnos and Imbros, and made prisoners of Athenian citizens there; they captured an Athenian fleet, carrying corn, off the south coast of Euboea; they even landed a force near Marathon, and took an Athenian state-galley on its way to a religious solemnity at Delos.

These events caused no little excitement in Athens. It may have been on account of them that in October, 351, Charidemus, now in Athenian service, was sent to the Hellespont with ten ships and five talents, with which to procure mercenaries and, no doubt, to secure the corn-route. Whether it was now or somewhat earlier that an agreement was made with Orontes, satrap of Mysia, who had already helped to supply the Athenian commanders with corn, cannot be decided. It is unsafe to conclude, with some historians, that Orontes must have been in revolt against Persia at the time of these communications; Eubulus was not anxious to provoke Persia to hostility, and Artaxerxes had every reason, at this period, for wishing to maintain peaceful relations with Athens. It is true that his enemies in Egypt had an Athenian commander to aid them; but in 350 Phocion, one of the most famous generals of Athens, was helping the Persian cause in Cyprus; both of course were acting not as Athenians, but as captains of mercenaries. For the rest, the activities of the Athenians during 351 and 350 seem to have been confined to some rather trifling quarrels with Megara and Corinth, which led to two unimportant military excursions.

But the energy of Philip, the widening breach between him and the Olynthians, and the appeal of the latter to Athens, roused the party of action in Athens, and, perhaps in 351, perhaps not till the beginning of 349—the evidence is once more indecisive—Demosthenes for the first time took the lead in a public debate, with the speech which we know as the First Philippic. The speech is a passionate appeal to the Athenians to realize their danger from Philip, and to meet it by a consistent and energetic policy, and above all by the creation of a standing naval and military force, which could act at a moment’s notice, without the delays involved in the preparation of a separate force on each occasion, under conditions which made it impossible for it to act in time. No army that Athens could create could meet Philip in the field; but such a force could make descents upon the weak points in his coast-line, blockade his harbours and protect the allies of Athens. It was, moreover, essential to his plan that the army should be composed of citizens, not of mercenaries who could not be counted upon. The fine patriotic zeal of Demosthenes must always command admiration, and on the present occasion the details of the scheme, as regards both recruitment and finance, were carefully worked out; but for the moment the speech can hardly have had more than an educative effect on the Assembly. Eubulus was evidently not prepared to act. It may be doubted also whether Demosthenes allowed sufficiently for the virtual necessity of a professional soldiery, in view of the recent developments in the art of war, the greater length of military campaigns, and the increasing preoccupation of the Athenians with trade, which is liable to suffer heavily from the interruptions of military and naval service, and tends to require the specialization of the fighting profession. On the other hand, the habit of having their fighting done by proxy must itself have lowered the patriotic spirit of the Athenians, since there is no such stimulus to love of one’s country as that which is given by fighting for it.

The appeal of Olynthus was renewed when, in the spring of 349, Philip demanded that the Olynthians should give up Arrhidaeus and Menelaus; and Demosthenes strongly supported the appeal in his first Olynthiac Oration, once more drawing a strong contrast between the persistent energy of Philip and the slowness of the Athenians both in decision and in action. While urging the preparation of a double force—part to defend Olynthus, part to carry on an offensive campaign against the Macedonian ports—he proposed that a sufficient war-tax should be levied, though he made it plain that the best course, if only the Athenians would consent to it, would be to suspend the theoric distributions and use the money for the war. Probably as the result of this debate, the alliance with Olynthus was at last made, and a considerable armament was dispatched under the command of Chares. This was to be reinforced later; but sufficient funds were not voted, and the expedition proved ineffective, probably because Chares had to raise funds by plundering friend and foe alike. That at least is what is suggested by the second Olynthiac Oration, which, delivered probably in the course of the summer of 349, appears to aim at meeting arguments which the peace­party had used, to the effect that Philip was too strong to be resisted. Demosthenes in reply maintained that power founded upon deception and aggression was essentially rotten, and drew a picture, which appears to have been almost wholly imaginary, of disunion among Philip’s troops. He also returned to the attack upon the levity of the Athenians, and once more demanded of them that they should serve in person in the army and reform their financial methods.

In both the first two Olynthiac Orations Demosthenes speaks of the Thessalians as becoming restless under Philip’s supremacy; his appropriation of their harbour- and market-dues bore hardly on them; and they appear to have thought of requesting him to restore the port of Pagasae to Pherae. The request may have been prompted by Peitholaus, who seems to have found his way back to Pherae; and it was necessary for Philip to go to Thessaly in person—the exact date of the expedition is uncertain—to eject Peitholaus and quiet the Thessalian unrest.

But Philip’s main task was now the subjugation of Olynthus and the other towns of the Chalcidic League. Stagirus, the birth­place of Aristotle, whom Philip afterwards selected as the instructor of his son Alexander, was razed to the ground, and the Athenians did little to help the town. Chares was recalled and prosecuted for misconduct; but Charidemus, who was sent, in response to a further appeal, with eighteen ships and a large mercenary force, after making some excursions into territory which Philip had overrun and harrying Bottiaea (a district of Macedonia to the south of Pella), abandoned active warfare to indulge in gross luxury at the expense of the Olynthians.

At last the war-party in Athens ventured to demand unambiguously the surrender of the Theoric Fund for the purpose of the war. A decree was carried by Apollodorus that the Assembly should decide to which purpose the surplus should be applied; but the procedure which he followed was illegal; he was prosecuted and fined, and the decree invalidated. Demosthenes, with greater regard for legality, urged in the third Olynthiac Oration that the party of Eubulus should itself take the necessary steps for the repeal of the law which made the Theoric Fund inviolable, and that public funds should only be distributed to those who gave personal service, whether in the army or in administrative posts. The proposal seems to have failed, though it is evident that at the time when it was made—probably in the autumn of 349—the prospects of Olynthus had changed greatly for the worse.

The situation was now complicated by a movement against Athens in Euboea, the cities of which had been converted from the Theban to the Athenian alliance in 357. There can be little doubt that the change was due to intrigues on the part of Philip, who desired to divide the Athenian forces and distract them from the support of Olynthus. Plutarchus, the ruler of Eretria, an ally of Athens, found himself threatened by a rising under Cleitarchus, and asked the Athenians for aid. This aid Eubulus, supported by Meidias, a wealthy Athenian and a friend of Plutarchus, was prepared to give, doubtless on account of the importance of keeping control of Euboea. Demosthenes, on the other hand, opposed Plutarchus’ application, the granting of which could only weaken the campaign against Philip; but in vain. A force was sent under Phocion, about February, 348, and at first fared badly, being hemmed in near Tamynae by the troops of Callias and Taurosthenes of Chaicis, who were aided by mercenaries sent from Phocis. (The circumstances under which they were dispatched are not clear. Possibly Phalaecus had already conceived the hostility to Athens which he displayed strongly at a later period; or perhaps some of his mercenaries were allowed to occupy themselves in Euboea at a time when little fighting was going on on the mainland). The Athenians sent some reinforcements, and, in view of the financial pressure, they were obliged to ask that those who could do so should undertake the expense of the trierarchy voluntarily; but the reinforcements did not start in time for the battle of Tamynae, which was brought on by a rash sally on the part of Plutarchus, and was only won with difficulty by Phocion. Callias betook himself to Philip’s side; Plutarchus’ conduct, and his flight before Phocion came into action, were condemned as due to treachery, and he was expelled by Phocion from Eretria. Phocion occupied the important stronghold of Zaretra, and reinforcements of cavalry arrived from Athens, probably at the beginning of April; but the campaign went badly under Molossus, who succeeded Phocion some time afterwards, and ended in the defeat and capture of Molossus, and the acknowledgment of the independence of all the Euboean towns except Carystus.

While the Euboean campaign was in progress, the Dionysiac festival took place; and Meidias, who was opposed to Demosthenes in regard to the campaign, assaulted him violently in the theatre. Demosthenes was serving voluntarily as choregus, and the assault at such a time was sacrilege, and was rendered worse by many other insults on the part of Meidias. Demosthenes obtained from the Assembly a vote of censure on Meidias, and gave notice of his intention to prosecute him for impiety. The speech which he wrote is an eloquent and uncompromising denunciation of the life-long insolence of Meidias; but (like Cicero’s speech for Milo against Clodius, which it somewhat resembles) it was never delivered. The trial was postponed for more than a year, and by that time the political situation had changed. Demosthenes was then temporarily acting in harmony with Eubulus, and so was content to compromise, and to accept half a talent from Meidias in atonement of the injury.

While the Athenians were engaged in Euboea, Philip had not been idle. Throughout the early part of 348 he was taking the Chalcidic towns in quick succession, more by the help of his hirelings in each than by force. All the time he appears to have kept up the pretence that he intended no hostility against Olynthus itself, and his hired accomplices in the city, Euthycrates and Lasthenes, no doubt tried to foster the illusion; and it was not until he had taken Mecyberna, the port of Olynthus, and the important town of Torone, that he threw off the mask and told the Olynthians that their continuance in Olynthus was incompatible with his continuance in Macedonia. The Athenians, again appealed to, were in difficulties in Euboea, but the charges against Chares, which had not yet come to trial, were hurriedly dropped, and he was sent off with 2000 citizen foot-soldiers and 300 cavalry. Once more it was too late; the winds were contrary, and the traitors in Olynthus had done their work. They betrayed their cavalry to Philip on the field of battle, and in August, 348, the town capitulated. The inhabitants were sold into slavery; Arrhidaeus and Menelaus were put to death; lands, property and captives were distributed among leading Macedonians and other friends of Philip, and, according to Demosthenes’ statement, thirty-two towns in the peninsula were entirely wiped out. The accounts which have come down to us may be somewhat exaggerated, and Philip was only doing on a large scale what Chares had done on a small at Sestos in the name of Athens; but the destruction was probably without a parallel in Greek history. While the Athenians did what they could for the relief of the fugitives, Philip held high festival in Macedonia, and celebrated his conquests by games, dramatic performances and abundant feasting.

 

IX.

THE PEACE OF PHILOCRATES, AND THE END OF THE SACRED WAR

 

But Philip had for some time been anxious for peace with Athens. Probably he intended to assert his supremacy in due time over her and the other Greek states; but the time was not yet, and the Athenian ships were in the meantime capable of inflicting no little injury on his coasts and hindering his operations. There was still something to be done before he could regard even Thrace as a secure possession; and before he could claim the overlordship of Greece, there would be much preliminary work to do. So he proceeded to approach Athens, as he had once approached Amphipolis and Olynthus, with professions of friendly feeling. Some such messages were sent, even before the fall of Olynthus, through an Athenian named Phrynon, whom he had captured and released, and through Ctesiphon, who had been sent to ask Philip for the return of the money paid for Phrynon’s ransom. The Assembly welcomed the messages, and on the proposal of Philocrates it was resolved to allow Philip’s representatives to come to Athens to propose the terms of an understanding. But about this time the fall of Olynthus and its attendant horrors shocked the Athenians so greatly that, instead of sending any such invitation, they resolved, on the motion of Eubulus himself, to make an attempt to unite all the Greek States against Philip.

The proposal was eloquently advocated by Aeschines, an orator who now for the first time took a prominent part in public life. A man of great natural gifts and good education, he had once been obliged to follow somewhat humble callings—those of schoolmaster, actor and clerk in a public office; but, with his brother Aphobetus, he had for some time been a supporter of Eubulus, and on the present occasion he took an active part in the embassies which were sent to invite the Greek States to a congress, to discuss the measures to be taken against Philip. But despite the eloquent indignation of Aeschines the embassies failed; the natural disunion of the States, and a certain want of imagination (such as had on other occasions prevented the Spartans from anticipating any possible danger to themselves) led them to turn a deaf ear; and there was nothing for it but to make peace. Informal messages passed for some time, gradually becoming more definite, until (probably in the late summer of 347) one of the messengers, the Athenian actor Aristodemus, was awarded a crown by the Council on the motion of Demosthenes, who was now as much convinced as anyone of the necessity of peace, and was acting in harmony with Eubulus. Demosthenes even defended Philocrates, who had been arraigned by one Lycinus for the illegality of his original peace-proposal, and secured for him an easy acquittal.

But a new complication was introduced into the situation by the turn of events in the Sacred War. In the course of 347, if not earlier, dissensions had arisen in the Phocian ranks. Phalaecus was accused of appropriating the temple treasures to his own use, and the Phocian government deposed him from his command. Three generals, Deinocrates, Callias and Sophanes were appointed in his place, and his treasurer, Philon, was tortured till he revealed his companions in theft, and died miserably. Evidently, however, Phalaecus retained the support of a large body of mercenaries; he appears to have made his headquarters not far from Thermopylae: and the Thebans, suffering severely from loss of men and lack of funds, applied to Philip for aid. Philip was well content to see their humiliation; and, to lower their ‘Leuctric pride’ still further, he only sent a few soldiers—just enough to show that he was not indifferent to the sacrilege at Delphi. An attempt of the Phocians to fortify Abae was defeated, and a number of them who took sanctuary in Apollo’s temple there perished in an accidental conflagration. Both sides now appealed for allies, the Boeotians once more to Philip, the Phocians—probably, that is, the home-government of Phocis, which had appointed Deinocrates and his colleagues—to Sparta and Athens. The Phocians offered to give into the hands of the Athenians the strongholds which commanded the Pass of Thermopylae, if the Athenians would assist them. In consideration of this, Athens sent Proxenus, probably in the autumn of 347, to take possession of the strongholds, and ordered the equipment of fifty ships with citizen troops. But Proxenus found Phalaecus, and not a representative of the Phocian government, at Thermopylae, and Phalaecus repudiated the agreement with contumely; the ships, of course, were not sent. Archidamus, who was sent from Sparta with 1000 men, also received a rebuff and returned home. It seems to have been generally assumed that Philip was about to join forces with the Thessalians, and to settle the Sacred War adversely to the Phocians; but for the present he concealed his hand, doubtless waiting for the development of the Athenian inclination for peace, and watching for the right moment to intervene in the war. The only action which he is known to have taken about this time was in support of the Thessalian town of Pharsalus against Halus, which was on terms of friendship with Athens, and was probably assisted by the presence of Athenian ships.

The movement for peace came to a head in Athens early in 346. On the motion of Philocrates, it was resolved to send ten ambassadors, accompanied by a representative of the allies of Athens, to Philip. The ambassadors included several of those through whom the previous informal communications had passed, as well as Philocrates himself, Aeschines and Demosthenes. It was thus representative both of the supporters and of the opponents of Eubulus, both parties being temporarily at one as regards the peace. The ambassadors sailed with the least possible delay, landed at Halus, which was being besieged by Parmenion, Philip’s ablest general, and then hastened overland to Pella, where Philip received them very graciously. Aeschines (according to his own account of the proceedings, which is the only one that we possess) devoted his speech mainly to the Athenian claim to Amphipolis; other speakers must have discussed the questions relating to the Chersonese, the Phocians and Halus; Demosthenes, who spoke last, broke down from nervousness. He was never a ready extempore speaker, and it is quite likely that the nine or ten earlier speeches may have left him at a loss for arguments.

Philip’s reply was friendly in tone. The claim to Amphipolis, indeed, he must have plainly rejected; but he promised to take no hostile steps against the Chersonese while the negotiations were in progress, and offered to do great things for Athens, if he were granted an alliance with her, as well as the Peace. His manner, as well as his offers, made a very favourable impression upon the ambassadors, and particularly upon Aeschines, who had hitherto been one of his most outspoken enemies; and they did not fail to declare this impression to the Council and the Assembly on their return to Athens, though Demosthenes, who had fallen out with his colleagues, criticized them somewhat peevishly for their flattery, and simply proposed in unvarnished language that Philip’s envoys should be received with the usual civilities, and that two days should be set apart for the discussion of the Peace in the Assembly.

The two debates were held about the middle of April, 346. The course of the proceedings is known only from the contradictory accounts given several years later by Demosthenes and Aeschines, at a time when each was eager to prove that he had had nothing to do with a Peace which had ended, as this was destined to end, in the sacrifice of the Phocians. But apparently there were two proposals before the Assembly, the one formulated by the Synod of the allies of Athens, that any Greek State (and therefore, of course, the Phocians and Halus) should have the opportunity of joining in the Peace within the next three months: the other put forward by Philocrates, who was no doubt closely in touch with Philip’s envoys, Antipater and Parmenion, that the Athenians should make an alliance as well as a Peace with Philip, but that the Phocians and Halus should not be permitted to join in it. The Assembly was evidently anxious to save the Phocians; but in the interval between the two debates, the chief statesmen must have become aware that Philip would not agree to this, and apparently Antipater, when publicly interrogated by Demos­thenes, said so plainly. The attempt was then made to get the Assembly to approve the Peace and the alliance, without any express mention of the Phocians or Halus being inserted in the terms, but with an assurance, given almost certainly by Aeschines, that Philip really intended to behave as the Athenians desired, though his close connection with the Thebans and Thessalians forbad him to say so expressly. There is no reason to doubt that Aeschines believed this, however severely he may be criticized for allowing himself to be deceived by Philip’s conciliatory manner. But even this failed; and it was only when Eubulus pointed out that there was no alternative between simple accept­ance and the renewal of war, and that the latter would involve the sacrifice of the festival-money to pay the expense, that the Assembly yielded. It was then agreed that peace should be made by Athens and her allies with Philip and his allies, each party retaining what they possessed at the time of the ratification. Thus Philip kept Amphipolis, the Athenians the Chersonese, except Cardia. A few days later, in the presence of Antipater and Parmenion, the Peace was sworn to by the Athenians and their allies. A demand made by a representative of Cersobleptes that his master should be included among the allies was quite rightly rejected by Demosthenes, as president of the Assembly for the day; since Cersobleptes, though on friendly terms with Athens, was not a member of her alliance.

The ten ambassadors who had previously served were directed to go once more to Philip, to receive the oaths of himself and his allies, and to procure the freedom of the Athenians who were prisoners in his hands. The differences which had sprung up between Demosthenes and his colleagues on the first embassy now made themselves felt more acutely. There is no doubt that Aeschines and Philocrates, supported by Eubulus and his party, desired a permanent settlement with Philip; while Demosthenes, though convinced of the necessity of peace for the moment, was still irreconcilable, and looked on the Peace simply as a breathing-space, during which Athens could recover herself before renewing what was, for him, the conflict between the free city-state and the tyrant. In consequence he was anxious to give Philip as little opportunity as possible of extending those possessions which would be his from the moment of his taking the oath. Philip had, in fact, been occupied, while the Peace was being discussed at Athens, in the effectual subjugation of Cersobleptes, whose title to participate in the Peace he had never recognized; and, probably on the very day before the Athenians themselves swore to the Peace, he had completed his occupation of a series of fortified places in Thrace by the capture of Cersobleptes himself in the stronghold known as the Sacred Mountain; any opposition which Chares and his mercenaries may have offered was without effect; and before the ambassadors obtained an interview with him, he had taken possession of the Odrysian Kingdom, leaving Cersobleptes himself there as a vassal-prince, and retaining his son as a hostage.

Demosthenes was naturally anxious that the ambassadors should accomplish their mission with all speed; but it was necessary for him to procure a special decree of the Council, before they could be induced to move at all. They delayed on the journey; they did not follow the instruction that they were to join Proxenus and his ships, and cause him to carry them to any place where they could find Philip; but, after meeting Proxenus, they went to Pella, and waited there for about a month before Philip arrived, having made his Thracian conquests secure. It was fifty days since they had left Athens. Their object in delaying their approach to Philip is unknown; Demosthenes imputed it to deliberate treachery, conceived under the influence of presents from Philip; but of this there is no further proof, nor is it clear that their greater haste would really have effected any change in Philip’s plans, or that it could have availed to check his seizure of places in Thrace, even though they were defended in part by Athenian soldiers fighting, under the generalship of Chares, for Cersobleptes.

The Athenian ambassadors found envoys from many other Greek States assembled at Pella—Thebans, eager to secure Philip’s immediate aid against the Phocians; Spartans, Euboeans, Phocians (though whether of Phalaecus’ following, or of the party in power in Phocis, is unknown)—each with their own object, for which they desired his good-will, and each beguiled, with his characteristic skill, into thinking that they had attained it. Demosthenes differed strongly from his colleagues not only in his ultimate aim, but also in regard to the policy to be pursued at the moment. It followed from his desire to renew the struggle against Philip, when occasion offered, that he would not wish to weaken Thebes, or to take any step which might prevent an alliance of Thebes and Athens against Philip. His colleagues, who in this were in sympathy with the general feeling of the Athenians, were hostile to Thebes and anxious to save the Phocians; and when the ambassadors were granted an interview with Philip, Aeschines did all he could to promote this object, laying stress upon all that could be said against the Thebans in their conduct of the Sacred War, and pleading for a solution, not by armed intervention, but by a vote of the Amphictyonic Council, to be given after both sides had been heard. Demosthenes, who had spoken first, seems again to have cut a poor figure, hinting at the differences of opinion between himself and his colleagues, commending himself for the civilities which he had shown to Philip’s envoys, and at the same time mocking his colleagues for the flattery which they had bestowed upon Philip. Philip was certainly not diverted a hair’s breadth from his plan by the orators, but he seems to have led Aeschines genuinely to believe that he intended the Phocians no harm, and his air of friendliness was enhanced by lavish presents to the ambassadors, which all but Demosthenes accepted without misgiving. He declared his consent to the Peace, but did not take the oath until, accompanied by his army and escorted by the ambassadors, he had marched southward as far as Pherae. Here also the ambassadors received the oaths of Philip’s allies, instead of visiting their cities for the purpose as they had been instructed to do. At some stage in the proceedings Philip must have made it clear that the Phocians and Halus were not included in the Peace, and in fact Halus was forced to surrender to him not long afterwards, and was treated with great severity. Demosthenes, being unable to act with his colleagues in regard to the Phocian question, had devoted himself chiefly to the interests of the Athenian prisoners, and these Philip promised to send home in time for the Panathenaic festival.

When Philip had taken the oath, the ambassadors returned home, sending before them a despatch announcing the results of the mission. Before they reached Athens, about July 7, Philip was at Thermopylae. The Athenian Council was so far impressed by the charges of breach of instructions which Demosthenes brought against his colleagues that it neither gave them the usual vote of thanks nor the complimentary feast which generally went with it. But the Assembly was carried away by Aeschines’ declaration that in a few days they would see Thebes besieged by Philip and punished for the contemplated occupation of the temple of Delphi; Thespiac and Plataea would then be rebuilt, and (he hinted) Oropus would be restored to Athens. A letter from Philip was read, in which he took upon himself the blame for the ambassadors’ failure to carry out their instructions literally, and offered to do anything that he could honourably do to satisfy the Athenians. Demosthenes (according to his own account) was refused a hearing, when he rose to express his disbelief in these assurances, and the Assembly laughed with delight when Philocrates cried, ‘No wonder that Demosthenes and I disagree; he drinks water; I drink wine.’ The Assembly passed the motion of Philocrates, thanking Philip for his righteous intentions, extending the alliance first made to his posterity, and calling upon the Phocians to surrender the temple to the Amphictyons and lay down their arms; failing which, Athens would take arms against them.

Clearly the Assembly must have been convinced that Philip intended to treat both the Phocians and Athens generously, and this impression must have been due to the assurances of Aeschines and his colleagues; otherwise its action, considering the favour with which it had always regarded the Phocians, is inexplicable. The same confidence was probably the reason for their declining Philip’s invitation to them to send an army to join him at Thermopylae, and assist in the settlement of the matters which concerned the Amphictyonic powers, though Demosthenes and Hegesippus (a violent anti-Macedonian), who recommended the refusal of the invitation, may themselves have desired to avoid any such clash of Athenian and Theban policies at Thermopylae as would have rendered subsequent co-operation against Philip difficult. The refusal was almost certainly a mistake, since it deprived Athens of all influence in the settlement of North Greece.

However this may be, the Athenians were suddenly startled by the news that on the day after the resolution of Philocrates had been passed, Phalaecus had surrendered to Philip at Thermopylae. The news was brought by the ambassadors sent to inform Philip of that resolution, who had turned back in alarm on hearing it at Chalcis. For a moment the Athenians were panic-stricken, and thinking that Philip’s next move would be against themselves, ordered defensive measures to be taken immediately, at the same time sending the ambassadors once more on their journey, to use such influence as they could upon Philip in his camp.

The surrender of Phalaecus was no doubt due to the disunion in the Phocian ranks, and the exhaustion of his funds. He was allowed to depart with a force of 8000 mercenaries. After various adventures, he perished towards the end of the year in Crete, where he and his men had taken part in a quarrel between Cnossus and some other Cretan towns. Those who survived of his army met their end in 343 in Elis, where they had sold their swords to some Elean exiles desirous of restoration. The historian Diodorus does not fail to draw a moral from the fate of the sacrilegious Phocians and their allies, and notes with satisfaction how Archidamus, who had once helped them, afterwards died in battle in Italy, where he had gone to help the people of Tarentum against their Lucanian neighbours.

On the surrender of Phalaecus, some of the Phocian towns capitulated to Philip, and those which did not were rapidly reduced. Many of the inhabitants fled to Athens and were welcomed there. Philip appears to have been both surprised and annoyed at the manner in which Athens had received the news of his action, and sent a letter, strongly worded, protesting that the Phocians had not been included in the treaty of peace, and that he was acting within his rights.

The fate of the Phocians was left to be determined by the Amphictyonic Council. After more barbarous proposals had been rejected, it was resolved that the Phocian towns should be dismantled, and the citizens dispersed into villages of not more than fifty houses each, with at least 200 yards’ interval between one village and another; that they should repay the value of the temple-treasures by annual instalments, and should not bear arms or own horses until complete restitution had been made, and that the fugitives of the sacrilegious race should be liable to seizure in any country. The destructive part of the sentence was carried out by the Thebans, and Demosthenes, three years later, drew an impressive picture of the desolation which was caused, though, judged by Greek standards, their fate was not a specially cruel one, and the fact that the repayment to the temple began within three years, and proceeded without interruption, shows that they must soon have recovered some measure of prosperity. Some of the Phocian territory was occupied by Thebes; the Boeotian towns which had joined the Phocians against Thebes were de­stroyed and their inhabitants enslaved. The Phocians lost their votes in the Amphictyonic Council, and votes were now assigned to Philip and to the Delphians, who resumed charge of the temple. Sparta also is said to have lost her Amphictyonic rights, but the evidence of inscriptions leaves this very doubtful. Athens was deprived of her right to precedence in the consultation of the oracle.

To assert before the world his newly-acquired dignity, Philip was appointed to preside over the forthcoming Pythian games; but Athens and Sparta, by way of protest, refused to send the customary deputations to attend the festival. Accordingly Philip demanded from Athens a formal recognition of himself as a member of the Amphictyonic Council, and Aeschines argued in favour of this recognition, on the ground that the adverse action of the Council had been due to the preponderant influence of the Thessalians and Thebans. But the Assembly refused to give him a hearing, and it was not until Demosthenes himself, who saw that Athens could not at present resist the forces of Philip and his allies, recommended the Athenians to accede to Philip’s request, that they submitted. In the speech On the Peace, which was delivered on this occasion, he professed to make light of the matter; but there can be no doubt that the Athenians felt their humiliation greatly.

Thus, by the autumn of 346, Philip had become by far the strongest power in the Greek world. His influence extended over nearly the whole of North Greece, and over all Thrace, with the exception of the Chersonese, and he was already entering into communication with some of the Peloponnesian States. There was good reason for Isocrates’ anticipation that the day of small states was done, and that the Greek peoples could achieve well-being, if at all, only by subordination to such a controlling power as Philip. Whether he was right in the further view which he expressed in a pamphlet addressed to Philip just at this time, that they would achieve unity best by combining in a common enterprise against the Persian Empire, is perhaps less certain. Probably some such project was already in the mind of Philip; but the unity which the enterprise, when it was undertaken, did impose was but superficial.

The significance of Philip’s success, apart from the proof which it gave of his own skill in planning movements and playing upon both individuals and peoples, was that it emphasized unmistakably the advantages of central and personal control, as compared with the Athenian method of government by discussion with its inevitable delays, its spasmodic activities, its fluctuations of policy, constant only in its assumption that the one thing that ultimately mattered was that the festival-money should not be interfered with; and there was also plainly to be seen the immeasurably greater efficiency of the united Macedonian army, when compared with the disconnected bands of mercenaries who for the most part represented the Greek cities.

Philip, no doubt, was aware of these advantages, and so was Isocrates, who, as a reflective spectator of events, was in some ways more clear-sighted than the politicians themselves. Demosthenes was also aware of them, and it was for that reason that he strove with all his eloquence to rouse his fellow-citizens to fight and act for themselves, and to act in accordance with some consistent policy; and for the same reasons he desired to bring about a combination between Athens and Thebes, such as alone could offer any hope of successful resistance to Philip. Clearly he did not despair of the free city-state. It was his detestation of what seemed to him to be foreign domination that animated all his efforts, and he claimed with justice to be upholding the traditions of which Athens was most proud.

Of his opponents, and in particular of Aeschines, it is less easy to speak with confidence. The charges of corruption which Demosthenes brought against Aeschines are certainly not proved. Philip did, it is true, use money freely to open the gates of cities and to foster Macedonian parties within their walls; but Demosthenes, with all his greatness, was one of those unfortunate persons who find it difficult to ascribe a good motive when they can imagine a bad one; and he saw corruption everywhere. There is no reason to doubt that Aeschines, after the example of his first political leader Eubulus, was convinced that a peace with Philip which secured the Chersonese for Athens, gave her freedom from war, and included (as it did) provisions for the suppression of piracy and the security of the trade-routes by the joint action of Philip and the Athenians, was a compromise worth accepting, even if Amphipolis and most of the Thracian coast passed finally out of Athenian control. As for the Phocians, he had done his best to help them both at Philip’s court and at the Amphictyonic Council; and it was by no means certain that Philip intended anything but friendship towards Athens. In truth, little substantial criticism can be passed upon the main policy of either party at Athens. The divergence between men with imperialistic sentiments and a pride in national traditions, and men whose instinct leads them to care most for peace, with economic prosperity and financial stability, is one which exists everywhere, and is not discreditable to either side. If criticism is to be passed it must be rather upon those faults of temper which marred the attempts of both sides to carry out their policy,—upon the rancour shown by Demosthenes both towards Philip and towards his political opponents in Athens, when a more reasonable demeanour might have secured better results even from his own point of view; upon the liability of Aeschines and his friends to be deceived by Philip’s generosity and his well-timed assurances of good-will; and upon the readiness of both to distort the truth, whether in the Assembly or in the Law Courts. These defects wall appear still more plainly in the years which form the subject of the next chapter.

 

 

CHAPTER IX

MACEDONIAN SUPREMACY IN GREECE