READING HALL

THE DOORS OF WISDOM

GEORGE GROTE'S HISTORY OF GREECE

CHAPTER XCV

GRECIAN AFFAIRS FROM THE LANDING OF ALEXANDER IN ASIA TO THE CLOSE OF THE LAMIAN WAR

Even in 334B.C., when Alexander first entered upon his Asiatic campaigns, the Grecian cities, great as well as small, had been robbed of all their free agency, and existed only as appendages of the kingdom of Macedonia. Several of them were occupied by Macedonian garrisons, or governed by local despots who leaned upon such armed force for support. There existed among them no common idea or public sentiment, formally proclaimed and acted on, except such as it suited Alexander’s purpose to encourage. The miso-Persian sentiment—once a genuine expression of Hellenic patriotism, to the recollection of which Demosthenes was wont to appeal, in animating the Athenians to action against Macedonia, but now extinct and supplanted by nearer appre­hensions—had been converted by Alexander to his own pur­poses, as a pretext for headship, and a help for ensuring submission during his absence in Asia. Greece had become a province of Macedonia; the affairs of the Greeks (observes Aristotle in illustrating a philosophical discussion) are “in the hands of the king.” A public synod of the Greeks sat from time to time at Corinth; but it represented only philo-Macedonian sentiment; all that we know of its proceedings consisted in congratulations to Alexander on his victories. There is no Grecian history of public or political import; there are no facts except the local and municipal details of each city—“ the streets and fountains which we are repairing, and the battlements which we are whitening,” to use a phrase of Demosthenes—the good management of the Athenian finances by the orator Lycurgus, and the contentions of orators respecting private disputes or politics of the past.

But though Grecian history is thus stagnant and suspended during the first years of Alexander’s Asiatic campaigns, it might at any moment have become animated with an active spirit of self-emancipation, if he had experienced reverses, or if the Persians had administered their own affairs with skill and vigour. I have already stated, that during the first two years of the war, the Persian fleet (we ought rather to say, the Phenician fleet in the Persian service) had a decided superiority at sea. Darius possessed untold treasures which might have indefinitely increased that superiority and multi­plied his means of transmarine action, had he chosen to follow the advice of Memnon, by acting vigorously from the sea and strictly on the defensive by land. The movement or quiescence of the Greeks therefore depended on the turn of affairs in Asia; as Alexander himself was well aware.

During the winter of 334-333 B.C., Memnon with the Persian fleet appeared to be making progress among the islands in the riEgean, and the anti-Macedonian Greeks were expecting him farther westward in Euboea and Peloponnesus. Their hopes being dashed by his unexpected death, and still more by Darius’s abandonment of the Memnonian plans, they had next to wait for the chance of what might be achieved by the immense Persian land-force. Even down to the eve of the battle of Issus, Demosthenes and others (as has already been mentioned) were encouraged by their correspondents in Asia to anticipate success for Darius even in pitched battle. But after the great disaster at Issus, during a year and a half (from November 333 B.C.to March or April 331 B.C.), no hope was possible. The Persian force seemed extinct, and Darius was so paralysed by the captivity of his family, that he suffered even the citizens of Tyre and Gaza to perish in their gallant efforts of defence, without the least attempt to save them. At length, in the spring of 331, the prospects again appeared to improve. A second Persian army, countless like the first, was assembling eastward of the Tigris; Alexander advanced into the interior, many weeks’ march from the shores of the . Mediterranean, to attack them; and the Persians doubtless transmitted encouragements with money to enterprising men in Greece, in hopes of provoking auxiliary movements. Presently (October 331) came the catastrophe at Arbela; after which no demonstration against Alexander could have been attempted with any reasonable hope of success.

Such was the varying point of view under which the contest in Asia presented itself to Grecian spectators, during the three years and a half between the landing of Alexander in Asia and the battle of Arbela. As to the leading states in Greece, we have to look at Athens and Sparta only; for Thebes had been destroyed and demolished as a city; and what had been once the citadel of the Cadmea was now a Macedonian garrison. Moreover, besides that garrison, the Boeotian cities, Orchomenus, Plataea, &c., were themselves strongholds of Macedonian dependence; being hostile to Thebes of old, and having received among themselves assignments of all the Theban lands. In case of any movement in Greece, therefore, Antipater, the viceroy of Macedonia, might fairly count on finding in Greece interested allies, serving as no mean check upon Attica.

At Athens, the reigning sentiment was decidedly pacific. Few were disposed to brave the prince who had just given so fearful an evidence of his force by the destruction of Thebes and the enslavement of. the Thebans. Ephialtes and Charidemus, the military citizens at Athens most anti-Macedonian in sentiment, had been demanded as prisoners by Alexander, and had withdrawn to Asia, there to take service with Darius. Other Athenians, men of energy and action, had followed their example, and had fought against Alexander at the Granikus, where they became his prisoners, and were sent to Macedonia to work in fetters at the mines. Ephialtes perished at the siege of Halicarnassus, while defending the place with the utmost gallantry; Charidemus suffered a more unworthy death from the shameful sentence of Darius. The anti-Macedonian leaders who remained at Athens, such as Demosthenes and Lycurgus, were not generals or men of action, but statesmen and orators. They were fully aware that submission to Alexander was a painful necessity, though they watched not the less anxiously for any reverse which might happen to him, such as to make it possible for Athens to head a new struggle on behalf of Grecian freedom.

But it was not Demosthenes or Lycurgus who now guided the general policy of Athens. For the twelve years between the destruction of Thebes and the death of Alexander, Phocion and Demades were her ministers for foreign affairs; two men of totally opposite characters, but coinciding in pacific views, and in looking to the favour of Alexander and Antipater as the principal end to be attained. Twenty Athenian triremes were sent to act with the Macedonian fleet, during Alexander’s first campaign in Asia; these, together with the Athenian prisoners taken at the Granikus, served to him further as a guarantee for the continued submission of the Athenians generally. There can be no doubt that the pacific policy of Phocion was now prudent and essential to Athens, though the same cannot be said (as I have remarked in the proper place) for his advocacy of the like policy twenty years before, when Philip’s power was growing and might have been arrested by vigorous opposition. It suited the purpose of Antipater to ensure his hold upon Athens by frequent presents to Demades, a man of luxurious and extravagant habits. But Phocion, incorruptible as well as poor to the end, declined all similar offers, though often made to him, not only by Anti pater, but even by Alexander.

It deserves particular notice, that though the macedonising policy was now decidedly in the ascendent—accepted, even by dissentients, as the only course admissible under the circumstances, and confirmed the more by each successive victory of Alexander—yet statesmen, like Lycurgus and Demosthenes, of notorious anti-Macedonian sentiment, still held a conspicuous and influential position, though of course restricted to matters of internal administration. Thus Lycurgus continued to be the real acting minister of finance, for three successive Panathenaic intervals of four years each, or for an uninterrupted period of twelve years. He superintended not merely the entire collection, but also the entire disbursement of the public revenue; rendering strict periodical account, yet with a financial authority greater than had belonged to any statesman since Perikles. He improved the gymnasia and stadia of the city—multiplied the donatives and sacred furniture in the temples,—enlarged, or constructed anew, docks and arsenals,—provided a considerable stock of arms and equipments, military as well as naval—and maintained four hundred triremes in a seaworthy condition, for the protection of Athenian commerce. In these extensive functions he was never superseded, though Alexander at one time sent to require the surrender of his person, which was refused by the Athenian people. The main cause of his firm hold upon the public mind, was, his known and indisputable pecuniary probity, wherein he was the parallel of Phocion.

As to Demosthenes, he did not hold any such command­ing public appointments as Lycurgus; but he enjoyed great esteem and sympathy from the people generally, for his marked line of public counsel during the past. The proof of this is to be found in one very significant fact. The indictment, against Ctesiphon’s motion for crowning Demosthenes, was instituted by Aeschines, and official entry made of it before the death of Philip—which event occurred in August 336 B.C. Yet Aeschines did not venture to bring it on for trial until August 330, after Antipater had subdued the ill-fated rising of the Lacedaemonian king Agis; and even at that advantageous moment, when the macedonisers seemed in full triumph, he signally failed. We thus perceive, that though Phocion and Demades were now the leaders of Athenian affairs, as representing a policy which every one felt to be unavoidable—yet the preponderant sentiment of the people went with Demosthenes and Lycurgus. In fact, we shall see that after the Lamian war, Antipater thought it requisite to subdue or punish this sentiment by disfranchising or deporting two-thirds of the citizens. It seems however that the anti-Macedonian statesmen were very cautious of giving offence to Alexander, between 334 and 330 B.C. Ctesiphon accepted a mission of condolence to Kleopatra, sister of Alexander, on the death of her husband Alexander of Epirus; and Demosthenes stands accused of having sent humble and crouching letters to Alexander (the Great) in Phenicia, during the spring of 331. This assertion of Aeschines, though not to be trusted as correct, indicates the general prudence of Demosthenes as to his known and formidable enemy.

It was not from Athens, but from Sparta, that anti­Macedonian movements now took rise. In the decisive battle unsuccessfully fought by Athens and Thebes at Chaeronea against Philip, the Spartans had not been concerned. Their king Archidamus,—who had been active conjointly with Athens in the Sacred War, trying to uphold the Phocians against Philip and the Thebans,—had afterwards withdrawn himself from Central Greece to assist the Tarentines in Italy, and had been slain in a battle against the Messapians. He was succeeded by his son Agis, a brave and enterprising man, under whom the Spartans, though abstaining from hostilities against Philip, resolutely declined to take part in the synod at Corinth, whereby the Macedonian prince was nominated Leader of the Greeks; and even persisted in the same denial on Alexander’s nomination also. When Alexander sent to Athens three hundred panoplies after his victory at the Granikus, to be dedicated in the temple of Athene, he expressly proclaimed in the inscription, that they were dedicated “by Alexander and the Greeks, excepting the Lacedaemonians.” Agis took the lead in trying to procure Persian aid for anti­Macedonian operations in Greece. Towards the close of summer 333, a little before the battle of Issus, he visited the Persian admirals at Chios, to solicit men and money for intended action in Peloponnesus. At that moment, they were not zealous in the direction of Greece, anticipating (as most Asiatics then did) the complete destruction of Alexander in Cilicia. As soon, however, as the disaster of Issus became known, they placed at the disposal of Agis thirty talents and ten triremes; which he employed, under his brother Agesilaus, in making himself master of Crete—feeling that no movement in Greece could be expected at such a discouraging crisis. Agis himself soon afterwards went to that island, having strengthened himself by a division of the Greek mercenaries who had fought under Darius at Issus. In Crete, he appears to have had considerable temporary success ; and even in Peloponnesus, he organised some demonstrations which Alexander sent Amphoterus with a large naval force to repress, in the spring of 331. At that time, Phenicia, Egypt, and all the naval mastery of the Aegean, had passed into the hands of the conqueror, so that the Persians had no direct means of acting upon Greece. Probably Amphoterus recovered Crete, but he had no land-force to attack Agis in Peloponnesus.

In October 331, Darius was beaten at Arbela and became a fugitive in Media, leaving Babylon, Susa, and Persepolis, with the bulk of his immense treasures, as a prey to the conqueror during the coming winter. After such prodigious accessions to Alexander’s force, it would seem that any anti­Macedonian movement, during the spring of 330, must have been obviously hopeless and even insane. Yet it was just then that King Agis found means to enlarge his scale of operations in Peloponnesus, and prevailed on a considerable body of new allies to join him. As to himself personally, he and the Lacedaemonians had been previously in a state of proclaimed war with Macedonia, and therefore incurred little additional risk; moreover, it was one of the effects of the Asiatic disasters to cast back upon Greece small bands of soldiers who had hitherto found service in the Persian armies. These men willingly came to Cape Taenarus to enlist under a warlike king of Sparta; so that Agis found himself at the head of a force which appeared considerable to Peloponnesians, familiar only with the narrow scale of Grecian war-muster, though insignificant as against Alexander or his viceroy in Macedonia. An unexpected ray of hope broke out from the revolt of Memnon, the Macedonian governor of Thrace. Antipater was thus compelled to withdraw some of his forces to a considerable distance from Greece; while Alexander, victorious as he was, being in Persis or Media, east of Mount Zagros, appeared in the eyes of a Greek to have reached the utmost limits of the habitable world. Of this partial encouragement Agis took advantage, to march out of Laconia with all the troops, mercenary and native, that he could muster. He called on the Peloponnesians for a last effort against Macedonian dominion, while Darius still retained all the eastern half of his empire, and while support from him in men and money might yet be anticipated.

Respecting this war, we know very few details. At first, a flush of success appeared to attend Agis. The Eleians, the Achaeans (except Pellene), the Arcadians (except Megalopolis) and some other Peloponnesians, joined his standard; so that he was enabled to collect an army stated at 20,000 foot and 2000 horse. Defeating the first Macedonian forces sent against him, he proceeded to lay siege to Megalopolis; which city, now as previously, was the stronghold of Macedonian influence in the peninsula, and was probably occupied by a Macedonian garrison. An impulse manifested itself at Athens in favour of active sympathy, and equipment of a fleet to aid this anti­Macedonian effort. It was resisted by Phocion and Demades, doubtless upon all views of prudence, but especially upon one financial ground, taken by the latter, that the people would be compelled to forego the Thedric distribution. Even Demosthenes himself, under circumstances so obviously discouraging, could not recommend the formidable step of declaring against Alexander—though he seems to have indulged in the expression of general anti-Macedonian sympathies, and to have com­plained of the helplessness into which Athens had been brought by past bad policy. Antipater, closing the war in Thrace on the best terms that he could, hastened into Greece with his full forces, and reached Peloponnesus in time to relieve Megalopolis, which had begun to be in danger. One decisive battle, which took place in Arcadia, sufficed to terminate the war. Agis and his army, the Lacedaemonians especially, fought with gallantry and desperation, but were completely defeated. Five thousand of their men were slain, including Agis himself; who, though covered with wounds, disdained to leave the field, and fell resisting to the last. The victors, according to one account, lost 3500 men; according to another, 1000 slain, together with a great many wounded. This was a greater loss than Alexander had sustained either at Issus or Arbela; a plain proof, that Agis and his companions, however unfortunate in the result, had manifested courage worthy of the best days of Sparta.

The allied forces were now so completely crushed, that all submitted to Antipater. After consulting the philo-Macedonian synod at Corinth, he condemned the Achaeans and Eleians to pay 120 talents to Megalopolis, and exacted from the Tegeans the punishment of those among their leading men who had advised the war. But he would not take upon him to determine the treatment of the Lacedaemonians without special reference to Alexander. Requiring from them fifty hostages, he sent up to Alexander in Asia some Lacedaemonian envoys or prisoners, to throw themselves on his mercy. We are told that they did not reach the king until a long time afterwards, at Baktra; what he decided about Sparta generally, we do not know.

The rising of the Thebans, not many months after Alexander’s accession, had been the first attempt of the Greeks to emancipate themselves from Macedonian dominion; this enterprise of Agis was the second. Both unfortunately had been partial, without the possibility of any extensive or organised combination beforehand; both ended miserably, riveting the chains of Greece more powerfully than ever. Thus was the self-defensive force of Greece extinguished piecemeal. The scheme of Agis was in fact desperate from the very outset, as against the gigantic power of Alexander; and would perhaps never have been undertaken, had not Agis himself been already compromised in hostility against Macedonia, before the destruction of the Persian force at Issus. This unfortunate prince, without any superior ability (so far as we know), manifested a devoted courage and patriotism worthy of his predecessor Leonidas at Thermopylae; whose renown stands higher, only because the banner which he upheld ultimately triumphed. The Athenians and Aetolians, neither of whom took part with Agis, were now left, without Thebes and Sparta, as the two great military powers of Greece; which will appear presently, when we come to the last struggle for Grecian independence—the Lamian war; better combined and more promising, yet not less disastrous in its result.

Though the strongest considerations of prudence kept Athens quiet during this anti-Macedonian movement in Peloponnesus, a powerful sympathy must have been raised among her citizens while the struggle was going on. Had Agis gained the victory over Antipater, the Athenians might probably have declared in his favour; and although no independent position could have been permanently maintained against so overwhelming an enemy as Alexander, yet considering that he was thoroughly occupied and far in the interior of Asia, Greece might have held out against Antipater for an interval not inconsiderable. In the face of such eventualities, the fears of the macedonising statesmen now in power at Athens, the hopes of their opponents, and the reciprocal antipathies of both, must have become unusually manifest; so that the reaction afterwards, when the Macedonian power became more irresistible than ever, was considered by the enemies of Demosthenes to offer a favourable opportunity for ruining and dishonouring him.

To the political peculiarity of this juncture we owe the judicial contest between the two great Athenian orators’; the memorable accusation of Aeschines against Ctesiphon, for having proposed a crown to Demosthenes—and the still more memorable defence of Demosthenes, on behalf of his friend as well as of himself. It was in the autumn or winter of 337-336 B.C., that Ctesiphon had proposed this vote of public honour in favour of Demosthenes, and had obtained the (probouleuma) preliminary acquiescence of the Senate; it was in the same Attic year, and not long afterwards, that Aeschines attacked the proposition under the Graphe Paranomon, as illegal, unconstitutional, mischievous, and founded on false allegations. More than six years had thus elapsed since the formal entry of the accusation; yet Aeschines had not chosen to bring it to actual trial; which indeed could not be done without some risk to himself, before the numerous and popular judicature of Athens. Twice or thrice before his accusation was entered, other persons had moved to confer the same honour upon Demosthenes, and had been indicted under the Graphe Paranomon; but with such signal ill success, that their accusers did not obtain so much as one-fifth of the suffrages of the Dikasts, and therefore incurred (under the standing regulation of Attic law) a penalty of 1000 drachmae. The like danger awaited Aeschines; and although, in reference to the illegality of Ctesiphon’s motion (which was the direct and ostensible purpose aimed at under the Graphe Paranomon), his indictment was grounded on special circumstances such as the previous accusers may not have been able to show, still it was not his real object to confine himself within this narrow and technical argument. He intended to enlarge the range of accusation, so as to include the whole character and policy of Demosthenes; who would thus, if the verdict went against him, stand publicly dishonoured both as citizen and as politician. Unless this latter purpose were accomplished, indeed, Aeschines gained nothing by bringing the indictment into court; for the mere entry of the indictment would have already produced the effect of preventing the probouleuma from passing into a decree, and the crown from being actually conferred. Doubtless Ctesiphon and Demosthenes might have forced Aeschines to the alternative of either dropping his indictment or bringing it into the Dikastery. But this was a forward challenge, which, in reference to a purely honorary vote, they had not felt bold enough to send; especially after the capture of Thebes in 335 B.C., when the victorious Alexander demanded the surrender of Demosthenes with several other citizens.

In this state of abeyance and compromise—Demosthenes enjoying the inchoate honour of a complimentary vote from the Senate, Aeschines intercepting it from being matured into a vote of the people—both the vote and the indictment had remained for rather more than six years. But the accuser now felt encouraged to push his indictment to trial under the reactionary party feeling, following on abortive anti-Macedonian hopes, which succeeded to the complete victory of Antipater over Agis, and which brought about the accusation of anti­Macedonian citizens in Naxus, Thasos, and other Grecian cities also. Amidst the fears prevalent that the victor would carry his resentment still further, Aeschines could now urge that Athens was disgraced by having adopted or even approved the policy of Demosthenes, and that an emphatic condemna­tion of him was the only way of clearing her from the charge of privity with those who had raised the standard against Macedonian supremacy. In an able and bitter harangue, Aeschines first shows that the motion of Ctesiphon was illegal, in consequence of the public official appointments held by Demosthenes at the moment when it was proposed—next he enters at large into the whole life and character of Demosthenes, to prove him unworthy of such an honour, even if there had been no formal grounds of objection. He distributes the entire life of Demosthenes into four periods, the first ending at the peace of 346 B.C. between Philip and the Athenians—the second, ending with the breaking out of the next ensuing war in 341-340—the third, ending with the disaster at Chaeronea—the fourth, comprising all the time following. Throughout all the four periods, he denounces the conduct of Demosthenes as having been corrupt, treacherous, cowardly, and ruinous to the city. What is more surprising still—he expressly charges him with gross subservience both to Philip and to Alexander, at the very time when he was taking credit for a patriotic and intrepid opposition to them.

That Athens had undergone sad defeat and humiliation, having been driven from her independent and even presidential position into the degraded character of a subject Macedonian city, since the time when Demosthenes first began political life—was a fact but too indisputable. Aeschines even makes this a part of his case; arraigning the traitorous mismanagement of Demosthenes as the cause of so melancholy a revolution, and denouncing him as candidate for public compliment on no better plea than a series of public calamities. Having thus animadverted on the conduct of Demosthenes prior to the battle of Chaeronea, Aeschines proceeds to the more recent past, and contends that Demosthenes cannot be sincere in his pretended enmity to Alexander, because he has let slip three successive occasions, all highly favourable, for instigating Athens to hostility against the Macedonians. Of these three occasions, the earliest was, when Alexander first crossed into Asia; the second, immediately before the battle of Issus; the third, during the flush of success obtained by Agis in Peloponnesus. On none of these occasions did Demosthenes call for any public action against Macedonia; a proof (according to Aeschines) that his anti-Macedonian professions were insincere.

I have more than once remarked, that considering the bitter enmity between the two orators, it is rarely safe to trust the unsupported allegation of either against the other. But in regard to the last-mentioned charges advanced by Aeschines, there is enough of known fact, and we have independent evidence, such as is not often before us, to appreciate him as an accuser of Demosthenes. The victorious career of Alexander, set forth in the preceding chapters, proves amply that not one of the three periods, here indicated by Aeschines, presented even decent encouragement for a reasonable Athenian patriot to involve his country in warfare against so formidable an enemy. Nothing can be more frivolous than these charges against Demosthenes, of having omitted promising seasons for anti-Macedonian operations. Partly for this reason, probably, Demosthenes does not notice them in his reply; still more, perhaps, on another ground, that it was not safe to speak out what he thought and felt about Alexander. His reply dwells altogether upon the period before the death of Philip. Of the boundless empire subsequently acquired, by the son of Philip, he speaks only to mourn it as a wretched visitation of fortune, which has desolated alike the Hellenic and the barbaric world—in which Athens has been engulphed along with others—and from which even those faithless and trimming Greeks, who helped to aggrandise Philip, have not escaped better than Athens, nor indeed so well.

I shall not here touch upon the Demosthenic speech De Corona in a rhetorical point of view, nor add anything to those encomiums which have been pronounced upon it with one voice, both in ancient and in modern times, as the unapproachable masterpiece of Grecian oratory. To this work it belongs as a portion of Grecian history; a retrospect of the efforts made by a patriot and a statesman to uphold the dignity of Athens and the autonomy of the Grecian world, against a dangerous aggressor from without. How these efforts were directed, and how they lamentably failed, has been recounted in my preceding chapters. Demosthenes here passes them in review, replying to the criminations against his public conduct during the interval of ten years, between the peace of 346 B.C. (or the period immediately preceding it) and the death of Philip. It is remarkable, that though professing to enter upon a defence of his whole public life, he nevertheless can afford to leave unnoticed that portion of it which is perhaps the most honourable to him—the early period of his first Philippics and Olynthiacs—when, though a politician as yet immature and of he established footing, he was the first to descry in the distance the perils threatened by Philip’s aggrandisement, and the loudest in calling for timely and energetic precautions against it, in spite of apathy and murmurs from older politicians as well as from the general public. Beginning with the peace of 346 B.C., Demosthenes vindicates his own share in the antecedents of that event against the charges of Aeschines, whom he denounces as the cause of all the mischief; a controversy which I have already tried to elucidate in a former chapter. Passing next to the period after that peace—to the four years first of hostile diplomacy, then of hostile action, against Philip, which ended with the disaster of Chaeronea—Demosthenes is not satisfied with simple vindication. He reasserts this policy as matter of pride and honour, in spite of its results. He congratulates his countrymen on having manifested a Pan-Hellenic patriotism worthy of their forefathers, and takes to himself only the credit of having been forward to proclaim and carry out this glorious sentiment common to all. Fortune has been adverse; yet the vigorous anti-Macedonian policy was no mistake; Demosthenes swears it by the combatants of Marathon, Plataea and Salamis. To have had a foreign dominion obtruded upon Greece, is an overwhelming calamity; but to have had this accomplished without strenuous resistance on the part of Athens, would have been calamity aggravated by dishonour.

Conceived in this sublime strain, the reply of Demosthenes to his rival has an historical value, as a funeral oration of extinct Athenian and Grecian freedom. Six years before, the orator had been appointed by his countrymen to deliver the usual public oration over the warriors slain at Chaeronea. That speech is now lost, but it probably touched upon the same topics. Though the sphere of action, of every Greek city as well as of every Greek citizen, was now cramped and confined by irresistible Macedonian force, there still remained the sentiment of full political freedom and dignity enjoyed during the past—the admiration of ancestors who had once defended it successfully—and the sympathy with leaders who had recently stood forward to uphold it, however unsuccess­fully. It is among the most memorable facts in Grecian history, that in spite of the victory of Philip at Chaeronea—in spite of the subsequent conquest of Thebes by Alexander, and the danger of Athens after it—in spite of the Asiatic conquests which had since thrown all Persian force into the hands of the Macedonian king—the Athenian people could never be persuaded either to repudiate Demosthenes, or to disclaim sympathy with his political policy. How much art and ability was employed, to induce them to do so, by his numerous enemies, the speech of Aeschines is enough to teach us. And when we consider how easily the public sicken of schemes which end in misfortune—how great a mental relief is usually obtained by throwing blame on unsuccessful leaders—it would have been no matter of surprise, if, in one of the many prosecutions wherein the fame of Demosthenes was involved, the Dikasts had given a verdict unfavourable to him. That he always came off acquitted, and even honourably acquitted, is a proof of rare fidelity and steadiness of temper in the Athenians. It is a proof that those noble, patriotic, and Pan-Hellenic sentiments, which we constantly find inculcated in his orations, throughout a period of twenty years, had sunk into the minds of his hearers; and that amidst the many general allegations of corruption against him, loudly proclaimed by his enemies, there was no one well-ascertained fact which they could substantiate before the Dikastery.

The indictment now preferred by Aeschines against Ctesiphon only procured for Demosthenes a new triumph. When the suffrages of the Dikasts were counted, Aeschines did not obtain so much as one-fifth. He became therefore liable to the customary fine of 1000 drachmae. It appears that he quitted Athens immediately, without paying the fine, and retired into Asia, from whence he never returned. He is said to have opened a rhetorical school at Rhodes, and to have gone into the interior of Asia during the last year of Alexander’s life (at the time when that monarch was ordaining on the Grecian cities compulsory restoration of all their exiles), in order to procure assistance for returning to Athens. This project was disappointed by Alexander’s death.

We cannot suppose that Aeschines was unable to pay the fine of 1000 drachma, or to find friends who would pay it for him. It was not therefore legal compulsion, but the extreme disappointment and humiliation of so signal a defeat, which made him leave Athens. We must remember that this was a gratuitous challenge sent by himself; that the celebrity of the two rivals had brought together auditors, not merely from Athens, but from various other Grecian cities; and that the effect of the speech of Demosthenes in his own defence—delivered with all his perfection of voice and action, and not only electrifying hearers by the sublimity of its public sentiment, but also full of admirably managed self-praise, and contemptuous bitterness towards his rival—must have been inexpressibly powerful and commanding. Probably the friends of Aeschines became themselves angry with him for having brought the indictment forward. For the effect of his defeat must have been that the vote of the Senate which he indicted, was brought forward and passed in the public assembly; and that Demosthenes must have received a public coronation. In no other way, under the existing circumstances of Athens, could Demosthenes have obtained so emphatic a compliment. It is hardly surprising, therefore, that such a mortification was insupportable to Aeschines. He became disgusted with his native city. We read that afterwards, in his rhetorical school at Rhodes, he one day declaimed, as a lesson to his pupils, the successful oration of his rival, De Corona. Of course it excited a burst of admiration. “What, if you had heard the beast himself speak it”—exclaimed Aeschines.

From this memorable triumph of the illustrious orator and defendant, we have to pass to another trial—a direct accusation brought against him, from which he did not escape so successfully. We are compelled here to jump over five years and a half (August 330 to January 324) during which we have no information about Grecian history; the interval be­tween Alexander’s march into Bactria and his return to Persis and Susiana. Displeased with the conduct of the satraps during his absence, Alexander put to death or punished several, and directed the rest to disband without delay the mercenary soldiers whom they had taken into pay. This peremptory order filled both Asia and Europe with roving detachments of unprovided soldiers, some of whom sought subsistence in the Grecian islands and on the Lacedaemonian southern coast, at Cape Taenarus in Laconia.

It was about this period (the beginning of 324) that Harpalus the satrap of Babylonia and Syria, becoming alarmed at the prospect of being punished by Alexander for his ostentatious prodigalities, fled from Asia into Greece, with a considerable treasure and a body of 5000 soldiers. While satrap, he had invited into Asia, in succession, two Athenian women as mistresses, Pythionike and Glykera, to each of whom he was much attached, and whom he entertained with lavish expense and pomp. On the death of the first, he testified his sorrow by two costly funereal monuments to her memory; one at Babylon, the other in Attica, between Athens and Eleusis. With Glykera he is said to have resided at Tarsus in Cilicia—to have ordered that men should prostrate themselves before her, and address her as queen—and to have erected her statue along with his own at Rhossus, a seaport on the confines of Cilicia and Syria. To please these mistresses, or perhaps to ensure a retreat for himself in case of need, he had sent to Athens profuse gifts of wheat for distribution among the people, for which he had received votes of thanks with the grant of Athenian citizenship. Moreover he had consigned to Charicles, son-in-law of Phocion, the task of erecting the monument in Attica to the honour of Pythionike, with a large remittance of money for the purpose. The profit or embezzlement arising out of this expenditure secured to him the good-will of Charicles —a man very different from his father-in-law, the honest and austere Phocion. Other Athenians were probably conciliated by various presents, so that when Harpalus found it convenient to quit Asia, about the beginning of 324, he had already acquired some hold both on the public of Athens and on some of her leading men. He sailed with his treasure and his armament straight to Cape Sunium in Attica, from whence he sent to ask shelter and protection in that city.

The first reports transmitted to Asia appear to have proclaimed that the Athenians had welcomed Harpalus as a friend and ally, thrown off the Macedonian yoke, and prepared for a war to re-establish Hellenic freedom. Such is the colour of the case, as presented in the satiric drama called Agen, exhibited before Alexander in the Dionysiac festival at Susa, in February or March. Such news, connecting itself in Alexander’s mind with the recent defeat of Zopyrion in Thrace and other disorders of the disbanded mercenaries, incensed him so much, that he at first ordered a fleet to be equipped, determining to cross over and attack Athens in person. But he was presently calmed by more correct intelligence, certifying that the Athenians had positively refused to espouse the cause of Harpalus.

The fact of such final rejection by the Athenians is quite indisputable. But it seems, as far as we can make out from imperfect evidence, that this step was not taken without debate, nor without symptoms of a contrary disposition, sufficient to explain the rumours first sent to Alexander. The first arrival of Harpalus with his armament at Sunium, indeed, excited alarm, as if he were coming to take possession of Piraeus; and the admiral Philokles was instructed to adopt precautions for defence of the harbour. But Harpalus, sending away his armament to Crete or to Taenarus, solicited and obtained per­mission to come to Athens, with a single ship and his own personal attendants. What was of still greater moment, he brought with him a large sum of money, amounting, we are told, to upwards of 700 talents. We must recollect that he was already favourably known to the people by large presents of corn, which had procured for him a vote of citizenship. He now threw himself upon their gratitude as a suppliant seeking protection against the wrath of Alexander; and while entreating from the Athenians an interference so hazardous to themselves, he did not omit to encourage them by exaggerating the means at his own disposal. He expatiated on the universal hatred and discontent felt against Alexander, and held out assurance of being joined by powerful allies, foreign as well as Greek, if once a city like Athens would raise the standard of liberation. To many Athenian patriots, more ardent than long-sighted, such appeals inspired both sympathy and confidence. Moreover Harpalus would of course purchase every influential partisan who would accept a bribe; in addition to men like Charicles, who were already in his interest. His cause was espoused by Hyperides, an earnest anti-Macedonian citizen, and an orator second only to Demosthenes. There seems good reason for believing that, at first, a strong feeling was excited in favour of taking part with the exile; the people not being daunted even by the idea of war with Alexander.

Phocion, whom Harpalus vainly endeavoured to corrupt, resisted of course the proposition of espousing his cause. And Demosthenes also resisted it, not less decidedly, from the very outset. Notwithstanding all his hatred of Macedonian supremacy, he could not be blind to the insanity of declaring war against Alexander. Indeed those who study his orations throughout, will find his counsels quite as much distinguished for prudence as for vigorous patriotism. His prudence on this occasion, however, proved injurious to his political position; for while it incensed Hyperides and the more sanguine anti-Macedonians, it probably did not gain for himself anything beyond a temporary truce from his old macedonising opponents.

The joint opposition of politicians so discordant as Demosthenes and Phocion, prevailed over the impulse which the partisans of Harpalus had created. No decree could be obtained in his favour. Presently however the case was complicated by the coming of envoys from Antipater and Olympias in Macedonia, requiring that he should be surrendered. The like requisition was also addressed by the Macedonian admiral Philoxenus, who arrived with a small squadron from Asia. These demands were refused, at the instance of Phocion no less than of Demosthenes. Nevertheless the prospects of Macedonian vengeance were now brought in such fearful proximity before the people, that all disposition to support Harpalus gave way to the necessity of propitiating Alexander. A decree was passed to arrest Harpalus, and to place all his money under sequestration in the acropolis, until special directions could be received from Alexander; to whom, apparently, envoys were sent, carrying with them the slaves of Harpalus to be interrogated by him, and instructed to solicit a lenient sentence at his hands. Now it was Demosthenes who moved these decrees for personal arrest and for sequestration of the money; whereby he incurred still warmer resentment from Hyperides and the other Harpalian partisans, who denounced him as a subservient creature of the all­powerful monarch. Harpalus was confined, but presently made his escape; probably much to the satisfaction of Phocion, Demosthenes, and every one else; for even those who were most anxious to get rid of him would recoil from the odium and dishonour of surrendering him, even under constraint, to a certain death. He fled to Crete, where he was soon after slain by one of his own companions.

At the time when the decrees for arrest and sequestration were passed, Demosthenes requested a citizen near him to ask Harpalus publicly in the assembly, what was the amount of his money, which the people had just resolved to impound. Harpalus answered, 720 talents; and Demosthenes proclaimed this sum to the people, on the authority of Harpalus, dwelling with some emphasis upon its magnitude. But when the money came to be counted in the acropolis, it was discovered that there was in reality no more than 350 talents. Now it is said that Demosthenes did not at once communicate to the people this prodigious deficiency in the real sum as compared with the announcement of Harpalus, repeated in the public assembly by himself. The impression prevailed, for how long a time we do not know, that 720 Harpalian talents had actually been lodged in the acropolis; and when the truth became at length known, great surprise and outcry were excited. It was assumed that the missing half of the sum set forth must have been employed in corruption; and suspicions prevailed against almost all the orators, Demosthenes and Hyperides both included.

In this state of doubt, Demosthenes moved that the Senate of Areopagus should investigate the matter and report who were the presumed delinquents fit to be indicted before the Dikastery; he declared in the speech accompanying his motion that the real delinquents, whoever they might be, deserved to be capitally punished. The Areopagites delayed their report for six months, though Demosthenes is said to have called for it with some impatience. Search was made in the houses of the leading orators, excepting only one who was recently married. At length the report appeared, enumerating several names of citizens chargeable with the appropriation of this money, and specifying how much had been taken by each. Among these names were Demosthenes himself, charged with 20 talents—Demades charged with 6000 golden staters—and other citizens, with different sums attached to their names. Upon this report, ten public accusers were appointed to prosecute the indictment against the persons specified, before the Dikastery. Among the accusers was Hyperides, whose name had not been comprised in the Areopagitic report. Demosthenes was brought to trial first of all the persons accused, before a numerous Dikastery of 1500 citizens, who confirmed the report of the Areopagites, found him guilty, and condemned him to pay fifty talents to the state. Not being able to discharge this large fine, he was put in prison; but after some days he found means to escape, and fled to Troezen in Peloponnesus, where he passed some months as a dispirited and sorrowing exile, until the death of Alexander. What was done with the other citizens included in the Areopagitic report, we do not know. It appears that Demades—who was among those comprised, and who is especially attacked, along with Demosthenes, by both Hyperides and Deinarchus—did not appear to take his trial, and therefore must have been driven into exile; yet if so, he must have speedily returned, since he seems to have been at Athens when Alexander died. Philokles and Aristogeiton were also brought to trial as being included by the Areopagus in the list of delinquents; but how their trial ended, does not appear.

This condemnation and banishment of Demosthenes—unquestionably the greatest orator, and one of the greatest citizens, in Athenian antiquity—is the most painful result of the debates respecting the exile Harpalus. Demosthenes himself denied the charge; but unfortunately we possess neither his defence, nor the facts alleged in evidence against him; so that our means of forming a positive conclusion are imperfect. At the same time, judging from the circumstances as far as we know them, there are several which go to show his innocence, and none which tend to prove him guilty. If we are called upon to believe that he received money from Harpalus, we must know for what service the payment was made. Did Demosthenes take part with Harpalus, and advise the Athenians to espouse his cause? Did he even keep silence, and abstain from advising them to reject the propositions? Quite the reverse. Demosthenes was from the beginning a declared opponent of Harpalus, and of all measures for supporting his cause. Plutarch indeed tells an anecdote—that Demosthenes began by opposing Harpalus, but that presently he was fascinated by the beauty of a golden cup among the Harpalian treasures. Harpalus, perceiving his admiration, sent to him on the ensuing night the golden cup, together with twenty talents, which Demosthenes accepted. A few days afterwards, when the cause of Harpalus was again debated in the public assembly, the orator appeared with his throat enveloped in woollen wrappers, and affected to have lost his voice; upon which the people, detecting this simulated inability as dictated by the bribe which had been given, expressed their displeasure partly by sarcastic taunts, partly by indignant murmuring. So stands the anecdote in Plutarch. But we have proof that it is untrue. Demosthenes may indeed have been disabled by sore-throat from speaking at some particular assembly; so far the story may be accurate. But that he desisted from opposing Harpalus (the real point of the allegation against him) is certainly not true; for we know, from his accusers Deinarchus and Hyperides, that it was he who made the final motion for imprisoning Harpalus and sequestrating the Harpalian treasure in trust for Alexander. In fact, Hyperides himself denounces Demosthenes, as having, from subservience to Alexander, closed the door against Harpalus and his prospects. Such direct and continued opposition is a conclusive proof that Demosthenes was neither paid nor bought by Harpalus. The only service which he rendered to the exile was, by refusing to deliver him to Antipater, and by not preventing his escape from imprisonment. Now in this refusal even Phocion concurred; and probably the best Athenians, of all parties, were desirous of favouring the escape of an exile whom it would have been odious to hand over to a Macedonian executioner. In so far as it was a crime not to have prevented the escape of Harpalus, the crime was committed as much by Phocion as by Demosthenes; and indeed more, seeing that Phocion was one of the generals, exercising the most important administrative duties—while Demosthenes was only an orator and mover in the assembly. Moreover, Harpalus had no means of requiting the persons, whoever they were, to whom he owed his escape; for the same motion which decreed his arrest, decreed also the sequestration of his money, and thus removed it from his own control.

The charge therefore made against Demosthenes by his two accusers,—that he received money from Harpalus,—is one which all the facts known to us tend to refute. But this is not quite the whole case. Had Demosthenes the means of embezzling the money, after it had passed out of the control of Harpalus? To this question also we may reply in the negative, so far as Athenian practice enables us to judge.

Demosthenes had moved, and the people had voted, that these treasures should be lodged, in trust for Alexander, in the acropolis; a place where all the Athenian public money was habitually kept—in the back chamber of the Parthenon. When placed in that chamber, these new treasures would come under the custody of the officers of the Athenian exchequer; and would be just as much out of the reach of Demosthenes as the rest of the public money. What more could Phocion himself have done to preserve the Harpalian fund intact, than to put it in the recognised place of surety? Then, as to the intermediate process, of taking the money from Harpalus up to the acropolis, there is no proof,—and in my judgement no probability,—that Demosthenes was at all concerned in it Even to count, verify, and weigh, a sum not in bank notes or bills of exchange, but subdivided in numerous and heavy coins (staters, darics, tetradrachms), likely to be not even Attic, but Asiatic—must have been a tedious duty requiring to be performed by competent reckoners, and foreign to the habits of Demosthenes. The officers of the Athenian treasury must have gone through this labour, providing the slaves or mules requisite for carrying so heavy a burthen up to the acropolis. Now we have ample evidence, from the remaining Inscriptions, that the details of transferring and verifying the public property, at Athens, were performed habitually with laborious accuracy. Least of all would such accuracy be found wanting in the case of the large Harpalian treasure, where the very passing of the decree implied great fear of Alexander. If Harpalus, on being publicly questioned in the assembly—What was the sum to be carried up into the acropolis,—answered by stating the amount which he had originally brought, and not that which he had remaining—Demosthenes might surely repeat that statement immediately after him, without being understood thereby to bind himself down as guarantee for its accuracy. An adverse pleader, like Hyperides, might indeed turn a point in his speech—“You told the assembly that there were 700 talents, and now you produce no more than half”—but the imputation wrapped up in these words against the probity of Demosthenes, is utterly groundless. Lastly, when the true amount was ascertained, to make report thereof was the duty of the officers of the treasury. Demosthenes could learn it only from them; and it might certainly be proper in him, though in no sense an imperative duty, to inform himself on the point, seeing that he had un­consciously helped to give publicity to a false statement. The true statement was given; but we neither know by whom, nor how soon.

Reviewing the facts known to us, therefore, we find them all tending to refute the charge against Demosthenes. This conclusion will certainly be strengthened by reading the accusa­tory speech composed by Deinarchus; which is mere virulent invective, barren of facts and evidentiary matter, and running over all the life of Demosthenes for the preceding twenty years. That the speech of Hyperides also was of the like desultory character, the remaining fragments indicate. Even the report made by the Areopagus contained no recital of facts—no justificatory matter—nothing except a specification of names with the sums for which each of them was chargeable. It appears to have been made ex-parte, as far as we can judge— that is, made without hearing these persons in their own defence, unless they happened to be themselves Areopagites. Yet this report is held forth both by Hyperides and Deinarchus as being in itself conclusive proof which the Dikasts could not reject. When Demosthenes demanded, as every defendant naturally would, that the charge against him should be proved by some positive evidence, Hyperides sets aside the demand as nothing better than cavil and special pleading.

One further consideration remains to be noticed. Only nine months after the verdict of the Dikastery against Demosthenes, Alexander died. Presently the Athenians and other Greeks rose against Antipater in the struggle called the Lamian war. Demosthenes was then recalled; received from his countrymen an enthusiastic welcome, such as had never been accorded to any returning exile since the days of Alkibiades; took a leading part in the management of the war; and perished, on its disastrous termination, along with his accuser Hyperides.

Such speedy revolution of opinion about Demosthenes, countenances the conclusion which seems to me suggested by the other circumstances of the case—that the verdict against him was not judicial, but political; growing out of the embarrassing necessities of the time.

There can be no doubt that Harpalus, to whom a declaration of active support from the Athenians was matter of life and death, distributed various bribes to all consenting recipients, who could promote his views,—and probably even to some who simply refrained from opposing them; to all, in short, except pronounced opponents. If we were to judge from probabilities alone, we should say that Hyperides himself, as one of the chief supporters, would also be among the largest recipients. Here was abundant bribery—notorious in the mass, though perhaps untraceable in the detail—all consummated during the flush of promise which marked the early discussions of the Harpalian case. When the tide of sentiment turned—when fear of Macedonian force became the overwhelming sentiment—when Harpalus and his treasures were impounded in trust for Alexander—all these numerous receivers of bribes were already compromised and alarmed. They themselves probably, in order to divert suspicion, were among the loudest in demanding investigation and punishment against delinquents. Moreover, the city was responsible for 700 talents to Alexander, while no more than 350 were forthcoming. It was indispensable that some definite individuals should be pronounced guilty and punished, partly in order to put down the reciprocal criminations circulating through the city, partly in order to appease the displeasure of Alexander about the pecuniary deficiency. But how to find out who were the guilty? There was no official Prosecutor-general; the number of persons suspected would place the matter beyond the reach of private accusations; perhaps the course recom­mended by Demosthenes himself was the best, to consign this preliminary investigation to the Areopagites.

Six months elapsed before these Areopagites made their report. Now it is impossible to suppose that all this time could have been spent in the investigation of facts—and if it had been, the report when published would have contained some trace of these facts, instead of embodying a mere list of names and sums. The probability is, that their time was passed quite as much in party-discussions as in investigating facts; that dissentient parties were long in coming to an agreement whom they should sacrifice; and that when they did agree, it was a political rather than a judicial sentence, singling out Demosthenes as a victim highly acceptable to Alexander, and embodying Demades also, by way of compromise, in the same list of delinquents—two opposite politicians, both at the moment obnoxious. I have already observed that Demosthenes was at that time unpopular with both the reigning parties; with the philo-Macedonians, from long date, and not without sufficient reason; with the anti-Macedonians, because he had stood prominent in opposing Harpalus. His accusers count upon the hatred of the former against him, as a matter of course; they recommend him to the hatred of the latter, as a base creature of Alexander. The Dikasts doubtless included men of both parties; and as a collective body, they might probably feel, that to ratify the list presented by the Areopagus was the only way of finally closing a subject replete with danger and discord.

Such seems the probable history of the Harpalian transactions. It leaves Demosthenes innocent of corrupt profit, not less than Phocion; but to the Athenian politicians generally, it is noway creditable; while it exhibits the judicial conscience of Athens as under pressure of dangers from without, worked upon by party-intrigues within.

During the half-year and more which elapsed between the arrival of Harpalus at Athens and the trial of Demosthenes, one event at least of considerable moment occurred in Greece. Alexander sent Nikanor to the great Olympic festival held in this year, with a formal letter or rescript, directing every Grecian city to recall all its citizens that were in exile, except such as were under the taint of impiety. The rescript, which was publicly read at the festival by the herald who had gained the prize for loudness of voice, was heard with the utmost enthusiasm by 20,000 exiles, who had mustered there from intimations that such a step was intended. It ran thus: “King Alexander to the exiles out of the Grecian cities. We have not been authors of your banishment, but we will be authors of your restoration to your native cities. We have written to Antipater about this matter, directing him to apply force to such cities as will not recall you of their own accord.”

It is plain that many exiles had been pouring out their complaints and accusations before Alexander, and had found him a willing auditor. But we do not know by what representations this rescript had been procured. It would seem that Antipater had orders further, to restrain or modify the confederacies of the Achaean and Arcadian cities; and to enforce not merely recall of the exiles, but restitution of their properties.

That the imperial rescript was dictated by mistrust of the tone of sentiment in the Grecian cities generally, and intended to fill each city with devoted partisans of Alexander—we cannot doubt. It was on his part a high-handed and sweeping exercise of sovereignty—setting aside the conditions under which he had been named leader of Greece—disdaining even to inquire into particular cases, and to attempt a distinction between just and unjust sentences—overruling in the mass the political and judicial authorities in every, city. It proclaimed with bitter emphasis the servitude of the Hellenic world. Exiles restored under the coercive order of Alexander were sure to look to Macedonia for support, to despise their own home authorities, and to fill their respective cities with enfeebling discord. Most of the cities, not daring to resist, appear to have yielded a reluctant obedience; but both the Athenians and Aetolians are said to have refused to execute the order. It is one evidence of the disgust raised by the rescript at Athens, that Demosthenes is severely reproached by Deinarchus, because, as chief of the Athenian Theory or sacred legation to the Olympic festival, he was seen there publicly consorting and in familiar converse with Nikanor.

In the winter or early spring of 323 several Grecian cities sent envoys into Asia to remonstrate with Alexander against the measure ; we may presume that the Athenians were among them, but we do not know whether the remonstrance produced any effect. There appears to have been considerable discontent in Greece during this winter and spring (B.C.). The disbanded soldiers out of Asia still maintained a camp at Taenarus; where Leosthenes, an energetic Athenian of anti­Macedonian sentiments, accepted the command of them, and even attracted fresh mercenary soldiers from Asia, under concert with various confederates at Athens, and with the Aetolians. Of the money, said to be 5000 talents, brought by Harpalus out of Asia, the greater part had not been taken by Harpalus to Athens, but apparently left with his officers for the maintenance of the troops who had accompanied him over.

Such was the general position of affairs when Alexander died at Babylon in June 323. This astounding news, for which no one could have been prepared, must have become diffused throughout Greece during the month of July. It opened the most favourable prospects to all lovers of freedom and sufferers by Macedonian dominion. The imperial military force resembled the gigantic Polyphemus after his eye had been blinded by Odysseus: Alexander had left no competent heir, nor did any one imagine that his vast empire could be kept together in effective unity by other hands. Antipater in Macedonia was threatened with the defection of various subject neighbours.

No sooner was the death of Alexander indisputably certified, than the anti-Macedonian leaders in Athens vehemently instigated the people to declare themselves first champions of Hellenic freedom, and to organise a confederacy throughout Greece for that object. Demosthenes was then in exile; but Leosthenes, Hyperides and other orators of the same party, found themselves able to kindle in their countrymen a warlike feeling and determination, in spite of decided opposition on the part of Phocion and his partisans. The rich men for the most part took the side of Phocion, but the mass of the citizens were fired by the animating recollection of their ancestors and by the hopes of reconquering Grecian freedom. A vote was passed, publicly proclaiming their resolution to that effect. It was decreed that 200 quadriremes and 40 triremes should be equipped; that all Athenians under 40 years of age should be in military requisition; and that envoys should be sent round to the various Grecian cities, earnestly invoking their alliance in the work of self-emancipation. Phocion, though a pronounced opponent of such warlike projects, still remained at Athens, and still, apparently, continued in his functions as one of the generals. But Pytheas, Kallimedon, and others of his friends, fled to Antipater, whom they strenuously assisted in trying to check the intended movement throughout Greece.

Leosthenes, aided by some money and arms from Athens, put himself at the head of the mercenaries assembled at Taenarus, and passed across the Gulf into Aetolia. Here he was joined by the Aetolians and Acarnanians, who eagerly entered into the league with Athens for expelling the Macedonians from Greece. Proceeding onward towards Thermopylae and Thessaly, he met with favour and encouragement almost everywhere. The cause of Grecian freedom was espoused by the Phocians, Locrians, Dorians, Oenianes, Athamenes, and Dolopes; by most of the Malians, Oetaens, Thessalians, and Achaeans of Phthiotis; by the inhabitants of Leukas, and by some of the Molossians. Promises were also held out of co-operation from various Illyrian and Thracian tribes. In Peloponnesus, the Argeians, Sicyonians, Epidaurians, Troezenians, Eleians, and Messenians, enrolled themselves in the league, as well as the Karystians in Euboea. These adhesions were partly procured by Hyperides and other Athenian envoys, who visited the several cities; while Pytheas and other envoys were going round in like manner to advocate the cause of Antipater. The two sides were thus publicly argued by able pleaders before different public assemblies. In these debates, the advantage was generally on the side of the Athenian orators, whose efforts moreover were powerfully seconded by the voluntary aid of Demosthenes, then living as an exile in Peloponnesus.

To Demosthenes the death of Alexander, and the new prospect of organising an anti-Macedonian confederacy with some tolerable chance of success, came more welcome than to any one else. He gladly embraced the opportunity of joining and assisting the Athenian envoys, who felt the full value of his energetic eloquence, in the various Peloponnesian towns. So effective was the service which he thus rendered to his country, that the Athenians not only passed a vote to enable him to return, but sent a trireme to fetch him to Peiraeus. Great was the joy and enthusiasm on his arrival. The archons, the priests, and the entire body of citizens, came down to the harbour to welcome his landing, and escorted him to the city. Full of impassioned emotion, Demosthenes poured forth his gratitude for having been allowed to see such a day, and to enjoy a triumph greater even than that which had been conferred on Alkibiades on returning from exile; since it had been granted spontaneously, and not extorted by force. His fine could not be remitted consistently with Athenian custom; but the people passed a vote granting to him fifty talents as super­intendent of the periodical sacrifice to Zeus Soter; and his execution of this duty was held equivalent to a liquidation of the fine.

What part Demosthenes took in the plans or details of the war, we are not permitted to know. Vigorous operations were now carried on, under the military command of Leosthenes. The confederacy against Antipater included a larger assemblage of Hellenic states than that which had resisted Xerxes in 480 B.C. Nevertheless, the name of Sparta does not appear in the list It was a melancholy drawback to the chances of Greece, in this her last struggle for emancipation, that the force of Sparta had been altogether crushed in the gallant but ill-concerted effort of Agis against Antipater seven years before, and had not since recovered. The great stronghold of Macedonian interest, in the interior of Greece, was Boeotia. Plataea, Orchomenus, and the other ancient enemies of Thebes, having received from Alexander the domain once belonging to Thebes herself, were well aware that this arrangement could only be upheld by the continued pressure of Macedonian supremacy in Greece. It seems probable also that there were Macedonian garrisons in the Cadmea—in Corinth—and in Megalopolis ; moreover, that the Arcadian and Achaean cities had been macedonised by the measures taken against them under Alexander’s orders in the preceding summer; for we find no mention made of these cities in the coming contest. The Athenians equipped a considerable land-force to join Leosthenes at Thermopylae; a citizen force of 5000 infantry and 500 cavalry, with 2000 mercenaries besides. But the resolute opposition of the Boeotian cities hindered them from advancing beyond Mount Cithaeron, until Leosthenes himself, marching from Thermopylae to join them with a part of his army, attacked the Boeotian troops, gained a complete victory, and opened the passage. He now proceeded with the full Hellenic muster, including Aetolians and Athenians, into Thessaly to meet Antipater, who was advancing from Macedonia into Greece at the head of the force immediately at his disposal—13,000 infantry and 600 cavalry—and with a fleet of no ships of war co-operating on the coast.

Antipater was probably not prepared for this rapid and imposing assemblage of the combined Greeks at Thermopylae, nor for the energetic movements of Leosthenes. Still less was he prepared for the defection of the Thessalian cavalry, who, having always formed an important element in the Macedonian army, now lent their strength to the Greeks. He despatched urgent messages to the Macedonian commanders in Asia—Craterus, Leonnatus, Philotas, &c., soliciting reinforcements; but in the meantime he thought it expedient to accept the challenge of Leosthenes. In the battle which ensued, however, he was completely defeated, and even cut off from the possibility of retreating into Macedonia. No better resource was left to him than the fortified town of Lamia (near to the river Spercheius, beyond the southern border of Thessaly), where he calculated on holding out until relief came from Asia. Leosthenes immediately commenced the siege of Lamia, and pressed it with the utmost energy, making several attempts to storm the town. But its fortifications were strong, with a garrison ample and efficient—so that he was repulsed with considerable loss. Unfortunately he possessed no battering train nor engineers, such as had formed so powerful an element in the military successes of Philip and Alexander. He therefore found himself compelled to turn the siege into a blockade, and to adopt systematic measures for intercepting the supply of provisions. In this he had every chance of succeeding, and of capturing the person of Antipater. Hellenic prospects looked bright and encouraging; nothing was heard in Athens and the other cities except congratulations and thanksgivings. Phocion, on hearing the confident language of those around him, remarked—“The stadium (or short course) has been done brilliantly; but I fear we shall not have strength to hold out for the long course.” At this critical moment, Leosthenes, in inspecting the blockading trenches, was wounded on the head by a large stone, projected from one of the catapults on the city-walls, and expired in two days. A funeral oration in his honour, as well as in that of the other combatants against Antipater, was pronounced at Athens by Hyperides.

The death of this eminent general, in the full tide of success, was a hard blow struck by fortune at the cause of Grecian freedom. For the last generation, Athens had produced several excellent orators, and one who combined splendid oratory with wise and patriotic counsels. But during all that time, none of her citizens, before Leosthenes, had displayed military genius and ardour along with Pan-Hellenic purposes. His death appears to have saved Antipater from defeat and captivity. The difficulty was very great, of keeping together a miscellaneous army of Greeks, who, after the battle, easily persuaded themselves that the war was finished, and desired to go home—perhaps under promise of returning. Even during the lifetime of Leosthenes, the Aetolians, the most powerful contingent of the army, had obtained leave to go home, from some domestic urgency, real or pretended. When he was slain, there was no second in command; nor, even if there had been, could the personal influence of one officer be transferred to another. Reference was made to Athens, where, after some debate, Antiphilus was chosen commander, after the proposition to name Phocion had been made and rejected. But during this interval, there was no authority to direct military operations, or even to keep the army together. Hence the precious moments for rendering the blockade really stringent, were lost, and Antipater was enabled to maintain himself until the arrival of Leonnatus from Asia to his aid. How dangerous the position of Antipater was, we may judge from the fact, that he solicited peace, but was required by the besiegers to surrender at discretion—with which condition he refused to comply. .

Antiphilus appears to have been a brave and competent officer. But before he could reduce Lamia, Leonnatus with a Macedonian army had crossed the Hellespont from Asia, and arrived at the frontiers of Thessaly. So many of the Grecian contingents had left the camp, that Antiphilus was not strong enough at once to continue the blockade and to combat the relieving army. Accordingly, he raised the blockade, and moved off by rapid marches to attack Leonnatus apart from Antipater. He accomplished this operation with vigour and success. Through the superior efficiency of the Thessalian cavalry under Menon, he gained an important advantage in a cavalry battle over Leonnatus, who was himself slain; and the Macedonian phalanx, having its flanks and rear thus exposed, retired from the plain to more difficult ground, leaving the Greeks masters of the field with the dead bodies. On the very next day, Antipater came up, bringing the troops from Lamia, and took command of the defeated army. He did not however think it expedient to renew the combat, but withdrew his army from Thessaly into Macedonia, keeping in his march the high ground, out of the reach of cavalry.

During the same time generally as these operations in Thessaly, it appears that war was carried on actively by sea. We hear of a descent by Mikion with a Macedonian fleet at Rhamnus on the eastern coast of Attica, repulsed by Phocion; also of a Macedonian fleet, of 240 sail, under Cleitus, engaging in two battles with the Athenian fleet under Aetion, near the islands called Echinades, at the mouth of the Acheldus, on the western Aetolian coast. The Athenians were defeated in both actions, and great efforts were made at Athens to build new vessels for the purpose of filling up the losses sustained. Our information is not sufficient to reveal the purposes or details of these proceedings. But it seems probable that the Macedonian fleet were attacking Aetolia through Oeniadae, the citizens of which town had recently been expelled by the Aetolians; and perhaps this may have been the reason why the Aetolian contingent was withdrawn from Thessaly.

In spite of such untoward events at sea, the cause of Pan-Hellenic liberty seemed on the whole prosperous. Though the capital opportunity had been missed, of taking Antipater captive in Lamia, still he had been expelled from Greece, and was unable, by means of his own forces in Macedonia, to regain his footing. The Grecian contingents had behaved with bravery and unanimity in prosecution of the common purpose, and what had been already achieved was quite sufficient to justify the rising, as a fair risk, promising reasonable hopes of success. Nevertheless Greek citizens were not like trained Macedonian soldiers. After a term of service not much prolonged, they wanted to go back to their families and properties, hardly less after a victory than after a defeat. Hence the army of Antiphilus in Thessaly became much thinned, though still remaining large enough to keep back the Macedonian forces of Antipater, even augmented as they had been by Leonnatus—and to compel him to await the still more powerful reinforcement destined to follow under Craterus.

In explaining the relations between these three Macedonian commanders—Antipater, Leonnatus, and Craterus—it is necessary to go back to June 323, the period of Alexander’s death, and to review the condition into which his vast and mighty empire had fallen. I shall do this briefly, and only so far as it bears on the last struggles and final subjugation of the Grecian world.

On the unexpected death of Alexander, the camp at Babylon with its large force became a scene of discord. He left no offspring, except a child named Herakles, by his mistress Barsine. Roxana, one of his wives, was indeed pregnant; and amidst the uncertainties of the moment, the first disposition of many was to await the birth of her child. She herself, anxious to shut out rivalry, caused Statira, the queen whom Alexander had last married, to be entrapped and assassinated along with her sister. There was however at Babylon a brother of Alexander, named Aridaeus (son of Philip by a Thessalian mistress), already of full age though feeble in intelligence, towards whom a still larger party leaned. In Macedonia, there were Olympias, Alexander’s mother—Kleopatra, his sister, widow of the Epirotic Alexander—and Kynane, another sister, widow of Amyntas (cousin of Alexander the Great, and put to death by him); all of them disposed to take advantage of their relationship to the deceased conqueror, in the scramble now opened for power.

After a violent dispute between the cavalry and the infantry at Babylon, Aridaeus was proclaimed king under the name of Philip Aridaeus. Perdikkas was named as his guardian and chief minister; among the other chief officers, the various satrapies and fractions of the empire were distributed. Egypt and Libya were assigned to Ptolemy; Syria to Laomedon; Cilicia to Philotas; Pamphylia, Lycia, and the greater Phrygia, to Antigonus; Karia, to Asander; Lydia, to Menander; the Hellespontine Phrygia, to Leonnatus; Cappadocia and Paphlagonia, to the Kardian Eumenes; Media, to Pithon. The eastern satrapies were left in the hands of the actual holders.

In Europe, the distributors gave Thrace with the Chersonese to Lysimachus; the countries west of Thrace, including (along with Illyrians, Triballi, Agrianes, and Epirots) Macedonia and Greece, to Antipater and Craterus. We thus find the Grecian cities handed over to new masters, as fragments of the vast intestate estate left by Alexander. The empty form of convening and consulting a synod of deputies at Corinth, was no longer thought necessary.

All the above-named officers were considered as local lieutenants, administering portions of an empire one and indivisible under Aridaeus. The principal officers who enjoyed central authority, bearing on the entire empire, were, Perdikkas, chili­arch of the horse (the post occupied by Hephaestion until his death), a sort of vizir, and Seleucus, commander of the Horse Guards. No one at this moment talked of dividing the empire. But it soon appeared that Perdiccas, profiting by the weakness of Aridaeus, had determined to leave to him nothing more than the imperial name, and to engross for himself the real authority. Still, however, in his disputes with the other chiefs, he represented the imperial family, and the integrity of the empire, contending against severalty and local independence. In this task (besides his brother Alketas), his ablest and most effective auxiliary was Eumenes of Kardia, secretary of Alexander for several years until his death. It was one of the earliest proceedings of Perdikkas to wrest Cappadocia from the local chief Ariarathes (who had contrived to hold it all through the reign of Alexander), and to transfer it to Eumenes, to whom it had been allotted in the general scheme of division.

At the moment of Alexander’s death, Craterus was in Cilicia, at the head of an army of veteran Macedonian soldiers, He had been directed to conduct them home into Macedonia, with orders to remain there himself in place of Antipater, who was to come over to Asia with fresh reinforcements. Craterus had with him a paper of written instructions from Alexander, embodying projects on the most gigantic scale; for western conquest—transportation of inhabitants by wholesale from Europe into Asia and Asia into Europe—erection of magnificent religious edifices in various parts of Greece and Macedonia, &c. This list was submitted by Perdiccas to the officers and soldiers around him, who dismissed the projects as too vast for any one but Alexander to think of. Craterus and Antipater had each a concurrent claim to Greece and Macedonia, and the distributors of the empire had allotted these countries to them jointly, not venturing to exclude either. Amidst the conflicting pretensions of these great Macedonian officers, Leonnatus also cherished hopes of the same prize. He was satrap of the Asiatic territory bordering upon the Hellespont, and had received propositions from Kleopatra, at Pella, inviting him to marry her and assume the government of Macedonia. About the same time, urgent messages were also sent to him (through Hecataeus despot of Kardia) from Antipater, immediately after the defeat preceding the siege of Lamia, entreating his co-operation against the Greeks. Leonnatus accordingly came, intending to assist Antipater against the Greeks, but also to dispossess him of the government of Macedonia and marry Kleopatra. This scheme remained unexecuted, because (as has been already related) Leonnatus was slain in his first encounter with the Greeks. To them, his death was a grave misfortune; to Antipater, it was an advantage which more than countervailed the defeat, since it relieved him from a dangerous rival.

It was not till the ensuing summer that Craterus found leisure to conduct his army into Macedonia. By this junction, Antipater, to whom he ceded the command, found himself at the head of a powerful army—40,000 heavy infantry, 5000 cavalry, and 3000 archers and slingers. He again marched into Thessaly against the Greeks under Antiphilus; and the two armies came in sight on the Thessalian plains near Krannon. The Grecian army consisted of 25,000 infantry, and 3500 cavalry—the latter, Thessalians under Menon, of admirable efficiency. The soldiers in general were brave, but insubordinate; while the contingents of many cities had gone home without returning, in spite of urgent remonstrances from the commander. Hoping to be rejoined by these absentees, Antiphilus and Menon tried at first to defer fighting; but Antipater forced them to a battle. Though Menon with his Thessalian cavalry defeated and dispersed the Macedonian cavalry, the Grecian infantry were unable to resist the superior number of Antipater’s infantry and the heavy pressure of the phalanx. They were beaten back and gave way, yet retiring in tolerable order, the Macedonian phalanx being incompetent for pursuit, to some difficult neighbouring ground, where they were soon joined by their victorious cavalry. The loss of the Greeks is said to have been 500 men; that of the Macedonians, 120.

The defeat of Krannon (August 322 B.C.) was noway decisive or ruinous, nor would it probably have crushed the spirit of Leosthenes, had he been alive and in command. The coming up of the absentee contingents might still have enabled the Greeks to make head. But Antiphilus and Menon, after holding council, declined to await and accelerate that junction. They thought themselves under the necessity of sending to open negotiations for peace with Antipater; who however returned for answer, that he would not recognise or treat with any Grecian confederacy, and that he would receive no pro­positions except from each city severally. Upon this the Grecian commanders at once resolved to continue the war, and to invoke reinforcements from their countrymen. But their own manifestation of timidity had destroyed the chance that remained of such reinforcements arriving. While Antipater commenced a vigorous and successful course of action against the Thessalian cities separately, the Greeks became more and more dispirited and alarmed. City after city sent its envoys to entreat peace from Antipater, who granted lenient terms to each, reserving only the Athenians and Aetolians. In a few days, the combined Grecian army was dispersed; Antiphilus with the Athenians returned into Attica; Antipater followed them southward as far as Boeotia, taking up his quarters at the Macedonian post on the Cadmea, once the Hellenic Thebes— within two days’ march of Athens.

Against the overwhelming force thus on the frontiers of Attica, the Athenians had no means of defence. The principal anti-Macedonian orators, especially Demosthenes and Hyperides, retired from the city at once, seeking sanctuary in the temples of Kalauria and Aegina. Phocion and Demades, as the envoys most acceptable to Antipater, were sent to Cadmea as bearers of the submission of the city, and petitioners for lenient terms. Demades is said to have been at this time disfranchised and disqualified from public speaking—having been indicted and found guilty thrice (some say seven times) under the Graphe Paranomon; but the Athenians passed a special vote of relief, to enable him to resume his functions of citizen. Neither Phocion nor Demades, however, could prevail upon Antipater to acquiesce in anything short of the surrender of Athens at discretion; the same terms as Leosthenes had required from Antipater himself at Lamia. Craterus was even bent upon marching forward into Attica, to dictate terms under the walls of Athens; and it was not without difficulty that Phocion obtained the abandonment of this intention; after which he returned to Athens with the answer. The people having no choice except to throw themselves on the mercy of Antipater, Phocion and Demades came back to Thebes to learn his determination. This time, they were accompanied by the philosopher Xenokrates—the successor of Plato and Speusippus, as presiding teacher in the school of the Academy. Though not a citizen of Athens, Xenokrates had long resided there; and it was supposed that his dignified character and intellectual eminence might be efficacious in mitigating the wrath of the conqueror. Aristotle had quitted Athens for Chalcis before this time; otherwise he, the personal friend of Antipater, would have been probably selected for this painful mission. In point of fact, Xenokrates did no good, being harshly received, and almost put to silence, by Antipater. One reason of this may be, that he had been to a certain extent the rival of Aristotle; and it must be added, to his honour, that he maintained a higher and more independent tone than either of the other envoys.

According to the terms dictated by Antipater, the Athenians were required to pay a sum equal to the whole cost of the war; to surrender Demosthenes, Hyperides, and seemingly at least two other anti-Macedonian orators; to receive a Macedonian garrison in Munychia; to abandon their democratical constitution, and disfranchise all their poorer citizens. Most of these poor men were to be transported from their homes, and to receive new lands on a foreign shore. The Athenian colonists in Samos were to be dispossessed and the island retransferred to the Samian exiles and natives.

It is said that Phocion and Demades heard these terms with satisfaction, as lenient and reasonable. Xenokrates entered against them the strongest protest which the occasion admitted, when he said—“If Antipater looks upon us as slaves, the terms are moderate; if as freemen, they are severe.” To Phocion’s entreaty, that the introduction of the garrison might be dispensed with, Antipater replied in the negative, intimating that the garrison would be not less serviceable to Phocion himself than to the Macedonians; while Kallimedon also, an Athenian exile there present, repelled the proposition with scorn. Respecting the island of Samos, Antipater was prevailed upon to allow a special reference to the imperial authority.

If Phocion thought these terms lenient, we must imagine that he expected a sentence of destruction against Athens, such as Alexander had pronounced and executed against Thebes. Under no other comparison can they appear lenient. Out of 21,000 qualified citizens of Athens, all those who did not possess property to the amount of 2000 drachmae were condemned to disfranchisement and deportation. The number below this prescribed qualification, who came under the penalty, was 12,000, or three-fifths of the whole. They were set aside as turbulent, noisy democrats; the 9000 richest citizens, the “party of order,” were left in exclusive possession, not only of the citizenship, but of the city. The condemned 12,000 were deported out of Attica, some to Thrace, some to the Illyrian or Italian coast, some to Libya or the Cyrenaic territory. Besides the multitude banished simply on the score of comparative poverty, the marked anti-Macedonian politicians were banished also, including Agnonides, the friend of Demosthenes, and one of his earnest advocates when accused respecting the Harpalian treasures. At the request of Phocion, Antipater consented to render the deportation less sweeping than he had originally intended, so far as to permit some exiles, Agnonides among the rest, to remain within the limits of Peloponnesus. We shall see him presently contemplating a still more wholesale deportation of the Aetolian people.

It is deeply to be lamented that this important revolution, not only cutting down Athens to less than one-half of her citizen population, but involving a deportation fraught with individual hardship and suffering, is communicated to us only in two or three sentences of Plutarch and Diodorus, without any details from contemporary observers. It is called by Diodorus a return to the Solonian constitution; but the comparison disgraces the name of that admirable lawgiver, whose changes, taken as a whole, were prodigiously liberal and enfranchising, compared with what he found established. The deportation ordained by Antipater must indeed have brought upon the poor citizens of Athens a state of suffering in foreign lands analogous to that which Solon describes as having preceded his Seisachtheia, or measure for the relief of debtors. What rules the nine thousand remaining citizens adopted for their new constitution, we do not know. Whatever they did, must now have been subject to the consent of Antipater and the Macedonian garrison, which entered Munychia, under the command of Menyllus, on the twentieth day of the month Boedromion (September), rather more than a month after the battle of Krannon. The day of its entry presented a sorrowful contrast. It was the day on which, during the annual ceremony of the mysteries of Eleusinian Demeter, the multitudinous festal procession of citizens escorted the God Iacchus from Athens to Eleusis.

One of the earliest measures of the nine thousand was to condemn to death, at the motion of Demades, the distinguished anti-Macedonian orators who had already fled—Demosthenes, Hyperides, Aristonicus, and Himeraeus, brother of the citizen afterwards celebrated as Demetrius the Phalerean. The three last having taken refuge in Aegina, and Demosthenes in Kalauria, all of them were out of the reach of an Athenian sentence, but not beyond that of the Macedonian sword. At this miserable season, Greece was full of similar exiles, the anti­Macedonian leaders out of all the cities which had taken part in the Lamian war. The officers of Antipater, called in the language of the time the Exile-Hunters, were everywhere on the look-out to seize these proscribed men; many of the orators, from other cities as well as from Athens, were slain; and there was no refuge except the mountains of Aetolia for any of them. One of these officers, a Thurian named Archias, who had once been a tragic actor, passed over with a company of Thracian soldiers to Aegina, where he seized the three Athenian orators—Hyperides, Aristonicus, and Himeraeus— dragging them out of the sanctuary of the Aeakeion or chapel of Aeakus. They were all sent as prisoners to Antipater, who had by this time marched forward with his army to Corinth and Kleonae in Peloponnesus. All were there put to death, by his order. It is even said, and on respectable authority, that the tongue of Hyperides was cut out before he was slain; according to another statement, he himself bit it out—being put to the torture, and resolving to make revelation of secrets impossible. Respecting the details of his death, there were several different stories.

Having conducted these prisoners to Antipater, Archias proceeded with his Thracians to Kalauria in search of Demosthenes. The temple of Poseidon there situated, in which the orator had taken sanctuary, was held in such high veneration that Archias, hesitating to drag him out by force, tried to persuade him to come forth voluntarily, under promise that he should suffer no harm. But Demosthenes, well aware of the fate which awaited him, swallowed poison in the temple, and when the dose was beginning to take effect, came out of the sacred ground, expiring immediately after he had passed the boundary. The accompanying circumstances were recounted in several different ways. Eratosthenes (to whose authority I lean) affirmed that Demosthenes carried the poison in a ring round his arm; others said that it was suspended in a linen bag round his neck; according to a third story, it was contained in a writing-quill, which he was seen to bite and suck, while composing a last letter to Antipater. Amidst these contradictory details, we can only affirm as certain, that the poison which he had provided beforehand preserved him from the sword of Antipater, and perhaps from having his tongue cut out. The most remarkable assertion was that of Demo­chares, nephew of Demosthenes, made in his harangues at Athens a few years afterwards. Demochares asserted that his uncle had not taken poison, but had been softly withdrawn from the world by a special providence of the gods, just at the moment essential to rescue him from the cruelty of the Macedonians. It is not less to be noted, as an illustration of the vein of sentiment afterwards prevalent, that Archias the Exile-Hunter was affirmed to have perished in the utmost dishonour and wretchedness.

The violent deaths of these illustrious orators, the disfranchisement and deportation of the Athenian Demos, the suppression of the public Dikasteries, the occupation of Athens by a Macedonian garrison, and of Greece generally by Macedonian Exile-Hunters—are events belonging to one and the same calamitous tragedy, and marking the extinction of the autonomous Hellenic world.

Of Hyperides as a citizen we know only the general fact, that he maintained from first to last, and with oratorical ability inferior only to Demosthenes, a strenuous opposition to Macedonian dominion over Greece; though his persecution of Demosthenes respecting the Harpalian treasure appears (as far as it comes before us) discreditable.

Of Demosthenes, we know more—enough to form a judgement of him both as citizen and statesman. At the time of his death he was about sixty-two years of age, and we have before us his first Philippic, delivered thirty years before (352-351). We are thus sure, that even at that early day, he took a sagacious and provident measure of the danger which threatened Grecian liberty from the energy and en­croachments of Philip. He impressed upon his countrymen this coming danger, at a time when the older and more influential politicians either could not or would not see it; he called aloud upon his fellow-citizens for personal service and pecuniary contributions, enforcing the call by all the artifices of consummate oratory, when such distasteful propositions only entailed unpopularity upon himself. At the period when Demosthenes first addressed these earnest appeals to his countrymen, long before the fall of Olynthus, the power of Philip, though formidable, might have been kept perfectly well within the limits of Macedonia and Thrace; and would pro­bably have been so kept, had Demosthenes possessed in 351. as much public influence as he had acquired ten years afterwards, in 341.

Throughout the whole career of Demosthenes as a public adviser, down to the battle of Chaeronea, we trace the same combination of earnest patriotism with wise and long-sighted policy. During the three years’ war which ended with the battle of Chaeronea, the Athenians in the main followed his counsel; and disastrous as were the ultimate military results of that war, for which Demosthenes could not be responsible—its earlier periods were creditable and successful, its general scheme was the best that the case admitted, and its diplomatic management universally triumphant. But what invests the purposes and policy of Demosthenes with peculiar grandeur, is, that they were not simply Athenian, but in an eminent degree Pan-Hellenic also. It was not Athens alone that be sought to defend against Philip, but the whole Hellenic world. In this he towers above the greatest of his predecessors for half a century before his birth—Pericles, Archidamus, Agesilaus, Epaminondas; whose policy was Athenian, Spartan, Theban, rather than Hellenic. He carries us back to the time of the invasion of Xerxes and the generation immediately succeeding it, when the struggles and sufferings of the Athenians against Persia were consecrated by complete identity of interest with collective Greece. The sentiments to which Demosthenes appeals throughout his numerous orations, are those of the noblest and largest patriotism; trying to inflame the ancient Grecian sentiment, of an autonomous Hellenic world, as the indispensable condition of a dignified and desirable existence— but inculcating at the same time that these blessings could only be preserved by toil, self-sacrifice, devotion of fortune, and willingness to brave hard and steady personal service.

From the destruction of Thebes by Alexander in 335, to the Lamian war after his death, the policy of Athens neither was nor could be conducted by Demosthenes. But condemned as he was to comparative inefficacy, he yet rendered material service to Athens, in the Harpalian affair of 324. If, instead of opposing the alliance of the city with Harpalus, he had supported it as warmly as Hyperides—the exaggerated promises of the exile might probably have prevailed, and war would have been declared against Alexander. In respect to the charge of having been corrupted by Harpalus, I have already shown reasons for believing him innocent. The Lamian war, the closing scene of his activity, was not of his original suggestion, since he was in exile at its commencement. But he threw himself into it with unreserved ardour, and was greatly instrumental in procuring the large number of adhesions which it obtained from so many Grecian states. In spite of its disastrous result, it was, like the battle of Chaeronea, a glorious effort for the recovery of Grecian liberty, undertaken under circumstances which promised a fair chance of success. There was no excessive rashness in calculating on distractions in the empire left by Alexander—on mutual hostility among the principal officers—and on the probability of having only to make head against Antipater and Macedonia, with little or no reinforcement from Asia. Disastrous as the enterprise ultimately proved, yet the risk was one fairly worth incurring, with so noble an object at stake; and could the war have been protracted another year, its termination would probably have been very different. We shall see this presently when we come to follow Asiatic events. After a catastrophe so ruinous, extinguishing free speech in Greece, and dispersing the Athenian Demos to distant lands, Demosthenes himself could hardly have desired, at the age of sixty-two, to prolong his existence as a fugitive beyond sea.

Of the speeches which he composed for private litigants, occasionally also for himself, before the Dikastery—and of the numerous stimulating and admonitory harangues, on the public affairs of the moment, which he had addressed to his assembled countrymen, a few remain for the admiration of posterity. These harangues serve to us, not only as evidence of his unrivalled excellence as an orator, but as one of the chief sources from which we are enabled to appreciate the last phase of free Grecian life, as an acting and working reality.