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Title: History of Greece, Volume 11 (of 12)

Author: George Grote

Release date: February 21, 2020 [eBook #61469]
                Most recently updated: October 17, 2024

Language: English

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HISTORY OF GREECE, VOLUME 11 (OF 12) ***

TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE

  * Italics are denoted by underscores as in _italics_.
  * Small caps are represented in upper case as in SMALL CAPS.
  * Letter spaced Greek text is enclosed in tildes as in ~καὶ τὰ
    λοιπά~.
  * Footnotes have been renumbered. Each footnote is placed at the
    end of the paragraph that includes its anchor.
  * Obvious printer errors have been silently corrected, after
    comparison with a later edition of this work. Greek text has
    also been corrected after checking with this later edition and
    with Perseus, when the reference was found.
  * Original spelling, hyphenation and punctuation have been kept,
    but variant spellings were made consistent when a predominant
    usage was found.
  * Nevetherless, no attempt has been made at normalizing proper
    names (i.e. Abdera and Abdêra, Alkibiades and Alkibiadês,
    Apollokrates and Apollokratês, Athenis and Athênis, Demeter and
    Dêmêtêr, Diokles and Dioklês, Euktemon and Euktêmon, Europe
    and Eurôpê, Here and Hêrê, Iatrokles and Iatroklês, Isokrates
    and Isokratês, Leptines and Leptinês, Mausolus and Mausôlus,
    Oropus and Orôpus, Pallenê and Pallênê, Pammenes and Pammenês,
    Philomelus and Philomêlus, Phenicians and Phœnicians, etc.). The
    author established at the beginning of the first volume of this
    work some rules of transcription for proper names, but neither he
    nor his publisher follows them consistently.




  HISTORY OF GREECE.

  BY

  GEORGE GROTE, ESQ.

  VOL. XI.

  REPRINTED FROM THE LONDON EDITION.

  NEW YORK:
  HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS
  329 AND 331 PEARL STREET.

  1880.




PREFACE TO VOL. XI.


This History has already occupied a far larger space than I at first
intended or anticipated.

Nevertheless, to bring it to the term marked out in my original
preface—the close of the generation contemporary with Alexander,
on whose reign we are about to enter—one more Volume will yet be
required.

That Volume will include a review of Plato and Aristotle, so far as
the limits of a general history permit. Plato, indeed, belonging to
the period already described, is partially noticed in the present
Volume; at an epoch of his life when, as counsellor of Dionysius
II., he exercised positive action on the destinies of Syracuse. But
I thought it more convenient to reserve the appreciation of his
philosophical character and influence, until I could present him in
juxtaposition with his pupil Aristotle, whose maturity falls within
the generation now opening. These two distinguished thinkers will be
found to throw light reciprocally upon each other, in their points
both of contrast and similarity.

  G. G.

LONDON, APRIL 15, 1853.




CONTENTS.

VOL. XI.


PART II.

CONTINUATION OF HISTORICAL GREECE.


  CHAPTER LXXXIII.

  SICILIAN AFFAIRS (_continued_). — FROM THE DESTRUCTION OF THE
  CARTHAGINIAN ARMY BY PESTILENCE BEFORE SYRACUSE, DOWN TO THE
  DEATH OF DIONYSIUS THE ELDER. B. C. 394-367.

  Frequent occurrence of pestilence among the Carthaginians, not
  extending to the Greeks in Sicily. — Mutiny among the mercenaries
  of Dionysius — Aristoteles their commander is sent away to
  Sparta. — Difficulties of Dionysius arising from his mercenaries
  — heavy burden of paying them. — Dionysius reëstablishes Messênê
  with new inhabitants. — Conquests of Dionysius in the interior
  of Sicily. — Alarm at Rhegium — Dionysius attacks the Sikel town
  of Tauromenium — desperate defence of the Sikels — Dionysius
  is repulsed and nearly slain. — Agrigentum declares against
  Dionysius — reäppearance of the Carthaginian army under Magon. —
  Expedition of Dionysius against Rhegium — he fails in surprising
  the town — he concludes a truce for one year. — Magon again
  takes the field at Agyrium — is repulsed by Dionysius — truce
  concluded. — Dionysius again attacks Tauromenium — captures it,
  drives out the Sikels, and plants new inhabitants. — Plans of
  Dionysius against the Greek cities in Southern Italy — great
  pressure upon these cities from the Samnites and Lucanians of
  the interior. — Alliance contracted among the Italiot Greeks,
  for defence both against the Lucanians and against Dionysius —
  Dionysius allies himself with the Lucanians. — Dionysius attacks
  Rhegium — the Rhegines save the Krotoniate fleet — fleet of
  Dionysius ruined by a storm. — Defeat of the inhabitants of
  Thurii by the Lucanians — Leptines with the fleet of Dionysius
  off Läus — his conduct towards the survivors. — Fresh expedition
  of Dionysius against the Italiot Greeks — his powerful armament
  — he besieges Kaulonia. — United army of the Italiot Greeks
  advances to relieve the place — their advanced guard is defeated,
  and Helôris the general slain. — The whole army is defeated and
  captured by Dionysius. — Generous lenity of Dionysius towards
  the prisoners. — Dionysius besieges Rhegium — he grants to them
  peace on severe terms. — He captures Kaulonia and Hipponium
  — inhabitants transported to Syracuse — territory made over
  to Lokri. — Artifices of Dionysius to impoverish and disarm
  the Rhegines. — He besieges Rhegium — desperate defence of the
  town under the general Phyton — Surrender of the place from
  famine, after a blockade of eleven months. — Cruel treatment of
  Phyton by Dionysius. — Strong sympathy excited by the fate of
  Phyton. — Rhegium dismantled — all the territory of the southern
  Calabrian peninsula united to Lokri. — Peace of Antalkidas —
  ascendent position of Sparta and of Dionysius — Kroton conquered
  by Dionysius — Splendid robe taken from the temple of Hêrê. —
  Schemes of Dionysius for transmarine colonies and conquests, in
  Epirus and Illyria. — Dionysius plunders the coast of Latium
  and Etruria, and the rich temple of Agylla. — Immense power of
  Dionysius — his poetical compositions. — Olympic festival of
  384 B. C., the first after the peace of Antalkidas — Dionysius
  sends thither a splendid legation — also chariots to run — and
  poetical compositions to be recited. — Feelings of the crowd
  at the festival — Dikon of Kaulonia. — Harangue of Lysias at
  the festival against Dionysius, in reference to the political
  state of the Grecian world, and the sufferings of the enslaved
  Sicilians. — Hatred of the past, and fear of the future conquests
  of Dionysius, both prevalent. — Lysias exhorts his hearers to
  destroy the tents of the Syracusan legation at Olympia, as an
  act of retribution against Dionysius. — Explosion of antipathy
  against the poems of Dionysius recited at Olympia — insults
  heaped upon his name and person. — Excessive grief, wrath, and
  remorse, of Dionysius on hearing of this manifestation against
  him — his suspicions and cruelties. — Marked and singular
  character of the manifestation against Dionysius. — Plato visits
  Syracuse — is harshly treated by Dionysius — acquires great
  influence over Dion. — New constructions and improvements by
  Dionysius at Syracuse. — Intention of Dionysius to renew the
  war with Carthage. — War with Carthage — Victory of Dionysius
  over the Carthaginian army under Magon. — Second battle with
  the Carthaginians at Kronium, in which Dionysius is defeated
  with terrible loss. — He concludes peace with Carthage, on terms
  very unfavorable to himself: all the territory west of the
  river Halykus is surrendered to Carthage: he covenants to pay
  tribute to Carthage. — Affairs of Southern Italy: wall across the
  Calabrian peninsula projected, but not executed. — Relations of
  Dionysius with Central Greece. — New war undertaken by Dionysius
  against Carthage. He is at first successful, but is ultimately
  defeated near Lilybæum, and forced to return home. — Dionysius
  gains the prize of tragedy at the Lenæan festival at Athens. His
  joy at the news. He dies of fever soon afterwards. — Character of
  Dionysius.
                                                                  1-54


  CHAPTER LXXXIV.

  SICILIAN AFFAIRS AFTER THE DEATH OF THE ELDER DIONYSIUS —
  DIONYSIUS THE YOUNGER — AND DION.

  Family left by Dionysius at his death. — Dion — his connection
  with the Dionysian family. — Personal character of Dion. —
  Plato, Dion, and the Pythagorean philosophers. — Extraordinary
  influence of Plato upon Dion. — Dion learns to hate the Dionysian
  despotism — he conceives large political and reformatory
  views. — Alteration of habits in Dion — he brings Plato into
  communication with Dionysius. — Dion maintains the good opinion
  and confidence of Dionysius, until the death of the latter —
  his visits to Peloponnesus. — Death of the elder Dionysius —
  divergences of interest between the two lines of family. —
  The younger Dionysius succeeds his father — his character. —
  Conduct of Dion — he submits to the younger Dionysius — gives
  him frank and wholesome advice. — Dion acquires great influence
  and estimation from Dionysius. — Recall of Philistus from exile.
  — Dion tries to work upon the mind of Dionysius towards a freer
  political government and mental improvement. — His earnest
  exhortations produced considerable effect, inspiring Dionysius
  with a strong desire to see and converse with Plato. — Invitation
  sent to Plato, both by Dion and by Dionysius. — Hesitation of
  Plato — he reluctantly consents to visit Syracuse. — Plato visits
  Syracuse — unbounded deference and admiration manifested towards
  him at first by Dionysius — Fear and hatred felt by Philistus
  and other courtiers. — Injudicious manner in which Plato dealt
  with Dionysius. — Strenuous exhortations addressed by Plato
  and Dion to Dionysius, to reform himself. — Plato damps the
  inclination of Dionysius towards Political good. — If Plato had
  tried to impel Dionysius towards a good practical use of his
  power, Dionysius might at that time have obeyed him with the aid
  of Dion. — Difficulties which they would have encountered in
  trying to realize beneficent projects. — Intrigues by Philistus
  and others to set Dionysius against Plato and Dion. — Relations
  between Dionysius and Dion — natural foundation for jealousy
  on the part of Dionysius. — Dionysius loses his inclinations
  towards political improvements — comes to hate Dion. — Banishment
  of Dion from Syracuse to Italy. — Dionysius retains Plato in
  the acropolis, but treats him well, and tries to conciliate his
  esteem. — He dismisses Plato — then recalls him — second visit
  of Plato to Syracuse — his dissatisfaction — Dionysius refuses
  to recall Dion. — Dionysius confiscates the property of Dion —
  mortification of Plato, who with difficulty obtains leave to
  depart from Syracuse. — Resolution of Dion to avenge himself on
  Dionysius, and to force his way back to Syracuse by arms. — Plato
  rejoins Dion in Peloponnesus — exasperation of Dion — Dionysius
  gives his sister Aretê, the wife of Dion, in marriage to
  Timokrates. — Means of auxiliaries of Dion — Plato — the Academy
  — Alkimenes. Dion musters his force at Zakynthus. — Small force
  of Dion against the prodigious power of Dionysius. Resolution of
  Dion to conquer or perish. — Circumstances which told against
  Dionysius — discontent at Syracuse. — Herakleides exiled from
  Syracuse — he projects an attack upon Dionysius, at the same
  time as Dion. — Weakness of character — dissolute and drunken
  habits — of Dionysius himself. — Alarm of the soldiers of Dion
  at Zakynthus, when first informed that they were going against
  Dionysius. — Eclipse of the moon — religious disquietude of the
  soldiers — they are reassured by the prophet Miltas — fortunate
  voyage from Zakynthus to Sicily. — Dion lands at Herakleia —
  he learns that Dionysius with a large fleet has just quitted
  Syracuse for Italy. — March of Dion from Herakleia to Syracuse.
  — Dion crosses the river Anapus, and approaches the gates of
  Syracuse. — Mistake of Timokrates, left as governor of Syracuse
  in the absence of Dionysius. — General rising of the Syracusans
  to welcome and assist Dion. Timokrates is obliged to evacuate the
  city, leaving Ortygia and Epipolæ garrisoned. — Entry of Dion
  into Achradina — joy of the citizens — he proclaims liberty. —
  Dion presents himself at the Pentapyla in front of Ortygia —
  challenges the garrison of Ortygia to come out and fight — is
  chosen general by the Syracusans, with his brother Megakles.
  — Dion captures Epipolæ and Euryalus. He erects a cross-wall
  from sea to sea, to block up Ortygia. — Return of Dionysius to
  Syracuse. He tries to negotiate with Dion and the Syracusans —
  deceives them by fallacious propositions. — Sudden sally made
  by Dionysius to surprise the blockading wall — great bravery,
  efforts, and danger of Dion — he at length repulses the attack
  and recovers the wall. — Ortygia is again blocked up by land —
  efforts of Dionysius with his fleet — arrival of Herakleides
  from Peloponnesus with a fleet to coöperate against Dionysius.
  — Arrival of Philistus with his fleet to the aid of Dionysius.
  Battle in the Great Harbor between the fleet of Philistus and
  that of the Syracusans — Philistus is defeated and slain. —
  Intrigues of Dionysius against Dion in Syracuse. — Relationship
  of Dion to the Dionysian dynasty — suspicions entertained
  against him by the Syracusans — his haughty manners. Rivalry of
  Herakleides. — Herakleides is named admiral. Dion causes him to
  be deposed, and then moves himself for his re-appointment. —
  Intrigues and calumnies raised against Dion in Syracuse, by the
  management of Dionysius. — Mistrust of Dion by the Syracusans,
  mainly in consequence of his relationship to the Dionysian
  family. Calumnies of Sôsis. — Farther propositions of Dionysius.
  He goes away from Ortygia to Italy, leaving his son Apollokrates
  in command of the garrison. — Increased dissension between Dion
  and Herakleides — Dion is deposed and his soldiers deprived of
  the pay due to them — new generals are named. — Dion is forced
  to retreat from Syracuse — bad conduct of the new generals and
  of the people towards his soldiers. — Dion reaches Leontini —
  the Leontines stand by him against the Syracusans — arrival
  of Nypsius with a reinforcement to the Dionysian garrison in
  Ortygia. — Advantage gained by Herakleides and the Syracusans
  over Nypsius as he came into Ortygia — extravagant confidence in
  Syracuse — Nypsius sallies from Ortygia, and forces his way into
  Neapolis and Achradina. — Danger and distress of the Syracusans
  — they send to Leontini to invoke the aid of Dion. — Assembly at
  Leontini — pathetic address of Dion. — Reluctance of Herakleides
  to let Dion into Syracuse — renewed assault from Nypsius —
  unanimous prayers now sent to invite Dion. — Entrance of Dion
  into Syracuse — he draws up his troops on Epipolæ. Frightful
  condition of the city. — Dion drives back Nypsius and his
  troops into Ortygia — he extinguishes the flames, and preserves
  Syracuse. — Universal gratitude on the part of the Syracusans,
  towards Dion. Herakleides and Theodotes throw themselves upon his
  mercy. — Dion pardons Herakleides — his exposition of motives. —
  Remarkable features in this act of Dion. — Dion re-establishes
  the blockade of Ortygia, and ransoms the captives taken. — Dion
  is named general on land, at the motion of Herakleides, who is
  continued in his command of the fleet. — Attempt to supersede
  Dion through Gæsylus the Spartan — good conduct of Gæsylus. —
  Surrender of Ortygia by Apollokrates to Dion. — Entry of Dion
  into Ortygia — restoration of his wife — speedy death of his
  son. — Conduct of Dion in the hour of triumph. — Suspicions
  previously entertained respecting Dion — that he was aiming at
  the despotism for himself — confirmed by his present conduct. —
  He retains his dictatorial power, with the fortress and garrison
  of Ortygia — he grants no freedom to Syracuse. — Intention of
  Dion to constitute himself king, with a Lykurgean scheme of
  government and discipline. — Mistake of Dion as to his position.
  — Dion takes no step to realise any measure of popular liberty.
  — Opposition raised against Dion by Herakleides — impatience of
  the Syracusans to see the demolition of the Dionysian strongholds
  and funeral monument. — Dion causes Herakleides to be privately
  slain. — Increased oppressions of Dion — hatred entertained
  against him in Syracuse. — Disquietude and irritability of Dion
  on account of his unpopularity. — Conspiracy of Kallippus
  against him — artifices and perjury. — Kallippus causes Dion to
  be assassinated. — Life, sentiments, and altered position, of
  Dion.
                                                                54-128


  CHAPTER LXXXV.

  SICILIAN AFFAIRS DOWN TO THE CLOSE OF THE EXPEDITION OF TIMOLEON.
  B. C. 353-336.

  Position and prospects of Kallippus, after the assassination
  of Dion. — He continues master of Syracuse more than a year.
  His misrule. Return of Hipparinus son of Dionysius to Syracuse.
  Expulsion of Kallippus. — Miserable condition of Syracuse
  and Sicily, as described by Plato. — Plato’s recommendations
  fruitless — state of Syracuse grows worse. Dionysius returns
  to Ortygia, expelling Hipparinus. — Drunken habits of the
  Dionysian princes. — Lokri — dependency and residence of the
  younger Dionysius. — Sufferings of the Italiot Greeks from the
  Lucanians and Bruttians of the interior. — Dionysius at Lokri
  — his unpopularity and outrageous misrule — cruel retaliation
  of the Lokrians upon his female relatives. — Distress of the
  Syracusans — fresh danger from Carthage. They invoke the aid of
  Hiketas — in concert with Hiketas, they send to entreat aid from
  Corinth. Secret alliance of Hiketas with the Carthaginians — he
  conspires to defeat the application to Corinth. — Application
  from Syracuse favorably received by the Corinthians — vote
  passed to grant aid. — Difficulty in finding a Corinthian leader
  — most of the leading citizens decline — Timoleon is proposed
  and chosen. — Antecedent life and character of Timoleon. — His
  conduct towards his brother Timophanes, whose life he saves in
  battle. — Timophanes makes himself despot, and commits gross
  oppression — Timoleon with two companions puts him to death. —
  Beneficial effects of the act upon Corinth — sentiment towards
  Timoleon. — Bitter reproach of Timoleon by his mother. — Intense
  mental distress of Timoleon. He shuts himself up and retires
  from public life. — Different judgments of modern and ancient
  minds on the act of Timoleon. Comments of Plutarch. — Timoleon
  is appointed commander to Syracuse — he accepts the command —
  admonition of Telekleides. — Preparations made by Timoleon —
  his scanty means — he engages some of the Phokian mercenaries.
  — Bad promise of the expedition — second message from Hiketas,
  withdrawing himself from the Corinthian alliance, and desiring
  that no troops might be sent to Sicily. — Timoleon sets out for
  Sicily with a small squadron — favorable omens from the gods.
  — Timoleon arrives at Rhegium — is prevented from reaching
  Sicily by a Carthaginian fleet of superior force — insidious
  message from Hiketas. — Stratagem of Timoleon to get across to
  Sicily, in collusion with the Rhegines. — Public meeting in
  Rhegium — Timoleon and the Carthaginians both present at it —
  long speeches, during which Timoleon steals away, contriving
  to send his fleet over to Sicily. — Timoleon at Tauromenium in
  Sicily — formidable strength of his enemies — despots in Sicily
  — despondency in Syracuse. — Success of Timoleon at Adranum. He
  surprises and defeats the troops of Hiketas, superior in number.
  — Improved position and alliances of Timoleon — he marches up to
  the walls of Syracuse. — Position of Dionysius in Ortygia — he
  resolves to surrender that fortress to Timoleon, stipulating for
  safe conveyance and shelter at Corinth. — Timoleon sends troops
  to occupy Ortygia, receiving Dionysius into his camp. — Timoleon
  sends news of his success to Corinth, with Dionysius himself in a
  trireme. — Great effect produced at Corinth — confidence of the
  citizens — reinforcement sent to Timoleon. — Sight of the fallen
  Dionysius at Corinth — impression made upon the Greeks — numerous
  visitors to see him. Conversation with Aristoxenus. — Immense
  advantage derived by Timoleon from the possession of Ortygia —
  numerous stores found in it. — Large Carthaginian army under
  Magon arrives to aid in attacking Ortygia. Defeated by Neon,
  during the absence of Magon and Hiketas. Neon acquires Achradina,
  and joins it by a line of wall to Ortygia. — Return of Magon and
  Hiketas to Syracuse — increased difficulty of their proceedings,
  since the victory of Neon. — Return of Timoleon to Syracuse —
  fortunate march and arrival of the Corinthian reinforcement.
  — Messênê declares in favor of Timoleon. — He establishes his
  camp near Syracuse. — Magon distrusts Hiketas and his position
  at Syracuse — he suddenly withdraws his army and fleet, leaving
  Syracuse altogether. — Timoleon masters Epipolæ and the whole
  city of Syracuse — Hiketas is obliged to escape to Leontini. —
  Languid defence made by the troops of Hiketas. — Great effect
  produced by the news that Timoleon was master of Syracuse. —
  Extraordinary admiration felt towards Timoleon — especially for
  the distinguished favor shown to him by the gods. — Timoleon
  ascribes all his success to the gods. — Temptations of Timoleon
  in the hour of success — easy possibility of making himself
  despot of Syracuse. — Timoleon invited the Syracusans to demolish
  the Dionysian stronghold in Ortygia. — He erects courts of
  justice on the site. — Desolate condition of Syracuse and other
  cities in Sicily. Recall of exiles. Application on the part of
  Timoleon and the Syracusans to Corinth. — Commissioners sent from
  Corinth to Syracuse — they revive the laws and democracy enacted
  by Dioklês — but with various changes and additions. — Poverty at
  Syracuse — necessity for inviting new colonists. — Large body of
  new colonists assembled at Corinth for Sicily. — Influx of new
  colonists into Sicily from all quarters. — Relief to the poverty
  of Syracuse. — Successes of Timoleon against Hiketas, Leptines,
  and other despots in Sicily — Hiketas invites the Carthaginians
  again to invade Sicily. — The Carthaginians land in Sicily with
  a vast army, including a large proportion of native troops. —
  Timoleon marches from Syracuse against the Carthaginians — mutiny
  of a portion of his mercenaries under Thrasius — Timoleon marches
  into the Carthaginian province — omen about the parsley. — He
  encounters the Carthaginian army while passing the Krimêsus.
  War chariots in their front — Timoleon orders his cavalry to
  charge. — Strenuous battle between the infantry of Timoleon and
  the native Carthaginian infantry. Terrible storm — complete
  victory of Timoleon. — Severe loss of the Carthaginians in the
  battle, especially of their native troops. Booty collected by
  the soldiers of Timoleon. — Discouragement and terror among the
  defeated army as well as at Carthage itself. — Great increase of
  glory to Timoleon — favor of the gods shown to him in the battle.
  — Timoleon returns to Syracuse — he dismisses Thrasius and the
  mercenaries who had deserted him — he sends them out of Sicily —
  their fate. — Success of Timoleon against Hiketas and Mamerkus. —
  Victory gained by Timoleon over Hiketas, at the river Damurias.
  — Timoleon attacks Hiketas and Leontini. The place (with Hiketas
  in person) is surrendered to Timoleon by the garrison. Hiketas
  and his family are put to death. — Timoleon gains a victory over
  Mamerkus — he concludes peace with the Carthaginians. — Timoleon
  conquers and takes prisoners Mamerkus and Hippon. Mamerkus is
  condemned by the Syracusan public assembly. — Timoleon puts
  down all the despots in Sicily. — Timoleon lays down his power
  at Syracuse. — Gratitude and reward to him by the Syracusans.
  — Great influence of Timoleon, even after he had laid down his
  power. — Immigration of new Greek settlers into Sicily, to
  Gela, Agrigentum, Kamarina, etc. — Value and importance of the
  moral ascendency enjoyed by Timoleon, in regulating these new
  settlements. — Numerous difficulties which he would be called
  upon to adjust. — Residence of Timoleon at Syracuse — chapel to
  the goddess Automatia. — Arrival of the blind Timoleon in the
  public assembly of Syracuse during matters of grave and critical
  discussion. — Manner in which Timoleon bore contradiction in the
  public assembly — his earnest anxiety to ensure freedom of speech
  against himself. — Uncorrupted moderation and public spirit of
  Timoleon. — Xenophontic ideal — command over willing free men —
  qualities, positive as well as negative, of Timoleon. — Freedom
  and comfort diffused throughout all Sicily for twenty-four years,
  until the despotism of Agathokles. — Death and obsequies of
  Timoleon. — Proclamation at his funeral — monument to his honor.
  — Contrast of Dion and Timoleon.
                                                               128-197


  CHAPTER LXXXVI.

  CENTRAL GREECE: THE ACCESSION OF PHILIP OF MACEDON TO THE BIRTH
  OF ALEXANDER. 359-356 B. C.

  Central Greece resumed. — State of Central Greece in 360-359
  B. C. — Degradation of Sparta. — Megalopolis — Messênê — their
  fear of Sparta — no central action in Peloponnesus. — Corinth,
  Sikyon, etc. — Comparatively good condition of Athens. — Power
  of Thebes. — Extinction of the free cities of Bœotia by the
  Thebans — repugnant to Grecian feeling. — Thessaly — despots of
  Pheræ. — Alexander of Pheræ — his cruelties — his assassination.
  — Tisiphonus despot of Pheræ — loss of power in the Pheræan
  dynasty. — Macedon — reign and death of Perdikkas. — Philip as
  a youth at Thebes — ideas there acquired — foundation laid of
  his future military ability. — Condition of Philip at the death
  of Perdikkas. — Embarrassments and dangers with which he had to
  contend. — Macedonian government. — Proceedings of Philip against
  his numerous enemies. His success — Thracians — Athenians. — He
  evacuates Amphipolis. He defeats Argæus and the Athenians — his
  mild treatment of Athenian prisoners. — Philip makes peace with
  Athens — renounces his claim to Amphipolis. — Victories of Philip
  over the Pæonians and Illyrians. — Amphipolis evacuated by Philip
  — the Athenians neglect it. — State of Eubœa — the Thebans foment
  revolt and attack the island — victorious efforts of Athens. —
  Surrender of the Chersonese to Athens. — Social War — Chios, Kos,
  Rhodes, and Byzantium revolt from Athens. — Causes of the Social
  War — conduct of the Athenians. — Synod at Athens. — Athens
  acts more for her own separate interests, and less for that of
  her allies — her armaments on service — badly paid mercenaries
  — their extortions. — The four cities declare themselves
  independent of Athens — interference of the Karian Mausôlus. —
  Great force of the revolters — armament despatched by Athens
  against Chios — repulse of the Athenians, and death of Chabrias.
  — Farther armaments of Athens — Iphikrates, Timotheus, and Chares
  — unsuccessful operations in the Hellespont, and quarrel between
  the generals. — Iphikrates and Timotheus are accused by Chares at
  Athens — Iphikrates is acquitted, Timotheus is fined and retires
  from Athens. — Arrogance and unpopularity of Timotheus, attested
  by his friend Isokrates. — Exile of Timotheus — his death soon
  afterwards. — Iphikrates no more employed — great loss to Athens
  in these two generals. — Expedition of Chares — Athens makes
  peace with her revolted allies, recognizing their full autonomy.
  — End of the Social War — great loss of power to Athens. —
  Renewed action of Philip. He lays siege to Amphipolis. — The
  Amphipolitans send to ask assistance from Athens — manœuvres
  of Philip to induce Athens not to interfere. — The Athenians
  determine not to assist Amphipolis — their motives — importance
  of this resolution. — Capture of Amphipolis by Philip, through
  the treason of a party in the town. — Importance of Amphipolis
  to Philip — disappointment of the Athenians at his breach of
  promise. — Philip amuses the Athenians with false assurances
  — he induces them to reject advances from the Olynthians —
  proposed exchange of Pydna for Amphipolis. — Philip acts in a
  hostile manner against Athens — he conquers Pydna and Potidæa —
  gives Potidæa to the Olynthians — remissness of the Athenians. —
  Increase of the power of Philip — he founds Philippi, opens gold
  mines near Mount Pangæus, and derives large revenues from them. —
  Marriage of Philip with Olympias — birth of Alexander the Great.
                                                               197-241


  CHAPTER LXXXVII.

  FROM THE COMMENCEMENT OF THE SACRED WAR TO THAT OF THE OLYNTHIAN
  WAR.

  Causes of the Sacred War — the Amphiktyonic assembly. — Political
  complaint brought before the assembly, first by Thebes against
  Sparta. — Next, by Thebes against the Phokians. The Phokians
  are condemned and heavily fined. — The assembly pass a vote
  consecrating the Phokian territory to Apollo. — Resolution of
  the Phokians to resist — Philomelus their leader. — Question of
  right raised as to the presidency of the temple — old right of
  the Phokians against that of the Delphians and the Amphiktyons.
  — Active measures taken by Philomelus. He goes to Sparta —
  obtains aid from king Archidamus. He seizes Delphi — defeats the
  Lokrians. — Philomelus fortifies the temple — levies numerous
  mercenaries — tries to conciliate Grecian sentiment. The Grecian
  world divided. — Philomelus tries to retain the prophetic agency
  — conduct of the Pythia. — Battles of Philomelus against the
  Lokrians — his success. — Exertions of the Thebans to raise
  a confederacy against the Phokians. — Danger of the Phokians
  — they take part of the treasures of the temple, in order to
  pay a mercenary force. — Numerous mercenaries employed by the
  Phokians — violence and ferocity of the war — defeat and death of
  Philomelus. — Onomarchus general of the Phokians — he renews the
  war — his power by means of the mercenaries. — Violent measures
  of Onomarchus — he employs the treasures of the temple to scatter
  bribes through the various cities. — Successes of Onomarchus — he
  advances as far as Thermopylæ — he invades Bœotia — is repulsed
  by the Thebans. — The Thebans send a force under Pammenes to
  assist Artabazus in Asia Minor. — Conquest of Sestos by Chares
  and the Athenians. — Intrigues of Kersobleptes against Athens —
  he is compelled to cede to her his portion of the Chersonese
  — Athenian settlers sent thither, as well as to Samos. —
  Activity and constant progress of Philip — he conquers Methônê —
  remissness of Athens. — Philip marches into Thessaly against the
  despots of Pheræ. — Great power of Onomarchus and the Phokians —
  plans of Athens and Sparta — the Spartans contemplate hostilities
  against Megalopolis. — First appearance of Demosthenes as a
  public adviser in the Athenian assembly. — Parentage and early
  youth of Demosthenes — wealth of his father — dishonesty of
  his guardians. — Youth of Demosthenes — sickly and feeble
  constitution — want of physical education and bodily vigor. —
  Training of Demosthenes for a speaker — his instructors — Isæus —
  Plato — his devoted study of Thucydides. — Indefatigable efforts
  of Demosthenes to surmount his natural defects as a speaker. —
  Value set by Demosthenes upon action in oratory. His mind and
  thoughts — how formed. — He becomes first known as a logographer
  or composer of speeches for litigants. — Phokion — his antithesis
  and rivalry with Demosthenes — his character and position — his
  bravery and integrity. — Lasting hold acquired by his integrity
  on the public of Athens. — Number of times that he was elected
  general. — His manner of speaking — effective brevity — contempt
  of oratory. — His frankness — his contempt of the Athenian people
  — his imperturbability — his repulsive manners. — Phokion and
  Eubulus the leaders of the peace-party, which represented the
  strongly predominant sentiment at Athens. — Influence of Phokion
  mischievous during the reign of Philip — at that time Athens
  might have prevailed over Macedonia. — Change in the military
  spirit of Greece since the Peloponnesian war. Decline of the
  citizen soldiership: increased spread of mercenary troops.
  Contrast between the Periklean and the Demosthenic citizen.
  — Decline of military readiness also among the Peloponnesian
  allies of Sparta. — Multiplication of mercenary soldiers — its
  mischievous consequences — necessity of providing emigration.
  — Deterioration of the Grecian military force occurred at the
  same time with the great development of the Macedonian force. —
  Rudeness and poverty of the Macedonians — excellent material for
  soldiers — organizing genius of Philip. — First parliamentary
  harangue of Demosthenes — on the Symmories — alarm felt about
  Persia. — Positive recommendations in the speech — mature thought
  and sagacity which they imply. — His proposed preparation and
  scheme for extending the basis of the Symmories. — Spirit of
  the Demosthenic exhortations — always impressing the necessity
  of personal effort and sacrifice as conditions of success. —
  Affairs of Peloponnesus — projects of Sparta against Megalopolis
  — her attempt to obtain coöperation from Athens. — Views and
  recommendations of Demosthenes — he advises that Athens shall
  uphold Messênê and Megalopolis. — Philip in Thessaly — he attacks
  Lykophron of Pheræ, who calls in Onomarchus and the Phokians —
  Onomarchus defeats Philip. — Successes of Onomarchus in Bœotia
  — maximum of the Phokian power. — Philip repairs his forces and
  marches again into Thessaly — his complete victory over the
  Phokians — Onomarchus is slain. — Philip conquers Pheræ and
  Pagasæ — becomes master of all Thessaly — expulsion of Lykophron.
  — Philip invades Thermopylæ — the Athenians send a force thither
  and arrest his progress. Their alarm at this juncture, and
  unusual rapidity of movement. — Phayllus takes the command of the
  Phokians — third spoliation of the temple — revived strength of
  the Phokians — malversation of the leaders. — War in Peloponnesus
  — the Spartans attack Megalopolis — interference of Thebes. —
  Hostilities with indecisive result — peace concluded — autonomy
  of Megalopolis again recognized. — Ill success of the Phokians
  in Bœotia — death of Phayllus, who is succeeded by Phalækus. —
  The Thebans obtain money from the Persian king. — Increased
  power and formidable attitude of Philip. Alarm which he now
  begins to inspire throughout the Grecian world. — Philip acquires
  a considerable navy — importance of the Gulf of Pagasæ to him
  — his flying squadrons annoy the Athenian commerce and coast.
  — Philip carries on war in Thrace — his intrigues among the
  Thracian princes. — He besieges Heræon Teichos: alarm at Athens:
  a decree is passed to send out a fleet: Philip falls sick:
  the fleet is not sent. — Popularity of the mercenary general
  Charidemus — vote in his favor proposed by Aristokrates — speech
  composed by Demosthenes against it. — Languor of the Athenians
  — the principal peace-leaders, Eubulus, Phokion, etc., propose
  nothing energetic against Philip — Demosthenes undertakes the
  duty. — First Philippic of Demosthenes, 352-351 B. C. — remarks
  and recommendations of the first Philippic. Severe comments on
  the past apathy of the people. — He insists on the necessity
  that citizens shall serve in person, and proposes the formation
  of an acting fleet and armament. — His financial propositions.
  — Mischiefs of the past negligence and want of preparation —
  harm done by the mercenary unpaid armaments, serving without
  citizens. — Characteristics of the first Philippic — prudent
  advice and early warnings of Demosthenes. — Advice of Demosthenes
  not carried into effect: no serious measures adopted by Athens.
  — Opponents of Demosthenes at Athens — speakers in the pay of
  Philip — alarm about the Persian king still continues.
                                                               241-319


  CHAPTER LXXXVIII.

  EUBOIC AND OLYNTHIAN WARS.

  Change of sentiments at Olynthus — the Olynthians afraid of
  Philip — they make peace with Athens. — Unfriendly feelings
  of Philip towards Olynthus — ripening into war in 350 B. C. —
  Fugitive half-brothers of Philip obtain shelter at Olynthus.
  — Intrigues of Philip in Olynthus — his means of corruption
  and of fomenting intestine discord. — Conquest and destruction
  of the Olynthian confederate towns by Philip, between 350-347
  B. C. terrible phenomena. — Philip attacks the Olynthians and
  Chalkidians — beginning of the Olynthian war, 350 B. C. — The
  Olynthians conclude alliance with Athens. — The Athenians
  contract alliance with Olynthus — earliest Olynthiac speech
  of Demosthenes. — The Second Olynthiac is the earliest — its
  tone and tenor. — Disposition to magnify the practical effect
  of the speeches of Demosthenes — his true position — he is an
  opposition speaker. — Philip continues to press the Olynthian
  confederacy — increasing danger of Olynthus — fresh applications
  to Athens. — Demosthenes delivers another Olynthiac oration —
  that which stands First, in the printed order. Its tenor. — Just
  appreciation of the situation by Demosthenes. He approaches
  the question of the Theôric Fund. — Assistance sent by Athens
  to Olynthus. Partial success against Philip. — Partial and
  exaggerated confidence at Athens. The Athenians lose sight of
  the danger of Olynthus. Third Olynthiac of Demosthenes. — Tenor
  and substance of the third Olynthiac. — Courage of Demosthenes
  in combating the prevalent sentiment. — Revolt of Eubœa from
  Athens. — Intrigues of Philip in Eubœa. — Plutarch of Eretria
  asks aid from Athens. Aid is sent to him under Phokion, though
  Demosthenes dissuades it — Treachery of Plutarch — danger of
  Phokion and the Athenians in Eubœa — victory of Phokion at
  Tamynæ. — Dionysiac festival at Athens in March, 349 B. C. —
  Insult offered to Demosthenes by Meidias. — Reproaches against
  Demosthenes for having been absent from the battle of Tamynæ — he
  goes over on service to Eubœa as a hoplite — he is named senator
  for 349-348 B. C. — Hostilities in Eubœa, during 349-348 B. C. —
  Great efforts of Athens in 349 B. C. for the support of Olynthus
  and the maintenance of Eubœa at the same time. — Financial
  embarrassments of Athens. Motion of Apollodorus about the Theôric
  Fund. The assembly appropriate the surplus of revenue to military
  purposes. — Apollodorus is indicted and fined. — The diversion
  of the Theôric Fund proves the great anxiety of the moment at
  Athens. — Three expeditions sent by Athens to Chalkidikê in
  349-348 B. C. according to Philochorus. — Final success of Philip
  — capture of the Chalkidic towns and of Olynthus. — Sale of the
  Olynthian prisoners — ruin of the Greek cities in Chalkidikê.
  — Cost incurred by Athens in the Olynthian war. — Theôric Fund
  — not appropriated to war purposes until a little before the
  battle of Chæroneia. — Views respecting the Theôric Fund. —
  It was the general Fund of Athens for religious festivals and
  worship — distributions were one part of it — character of the
  ancient religious festivals. — No other branch of the Athenian
  peace-establishment was impoverished or sacrificed to the Theôric
  expenditure. — The annual surplus might have been accumulated as
  a war-fund — how far Athens is blamable for not having done so. —
  Attempt of the Athenian property-classes to get clear of direct
  taxation by taking from the Theôric Fund. — Conflict of these two
  feelings at Athens. Demosthenes tries to mediate between them
  — calls for sacrifices from all, especially personal military
  service. — Appendix.
                                                               319-363


  CHAPTER LXXXIX.

  FROM THE CAPTURE OF OLYNTHUS TO THE TERMINATION OF THE SACRED WAR
  BY PHILIP.

  Sufferings of the Olynthians and Chalkidians — triumph and
  festival of Philip. — Effect produced at Athens by the capture of
  Olynthus — especially by the number of Athenian captives taken in
  it. — Energetic language of Eubulus and Æschines against Philip.
  — Increased importance of Æschines. — Æschines as envoy of Athens
  in Arcadia. — Increasing despondency and desire for peace at
  Athens. — Indirect overtures for peace between Athens and Philip,
  even before the fall of Olynthus — the Eubœans — Phrynon, etc. —
  First proposition of Philokrates — granting permission to Philip
  to send envoys to Athens. — Effect produced upon the minds of the
  Athenians by their numerous captive citizens taken by Philip at
  Olynthus. — Mission of the actor Aristodemus from the Athenians
  to Philip on the subject of the captives. Favorable dispositions
  reported from Philip. — Course of the Sacred War — gradual
  decline and impoverishment of the Phokians. Dissensions among
  themselves. — Party opposed to Phalækus in Phokis — Phalækus is
  deposed — he continues to hold Thermopylæ with the mercenaries.
  — The Thebans invoke the aid of Philip to put down the Phokians.
  — Alarm among the Phokians — one of the Phokian parties invites
  the Athenians to occupy Thermopylæ — Phalækus repels them. —
  Increased embarrassment at Athens — uncertainty about Phalækus
  and the pass of Thermopylæ. — The defence of Greece now turned
  on Thermopylæ — importance of that pass both to Philip and to
  Athens. — Motion of Philokrates in the Athenian assembly — to
  send envoys to Philip for peace. — Ten Athenian envoys sent —
  Demosthenes and Æschines among them. — Journey of the envoys to
  Pella. — Statements of Æschines about the conduct of Demosthenes
  — arrangements of the envoys for speaking before Philip. —
  Harangue addressed by Æschines to Philip about Amphipolis.
  Failure of Demosthenes in his speech. — Answer of Philip — return
  of the envoys. — Review of Æschines and his conduct, as stated by
  himself. — Philip offers peace on the terms of _uti possidetis_ —
  report made by the Athenian envoys on their return. — Proceedings
  in the Athenian assembly after the return of the envoys — motions
  of Demosthenes. — Arrival of the Macedonian envoys at Athens
  — days fixed for discussing the peace. — Resolution taken by
  the synod of allies at Athens. — Assemblies held to discuss
  the peace, in presence of the Macedonian envoys. — Philokrates
  moves to conclude peace and alliance with Philip. He proposes
  to exclude the Phokians specially. — Part taken by Æschines and
  Demosthenes — in reference to this motion. Contradictions between
  them. — Æschines supported the motion of Philokrates altogether
  — Demosthenes supported it also, except as to the exclusion of
  the Phokians — language of Eubulus. — Motion of Philokrates
  carried in the assembly, for peace and alliance with Philip. —
  Assembly to provide ratification and swearing of the treaty. —
  Question, Who were to be received as allies of Athens? — about
  the Phokians and Kersobleptes. — The envoy of Kersobleptes is
  admitted, both by the Athenian assembly and by the Macedonian
  envoys. — The Macedonian envoys formally refuse to admit the
  Phokians. — Difficulty of Philokrates and Æschines. Their false
  assurances about the secret good intentions of Philip towards the
  Phokians. — The Phokians are tacitly excluded — the Athenians
  and their allies swear to the peace without them. — Ruinous
  mistake — false step of Athens in abandoning the Phokians —
  Demosthenes did not protest against it at the time. — The oaths
  are taken before Antipater, leaving out the Phokians. — Second
  embassy from Athens to Philip. — Demosthenes urges the envoys
  to go immediately to Thrace in order to administer the oath to
  Philip — they refuse — their delay on the journey and at Pella.
  — Philip completes his conquest of Thrace during the interval.
  — Embassies from many Grecian states at Pella. — Consultations
  and dissensions among the Ten Athenian envoys — views taken
  by Æschines of the ambassadorial duties. — The envoys address
  Philip — harangue of Æschines. — Position of Demosthenes in this
  second embassy. — March of Philip to Thermopylæ — he masks his
  purposes, holding out delusive hopes to the Phokians. Intrigues
  to gain his favor. — The envoys administer the oaths to Philip
  at Pheræ, the last thing before their departure. They return to
  Athens. — Plans of Philip on Thermopylæ — corrupt connivance of
  the Athenian envoys — letter from Philip which they brought back
  to Athens. — Æschines and the envoys proclaim the Phokians to be
  excluded from the oaths with Philip — protest of Demosthenes in
  the Senate, on arriving at Athens, against the behavior of his
  colleagues — vote of the Senate approving his protest. — Public
  assembly at Athens — successful address made to it by Æschines —
  his false assurances to the people. — The Athenian people believe
  the promises of Philokrates and Æschines — protest of Demosthenes
  not listened to. — Letter of Philip favorably received by the
  assembly — motion of Philokrates carried, decreeing peace and
  alliance with him forever. Resolution to compel the Phokians to
  give up Delphi. — Letters of Philip to the Athenians, inviting
  them to send forces to join him at Thermopylæ — policy of these
  letters — the Athenians do nothing. — Phokian envoys heard
  these debates at Athens — position of Phalækus at Thermopylæ. —
  Dependence of the Phokians upon Athenian aid to hold Thermopylæ.
  — News received at Thermopylæ of the determination of Athens
  against the Phokians. — Phalækus surrenders Thermopylæ under
  convention to Philip. He withdraws all his forces. — All the
  towns in Phokis surrender at discretion to Philip, who declares
  his full concurrence with the Thebans. — Third embassy sent by
  the Athenians to Philip — the envoys return without seeing him,
  on hearing of the Phokian convention. — Alarm and displeasure
  at Athens — motion of Kallisthenes for putting the city in a
  good state of defence — Æschines and other Athenian envoys
  visit Philip in Phokis — triumphant celebration of Philip’s
  success. — Fair professions of Philip to the Athenians, after
  his conquest of Thermopylæ: language of his partisans at Athens.
  — The Amphiktyonic assembly is convoked anew. Rigorous sentence
  against the Phokians. They are excluded from the assembly, and
  Philip is admitted in their place. — Ruin and wretchedness
  of the Phokians. — Irresistible ascendency of Philip. He is
  named by the Amphiktyons presiding celebrator of the Pythian
  festival of 346 B. C. — Great change effected by this peace in
  Grecian political relations. Demosthenes and Æschines — proof of
  dishonesty and fraud in Æschines, even from his own admissions. —
  This disgraceful peace was brought upon Athens by the corruption
  of her own envoys. — Impeachment and condemnation of Philokrates.
  — Miserable death of all concerned in the spoliation of the
  Delphian temple.
                                                               364-434


  CHAPTER XC.

  FROM THE PEACE OF 346 B. C. TO THE BATTLE OF CHÆRONEIA AND THE
  DEATH OF PHILIP.

  Position of Philip after the conclusion of the Sacred War.
  — Sentiments of Demosthenes — he recommends acquiescence in
  the peace, and recognition of the new Amphiktyonic dignity of
  Philip. — Sentiments of Isokrates — his letter to Philip — his
  abnegation of free Hellenism. — Position of the Persian king
  Ochus — his measures against revolters in Phenicia and Egypt. —
  Reconquest of Phenicia by Ochus — perfidy of the Sidonian prince
  Tennes. — Reconquest of Egypt by the Persian force under Mentor
  and Bagoas. — Power of Mentor as Persian viceroy of the Asiatic
  coast — he seizes Hermeias of Atarneus. — Peace between Philip
  and the Athenians, continued without formal renunciation from
  346-340 B. C. — Movements and intrigues of Philip everywhere
  throughout Greece. — Disunion of the Grecian world — no Grecian
  city recognized as leader. — Vigilance and renewed warnings of
  Demosthenes against Philip. — Mission of Python to Athens by
  Philip — amendments proposed in the recent peace — fruitless
  discussions upon them. — Dispute about Halonnesus. — The
  Athenians refuse to accept cession of Halonnesus as a favor,
  claiming restitution of it as their right. — Halonnesus taken and
  retaken — reprisals between Philip and the Athenians. — Movements
  of the philippizing factions at Megara — at Oreus — at Eretria. —
  Philip in Thrace — disputes about the Bosphorus and Hellespont —
  Diopeithes commander for Athens in the Chersonese. Philip takes
  part with the Kardians against Athens. Hostile collisions and
  complaints against Diopeithes. — Accusations against Diopeithes
  at Athens by the philippizing orators — Demosthenes defends him
  — speech on the Chersonese, and third Philippic. — Increased
  influence of Demosthenes at Athens — Athenian expedition sent,
  upon his motion, to Eubœa — Oreus and Eretria are liberated,
  and Eubœa is detached from Philip. — Mission of Demosthenes
  to the Chersonese and Byzantium — his important services in
  detaching the Byzantines from Philip, and bringing them into
  alliance with Athens. — Philip commences the siege of Perinthus
  — he marches through the Chersonesus — declaration of war
  by Athens against him. — Manifesto of Philip, declaring war
  against Athens — Complaints of Philip against the Athenians —
  his policy towards Athens — his lecture on the advantages of
  peace. — Open war between Philip and the Athenians. — Siege of
  Perinthus by Philip. His numerous engines for siege — great scale
  of operations. Obstinacy of the defence. The town is relieved
  by the Byzantines, and by Grecian mercenaries from the Persian
  satraps. — Philip attacks Byzantium — danger of the place — it
  is relieved by the fleets of Athens, Chios, Rhodes, etc. Success
  of the Athenian fleet in the Propontis under Phokion. Philip
  abandons the sieges both of Perinthus and Byzantium. — Votes
  of thanks from Byzantium and the Chersonesus to Athens for her
  aid — honors and compliments to Demosthenes. — Philip withdraws
  from Byzantium, concludes peace with the Byzantines, Chians,
  and others, and attacks the Scythians. He is defeated by the
  Triballi, and wounded, on his return. — Important reform effected
  by Demosthenes in the administration of the Athenian marine. —
  Abuses which had crept into the trierarchy — unfair apportionment
  of the burthen — undue exemption which the rich administrators
  had acquired for themselves. — Individual hardship, and bad
  public consequences, occasioned by these inequalities. —
  Opposition offered by the rich citizens and by Æschines to the
  proposed reform of Demosthenes — difficulties which he had to
  overcome. — His new reform distributes the burthen of trierarchy
  equitably. — Its complete success. Improved efficiency of the
  naval armaments under it. — New Sacred War commences in Greece.
  — Kirrha and its plain near Delphi consecrated to Apollo, in the
  first Sacred War under Solon. — Necessity of a port at Kirrha,
  for the convenience of visitors to Delphi. Kirrha grows up again,
  and comes into the occupation of the Lokrians of Amphissa. —
  Relations between the Lokrians of Amphissa and Delphi — they
  had stood forward earnestly in the former Sacred War to defend
  Delphi against the Phokians. — Amphiktyonic meeting at Delphi —
  February, 339 B. C. Æschines one of the legates from Athens. —
  Language of an Amphissian speaker among the Amphiktyons against
  Athens — new dedication of an old Athenian donative in the
  temple. — Speech of Æschines in the Amphiktyonic assembly. —
  Passion and tumult excited by his speech. — Violent resolution
  adopted by the Amphiktyons. — The Amphiktyons with the Delphian
  multitude march down to destroy Kirrha — interference of the
  Amphissians to rescue their property. They drive off the
  Amphiktyons. — Farther resolution taken by the Amphiktyons to
  hold a future special meeting and take measures for punishing the
  Lokrians. — Unjust violence of the Amphiktyons — public mischief
  done by Æschines. — Effect of the proceeding of Æschines at
  Athens. Opposition of Demosthenes at first fruitless. — Change of
  feeling at Athens — the Athenians resolve to take no part in the
  Amphiktyonic proceedings against Amphissa. — Special meeting of
  the Amphiktyons at Thermopylæ, held without Athens. Vote passed
  to levy a force for punishing Amphissa. Kottyphus president. The
  Amphiktyons invoke the intervention of Philip. — Motives which
  dictated the vote — dependence of most of the Amphiktyonic voters
  upon Philip — Philip accepts the command — marches southward
  through Thermopylæ. — Philip enters Phokis. — He suddenly
  occupies, and begins to re-fortify Elateia. — He sends an embassy
  to Thebes, announcing his intention to attack Attica, and asking
  either aid, or a free passage for his own army. — Unfriendly
  relations subsisting between Athens and Thebes. Hopes of Philip
  that Thebes would act in concert with him against Athens. —
  Great alarm at Athens, when the news arrived that Philip was
  fortifying Elateia. — Athenian public assembly held — general
  anxiety and silence — no one will speak but Demosthenes. — Advice
  of Demosthenes to despatch an embassy immediately to Thebes, and
  to offer alliance on the most liberal terms. — The advice of
  Demosthenes is adopted — he is despatched with other envoys to
  Thebes. — Divided state of feeling at Thebes — influence of the
  philippizing party — effect produced by the Macedonian envoys. —
  Efficient and successful oratory of Demosthenes — he persuades
  the Thebans to contract alliance with Athens against Philip.
  — The Athenian army marches by invitation to Thebes — cordial
  coöperation of the Thebans and Athenians. — Vigorous resolutions
  taken at Athens — continuance of the new docks suspended — the
  Theôric Fund is devoted to military purposes. — Disappointment of
  Philip — he remains in Phokis, and writes to his Peloponnesian
  allies to come and join him against Amphissa. — War of the
  Athenians and Thebans against Philip in Phokis — they gain some
  advantages over him — honors paid to Demosthenes at Athens. — The
  Athenians and Thebans reconstitute the Phokians and their towns.
  — War against Philip in Phokis — great influence of Demosthenes
  — auxiliaries which he procured. — Increased efforts of Philip
  in Phokis. — Successes of Philip — he defeats a large body of
  mercenary troops — he takes Amphissa. — No eminent general on
  the side of the Greeks — Demosthenes keeps up the spirits of
  the allies, and holds them together. — Battle of Chæroneia —
  complete victory of Philip. — Macedonian phalanx — its long pikes
  — superior in front charge to the Grecian hoplites. — Excellent
  organization of the Macedonian army by Philip — different sorts
  of force combined. — loss at the battle of Chæroneia. — Distress
  and alarm at Athens on the news of the defeat. — Resolutions
  taken at Athens for energetic defence. Respect and confidence
  shown to Demosthenes. — Effect produced upon some of the
  islanders in the Ægean by the defeat — conduct of the Rhodians. —
  Conduct of Philip after the victory — harshness towards Thebes —
  greater lenity to Athens. — Conduct of Æschines — Demades is sent
  as envoy to Philip. — Peace of Demades, concluded between Philip
  and the Athenians. The Athenians are compelled to recognize him
  as chief of the Hellenic world. — Remarks of Polybius on the
  Demadean peace — means of resistance still possessed by Athens.
  — Honorary votes passed at Athens to Philip. — Impeachment
  brought against Demosthenes at Athens — the Athenians stand
  by him. — Expedition of Philip into Peloponnesus. He invades
  Laconia. — Congress held at Corinth. Philip is chosen chief of
  the Greeks against Persia. — Mortification to Athenian feelings
  — degraded position of Athens and of Greece. No genuine feeling
  in Greece now, towards war against Persia. — Preparations of
  Philip for the invasion of Persia. — Philip repudiates Olympias
  at the instance of his recently married wife, Kleopatra —
  resentment of Olympias and Alexander — dissension at Court. —
  Great festival in Macedonia — celebrating the birth of a son
  to Philip by Kleopatra, and the marriage of his daughter with
  Alexander of Epirus. — Pausanias — outrage inflicted upon him
  — his resentment against Philip, encouraged by the partisans of
  Olympias and Alexander. — Assassination of Philip by Pausanias,
  who is slain by the guards. — Accomplices of Pausanias. —
  Alexander the great is declared king — first notice given to him
  by the Lynkestian Alexander, one of the conspirators — Attalus
  and queen Kleopatra, with her infant son, are put to death. —
  Satisfaction manifested by Olympias at the death of Philip. —
  Character of Philip.
                                                               434-523




HISTORY OF GREECE.




CHAPTER LXXXIII.

SICILIAN AFFAIRS (_continued_). — FROM THE DESTRUCTION OF THE
CARTHAGINIAN ARMY BY PESTILENCE BEFORE SYRACUSE, DOWN TO THE DEATH OF
DIONYSIUS THE ELDER. B. C. 394-367.


In my preceding volume, I have described the first eleven years of
the reign of Dionysius called the Elder, as despot at Syracuse, down
to his first great war against the Carthaginians; which war ended by
a sudden turn of fortune in his favor, at a time when he was hard
pressed and actually besieged. The victorious Carthaginian army
before Syracuse was utterly ruined by a terrible pestilence, followed
by ignominious treason on the part of its commander Imilkon.

Within the space of less than thirty years, we read of four distinct
epidemic distempers,[1] each of frightful severity, as having
afflicted Carthage and her armies in Sicily, without touching
either Syracuse or the Sicilian Greeks. Such epidemics were the
most irresistible of all enemies to the Carthaginians, and the most
effective allies to Dionysius. The second and third,—conspicuous
among the many fortunate events of his life,—occurred at the exact
juncture necessary for rescuing him from a tide of superiority in
the Carthaginian arms, which seemed in a fair way to overwhelm him
completely. Upon what physical conditions the frequent repetition of
such a calamity depended, together with the remarkable fact that it
was confined to Carthage and her armies,—we know partially in respect
to the third of the four cases, but not at all in regard to the
others.

  [1] Diodor. xiii. 86-114; xiv. 70; xv. 24. Another pestilence is
  alluded to by Diodorus in 368 B. C. (Diodor. xv. 73).

  Movers notices the intense and frequent sufferings of the
  ancient Phœnicians, in their own country, from pestilence; and
  the fearful expiations to which these sufferings gave rise (Die
  Phönizier, vol. ii. part ii. p. 9).

The flight of Imilkon with his Carthaginians from Syracuse left
Dionysius and the Syracusans in the full swing of triumph. The
conquests made by Imilkon were altogether lost, and the Carthaginian
dominion in Sicily was now cut down to that restricted space in the
western corner of the island, which it had occupied prior to the
invasion of Hannibal in 409 B. C. So prodigious a success probably
enabled Dionysius to put down the opposition recently manifested
among the Syracusans to the continuance of his rule. We are told
that he was greatly embarrassed by his mercenaries; who, having
been for some time without pay, manifested such angry discontent
as to threaten his downfall. Dionysius seized the person of their
commander, the Spartan Aristoteles: upon which the soldiers mutined
and flocked in arms around his residence, demanding in fierce terms
both the liberty of their commander and the payment of their arrears.
Of these demands, Dionysius eluded the first by saying that he would
send away Aristoteles to Sparta, to be tried and dealt with among
his own countrymen: as to the second, he pacified the soldiers by
assigning to them, in exchange for their pay, the town and territory
of Leontini. Willingly accepting this rich bribe, the most fertile
soil of the island, the mercenaries quitted Syracuse to the number
of ten thousand, to take up their residence in the newly assigned
town; while Dionysius hired new mercenaries in their place. To these
(including perhaps the Iberians or Spaniards who had recently passed
from the Carthaginian service into his) and to the slaves whom he had
liberated, he intrusted the maintenance of his dominion.[2]

  [2] Diodor. xiv. 78.

These few facts, which are all that we hear, enable us to see that
the relations between Dionysius and the mercenaries by whose means
he ruled Syracuse, were troubled and difficult to manage. But they
do not explain to us the full cause of such discord. We know that
a short time before, Dionysius had rid himself of one thousand
obnoxious mercenaries by treacherously betraying them to death in a
battle with the Carthaginians. Moreover, he would hardly have seized
the person of Aristoteles, and sent him away for trial, if the latter
had done nothing more than demand pay really due to his soldiers.
It seems probable that the discontent of the mercenaries rested
upon deeper causes, perhaps connected with that movement in the
Syracusan mind against Dionysius, manifested openly in the invective
of Theodorus. We should have been glad also to know how Dionysius
proposed to pay the new mercenaries, if he had no means of paying
the old. The cost of maintaining his standing army, upon whomsoever
it fell, must have been burdensome in the extreme. What became of
the previous residents and proprietors at Leontini, who must have
been dispossessed when this much-coveted site was transferred to
the mercenaries? On all these points we are unfortunately left in
ignorance.

Dionysius now set forth towards the north of Sicily to reëstablish
Messênê; while those other Sicilians, who had been expelled from
their abodes by the Carthaginians, got together and returned. In
reconstituting Messênê after its demolition by Imilkon, he obtained
the means of planting there a population altogether in his interests,
suitable to the aggressive designs which he was already contemplating
against Rhegium and the other Italian Greeks. He established in it
one thousand Lokrians,—four thousand persons from another city the
name of which we cannot certainly make out,[3]—and six hundred of the
Peloponnesian Messenians. These latter had been expelled by Sparta
from Zakynthus and Naupaktus at the close of the Peloponnesian
war, and had taken service in Sicily with Dionysius. Even here, the
hatred of Sparta followed them. Her remonstrances against his project
of establishing them in a city of consideration bearing their own
ancient name, obliged him to withdraw them: upon which he planted
them on a portion of the Abakene territory on the northern coast.
They gave to their new city the name of Tyndaris, admitted many new
residents, and conducted their affairs so prudently, as presently to
attain a total of five thousand citizens.[4] Neither here, nor at
Messênê, do we find any mention made of the reëstablishment of those
inhabitants who had fled when Imilkon took Messênê, and who formed
nearly all the previous population of the city, for very few are
mentioned as having been slain. It seems doubtful whether Dionysius
readmitted them, when he reconstituted Messênê. Renewing with care
the fortifications of the city, which had been demolished by Imilkon,
he placed in it some of his mercenaries as garrison.[5]

  [3] Diodor. xiv. 78. Διονύσιος δ᾽ εἰς Μεσσήνην κατῴκισε χιλίους
  μὲν Λοκροὺς, τετρακισχιλίους δὲ ~Μεδιμναίους~, ἑξακοσίους δὲ τῶν
  ἐκ Πελοποννήσου Μεσσηνίων, ἔκ τε Ζακύνθου καὶ Ναυπάκτου φευγόντων.

  The Medimnæans are completely unknown. Cluverius and Wesseling
  conjecture _Medmæans_, from Medmæ or Medamæ, noticed by Strabo
  as a town in the south of Italy. But this supposition cannot be
  adopted as certain; especially as the total of persons named is
  so large. The conjecture of Palmerius—Μηθυμναίους—has still less
  to recommend it. See the note of Wesseling.

  [4] Diodor. xiv. 78.

  [5] Diodor. xiv. 87.

Dionysius next undertook several expeditions against the Sikels in
the interior of the island, who had joined Imilkon in his recent
attack upon Syracuse. He conquered several of their towns, and
established alliances with two of their most powerful princes, at
Agyrium and Kentoripæ. Enna and Kephalœdium were also betrayed to
him, as well as the Carthaginian dependency of Solûs. By these
proceedings, which appear to have occupied some time, he acquired
powerful ascendency in the central and north-east parts of the
island, while his garrison at Messênê; ensured to him the command of
the strait between Sicily and Italy.[6]

  [6] Diodor. xiv. 78. εἰς τὴν τῶν Σικελῶν χώραν πλεονάκις
  στρατεύσας, etc. Wesseling shows in his note, that these words,
  and those which follow must refer to Dionysius.

His acquisition of this important fortified position was well
understood to imply ulterior designs against Rhegium and the other
Grecian cities in the south of Italy, among whom accordingly a lively
alarm prevailed. The numerous exiles whom he had expelled, not merely
from Syracuse, but also from Naxus, Katana, and the other conquered
towns, having no longer any assured shelter in Sicily, had been
forced to cross over into Italy, where they were favorably received
both at Kroton and at Rhegium.[7] One of these exiles, Helôris, once
the intimate friend of Dionysius, was even appointed general of the
forces of Rhegium; forces at that time not only powerful on land,
but sustained by a fleet of seventy or eighty triremes.[8] Under his
command, a Rhegine force crossed the strait for the purpose partly
of besieging Messênê, partly of establishing the Naxian and Katanean
exiles at Mylæ on the northern coast of the island, not far from
Messênê. Neither scheme succeeded: Helôris was repulsed from Messênê
with loss, while the new settlers at Mylæ were speedily expelled. The
command of the strait was thus fully maintained to Dionysius; who,
on the point of undertaking an aggressive expedition over to Italy,
was delayed only by the necessity of capturing the newly established
Sikel town on the hill of Taurus—or Tauromenium. The Sikels defended
this position, in itself high and strong, with unexpected valor
and obstinacy. It was the spot on which the primitive Grecian
colonists who first came to Sicily, had originally landed, and from
whence, therefore, the successive Hellenic encroachments upon the
pre-established Sikel population, had taken their commencement. This
fact, well known to both parties, rendered the capture on one side as
much a point of honor, as the preservation on the other. Dionysius
spent months in the siege, even throughout midwinter, while the snow
covered this hill-top. He made reiterated assaults, which were always
repulsed. At last, on one moonless winter night, he found means to
scramble over some almost inaccessible crags to a portion of the town
less defended, and to effect a lodgment in one of the two fortified
portions into which it was divided. Having taken the first part, he
immediately proceeded to attack the second. But the Sikels, resisting
with desperate valor, repulsed him, and compelled the storming party
to flee in disorder, amidst the darkness of night, and over the most
difficult ground. Six hundred of them were slain on the spot, and
scarcely any escaped without throwing away their arms. Even Dionysius
himself, being overthrown by the thrust of a spear on his cuirass,
was with difficulty picked up and carried off alive; all his arms,
except the cuirass, being left behind. He was obliged to raise the
siege, and was long in recovering from his wound: the rather as his
eyes also had suffered considerably from the snow.[9]

  [7] Diodor. xiv. 87-103.

  [8] Diodor. xiv. 8, 87, 106

  [9] Diodor. xiv. 88.

So manifest a reverse, before a town comparatively insignificant,
lowered his military reputation, and encouraged his enemies
throughout the island. The Agrigentines and others, throwing off
their dependence upon him, proclaimed themselves autonomous;
banishing those leaders among them who upheld his interest.[10] Many
of the Sikels also, elate with the success of their countrymen at
Tauromenium, declared openly against him; joining the Carthaginian
general Magon, who now, for the first time since the disaster before
Syracuse, again exhibited the force of Carthage in the field.

  [10] Diodor. xiv. 88. μετὰ δὲ τὴν ἀτυχίαν ταύτην, Ἀκραγαντῖνοι
  ~καὶ Μεσσνήνιοι~ τοὺς τὰ Διονυσίου φρονοῦντας μεταστησάμενοι, τῆς
  ἐλευθερίας ἀντείχοντο, καὶ τῆς τοῦ τυράννου συμμαχίας ἀπέστησαν.

  It appears to me that the words καὶ Μεσσνήνιοι in this sentence
  cannot be correct. The Messenians were a new population just
  established by Dionysius, and relying upon him for protection
  against Rhegium: moreover they will appear, during the events
  immediately succeeding, constantly in conjunction with him, and
  objects of attack by his enemies.

  I cannot but think that Diodorus has here inadvertently placed
  the word Μεσσνήνιοι instead of a name belonging to some other
  community—what community, we cannot tell.

Since the disaster before Syracuse, Magon had remained tranquil
in the western or Carthaginian corner of the island, recruiting
the strength and courage of his countrymen, and taking unusual
pains to conciliate the attachment of the dependent native towns.
Reinforced in part by the exiles expelled by Dionysius, he was now
in a condition to assume the aggressive, and to espouse the cause
of the Sikels after their successful defence of Tauromenium. He
even ventured to overrun and ravage the Messenian territory; but
Dionysius, being now recovered from his wound, marched against him,
defeated him in a battle near Abakæna, and forced him again to retire
westward, until fresh troops were sent to him from Carthage.[11]

  [11] Diodor. xiv. 90-95.

Without pursuing Magon, Dionysius returned to Syracuse, from whence
he presently set forth to execute his projects against Rhegium, with
a fleet of one hundred ships of war. So skilfully did he arrange
or mask his movements, that he arrived at night at the gates and
under the walls of Rhegium, without the least suspicion on the part
of the citizens. Applying combustibles to set fire to the gate
(as he had once done successfully at the gate of Achradina),[12]
he at the same time planted his ladders against the walls, and
attempted an escalade. Surprised and in small numbers, the citizens
began their defence; but the attack was making progress, had not
the general Helôris, instead of trying to extinguish the flames,
bethought himself of encouraging them by heaping on dry faggots
and other matters. The conflagration became so violent, that even
the assailants themselves were kept off until time was given for
the citizens to mount the walls in force; and the city was saved
from capture by burning a portion of it. Disappointed in his
hopes, Dionysius was obliged to content himself with ravaging the
neighboring territory; after which, he concluded a truce of one year
with the Rhegines, and then returned to Syracuse.[13]

  [12] Diodor. xiii. 113.

  [13] Diodor xiv. 90.

This step was probably determined by news of the movements of Magon,
who was in the field anew with a mercenary force reckoned at eighty
thousand men—Libyan, Sardinian, and Italian—obtained from Carthage,
where hope of Sicilian success was again reviving. Magon directed
his march through the Sikel population in the centre of the island,
receiving the adhesion of many of their various townships. Agyrium,
however, the largest and most important of all, resisted him as an
enemy. Agyris, the despot of the place, who had conquered much of
the neighboring territory, and had enriched himself by the murder
of several opulent proprietors, maintained strict alliance with
Dionysius. The latter speedily came to his aid, with a force stated
at twenty thousand men, Syracusans and mercenaries. Admitted into
the city, and co-operating with Agyris, who furnished abundant
supplies, he soon reduced the Carthaginians to great straits. Magon
was encamped near the river Chrysas, between Agyrium and Morgantinê;
in an enemy’s country, harassed by natives who perfectly knew the
ground, and who cut off in detail all his parties sent out to
obtain provisions. The Syracusans, indeed, disliking or mistrusting
such tardy methods, impatiently demanded leave to make a vigorous
attack; and when Dionysius refused, affirming that with a little
patience the enemy must be speedily starved out, they left the camp
and returned home. Alarmed at their desertion, he forthwith issued
a requisition for a large number of slaves to supply their places.
But at this very juncture, there arrived a proposition from the
Carthaginians to be allowed to make peace and retire; which Dionysius
granted, on condition that they should abandon to him the Sikels and
their territory—especially Tauromenium. Upon these terms peace was
accordingly concluded, and Magon again returned to Carthage.[14]

  [14] Diodor. xiv. 95, 96.

Relieved from these enemies, Dionysius was enabled to restore those
slaves, whom he had levied under the recent requisition, to their
masters. Having established his dominion fully among the Sikels, he
again marched against Tauromenium, which on this occasion was unable
to resist him. The Sikels, who had so valiantly defended it, were
driven out, to make room for new inhabitants, chosen from among the
mercenaries of Dionysius.[15]

  [15] Diodor. xiv. 96.

Thus master both of Messênê and Tauromenium, the two most important
maritime posts on the Italian side of Sicily, Dionysius prepared
to execute his ulterior schemes against the Greeks in the south
of Italy. These still powerful, though once far more powerful,
cities, were now suffering under a cause of decline common to all
the Hellenic colonies on the coast of the continent. The indigenous
population of the interior had been reinforced, or enslaved, by more
warlike emigrants from behind, who now pressed upon the maritime
Grecian cities with encroachment difficult to resist.

It was the Samnites, a branch of the hardy Sabellian race,
mountaineers from the central portion of the Apennine range, who had
been recently spreading themselves abroad as formidable assailants.
About 420 B. C., they had established themselves in Capua and the
fertile plains of Campania, expelling or dispossessing the previous
Tuscan proprietors. From thence, about 416 B. C., they reduced the
neighboring city of Cumæ, the most ancient western colony of the
Hellenic race.[16] The neighboring Grecian establishments of Neapolis
and Dikæarchia seem also to have come, like Cumæ, under tribute
and dominion to the Campanian Samnites, and thus became partially
dis-hellenised.[17] These Campanians, of Samnite race, have been
frequently mentioned in the two preceding chapters, as employed on
mercenary service both in the armies of the Carthaginians, and in
those of Dionysius.[18] But the great migration of this warlike
race was farther to the south-east, down the line of the Apennines
towards the Tarentine Gulf and the Sicilian strait. Under the name
of Lucanians, they established a formidable power in these regions,
subjugating the Œnotrian population there settled.[19] The Lucanian
power seems to have begun and to have gradually increased from about
430 B. C. At its maximum (about 380-360 B. C.), it comprehended most
part of the inland territory, and considerable portions of the coast,
especially the southern coast,—bounded by an imaginary line drawn
from Metapontum on the Tarentine Gulf, across the breadth of Italy
to Poseidonia or Pæstum, near the mouth of the river Silaris, on
the Tyrrhenian or Lower sea. It was about 356 B. C., that the rural
serfs, called Bruttians,[20] rebelled against the Lucanians, and
robbed them of the southern part of this territory; establishing an
independent dominion in the inland portion of what is now called the
Farther Calabria—extending from a boundary line drawn across Italy
between Thurii and Läus, down to near the Sicilian strait. About
332 B. C., commenced the occasional intervention of the Epirotic
kings from the one side, and the persevering efforts of Rome from
the other, which, after long and valiant struggles, left Samnites,
Lucanians, Bruttians, all Roman subjects.

  [16] Livy, iv. 37-44; Strabo, v. p. 243-250. Diodorus (xii.
  31-76) places the commencement of the Campanian nation in 438
  B. C., and their conquest of Cumæ in 421 B. C. Skylax in his
  Periplus mentions both Cumæ and Neapolis as in Campania (s. 10.)
  Thucydides speaks of Cumæ as being ἐν Ὀπικίᾳ (vi. 4).

  [17] Strabo, v. p. 246.

  [18] Thucydides (vii. 53-57) does not mention _Campanians_ (he
  mentions Tyrrhenians) as serving in the besieging Athenian
  armament before Syracuse (414-413 B. C.) He does not introduce
  the name _Campanians_ at all; though alluding to Iberian
  mercenaries as men whom Athens calculated on engaging in her
  service (vi. 90).

  But Diodorus mentions, that eight hundred Campanians were engaged
  by the Chalkidian cities in Sicily for service with the Athenians
  under Nikias, and that they had escaped during the disasters of
  the Athenian army (xiii. 44).

  The conquest of Cumæ in 416 B. C. opened to these Campanian
  Samnites an outlet for hired military service beyond sea.
  Cumæ being in its Origin Chalkidic, would naturally be in
  correspondence with the Chalkidic cities in Sicily. This forms
  the link of connection, which explains to us how the Campanians
  came into service in 413 B. C. under the Athenian general before
  Syracuse, and afterwards so frequently under others in Sicily
  (Diodor. xiii. 62-80, etc.).

  [19] Strabo, vi. p. 253, 254. See a valuable section on this
  subject in Niebuhr, Römisch. Geschichte, vol. i. p. 94-98.

  It appears that the Syracusan historian Antiochus made no mention
  either of Lucanians or of Bruttians, though he enumerated the
  inhabitants of the exact line of territory afterwards occupied
  by these two nations. After repeating the statement of Antiochus
  that this territory was occupied by Italians, Œnotrians, and
  Chonians, Strabo proceeds to say—Οὗτος μὲν οὖν ἁπλουστέρως εἴρηκε
  καὶ ἀρχαϊκῶς, οὐδὲν διορίσας περὶ τῶν Λευκανῶν καὶ τῶν Βρεττίων.
  The German translator Grosskurd understands these words as
  meaning, that Antiochus “did not distinguish the Lucanians from
  the Bruttians.” But if we read the paragraph through, it will
  appear, I think, that Strabo means to say, that Antiochus had
  stated nothing positive respecting either Lucanians or Bruttians.
  Niebuhr (p. 96 _ut suprà_) affirms that Antiochus represented the
  Lucanians as having extended themselves as far as Läus; which I
  cannot find.

  The date of Antiochus seems not precisely ascertainable. His work
  on Sicilian history was carried down from early times to 424 B.
  C. (Diodor. xii. 71). His silence respecting the Lucanians goes
  to confirm the belief that the date of their conquest of the
  territory called Lucania was considerably later than that year.

  Polyænus (ii. 10. 2-4) mentions war as carried on by the
  inhabitants of Thurii, under Kleandridas the father of Gylippus,
  against the Lucanians. From the age and circumstances of
  Kleandridas, this can hardly be later than 420 B. C.

  [20] Strabo, vi. p. 256. The Periplus of Skylax (s. 12, 13)
  recognizes Lucania as extending down to Rhegium. The date to
  which this Periplus refers appears to be about 370-360 B. C.:
  see an instructive article among Niebuhr’s Kleine Schriften, p.
  105-130. Skylax does not mention the Bruttians (Klausen, Hekatæus
  and Skylax, p. 274. Berlin, 1831).

At the period which we have now reached, these Lucanians, having
conquered the Greek cities of Poseidonia (or Pæstum) and Läus, with
much of the territory lying between the Gulfs of Poseidonia and
Tarentum, severely harassed the inhabitants of Thurii, and alarmed
all the neighboring Greek cities down to Rhegium. So serious was the
alarm of these cities, that several of them contracted an intimate
defensive alliance, strengthening for the occasion that feeble
synodical band, and sense of Italiot communion,[21] the form and
trace of which seems to have subsisted without the reality, even
under marked enmity between particular cities. The conditions of
the newly-contracted alliance were most stringent; not only binding
each city to assist at the first summons any other city invaded by
the Lucanians, but also pronouncing, that if this obligation were
neglected, the generals of the disobedient city should be condemned
to death.[22] However, at this time the Italiot Greeks were not less
afraid of Dionysius and his aggressive enterprises from the south,
than of the Lucanians from the north; and their defensive alliance
was intended against both. To Dionysius, on the contrary, the
invasion of the Lucanians from landward was a fortunate incident for
the success of his own schemes. Their concurrent designs against the
same enemies, speedily led to the formation of a distinct alliance
between the two.[23] Among the allies of Dionysius, too, we must
number the Epizephyrian Lokrians; who not only did not join the
Italiot confederacy, but espoused his cause against it with ardor.
The enmity of the Lokrians against their neighbors, the Rhegines, was
ancient and bitter; exceeded only by that of Dionysius, who never
forgave the refusal of the Rhegines to permit him to marry a wife out
of their city, and was always grateful to the Lokrians for having
granted to him the privilege which their neighbors had refused.

  [21] Diodor. xiv. 91-101. Compare Polybius, ii. 39. When Nikias
  on his way to Sicily, came near to Rhegium and invited the
  Rhegines to coöperate against Syracuse, the Rhegines declined,
  replying, ὅ,τι ἂν καὶ τοῖς ἄλλοις Ἰταλιώταις ξυνδοκῇ, τοῦτο
  ποιήσειν (Thucyd. vi. 44).

  [22] Diodor. xiv. 101.

  [23] Diodor. xiv. 100.

Wishing as yet, if possible, to avoid provoking the other members of
the Italiot confederacy, Dionysius still professed to be revenging
himself exclusively upon Rhegium; against which he conducted a
powerful force from Syracuse. Twenty thousand foot, one thousand
horse, and one hundred and twenty ships of war, are mentioned as the
total of his armament. Disembarking near Lokri, he marched across
the lower part of the peninsula in a westerly direction, ravaged
with fire and sword the Rhegian territory, and then encamped near
the strait on the northern side of Rhegium. His fleet followed
coastwise round Cape Zephyrium to the same point. While he was
pressing the siege, the members of the Italiot synod despatched
from Kroton a fleet of sixty sail, to assist in the defence. Their
ships, having rounded Cape Zephyrium, were nearing Rhegium from the
south, when Dionysius himself approached to attack them, with fifty
ships detached from his force. Though inferior in number, his fleet
was probably superior in respect to size and equipment; so that the
Krotoniate captains, not daring to hazard a battle, ran their ships
ashore. Dionysius here attacked them, and would have towed off all
the ships (without their crews) as prizes, had not the scene of
action lain so near to Rhegium, that the whole force of the city
could come forth in reinforcement, while his own army was on the
opposite side of the town. The numbers and courage of the Rhegines
baffled his efforts, rescued the ships, and hauled them all up upon
the shore in safety. Obliged to retire without success, Dionysius was
farther overtaken by a terrific storm, which exposed his fleet to the
utmost danger. Seven of his ships were driven ashore; their crews,
fifteen hundred in number, being either drowned, or falling into the
hands of the Rhegines. The rest, after great danger and difficulty,
either rejoined the main fleet or got into the harbor of Messênê;
where Dionysius himself in his quinquereme also found refuge,
but only at midnight, and after imminent risk for several hours.
Disheartened by this misfortune as well as by the approach of winter,
he withdrew his forces for the present, and returned to Syracuse.[24]

  [24] Diodor. xiv 100.

A part of his fleet, however, under Leptines, was despatched
northward along the south-western coast of Italy to the Gulf of Elea,
to coöperate with the Lucanians; who from that coast and from inland
were invading the inhabitants of Thurii on the Tarentine Gulf.
Thurii was the successor, though with far inferior power, of the
ancient Sybaris; whose dominion had once stretched across from sea to
sea, comprehending the town of Läus, now a Lucanian possession.[25]
Immediately on the appearance of the Lucanians, the Thurians had
despatched an urgent message to their allies, who were making all
haste to arrive, pursuant to covenant. But before such junction could
possibly take place, the Thurians, confiding in their own native
force of fourteen thousand foot, and one thousand horse, marched
against the enemy single-handed. The Lucanian invaders retreated,
pursued by the Thurians, who followed them even into that mountainous
region of the Appenines which stretches between the two seas, and
which presents the most formidable danger and difficulty for all
military operations.[26] They assailed successfully a fortified
post or village of the Lucanians, which fell into their hands with
a rich plunder. By such partial advantage they were so elated, that
they ventured to cross over all the mountain passes even to the
neighborhood of the southern sea, with the intention of attacking the
flourishing town of Läus[27]—once the dependency of their Sybaritan
predecessors. But the Lucanians, having allured them into these
impracticable paths, closed upon them behind with greatly increased
numbers, forbade all retreat, and shut them up in a plain surrounded
with high and precipitous cliffs. Attacked in this plain by numbers
double their own, the unfortunate Thurians underwent one of the most
bloody defeats recorded in Grecian history. Out of their fourteen
thousand men, ten thousand were slain, under merciless order from the
Lucanians to give no quarter. The remainder contrived to flee to a
hill near the sea-shore, from whence they saw a fleet of ships of war
coasting along at no great distance. Distracted with terror, they
were led to fancy, or to hope, that these were the ships expected
from Rhegium to their aid; though the Rhegines would naturally send
their ships, when demanded, to Thurii, on the Tarentine Gulf, not
to the Lower sea near Läus. Under this impression, one thousand of
them swam off from the shore to seek protection on shipboard. But
they found themselves, unfortunately, on board the fleet of Leptines,
brother and admiral of Dionysius, come for the express purpose of
aiding the Lucanians. With a generosity not less unexpected than
honorable, this officer saved their lives, and also, as it would
appear, the lives of all the other defenceless survivors; persuading
or constraining the Lucanians to release them, on receiving one mina
of silver per man.[28]

  [25] Herodot. vi. 21; Strabo, vi. p. 253.

  [26] See the description of this mountainous region between
  the Tarentine Gulf and the Tyrrhenian Sea, in an interesting
  work by a French General employed in Calabria in 1809—Calabria
  during a military residence of Three Years, Letters, 17, 18, 19
  (translated and published by Effingham Wilson. London, 1832).

  [27] Diodor. xiv. 101. βουλόμενοι Λᾶον, πόλιν εὐδαίμονα,
  πολιορκῆσαι. This appears the true reading: it is an acute
  conjecture proposed by Niebuhr (Römisch. Geschicht. i. p. 96)
  in place of the words—βουλόμενοι λαὸν καὶ πόλιν εὐδαίμονα,
  πολιορκῆσαι.

  [28] Diodor. xiv. 102.

This act of Hellenic sympathy restored three or four thousand
citizens on ransom to Thurii, instead of leaving them to be massacred
or sold by the barbarous Lucanians, and procured the warmest esteem
for Leptines personally among the Thurians and other Italiot
Greeks. But it incurred the strong displeasure of Dionysius, who
now proclaimed openly his project of subjugating these Greeks, and
was anxious to encourage the Lucanians as indispensable allies.
Accordingly he dismissed Leptines, and named as admiral his other
brother Thearides. He then proceeded to conduct a fresh expedition;
no longer intended against Rhegium alone, but against all the Italiot
Greeks. He departed from Syracuse with a powerful force—twenty
thousand foot and three thousand horse, with which, he marched by
land in five days to Messênê; his fleet under Thearides accompanying
him—forty ships of war, and three hundred transports with provisions.
Having first successfully surprised and captured near the Lipari
isles a Rhegian squadron of ten ships, the crews of which he
constituted prisoners at Messênê, he transported his army across the
strait into Italy, and laid siege to Kaulonia—on the eastern coast
of the peninsula, and conterminous with the northern border of his
allies the Lokrians. He attacked this place vigorously, with the best
siege machines which his arsenal furnished.

The Italiot Greeks, on the other hand, mustered their united force
to relieve it. Their chief centre of action was Kroton where most of
the Syracusan exiles, the most forward of all champions in the cause,
were now assembled. One of these exiles, Helôris (who had before been
named general by the Rhegines), was intrusted with the command of the
collective army; an arrangement neutralizing all local jealousies.
Under the cordial sentiment prevailing, an army was mustered at
Kroton, estimated at twenty-five thousand foot and two thousand
horse; by what cities furnished, or in what proportion, we are unable
to say.[29] At the head of these troops, Helôris marched southward
from Kroton to the river Elleporus not far from Kaulonia; where
Dionysius, raising the siege, met him.[30] He was about four miles
and a half from the Krotoniate army, when he learnt from his scouts
that Helôris with a chosen regiment of five hundred men (perhaps
Syracusan exiles like himself), was considerably in advance of the
main body. Moving rapidly forward in the night, Dionysius surprised
this advanced guard at break of day, completely isolated from the
rest. Helôris, while he despatched instant messages to accelerate
the coming up of the main body, defended himself with his small band
against overwhelming superiority of numbers. But the odds were too
great. After an heroic resistance, he was slain, and his companions
nearly all cut to pieces, before the main body, though they came up
at full speed, could arrive.

  [29] Diodor. xiv. 103.

  [30] Polybius (i. 6) gives us the true name of this river:
  Diodorus calls it the river _Helôris_.

The hurried pace of the Italiot army, however, though it did not
suffice to save the general, was of fatal efficacy in deranging
their own soldierlike army. Confused and disheartened by finding
that Helôris was slain, which left them without a general to direct
the battle or restore order, the Italiots fought for some time
against Dionysius, but were at length defeated with severe loss. They
effected their retreat from the field of battle to a neighboring
eminence, very difficult to attack, yet destitute of water and
provisions. Here Dionysius blocked them up, without attempting an
attack, but keeping the strictest guard round the hill during the
whole remaining day and the ensuing night. The heat of the next day,
with total want of water, so subdued their courage, that they sent
to Dionysius a herald with propositions, entreating to be allowed
to depart on a stipulated ransom. But the terms were peremptorily
refused; they were ordered to lay down their arms, and surrender at
discretion. Against this terrible requisition they stood out yet
awhile, until the increasing pressure of physical exhaustion and
suffering drove them to surrender, about the eighth hour of the
day.[31]

  [31] Diodor. xiv. 105. παρέδωκαν αὑτοὺς περὶ ὀγδόην ὥραν, ἤδη τὰ
  σώματα παρείμενοι.

More than ten thousand disarmed Greeks descended from the hill and
defiled before Dionysius, who numbered the companies as they passed
with a stick. As his savage temper was well known, they expected
nothing short of the harshest sentence. So much the greater was
their astonishment and delight, when they found themselves treated
not merely with lenity, but with generosity.[32] Dionysius released
them all without even exacting a ransom; and concluded a treaty with
most of the cities to which they belonged, leaving their autonomy
undisturbed. He received the warmest thanks, accompanied by votes of
golden wreaths, from the prisoners as well as from the cities; while
among the general public of Greece, the act was hailed as forming the
prominent glory of his political life.[33] Such admiration was well
deserved, looking to the laws of war then prevalent.

  [32] Diodor. xiv. 105. Καὶ πάντων αὐτοῦ ὑποπτευόντων τὸ θηριῶδες,
  τοὐναντίον ἐφάνη πάντων ἐπιεικέστατος.

  [33] Diodor. xiv. 105. καὶ σχεδὸν τοῦτ᾽ ἔδοξε πράττειν ἐν τῷ ζῇν
  κάλλιστον. Strabo, vi. p. 261.

With the Krotoniates and other Italiot Greeks (except Rhegium and
Lokri) Dionysius had had no marked previous relations and therefore
had not contracted any strong personal sentiment either of antipathy
or favor. With Rhegium and Lokri, the case was different. To the
Lokrians he was strongly attached: against the Rhegines his animosity
was bitter and implacable, manifesting itself in a more conspicuous
manner by contrast with his recent dismissal of the Krotoniate
prisoners; a proceeding which had been probably dictated, in great
part, by his anxiety to have his hands free for the attack of
isolated Rhegium. After having finished the arrangements consequent
upon his victory, he marched against that city, and prepared to
besiege it. The citizens, feeling themselves without hope of succor,
and intimidated by the disaster of their Italiot allies, sent out
heralds to beg for moderate terms, and imploring him to abstain from
extreme or unmeasured rigor.[34] For a moment, Dionysius seemed to
comply with their request. He granted them peace, on condition that
they should surrender all their ships of war, seventy in number—that
they should pay to him three hundred talents in money—and that they
should place in his hands one hundred hostages. All these demands
were strictly complied with; upon which Dionysius withdrew his army,
and agreed to spare the city.[35]

  [34] Diodor. xiv. 106. καὶ παρακαλέσαι μηδὲν περὶ αὐτῶν ~ὑπὲρ
  ἄνθρωπον~ βουλεύεσθαι.

  [35] Diodor. xiv. 106.

His next proceeding was, to attack Kaulonia and Hipponium; two
cities which seem between them to have occupied the whole breadth
of the Calabrian peninsula, immediately north of Rhegium and Lokri;
Kaulonia on the eastern coast, Hipponium on or near the western. Both
these cities he besieged, took, and destroyed: probably neither of
them, in the hopeless circumstances of the case, made any strenuous
resistance. He then caused the inhabitants of both of them, such at
least as did not make their escape, to be transported to Syracuse,
where he domiciliated them as citizens, allowing them five years of
exemption from taxes.[36] To be a citizen of Syracuse meant at this
moment, to be a subject of his despotism, and nothing more: how he
made room for these new citizens, or furnished them with lands and
houses, we are unfortunately not informed. But the territory of both
these towns, evacuated by its free inhabitants (though probably not
by its slaves, or serfs), was handed over to the Lokrians and annexed
to their city. That favored city, which had accepted his offer of
marriage, was thus immensely enriched both in lands and in collective
property. Here again it would have been interesting to hear what
measures were taken to appropriate or distribute the new lands; but
our informant is silent.

  [36] Diodor. xiv. 106, 107.

Dionysius had thus accumulated into Syracuse, not only all Sicily[37]
(to use the language of Plato), but even no inconsiderable portion
of Italy. Such wholesale changes of domicile and property must
probably have occupied some months; during which time the army of
Dionysius seems never to have quitted the Calabrian peninsula, though
he himself may probably have gone for a time in person to Syracuse.
It was soon seen that the depopulation of Hipponium and Kaulonia
was intended only as a prelude to the ruin of Rhegium. Upon this
Dionysius had resolved. The recent covenant into which he had entered
with the Rhegines, was only a fraudulent device for the purpose of
entrapping them into a surrender of their navy, in order that he
might afterwards attack them at greater advantage. Marching his
army to the Italian shore of the strait, near Rhegium, he affected
to busy himself in preparations for crossing to Sicily. In the mean
time, he sent a friendly message to the Rhegines, requesting them
to supply him for a short time with provisions, under assurance
that what they furnished should speedily be replaced from Syracuse.
It was his purpose, if they refused, to resent it as an insult,
and attack them; if they consented, to consume their provisions,
without performing his engagement to replace the quantity consumed;
and then to make his attack after all, when their means of holding
out had been diminished. At first the Rhegines complied willingly,
furnishing abundant supplies. But the consumption continued, and the
departure of the army was deferred—first on pretence of the illness
of Dionysius, next on other grounds—so that they at length detected
the trick, and declined to furnish any more. Dionysius now threw off
the mask, gave back to them their hundred hostages, and laid siege to
the town in form.[38]

  [37] Plato, Epistol. vii. p. 332 D. Διονύσιος δὲ εἰς μίαν πόλιν
  ἀθροίσας πᾶσαν Σικελίαν ὑπὸ σοφίας, etc.

  [38] Diodor. xiv. 107, 108. Polyænus relates this stratagem of
  Dionysius about the provisions, as if it had been practised at
  the siege of Himera, and not of Rhegium (Polyæn. v. 3, 10).

Regretting too late that they had suffered themselves to be defrauded
of their means of defence, the Rhegines nevertheless prepared to hold
out with all the energy of despair. Phyton was chosen commander,
the whole population was armed, and all the line of wall carefully
watched. Dionysius made vigorous assaults, employing all the
resources of his battering machinery to effect a breach. But he was
repelled at all points obstinately, and with much loss on both sides:
several of his machines were also burnt or destroyed by opportune
sallies of the besieged. In one of the assaults, Dionysius himself
was seriously wounded by a spear thrust in the groin, from which
he was long in recovering. He was at length obliged to convert the
siege into a blockade, and to rely upon famine alone for subduing
these valiant citizens. For eleven months did the Rhegines hold
out, against the pressure of want gradually increasing, and at last
terminating in the agony and destruction of famine. We are told that
a medimnus of wheat came to be sold for the enormous price of five
minæ; at the rate of about £14 sterling per bushel: every horse and
every beast of burthen was consumed: at length hides were boiled and
eaten, and even the grass on parts of the wall. Many perished from
absolute hunger, while the survivors lost all strength and energy. In
this intolerable condition, they were constrained, at the end of near
eleven months, to surrender at discretion.

So numerous were these victims of famine, that Dionysius, on entering
Rhegium, found heaps of unburied corpses, besides six thousand
citizens in the last stage of emaciation. All these captives were
sent to Syracuse, where those who could provide a mina (about £3
17s.) were allowed to ransom themselves, while the rest were sold
as slaves. After such a period of suffering, the number of those
who retained the means of ransom was probably very small. But the
Rhegine general, Phyton, was detained with all his kindred, and
reserved for a different fate. First, his son was drowned, by
order of Dionysius: next, Phyton himself was chained to one of the
loftiest siege-machines, as a spectacle to the whole army. While he
was thus exhibited to scorn, a messenger was sent to apprise him,
that Dionysius had just caused his son to be drowned. “He is more
fortunate than his father by one day,” was the reply of Phyton.
After a certain time, the sufferer was taken down from his pillory,
and led round the city, with attendants scourging and insulting him
at every step; while a herald proclaimed aloud, “Behold the man who
persuaded the Rhegines to war, thus signally punished by Dionysius!”
Phyton, enduring all these torments with heroic courage and dignified
silence, was provoked to exclaim in reply to the herald, that the
punishment was inflicted because he had refused to betray the city
to Dionysius, who would himself soon be overtaken by the divine
vengeance. At length the prolonged outrages, combined with the noble
demeanor and high reputation of the victim, excited compassion even
among the soldiers of Dionysius himself. Their murmurs became so
pronounced, that he began to apprehend an open mutiny for the purpose
of rescuing Phyton. Under this fear he gave orders that the torments
should be discontinued, and that Phyton with his entire kindred
should be drowned.[39]

  [39] Diodor. xiv. 112. Ὁ δὲ Φύτων, κατὰ τὴν πολιορκίαν στρατηγὸς
  ἀγαθὸς γεγενημένος, καὶ κατὰ τὸν ἄλλον βίον ἐπαινούμενος, οὐκ
  ἀγεννῶς ὑπέμενε τὴν ἐπὶ τῆς τελευτῆς τιμωρίαν· ἀλλ᾽ ἀκατάπληκτον
  τὴν ψυχὴν φυλάξας, καὶ βοῶν, ὅτι τὴν πόλιν οὐ βουληθεὶς προδοῦναι
  Διονυσίῳ τυγχάνει τῆς τιμωρίας, ἣν αὐτῷ τὸ δαιμόνιον ἐκείνῳ
  συντόμως ἐπιστήσει· ὥστε τὴν ἀρετὴν τἀνδρὸς καὶ παρὰ τοῖς
  στρατιώταις τοῦ Διονυσίου κατελεεῖσθαι, καί τινας ἤδη θορυβεῖν.
  Ὁ δὲ Διονύσιος, εὐλαβηθεὶς μή τινες τῶν στρατιωτῶν ἀποτολμήσωσιν
  ἐξαρπάζειν τὸν Φύτωνα, παυσάμενος τῆς τιμωρίας, κατεπόντωσε τὸν
  ἀτυχῆ μετὰ τῆς συγγενείας. Οὗτος μὲν οὖν ἀναξίως τῆς ἀρετῆς
  ἐκνόμοις περιέπεσε τιμωρίαις, καὶ πολλοὺς ἔσχε καὶ τότε τῶν
  Ἑλλήνων τοὺς ἀλγήσαντας τὴν συμφορὰν, καὶ μετὰ ταῦτα ποιητὰς τοὺς
  θρηνήσοντας τὸ τῆς περιπετείας ἐλεεινόν.

The prophetic persuasion under which this unhappy man perished,
that divine vengeance would soon overtake his destroyer, was noway
borne out by the subsequent reality. The power and prosperity of
Dionysius underwent abatement by his war with the Carthaginians in
383 B. C., yet remained very considerable even to his dying day.
And the misfortunes which fell thickly upon his son the younger
Dionysius, more than thirty years afterwards, though they doubtless
received a religious interpretation from contemporary critics, were
probably ascribed to acts more recent than the barbarities inflicted
on Phyton. But these barbarities, if not avenged, were at least laid
to heart with profound sympathy by the contemporary world, and even
commemorated with tenderness and pathos by poets. While Dionysius was
composing tragedies (of which more presently) in hopes of applause in
Greece, he was himself furnishing real matter of history, not less
tragical than the sufferings of those legendary heroes and heroines
to which he (in common with other poets) resorted for a subject.
Among the many acts of cruelty, more or less aggravated, which it
is the melancholy duty of an historian of Greece to recount, there
are few so revolting as the death of the Rhegine general; who was
not a subject, nor a conspirator, nor a rebel, but an enemy in open
warfare—of whom the worst that even Dionysius himself could say, was,
that he had persuaded his countrymen into the war. And even this
could not be said truly; since the antipathy of the Rhegines towards
Dionysius was of old standing, traceable to his enslavement of Naxos
and Katana, if not to causes yet earlier—though the statement of
Phyton may very probably be true, that Dionysius had tried to bribe
him to betray Rhegium (as the generals of Naxos and Katana had
been bribed to betray their respective cities), and was incensed
beyond measure at finding the proposition repelled. The Hellenic
war-practice was in itself sufficiently cruel. Both Athenians and
Lacedæmonians put to death prisoners of war by wholesale, after the
capture of Melos, after the battle of Ægospotami, and elsewhere. But
to make death worse than death by a deliberate and protracted tissue
of tortures and indignities, is not Hellenic; it is Carthaginian
and Asiatic. Dionysius had shown himself better than a Greek when
he released without ransom the Krotoniate prisoners captured at the
battle of Kaulonia; but he became far worse than a Greek, and worse
even than his own mercenaries, when he heaped aggravated suffering,
beyond the simple death-warrant, on the heads of Phyton and his
kindred.

Dionysius caused the city of Rhegium to be destroyed[40] or
dismantled. Probably he made over the lands to Lokri, like those
of Kaulonia and Hipponium. The free Rhegine citizens had all been
transported to Syracuse for sale; and those who were fortunate enough
to save their liberty by providing the stipulated ransom, would not
be allowed to come back to their native soil. If Dionysius was so
zealous in enriching the Lokrians, as to transfer to them two other
neighboring town-domains, against the inhabitants of which he had
no peculiar hatred—much more would he be disposed to make the like
transfer of the Rhegine territory, whereby he would gratify at once
his antipathy to the one state and his partiality to the other. It
is true that Rhegium did not permanently continue incorporated with
Lokri; but neither did Kaulonia nor Hipponium. The maintenance of
all the three transfers depended on the ascendency of Dionysius and
his dynasty; but for the time immediately succeeding the capture of
Rhegium, the Lokrians became masters of the Rhegine territory as well
as of the two other townships, and thus possessed all the Calabrian
peninsula south of the Gulf of Squillace. To the Italiot Greeks
generally, these victories of Dionysius were fatally ruinous, because
the political union formed among them, for the purpose of resisting
the pressure of the Lucanians from the interior, was overthrown,
leaving each city to its own weakness and isolation.[41]

  [40] Strabo, vi. p. 258 ἐπιφανῆ δ᾽ οὖν πόλιν οὖσαν ... κατασκάψαι
  Διονύσιον, etc.

  [41] Polybius, ii. 39, 67.

The year 387, in which Rhegium surrendered, was also distinguished
for two other memorable events; the general peace in Central Greece
under the dictation of Persia and Sparta, commonly called the peace
of Antalkidas; and the capture of Rome by the Gauls.[42]

  [42] Polybius, i. 6.

The two great ascendant powers in the Grecian world were now, Sparta
in Peloponnesus, and Dionysius in Sicily; each respectively fortified
by alliance with the other. I have already in a former chapter[43]
described the position of Sparta after the peace of Antalkidas; how
greatly she gained by making herself the champion of that Persian
rescript—and how she purchased, by surrendering the Asiatic Greeks
to Artaxerxes, an empire on land equal to that which she had enjoyed
before the defeat of Knidus, though without recovering the maritime
empire fortified by that defeat.

  [43] Chap. LXXVI. Vol. X.

To this great imperial state, Dionysius in the west formed a suitable
counterpart. His recent victories in Southern Italy had already
raised his power to a magnitude transcending all the far-famed
recollections of Gelon; but he now still farther extended it by
sending an expedition against Kroton. This city, the largest in Magna
Græcia, fell under his power; and he succeeded in capturing, by
surprise or bribery, even its strong citadel; on a rock overhanging
the sea.[44] He seems also to have advanced yet farther with his
fleet to attack Thurii; which city owed its preservation solely to
the violence of the north winds. He plundered the temple of Hêrê near
Cape Lakinium, in the domain of Kroton. Among the ornaments of this
temple was one of pre-eminent beauty and celebrity, which at the
periodical festivals was exhibited to admiring spectators: a robe
wrought with the greatest skill, and decorated in the most costly
manner, the votive offering of a Sybarite named Alkimenes. Dionysius
sold this robe to the Carthaginians. It long remained as one of
the permanent religious ornaments of their city, being probably
dedicated to the honor of those Hellenic Deities recently introduced
for worship; whom (as I have before stated) the Carthaginians were
about this time peculiarly anxious to propitiate, in hopes of
averting or alleviating the frightful pestilences wherewith they
had been so often smitten. They purchased the robe from Dionysius
at the prodigious price of one hundred and twenty talents, or
about £27,600 sterling.[45] Incredible as this sum may appear, we
must recollect that the honor done to the new gods would be mainly
estimated according to the magnitude of the sum laid out. As the
Carthaginians would probably think no price too great to transfer
an unrivalled vestment from the wardrobe of the Lakinian Hêrê to
the newly-established temple and worship of Dêmêtêr and Persephonê
in their city—so we may be sure that the loss of such an ornament,
and the spoliation of the holy place, would deeply humiliate the
Krotoniates, and with them the crowd of Italiot Greeks who frequented
the Lakinian festivals.

  [44] Livy has preserved the mention of this important acquisition
  of Dionysius (xxiv. 3).

  “Sed arx Crotonis, unâ parte imminens mari, alterâ vergente in
  agrum, situ tantum naturali quondam munita, postea et muro cincta
  est, quâ per aversas rupes ab Dionysio Siciliæ tyranno per dolum
  fuerat capta.”

  Justin also (xx. 5) mentions the attack of Dionysius upon Kroton.

  We may, with tolerable certainty, refer the capture to the
  present part of the career of Dionysius.

  See also Ælian, V. H. xii. 61.

  [45] Aristotel. Auscult. Mirab. s. 96; Athenæus, xii. p. 541;
  Diodor. xiv. 77.

  Polemon specified this costly robe, in his work Περὶ τῶν ἐν
  Καρχηδόνι Πέπλων....

Thus master of the important city of Kroton, with a citadel near the
sea capable of being held by a separate garrison, Dionysius divested
the inhabitants of their southern possession of Skylletium, which he
made over to aggrandize yet farther the town of Lokri.[46] Whether
he pushed his conquests farther along the Tarentine Gulf so as to
acquire the like hold on Thurii or Metapontum, we cannot say. But
both of them must have been overawed by the rapid extension and near
approach of his power; especially Thurii, not yet recovered from her
disastrous defeat by the Lucanians.

  [46] Strabo, vi. p. 261.

Profiting by his maritime command of the Gulf, Dionysius was
enabled to enlarge his ambitious views even to distant ultramarine
enterprises. To escape from his long arm, Syracusan exiles were
obliged to flee to a greater distance, and one of their divisions
either founded, or was admitted into, the city of Ancona, high up
the Adriatic Gulf.[47] On the other side of that Gulf, in vicinity
and alliance with the Illyrian tribes, Dionysius on his part sent a
fleet, and established more than one settlement. To these schemes he
was prompted by a dispossessed prince of the Epirotic Molossians,
named Alketas, who, residing at Syracuse as an exile, had gained
his confidence. He founded the town of Lissus (now Alessio) on the
Illyrian coast, considerably north of Epidamnus; and he assisted the
Parians in their plantation of two Grecian settlements, in sites
still farther northward up the Adriatic Gulf—the islands of Issa
and Pharos. His admiral at Lissus defeated the neighboring Illyrian
coast-boats, which harassed these newly-settled Parians; but with
the Illyrian tribes near to Lissus, he maintained an intimate
alliance, and even furnished a large number of them with Grecian
panoplies. It is affirmed to have been the purpose of Dionysius
and Alketas to employ these warlike barbarians, first in invading
Epirus and restoring Alketas to his Molossian principality; next in
pillaging the wealthy temple of Delphi—a scheme far-reaching, yet not
impracticable, and capable of being seconded by a Syracusan fleet,
if circumstances favored its execution. The invasion of Epirus was
accomplished, and the Molossians were defeated in a bloody battle,
wherein fifteen thousand of them are said to have been slain. But the
ulterior projects against Delphi were arrested by the intervention
of Sparta, who sent a force to the spot and prevented all further
march southward.[48] Alketas however seems to have remained prince of
a portion of Epirus, in the territory nearly opposite to Korkyra;
where we have already recognized him, in a former chapter, as having
become the dependent of Jason of Pheræ in Thessaly.

  [47] Strabo, v. p. 241. It would seem that the two maritime
  towns, said to have been founded on the coast of Apulia on the
  Adriatic by Dionysius the _younger_ during the first years of
  his reign—according to Diodorus (xvi. 5)—must have been really
  founded by the _elder_ Dionysius, near about the time to which we
  have now reached.

  [48] Diodor. xv. 13, 14.

Another enterprise undertaken by Dionysius about this time was a
maritime expedition along the coasts of Latium, Etruria, and Corsica;
partly under color of repressing the piracies committed from their
maritime cities; but partly also, for the purpose of pillaging the
rich and holy temple of Leukothea, at Agylla or its seaport Pyrgi.
In this he succeeded, stripping it of money and precious ornaments
to the amount of one thousand talents. The Agyllæans came forth to
defend their temple, but were completely worsted, and lost so much
both in plunder and in prisoners, that Dionysius, after returning to
Syracuse and selling the prisoners, obtained an additional profit of
five hundred talents.[49]

  [49] Diodor. xv. 14; Strabo, v. p. 226; Servius ad Virgil. Æneid.
  x. 184.

Such was the military celebrity now attained by Dionysius,[50] that
the Gauls from Northern Italy, who had recently sacked Rome, sent
to proffer their alliance and aid. He accepted the proposition;
from whence perhaps the Gallic mercenaries whom we afterwards find
in his service as mercenaries, may take their date. His long arms
now reached from Lissus on one side to Agylla on the other. Master
of most of Sicily and much of Southern Italy, as well as of the
most powerful standing army in Greece—the unscrupulous plunderer
of the holiest temples everywhere[51]—he inspired much terror and
dislike throughout Central Greece. He was the more vulnerable to this
sentiment, as he was not only a triumphant prince, but also a tragic
poet; competitor, as such, for that applause and admiration which no
force can extort. Since none of his tragedies have been preserved, we
can form no judgment of our own respecting them. Yet when we learn
that he had stood second or third, and that one of his compositions
gained even the first prize at the Lenæan festival at Athens,[52] in
368-367 B. C.—the favorable judgment of an Athenian audience affords
good reason for presuming that his poetical talents were considerable.

  [50] Justin, xx. 5; Xenoph. Hellen. vii. 1, 20.

  [51] See Pseudo-Aristotel. Œconomic. ii. 20-41; Cicero, De Natur.
  Deor. iii. 34, 82, 85: in which passages, however, there must be
  several incorrect assertions as to the actual temples pillaged;
  for Dionysius could not have been in Peloponnesus to rob the
  temple of Zeus at _Olympia_, or of Æsculapius at _Epidaurus_.

  Athenæus (xv. p. 693) recounts an anecdote that Dionysius
  plundered the temple of Æsculapius at _Syracuse_ of a valuable
  golden table; which is far more probable.

  [52] Diodor. xv. 74. See Mr. Fynes Clinton, Fast. Hellen. ad ann.
  367 B. C.

During the years immediately succeeding 387 B. C., however, Dionysius
the poet was not likely to receive an impartial hearing anywhere.
For while on the one hand his own circle would applaud every word—on
the other hand, a large proportion of independent Greeks would be
biassed against what they heard by their fear and hatred of the
author. If we believed the anecdotes recounted by Diodorus, we
should conclude not merely that the tragedies were contemptible
compositions, but that the irritability of Dionysius in regard to
criticism was exaggerated even to silly weakness. The dithyrambic
poet Philoxenus, a resident or visitor at Syracuse, after hearing
one of these tragedies privately recited, was asked his opinion. He
gave an unfavorable opinion, for which he was sent to prison:[53] on
the next day the intercession of friends procured his release, and
he contrived afterwards, by delicate wit and double-meaning phrases,
to express an inoffensive sentiment without openly compromising
truth. At the Olympic festival of 388 B. C., Dionysius had sent some
of his compositions to Olympia, together with the best actors and
chorists to recite them. But so contemptible were the poems (we are
told), that in spite of every advantage of recitation, they were
disgracefully hissed and ridiculed; moreover the actors in coming
back to Syracuse were shipwrecked, and the crew of the ship ascribed
all the suffering of their voyage to the badness of the poems
entrusted to them. The flatterers of Dionysius, however (it is said),
still continued to extol his genius, and to assure him that his
ultimate success as a poet, though for a time interrupted by envy,
was infallible; which Dionysius believed, and continued to compose
tragedies without being disheartened.[54]

  [53] See a different version of the story about Philoxenus in
  Plutarch, De Fortun. Alexand. Magni, p. 334 C.

  [54] Diodor. xiv. 109; xv. 6.

Amidst such malicious jests, circulated by witty men at the
expense of the princely poet, we may trace some important matter
of fact. Perhaps in the year 388 B. C., but certainly in the year
384 B. C. (both of them Olympic years), Dionysius sent tragedies
to be recited, and chariots to run, before the crowd assembled in
festival at Olympia. The year 387 B. C. was a memorable year both
in Central Greece and in Sicily. In the former, it was signalized
by the momentous peace of Antalkidas, which terminated a general
war of eight years’ standing: in the latter, it marked the close of
the Italian campaign of Dionysius, with the defeat and humiliation
of Kroton and the other Italiot Greeks, and subversion of three
Grecian cities,—Hipponium, Kaulonia, and Rhegium—the fate of the
Rhegines having been characterized by incidents most pathetic and
impressive. The first Olympic festival which occurred after 387 B. C.
was accordingly a distinguished epoch. The two festivals immediately
preceding (those of 392 B. C. and 388 B. C.) having been celebrated
in the midst of a general war, had not been visited by a large
proportion of the Hellenic body; so that the next ensuing festival,
the 99th Olympiad in 384 B. C., was stamped with a peculiar character
(like the 90th Olympiad[55] in 420 B. C.) as bringing together in
religious fraternity those who had long been separated.[56] To every
ambitious Greek (as to Alkibiades in 420 B. C.) it was an object
of unusual ambition to make individual figure at such a festival.
To Dionysius, the temptation was peculiarly seductive, since he
was triumphant over all neighboring enemies—at the pinnacle of his
power—and disengaged from all war requiring his own personal command.
Accordingly he sent thither his Theôre, or solemn legation for
sacrifice, decked in the richest garments, furnished with abundant
gold and silver plate, and provided with splendid tents to serve
for their lodging on the sacred ground of Olympia. He farther sent
several chariots-and-four to contend in the regular chariot races:
and lastly, he also sent reciters and chorists, skilful as well as
highly trained, to exhibit his own poetical compositions before
such as were willing to hear them. We must remember that poetical
recitation was not included in the formal programme of the festival.

  [55] See Vol. VII. of this History, Ch. LV. p. 57 _seqq._

  [56] See above, in this work, Vol. X. Ch. LXXVII. p. 76. I have
  already noticed the peculiarity of this Olympic festival of 384
  B. C., in reference to the position and sentiment of the Greeks
  in Peloponnesus and Asia. I am now obliged to notice it again,
  in reference to the Greeks of Sicily and Italy—especially to
  Dionysius.

All this prodigious outfit, under the superintendence of Thearides,
brother of Dionysius, was exhibited with dazzling effect before
the Olympic crowd. No name stood so prominently and ostentatiously
before them as that of the despot of Syracuse. Every man, even from
the most distant regions of Greece, was stimulated to inquire into
his past exploits and character. There were probably many persons
present, peculiarly forward in answering such inquiries—the numerous
sufferers, from Italian and Sicilian Greece, whom his conquests had
thrown into exile; and their answers would be of a nature to raise
the strongest antipathy against Dionysius. Besides the numerous
depopulations and mutations of inhabitants which he had occasioned
in Sicily, we have already seen that he had, within the last three
years, extinguished three free Grecian communities—Rhegium, Kaulonia,
Hipponium; transporting all the inhabitants of the two latter to
Syracuse. In the case of Kaulonia, an accidental circumstance
occurred to impress its recent extinction vividly upon the
spectators. The runner who gained the great prize in the stadium, in
384 B. C., was Dikon, a native of Kaulonia. He was a man preëminently
swift of foot, celebrated as having gained previous victories in
the stadium, and always proclaimed (pursuant to custom) along with
the title of his native city—“Dikon the Kauloniate.” To hear this
well-known runner now proclaimed as “Dikon the Syracusan,”[57] gave
painful publicity to the fact, that the free community of Kaulonia no
longer existed,—and to the absorptions of Grecian freedom effected by
Dionysius.

  [57] Diodor. xv. 14. Παρὰ δ᾽ Ἠλείοις Ὀλυμπιὰς ἤχθη ἐννενηκοστὴ
  ἐννάτη (B. C. 384), καθ᾽ ἣν ἐνίκα στάδιον Δίκων Συρακούσιος.

  Pausanias, vi. 3, 5. Δίκων δὲ ὁ Καλλιμβρότου πέντε μὲν Πυθοῖ
  δρόμου νίκας, τρεῖς δὲ ἀνείλετο Ἰσθμίων, τέσσαρας δὲ ἐν Νεμέᾳ,
  καὶ Ὀλυμπιακὰς μίαν μὲν ἐν παισὶ, δύο δὲ ἄλλας ἀνδρῶν· καὶ οἱ καὶ
  ἀνδριάντες ἴσοι ταῖς νίκαις εἰσὶν ἐν Ὀλυμπίᾳ· παιδὶ μὲν δὴ ὄντι
  αὐτῷ ~Καυλωνιάτῃ, καθάπερ γε καὶ ἦν, ὑπῆρξεν ἀναγορευθῆναι~· τὸ
  δὲ ἀπὸ τούτου ~Συρακούσιον αὑτὸν ἀνηγόρευσεν ἐπὶ χρήμασι~.

  Pausanias here states, that Dikon received a bribe to permit
  himself to be proclaimed as a Syracusan, and not as a Kauloniate.
  Such corruption did occasionally take place (compare another case
  of similar bribery, attempted by Syracusan envoys, Pausan. vi. 2,
  4), prompted by the vanity of the Grecian cities to appropriate
  to themselves the celebrity of a distinguished victor at Olympia.
  But in this instance, the blame imputed to Dikon is more than he
  deserves. Kaulonia had been already depopulated and incorporated
  with Lokri; the inhabitants being taken away to Syracuse and
  made Syracusan citizens (Diodor. xiv. 106). Dikon therefore
  could not have been proclaimed a Kauloniate, even had he desired
  it—when the city of Kaulonia no longer existed. The city was
  indeed afterwards reëstablished; and this circumstance doubtless
  contributed to mislead Pausanias, who does not seem to have been
  aware of its temporary subversion by Dionysius.

In following the history of affairs in Central Greece, I have
already dwelt upon the strong sentiment excited among Grecian
patriots by the peace of Antalkidas, wherein Sparta made herself the
ostentatious champion and enforcer of a Persian rescript, purchased
by surrendering the Asiatic Greeks to the Great King. It was natural
that this emotion should manifest itself at the next ensuing Olympic
festival in 384 B. C., wherein not only Spartans, Athenians, Thebans,
and Corinthians, but also Asiatic and Sicilian Greeks, were reunited
after a long separation. The emotion found an eloquent spokesman in
the orator Lysias. Descended from Syracusan ancestors, and once a
citizen of Thurii,[58] Lysias had peculiar grounds for sympathy with
the Sicilian and Italian Greeks. He delivered a public harangue upon
the actual state of political affairs, in which he dwelt upon the
mournful present and upon the serious dangers of the future. “The
Grecian world (he said) is burning away at both extremities. Our
eastern brethren have passed into slavery under the Great King, our
western under the despotism of Dionysius.[59] These two are the great
potentates, both in naval force and in money, the real instruments
of dominion:[60] if both of them combine, they will extinguish what
remains of freedom in Greece. They have been allowed to consummate
all this ruin unopposed, because of the past dissensions among the
leading Grecian cities; but it is now high time that these cities
should unite cordially to oppose farther ruin. How can Sparta, our
legitimate president, sit still while the Hellenic world is on fire
and consuming? The misfortunes of our ruined brethren ought to be
to us as our own. Let us not lie idle, waiting until Artaxerxes and
Dionysius attack us with their united force: let us check their
insolence at once, while it is yet in our power.”[61]

  [58] Dionys. Hal. Judic. de Lysâ, p. 452, Reisk.

  [59] Lysias, Fragm. Orat. 33. ap. Dionys. Hal. p. 521. ὁρῶν οὕτως
  αἰσχρῶς διακειμένην τὴν Ἑλλάδα, καὶ πολλὰ μὲν αὐτῆς ὄντα ὑπὸ τῷ
  βαρβάρῳ, πολλὰς δὲ πόλεις ὑπὸ τυράννων ἀναστάτους γεγενημένας.

  [60] Lysias, Fr. Or. 33. _l. c._ Ἐπίστασθε δὲ, ὅτι ἡ μὲν ἀρχὴ τῶν
  κρατούντων τῆς θαλάττης, τῶν δὲ χρημάτων βασιλεὺς ταμίας· τὰ δὲ
  τῶν Ἑλλήνων σώματα τῶν δαπανᾶσθαι δυναμένων· ναῦς δὲ πολλὰς αὐτὸς
  κέκτηται, πολλὰς δ᾽ ὁ τύραννος τῆς Σικελίας.

  [61] Lysias, Orat. Frag. _l. c._ Θαυμάζω δὲ Λακεδαιμονίους
  πάντων μάλιστα, τίνι ποτε γνώμῃ χρώμενοι, καιομένην τὴν Ἑλλάδα
  περιορῶσιν, ἡγεμόνες ὄντες τῶν Ἑλλήνων, οὐκ ἀδίκως, etc.

  Οὐ γὰρ ἀλλοτρίας δεῖ τὰς τῶν ἀπολωλότων συμφορὰς νομίζειν ἀλλ᾽
  οἰκείας· ~οὐδ᾽ ἀναμεῖναι, ἕως ἂν ἐπ᾽ αὐτοὺς ἡμᾶς αἱ δυνάμεις
  ἀμφοτέρων ἔλθωσιν, ἀλλ᾽ ἕως ἔτι ἔξεστι, τὴν τούτων ὕβριν κωλῦσαι~.

  I give in the text the principal points of what remains out of
  this discourse of Lysias, without confining myself to the words.

Unfortunately we possess but a scanty fragment of this emphatic
harangue (a panegyrical harangue, in the ancient sense of the word)
delivered at Olympia by Lysias. But we see the alarming picture
of the time which he labored to impress: Hellas already enslaved,
both in the east and in the west, by the two greatest potentates
of the age,[62] Artaxerxes and Dionysius—and now threatened in her
centre by their combined efforts. To feel the full probability of so
gloomy an anticipation, we must recollect that only in the preceding
year Dionysius, already master of Sicily and of a considerable
fraction of Italian Greece, had stretched his naval force across
to Illyria, armed a host of Illyrian barbarians, and sent them
southward under Alketas against the Molossians, with the view of
ultimately proceeding farther and pillaging the Delphian temple.
The Lacedæmonians had been obliged to send a force to arrest their
progress.[63] No wonder then that Lysias should depict the despot of
Syracuse as meditating ulterior projects against Central Greece; and
as an object not only of hatred for what he had done, but of terror
for what he was about to do, in conjunction with the other great
enemy from the east.[64]

  [62] Diodor. xv. 23. οἱ μέγιστοι τῶν τότε δυναστῶν, etc.

  [63] Diodor. xv. 13.

  [64] Isokrates holds similar language, both about the
  destructive conquests of Dionysius, and the past sufferings
  and present danger of Hellas, in his Orat. IV. (Panegyric.)
  composed about 380 B. C., and (probably enough) read at the
  Olympic festival of that year (s. 197). ἴσως δ᾽ ἂν καὶ τῆς ἐμῆς
  εὐηθείας πολλοὶ καταγελάσειαν, εἰ δυστυχίας ἀνδρῶν ὀδυροίμην ἐν
  τοιούτοις καιροῖς, ἐν οἷς Ἰταλία μὲν ἀνάστατος γέγονε, Σικελία
  δὲ καταδεδούλωται (compare s. 145), τοσαῦται δὲ πόλεις τοῖς
  βαρβάροις ἐκδέδονται, τὰ δὲ λοιπὰ μέρη τῶν Ἑλλήνων ἐν τοῖς
  μεγίστοις κινδύνοις ἐστίν.

  Isokrates had addressed a letter to the elder Dionysius. He
  alludes briefly to it in his Orat. ad Philippum (Orat. v. s. 93),
  in terms which appear to indicate that it was bold and plain
  spoken (θρασύτερον τῶν ἄλλων). The first letter, among the ten
  ascribed to Isokrates, purports to be a letter to Dionysius; but
  it seems rather (to judge by the last words) to be the preface of
  a letter about to follow. Nothing distinct can be made out from
  it as it now stands.

Of these two enemies, one (the Persian King) was out of reach. But
the second—Dionysius—though not present in person, stood forth by his
envoys and appurtenances conspicuous even to ostentation, beyond any
man on the ground. His Theôry or solemn legation outshone every other
by the splendor of its tents and decorations: his chariots to run
in the races were magnificent: his horses were of rare excellence,
bred from the Venetian stock, imported out of the innermost depths
of the Adriatic Gulf:[65] his poems, recited by the best artists in
Greece, solicited applause—by excellent delivery and fine choric
equipments, if not by superior intrinsic merit. Now the antipathy
against Dionysius was not only aggravated by all this display,
contrasted with the wretchedness of impoverished exiles whom he had
dispossessed—but was also furnished with something to strike at and
vent itself upon. Of such opportunity for present action against
a visible object, Lysias did not fail to avail himself. While he
vehemently preached a crusade to dethrone Dionysius and liberate
Sicily, he at the same time pointed to the gold and purple tent
before them, rich and proud above all its fellows, which lodged the
brother of the despot with his Syracusan legation. He exhorted his
hearers to put forth at once an avenging hand, in partial retribution
for the sufferings of free Greece, by plundering the tent which
insulted them by its showy decorations. He adjured them to interfere
and prevent the envoys of this impious despot from sacrificing or
entering their chariots in the lists, or taking any part in the holy
Pan-hellenic festival.[66]

  [65] Strabo, v. p. 212.

  [66] Dionys. Hal. p. 519. Jud. de Lysiâ. Ἐστὶ δή τις αὐτῷ
  πανηγυρικὸς λόγος, ἐν ᾧ πείθει τοὺς Ἕλληνας ... ἐκβάλλειν
  Διονύσιον τὸν τύραννον τῆς ἀρχῆς, καὶ Σικελίαν ἐλευθερῶσαι,
  ἄρξασθαί τε τῆς ἐχθρᾶς αὐτίκα μάλα, διαρπάσαντας τὴν τοῦ τυράννου
  σκηνὴν χρυσῷ τε καὶ πορφύρᾳ καὶ ἄλλῳ πλούτῳ πολλῷ κεκοσμημένην,
  etc.

  Diodor. xiv. 109. Λυσίας ... προετρέπετο τὰ πλήθη μὴ προσδέχεσθαι
  τοῖς ἱεροῖς ἀγῶσι τοὺς ἐξ ἀσεβεστάτης τυραννίδος ἀπεσταλμένους
  θεωρούς.

  Compare Plutarch Vit. x. Orator, p. 836 D.

We cannot doubt that a large proportion of the spectators on the
plain of Olympia felt with greater or less intensity the generous
Pan-hellenic patriotism and indignation to which Lysias gave
utterance. To what extent his hearers acted upon the unbecoming
violence of his practical recommendations—how far they actually
laid hands on the tents, or tried to hinder the Syracusans from
sacrificing, or impeded the bringing out of their chariots for the
race—we are unable to say. We are told that some ventured to plunder
the tents:[67] how much was effected we do not hear. It is certain
that the superintending Eleian authorities would interfere most
strenuously to check any such attempt at desecrating the festival,
and to protect the Syracusan envoys in their tents, their regular
sacrifice, and their chariot-running. And it is farther certain, as
far as our account goes, that the Syracusan chariots actually did
run on the lists; because they were, though by various accidents,
disgracefully unsuccessful, or overturned and broken in pieces.[68]

  [67] Diodor. xiv. 109. ὥστε τινὰς τολμῆσαι διαρπάζειν τὰς σκηνάς.

  [68] Diodor. xiv. 109.

To any one however who reflects on the Olympic festival, with all its
solemnity and its competition for honors of various kinds, it will
appear that the mere manifestation of so violent an antipathy, even
though restrained from breaking out into act, would be sufficiently
galling to the Syracusan envoys. But the case would be far worse,
when the poems of Dionysius came to be recited. These were volunteer
manifestations, delivered (like the harangue of Lysias) before such
persons as chose to come and hear; not comprised in the regular
solemnity, nor therefore under any peculiar protection by the Eleian
authorities. Dionysius stood forward of his own accord to put
himself upon his trial as a poet before the auditors. Here therefore
the antipathy against the despot might be manifested by the most
unreserved explosions. And when we are told that the badness of the
poems[69] caused them to be received with opprobrious ridicule, in
spite of the excellence of the recitation, it is easy to see that
the hatred intended for the person of Dionysius was discharged upon
his verses. Of course the hissers and hooters would make it clearly
understood what they really meant, and would indulge in the full
license of heaping curses upon his name and acts. Neither the best
reciters of Greece, nor the best poems even of Sophokles or Pindar,
could have any chance against such predetermined antipathy. And the
whole scene would end in the keenest disappointment and humiliation,
inflicted upon the Syracusan envoys as well as upon the actors; being
the only channel through which the retributive chastisement of Hellas
could be made to reach the author.

  [69] Diodor. xiv. 109.

Though not present in person at Olympia, the despot felt the
chastisement in his inmost soul. The mere narrative of what had
passed plunged him into an agony of sorrow, which for some time
seemed to grow worse by brooding on the scene, and at length drove
him nearly mad. He was smitten with intolerable consciousness of
the profound hatred borne towards him, even throughout a large
portion of the distant and independent Hellenic world. He fancied
that this hatred was shared by all around him, and suspected every
one as plotting against his life. To such an excess of cruelty did
this morbid excitement carry him, that he seized several of his best
friends, under false accusations, or surmises, and caused them to
be slain.[70] Even his brother Leptinês, and his ancient partisan
Philistus, men who had devoted their lives first to his exaltation,
and afterwards to his service, did not escape. Having given umbrage
to him by an intermarriage between their families made without his
privity, both were banished from Syracuse, and retired to Thurii in
Italy, where they received that shelter and welcome which Leptinês
had peculiarly merited by his conduct in the Lucanian war. The exile
of Leptinês did not last longer than (apparently) about a year, after
which Dionysius relented, recalled him, and gave him his daughter
in marriage. But Philistus remained in banishment more than sixteen
years; not returning to Syracuse until after the death of Dionysius
the elder, and the accession of Dionysius the younger.[71]

  [70] Diodor. xv. 7. Ὁ δὲ Διονύσιος, ἀκούσας τὴν τῶν ποιημάτων
  καταφρόνησιν, ἐνέπεσεν εἰς ὑπερβολὴν λύπης. Ἀεὶ δὲ μᾶλλον τοῦ
  πάθους ἐπίτασιν λαμβάνοντος, μανιωδὴς διάθεσις κάτεσχε τὴν ψυχὴν
  αὐτοῦ, καὶ φθονεῖν αὐτῷ φάσκων ἅπαντας, τοὺς φίλους ὑπώπτευεν
  ὡς ἐπιβουλεύοντας· καὶ πέρας, ἐπὶ τοσοῦτο προῆλθε λύπης καὶ
  παρακοπῆς, ὥστε τῶν φίλων πολλοὺς μὲν ἐπὶ ψευδέσιν αἰτίαις
  ἀνελεῖν, οὐκ ὀλίγους δὲ καὶ ἐφυγάδευσεν· ἐν οἷς ἦν Φίλιστος καὶ
  Λεπτίνης ὁ ἀδελφὸς, etc.

  [71] For the banishment, and the return of Philistus and
  Leptinês, compare Diodor. xv. 7, and Plutarch, Dion. c.
  11. Probably it was on this occasion that Polyxenus, the
  brother-in-law of Dionysius, took flight as the only means of
  preserving his life (Plutarch, Dion. c. 21).

  Plutarch mentions the incident which offended Dionysius and
  caused both Philistus and Leptinês to be banished. Diodorus does
  not notice this incident; yet it is not irreconcilable with his
  narrative. Plutarch does not mention the banishment of Leptinês,
  but only that of Philistus.

  On the other hand, he affirms (and Nepos also, Dion. c. 3) that
  Philistus did not return until after the death of the elder
  Dionysius, while Diodorus states his return conjointly with that
  of Leptinês—not indicating any difference of time. Here I follow
  Plutarch’s statement as the more probable.

  There is, however, one point which is perplexing. Plutarch
  (Timoleon, c. 15) animadverts upon a passage in the history of
  Philistus, wherein that historian had dwelt, with a pathos which
  Plutarch thinks childish and excessive, upon the melancholy
  condition of the daughters of Leptinês, “who had fallen from the
  splendor of a court into a poor and mean condition.” How is this
  reconcilable with the fact stated by Diodorus, that Leptinês was
  recalled from exile by Dionysius after a short time, taken into
  favor again, and invested with command at the battle of Kronium,
  where he was slain? It seems difficult to believe that Philistus
  could have insisted with so much sympathy upon the privations
  endured by the daughters of Leptinês, if the exile of the father
  had lasted only a short time.

Such was the memorable scene at the Olympic festival of 384 B. C.,
together with its effect upon the mind of Dionysius. Diodorus, while
noticing all the facts, has cast an air of ridicule over them by
recognizing nothing except the vexation of Dionysius, at the ill
success of his poem, as the cause of his mental suffering; and by
referring to the years 388 B. C. and 386 B. C., that which properly
belongs to 384 B. C.[72] Now it is improbable, in the first place,
that the poem of Dionysius,—himself a man of ability and having every
opportunity of profiting by good critics whom he had purposely
assembled around him[73]—should have been so ridiculously bad as to
disgust an impartial audience: next, it is still more improbable
that a simple poetical failure, though doubtless mortifying to
him, should work with such fearful effect as to plunge him into
anguish and madness. To unnerve thus violently a person like
Dionysius—deeply stained with the great crimes of unscrupulous
ambition, but remarkably exempt from infirmities—some more powerful
cause is required; and that cause stands out conspicuously, when we
conceive the full circumstances of the Olympic festival of 384 B.
C. He had accumulated for this occasion all the means of showing
himself off, like Krœsus in his interview with Solon, as the most
prosperous and powerful man in the Hellenic world;[74] means beyond
the reach of any contemporary, and surpassing even Hiero or Thero
of former days, whose praises in the odes of Pindar he probably
had in his mind. He counted, probably with good reason, that his
splendid legation, chariots, and outfit of acting and recitation for
the poems, would surpass everything else seen on the holy plain;
and he fully expected such reward as the public were always glad
to bestow on rich men who exhausted their purses in the recognized
vein of Hellenic pious ostentation. In this high wrought state of
expectation, what does Dionysius hear, by his messengers returning
from the festival? That their mission had proved a total failure, and
even worse than a failure; that the display had called forth none of
the usual admiration, not because there were rivals on the ground
equal or superior, but simply because it came from _him_; that its
very magnificence had operated to render the explosion of antipathy
against him louder and more violent; that his tents in the sacred
ground had been actually assailed, and that access to sacrifice,
as well as to the matches, had been secured to him only by the
interposition of authority. We learn indeed that his chariots failed
in the field by unlucky accidents; but in the existing temper of the
crowd, these very accidents would be seized as occasions for derisory
cheering against him. To this we must add explosions of hatred, yet
more furious, elicited by his poems, putting the reciters to utter
shame. At the moment when Dionysius expected to hear the account
of an unparalleled triumph, he is thus informed, not merely of
disappointment, but of insults to himself, direct and personal, the
most poignant ever offered by Greeks to a Greek, amidst the holiest
and most frequented ceremony of the Hellenic world.[75] Never in any
other case do we read of public antipathy, against an individual,
being carried to the pitch of desecrating by violence the majesty of
the Olympic festival.

  [72] In a former chapter of this History (Vol. X. Ch. LXXVII. p.
  75), I have already shown grounds, derived from the circumstances
  of Central Greece and Persia, for referring the discourse of
  Lysias, just noticed, to Olympiad 99 or 384 B. C. I here add
  certain additional reasons, derived from what is said about
  Dionysius, towards the same conclusion.

  In xiv. 109, Diodorus describes the events of 388 B. C., the
  year of Olympiad 98, during which Dionysius was still engaged
  in war in Italy, besieging Rhegium. He says that Dionysius made
  unparalleled efforts to send a great display to this festival;
  a splendid legation, with richly decorated tents, several fine
  chariots-and-four, and poems to be recited by the best actors.
  He states that Lysias the orator delivered a strong invective
  against him, exciting those who heard it to exclude the Syracusan
  despot from sacrificing, and to plunder the rich tents. He then
  details how the purposes of Dionysius failed miserably on every
  point; the fine tents were assailed, the chariots all ran wrong
  or were broken, the poems were hissed, the ships returning to
  Syracuse were wrecked, etc. Yet in spite of this accumulation of
  misfortunes (he tells us) Dionysius was completely soothed by
  his flatterers (who told him that such envy always followed upon
  greatness), and did not desist from poetical efforts.

  Again, in xv. 6, 7, Diodorus describes the events of 386 B.
  C. Here he again tells us, that Dionysius, persevering in
  his poetical occupations, composed verses which were very
  indifferent—that he was angry with and punished Philoxenus and
  others who criticized them freely—that he sent some of these
  compositions to be recited at the Olympic festival, with the best
  actors and reciters—that the poems, in spite of these advantages,
  were despised and derided by the Olympic audience—that Dionysius
  was distressed by this repulse, even to anguish and madness, and
  to the various severities and cruelties against his friends which
  have been already mentioned in my text.

  Now upon this we must remark:—

  1. The year 386 B. C. is _not_ an Olympic year. Accordingly,
  the proceedings described by Diodorus in xv. 6, 7, all done by
  Dionysius after his hands were free from war, must be transferred
  to the next Olympic year, 384 B. C. The year in which Dionysius
  was so deeply stung by the events of Olympia, must therefore have
  been 384 B. C., or Olympiad 99 (relating to 388 B. C.).

  2. Compare Diodor. xiv. 109 with xv. 7. In the first passage,
  Dionysius is represented as making the most prodigious efforts
  to display himself at Olympia in every way, by fine tents,
  chariots, poems, etc.—and also as having undergone the signal
  insult from the orator Lysias, with the most disgraceful failure
  in every way. Yet all this he is described to have borne with
  tolerable equanimity, being soothed by his flatterers. But, in
  xv. 7 (relating to 386 B. C., or more probably to 384 B. C.) he
  is represented as having merely failed in respect to the effect
  of his poems; nothing whatever being said about display of any
  other kind, nor about an harangue from Lysias, nor insult to the
  envoys or the tents. Yet the simple repulse of the poems is on
  this occasion affirmed to have thrown Dionysius into a paroxysm
  of sorrow and madness.

  Now if the great and insulting treatment, which Diodorus refers
  to 388 B. C., could be borne patiently by Dionysius—how are
  we to believe that he was driven mad by the far less striking
  failure in 384 B. C.? Surely it stands to reason that the violent
  invective of Lysias and the profound humiliation of Dionysius,
  are parts of one and the same Olympic phænomenon; the former as
  cause, or an essential part of the cause—the latter as effect.
  The facts will then read consistently and in proper harmony. As
  they now appear in Diodorus, there is no rational explanation
  of the terrible suffering of Dionysius described in xv. 7; it
  appears like a comic exaggeration of reality.

  3. Again, the prodigious efforts and outlay, which Diodorus
  affirms Dionysius to have made in 388 B. C. for display at the
  Olympic games—come just at the time when Dionysius, being in the
  middle of his Italian war, could hardly have had either leisure
  or funds to devote so much to the other purpose; whereas at the
  next Olympic festival, or 384 B. C., he was free from war, and
  had nothing to divert him from preparing with great efforts all
  the means of Olympic success.

  It appears to me that the facts which Diodorus has stated are
  nearly all correct, but that he has misdated them, referring to
  388 B. C., or Olymp. 98—what properly belongs to 384 B. C., or
  Olymp. 99. Very possibly Dionysius may have sent one or more
  chariots to run in the former of the two Olympiads; but his
  signal efforts, with his insulting failure brought about partly
  by Lysias, belong to the latter.

  Dionysius of Halikarnassus, to whom we owe the citation from the
  oration of Lysias, does not specify to which of the Olympiads it
  belongs.

  [73] Diodor. xv. 7. διὸ καὶ ποιήματα γράφειν ὑπεστήσατο μετὰ
  πολλῆς σπουδῆς, καὶ τοὺς ἐν τούτοις δόξαν ἔχοντας μετεπέμπετο,
  καὶ προτιμῶν αὐτοὺς συνδιέτριβε, καὶ τῶν ~ποιημάτων ἐπιστάτας καὶ
  διορθωτὰς εἶχεν~.

  The Syracusan historian Athanis (or Athenis) had noticed some
  peculiar phrases which appeared in the verses of Dionysius: see
  Athenæus, iii. p. 98.

  [74] Thucyd. vi. 16. Οἱ γὰρ Ἕλληνες καὶ ὑπὲρ δύναμιν μείζω ἡμῶν
  τὴν πόλιν ἐνόμισαν, τῷ ἐμῷ διαπρεπεῖ τῆς Ὀλυμπιάζε θεωρίας
  (speech of Alkibiadês).

  [75] See a striking passage in the discourse called _Archidamus_
  (Or. vi. s. 111, 112) of Isokrates, in which the Spartans are
  made to feel keenly their altered position after the defeat of
  Leuktra: especially the insupportable pain of encountering, when
  they attended the Olympic festival, slights or disparagement from
  the spectators, embittered by open taunts from the reëstablished
  Messenians—instead of the honor and reverence which they had
  become accustomed to expect.

  This may help us to form some estimate of the painful sentiment
  of Dionysius, when his envoys returned from the Olympic festival
  of 384 B. C.

Here then were the real and sufficient causes—not the mere
ill-success of his poem—which penetrated the soul of Dionysius,
driving him into anguish and temporary madness. Though he had
silenced the Vox Populi at Syracuse, not all his mercenaries, ships,
and forts in Ortygia, could save him from feeling its force, when
thus emphatically poured forth against him by the free-spoken crowd
at Olympia.

It was apparently shortly after the peace of 387 B. C., that
Dionysius received at Syracuse the visit of the philosopher
Plato.[76] The latter—having come to Sicily on a voyage of inquiry
and curiosity, especially to see Mount Ætna—was introduced by his
friends, the philosophers of Tarentum, to Dion, then a young man,
resident at Syracuse, and brother of Aristomachê, the wife of
Dionysius. Of Plato and Dion I shall speak more elsewhere: here I
notice the philosopher only as illustrating the history and character
of Dionysius. Dion, having been profoundly impressed with the
conversation of Plato, prevailed upon Dionysius to invite and talk
with him also. Plato discoursed eloquently upon justice and virtue,
enforcing his doctrine that wicked men were inevitably miserable—that
true happiness belonged only to the virtuous—and that despots could
not lay claim to the merit of courage.[77] This meagre abstract does
not at all enable us to follow the philosopher’s argument. But it is
plain that he set forth his general views on social and political
subjects with as much freedom and dignity of speech before Dionysius
as before any simple citizen; and we are farther told, that the
by-standers were greatly captivated by his manner and language. Not
so the despot himself. After one or two repetitions of the like
discourse, he became not merely averse to the doctrine, but hostile
to the person, of Plato. According to the statement of Diodorus, he
caused the philosopher to be seized, taken down to the Syracusan
slave-market, and there put up for sale as a slave at the price of
twenty minæ; which his friends subscribed to pay, and thus released
him. According to Plutarch, Plato himself was anxious to depart, and
was put by Dion aboard a trireme which was about to convey home the
Lacedæmonian envoy Pollis. But Dionysius secretly entreated Pollis
to cause him to be slain on the voyage—or at least to sell him as a
slave. Plato was accordingly landed at Ægina, and there sold. He was
purchased, or repurchased, by Annikeris of Kyrênê, and sent back to
Athens. This latter is the more probable story of the two; but it
seems to be a certain fact that Plato was really sold, and became for
a moment a slave.[78]

  [76] There are different statements about the precise year in
  which Plato was born: see Diogenes Laert. iii. 1-6. The accounts
  fluctuate between 429 and 428 B. C.; and Hermodorus (ap. Diog. L.
  iii. 6) appears to have put it in 427 B. C.: see Corsini, Fast.
  Attic. iii. p. 230; Ast. Platon’s Leben, p. 14.

  Plato (Epistol. vii. p. 324) states himself to have been about
  (σχεδὸν) forty years of age when he visited Sicily for the first
  time. If we accept as the date of his birth 428 B. C., he would
  be forty years of age in 388 B. C.

  It seems improbable that the conversation of Plato with Dion at
  Syracuse (which was continued sufficiently long to exercise a
  marked and permanent influence on the character of the latter),
  and his interviews with Dionysius, should have taken place
  while Dionysius was carrying on the Italian war or the siege of
  Rhegium. I think that the date of the interview must be placed
  after the capture of Rhegium in 387 B. C. And the expression
  of Plato (given in a letter written more than thirty years
  afterwards) about his own age, is not to be taken as excluding
  the supposition that he might have been forty-one or forty-two
  when he came to Syracuse.

  Athenæus (xi. p. 507) mentions the visit of Plato.

  [77] Plutarch, Dion. c. 5.

  [78] Plutarch, Dion, c. 5; Diodor. xv. 7; Diogen. Laert. iii. 17;
  Cornelius Nepos, Dion, c. 2.

That Dionysius should listen to the discourse of Plato with
repugnance, not less decided than that which the Emperor Napoleon
was wont to show towards ideologists—was an event naturally to be
expected. But that, not satisfied with dismissing the philosopher, he
should seek to kill, maltreat, or disgrace him, illustrates forcibly
the vindictive and irritable elements of his character, and shows how
little he was likely to respect the lives of those who stood in his
way as political opponents.

Dionysius was at the same time occupied with new constructions,
military, civil, and religious, at Syracuse. He enlarged the
fortifications of the city by adding a new line of wall, extending
along the southern cliff of Epipolæ, from Euryalus to the suburb
called Neapolis; which suburb was now, it would appear, surrounded
by a separate wall of its own—or perhaps may have been so surrounded
a few years earlier, though we know that it was unfortified and open
during the attack of Imilkon in 396 B. C.[79] At the time, probably,
the fort at the Euryalus was enlarged and completed to the point
of grandeur which its present remains indicate. The whole slope of
Epipolæ became thus bordered and protected by fortifications, from
its base at Achradina to its apex at Euryalus. And Syracuse now
comprised five separately fortified portions,—Epipolæ, Neapolis,
Tychê, Achradina, and Ortygia; each portion having its own
fortification, though the four first were included within the same
outer walls. Syracuse thus became the largest fortified city in all
Greece; larger even than Athens in its then existing state, though
not so large as Athens had been during the Peloponnesian war, while
the Phaleric wall was yet standing.

  [79] Diodor. xiv. 6.3. It was in the construction of these
  extensive fortifications, seemingly, that Dionysius demolished
  the chapel which had been erected by the Syracusans in honor of
  Dioklês (Diodor. xiii. 635).

  Serra di Falco (Antichità di Sicilia, vol. iv. p. 107) thinks
  that Dionysius constructed only the northern wall up the cliff of
  Epipolæ, not the southern. This latter (in his opinion) was not
  constructed until the time of Hiero II.

  I dissent from him on this point. The passage here referred to in
  Diodorus affords to my mind sufficient evidence that the elder
  Dionysius constructed both the southern wall of Epipolæ and the
  fortification of Neapolis. The same conclusion moreover appears
  to result from what we read of the proceedings of Dion and
  Timoleon afterwards.

Besides these extensive fortifications, Dionysius also enlarged the
docks and arsenals so as to provide accommodation for two hundred men
of war. He constructed spacious gymnasia on the banks of the river
Anapus, without the city walls; and he further decorated the city
with various new temples in honor of different gods.[80]

  [80] Diodor. xv. 13.

Such costly novelties added grandeur as well as security to Syracuse,
and conferred imposing celebrity on the despot himself. They were
dictated by the same aspirations as had prompted his ostentatious
legation to Olympia in 384 B. C.; a legation of which the result had
been so untoward and intolerable to his feelings. They were intended
to console, and doubtless did in part console, the Syracusan people
for the loss of their freedom. And they were further designed to
serve as fuller preparations for the war against Carthage, which
he was now bent upon renewing. He was obliged to look about for a
pretext, since the Carthaginians had given him no just cause. But
this, though an aggression, was a Pan-hellenic aggression,[81]
calculated to win for him the sympathies of all Greeks, philosophers
as well as the multitude. And as the war was begun in the year
immediately succeeding the insult cast upon him at Olympia, we may
ascribe it in part to a wish to perform exploits such as might rescue
his name from the like opprobrium in future.

  [81] See Plato, Epist. vii. p. 333, 336—also some striking lines,
  addressed by the poet Theokritus to Hiero II. despot at Syracuse
  in the succeeding century: Theokrit. xvi. 75-85.

  Dionysius—ἐζήτει λαβεῖν πρόφασιν εὔλογον τοῦ πολέμου, etc.

The sum of fifteen hundred talents, recently pillaged from the temple
at Agylla,[82] enabled Dionysius to fit out a large army for his
projected war. Entering into intrigues with some of the disaffected
dependencies of Carthage in Sicily, he encouraged them to revolt,
and received them into his alliance. The Carthaginians sent envoys
to remonstrate, but could obtain no redress; upon which they on
their side prepared for war, accumulated a large force of hired
foreign mercenaries under Magon, and contracted alliance with some
of the Italiot Greeks hostile to Dionysius. Both parties distributed
their forces so as to act partly in Sicily, partly in the adjoining
peninsula of Italy; but the great stress of war fell on Sicily, where
Dionysius and Magon both commanded in person. After several combats
partial and indecisive, a general battle was joined at a place
called Kabala. The contest was murderous, and the bravery great on
both sides; but at length Dionysius gained a complete victory. Magon
himself and ten thousand men of his army were slain; five thousand
were made prisoners; while the remainder were driven to retreat to
a neighboring eminence, strong, but destitute of water. They were
forced to send envoys entreating peace; which Dionysius consented
to grant, but only on condition that every Carthaginian should be
immediately withdrawn from all the cities in the island, and that he
should be reimbursed for the costs of the war.[83]

  [82] Diodor. xv. 15.

  [83] Diodor. xv. 15.

The Carthaginian generals affected to accept the terms offered, but
stated (what was probably the truth), that they could not pledge
themselves for the execution of such terms, without assent from the
authorities at home. They solicited a truce of a few days, to enable
them to send thither for instructions. Persuaded that they could not
escape, Dionysius granted their request. Accounting the emancipation
of Sicily from the Punic yoke to be already a fact accomplished, he
triumphantly exalted himself on a pedestal higher even than that
of Gelon. But this very confidence threw him off his guard and
proved ruinous to him; as it happened frequently in Grecian military
proceedings. The defeated Carthaginian army gradually recovered their
spirits. In place of the slain general Magon, who was buried with
magnificence, his son was named commander; a youth of extraordinary
energy and ability, who so contrived to reassure and reorganize
his troops, that when the truce expired, he was ready for a second
battle. Probably the Syracusans were taken by surprise and not fully
prepared. At least the fortune of Dionysius had fled. In this second
action, fought at a spot called Kronium, he underwent a terrible and
ruinous defeat. His brother Leptinês, who commanded on one wing,
was slain gallantly fighting; those around him were defeated; while
Dionysius himself, with his select troops on the other wing, had
at first some advantage, but was at length beaten and driven back.
The whole army fled in disorder to the camp, pursued with merciless
vehemence by the Carthaginians, who, incensed by their previous
defeat, neither gave quarter nor took prisoners. Fourteen thousand
dead bodies, of the defeated Syracusan army, are said to have been
picked up for burial; the rest were only preserved by night and by
the shelter of their camp.[84]

  [84] Diodor. xv. 16, 17.

Such was the signal victory—the salvation of the army, perhaps even
of Carthage herself—gained at Kronium by the youthful son of Magon.
Immediately after it, he retired to Panormus. His army probably had
been too much enfeebled by the former defeat to undertake farther
offensive operations; moreover he himself had as yet no regular
appointment as general. The Carthaginian authorities too had the
prudence to seize this favorable moment for making peace, and sent
to Dionysius envoys with full powers. But Dionysius only obtained
peace by large concessions; giving up to Carthage Selinus with its
territory, as well as half the Agrigentine territory—all that lay
to the west of the river Halykus; and farther covenanting to pay to
Carthage the sum of one thousand talents.[85] To these unfavorable
conditions Dionysius was constrained to subscribe; after having
but a few days before required the Carthaginians to evacuate all
Sicily, and pay the costs of the war. As it seems doubtful whether
Dionysius would have so large a sum ready to pay down at once, we may
reasonably presume that he would undertake to liquidate it by annual
instalments. And we thus find confirmation of the memorable statement
of Plato, that Dionysius became tributary to the Carthaginians.[86]

  [85] Diodor. xv. 17.

  [86] Plato, Epistol. vii. p. 333 A. After reciting the advice
  which Dion and he had given to Dionysius the younger, he
  proceeds to say—ἕτοιμον γὰρ εἶναι, τούτων γενομένων, πολὺ μᾶλλον
  δουλώσασθαι Καρχηδονίους τῆς ἐπὶ Γέλωνος αὐτοῖς γενομένης
  δουλείας, ~ἀλλ᾽ οὐχ, ὥσπερ νῦν τοὐναντίον, ὁ πατὴρ αὐτοῦ φόρον
  ἐτάξατο φέρειν τοῖς βαρβάροις~, etc.

Such are the painful gaps in Grecian history as it is transmitted
to us, that we hear scarcely anything about Dionysius for
thirteen years after the peace of 383-382 B. C. It seems that the
Carthaginians (in 379 B. C.) sent an armament to the southern
portion of Italy for the purpose of reëstablishing the town of
Hipponium and its inhabitants.[87] But their attention appears
to have been withdrawn from this enterprise by the recurrence of
previous misfortunes—fearful pestilence, and revolt of their Libyan
dependencies, which seriously threatened the safety of their city.
Again, Dionysius also, during one of these years, undertook some
operations, of which a faint echo reaches us, in this same Italian
peninsula (now Calabria Ultra). He projected a line of wall across
the narrowest portion or isthmus of the peninsula, from the Gulf of
Skylletium to that of Hipponium, so as to separate the territory of
Lokri from the northern portion of Italy, and secure it completely
to his own control. Professedly the wall was destined to repel the
incursions of the Lucanians; but in reality (we are told) Dionysius
wished to cut off the connection between Lokri and the other Greeks
in the Tarentine Gulf. These latter are said to have interposed from
without, and prevented the execution of the scheme; but its natural
difficulties would be in themselves no small impediment, nor are we
sure that the wall was even begun.[88]

  [87] Diodor. xv. 24.

  [88] Strabo, vi. p. 261; Pliny, H. N. iii. 10. The latter calls
  the isthmus twenty miles broad, and says that Dionysius wished
  (intercisam) to cut it through: Strabo says that he proposed to
  wall it across (διατειχίζειν), which is more probable.

During this interval, momentous events (recounted in my previous
chapters) had occurred in Central Greece. In 382 B. C., the Spartans
made themselves by fraud masters of Thebes, and placed a permanent
garrison in the Kadmeia. In 380 B. C., they put down the Olynthian
confederacy, thus attaining the maximum of their power. But in 379
B. C., there occurred the revolution at Thebes achieved by the
conspiracy of Pelopidas, who expelled the Lacedæmonians from the
Kadmeia. Involved in a burdensome war against Thebes and Athens,
together with other allies the Lacedæmonians gradually lost ground,
and had become much reduced before the peace of 371 B. C., which left
them to contend with Thebes alone. Then came the fatal battle of
Leuktra which prostrated their military ascendency altogether. These
incidents have been already related at large in former chapters. Two
years before the battle of Leuktra, Dionysius sent to the aid of the
Lacedæmonians at Korkyra a squadron of ten ships, all of which were
captured by Iphikrates; about three years after the battle, when
the Thebans and their allies were pressing Sparta in Peloponnesus,
he twice sent thither a military force of Gauls and Iberians to
reinforce her army. But his troops neither stayed long, nor rendered
any very conspicuous service.[89]

  [89] Xenoph. Hellen. vi. 2, 4, 33; vii i. 20-28. Diodor. xv. 70.

In this year we hear of a fresh attack by Dionysius against the
Carthaginians. Observing that they had been lately much enfeebled
by pestilence and by mutiny of their African subjects, he thought
the opportunity favorable for trying to recover what the peace of
383 B. C., had obliged him to relinquish. A false pretence being
readily found, he invaded the Carthaginian possessions in the west of
Sicily with a large land force of thirty thousand foot, and three
thousand horse; together with a fleet of three hundred sail, and
store ships in proportion. After ravaging much of the open territory
of the Carthaginians, he succeeded in mastering Selinus, Entella, and
Eryx—and then laid siege to Lilybæum. This town, close to the western
cape of Sicily,[90] appears to have arisen as a substitute for the
neighboring town of Motyê (of which we hear little more since its
capture by Dionysius in 396 B. C.), and to have become the principal
Carthaginian station. He began to attack it by active siege and
battering machines. But it was so numerously garrisoned, and so well
defended, that he was forced to raise the siege and confine himself
to blockade. His fleet kept the harbor guarded, so as to intercept
supplies from Africa. Not long afterwards, however, he received
intelligence that a fire had taken place in the port of Carthage
whereby all her ships had been burnt. Being thus led to conceive that
there was no longer any apprehension of naval attack from Carthage,
he withdrew his fleet from continuous watch off Lilybæum; keeping
one hundred and thirty men-of-war near at hand, in the harbor of
Eryx, and sending the remainder home to Syracuse. Of this incautious
proceeding the Carthaginians took speedy advantage. The conflagration
in their port had been much overstated. There still remained to them
two hundred ships of war, which, after being equipped in silence,
sailed across in the night to Eryx. Appearing suddenly in the
harbor, they attacked the Syracusan fleet completely by surprise;
and succeeded, without serious resistance, in capturing and towing
off nearly all of them. After so capital an advantage, Lilybæum
became open to reinforcement and supplies by sea, so that Dionysius
no longer thought it worth while to prosecute the blockade. On the
approach of winter, both parties resumed the position which they had
occupied before the recent movement.[91]

  [90] Diodor. xxii. p. 304.

  [91] Diodor. xv. 73; xvi. 5.

The despot had thus gained nothing by again taking up arms, nor were
the Sicilian dependencies of the Carthaginians at all cut down below
that which they acquired by the treaty of 383 B. C. But he received
(about January or February 367 B. C.) news of a different species of
success, which gave him hardly less satisfaction than a victory by
land or sea. In the Lenæan festival of Athens, one of his tragedies
had been rewarded with the first prize. A chorist who had been
employed in the performance—eager to convey the first intelligence
of this success to Syracuse and to obtain the recompense which would
naturally await the messenger—hastened from Athens to Corinth,
found a vessel just starting for Syracuse, and reached Syracuse by
a straight course with the advantage of favorable winds. He was the
first to communicate the news, and received the full reward of his
diligence. Dionysius was overjoyed at the distinction conferred upon
him; for though on former occasions he had obtained the second or
third place in the Athenian competitions, he had never before been
adjudged worthy of the first prize. Offering sacrifice to the gods
for the good news, he invited his friends to a splendid banquet,
wherein he indulged in an unusual measure of conviviality. But the
joyous excitement, coupled with the effects of the wine, brought on
an attack of fever, of which he shortly afterwards died, after a
reign of thirty-eight years.[92]

  [92] Diodor. xv. 74.

Thirty-eight years, of a career so full of effort, adventure,
and danger, as that of Dionysius, must have left a constitution
sufficiently exhausted to give way easily before acute disease.
Throughout this long period he had never spared himself. He was
a man of restless energy and activity, bodily as well as mental;
always personally at the head of his troops in war—keeping a vigilant
eye and a decisive hand upon all the details of his government at
home—yet employing spare time (which Philip of Macedon was surprised
that he could find[93]) in composing tragedies of his own, to compete
for prizes fairly adjudged. His personal bravery was conspicuous, and
he was twice severely wounded in leading his soldiers to assault. His
effective skill as an ambitious politician—his military resource as a
commander—and the long-sighted care with which he provided implements
of offence as well as of defence before undertaking war,—are
remarkable features in his character. The Roman Scipio Africanus
was wont to single out Dionysius and Agathokles (the history of the
latter begins about fifty years after the death of the former), both
of them despots of Syracuse, as the two Greeks of greatest ability
for action known to him—men who combined, in the most memorable
degree, daring with sagacity.[94] This criticism, coming from an
excellent judge, is borne out by the biography of both, so far as
it comes to our knowledge. No other Greek can be pointed out, who,
starting from a position humble and unpromising, raised himself to so
lofty a pinnacle of dominion at home, achieved such striking military
exploits abroad, and preserved his grandeur unimpaired throughout
the whole of a long life. Dionysius boasted that he bequeathed to
his son an empire fastened by adamantine chains;[95] so powerful was
his mercenary force—so firm his position in Ortygia—so completely
had the Syracusans been broken into subjection. There cannot be a
better test of vigor and ability than the unexampled success with
which Dionysius and Agathokles played the game of the despot, and to
a certain extent that of the conqueror. Of the two, Dionysius was
the most favored by fortune. Both indeed profited by one auxiliary
accident, which distinguished Syracuse from other Grecian cities; the
local speciality of Ortygia. That islet seemed expressly made to be
garrisoned as a separate fortress,—apart from, as well as against,
the rest of Syracuse,—having full command of the harbor, docks,
naval force, and naval approach. But Dionysius had, besides, several
peculiar interventions of the gods in his favor, sometimes at the
most critical moments: such was the interpretation put by his enemies
(and doubtless by his friends also) upon those repeated pestilences
which smote the Carthaginian armies with a force far more deadly
than the spear of the Syracusan hoplite. On four or five distinct
occasions, during the life of Dionysius, we read of this unseen foe
as destroying the Carthaginians both in Sicily and in Africa, but
leaving the Syracusans untouched. Twice did it arrest the progress
of Imilkon, when in the full career of victory; once, after the
capture of Gela and Kamarina—a second time, when, after his great
naval victory off Katana, he had brought his numerous host under the
walls of Syracuse, and was actually master of the open suburb of
Achradina. On both these occasions the pestilence made a complete
revolution in the face of the war; exalting Dionysius from impending
ruin, to assured safety in the one, and to unmeasured triumph in the
other. We are bound to allow for this good fortune (the like of which
never befel Agathokles), when we contemplate the long prosperity
of Dionysius[96], and when we adopt, as in justice we must, the
panegyric of Scipio Africanus.

  [93] Plutarch, Timoleon, c. 15.

  [94] Polyb. xv. 35. Διὸ καὶ Πόπλιον Σκιπίωνά φασι, τὸν πρῶτον
  καταπολεμήσαντα Καρχηδονίους, ἐρωτηθέντα, τίνας ὑπολαμβάνει
  πραγματικωτάτους ἄνδρας γεγονέναι καὶ σὺν νῷ τολμηροτάτους,
  εἰπεῖν, τοὺς περὶ Ἀγαθοκλέα καὶ Διονύσιον τοὺς Σικελιώτας.

  [95] Plutarch, Dion, c. 7.

  [96] The example of Dionysius—his long career of success and
  quiet death—is among those cited by Cotta in Cicero (De Nat.
  Deor. iii. 33, 81, 85) to refute the doctrine of Balbus, as to
  the providence of the gods and their moral government over human
  affairs.

The preceding chapter has detailed the means whereby
Dionysius attained his prize, and kept it: those employed by
Agathokles—analogous in spirit but of still darker coloring in the
details—will appear hereafter. That Hermokrates—who had filled with
credit the highest offices in the state and whom men had acquired the
habit of following—should aspire to become despot, was no unusual
phenomenon in Grecian politics; but that Dionysius should aim at
mounting the same ladder, seemed absurd or even insane—to use the
phrase of Isokrates.[97] If, then, in spite of such disadvantage
he succeeded in fastening round his countrymen, accustomed to a
free constitution as their birth-right, those “adamantine chains”
which they were well known to abhor—we may be sure that his plan
of proceeding must have been dexterously chosen, and prosecuted
with consummate perseverance and audacity; but we may be also
sure that it was nefarious in the extreme. The machinery of fraud
whereby the people were to be cheated into a temporary submission,
as a prelude to the machinery of force whereby such submission was
to be perpetuated against their consent—was the stock in trade
of Grecian usurpers. But seldom does it appear prefaced by more
impudent calumnies, or worked out with a larger measure of violence
and spoliation, than in the case of Dionysius. He was indeed
powerfully seconded at the outset by the danger of Syracuse from the
Carthaginian arms. But his scheme of usurpation, far from diminishing
such danger, tended materially to increase it, by disuniting the
city at so critical a moment. Dionysius achieved nothing in his
first enterprise for the relief of Gela and Kamarina. He was forced
to retire with as much disgrace as those previous generals whom
he had so bitterly vituperated; and apparently even with greater
disgrace—since there are strong grounds for believing that he entered
into traitorous collusion with the Carthaginians. The salvation of
Syracuse, at that moment of peril, arose not from the energy or
ability of Dionysius, but from the opportune epidemic which disabled
Imilkon in the midst of a victorious career.

  [97] Isokratês, Or. v. (Philipp.) s. 73. Διονύσιος ... ἐπιθυμήσας
  μοναρχίας ~ἀλόγως καὶ μανικῶς~, καὶ τολμήσας ἅπαντα πράττειν τὰ
  φέροντα πρὸς τὴν δύναμιν ταύτην, etc.

Dionysius had not only talents to organize, and boldness to make
good, a despotism more formidable than anything known to contemporary
Greeks, but also systematic prudence to keep it unimpaired for
thirty-eight years. He maintained carefully those two precautions
which Thucydides specifies as the causes of permanence to the
Athenian Hippias, under similar circumstances—intimidation over
the citizens, and careful organization, with liberal pay among his
mercenaries.[98] He was temperate in indulgencies; never led by any
of his appetites into the commission of violence.[99] This abstinence
contributed materially to prolong his life, since many a Grecian
despot perished through desperate feelings of individual vengeance
provoked by his outrages. With Dionysius, all other appetites were
merged in the love of dominion, at home and abroad; and of money as
a means of dominion. To the service of this master-passion all his
energies were devoted, together with those vast military resources
which an unscrupulous ability served both to accumulate and to
recruit. How his treasury was supplied, with the large exigencies
continually pressing upon it, we are but little informed. We know
however that his exactions from the Syracusans were exorbitant;[100]
that he did not hesitate to strip the holiest temples; and that he
left behind him a great reputation for ingenious tricks in extracting
money from his subjects.[101] Besides the large garrison of foreign
mercenaries by whom his orders were enforced, he maintained a regular
body of spies, seemingly of both sexes, disseminated among the
body of the citizens.[102] The vast quarry-prison of Syracuse was
his work.[103] Both the vague general picture, and the fragmentary
details which come before us, of his conduct towards the Syracusans,
present to us nothing but an oppressive and extortionate tyrant,
by whose fiat numberless victims perished; more than ten thousand
according to the general language of Plutarch.[104] He enriched
largely his younger brothers and auxiliaries; among which latter,
Hipparinus stood prominent, thus recovering a fortune equal to or
larger than that which his profligacy had dissipated.[105] But we
hear also of acts of Dionysius, indicating a jealous and cruel
temper, even towards near relatives. And it appears certain that he
trusted no one, not even them;[106] that though in the field he
was a perfectly brave man, yet his suspicion and timorous anxiety
as to every one who approached his person, were carried to the most
tormenting excess, and extended even to his wives, his brothers, his
daughters. Afraid to admit any one with a razor near to his face,
he is said to have singed his own beard with a burning coal. Both
his brother and his son were searched for concealed weapons, and
even forced to change their clothes in the presence of his guards,
before they were permitted to see him. An officer of the guards
named Marsyas, having dreamt that he was assassinating Dionysius,
was put to death for this dream, as proving that his waking thoughts
must have been dwelling upon such a project. And it has already
been mentioned that Dionysius put to death the mother of one of his
wives, on suspicion that she had by incantations brought about the
barrenness of the other—as well as the sons of a Lokrian citizen
named Aristeides, who had refused, with indignant expressions, to
grant to him his daughter in marriage.[107]

  [98] Thucyd. vi. 55. ἀλλὰ καὶ διὰ τὸ πρότερον ξύνηθες, τοῖς μὲν
  πολίταις φοβερὸν, τοῖς δὲ ἐπικούροις ἀκριβὲς, πολλῷ τῷ περιόντι
  τοῦ ἀσφαλοῦς ἐκράτησε (Hippias).

  On the liberality of the elder Dionysius to his mercenaries, see
  an allusion in Plato, Epistol. vii. p. 348 A.

  The extension and improvement of engines for warlike purposes,
  under Dionysius, was noticed as a sort of epoch (Athenæus, De
  Machinis ap. Mathemat. Veteres, ed. Paris, p. 3).

  [99] Cornelius Nepos, De Regibus, c. 2. “Dionysius prior, et
  manu fortis, et belli peritus fuit, et, id quod in tyranno non
  facile reperitur, minime libidinosus, non luxuriosus, non avarus,
  nullius rei denique cupidus, nisi singularis perpetuique imperii,
  ob eamque rem crudelis. Nam dum id studuit munire, nullius
  pepercit vitæ, quem ejus insidiatorem putaret.” To the same
  purpose Cicero, Tusc. Disp. v. 20.

  [100] Aristotel. Politic. v. 9, 5.

  [101] Pseudo-Aristotel. Œconomic. ii. c. 21, 42; Cicero, De Nat.
  Deorum, iii. 34, 83, 84; Valerius Maxim. i. 1.

  [102] Plutarch, Dion, c. 28; Plutarch, De Curiositate, p.
  523 A; Aristotel. Politic. v. 9, 3. The titles of these
  spies—αἱ ποταγωγίδες καλούμεναι—as we read in Aristotle; or οἱ
  ποταγωγεῖς—as we find in Plutarch—may perhaps both be correct.

  [103] Cicero in Verrem, v. 55, 143.

  [104] Plutarch, De Fortunâ Alexandr. Magni, p. 338 B. What were
  the crimes of Dionysius which Pausanias had read and describes by
  the general words Διονυσίου τὰ ἀνοσιώτατα—and which he accuses
  Philistus of having intentionally omitted in his history—we
  cannot now tell (Pausan. i. 13, 2: compare Plutarch, Dion, c.
  36). An author named Amyntianus, contemporary with Pausanias, and
  among those perused by Photius (Codex 131), had composed parallel
  lives of Dionysius and the Emperor Domitian.

  [105] Plato, Epistol. vii. p. 332 A; Aristotel. Politic. v. 5, 6.

  [106] Plato, Epistol. vii. p. 332 D. Διονύσιος δὲ εἰς μίαν πόλιν
  ἀθροίσας πᾶσαν Σικελίαν ὑπὸ σοφίας, ~πιστεύων οὐδενὶ, μόγις
  ἐσώθη~, etc.

  This brief, but significant expression of Plato, attests the
  excessive mistrust which haunted Dionysius, as a general fact;
  which is illustrated by the anecdotes of Cicero, Tuscul. Disput.
  v. 20, 23; and De Officiis, ii. 7; Plutarch, Dion, c. 9; Diodor.
  xiv. 2.

  The well-known anecdote of Damoklês, and the sword which
  Dionysius caused to be suspended over his head by a horsehair, in
  the midst of the enjoyments of the banquet, as an illustration
  how little was the value of grandeur in the midst of terror—is
  recounted by Cicero.

  [107] Plutarch, Dion, c. 3; Plutarch, Timoleon, c. 6.

Such were the conditions of existence—perpetual mistrust, danger
even from the nearest kindred, enmity both to and from every
dignified freeman, and reliance only on armed barbarians or liberated
slaves—which beset almost every Grecian despot, and from which the
greatest despot of his age enjoyed no exemption. Though philosophers
emphatically insisted that such a man must be miserable,[108] yet
Dionysius himself, as well as the great mass of admiring spectators,
would probably feel that the necessities of his position were
more than compensated by its awe-striking grandeur, and by the
full satisfaction of ambitious dreams, subject indeed to poignant
suffering when wounded in the tender point, and when reaping insult
in place of admiration, at the memorable Olympic festival of 384
B. C., above-described. But the Syracusans, over whom he ruled,
enjoyed no such compensation for that which they suffered from his
tax-gatherers—from his garrison of Gauls, Iberians, and Campanians,
in Ortygia—from his spies—his prison—and his executioners.

  [108] This sentiment, pronounced by Plato, Isokratês, Cicero,
  Seneca, Plutarch, etc., is nowhere so forcibly laid out as in the
  dialogue of Xenophon called _Hiero_—of which indeed it forms the
  text and theme. Whoever reads this picture of the position of a
  Grecian τύραννος, will see that it was scarcely possible for a
  man so placed to be other than a cruel and oppressive ruler.

Nor did Syracuse suffer alone. The reign of the elder Dionysius was
desolating for the Hellenic population generally, both of Sicily and
Italy. Syracuse became a great fortress, with vast military power
in the hands of its governor, “whose policy[109] it was to pack all
Sicily into it;” while the remaining free Hellenic communities were
degraded, enslaved, and half depopulated. On this topic, the mournful
testimonies already cited from Lysias and Isokrates, are borne out
by the letters of the eye-witness Plato. In his advice, given to the
son and successor of Dionysius, Plato emphatically presses upon him
two points: first, as to the Syracusans, to transform his inherited
oppressive despotism into the rule of a king, governing gently
and by fixed laws; next, to reconstitute and repeople, under free
constitutions, the other Hellenic communities in Sicily, which at
his accession had become nearly barbarised and half deserted.[110]
The elder Dionysius had imported into Sicily large bodies of
mercenaries, by means of whom he had gained his conquests, and for
whom he had provided settlements at the cost of the subdued Hellenic
cities. In Naxos, Katana, Leontini, and Messênê, the previous
residents had been dispossessed and others substituted, out of Gallic
and Iberian mercenaries. Communities thus transformed, with their
former free citizens degraded into dependence or exile, not only
ceased to be purely Hellenic, but also became far less populous and
flourishing. In like manner Dionysius had suppressed, and absorbed
into Syracuse and Lokri, the once autonomous Grecian communities of
Rhegium, Hipponium, and Kaulonia, on the Italian side of the strait.
In the inland regions of Italy, he had allied himself with the
barbarous Lucanians; who, even without his aid, were gaining ground
and pressing hard upon the Italiot Greeks on the coast.

  [109] See the citation from Plato, in a note immediately
  preceding.

  [110] Plato, Epistol. iii. p. 315 E. (to the younger Dionysius).
  Φασὶ δ᾽ οὐκ ὀλίγοι λέγειν σε πρός τινας τῶν παρά σε πρεσβευόντων,
  ὡς ἄρα σοῦ ποτὲ λέγοντος ἀκούσας ἐγὼ μέλλοντος ~τάς τε Ἑλληνίδας
  πόλεις ἐν Σικελίᾳ οἰκίζειν, καὶ Συρακουσίους ἐπικουφίσαι~, τὴν
  ἀρχὴν ἀντὶ τυραννίδος εἰς βασιλείαν μεταστήσαντα, ταῦτ᾽ ἄρα
  σὲ μέν τοτε διεκώλυσα, σοῦ σφόδρα προθυμουμένου, νῦν δὲ Δίωνα
  διδάσκοιμι δρᾷν αὐτὰ ταῦτα, καὶ τοῖς διανοήμασι τοῖς σοῖς τὴν σὴν
  ἀρχὴν ἀφαιρούμεθά σε.

  Ibid. p. 319 C. Μή με διάβαλλε λέγων, ὡς οὐκ εἴων σε πόλεις
  Ἑλληνίδας ἐῤῥούσας ὑπὸ βαρβάρων οἰκίζειν, οὐδὲ Συρακουσίους
  ἐπικουφίσαι ... ~ὡς ἐγὼ μὲν ἐκέλευον, σὺ δ᾽ οὐκ ἤθελες πράττειν
  αὐτά~.

  Again, see Epistol. vii. p. 331 F. 332 B. 334 D. 336 A.-D.—and
  the brief notice given by Photius (Codex, 93) of the lost
  historical works of Arrian, respecting Dion and Timoleon.

  Epistol. viii. p. 357 A. (What Dion intended to do, had he not
  been prevented by death)—Καὶ μετὰ ταῦτα Σικελίαν ἂν τὴν ἄλλην
  κατῴκισα, ~τοὺς μὲν βαρβάρους ἣν νῦν ἔχουσιν ἀφελόμενος, ὅσοι
  μὴ ὑπὲρ τῆς κοινῆς ἐλευθερίας διεπολέμησαν πρὸς τὴν τυραννίδα,
  τοὺς δ᾽ ἔμπροσθεν οἰκητὰς τῶν Ἑλληνικῶν τόπων εἰς τὰς ἀρχαίας καὶ
  πατρῴας οἰκήσεις κατοικίσας~. Compare Plutarch, Timoleon, c. 2.
  αἱ δὲ πλεῖσται πόλεις ὑπὸ βαρβάρων μιγάδων καὶ στρατιωτῶν ἀμίσθων
  κατείχοντο.

  The βάρβαροι to whom Plato alludes in this last passage, are not
  the Carthaginians (none of whom could be expected to come in and
  fight for the purpose of putting down the despotism at Syracuse),
  but the Campanian and other mercenaries provided for by the elder
  Dionysius on the lands of the extruded Greeks. These men would
  have the strongest interest in upholding the despotism, if the
  maintenance of their own properties was connected with it. Dion
  thought it prudent to conciliate this powerful force by promising
  confirmation of their properties to such of them as would act
  upon the side of freedom.

If we examine the results of the warfare carried on by Dionysius
against the Carthaginians, from the commencement to the end of
his career, we shall observe, that he began by losing Gela and
Kamarina, and that the peace by which he was enabled to preserve
Syracuse itself, arose, not from any success of his own, but from the
pestilence which ruined his enemies; to say nothing about traitorous
collusion with them, which I have already remarked to have been the
probable price of their guarantee to his dominion. His war against
the Carthaginians in 397 B. C., was undertaken with much vigor,
recovered Gela, Kamarina, Agrigentum, and Selinus, and promised the
most decisive success. But presently again the tide of fortune turned
against him. He sustained capital defeats, and owed the safety of
Syracuse, a second time, to nothing but the terrific pestilence which
destroyed the army of Imilkon. A third time, in 383 B. C., Dionysius
gratuitously renewed the war against Carthage. After brilliant
success at first, he was again totally defeated, and forced to cede
to Carthage all the territory west of the river Halykus, besides
paying a tribute. So that the exact difference between the Sicilian
territory of Carthage—as it stood at the beginning of his command
and at the end of his reign—amounts to this: that at the earlier
period it reached to the river Himera—at the later period only to the
river Halykus. The intermediate space between the two comprehends
Agrigentum with the greater part of its territory; which represents
therefore the extent of Hellenic soil rescued by Dionysius from
Carthaginian dominion.




CHAPTER LXXXIV.

SICILIAN AFFAIRS AFTER THE DEATH OF THE ELDER DIONYSIUS — DIONYSIUS
THE YOUNGER — AND DION.


The Elder Dionysius, at the moment of his death, boasted of having
left his dominion “fastened by chains of adamant;” that is, sustained
by a large body of mercenaries,[111] well trained and well paid—by
impregnable fortifications on the islet of Ortygia—by four hundred
ships of war—by immense magazines of arms and military stores—and
by established intimidation over the minds of the Syracusans. These
were really “chains of adamant”—so long as there was a man like
Dionysius to keep them in hand. But he left no successor competent
to the task; nor indeed an unobstructed succession. He had issue by
two wives, whom he had married both at the same time, as has been
already mentioned. By the Lokrian wife, Doris, he had his eldest son
named Dionysius, and two others; by the Syracusan wife Aristomachê,
daughter of Hipparinus, he had two sons, Hipparinus and Nysæus—and
two daughters, Sophrosynê and Aretê.[112] Dionysius the younger can
hardly have been less than twenty-five years old at the death of his
father and namesake. Hipparinus, the eldest son by the other wife,
was considerably younger. Aristomachê his mother had long remained
childless; a fact which the elder Dionysius ascribed to incantations
wrought by the mother of the Lokrian wife, and punished by putting to
death the supposed sorceress.[113]

  [111] Both Diodorus (xvi. 9) and Cornelius Nepos (Dion, c. 5)
  speak of one hundred thousand foot and ten thousand horse. The
  former speaks of four hundred ships of war; the latter of five
  hundred.

  The numbers of foot and horse appear evidently exaggerated. Both
  authors must have copied from the same original; possibly Ephorus.

  [112] Plutarch, Dion, c. 6; Theopompus, Fr. 204, ed. Didot. ap.
  Athenæum, x. p. 435; Diodor. xvi. 6; Cornel. Nepos (Dion, c. 1).

  The Scholiast on Plato’s fourth Epistle gives information
  respecting the personal relations and marriages of the elder
  Dionysius, not wholly agreeing with what is stated in the sixth
  chapter of Plutarch’s Life of Dion.

  [113] Plutarch, Dion, c. 3. The age of the younger Dionysius is
  nowhere positively specified. But in the year 356 B. C.—or 355 B.
  C., at the latest—he had a son, Apollokratês, old enough to be
  entrusted with the command of Ortygia, when he himself evacuated
  it for the first time (Plutarch, Dion, c. 37). We cannot suppose
  Apollokratês to have been less than sixteen years of age at
  the moment when he was entrusted with such a function, having
  his mother and sisters under his charge (c. 50). Apollokratês
  therefore must have been born at least as early as 372 B. C.;
  perhaps even earlier. Suppose Dionysius the younger to have
  been twenty years of age when Apollokratês was born; he would
  thus be in his twenty-fifth year in the beginning of 367 B. C.,
  when Dionysius the elder died. The expressions of Plato, as to
  the youth of Dionysius the younger at that juncture, are not
  unsuitable to such an age.

The offspring of Aristomachê, though the younger brood of the two,
derived considerable advantage from the presence and countenance of
her brother Dion. Hipparinus, father of Dion and Aristomachê, had
been the principal abettor of the elder Dionysius in his original
usurpation, in order to retrieve his own fortune,[114] ruined
by profligate expenditure. So completely had that object been
accomplished, that his son Dion was now among the richest men in
Syracuse,[115] possessing property estimated at above one hundred
talents (about £23,000). Dion was, besides, son-in-law to the elder
Dionysius, who had given his daughter Sophrosynê in marriage to
his son (by a different mother) the younger Dionysius; and his
daughter Aretê, first to his brother Thearides—next, on the death
of Thearides, to Dion. As brother of Aristomachê, Dion was thus
brother-in-law to the elder Dionysius, and uncle both to Aretê
his own wife and to Sophrosynê the wife of the younger Dionysius;
as husband of Aretê, he was son-in-law to the elder Dionysius,
and brother-in-law (as well as uncle) to the wife of the younger.
Marriages between near relatives (excluding any such connection
between uterine brother and sister) were usual in Greek manners.
We cannot doubt that the despot accounted the harmony likely to be
produced by such ties between the members of his two families and
Dion, among the “adamantine chains” which held fast his dominion.

  [114] Aristotel. Polit. v. 5, 6.

  [115] Plato Epistol. vii. p. 347 A. Compare the offer of Dion to
  maintain fifty triremes at his own expense (Plutarch, Dion, c. 6.)

Apart from wealth and high position, the personal character of Dion
was in itself marked and prominent. He was of an energetic temper,
great bravery, and very considerable mental capacities. Though his
nature was haughty and disdainful towards individuals, yet as to
political communion, his ambition was by no means purely self-seeking
and egoistic, like that of the elder Dionysius. Animated with
vehement love of power, he was at the same time penetrated with that
sense of regulated polity, and submission of individual will to fixed
laws, which floated in the atmosphere of Grecian talk and literature,
and stood so high in Grecian morality. He was moreover capable of
acting with enthusiasm, and braving every hazard in prosecution of
his own convictions.

Born about the year 408 B. C.,[116] Dion was twenty-one years of age
in 378 B. C., when the elder Dionysius, having dismantled Rhegium
and subdued Kroton, attained the maximum of his dominion, as master
of the Sicilian and Italian Greeks. Standing high in the favor of
his brother-in-law Dionysius, Dion doubtless took part in the wars
whereby this large dominion had been acquired; as well as in the life
of indulgence and luxury which prevailed generally among wealthy
Greeks in Sicily and Italy, and which to the Athenian Plato appeared
alike surprising and repulsive.[117] That great philosopher visited
Italy and Sicily about 387 B. C., as has been already mentioned. He
was in acquaintance and fellowship with the school of philosophers
called Pythagoreans; the remnant of that Pythagorean brotherhood, who
had once exercised so powerful a political influence over the cities
of those regions—and who still enjoyed considerable reputation,
even after complete political downfall, through individual ability
and rank of the members, combined with habits of recluse study,
mysticism, and attachment among themselves. With these Pythagoreans
Dion also, a young man of open mind and ardent aspirations, was
naturally thrown into communication by the proceedings of the elder
Dionysius in Italy.[118] Through them he came into intercourse with
Plato, whose conversation made an epoch in his life.

  [116] Dion was fifty-five years of age at the time of his
  death, in the fourth year after his departure from Peloponnesus
  (Cornelius Nepos, Dion, c. 10).

  His death took place seemingly about 354 B. C. He would thus be
  born about 408 B. C.

  [117] Plato, Epistol. vii. p. 326 D. ἐλθόντα δέ με ὁ ταύτῃ
  λεγόμενος αὖ βίος εὐδαίμων, Ἰταλιωτικῶν τε καὶ Συρακουσίων
  τραπεζῶν πλήρης, οὐδαμῆ οὐδαμῶς ἤρεσκε, δίς τε τῆς ἡμέρας
  ἐμπιμπλάμενον ζῇν καὶ μηδέποτε κοιμώμενον μόνον νύκτωρ, etc.

  [118] Cicero, De Finibus, v. 20; De Republic. i. 10. Jamblichus
  (Vit. Pythagoræ, c. 199) calls Dion a member of the Pythagorean
  brotherhood, which may be doubted; but his assertion that
  Dion procured for Plato, though only by means of a large
  price (one hundred minæ), the possession of a book composed
  by the Pythagorean Philolaus, seems not improbable. The
  ancient Pythagoreans wrote nothing. Philolaus (seemingly about
  contemporary with Sokrates) was the first Pythagorean who left
  any written memorial. That this book could only be obtained by
  the intervention of an influential Syracusan—and even by him only
  for a large price—is easy to believe.

  See the instructive Dissertation of Gruppe, Ueber die Fragmente
  des Archytas und der älteren Pythagoreer, p. 24, 26, 48, etc.

The mystic turn of imagination, the sententious brevity, and the
mathematical researches of the Pythagoreans, produced doubtless
an imposing effect upon Dion; just as Lysis, a member of that
brotherhood, had acquired the attachment and influenced the
sentiments of Epaminondas at Thebes. But Plato’s power of working
upon the minds of young men was far more impressive and irresistible.
He possessed a large range of practical experience, a mastery of
political and social topics, and a charm of eloquence, to which the
Pythagoreans were strangers. The stirring effect of the Sokratic
talk, as well as of the democratical atmosphere in which Plato
had been brought up, had developed all the communicative aptitude
of his mind; and great as that aptitude appears in his remaining
dialogues, there is ground for believing that it was far greater in
his conversation; greater perhaps in 387 B. C., when he was still
mainly the Sokratic Plato—than it became in later days, after he had
imbibed to a certain extent the mysticism of these Pythagoreans.[119]
Brought up as Dion had been at the court of Dionysius—accustomed to
see around him only slavish deference and luxurious enjoyment—unused
to open speech or large philosophical discussion—he found in Plato a
new man exhibited, and a new world opened before him.

  [119] See a remarkable passage, Plato, Epist. vii p. 328 F.

The conception of a free community—with correlative rights and duties
belonging to every citizen, determined by laws and protected or
enforced by power emanating from the collective entity called the
City—stood in the foreground of ordinary Grecian morality—reigned
spontaneously in the bosoms of every Grecian festival crowd—and had
been partially imbibed by Dion, though not from his own personal
experience, yet from teachers, sophists, and poets. This conception,
essential and fundamental with philosophers as well as with the
vulgar, was not merely set forth by Plato with commanding powers
of speech, but also exalted with improvements and refinements into
an ideal perfection. Above all, it was based upon a strict, even
an abstemious and ascetic, canon, as to individual enjoyment; and
upon a careful training both of mind and body, qualifying each man
for the due performance of his duties as a citizen; a subject which
Plato (as we see by his dialogues) did not simply propound with the
direct enforcement of a preacher, but touched with the quickening
and pungent effect, and reinforced with the copious practical
illustrations, of Sokratic dialogue.

As the stimulus from the teacher was here put forth with consummate
efficacy, so the predisposition of the learner enabled it to take
full effect. Dion became an altered man both in public sentiment and
in individual behavior. He recollected that twenty years before, his
country Syracuse had been as free as Athens. He learnt to abhor the
iniquity of the despotism by which her liberty had been overthrown,
and by which subsequently the liberties of so many other Greeks in
Italy and Sicily had been trodden down also. He was made to remark,
that Sicily had been half-barbarized through the foreign mercenaries
imported as the despot’s instruments. He conceived the sublime idea
or dream of rectifying all this accumulation of wrong and suffering.
It was his wish first to cleanse Syracuse from the blot of slavery,
and to clothe her anew in the brightness and dignity of freedom;
yet not with the view of restoring the popular government as it
had stood prior to the usurpation, but of establishing an improved
constitutional policy, originated by himself, with laws which should
not only secure individual rights, but also educate and moralize the
citizens.[120] The function which he imagined to himself, and which
the conversation of Plato suggested, was not that of a despot like
Dionysius, but that of a despotic legislator like Lykurgus,[121]
taking advantage of a momentary omnipotence, conferred upon him by
grateful citizens in a state of public confusion, to originate a good
system; which, when once put in motion, would keep itself alive by
fashioning the minds of the citizens to its own intrinsic excellence.
After having thus both liberated and reformed Syracuse, Dion promised
to himself that he would employ Syracusan force, not in annihilating,
but in recreating, other free Hellenic communities throughout the
island; expelling from thence all the barbarians—both the imported
mercenaries and the Carthaginians.

  [120] Plato, Epistol. vii. p. 335 F. Δίωνα γὰρ ἐγὼ σαφῶς οἶδα, ὡς
  οἷόν τε περὶ ἀνθρώπων ἄνθρωπον διϊσχυρίζεσθαι, ὅτι τὴν ἀρχὴν εἰ
  κατέσχεν, ὡς οὐκ ἄν ποτε ἐπ᾽ ἄλλο γε σχῆμα τῆς ἀρχῆς ἐτράπετο,
  ἢ ἐπὶ τὸ—Συρακούσας μὲν πρῶτον, τὴν πατρίδα τὴν ἑαυτοῦ, ἐπεὶ
  τὴν δουλείαν αὐτῆς ἀπήλλαξε καὶ φαιδρύνας ἐλευθερίῳ ἐν σχήματι
  κατέστησε, τὸ μετὰ τοῦτ᾽ ἂν πάσῃ μηχάνῃ ἐκόσμησε νόμοις τοῖς
  προσήκουσί τε καὶ ἀρίστοις τοὺς πολίτας—τό τε ἐφεξῆς τούτοις
  προυθυμεῖτ᾽ ἂν πρᾶξαι, πᾶσαν Σικελίαν κατοικίζειν καὶ ἐλευθέραν
  ἀπὸ τῶν βαρβάρων ποιεῖν, τοὺς μὲν ἐκβάλλων, τοὺς δὲ χειρούμενος
  ῥᾷον Ἱέρωνος, etc.

  Compare the beginning of the same epistle, p. 324 A.

  [121] Plato, Epist. iv. p. 320 F. (addressed to Dion). ... ὡς οὖν
  ὑπὸ πάντων ὁρώμενος παρασκευάζου τόν τε Λυκοῦργον ἐκεῖνον ἀρχαῖον
  ἀποδείξων, καὶ τὸν Κῦρον καὶ εἴτις ἄλλος πώποτε ἔδοξεν ἤθει καὶ
  πολιτείᾳ διενεγκεῖν, etc.

Such were the hopes and projects which arose in the mind of the
youthful Dion as he listened to Plato; hopes pregnant with future
results which neither of them contemplated—and not unworthy of being
compared with those enthusiastic aspirations which the young Spartan
kings Agis and Kleomenes imbibed, a century afterwards, in part from
the conversation of the philosopher Sphærus.[122] Never before had
Plato met with a pupil who so quickly apprehended, so profoundly
meditated, or so passionately laid to heart, his lessons.[123]
Inflamed with his newly communicated impulse towards philosophy, as
the supreme guide and directress of virtuous conduct, Dion altered
his habits of life; exchanging the splendor and luxury of a Sicilian
rich man for the simple fare and regulated application becoming a
votary of the Academy. In this course he persisted without faltering
throughout all his residence at the court of Dionysius, in spite
of the unpopularity contracted among his immediate companions.
His enthusiasm even led him to believe, that the despot himself,
unable to resist that persuasive tongue by which he had been himself
converted, might be gently brought round into an employment of his
mighty force for beneficent and reformatory purposes. Accordingly
Dion, inviting Plato to Syracuse, procured for him an interview
with Dionysius. How miserably the speculation failed, has been
recounted in my last chapter. Instead of acquiring a new convert, the
philosopher was fortunate in rescuing his own person, and in making
good his returning footsteps out of that lion’s den, into which the
improvident enthusiasm of his young friend had inveigled him.

  [122] Plutarch, Kleomenes, c. 2-11.

  [123] Plato, Epistol. vii. p. 327 A. Δίων μὲν γὰρ δὴ μάλ᾽
  εὐμαθὴς ὢν πρός τε τἄλλα, καὶ πρὸς τοὺς τότε ὑπ᾽ ἐμοῦ λεγομένους
  λόγους, οὕτως ὀξέως ὑπήκουσε καὶ σφόδρα, ὡς οὐδεὶς πώποτε ὧν ἐγὼ
  προσέτυχον νέων, καὶ τὸν ἐπίλοιπον βίον ζῇν ἠθέλησε διαφερόντως
  τῶν πολλῶν Ἰταλιωτῶν καὶ Σικελιωτῶν, ἀρετὴν περὶ πλείονος ἡδονῆς
  τῆς τε ἄλλης τρυφῆς ποιούμενος· ὅθεν ἐπαχθέστερον τοῖς περὶ τὰ
  τυραννικὰ νόμιμα ζῶσιν ἐβίω, μέχρι τοῦ θανάτου τοῦ περὶ Διονύσιον
  γενομένου.

  Plutarch, Dion, c. 4. ὡς πρῶτον ἐγεύσατο λόγου καὶ φιλοσοφίας
  ἡγεμονικῆς πρὸς ἀρετήν, ἀνεφλέχθη τὴν ψυχὴν, etc.

The harsh treatment of Plato by Dionysius was a painful, though
salutary, warning to Dion. Without sacrificing either his own
convictions, or the philosophical regularity of life which he had
thought fit to adopt—he saw that patience was imperatively necessary,
and he so conducted himself as to maintain unabated the favor and
confidence of Dionysius. Such a policy would probably be recommended
to him even by Plato, in prospect of a better future. But it would
be strenuously urged by the Pythagoreans of Southern Italy; among
whom was Archytas, distinguished not only as a mathematician and
friend of Plato, but also as the chief political magistrate of
Tarentum. To these men, who dwelt all within the reach,[124] if not
under the dominion, of this formidable Syracusan despot, it would
be an unspeakable advantage to have a friend like Dion near him,
possessing his confidence, and serving as a shield to them against
his displeasure or interference. Dion so far surmounted his own
unbending nature as to conduct himself towards Dionysius with skill
and prudence. He was employed by the despot in several important
affairs, especially in embassies to Carthage, which he fulfilled
well, especially with conspicuous credit for eloquence; and also in
the execution of various cruel orders, which his humanity secretly
mitigated.[125] After the death of Thearides, Dionysius gave to Dion
in marriage the widow Aretê (his daughter), and continued until the
last to treat him with favor, accepting from him a freedom of censure
such as he would tolerate from no other adviser.

  [124] See the story in Jamblichus (Vit. Pythagoræ, c. 189) of a
  company of Syracusan troops under Eurymenes the brother of Dion,
  sent to lay in ambuscade for some Pythagoreans between Tarentum
  and Metapontum. The story has not the air of truth; but the state
  of circumstances, which it supposes, illustrates the relation
  between Dionysius and the cities in the Tarentine Gulf.

  [125] Plutarch, Dion, c. 5, 6; Cornelius Nepos, Dion, c. 1, 2.

During the many years which elapsed before the despot died, we
cannot doubt that Dion found opportunities of visiting Peloponnesus
and Athens, for the great festivals and other purposes. He would
thus keep up his friendship and philosophical communication with
Plato. Being as he was minister and relative, and perhaps successor
presumptive, of the most powerful prince in Greece, he would
enjoy everywhere great importance, which would be enhanced by his
philosophy and eloquence. The Spartans, at that time the allies
of Dionysius, conferred upon Dion the rare honor of a vote of
citizenship;[126] and he received testimonies of respect from other
cities also. Such honors tended to exalt his reputation at Syracuse;
while the visits to Athens and the cities of Central Greece enlarged
his knowledge both of politicians and philosophers.

  [126] Plutarch, Dion, c. 17, 49. Respecting the rarity of
  the vote of Spartan citizenship, see a remarkable passage of
  Herodotus, ix. 33-35.

  Plutarch states that the Spartans voted their citizenship to
  Dion during his exile, while he was in Peloponnesus after the
  year 367 B. C., at enmity with the younger Dionysius then despot
  of Syracuse; whom (according to Plutarch) the Spartans took the
  risk of offending, in order that they might testify their extreme
  admiration for Dion.

  I cannot but think that Plutarch is mistaken as to the time
  of this grant. In and after 367 B. C. the Spartans were under
  great depression, playing the losing game against Thebes. It is
  scarcely conceivable that they should be imprudent enough to
  alienate a valuable ally for the sake of gratuitously honoring
  an exile whom he hated and had banished. Whereas if we suppose
  the vote to have been passed during the lifetime of the elder
  Dionysius, it would count as a compliment to him as well as to
  Dion, and would thus be an act of political prudence as well as
  of genuine respect. Plutarch speaks as if he supposed that Dion
  was never in Peloponnesus until the time of his exile, which is,
  in my judgment, highly improbable.

At length occurred the death of the elder Dionysius, occasioned by
an unexpected attack of fever, after a few days’ illness. He had
made no special announcement about his succession. Accordingly, as
soon as the physicians pronounced him to be in imminent danger, a
competition arose between his two families: on the one hand Dionysius
the younger, his son by the Lokrian wife Doris; on the other, his
wife Aristomachê and her brother Dion, representing her children
Hipparinus and Nysæus, then very young. Dion, wishing to obtain
for these two youths either a partnership in the future power, or
some other beneficial provision, solicited leave to approach the
bedside of the sick man. But the physicians refused to grant his
request without apprising the younger Dionysius; who, being resolved
to prevent it, directed a soporific portion to be administered to
his father, from the effects of which the latter never awoke so as
to be able to see any one.[127] The interview with Dion being thus
frustrated, and the father dying without giving any directions,
Dionysius the younger succeeded as eldest son, without opposition. He
was presented to that which was called an assembly of the Syracusan
people,[128] and delivered some conciliatory phrases, requesting them
to continue to him that good-will which they had so long shown to his
father. Consent and acclamation were of course not wanting, to the
new master of the troops, treasures, magazines, and fortifications in
Ortygia; those “adamantine chains” which were well known to dispense
with the necessity of any real popular good-will.

  [127] Cornelius Nepos, Dion, c. 2; Plutarch, Dion, c. 6.

  [128] Diodor. xv. 74.

Dionysius II. (or the younger), then about twenty-five years of age,
was a young man of considerable natural capacity, and of quick and
lively impulses;[129] but weak and vain in his character, given to
transitory caprices, and eager in his appetite for praise without
being capable of any industrious or resolute efforts to earn it.
As yet he was wholly unpractised in serious business of any kind.
He had neither seen military service nor mingled in the discussion
of political measures; having been studiously kept back from both,
by the extreme jealousy of his father. His life had been passed in
the palace or acropolis of Ortygia, amidst all the indulgences and
luxuries belonging to a princely station, diversified with amateur
carpenter’s work and turnery. However, the tastes of the father
introduced among the guests at the palace a certain number of
poets, reciters, musicians, etc., so that the younger Dionysius had
contracted a relish for poetical literature, which opened his mind
to generous sentiments, and large conceptions of excellence, more
than any portion of his very confined experience. To philosophy,
to instructive conversation, to the exercise of reason, he was
a stranger.[130] But the very feebleness and indecision of his
character presented him as impressible, perhaps improvable, by a
strong will and influence brought to bear upon him from that quarter,
at least as well as from any other.

  [129] Plato, Epistol. vii. p. 338 E. Ὁ δὲ οὔτε ἄλλως ἐστὶν ἀφυὴς
  πρὸς τὴν τοῦ μανθάνειν δύναμιν, φιλότιμος δὲ θαυμαστῶς, etc.
  Compare p. 330 A. p. 328 B.; also Epist. iii. p. 316 C. p. 317 E.

  Plutarch, Dion, c. 7-9.

  [130] Plato, Epistol. vii. p. 332 E. ἐπειδὴ τὰ παρὰ τοῦ πατρὸς
  αὐτῷ συνεβεβήκει οὕτως ἀνομιλήτῳ μὲν παιδείας, ἀνομιλήτῳ δὲ
  συνουσιῶν τῶν προσηκουσῶν γεγονέναι, etc.

Such was the novice who suddenly stept into the place of the most
energetic and powerful despot of the Grecian world. Dion—being
as he was of mature age, known service and experience, and full
enjoyment of the confidence of the elder Dionysius,—might have
probably raised material opposition to the younger. But he attempted
no such thing. He acknowledged and supported the young prince with
cordial sincerity, dropping altogether those views, whatever they
were, on behalf of the children of Aristomachê, which had induced
him to solicit the last interview with the sick man. While exerting
himself to strengthen and facilitate the march of the government, he
tried to gain influence and ascendency over the mind of the young
Dionysius. At the first meeting of council which took place after
the accession, Dion stood conspicuous not less for his earnest
adhesion than for his dignified language and intelligent advice.
The remaining councillors—accustomed, under the self-determining
despot who had just quitted the scene, to the simple function
of hearing, applauding, and obeying, his directions—exhausted
themselves in phrases and compliments, waiting to catch the tone
of the young prince before they ventured to pronounce any decided
opinion. But Dion, to whose freedom of speech even the elder
Dionysius had partially submitted, disdained all such tampering,
entered at once into a full review of the actual situation, and
suggested the positive measures proper to be adopted. We cannot
doubt that, in the transmission of an authority which had rested so
much on the individual spirit of the former possessor, there were
many precautions to be taken, especially in regard to the mercenary
troops both at Syracuse and in the outlying dependencies. All these
necessities of the moment Dion set forth, together with suitable
advice. But the most serious of all the difficulties arose out of
the war with Carthage still subsisting, which it was foreseen that
the Carthaginians were likely to press more vigorously, calculating
on the ill-assured tenure and inexperienced management of the new
prince. This difficulty Dion took upon himself. If the council
should think it wise to make peace, he engaged to go to Carthage and
negotiate peace—a task in which he had been more than once employed
under the elder Dionysius. If, on the other hand, it were resolved
to prosecute the war, he advised that imposing forces should be at
once put in equipment, promising to furnish, out of his own large
property, a sum sufficient for the outfit of fifty triremes.[131]

  [131] Plutarch Dion, c. 6.

The young Dionysius was not only profoundly impressed with the
superior wisdom and suggestive resource of Dion, but also grateful
for his generous offer of pecuniary as well as personal support.[132]
In all probability Dion actually carried the offer into effect, for
to a man of his disposition, money had little value except as a
means of extending influence and acquiring reputation. The war with
Carthage seems to have lasted at least throughout the next year,[133]
and to have been terminated not long afterwards. But it never assumed
those perilous proportions which had been contemplated by the council
as probable. As a mere contingency, however, it was sufficient to
inspire Dionysius with alarm, combined with the other exigencies of
his new situation. At first he was painfully conscious of his own
inexperience; anxious about hazards which he now saw for the first
time, and not merely open to advice, but eager and thankful for
suggestions, from any quarter where he could place confidence. Dion,
identified by ancient connection as well as by marriage with the
Dionysian family—trusted, more than any one else, by the old despot,
and surrounded with that accessory dignity which ascetic strictness
of life usually confers in excess—presented every title to such
confidence. And when he was found not only the most trustworthy, but
the most frank and fearless, of councillors, Dionysius gladly yielded
both to the measures which he advised and to the impulses which he
inspired.

  [132] Plutarch, Dion, c. 7. Ὁ μὲν οὖν Διονύσιος ὑπερφυῶς τὴν
  μεγαλοψυχίαν ἐθαύμασε καὶ τὴν προθυμίαν ἠγάπησεν.

  [133] Dionysius II. was engaged at war at the time when Plato
  first visited him at Syracuse, within the year immediately after
  his accession (Plato, Epistol. iii. p. 317 A). We may reasonably
  presume that this was the war with Carthage.

  Compare Diodorus (xvi. 5), who mentions that the younger
  Dionysius also carried on war for some little time, in a languid
  manner, against the Lucanians; and that he founded two cities on
  the coast of Apulia in the Adriatic. I think it probable that
  these two last-mentioned foundations were acts of Dionysius I.,
  not of Dionysius II. They were not likely to be undertaken by a
  young prince of backward disposition, at his first accession.

Such was the political atmosphere of Syracuse during the period
immediately succeeding the new accession, while the splendid
obsequies in honor of the departed Dionysius were being solemnized;
coupled with a funeral pile so elaborate as to confer celebrity on
Timæus the constructor—and commemorated by architectural monuments,
too grand to be permanent,[134] immediately outside of Ortygia, near
the Regal Gates leading to that citadel. Among the popular measures,
natural at the commencement of a new reign, the historian Philistus
was recalled from exile.[135] He had been one of the oldest and most
attached partisans of the elder Dionysius; by whom, however, he had
at last been banished, and never afterwards forgiven. His recall
now seemed to promise a new and valuable assistant to the younger,
whom it also presented as softening the rigorous proceedings of his
father. In this respect, it would harmonize with the views of Dion,
though Philistus afterwards became his great opponent.

  [134] Tacitus, Histor. ii. 49. “Othoni sepulcrum exstructum est,
  modicum, et mansurum.”

  A person named Timæus was immortalized as the constructor of the
  funeral pile: see Athenæus, v. p. 206. Both Göller (Timæi Fragm.
  95) and M. Didot (Timæi Fr. 126) have referred this passage to
  Timæus the historian, and have supposed it to relate to the
  description given by Timæus of the funeral-pile. But the passage
  in Athenæus seems to me to indicate Timæus as the _builder_, not
  the _describer_, of this famous πυρά.

  It is he who is meant, probably, in the passage of Cicero (De
  Naturâ Deor. iii. 35)—(Dionysius) “in suo lectulo mortuus in
  _Tympanidis rogum illatus est_, eamque potestatem quam ipse per
  scelus erat nactus, quasi justam et legitimam hereditatis loco
  filio tradidit.” This seems at least the best way of explaining a
  passage which perplexes the editors: see the note of Davis.

  [135] Plutarch (De Exilio. p. 637) and Cornelius Nepos (Dion,
  c. 3) represent that Philistus was recalled at the persuasion
  of the enemies of Dion, as a counterpoise and corrective to the
  ascendency of the latter over Dionysius the younger. Though
  Philistus afterwards actually performed this part, I doubt
  whether such was the motive which caused him to be recalled. He
  seems to have come back _before_ the obsequies of Dionysius the
  elder; that is, very early after the commencement of the new
  reign. Philistus had described, in his history, these obsequies
  in a manner so elaborate and copious, that this passage in his
  work excited the special notice of the ancient critics (see
  Philisti Fragment. 42, ed. Didot; Plutarch, Pelopidas, c. 34). I
  venture to think that this proves him to have been _present_ at
  the obsequies; which would of course be very impressive to him,
  since they were among the first things which he saw after his
  long exile.

Dion was now both the prime minister, and the confidential monitor,
of the young Dionysius. He upheld the march of the government with
undiminished energy, and was of greater political importance than
Dionysius himself. But success in this object was not the end for
which Dion labored. He neither wished to serve a despot, nor to
become a despot himself. The moment was favorable for resuming that
project which he had formerly imbibed from Plato, and which, in spite
of contemptuous disparagement by his former master, had ever since
clung to him as the dream of his heart and life. To make Syracuse a
free city, under a government, not of will, but of good laws, with
himself as lawgiver in substance, if not in name—to enfranchise and
replant the semi-barbarised Hellenic cities in Sicily—and to expel
the Carthaginians—were schemes to which he now again devoted himself
with unabated enthusiasm. But he did not look to any other means of
achieving them than the consent and initiative of Dionysius himself.
The man who had been sanguine enough to think of working upon the
iron soul of the father, was not likely to despair of shaping anew
the more malleable metal of which the son was composed. Accordingly,
while lending to Dionysius his best service as minister, he also
took up the Platonic profession, and tried to persuade him to reform
both himself and his government. He endeavored to awaken in him
a relish for a better and nobler private conduct than that which
prevailed among the luxurious companions around him. He dwelt with
enthusiasm on the scientific and soul-stirring conversation of Plato;
specimens[136] of which he either read aloud or repeated, exalting
the hearer not only to a higher intellectual range, but also to the
full majesty of mind requisite for ruling others with honor and
improvement. He pointed out the unrivalled glory which Dionysius
would acquire in the eyes of Greece, by consenting to employ his vast
power, not as a despot working on the fears of subjects, but as a
king enforcing temperance and justice, by his own paternal example
as well as by good laws. He tried to show that Dionysius, after
having liberated Syracuse, and enrolled himself as a king limited and
responsible amidst grateful citizens, would have far more real force
against the barbarians than at present.[137]

  [136] Plutarch, Dion, c. 11. Ταῦτα πολλάκις τοῦ Δίωνος
  παραινοῦντος, καὶ τῶν λόγων τοῦ Πλάτωνος ἔστιν οὕστινας
  ὑποσπείροντος, etc.

  [137] Plutarch, Dion, c. 10, 11; Plato, Epist. vii. p. 327 C.

Such were the new convictions which Dion tried to work into the mind
of the young Dionysius, as a living faith and sentiment. Penetrated
as he was with the Platonic idea—that nothing could be done for the
improvement and happiness of mankind,[138] until philosophy and
ruling power came together in the same hands; but everything, if the
two did so come together—he thought that he saw before him a chance
of realizing the conjunction, in the case of the greatest among all
Hellenic potentates. He already beheld in fancy his native country
and fellow citizens liberated, moralized, ennobled, and conducted
to happiness, without murder or persecution,[139] simply by the
well-meaning and instructed employment of power already organized. If
accident had thrown the despotism into the hands of Dion himself, at
this period of his life, the Grecian world would probably have seen
an experiment tried, as memorable and generous as any event recorded
in its history: what would have been its result, we cannot say. But
it was enough to fire his inmost soul, to see himself separated from
the experiment only by the necessity of persuading an impressible
young man over whom he had much influence; and for himself he was
quite satisfied with the humbler position of nominal minister, but
real originator and chief, in so noble an enterprise.[140] His
persuasive powers, strengthened as they were by intense earnestness
as well as by his imposing station and practical capacity, actually
wrought a great effect upon Dionysius. The young man appeared
animated with a strong desire of self-improvement, and of qualifying
himself for such a use of the powers of government as Dion depicted.
He gave proof of the sincerity of his feeling by expressing eagerness
to see and converse with Plato, to whom he sent several personal
messages, warmly requesting him to visit Syracuse.[141]

  [138] Plato, Epist. vii. p. 328 A. p. 335 E.; Plato, Republic,
  vi. p. 499 C. D.

  [139] Plato, Epist. vii. p. 327 E. ... Ὃ δὴ καὶ νῦν εἰ
  διαπράξαιτο ἐν Διονυσίῳ ὡς ἐπεχείρησε, μεγάλας ἐλπίδας εἶχεν,
  ἄνευ σφαγῶν καὶ θανάτων καὶ τῶν νῦν γεγονότων κακῶν, βίον ἂν
  εὐδαίμονα καὶ ἀληθινὸν ἐν πάσῃ τῇ χώρᾳ κατασκευάσαι.

  [140] Plato, Epistol. vii. p. 333 B. Ταὐτὸν πρὸς Δίωνα Συρακόσιοι
  τότε ἔπαθον, ὅπερ καὶ Διονύσιος, ὅτε αὐτὸν ἐπεχείρει παιδεύσας
  καὶ θρέψας βασιλέα τῆς ἀρχῆς ἄξιον, οὕτω κοινωνεῖν αὐτῷ τοῦ βίου
  παντός.

  [141] Plato, Epist. vii. p. 327 E.; Plutarch. Dion, c. 11.
  ἔσχεν ἔρως τὸν Διονύσιον ὀξὺς καὶ περιμανὴς τῶν τε λόγων καὶ
  τῆς συνουσίας τοῦ Πλάτωνος. Εὐθὺς οὖν Ἀθήναζε πολλὰ μὲν ἐφοίτα
  γράμματα παρὰ τοῦ Διονυσίου, πολλαὶ δ᾽ ἐπισκήψεις τοῦ Δίωνος,
  ἄλλαι δ᾽ ἐξ Ἰταλίας παρὰ τῶν Πυθαγορικῶν, etc.

This was precisely the first step which Dion had been laboring to
bring about. He well knew, and had personally felt, the wonderful
magic of Plato’s conversation when addressed to young men. To
bring Plato to Syracuse, and to pour his eloquent language into
the predisposed ears of Dionysius, appeared like realizing the
conjunction of philosophy and power. Accordingly he sent to Athens,
along with the invitation from Dionysius, the most pressing and
emphatic entreaties from himself. He represented the immense prize
to be won—nothing less than the means of directing the action of
an organized power, extending over all the Greeks of Italy and
Sicily—provided only the mind of Dionysius could be thoroughly gained
over. This (he said) was already half done; not only Dionysius
himself, but also his youthful half brothers of the other line, had
been impressed with earnest mental aspirations, and longed to drink
at the pure fountain of true philosophy. Everything presaged complete
success, such as would render them hearty and active proselytes, if
Plato would only come forthwith—before hostile influences could have
time to corrupt them—and devote to the task his unrivalled art of
penetrating the youthful mind. These hostile influences were indeed
at work, and with great activity; if victorious, they would not only
defeat the project of Dion, but might even provoke his expulsion, or
threaten his life. Could Plato, by declining the invitation, leave
his devoted champion and apostle to fight so great a battle, alone
and unassisted? What could Plato say for himself afterwards, if by
declining to come, he not only let slip the greatest prospective
victory which had ever been opened to philosophy, but also permitted
the corruption of Dionysius and the ruin of Dion?[142]

  [142] Plato, Epist. vii. p. 328.

Such appeals, in themselves emphatic and touching, reached Athens
reinforced by solicitations, hardly less strenuous, from Archytas
of Tarentum and the other Pythagorean philosophers in the south of
Italy; to whose personal well-being, over and above the interests of
philosophy, the character of the future Syracusan government was of
capital importance. Plato was deeply agitated and embarrassed. He
was now sixty-one years of age. He enjoyed preëminent estimation,
in the grove of Akadêmus near Athens, amidst admiring hearers from
all parts of Greece. The Athenian democracy, if it accorded to him
no influence on public affairs, neither molested him nor dimmed
his intellectual glory. The proposed voyage to Syracuse carried
him out of his enviable position into a new field of hazard and
speculation; brilliant indeed and flattering, beyond anything which
had ever been approached by philosophy, if it succeeded; but fraught
with disgrace, and even with danger to all concerned, if it failed.
Plato had already seen the elder Dionysius surrounded by his walls
and mercenaries in Ortygia, and had learnt by cruel experience the
painful consequences of propounding philosophy to an intractable
hearer, whose displeasure passed so readily into act. The sight
of contemporary despots nearer home, such as Euphron of Sikyon
and Alexander of Pheræ, was by no means reassuring; nor could he
reasonably stake his person and reputation on the chance, that the
younger Dionysius might prove a glorious exception to the general
rule. To outweigh such scruples, he had indeed the positive and
respectful invitation of Dionysius himself; which however would have
passed for a transitory, though vehement caprice on the part of a
young prince, had it not been backed by the strong assurances of a
mature man and valued friend like Dion. To these assurances, and to
the shame which would be incurred by leaving Dion to fight the battle
and incur the danger alone, Plato sacrificed his own grounds for
hesitation. He went to Syracuse, less with the hope of succeeding in
the intended conversion of Dionysius, than from the fear of hearing
both himself and his philosophy taunted with confessed impotence—as
fit only for the discussions of the school, shrinking from all
application to practice, betraying the interest of his Pythagorean
friends, and basely deserting that devoted champion who had half
opened the door to him for triumphant admission.[143]

  [143] Plato, Epistol. vii. p. 328. Ταύτῃ μὲν τῇ διανοίᾳ καὶ
  τόλμῃ ἀπῇρα ~οἴκοθεν, οὐχ ᾗ τινὲς ἐδόξαζον, ἀλλ᾽ αἰσχυνόμενος
  μὲν ἐμαυτὸν τὸ μέγιστον~, μὴ δόξαιμί ποτε ἐμαυτῷ παντάπασι
  λόγος μόνον ἀτεχνῶς εἶναί τις, ἔργου δὲ οὐδενὸς ἄν ποτε ἑκὼν
  ἀνθάψασθαι, κινδυνεύσειν δὲ προδοῦναι πρῶτον μὲν τὴν Δίωνος
  ξενίαν ἐν κινδύνοις ὄντως γεγονότος οὐ σμικροῖς· εἴτ᾽ οὖν πάθοι
  τι, εἴτ᾽ ἐκπεσὼν ὑπὸ Διονυσίου καὶ τῶν ἄλλων ἐχθρῶν ἔλθοι παρ᾽
  ἡμᾶς φεύγων, καὶ ἀνέροιτο, εἰπών, etc.

Such is the account which the philosopher gives of his own state
of mind in going to Syracuse. At the same time, he intimates that
his motives were differently interpreted by others.[144] And as
the account which we possess was written fifteen years after the
event—when Dion had perished, when the Syracusan enterprise had
realized nothing like what was expected, and when Plato looked back
upon it with the utmost grief and aversion,[145] which must have
poisoned the last three or four years of his life—we may fairly
suspect that he partially transfers back to 367 B. C. the feelings
of 352 B. C.; and that at the earlier period, he went to Syracuse
not merely because he was ashamed to decline, but because he really
flattered himself with some hopes of success.

  [144] This is contained in the words ~οὐχ ᾗ τινὲς
  ἐδόξαζον~—before cited.

  [145] Plato, Epistol. vii. p. 350 E. ταῦτα εἶπον μεμισηκὼς τὴν
  περὶ Σικελίαν πλάνην καὶ ἀτυχίαν, etc.

  Xenokrates seems to have accompanied Plato to Sicily (Diogen.
  Laert. iv. 2, 1).

However desponding he may have been before, he could hardly fail
to conceive hopes from the warmth of his first reception. One of
the royal carriages met him at his landing, and conveyed him to
his lodging. Dionysius offered a sacrifice of thanksgiving to the
gods for his safe arrival. The banquets at the acropolis became
distinguished for their plainness and sobriety. Never had Dionysius
been seen so gentle in answering suitors or transacting public
business. He began immediately to take lessons in geometry from
Plato. Every one around him, of course, was suddenly smitten with
a taste for geometry;[146] so that the floors were all spread
with sand, and nothing was to be seen except triangles and other
figures inscribed upon it, with expositors and a listening crowd
around them. To those who had been inmates of the acropolis, under
the reign of the former despot, this change was surprising enough.
But their surprise was converted into alarm, when, at a periodical
sacrifice just then offered, Dionysius himself arrested the herald
in pronouncing the customary prayer to the gods—“That the despotism
might long remain unshaken.” “Stop! (said Dionysius to the herald)
imprecate no such curse upon us!”[147] To the ears of Philistus,
and the old politicians, these words portended nothing less than
revolution to the dynasty, and ruin to Syracusan power. A single
Athenian sophist (they exclaimed), with no other force than his
tongue and his reputation, had achieved the conquest of Syracuse; an
attempt in which thousands of his countrymen had miserably perished
half a century before.[148] Ineffably were they disgusted to see
Dionysius abdicate in favor of Plato, and exchange the care of his
vast force and dominion for geometrical problems and discussions on
the _summum bonum_.

  [146] Plutarch, De Adulator, et Amici Discrimine, p. 52 C.

  [147] Plutarch, Dion, c. 13. Οὐ παύσῃ καταρώμενος ἡμῖν;

  [148] Plutarch, Dion, c. 14. Ἔνιοι δὲ προσεποιοῦντο δυσχεραίνειν,
  εἰ πρότερον μὲν Ἀθηναῖοι ναυτικαῖς καὶ πεζικαῖς δυνάμεσι δεῦρο
  πλεύσαντες ἀπώλοντο καὶ διεφθάρησαν πρότερον ἢ λαβεῖν Συρακούσας,
  νυνὶ δὲ δι᾽ ~ἑνὸς σοφιστοῦ~ καταλύουσι τὴν Διονυσίου τυραννίδα,
  etc.

  Plato is here described as a _Sophist_, in the language of those
  who did not like him. Plato, the great authority who is always
  quoted in disparagement of the persons called _Sophists_, is as
  much entitled to the name as they, and is called so equally by
  unfriendly commentators. I drew particular attention to this
  fact in my sixty-eighth chapter (Vol. VIII.), where I endeavored
  to show that there was no school, sect, or body of persons
  distinguished by uniformity of doctrine or practice, properly
  called _Sophists_, and that the name was common to all literary
  men or teachers, when spoken of in an unfriendly spirit.

For a moment Plato seemed to be despot of Syracuse; so that the
noble objects for which Dion had labored were apparently within his
reach, either wholly or in part. And as far as we can judge, they
really were to a great degree within his reach—had this situation,
so interesting and so fraught with consequences to the people of
Sicily, been properly turned to account. With all reverence for the
greatest philosopher of antiquity, we are forced to confess that upon
his own showing, he not only failed to turn the situation to account,
but contributed even to spoil it by an unseasonable rigor. To admire
philosophy in its distinguished teachers, is one thing; to learn and
appropriate it, is another stage, rarer and more difficult, requiring
assiduous labor, and no common endowments; while that which Plato
calls “the philosophical life,”[149] or practical predominance of a
well-trained intellect and well-chosen ethical purposes, combined
with the minimum of personal appetite—is a third stage, higher and
rarer still. Now Dionysius had reached the first stage only. He had
contracted a warm and profound admiration for Plato. He had imbibed
this feeling from the exhortations of Dion; and we shall see by his
subsequent conduct that it was really a feeling both sincere and
durable. But he admired Plato without having either inclination or
talent to ascend higher, and to acquire what Plato called philosophy.
Now it was an unexpected good fortune, and highly creditable to the
persevering enthusiasm of Dion, that Dionysius should have been wound
up so far as to admire Plato, to invoke his presence, and to instal
him as a sort of spiritual power by the side of the temporal. Thus
much was more than could have been expected; but to demand more,
and to insist that Dionysius should go to school and work through
a course of mental regeneration—was a purpose hardly possible to
attain, and positively mischievous if it failed. Unfortunately, it
was exactly this error which Plato, and Dion in deference to Plato,
seem to have committed. Instead of taking advantage of the existing
ardor of Dionysius to instigate him at once into active political
measures beneficial to the people of Syracuse and Sicily, with the
full force of an authority which, at that moment, would have been
irresistible—instead of heartening him up against groundless fears
or difficulties of execution, and seeing that full honor was done
to him for all the good which he really accomplished, meditated, or
adopted—Plato postponed all these as matters for which his royal
pupil was not yet ripe. He and Dion began to deal with Dionysius as
a confessor treats his penitent; to probe the interior man[150]—to
expose him to his own unworthiness—to show that his life, his
training, his companions, had all been vicious—to insist upon
repentance and amendment upon these points, before he could receive
absolution, and be permitted to enter upon active political life—to
tell him that he must reform himself, and become a rational and
temperate man, before he was fit to enter seriously on the task of
governing others.

  [149] Plato, Epistol. vii. p. 330 B. Ἐγὼ δὲ πάντα ὑπέμενον, τὴν
  πρώτην διάνοιαν φυλάττων ᾗπερ ἀφικόμην, εἴπως εἰς ἐπιθυμίαν ἔλθοι
  ~τῆς φιλοσόφου ζωῆς~ (Dionysius)—ὁ δ᾽ ἐνίκησεν ἀντιτείνων.

  [150] Plato, Epistol. vii. p. 332 E. Ἃ δὴ καὶ Διονυσίῳ
  συνεβουλεύομεν ἐγὼ καὶ Δίων, ἐπειδὴ τὰ παρὰ τοῦ πατρὸς αὐτῷ
  συνεβεβήκει, οὕτως ἀνομιλήτῳ μὲν παιδείας, ἀνομιλήτῳ δὲ συνουσιῶν
  τῶν προσηκουσῶν γεγονέναι, ~πρῶτον~ ἐπὶ ταῦτα ὁρμήσαντα φίλους
  ἄλλους αὑτῷ τῶν οἰκείων ἅμα καὶ ἡλικιωτῶν καὶ συμφώνους πρὸς
  ἀρετὴν κτήσασθαι, ~μάλιστα δὲ αὐτὸν αὑτῷ, τούτου γὰρ αὐτὸν
  θαυμαστῶς ἐνδεᾶ γεγονέναι· λέγοντες οὐκ ἐναργῶς οὕτως—οὐ γὰρ ἦν
  ἀσφαλὲς~—ὡς οὕτω μὲν πᾶς ἀνὴρ αὑτόν τε καὶ ἐκείνους ὧν ἂν ἡγεμὼν
  γένηται σώσει, μὴ ταύτῃ δὲ τραπόμενος τἀναντία πάντα ἀποτελεῖ·
  πορευθεὶς δὲ ὡς λέγομεν, ~καὶ ἑαυτὸν ἔμφρονα καὶ σώφρονα
  ποιησάμενος~, εἰ τὰς ἐξηρημωμένας Σικελίας πόλεις κατοικίσειε
  νόμοις τε ξυνδήσειε καὶ πολιτείαις, etc.

  Compare also p. 331 F.

Such was the language which Plato and Dion held to Dionysius. They
well knew indeed that they were treading on delicate ground—that
while irritating a spirited horse in the sensitive part, they had
no security against his kicks.[151] Accordingly, they resorted to
many circumlocutory and equivocal expressions, so as to soften
the offence given. But the effect was not the less produced, of
disgusting Dionysius with his velleities towards political good.
Not only did Plato decline entering upon political recommendations
of his own, but he damped, instead of enforcing, the positive good
resolutions which Dion had already succeeded in infusing. Dionysius
announced freely, in the presence of Plato, his wish and intention to
transform his despotism at Syracuse into a limited kingship, and to
replant the dis-hellenised cities in Sicily. These were the two grand
points to which Dion had been laboring so generously to bring him,
and which he had invoked Plato for the express purpose of seconding.
Yet what does Plato say when this momentous announcement is made?
Instead of bestowing any praise or encouragement, he drily remarks to
Dionysius,—“First go through your schooling, and then do all these
things; otherwise leave them undone.”[152] Dionysius afterwards
complained, and with good show of reason (when Dion was in exile,
menacing attack upon Syracuse, under the favorable sympathies
of Plato), that the great philosopher had actually deterred him
(Dionysius) from executing the same capital improvements which he
was now encouraging Dion to accomplish by an armed invasion. Plato
was keenly sensitive to this reproach afterwards; but even his own
exculpation proves it to have been in the main not undeserved.

  [151] Horat. Satir. ii. 1, 17.

                        “Haud mihi deero
    Cum res ipsa feret. Nisi dextro tempore, Flacci
    Verba per attentam non ibunt Cæsaris aurem.
    Cui male si palpere, recalcitrat undique tutus.”

  [152] Plato, Epist. iii. 315 E. Φάσι δὲ οὐκ ὀλίγοι λέγειν σε πρός
  τινας τῶν παρά σε πρεσβευόντων, ὡς ἄρα σοῦ ποτὲ λέγοντος ἀκούσας
  ἐγὼ μέλλοντος τάς τε Ἑλληνίδας πόλεις ἐν Σικελίᾳ οἰκίζειν, καὶ
  Συρακουσίους ἐπικουφίσαι, τὴν ἀρχὴν ἀντὶ τυραννίδος εἰς βασιλείαν
  μεταστήσαντα, ~ταῦτ᾽ ἄρα σὲ μὲν τότε, ὡς σὺ φῇς, διεκώλυσα—νῦν δὲ
  Δίωνα διδάσκοιμι δρᾷν αὐτὰ, καὶ τοῖς διανοήμασι τοῖς σοῖς τὴν σὴν
  ἀρχὴν~ ἀφαιρούμεθά σε....

  Ibid. p. 319 B. εἶπες δὲ καὶ μάλ᾽ ἀπλάστως γελῶν, εἰ μέμνημαι, ὡς
  ~Παιδευθέντα με ἐκέλευες ποιεῖν πάντα ταῦτα, ἢ μὴ ποιεῖν. Ἔφην
  ἐγὼ Κάλλιστα μνημονεῦσαί σε~.

  Cornelius Nepos (Dion, c. 3) gives to Plato the credit, which
  belongs altogether to Dion, of having inspired Dionysius with
  these ideas.

Plutarch observes that Plato felt a proud consciousness of
philosophical dignity in disdaining respect to persons, and in
refusing to the defects of Dionysius any greater measure of
indulgence than he would have shown to an ordinary pupil of the
Academy.[153] If we allow him credit for a sentiment in itself
honorable, it can only be at the expense of his fitness for dealing
with practical life; by admitting (to quote a remarkable phrase from
one of his own dialogues) that “he tried to deal with individual men
without knowing those rules of art or practice which bear on human
affairs.[154]” Dionysius was not a common pupil, nor could Plato
reasonably expect the like unmeasured docility from one for whose
ear so many hostile influences were competing. Nor were Plato and
Dionysius the only parties concerned. There was, besides, in the
first place, Dion, whose whole position was at stake—next, and of
yet greater moment, the relief of the people of Syracuse and Sicily.
For them, and on their behalf, Dion had been laboring with such
zeal, that he had inspired Dionysius with readiness to execute the
two best resolves which the situation admitted; resolves not only
pregnant with benefit to the people, but also insuring the position
of Dion—since if Dionysius had once entered upon this course of
policy, Dion would have been essential to him as an auxiliary and man
of execution.

  [153] Plutarch, De Adulator, et Amici Discrimine, p. 52 E. We
  may set against this, however, a passage in one of the other
  treatises of Plutarch (Philosophand. cum Principibus, p. 779 _ad
  finem_), in which he observes, that Plato, coming to Sicily with
  the hope of converting his political doctrines into laws through
  the agency of Dionysius, found the latter already corrupted by
  power, unsusceptible of cure, and deaf to admonition.

  [154] Plato, Phædon, c. 88. p. 89 D. Οὐκοῦν αἰσχρόν; καὶ δῆλον,
  ὅτι ἄνευ τέχνης τῆς περὶ τἀνθρώπεια ὁ τοιοῦτος χρῆσθαι ἐπιχειρεῖ
  τοῖς ἀνθρώποις;

  He is expounding the causes and growth of misanthropic
  dispositions; one of the most striking passages in his dialogues.

It is by no means certain, indeed, that such schemes could have
been successfully realized, even with full sincerity on the part of
Dionysius, and the energy of Dion besides. With all governments, to
do evil is easy—to effect beneficial change, difficult; and with
a Grecian despot, this was true in a peculiar manner. Those great
mercenary forces and other instruments, which had been strong as
adamant for the oppressive rule of the elder Dionysius would have
been found hardly manageable, perhaps even obstructive, if his son
had tried to employ them for more liberal purposes. But still the
experiment would have been tried, with a fair chance of success—if
only Plato, during his short-lived spiritual authority at Syracuse,
had measured more accurately the practical influence which a
philosopher might reasonably hope to exercise over Dionysius. I make
these remarks upon him with sincere regret; but I am much mistaken if
he did not afterwards hear them in more poignant language from the
banished Dion, upon whom the consequences of the mistake mainly fell.

Speedily did the atmosphere at Syracuse become overclouded. The
conservative party—friends of the old despotism, with the veteran
Philistus at their head—played their game far better than that of the
reformers was played by Plato, or by Dion since the arrival of Plato.
Philistus saw that Dion, as the man of strong patriotic impulses and
of energetic execution, was the real enemy to be aimed at. He left no
effort untried to calumniate Dion, and to set Dionysius against him.
Whispers and misrepresentations from a thousand different quarters
beset the ear of Dionysius, alarming him with the idea that Dion was
usurping to himself the real authority in Syracuse, with the view
of ultimately handing it over to the children of Aristomachê, and
of reigning in their name. Plato had been brought thither (it was
said) as an agent in the conspiracy, for the purpose of winning over
Dionysius into idle speculations, enervating his active vigor, and
ultimately setting him aside; in order that all serious political
agency might fall into the hands of Dion.[155] These hostile
intrigues were no secret to Plato himself, who, even shortly after
his arrival, began to see evidence of their poisonous activity. He
tried sincerely to counterwork them;[156] but unfortunately the
language which he himself addressed to Dionysius was exactly such as
to give them the best chance of success. When Dionysius recounted to
Philistus or other courtiers, how Plato and Dion had humiliated him
in his own eyes, and told him that he was unworthy to govern until he
had undergone a thorough purification—he would be exhorted to resent
it as presumption and insult; and would be assured that it could only
arise from a design to dispossess him of his authority, in favor of
Dion, or perhaps of the children of Aristomachê with Dion as regent.

  [155] Plutarch, Dion, c. 14, Plato, Epistol. vii. p. 333 C.
  Ὁ δὲ (Dionysius) τοῖς διαβάλλουσι (ἐπίστευε) καὶ λέγουσιν ὡς
  ἐπιβουλεύων τῇ τυραννίδι Δίων πράττοι πάντα ὅσα ἔπραττεν ἐν τῷ
  τότε χρόνῳ, ἵνα ὁ μὲν (Dionysius) παιδείᾳ δὴ τὸν νοῦν κηληθεὶς
  ἀμελοῖ τῆς ἀρχῆς ἐπιτρέψας ἐκείνῳ, ὁ δὲ (Dion) σφετερίσαιτο, καὶ
  Διονύσιον ἐκβάλοι ἐκ τῆς ἀρχῆς δόλῳ.

  [156] Plato, Epistol. vii. p. 329 C. ἐλθὼν δὲ, οὐ γὰρ δεῖ
  μηκύνειν, εὗρον στάσεως τὰ περὶ Διονύσιον μεστὰ ξύμπαντα καὶ
  διαβολῶν πρὸς τὴν τυραννίδα Δίωνος πέρι· ἤμυνον μὲν οὖν καθ᾽ ὅσον
  ἠδυνάμην, σμικρὰ δ᾽ οἷός τε ἦ, etc.

It must not be forgotten that there was a real foundation for
jealousy on the part of Dionysius towards Dion; who was not merely
superior to him in age, in dignity, and in ability, but also
personally haughty in his bearing, and rigid in his habits, while
Dionysius relished conviviality and enjoyments. At first, this
jealousy was prevented from breaking out—partly by the consciousness
of Dionysius that he needed some one to lean upon—partly by what
seems to have been great self-command on the part of Dion, and great
care to carry with him the real mind and good will of Dionysius.
Even from the beginning, the enemies of Dion were doubtless not
sparing in their calumnies, to alienate Dionysius from him; and the
wonder only is, how, in spite of such intrigues and in spite of the
natural causes of jealousy, Dion could have implanted his political
aspirations, and maintained his friendly influence over Dionysius
until the arrival of Plato. After that event, the natural causes of
antipathy tended to manifest themselves more and more powerfully,
while the counteracting circumstances all disappeared.

Three important months thus passed away, during which those precious
public inclinations, which Plato found instilled by Dion into the
bosom of Dionysius, and which he might have fanned into life and
action—to liberalize the government of Syracuse, and to restore the
other free Grecian cities—disappeared never to return. In place
of them, Dionysius imbibed an antipathy, more and more rancorous,
against the friend and relative with whom these sentiments had
originated. The charges against Dion, of conspiracy and dangerous
designs, circulated by Philistus and his cabal, became more audacious
than ever. At length in the fourth month, Dionysius resolved to get
rid of him.

The proceedings of Dion being watched, a letter was detected which
he had written to the Carthaginian commanders in Sicily (with whom
the war still subsisted, though seemingly not in great activity),
inviting them, if they sent any proposition for peace to Syracuse, to
send it through him, as he would take care that it should be properly
discussed. I have already stated, that even in the reign of the
elder Dionysius, Dion had been the person to whom the negotiations
with Carthage were habitually intrusted. Such a letter from him, as
far as we make out from the general description, implied nothing
like a treasonable purpose. But Dionysius, after taking counsel with
Philistus, resolved to make use of it as a final pretext. Inviting
Dion into the acropolis, under color of seeking to heal their growing
differences,—and beginning to enter into an amicable conversation,—he
conducted him unsuspectingly down to the adjacent harbor, where lay
moored, close in shore, a boat with the rowers aboard, ready for
starting. Dionysius then produced the intercepted letter, handed it
to Dion, and accused him to his face of treason. The latter protested
against the imputation, and eagerly sought to reply. But Dionysius
stopped him from proceeding, insisted on his going aboard the boat,
and ordered the rowers to carry him off forthwith to Italy.[157]

  [157] The story is found in Plutarch (Dion, c. 14), who refers
  to Timæus as his authority. It is confirmed in the main by
  Plato, Epistol. vii. p. 329 D. μηνὶ δὴ σχεδὸν ἴσως τετάρτῳ Δίωνα
  Διονύσιος, αἰτιώμενος ἐπιβουλεύειν τῇ τυραννίδι, σμικρὸν εἰς
  πλοῖον ἐμβιβάσας, ἐξέβαλεν ἀτίμως.

  Diodorus (xvi. 6) states that Dionysius sought to put Dion to
  death, and that he only escaped by flight. But the version of
  Plato and Plutarch is to be preferred.

  Justin (xxi. 1, 2) gives an account, different from all, of the
  reign and proceedings of the younger Dionysius. I cannot imagine
  what authority he followed. He does not even name Dion.

This abrupt and ignominious expulsion, of so great a person as Dion,
caused as much consternation among his numerous friends, as triumph
to Philistus and the partisans of the despotism. All consummation of
the liberal projects conceived by Dion was now out of the question;
not less from the incompetency of Dionysius to execute them alone,
than from his indisposition to any such attempt. Aristomachê the
sister, and Aretê the wife, of Dion (the latter half-sister of
Dionysius himself), gave vent to their sorrow and indignation;
while the political associates of Dion, and Plato beyond all
others, trembled for their own personal safety. Among the mercenary
soldiers, the name of Plato was particularly odious. Many persons
instigated Dionysius to kill him, and rumors even gained footing
that he had been killed, as the author of the whole confusion.[158]
But the despot, having sent away the person whom he most hated
and feared, was not disposed to do harm to any one else. While
he calmed the anxieties of Aretê by affirming that the departure
of her husband was not to be regarded as an exile, but only as a
temporary separation, to allow time for abating the animosity which
prevailed—he at the same time ordered two triremes to be fitted out,
for sending to Dion his slaves and valuable property, and everything
necessary to personal dignity as well as to his comfort. Towards
Plato—who was naturally agitated in the extreme, thinking only of
the readiest means to escape from so dangerous a situation—his
manifestations were yet more remarkable. He soothed the philosopher’s
apprehensions—entreated him to remain, in a manner gentle indeed but
admitting no denial—and conveyed him at once into his own residence
the acropolis, under color of doing him honor. From hence there
was no possibility of escaping, and Plato remained there for some
time. Dionysius treated him well, communicated with him freely and
intimately, and proclaimed everywhere that they were on the best
terms of friendship. What is yet more curious—he displayed the
greatest anxiety to obtain the esteem and approbation of the sage,
and to occupy a place in his mind higher than that accorded to Dion;
shrinking nevertheless from philosophy, or the Platonic treatment and
training, under the impression that there was a purpose to ensnare
and paralyze him, under the auspices of Dion.[159] This is a strange
account, given by Plato himself; but it reads like a real picture of
a vain and weak prince, admiring the philosopher—coquetting with him,
as it were—and anxious to captivate his approbation, so far as it
could be done without submitting to the genuine Platonic discipline.

  [158] Plato, Epistol. iii. p. 315 F.; Epist. vii. p. 329 D.; p.
  340 A. Plutarch, Dion, c. 15.

  [159] Plato, Epist. vii. p. 329, 330.

During this long and irksome detention, which probably made him fully
sensible of the comparative comforts of Athenian liberty, Plato
obtained from Dionysius one practical benefit. He prevailed upon
him to establish friendly and hospitable relations with Archytas
and the Tarentines, which to these latter was a real increase of
security and convenience.[160] But in the point which he strove
most earnestly to accomplish, he failed. Dionysius resisted all
entreaties for the recall of Dion. Finding himself at length occupied
with a war (whether the war with Carthage previously mentioned,
or some other, we do not know), he consented to let Plato depart;
agreeing to send for him again as soon as peace and leisure should
return, and promising to recall Dion at the same time; upon which
covenant, Plato, on his side, agreed to come back. After a certain
interval, peace arrived, and Dionysius re-invited Plato; yet without
recalling Dion—whom he required still to wait another year. But
Plato, appealing to the terms of the covenant, refused to go without
Dion. To himself personally, in spite of the celebrity which his
known influence with Dionysius tended to confer, the voyage was
nothing less than repugnant, for he had had sufficient experience of
Syracuse and its despotism. Nor would he even listen to the request
of Dion himself; who, partly in the view of promoting his own future
restoration, earnestly exhorted him to go. Dionysius besieged Plato
with solicitations to come,[161] promising that all which he might
insist upon in favor of Dion should be granted, and putting in motion
a second time Archytas and the Tarentines to prevail upon him. These
men, through their companion and friend Archedemus, who came to
Athens in a Syracusan trireme, assured Plato that Dionysius was now
ardent in the study of philosophy, and had even made considerable
progress in it. By their earnest entreaties, coupled with those of
Dion, Plato was at length induced to go to Syracuse. He was received,
as before, with signal tokens of honor. He was complimented with the
privilege, enjoyed by no one else, of approaching the despot without
having his person searched; and was affectionately welcomed by the
female relatives of Dion. Yet this visit, prolonged much beyond what
he himself wished, proved nothing but a second splendid captivity, as
the companion of Dionysius in the acropolis at Ortygia.[162]

  [160] Plato, Epist. vii. p. 338 C.

  [161] Plato, Epistol. iii. p. 317 B. C.

  [162] Plato, Epist. vii. p. 338-346; Plutarch, Dion, c. 19.
  Æschines, the companion of Sokrates along with Plato, is said to
  have passed a long time at Syracuse with Dionysius, until the
  expulsion of that despot (Diogen. Laert. ii. 63).

Dionysius the philosopher obtained abundance of flatterers—as his
father Dionysius the poet had obtained before him—and was even
emboldened to proclaim himself as the son of Apollo.[163] It is
possible that even an impuissant embrace of philosophy, on the part
of so great a potentate, may have tended to exalt the reputation of
philosophers in the contemporary world. Otherwise the dabblings of
Dionysius would have merited no attention; though he seems to have
been really a man of some literary talent[164]—retaining to the end
a sincere admiration of Plato, and jealously pettish because he
could not prevail upon Plato to admire _him_. But the second visit
of Plato to him at Syracuse—very different from his first—presented
no chance of benefit to the people of Syracuse, and only deserves
notice as it bore upon the destiny of Dion. Here, unfortunately Plato
could accomplish nothing; though his zeal on behalf of his friend was
unwearied. Dionysius broke all his promises of kind dealing, became
more rancorous in his hatred, impatient of the respect which Dion
enjoyed even as an exile, and fearful of the revenge which he might
one day be able to exact.

  [163] Plutarch, De Fortunâ Alex. Magn. p. 338 B. Δωρίδος ἐκ
  μητρὸς Φοίβου κοινώμασι βλαστών.

  [164] See a passage in Plato, Epistol. ii. p. 314 E.

When expelled from Syracuse, Dion had gone to Peloponnesus and
Athens, where he had continued for some years to receive regular
remittances of his property. But at length, even while Plato was
residing at Syracuse, Dionysius thought fit to withhold one half of
the property, on pretence of reserving it for Dion’s son. Presently
he took steps yet more violent, threw off all disguise, sold the
whole of Dion’s property, and appropriated or distributed among his
friends the large proceeds, not less than one hundred talents.[165]
Plato, who had the mortification to hear this intelligence while
in the palace of Dionysius, was full of grief and displeasure. He
implored permission to depart. But though the mind of Dionysius had
now been thoroughly set against him by the multiplied insinuations
of the calumniators,[166] it was not without difficulty and
tiresome solicitations that he obtained permission; chiefly through
the vehement remonstrances of Archytas and his companions, who
represented to the despot that they had brought him to Syracuse, and
that they were responsible for his safe return. The mercenaries of
Dionysius were indeed so ill-disposed to Plato, that considerable
precautions were required to bring him away in safety.[167]

  [165] Plato, Epistol. iii. p. 318 A.; vii. p. 346, 347. Plutarch,
  Dion, c. 15, 16.

  [166] Plutarch, Timoleon, c. 15—on the authority of Aristoxenus.

  [167] Plato, Epistol. vii. p. 350 A. B.

It was in the spring of 360 B. C. that the philosopher appears to
have returned to Peloponnesus from this, his second visit to the
younger Dionysius, and third visit to Syracuse. At the Olympic
festival of that year, he met Dion, to whom he recounted the recent
proceedings of Dionysius.[168] Incensed at the seizure of the
property, and hopeless of any permission to return, Dion was now
meditating enforcement of his restoration at the point of the sword.
But there occurred yet another insult on the part of Dionysius,
which infused a more deadly exasperation into the quarrel. Aretê,
wife of Dion and half-sister of Dionysius, had continued to reside
at Syracuse ever since the exile of her husband. She formed a
link between the two, the continuance of which Dionysius could no
longer tolerate, in his present hatred towards Dion. Accordingly
he took upon him to pronounce her divorced, and to remarry her,
in spite of her own decided repugnance, with one of his friends
named Timokrates.[169] To this he added another cruel injury, by
intentionally corrupting and brutalizing Dion’s eldest son, a youth
just reaching puberty.

  [168] Plato, Epistol. vii. p. 350 C. The return of Plato and his
  first meeting with Dion is said to have excited considerable
  sensation among the spectators at the festival (Diogenes Laert.
  iii. 25).

  The Olympic festival here alluded to, must be (I conceive) that
  of 366 B. C.: the same also in Epistol. ii. p. 310 D.

  [169] Plutarch, Dion, c. 21; Cornel. Nepos, Dion, c. 4.

Outraged thus in all the tenderest points, Dion took up with
passionate resolution the design of avenging himself on Dionysius,
and of emancipating Syracuse from despotism into liberty. During
the greater part of his exile he had resided at Athens, in the
house of his friend Kallippus, enjoying the society of Speusippus
and other philosophers of the Academy, and the teaching of Plato
himself when returned from Syracuse. Well supplied with money, and
strict as to his own personal wants, he was able largely to indulge
his liberal spirit towards many persons, and among the rest towards
Plato, whom he assisted towards the expense of a choric exhibition
at Athens.[170] Dion also visited Sparta and various other cities;
enjoying a high reputation, and doing himself credit everywhere; a
fact not unknown to Dionysius, and aggravating his displeasure. Yet
Dion was long not without hope that that displeasure would mitigate,
so as to allow of his return to Syracuse on friendly terms. Nor did
he cherish any purposes of hostility, until the last proceedings
with respect to his property and his wife at once cut off all hope
and awakened vindictive sentiments.[171] He began therefore to lay
a train for attacking Dionysius and enfranchising Syracuse by arms,
invoking the countenance of Plato; who gave his approbation, yet
not without mournful reserves; saying that he was now seventy years
of age—that though he admitted the just wrongs of Dion and the bad
conduct of Dionysius, armed conflict was nevertheless repugnant to
his feelings, and he could anticipate little good from it—that he
had labored long in vain to reconcile the two exasperated kinsmen,
and could not now labor for any opposite end.[172]

  [170] Plutarch, Dion, c. 17; Athenæus, xi. p. 508. Plato appears
  also to have received, when at Athens, pecuniary assistance
  remitted by Dionysius from Syracuse, towards expenses of a
  similar kind, as well as towards furnishing a dowry for certain
  poor nieces. Dion and Dionysius had both aided him (Plato,
  Epistol. xiii. p. 361).

  An author named Onêtor affirmed that Dionysius had given to
  Plato the prodigious sum of eighty talents; a story obviously
  exaggerated (Diogenes Laert. iii. 9).

  [171] Plato, Epistol. vii. p. 350 F.

  [172] Plato, Epistol. vii. p. 350. This is the account which
  Plato gives _after_ the death of Dion, when affairs had taken
  a disastrous turn, about the extent of his own interference in
  the enterprise. But Dionysius supposed him to have been more
  decided in his countenance of the expedition; and Plato’s letter
  addressed to Dion himself, after the victory of the latter at
  Syracuse, seems to bear out that supposition.

  Compare Epistol. iii. p. 315 E.; iv. p. 320 A.

But though Plato was lukewarm, his friends and pupils at the
Academy cordially sympathized with Dion. Speusippus especially, the
intimate friend and relative, having accompanied Plato to Syracuse,
had communicated much with the population in the city, and gave
encouraging reports of their readiness to aid Dion, even if he came
with ever so small a force against Dionysius. Kallippus, with Eudemus
(the friend of Aristotle), Timonides, and Miltas—all three members
of the society at the Academy, and the last a prophet also—lent
him aid and embarked in his enterprise. There were a numerous body
of exiles from Syracuse, not less than one thousand altogether;
with most of whom Dion opened communication, inviting their
fellowship. He at the same time hired mercenary soldiers in small
bands, keeping his measures as secret as he could.[173] Alkimenes,
one of the leading Achæans in Peloponnesus, was warm in the cause
(probably from sympathy with the Achæan colony Kroton, then under
the dependence of Dionysius), conferring upon it additional dignity
by his name and presence. A considerable quantity of spare arms, of
every description, was got together, in order to supply new unarmed
partisans on reaching Sicily. With all these aids Dion found himself
in the island of Zakynthus, a little after Midsummer 357 B. C.;
mustering eight hundred soldiers of tried experience and bravery,
who had been directed to come thither silently and in small parties,
without being informed whither they were going. A little squadron was
prepared, of no more than five merchantmen, two of them vessels of
thirty oars, with victuals adequate to the direct passage across the
sea from Zakynthus to Syracuse; since the ordinary passage, across
from Korkyra and along the Tarentine Gulf was impracticable, in the
face of the maritime power of Dionysius.[174]

  [173] Plutarch, Dion, c. 22. Eudemus was afterwards slain in one
  of the combats at Syracuse (Aristotle apud Ciceron. Tusc. Disp.
  i. 25, 53).

  [174] Plutarch, Dion, c. 23-25.

Such was the contemptible force with which Dion ventured to attack
the greatest of all Grecian potentates in his own stronghold and
island. Dionysius had now reigned as despot at Syracuse between ten
and eleven years. Inferior as he personally was to his father, it
does not seem that the Syracusan power had yet materially declined
in his hands. We know little about the political facts of his reign;
but the veteran Philistus, his chief adviser and officer, appears
to have kept together the larger part of the great means bequeathed
by the elder Dionysius. The disparity of force, therefore, between
the assailant and the party assailed, was altogether extravagant.
To Dion, personally, indeed, such disparity was a matter of
indifference. To a man of his enthusiastic temperament, so great was
the heroism and sublimity of the enterprise,—combining liberation
of his country from a despot, with revenge for gross outrages to
himself,—that he was satisfied if he could only land in Sicily with
no matter how small a force, accounting it honor enough to perish in
such a cause.[175] Such was the emphatic language of Dion, reported
to us by Aristotle; who (being then among the pupils of Plato) may
probably have heard it with his own ears. To impartial contemporary
spectators, like Demosthenes, the attempt seemed hopeless.[176]

  [175] Aristotel. Politic. v. 8, 17.

  [176] See Orat. adv. Leptinem, s. 179. p. 506: an oration
  delivered about two years afterwards; not long after the victory
  of Dion.

  Compare Diodor. xvi. 9; Plutarch, Timoleon, c. 2.

But the intelligent men of the Academy who accompanied Dion, would
not have thrown their lives away in contemplation of a glorious
martyrdom; nor were either they or he ignorant, that there existed
circumstances, not striking the eye of the ordinary spectator, which
materially weakened the great apparent security of Dionysius.

First, there was the pronounced and almost unanimous discontent
of the people of Syracuse. Though prohibited from all public
manifestations, they had been greatly agitated by the original
project of Dion to grant liberty to the city—by the inclinations
even of Dionysius himself towards the same end, so soon unhappily
extinguished—by the dissembling language of Dionysius, the great
position of Dion’s wife and sister, and the second coming of Plato,
all of which favored the hope that Dion might be amicably recalled.
At length such chance disappeared, when his property was confiscated
and his wife re-married to another. But as his energetic character
was well known, the Syracusans now both confidently expected, and
ardently wished, that he would return by force, and help them to
put down one who was alike his enemy and theirs. Speusippus, having
accompanied Plato to Syracuse and mingled much with the people,
brought back decisive testimonies of their disaffection towards
Dionysius, and of their eager longing for relief by the hands of
Dion. It would be sufficient (they said) if he even came alone;
they would flock around him, and arm him at once with an adequate
force.[177]

  [177] Plutarch, Dion, c. 22. Speusippus, from Athens,
  corresponded both with Dion and with Dionysius at Syracuse; at
  least there was a correspondence between them, read as genuine by
  Diogenes Laertius (iv. 1, 2, 5).

There were doubtless many other messages of similar tenor sent to
Peloponnesus; and one Syracusan exile, Herakleides, was in himself a
considerable force. Though a friend of Dion,[178] he had continued
high in the service of Dionysius, until the second visit of Plato. At
that time he was disgraced, and obliged to save his life by flight,
on account of a mutiny among the mercenary troops, or rather of the
veteran soldiers among them, whose pay Dionysius had cut down. The
men so curtailed rose in arms, demanding continuance of the old
pay; and when Dionysius shut the gates of the acropolis, refusing
attention to their requisitions, they raised the furious barbaric
pæan or war shout, and rushed up to scale the walls.[179] Terrible
were the voices of these Gauls, Iberians, and Campanians, in the ears
of Plato, who knew himself to be the object of their hatred, and who
happened to be then in the garden of the acropolis. But Dionysius,
no less terrified than Plato, appeased the mutiny, by conceding all
that was asked, and even more. The blame of this misadventure was
thrown upon Herakleides, towards whom Dionysius conducted himself
with mingled injustice and treachery—according to the judgment both
of Plato and of all around him.[180] As an exile, he brought word
that Dionysius could not even rely upon the mercenary troops, whom
he treated with a parsimony the more revolting as they contrasted it
with the munificence of his father.[181] Herakleides was eager to
coöperate in putting down the despotism at Syracuse. But he waited
to equip a squadron of triremes, and was not ready so soon as Dion;
perhaps intentionally, as the jealousy between the two soon broke
out.[182]

  [178] Plato, Epistol. iii. p. 318 C.

  [179] Plato, Epistol. vii. p. 348 B. Οἱ δ᾽ ἐφέροντο εὐθὺς πρὸς
  τὰ τείχη, παιῶνά τινα ἀναβοήσαντες βάρβαρον καὶ πολεμικόν· οὗ δὴ
  περιδεὴς Διονύσιος γενόμενος, etc.

  [180] Plato, Epistol. iii. p. 318; vii. p. 348, 349.

  [181] Plato, Epist. vii. p. 348 A. ... ἐπεχείρησεν
  ὀλιγομισθοτέρους ποιεῖν ~παρὰ τὰ τοῦ πατρὸς ἔθη~, etc.

  [182] Plutarch, Dion, c. 32; Diodor. xvi. 6-16.

The second source of weakness to Dionysius lay in his own character
and habits. The commanding energy of the father, far from being
of service to the son, had been combined with a jealousy which
intentionally kept him down, and cramped his growth. He had always
been weak, petty, destitute of courage or foresight, and unfit for
a position like that which his father had acquired and maintained.
His personal incompetency was recognized by all, and would probably
have manifested itself even more conspicuously, had he not found a
minister of so much ability, and so much devotion to the dynasty,
as Philistus. But in addition to such known incompetency, he had
contracted recently habits which inspired every one around him with
contempt. He was perpetually intoxicated and plunged in dissipation.
To put down such a chief, even though surrounded by walls, soldiers,
and armed ships, appeared to Dion and his confidential companions an
enterprise noway impracticable.[183]

  [183] Aristotel. Politic. v. 8, 14; Plutarch, Dion, c. 7. These
  habits must have probably grown upon him since the second
  departure of Plato, who does not notice them in his letters.

Nevertheless, these causes of weakness were known only to close
observers; while the great military force of Syracuse was obvious
to the eyes of every one. When the soldiers, mustered by Dion at
Zakynthus, were first informed that they were destined to strike
straight across the sea against Syracuse, they shrank from the
proposition as an act of insanity. They complained of their leaders
for not having before told them what was projected; just as the
Ten Thousand Greeks in the army of Cyrus, on reaching Tarsus,
complained of Klearchus for having kept back the fact that they were
marching against the Great King. It required all the eloquence of
Dion, with his advanced age,[184] his dignified presence, and the
quantity of gold and silver plate in his possession, to remove their
apprehensions. How widely these apprehensions were felt, is shown by
the circumstance, that out of one thousand Syracusan exiles, only
twenty-five or thirty dared to join him.[185]

  [184] Plutarch, Dion, c. 23. ἀνὴρ παρηκμακὼς ἤδη, etc.

  [185] Plutarch, Dion, c. 22; Diodor. xvi. 10.

After a magnificent sacrifice to Apollo, and an ample banquet to
the soldiers in the stadium at Zakynthus, Dion gave orders for
embarkation in the ensuing morning. On that very night the moon was
eclipsed. We have already seen what disastrous consequences turned
upon the occurrence of this same phænomenon fifty-six years before,
when Nikias was about to conduct the defeated Athenian fleet away
from the harbor of Syracuse.[186] Under the existing apprehensions
of Dion’s band, the eclipse might well have induced them to renounce
the enterprise; and so it probably would, under a general like
Nikias. But Dion had learnt astronomy; and what was of not less
consequence, Miltas, the prophet of the expedition, besides his gift
of prophecy, had received instruction in the Academy also. When the
affrighted soldiers inquired what new resolution was to be adopted
in consequence of so grave a sign from the gods, Miltas arose and
assured them that they had mistaken the import of the sign, which
promised them good fortune and victory. By the eclipse of the moon,
the gods intimated that something very brilliant was about to be
darkened over: now there was nothing in Greece so brilliant as the
despotism of Dionysius at Syracuse; it was Dionysius who was about
to suffer eclipse, to be brought on by the victory of Dion.[187]
Reassured by such consoling words the soldiers got on board. They had
good reason at first to believe that the favor of the gods waited
upon them, for a gentle and steady Etesian breeze carried them across
midsea without accident or suffering, in twelve days, from Zakynthus
to Cape Pachynus, the south-eastern corner of Sicily and nearest to
Syracuse. The pilot Protus, who had steered the course so as exactly
to hit the cape, urgently recommended immediate disembarkation,
without going farther along the south-western coast of the island;
since stormy weather was commencing, which might hinder the fleet
from keeping near the shore. But Dion was afraid of landing so near
to the main force of the enemy. Accordingly, the squadron proceeded
onward, but were driven by a violent wind away from Sicily towards
the coast of Africa, narrowly escaping shipwreck. It was not without
considerable hardship and danger that they got back to Sicily,
after five days; touching the island at Herakleia Minoa westward
of Agrigentum, within the Carthaginian supremacy. The Carthaginian
governor of Minoa, Synalus (perhaps a Greek in the service of
Carthage), was a personal acquaintance of Dion, and received him
with all possible kindness; though knowing nothing beforehand of his
approach, and at first resisting his landing through ignorance.

  [186] Thucyd. vii. 50. See Volume VII. of this History, Chap. lx.
  p. 314.

  [187] Plutarch, Dion, c. 24.

Thus was Dion, after ten years of exile, once more on Sicilian
ground. The favorable predictions of Miltas had been completely
realized. But even that prophet could hardly have been prepared for
the wonderful tidings now heard, which ensured the success of the
expedition. Dionysius had recently sailed from Syracuse to Italy,
with a fleet of eighty triremes.[188] What induced him to commit so
capital a mistake, we cannot make out; for Philistus was already
with a fleet in the Gulf of Tarentum, waiting to intercept Dion,
and supposing that the invading squadron would naturally sail along
the coast of Italy to Syracuse, according to the practice almost
universal in that day.[189] Philistus did not commit the same mistake
as Nikias had made in reference to Gylippus,[190]—that of despising
Dion because of the smallness of his force. He watched in the usual
waters, and was only disappointed because Dion, venturing on the bold
and unusual straight course, was greatly favored by wind and weather.
But while Philistus watched the coast of Italy, it was natural that
Dionysius himself should keep guard with his main force at Syracuse.
The despot was fully aware of the disaffection which reigned in the
town, and of the hopes excited by Dion’s project; which was generally
well known, though no one could tell how or at what moment the
deliverer might be expected. Suspicious now to a greater degree than
ever, Dionysius had caused a fresh search to be made in the city for
arms, and had taken away all that he could find.[191] We may be sure
too that his regiment of habitual spies were more on the alert than
ever, and that unusual rigor was the order of the day. Yet, at this
critical juncture, he thought proper to quit Syracuse with a very
large portion of his force, leaving the command to Timokrates, the
husband of Dion’s late wife; and at this same critical juncture Dion
arrived at Minoa.

  [188] Plutarch, Dion, c. 26; Diodor. xvi. 10, 11.

  [189] Plutarch, Dion, c. 25.

  [190] Thucyd. vi. 104.

  [191] Diodor. xvi. 10.

Nothing could exceed the joy of the Dionian soldiers on hearing of
the departure of Dionysius, which left Syracuse open and easy of
access. Eager to avail themselves of the favorable instant, they
called upon their leader to march thither without delay, repudiating
even that measure of rest which he recommended after the fatigues of
the voyage. Accordingly, Dion, after a short refreshment provided
by Synalus—with whom he deposited his spare arms, to be transmitted
to him when required—set forward on his march towards Syracuse. On
entering the Agrigentine territory, he was joined by two hundred
horsemen near Eknomon.[192] Farther on, while passing through Gela
and Kamarina, many inhabitants of these towns, together with some
neighboring Sikans and Sikels, swelled his band. Lastly, when he
approached the Syracusan border, a considerable proportion of the
rural population came to him also, though without arms; making the
reinforcements which joined him altogether about five thousand
men.[193] Having armed these volunteers in the best manner he could,
Dion continued his progress as far as Akræ, where he made a short
evening halt. From thence, receiving good news from Syracuse, he
recommenced his march during the latter half of the night, hastening
forward to the passage over the river Anapus; which he had the good
fortune to occupy without any opposition, before daybreak.

  [192] Plutarch, Dion, c. 26, 27; Diodor. xvi. 9.

  [193] Plutarch, (Dion, c. 27) gives the numbers who joined him at
  about five thousand men, which is very credible. Diodorus gives
  the number exaggerated, at twenty thousand (xvi. 9).

Dion was now within no more than a mile and a quarter of the walls
of Syracuse. The rising sun disclosed his army to the view of the
Syracusan population, who were doubtless impatiently watching for
him. He was seen offering sacrifice to the river Anapus, and putting
up a solemn prayer to the god Helios, then just showing himself
above the horizon. He wore the wreath habitual with those who
were thus employed; while his soldiers, animated by the confident
encouragement of the prophets, had taken wreaths also.[194] Elate and
enthusiastic, they passed the Anapus (seemingly at the bridge which
formed part of the Helorine way), advanced at a running pace across
the low plain which divided the southern cliff of Epipolæ from the
Great Harbor, and approached the gates of the quarter of Syracuse
called Neapolis—the Temenitid Gates, near the chapel of Apollo
Temenites.[195] Dion was at their head, in resplendent armor, with a
body-guard near him composed of one hundred of his Peloponnesians.
His brother Megaklês was on one side of him, his friend the Athenian
Kallippus on the other; all three, and a large proportion of the
soldiers also, still crowned with their sacrificial wreaths, as
if marching in a joyous festival procession, with victory already
assured.[196]

  [194] Plutarch, Dion, c. 27. These picturesque details about the
  march of Dion are the more worthy of notice, as Plutarch had
  before him the narrative of Timonides, a companion of Dion, and
  actually engaged in the expedition. Timonides wrote an account
  of what passed to Speusippus at Athens, doubtless for the
  information of Plato and their friends in the Academy (Plutarch,
  Dion, c. 31-35).

  Diogenes Laertius mentions also a person named _Simonides_ who
  wrote to Speusippus, τὰς ἱστορίας ἐν αἷς κατατετάχει τὰς πράξεις
  Δίωνός τε καὶ Βίωνος (iv. 1, 5). Probably _Simonides_ may be a
  misnomer for _Timonides_.

  Arrian, the author of the Anabasis of Alexander, had written
  narratives of the exploits both of Dion and Timoleon.
  Unfortunately these have not been preserved; indeed Photius
  himself seems never to have seen them (Photius, Codex, 92).

  [195] Plutarch, Dion, c. 29. Ἐπεὶ δ᾽ εἰσῆλθεν ὁ Δίων κατὰ τὰς
  Μενιτίδας πύλας, etc.

  Most of the best critics here concur in thinking, that the
  reading ought to be τὰς ~Τεμενιτίδας~ πύλας. The statue and
  sacred ground of Apollo Temenites was the most remarkable feature
  in this portion of Syracuse, and would naturally be selected to
  furnish a name for the gates. No meaning can be assigned for the
  phrase Μενιτίδας.

  [196] Plutarch, Dion, c. 27, 28, 29. Diodorus (xvi. 10)
  also mentions the striking fact of the wreaths worn by this
  approaching army.

As yet Dion had not met with the smallest resistance. Timokrates
(left at Syracuse with the large mercenary force as vicegerent),
while he sent an express to apprise Dionysius, kept his chief hold
on the two military positions or horns of the city; the island of
Ortygia at one extremity, and Epipolæ with Euryalus on the other. It
has already been mentioned that Epipolæ was a triangle slope, with
walls bordering both the northern and southern cliffs, and forming an
angle on the western apex, where stood the strong fort of Euryalus.
Between Ortygia and Epipolæ lay the populous quarters of Syracuse,
wherein the great body of citizens resided. As the disaffection of
the Syracusans was well known, Timokrates thought it unsafe to go out
of the city, and meet Dion on the road, for fear of revolt within.
But he perhaps might have occupied the important bridge over the
Anapus, had not a report reached him that Dion was directing his
attack first against Leontini. Many of the Campanian mercenaries
under the command of Timokrates, having properties in Leontini,
immediately quitted Epipolæ to go thither and defend them.[197] This
rumor—false, and perhaps intentionally spread by the invaders—not
only carried off much of the garrison elsewhere, but also misled
Timokrates; insomuch that Dion was allowed to make his night march,
to reach the Anapus, and to find it unoccupied.

  [197] Plutarch, Dion, c. 27.

It was too late for Timokrates to resist, when the rising sun had
once exhibited the army of Dion crossing the Anapus. The effect
produced upon the Syracusans in the populous quarters was electric.
They rose like one man to welcome their deliverer, and to put down
the dynasty which had hung about their necks for forty-eight years.
Such of the mercenaries of Dionysius as were in these central
portions of the city were forced to seek shelter in Epipolæ, while
his police and spies were pursued and seized, to undergo the full
terrors of a popular vengeance.[198] Far from being able to go
forth against Dion, Timokrates could not even curb the internal
insurrection. So thoroughly was he intimidated by the reports of his
terrified police, and by the violent and unanimous burst of wrath
among a people whom every Dionysian partisan had long been accustomed
to treat as disarmed slaves—that he did not think himself safe even
in Epipolæ. But he could not find means of getting to Ortygia, since
the intermediate city was in the hands of his enemies, while Dion
and his troops were crossing the low plain between Epipolæ and the
Great Harbor. It only remained for him therefore to evacuate Syracuse
altogether, and to escape from Epipolæ either by the northern or
the western side. To justify his hasty flight, he spread the most
terrific reports respecting the army of Dion, and thus contributed
still farther to paralyze the discouraged partisans of Dionysius.[199]

  [198] Plutarch, De Curiositate, p. 523 A.

  [199] Plutarch, Dion. c. 28; Diodor. xvi. 10.

Already had Dion reached the Temenitid gate, where the principal
citizens, clothed in their best attire, and the multitude pouring
forth loud and joyous acclamations, were assembled to meet him.
Halting at the gate, he caused his trumpet to sound, and entreated
silence; after which he formally proclaimed, that he and his brother
Megakles were come for the purpose of putting down the Dionysian
despotism, and of giving liberty both to the Syracusans and the other
Sicilian Greeks. The acclamations redoubled as he and his soldiers
entered the city, first through Neapolis, next by the ascent up to
Achradina; the main street of which (broad, continuous, and straight,
as was rare in a Grecian city[200]) was decorated as on a day of
jubilee, with victims under sacrifice to the gods, tables, and bowls
of wine ready prepared for festival. As Dion advanced at the head of
his soldiers through a lane formed in the midst of this crowd, from
each side wreaths were cast upon him as upon an Olympic victor, and
grateful prayers addressed to him, as it were to a god.[201] Every
house was a scene of clamorous joy, in which men and women, freemen
and slaves, took part alike; the outburst of feelings long compressed
and relieved from the past despotism with its inquisitorial police
and garrison.

  [200] Cicero in Verr. iv. 53. “Altera autem est urbs Syracusis,
  cui nomen Acradina est: in quâ forum maximum, pulcherrimæ
  porticus, ornatissimum prytaneum, amplissima est curia,
  templumque egregium Jovis Olympii; cæteræque urbis partes, _unâ
  totâ viâ perpetuâ_, multisque transversis, divisæ, privatis
  ædificiis continentur.”

  [201] Plutarch, Dion, c. 29: Diodor. xvi. 11. Compare the
  manifestations of the inhabitants of Skionê towards Brasidas
  (Thucyd. iv. 121).

It was not yet time for Dion to yield to these pleasing but passive
impulses. Having infused courage into his soldiers as well as into
the citizens by his triumphant procession through Achradina, he
descended to the level ground in front of Ortygia. That strong hold
was still occupied by the Dionysian garrison, whom he thus challenged
to come forth and fight. But the flight of Timokrates had left them
without orders, while the imposing demonstration and unanimous rising
of the people in Achradina—which they must partly have witnessed
from their walls, and partly learnt through fugitive spies and
partisans—struck them with discouragement and terror; so that they
were in no disposition to quit the shelter of their fortifications.
Their backwardness was hailed as a confession of inferiority by
the insurgent citizens, whom Dion now addressed as an assembly of
freemen. Hard by, in front of the acropolis with its Pentapyla or
five gates, there stood a lofty and magnificent sun-dial, erected
by the elder Dionysius. Mounting on the top of this edifice, with
the muniments of the despot on the one side and the now liberated
Achradina on the other, Dion addressed[202] an animated harangue
to the Syracusans around, exhorting them to strenuous efforts in
defence of their newly acquired rights and liberties, and inviting
them to elect generals for the command, in order to accomplish the
total expulsion of the Dionysian garrison. The Syracusans, with
unanimous acclamations, named Dion and his brother Megakles generals
with full powers. But both the brothers insisted that colleagues
should be elected along with them. Accordingly twenty other persons
were chosen besides, ten of them being from that small band of
Syracusan exiles who had joined at Zakynthus.

  [202] Plutarch, Dion, c. 29; Diodor. xvi. 10, 11. The description
  which Plutarch gives of the position of this sun-dial is
  distinct, and the harangue which Dion delivered, while standing
  upon it, is an impressive fact:—Ἦν δ᾽ ~ὑπὸ τὴν ἀκρόπολιν~ καὶ τὰ
  πεντάπυλα, Διονυσίου κατασκευάσαντος, ἡλιοτρόπιον καταφανὲς καὶ
  ὑψηλόν. Ἐπὶ τούτῳ προσβὰς ἐδημηγόρησε, καὶ παρώρμησε τοὺς πολίτας
  ἀντέχεσθαι τῆς ἐλευθερίας.

  The sun-dial was thus _under_ the acropolis, that is, in the low
  ground immediately adjoining to Ortygia; near the place where the
  elder Dionysius is stated to have placed his large porticos and
  market-house (Diodor. xiv. 7), and where the younger Dionysius
  erected the funeral monument to his father (xv. 74). In order to
  arrive at the sun-dial, Dion must have descended from the height
  of Achradina. Now Plutarch mentions that Dion _went up_ through
  Achradina (ἀνῄει διὰ τῆς Ἀχραδινῆς). It is plain that he must
  have come down again from Achradina, though Plutarch does not
  specially mention it. And if he brought his men close under the
  walls of the enemy’s garrison, this can hardly have been for any
  other reason than that which I have assigned in the text.

  Plutarch indicates the separate localities with tolerable
  clearness, but he does not give a perspicuous description of
  the whole march. Thus, he says that Dion, “wishing to harangue
  the people himself, _went up_ through Achradina,” (Βουλόμενος
  δὲ καὶ δι᾽ ἑαυτοῦ προσαγορεῦσαι τοὺς ἀνθρώπους, ἀνῄει διὰ τῆς
  Ἀχραδινῆς), while the place from which Dion did harangue the
  people, was _down under_ the acropolis of Ortygia.

  Diodorus is still less clear about the localities, nor does
  he say anything about the sun-dial or the exact spot from
  whence Dion spoke, though he mentions the march of Dion through
  Achradina.

  It seems probable that what Plutarch calls τὰ πεντάπυλα are
  the same as what Diodorus (xv. 74) indicates in the words ταῖς
  βασιλικαῖς καλουμέναις πύλαις.

Such was the entry of Dion into Syracuse, on the third day[203]
after his landing in Sicily; and such the first public act of
renewed Syracusan freedom; the first after that fatal vote which,
forty-eight years before, had elected the elder Dionysius general
plenipotentiary, and placed in his hands the sword of state, without
foresight of the consequences. In the hands of Dion, that sword
was vigorously employed against the common enemy. He immediately
attacked Epipolæ; and such was the consternation of the garrison
left in it by the fugitive Timokrates, that they allowed him to
acquire possession of it, together with the strong fort of Euryalus,
which a little courage and devotion might long have defended. This
acquisition, made suddenly in the tide of success on one side and
discouragement on the other, was of supreme importance, and went far
to determine the ultimate contest. It not only reduced the partisans
of Dionysius within the limits of Ortygia, but also enabled Dion to
set free many state prisoners,[204] who became ardent partisans of
the revolution. Following up his success, he lost no time in taking
measures against Ortygia. To shut it up completely on the land-side,
he commenced the erection of a wall of blockade, reaching from the
Great Harbor at one extremity, to the sea on the eastern side of the
Portus Lakkius, at the other.[205] He at the same time provided arms
as well as he could for the citizens, sending for those spare arms
which he had deposited with Synalus at Minoa. It does not appear that
the garrison of Ortygia made any sally to impede him; so that in the
course of seven days, he had not only received his arms from Synalus,
but had completed, in a rough way, all or most of the blockading
cross-wall.[206]

  [203] Cornelius Nepos, Dion, c. 5.

  [204] Plutarch, Dion, c. 29.

  [205] Plutarch, Dion, c. 29; Diodor. xvi. 12. Plutarch says,
  τὴν δὲ ἀκρόπολιν ἀπετείχισε—Diodorus is more specific—Τῶν δὲ
  Συρακοσίων κατεσκευακότων ἐκ θαλάσσης εἰς θάλασσαν διατειχίσματα,
  etc. These are valuable words as indicating the line and the two
  terminations of Dion’s blockading cross-wall.

  [206] Plutarch, Dion, c. 29.

At the end of these seven days, but not before (having been prevented
by accident from receiving the express sent to him), Dionysius
returned with his fleet to Ortygia.[207] Fatally indeed was his
position changed. The islet was the only portion of the city which he
possessed, and that too was shut up on the land-side by a blockading
wall nearly completed. All the rest of the city was occupied by
bitter enemies instead of by subjects. Leontini also, and probably
many of his other dependencies out of Syracuse, had taken the
opportunity of revolting.[208] Even with the large fleet which he
had brought home, Dionysius did not think himself strong enough to
face his enemies in the field, but resorted to stratagem. He first
tried to open a private intrigue with Dion; who, however, refused to
receive any separate propositions, and desired him to address them
publicly to the freemen, citizens of Syracuse. Accordingly, he sent
envoys tendering to the Syracusans what in the present day would
be called a constitution. He demanded only moderate taxation, and
moderate fulfilments of military service, subject to their own vote
of consent. But the Syracusans laughed the offer to scorn, and Dion
returned in their name the peremptory reply,—that no proposition from
Dionysius could be received, short of total abdication; adding in
his own name, that he would himself, on the score of kindred, procure
for Dionysius, if he did abdicate, both security and other reasonable
concessions. These terms Dionysius affected to approve, desiring
that envoys might be sent to him in Ortygia to settle the details.
Both Dion and the Syracusans eagerly caught at his offer, without
for a moment questioning his sincerity. Some of the most eminent
Syracusans, approved by Dion, were despatched as envoys to Dionysius.
A general confidence prevailed, that the retirement of the despot was
now assured; and the soldiers and citizens employed against him, full
of joy and mutual congratulations, became negligent of their guard
on the cross-wall of blockade; many of them even retiring to their
houses in the city.

  [207] This return of Dionysius, seven days after the coming of
  Dion, is specified both by Plutarch and Diodorus (Plutarch, Dion,
  c. 26-29; Diodor. xvi. 11).

  [208] Diodor. xvi. 16.

This was what Dionysius expected. Contriving to prolong the
discussion, so as to detain the envoys in Ortygia all night, he
ordered at daybreak a sudden sally of all his soldiers, whom he had
previously stimulated both by wine and by immense promises in case
of victory.[209] The sally was well-timed and at first completely
successful. One half of Dion’s soldiers were encamped to guard the
cross-wall (the other half being quartered in Achradina), together
with a force of Syracusan citizens. But so little were they prepared
for hostilities, that the assailants, rushing out with shouts and
at a run, carried the wall at the first onset, slew the sentinels,
and proceeded to demolish the wall (which was probably a rough and
hasty structure) as well as to charge the troops on the outside of
it. The Syracusans, surprised and terrified, fled with little or no
resistance. Their flight partially disordered the stouter Dionian
soldiers, who resisted bravely, but without having had time to form
their regular array. Never was Dion more illustrious, both as an
officer and as a soldier. He exerted himself to the utmost to form
the troops, and to marshal them in ranks essential to the effective
fighting of the Grecian hoplite. But his orders were unheard in the
clamor, or disregarded in the confusion: his troops lost courage,
the assailants gained ground, and the day seemed evidently going
against him. Seeing that there was no other resource, he put himself
at the head of his best and most attached soldiers, and threw
himself, though now an elderly man, into the thickest of the fray.
The struggle was the more violent, as it took place in a narrow
space between the new blockading wall on one side, and the outer
wall of Neapolis on the other. Both the armor and the person of
Dion being conspicuous, he was known to enemies as well as friends,
and the battle around him was among the most obstinate in Grecian
history.[210] Darts rattled against both his shield and his helmet,
while his shield was also pierced through by several spears which
were kept from his body only by the breastplate. At length he was
wounded through the right arm or hand, thrown on the ground, and in
imminent danger of being made prisoner. But this forwardness on his
part so stimulated the courage of his own troops, that they both
rescued him, and made redoubled efforts against the enemy. Having
named Timonides commander in his place, Dion with his disabled hand
mounted on horseback, rode into Achradina, and led forth to the
battle that portion of his troops which were there in garrison. These
men, fresh and good soldiers, restored the battle. The Syracusans
came back to the field, all joined in strenuous conflict, and the
Dionysian assailants were at length again driven within the walls of
Ortygia. The loss on both sides was severe; that of Dionysius eight
hundred men; all of whom he caused to be picked up from the field
(under a truce granted on his request by Dion), and buried with
magnificent obsequies, as a means of popularizing himself with the
survivors.[211]

  [209] Plutarch, Dion, c. 30. ἐμπλήσας ἀκράτου. It is rare that we
  read of this proceeding with soldiers in antiquity. Diodor. xvi.
  11, 12. τὸ μέγεθος τῶν ἐπαγγελιῶν.

  [210] Diodor. xvi. 12. Ὁ δὲ Δίων ἀνελπίστως παρεσπονδημένος, μετὰ
  τῶν ἀρίστων στρατιωτῶν ἀπήντα τοῖς πολεμίοις· καὶ συνάψας μάχην,
  πολὺν ἐποίει φόνον ἐν σταδίῳ. Ὀλίγῳ δὴ διαστήματι, τῆς διατειχίου
  ἔσω, μάχης οὔσης, συνέδραμε πλῆθος στρατιωτῶν εἰς στένον τόπον.

  The text here is not quite clear (see Wesseling’s note); but
  we gather from the passage information about the topography of
  Syracuse.

  [211] Plutarch, Dion, c. 30; Diodor. xvi. 12, 13.

When we consider how doubtful the issue of this battle had proved,
it seems evident that had Timokrates maintained himself in Epipolæ,
so as to enable Dionysius to remain master of Epipolæ as well as of
Ortygia, the success of Dion’s whole enterprise in Syracuse would
have been seriously endangered.

Great was the joy excited at Syracuse by the victory. The Syracusan
people testified their gratitude to the Dionian soldiers by voting a
golden wreath to the value of one hundred minæ; while these soldiers,
charmed with the prowess of their general, voted a golden wreath
to him. Dion immediately began the re-establishment of the damaged
cross-wall, which he repaired, completed, and put under effective
guard for the future.[212] Dionysius no longer tried to impede it by
armed attack. But as he was still superior at sea, he transported
parties across the harbor to ravage the country for provisions, and
despatched vessels to bring in stores also by sea. His superiority
at sea was presently lessened by the arrival of Herakleides from
Peloponnesus,[213] with twenty triremes, three smaller vessels, and
fifteen hundred soldiers. The Syracusans, now beginning to show
themselves actively on shipboard, got together a tolerable naval
force. All the docks and wharfs lay concentrated in and around
Ortygia, within the grasp of Dionysius, who was master of the naval
force belonging to the city. But it would seem that the crews of
some of the ships (who were mostly native Syracusans,[214] with an
intermixture of Athenians, doubtless of democratical sentiments) must
have deserted from the despot to the people, carrying over their
ships, since we presently find the Syracusans with a fleet of sixty
triremes,[215] which they could hardly have acquired otherwise.

  [212] Diodor. xvi. 13.

  [213] Diodor. xvi. 16. Plutarch states that Herakleides brought
  only seven triremes. But the force stated by Diodorus (given in
  my text) appears more probable. It is difficult otherwise to
  explain the number of ships which the Syracusans presently appear
  as possessing. Moreover the great importance, which Herakleides
  steps into, as opposed to Dion, is more easily accounted for.

  [214] Plutarch, Dion, c. 35. About the Athenian seamen in
  Ortygia, see a remarkable passage of Plato, Epistol. vii. p. 350
  A. When Plato was at Syracuse, in danger from the mercenaries,
  the Athenian seamen, there employed, gave warning to him as their
  countryman.

  [215] Diodor. xvi. 16.

Dionysius was shortly afterwards reinforced by Philistus, who brought
to Ortygia, not only his fleet from the Tarentine Gulf, but also
a considerable regiment of cavalry. With these latter, and some
other troops besides, Philistus undertook an expedition against
the revolted Leontini. But though he made his way into the town
by night, he was presently expelled by the defenders, seconded by
reinforcements from Syracuse.[216]

  [216] Diodor. xvi. 16.

To keep Ortygia provisioned, however, it was yet more indispensable
for Philistus to maintain his superiority at sea against the growing
naval power of the Syracusans, now commanded by Herakleides.[217]
After several partial engagements, a final battle, desperate and
decisive, at length took place between the two admirals. Both fleets
were sixty triremes strong. At first Philistus, brave and forward,
appeared likely to be victorious. But presently the fortune of
the day turned against him. His ship was run ashore, and himself
with most part of his fleet, overpowered by the enemy. To escape
captivity, he stabbed himself. The wound however was not mortal;
so that he fell alive, being now about seventy-eight years of age,
into the hands of his enemies,—who stripped him naked, insulted him
brutally, and at length cut off his head, after which they dragged
his body by the leg through the streets of Syracuse.[218] Revolting
as this treatment is, we must recollect that it was less horrible
than that which the elder Dionysius had inflicted on the Rhegine
general Phyton.

  [217] See a Fragment of the fortieth Book of the Philippica of
  Theopompus (Theopomp. Fragm. 212, ed. Didot), which seems to
  refer to this point of time.

  [218] Diodor. xvi. 16; Plutarch, Dion, c. 35.

The last hopes of the Dionysian dynasty perished with Philistus, the
ablest and most faithful of its servants. He had been an actor in its
first day of usurpation—its eighteenth Brumaire: his timely, though
miserable death, saved him from sharing in its last day of exile—its
St. Helena.

Even after the previous victory of Dion, Dionysius had lost all
chance of overcoming the Syracusans by force. But he had now farther
lost, through the victory of Herakleides, his superiority at sea,
and therefore his power even of maintaining himself permanently in
Ortygia. The triumph of Dion seemed assured, and his enemy humbled in
the dust. But though thus disarmed, Dionysius was still formidable by
his means of raising intrigue and dissension in Syracuse. His ancient
antipathy against Dion became more vehement than ever. Obliged to
forego empire himself—yet resolved at any rate that Dion should be
ruined along with him—he set on foot a tissue of base manœuvres
availing himself of the fears and jealousies of the Syracusans,
the rivalry of Herakleides, the defects of Dion, and what was more
important than all—the relationship of Dion to the Dionysian dynasty.

Dion had displayed devoted courage, and merited the signal gratitude
of the Syracusans. But he had been nursed in the despotism, of which
his father had been one of the chief founders; he was attached by
every tie of relationship to Dionysius, with whom his sister, his
former wife, and his children, were still dwelling in the acropolis.
The circumstances therefore were such as to suggest to the Syracusans
apprehensions, noway unreasonable, that some private bargain might
be made by Dion with the acropolis, and that the eminent services
which he had just rendered might only be made the stepping-stone
to a fresh despotism in his person. Such suspicions received much
countenance from the infirmities of Dion, who combined, with a
masculine and magnanimous character, manners so haughty as to be
painfully felt even by his own companions. The friendly letters from
Syracuse, written to Plato or to others at Athens (possibly those
from Timonides to Speusippus) shortly after the victory, contained
much complaint of the repulsive demeanor of Dion; which defect the
philosopher exhorted his friend to amend.[219] All those, whom Dion’s
arrogance offended, were confirmed in their suspicion of his despotic
designs, and induced to turn for protection to his rival Herakleides.
This latter—formerly general in the service of Dionysius, from whose
displeasure he had only saved his life by flight—had been unable or
unwilling to coöperate with Dion in his expedition from Zakynthus,
but had since brought to the aid of the Syracusans a considerable
force, including several armed ships. Though not present at the
first entry into Syracuse, nor arriving until Ortygia had already
been placed under blockade, Herakleides was esteemed the equal of
Dion in abilities and in military efficiency; while with regard to
ulterior designs, he had the prodigious advantage of being free from
connection with the despotism and of raising no mistrust. Moreover
his manners were not only popular, but according to Plutarch,[220]
more than popular—smooth, insidious, and dexterous in criminatory
speech, for the ruin of rivals and for his own exaltation.

  [219] Plato, Epist. iv. p. 321 B. ... ἐνθυμοῦ δὲ καὶ ὅτι δοκεῖς
  τισὶν ἐνδεεστέρως τοῦ προσήκοντος θεραπευτικὸς εἶναι· μὴ οὖν
  λανθανέτω σε ὅτι διὰ τοῦ ἀρέσκειν τοῖς ἀνθρώποις καὶ τὸ πράττειν
  ἐστίν, ἡ δ᾽ αὐθάδεια ἐρημίᾳ ξύνοικος.

  [220] Plutarch, Dion, c. 32.

As the contest presently came to be carried on rather at sea than
on land, the equipment of a fleet became indispensable; so that
Herakleides, who had brought the greatest number of triremes,
naturally rose in importance. Shortly after his arrival, the
Syracusan assembly passed a vote to appoint him admiral. But Dion,
who seems only to have heard of this vote after it had passed,
protested against it as derogating from the full powers which
the Syracusans had by their former vote conferred upon himself.
Accordingly the people, though with reluctance, cancelled their vote,
and deposed Herakleides. Having then gently rebuked Herakleides
for raising discord at a season when the common enemy was still
dangerous, Dion convened another assembly; wherein he proposed,
from himself, the appointment of Herakleides as admiral, with a
guard equal to his own.[221] The right of nomination thus assumed
displeased the Syracusans, humiliated Herakleides, and exasperated
his partisans as well as the fleet which he commanded. It gave him
power—together with provocation to employ that power for the ruin
of Dion; who thus laid himself doubly open to genuine mistrust from
some, and to intentional calumny from others.

  [221] Plutarch, Dion, c. 33. It would seem that this Herakleides
  is the person alluded to in the fragment from the fortieth Book
  of the Philippica of Theopompus (Theop. Fr. 212, ed. Didot):—

  Προστάται δὲ τῆς πόλεως ἦσαν τῶν μὲν Συρακουσίων Ἄθηνις καὶ
  Ἡρακλείδης, τῶν δὲ μισθοφόρων Ἀρχέλαος ὁ Δυμαῖος.

  Probably also, Athênis is the same person named as _Athanis_ or
  _Athanas_ by Diodorus and Plutarch, (Diodor. xv. 94; Plutarch,
  Timoleon, c. 23-37). He wrote a history of Syracusan affairs
  during the period of Dion and Timoleon, beginning from 362 B. C.,
  and continuing the history of Philistus. See Historicorum Græc.
  Fragm. ed. Didot, vol. ii. p. 81.

It is necessary to understand this situation, in order to appreciate
the means afforded to Dionysius for personal intrigue directed
against Dion. Though the vast majority of Syracusans were hostile
to Dionysius, yet there were among them many individuals connected
with those serving under him in Ortygia, and capable of being put
in motion to promote his views. Shortly after the complete defeat
of his sally, he renewed his solicitations for peace; to which Dion
returned the peremptory answer, that no peace could be concluded
until Dionysius abdicated and retired. Next, Dionysius sent out
heralds from Ortygia with letters addressed to Dion from his female
relatives. All these letters were full of complaints of the misery
endured by these poor women; together with prayers that he would
relax in his hostility. To avert suspicion, Dion caused the letters
to be opened and read publicly before the Syracusan assembly; but
their tenor was such, that suspicion, whether expressed or not,
unavoidably arose, as to the effect on Dion’s sympathies. One letter
there was, bearing on its superscription the words “Hipparinus (the
son of Dion) to his father.” At first many persons present refused
to take cognizance of a communication so strictly private; but Dion
insisted, and the letter was publicly read. It proved to come, not
from the youthful Hipparinus, but from Dionysius himself, and was
insidiously worded for the purpose of discrediting Dion in the minds
of the Syracusans. It began by reminding him of the long service
which he had rendered to the despotism. It implored him not to bury
that great power, as well as his own relatives, in one common ruin,
for the sake of a people who would turn round and sting him, so soon
as he had given them freedom. It offered, on the part of Dionysius
himself, immediate retirement, provided Dion would consent to take
his place. But it threatened, if Dion refused, the sharpest tortures
against his female relatives and his son.[222]

  [222] Plutarch, Dion, c. 31.

This letter, well-turned as a composition for its own purpose, was
met by indignant refusal and protestation on the part of Dion.
Without doubt his refusal would be received with cheers by the
assembly; but the letter did not the less instil its intended poison
into their minds. Plutarch displays[223] (in my judgment) no great
knowledge of human nature, when he complains of the Syracusans for
suffering the letter to impress them with suspicions of Dion, instead
of admiring his magnanimous resistance to such touching appeals. It
was precisely the magnanimity required for the situation, which
made them mistrustful. Who could assure them that such a feeling,
to the requisite pitch, was to be found in the bosom of Dion? or
who could foretel which, among painfully conflicting sentiments,
would determine his conduct? The position of Dion forbade the
possibility of his obtaining full confidence. Moreover his enemies,
not content with inflaming the real causes of mistrust, fabricated
gross falsehoods against him as well as against the mercenaries
under his command. A Syracusan named Sôsis, brother to one of the
guards of Dionysius, made a violent speech in the Syracusan assembly,
warning his countrymen to beware of Dion, lest they should find
themselves saddled with a strict and sober despot in place of one
who was always intoxicated. On the next day Sôsis appeared in the
Assembly with a wound on the head, which he said that some of the
soldiers of Dion had inflicted upon him in revenge for his speech.
Many persons present, believing the story, warmly espoused his cause;
while Dion had great difficulty in repelling the allegation, and
in obtaining time for the investigation of its truth. On inquiry,
it was discovered that the wound was a superficial cut inflicted
by Sôsis himself with a razor, and that the whole tale was an
infamous calumny which he had been bribed to propagate.[224] In
this particular instance, it was found practicable to convict the
delinquent of shameless falsehood. But there were numerous other
attacks and perversions less tangible, generated by the same hostile
interests and tending towards the same end. Every day the suspicion
and unfriendly sentiment of the Syracusans, towards Dion and his
soldiers, became more imbittered.

  [223] Plutarch, Dion, c. 32.

  [224] Plutarch, Dion, c. 34.

The naval victory gained by Herakleides and the Syracusan fleet over
Philistus, exalting both the spirit of the Syracusans and the glory
of the admiral, still further lowered the influence of Dion. The
belief gained ground that even without him and his soldiers, the
Syracusans could defend themselves, and gain possession of Ortygia.
It was now that the defeated Dionysius sent from thence a fresh
embassy to Dion, offering to surrender to him the place with its
garrison, magazine of arms, and treasure equivalent to five months’
full pay—on condition of being allowed to retire to Italy, and enjoy
the revenues of a large and productive portion (called Gyarta) of
the Syracusan territory. Dion again refused to reply, desiring him
to address the Syracusan public yet advising them to accept the
terms.[225] Under the existing mistrust towards Dion, this advice
was interpreted as concealing an intended collusion between him and
Dionysius. Herakleides promised, that if the war were prosecuted, he
would keep Ortygia blocked up until it was surrendered at discretion
with all in it as prisoners. But in spite of his promise, Dionysius
contrived to elude his vigilance and sail off to Lokri in Italy, with
many companions and much property, leaving Ortygia in command of his
eldest son Apollokrates.

  [225] Plutarch, Dion, c. 37; Diodor. xvi. 17.

Though the blockade was immediately resumed and rendered stricter
than before, yet this escape of the despot brought considerable
discredit on Herakleides. Probably the Dionian partisans were not
sparing in their reproach. To create for himself fresh popularity,
Herakleides warmly espoused the proposition of a citizen named
Hippo, for a fresh division of landed property; a proposition,
which, considering the sweeping alteration of landed property
made by the Dionysian dynasty, we may well conceive to have been
recommended upon specious grounds of retributive justice, as well
as upon the necessity of providing for poor citizens. Dion opposed
the motion strenuously, but was outvoted. Other suggestions also,
yet more repugnant to him, and even pointed directly against him,
were adopted. Lastly, Herakleides, enlarging upon his insupportable
arrogance, prevailed upon the people to decree that new generals
should be appointed, and that the pay due to the Dionian soldiers,
now forming a large arrear, should not be liquidated out of the
public purse.[226]

  [226] Plutarch, Dion, c. 37; Diodor. xvi. 17.

It was towards midsummer that Dion was thus divested of his command,
about nine months after his arrival at Syracuse.[227] Twenty-five new
generals were named, of whom Herakleides was one.

  [227] Plutarch, Dion, c. 38. θέρους μεσοῦντος, etc.

The measure, scandalously ungrateful and unjust, whereby the soldiers
were deprived of the pay due to them, was dictated by pure antipathy
against Dion: for it does not seem to have been applied to those
soldiers who had come with Herakleides; moreover the new generals
sent private messages to the Dionian soldiers, inviting them to
desert their leader and join the Syracusans, in which case the grant
of citizenship was promised to them.[228] Had the soldiers complied,
it is obvious, that either the pay due, or some equivalent, must
have been assigned to satisfy them. But one and all of them scorned
the invitation, adhering to Dion with unshaken fidelity. The purpose
of Herakleides was, to expel him alone. This however was prevented
by the temper of the soldiers; who, indignant at the treacherous
ingratitude of the Syracusans, instigated Dion to take a legitimate
revenge upon them, and demanded only to be led to the assault.
Refusing to employ force, Dion calmed their excitement, and put
himself at their head to conduct them out of the city; not without
remonstrances addressed to the generals and the people of Syracuse
upon their proceedings, imprudent as well as wicked, while the enemy
were still masters of Ortygia. Nevertheless, the new generals, chosen
as the most violent enemies of Dion, not only turned a deaf ear to
his appeal, but inflamed the antipathies of the people, and spurred
them on to attack the soldiers on their march out of Syracuse. Their
attack, though repeated more than once, was vigorously repulsed by
the soldiers—excellent troops, three thousand in number; while Dion,
anxious to ensure their safety, and to avoid bloodshed on both sides,
confined himself strictly to the defensive. He forbade all pursuit,
giving up the prisoners without ransom as well as the bodies of the
slain for burial.[229]

  [228] Plutarch, Dion, c. 38.

  [229] Plutarch, Dion, c. 39; Diodor. xvi. 17.

In this guise Dion arrived at Leontini, where he found the warmest
sympathy towards himself, with indignant disgust at the behavior
of the Syracusans. Allied with the newly-enfranchised Syracuse
against the Dionysian dynasty, the Leontines not only received the
soldiers of Dion into their citizenship, and voted to them a positive
remuneration, but sent an embassy to Syracuse insisting that justice
should be done to them. The Syracusans, on their side, sent envoys to
Leontini, to accuse Dion before an assembly of all the allies there
convoked. Who these allies were, our defective information does not
enable us to say. Their sentence went in favor of Dion and against
the Syracusans; who nevertheless stood out obstinately, refusing all
justice or reparation,[230] and fancying themselves competent to
reduce Ortygia without Dion’s assistance—since the provisions therein
were exhausted, and the garrison was already suffering from famine.
Despairing of reinforcement, Apollokrates had already resolved to
send envoys and propose a capitulation, when Nypsius, a Neapolitan
officer, despatched by Dionysius from Lokri, had the good fortune to
reach Ortygia at the head of a reinforcing fleet, convoying numerous
transports with an abundant stock of provisions. There was now no
farther talk of surrender. The garrison of Ortygia was reinforced
to ten thousand mercenary troops of considerable merit, and well
provisioned for some time.[231]

  [230] Plutarch, Dion, c. 40.

  [231] Plutarch, Dion, c. 41; Diodor. xvi. 18, 19.

The Syracusan admirals, either from carelessness or ill-fortune,
had not been able to prevent the entry of Nypsius. But they made
a sudden attack upon him while his fleet were in the harbor, and
while the crews, thinking themselves safe from an enemy, were
interchanging salutations or aiding to disembark the stores. This
attack was well-timed and successful. Several of the triremes of
Nypsius were ruined—others were towed off as prizes, while the
victory, gained by Herakleides without Dion, provoked extravagant
joy throughout Syracuse. In the belief that Ortygia could not longer
hold out, the citizens, the soldiers, and even the generals, gave
loose to mad revelry and intoxication, continued into the ensuing
night. Nypsius, an able officer, watched his opportunity, and made
a vigorous night-sally. His troops, issuing forth in good order,
planted their scaling-ladders, mounted the blockading wall, and slew
the sleeping or drunken sentinels without any resistance. Master of
this important work, Nypsius employed a part of his men to pull it
down, while he pushed the rest forward against the city. At daybreak
the affrighted Syracusans saw themselves vigorously attacked even
in their own stronghold, when neither generals nor citizens were at
all prepared to resist. The troops of Nypsius first forced their
way into Neapolis, which lay the nearest to the wall of Ortygia;
next into Tycha, the other fortified suburb. Over these they ranged
victorious, vanquishing all the detached parties of Syracusans which
could be opposed to them. The streets became a scene of bloodshed—the
houses of plunder; for as Dionysius had now given up the idea of
again permanently ruling at Syracuse, his troops thought of little
else except satiating the revenge of their master and their own
rapacity. The soldiers of Nypsius stripped the private dwellings in
the town, taking away not only the property, but also the women and
children, as booty into Ortygia. At last (it appears) they got also
into Achradina, the largest and most populous portion of Syracuse.
Here the same scene of pillage, destruction, and bloodshed, was
continued throughout the whole day, and on a still larger scale; with
just enough resistance to pique the fury of the victors, without
restraining their progress.

It soon became evident to Herakleides and his colleagues, as well as
to the general body of citizens, that there was no hope of safety
except in invoking the aid of Dion and his soldiers from Leontini.
Yet the appeal to one whom they not only hated and feared, but had
ignominiously maltreated, was something so intolerable, that for a
long time no one would speak out to propose what every man had in his
mind. At length some of the allies present, less concerned in the
political parties of the city, ventured to broach the proposition,
which ran from man to man, and was adopted under a press of mingled
and opposite emotions. Accordingly two officers of the allies, and
five Syracusan horsemen set off at full speed to Leontini, to implore
the instant presence of Dion. Reaching the place towards evening,
they encountered Dion himself immediately on dismounting, and
described to him the miserable scenes now going on at Syracuse. Their
tears and distress brought around them a crowd of hearers, Leontines
as well as Peloponnesians; and a general assembly was speedily
convened, before which Dion exhorted them to tell their story. They
described, in the tone of men whose all was at stake, the actual
sufferings and the impending total ruin of the city; entreating
oblivion for their past misdeeds, which were already but too cruelly
expiated.

Their discourse, profoundly touching to the audience, was heard in
silence. Every one waited for Dion to begin, and to determine the
fate of Syracuse. He rose to speak; but for a time tears checked his
utterance, while his soldiers around cheered him with encouraging
sympathy. At length he found voice to say, “I have convened you,
Peloponnesians and allies, to deliberate about your own conduct.
For me, deliberation would be a disgrace, while Syracuse is in the
hands of the destroyer. If I cannot save my country, I shall go and
bury myself in its flaming ruins. For you, if, in spite of what
has happened, you still choose to assist us, misguided and unhappy
Syracusans, we shall owe it to you that we still continue a city.
But if, in disdainful sense of wrong endured, you shall leave us to
our fate, I here thank you for all your past valor and attachment
to me, praying that the gods may reward you for it. Remember Dion,
as one who neither deserted you when you were wronged, nor his own
fellow-citizens when they were in misery.”

This address, so replete with pathos and dignity, went home to the
hearts of the audience, filling them with passionate emotion and
eagerness to follow him. Universal shouts called upon him to put
himself at their head instantly and march to Syracuse; while the
envoys present fell upon his neck, invoking blessings both upon him
and upon the soldiers. As soon as the excitement had subsided, Dion
gave orders that every man should take his evening meal forthwith,
and return in arms to the spot, prepared for a night-march to
Syracuse.

By daybreak, Dion and his band were within a few miles of the
northern wall of Epipolæ. Messengers from Syracuse here met him,
inducing him to slacken his march and proceed with caution.
Herakleides and the other generals had sent a message forbidding
his nearer approach, with notice that the gates would be closed
against him; yet at the same time, counter-messages arrived from
many eminent citizens, entreating him to persevere, and promising
him both admittance and support. Nypsius, having permitted his
troops to pillage and destroy in Syracuse throughout the preceding
day, had thought it prudent to withdraw them back into Ortygia for
the night. His retreat raised the courage of Herakleides and his
colleagues; who, fancying that the attack was now over, repented
of the invitation which they had permitted to be sent to Dion.
Under this impression they despatched to him the second message of
exclusion; keeping guard at the gate in the northern wall to make
their threat good. But the events of the next morning speedily
undeceived them. Nypsius renewed his attack with greater ferocity
than before, completed the demolition of the wall of blockade before
Ortygia, and let loose his soldiers with merciless hand throughout
all the streets of Syracuse. There was on this day less of pillage,
but more of wholesale slaughter. Men, women, and children perished
indiscriminately, and nothing was thought of by these barbarians
except to make Syracuse a heap of ruins and dead bodies. To
accelerate the process, and to forestall Dion’s arrival, which they
fully expected—they set fire to the city in several places, with
torches and fire-bearing arrows. The miserable inhabitants knew not
where to flee, to escape the flames within their houses, or the sword
without. The streets were strewed with corpses, while the fire gained
ground perpetually, threatening to spread over the greater part of
the city. Under such terrible circumstances, neither Herakleides,
himself wounded, nor the other generals, could hold out any longer
against the admission of Dion; to whom even the brother and uncle of
Herakleides were sent, with pressing entreaties to accelerate his
march, since the smallest delay would occasion ruin to Syracuse.[232]

  [232] Plutarch, Dion, c. 45.

Dion was about seven miles from the gates when these last cries of
distress reached him. Immediately hurrying forward his soldiers,
whose ardor was not inferior to his own, at a running pace, he
reached speedily the gates called Hexapyla, in the northern wall of
Epipolæ. When once within these gates, he halted in an interior area
called the Hekatompedon.[233] His light-armed were sent forward at
once to arrest the destroying enemy, while he kept back the hoplites
until he could form them into separate columns under proper captains,
along with the citizens who crowded round him with demonstrations
of great reverence. He distributed them so as to enter the interior
portion of Syracuse, and attack the troops of Nypsius, on several
points at once.[234] Being now within the exterior fortification
formed by the wall of Epipolæ, there lay before him the tripartite
interior city—Tycha, Neapolis, Achradina. Each of these parts had its
separate fortification; between Tycha and Neapolis lay an unfortified
space, but each of them joined on to Achradina, the western wall of
which formed their eastern wall. It is probable that these interior
fortifications had been partially neglected since the construction of
the outer walls along Epipolæ, which comprised them all within, and
formed the principal defence against a foreign enemy. Moreover the
troops of Nypsius, having been masters of the three towns, and roving
as destroyers around them, for several hours, had doubtless broken
down the gates and in other ways weakened the defences. The scene was
frightful, and the ways everywhere impeded by flame and smoke, by
falling houses and fragments, and by the numbers who lay massacred
around. It was amidst such horrors that Dion and his soldiers found
themselves—while penetrating in different divisions at once into
Neapolis, Tycha, and Achradina.

  [233] Diodor. xvi. 20. διανύσας ὀξέως τὴν εἰς Συρακούσσας ὁδὸν,
  ἧκε πρὸς τὰ Ἑξάπυλα, etc. Plutarch, Dion, c. 45. εἰσέβαλε διὰ τῶν
  πυλῶν εἰς τὴν Ἑκατόμπεδον λεγομένην, etc.

  [234] Plutarch, Dion, c. 45. ὀρθίους λόχους ποιῶν καὶ διαιρῶν τὰς
  ἡγεμονίας, ὅπως πολλαχόθεν ἅμα προσφέροιτο φοβερώτερον.

His task would probably have been difficult, had Nypsius been able
to control the troops under his command, in themselves brave and
good. But these troops had been for some hours dispersed throughout
the streets, satiating their licentious and murderous passions, and
destroying a town which Dionysius now no longer expected to retain.
Recalling as many soldiers as he could from this brutal disorder,
Nypsius marshalled them along the interior fortification, occupying
the entrances and exposed points where Dion would seek to penetrate
into the city.[235] The battle was thus not continuous, but fought
between detached parties at separate openings, often very narrow, and
on ground sometimes difficult to surmount, amidst the conflagration
blazing everywhere around.[236] Disorganized by pillage, the troops
of Nypsius could oppose no long resistance to the forward advance
of Dion, with soldiers full of ardor and with the Syracusans around
him stimulated by despair. Nypsius was overpowered, compelled to
abandon his line of defence, and to retreat with his troops into
Ortygia, which the greater number of them reached in safety. Dion
and his victorious troops, after having forced the entrance into the
city, did not attempt to pursue them. The first and most pressing
necessity was to extinguish the flames; but no inconsiderable number
of the soldiers of Nypsius were found dispersed through the streets
and houses, and slain while actually carrying off plunder on their
shoulders. Long after the town was cleared of enemies, however,
all hands within it were employed in stopping the conflagration; a
task in which they hardly succeeded, even by unremitting efforts
throughout the day and the following night.[237]

  [235] Plutarch, Dion, c. 46. παρατεταγμένων ~παρὰ τὸ τείχισμα~
  χαλεπὴν ἔχον καὶ δυσεκβίαστον τὴν πρόσοδον.

  To a person who, after penetrating into the interior of the
  wall of Epipolæ, stood on the slope, and looked down eastward,
  the outer wall of Tycha, Achradina, and Neapolis, might be said
  to form one τείχισμα; not indeed in one and the same line or
  direction, yet continuous from the northern to the southern brink
  of Epipolæ.

  [236] Plutarch, Dion, c. 46. Ὡς δὲ προσέμιξαν τοῖς πολεμίοις, ἐν
  χερσὶ μὲν ὀλίγων πρὸς ὀλίγους ἐγένετο μάχη, διὰ τὴν στενότητα καὶ
  τὴν ἀνωμαλίαν τοῦ τόπου, etc.

  [237] Plutarch, Dion, c. 45, 46; Diodor. xvi. 20.

On the morrow Syracuse was another city; disfigured by the desolating
trace of flame and of the hostile soldiery, yet still refreshed in
the hearts of its citizens, who felt that they had escaped much
worse; and above all, penetrated by a renewed political spirit,
and a deep sense of repentant gratitude towards Dion. All those
generals, who had been chosen at the last election from their
intense opposition to him, fled forthwith; except Herakleides and
Theodotes. These two men were his most violent and dangerous enemies;
yet it appears that they knew his character better than their
colleagues, and therefore did not hesitate to throw themselves upon
his mercy. They surrendered, confessed their guilt, and implored his
forgiveness. His magnanimity (they said) would derive a new lustre,
if he now rose superior to his just resentment over misguided rivals,
who stood before him humbled and ashamed of their former opposition,
entreating him to deal with them better than they had dealt with him.

If Dion had put their request to the vote, it would have been refused
by a large majority. His soldiers, recently defrauded of their pay,
were yet burning with indignation against the authors of such an
injustice. His friends, reminding him of the bitter and unscrupulous
attacks which he as well as they had experienced from Herakleides,
exhorted him to purge the city of one who abused the popular forms
to purposes hardly less mischievous than despotism itself. The
life of Herakleides now hung upon a thread. Without pronouncing any
decided opinion, Dion had only to maintain an equivocal silence, and
suffer the popular sentiment to manifest itself in a verdict invoked
by one party, expected even by the opposite. The more was every one
astonished when he took upon himself the responsibility of pardoning
Herakleides; adding, by way of explanation and satisfaction[238] to
his disappointed friends—

  [238] Plutarch, Dion, c. 47. Ὁ δὲ Δίων παραμυθούμενος αὐτοὺς
  ἔλεγεν, etc.

“Other generals have gone through most of their training with a view
to arms and war. My long training in the Academy has been devoted to
aid me in conquering anger, envy, and all malignant jealousies. To
show that I have profited by such lessons, it is not enough that I do
my duty towards my friends and towards honest men. The true test is,
if, after being wronged, I show myself placable and gentle towards
the wrong-doer. My wish is to prove myself superior to Herakleides
more in goodness and justice, than in power and intelligence.
Successes in war, even when achieved single-handed, are half owing
to fortune. If Herakleides has been treacherous and wicked through
envy, it is not for Dion to dishonor a virtuous life in obedience to
angry sentiment. Nor is human wickedness, great as it often is, ever
pushed to such an excess of stubborn brutality, as not to be amended
by gentle and gracious treatment, from steady benefactors.”[239]

  [239] Plutarch, Dion, c. 47.

We may reasonably accept this as something near the genuine speech
of Dion, reported by his companion Timonides, and thus passing into
the biography of Plutarch. It lends a peculiar interest, as an
exposition of motives, to the act which it accompanies. The sincerity
of the exposition admits of no doubt, for all the ordinary motives of
the case counselled an opposite conduct; and had Dion been in like
manner at the feet of his rival, his life would assuredly not have
been spared. He took pride (with a sentiment something like that of
Kallikratidas[240] on liberating the prisoners taken at Methymna) in
realizing by conspicuous act the lofty morality which he had imbibed
from the Academy; the rather, as the case presented every temptation
to depart from it Persuading himself that he could by an illustrious
example put to shame and soften the mutual cruelties so frequent in
Grecian party-warfare, and regarding the amnesty towards Herakleides
as a proper sequel to the generous impulse which had led him to march
from Leontini to Syracuse,—he probably gloried in both, more than in
the victory itself. We shall presently have the pain of discovering
that his anticipations were totally disappointed. And we may be sure
that at the time, the judgment passed on his proceeding towards
Herakleides was very different from what it now receives. Among his
friends and soldiers, the generosity of the act would be forgotten in
its imprudence. Among his enemies, it would excite surprise, perhaps
admiration—yet few of them would be conciliated or converted into
friends. In the bosom of Herakleides himself, the mere fact of owing
his life to Dion would be a new and intolerable humiliation, which
the Erinnys within would goad him on to avenge. Dion would be warned,
by the criticism of his friends, as well as by the instinct of his
soldiers, that in yielding to a magnanimous sentiment, he overlooked
the reasonable consequences; and that Herakleides continuing at
Syracuse would only be more dangerous both to him and them, than he
had been before. Without taking his life, Dion might have required
him to depart from Syracuse; which sentence, having regard to the
practice of the time, would have been accounted generosity.

  [240] See Vol. VIII. Ch. lxiv. p. 165 of this History.

It was Dion’s next business to renew the wall of blockade constructed
against Ortygia, and partially destroyed in the late sally of
Nypsius. Every Syracusan citizen was directed to cut a stake, and
deposit it near the spot; after which, during the ensuing night, the
soldiers planted a stockade so as to restore the broken parts of
the line. Protection being thus ensured to the city against Nypsius
and his garrison, Dion proceeded to bury the numerous dead who had
been slain in the sally, and to ransom the captives, no less than
two thousand in number, who had been carried off into Ortygia.[241]
A trophy, with sacrifice to the gods for the victory, was not
forgotten.[242]

  [241] Plutarch, Dion, c. 48.

  [242] Diodor. xvi. 20.

A public assembly was now held to elect new generals in place of
those who had fled. Here a motion was made by Herakleides himself,
that Dion should be chosen general with full powers both by land
and sea. The motion was received with great favor by the principal
citizens; but the poorer men were attached to Herakleides, especially
the seamen; who preferred serving under his command, and loudly
required that he should be named admiral, along with Dion as general
on land. Forced to acquiesce in this nomination, Dion contented
himself with insisting and obtaining, that the resolution, which had
been previously adopted for redistributing lands and houses, should
be rescinded.[243]

  [243] Plutarch, Dion, c. 48.

The position of affairs at Syracuse was now pregnant with mischief
and quarrel. On land, Dion enjoyed a dictatorial authority;—at sea,
Herakleides, his enemy not less than ever, was admiral, by separate
and independent nomination. The undefined authority of Dion—exercised
by one self-willed, though magnanimous, in spirit, and extremely
repulsive in manner—was sure to become odious after the feelings
arising out of the recent rescue had worn off; and abundant opening
would thus be made for the opposition of Herakleides, often on just
grounds. That officer indeed was little disposed to wait for just
pretences. Conducting the Syracusan fleet to Messênê in order to
carry on war against Dionysius at Lokri, he not only tried to raise
the seamen in arms against Dion, by charging him with despotic
designs, but even entered into a secret treaty with the common enemy
Dionysius; through the intervention of the Spartan Pharax, who
commanded the Dionysian troops. His intrigues being discovered, a
violent opposition was raised against them by the leading Syracusan
citizens. It would seem (as far as we can make out from the
scanty information of Plutarch) that the military operations were
frustrated, and that the armament was forced to return to Syracuse.
Here again the quarrel was renewed—the seamen apparently standing
with Herakleides, the principal citizens with Dion—and carried so
far, that the city suffered not only from disturbance, but even
from irregular supply of provisions.[244] Among the mortifications
of Dion, not the least was that which he experienced from his
own friends or soldiers, who reminded him of their warnings and
predictions when he consented to spare Herakleides. Meanwhile
Dionysius had sent into Sicily a body of troops under Pharax, who
were encamped at Neapolis in the Agrigentine territory. In what
scheme of operations this movement forms a part, we cannot make
out; for Plutarch tells us nothing except what bears immediately
on the quarrel between Dion and Herakleides. To attack Pharax, the
forces of Syracuse were brought out; the fleet under Herakleides,
the soldiers on land under Dion. The latter, though he thought
it imprudent to fight, was constrained to hazard a battle by the
insinuations of Herakleides and the clamor of the seamen; who accused
him of intentionally eking out the war for the purpose of prolonging
his own dictatorship. Dion accordingly attacked Pharax, but was
repulsed. Yet the repulse was not a serious defeat, so that he was
preparing to renew the attack, when he was apprised that Herakleides
with the fleet had departed and were returning at their best speed
to Syracuse; with the intention of seizing the city, and barring
out Dion with his troops. Nothing but a rapid and decisive movement
could defeat this scheme. Leaving the camp immediately with his best
horsemen, Dion rode back to Syracuse as fast as possible; completing
a distance of seven hundred stadia (about eighty-two miles) in a very
short time, and forestalling the arrival of Herakleides.[245]

  [244] Plutarch, Dion, c. 48. καὶ δι᾽ αὐτὴν ἀπορία καὶ σπάνις ἐν
  ταῖς Συρακούσαις, etc.

  [245] Plutarch, Dion, c. 49.

Thus disappointed and exposed, Herakleides found means to direct
another manœuvre against Dion, through the medium of a Spartan
named Gæsylus; who had been sent by the Spartans, informed of the
dissensions in Syracuse, to offer himself (like Gylippus) for the
command. Herakleides eagerly took advantage of the arrival of this
officer; pressing the Syracusans to accept a Spartan as their
commander-in-chief. But Dion replied that there were plenty of
native Syracusans qualified for command; moreover, if a Spartan was
required, he was himself a Spartan, by public grant. Gæsylus, having
ascertained the state of affairs, had the virtue and prudence not
merely to desist from his own pretensions, but also to employ his
best efforts in reconciling Dion and Herakleides. Sensible that the
wrong had been on the side of the latter, Gæsylus constrained him
to bind himself by the strongest oaths to better conduct in future.
He engaged his own guarantee for the observance of the covenant;
but the better to ensure such observance, the greater part of the
Syracusan fleet (the chief instrument of Herakleides) was disbanded,
leaving only enough to keep Ortygia under blockade.[246]

  [246] Plutarch, Dion, c. 50.

The capture of that islet and fortress, now more strictly watched
than ever, was approaching. What had become of Pharax, or why
he did not advance, after the retreat of Dion, to harass the
Syracusans and succor Ortygia—we know not. But no succor arrived;
provisions grew scarce; and the garrison became so discontented,
that Apollokrates the son of Dionysius could not hold out any
longer. Accordingly, he capitulated with Dion; handing over to him
Ortygia with its fort, arms, magazines and everything contained in
it—except what he could carry away in five triremes. Aboard of these
vessels, he placed his mother, his sisters, his immediate friends,
and his chief valuables, leaving everything else behind for Dion
and the Syracusans, who crowded to the beach in multitudes to see
him depart. To them the moment was one of lively joy, and mutual
self-congratulation—promising to commence a new era of freedom.[247]

  [247] Plutarch, Dion, c. 50.

On entering Ortygia, Dion saw for the first time after a separation
of about twelve years, his sister Aristomachê, his wife Aretê, and
family. The interview was one of the tenderest emotion and tears of
delight to all. Aretê, having been made against her own consent the
wife of Timokratês, was at first afraid to approach Dion. But he
received and embraced her with unabated affection.[248] He conducted
both her and his son away from the Dionysian acropolis, in which they
had been living since his absence, into his own house; having himself
resolved not to dwell in the acropolis, but to leave it as a public
fort or edifice belonging to Syracuse. However, this renewal of his
domestic happiness was shortly afterwards imbittered by the death
of his son; who having imbibed from Dionysius drunken and dissolute
habits, fell from the roof of the house, in a fit of intoxication or
frenzy, and perished.[249]

  [248] Plutarch, Dion, c. 51.

  [249] Cornelius Nepos, Dion, c. 5.

Dion was now at the pinnacle of power as well as of glory. With
means altogether disproportionate, he had achieved the expulsion of
the greatest despot in Greece, even from an impregnable stronghold.
He had combated danger and difficulty with conspicuous resolution,
and had displayed almost chivalrous magnanimity. Had he “breathed
out his soul”[250] at the instant of triumphant entry in Ortygia,
the Academy would have been glorified by a pupil of first-rate and
unsullied merit. But that cup of prosperity, which poisoned so many
other eminent Greeks, had now the fatal effect of exaggerating all
the worst of Dion’s qualities, and damping all the best.

  [250] Juvenal, Satir. x. 381.

      “Quid illo cive (Marius) tulisset
    Imperium in terris, quid Roma beatius unquam,
    Si circumducto captivorum agmine, et omni
    Bellorum pompâ, animam exhalasset opimam,
    Cum de Teutonico vellet descendere curru?”

Plutarch indeed boasts, and we may perfectly believe, that he
maintained the simplicity of his table, his raiment, and his habits
of life, completely unchanged—now that he had become master of
Syracuse, and an object of admiration to all Greece. In this respect,
Plato and the Academy had reason to be proud of their pupil.[251]
But the public mistakes, now to be recounted, were not the less
mischievous to his countrymen as well as to himself.

  [251] Plutarch, Dion, c. 52.

From the first moment of his entry into Syracuse from Peloponnesus,
Dion had been suspected and accused of aiming at the expulsion of
Dionysius, only in order to transfer the despotism to himself.
His haughty and repulsive manners, raising against him personal
antipathies everywhere, were cited as confirming the charge. Even
at moments when Dion was laboring for the genuine good of the
Syracusans, this suspicion had always more or less crossed his
path; robbing him of well-merited gratitude—and at the same time
discrediting his opponents, and the people of Syracuse, as guilty of
mean jealousy towards a benefactor.

The time had now come when Dion was obliged to act in such a manner
as either to confirm, or to belie, such unfavorable auguries.
Unfortunately both his words and his deeds confirmed them in the
strongest manner. The proud and repulsive external demeanor, for
which he had always been notorious, was rather aggravated than
softened. He took pride in showing, more plainly than ever, that he
despised everything which looked like courting popularity.[252]

  [252] Plutarch, Dion, c. 52. Τοῦ μέντοι περὶ τὰς ὁμιλίας ὄγκου
  καὶ τοῦ πρὸς τὸν δῆμον ἀτενοῦς ~ἐφιλονείκει μηδὲν ὑφελεῖν μηδὲ
  χαλάσαι~, καίτοι τῶν πραγμάτων αὐτῷ χάριτος ἐνδεῶν ὄντων, καὶ
  Πλάτωνος ἐπιτιμῶντος, etc.

If the words and manner of Dion were thus significant, both what
he did, and what he left undone, was more significant still. Of
that great boon of freedom, which he had so loudly promised to the
Syracusans, and which he had directed his herald to proclaim on first
entering their walls, he conferred absolutely nothing. He retained
his dictatorial power unabated, and his military force certainly
without reduction, if not actually reinforced; for as Apollokrates
did not convey away with him the soldiers in Ortygia, we may
reasonably presume that a part of them at least remained to embrace
the service of Dion. He preserved the acropolis and fortifications
of Ortygia just as they were, only garrisoned by troops obeying his
command instead of that of Dionysius. His victory made itself felt
in abundant presents to his own friends and soldiers;[253] but to
the people of Syracuse, it produced nothing better than a change of
masters.

  [253] Plutarch, Dion, c. 52.

It was not indeed the plan of Dion to constitute a permanent
despotism. He intended to establish himself king, but to grant to
the Syracusans what in modern times would be called a constitution.
Having imbibed from Plato and the Academy as well as from his
own convictions and tastes, aversion to a pure democracy, he had
resolved to introduce a Lacedæmonian scheme of mixed government,
combining king, aristocracy, and people, under certain provisions
and limitations. Of this general tenor are the recommendations
addressed both to him, and to the Syracusans after his death, by
Plato; who however seems to contemplate, along with the political
scheme, a Lykurgean reform of manners and practice. To aid in
framing and realizing his scheme, Dion sent to Corinth to invite
counsellors and auxiliaries; for Corinth was suitable to his views,
not simply as mother city of Syracuse, but also as a city thoroughly
oligarchical.[254]

  [254] Plutarch, Dion, c. 53; Plato, Epistol. vii. p. 334, 336;
  viii. p. 356.

That these intentions on the part of Dion were sincere, we need not
question. They had been originally conceived without any views of
acquiring the first place for himself, during the life of the elder
Dionysius, and were substantially the same as those which he had
exhorted the younger Dionysius to realize, immediately after the
death of the father. They are the same as he had intended to further
by calling in Plato,—with what success, has been already recounted.
But Dion made the fatal mistake of not remarking, that the state of
things, both as to himself and as to Syracuse, was totally altered
during the interval between 367 B. C. and 354 B. C. If at the former
period, when the Dionysian dynasty was at the zenith of power, and
Syracuse completely prostrated, the younger Dionysius could have
been persuaded spontaneously and without contest or constraint to
merge his own despotism in a more liberal system, even dictated by
himself—it is certain that such a free, though moderate concession,
would at first have provoked unbounded gratitude, and would have had
a chance (though that is more doubtful) of giving long-continued
satisfaction. But the situation was totally different in 354 B. C.,
when Dion, after the expulsion of Apollokrates, had become master in
Ortygia; and it was his mistake that he still insisted on applying
the old plans when they had become not merely unsuitable, but
mischievous. Dion was not in the position of an established despot,
who consents to renounce, for the public good, powers which every
one knows he can retain, if he chooses; nor were the Syracusans any
longer passive, prostrate, and hopeless. They had received a solemn
promise of liberty, and had been thereby inflamed into vehement
action, by Dion himself; who had been armed by them with delegated
powers, for the special purpose of putting down Dionysius. That
under these circumstances Dion, instead of laying down his trust,
should constitute himself king—even limited king—and determine how
much liberty he would consent to allot to the Syracusans who had
appointed him—this was a proceeding which they could not but resent
as a flagrant usurpation, and which he could only hope to maintain by
force.

The real conduct of Dion, however, was worse even than this. He
manifested no visible evidence of realizing even that fraction
of popular liberty which had entered into his original scheme.
What exact promises he made, we do not know. But he maintained his
own power, the military force, and the despotic fortifications,
provisionally undiminished. And who could tell how long he intended
to maintain them? That he really had in his mind purposes such as
Plato[255] gives him credit for, I believe to be true. But he took no
practical step towards them. He had resolved to accomplish them, not
through persuasion of the Syracusans, but through his own power. This
was the excuse which he probably made to himself, and which pushed
him down that inclined plane from whence there was afterwards no
escape.

  [255] Plato, Epistol. vii. p. 335 F. p. 351 A.; Epistol. viii. p.
  357 A.

It was not likely that Dion’s conduct would pass without a protest.
That protest came loudest from Herakleides; who, so long as Dion had
been acting in the real service of Syracuse, had opposed him in a
culpable and traitorous manner—and who now again found himself in
opposition to Dion, when opposition had become the side of patriotism
as well as of danger. Invited by Dion to attend the council, he
declined, saying that he was now nothing more than a private citizen,
and would attend the public assembly along with the rest; a hint
which implied, plainly as well as reasonably, that Dion also ought
to lay down his power, now that the common enemy was put down.[256]
The surrender of Ortygia had produced strong excitement among the
Syracusans. They were impatient to demolish the dangerous stronghold
erected in that islet by the elder Dionysius; they both hoped and
expected, moreover, to see the destruction of that splendid funeral
monument which his son had built in his honor, and the urn with
its ashes cast out. Now of these two measures, the first was one
of pressing and undeniable necessity, which Dion ought to have
consummated without a moment’s delay; the second was compliance
with a popular antipathy at that time natural, which would have
served as an evidence that the old despotism stood condemned. Yet
Dion did neither. It was Herakleides who censured him, and moved
for the demolition of the Dionysian Bastile; thus having the glory
of attaching his name to the measure eagerly performed by Timoleon
eleven years afterwards, the moment that he found himself master of
Syracuse. Not only Dion did not originate the overthrow of this
dangerous stronghold, but when Herakleides proposed it, he resisted
him and prevented it from being done.[257] We shall find the same den
serving for successive despots—preserved by Dion for them as well as
for himself, and only removed by the real liberator Timoleon.

  [256] Plutarch, Dion, c. 53.

  [257] Plutarch, Dion. c. 53. Ἔπειτα κατηγόρει τοῦ Δίωνος ὅτι τὴν
  ἄκραν οὐ κατέσκαψε, καὶ τῷ δήμῳ τὸν Διονυσίου τάφον ὡρμημένῳ
  λῦσαι καὶ τὸν νεκρὸν ἐκβαλεῖν οὐκ ἐπέτρεψε, etc.

  Compare Plutarch, Timoleon, c. 22.

Herakleides gained extraordinary popularity among the Syracusans
by his courageous and patriotic conduct. But Dion saw plainly
that he could not, consistently with his own designs, permit such
free opposition any longer. Many of his adherents, looking upon
Herakleides as one who ought not to have been spared on the previous
occasion, were ready to put him to death at any moment; being
restrained only by a special prohibition which Dion now thought it
time to remove. Accordingly, with his privity, they made their way
into the house of Herakleides, and slew him.[258]

  [258] Plutarch, Dion, c. 53; Cornelius Nepos, Dion, c. 6.

This dark deed abolished all remaining hope of obtaining Syracusan
freedom from the hands of Dion, and stamped him as the mere successor
of the Dionysian despotism. It was in vain that he attended the
obsequies of Herakleides with his full military force, excusing
his well-known crime to the people, on the plea, that Syracuse
could never be at peace while two such rivals were both in active
political life. Under the circumstances of the case, the remark
was an insulting derision; though it might have been advanced with
pertinence as a reason for sending Herakleides away, at the moment
when he before spared him. Dion had now conferred upon his rival the
melancholy honor of dying as a martyr to Syracusan freedom; and in
that light he was bitterly mourned by the people. No man after this
murder could think himself secure. Having once employed the soldiers
as executioners of his own political antipathies, Dion proceeded
to lend himself more and more to their exigencies. He provided for
them pay and largesses, great in amount, first at the cost of his
opponents in the city, next at that of his friends, until at length
discontent became universal. Among the general body of the citizens,
Dion became detested as a tyrant, and the more detested because he
had presented himself as a liberator; while the soldiers also were in
great part disaffected to him.[259]

  [259] Cornel. Nepos, Dion, c. 7.

The spies and police of the Dionysian dynasty not having been yet
reëstablished, there was ample liberty at least of speech and
censure; so that Dion was soon furnished with full indications of the
sentiment entertained towards him. He became disquieted and irritable
at this change of public feeling;[260] angry with the people, yet
at the same time ashamed of himself. The murder of Herakleides sat
heavy on his soul. The same man whom he had spared before when in
the wrong, he had now slain when in the right. The maxims of the
Academy which had imparted to him so much self-satisfaction in the
former act, could hardly fail to occasion a proportionate sickness of
self-reproach in the latter. Dion was not a mere power-seeker, nor
prepared for all that endless apparatus of mistrustful precaution,
indispensable to a Grecian despot. When told that his life was in
danger, he replied that he would rather perish at once by the hands
of the first assassin, than live in perpetual diffidence, towards
friends as well as enemies.[261]

  [260] Cornelius Nepos, Dion. c. 7. “Insuetus male audiendi,” etc.

  [261] Plutarch, Dion, c. 56. Ἀλλ᾽ ὁ μὲν Δίων, ἐπὶ τοῖς κατὰ τὸν
  Ἡρακλείδην ἀχθόμενος, καὶ τὸν φόνον ἐκεῖνον, ὥς τινα τοῦ βίου
  καὶ τῶν πράξεων αὐτῷ κηλῖδα προκειμένην, δυσχεραίνων ἀεὶ καὶ
  βαρυνόμενος εἶπεν, ὅτι πολλάκις ἤδη θνήσκειν ἕτοιμός ἐστι καὶ
  παρέχειν τῷ βουλομένῳ σφάττειν αὐτὸν, εἰ ζῇν δεήσει μὴ μόνον τοὺς
  ἐχθροὺς ἀλλὰ καὶ τοὺς φίλους φυλαττόμενον.

  Compare Plutarch, Apophthegm. p. 176 F.

One thus too good for a despot, and yet unfit for a popular leader,
could not remain long in the precarious position occupied by Dion.
His intimate friend, the Athenian Kallippus, seeing that the man
who could destroy him would become popular with the Syracusans as
well as with a large portion of the soldiery, formed a conspiracy
accordingly. He stood high in the confidence of Dion, had been his
companion during his exile at Athens, had accompanied him to Sicily,
and entered Syracuse by his side. But Plato, anxious for the credit
of the Academy, is careful to inform us, that this inauspicious
friendship arose, not out of fellowship in philosophy, but out
of common hospitalities, and especially common initiation in the
Eleusinian mysteries.[262] Brave and forward in battle, Kallippus
enjoyed much credit with the soldiery. He was conveniently placed
for tampering with them, and by a crafty stratagem, he even insured
the unconscious connivance of Dion himself. Having learnt that plots
were formed against his life, Dion talked about them to Kallippus,
who offered himself to undertake the part of spy, and by simulated
partnership to detect as well as to betray the conspirators. Under
this confidence, Kallippus had full licence for carrying on his
intrigues unimpeded, since Dion disregarded the many warnings which
reached him.[263] Among the rumors raised out of Dion’s new position,
and industriously circulated by Kallippus—one was, that he was about
to call back Apollokrates, son of Dionysius, as his partner and
successor to the despotism—as a substitute for the youthful son who
had recently perished. By these and other reports, Dion became more
and more discredited, while Kallippus secretly organized a wider
circle of adherents. His plot however did not escape the penetration
of Aristomachê and Aretê; who having, first addressed unavailing
hints to Dion, at last took upon them to question Kallippus himself.
The latter not only denied the charge, but even confirmed his
denial, at their instance, by one of the most solemn and terrific
oaths recognized in Grecian religion; going into the sacred grove of
Demeter and Persephonê, touching the purple robe of the goddess, and
taking in his hand a lighted torch.[264]

  [262] Plato, Epistol. vii. p. 333 F.: compare Plutarch. Dion. c.
  17, 28, 54.

  Athenæus, on the contrary, states that Kallippus was a pupil of
  Plato, and fellow pupil with Dion in the school (Athenæus, xi. p.
  508).

  The statement of Plato hardly goes so far as to negative the
  supposition that Kallippus may have frequented his school and
  received instruction there, for a time greater or less. But it
  refutes the idea, that the friendship of Dion and Kallippus arose
  out of these philosophical tastes common to both; which Athenæus
  seems to have intended to convey.

  [263] Plutarch, Dion, c. 54; Cornelius Nepos, Dion, c. 8.

  [264] Plutarch, Dion. c. 56.

Inquiry being thus eluded, there came on presently the day of the
Koreia:—the festival of these very Two goddesses in whose name and
presence Kallippus had forsworn. This was the day which he had
fixed for execution. The strong points of defence in Syracuse were
confided beforehand to his principal adherents while his brother
Philostrates[265] kept a trireme manned in the harbor ready for
flight in case the scheme should miscarry. While Dion, taking no part
in the festival, remained at home, Kallippus caused his house to be
surrounded by confidential soldiers, and then sent into it a select
company of Zakynthians, unarmed, as if for the purpose of addressing
Dion on business. These men, young and of distinguished muscular
strength, being admitted into the house, put aside or intimidated
the slaves, none of whom manifested any zeal or attachment. They
then made their way up to Dion’s apartment, and attempted to throw
him down and strangle him. So strenuously did he resist, however,
that they found it impossible to kill him without arms; which they
were perplexed how to procure, being afraid to open the doors, lest
aid might be introduced against them. At length one of their number
descended to a back-door, and procured from a Syracusan without,
named Lykon, a short sword; of the Laconian sort, and of peculiar
workmanship. With this weapon they put Dion to death.[266] They
then seized Aristomachê and Aretê, the sister and wife of Dion.
These unfortunate women were cast into prison, where they were long
detained, and where the latter was delivered of a posthumous son.

  [265] Plato alludes to the two brothers whom Dion made his
  friends at Athens, and who ultimately slew him; but without
  mentioning the name of either (Plato, Epistol. vii. p. 333 F.).

  The third Athenian—whose fidelity he emphatically contrasts
  with the falsehood of these two—appears to mean, himself—Plato.
  Compare pp. 333 and 334.

  [266] Plutarch, Dion, c. 57; Cornelius Nepos, Dion, c. 9; Diodor.
  xvi. 31.

Thus perished Dion, having lived only about a year after his
expulsion of the Dionysian dynasty from Syracuse—but a year too
long for his own fame. Notwithstanding the events of those last
months, there is no doubt that he was a man essentially differing
from the class of Grecian despots: a man, not of aspirations
purely personal, nor thirsting merely for multitudes of submissive
subjects and a victorious army—but with large public-minded purposes
attached as coördinate to his own ambitious views. He wished to
perpetuate his name as the founder of a polity, cast in something
of the general features of Sparta; which, while it did not shock
Hellenic instincts, should reach farther than political institutions
generally aim to do, so as to remodel the sentiments and habits
of the citizens, on principles suited to philosophers like Plato.
Brought up as Dion was from childhood at the court of the elder
Dionysius, unused to that established legality, free speech,
and habit of active citizenship, from whence a large portion of
Hellenic virtue flowed—the wonder is how he acquired so much public
conviction and true magnanimity of soul—not how he missed acquiring
more. The influence of Plato during his youth stamped his mature
character; but that influence (as Plato himself tells us) found a
rare predisposition in the pupil. Still, Dion had no experience of
the working of a free and popular government. The atmosphere in
which his youth was passed was that of an energetic despotism; while
the aspiration which he imbibed from Plato was, to restrain and
regularize that despotism, and to administer to the people a certain
dose of political liberty, yet reserving to himself the task of
settling how much was good for them, and the power of preventing them
from acquiring more.

How this project—the natural growth of Dion’s mind, for which his
tastes and capacities were suited—was violently thrust aside through
the alienated feelings of the younger Dionysius—has been already
recounted. The position of Dion was now completely altered. He became
a banished, ill-used man, stung with contemptuous antipathy against
Dionysius, and eager to put down his despotism over Syracuse. Here
were new motives apparently falling in with the old project. But
the conditions of the problem had altogether changed. Dion could
not overthrow Dionysius without “taking the Syracusan people into
partnership” (to use the phrase of Herodotus[267] respecting the
Athenian Kleisthenes)—without promising them full freedom, as an
inducement for their hearty coöperation—without giving them arms, and
awakening in them the stirring impulses of Grecian citizenship, all
the more violent because they had been so long trodden down.[268]
With these new allies he knew not how to deal. He had no experience
of a free and jealous popular mind in persuasion, he was utterly
unpractised: his manners were haughty and displeasing. Moreover, his
kindred with the Dionysian family exposed him to antipathy from two
different quarters. Like the Duke of Orleans (Égalité) at the end
of 1792, in the first French Revolution—he was hated both by the
royalists, because, though related to the reigning dynasty, he had
taken an active part against it—and by sincere democrats, because
they suspected him of a design to put himself in its place. To Dion,
such coalition of antipathies was a serious hindrance; presenting
a strong basis of support for all his rivals, especially for the
unscrupulous Herakleides. The bad treatment which he underwent both
from the Syracusans and from Herakleides, during the time when
the officers of Dionysius still remained masters in Ortygia, has
been already related. Dion however behaved, though not always with
prudence, yet with so much generous energy against the common enemy,
that he put down his rival, and maintained his ascendency unshaken,
until the surrender of Ortygia.

  [267] Herodotus, v. 66. ἑσσούμενος δ᾽ ὁ Κλεισθένης τὸν δῆμον
  προσεταιρίζεται.

  [268] Cicero de Officiis, ii. 7. “Acriores morsus intermissæ
  libertatis quam retentæ.”

That surrender brought his power to a maximum. It was the
turning-point and crisis of his life. A splendid opportunity was
now opened, of earning for himself fame and gratitude. He might
have attached his name to an act as sublime and impressive as any
in Grecian history, which, in an evil hour, he left to be performed
in after days by Timoleon—the razing of the Dionysian stronghold,
and the erection of courts of justice on its site. He might have
taken the lead in organizing, under the discussion and consent of
the people, a good and free government, which, more or less exempt
from defect as it might have been, would at least have satisfied
them, and would have spared Syracuse those ten years of suffering
which intervened until Timoleon came to make the possibility a fact.
Dion might have done all that Timoleon did—and might have done it
more easily, since he was less embarrassed both by the other towns
in Sicily and by the Carthaginians. Unfortunately he still thought
himself strong enough to resume his original project. In spite of
the spirit, kindled partly by himself, among the Syracusans—in spite
of the repugnance, already unequivocally manifested, on the mere
suspicion of his despotic designs—he fancied himself competent to
treat the Syracusans as a tame and passive herd; to carve out for
them just as much liberty as he thought right, and to require them
to be satisfied with it; nay, even worse, to defer giving them any
liberty at all, on the plea, or pretence, of full consultation with
advisers of his own choice.

Through this deplorable mistake, alike mischievous to Syracuse and
to himself, Dion made his government one of pure force. He placed
himself in a groove wherein he was fatally condemned to move on from
bad to worse, without possibility of amendment. He had already made
a martyr of Herakleides, and he would have been compelled to make
other martyrs besides, had his life continued. It is fortunate for
his reputation that his career was arrested so early, before he had
become bad enough to forfeit that sympathy and esteem with which
the philosopher Plato still mourns his death, appeasing his own
disappointment by throwing the blame of Dion’s failure on every one
but Dion himself.




CHAPTER LXXXV.

SICILIAN AFFAIRS DOWN TO THE CLOSE OF THE EXPEDITION OF TIMOLEON. B.
C. 353-336.


The assassination of Dion, as recounted in my last chapter, appears
to have been skilfully planned and executed for the purpose of its
contriver, the Athenian Kallippus. Succeeding at once to the command
of the soldiers, among whom he had before been very popular,—and to
the mastery of Ortygia,—he was practically supreme at Syracuse. We
read in Cornelius Nepos, that after the assassination of Dion there
was deep public sorrow, and a strong reaction in his favor, testified
by splendid obsequies attended by the mass of the population.[269]
But this statement is difficult to believe; not merely because
Kallippus long remained undisturbed master, but because he also threw
into prison the female relatives of Dion—his sister Aristomachê
and his pregnant wife Aretê, avenging by such act of malignity the
false oath which he had so lately been compelled to take, in order
to satisfy their suspicions.[270] Aretê was delivered of a son in
the prison. It would seem that these unhappy women were kept in
confinement during all the time, more than a year, that Kallippus
remained master. On his being deposed, they were released; when a
Syracusan named Hiketas, a friend of the deceased Dion, affected
to take them under his protection. After a short period of kind
treatment, he put them on board a vessel to be sent to Peloponnesus,
but caused them to be slain on the voyage, and their bodies to
be sunk in the sea. To this cruel deed he is said to have been
instigated by the enemies of Dion; and the act shows but too plainly
how implacable those enemies were.[271]

  [269] Cornelius Nepos, Dion, c. 10.

  [270] Plutarch, Dion, c. 56, 57.

  [271] Plutarch, Dion, c. 58.

How Kallippus maintained himself in Syracuse—by what support, or
violences, or promises—and against what difficulties he had to
contend—we are not permitted to know. He seems at first to have
made promises of restoring liberty; and we are even told, that he
addressed a public letter to his country, the city of Athens;[272]
wherein he doubtless laid claim to the honors of tyrannicide;
representing himself as the liberator of Syracuse. How this was
received by the Athenian assembly, we are not informed. But to
Plato and the frequenters of the Academy, the news of Dion’s death
occasioned the most profound sorrow, as may still be read in the
philosopher’s letters.

  [272] Plutarch, Dion, c. 58.

Kallippus maintained himself for a year in full splendor and
dominion. Discontents had then grown up; and the friends of Dion—or
perhaps the enemies of Kallippus assuming that name—showed themselves
with force in Syracuse. However, Kallippus defeated them, and forced
them to take refuge in Leontini;[273] of which town we presently
find Hiketas despot. Encouraged probably by this success, Kallippus
committed many enormities, and made himself so odious,[274] that the
expelled Dionysian family began to conceive hopes of recovering
their dominion. He had gone forth from Syracuse on an expedition
against Katana; of which absence Hipparinus took advantage to effect
his entry into Syracuse, at the head of a force sufficient, combined
with popular discontent, to shut him out of the city. Kallippus
speedily returned, but was defeated by Hipparinus, and compelled to
content himself with the unprofitable exchange of Katana in place of
Syracuse.[275]

  [273] Plutarch, Dion, c. 58; Diodor. xvi. 31-36.

  [274] Plutarch, Timoleon, c. 11; Plutarch, compar. Timoleon and
  Paul Emil, c. 2.

  [275] This seems to result from Plutarch, Dion, c. 58, compared
  with Diodor. xvi. 36.

Hipparinus and Nysæus were the two sons of Dionysius the elder, by
Aristomachê, and were therefore nephews of Dion. Though Hipparinus
probably became master of Ortygia, the strongest portion of Syracuse,
yet it would appear that in the other portions of Syracuse there were
opposing parties who contested his rule; first, the partisans of
Dionysius the younger, and of his family—next, the mass who desired
to get rid of both the families, and to establish a free popular
constitution. Such is the state of facts which we gather from the
letters of Plato.[276] But we are too destitute of memorials to
make out anything distinct respecting the condition of Syracuse
or of Sicily between 353 B. C. and 344 B. C.—from the death of
Dion to the invitation sent to Corinth, which brought about the
mission of Timoleon. We are assured generally that it was a period
of intolerable conflicts, disorders, and suffering; that even
the temples and tombs were neglected;[277] that the people were
everywhere trampled down by despots and foreign mercenaries; that the
despots were frequently overthrown by violence or treachery, yet only
to be succeeded by others as bad or worse; that the multiplication of
foreign soldiers, seldom regularly paid, spread pillage and violence
everywhere.[278] The philosopher Plato—in a letter written about a
year or more after the death of Dion (seemingly after the expulsion
of Kallippus) and addressed to the surviving relatives and friends of
the latter—draws a lamentable picture of the state both of Syracuse
and Sicily. He goes so far as to say, that under the distraction
and desolation which prevailed, the Hellenic race and language were
likely to perish in the island, and give place to the Punic or
Oscan.[279] He adjures the contending parties at Syracuse to avert
this miserable issue by coming to a compromise, and by constituting a
moderate and popular government,—yet with some rights reserved to the
ruling families, among whom he desires to see a fraternal partnership
established, tripartite in its character; including Dionysius the
younger (now at Lokri)—Hipparinus son of the elder Dionysius—and
the son of Dion. On the absolute necessity of such compromise
and concord, to preserve both people and despots from one common
ruin, Plato delivers the most pathetic admonitions. He recommends
a triple coördinate kingship, passing by hereditary transmission
in the families of the three persons just named; and including the
presidency of religious ceremonies with an ample measure of dignity
and veneration, but very little active political power. Advising
that impartial arbitrators, respected by all, should be invoked to
settle terms for the compromise, he earnestly implores each of the
combatants to acquiesce peaceably in their adjudication.[280]

  [276] Plato, Epistol. viii. p. 353, 355, 356.

  [277] Plato, Epist. viii. 356 B. ἐλεῶν δὲ πατρίδα καὶ ἱερῶν
  ἀθεραπευσίαν καὶ τάφους, etc.

  [278] Plutarch, Timoleon, c. 1.

  [279] Plato, Epistol. viii. p. 353 F. ... διολέσθαι δ᾽ ὑπὸ τοῦ
  κύκλου τούτου καὶ τὸ τυραννικὸν ἅπαν καὶ τὸ δημοτικὸν γένος,
  ~ἥξει δὲ~, ἐάν περ τῶν εἰκότων γίγνηταί τι καὶ ἀπευκτῶν, ~σχεδὸν
  εἰς ἐρημίαν τῆς Ἑλληνικῆς φωνῆς Σικελία πᾶσα, Φοινίκων ἢ Ὀπικῶν
  μεταβαλοῦσα εἴς τινα δυναστεῖαν καὶ κράτος~. Τούτων δὴ χρὴ πάσῃ
  προθυμίᾳ πάντας τοὺς Ἕλληνας τέμνειν φάρμακον.

  [280] Plato, Epistol. viii. p. 356.

To Plato,—who saw before him the line double of Spartan kings, the
only hereditary kings in Greece,—the proposition of three coördinate
kingly families did not appear at all impracticable; nor indeed was
it so, considering the small extent of political power allotted
to them. But amidst the angry passions which then raged, and the
mass of evil which had been done and suffered on all sides, it was
not likely that any pacific arbitrator, of whatever position or
character, would find a hearing, or would be enabled to effect any
such salutary adjustment as had emanated from the Mantinean Dêmônax
at Kyrênê—between the discontented Kyreneans and the dynasty of the
Battiad princes.[281] Plato’s recommendation passed unheeded. He died
in 348-347 B. C., without seeing any mitigation of those Sicilian
calamities which saddened the last years of his long life. On the
contrary, the condition of Syracuse grew worse instead of better.
The younger Dionysius contrived to effect his return, expelling
Hipparinus and Nysæus from Ortygia, and establishing himself there
again as master. As he had a long train of past humiliation to
avenge, his rule was of that oppressive character which the ancient
proverb recognized as belonging to kings restored from exile.[282]

  [281] Herodot. iv. 161.

  [282] Plutarch, Timoleon, c. 1.

           ... Regnabis sanguine multo
    Ad regnum quisquis venit ab exilio.

Of all these princes descended from the elder Dionysius, not one
inherited the sobriety and temperance which had contributed so
much to his success. All of them are said to have been of drunken
and dissolute habits[283]—Dionysius the younger, and his son
Apollokrates, as well as Hipparinus and Nysæus. Hipparinus was
assassinated while in a fit of intoxication; so that Nysæus became
the representative of this family, until he was expelled from Ortygia
by the return of the younger Dionysius.

  [283] Aristotle and Theopompus, ap. Athenæum, x. p. 435, 436;
  Theopomp. Fragm. 146, 204, 213, ed. Didot.

That prince, since his first expulsion from Syracuse, had chiefly
resided at Lokri in Italy, of which city his mother Doris was a
native. It has already been stated that the elder Dionysius had
augmented and nursed up Lokri by every means in his power, as an
appurtenance of his own dominion at Syracuse. He had added to its
territory all the southernmost peninsula of Italy (comprehended
within a line drawn from the Gulf of Terina to that of Skylletium),
once belonging to Rhegium, Kaulonia, and Hipponium. But though the
power of Lokri was thus increased, it had ceased to be a free city,
being converted into a dependency of the Dionysian family.[284] As
such, it became the residence of the second Dionysius, when he could
no longer maintain himself in Syracuse. We know little of what he
did; though we are told that he revived a portion of the dismantled
city of Rhegium under the name of Phœbia.[285] Rhegium itself
reappears shortly afterwards as a community under its own name, and
was probably reconstituted at the complete downfall of the second
Dionysius.

  [284] Aristotel. Politic. v. 6, 7.

  [285] Strabo, vi. p. 258.

The season between 356-346 B. C., was one of great pressure and
suffering for all the Italiot Greeks, arising from the increased
power of the inland Lucanians and Bruttians. These Bruttians, who
occupied the southernmost Calabria, were a fraction detached from
the general body of Lucanians and self-emancipated; having consisted
chiefly of indigenous rural serfs in the mountain communities,
who threw off the sway of their Lucanian masters, and formed an
independent aggregate for themselves. These men, especially in
the energetic effort which marked their early independence, were
formidable enemies of the Greeks on the coast, from Tarentum to the
Sicilian strait; and more than a match even for the Spartans and
Epirots invited over by the Greeks as auxiliaries.

It appears that the second Dionysius, when he retired to Lokri
after the first loss of his power at Syracuse, soon found his rule
unacceptable and his person unpopular. He maintained himself,
seemingly from the beginning, by means of two distinct citadels in
the town, with a standing army under the command of the Spartan
Pharax, a man of profligacy and violence.[286] The conduct of
Dionysius became at last so odious, that nothing short of extreme
force could keep down the resentment of the citizens. We read that he
was in the habit of practising the most licentious outrage towards
the marriageable maidens of good family in Lokri. The detestation
thus raised against him was repressed by his superior force—not,
we may be sure, without numerous cruelties perpetrated against
individual persons who stood on their defence—until the moment
arrived when he and his son Apollokrates effected their second
return to Ortygia. To ensure so important an acquisition, Dionysius
diminished his military force at Lokri, where he at the same time
left his wife, his two daughters, and his youthful son. But after his
departure, the Lokrians rose in insurrection, overpowered the reduced
garrison, and took captive these unfortunate members of his family.
Upon their guiltless heads fell all the terrors of retaliation for
the enormities of the despot. It was in vain that both Dionysius
himself, and the Tarentines[287] supplicated permission to redeem
the captives at the highest ransom. In vain was Lokri besieged, and
its territory desolated. The Lokrians could neither be seduced by
bribes, nor deterred by threats, from satiating the full extremity
of vindictive fury. After multiplied cruelties and brutalities, the
wife and family of Dionysius were at length relieved from farther
suffering by being strangled.[288] With this revolting tragedy
terminated the inauspicious marital connection begun between the
elder Dionysius and the oligarchy of Lokri.

  [286] Plutarch, Timoleon, c. 11; Compar. Timoleon and Paul. Emil.
  c. 2; Theopompus ap. Athenæ. xii. p. 536; Plutarch, Reipub.
  Gerend. Præcept. p. 821 D. About the two citadels in Lokri, see
  Livy, xxix. 6.

  It may have been probably a predatory fleet in the service of
  the younger Dionysius, which Livy mentions to have been ravaging
  about this time the coast of Latium, coöperating with the Gauls
  against portions of the Roman territory (Livy, vii. 25, 26).

  [287] It would appear that relations of amity, or amicable
  dependence, still subsisted between Dionysius the younger and the
  Tarentines. There was seen, in the prytaneum or government-house
  of Tarentum, a splendid chandelier with three hundred and
  sixty-five burners, a present from Dionysius (Euphorion, ap.
  Athenæum, xv. p. 700).

  [288] Strabo, vi. p. 259, 260; Athenæus, xii. p. 541.

By the manner in which Dionysius exercised his power at Lokri, we
may judge how he would behave at Syracuse. The Syracusans endured
more evil than ever, without knowing where to look for help. Hiketas
the Syracusan (once the friend of Dion, ultimately the murderer of
the slain Dion’s widow and sister), had now established himself as
despot at Leontini. To him they turned as an auxiliary, hoping thus
to obtain force sufficient for the expulsion of Dionysius. Hiketas
gladly accepted the proposition, with full purpose of reaping the
reward of such expulsion, when achieved, for himself. Moreover,
a formidable cloud was now gathering from the side of Carthage.
What causes had rendered Carthage inactive for the last few years,
while Sicily was so weak and disunited—we do not know; but she had
now become once more aggressive, extending her alliances among the
despots of the island, and pouring in a large force and fleet, so as
to menace the independence both of Sicily and of Southern Italy.[289]
The appearance of this new enemy drove the Syracusans to despair,
and left them no hope of safety except in assistance from Corinth.
To that city they sent a pathetic and urgent appeal, setting forth
both the actual suffering and the approaching peril from without.
And such indeed was the peril, that even to a calm observer, it might
well seem as if the mournful prophecy of Plato was on the point of
receiving fulfilment—Hellenism as well as freedom becoming extinct on
the island.

  [289] Diodor. xvi. 67.

To the invocation of Corinthian aid, Hiketas was a party; yet an
unwilling party. He had made up his mind that for his purpose, it
was better to join the Carthaginians, with whom he had already
opened negotiations—and to employ their forces, first in expelling
Dionysius, next in ruling Syracuse for himself. But these were
schemes not to be yet divulged: accordingly, Hiketas affected to
concur in the pressing entreaty sent by the Syracusans to Corinth,
intending from the beginning to frustrate its success.[290] He
expected indeed that the Corinthians would themselves decline
compliance: for the enterprise proposed to them was full of
difficulty; they had neither injury to avenge, nor profit to expect;
while the force of sympathy, doubtless not inconsiderable, with a
suffering colony, would probably be neutralized by the unsettled and
degraded condition into which all Central Greece was now rapidly
sinking, under the ambitious strides of Philip of Macedon.

  [290] Plutarch, Timoleon, c. 2.

The Syracusan envoys reached Corinth at a favorable moment. But
it is melancholy to advert to the aggregate diminution of Grecian
power, as compared with the time when (seventy years before) their
forefathers had sent thither to solicit aid against the besieging
armament of Athens; a time when Athens, Sparta, and Syracuse herself,
were all in exuberant vigor as well as unimpaired freedom. However,
the Corinthians happened at this juncture to have their hands as
well as their minds tolerably free, so that the voice of genuine
affliction, transmitted from the most esteemed of all their colonies,
was heard with favor and sympathy. A decree was passed, heartily and
unanimously, to grant the aid solicited.[291]

  [291] Plutarch, Timoleon, c. 3.

The next step was to choose a leader. But a leader was not easily
found. The enterprise presented little temptation, with danger and
difficulty abundant as well as certain. The hopeless discord of
Syracuse for years past, was well known to all the leading Corinthian
politicians or generals. Of all or most of these, the names were
successively put up by the archons; but all with one accord
declined. At length, while the archons hesitated whom to fix upon,
an unknown voice in the crowd pronounced the name of Timoleon, son
of Timodemus. The mover seemed prompted by divine inspiration;[292]
so little obvious was the choice, and so preëminently excellent did
it prove. Timoleon was named—without difficulty, and without much
intention of doing him honor—to a post which all the other leading
men declined.

  [292] Plutarch, Timoleon, c. 3. ἀλλὰ θεοῦ τινος, ὡς ἔοικεν, εἰς
  νοῦν ἐμβαλόντος τῷ ἀνθρώπῳ, etc.

Some points must be here noticed in the previous history of this
remarkable man. He belonged to an illustrious family in Corinth,
and was now of mature age—perhaps about fifty. He was distinguished
no less for his courage than for the gentleness of his disposition.
Little moved either by personal vanity or by ambition, he was
devoted in his patriotism, and unreserved in his hatred of despots
as well as of traitors.[293] The government of Corinth was, and
always had been, oligarchical; but it was a regular, constitutional,
oligarchy; while the Corinthian antipathy against despots was of old
standing[294]—hardly less strong than that of democratical Athens.
As a soldier in the ranks of Corinthian hoplites, the bravery of
Timoleon, and his submission to discipline, were alike remarkable.

  [293] Plutarch, Timoleon, c. 3 ... φιλόπατρις δὲ καὶ πρᾶος
  διαφερόντως, ὅσα μὴ σφόδρα μισοτύραννος εἶναι καὶ μισοπόνηρος.

  [294] Herodot. v. 92.

These points of his character stood out the more forcibly from
contrast with his elder brother Timophanes; who possessed the
soldierlike merits of bravery and energetic enterprise, but combined
with them an unprincipled ambition, and an unscrupulous prosecution
of selfish advancement at all cost to others. The military qualities
of Timophanes, however, gained for him so much popularity, that he
was placed high as an officer in the Corinthian service. Timoleon,
animated with a full measure of brotherly attachment, not only tried
to screen his defects as well as to set off his merits, but also
incurred the greatest perils for the purpose of saving his life. In a
battle against the Argeians and Kleonæans, Timophanes was commanding
the cavalry, when his horse, being wounded, threw him on the ground,
very near to the enemy. The remaining horsemen fled, leaving their
commander to what seemed certain destruction; but Timoleon, who was
serving among the hoplites, rushed singly forth from the ranks with
his utmost speed, and covered Timophanes with his shield, when the
enemy were just about to pierce him. He made head single-handed
against them, warding off numerous spears and darts, and successfully
protected his fallen brother until succor arrived; though at the cost
of several wounds to himself.[295]

  [295] Plutarch, Timoleon, c. 4. At what time this battle took
  place cannot be made out.

This act of generous devotion raised great admiration towards
Timoleon. But it also procured sympathy for Timophanes, who less
deserved it. The Corinthians had recently incurred great risk of
seeing their city fall into the hands of their Athenian allies, who
had laid a plan to seize it, but were disappointed through timely
notice given at Corinth.[296] To arm the people being regarded as
dangerous to the existing oligarchy,[297] it was judged expedient
to equip a standing force of four hundred paid foreign soldiers,
and establish them as a permanent garrison in the strong and lofty
citadel. The command of this garrison, with the mastery of the fort,
was intrusted to Timophanes. A worse choice could not have been
made. The new commander—seconded not only by his regiment and his
strong position, but also by some violent partisans whom he took
into his pay and armed, among the poorer citizens—speedily stood
forth as despot, taking the whole government into his own hands. He
seized numbers of the chief citizens, probably all the members of
the oligarchical councils who resisted his orders, and put them to
death without even form of trial.[298] Now, when it was too late,
the Corinthians repented of the mistaken vote which had raised up a
new Periander among them. But to Timoleon, the crimes of his brother
occasioned an agony of shame and sorrow. He first went up to the
acropolis[299] to remonstrate with him; conjuring him emphatically,
by the most sacred motives public as well as private, to renounce
his disastrous projects. Timophanes repudiated the appeal with
contempt. Timoleon had now to choose between his brother and his
country. Again he went to the acropolis, accompanied by Æschylus,
brother of the wife of Timophanes—by the prophet Orthagoras, his
intimate friend—perhaps also by another friend named Telekleides.
Admitted into the presence of Timophanes, they renewed their prayers
and supplications; urging him even yet to recede from his tyrannical
courses. But all their pleading was without effect. Timophanes first
laughed them to scorn; presently, he became exasperated, and would
hear no more. Finding words unavailing, they now drew their swords
and put him to death. Timoleon lent no hand in the deed, but stood a
little way off, with his face hidden, and in a flood of tears.[300]

  [296] Plutarch, Timoleon, c. 4. Ἐπεὶ δ᾽ οἱ Κορίνθιοι, δεδιότες μὴ
  πάθοιεν οἷα καὶ πρότερον ὑπὸ τῶν συμμάχων ἀποβαλόντες τὴν πόλιν,
  etc.

  The Corinthians were carrying on war, in conjunction with Athens
  and Sparta, against Thebes, when (in 366 B. C.) the Athenians
  laid their plan for seizing the city. The Corinthians, having
  heard of it in time, took measures to frustrate it. See Xenophon,
  Hellen. vii. 4, 4-5.

  [297] Aristotel. Politic, v. 5, 9.

  [298] Plutarch, Timoleon, c. 4. συχνοὺς ἀνελὼν ἀκρίτους τῶν
  πρώτων πολιτῶν, ἀνέδειξεν αὐτὸς ἑαυτὸν τύραννον.

  Diodorus (xvi. 65) coincides in the main fact—but differs in
  several details.

  [299] Plutarch, Timoleon, c. 4. αὖθις ~ἀνέβη~ πρὸς τὸν ἀδελφὸν,
  etc.

  [300] Plutarch, Timoleon, c. 4; Cornelius Nepos, Timol. c. 1;
  Plutarch, Reipub. Gerend. Præcept. p. 808 A. That Telekleides was
  present and took part in the deed—though Plutarch directly names
  only Æschylus and Orthagoras—seems to be implied in an indirect
  allusion afterwards (c. 7), where Telekleides says to Timoleon
  after his nomination to the Sicilian command, Ἂν νῦν καλῶς
  ἀγωνίσῃς τύραννον ἀνῃρηκέναι ~δόξομεν~· ἂν δὲ φαυλῶς, ἀδελφόν.

  The presence of the prophet seems to show, that they had just
  been offering sacrifice, to ascertain the will of the gods
  respecting what they were about to do.

  Nepos says that Timoleon was not actually present at the moment
  of his brother’s death, but stood out of the room to prevent
  assistance from arriving.

  Diodorus (xvi. 65) states that Timoleon slew his brother in the
  market place. But the account of Plutarch appears preferable.

With the life of Timophanes passed away the despotism which had
already begun its crushing influence upon the Corinthians. The
mercenary force was either dismissed, or placed in safe hands;
the acropolis became again part of a free city; the Corinthian
constitution was revived as before. In what manner this change was
accomplished, or with what measure of violence it was accompanied,
we are left in ignorance; for Plutarch tells us hardly anything
except what personally concerns Timoleon. We learn however that the
expressions of joy among the citizens, at the death of Timophanes and
the restoration of the constitution, were vehement and universal.
So strongly did this tide of sentiment run, as to carry along with
it, in appearance, even those who really regretted the departed
despotism. Afraid to say what they really felt about the deed,
these men gave only the more abundant utterance to their hatred
of the doer. Though it was good that Timophanes should be killed
(they said), yet that he should be killed by his brother, and his
brother-in-law, was a deed which tainted both the actors with
inexpiable guilt and abomination. The majority of the Corinthian
public, however, as well as the most distinguished citizens, took a
view completely opposite. They expressed the warmest admiration as
well for the doer as for the deed. They extolled the combination of
warm family affection with devoted magnanimity and patriotism, each
in its right place and properly balanced, which marked the conduct of
Timoleon. He had displayed his fraternal affection by encountering
the greatest perils in the battle, in order to preserve the life of
Timophanes. But when that brother, instead of an innocent citizen,
became the worst enemy of Corinth, Timoleon had then obeyed the
imperative call of patriotism, to the disregard not less of his own
comfort and interest than of fraternal affection.[301]

  [301] Plutarch, Timoleon, c. 5.

Such was the decided verdict pronounced by the majority—a majority as
well in value as in number—respecting the behavior of Timoleon. In
his mind, however, the general strain of encomium was not sufficient
to drown, or even to compensate, the language of reproach, in itself
so much more pungent, which emanated from the minority. Among that
minority too was found one person whose single voice told with
profound impression—his mother Demaristê, mother also of the slain
Timophanes. Demaristê not only thought of her murdered son with the
keenest maternal sorrow, but felt intense horror and execration
for the authors of the deed. She imprecated curses on the head of
Timoleon, refused even to see him again, and shut her doors against
his visits, in spite of earnest supplications.

There wanted nothing more to render Timoleon thoroughly miserable,
amidst the almost universal gratitude of Corinth. Of his strong
fraternal affection for Timophanes, his previous conduct leaves no
doubt. Such affection had to be overcome before he accompanied his
tyrannicidal friends to the acropolis, and doubtless flowed back
with extreme bitterness upon his soul, after the deed was done. But
when to this internal source of distress, was added the sight of
persons who shrank from contact with him as a fratricide, together
with the sting of the maternal Erinnys—he became agonized even to
distraction. Life was odious to him; he refused for some time all
food, and determined to starve himself to death. Nothing but the
pressing solicitude of friends prevented him from executing the
resolve. But no consoling voice could impart to him spirit for the
duties of public life. He fled the city and the haunts of men,
buried himself in solitude amidst his fields in the country, and
refrained from seeing or speaking to any one. For several years
he thus hid himself like a self-condemned criminal; and even when
time had somewhat mitigated the intensity of his anguish, he still
shunned every prominent position, performing nothing more than his
indispensable duties as a citizen. An interval of twenty years[302]
had now elapsed from the death of Timophanes, to the arrival of the
Syracusan application for aid. During all this time, Timoleon, in
spite of the sympathy and willingness of admiring fellow-citizens,
had never once chosen to undertake any important command or office.
At length the _vox Dei_ is heard, unexpectedly, amidst the crowd;
dispelling the tormenting nightmare which had so long oppressed his
soul, and restoring him to healthy and honorable action.

  [302] Plutarch, Timoleon, c. 7.

There is no doubt that the conduct of Timoleon and Æschylus in
killing Timophanes was in the highest degree tutelary to Corinth. The
despot had already imbrued his hands in the blood of his countrymen,
and would have been condemned, by fatal necessity, to go on from
bad to worse, multiplying the number of victims, as a condition of
preserving his own power. To say that the deed ought not to have
been done by near relatives, was tantamount to saying, that it ought
not to have been done at all; for none but near relatives could
have obtained that easy access which enabled them to effect it. And
even Timoleon and Æschylus could not make the attempt without the
greatest hazard to themselves. Nothing was more likely than that
the death of Timophanes would be avenged on the spot; nor are we
told how they escaped such vengeance from the soldiers at hand. It
has been already stated that the contemporary sentiment towards
Timoleon was divided between admiration of the heroic patriot, and
abhorrence of the fratricide; yet with a large preponderance on the
side of admiration, especially in the highest and best minds. In
modern times the preponderance would be in the opposite scale. The
sentiment of duty towards family covers a larger proportion of the
field of morality, as compared with obligations towards country,
than it did in ancient times; while that intense antipathy against
a despot who overtops and overrides the laws, regarding him as the
worst of criminals—which stood in the foreground of the ancient
virtuous feeling—has now disappeared. Usurpation of the supreme
authority is regarded generally among the European public as a crime,
only where it displaces an established king already in possession;
where there is no king, the successful usurper finds sympathy rather
than censure: and few readers would have been displeased with
Timoleon, had he even seconded his brother’s attempt. But in the
view of Timoleon and of his age generally, even neutrality appeared
in the light of treason to his country, when no other man but him
could rescue her from the despot. This sentiment is strikingly
embodied in the comments of Plutarch; who admires the fraternal
tyrannicide, as an act of sublime patriotism, and only complains
that the internal emotions of Timoleon were not on a level with
the sublimity of the act; that the great mental suffering which
he endured afterwards, argued an unworthy weakness of character;
that the conviction of imperative patriotic duty, having been once
deliberately adopted, ought to have steeled him against scruples,
and preserved him from that after-shame and repentance which spoiled
half the glory of an heroic act. The antithesis, between Plutarch
and the modern European point of view, is here pointed; though I
think his criticism unwarranted. There is no reason to presume
that Timoleon ever felt ashamed and repentant for having killed
his brother. Placed in the mournful condition of a man agitated by
conflicting sentiments, and obeying that which he deemed to carry the
most sacred obligation, he of necessity suffered from the violation
of the other. Probably the reflection that he had himself saved the
life of Timophanes, only that the latter might destroy the liberties
of his country—contributed materially to his ultimate resolution; a
resolution, in which Æschylus, another near relative, took even a
larger share than he.

It was in this state of mind that Timoleon was called upon to take
the command of the auxiliaries for Syracuse. As soon as the vote
had passed, Telekleides addressed to him a few words, emphatically
exhorting him to strain every nerve, and to show what he was
worth—with this remarkable point in conclusion—“If you now come off
with success and glory, we shall pass for having slain a despot; if
you fail, we shall be held as fratricides.”[303]

  [303] Plutarch, Timoleon, c. 7. Diodorus (xvi. 65) states this
  striking antithesis as if it was put by the senate to Timoleon,
  on conferring upon him the new command. He represents the
  application from Syracuse as having come to Corinth shortly after
  the death of Timophanes, and while the trial of Timoleon was
  yet pending. He says that the senate nominated Timoleon to the
  command, in order to escape the necessity of pronouncing sentence
  one way or the other.

  I follow the account of Plutarch, as preferable, in recognizing a
  long interval between the death of Timophanes and the application
  from Syracuse an interval of much mental suffering to Timoleon.

He immediately commenced his preparation of ships and soldiers. But
the Corinthians, though they had resolved on the expedition, were
not prepared either to vote any considerable subsidy, or to serve in
large numbers as volunteers. The means of Timoleon were so extremely
limited, that he was unable to equip more than seven triremes, to
which the Korkyræans (animated by common sympathy for Syracuse, as
of old in the time of the despot Hippokrates[304]) added two more,
and the Leukadians one. Nor could he muster more than one thousand
soldiers, reinforced afterwards on the voyage to twelve hundred. A
few of the principal Corinthians—Eukleides, Telemachus and Neon,
among them—accompanied him. But the soldiers seem to have been
chiefly miscellaneous mercenaries,—some of whom had served under the
Phokians in the Sacred war (recently brought to a close), and had
incurred so much odium as partners in the spoliation of the Delphian
temple, that they were glad to take foreign service anywhere.[305]

  [304] Herodot. vii. 155.

  [305] Plutarch, Timoleon, c. 8, 11, 12, 30; Diodor, xvi. 66;
  Plutarch, Ser. Num. Vind. p. 552. In the Aristotelian treatise,
  Rhetorica ad Alexandrum, s. 9, Timoleon is said to have had
  _nine_ ships.

Some enthusiasm was indeed required to determine volunteers in an
enterprise of which the formidable difficulties, and the doubtful
reward, were obvious from the beginning. But even before the
preparations were completed, news came which seemed to render it all
but hopeless. Hiketas sent a second mission, retracting all that he
said in the first, and desiring that no expedition might be sent from
Corinth. Not having received Corinthian aid in time (he said), he had
been compelled to enter into alliance with the Carthaginians, who
would not permit any Corinthian soldiers to set foot in Sicily. This
communication, greatly exasperating the Corinthians against Hiketas,
rendered them more hearty in votes to put him down. Yet their zeal
for active service, far from being increased, was probably even
abated by the aggravation of obstacles thus revealed. If Timoleon
even reached Sicily, he would find numberless enemies, without a
single friend of importance:—for without Hiketas, the Syracusan
people were almost helpless. But it now seemed impossible that
Timoleon with his small force could ever touch the Sicilian shore, in
the face of a numerous and active Carthaginian fleet.[306]

  [306] Plutarch, Timoleon, c. 7.

While human circumstances thus seemed hostile, the gods held out to
Timoleon the most favorable signs and omens. Not only did he receive
an encouraging answer at Delphi, but while he was actually in the
temple, a fillet with intertwined wreaths and symbols of victory fell
from one of the statues upon his head. The priestesses of Persephonê
learnt from the goddess in a dream, that she was about to sail with
Timoleon for Sicily, her own favorite island. Accordingly he caused
a new special trireme to be fitted out, sacred to the Two goddesses
(Dêmêtêr and Persephonê) who were about to accompany him. And when,
after leaving Korkyra, the squadron struck across for a night voyage
to the Italian coast, this sacred trireme was seen illumined by a
blaze of light from heaven; while a burning torch on high, similar
to that which was usually carried in the Eleusinian mysteries,
ran along with the ship and guided the pilot to the proper landing
place at Metapontum. Such manifestations of divine presence and
encouragement, properly certified and commented upon by the prophets,
rendered the voyage one of universal hopefulness to the armament.[307]

  [307] Plutarch, Timoleon, c. 8; Diodor. xvi. 66.

These hopes, however, were sadly damped, when after disregarding
a formal notice from a Carthaginian man-of-war, they sailed down
the coast of Italy and at last reached Rhegium. This city, having
been before partially revived under the name of Phœbia, by the
younger Dionysius, appears now as reconstituted under its old name
and with its full former autonomy, since the overthrow of his rule
at Lokri and in Italy generally. Twenty Carthaginian triremes,
double the force of Timoleon, were found at Rhegium awaiting his
arrival—with envoys from Hiketas aboard. These envoys came with
what they pretended to be good news. “Hiketas had recently gained a
capital victory over Dionysius, whom he had expelled from most part
of Syracuse, and was now blocking up in Ortygia; with hopes of soon
starving him out, by the aid of a Carthaginian fleet. The common
enemy being thus at the end of his resources, the war could not be
prolonged. Hiketas therefore trusted that Timoleon would send back
to Corinth his fleet and troops, now become superfluous. If Timoleon
would do this, he (Hiketas) would be delighted to see him personally
at Syracuse, and would gladly consult him in the resettlement of that
unhappy city. But he could not admit the Corinthian armament into
the island; moreover, even had he been willing, the Carthaginians
peremptorily forbade it, and were prepared, in case of need, to repel
it with their superior naval force now in the strait.”[308]

  [308] Plutarch, Timoleon, c. 9; Diodor. xvi. 68.

The game which Hiketas was playing with the Carthaginians now stood
plainly revealed, to the vehement indignation of the armament.
Instead of being their friend, or even neutral, he was nothing less
than a pronounced enemy, emancipating Syracuse from Dionysius only
to divide it between himself and the Carthaginians. Yet with all
the ardor of the armament, it was impossible to cross the strait
in opposition to an enemy’s fleet of double force. Accordingly
Timoleon resorted to a stratagem, in which the leaders and people
of Rhegium, eagerly sympathizing with his projects of Sicilian
emancipation, coöperated. In an interview with the envoys of Hiketas
as well as with the Carthaginian commanders, he affected to accept
the conditions prescribed by Hiketas; admitting at once that it was
useless to stand out. But he at the same time reminded them, that
he had been intrusted with the command of the armament for Sicilian
purposes,—and that he should be a disgraced man, if he now conducted
it back without touching the island; except under the pressure of
some necessity not merely real, but demonstrable to all and attested
by unexceptionable witnesses. He therefore desired them to appear,
along with him, before the public assembly of Rhegium, a neutral
city and common friend of both parties. They would then publicly
repeat the communication which they had already made to him, and they
would enter into formal engagement for the good treatment of the
Syracusans, as soon as Dionysius should be expelled. Such proceeding
would make the people of Rhegium witnesses on both points. They would
testify on his (Timoleon’s) behalf, when he came to defend himself
at Corinth, that he had turned his back only before invincible
necessity, and that he had exacted everything in his power in the
way of guarantee for Syracuse; they would testify also on behalf of
the Syracusans, in case the guarantee now given should be hereafter
evaded.[309]

  [309] Plutarch, Timoleon, c. 10.

Neither the envoys of Hiketas, nor the Carthaginian commanders, had
any motive to decline what seemed to them an unmeaning ceremony. Both
of them accordingly attended, along with Timoleon, before the public
assembly of Rhegium formally convened. The gates of the city were
closed (a practice usual during the time of a public assembly): the
Carthaginian men-of-war lay as usual near at hand, but in no state
for immediate movement, and perhaps with many of the crews ashore;
since all chance of hostility seemed to be past. What had been
already communicated to Timoleon from Hiketas and the Carthaginians,
was now repeated in formal deposition before the assembly; the envoys
of Hiketas probably going into the case more at length, with certain
flourishes of speech prompted by their own vanity. Timoleon stood by
as an attentive listener; but before he could rise to reply, various
Rhegine speakers came forward with comments or questions, which
called up the envoys again. A long time was thus insensibly wasted,
Timoleon often trying to get an opportunity to speak, but being
always apparently constrained to give way to some obtrusive Rhegine.
During this long time, however, his triremes in the harbor were not
idle. One by one, with as little noise as possible, they quitted
their anchorage and rowed out to sea, directing their course towards
Sicily. The Carthaginian fleet, though seeing this proceeding,
neither knew what it meant, nor had any directions to prevent it. At
length the other Grecian triremes were all afloat and in progress;
that of Timoleon alone remaining in the harbor. Intimation being
secretly given to him as he sat in the assembly, he slipped away
from the crowd, his friends concealing his escape—and got aboard
immediately. His absence was not discovered at first, the debate
continuing as if he were still present, and intentionally prolonged
by the Rhegine speakers. At length the truth could no longer be kept
back. The envoys and the Carthaginians found out that the assembly
and the debate were mere stratagems, and that their real enemy had
disappeared. But they found it out too late. Timoleon with his
triremes was already on the voyage to Tauromenium in Sicily, where
all arrived safe and without opposition. Overreached and humiliated,
his enemies left the assembly in vehement wrath against the Rhegines,
who reminded them that Carthaginians ought to be the last to complain
of deception in others.[310]

  [310] Plutarch, Timoleon, c. 10, 11.

The well-managed stratagem, whereby Timoleon had overcome a
difficulty to all appearance insurmountable, exalted both his own
fame and the spirits of his soldiers. They were now safe in Sicily,
at Tauromenium, a recent settlement near the site of the ancient
Naxos: receiving hearty welcome from Andromachus, the leading citizen
of the place—whose influence was so mildly exercised, and gave such
complete satisfaction, that it continued through and after the reform
of Timoleon, when the citizens might certainly have swept it away
if they had desired. Andromachus, having been forward in inviting
Timoleon to come, now prepared to coöperate with him, and returned
a spirited reply to the menaces sent over from Rhegium by the
Carthaginians, after they had vainly pursued the Corinthian squadron
to Tauromenium.

But Andromachus and Tauromenium were but petty auxiliaries compared
with the enemies against whom Timoleon had to contend; enemies
now more formidable than ever. For Hiketas, incensed with the
stratagem practised at Rhegium, and apprehensive of interruption
to the blockade which he was carrying on against Ortygia, sent for
an additional squadron of Carthaginian men-of-war to Syracuse;
the harbor of which place was presently completely beset.[311]
A large Carthaginian land force was also acting under Hanno in
the western regions of the island, with considerable success
against the Campanians of Entella and others.[312] The Sicilian
towns had their native despots, Mamerkus at Katana—Leptines
at Apollonia[313]—Nikodemus at Kentoripa—Apolloniades at
Agyrium[314]—from whom Timoleon could expect no aid, except in so
far as they might feel predominant fear of the Carthaginians. And
the Syracusans, even when they heard of his arrival at Tauromenium,
scarcely ventured to indulge hopes of serious relief from such a
handful of men, against the formidable array of Hiketas and the
Carthaginians under their walls. Moreover, what guarantee had they
that Timoleon would turn out better than Dion, Kallippus, and others
before him? seductive promisers of emancipation, who, if they
succeeded, forgot the words by which they had won men’s hearts,
and thought only of appropriating to themselves the sceptre of the
previous despot, perhaps even aggravating all that was bad in his
rule? Such was the question asked by many a suffering citizen of
Syracuse, amidst that despair and sickness of heart which made the
name of an armed liberator sound only like a new deceiver and a new
scourge.[315]

  [311] Plutarch, Timoleon, c. 11.

  [312] Diodor. xvi. 67.

  [313] Plutarch, Timoleon, c. 13-24; Diodor. xvi. 72.

  [314] Diodor. xvi. 82.

  [315] Plutarch, Timoleon, c. 11.

It was by acts alone that Timoleon could refute such well-grounded
suspicions. But at first, no one believed in him; nor could he
escape the baneful effects of that mistrust which his predecessors
had everywhere inspired. The messengers whom he sent round were so
coldly received, that he seemed likely to find no allies beyond the
walls of Tauromenium.

At length one invitation, of great importance, reached him—from the
town of Adranum, about forty miles inland from Tauromenium; a native
Sikel town, seemingly in part hellenized, inconsiderable in size, but
venerated as sacred to the god Adranus, whose worship was diffused
throughout all Sicily. The Adranites being politically divided, at
the same time that one party sent the invitation to Timoleon, the
other despatched a similar message to Hiketas. Either at Syracuse or
Leontini, Hiketas was nearer to Adranum than Timoleon at Tauromenium;
and lost no time in marching thither, with five thousand troops, to
occupy so important a place. He arrived there in the evening, found
no enemy, and established his camp without the walls, believing
himself already master of the place. Timoleon, with his inferior
numbers, knew that he had no chance of success except in surprise.
Accordingly, on setting out from Tauromenium, he made no great
progress the first day, in order that no report of his approach might
reach Adranum; but on the next morning he marched with the greatest
possible effort, taking the shortest, yet most rugged paths. On
arriving within about three miles of Adranum, he was informed that
the troops from Syracuse, having just finished their march, had
encamped near the town, not aware of any enemy near. His officers
were anxious that the men should be refreshed after their very
fatiguing march, before they ventured to attack an army four times
superior in number. But Timoleon earnestly protested against any
such delay, entreating them to follow him at once against the enemy,
as the only chance of finding them unprepared. To encourage them,
he at once took up his shield and marched at their head, carrying
it on his arm (the shield of the general was habitually carried for
him by an orderly), in spite of the fatiguing march, which he had
himself performed on foot as well as they. The soldiers obeyed, and
the effort was crowned by complete success. The troops of Hiketas,
unarmed and at their suppers, were taken so completely by surprise,
that in spite of their superior number, they fled with scarce any
resistance. From the rapidity of their flight, three hundred of them
only were slain, But six hundred were made prisoners, and the whole
camp, including its appurtenances, was taken, with scarcely the loss
of a man. Hiketas escaped with the rest to Syracuse.[316]

  [316] Plutarch, Timoleon, c. 12; Diodor. xvi. 68. Diodorus and
  Plutarch agree in the numbers both of killed and of prisoners on
  the side of Hiketas.

This victory, so rapidly and skilfully won—and the acquisition of
Adranum which followed it—produced the strongest sensation throughout
Sicily. It counted even for more than a victory; it was a declaration
of the gods in favor of Timoleon. The inhabitants of the holy
town, opening their gates and approaching him with awe-stricken
reverence, recounted the visible manifestations of the god Adranus
in his favor. At the moment when the battle was commencing, they
had seen the portals of their temple spontaneously burst open, and
the god brandishing his spear, with profuse perspiration on his
face.[317] Such facts,—verified and attested in a place of peculiar
sanctity, and circulated from thence throughout the neighboring
communities,—contributed hardly less than the victory to exalt the
glory of Timoleon. He received offers of alliance from Tyndaris and
several other towns, as well as from Mamerkus despot of Katana,
one of the most warlike and powerful princes in the island.[318]
So numerous were the reinforcements thus acquired, and so much was
his confidence enhanced by recent success, that he now ventured to
march even under the walls of Syracuse, and defy Hiketas; who did not
think it prudent to hazard a second engagement with the victor of
Adranum.[319]

  [317] Plutarch, Timoleon, c. 12.

  [318] Plutarch, Timoleon, c. 13; Diodor. xvi. 69.

  [319] Diodor. xvi. 68, 69. That Timoleon marched up to Syracuse,
  is stated by Diodorus, though not by Plutarch. I follow Diodorus
  so far; because it makes the subsequent proceedings in regard to
  Dionysius more clear and intelligible.

  But Diodorus adds two further matters, which cannot be correct.
  He affirms that Timoleon pursued Hiketas at a running pace
  (δρομαῖος) immediately from the field of battle at Adranum to
  Syracuse; and that he then got possession of the portion of
  Syracuse called Epipolæ.

  Now it was with some difficulty that Timoleon could get his
  troops even up to the field of battle at Adranum, without some
  previous repose; so long and fatiguing was the march which they
  had undergone from Tauromenium. It is therefore impossible that
  they can have been either inclined or competent to pursue (at
  a rapid pace) Hiketas immediately from the field of battle at
  Adranum to Syracuse.

  Next, it will appear from subsequent operations, that Timoleon
  did not, on this occasion, get possession of any other portion of
  Syracuse than the Islet Ortygia, surrendered to him by Dionysius.
  He did not enter Epipolæ until afterwards.

Hiketas was still master of all Syracuse—except Ortygia, against
which he had constructed lines of blockade, in conjunction with
the Carthaginian fleet occupying the harbor. Timoleon was in no
condition to attack the place, and would have been obliged speedily
to retire, as his enemies did not choose to come out. But it was soon
seen that the manifestations of the Two goddesses, and of the god
Adranus, in his favor, were neither barren nor delusive. A real boon
was now thrown into his lap, such as neither skill nor valor could
have won. Dionysius, blocked up in Ortygia with a scanty supply of
provisions, saw from his walls the approaching army of Timoleon, and
heard of the victory of Adranum. He had already begun to despair of
his own position of Ortygia;[320] where indeed he might perhaps hold
out by bold effort and steady endurance, but without any reasonable
chance of again becoming master of Syracuse; a chance which Timoleon
and the Corinthian intervention cut off more decidedly than ever.
Dionysius was a man not only without the energetic character and
personal ascendency of his father, which might have made head
against such difficulties—but indolent and drunken in his habits,
not relishing a sceptre when it could only be maintained by hard
fighting, nor stubborn enough to stand out to the last merely as a
cause of war.[321] Under these dispositions, the arrival of Timoleon
both suggested to him the idea, and furnished him with the means, of
making his resignation subservient to the purchase of a safe asylum
and comfortable future maintenance: for to a Grecian despot, with
the odium of past severities accumulated upon his head, abnegation
of power was hardly ever possible, consistent with personal
security.[322] But Dionysius felt assured that he might trust to the
guarantee of Timoleon and the Corinthians for shelter and protection
at Corinth, with as much property as he could carry away with him;
since he had the means of purchasing such guarantee by the surrender
of Ortygia—a treasure of inestimable worth. Accordingly he resolved
to propose a capitulation, and sent envoys to Timoleon for the
purpose.

  [320] Plutarch, Timoleon, c. 13. ἀπειρηκὼς ἤδη ταῖς ἐλπίσι καὶ
  μικρὸν ἀπολιπὼν ἐκπολιορκεῖσθαι, etc.

  [321] Tacitus, Histor. iii. 70. Respecting the last days of the
  Emperor Vitellius, “Ipse, neque jubendi neque vetandi potens, non
  jam Imperator, sed tantum belli causa erat.”

  [322] See, among other illustrations of this fact, the striking
  remark of Solon (Plutarch, Solon, c. 14).

There was little difficulty in arranging terms. Dionysius stipulated
only for a safe transit with his movable property to Corinth, and
for an undisturbed residence in that city; tendering in exchange
the unconditional surrender of Ortygia with all its garrison, arms,
and magazines. The convention was concluded forthwith, and three
Corinthian officers—Telemachus, Eukleides and Neon—were sent in with
four hundred men to take charge of the place. Their entrance was
accomplished safely, though they were obliged to elude the blockade
by stealing in at several times, and in small companies. Making over
to them the possession of Ortygia with the command of its garrison,
Dionysius passed, with some money and a small number of companions,
into the camp of Timoleon; who conveyed him away, leaving at the same
time the neighborhood of Syracuse.[323]

  [323] Plutarch, Timoleon, c. 13; Diodor. xvi. 70. Diodorus
  appears to me to misdate these facts; placing the capitulation of
  Dionysius and the surrender of Ortygia to Timoleon, _after_ the
  capture of the other portion of Syracuse by Timoleon. I follow
  Plutarch’s chronology, which places the capitulation of Ortygia
  first.

Conceive the position and feelings of Dionysius, a prisoner in the
camp of Timoleon, traversing that island over which his father as
well as himself had reigned all-powerful, and knowing himself to
be the object of either hatred or contempt to every one,—except so
far as the immense boon which he had conferred, by surrendering
Ortygia, purchased for him an indulgent forbearance! He was doubtless
eager for immediate departure to Corinth, while Timoleon was no
less anxious to send him thither, as the living evidence of triumph
accomplished. Although not fifty days[324] had yet elapsed, since
Timoleon’s landing in Sicily, he was enabled already to announce a
decisive victory, a great confederacy grouped around him, and the
possession of the inexpugnable position of Ortygia, with a garrison
equal in number to his own army; the despatches being accompanied
by the presence of that very despot, bearing the terrific name
of Dionysius, against whom the expedition had been chiefly aimed!
Timoleon sent a special trireme[325] to Corinth, carrying Dionysius,
and communicating important events, together with the convention
which guaranteed to the dethroned ruler an undisturbed residence in
that city.

  [324] Plutarch, Timoleon, c. 16.

  [325] Theopompus stated that Dionysius had gone from Sicily to
  Corinth in a merchant ship (νηῒ στρογγύλῃ). Timæus contradicted
  this assertion seemingly with his habitual asperity, and stated
  that Dionysius had been sent in a ship of war (νηῒ μακρᾷ). See
  Timæus, Fragment 133; Theopompus, Fragm. 216, ed. Didot.

  Diodorus (xvi. 70) copies Theopompus.

  Polybius (xii. 4 _a_) censures Timæus for cavilling at such
  small inaccuracies, as if the difference between the two were
  not worth noticing. Probably the language of Timæus may have
  deserved blame as ill-mannered; but the matter of fact appears to
  me to have been perfectly worth correcting. To send Dionysius in
  a trireme, was treating him as prisoner in a respectful manner,
  which Timoleon was doubtless bound to do; and which he would be
  inclined to do on his own account—seeing that he had a strong
  interest in making the entry of Dionysius as a captive into
  Corinth, an impressive sight. Moreover the trireme would reach
  Corinth more speedily than the merchantman.

  That Dionysius should go in a merchant-ship, was one additional
  evidence of fallen fortune; and this seems to have been the
  reason why it was taken up by Theopompus—from the passion,
  prevalent among so many Greek authors, for exaggerating contrasts.

The impression produced at Corinth by the arrival of this trireme
and its passengers was powerful beyond all parallel. Astonishment
and admiration were universal; for the expedition of Timoleon had
started as a desperate venture, in which scarce one among the leading
Corinthians had been disposed to embark; nor had any man conceived
the possibility of success so rapid as well as so complete. But the
victorious prospect in Sicily, with service under the fortunate
general, was now the general passion of the citizens. A reinforcement
of two thousand hoplites and two hundred cavalry was immediately
voted and equipped.[326]

  [326] Plutarch, Timoleon, c. 13, 14, 15.

If the triumph excited wonder and joy, the person of Dionysius
himself appealed no less powerfully to other feelings. A fallen
despot was a sight denied to Grecian eyes; whoever aspired to
despotism, put his all to hazard, forfeiting his chance of retiring
to a private station. By a remarkable concurrence of circumstances,
the exception to this rule was presented just where it was least
likely to take place; in the case of the most formidable and odious
despotism which had ever overridden the Grecian world. For nearly
half a century prior to the expedition of Dion against Syracuse,
every one had been accustomed to pronounce the name of Dionysius
with a mixture of fear and hatred—the sentiment of prostration
before irresistible force. How much difficulty Dion himself found,
in overcoming this impression in the minds of his own soldiers, has
been already related. Though dissipated by the success of Dion, the
antecedent alarm became again revived, when Dionysius recovered his
possession of Ortygia, and when the Syracusans made pathetic appeal
to Corinth for aid against him. Now, on a sudden, the representative
of this extinct greatness, himself bearing the awful name of
Dionysius, enters Corinth under a convention, suing only for the
humble domicile and unpretending security of a private citizen.[327]
The Greek mind was keenly sensitive to such contrasts, which entered
largely into every man’s views of human affairs, and were reproduced
in a thousand forms by writers and speakers. The affluence of
visitors—who crowded to gaze upon and speak to Dionysius, not merely
from Corinth, but from other cities of Greece—was immense; some in
simple curiosity, others with compassion, a few even with insulting
derision. The anecdotes which are recounted seem intended to convey
a degrading impression of this last period of his career. But even
the common offices of life—the purchase of unguents and condiments at
the tavern[328]—the nicety of criticism displayed respecting robes
and furniture[329]—looked degrading when performed by the ex-despot
of Syracuse. His habit of drinking largely, already contracted, was
not likely to become amended in these days of mortification; yet on
the whole his conduct seems to have had more dignity than could have
been expected. His literary tastes, manifested during the time of his
intercourse with Plato, are implied even in the anecdotes intended to
disparage him. Thus he is said to have opened a school for teaching
boys to read, and to have instructed the public singers in the art
of singing or reciting poetry.[330] His name served to subsequent
writers, both Greek and Roman,—as those of Crœsus, Polykrates, and
Xerxes, serve to Herodotus—for an instance to point a moral on the
mutability of human events. Yet the anecdotes recorded about him can
rarely be verified, nor can we distinguish real matters of fact from
those suitable and impressive myths which so pregnant a situation was
sure to bring forth.

  [327] Plutarch, Timoleon, c. 14; Diodor. xvi. 70. The remarks
  of Tacitus upon the last hours of the Emperor Vitellius have
  their application to the Greek feeling on this occasion (Histor.
  iii. 68):—“Nec quisquam adeo rerum humanarum immemor, quem non
  commoveret illa facies; Romanum principem, et generis humani
  paulo ante dominum, relictâ fortunæ suæ sede, exire de imperio.
  _Nihil tale viderant, nihil audierant_,” etc.

  [328] Plutarch, Timoleon, c. 14; Theopomp. Fragm. 217, ed.
  Didot.; Justin xxi. 5.

  [329] Timæus, ap. Polybium. xii. 24.

  [330] Plutarch, Timol. c. 14; Cicero, Tuscul. Disp. iii. 12, 7.
  His remark, that Dionysius opened the school from anxiety still
  to have the pleasure of exercising authority, can hardly be meant
  as serious.

  We cannot suppose that Dionysius in his exile at Corinth suffered
  under any want of a comfortable income: for it is mentioned, that
  all his movable furniture (ἐπισκευὴ) was bought by his namesake
  Dionysius, the fortunate despot of the Pontic Herakleia; and
  this furniture was so magnificent, that the acquisition of it is
  counted among the peculiar marks of ornament and dignity to the
  Herakleotic dynasty:—see the Fragments of the historian Memnon of
  Herakleia, ch. iv. p. 10, ed. Orell. apud Photium Cod. 224.

Among those who visited him at Corinth was Aristoxenus of Tarentum:
for the Tarentine leaders, first introduced by Plato, had maintained
their correspondence with Dionysius even after his first expulsion
from Syracuse to Lokri, and had vainly endeavored to preserve his
unfortunate wife and daughters from the retributive vengeance
of the Lokrians. During the palmy days of Dionysius, his envoy
Polyarchus had been sent on a mission to Tarentum, where he came into
conversation with the chief magistrate Archytas. This conversation
Aristoxenus had recorded in writing; probably from the personal
testimony of Archytas, whose biography he composed. Polyarchus dwelt
upon wealth, power, and sensual enjoyments, as the sole objects worth
living for; pronouncing those who possessed them in large masses,
as the only beings deserving admiration. At the summit of all stood
the Persian King, whom Polyarchus extolled as the most enviable and
admirable of mortals. “Next to the Persian King (said he), though
with a very long interval, comes our despot of Syracuse.”[331] What
had become of Polyarchus, we do not know; but Aristoxenus lived to
see the envied Dionysius under the altered phase of his life at
Corinth, and probably to witness the ruin of the Persian Kings also.
On being asked, what had been the cause of his displeasure against
Plato, Dionysius replied, in language widely differing from that
of his former envoy Polyarchus, that amidst the many evils which
surrounded a despot, none was so mischievous as the unwillingness of
his so-called friends to tell him the truth. Such false friends had
poisoned the good feeling between him and Plato.[332] This anecdote
bears greater mark of being genuine, than others which we read more
witty and pungent. The Cynic philosopher Diogenes treated Dionysius
with haughty scorn for submitting to live in a private station after
having enjoyed so overruling an ascendency. Such was more or less the
sentiment of every visitor who saw him; but the matter to be lamented
is, that he had not been in a private station from the beginning.
He was by nature unfit to tread, even with profit to himself, the
perilous and thorny path of a Grecian despot.

  [331] Aristoxenus, Fragm. 15, ed. Didot. ap. Athenæum, p. 545.
  δεύτερον δὲ, φησὶ, τὸν ἡμέτερον τύραννον θείη τις ἂν, καίπερ πολὺ
  λειπόμενον.

  One sees that the word τύραννος was used even by those who
  intended no unfriendly sense—applied by an admiring envoy to his
  master.

  [332] Plutarch, Timoleon, c. 15. Aristoxenus heard from Dionysius
  at Corinth the remarkable anecdote about the faithful attachment
  of the two Pythagorean friends, Damon and Phintias. Dionysius
  had been strongly impressed with the incident, and was fond of
  relating it (~πολλάκις~ ἡμῖν διηγεῖτο, Aristoxen. Fragm. 9, ed.
  Didot; apud Jamblichum Vit. Pythag. s. 233).

The reinforcements decreed by the Corinthians, though equipped
without delay and forwarded to Thurii in Italy, were prevented
from proceeding farther on shipboard by the Carthaginian squadron
at the strait, and were condemned to wait for a favorable
opportunity.[333] But the greatest of all reinforcements to Timoleon
was, the acquisition of Ortygia. It contained not merely a garrison
of two thousand soldiers—who passed (probably much to their own
satisfaction) from the declining cause of Dionysius to the victorious
banner of Timoleon—but also every species of military stores. There
were horses, engines for siege and battery, missiles of every sort,
and above all, shields and spears to the amazing number of seventy
thousand—if Plutarch’s statement is exact.[334] Having dismissed
Dionysius, Timoleon organized a service of small craft from Katana to
convey provisions by sea to Ortygia, eluding the Carthaginian guard
squadron. He found means to do this with tolerable success,[335]
availing himself of winds or bad weather, when the ships of war could
not obstruct the entrance of the lesser harbor. Meanwhile he himself
returned to Adranum, a post convenient for watching both Leontini and
Syracuse. Here two assassins, bribed by Hiketas, were on the point
of taking his life, while sacrificing at a festival; and were only
prevented by an accident so remarkable, that every one recognized the
visible intervention of the gods to protect him.[336]

  [333] Plutarch, Timoleon, c. 16.

  [334] Plutarch, Timoleon, c. 13.

  [335] Plutarch, Timoleon, c. 18.

  [336] Plutarch, Timoleon, c. 16.

Meanwhile Hiketas, being resolved to acquire possession of Ortygia,
invoked the aid of the full Carthaginian force under Magon. The
great harbor of Syracuse was presently occupied by an overwhelming
fleet of one hundred and fifty Carthaginian ships of war, while a
land force, said to consist of sixty thousand men, came also to join
Hiketas, and were quartered by him within the walls of Syracuse.
Never before had any Carthaginian troops got footing within those
walls. Syracusan liberty, perhaps Syracusan Hellenism, now appeared
extinct. Even Ortygia, in spite of the bravery of its garrison under
the Corinthian Neon, seemed not long tenable, against repeated attack
and battery of the walls, combined with strict blockade to keep out
supplies by sea. Still, however, though the garrison was distressed,
some small craft with provisions from Katana contrived to slip in; a
fact, which induced Hiketas and Magon to form the plan of attacking
that town, thinking themselves strong enough to accomplish this by
a part of their force, without discontinuing the siege of Ortygia.
Accordingly they sailed forth from the harbor, and marched from the
city of Syracuse, with the best part of their armament, to attack
Katana, leaving Ortygia still under blockade. But the commanders
left behind were so negligent in their watch, that Neon soon saw
from the walls of Ortygia the opportunity of attacking them with
advantage. Making a sudden and vigorous sally, he fell upon the
blockading army unawares, routed them at all points with serious
loss, and pressed his pursuit so warmly, that he got possession of
Achradina, expelling them from that important section of the city.
The provisions and money, acquired herein at a critical moment,
rendered this victory important. But what gave it the chief value
was, the possession of Achradina which Neon immediately caused to
be joined on to Ortygia by a new line of fortifications, and thus
held the two in combination.[337] Ortygia had been before (as I have
already remarked) completely distinct from Achradina. It is probable
that the population of Achradina, delighted to be liberated from
the Carthaginians, lent zealous aid to Neon both in the defence of
their own walls, and in the construction of the new connecting lines
towards Ortygia; for which the numerous intervening tombs would
supply materials.

  [337] Plutarch, Timoleon, c. 18. ... Ὁ δὲ Κορίνθιος Νέων,
  κατιδὼν ἀπὸ τῆς ἄκρας τοὺς ὑπολελειμμένους τῶν πολεμίων ἀργῶς
  καὶ ἀμελῶς φυλάττοντας, ἐξαίφνης ἐνέπεσε διεσπαρμένοις αὐτοῖς·
  καὶ τοὺς μὲν ἀνελὼν, τοὺς δὲ τρεψάμενος, ἐκράτησε καὶ κατέσχε
  τὴν λεγομένην Ἀχραδινὴν, ὃ κράτιστον ἐδόκει καὶ ἀθραυστότατον
  ὑπάρχειν τῆς Συρακουσίων μέρος πόλεως, τρόπον τινα συγκειμένης
  καὶ συνηρμοσμένης ἐκ πλειόνων πόλεων. Εὐπορήσας δὲ καὶ σίτου καὶ
  χρημάτων οὐκ ἀφῆκε τὸν τόπον, οὐδ᾽ ἀνεχώρησε πάλιν ἐπὶ τὴν ἄκραν,
  ἀλλὰ φραξάμενος τὸν περίβολον τῆς Ἀχραδινῆς ~καὶ συνάψας τοῖς
  ἐρύμασι πρὸς τὴν ἀκρόπολιν~, διεφύλαττε.

This gallant exploit of Neon permanently changed the position of the
combatants at Syracuse. A horseman started instantly to convey the
bad news to Hiketas and Magon near Katana. Both of them returned
forthwith; but they returned only to occupy half of the city—Tycha,
Neapolis, and Epipolæ. It became extremely difficult to prosecute a
successful siege or blockade of Ortygia and Achradina united: besides
that Neon had now obtained abundant supplies for the moment.

Meanwhile Timoleon too was approaching, reinforced by the new
Corinthian division; who, having been at first detained at Thurii,
and becoming sick of delay, had made their way inland, across the
Bruttian territory, to Rhegium. They were fortunate enough to find
the strait unguarded; for the Carthaginian admiral Hanno—having seen
their ships laid up at Thurii, and not anticipating their advance
by land—had first returned with his squadron to the Strait of
Messina, and next, hoping by a stratagem to frighten the garrison of
Ortygia into surrender, had sailed to the harbor of Syracuse with his
triremes decorated as if after a victory. His seamen with wreaths
round their heads, shouted as they passed into the harbor under
the walls of Ortygia, that the Corinthian squadron approaching the
strait had been all captured, and exhibited as proofs of the victory
certain Grecian shields hung up aboard. By this silly fabrication,
Hanno probably produced a serious dismay among the garrison of
Ortygia. But he purchased such temporary satisfaction at the cost of
leaving the strait unguarded, and allowing the Corinthian division
to cross unopposed from Italy into Sicily. On reaching Rhegium,
they not only found the strait free, but also a complete and sudden
calm, succeeding upon several days of stormy weather. Embarking
immediately on such ferry boats and fishing craft as they could find,
and swimming their horses alongside by the bridle, they reached the
Sicilian coast without loss or difficulty.[338]

  [338] Plutarch, Timoleon, c. 19.

Thus did the gods again show their favor towards Timoleon by an
unusual combination of circumstances, and by smiting the enemy with
blindness. So much did the tide of success run along with him, that
the important town of Messênê declared itself among his allies,
admitting the new Corinthian soldiers immediately on their landing.
With little delay, they proceeded forward to join Timoleon; who
thought himself strong enough, notwithstanding that even with this
reinforcement he could only command four thousand men, to march up
to the vicinity of Syracuse, and there to confront the immeasurably
superior force of his enemies.[339] He appears to have encamped near
the Olympieion, and the bridge over the river Anapus.

  [339] Plutarch, Timoleon, c. 20.

Though Timoleon was sure of the coöperation of Neon and the
Corinthian garrison in Ortygia and Achradina, yet he was separated
from them by the numerous force of Hiketas and Magon, who occupied
Epipolæ, Neapolis, and Tycha, together with the low ground between
Epipolæ and the Great Harbor; while the large Carthaginian fleet
filled the Harbor itself. On a reasonable calculation, Timoleon
seemed to have little chance of success. But suspicion had already
begun in the mind of Magon, sowing the seeds of disunion between
him and Hiketas. The alliance between Carthaginians and Greeks
was one unnatural to both parties, and liable to be crossed, at
every mischance, by mutual distrust, growing out of antipathy
which each party felt in itself and knew to subsist in the other.
The unfortunate scheme of marching to Katana, with the capital
victory gained by Neon in consequence of that absence, made Magon
believe that Hiketas was betraying him. Such apprehensions were
strengthened, when he saw in his front the army of Timoleon, posted
on the river Anapus—and when he felt that he was in a Greek city
generally disaffected to him, while Neon was at his rear in Ortygia
and Achradina. Under such circumstances, Magon conceived the whole
safety of his Carthaginians as depending on the zealous and faithful
coöperation of Hiketas, in whom he had now ceased to confide.
And his mistrust, once suggested, was aggravated by the friendly
communication which he saw going on between the soldiers of Timoleon
and those of Hiketas. These soldiers, all Greeks and mercenaries
fighting for a country not their own, encountered each other, on
the field of battle, like enemies,—but conversed in a pacific and
amicable way, during intervals, in their respective camps. Both
were now engaged, without disturbing each other, in catching eels
amidst the marshy and watery ground between Epipolæ and the Anapus.
Interchanging remarks freely, they were admiring the splendor and
magnitude of Syracuse with its great maritime convenience,—when one
of Timoleon’s soldiers observed to the opposite party—“And this
magnificent city, you, Greeks as you are, are striving to barbarise,
planting these Carthaginian cut-throats nearer to us than they now
are; though our first anxiety ought to be, to keep them as far off as
possible from Greece. Do you really suppose that they have brought
up this host from the Atlantic and the pillars of Herakles, all for
the sake of Hiketas and his rule? Why, if Hiketas took measure of
affairs like a true ruler, he would not thus turn out his brethren,
and bring in an enemy to his country; he would ensure to himself an
honorable sway, by coming to an understanding with the Corinthians
and Timoleon.” Such was the colloquy passing between the soldiers
of Timoleon and those of Hiketas, and speedily made known to the
Carthaginians. Having made apparently strong impression on those to
whom it was addressed, it justified alarm in Magon; who was led to
believe that he could no longer trust his Sicilian allies. Without
any delay, he put all his troops aboard the fleet, and in spite
of the most strenuous remonstrances from Hiketas sailed away to
Africa.[340]

  [340] Plutarch, Timoleon, c. 20.

On the next day, when Timoleon approached to the attack, he was
amazed to find the Carthaginian army and fleet withdrawn. His
soldiers, scarcely believing their eyes, laughed to scorn the
cowardice of Magon. Still however Hiketas determined to defend
Syracuse with his own troops, in spite of the severe blow inflicted
by Magon’s desertion. That desertion had laid open both the Harbor,
and the lower ground near the Harbor; so that Timoleon was enabled
to come into direct communication with his garrison in Ortygia and
Achradina, and to lay plans for a triple simultaneous onset. He
himself undertook to attack the southern front of Epipolæ towards the
river Anapus, where the city was strongest; the Corinthian Isias was
instructed to make a vigorous assault from Achradina, or the eastern
side; while Deinarchus and Demaretus, the generals who had conducted
the recent reinforcement from Corinth, were ordered to attack the
northern wall of Epipolæ, or the Hexapylon;[341] they were probably
sent round from Ortygia, by sea, to land at Trogilus. Hiketas,
holding as he did the aggregate consisting of Epipolæ, Tycha,
and Neapolis, was assailed on three sides at once. He had a most
defensible position, which a good commander, with brave and faithful
troops, might have maintained against forces more numerous than those
of Timoleon. Yet in spite of such advantages, no effective resistance
was made, nor even attempted. Timoleon not only took the place, but
took it without the loss of a single man, killed or wounded. Hiketas
and his followers fled to Leontini.[342]

  [341] Plutarch, Timoleon, c. 21. The account given by Plutarch of
  Timoleon’s attack is very intelligible. He states that the side
  of Epipolæ fronting southwards or towards the river Anapus was
  the strongest.

  Saverio Cavallari (Zur Topographie von Syrakus, p. 22) confirms
  this, by remarking that the northern side of Epipolæ, towards
  Trogilus, is the weakest, and easiest for access or attack.

  We thus see that Epipolæ was the _last_ portion of Syracuse which
  Timoleon mastered—not the _first_ portion, as Diodorus states
  (xvi. 69).

  [342] Plutarch, Timoleon, c. 21.

The desertion of Magon explains of course a great deal of
discouragement among the soldiers of Hiketas. But when we read the
astonishing facility of the capture, it is evident that there must
have been something more than discouragement. The soldiers on defence
were really unwilling to use their arms for the purpose of repelling
Timoleon, and keeping up the dominion of Hiketas in Syracuse. When we
find this sentiment so powerfully manifested, we cannot but discern
that the aversion of these men to serve, in what they looked upon
as a Carthaginian cause, threw into the hands of Timoleon an easy
victory, and that the mistrustful retreat of Magon was not so absurd
and cowardly as Plutarch represents.[343]

  [343] Plutarch, Timoleon, c. 20, 21. Diodorus also implies the
  same verdict (xvi. 69), though his account is brief as well as
  obscure.

The Grecian public, however, not minutely scrutinizing preliminary
events, heard the easy capture as a fact, and heard it with unbounded
enthusiasm. From Sicily and Italy the news rapidly spread to Corinth
and other parts of Greece. Everywhere the sentiment was the same;
astonishment and admiration, not merely at the magnitude of the
conquest, but also at the ease and rapidity with which it had been
achieved. The arrival of the captive Dionysius at Corinth had been in
itself a most impressive event. But now the Corinthians learnt the
disappearance of the large Carthaginian host and the total capture of
Syracuse, without the loss of a man; and that too before they were
even assured that their second reinforcement, which they knew to have
been blocked up at Thurii, had been able to touch the Sicilian shore.

Such transcendent novelties excited even in Greece, and much more
in Sicily itself, a sentiment towards Timoleon such as hardly any
Greek had ever yet drawn to himself. His bravery, his skilful plans,
his quickness of movement, were indeed deservedly admired. But in
this respect, others had equalled him before; and we may remark that
even the Corinthian Neon, in his capture of Achradina, had rivalled
anything performed by his superior officer. But that which stood
without like or second in Timoleon—that which set a peculiar stamp
upon all his meritorious qualities—was, his superhuman good fortune;
or—what in the eyes of most Greeks was the same thing in other
words—the unbounded favor with which the gods had cherished both his
person and his enterprise. Though greatly praised as a brave and able
man, Timoleon was still more affectionately hailed as an enviable
man.[344] “Never had the gods been so manifest in their dispensations
of kindness towards any mortal.[345]” The issue, which Telekleides
had announced as being upon trial when Timoleon was named, now stood
triumphantly determined. After the capture of Syracuse, we may be
sure that no one ever denounced Timoleon as a fratricide;—every one
extolled him as a tyrannicide. The great exploits of other eminent
men, such as Agesilaus and Epaminondas, had been achieved at the cost
of hardship, severe fighting, wounds and death to those concerned,
etc., all of which counted as so many deductions from the perfect
mental satisfaction of the spectator. Like an oration or poem
smelling of the lamp, they bore too clearly the marks of preliminary
toil and fatigue. But Timoleon, as the immortal gods descending to
combat on the plain of Troy, accomplished splendid feats,—overthrew
what seemed insuperable obstacles—by a mere first appearance, and
without an effort. He exhibited to view a magnificent result,
executed with all that apparent facility belonging as a privilege
to the inspirations of first-rate genius.[346] Such a spectacle of
virtue and good fortune combined—glorious consummation with graceful
facility—was new to the Grecian world.

  [344] Plutarch, Timoleon, c. 21. Τὸ μὲν ἁλῶναι τὴν πόλιν
  (Syracuse) κατ᾽ ἄκρας καὶ γενέσθαι ταχέως ὑποχείριον ἐκπεσόντων
  τῶν πολεμίων, δίκαιον ἀναθεῖναι τῇ τῶν μαχομένων ἀνδραγαθίᾳ καὶ
  τῇ δεινότητι τοῦ στρατηγοῦ· τὸ δὲ μὴ ἀποθανεῖν τινα μηδὲ τρωθῆναι
  τῶν Κορινθίων, ἴδιον ἔργον αὑτῆς ἡ Τιμολέοντος ἐπεδείξατο
  τύχη, καθάπερ διαμιλλωμένη πρὸς τὴν ἀρετὴν τοῦ ἀνδρὸς, ~ἵνα
  τῶν ἐπαινουμένων αὐτοῦ τὰ μακαριζόμενα μᾶλλον οἱ πυνθανόμενοι
  θαυμάζωσιν~.

  [345] Homer, Odyss. iii. 219 (Nestor addressing Telemachus).

    Εἰ γάρ σ᾽ ὣς ἔθελοι φιλέειν γλαυκῶπις Ἀθήνη,
    Ὡς τότ᾽ Ὀδυσσῆος περικήδετο κυδαλίμοιο
    Δήμῳ ἔνι Τρώων, ὅθι πάσχομεν ἄλγε᾽ Ἀχαῖοι—
    Οὐ γάρ πω ἴδον ὧδε θεοὺς ἀναφανδὰ φιλεῦντας,
    Ὡς κείνῳ ἀναφανδὰ παρίστατο Παλλὰς Ἀθήνη.

  [346] Plutarch, Timoleon, c. 36. μετὰ τοῦ καλοῦ πολὺ τὸ ῥᾳδίως
  ἔχουσα (ἡ Τιμολέοντος στρατηγία) φαίνεται, τοῖς εὖ καὶ δικαίως
  λογιζομένοις, οὐ τύχης ἔργον, ἀλλ᾽ ἀρετῆς εὐτυχούσης.

For all that he had done, Timoleon took little credit to himself.
In the despatch which announced to the Corinthians his _Veni, Vidi,
Vici_, as well as in his discourses at Syracuse, he ascribed the
whole achievement to fortune or to the gods, whom he thanked for
having inscribed his name as nominal mover of their decree for
liberating Sicily.[347] We need not doubt that he firmly believed
himself to be a favored instrument of the divine will, and that he
was even more astonished than others at the way in which locked gates
flew open before him. But even if he had not believed it himself,
there was great prudence in putting this coloring on the facts; not
simply because he thereby deadened the attacks of envy, but because,
under the pretence of modesty, he really exalted himself much higher.
He purchased for himself a greater hold on men’s minds towards his
future achievements, as the beloved of the gods, than he would ever
have possessed as only a highly endowed mortal. And though what he
had already done was prodigious, there still remained much undone;
new difficulties, not the same in kind, yet hardly less in magnitude,
to be combated.

  [347] Plutarch, Timoleon, c. 36; Cornelius Nepos, Timoleon, c. 4;
  Plutarch, De Sui Laude, p. 542 E.

It was not only new difficulties, but also new temptations, which
Timoleon had to combat. Now began for him that moment of trial,
fatal to so many Greeks before him. Proof was to be shown, whether
he could swallow, without intoxication or perversion, the cup
of success administered to him in such overflowing fulness. He
was now complete master of Syracuse; master of it too with the
fortifications of Ortygia yet standing,—with all the gloomy means
of despotic compression, material and moral, yet remaining in his
hand. In respect of personal admiration and prestige of success, he
stood greatly above Dion, and yet more above the elder Dionysius
in the early part of his career. To set up for himself as despot
at Syracuse, burying in oblivion all that he had said or promised
before, was a step natural and feasible; not indeed without peril or
difficulty, but carrying with it chances of success equal to those of
other nascent despotisms, and more than sufficient to tempt a leading
Greek politician of average morality. Probably most people in Sicily
actually expected that he would avail himself of his unparalleled
position to stand forth as a new Dionysius. Many friends and
partisans would strenuously recommend it. They would even deride
him as an idiot (as Solon had been called in his time[348]) for not
taking the boon which the gods set before him, and for not hauling up
the net when the fish were already caught in it. There would not be
wanting other advisers to insinuate the like recommendation under the
pretence of patriotic disinterestedness, and regard for the people
whom he had come to liberate. The Syracusans (it would be contended),
unfit for a free constitution, must be supplied with liberty in small
doses, of which Timoleon was the best judge: their best interests
require that Timoleon should keep in his hands the anti-popular power
with little present diminution, in order to restrain their follies,
and ensure to them benefits which they would miss if left to their
own free determination.

  [348] Solon, Fragm. 26, ed. Schneid.; Plutarch, Solon, c. 14.

    Οὐκ ἔφυ Σόλων βαθύφρων, οὐδὲ βουλήεις ἀνήρ·
    Ἐσθλὰ γὰρ θεοῦ διδόντος, αὐτὸς οὐκ ἐδέξατο.
    Περιβαλὼν δ᾽ ἄγραν, ἀγασθεὶς οὐκ ἀνέσπασεν μέγα
    Δίκτυον, θυμοῦ θ᾽ ἁμαρτῇ καὶ φρενῶν ἀποσφαλείς.

Considerations of this latter character had doubtless greatly
weighed with Dion in the hour of his victory, over and above mere
naked ambition, so as to plunge him into that fatal misjudgment and
misconduct out of which he never recovered. But the lesson deducible
from the last sad months of Dion’s career was not lost upon Timoleon.
He was found proof, not merely against seductions within his own
bosom, but against provocations or plausibilities from without.
Neither for self-regarding purposes, nor for beneficent purposes,
would he be persuaded to grasp and perpetuate the anti-popular
power. The moment of trial was that in which the genuine heroism and
rectitude of judgment united in his character, first shone forth with
its full brightness.

Master as he now was of all Syracuse, with its fivefold aggregate,
Ortygia, Achradina, Tycha, Neapolis, and Epipolæ—he determined to
strike down at once that great monument of servitude which the elder
Dionysius had imposed upon his fellow citizens. Without a moment’s
delay, he laid his hand to the work. He invited by proclamation every
Syracusan who chose, to come with iron instruments, and coöperate
with him in demolishing the separate stronghold, fortification, and
residence, constructed by the elder Dionysius in Ortygia; as well as
the splendid funeral monument erected to the memory of that despot by
his son and successor.[349] This was the first public act executed
in Syracuse by his order; the first manifestation of the restored
sovereignty of the people; the first outpouring of sentiment, at
once free, hearty, and unanimous, among men trodden down by half
a century of servitude; the first fraternizing coöperation of
Timoleon and his soldiers with them, for the purpose of converting
the promise of liberation into an assured fact. That the actual
work of demolition was executed by the hands and crowbars of the
Syracusans themselves, rendered the whole proceeding an impressive
compact between them and Timoleon. It cleared away all mistake, all
possibility of suspicion, as to his future designs. It showed that
he had not merely forsworn despotism for himself, but that he was
bent on rendering it impossible for any one else, when he began by
overthrowing what was not only the conspicuous memento, but also
the most potent instrument, of the past despots. It achieved the
inestimable good of inspiring at once confidence in his future
proceedings, and disposing the Syracusans to listen voluntarily to
his advice. And it was beneficial, not merely in smoothing the way to
farther measures of pacific reconstruction, but also in discharging
the reactionary antipathies of the Syracusans, inevitable after so
long an oppression, upon unconscious stones; and thus leaving less of
it to be wreaked on the heads of political rivals, compromised in the
former proceedings.

  [349] Plutarch, Timoleon, c. 22. Γενόμενος δὲ τῆς ἀκρᾶς κύριος,
  οὐκ ἔπαθε Δίωνι ταὐτὸ πάθος, οὐδ᾽ ἐφείσατο τοῦ τόπου διὰ τὸ
  κάλλος καὶ τὴν πολυτέλειαν τῆς κατασκευῆς, ἀλλὰ τὴν ἐκεῖνον
  διαβαλοῦσαν, εἶτ᾽ ἀπολέσασαν ὑποψίαν φυλαξάμενος, ἐκήρυξε τῶν
  Συρακοσίων τὸν βουλόμενον παρεῖναι μετὰ σιδήρου καὶ συνεφάπτεσθαι
  τῶν τυραννικῶν ἐρυμάτων. Ὡς δὲ πάντες ἀνέβησαν, ἀρχὴν ἐλευθερίας
  ποιησάμενοι βεβαιοτάτην τὸ κήρυγμα καὶ τὴν ἡμέραν ἐκείνην, οὐ
  μόνον τὴν ἄκραν, ἀλλὰ καὶ τὰς οἰκίας καὶ τὰ μνήματα τῶν τυράννων
  ἀνέτρεψαν καὶ κατέσκαψαν. Εὐθὺς δὲ τὸν τόπον συνομαλύνας,
  ἐνῳκοδόμησε τὰ δικαστήρια, χαριζόμενος τοῖς πολίταις, καὶ τῆς
  τυραννίδος ὑπερτέραν ποιῶν τὴν δημοκρατίαν.

  Compare Cornelius Nepos, Timoleon, c. 3.

This important act of demolition was farther made subservient to
a work of new construction, not less significant of the spirit in
which Timoleon had determined to proceed. Having cleared away the
obnoxious fortress, he erected upon the same site, and probably with
the same materials, courts for future judicature. The most striking
symbol and instrument of popular government thus met the eye as a
local substitute for that of the past despotism.

Deep was the gratitude of the Syracusans for these proceedings—the
first fruits of Timoleon’s established ascendency. And if we regard
the intrinsic importance of the act itself—the manner in which an
emphatic meaning was made to tell as well upon the Syracusan eye as
upon the Syracusan mind—the proof evinced not merely of disinterested
patriotism, but also of prudence in estimating the necessities of the
actual situation—lastly, the foundation thus laid for accomplishing
farther good—if we take all these matters together, we shall feel
that Timoleon’s demolition of the Dionysian Bastile, and erection in
its place of a building for the administration of justice, was among
the most impressive phenomena in Grecian history.

The work which remained to be done was indeed such as to require the
best spirit, energy and discretion, both on his part and on that of
the Syracusans. Through long oppression and suffering, the city was
so impoverished and desolate, that the market-place (if we were to
believe what must be an exaggeration of Plutarch) served as pasture
for horses, and as a place of soft repose for the grooms who attended
them. Other cities of Sicily exhibited the like evidence of decay,
desertion, and poverty. The manifestations of city life had almost
ceased in Sicily. Men were afraid to come into the city, which
they left to the despot and his mercenaries, retiring themselves
to live on their fields and farms, and shrinking from all acts of
citizenship. Even the fields were but half cultivated, so as to
produce nothing beyond bare subsistence. It was the first anxiety
of Timoleon to revive the once haughty spirit of Syracuse out of
this depth of insecurity and abasement; to which revival no act
could be more conducive than his first proceedings in Ortygia. His
next step was to bring together, by invitations and proclamations
everywhere circulated, those exiles who had been expelled, or forced
to seek refuge elsewhere, during the recent oppression. Many of
these, who had found shelter in various parts of Sicily and Italy,
obeyed his summons with glad readiness.[350] But there were others,
who had fled to Greece or the Ægean islands, and were out of the
hearing of any proclamations from Timoleon. To reach persons thus
remote, recourse was had, by him and by the Syracusans conjointly,
to Corinthian intervention. The Syracusans felt so keenly how much
was required to be done for the secure reorganization of their city
as a free community, that they eagerly concurred with Timoleon in
entreating the Corinthians to undertake, a second time, the honorable
task of founders of Syracuse.[351]

  [350] Plutarch, Timoleon, c. 23; Diodor. xvi. 83.

  [351] Plutarch, Timoleon, c. 23.

Two esteemed citizens, Kephalus and Dionysius, were sent from Corinth
to coöperate with Timoleon and the Syracusans, in constituting the
community anew, on a free and popular basis, and in preparing an
amended legislation.[352] These commissioners adopted, for their main
text and theme, the democratical constitution and laws as established
by Dioklês about seventy years before, which the usurpation of
Dionysius had subverted when they were not more than seven years
old. Kephalus professed to do nothing more than revive the laws of
Dioklês, with such comments, modifications, and adaptations, as the
change of times and circumstances had rendered necessary.[353] In the
laws respecting inheritance and property, he is said to have made no
change at all; but unfortunately we are left without any information
what were the laws of Dioklês, or how they were now modified. It
is certain, however, that the political constitution of Dioklês
was a democracy, and that the constitution as now reëstablished
was democratical also.[354] Beyond this general fact we can assert
nothing.

  [352] Plutarch, Timoleon, c. 24.

  [353] Diodor. xiii. 35; xvi. 81.

  [354] Diodor. xvi. 70.

Though a free popular constitution, however, was absolutely
indispensable, and a good constitution a great boon—it was not the
only pressing necessity for Syracuse. There was required, no less an
importation of new citizens; and not merely of poor men bringing with
them their arms and their industry, but also of persons in affluent
or easy circumstances, competent to purchase lands and houses.
Besides much land ruined or gone out of cultivation, the general
poverty of the residents was extreme; while at the same time the
public exigencies were considerable, since it was essential, among
other things, to provide pay for those very soldiers of Timoleon to
whom they owed their liberation. The extent of poverty was painfully
attested by the fact that they were constrained to sell those public
statues which formed the ornaments of Syracuse and its temples; a
cruel wound to the sentiments of every Grecian community. From this
compulsory auction, however, they excepted by special vote the statue
of Gelon, in testimony of gratitude for his capital victory at Himera
over the Carthaginians.[355]

  [355] Plutarch, Timoleon, c. 23; Dion Chrysostom, Orat. xxxvii.
  p. 460.

For the renovation of a community thus destitute, new funds as well
as new men were wanted; and the Corinthians exerted themselves
actively to procure both. Their first proclamation was indeed
addressed specially to Syracusan exiles, whom they invited to resume
their residence at Syracuse as free and autonomous citizens under a
just allotment of lands. They caused such proclamation to be publicly
made at all the Pan-hellenic and local festivals; prefaced by a
certified assurance that the Corinthians had already overthrown both
the despotism and the despot—a fact which the notorious presence
of Dionysius himself at Corinth contributed to spread more widely
than any formal announcement. They farther engaged, if the exiles
would muster at Corinth, to provide transports, convoy, and leaders,
to Syracuse, free of all cost. The number of exiles, who profited
by the invitation and came to Corinth, though not inconsiderable,
was still hardly strong enough to enter upon the proposed Sicilian
renovation. They themselves therefore entreated the Corinthians to
invite additional colonists from other Grecian cities. It was usually
not difficult to find persons disposed to embark in a new settlement,
if founded under promising circumstances, and effected under the
positive management of a powerful presiding city.[356] There were
many opulent persons anxious to exchange the condition of metics
in an old city for that of full citizens in a new one. Hence the
more general proclamation now issued by the Corinthians attracted
numerous applicants, and a large force of colonists was presently
assembled at Corinth; an aggregate of ten thousand persons, including
the Syracusan exiles.[357]

  [356] Compare the case of the Corinthian proclamation respecting
  Epidamnus, Thucyd. i. 27; the Lacedæmonian foundation of
  Herakleia, Thucyd. iii. 93; the proclamation of the Battiad
  Arkesilaus at Samos, for a new body of settlers to Kyrênê
  (Herodot. iv. 163).

  [357] Plutarch, Timoleon, c. 23. Diodorus states only five
  thousand (xvi. 82) as coming from Corinth.

When conveyed to Syracuse, by the fleet and under the formal sanction
of the Corinthian government, these colonists found a still larger
number there assembled, partly Syracusan exiles, yet principally
emigrants from the different cities of Sicily and Italy. The Italian
Greeks, at this time hard pressed by the constantly augmenting force
of the Lucanians and Bruttians, were becoming so unable to defend
themselves without foreign aid, that several were probably disposed
to seek other homes. The invitation of Timoleon counted even more
than that of the Corinthians as an allurement to new comers—from
the unbounded admiration and confidence which he now inspired; more
especially as he was actually present at Syracuse. Accordingly, the
total of immigrants from all quarters (restored exiles as well as
others) to Syracuse in its renovated freedom was not less than sixty
thousand.[358]

  [358] Plutarch, Timoleon, c. 23. To justify his statement of this
  large total, Plutarch here mentions (I wish he did so oftener)
  the author from whom he copied it—Athanis, or Athanas. That
  author was a native Syracusan, who wrote a history of Syracusan
  affairs from the termination of the history of Philistus in 363
  or 362 B. C., down to the death of Timoleon in 337 B. C.; thus
  including all the proceedings of Dion and Timoleon. It is deeply
  to be lamented that nothing remains of his work (Diodor. xv. 94;
  Fragment. Historic. Græc. ed. Didot, vol. ii. p. 81). His name
  seems to be mentioned in Theopompus (Fr. 212, ed. Didot) as joint
  commander of the Syracusan troops, along with Herakleides.

Nothing can be more mortifying than to find ourselves without
information as to the manner in which Timoleon and Kephalus dealt
with this large influx. Such a state of things, as it produces many
new embarrassments and conflicting interests, so it calls for a
degree of resource and original judgment which furnishes good measure
of the capacity of all persons concerned, rendering the juncture
particularly interesting and instructive. Unfortunately we are not
permitted to know the details. The land of Syracuse is said to have
been distributed, and the houses to have been sold for one thousand
talents—the large sum of 230,000_l_. A right of preëmption was
allowed to the Syracusan exiles for repurchasing the houses formerly
their own. As the houses were sold, and that too for a considerable
price—so we may presume that the lands were sold also, and that
the incoming settlers did not receive their lots gratuitously. But
how they were sold, or how much of the territory was sold, we are
left in ignorance. It is certain, however, that the effect of the
new immigration was not only to renew the force and population of
Syracuse, but also to furnish relief to the extreme poverty of the
antecedent residents. A great deal of new money must thus have been
brought in.[359]

  [359] Plutarch, Timoleon, c. 23. καὶ γενομένοις αὐτοῖς
  ἑξακισμυρίοις τὸ πλῆθος, ὡς Ἄθανις εἴρηκε, τὴν μὲν χώραν
  διένειμε, τὰς δὲ οἰκίας ἀπέδοτο χιλίων ταλάντων, ἅμα μὲν
  ὑπολειπόμενος τοῖς ἀρχαίοις Συρακουσίοις ἐξωνεῖσθαι τὰς αὑτῶν,
  ἅμα δὲ χρημάτων εὐπορίαν τῷ δήμῳ μηχανώμενος οὕτως πενομένῳ καὶ
  πρὸς τἄλλα καὶ πρὸς τὸν πόλεμον, ὥστε, etc.

  Diodorus (xvi. 82) affirms that forty thousand new settlers
  were admitted εἰς τὴν Συρακουσίαν τὴν ἀδιαίρετον, and that ten
  thousand were settled in the fine and fertile territory of
  Agyrium. This latter measure was taken certainly, after the
  despot of Agyrium had been put down by Timoleon. We should
  have been glad to have an explanation of τὴν Συρακουσίαν τὴν
  ἀδιαίρετον: in the absence of information, conjecture as to the
  meaning is vain.

Such important changes doubtless occupied a considerable time,
though we are not enabled to arrange them in months or years. In the
meantime Timoleon continued to act in such a manner as to retain, and
even to strengthen, the confidence and attachment of the Syracusans.
He employed his forces actively in putting down and expelling the
remaining despots throughout the island. He first attacked Hiketas,
his old enemy, at Leontini; and compelled him to capitulate, on
condition of demolishing the fortified citadel, abdicating his
rule, and living as a private citizen in the town. Leptines, despot
of Apollonia and of several other neighboring townships, was also
constrained to submit, and to embrace the offer of a transport to
Corinth.[360]

  [360] Plutarch, Timoleon, c. 24.

It appears that the submission of Hiketas was merely a feint, to
obtain time for strengthening himself by urging the Carthaginians to
try another invasion of Sicily.[361] They were the more disposed to
this step as Timoleon, anxious to relieve the Syracusans, sent his
soldiers under the Corinthian Deinarchus to find pay and plunder for
themselves in the Carthaginian possessions near the western corner
of Sicily. This invasion, while it abundantly supplied the wants of
the soldiers, encouraged Entella and several other towns to revolt
from Carthage. The indignation among the Carthaginians had been
violent, when Magon returned after suddenly abandoning the harbor of
Syracuse to Timoleon. Unable to make his defence satisfactory, Magon
only escaped a worse death by suicide, after which his dead body
was crucified by public order. And the Carthaginians now resolved
on a fresh effort, to repair their honor as well as to defend their
territory.[362]

  [361] Plutarch, Timoleon, c. 30. Diodor. (xvi. 72) does not
  mention that Hiketas submitted at all. He states that Timoleon
  was repulsed in attacking Leontini; and that Hiketas afterwards
  attacked Syracuse, but was repulsed with loss, during the absence
  of Timoleon in his expedition against Leptines.

  [362] Plutarch, Timoleon, c. 24; Diodor. xvi. 73.

The effort was made on a vast scale, and with long previous
preparations. An army said to consist of seventy thousand men, under
Hasdrubal and Hamilkar, was disembarked at Lilybæum, on the western
corner of the island; besides which there was a fleet of two hundred
triremes, and one thousand attendant vessels carrying provisions,
warlike stores, engines for sieges, war-chariots with four horses,
etc.[363] But the most conspicuous proof of earnest effort, over and
above numbers and expense, was furnished by the presence of no less
than ten thousand native infantry from Carthage; men clothed with
panoplies costly, complete, and far heavier than ordinary—carrying
white shields and wearing elaborate breastplates besides. These men
brought to the campaign ample private baggage; splendid goblets and
other articles of gold and silver, such as beseemed the rich families
of that rich city. The _élite_ of the division—twenty-five hundred
in number, or one-fourth part—formed what was called the Sacred Band
of Carthage.[364] It has been already stated, that in general, the
Carthaginians caused their military service to be performed by hired
foreigners, with few of their own citizens. Hence this army stood
particularly distinguished, and appeared the more formidable on
their landing; carrying panic, by the mere report, all over Sicily
not excepting even Syracuse. The Corinthian troops ravaging the
Carthaginian province were obliged to retreat in haste, and sent to
Timoleon for reinforcement.

  [363] Plutarch, Timoleon, c. 25; Diodor. xvi. 77. They agree in
  the main about the numerical items, and seem to have copied from
  the same authority.

  [364] Plutarch, Timoleon, c. 27; Diodor. xvi. 80.

The miscellaneous body of immigrants recently domiciliated at
Syracuse, employed in the cares inseparable from new settlement, had
not come prepared to face so terrible a foe. Though Timoleon used
every effort to stimulate their courage, and though his exhortations
met with full apparent response, yet such was the panic prevailing,
that comparatively few would follow him to the field. He could
assemble no greater total than twelve thousand men; including about
three thousand Syracusan citizens—the paid force which he had round
him at Syracuse—that other paid force under Deinarchus, who had
been just compelled by the invaders to evacuate the Carthaginian
province—and finally such allies as would join.[365] His cavalry
was about one thousand in number. Nevertheless, in spite of so
great an inferiority, Timoleon determined to advance and meet
the enemy in their own province, before they should have carried
ravage over the territory of Syracuse and her allies. But when he
approached near to the border, within the territory of Agrigentum,
the alarm and mistrust of his army threatened to arrest his farther
progress. An officer among his mercenaries, named Thrasius, took
advantage of the prevailing feeling to raise a mutiny against him,
persuading the soldiers that Timoleon was madly hurrying them on
to certain ruin, against an enemy six times superior in number,
and in a hostile country eight days’ march from Syracuse; so that
there would be neither salvation for them in case of reverse, nor
interment if they were slain. Their pay being considerably in
arrear Thrasius urged them to return to Syracuse for the purpose of
extorting the money, instead of following a commander, who could not
or would not requite them, upon such desperate service. Such was the
success and plausibility of these recommendations, under the actual
discouragement, that they could hardly be counterworked by all the
efforts of Timoleon. Nor was there ever any conjuncture in which his
influence, derived as well from unbounded personal esteem as from
belief in his favor with the gods, was so near failing. As it was,
though he succeeded in heartening up and retaining the large body
of his army, yet Thrasius, with one thousand of the mercenaries,
insisted upon returning, and actually did return, to Syracuse.
Moreover Timoleon was obliged to send an order along with them to
the authorities at home, that these men must immediately, and at all
cost, receive their arrears of pay. The wonder is, that he succeeded
in his efforts to retain the rest, after insuring to the mutineers a
lot which seemed so much safer and more enviable. Thrasius, a brave
man, having engaged in the service of the Phokians Philomêlus and
Onomarchus, had been concerned in the pillage of the Delphian temple,
which drew upon him the aversion of the Grecian world.[366] How
many of the one thousand seceding soldiers, who now followed him to
Syracuse, had been partners in the same sacrilegious act, we cannot
tell. But it is certain that they were men who had taken service
with Timoleon in hopes of a period, not merely of fighting, but also
of lucrative license, such as his generous regard for the settled
inhabitants would not permit.

  [365] Plutarch, Timoleon, c. 25; Diodor. xvi. 78. Diodorus gives
  the total of Timoleon’s force at twelve thousand men; Plutarch at
  only six thousand. The larger total appears to me most probable,
  under the circumstances. Plutarch seems to have taken account
  only of the paid force who were with Timoleon at Syracuse, and
  not to have enumerated that other division, which, having been
  sent to ravage the Carthaginian province, had been compelled
  to retire and rejoin Timoleon when the great Carthaginian host
  landed.

  Diodorus and Plutarch follow in the main the same authorities
  respecting this campaign.

  [366] Plutarch, Timoleon, c. 30.

Having succeeded in keeping up the spirits of his remaining army, and
affecting to treat the departure of so many cowards as a positive
advantage, Timoleon marched on westward into the Carthaginian
province, until he approached within a short distance of the river
Krimêsus, a stream which rises in the mountainous region south of
Panormus (Palermo), runs nearly southward, and falls into the sea
near Selinus. Some mules, carrying loads of parsley, met him on the
road; a fact which called forth again the half-suppressed alarm of
the soldiers, since parsley was habitually employed for the wreaths
deposited on tombstones. But Timoleon, taking a handful of it and
weaving a wreath for his own head, exclaimed, “This is our Corinthian
symbol of victory: it is the sacred herb with which we decorate our
victors at the Isthmian festival. It comes to us here spontaneously,
as an earnest of our approaching success.” Insisting emphatically on
this theme, and crowning himself as well as his officers with the
parsley, he rekindled the spirits of the army, and conducted them
forward to the top of the eminence, immediately above the course of
the Krimêsus.[367]

  [367] The anecdote about the parsley is given both in Plutarch
  (Timol. c. 26) and Diodorus (xvi. 79).

  The upper portion of the river Krimêsus, near which this battle
  was fought, was in the mountainous region called by Diodorus ἡ
  Σελινουντία δυσχωρία: through which lay the road between Selinus
  and Panormus (Diodor. xxiii. Frag. p. 333, ed. Wess.).

It was just at that moment that the Carthaginian army were passing
the river, on their march to meet him. The confused noise and
clatter of their approach were plainly heard; though the mist of
a May morning,[368] overhanging the valley, still concealed from
the eye the army crossing. Presently the mist ascended from the
lower ground to the hill tops around, leaving the river and the
Carthaginians beneath in conspicuous view. Formidable was the aspect
which they presented. The war-chariots-and-four,[369] which formed
their front, had already crossed the river, and appear to have been
halting a little way in advance. Next to them followed the native
Carthaginians, ten thousand chosen hoplites with white shields, who
had also in part crossed and were still crossing; while the main
body of the host, the foreign mercenaries, were pressing behind in
a disorderly mass to get to the bank, which appears to have been in
part rugged. Seeing how favorable was the moment for attacking them,
while thus disarrayed and bisected by the river, Timoleon, after
a short exhortation, gave orders immediately to charge down the
hill.[370] His Sicilian allies, with some mercenaries intermingled,
were on the two wings; while he himself, with the Syracusans and the
best of the mercenaries, occupied the centre. Demaretus with his
cavalry was ordered to assail the Carthaginians first, before they
could form regularly. But the chariots in their front, protecting the
greater part of the line, left him only the power of getting at them
partially through the vacant intervals. Timoleon, soon perceiving
that his cavalry accomplished little, recalled them and ordered them
to charge on the flanks, while he himself, with all the force of his
infantry, undertook to attack in front. Accordingly, seizing his
shield from the attendant, he marched forward in advance, calling
aloud to the infantry around to be of good cheer and follow. Never
had his voice been heard so predominant and heart-stirring; the
effect of it was powerfully felt on the spirits of all around, who
even believed that they heard a god speaking along with him.[371]
Reëchoing his shout emphatically, they marched forward to the charge
with the utmost alacrity—in compact order, and under the sound of
trumpets.

  [368] Plutarch, Timoleon, c. 27. ἱσταμένου θέρους ὥραν—λήγοντι
  μηνὶ Θαργηλίωνι, etc.

  [369] Of these war-chariots they are said to have had not less
  than two thousand, in the unsuccessful battle which they fought
  against Agathokles in Africa, near Carthage (Diodor. xx. 10).

  After the time of Pyrrhus, they came to employ tame elephants
  trained for war.

  [370] It appears from Polybius that Timæus ascribed to Timoleon,
  immediately before this battle, an harangue which Polybius
  pronounces to be absurd and unsuitable (Timæus, Fr. 134, ed.
  Didot; Polyb. xii. 26 _a_).

  [371] Plutarch, Timoleon, c. 27. Ἀναλαβὼν τὴν ἀσπίδα καὶ βοήσας
  ἕπεσθαι καὶ θαῤῥεῖν τοῖς πέζοις ἔδοξεν ὑπερφυεῖ φωνῇ καὶ μείζονι
  κεχρῆσθαι τοῦ συνήθους, εἴτε τῷ πάθει παρὰ τὸν ἀγῶνα καὶ τὸν
  ἐνθουσιασμὸν οὕτω διατεινάμενος, εἴτε ~δαιμονίου τινὸς, ὡς τοῖς
  πολλοῖς τότε παρέστη, συνεπιφθεγξαμένου~.

The infantry were probably able to evade or break through the
bulwark of interposed chariots with greater ease than the cavalry,
though Plutarch does not tell us how this was done. Timoleon and his
soldiers then came into close and furious contest with the chosen
Carthaginian infantry, who resisted with a courage worthy of their
reputation. Their vast shields, iron breastplates, and brazen helmets
(forming altogether armor heavier than was worn usually even by
Grecian hoplites), enabled them to repel the spear-thrusts of the
Grecian assailants, who were compelled to take to their swords, and
thus to procure themselves admission within the line of Carthaginian
spears, so as to break their ranks. Such use of swords is what we
rarely read of in a Grecian battle. Though the contest was bravely
maintained by the Carthaginians, yet they were too much loaded with
armor to admit of anything but fighting in a dense mass. They were
already losing their front rank warriors, the picked men of the
whole, and beginning to fight at a disadvantage—when the gods, yet
farther befriending Timoleon, set the seal to their discomfiture
by an intervention manifest and terrific.[372] A storm of the most
violent character began. The hill-tops were shrouded in complete
darkness; the wind blew a hurricane; rain and hail poured abundantly,
with all the awful accompaniments of thunder and lightning. To the
Greeks, this storm was of little inconvenience, because it came in
their backs. But to the Carthaginians, pelting as it did directly in
their faces, it occasioned both great suffering, and soul-subduing
alarm. The rain and hail beat, and the lightning flashed, in their
faces, so that they could not see to deal with hostile combatants:
the noise of the wind, and of hail rattling against their armor,
prevented the orders of their officers from being heard: the folds
of their voluminous military tunics were surcharged with rain-water,
so as to embarrass their movements: the ground presently became so
muddy that they could not keep their footing; and when they once
slipped, the weight of their equipment forbade all recovery. The
Greeks, comparatively free from inconvenience, and encouraged by the
evident disablement of their enemies, pressed them with redoubled
energy. At length, when the four hundred front rank men of the
Carthaginians had perished by a brave death in their places, the
rest of the White-shields turned their backs and sought relief in
flight. But flight, too, was all but impossible. They encountered
their own troops in the rear advancing up, and trying to cross the
Krimêsus; which river itself was becoming every minute fuller and
more turbid, through the violent rain. The attempt to recross was one
of such unspeakable confusion, that numbers perished in the torrent.
Dispersing in total rout, the whole Carthaginian army thought only
of escape, leaving their camp and baggage a prey to the victors, who
pursued them across the river and over the hills on the other side,
inflicting prodigious slaughter. In this pursuit the cavalry of
Timoleon, not very effective during the battle, rendered excellent
service; pressing the fugitive Carthaginians one over another in
mass, and driving them, overloaded with their armor, into mud and
water, from whence they could not get clear.[373]

  [372] Diodor. xvi. 79. Περιεγένοντο γὰρ ἀνελπίστως τῶν πολεμίων,
  οὐ μόνον διὰ τὰς ἰδίας ἀνδραγαθίας, ἀλλὰ καὶ διὰ τὴν τῶν θεῶν
  συνεργίαν.

  [373] Plutarch, Timoleon, c. 27, 28; Diodor. xvi. 79, 80.

No victory in Grecian history was ever more complete than that of
Timoleon at the Krimêsus. Ten thousand Carthaginians are said to have
been slain, and fifteen thousand made prisoners. Upon these numbers
no stress is to be laid; but it is certain that the total of both
must have been very great. Of the war-chariots, many were broken
during the action, and all that remained, two hundred in number,
fell into the hands of the victors. But that which rendered the loss
most serious, and most painfully felt at Carthage, was, that it fell
chiefly upon the native Carthaginian troops, and much less upon the
foreign mercenaries. It is even said that the Sacred Battalion of
Carthage, comprising twenty-five hundred soldiers belonging to the
most considerable families in Carthage, were all slain to a man;
a statement, doubtless, exaggerated, yet implying a fearful real
destruction. Many of these soldiers purchased safe escape by throwing
away their ornamented shields and costly breastplates, which the
victors picked up in great numbers—one thousand breastplates, and
not less than ten thousand shields. Altogether, the spoil collected
was immense—in arms, in baggage, and in gold and silver from the
plundered camp; occupying the Greeks so long in the work of pursuit
and capture, that they did not find time to erect their trophy until
the third day after the battle. Timoleon left the chief part of the
plunder,[374] as well as most part of the prisoners, in the hands of
the individual captors, who enriched themselves amply by the day’s
work. Yet there still remained a large total for the public Syracusan
chest; five thousand prisoners, and a miscellaneous spoil of armor
and precious articles, piled up in imposing magnificence around the
general’s tent.

  [374] Plutarch, Timoleon, c. 29; Diodor. xvi. 80, 81.

The Carthaginian fugitives did not rest until they reached Lilybæum.
And even there, such was their discouragement—so profound their
conviction that the wrath of the gods was upon them—that they could
scarcely be induced to go on shipboard for the purpose of returning
to Carthage; persuaded as they were that if once caught out at sea,
the gods in their present displeasure would never let them reach
land.[375] At Carthage itself also, the sorrow and depression was
unparalleled: sorrow private as well as public, from the loss of so
great a number of principal citizens. It was even feared that the
victorious Timoleon would instantly cross the sea and attack Carthage
on her own soil. Immediate efforts were however made to furnish a
fresh army for Sicily, composed of foreign mercenaries with few or
no native citizens. Giskon, the son of Hanno, who passed for their
most energetic citizen, was recalled from exile, and directed to get
together this new armament.

  [375] Diodor. xvi. 81. Τοσαύτη δ᾽ αὐτοὺς κατάπληξις καὶ δέος
  κατεῖχεν, ὥστε μὴ τολμᾷν εἰς τὰς ναῦς ἐμβαίνειν, μηδ᾽ ἀποπλεῖν
  εἰς τὴν Λιβύην, ὡς ~διὰ τὴν τῶν θεῶν ἀλλοτριότητα πρὸς αὐτοὺς ὑπὸ
  τοῦ Λιβυκοῦ πελάγους καταποθησομένους~. Compare the account of
  the religious terror of the Carthaginians, after their defeat by
  Agathokles (Diodor. xx. 14).

  So, in the argument between Andokides and his accusers, before
  the Dikastery at Athens—the accusers contend that Andokides
  clearly does not believe in the gods, because, after the great
  impiety which he has committed, he has still not been afraid
  afterwards to make sea voyages (Lysias, cont. Andokid. s. 19).

  On the other hand, Andokides himself argues triumphantly, from
  the fact of his having passed safely through sea voyages in the
  winter, that he is _not_ an object of displeasure to the gods.

  “If the gods thought that I had wronged them, they would not
  have omitted to punish me, when they caught me in the greatest
  danger. For what danger can be greater than a sea voyage in
  winter-time? The gods had then both my life and my property in
  their power; and yet they preserved me. Was it not then open to
  them so to manage, as that I should not even obtain interment
  for my body?....Have the gods then preserved me from the dangers
  of sea and pirates, merely to let me perish at Athens by the act
  of my villanous accuser Kephisius? No, Dikasts; the dangers of
  _accusation and trial are human_; but _the dangers encountered
  at sea are divine_. If, therefore, we are to surmise about
  the sentiments of the gods, I think they will be extremely
  displeased and angry, if they see a man, whom they themselves
  have preserved, destroyed by others.” (Andokides, De Mysteriis,
  s. 137-139). ἐγὼ μὲν οὖν ἡγοῦμαι χρῆναι νομίζειν τοὺς τοιούτους
  κινδύνους ἀνθρωπίνους, ~τοὺς δὲ κατὰ θάλασσαν θείους~. Εἴπερ οὖν
  δεῖ τὰ τῶν θεῶν ὑπονοεῖν, πολὺ ἂν αὐτοὺς οἶμαι ἐγὼ ὀργίζεσθαι καὶ
  ἀγανακτεῖν, εἰ τοὺς ὑφ᾽ ἑαυτῶν σωζομένους, ὑπ᾽ ἄλλων ἀπολλυμένους
  ὁρῷεν.

  Compare Plutarch, Paul. Emil. c. 36. ~μάλιστα κατὰ πλοῦν~
  ἐδεδίειν τὴν μεταβολὴν τοῦ δαίμονος, etc.

The subduing impression of the wrath of the gods, under which the
Carthaginians labored, arose from the fact that their defeat had
been owing not less to the terrific storm, than to the arms of
Timoleon. Conversely, in regard to Timoleon himself, the very same
fact produced an impression of awe-striking wonder and envy. If
there were any sceptics who doubted before either the reality of
special interventions by the gods, or the marked kindness which
determined the gods to send such interventions to the service of
Timoleon—the victory of the Krimêsus must have convinced them.
The storm alike violent and opportune, coming at the back of the
Greeks and in the faces of the Carthaginians, was a manifestation
of divine favor scarcely less conspicuous than those vouchsafed to
Diomedes or Æneas in the Iliad.[376] And the sentiment thus raised
towards Timoleon—or, rather previously raised, and now yet farther
confirmed—became blended with that genuine admiration which he had
richly earned by his rapid and well-conducted movements, as well as
by a force of character striking enough to uphold, under the most
critical circumstances, the courage of a desponding army. His victory
at the Krimêsus, like his victory at Adranum, was gained mainly by
that extreme speed in advance, which brought him upon an unprepared
enemy at a vulnerable moment. And the news of it which he despatched
at once to Corinth,—accompanied with a cargo of showy Carthaginian
shields to decorate the Corinthian temples,—diffused throughout
Central Greece both joy for the event and increased honor to his
name, commemorated by the inscription attached—“The Corinthians and
the general Timoleon, after liberating the Sicilian Greeks from the
Carthaginians, have dedicated these shields as offerings of gratitude
to the gods.”[377]

  [376] Claudian, De Tertio Consulatu Honorii, v. 93.

    “Te propter, gelidis Aquilo de monte procellis
    Obruit adversas acies, revolutaque tela
    Vertit in auctores, et turbine reppulit hastas.
    O nimium dilecte Deo, cui fundit ab antris
    Æolus armatas hyemes; cui militat æther,
    Et conjurati veniunt ad classica venti.”

  Compare a passage in the speech of Thrasybulus, Xenoph. Hellen.
  ii. 4, 14.

  [377] Plutarch, Timoleon, c. 29; Diodor. xvi. 80.

Leaving most of his paid troops to carry on war in the Carthaginian
province, Timoleon conducted his Syracusans home. His first
proceeding was, at once to dismiss Thrasius with the one thousand
paid soldiers who had deserted him before the battle. He commanded
them to quit Sicily, allowing them only twenty-four hours to depart
from Syracuse itself. Probably under the circumstances, they were not
less anxious to go away than he was to dismiss them. But they went
away only to destruction; for having crossed the Strait of Messina
and taken possession of a maritime site in Italy on the Southern
sea, the Bruttians of the inland entrapped them by professions of
simulated friendship, and slew them all.[378]

  [378] Plutarch, Timoleon, c. 30; Diodor. xvi. 82.

Timoleon had now to deal with two Grecian enemies—Hiketas and
Mamerkus—the despots of Leontini and Katana. By the extraordinary
rapidity of his movements, he had crushed the great invading host
of Carthage, before it came into coöperation with these two allies.
Both now wrote in terror to Carthage, soliciting a new armament, as
indispensable for their security not less than for the Carthaginian
interest in the island; Timoleon being the common enemy of both.
Presently Giskon son of Hanno, having been recalled on purpose out of
banishment, arrived from Carthage with a considerable force—seventy
triremes, and a body of Grecian mercenaries. It was rare for the
Carthaginians to employ Grecian mercenaries; but the battle of
Krimêsus is said to have persuaded them that there were no soldiers
to be compared to Greeks. The force of Giskon was apparently
distributed partly in the Carthaginian province at the western angle
of the island—partly in the neighborhood of Mylæ and Messênê on the
north-east, where Mamerkus joined him with the troops of Katana.
Messênê appears to have recently fallen under the power of a despot
named Hippon, who acted as their ally. To both points Timoleon
despatched a portion of his mercenary force, without going himself in
command; on both, his troops at first experienced partial defeats;
two divisions of them, one comprising four hundred men, being cut to
pieces. But such partial reverses were, in the religious appreciation
of the time, proofs more conspicuous than ever of the peculiar favor
shown by the gods towards Timoleon. For the soldiers thus slain
had been concerned in the pillage of the Delphian temple, and were
therefore marked out for the divine wrath; but the gods suspended
the sentence during the time when the soldiers were serving under
Timoleon in person, in order that he might not be the sufferer; and
executed it now in his absence, when execution would occasion the
least possible inconvenience to him.[379]

  [379] Plutarch, Timoleon, c. 30. Ἐξ ὧν καὶ μάλιστα τὴν
  Τιμολέοντος εὐτυχίαν συνέβη γενέσθαι διώνυμον.... Τὴν μὲν οὖν
  πρὸς Τιμολέοντα τῶν θεῶν εὐμένειαν, οὐχ ἧττον ἐν αἷς προσέκρουσε
  πράξεσιν ἢ περὶ ἃς κατώρθου, θαυμάζεσθαι συνέβαινεν.

  Compare Plutarch, De Serâ Num. Vind. p. 552 F.

Mamerkus and Hiketas, however, not adopting this interpretation
of their recent successes against Timoleon, were full of hope
and confidence. The former dedicated the shields of the slain
mercenaries to the gods, with an inscription of insolent triumph:
the latter—taking advantage of the absence of Timoleon, who had made
an expedition against a place not far off called Kalauria—undertook
an inroad into the Syracusan territory. Not content with inflicting
great damage and carrying off an ample booty, Hiketas, in returning
home, insulted Timoleon and the small force along with him by passing
immediately under the walls of Kalauria. Suffering him to pass by,
Timoleon pursued, though his force consisted only of cavalry and
light troops, with few or no hoplites. He found Hiketas posted
on the farther side of the Damurias; a river with rugged banks
and a ford of considerable difficulty. Yet notwithstanding this
good defensive position, the troops of Timoleon were so impatient
to attack, and each of his cavalry officers was so anxious to be
first in the charge, that he was obliged to decide the priority by
lot. The attack was then valiantly made, and the troops of Hiketas
completely defeated. One thousand of them were slain in the action,
while the remainder only escaped by flight and throwing away of their
shields.[380]

  [380] Plutarch, Timoleon, c. 31.

It was now the turn of Timoleon to attack Hiketas in his own domain
of Leontini. Here his usual good fortune followed him. The soldiers
in garrison—either discontented with the behavior of Hiketas at the
battle of the Damurias, or awe-struck with that divine favor which
waited on Timoleon—mutinied and surrendered the place into his
hands; and not merely the place, but also Hiketas himself in chains,
with his son Eupolemus, and his general Euthymus, a man of singular
bravery as well as a victorious athlete at the games. All three
were put to death; Hiketas and his son as despots and traitors; and
Euthymus, chiefly in consequence of insulting sarcasms against the
Corinthians, publicly uttered at Leontini. The wife and daughters
of Hiketas were conveyed as prisoners to Syracuse, where they were
condemned to death by public vote of the Syracusan assembly. This
vote was passed in express revenge for the previous crime of Hiketas,
in putting to death the widow, sister, and son, of Dion. Though
Timoleon might probably have saved the unfortunate women by a strong
exertion of influence, he did not interfere. The general feeling
of the people accounted this cruel, but special, retaliation right
under the circumstances; and Timoleon, as he could not have convinced
them of the contrary, so he did not think it right to urge them to
put their feeling aside as a simple satisfaction to him. Yet the act
leaves a deserved stain upon a reputation such as his.[381] The women
were treated on both sides as adjective beings, through whose lives
revenge was to be taken against a political enemy.

  [381] Plutarch, Timoleon, c. 33.

Next came the turn of Mamerkus, who had assembled near Katana a
considerable force, strengthened by a body of Carthaginian allies
under Giskon. He was attacked and defeated by Timoleon near the
river Abolus, with a loss of two thousand men, many of them
belonging to the Carthaginian division. We know nothing but the
simple fact of this battle; which probably made serious impression
upon the Carthaginians, since they speedily afterwards sent earnest
propositions for peace, deserting their Sicilian allies. Peace was
accordingly concluded; on terms however which left the Carthaginian
dominion in Sicily much the same as it had been at the end of the
reign of the elder Dionysius, as well as at the landing of Dion in
Sicily.[382] The line of separation was fixed at the river Halykus,
or Lykus, which flows into the southern sea near Herakleia Minoa,
and formed the western boundary of the territory of Agrigentum.
All westward of the Halykus was recognized as Carthaginian: but it
was stipulated that if any Greeks within that territory desired to
emigrate and become inmates of Syracuse, they should be allowed
freely to come with their families and their property. It was farther
covenanted that all the territory eastward of the Halykus should be
considered not only as Greek, but as free Greek, distributed among
so many free cities, and exempt from despots. And the Carthaginians
formally covenanted that they would neither aid, nor adopt as ally,
any Grecian despot in Sicily.[383] In the first treaty concluded by
the elder Dionysius with the Carthaginians, it had been stipulated by
an express article that the Syracusans should be subject to him.[384]
Here is one of the many contrasts between Dionysius and Timoleon.

  [382] Diodor. xv. 17. Minoa (Herakleia) was a Carthaginian
  possession when Dion landed (Plutarch, Dion, c. 25).

  Cornelius Nepos (Timoleon, c. 2) states erroneously, that the
  Carthaginians were completely expelled from Sicily by Timoleon.

  [383] Plutarch, Timoleon, c. 34; Diodor. xvi. 82.

  [384] Diodor. xiii. 114.

Having thus relieved himself from his most formidable enemy, Timoleon
put a speedy end to the war in other parts of the island. Mamerkus
in fact despaired of farther defence without foreign aid. He crossed
over with a squadron into Italy to ask for the introduction of a
Lucanian army into Sicily;[385] which he might perhaps have obtained,
since that warlike nation were now very powerful—had not his own
seamen abandoned him, and carried back their vessels to Katana,
surrendering both the city and themselves to Timoleon. The same
thing, and even more, had been done a little before by the troops of
Hiketas at Leontini, who had even delivered up Hiketas himself as
prisoner; so powerful, seemingly, was the ascendency exercised by
the name of Timoleon, with the prestige of his perpetual success.
Mamerkus could now find no refuge except at Messênê, where he was
welcomed by the despot Hippon. But Timoleon speedily came thither
with a force ample enough to besiege Messênê by land and by sea.
After a certain length of resistance,[386] the town was surrendered
to him, while Hippon tried to make his escape secretly on shipboard.
But he was captured and brought back into the midst of the Messenian
population, who, under a sentiment of bitter hatred and vengeance,
planted him in the midst of the crowded theatre and there put him
to death with insult, summoning all the boys from school into the
theatre to witness what was considered an elevating scene. Mamerkus,
without attempting to escape, surrendered himself prisoner to
Timoleon; only stipulating that his fate should be determined by the
Syracusan assembly after a fair hearing, but that Timoleon himself
should say nothing to his disfavor. He was accordingly brought to
Syracuse, and placed on his trial before the assembled people,
whom he addressed in an elaborate discourse; probably skilfully
composed, since he is said to have possessed considerable talent as
a poet.[387] But no eloquence could surmount the rooted aversion
entertained by the Syracusans for his person and character. Being
heard with murmurs, and seeing that he had no chance of obtaining a
favorable verdict, he suddenly threw aside his garment and rushed
with violent despair against one of the stone seats, head foremost,
in hopes of giving himself a fatal blow. But not succeeding in this
attempted suicide, he was led out of the theatre and executed like a
robber.[388]

  [385] Cornelius Nepos (Timoleon, c. 2) calls Mamerkus an Italian
  general who had come into Sicily to aid the despots. It is
  possible enough that he may have been an Italiot Greek; for he
  must have been a Greek, from the manner in which Plutarch speaks
  of his poetical compositions.

  [386] Plutarch, Timoleon, c. 37.

  [387] Plutarch, Timoleon, c. 31.

  [388] Plutarch, Timoleon, c. 34.

Timoleon had now nearly accomplished his confirmed purpose of
extirpating every despotism in Sicily. There remained yet Nikodemus
as despot at Kentoripa, and Apolloniades at Agyrium. Both of these
he speedily dethroned or expelled, restoring the two cities to the
condition of free communities. He also expelled from the town of Ætna
those Campanian mercenaries who had been planted there by the elder
Dionysius.[389] In this way did he proceed until there remained only
free communities, without a single despot, in the Grecian portion of
Sicily.

  [389] Diodor. xvi. 82.

Of the details of his proceedings our scanty information permits
us to say but little. But the great purpose with which he had
started from Corinth was now achieved. After having put down all the
other despotisms in Sicily, there remained for him but one farther
triumph—the noblest and rarest of all—to lay down his own. This he
performed without any delay, immediately on returning to Syracuse
from his military proceedings. Congratulating the Syracusans on
the triumphant consummation already attained, he entreated them to
dispense with his farther services as sole commander; the rather
as his eyesight was now failing.[390] It is probable enough that
this demand was at first refused, and that he was warmly requested
to retain his functions; but if such was the fact, he did not the
less persist, and the people, willing or not, acceded. We ought
farther to note, that not only did he resign his generalship, but he
resigned it at once and immediately, after the complete execution
of his proclaimed purpose, to emancipate the Sicilian Greeks from
foreign enemies as well as from despot-enemies; just as, on first
acquiring possession of Syracuse, he had begun his authoritative
career, without a moment’s delay, by ordering the demolition of the
Dionysian stronghold, and the construction of a court of justice in
its place.[391] By this instantaneous proceeding he forestalled the
growth of that suspicion which delay would assuredly have raised,
and for which the free communities of Greece had in general such
ample reason. And it is not the least of his many merits, that while
conscious of good intentions himself, he had also the good sense
to see that others could not look into his bosom; that all their
presumptions, except what were created by his own conduct, would be
derived from men worse than him—and therefore unfavorable. Hence it
was necessary for him to be prompt and forward, even to a sort of
ostentation, in exhibiting the amplest positive proof of his real
purposes, so as to stifle beforehand the growth of suspicion.

  [390] Plutarch, Timoleon, c. 37. Ὡς δὲ ἐπανῆλθεν εἰς Συρακούσας,
  εὐθὺς ἀποθέσθαι τὴν μοναρχίαν καὶ παραιτεῖσθαι τοὺς πολίτας, τῶν
  πραγμάτων εἰς τὸ κάλλιστον ἡκόντων τέλος.

  [391] Plutarch, _l. c._ ~εὐθὺς~ ἀποθέσθαι τὴν μοναρχίαν: compare
  c. 22.

He was now a private citizen of Syracuse, having neither paid
soldiers under his command nor any other public function. As a
reward for his splendid services, the Syracusans voted to him a
house in the city, and a landed property among the best in the
neighborhood. Here he fixed his residence, sending for his wife and
family to Corinth.[392]

  [392] Plutarch, Timoleon, c. 36.

Yet though Timoleon had renounced every species of official
authority, and all means of constraint, his influence as an adviser
over the judgment, feelings and actions, not only of Syracusans, but
of Sicilians generally, was as great as ever; perhaps greater—because
the fact of his spontaneous resignation gave him one title more
to confidence. Rarely is it allowed to mortal man, to establish
so transcendent a claim to confidence and esteem as Timoleon now
presented; upon so many different grounds, and with so little
of alloy or abatement. To possess a counsellor whom every one
reverenced, without suspicions or fears of any kind—who had not only
given conspicuous proofs of uncommon energy combined with skilful
management, but enjoyed besides, in a peculiar degree, the favor of
the gods—was a benefit unspeakably precious to the Sicilians at this
juncture. For it was now the time when not merely Syracuse, but other
cities of Sicily also, were aiming to strengthen their reconstituted
free communities by a fresh supply of citizens from abroad. During
the sixty years which had elapsed since the first formidable invasion
wherein the Carthaginian Hannibal had conquered Selinus, there had
been a series of causes all tending to cripple and diminish, and
none to renovate, the Grecian population of Sicily. The Carthaginian
attacks, the successful despotism of the first Dionysius, and the
disturbed reign of the second,—all contributed to the same result.
About the year 352-351 B. C., Plato (as has been already mentioned)
expresses his fear of an extinction of Hellenism in Sicily giving
place before Phenician or Campanian force.[393] And what was a sad
possibility, even in 352-351 B. C.—had become nearer to a probability
in 344 B. C., before Timoleon landed, in the then miserable condition
of the island.

  [393] Plato, Epistol. viii. p. 353 F.

His unparalleled success and matchless personal behavior combined
with the active countenance of Corinth without—had completely
turned the tide. In the belief of all Greeks, Sicily was now a
land restored to Hellenism and freedom, but requiring new colonists
as well to partake, as to guard, these capital privileges. The
example of colonization, under the auspices of Corinth, had been
set at Syracuse, and was speedily followed elsewhere, especially
at Agrigentum, Gela, and Kamarina. All these three cities had
suffered cruelly during those formidable Carthaginian invasions
which immediately preceded the despotism of Dionysius at Syracuse.
They had had no opportunity, during the continuance of the Dionysian
dynasty, even to make up what they had then lost; far less to acquire
accessions from without. At the same time, all three (especially
Agrigentum) recollected their former scale of opulence and power,
as it had stood prior to 407 B. C. It was with eagerness therefore
that they availed themselves of the new life and security imparted
to Sicily by the career of Timoleon to replenish their exhausted
numbers; by recalling those whom former suffering had driven away,
and by inviting fresh colonists besides. Megellus and Pheristus,
citizens of Elea on the southern coast of Italy (which was probably
at this time distressed by the pressure of Lucanians from the
interior), conducted a colony to Agrigentum: Gorgus, from Keos, went
with another band to Gela: in both cases, a proportion of expatriated
citizens returned among them. Kamarina, too, and Agyrium received
large accessions of inhabitants. The inhabitants of Leontini are said
to have removed their habitations to Syracuse; a statement difficult
to understand, and probably only partially true, as the city and its
name still continued to exist.[394]

  [394] Diodor. xvi. 65, 82; Plutarch, Timoleon, c. 35.

Unfortunately the proceedings of Timoleon come before us (through
Diodorus and Plutarch) in a manner so vague and confused, that we
can rarely trace the sequence or assign the date of particular
facts.[395] But about the general circumstances, with their character
and bearing, there is no room either for mistake or doubt. That
which rhetors and sophists like Lysias had preached in their
panegyrical harangues[396]—that for which Plato sighed, in the
epistles of his old age—commending it, after Dion’s death, to the
surviving partisans of Dion, as having been the unexecuted purpose of
their departed leader—the renewal of freedom and Hellenism throughout
the island—was now made a reality under the auspices of Timoleon.
The houses, the temples, the walls, were rescued from decay; the
lands from comparative barrenness. For it was not merely his personal
reputation and achievements which constituted the main allurement to
new colonists, but also his superintending advice which regulated
their destination when they arrived. Without the least power of
constraint, or even official dignity, he was consulted as a sort
of general Œkist or Patron-Founder, by the affectionate regard of
the settlers in every part of Sicily. The distribution or sale of
lands, the modification required in existing laws and customs, the
new political constitutions, etc., were all submitted to his review.
No settlement gave satisfaction, except such as he had pronounced or
approved; none which he had approved was contested.[397]

  [395] Eight years elapsed from the time when Timoleon departed
  with his expedition from Corinth to the time of his death; from
  345-344 B. C. to 337-336 B. C. (Diodorus, xvi. 90; Plutarch,
  Timoleon, c. 37).

  The battle of the Krimêsus is assigned by Diodorus to 340 B. C.
  But as to the other military achievements of Timoleon in Sicily,
  Diodorus and Plutarch are neither precise, nor in accordance with
  each other.

  [396] Plutarch, Timoleon, c. 37. μόνος, ἐφ᾽ ἃς οἱ σοφισταὶ διὰ
  τῶν λόγων τῶν πανηγυρικῶν ἀεὶ παρεκάλουν πράξεις τοὺς Ἕλληνας, ἐν
  αὐταῖς ἀριστεύσας, etc.

  [397] Plutarch, Timoleon, c. 35. Οἷς οὐ μόνον ἀσφάλειαν ἐκ
  πολέμου τοσούτου καὶ γαλήνην ἱδρυομένοις παρεῖχεν, ἀλλὰ καὶ τἄλλα
  παρασκευάσας καὶ συμπροθυμηθεὶς ὥσπερ οἰκιστὴς ἠγαπᾶτο. Καὶ τῶν
  ἄλλων δὲ διακειμένων ὁμοίως πρὸς αὐτὸν, οὐ πολέμου τις λύσις, οὐ
  νόμων θέσις, οὐ χώρας κατοικισμὸς, οὐ πολιτείας διάταξις, ἐδόκει
  καλῶς ἔχειν, ἧς ἐκεῖνος μὴ προσάψαιτο μηδὲ κατακοσμήσειεν, ὥσπερ
  ἔργῳ συντελουμένῳ δημιουργὸς ἐπιθείς τινα χάριν θεοφιλῆ καὶ
  πρέπουσαν.

  Compare Cornelius Nepos, Timoleon, c. 3.

In the situation in which Sicily was now placed, it is clear that
numberless matters of doubt and difficulty would inevitably arise;
that the claims and interests of pre-existing residents, returning
exiles and new immigrants, would often be conflicting; that the
rites and customs of different fractions composing the new whole,
might have to be modified for the sake of mutual harmony; that the
settlers, coming from oligarchies as well as democracies might bring
with them different ideas as to the proper features of a political
constitution; that the apportionment or sale of lands, and the
adjustment of old debts, presented but too many chances of angry
dispute; that there were, in fact, a thousand novelties in the
situation, which could not be determined either by precedent, or by
any peremptory rule, but must be left to the equity of a supreme
arbitrator. Here then the advantages were unspeakable of having a man
like Timoleon to appeal to; a man not only really without sinister
bias, but recognized by every one as being so; a man whom every one
loved, trusted, and was grieved to offend; a man who sought not
to impose his own will upon free communities, but addressed them
as freemen, building only upon their reason and sentiments, and
carrying out in all his recommendations of detail those instincts of
free speech, universal vote, and equal laws, which formed the germ
of political obligation in the minds of Greeks generally. It would
have been gratifying to know how Timoleon settled the many new and
difficult questions which must have been submitted to him as referee.
There is no situation in human society so valuable to study, as that
in which routine is of necessity broken through, and the constructive
faculties called into active exertion. Nor was there ever perhaps
throughout Grecian history, a simultaneous colonization, and
simultaneous recasting of political institutions, more extensive than
that which now took place in Sicily. Unfortunately we are permitted
to know only the general fact, without either the charm or the
instruction which would have been presented by the details. Timoleon
was, in Sicily, that which Epaminondas had been at the foundation of
Messênê and Megalopolis, though with far greater power: and we have
to deplore the like ignorance respecting the detail proceedings of
both these great men.

But though the sphere of Timoleon’s activity was coextensive with
Sicily, his residence, his citizenship, and his peculiar interests
and duties were at Syracuse. That city, like most of the other
Sicilian towns, had been born anew, with a numerous body of settlers
and altered political institutions. I have already mentioned that
Kephalus and others, invited from Corinth by express vote of
the Syracusans, had reëstablished the democratical institution
of Dioklês, with suitable modifications. The new era of liberty
was marked by the establishment of a new sacred office, that of
Amphipolus or Attendant Priest of Zeus Olympius; an office changed
annually, appointed by lot (doubtless under some conditions of
qualification which are not made known to us,[398]) and intended,
like the Archon Eponymus at Athens, as the recognized name to
distinguish each Syracusan year. In this work of constitutional
reform, as well as in all the labors and adjustments connected with
the new settlers, Timoleon took a prominent part. But so soon as
the new constitution was consummated and set at work, he declined
undertaking any specific duties or exercising any powers under it.
Enjoying the highest measure of public esteem, and loaded with
honorary and grateful votes from the people, he had the wisdom
as well as the virtue to prefer living as a private citizen; a
resolution doubtless promoted by his increasing failure of eyesight,
which presently became total blindness.[399] He dwelt in the
house assigned to him by public vote of the people, which he had
consecrated to the Holy God, and within which he had set apart a
chapel to the goddess Automatia,—the goddess under whose auspices
blessings and glory came as it were of themselves.[400] To this
goddess he offered sacrifice, as the great and constant patroness
who had accompanied him from Corinth through all his proceedings in
Sicily.

  [398] Diodor. xvi. 70; Cicero in Verrem, ii. 51.

  [399] Plutarch, Timoleon, c. 38.

  [400] Plutarch, Timoleon, c. 38. Ἐπὶ δὲ τῆς οἰκίας ἱερὸν
  ἱδρυσάμενος Αὐτοματίας ἔθυσεν, αὐτὴν δὲ τὴν οἰκίαν Ἱερῷ Δαίμονι
  καθιέρωσεν.

  Cornelius Nepos, Timoleon, c. 4; Plutarch, Reip. Gerend. Præcept.
  p. 816 D.

  The idea of Αὐτοματία is not the same as that of Τύχη, though the
  word is sometimes translated as if it were. It is more nearly the
  same as Ἀγαθὴ Τύχη—though still, as it seems to me, not exactly
  the same.

By refusing the official prominence tendered to him, and by keeping
away from the details of public life, Timoleon escaped the jealousy
sure to attend upon influence so prodigious as his. But in truth, for
all great and important matters, this very modesty increased instead
of diminishing his real ascendency. Here as elsewhere, the goddess
Automatia worked for him, and brought to him docile listeners without
his own seeking. Though the Syracusans transacted their ordinary
business through others, yet when any matter of serious difficulty
occurred, the presence of Timoleon was specially invoked in the
discussion. During the later months of his life, when he had become
blind, his arrival in the assembly was a solemn scene. Having been
brought in his car drawn by mules across the market-place to the door
of the theatre wherein the assembly was held, attendants then led
or drew the car into the theatre amidst the assembled people, who
testified their affection by the warmest shouts and congratulations.
As soon as he had returned their welcome, and silence was restored,
the discussion to which he had been invited took place, Timoleon
sitting on his car and listening. Having heard the matter thus
debated, he delivered his own opinion, which was usually ratified
at once by the show of hands of the assembly. He then took leave of
the people and retired, the attendants again leading the car out
of the theatre, and the same cheers of attachment accompanying his
departure; while the assembly proceeded with its other and more
ordinary business.[401]

  [401] Plutarch, Timoleon, c. 38; Cornel. Nepos, Timoleon, c. 4.

Such is the impressive and picturesque description given (doubtless
by Athanis or some other eye-witness[402]) of the relations
between the Syracusan people and the blind Timoleon, after his
power had been abdicated, and when there remained to him nothing
except his character and moral ascendency. It is easy to see that
the solemnities of interposition, here recounted, must have been
reserved for those cases in which the assembly had been disturbed
by some unusual violence or collision of parties. For such critical
junctures, where numbers were perhaps nearly balanced, and where
the disappointment of an angry minority threatened to beget some
permanent feud, the benefit was inestimable, of an umpire whom both
parties revered, and before whom neither thought it a dishonor to
yield. Keeping aloof from the details and embarrassments of daily
political life, and preserving himself (like the Salaminian trireme,
to use a phrase which Plutarch applies to Perikles at Athens) for
occasions at once momentous and difficult, Timoleon filled up a gap
occasionally dangerous to all free societies; but which even at
Athens had always remained a gap, because there was no Athenian at
once actually worthy, and known to be worthy, to fill it. We may even
wonder how he continued worthy, when the intense popular sentiment
in his favor tended so strongly to turn his head, and when no
contradiction or censure against him was tolerated.

  [402] It occurs in Cornelius Nepos prior to Plutarch, and was
  probably copied by both from the same authority.

Two persons, Laphystius and Demænetus, called by the obnoxious names
of sycophants and demagogues, were bold enough to try the experiment.
The former required him to give bail in a lawsuit; the latter, in a
public discourse, censured various parts of his military campaigns.
The public indignation against both these men was vehement; yet there
can be little doubt that Laphystius applied to Timoleon a legal
process applicable universally to every citizen: what may have been
the pertinence of the censures of Demænetus, we are unable to say.
However, Timoleon availed himself of the well-meant impatience of
the people to protect him either from legal process or from censure,
only to administer to them a serious and valuable lesson. Protesting
against all interruption to the legal process of Laphystius, he
proclaimed emphatically that this was the precise purpose for which
he had so long labored, and combated—in order that every Syracusan
citizen might be enabled to appeal to the laws and exercise freely
his legal rights. And while he thought it unnecessary to rebut in
detail the objections taken against his previous generalship, he
publicly declared his gratitude to the gods, for having granted his
prayer that he might witness all Syracusans in possession of full
liberty of speech.[403]

  [403] Plutarch, Timoleon, c. 37; Cornelius Nepos, Timoleon, c. 5.

We obtain little from the biographers of Timoleon, except a few
incidents, striking, impressive, and somewhat theatrical, like those
just recounted. But what is really important is, the tone and temper
which these incidents reveal, both in Timoleon and in the Syracusan
people. To see him unperverted by a career of superhuman success,
retaining the same hearty convictions with which he had started from
Corinth; renouncing power, the most ardent of all aspirations with a
Greek politician, and descending to a private station, in spite of
every external inducement to the contrary; resisting the temptation
to impose his own will upon the people, and respecting their free
speech and public vote in a manner which made it imperatively
necessary for every one else to follow his example; foregoing
command, and contenting himself with advice when his opinion was
asked—all this presents a model of genuine and intelligent public
spirit, such as is associated with few other names except that of
Timoleon. That the Syracusan people should have yielded to such
conduct and obedience not merely voluntary, but heartfelt and
almost reverential, is no matter of wonder. And we may be quite
sure that the opinion of Timoleon, tranquilly and unostentatiously
consulted, was the guiding star which they followed on most points
of moment or difficulty; over and above those of exceptional cases
of aggravated dissent where he was called in with such imposing
ceremony as an umpire. On the value of such an oracle close at hand
it is needless to insist; especially in a city which for the last
half century had known nothing but the dominion of force, and amidst
a new miscellaneous aggregate composed of Greek settlers from many
different quarters.

Timoleon now enjoyed, as he had amply earned, what Xenophon calls
“that good, not human, but divine—command over willing men—given
manifestly to persons of genuine and highly trained temperance of
character.[404]” In him the condition indicated by Xenophon was found
completely realized—temperance in the largest and most comprehensive
sense of the word—not simply sobriety and continence (which had
belonged to the elder Dionysius also), but an absence of that fatal
thirst for coercive power at all price, which in Greece was the
fruitful parent of the greater crimes and enormities.

  [404] Xenoph. Œconomic. xxi. 12. Οὐ γὰρ πάνυ μοι δοκεῖ ὅλον τουτὶ
  τὸ ἀγαθὸν ἀνθρώπινον εἶναι, ἀλλὰ θεῖον, ~τὸ ἐθελόντων ἄρχειν~·
  σαφῶς δὲ δίδοται τοῖς ἀληθινῶς σωφροσύνῃ τετελεσμένοις. Τὸ δὲ
  ἀκόντων τυραννεῖν διδόασιν, ὡς ἐμοὶ δοκεῖ, οὓς ἂν ἡγῶνται ἀξίους
  εἶναι βιοτεύειν, ὥσπερ ὁ Τάνταλος ἐν ᾅδου λέγεται τὸν ἀεὶ χρόνον
  διατρίβειν, φοβούμενος μὴ δὶς ἀποθάνῃ.

Timoleon lived to see his great work of Sicilian enfranchisement
consummated, to carry it through all its incipient difficulties, and
to see it prosperously moving on. Not Syracuse alone, but the other
Grecian cities in the island also, enjoyed under their revived free
institutions a state of security, comfort, and affluence, to which
they had been long strangers. The lands became again industriously
tilled; the fertile soil yielded anew abundant exports; the temples
were restored from their previous decay, and adorned with the
votive offerings of pious munificence.[405] The same state of
prosperous and active freedom, which had followed on the expulsion
of the Gelonian dynasty a hundred and twenty years before, and
lasted about fifty years, without either despots within or invaders
from without—was now again made prevalent throughout Sicily under
the auspices of Timoleon. It did not indeed last so long. It was
broken up in the year 316 B. C., twenty-four years after the battle
of the Krimêsus, by the despot Agathokles, whose father was among
the immigrants to Syracuse under the settlement of Timoleon. But
the interval of security and freedom with which Sicily was blessed
between these two epochs, she owed to the generous patriotism and
intelligent counsel of Timoleon. There are few other names among
the Grecian annals, with which we can connect so large an amount of
predetermined and beneficent result.

  [405] Diodor. xvi. 83.

Endeared to the Syracusans as a common father and benefactor,[406]
and exhibited as their hero to all visitors from Greece, he passed
the remainder of his life amidst the fulness of affectionate honor.
Unfortunately for the Syracusans, that remainder was but too short;
for he died of an illness apparently slight, in the year 337-336 B.
C.—three or four years after the battle of the Krimêsus. Profound
and unfeigned was the sorrow which his death excited, universally,
throughout Sicily. Not merely the Syracusans, but crowds from all
other parts of the island, attended to do honor to his funeral,
which was splendidly celebrated at the public cost. Some of the
chosen youths of the city carried the bier whereon his body was
deposited: a countless procession of men and women followed, in their
festival attire, crowned with wreaths, and mingling with their tears
admiration and envy for their departed liberator. The procession was
made to pass over that ground which presented the most honorable
memento of Timoleon; where the demolished Dionysian stronghold had
once reared its head, and where the court of justice was now placed,
at the entrance of Ortygia. At length it reached the Nekropolis,
between Ortygia and Achradina, where a massive funeral pile had been
prepared. As soon as the bier had been placed on this pile, and fire
was about to be applied, the herald Demetrius, distinguished for the
powers of his voice, proclaimed with loud announcement as follows:—

  [406] Plutarch. Timoleon, c. 39. Ἐν τοιαύτῃ δὲ γηροτροφούμενος
  τιμῇ μετ᾽ εὐνοίας, ὥσπερ πατὴρ κοινὸς, ἐκ μικρᾶς προφάσεως τῷ
  χρόνῳ συνεφαψαμένης ἐτελεύτησεν.

“The Syracusan people solemnize, at the cost of two hundred minæ, the
funeral of this man, the Corinthian Timoleon, son of Timodemus. They
have passed a vote to honor him for all future time with festival
matches in music, horse and chariot race, and gymnastics,—because,
after having put down the despots, subdued the foreign enemy, and
re-colonized the greatest among the ruined cities, he restored to the
Sicilian Greeks their constitution and laws.”

A sepulchral monument, seemingly with this inscription recorded on
it, was erected to the memory of Timoleon in the agora of Syracuse.
To this monument other buildings were presently annexed; porticos,
for the assembling of persons in business or conversation—and
palæstræ, for the exercises of youths. The aggregate of buildings all
taken together was called the Timoleontion.[407]

  [407] Plutarch, Timoleon, c. 39; Diodor, xvi. 90.

When we reflect that the fatal battle of Chæroneia had taken place
the year before Timoleon’s decease, and that his native city Corinth
as well as all her neighbors were sinking deeper and deeper into
the degradation of subject towns of Macedonia, we shall not regret,
for his sake, that a timely death relieved him from so mournful
a spectacle. It was owing to him that the Sicilian Greeks were
rescued, for nearly one generation, from the like fate. He had the
rare glory of maintaining to the end, and executing to the full, the
promise of liberation with which he had gone forth from Corinth.
His early years had been years of acute suffering—and that, too,
incurred in the cause of freedom—arising out of the death of his
brother; his later period, manifesting the like sense of duty under
happier auspices, had richly repaid him, by successes overpassing
all reasonable expectation, and by the ample flow of gratitude and
attachment poured forth to him amidst the liberated Sicilians. His
character appears most noble, and most instructive, if we contrast
him with Dion. Timoleon had been brought up as the citizen of a
free, though oligarchical community in Greece, surrounded by other
free communities, and amidst universal hatred of despots. The
politicians whom he had learnt to esteem were men trained in this
school, maintaining a qualified ascendency against more or less of
open competition from rivals, and obliged to look for the means
of carrying their views apart from simple dictation. Moreover,
the person whom Timoleon had selected for his peculiar model, was
Epaminondas, the noblest model that Greece afforded.[408] It was to
this example that Timoleon owed in part his energetic patriotism
combined with freedom from personal ambition—his gentleness of
political antipathy—and the perfect habits of conciliatory and
popular dealing—which he manifested amidst so many new and trying
scenes to the end of his career.

  [408] Plutarch. Timoleon, c. 36. Ὁ μάλιστα ζηλωθεὶς ὑπὸ
  Τιμολέοντος Ἐπαμεινώνδας, etc.

  Polybius reckons Hermokrates, Timoleon, and Pyrrhus, to be the
  most complete men of action (πραγματικωτάτους) of all those who
  had played a conspicuous part in Sicilian affairs (Polyb. xii.
  25. ed. Didot).

Now the education of Dion (as I have recounted in the preceding
chapter) had been something totally different. He was the member
of a despotic family, and had learnt his experience under the
energetic, but perfectly self-willed, march of the elder Dionysius.
Of the temper or exigencies of a community of freemen, he had never
learnt to take account. Plunged in this corrupting atmosphere, he
had nevertheless imbibed generous and public-spirited aspirations:
he had come to hold in abhorrence a government of will, and to look
for glory in contributing to replace it by a qualified freedom and
a government of laws. But the source from whence he drank was,
the Academy and its illustrious teacher Plato; not from practical
life, nor from the best practical politicians like Epaminondas.
Accordingly, he had imbibed at the same time the idea, that though
despotism was a bad thing, government thoroughly popular was a bad
thing also; that, in other words, as soon as he had put down the
despotism, it lay with him to determine how much liberty he would
allow, or what laws he would sanction, for the community; that
instead of a despot, he was to become a despotic lawgiver.

Here then lay the main difference between the two conquerors of
Dionysius. The mournful letters written by Plato after the death of
Dion contrast strikingly with the enviable end of Timoleon, and with
the grateful inscription of the Syracusans on his tomb.




CHAPTER LXXXVI.

CENTRAL GREECE: THE ACCESSION OF PHILIP OF MACEDON TO THE BIRTH OF
ALEXANDER. 359-356 B. C.


My last preceding chapters have followed the history of the
Sicilian Greeks through long years of despotism, suffering, and
impoverishment, into a period of renovated freedom and comparative
happiness, accomplished under the beneficent auspices of Timoleon,
between 344-336 B. C. It will now be proper to resume the thread of
events in Central Greece, at the point where they were left at the
close of the preceding volume—the accession of Philip of Macedon in
360-359 B. C. The death of Philip took place in 336 B. C.; and the
closing years of his life will bring before us the last struggles of
full Hellenic freedom; a result standing in mournful contrast with
the achievements of the contemporary liberator Timoleon in Sicily.

No such struggles could have appeared within the limits of
possibility, even to the most far-sighted politician either of Greece
or of Macedon—at the time when Philip mounted the throne. Among the
hopes and fears of most Grecian cities, Macedonia then passed wholly
unnoticed; in Athens, Olynthus, Thasus, Thessaly, and a few others,
it formed an item not without moment, yet by no means of first-rate
magnitude.

The Hellenic world was now in a state different from anything which
had been seen since the repulse of Xerxes in 480-479 B. C. The defeat
and degradation of Sparta had set free the inland states from the
only presiding city whom they had ever learned to look up to. Her
imperial ascendency, long possessed and grievously abused, had been
put down by the successes of Epaminondas and the Thebans. She was
no longer the head of a numerous body of subordinate allies, sending
deputies to her periodical synods—submitting their external politics
to her influence—placing their military contingents under command
of her officers (xenagi)—and even administering their internal
government through oligarchies devoted to her purposes, with the
reinforcement, wherever needed, of a Spartan harmost and garrison.
She no longer found on her northern frontier a number of detached
Arcadian villages, each separately manageable under leaders devoted
to her, and furnishing her with hardy soldiers; nor had she the
friendly city of Tegea, tied to her by a long-standing philo-Laconian
oligarchy and tradition. Under the strong revolution of feeling
which followed on the defeat of the Spartans at Leuktra, the small
Arcadian communities, encouraged and guided by Epaminondas, had
consolidated themselves into the great fortified city of Megalopolis,
now the centre of a Pan-Arcadian confederacy, with a synod (called
the Ten thousand) frequently assembled there to decide upon matters
of interest and policy common to the various sections of the Arcadian
name. Tegea too had undergone a political revolution; so that these
two cities, conterminous with each other and forming together the
northern frontier of Sparta, converted her Arcadian neighbors from
valuable instruments into formidable enemies.

But this loss of foreign auxiliary force and dignity was not the
worst which Sparta had suffered. On her north-western frontier
(conterminous also with Megalopolis) stood the newly-constituted city
of Messênê, representing an amputation of nearly one-half of Spartan
territory and substance. The western and more fertile half of Laconia
had been severed from Sparta, and was divided between Messênê and
various other independent cities; being tilled chiefly by those who
had once been Periœki and Helots of Sparta.

In the phase of Grecian history on which we are now about to
enter—when the collective Hellenic world, for the first time since
the invasion of Xerxes, was about to be thrown upon its defence
against a foreign enemy from Macedonia—this altered position of
Sparta was a circumstance of grave moment. Not only were the
Peloponnesians disunited, and deprived of their common chief; but
Megalopolis and Messênê, knowing the intense hostility of Sparta
against them—and her great superiority of force even reduced as she
was, to all that they could muster—lived in perpetual dread of her
attack. Their neighbors the Argeians, standing enemies of Sparta,
were well-disposed to protect them; but such aid was insufficient
for their defence, without extra-Peloponnesian alliance. Accordingly
we shall find them leaning upon the support either of Thebes or
of Athens, whichever could be had; and ultimately even welcoming
the arms of Philip of Macedon, as protector against the inexpiable
hostility of Sparta. Elis—placed in the same situation with reference
to Triphylia, as Sparta with reference to Messênê—complained that
the Triphylians, whom she looked upon as subjects, had been admitted
as freemen into the Arcadian federation. We shall find Sparta
endeavoring to engage Elis in political combinations, intended
to ensure, to both, the recovery of lost dominion.[409] Of these
combinations more will be said hereafter; at present I merely notice
the general fact that the degradation of Sparta, combined with
her perpetually menaced aggression against Messênê and Arcadia,
disorganized Peloponnesus, and destroyed its powers of Pan-hellenic
defence against the new foreign enemy now slowly arising.

  [409] Demosthenes, Orat. pro Megalopolit. p. 203, 204, s.
  6-10; p. 206. s. 18—and indeed the whole Oration, which is an
  instructive exposition of policy.

The once powerful Peloponnesian system was in fact completely broken
up. Corinth, Sikyon, Phlius, Trœzen, and Epidaurus, valuable as
secondary states and as allies of Sparta, were now detached from all
political combination, aiming only to keep clear, each for itself,
of all share in collision between Sparta and Thebes.[410] It would
appear also that Corinth had recently been oppressed and disturbed by
the temporary despotism of Timophanes, described in my last chapter;
though the date of that event cannot be precisely made out.

  [410] Xen. Hellen. vii. 4, 6, 10.

But the grand and preponderating forces of Hellas now resided, for
the first time in our history, without, and not within, Peloponnesus;
at Athens and Thebes. Both these cities were in full vigor and
efficiency. Athens had a numerous fleet, a flourishing commerce, a
considerable body of maritime and insular allies, sending deputies
to her synod and contributing to a common fund for the maintenance
of the joint security. She was by far the greatest maritime power
of Greece. I have recounted in my last preceding volume, how her
general Timotheus had acquired for her the important island of
Samos, together with Pydna, Methônê, and Potidæa, in the Thermaic
Gulf; how he failed (as Iphikrates had failed before him) in more
than one attempt upon Amphipolis; how he planted Athenian conquest
and settlers in the Thracian Chersonese, which territory, after
having been attacked and endangered by the Thracian prince Kotys,
was regained by the continued efforts of Athens in the year 358 B.
C. Athens had sustained no considerable loss, during the struggles
which ended in the pacification after the battle of Mantinea; and her
condition appears on the whole to have been better than it had ever
been since her disasters at the close of the Peloponnesian war.

The power of Thebes also was imposing and formidable. She had indeed
lost many of those Peloponnesian allies who formed the overwhelming
array of Epaminondas when he first invaded Laconia, under the fresh
anti-Spartan impulse immediately succeeding the battle of Leuktra.
She retained only Argos, together with Tegea, Megalopolis, and
Messênê. The last three added little to her strength, and needed
her watchful support; a price which Epaminondas had been perfectly
willing to pay for the establishment of a strong frontier against
Sparta. But the body of extra Peloponnesian allies grouped round
Thebes was still considerable:[411] the Phokians and Lokrians, the
Malians, the Herakleots, most of the Thessalians, and most (if not
all) of the inhabitants of Eubœa; perhaps also the Akarnanians. The
Phokians were indeed reluctant allies, disposed to circumscribe their
obligations within the narrowest limits of mutual defence in case
of invasion and we shall presently find the relations between the
two becoming positively hostile. Besides these allies, the Thebans
possessed the valuable position of Oropus, on the north-eastern
frontier of Attica; a town which had been wrested from Athens six
years before, to the profound mortification of the Athenians.

  [411] Xenoph. Hellen. vi. 5, 23; vii 5, 4. Diodor. xv. 62.
  The Akarnanians had been allies of Thebes at the time of the
  first expedition of Epaminondas into Peloponnesus; whether they
  remained so at the time of his last expedition, is not certain.
  But as the Theban ascendency over Thessaly was much greater at
  the last of those two periods than at the first, we may be sure
  that they had not lost their hold upon the Lokrians and Malians
  who (as well as the Phokians) lay between Bœotia and Thessaly.

But ever and above allies without Bœotia, Thebes had prodigiously
increased the power of her city within Bœotia. She had appropriated
to herself the territories of Platæa and Thespiæ on her southern
frontier, and of Koroneia and Orchomenus near upon her northern; by
conquest and partial expulsion of their prior inhabitants. How and
when these acquisitions had been brought about, has been explained
in my preceding volume:[412] here I merely recall the fact, to
appreciate the position of Thebes in 359 B. C.—that these four
towns, having been in 372 B. C. autonomous—joined with her only by
the definite obligations of the Bœotian confederacy—and partly even
in actual hostility against her—had now lost their autonomy with
their free citizens, and had become absorbed into her property and
sovereignty. The domain of Thebes thus extended across Bœotia from
the frontiers of Phokis[413] on the north-west to the frontiers of
Attica on the south.

  [412] Vol. X. Ch. lxxvii. p. 161; Ch. lxxviii. p. 195; Ch. lxxx.
  p. 312.

  [413] Orchomenus was conterminous with the Phokian territory
  (Pausanias, ix. 39, 1.)

The new position thus acquired by Thebes in Bœotia, purchased at the
cost of extinguishing three or four autonomous cities, is a fact of
much moment in reference to the period now before us; not simply
because it swelled the power and pride of the Thebans themselves; but
also because it raised a strong body of unfavorable sentiment against
them in the Hellenic mind. Just at the time when the Spartans had
lost nearly one-half of Laconia, the Thebans had annexed to their own
city one-third of the free Bœotian territory. The revival of free
Messenian citizenship, after a suspended existence of more than two
centuries, had recently been welcomed with universal satisfaction.
How much would that same feeling be shocked when Thebes extinguished,
for her own aggrandizement, four autonomous communities, all of her
own Bœotian kindred—one of these communities too being Orchomenus,
respected both for its antiquity and its traditionary legends!
Little pains was taken to canvass the circumstances of the case,
and to inquire whether Thebes had exceeded the measure of rigor
warranted by the war-code of the time. In the patriotic and national
conceptions of every Greek, Hellas consisted of an aggregate of
autonomous, fraternal, city-communities. The extinction of any
one of these was like the amputation of a limb from the organized
body. Repugnance towards Thebes, arising out of these proceedings,
affected strongly the public opinion of the time, and manifests
itself especially in the language of Athenian orators, exaggerated by
mortification on account of the loss of Oropus.[414]

  [414] Isokrates, Or. viii. De Pace, s. 21; Demosthenes adv.
  Leptinem, p. 490. s. 121; pro Megalopol. p. 208. s. 29; Philippic
  ii. p. 69. s. 15.

The great body of Thessalians, as well as the Magnetes and the
Phthiot Achæans, were among those subject to the ascendency of
Thebes. Even the powerful and cruel despot, Alexander of Pheræ, was
numbered in this catalogue.[415] The cities of fertile Thessaly,
possessed by powerful oligarchies with numerous dependent serfs,
were generally a prey to intestine conflict and municipal rivalry
with each other; disorderly as well as faithless.[416] The Aleuadæ,
chiefs at Larissa—and the Skopadæ, at Krannon—had been once the
ascendent families in the country. But in the hands of Lykophron and
the energetic Jason, Pheræ had been exalted to the first rank. Under
Jason as tagus (federal general), the whole force of Thessaly was
united, together with a large number of circumjacent tributaries,
Macedonian, Epirotic, Dolopian, etc., and a well-organized standing
army of mercenaries besides. He could muster eight thousand cavalry,
twenty thousand hoplites, and peltasts or light infantry in numbers
far more considerable.[417] A military power of such magnitude, in
the hands of one alike able and aspiring, raised universal alarm, and
would doubtless have been employed in some great scheme of conquest,
either within or without Greece, had not Jason been suddenly cut off
by assassination in 370 B. C., in the year succeeding the battle
of Leuktra.[418] His brothers Polyphron and Polydorus succeeded to
his position as tagus, but not to his abilities or influence. The
latter a brutal tyrant, put to death the former, and was in his turn
slain, after a short interval, by a successor yet worse, his nephew
Alexander, who lived and retained power at Pheræ, for about ten years
(368-358 B. C.).

  [415] Xenoph. Hellen. vii. 5, 4; Plutarch, Pelopidas, c. 35.
  Wachsmuth states, in my judgment, erroneously, that Thebes was
  disappointed in her attempt to establish ascendency in Thessaly
  (Hellenisch. Alterthümer, vol. ii. x. p. 338).

  [416] Plato, Kriton, p. 53 D; Xenoph. Memorab. i. 2. 24;
  Demosthen. Olynth. i. p. 15. s. 23; Demosth. cont. Aristokratem,
  p. 658. s. 133.

  “Pergit ire (the Roman consul Quinctius Flamininus) in Thessaliam:
  ubi non liberandæ modo civitates erant, sed ex omni colluvione
  et confusione in aliquam tolerabilem formam redigendæ. Nec enim
  temporum modo vitiis, ac violentiâ et licentiâ regiâ (_i. e._ the
  Macedonian) turbati erant; sed inquieto etiam ingenio gentis, nec
  comitia, nec conventum nec concilium ullum, non per seditionem
  et tumultum, jam inde a principio ad nostram usque ætatem,
  traducentis” (Livy, xxxiv. 51).

  [417] Xenoph. Hellen. vi. 1, 19.

  [418] Xenoph. Hellen. vi. 4, 32.

During a portion of that time Alexander contended with success
against the Thebans, and maintained his ascendency in Thessaly. But
before the battle of Mantineia in 362 B. C., he had been reduced
into the condition of a dependent ally of Thebes, and had furnished
a contingent to the army which marched under Epaminondas into
Peloponnesus. During the year 362-361 B. C., he even turned his
hostilities against Athens, the enemy of Thebes; carrying on a naval
war against her, not without partial success, and damage to her
commerce.[419] And as the foreign ascendency of Thebes everywhere
was probably impaired by the death of her great leader Epaminondas,
Alexander of Pheræ recovered strength; continuing to be the greatest
potentate in Thessaly, as well as the most sanguinary tyrant, until
the time of his death in the beginning of 359 B. C.[420] He then
perished, in the vigor of age and in the fulness of power. Against
oppressed subjects or neighbors he could take security by means of
mercenary guards; but he was slain by the contrivance of his wife
Thêbê and the act of her brothers:—a memorable illustration of the
general position laid down by Xenophon, that the Grecian despot could
calculate neither on security nor on affection anywhere, and that
his most dangerous enemies were to be found among his own household
or kindred.[421] The brutal life of Alexander, and the cruelty of
his proceedings, had inspired his wife with mingled hatred and fear.
Moreover she had learnt from words dropped in a fit of intoxication,
that he was intending to put to death her brothers Tisiphonus,
Pytholaus, and Lykophron—and along with them herself; partly because
she was childless, and he had formed the design of re-marrying
with the widow of the late despot Jason, who resided at Thebes.
Accordingly Thêbê, apprising her brothers of their peril, concerted
with them the means of assassinating Alexander. The bed-chamber which
she shared with him was in an upper story, accessible only by a
removable staircase or ladder; at the foot of which there lay every
night a fierce mastiff in chains, and a Thracian soldier tattooed
after the fashion of his country. The whole house moreover was
regularly occupied by a company of guards; and it is even said that
the wardrobe and closets of Thêbê were searched every evening for
concealed weapons. These numerous precautions of mistrust, however,
were baffled by her artifice. She concealed her brothers during all
the day in a safe adjacent hiding-place. At night Alexander, coming
to bed intoxicated, soon fell fast asleep; upon which Thêbê stole
out of the room—directed the dog to be removed from the foot of the
stairs, under pretence that the despot wished to enjoy undisturbed
repose—and then called her armed brothers. After spreading wool upon
the stairs, in order that their tread might be noiseless, she went
again up into the bed-room, and brought away the sword of Alexander,
which always hung near him. Notwithstanding this encouragement,
however, the three young men, still trembling at the magnitude of the
risk, hesitated to mount the stair; nor could they be prevailed upon
to do so, except by her distinct threat, that if they flinched, she
would awaken Alexander and expose them. At length they mounted, and
entered the bed-chamber, wherein a lamp was burning; while Thêbê,
having opened the door for them, again closed it, and posted herself
to hold the bar. The brothers then approached the bed: one seized the
sleeping despot by the feet, another by the hair of his head, and the
third with a sword thrust him through.[422]

  [419] Demosthenes adv. Polyklem. p. 1207. s. 5, 6; Diodor. xv.
  61-95. See my previous Volume X. Ch. lxxx. p. 370.

  [420] I concur with Mr. Fynes Clinton (Fast. Hellen. ad. ann.
  359 B. C., and Appendix, c. 15) in thinking that this is the
  probable date of the assassination of Alexander of Pheræ; which
  event is mentioned by Didorus (xvi. 14) under the year 357-356 B.
  C., yet in conjunction with a series of subsequent events, and
  in a manner scarcely constraining us to believe that he meant to
  affirm the assassination itself as having actually taken place in
  that year.

  To the arguments adduced by Mr. Clinton, another may be added,
  borrowed from the expression of Plutarch (Pelopidas, c. 35)
  ὀλίγον ὕστερον. He states that the assassination of Alexander
  occurred “a little while” after the period when the Thebans,
  avenging the death of Pelopidas, reduced that despot to
  submission. Now this reduction cannot be placed later than 363 B.
  C. That interval therefore which Plutarch calls “a little while,”
  will be three years, if we place the assassination in 359 B. C.,
  six years, if we place it in 357-356 B. C. Three years is a more
  suitable interpretation of the words than _six_ years.

  [421] Xenoph. Hiero, i. 38; ii. 10; iii. 8.

  [422] Xenoph. Hellen. vi. 4, 36, 37; Plutarch, Pelopidas, c. 35;
  Conon, ap. Photium, Narr. 50. Codex, 186; Cicero, de Offic. ii.
  7. The details of the assassination, given in these authors,
  differ. I have principally followed Xenophon, and have admitted
  nothing positively inconsistent with his statements.

After successfully and securely consummating this deed, popular on
account of the odious character of the slain despot, Thêbê contrived
to win over the mercenary troops, and to insure the sceptre to
herself and her eldest brother Tisiphonus. After this change, it
would appear that the power of the new princes was not so great as
that of Alexander had been, so that additional elements of weakness
and discord were introduced into Thessaly. This is to be noted as one
of the material circumstances paving the way for Philip of Macedon to
acquire ascendency in Greece—as will hereafter appear.

It was in the year 360-359 B. C., that Perdikkas, elder brother and
predecessor of Philip on the throne of Macedonia, was slain, in
the flower of his age. He perished, according to one account, in a
bloody battle with the Illyrians, wherein four thousand Macedonians
fell also; according to another statement, by the hands of assassins
and the treacherous subornation of his mother Eurydikê.[423] Of the
exploits of Perdikkas during the five years of his reign we know
little. He had assisted the Athenian general Timotheus in war against
the Olynthian confederacy, and in the capture of Pydna, Potidæa,
Torônê, and other neighboring places; while on the other hand he
had opposed the Athenians in their attempt against Amphipolis,
securing that important place by a Macedonian garrison, both against
them and for himself. He was engaged in serious conflicts with
the Illyrians.[424] It appears too that he was not without some
literary inclinations—was an admirer of intellectual men, and in
correspondence with Plato at Athens. Distinguished philosophers or
sophists, like Plato and Isokrates, enjoyed renown, combined with
a certain measure of influence, throughout the whole range of the
Grecian world. Forty years before, Archelaus king of Macedonia
had shown favor to Plato,[425] then a young man, as well as to
his master Sokrates. Amyntas, the father both of Perdikkas and of
Philip, had throughout his reign cultivated the friendship of leading
Athenians, especially Iphikrates and Timotheus; the former of whom
he had even adopted as his son; Aristotle, afterwards so eminent
as a philosopher (son of Nikomachus the confidential physician of
Amyntas[426]), had been for some time studying at Athens as a pupil
of Plato; moreover Perdikkas during his reign had resident with him a
friend of the philosopher—Euphræus of Oreus. Perdikkas lent himself
much to the guidance of Euphræus, who directed him in the choice of
his associates, and permitted none to be his guests except persons
of studious habits; thus exciting much disgust among the military
Macedonians.[427] It is a signal testimony to the reputation of
Plato, that we find his advice courted, at one and the same time, by
Dionysius the younger at Syracuse, and by Perdikkas in Macedonia.

  [423] Justin, vii. 5; Diodor. xvi. 2. The allusion in the speech
  of Philotas immediately prior to his execution (Curtius, vi.
  43. p. 591, Mützell) supports the affirmation of Justin—that
  Perdikkas was assassinated.

  [424] Antipater (the general of Philip and viceroy of his son
  Alexander in Macedonia) is said to have left an historical work,
  Περδίκκου πράξεις Ἰλλυρικὰς (Suidas, v. Ἀντίπατρος), which can
  hardly refer to any other Perdikkas than the one now before us.

  [425] Athenæus, xi. p. 506 E. Πλάτων, ὃν Σπεύσιππός φησι φίλτατον
  ὄντα Ἀρχελάῳ, etc.

  [426] Diogenes Laert. v. 1, 1.

  [427] Athenæus, xi. p. 506 E. p. 508 E. The fourth among the
  letters of Plato (alluded to by Diogenes Laert. iii. 62) is
  addressed to Perdikkas partly in recommendation and praise of
  Euphræus. There appears nothing to prove it to be spurious;
  but whether it be spurious or genuine, the fact that Plato
  corresponded with Perdikkas is sufficiently probable.

On the suggestion of Plato, conveyed through Euphræus, Perdikkas
was induced to bestow upon his own brother Philip a portion of
territory or an appanage in Macedonia. In 368 B. C. (during the reign
of Alexander elder brother of Perdikkas and Philip), Pelopidas had
reduced Macedonia to partial submission and had taken hostages for
its fidelity; among which hostages was the youthful Philip, then
about fifteen years of age. In this character Philip remained about
two or three years at Thebes.[428] How or when he left that city,
we cannot clearly make out. He seems to have returned to Macedonia
after the murder of Alexander by Ptolemy Alorites; probably without
opposition from the Thebans, since his value as a hostage was
then diminished. The fact that he was confided (together with his
brother Perdikkas) by his mother Eurydikê to the protection of the
Athenian general Iphikrates, then on the coast of Macedonia—has been
recounted in a previous chapter. How Philip fared during the regency
of Ptolemy Alorites in Macedonia, we do not know; we might ever
suspect that he would return back to Thebes as a safer residence. But
when his brother Perdikkas, having slain Ptolemy Alorites, became
king, Philip resided in Macedonia, and even obtained from Perdikkas
(as already stated), through the persuasion of Plato, a separate
district to govern as subordinate. Here he remained until the death
of Perdikkas in 360-359 B. C.; organizing a separate military force
of his own (like Derdas in 382 B. C., when the Lacedæmonians made war
upon Olynthus;[429]) and probably serving at its head in the wars
carried on by his brother.

  [428] Justin, vi. 9; vii. 5. “Philippus obses triennio Thebis
  habitus,” etc.

  Compare Plutarch, Pelopidas, c. 26; Diodor. xv. 67; xvi. 2; and
  the copious note of Wesseling upon the latter passage. The two
  passages of Diodorus are not very consistent; in the latter, he
  states that Philip had been deposited at Thebes by the Illyrians,
  to whom he had been made over as a hostage by his father Amyntas.
  This is highly improbable; as well for other reasons (assigned
  by Wesseling), as because the Illyrians, if they ever received
  him as a hostage, would not send him to Thebes, but keep him
  in their own possession. The memorable interview described
  by Æschines—between the Athenian general Iphikrates and the
  Macedonian queen Eurydikê with her two youthful sons Perdikkas
  and Philip—must have taken place some time before the death of
  Ptolemy Alorites, and before the accession of Perdikkas. The
  expressions of Æschines do not, perhaps, necessarily compel us
  to suppose the interview to have taken place _immediately_ after
  the death of Alexander (Æschines, Fal. Leg. p. 31, 32): yet it
  is difficult to reconcile the statement of the orator with the
  recognition of three years’ continuous residence at Thebes.
  Flathe (Geschichte Makedoniens, vol. i. p. 39-47) supposes
  Æschines to have allowed himself an oratorical misrepresentation,
  when he states that Philip was present in Macedonia at the
  interview with Iphikrates. This is an unsatisfactory mode of
  escaping from the difficulty; but the chronological statements,
  as they now stand, can hardly be all correct. It is possible that
  Philip may have gone again back to Thebes, or may have been sent
  back, after the interview with Iphikrates; we might thus obtain a
  space of three years for his stay, at two several times, in that
  city. We are not to suppose that his condition at Thebes was one
  of durance and ill-treatment. See Mr. Clinton, Fast. Hell. App.
  iv. p. 229.

  [429] Athenæus, xi. p. 506. διατρέφων δ᾽ ἐνταῦθα δύναμιν
  (Philippus), etc. About Derdas, see Xenoph. Hellen. v. 2, 38.

The time passed by Philip at Thebes, however, from fifteen to
eighteen years of age, was an event of much importance in determining
his future character.[430] Though detained at Thebes, Philip was
treated with courtesy and respect. He resided with Pammenes, one
of the principal citizens; he probably enjoyed good literary and
rhetorical teaching, since as a speaker, in after life, he possessed
considerable talent;[431] and he may also have received some
instruction in philosophy, though he never subsequently manifested
any taste for it, and though the assertion of his having been
taught by Pythagoreans merits little credence. But the lesson, most
indelible of all, which he imbibed at Thebes, was derived from the
society and from the living example of men like Epaminondas and
Pelopidas. These were leading citizens, manifesting those qualities
which insured for them the steady admiration of a free community—and
of a Theban community, more given to action than to speech; moreover
they were both of them distinguished military leaders—one of them the
ablest organizer and the most scientific tactician of his day. The
spectacle of the Theban military force, excellent both as cavalry
and as infantry under the training of such a man as Epaminondas, was
eminently suggestive to a young Macedonian prince; and became still
more efficacious when combined with the personal conversation of the
victor of Leuktra—the first man whom Philip learnt to admire, and
whom he strove to imitate in his military career.[432] His mind was
early stored with the most advanced strategic ideas of the day, and
thrown into the track of reflection, comparison, and invention, on
the art of war.

  [430] It was in after times a frequent practice with the Roman
  Senate, when imposing terms of peace on kings half-conquered, to
  require hostages for fidelity, with a young prince of the royal
  blood among the number; and it commonly happened that the latter,
  after a few years’ residence at Rome, returned home an altered
  man on many points.

  See the case of Demetrius, younger son of the last Philip of
  Macedon, and younger brother of Perseus (Livy, xxxiii. 13; xxxix.
  53; xl. 5), of the young Parthian princes, Vonones (Tacitus,
  Annal. ii. 1, 2), Phraates (Tacit. Annal. vi. 32), Meherdates
  (Tacit. Ann. xii. 10, 11).

  [431] Even in the opinion of very competent judges: see Æschines,
  Fals. Leg. c. 18. p. 253.

  [432] Plutarch, Pelopidas, c. 26. ζηλωτὴς γεγονέναι ἔδοξεν
  Ἐπαμεινώνδου, τὸ περὶ τοὺς πολέμους καὶ τὰς στρατηγίας δραστήριον
  ἴσως κατανοήσας, ὃ μικρὸν ἦν τῆς τοῦ ἀνδρὸς ἀρετῆς μόριον, etc.

When transferred from Thebes to the subordinate government of a
district in Macedonia under his elder brother Perdikkas, Philip
organized a military force; and in so doing had the opportunity
of applying to practice, though at first on a limited scale, the
lessons learnt from the illustrious Thebans. He was thus at the head
of troops belonging to and organized by himself—when the unexpected
death of Perdikkas opened to him the prospect of succeeding to the
throne. But it was a prospect full of doubt and hazard. Perdikkas
had left an infant son; there existed, moreover, three princes,
Archelaus, Aridæus, and Menelaus,[433] sons of Amyntas by another
wife or mistress Gygæa, and therefore half-brothers of Perdikkas and
Philip: there were also two other pretenders to the crown—Pausanias
(who had before aspired to the throne after the death of Amyntas),
seconded by a Thracian prince—and Argæus, aided by the Athenians. To
these dangers was to be added, attack from the neighboring barbaric
nations, Illyrians, Pæonians, and Thracians—always ready[434] to
assail and plunder Macedonia at every moment of intestine weakness.
It would appear that Perdikkas, shortly before his death, had
sustained a severe defeat, with the loss of four thousand men, from
the Illyrians: his death followed, either from a wound then received,
or by the machinations of his mother Eurydikê. Perhaps both the wound
in battle and the assassination, may be real facts.[435]

  [433] Justin, vii. 4. Menelaus, the father of Amyntas and
  grandfather of Philip, is stated to have been an illegitimate
  son; while Amyntas himself is said to have been originally
  an attendant or slave of Æropus (Ælian, V. H. xii. 43). Our
  information respecting the relations of the successive kings,
  and pretenders to the throne, in Macedonia, is obscure and
  unsatisfactory. Justin (_l. c._) agrees with Ælian in calling the
  father of Amyntas Menelaus; but Dexippus (ap. Syncellum, p. 263)
  calls him Aridæus; while Diodorus (xiv. 92) calls him Tharraleus.

  [434] Justin, xxix. 1.

  [435] Diodor xvi. 2; Justin, vii. 5; Quint. Curt. vi. 48, 26.

Philip at first assumed the government of the country as guardian of
his young nephew Amyntas the son of Perdikkas. But the difficulties
of the conjuncture were so formidable, that the Macedonians around
constrained him to assume the crown.[436] Of his three half-brothers
he put to death one, and was only prevented from killing the other
two by their flight into exile; we shall find them hereafter at
Olynthus. They had either found, or were thought likely to find, a
party in Macedonia to sustain their pretensions to the crown.[437]

  [436] Justin, vii. 5. Amyntas lived through the reign of Philip,
  and was afterwards put to death by Alexander, on the charge of
  conspiracy. See Justin, xii 6; Quintus Curtius, vi. 34, 17; with
  the note of Mützell.

  [437] Justin, viii. 3. “Post hæc Olynthios aggreditur (Philip):
  receperant enim per misericordiam, post cædem unius, duos fratres
  ejus, quos Philippus, ex novercâ genitos, velut participes regni,
  interficere gestiebat.”

The succession to the throne in Macedonia, though descending in a
particular family, was open to frequent and bloody dispute between
the individual members of that family, and usually fell to the most
daring and unscrupulous among them. None but an energetic man,
indeed, could well maintain himself there, especially under the
circumstances of Philip’s accession. The Macedonian monarchy has
been called a limited monarchy; and in a large sense of the word,
this proposition is true. But what the limitations were, or how they
were made operative, we do not know. That there were some ancient
forms and customs, which the king habitually respected, we cannot
doubt;[438] as there probably were also among the Illyrian tribes,
the Epirots, and others of the neighboring warlike nations. A general
assembly was occasionally convened, for the purpose of consenting
to some important proposition, or trying some conspicuous accused
person. But though such ceremonies were recognized and sometimes
occurred, the occasions were rare in which they interposed any
serious constitutional check upon the regal authority.[439] The
facts of Macedonian history, as far as they come before us, exhibit
the kings acting on their own feelings and carrying out their own
schemes—consulting whom they please and when they please—subject only
to the necessity of not offending too violently the sentiments of
that military population whom they commanded. Philip and Alexander,
combining regal station with personal ability and unexampled success,
were more powerful than any of their predecessors. Each of them
required extraordinary efforts from their soldiers, whom they were
therefore obliged to keep in willing obedience and attachment;
just as Jason of Pheræ had done before with his standing army of
mercenaries.[440] During the reign of Alexander the army manifests
itself as the only power by his side to which even he is constrained
occasionally to bow; after his death, its power becomes for a time
still more ascendent. But so far as the history of Macedonia is
known to us, I perceive no evidence of coördinate political bodies,
or standing apparatus (either aristocratical or popular) to check
the power of the king—such as to justify in any way the comparison
drawn by a modern historian between the Macedonian and English
constitutions.

  [438] Arrian, Exp. Alex. iv. 11. οὐ βίᾳ, ἀλλὰ νόμῳ Μακεδόνων
  ἄρχοντες διετέλεσαν (Alexander and his ancestors before him).

  [439] The trial of Philotas, who is accused by Alexander for
  conspiracy before an assembly of the Macedonian soldiers near to
  head-quarters, is the example most insisted on of the prevalence
  of this custom, of public trial in criminal accusations. Quintus
  Curtius says (vi. 32. 25), “De capitalibus rebus vetusto
  Macedonum more inquirebat exercitus; in pace erat vulgi: et nihil
  potestas regum valebat, nisi prius valuisset auctoritas.” Compare
  Arrian, iii. 26; Diodor. xvii. 79, 80.

  That this was an ancient Macedonian custom, in reference to
  conspicuous persons accused of treason, we may readily believe;
  and that an officer of the great rank and military reputation
  of Philotas, if suspected of treason, could hardly be dealt
  with in any other way. If he was condemned, all his relatives
  and kinsmen, whether implicated or not, became involved in the
  same condemnation. Several among the kinsmen of Philotas either
  fled or killed themselves; and Alexander then issued an edict
  pardoning them all, except Parmenio; who was in Media, and whom
  he sent secret orders instantly to despatch. If the proceedings
  against Philotas, as described by Curtius, are to be taken
  as correct, it is rather an appeal made by Alexander to the
  soldiery, for their consent to his killing a dangerous enemy,
  than an investigation of guilt or innocence.

  Olympias, during the intestine contests which followed after
  the death of Alexander, seems to have put to death as many
  illustrious Macedonians as she chose, without any form of trial.
  But when her enemy Kassander got the upper hand, subdued and
  captured her, he did not venture to put her to death without
  obtaining the consent of a Macedonian assembly (Diodor. xix.
  11, 51; Justin, xiv. 6; Pausanias, i. 11, 2). These Macedonian
  assemblies, insofar as we read of them, appear to be summoned
  chiefly as mere instruments to sanction some predetermined
  purpose of the king or the military leader predominant at the
  time. Flathe (Geschicht. Makedon. p. 43-45) greatly overrates,
  in my judgment, the rights and powers enjoyed by the Macedonian
  people.

  [440] Xenoph. Hellen. vi. 1, 6, 16.

The first proceeding of Philip, in dealing with his numerous enemies,
was to buy off the Thracians by seasonable presents and promises; so
that the competition of Pausanias for the throne became no longer
dangerous. There remained as assailants the Athenians with Argæus
from seaward, and the Illyrians from landward.

But Philip showed dexterity and energy sufficient to make head
against all. While he hastened to reorganize the force of the
country, to extend the application of those improved military
arrangements which he had already been attempting in his own
province, and to encourage his friends and soldiers by collective
harangues,[441] in a style and spirit such as the Macedonians had
never before heard from regal lips—he contrived to fence off the
attack of the Athenians until a more convenient moment.

  [441] Diodor. xvi. 2, 3.

He knew that the possession of Amphipolis was the great purpose for
which they had been carrying on war against Macedonia for some years,
and for which they now espoused the cause of Argæus. Accordingly he
professed his readiness at once to give up to them this important
place, withdrawing the Macedonian garrison whereby Perdikkas had held
it against them, and leaving the town to its own citizens. This act
was probably construed by the Athenians as tantamount to an actual
cession; for even if Amphipolis should still hold out against them,
they doubted not of their power to reduce it when unaided. Philip
farther despatched letters to Athens, expressing an anxious desire
to be received into her alliance, on the same friendly terms as his
father Amyntas before him.[442] These proceedings seem to have had
the effect of making the Athenians lukewarm in the cause of Argæus.
For Mantias the Athenian admiral, though he conveyed that prince
by sea to Methônê, yet stayed in the seaport himself, while Argæus
marched inland—with some returning exiles, a body of mercenaries,
and a few Athenian volunteers—to Ægæ or Edessa;[443] hoping to
procure admission into that ancient capital of the Macedonian kings.
But the inhabitants refused to receive him; and in his march back,
to Methônê, he was attacked and completely defeated by Philip. His
fugitive troops found shelter on a neighboring eminence, but were
speedily obliged to surrender. Philip suffered the greater part
of them to depart on terms, requiring only that Argæus and the
Macedonian exiles should be delivered up to him. He treated the
Athenian citizens with especial courtesy, preserved to them all their
property, and sent them home full of gratitude, with conciliatory
messages to the people of Athens. The exiles, Argæus among them,
having become his prisoners, were probably put to death.[444]

  [442] Demosthenes cont. Aristokrat. p. 660. s. 144.

  [443] Diodor. xvi. 3; Demosthen. cont. Aristokrat. p. 660 _ut
  sup._ τῶν ἡμετέρων τινὰς πολιτῶν, etc. Justin, vii 6.

  [444] Diodor. xvi. 3.

The prudent lenity exhibited by Philip towards the Athenian
prisoners, combined with his evacuation of Amphipolis, produced the
most favorable effect upon the temper of the Athenian public, and
disposed them to accept his pacific offers. Peace was accordingly
concluded. Philip renounced all claim to Amphipolis, acknowledging
that town as a possession rightfully belonging to Athens.[445] By
such renunciation he really abandoned no rightful possession; for
Amphipolis had never belonged to the Macedonian kings; nor had
any Macedonian soldiers ever entered it until three or four years
before, when the citizens had invoked aid from Perdikkas to share
in the defence against Athens. But the Athenians appeared to have
gained the chief prize for which they had been so long struggling.
They congratulated themselves in the hope, probably set forth
with confidence by the speakers who supported the peace, that the
Amphipolitans alone would never think of resisting the acknowledged
claims of Athens.

  [445] Diodor. xvi. 4.

Philip was thus relieved from enemies on the coast, and had his hands
free to deal with the Illyrians and Pæonians of the interior. He
marched into the territory of the Pæonians (seemingly along the upper
course of the river Axius), whom he found weakened by the recent
death of their king Agis. He defeated their troops, and reduced
them to submit to Macedonian supremacy. From thence he proceeded to
attack the Illyrians—a more serious and formidable undertaking. The
names _Illyrians_, _Pæonians_, _Thracians_, etc., did not designate
any united national masses, but were applied to a great number of
kindred tribes or clans, each distinct, separately governed, and
having its particular name and customs. The Illyrian and Pæonian
tribes occupied a wide space of territory to the north and north-west
of Macedonia, over the modern Bosnia nearly to the Julian Alps and
the river Save. But during the middle of the fourth century before
Christ, it seems that a large immigration of Gallic tribes from
the westward was taking place, invading the territory of the more
northerly Illyrians and Pæonians, circumscribing their occupancy and
security, and driving them farther southward; sometimes impelling
them to find subsistence and plunder by invasions of Macedonia or by
maritime piracies against Grecian commerce in the Adriatic.[446] The
Illyrians had become more dangerous neighbors to Macedonia than they
were in the time of Thucydides; and it seems that a recent coalition
of their warriors, for purposes of invasion and plunder, was now
in the zenith of its force. It was under a chief named Bardylis,
who had raised himself to command from the humble occupation of
a charcoal burner; a man renowned for his bravery, but yet more
renowned for dealings rigidly just towards his soldiers, especially
in the distribution of plunder.[447] Bardylis and his Illyrians had
possessed themselves of a considerable portion of Western Macedonia
(west of Mount Bermius), occupying for the most part the towns,
villages, and plains,[448] and restricting the native Macedonians
to the defensible, yet barren hills. Philip marched to attack them,
at the head of a force which he had now contrived to increase to
the number of ten thousand foot and six hundred horse. The numbers
of Bardylis were about equal; yet on hearing of Philip’s approach,
he sent a proposition tendering peace, on the condition that each
party should retain what it actually possessed. His proposition being
rejected, the two armies speedily met. Philip had collected around
him on the right wing his chosen Macedonian troops, with whom he made
his most vigorous onset: manœuvring at the same time with a body of
cavalry so as to attack the left flank of the Illyrians. The battle,
contested with the utmost obstinacy on both sides, was for some time
undecided; nor could the king of Macedon break the oblong square into
which his enemies had formed themselves. But at length his cavalry
were enabled to charge them so effectively in flank and rear, that
victory declared in his favor. The Illyrians fled, were vigorously
pursued with the loss of seven thousand men, and never again rallied.
Bardylis presently sued for peace, and consented to purchase it by
renouncing all his conquests in Macedonia; while Philip pushed his
victory so strenuously, as to reduce to subjection all the tribes
eastward of Lake Lychnidus.[449]

  [446] See the remarks of Niebuhr, on these migrations of Gallic
  tribes from the west, and their effect upon the prior population
  established between the Danube and the Ægean Sea (Niehbuhr,
  Vorträge über alte Geschichte, vol. iii. p. 225, 281; also the
  earlier work of the same author—Kleine Schriften, Untersuchungen
  über die Geschichte der Skythen, p. 375).

  [447] Theopompus, Fragm. 35, ed. Didot; Cicero de Officiis, ii.
  11; Diodor. xvi. 4.

  [448] Arrian, vii. 9, 2, 3.

  [449] Diodor. xvi. 4-8. Frontinus (Strategem. ii. 3, 2) mentions
  a battle gained by Philip against the Illyrians; wherein,
  observing that their chosen troops were in the centre, he placed
  his own greatest strength in his right wing, attacked and beat
  their left wing; then came upon their centre in flank and
  defeated their whole army. Whether this be the battle alluded
  to, we cannot say. The tactics employed are the same as those
  of Epaminondas at Leuktra and Mantinea; strengthening one wing
  peculiarly for the offensive, and keeping back the rest of the
  army upon the defensive.

These operations against the inland neighbors of Macedonia must have
occupied a year or two. During that interval, Philip left Amphipolis
to itself, having withdrawn from it the Macedonian garrison as a
means of conciliating the Athenians. We might have expected that
they would forthwith have availed themselves of the opening and
taken active measures for regaining Amphipolis. They knew the value
of that city: they considered it as of right theirs; they had long
been anxious for its repossession, and had even besieged it five
years before, though seemingly only with a mercenary force, which
was repelled mainly by the aid of Philip’s predecessor Perdikkas.
Amphipolis was not likely to surrender to them voluntarily; but when
thrown upon its own resources, it might perhaps have been assailed
with success. Yet they remained without making any attempt on the
region at the mouth of the river Strymon. We must recollect (as has
been narrated in my last preceding volume[450]), that during 359 B.
C., and the first part of 358 B. C., they were carrying on operations
in the Thracian Chersonese, against Charidemus and Kersobleptes,
with small success and disgraceful embarrassment. These vexatious
operations in the Chersonese—in which peninsula many Athenians were
interested as private proprietors, besides the public claims of the
city—may perhaps have absorbed wholly the attention of Athens, so
as to induce her to postpone the acquisition of Amphipolis until
they were concluded; a conclusion which did not arrive (as we shall
presently see) until immediately before she became plunged in the
dangerous crisis of the Social War. I know no better explanation
of the singular circumstance, that Athens, though so anxious, both
before and after, for the possession of Amphipolis, made no attempt
to acquire it during more than a year after its evacuation by Philip;
unless indeed we are to rank this opportunity among the many which
she lost (according to Demosthenes[451]) from pure negligence; little
suspecting how speedily such opportunity would disappear.

  [450] See Vol. X. Ch. lxxx. p. 379 _seqq._

  [451] Demosthenes, Orat. de Chersonese, p. 98, s. 34. φέρε γὰρ,
  πρὸς Διὸς, εἰ λόγον ὑμᾶς ἀπαιτήσειαν οἱ Ἕλληνες ὧν νυνὶ παρείκατε
  καιρῶν διὰ ῥᾳθυμίαν, etc.

In 358 B. C., an opening was afforded to the Athenians for
regaining their influence in Eubœa; and for this island, so near
their own shores, they struck a more vigorous blow than for the
distant possessions of Amphipolis. At the revival of the maritime
confederacy under Athens (immediately after 378 B. C.), most of
the cities in Eubœa had joined it voluntarily; but after the
battle of Leuktra (in 371 B. C.), the island passed under Theban
supremacy. Accordingly Eubœans from all the cities served in the
army of Epaminondas, both in his first and his last expedition into
Peloponnesus (369-362 B. C.).[452] Moreover, Orôpus, the frontier
town of Attica and Bœotia—immediately opposite to Eubœa, having been
wrested from Athens[453] in 366 B. C. by a body of exiles crossing
the strait from Eretria, through the management of the Eretrian
despot Themison—had been placed in the keeping of the Thebans,
with whom it still remained. But in the year 358 B. C., discontent
began in the Eubœan cities, from what cause we know not, against
the supremacy of Thebes; whereupon a powerful Theban force was sent
into the island to keep them down. A severe contest ensued, in which
if Thebes had succeeded, Chalkis and Eretria might possibly have
shared the fate of Orchomenus.[454] These cities sent urgent messages
entreating aid from the Athenians, who were powerfully moved by the
apprehension of seeing their hated neighbor Thebes reinforced by so
large an acquisition close to their borders. The public assembly,
already disposed to sympathize with the petitioners, was kindled
into enthusiasm by the abrupt and emphatic appeal of Timotheus son
of Konon.[455] “How! Athenians (said he), when you have the Thebans
actually in the island, are you still here debating what is to be
done, or how you shall deal with the case? Will you not fill the
sea with triremes? Will you not start up at once, hasten down to
Peiræus, and haul the triremes down to the water?” This animated
apostrophe, reported and doubtless heard by Demosthenes himself,
was cordially responded to by the people. The force of Athens,
military as well as naval, was equipped with an eagerness, and sent
forth with a celerity, seldom paralleled. Such was the general
enthusiasm, that the costly office of trierarchy was for the first
time undertaken by volunteers, instead of awaiting the more tardy
process of singling out those rich men whose turn it was to serve,
with the chance of still farther delay from the legal process called
Antidosis or Exchange of property,[456] instituted by any one of
the persons so chosen who might think himself hardly used by the
requisition. Demosthenes himself was among the volunteer trierarchs;
he and a person named Philinus being co-trierarchs of the same
ship. We are told that in three or in five days the Athenian fleet
and army, under the command of Timotheus,[457] were landed in full
force on Eubœa; and that in the course of thirty days the Thebans
were so completely worsted, as to be forced to evacuate it under
capitulation. A body of mercenaries under Chares contributed to the
Athenian success. Yet it seems not clear that the success was so easy
and rapid as the orators are fond of asserting.[458] However, their
boast, often afterwards repeated, is so far well-founded, that Athens
fully accomplished her object, rescued the Eubœans from Thebes, and
received the testimonial of their gratitude in the form of a golden
wreath dedicated in the Athenian acropolis.[459] The Eubœan cities,
while acknowledged as autonomous, continued at the same time to be
enrolled as members of the Athenian confederacy, sending deputies
to the synod at Athens; towards the general purposes of which they
paid an annual tribute, assessed at five talents each for Oreus (or
Histiæa) and Eretria.[460]

  [452] Xenoph. Hellen. vi. 5, 23. Εὐβοεῖς ἀπὸ πασῶν τῶν πόλεων:
  also vii. 5, 4. Βοιωτοὺς ἔχων πάντας καὶ Εὐβοέας (Epaminondas),
  etc.

  Winiewski, in his instructive commentary upon the historical
  facts of the Oration of Demosthenes de Coronâ, states erroneously
  that Eubœa continued in the dependence of Athens without
  interruption from 377 to 358 B. C. (Winiewski, Commentarii
  Historici et Chronologici in Demosthenis Orationem de Coronâ, p.
  30).

  [453] Xenoph. Hellen. vii. 4, 1; Diodor. xv. 76; Demosthen. de
  Coronâ, p. 259. s. 123.

  [454] Demosthenes, Orat. de Chersones. p. 108. s. 80. τοὺς
  Εὐβοέας σώζειν, ὅτε Θηβαῖοι κατεδουλοῦντ᾽ αὐτοὺς, etc.: compare
  Demosthen. de Coronâ, p. 259. s. 123. Θηβαίων σφετεριζομένων τὴν
  Εὔβοιαν, etc.; and Æschines cont. Ktesiphont. p. 397. c. 31.
  ἐπειδὴ διέβησαν εἰς Εὔβοιαν Θηβαῖοι, καταδουλώσασθαι τὰς πόλεις
  πειρώμενοι, etc.

  [455] Demosthen. Orat. de Chersones. p. 108. s. 80. Εἶπέ μοι,
  βουλεύεσθε, ἔφη (Timotheus), Θηβαίους ἔχοντες ἐν νήσῳ, τί
  χρήσεσθε, καὶ τί δεῖ ποιεῖν; Οὐκ ἐμπλήσετε τὴν θάλασσαν, ὦ ἄνδρες
  Ἀθηναῖοι, τριηρῶν; Οὐκ ἀναστάντες ἤδη πορεύσεσθε εἰς τὸν Πειραιᾶ;
  Οὐ καθέλξετε τὰς ναῦς;

  [456] See, in illustration of these delays, Demosthenes,
  Philippic i. p. 50 s. 42.

  Any citizen who thought that he had been called upon out of his
  fair turn to serve a trierarchy or other expensive duty, and
  that another citizen had been unduly spared, might tender to
  this latter an exchange of properties, offering to undertake
  the duty if the other’s property were made over to him. The
  person, to whom tender was made, was compelled to do one of
  three things; either, 1. to show, at legal process, that it was
  not his turn, and that he was not liable; 2. or to relieve the
  citizen tendering from the trierarchy just imposed upon him; 3.
  or to accept the exchange, receiving the other’s property, and
  making over his own property in return; in which case the citizen
  tendering undertook the trierarchy.

  This obligatory exchange of properties, with the legal process
  attached to it, was called Antidosis.

  [457] That Timotheus was commander, is not distinctly stated by
  Demosthenes, but may be inferred from Plutarch, De Gloriâ Athen.
  p. 350 F. ἐν ᾧ Τιμόθεος Εὔβοιαν ἠλευθέρου, which, in the case of
  a military man like Timotheus, can hardly allude merely to the
  speech which he made in the assembly. Diokles is mentioned by
  Demosthenes as having concluded the convention with the Thebans;
  but this does not necessarily imply that he was commander: see
  Demosth. cont. Meidiam, p. 570 s. 219.

  About Philinus as colleague of Demosthenes in the trierarchy, see
  Demosthen. cont. Meidiam, p. 566. s. 204.

  [458] Diodorus (xvi. 7) states that the contest in Eubœa lasted
  for some considerable time.

  Demosthenes talks of the expedition as having reached its
  destination in three days, Æschines in five days; the latter
  states also that within thirty days the Thebans were vanquished
  and expelled (Demosthenes cont. Androtion. p. 597. s. 17;
  Æschines cont. Ktesiphont. p. 397. c. 31).

  About Chares and the mercenaries, see Demosthenes cont.
  Aristokrat. p. 678. s. 206.

  [459] Demosthenes cont. Androtion. p. 616. s. 89; cont. Timokrat.
  p. 756. s. 205.

  [460] Æschines cont. Ktesiphont. p. 401, 403, 404. c. 32. 33;
  Demosthenes pro Megalopolitan. p. 204. s. 16.

On the conclusion of this Eubœan enterprise, Chares with his
mercenaries was sent forward to the Chersonese, where he at length
extorted from Charidemus and Kersobleptes the evacuation of that
peninsula and its cession to Athens, after a long train of dilatory
manœuvres and bad faith on their part. I have in my last preceding
volume, described these events, remarking at the same time that
Athens attained at this moment the maximum of her renewed foreign
power and second confederacy, which had begun in 378 B. C.[461] But
this period of exaltation was very short. It was speedily overthrown
by two important events—the Social war and the conquests of Philip in
Thrace.

  [461] See Vol. X. Ch. lxxx. p. 381, 382.

The Athenian confederacy, recently strengthened by the rescue of
Eubœa, numbered among its members a large proportion of the islands
in the Ægean as well as the Grecian seaports in Thrace. The list
included the islands Lesbos, Chios, Samos (this last now partially
occupied by a body of Athenian Kleruchs or settlers), Kos and Rhodes;
together with the important city of Byzantium. It was shortly after
the recent success in Eubœa, that Chios, Kos, Rhodes, and Byzantium
revolted from Athens by concert, raising a serious war against her,
known by the name of the Social War.

Respecting the proximate causes of this outbreak, we find,
unfortunately, little information. There was now, and had always been
since 378 B. C., a synod of deputies from all the confederate cities
habitually assembling at Athens; such as had not subsisted under the
first Athenian empire in its full maturity. How far the Synod worked
efficiently, we do not know. At least it must have afforded to the
allies, if aggrieved, a full opportunity of making their complaints
heard; and of criticising the application of the common fund, to
which each of them contributed. But I have remarked in the preceding
volume, that the Athenian confederacy, which had begun (378 B. C.)
in a generous and equal spirit of common maritime defence,[462] had
gradually become perverted, since the humiliation of the great enemy
Sparta at Leuktra, towards purposes and interests more exclusively
Athenian. Athens had been conquering the island of Samos—Pydna,
Potidæa, and Methônê, on the coast of Macedonia and Thrace—and the
Thracian Chersonese; all of them acquisitions made for herself alone,
without any advantage to the confederate synod—and made, too, in
great part, to become the private property of her own citizens as
kleruchs, in direct breach of her public resolution, passed in 378 B.
C., not to permit any appropriation of lands by Athenian citizens out
of Attica.

  [462] Demosthenes, De Rhodior. Libertat. p. 194. s. 17. παρὸν
  αὐτοῖς (the Rhodians) Ἕλλησι καὶ ~βελτίοσιν αὐτῶν ὑμῖν ἐξ ἴσου
  συμμαχεῖν~, etc.

In proportion as Athens came to act more for her own separate
aggrandizement, and less for interests common to the whole
confederacy, the adherence of the larger confederate states
grew more and more reluctant. But what contributed yet farther
to detach them from Athens, was, the behavior of her armaments
on service, consisting in great proportion of mercenaries,
scantily and irregularly paid; whose disorderly and rapacious
exaction, especially at the cost of the confederates of Athens,
are characterized in strong terms by all the contemporary
orators—Demosthenes, Æschines, Isokrates, etc. The commander, having
no means of paying his soldiers, was often compelled to obey their
predatory impulses, and conduct them to the easiest place from whence
money could be obtained; indeed, some of the commanders, especially
Chares, were themselves not less ready than their soldiers to profit
by such depredations.[463] Hence the armaments sent out by Athens
sometimes saw little of the enemy whom they were sent to combat,
preferring the easier and more lucrative proceeding of levying
contributions from friends, and of plundering the trading-vessels
met with at sea. Nor was it practicable for Athens to prevent such
misconduct, when her own citizens refused to serve personally,
and when she employed foreigners, hired for the occasion, but
seldom regularly paid.[464] The suffering, alarm, and alienation
arising from hence among the confederates, was not less mischievous
than discreditable to Athens. We cannot doubt that complaints in
abundance were raised in the confederate synod; but they must have
been unavailing, since the abuse continued until the period shortly
preceding the battle of Chæroneia.

  [463] Diodor. xv. 95.

  [464] Demosthenes, Philip, i. 46. s. 28. ἐξ οὗ δ᾽ αὐτὰ καθ᾽ αὑτὰ
  τὰ ξενικὰ ὑμῖν στρατεύεται, τοὺς φίλους νικᾷ καὶ τοὺς συμμάχους,
  οἱ δ᾽ ἐχθροὶ μείζους τοῦ δέοντος γεγόνασιν. Καὶ παρακύψαντα ἐπὶ
  τὸν τῆς πόλεως πόλεμον, πρὸς Ἀρτάβαζον ἢ πανταχοῦ μᾶλλον οἴχεται
  πλέοντα· ὁ δὲ στρατηγὸς ἀκολουθεῖ· εἰκότως· οὐ γὰρ ἔστιν ἄρχειν
  μὴ διδόντα μισθόν.

  Ibid. p. 53. s. 51. Ὅποι δ᾽ ἂν στρατηγὸν καὶ ψήφισμα κενὸν καὶ
  τὰς ἀπὸ τοῦ βήματος ἐλπίδας ἐκπέμψητε, οὐδὲν ὑμῖν τῶν δεόντων
  γίγνεται, ἀλλ᾽ ~οἱ μὲν ἐχθροὶ καταγελῶσιν, οἱ δὲ σύμμαχοι τεθνᾶσι
  τῷ δέει τοὺς τοιούτους ἀποστόλους~.

  Ibid. p. 53. s. 53. Νῦν δ᾽ εἰς τοῦθ᾽ ἥκει τὰ πράγματα αἰσχύνης,
  ὥστε τῶν στρατηγῶν ἕκαστος δὶς καὶ τρὶς κρίνεται παρ᾽ ὑμῖν περὶ
  θανάτου, πρὸς δὲ τοὺς ἐχθροὺς οὐδεὶς οὐδ᾽ ἅπαξ αὐτῶν ἀγωνίσασθαι
  περὶ θανάτου τολμᾷ, ἀλλὰ τὸν τῶν ἀνδραποδιστῶν καὶ λωποδυτῶν
  θάνατον μᾶλλον αἱροῦνται τοῦ προσήκοντος.

  Compare Olynthiac ii. p. 26. s. 28; De Chersoneso, p. 95. s.
  24-27, cont. Aristokrat. p. 639. s. 69; De Republ. Ordinand. περὶ
  Συντάξεως, p. 167. s. 7. Also Æschines de Fals. Legat. p. 264. c.
  24; Isokrates, De Pace, s. 57. 160.

Amidst such apparent dispositions on the part of Athens to
neglect the interests of the confederacy for purposes of her own
and to tolerate or encourage the continued positive depredations
of unpaid armaments—discontent naturally grew up, manifesting
itself most powerfully among some of the larger dependencies
near the Asiatic coast. The islands of Chios, Kos, and Rhodes,
together with the important city of Byzantium on the Thracian
Bosphorus, took counsel together, and declared themselves detached
from Athens and her confederacy. According to the spirit of the
convention, sworn at Sparta, immediately before the battle of
Leuktra, and of the subsequent alliance, sworn at Athens, a few
months afterwards[465]—obligatory and indefeasible confederacies
stood generally condemned among the Greeks, so that these islands
were justified in simply seceding when they thought fit. But their
secession, which probably Athens would, under all circumstances,
have resisted, was proclaimed in a hostile manner, accompanied with
accusations of treacherous purposes on her part against them. It was
moreover fomented by the intrigues, as well as aided by the arms,
of the Karian prince Mausôlus.[466] Since the peace of Antalkidas,
the whole Asiatic coast had been under the unresisted dominion
either of satraps or subordinate princes dependent upon Persia,
who were watching for opportunities of extending their conquests
in the neighboring islands. Mausôlus appears to have occupied both
Rhodes and Kos; provoking in the former island a revolution which
placed it under an oligarchy, not only devoted to him, but farther
sustained by the presence of a considerable force of his mercenary
troops.[467] The government of Chios appears to have been always
oligarchical; which fact was one ground for want of sympathy between
the Chians and Athens. Lastly, the Byzantines had also a special
ground for discontent; since they assumed the privilege of detaining
and taxing the corn-ships from the Euxine in their passage through
the Bosphorus[468]—while Athens, as chief of the insular confederacy,
claimed that right for herself, and at any rate protested against the
use of such power by any other city for its own separate profit.

  [465] Xenoph. Hellen. vi. 3, 18; vi. 5, 2.

  [466] Demosthenes, De Rhodior. Libertat. p. 191. s. 3. ᾐτιάσαντο
  γὰρ ἡμᾶς ἐπιβουλεύειν αὑτοῖς Χῖοι καὶ Βυζάντιοι καὶ Ῥόδιοι, καὶ
  διὰ ταῦτα συνέστησαν ἐφ᾽ ἡμᾶς τὸν τελευταῖον τουτονὶ πόλεμον·
  φανήσεται δ᾽ ὁ μὲν πρυτανεύσας ταῦτα καὶ πείσας Μαύσωλος, φίλος
  εἶναι φάσκων Ῥοδίων, τὴν ἐλευθερίαν αὐτῶν ἀφῃρημένος.

  [467] Demosthen. de Rhodior. Libert. p. 195. s. 17. p. 198 s. 34;
  de Pace, p. 63. s. 25; Diodor. xvi. 7.

  [468] Demosthen. de Pace, p. 63. s. 25. (ἐῶμεν) τὸν Κᾶρα τὰς
  νήσους καταλαμβάνειν, Χίον καὶ Κῶν καὶ Ῥόδον, καὶ ~Βυζαντίους
  κατάγειν τὰ πλοῖα~, etc.

  Compare Demosthenes adv. Polykl. p. 1207 s. 6. p. 1211. s. 22;
  adv. Leptinem, p. 475. s. 68.

This revolt, the beginning of what is termed the Social War, was a
formidable shock to the foreign ascendency of Athens. Among all her
confederates, Chios was the largest and most powerful, the entire
island being under one single government. Old men, like Plato and
Isokrates, might perhaps recollect the affright occasioned at Athens
fifty-four years before (B. C. 412) by the news of the former revolt
of Chios,[469] shortly after the great disaster before Syracuse. And
probably the alarm was not much less, when the Athenians were now
apprised of the quadruple defection among their confederates near the
Asiatic coast. The joint armament of all four was mustered at Chios,
whither Mausôlus also sent a reinforcement. The Athenians equipped a
fleet with land-forces on board, to attack the island; and on this
critical occasion we may presume that their citizens would overcome
the reluctance to serve in person. Chabrias was placed in command of
the fleet, Chares of the land-force; the latter was disembarked on
the island, and a joint attack upon the town of Chios, by sea and
land at the same moment, was concerted. When Chares marched up to
the walls, the Chians and their allies felt strong enough to come
forth and hazard a battle, with no decisive result; while Chabrias
at the same time attempted with the fleet to force his way into the
harbor. But the precautions for defence had been effectively taken,
and the Chian seamen were resolute. Chabrias, leading the attack with
his characteristic impetuosity, became entangled among the enemy’s
vessels, was attacked on all sides, and fell gallantly fighting. The
other Athenian ships either were not forward in following him, or
could make no impression. Their attack completely failed, and the
fleet was obliged to retire, with little loss apparently, except that
of the brave admiral. Chares with his land-force having been again
taken aboard, the Athenians forthwith sailed away from Chios.[470]

  [469] Thucyd. viii. 15.

  [470] The account of this event comes to us in a meagre and
  defective manner, Diodorus xvi. 7; Cornelius Nepos, Chabrias, c.
  4; Plutarch, Phokion, c. 6.

  Demosthenes, in an harangue delivered three years afterwards,
  mentions the death of Chabrias, and eulogizes his conduct at
  Chios among his other glorious deeds; but gives no particulars
  (Demosth. cont. Leptin. p. 481, 482).

  Cornelius Nepos says that Chabrias was not commander, but
  only serving as a private soldier on shipboard. I think this
  less probable than the statement of Diodorus, that he was
  joint-commander with Chares.

This repulse at Chios was a serious misfortune to Athens. Such
was the dearth of military men and the decline of the military
spirit, in that city, that the loss of a warlike citizen, daring
as a soldier and tried as a commander, like Chabrias, was never
afterwards repaired. To the Chians and their allies, on the other
hand, the event was highly encouraging. They were enabled, not merely
to maintain their revolt, but even to obtain fresh support, and to
draw into the like defection other allies of Athens,—among them,
seemingly, Sestos, and other cities on the Hellespont. For some
months they appear to have remained masters of the sea, with a fleet
of one hundred triremes, disembarking and inflicting devastation on
the Athenian islands of Lemnos, Imbros, Samos, and elsewhere, so
as to collect a sum for defraying their expenses. They were even
strong enough to press the town of Samos, by close siege, until at
length the Athenians, not without delay and difficulty, got together
a fleet of one hundred and twenty triremes, under the joint command
of Chares, Iphikrates with his son Menestheus, and Timotheus.
Notwithstanding that Samos was under siege, the Athenian admirals
thought it prudent to direct their first efforts to the reduction of
Byzantium; probably from the paramount importance of keeping open
the two straits between the Euxine and the Ægean, in order that the
corn-ships, out of the former, might come through in safety.[471]
To protect Byzantium, the Chians and their allies raised the siege
of Samos, and sailed forthwith to the Hellespont, in which narrow
strait both fleets were collected,—as the Athenians and Lacedæmonians
had been during the closing years of the Peloponnesian war. A plan
of naval action had been concerted by the three Athenian commanders,
and was on the point of taking place, when there supervened a sudden
storm, which in the judgment both of Iphikrates and Timotheus,
rendered it rash and perilous to persist in the execution. They
therefore held off, while Chares, judging differently, called upon
the trierachs and seamen to follow him, and rushed into the fight
without his colleagues. He was defeated, or at least was obliged to
retire without accomplishing anything. But so incensed was he against
his two colleagues, that he wrote a despatch to Athens accusing them
of corruption and culpable backwardness against the enemy.[472]

  [471] It appears that there was a great and general scarcity of
  corn during this year 357 B. C. Demosthenes adv. Leptinem, p.
  467. s. 38. ~προπέρυσι~ σιτοδείας παρὰ πᾶσιν ἀνθρώποις γενομένης,
  etc. That oration was delivered in 355 B. C.

  [472] I follow chiefly the account given of these transactions
  by Diodorus, meagre and unsatisfactory as it is (xvi. 21). Nepos
  (Timotheus, c. 3) differs from Diodorus on several points. He
  states that both Samos and the Hellespont had revolted from
  Athens; and that the locality in which Chares made his attack,
  contrary to the judgment of his two colleagues, was near
  Samos—not in the Hellespont. He affirms farther that Menestheus,
  son of Iphikrates, was named as colleague of Chares; and that
  Iphikrates and Timotheus were appointed as advisers of Menestheus.

  As to the last assertion—that Timotheus only served as adviser to
  his junior relative and not as a general formally named—this is
  not probable in itself; nor seemingly consistent with Isokrates
  (Or. xv. De Permutat. s. 137), who represents Timotheus as
  afterwards passing through the usual trial of accountability.
  Nor can Nepos be correct in saying that Samos had now revolted:
  for we find it still in possession of Athens after the Social
  War, and we know that a fresh batch of Athenian Kleruchs were
  afterwards sent there.

  On the other hand, I think Nepos is probably right in his
  assertion, that the Hellespont now revolted (“descierat
  Hellespontus”). This is a fact in itself noway improbable, and
  helping us to understand how it happened that Chares conquered
  Sestos afterwards in 353 B. C. (Diodor. xvi. 34), and that the
  Athenians are said to have _then_ recovered the Chersonesus from
  Kersobleptes.

  Polyænus (iii. 9, 29) has a story representing the reluctance of
  Iphikrates to fight, as having been manifested near Embata; a
  locality not agreeing either with Nepos or with Diodorus. Embata
  was on the continent of Asia, in the territory of Erythræ.

  See respecting the relations of Athens with Sestos, my last
  preceding volume, Vol. X. Ch. lxxx. p. 380 note.

  Our evidence respecting this period is so very defective, that
  nothing like certainty is attainable.

The three joint admirals were thus placed not merely in opposition,
but in bitter conflict, among themselves. At the trial of
accountability, undergone by all of them not long afterwards at
Athens, Chares stood forward as the formal accuser of his two
colleagues, who in their turn also accused him. He was seconded
in his attack by Aristophon, one of the most practised orators of
the day. Both of them charged Iphikrates and Timotheus with having
received bribes from the Chians and Rhodians,[473] and betrayed their
trust; by deserting Chares at the critical moment when it had been
determined beforehand to fight, and when an important success might
have been gained.

  [473] Deinarchus cont. Philokl. s. 17. ἕκατον ταλάντων τιμήσαντες
  (Τιμόθεον), ὅτι χρήματ᾽ αὐτὸν Ἀριστοφῶν ἔφη παρὰ Χίων εἰληφέναι
  καὶ Ῥοδίων: compare Deinarch. cont. Demosthen. s. 15, where the
  same charge of bribery is alluded to, though αὐτὸς ἔφη is put
  in place of αὐτὸν Ἀριστοφῶν ἔφη, seemingly by mistake of the
  transcriber.

How the justice of the case stood, we cannot decide. The characters
of Iphikrates and Timotheus raise strong presumption that they
were in the right and their accuser in the wrong. Yet it must be
recollected that the Athenian public, (and probably every other
public,—ancient or modern,—Roman, English, or French), would
naturally sympathize with the forward and daring admiral, who led the
way into action, fearing neither the storm nor the enemy, and calling
upon his colleagues to follow. Iphikrates and Timotheus doubtless
insisted upon the rashness of his proceedings, and set forth the
violence of the gale. But this again would be denied by Chares, and
would stand as a point where the evidence was contradictory; captains
and seamen being produced as witnesses on both sides, and the fleet
being probably divided into two opposing parties. The feelings of the
Athenian Dikasts might naturally be, that Iphikrates and Timotheus
ought never to have let their colleague go into action unassisted,
even though they disapproved of the proceeding. Iphikrates defended
himself partly by impeaching the behavior of Chares, partly by bitter
retort upon his other accuser Aristophon. “Would _you_ (he asked),
betray the fleet for money?” “No,” was the reply. “Well, then,
_you_, Aristophon, would not betray the fleet; shall _I_, Iphikrates
do so?”[474]

  [474] See Aristotel. Rhetoric. ii. 24; iii. 10. Quintilian, Inst.
  Or. v. 12, 10.

The issue of this important cause was, that Iphikrates was acquitted,
while Timotheus was found guilty and condemned to the large fine of
one hundred talents. Upon what causes such difference of sentence
turned, we make out imperfectly. And it appears that Iphikrates, far
from exonerating himself by throwing blame on Timotheus, emphatically
assumed the responsibility of the whole proceeding; while his son,
Menestheus tendered an accurate account within his own knowledge, of
all the funds received and disbursed by the army.[475]

  [475] Isokrates, Or. xv. (Permutat.) s. 137. εἰ τοσαύτας μὲν
  πόλεις ἑλόντα, μηδεμίαν δ᾽ ἀπολέσαντα, περὶ προδοσίας ἔκρινε (ἡ
  πόλις Τιμόθεον), καὶ πάλιν εἰ διδόντος εὐθύνας αὐτοῦ, καὶ τὰς μὲν
  πράξεις Ἰφικράτους ἀναδεχομένου, τὸν δ᾽ ὑπὲρ τῶν χρημάτων λόγον
  Μενεσθέως, τούτους μὲν ἀπέλυσε, Τιμόθεον δὲ τοσούτοις ἐζημίωσε
  χρήμασιν, ὅσοις οὐδένα πώποτε τῶν προγεγενημένων.

The cause assigned by Isokrates, the personal friend of Timotheus,
is, the extreme unpopularity of the latter in the city. Though
as a general and on foreign service, Timotheus conducted himself
not only with scrupulous justice to every one, but with rare
forbearance towards the maritime allies whom other generals vexed
and plundered,—yet at home his demeanor was intolerably arrogant
and offensive, especially towards the leading speakers who took
part in public affairs. While recognized as a man of ability and as
a general who had rendered valuable service, he had thus incurred
personal unpopularity and made numerous enemies; chiefly among those
most able to do him harm. Isokrates tells us that he had himself
frequently remonstrated with Timotheus (as Plato admonished Dion),
on this serious fault, which overclouded his real ability, caused
him to be totally misunderstood, and laid up against him a fund of
popular dislike sure to take melancholy effect on some suitable
occasion. Timotheus (according to Isokrates), though admitting
the justice of the reproof, was unable to conquer his own natural
disposition.[476] If such was the bearing of this eminent man, as
described by his intimate friend, we may judge how it would incense
unfriendly politicians and even indifferent persons who knew him only
from his obvious exterior. Iphikrates, though by nature a proud man,
was more discreet and conciliatory in his demeanor, and more alive
to the mischief of political odium.[477] Moreover, he seems to have
been an effective speaker[478] in public, and his popularity among
the military men in Athens was so marked, that on this very trial
many of them manifested their sympathy by appearing in arms near the
Dikastery.[479] Under these circumstances, we may easily understand
that Chares and Aristophon might find it convenient to press their
charge more pointedly against Timotheus than against Iphikrates; and
that the Dikastery, while condemning the former, may have been less
convinced of the guilt of the latter, and better satisfied in every
way to acquit him.[480]

  [476] Isokrates, Or. xv. (Permutat.) s. 146. Ταῦτα δ᾽ ἀκούων
  ὀρθῶς μὲν ἔφασκέ με λέγειν, οὐ μὴν οἷός τ᾽ ἦν τὴν φύσιν
  μεταβαλεῖν, etc.

  Isokrates goes at some length into the subject from s. 137 to s.
  147. The discourse was composed seemingly in 353 B. C., about one
  year after the death of Timotheus, and four years after the trial
  here described.

  [477] Demosthenes cont. Meidiam, p. 534, 535; Xenoph. Hellen. vi.
  2. 39.

  [478] Dionysius Halikarnass., Judicium de Lysiâ, p. 481; Justin,
  vi. 5. Aristotle in his Rhetorica borrows several illustrations
  on rhetorical points from the speeches of Iphikrates; but none
  from any speeches of Timotheus.

  [479] Polyænus, iii. 9, 29. That this may have been done with
  the privity and even by the contrivance of Iphikrates, is
  probable enough. But it seems to me that any obvious purpose of
  intimidating the Dikastery would have been likely to do him more
  harm than good.

  [480] Rehdantz (Vitæ Iphicratis, Chabriæ, et Timothei, p. 224
  _seqq._), while collecting and discussing instructively all the
  facts respecting these two commanders, places the date of this
  memorable trial in the year 354 B. C.; three years after the
  events to which it relates, and two years after the peace which
  concluded the Social War. Mr. Clinton (Fast. Hellenici, B. C.
  354) gives the same statement. I dissent from their opinion on
  the date and think that the trial must have occurred very soon
  after the abortive battle in the Hellespont—that is in 357 B. C.
  (or 356 B. C.), while the Social War was still going on.

  Rehdantz and Mr. Clinton rely on the statement of Dionysius
  Halikarnass. (De Dinarcho Judicium, p. 667). Speaking of an
  oration falsely ascribed to Deinarchus, Dionysius says, that
  it was spoken before the maturity of that orator—εἴρηται γὰρ
  ἐπὶ τοῦ στρατηγοῦ Τιμοθέου ζῶντος, κατὰ τὸν χρόνον τὸν τῆς μετὰ
  Μενεσθέως στρατηγίας, ἐφ᾽ ᾗ τὰς εὐθύνας ὑποσχὼν, ἑάλω. Τιμόθεος
  δὲ τὰς εὐθύνας ὑπέσχηκεν ἐπὶ Διοτίμου, τοῦ μετὰ Καλλίστρατον, ὅτε
  καὶ.... These are the last words in the MS., so that the sentence
  stands defective; Mr. Clinton supplies ἐτελεύτησεν, which is very
  probable.

  The archonship of Diotimus is in 354-353 B. C.; so that Dionysius
  here states the trial to have taken place in 354 B. C. But on
  the other hand, the same Dionysius, in another passage, states
  the same trial to have taken place while the Social War was yet
  going on; that is, some time between 358 and 355 B. C. De Lysiâ
  Judicium, p. 480. ἐν γὰρ τῷ συμμαχικῷ πολέμῳ τὴν εἰσαγγελίαν
  Ἰφικράτης ἠγώνισται, καὶ τὰς εὐθύνας ὑπέσχηκε τῆς στρατηγίας,
  ~ὡς ἐξ αὐτοῦ τοῦ λόγου γίγνεται καταφανές~· οὗτος δὲ ὁ πόλεμος
  πίπτει κατὰ Ἀγαθοκλέα καὶ Ἐλπίνην ἄρχοντας. The archonships of
  Agathokles and Elpines cover the interval between Midsummer 357
  B. C. and Midsummer 355 B. C.

  It is plain that these two passages of Dionysius contradict
  each other. Rehdantz and Mr. Clinton notice the contradiction,
  but treat the passage first cited as containing the truth, and
  the other as erroneous. I cannot but think that the passage
  last cited is entitled to most credit, and that the true date
  of the trial was 357-356 B. C., not 354 B. C. When Dionysius
  asserts that the trial took place while the Social War was yet
  going on, he adds, “as is evident from the speech itself—ὡς ἐξ
  αὐτοῦ γίγνεται τοῦ λόγου καταφανές.” Here therefore there was no
  possibility of being misled by erroneous tables; the evidence
  is direct and complete; whereas he does not tell us on what
  authority he made the other assertion, about the archonship of
  Diotimus. Next, it is surely improbable that the abortive combat
  in the Hellespont, and the fierce quarrel between Chares and
  his colleagues, probably accompanied with great excitement in
  the fleet, could have remained without judicial settlement for
  three years. Lastly, assuming the statement about the archonship
  of Diotimus to be a mistake, we can easily see how the mistake
  arose. Dionysius has confounded the year in which Timotheus died,
  with the year of his trial. He seems to have died in 354 B. C. I
  will add that the text in this passage is not beyond suspicion.

A fine of one hundred talents is said to have been imposed upon
Timotheus, the largest fine (according to Isokrates), ever imposed
at Athens. Upon his condemnation he retired to Chalkis, where he
died three years afterwards, in 354 B. C. In the year succeeding his
death, his memory was still very unpopular; yet it appears that the
fine was remitted to his family, and that his son Konon was allowed
to compromise the demand by a disbursement of the smaller sum of ten
talents for the repairs of the city walls. It seems evident that
Timotheus by his retirement evaded payment of the full fine; so that
his son Konon appears after him as one of the richest citizens in
Athens.[481]

  [481] Cornelius Nepos, Timoth. c. 4; Rehdantz, Vit. Iph., Ch. et
  Timoth. p. 235; Isokrates, Or. xv. (Permutat.) s. 108, 110. 137.

The loss of such a citizen as Timotheus was a fresh misfortune to
her. He had conducted her armies with signal success, maintained
the honor of her name throughout the eastern and western seas, and
greatly extended the list of her foreign allies. She had recently
lost Chabrias in battle; a second general, Timotheus, was now
taken from her; and the third, Iphikrates, though acquitted at the
last trial, seems, as far as we can make out, never to have been
subsequently employed on military command. These three were the
last eminent military citizens at Athens; for Phokion, though brave
and deserving, was not to be compared with either of them. On the
other hand, Chares, a man of great personal courage, but of no other
merit, was now in the full swing of reputation. The recent judicial
feud between the three Athenian admirals had been doubly injurious
to Athens, first as discrediting Iphikrates and Timotheus, next as
exalting Chares, to whom the sole command was now confided.

In the succeeding year, 356 B. C., Chares conducted another powerful
fleet to attack the revolted allies. Being however not furnished
with adequate funds from home to pay his troops, chiefly foreign
mercenaries, he thought it expedient, on his own responsibility,
to accept an offer from Artabazus (satrap of Daskylium and the
region south of the Propontis), then in revolt against the Persian
king.[482] Chares joined Artabazus with his own army, reinforced by
additional bodies of mercenaries recently disbanded by the Persian
satraps. With this entire force he gave battle to the king’s troops
under the command of Tithraustes, and gained a splendid victory;
upon which Artabazus remunerated him so liberally, as to place the
whole Athenian army in temporary affluence. The Athenians at home
were at first much displeased with their general, for violating
his instructions, and withdrawing his army from its prescribed
and legitimate task. The news of his victory, however, and of the
lucrative recompense following it, somewhat mollified them. But
presently they learned that the Persian king, indignant at such a
gratuitous aggression on their part, was equipping a large fleet to
second the operations of their enemies. Intimidated by the prospect
of Persian attack, they became anxious to conclude a peace with
the revolted allies; who, on their part, were not less anxious to
terminate the war. Embassies being exchanged, and negotiations
opened, in the ensuing year (355 B. C., the third of the war), a
peace was sworn, whereby the Athenians recognized the complete
autonomy, and severance from their confederacy, of the revolted
cities, Chios, Rhodes, Kos, and Byzantium.[483]

  [482] Diodor. xvi. 22. Demosthenes (Philippic. i. p. 46. s. 28)
  has an emphatic passage, alluding to this proceeding on the part
  of Chares; which he represents as a necessary result of the
  remissness of the Athenians, who would neither serve personally
  themselves, nor supply their general with money to pay his
  foreign troops—and as a measure which the general could not avoid.

  ... ἐξ οὗ δ᾽ αὐτὰ καθ᾽ αὑτὰ τὰ ξενικὰ ὑμῖν στρατεύεται, τοὺς
  φίλους νικᾷ καὶ τοὺς συμμάχους, οἱ δ᾽ ἐχθροὶ μείζους τοῦ δέοντος
  γεγόνασιν, καὶ παρακύψαντα ἐπὶ τὸν τῆς πόλεως πόλεμον, ~πρὸς
  Ἀρτάβαζον καὶ πανταχοῦ μᾶλλον~ οἴχεται πλέοντα· ὁ δὲ στρατηγὸς
  ἀκολουθεῖ· εἰκότως—οὐ γὰρ ἔστιν ἄρχειν, μὴ διδόντα μισθόν.
  Compare the Scholia on the same oration, a passage which occurs
  somewhat earlier, p. 44. s. 22.

  It seems evident, from this passage, that the Athenians were at
  first displeased with such diversion from the regular purpose of
  the war, though the payment from Artabazus afterwards partially
  reconciled them to it; which is somewhat different from the
  statement of Diodorus.

  From an inscription (cited in Rehdantz, Vitæ Iphicratis, Chabriæ,
  etc., p. 158) we make out that Chares, Charidemus, and Phokion,
  were about this time in joint-command of the Athenian fleet near
  Lesbos, and that they were in some negotiation as to pecuniary
  supplies with the Persian Orontes on the mainland. But the
  inscription is so mutilated, that no distinct matter of fact can
  be ascertained.

  [483] Diodor. xvi. 22. I place little reliance on the Argument
  prefixed to the Oration of Isokrates De Pace. As far as I am
  able to understand the facts of this obscure period, it appears
  to me that the author of that Argument has joined them together
  erroneously, and misconceived the situation.

  The assertion of Demosthenes, in the Oration against Leptines (p.
  481. s. 90), respecting the behavior of the Chians towards the
  memory of Chabrias, seems rather to imply that the peace with
  Chios had been concluded before that oration was delivered. It
  was delivered in the very year of the peace 355 B. C.

Such was the termination of the Social War, which fatally impaired
the power, and lowered the dignity, of Athens. Imperfectly as
we know the events, it seems clear that her efforts to meet this
formidable revolt were feeble and inadequate; evincing a sad downfall
of energy since the year 412 B. C., when she had contended with
transcendent vigor against similar and even greater calamities, only
a year after her irreparable disaster before Syracuse. Inglorious as
the result of the Social War was, it had nevertheless been costly,
and left Athens poor. The annual revenues of her confederacy were
greatly lessened by the secession of so many important cities,
and her public treasury was exhausted. It is just at this time
that the activity of Demosthenes as a public adviser begins. In a
speech delivered this year (355 B. C.), he notes the poverty of the
treasury; and refers back to it in discourses of after time as a fact
but too notorious.[484]

  [484] Demosthenes adv. Leptinem, p. 464. s. 26, 27; and De
  Coronâ, p. 305 s. 293.

But the misfortunes arising to Athens from the Social War did not
come alone. It had the farther effect of rendering her less competent
for defence against the early aggressions of Philip of Macedon.

That prince, during the first year of his accession (359 B. C.), had
sought to conciliate Athens by various measures, but especially by
withdrawing his garrison from Amphipolis, while he was establishing
his military strength in the interior against the Illyrians and
Pæonians. He had employed in this manner a period apparently somewhat
less than two years; and employed it with such success, as to humble
his enemies in the interior, and get together a force competent for
aggressive operations against the cities on the coast. During this
interval, Amphipolis remained a free and independent city; formally
renounced by Philip, and not assailed by the Athenians. Why they
let slip this favorable opportunity of again enforcing by arms
pretensions on which they laid so much stress—I have before partially
(though not very satisfactorily) explained. Philip was not the man to
let them enjoy the opportunity longer than he could help, or to defer
the moment of active operations as they did. Towards the close of
358 B. C., finding his hands free from impediments in the interior,
he forthwith commenced the siege of Amphipolis. The inhabitants are
said to have been unfavorably disposed towards him, and to have
given him many causes for war.[485] It is not easy to understand what
these causes could have been, seeing that so short a time before, the
town had been garrisoned by Macedonians invoked as protectors against
Athens; nor were the inhabitants in any condition to act aggressively
against Philip.

  [485] Diodor. xvi. 8.

Having in vain summoned Amphipolis to surrender, Philip commenced a
strenuous siege, assailing the walls with battering-rams and other
military engines. The weak points of the fortification must have been
well known to him, from his own soldiers who had been recently in
garrison. The inhabitants defended themselves with vigor; but such
was now the change of circumstances, that they were forced to solicit
their ancient enemy Athens for aid against the Macedonian prince.
Their envoys Hierax and Stratokles, reaching Athens shortly after
the successful close of the Athenian expedition to Eubœa, presented
themselves before the public assembly, urgently inviting the
Athenians to come forthwith and occupy Amphipolis, as the only chance
of rescue from Macedonian dominion.[486] We are not certain whether
the Social War had yet broken out; if it had, Athens would be too
much pressed with anxieties arising out of so formidable a revolt, to
have means disposable even for the tempting recovery of the long-lost
Amphipolis. But at any rate Philip had foreseen and counterworked
the prayers of the Amphipolitans. He sent a courteous letter to
the Athenians, acquainting them that he was besieging the town,
yet recognizing it as belonging of right to them, and promising to
restore it to them when he should have succeeded in the capture.[487]

  [486] Demosthenes, Olynth. i. p. 11. s. 8 ... εἰ γὰρ, ὅθ᾽
  ἥκομεν Εὐβοεῦσι βεβοηθηκότες καὶ παρῆσαν Ἀμφιπολιτῶν Ἱέραξ
  καὶ Στρατοκλῆς ἐπὶ τουτὶ τὸ βῆμα, κελεύοντες ἡμᾶς πλεῖν καὶ
  παραλαμβάνειν τὴν πόλιν, τὴν αὐτὴν παρειχόμεθ᾽ ὑπὲρ ἡμῶν αὐτῶν
  προθυμίαν ἥνπερ ὑπὲρ τῆς Εὐβοέων σωτηρίας, εἴχετ᾽ ἂν Ἀμφίπολιν
  τότε καὶ πάντων τῶν μετὰ ταῦτα ἂν ἦτε ἀπαλλαγμένοι πραγμάτων.

  [487] Demosthenes cont. Aristokrat. p. 659. s. 138. ... κἀκεῖνο
  εἰδότες, ὅτι Φίλιππος, ὅτε μὲν Ἀμφίπολιν ἐπολιόρκει, ἵν᾽
  ὑμῖν παραδῷ, πολιορκεῖν ἔφη· ἐπειδὴ δ᾽ ἔλαβε, καὶ Ποτείδαιαν
  προσαφείλετο.

  Also the Oration De Halonneso, p. 83. s. 28. ... τῆς δ᾽
  ἐπιστολῆς, ἣν πρὸς ὑμᾶς ἔπεμψεν (Philip) ὅτ᾽ Ἀμφίπολιν
  ἐπολιόρκει, ἐπιλέλησται, ἐν ᾗ ὡμολόγει τὴν Ἀμφίπολιν ὑμετέραν
  εἶναι· ἔφη γὰρ ἐκπολιορκήσας ὑμῖν ἀποδώσειν ὡς οὖσαν ὑμετέραν,
  ἀλλ᾽ οὐ τῶν ἐχόντων.

Much of the future history of Greece turned upon the manner in which
Athens dealt with these two conflicting messages. The situation of
Amphipolis, commanding the passage over the Strymon, was not only
all-important—as shutting up Macedonia to the eastward and as opening
the gold regions around Mount Pangæus—but was also easily defensible
by the Athenians from seaward, if once acquired. Had they been
clear-sighted in the appreciation of chances, and vigilant in respect
to future defence, they might now have acquired this important place,
and might have held it against the utmost efforts of Philip. But that
fatal inaction which had become their general besetting sin, was on
the present occasion encouraged by some plausible, yet delusive,
pleas. The news of the danger of the Amphipolitans would be not
unwelcome at Athens—where strong aversion was entertained towards
them, as refractory occupants of a territory not their own, and as
having occasioned repeated loss and humiliation to the Athenian arms.
Nor could the Athenians at once shift their point of view, so as
to contemplate the question on the ground of policy alone, and to
recognize these old enemies as persons whose interests had now come
into harmony with their own. On the other hand, the present temper of
the Athenians towards Philip was highly favorable. Not only had they
made peace with him during the preceding year, but they also felt
that he had treated them well both in evacuating Amphipolis and in
dismissing honorably their citizens who had been taken prisoners in
the army of his competitor Argæus.[488] Hence they were predisposed
to credit his positive assurance, that he only wished to take the
place in order to expel a troublesome population who had wronged and
annoyed him, and that he would readily hand it over to its rightful
owners the Athenians. To grant the application of the Amphipolitans
for aid, would thus appear, at Athens, to be courting a new war and
breaking with a valuable friend, in order to protect an odious enemy,
and to secure an acquisition which would at all events come to them,
even if they remained still, through the cession of Philip. It is
necessary to dwell upon the motives which determined Athens on this
occasion to refrain from interference; since there were probably few
of her resolutions which she afterwards more bitterly regretted. The
letter of assurance from Philip was received and trusted; the envoys
from Amphipolis were dismissed with a refusal.

  [488] Demosthenes cont. Aristokrat. p. 660. s. 144.

Deprived of all hope of aid from Athens, the Amphipolitans still
held out as long as they could. But a party in the town entered
into correspondence with Philip to betray it, and the defence thus
gradually became feebler. At length he made a breach in the walls,
sufficient, with the aid of partisans within, to carry the city by
assault, not without a brave resistance from those who still remained
faithful. All the citizens unfriendly to him were expelled or fled,
the rest were treated with lenity; but we are told that little favor
was shown by Philip towards those who had helped in the betrayal.[489]

  [489] Diodor. xvi. 8, with the passage from Libanius cited in
  Wesseling’s note. Demosthenes, Olynth. i. p. 10. s. 5.

  Hierax and Stratokles were the Amphipolitan envoys despatched to
  Athens to ask for aid against Philip. An Inscription yet remains,
  recording the sentence of perpetual banishment of Philo and
  Stratokles. See Boeckh, Corp. Inscr. No. 2008.

Amphipolis was to Philip an acquisition of unspeakable importance,
not less for defence than for offence. It was not only the most
convenient maritime station in Thrace, but it also threw open to
him all the country east of the Strymon, and especially the gold
region near Mount Pangæus. He established himself firmly in his new
position, which continued from henceforward one of the bulwarks of
Macedonia, until the conquest of that kingdom by the Romans. He took
no steps to fulfil his promise of handing over the place to the
Athenians, who doubtless sent embassies to demand it. The Social
War, indeed, which just now broke out, absorbed all their care and
all their forces, so that they were unable, amidst their disastrous
reverses at Chios and elsewhere, to take energetic measures in
reference to Philip and Amphipolis. Nevertheless he still did not
peremptorily refuse the surrender, but continued to amuse the
Athenians with delusive hopes, suggested through his partisans, paid
or voluntary, in the public assembly.

It was the more necessary for him to postpone any open breach with
Athens, because the Olynthians had conceived serious alarm from
his conquest of Amphipolis, and had sent to negotiate a treaty of
amity and alliance with the Athenians. Such an alliance, had it
been concluded, would have impeded the farther schemes of Philip.
But his partisans at Athens procured the dismissal of the Olynthian
envoys, by renewed assurances that the Macedonian prince was still
the friend of Athens, and still disposed to cede Amphipolis as her
legitimate possession. They represented, however, that he had good
ground for complaining that Athens continued to retain Pydna, an
ancient Macedonian seaport.[490] Accordingly they proposed to open
negotiations with him for the exchange of Pydna against Amphipolis.
But as the Pydnæans were known to be adverse to the transfer, secrecy
was indispensable in the preliminary proceedings, so that Antiphon
and Charidemus, the two envoys named, took their instructions from
the Senate and made their reports only to the Senate. The public
assembly being informed that negotiations, unavoidably secret, were
proceeding, to ensure the acquisition of Amphipolis—was persuaded to
repel the advances of Olynthus, as well as to look upon Philip still
as a friend.[491]

  [490] Thucyd. i. 61, 137; Diodor. xiii. 49. Pydna had been
  acquired to Athens by Timotheus.

  [491] This secret negotiation, about the exchange of Pydna for
  Amphipolis, is alluded to briefly by Demosthenes, and appears to
  have been fully noticed by Theopompus (Demosthenes, Olynth. ii.
  p. 19. s. 6. with the comments of Ulpian; Theopompus, Fr. 189,
  ed. Didot).

The proffered alliance of the Olynthians was thus rejected, as the
entreaty of the Amphipolitans for aid had previously been. Athens had
good reason to repent of both. The secret negotiation brought her
no nearer to the possession of Amphipolis. It ended in nothing, or
in worse than nothing, as it amused her with delusive expectations,
while Philip opened a treaty with the Olynthians, irritated, of
course, by their recent repulse at Athens. As yet he had maintained
pacific relations with the Athenians, even while holding Amphipolis
contrary to his engagement. But he now altered his policy, and
contracted alliance with the Olynthians; whose friendship he
purchased not only by ceding to them the district of Anthemus (lying
between Olynthus and Therma, and disputed by the Olynthians with
former Macedonian kings), but also by conquering and handing over to
them the important Athenian possession of Potidæa.[492] We know no
particulars of these important transactions. Our scanty authorities
merely inform us, that during the first two years (358-356 B. C.),
while Athens was absorbed by her disastrous Social War, Philip began
to act as her avowed enemy. He conquered from her not only Pydna and
other places for himself, but also Potidæa for the Olynthians. We are
told that Pydna was betrayed to Philip by a party of traitors in the
town;[493] and he probably availed himself of the secret propositions
made by Athens respecting the exchange of Pydna for Amphipolis, to
exasperate the Pydnæans against her bad faith; since they would have
good ground for resenting the project of transferring them underhand,
contrary to their own inclination. Pydna was the first place besieged
and captured. Several of its inhabitants, on the ground of prior
offence towards Macedonia,[494] are said to have been slain, while
even those who had betrayed the town were contemptuously treated. The
siege lasted long enough to transmit news to Athens, and to receive
aid, had the Athenians acted with proper celerity in despatching
forces. But either the pressure of the Social War—or the impatience
of personal service as well as of pecuniary payment—or both causes
operating together—made them behindhand with the exigency. Several
Athenian citizens were taken in Pydna and sold into slavery, some
being ransomed by Demosthenes out of his own funds; yet we cannot
make out clearly that any relief at all was sent from Athens.[495] If
any was sent, it came too late.

  [492] Demosthenes, Philipp. ii. p. 71. s. 22.

  [493] Demosthen. adv. Leptinem, p. 476. s. 71. ... φέρε δὴ
  κἀκεῖνο ἐξετάσωμεν, οἱ προδόντες τὴν Πύδναν καὶ τἄλλα χωρία τῷ
  Φιλίππῳ τῷ ποτ᾽ ἐπαρθέντες ὑμᾶς ἠδίκουν; ἢ πᾶσι πρόδηλον τοῦτο,
  ὅτι ταῖς παρ᾽ ἐκείνου δωρειαῖς, ἃς διὰ ταῦτα ἔσεσθαι σφίσιν
  ἡγοῦντο;

  Compare Olynthiac i. p. 10. s. 5.

  This discourse was pronounced in 355 B. C., thus affording
  confirmatory evidence of the date assigned to the surrender of
  Pydna and Potidæa.

  What the “other places” here alluded to by Demosthenes are
  (besides Pydna and Potidæa), we do not know. It appears by
  Diodorus (xvi. 31) that Methônê was not taken till 354-353 B. C.

  [494] The conquests of Philip are always enumerated by
  Demosthenes in this order, Amphipolis, Pydna, Potidæa, Methônê,
  etc., Olynthiac i. p. 11. s. 9. p. 12. s. 13; Philippic i. p. 41.
  s. 6; De Coronâ, p. 248. s. 85.

  See Ulpian ad Demosthenem, Olynth. i. p. 10. s. 5; also Diodor.
  xvi. 8 and Wesseling’s note.

  [495] In the public vote of gratitude passed many years
  afterwards by the Athenian assembly towards Demosthenes, his
  merits are recited; and among them we find this contribution
  towards the relief of captives at Pydna, Methônê, and Olynthus
  (Plutarch, Vit. X. Orator, p. 851).

Equal tardiness was shown in the relief sent to Potidæa[496]—though
the siege, carried on jointly by Philip and the Olynthians, was
both long and costly[497]—and though there were a body of Athenian
settlers (Kleruchs) resident there, whom the capture of the place
expelled from their houses and properties.[498] Even for the rescue
of these fellow-citizens, it does not appear that any native
Athenians would undertake the burden of personal service; the
relieving force despatched seems to have consisted of a general
with mercenary foreigners; who, as no pay was provided for them,
postponed the enterprise on which they were sent to the temptation
of plundering elsewhere for their own profit.[499] It was thus that
Philip, without any express declaration of war, commenced a series of
hostile measures against Athens, and deprived her of several valuable
maritime possessions on the coast of Macedonia and Thrace, besides
his breach of faith respecting the cession of Amphipolis.[500]
After her losses from the Social War, and her disappointment about
Amphipolis, she was yet farther mortified by seeing Pydna pass
into his hands, and Potidæa (the most important possession in
Thrace next to Amphipolis) into those of Olynthus. Her impoverished
settlers returned home, doubtless with bitter complaint against the
aggression, but also with just vexation against the tardiness of
their countrymen in sending relief.

  [496] Compare Demosthenes, Olynthiac i. p. 11. s. 9; Philippic
  i. p. 50. s. 40 (where he mentions the expedition to Potidæa as
  having come too late, but does not mention any expedition for
  relief of Pydna.)

  [497] Demosthenes cont. Aristokrat. p. 656. s. 128. πρὸς ὑμᾶς
  πολεμῶν, χρήματα πολλὰ ἀναλώσας (Philip, in the siege of
  Potidæa). In this oration (delivered B. C. 352) Demosthenes
  treats the capture of Potidæa as mainly the work of Philip; in
  the second Olynthiac, he speaks as if Philip had been a secondary
  agent, a useful adjunct to the Olynthians in the siege, πάλιν αὖ
  πρὸς Ποτίδαιαν Ὀλυνθίοις ἐφάνη τι τοῦτο συναμφότερον—_i. e._
  the Macedonian power was προσθήκη τις οὐ σμικρά.... The first
  representation, delivered two or three years before the second,
  is doubtless the more correct.

  [498] Demosthenes, Philipp. ii. p. 71. s. 22. Ποτίδαιαν δ᾽
  ἐδίδου, τοὺς Ἀθηναίων ἀποίκους ἐκβάλλων (Philip gave it to the
  Olynthians), καὶ τὴν μὲν ἐχθρὰν πρὸς ἡμᾶς αὐτὸς ἀνῄρητο, τὴν
  χώραν δ᾽ ἐκείνοις ἐδεδώκει καρποῦσθαι. The passage in the Oratio
  de Halonneso (p. 79. s. 10) alludes to this same extrusion and
  expropriation of the Athenian Kleruchs, though Vœmel and Franke
  (erroneously, I think) suppose it to allude to the treatment of
  these Kleruchs by Philip some years afterwards, when he took
  Potidæa for himself. We may be sure that no Athenian Kleruchs
  were permitted to stay at Potidæa even after the first capture.

  [499] The general description given in the first Philippic of
  Demosthenes of the ἀπόστολοι from Athens, may doubtless be
  applied to the expedition for the relief of Potidæa—Demosthenes,
  Philippic i. p. 46. s. 28. p. 53, s. 52. and the general tenor of
  the harangue.

  [500] Diodorus (xvi. 8), in mentioning the capture of Potidæa,
  considers it an evidence of the kind disposition of Philip, and
  of his great respect for the dignity of Athens (φιλανθρώπως
  προσενεγκάμενος) that he spared the persons of these Athenians
  in the place, and permitted them to depart. But it was a great
  wrong, under the circumstances, that he should expel and
  expropriate them, when no offence had been given to him, and when
  there was no formal war (Demosth. Or. de Halonneso, p. 79. s. 10).

  Diodorus states also that Philip gave Pydna, as well as Potidæa,
  to the Olynthians; which is not correct.

These two years had been so employed by Philip as to advance
prodigiously his power and ascendency. He had deprived Athens of her
hold upon the Thermaic gulf, in which she now seems only to have
retained the town of Methônê, instead of the series of ports round
the gulf acquired for her by Timotheus.[501] He had conciliated the
good-will of the Olynthians by his cession of Anthemus and Potidæa;
the latter place, from its commanding situation on the isthmus of
Pallenê, giving them the mastery of that peninsula,[502] and ensuring
(what to Philip was of great importance) their enmity with Athens.
He not only improved the maritime conveniences of Amphipolis, but
also extended his acquisitions into the auriferous regions of Mount
Pangæus eastward of the Strymon. He possessed himself of that
productive country immediately facing the island of Thasos; where
both Thasians and Athenians had once contended for the rights of
mining, and from whence, apparently, both had extracted valuable
produce. In the interior of this region he founded a new city called
Philippi, enlarged from a previous town called Krenides, recently
founded by the Thasians; and he took such effective measures for
increasing the metallic works in the neighborhood, that they
presently yielded to him a large revenue; according to Diodorus,
not less than one thousand talents per annum.[503] He caused a new
gold coin to be struck, bearing a name derived from his own. The
fresh source of wealth thus opened was of the greatest moment to
him, as furnishing means to meet the constantly increasing expense
of his military force. He had full employment to keep his soldiers
in training: for the nations of the interior—Illyrians, Pæonians,
and Thracians—humbled but not subdued, rose again in arms, and tried
again jointly to reclaim their independence. The army of Philip—under
his general Parmenio, of whom we now hear for the first time—defeated
them, and again reduced them to submission.[504]

  [501] Demosthenes, Philippic i. p. 41. s. 6 ... εἴχομέν ποτε
  ἡμεῖς Πύδναν καὶ Ποτίδαιαν καὶ Μεθώνην, καὶ ~πάντα τὸν τόπον
  τοῦτον οἰκεῖον κύκλῳ~, etc.

  [502] Demosthenes, Philipp. ii. p. 70. s. 22.

  [503] Diodor. xvi. 4-8; Harpokration v. Δάτον. Herodot. ix. 74.

  [504] Diodor. xvi. 22; Plutarch, Alexand. c. 3.

It was during this interval too that Philip married Olympias,
daughter of Neoptolemus prince of the Molossi,[505] and descended
from the ancient Molossian kings, who boasted of an heroic Æakid
genealogy. Philip had seen her at the religious mysteries in the
island of Samothrace, where both were initiated at the same time. In
violence of temper—in jealous, cruel, and vindictive disposition—she
forms almost a parallel to the Persian queens Amestris and Parysatis.
The Epirotic women, as well as the Thracian, were much given to the
Bacchanalian religious rites, celebrated with fierce ecstasy amid
the mountain solitudes in honor of Dionysius.[506] To this species
of religious excitement Olympias was peculiarly susceptible. She is
said to have been fond of tame snakes playing around her, and to have
indulged in ceremonies of magic and incantation.[507] Her temper and
character became, after no long time, repulsive and even alarming to
Philip. But in the year 356 B. C. she bore to him a son, afterwards
renowned as Alexander the Great. It was in the summer of this year,
not long after the taking of Potidæa, that Philip received nearly at
the same time, three messages with good news—the birth of his son;
the defeat of the Illyrians by Parmenio; and the success of one of
his running horses at the Olympic games.[508]

  [505] Justin, vii. 6.

  [506] Plutarch, Alexand. c. 2. 3. The Bacchæ of Euripides
  contains a powerful description of these exciting ceremonies.

  [507] Plutarch, Alexand. c. 2. ἡ δὲ Ὀλυμπιὰς μᾶλλον ἑτέρων
  ζηλώσασα τὰς κατοχὰς, καὶ τοὺς ἐνθουσιασμοὺς ἐξάγουσα
  βαρβαρικώτερον, ὄφεις μεγάλους χειροήθεις ἐφείλκετο τοῖς θιάσοις,
  etc.

  Compare Duris apud Athenæum, xiii. p. 560.

  [508] Plutarch, Alexand. c. 3; Justin, xii. 19.




CHAPTER LXXXVII.

FROM THE COMMENCEMENT OF THE SACRED WAR TO THAT OF THE OLYNTHIAN WAR.


It has been recounted in the preceding chapter, how Philip,
during the continuance of the Social War, aggrandized himself in
Macedonia and Thrace at the expense of Athens, by the acquisition
of Amphipolis, Pydna, and Potidæa—the two last actually taken from
her, the first captured only under false assurances held out to her
while he was besieging it: how he had farther strengthened himself by
enlisting Olynthus both as an ally of his own, and as an enemy of the
Athenians. He had thus begun the war against Athens, usually spoken
of as the war about Amphipolis, which lasted without any formal
peace for twelve years. The resistance opposed by Athens to these
his first aggressions had been faint and ineffective—partly owing to
embarrassments. But the Social War had not yet terminated, when new
embarrassments and complications, of a far more formidable nature,
sprang up elsewhere—known by the name of the Sacred War, rending
the very entrails of the Hellenic world, and profitable only to the
indefatigable aggressor in Macedonia.

The Amphiktyonic assembly, which we shall now find exalted into an
inauspicious notoriety, was an Hellenic institution ancient and
venerable, but rarely invested with practical efficiency. Though
political by occasion, it was religious in its main purpose,
associated with the worship of Apollo at Delphi and of Dêmêtêr at
Thermopylæ. Its assemblies were held twice annually—in spring at
Delphi, in autumn at Thermopylæ; while in every fourth year it
presided at the celebration of the great Pythian festival near
Delphi, or appointed persons to preside in its name. It consisted
of deputies called Hieromnemones and Pylagoræ, sent by the twelve
ancient nations or fractions of the Hellenic name, who were
recognized as its constituent body: Thessalians, Bœotians, Dorians,
Ionians, Perrhæbians, Magnêtes, Lokrians, Œtæans or Ænianes, Achæans,
Malians, Phokians, Dolopes. These were the twelve nations, sole
partners in the Amphiktyonic sacred rites and meetings: each nation,
small and great alike, having two votes in the decision and no more;
and each city, small and great alike, contributing equally to make
up the two votes of that nation to which it belonged. Thus Sparta
counted only as one of the various communities forming the Dorian
nation: Athens, in like manner in the Ionian, not superior in rank to
Erythræ or Priênê.[509]

  [509] Æschines, De Fals. Legat. p. 280. c. 36. For particulars
  respecting the Amphiktyonic assembly see the treatise of Tittman,
  Ueber den Amphiktyonischen Bund, p. 37, 45, _seqq._

That during the preceding century, the Amphiktyonic assembly had
meddled rarely, and had never meddled to any important purpose,
in the political affairs of Greece—is proved by the fact that it
is not once mentioned either in the history of Thucydides, or in
the Hellenica of Xenophon. But after the humiliation of Sparta at
Leuktra, this great religious convocation of the Hellenic world,
after long torpor, began to meet for the despatch of business.
Unfortunately its manifestations of activity were for the most
part abusive and mischievous. Probably not long after the battle
of Leuktra, though we do not know the precise year—the Thebans
exhibited before the Amphiktyons an accusation against Sparta, for
having treacherously seized the Kadmeia (the citadel of Thebes) in
a period of profound peace. Sentence of condemnation was pronounced
against her,[510] together with a fine of five hundred talents,
doubled after a certain interval of non-payment. The act here put in
accusation was indisputably a gross political wrong; and a pretence,
though a very slight pretence, for bringing political wrong under
cognizance of the Amphiktyons, might be found in the tenor of the old
oath taken by each included city.[511] Still, every one knew that
for generations past, the assembly had taken no actual cognizance
of political wrong; so that both trial and sentence were alike
glaring departures from understood Grecian custom—proving only the
humiliation of Sparta and the insolence of Thebes. The Spartans of
course did not submit to pay, nor were there any means of enforcement
against them. No practical effect followed therefore, except
(probably) the exclusion of Sparta from the Amphiktyonic assembly—as
well as from the Delphian temple and the Pythian games. Indirectly,
however, the example was most pernicious, as demonstrating that the
authority of a Pan-hellenic convocation, venerable from its religious
antiquity; could be abused to satisfy the political antipathies of a
single leading state.

  [510] Diodor. xvi. 23-29; Justin, viii. 1.

  [511] Æschines, De Fals. Leg. p. 279. c. 35.

In the year 357 B. C., a second attempt was made by Thebes to employ
the authority of the Amphiktyonic assembly as a means of crushing
her neighbors the Phokians. The latter had been, from old time,
border-enemies of the Thebans, Lokrians, and Thessalians. Until
the battle of Leuktra, they had fought as allies of Sparta against
Thebes, but had submitted to Thebes after that battle, and had
continued to be her allies, though less and less cordial, until the
battle of Mantinea and the death of Epaminondas.[512] Since that
time, the old antipathy appears to have been rekindled, especially
on the part of Thebes. Irritated against the Phokians probably as
having broken off from a sworn alliance, she determined to raise
against them an accusation in the Amphiktyonic assembly. As to the
substantive ground of accusation, we find different statements.
According to one witness, they were accused of having cultivated
some portion of the Kirrhæan plain, consecrated from of old to
Apollo; according to another, they were charged with an aggressive
invasion of Bœotia; while, according to a third, the war was caused
by their having carried off Theano, a married Theban woman. Pausanias
confesses that he cannot distinctly make out what was the allegation
against them.[513] Assisted by the antipathy of the Thessalians and
Lokrians, not less vehement than her own, Thebes had no difficulty in
obtaining sentence of condemnation against the Phokians. A fine was
imposed upon them; of what amount we are not told, but so heavy as to
be far beyond their means of payment.

  [512] Compare Xenoph. Hellen. vi. 5, 23, and vii. 5, 4. About
  the feud of the Thessalians and Phokians, see Herodot. vii. 176,
  viii. 27; Æschines, De Fals. Leg. p. 289. c. 43—of the Lokrians
  and Phokians, Xenoph. Hellen. iii. 5, 3; Pausanias, iii. 9, 4.

  [513] Diodor. xvi. 23; Justin, viii. 1; Pausanias, x. 2, 1; Duris
  ap. Athenæum, xiii. p. 560. Justin says, “Causa et origo hujus
  mali, Thebani fuere; qui cum rerum potirentur, secundam fortunam
  imbecillo animo ferentes, victos armis Lacedæmonios et Phocenses,
  quasi parva supplicia cædibus et rapinis luissent, apud commune
  Græciæ concilium superbe accusaverunt Lacedæmoniis crimini datum,
  quod arcem Thebanam induciarum tempore occupassent; Phocensibus,
  quod Bœotiam depopulati essent; prorsus quasi post arma et bellum
  locum legibus reliquissent.”

It was thus that the Thebans, who had never been able to attach
to themselves a powerful confederacy such as that which formerly
held its meetings at Sparta, supplied the deficiency by abusing
their ascendency in the Amphiktyonic assembly to procure vengeance
upon political enemies. A certain time was allowed for liquidating
the fine, which the Phokians had neither means nor inclination
to do. Complaint of the fact was then made at the next meeting
of the Amphiktyons, when a decisive resolution was adopted, and
engraven along with the rest on a column in the Delphian temple, to
expropriate the recusant Phokians, and consecrate all their territory
to Apollo—as Kirrha with its fertile plain had been treated two
centuries before. It became necessary, at the same time, for the
maintenance of consistency and equal dealing, to revive the mention
of the previous fine still remaining unpaid by the Lacedæmonians;
against whom it was proposed to pass a vote of something like
excommunication.

Such impending dangers, likely to be soon realized under the
instigation of Thebes, excited a resolute spirit of resistance among
the Phokians. A wealthy and leading citizen of the Phokian town
Ledon, named Philomelus son of Theotimus, stood forward as the head
of this sentiment, setting himself energetically to organize means
for the preservation of Phokian liberty as well as property. Among
his assembled countrymen, he protested against the gross injustice
of the recent sentence, amercing them in an enormous sum exceeding
their means; when the strip of land, where they were alleged to
have trespassed on the property of the god, was at best narrow and
insignificant. Nothing was left, now, to avert from them utter
ruin, except a bold front and an obstinate resistance, which he
(Philomelus) would pledge himself to conduct with success, if they
would intrust him with full powers. The Phokians (he contended) were
the original and legitimate administrators of the Delphian temple—a
privilege of which they had been wrongfully dispossessed by the
Amphiktyonic assembly and the Delphians. “Let us reply to our enemies
(he urged) by re-asserting our lost rights and seizing the temple; we
shall obtain support and countenance from many Grecian states, whose
interest is the same as our own, to resist the unjust decrees of the
Amphiktyons.[514] Our enemies the Thebans (he added) are plotting the
seizure of the temple for themselves, through the corrupt connivance
of an Amphiktyonic majority: let us anticipate and prevent their
injustice.”[515]

  [514] Diodor. xvi. 23, 24; Pausanias, x. 2, 1.

  [515] That this design, imputed to the Thebans, was a part of
  the case made out by the Phokians for themselves, we may feel
  assured from the passage in Demosthenes, Fals. Leg. p. 347. s.
  22. Demosthenes charges Æschines with having made false promises
  and statements to the Athenian assembly, on returning from his
  embassy in 346 B. C. Æschines told the Athenians (so Demosthenes
  affirms) that he had persuaded Philip to act altogether in the
  interest and policy of Athens; that the Athenians would very
  presently see Thebes besieged by Philip, and the Bœotian towns
  restored; and furthermore, τῷ θεῷ δὲ τὰ χρήματα εἰσπραττόμενα, οὐ
  παρὰ Φωκέων, ἀλλὰ παρὰ ~Θηβαίων τῶν βουλευσάντων τὴν κατάληψιν
  τοῦ ἱεροῦ~ διδάσκειν γὰρ αὐτὸς ἔφη τὸν Φίλιππον ὅτι οὐδὲν ἧττον
  ~ἠσεβήκασιν οἱ βεβουλευκότες τῶν ταῖς χερσὶ πραξάντων~, καὶ διὰ
  ταῦτα χρήμαθ᾽ ἑαυτῷ τοὺς Θηβαίους ἐπικεκηρυχέναι.

  How far Æschines really promised to the Athenians that which
  Demosthenes here alleges him to have promised—is a matter to
  be investigated when we arrive at the transactions of the year
  346 B. C. But it seems to me clear that the imputation (true
  or false) against the Thebans, of having been themselves in
  conspiracy to seize the temple, must have emanated first from the
  Phokians, as part of the justification of their own proceedings.
  If the Thebans ever conceived such an idea, it must have been
  _before_ the actual occupation of the temple by the Phokians, if
  they were falsely charged with conceiving it, the false charge
  would also be preferred at the time. Demosthenes would hardly
  invent it twelve years after the Phokian occupation.

Here a new question was raised, respecting the right of presidency
over the most venerated sanctuary in Greece; a question fraught
with ruin to the peace of the Hellenic world. The claim of the
Phokians was not a mere fiction, but founded on an ancient reality,
and doubtless believed by themselves to be just. Delphi and its
inhabitants were originally a portion of the Phokian name. In the
Homeric Catalogue, which Philomelus emphatically cited, it stands
enumerated among the Phokians commanded by Schedius and Epistrophus,
under the name of the “rocky Pytho,”—a name still applied to it by
Herodotus.[516] The Delphians had acquired sufficient force to sever
themselves from their Phokian brethren—to stand out as a community
by themselves—and to assume the lucrative privilege of administering
the temple as their own peculiar. Their severance had been first
brought about, and their pretensions as administrators espoused by
Sparta,[517] upon whose powerful interest they mainly depended. But
the Phokians had never ceased to press their claim, and so far was
the dispute from being settled against them, even in 450 B. C.,
that they then had in their hands the actual administration. The
Spartans despatched an army for the express purpose of taking it away
from them and transferring it to the Delphians; but very shortly
afterwards, when the Spartan forces had retired, the Athenians
marched thither, and dispossessed the Delphians,[518] restoring
the temple to the Phokians. This contest went by the name of the
Sacred War. At that time the Athenians were masters of most parts of
Bœotia, as well as of Megara and Pegæ; and had they continued so, the
Phokians would probably have been sustained in their administration
of the holy place; the rights of the Delphians on one side, against
those of the Phokians on the other, being then obviously dependent
on the comparative strength of Athens and Sparta. But presently evil
days came upon Athens, so that she lost all her inland possessions
north of Attica, and could no longer uphold her allies in Phokis. The
Phokians now in fact passed into allies of Sparta, and were forced
to relinquish their temple-management to the Delphians; who were
confirmed in it by a formal article of the peace of Nikias in 421
B. C.,[519] and retained it without question, under the recognized
Hellenic supremacy of Sparta, down to the battle of Leuktra. Even
then, too, it continued undisturbed; since Thebes was nowise
inclined to favor the claim of her enemies the Phokians, but was on
the contrary glad to be assisted in crushing them by their rivals
the Delphians, who, as managers of the temple, could materially
contribute to a severe sentence of the Amphiktyonic assembly.

  [516] Herodot. i. 54.

  [517] Strabo, ix. p. 423.

  [518] Thucyd. i. 12.

  [519] Thucyd. v. 18.

We see thus that the claim now advanced by Philomelus was not
fictitious, but genuine, and felt by himself as well as by other
Phokians to be the recovery of an ancient privilege, lost only
through superior force.[520] His views being heartily embraced by
his countrymen, he was nominated general with full powers. It was
his first measure to go to Sparta, upon whose aid he counted, in
consequence of the heavy fine which still stood imposed upon her
by the Amphiktyonic sentence. He explained his views privately to
king Archidamus, engaging, if the Phokians should become masters
of the temple, to erase the sentence and fine from the column of
record. Archidamus did not dare to promise him public countenance or
support; the rather, as Sparta had always been the chief supporter
of the Delphian presidency (as against the Phokian) over the temple.
But in secret he warmly encouraged the scheme; furnishing a sum
of fifteen talents, besides a few mercenary soldiers, towards its
execution. With this aid Philomelus returned home, provided an equal
sum of fifteen talents from his own purse, and collected a body of
peltasts, Phokians as well as strangers. He then executed his design
against Delphi, attacking suddenly both the town and the temple,
and capturing them, as it would appear, with little opposition. To
the alarmed Delphians, generally, he promised security and good
treatment; but he put to death the members of the Gens (or Clan)
called Thrakidæ, and seized their property: these men constituted one
among several holy Gentes, leading conductors of the political and
religious agency of the place.[521] It is probable, that when thus
suddenly assailed, they had sent to solicit aid from their neighbors,
the Lokrians of Amphissa; for Philomelus was scarcely in possession
of Delphi, when these latter marched up to the rescue. He defeated
them however with serious loss, and compelled them to return home.

  [520] Justin (viii. 1) takes no notice of this first position of
  the Phokians in regard to the temple of Delphi. He treats them as
  if they had been despoilers of the temple even at first; “velut
  deo irascentes.”

  [521] Diodor. xvi. 24. Hesychius (v. Λαφριάδαι) mentions another
  phratry or gens at Delphi, called Laphriadæ. See Wilhelm Götte,
  Das Delphische Orakel, p. 83. Leipsic, 1839.

  It is stated by Pausanias, that the Phokians were bent upon
  dealing with Delphi and its inhabitants in the harshest manner;
  intending to kill all the men of military age, to sell the
  remaining population as slaves, and to raze the whole town to
  the ground. Archidamus, king of Sparta, (according to Pausanias)
  induced the Phokians to abandon this resolution (Pausan. iii. 10,
  4).

  At what moment the Phokians ever determined on this step—or,
  indeed, whether they ever really determined on it—we cannot feel
  any certainty. Nor can we decide confidently, whether Pausanias
  borrowed the statement from Theopompus, whom he quotes a little
  before.

Thus completely successful in his first attempt, Philomelus lost
no time in announcing solemnly and formally his real purpose. He
proclaimed that he had come only to resume for the Phokians their
ancient rights as administrators; that the treasures of the temple
should be safe and respected as before; that no impiety or illegality
of any kind should be tolerated; and that the temple and its oracle
would be opened, as heretofore, for visitors, sacrificers, and
inquirers. At the same time, well aware that his Lokrian enemies at
Amphissa were very near, he erected a wall to protect the town and
temple, which appears to have been hitherto undefended,—especially
its western side. He further increased his levies of troops. While
the Phokians, inspirited with this first advantage, obeyed his
call in considerable numbers, he also attracted new mercenaries
from abroad by the offer of higher pay. He was presently at the
head of five thousand men, strong enough to hold a difficult post
like Delphi against all immediate attack. But being still anxious
to appease Grecian sentiment and avert hostility, he despatched
envoys to all the principal states,—not merely to Sparta and Athens,
but also to his enemy Thebes. His envoys were instructed to offer
solemn assurances, that the Phokians had taken Delphi simply to
reclaim their paternal right of presidency, against past wrongful
usurpation; that they were prepared to give any security required by
the Hellenic body, for strict preservation of the valuables in the
temple, and to exhibit and verify all, by weight and number, before
examiners; that conscious of their own rectitude of purpose, they
did not hesitate to entreat positive support against their enemies,
or at any rate, neutrality.[522] The answers sent to Philomelus were
not all of the same tenor. On this memorable event, the sentiments
of the Grecian world were painfully divided. While Athens, Sparta,
the Peloponnesian Achæans and some other states in Peloponnesus,
recognized the possession of the Phokians, and agreed to assist them
in retaining it,—the Thebans and Thessalians declared strenuously
against them, supported by all the states north of Bœotia,
Lokrians, Dorians, Ænianes, Phthiot-Achæans, Magnêtes, Perrhæbians,
Athamânes, and Dolopes. Several of these last were dependents of
the Thessalians, and followed their example; many of them moreover
belonging to the Amphiktyonic constituency, must have taken part in
the votes of condemnation just rescinded by the Phokians.

  [522] Didorus xvi. 27. Ὁμοίως δὲ καὶ πρὸς τὰς ἄλλας τὰς
  ἐπισημοτάτας τῶν κατὰ τὴν Ἑλλάδα πόλεων ἀπέστειλεν,
  ἀπολογούμενος, ὅτι κατείληπται τοὺς Δελφοὺς, οὐ τοῖς ἱεροῖς
  χρήμασιν ἐπιβουλεύων, ἀλλὰ τῆς τοῦ ἱεροῦ προστασίας ἀμφισβητῶν·
  εἶναι γὰρ Φωκέων αὐτὴν ἰδίαν ἐν τοῖς παλαιοῖς χρόνοις
  ἀποδεδειγμένην. Τῶν δὲ χρημάτων τὸν λόγον ἔφη πᾶσι τοῖς Ἕλλησιν
  ἀποδώσειν, καὶ τόν τε σταθμὸν καὶ τὸν ἀριθμὸν τῶν ἀναθημάτων
  ἕτοιμος εἶναι παραδιδόναι τοῖς βουλομένοις ἐξετάζειν. Ἠξίου δὲ,
  ἄν τις δι᾽ ἐχθρὰν ἢ φθόνον πολέμῃ Φωκεῦσι, μάλιστα μὲν ξυμμαχεῖν,
  εἰ δὲ μή γε, τὴν ἡσυχίαν ἄγειν.

  In reference to the engagement taken by Philomelus, that he
  would exhibit and verify, before any general Hellenic examiners,
  all the valuable property in the Delphian temple, by weight
  and number of articles—the reader will find interesting matter
  of comparison in the Attic Inscriptions. No. 137-142, vol. i.
  of Boeckh’s Corpus Inscriptt. Græcarum—with Boeckh’s valuable
  commentary. These are the records of the numerous gold and
  silver donatives, preserved in the Parthenon, handed over by the
  treasurers of the goddess annually appointed, to their successors
  at the end of the year, from one Panathenaic festival to the
  next. The weight of each article is formally recorded, and the
  new articles received each year (ἐπέτεια) are specified. Where an
  article is transferred without being weighed (ἄσταθμον), the fact
  is noticed. That the precious donatives in the Delphian temple
  also, were carefully weighed, we may judge by the statement of
  Herodotus, that the golden lion dedicated by Krœsus had lost
  a fraction of its weight in the conflagration of the building
  (Herodot. i. 50).

  Pausanias (x. 2, 1) does not advert to the difference between
  the first and the second part of the proceedings of Philomelus;
  first, the seizure of the temple, without any spoliation of the
  treasure, but simply upon the plea that the Phokians had the
  best right to administer its affairs; next, the seizure of the
  treasure and donatives of the temple—which he came to afterwards,
  when he found it necessary for defence.

We may clearly see that it was not at first the intention of
Philomelus or his Phokian comrades to lay hands on the property
of the Delphian temple; and Philomelus, while taking pains to set
himself right in the eyes of Greece, tried to keep the prophetic
agency of the temple in its ordinary working, so as to meet the
exigencies of sacrificers and inquirers as before. He required
the Pythian priestess to mount the tripod, submit herself to the
prophetic inspiration, and pronounce the word thus put into her
mouth, as usual. But the priestess,—chosen by the Delphians,
and probably herself a member of one among the sacred Delphian
Gentes,—obstinately refused to obey him; especially as the first
question which he addressed concerned his own usurpation, and his
chances of success against enemies. On his injunctions, that she
should prophesy according to the traditional rites,—she replied
that these rites were precisely what he had just overthrown; upon
which he laid hold of her, and attempted to place her on the tripod
by force. Subdued and frightened for her own personal safety, the
priestess exclaimed involuntarily, that he might do what he chose.
Philomelus gladly took this as an answer, favorable to his purpose.
He caused it to be put in writing and proclaimed, as an oracle from
the god, sanctioning and licensing his designs. He convened a special
meeting of his partisans and the Delphians generally, wherein appeal
was made to this encouraging answer, as warranting full confidence
with reference to the impending war. So it was construed by all
around, and confirmatory evidence was derived from farther signs and
omens occurring at the moment.[523] It is probable, however, that
Philomelus took care for the future to name a new priestess, more
favorable to his interest, and disposed to deliver oracular answers
under the new administrators in the same manner as under the old.

  [523] Diodor. xvi. 25, 26, 27.

Though so large a portion of the Grecian name had thus declared war
against the Phokians, yet none at first appear to have made hostile
movements, except the Lokrians, with whom Philomelus was fully
competent to deal. He found himself strong enough to overrun and
plunder their territory, engaging in some indecisive skirmishes.
At first the Lokrians would not even give up the bodies of his
slain soldiers for burial, alleging that sacrilegious men were
condemned by the general custom of Greece to be cast out without
sepulture. Nor did they desist from their refusal until he threatened
retaliation towards the bodies of their own slain.[524] So bitter
was the exasperation arising out of this deplorable war throughout
the Hellenic world! Even against the Lokrians alone, however,
Philomelus soon found himself in want of money, for the payment
of his soldiers,—native Phokians as well as mercenary strangers.
Accordingly, while he still adhered to his pledge to respect the
temple property, he did not think himself precluded from levying a
forced contribution on the properties of his enemies, the wealthy
Delphian citizens; and his arms were soon crowned with a brilliant
success against the Lokrians, in a battle fought near the Rocks
called Phædriades; a craggy and difficult locality so close to
Delphi, that the Lokrians must evidently have been the aggressors,
marching up with a view to relieve the town. They were defeated with
great loss, both in slain and in prisoners; several of them only
escaping the spear of the enemy by casting themselves to certain
death down the precipitous cliffs.[525]

  [524] Diodor. xvi. 25.

  [525] Diodor. xvi. 28.

This victory, while imparting courage to the Phokians, proved the
signal for fresh exertions among their numerous enemies. The loud
complaints of the defeated Lokrians raised universal sympathy; and
the Thebans, now pressed by fear, as well as animated by hatred, of
the Phokians, put themselves at the head of the movement. Sending
round envoys to the Thessalians and the other Amphiktyonic states,
they invoked aid and urged the necessity of mustering a common
force,—“to assist the god,”—to vindicate the judicial dignity
of the Amphiktyonic assembly,—and to put down the sacrilegious
Phokians.[526] It appears that a special meeting of the assembly
itself was convened; probably at Thermopylæ, since Delphi was in
possession of the enemy. Decided resolutions were here taken to form
an Amphiktyonic army of execution; accompanied by severe sentences
of fine and other punishments, against the Phokian leaders, by name
Philomelus and Onomarchus,—perhaps brothers, but at least joint
commanders, together with others.[527]

  [526] Diodor. xvi. 28. ψηφισαμένων δὲ τῶν Ἀμφικτυόνων τὸν πρὸς
  Φωκεῖς πόλεμον, πολλὴ ταραχὴ καὶ διάστασις ἦν καθ᾽ ὅλην τὴν
  Ἑλλάδα. Οἱ μὲν γὰρ ἔκριναν βοηθεῖν τῷ θεῷ, καὶ τοὺς Φωκεῖς,
  ὡς ἱεροσύλους, κολάζειν· οἱ δὲ πρὸς τὴν τῶν Φωκέων βοήθειαν
  ἀπέκλιναν.

  [527] Diodor. xvi. 32. about Onomarchus—πολλαῖς γὰρ καὶ μεγάλαις
  δίκαις ὑπὸ τῶν Ἀμφικτυόνων ἦν καταδεδικασμένος ὁμοίως τοῖς
  ἄλλοις, etc.

  Onomarchus is denominated the colleague of Philomelus, cap. 31,
  and his brother, cap. 61.

The perils of the Phokians now became imminent. Their own unaided
strength was nowise sufficient to resist the confederacy about to
arm in defence of the Amphiktyonic assembly;[528] nor does it appear
that either Athens or Sparta had as yet given them anything more
than promises and encouragement. Their only chance of effective
resistance lay in the levy of a large mercenary force; for which
purpose neither their own funds, nor any farther aid derivable from
private confiscation, could be made adequate. There remained no other
resource except to employ the treasures and valuables in the Delphian
temple, upon which accordingly Philomelus now laid hands. He did so,
however, as his previous conduct evinced, with sincere reluctance,
probably with various professions at first of borrowing only a given
sum, destined to meet the actual emergency, and intended to be repaid
as soon as safety should be provided for.[529] But whatever may have
been his intentions at the outset, all such reserves or limits, or
obligations to repay, were speedily forgotten in practice. When the
feeling which protected the fund was broken through, it was as easy
to take much as little, and the claimants became more numerous and
importunate; besides which the exigencies of the war never ceased,
and the implacable repugnance raised by the spoliation amidst half of
the Grecian world, left to the Phokians no security except under the
protection of a continued mercenary force.[530] Nor were Philomelus
and his successors satisfied without also enriching their friends and
adorning their wives or favorites.

  [528] Even in 374 B. C., three years before the battle of
  Leuktra, the Phokians had been unable to defend themselves
  against Thebes without aid from Sparta (Xenoph. Hellen. vi. 1, 1).

  [529] Diodor. xvi. 30. ἠναγκάζετο (Philomelus) τοῖς ἱεροῖς
  ἀναθήμασιν ἐπιβαλεῖν τὰς χεῖρας καὶ συλᾷν τὸ μαντεῖον. A similar
  proposition had been started by the Corinthian envoys in the
  congress at Sparta, shortly before the Peloponnesian war; they
  suggested as one of their ways and means the borrowing from
  the treasures of Delphi and Olympia, to be afterwards repaid
  (Thucyd. i. 121). Perikles made the like proposition in the
  Athenian assembly; “for purposes of security,” the property
  of the temples might be employed to defray the cost of war,
  subject to the obligation of replacing the whole afterwards
  (χρησαμένους τε ἐπὶ σωτηρίᾳ ἔφη χρῆναι μὴ ἐλάσσω ἀντικαταστῆσαι
  πάλιν, Thucyd. ii. 13). After the disaster before Syracuse,
  and during the years of struggle intervening before the close
  of the war, the Athenians were driven by financial distress to
  appropriate to public purposes many of the rich donatives in the
  Parthenon, which they were never afterwards able to replace. Of
  this abstraction, proof is found in the Inscriptions published by
  Boeckh, Corp. Inscript. No. 137-142, which contain the official
  records of the successive Boards of Treasurers of Athênê. It is
  stated in an instructive recent Dissertation, by J. L. Ussing
  (De Parthenone ejusque partibus Disputatio, p. 3. Copenhagen,
  1849), “Multæ in arce Athenarum inventæ sunt tabulæ Quæstorum
  Minervæ, in quibus quotannis inscribebant, quænam vasa aurea
  aliæque res pretiosæ in æde Minervæ dedicata extarent. Harum
  longe maxima pars ante Euclidem archontem scripta est...: Nec
  tamen una tabula templi dona continebat universa, sed separatim
  quæ in Pronao, quæ in Hecatompedo, quæ in Parthenone (the part
  of the temple specially so called), servabantur, separatim suis
  quæque lapidibus consignata erant. Singulari quadam fortuna
  contigit, ut inde ab anno 434 B. C., ad 407 B. C., tam multa
  fragmenta tabularum servata sint, ut hos donorum catalogos
  aliquatenus restituere possimus. In quo etiam ad historiam
  illius temporis pertinet, quod florentibus Athenarum rebus opes
  Deæ semper augeri, fractis autem bello Siculo, inde ab anno 412
  B. C., eas paulatim deminui videmus.... Urgente pecuniæ inopia
  Athenienses ad Deam confugiebant, et jam ante annum 406 B. C.,
  pleraque Pronai dona ablata esse videmus. Proximis annis sine
  dubio nec Hecatompedo nec Parthenoni pepercerunt; nec mirum est,
  post bellum Peloponnesiacum ex antiquis illis donis fere nulla
  comparere.”

  [530] Theopompus, Frag. 182, ed. Didot; Athenæ. xiii. p. 605, vi.
  p. 232; Ephorus, Frag. 155, ed. Didot; Diodor. xvi. 64.

Availing himself of the large resources of the temple, Philomelus
raised the pay of his troops to a sum half as large again as before,
and issued proclamations inviting new levies at the same rate.
Through such tempting offers he was speedily enabled to muster a
force, horse and foot together, said to amount to 10,000 men;
chiefly, as we are told, men of peculiarly wicked and reckless
character, since no pious Greek would enlist in such a service.
With these he attacked the Lokrians, who were however now assisted
by the Thebans from one side, and by the Thessalians with their
circumjacent allies from the other. Philomelus gained successive
advantages against both of them, and conceived increased hopes from a
reinforcement of 1500 Achæans who came to him from Peloponnesus. The
war assumed a peculiarly ferocious character; for the Thebans,[531]
confident in their superior force and chance of success, even
though the Delphian treasure was employed against them, began by
putting to death all their prisoners, as sacrilegious men standing
condemned by the Amphiktyonic assembly. This so exasperated the
troops of Philomelus, that they constrained him to retaliate upon
the Bœotian prisoners. For some time such rigorous inflictions were
continued on both sides, until at length the Thebans felt compelled
to desist, and Philomelus followed their example. The war lasted a
while with indecisive results, the Thebans and their allies being
greatly superior in number. But presently Philomelus incautiously
exposed himself to attack in an unfavorable position, near the town
of Neon, amidst embarrassing woods and rocks. He was here defeated
with severe loss, and his army dispersed; himself receiving several
wounds, and fighting with desperate bravery, until farther resistance
became impossible. He then tried to escape, but found himself driven
to the brink of a precipice, where he could only avoid the tortures
of captivity by leaping down and perishing. The remnant of his
vanquished army was rallied at some distance by Onomarchus.[532]

  [531] Isokrates, Orat. v. (ad Philippum) s. 60. τελευτῶντες δὲ
  πρὸς Φωκέας πόλεμον ἐξήνεγκαν (the Thebans), ὡς τῶν τε πόλεων
  ἐν ὀλίγῳ χρόνῳ κρατήσοντες, τόν τε τόπον ἅπαντα τὸν περιέχοντα
  κατασχήσοντες, τῶν τε χρημάτων τῶν ἐν Δελφοῖς περιγενησόμενοι
  ταῖς ἐκ τῶν ἰδίων δαπάναις.

  [532] Diodor. xvi. 31; Pausan. x. 2, 1. The dates and duration
  of these events are only known to us in a loose and superficial
  manner from the narrative of Diodorus.

The Thebans and their allies, instead of pressing the important
victory recently gained over Philomelus, seem to have supposed that
the Phokians would now disperse or submit of their own accord, and
accordingly returned home. Their remissness gave time to Onomarchus
to reorganize his dispirited countrymen. Convening at Delphi a
general assembly of Phokians and allies, he strenuously exhorted them
to persevere in the projects, and avenge the death, of their late
general. He found, however, no inconsiderable amount of opposition;
for many of the Phokians—noway prepared for the struggle in which
they now found themselves embarked, and themselves ashamed of the
spoliation of the temple—were anxious by some accommodation to put
themselves again within the pale of Hellenic religious sentiment.
Onomarchus doubtless replied, and with too good reason, that peace
was unattainable upon any terms short of absolute ruin; and that
there was no course open except to maintain their ground as they
stood, by renewed efforts of force. But even if the necessities
of the case had been less imperative, he would have been able to
overbear all opposition of his own countrymen through the numerous
mercenary strangers, now in Phokis and present at the assembly
under the name of allies.[533] In fact, so irresistible was his
ascendency by means of this large paid force under his command,
that both Demosthenes and Æschines[534] denominate him (as well as
his predecessor and his successor) not general, but despot, of the
Phokians. The soldiers were not less anxious than Onomarchus to
prosecute the war, and to employ the yet unexhausted wealth of the
temple in every way conducive to ultimate success. In this sense the
assembly decreed, naming Onomarchus general with full powers for
carrying the decree into effect.

  [533] Diodor. xvi. 32. Οἱ δὲ Φωκεῖς—ἐπανῆλθον εἰς Δελφοὺς καὶ
  συνελθόντες ~μετὰ τῶν συμμάχων~ εἰς κοινὴν ἐκκλησίαν, ἐβουλεύοντο
  περὶ τοῦ πολέμου.

  [534] Æschines, Fals. Leg. p. 286. c. 41. τῶν ἐν Φωκεῦσι
  τυράννων, etc. Demosthen. cont. Aristokrat. p. 661. s. 147.
  Φαύλλος ὁ Φωκεὺς ἤ τις ἄλλος δυναστὴς, etc.

His energetic measures presently retrieved the Phokian cause.
Employing the temple-funds still more profusely than Philomelus, he
invited fresh soldiers from all quarters, and found himself, after
some time, at the head of a larger army than before. The temple
exhibited many donatives, not only of gold and silver, but also of
brass and iron. While Onomarchus melted the precious metals and
coined them into money, he at the same time turned the brass and
iron into arms;[535] so that he was enabled to equip both his own
soldiers disarmed in the recent defeat, and a class of volunteers
poorer than the ordinary self-armed mercenaries. Besides paying
soldiers, he scattered everywhere presents or bribes to gain
influential partisans in the cities favorable to his cause; probably
Athens and Sparta first of all. We are told that the Spartan king
Archidamus, with his wife Deïnicha, were among the recipients;
indeed the same corrupt participation was imputed, by the statement
of the hostile-minded Messenians,[536] to the Spartan ephors and
senate. Even among enemies, Onomarchus employed his gold with effect,
contriving thus to gain or neutralize a portion of the Thessalians;
among them the powerful despots of Pheræ, whom we afterwards find
allied to him. Thus was the great Delphian treasure turned to account
in every way; and the unscrupulous Phokian despot strengthened his
hands yet farther, by seizing such of his fellow-countrymen as had
been prominent in opposition to his views, putting them to death, and
confiscating their property.[537]

  [535] Diodor. xvi. 33. The numerous iron spits, dedicated by the
  courtezan Rhodôpis at Delphi, may probably have been applied to
  this military purpose. Herodotus (ii. 135) saw them at Delphi;
  in the time of Plutarch, the guide of the Temple only showed the
  place in which they had once stood (Plutarch, De Pythiæ Oraculis,
  p. 400).

  [536] Theopompus, Frag. 255, ed. Didot; Pausanias, iii. 10, 2;
  iv. 5, 1. As Archidamus is said to have furnished fifteen talents
  privately to Philomelus (Diodor. xvi. 24), he may, perhaps, have
  received now repayment out of the temple property.

  [537] Diodor. xvi. 33.

Through such combination of profuse allurement, corruption, and
violence, the tide began to turn again in favor of the Phokians.
Onomarchus found himself shortly at the head of a formidable army,
which he marched forth from Delphi, and subdued successively the
Lokrians of Amphissa, the Epiknemidian Lokrians, and the neighboring
territory of Doris. He carried his conquests even as far as the
vicinity of Thermopylæ; capturing Thronium, one of the towns which
commanded that important pass, and reducing its inhabitants to
slavery. It is probable that he also took Nikæa and Alpônus—two other
valuable positions near Thermopylæ, which we know to have been in
the power of the Phokians until the moment immediately preceding
their ruin—since we find him henceforward master of Thermopylæ, and
speedily opening his communications with Thessaly.[538] Besides this
extension of dominion to the north and east of Phokis, Onomarchus
also invaded Bœotia. The Thebans, now deprived of their northern
allies, did not at first meet him in the field, so that he was
enabled to capture Orchomenus. But when he proceeded to attack
Chæroneia, they made an effective effort to relieve the place. They
brought out their forces, and defeated him, in an action not very
decisive, yet sufficient to constrain him to retire into Phokis.

  [538] Diodor. xvi. 33. His account of the operations of
  Onomarchus is, as usual, very meagre—εἰς δὲ τὴν πολεμίαν
  ἐμβαλὼν, Θρόνιον μὲν ἐκπολιορκήσας ἐξηνδραποδίσατο, Ἀμφισσεῖς δὲ
  καταπληξάμενος, τὰς δ᾽ ἐν Δωριεῦσι πόλεις πορθήσας, τὴν χώραν
  αὐτῶν ἐδῄωσεν.

  That Thronium, with Alpônus and Nikæa, were the three places
  which commanded the pass of Thermopylæ—and that all the three
  were in possession of the Phokians immediately before they
  were conquered by Philip of Macedon in 346 B. C.—we know from
  Æschines, Fals. Leg. p. 286. c. 41.

  ... πρέσβεις πρὸς ὑμᾶς (the Athenians) ἦλθον ἐκ Φωκέων, βοηθεῖν
  αὑτοῖς κελεύοντες, καὶ ἐπαγγελλόμενοι παραδώσειν Ἀλπωνὸν καὶ
  Θρόνιον καὶ Νίκαιαν, τὰ τῶν παρόδων τῶν εἰς Πύλας χωρία κύρια.

  In order to conquer Thronium, Onomarchus must have marched
  through and mastered the Epiknemidian Lokrians; and though no
  place except Thronium is specified by Diodorus, it seems plain
  that Onomarchus can not have conquered Thronium alone.

Probably the Thebans were at this time much pressed, and prevented
from acting effectively against the Phokians, by want of money. We
know at least that in the midst of the Phokian war they hired out
a force of 5000 hoplites commanded by Pammenes, to Artabazus the
revolted Phrygian satrap. Here Pammenes with his soldiers acquired
some renown, gaining two important victories over the Persians.[539]
The Thebans, it would seem, having no fleet and no maritime
dependencies, were less afraid of giving offence to the Great King
than Athens had been, when she interdicted Chares from aiding
Artabazus, and acquiesced in the unfavorable pacification which
terminated the Social War. How long Pammenes and the Thebans remained
in Asia, we are not informed. But in spite of the victories gained
by them, Artabazus was not long able to maintain himself against
the Persian arms. Three years afterwards, we hear of him and his
brother-in-law Memnon as expelled from Asia, and as exiles residing
with Philip of Macedon.[540]

  [539] Diodor. xvi. 34.

  [540] Diodor. xvi. 52.

While Pammenes was serving under Artabazus, the Athenian general
Chares recaptured Sestos in the Hellespont, which appears to have
revolted from Athens during the Social War. He treated the captive
Sestians with rigor; putting to death the men of military age,
and selling the remainder as slaves.[541] This was an important
acquisition for Athens, as a condition of security in the Chersonese
as well as of preponderance in the Hellespont.

  [541] Diodor. xvi. 34.

Alarmed at the successes of Chares in the Hellespont, the Thracian
prince Kersobleptes now entered on an intrigue with Pammenes in Asia,
and with Philip of Macedon (who was on the coast of Thrace, attacking
Abdêra and Maroneia), for the purpose of checking the progress of the
Athenian arms. Philip appears to have made a forward movement, and
to have menaced the possessions of Athens in the Chersonese; but his
access thither was forbidden by Amadokus, another prince of Thrace,
master of the intermediate territory, as well as by the presence of
Chares with his fleet off the Thracian coast.[542] Apollonides of
Kardia was the agent of Kersobleptes; who however finding his schemes
abortive, and intimidated by the presence of Chares, came to terms
with Athens, and surrendered to her the portion of the Chersonese
which still remained to him, with the exception of Kardia. The
Athenians sent to the Chersonese a farther detachment of Kleruchs
or out-settlers, for whom considerable room must have been made as
well by the depopulation of Sestos, as by the recent cession from
Kersobleptes.[543] It was in the ensuing year (352 B. C.) that the
Athenians also despatched a fresh batch of 2000 citizens as settlers
to Samos, in addition to those who had been sent thither thirteen
years before.[544]

  [542] Polyænus, iv. 2, 22, seems to belong to this juncture.

  [543] We derive what is here stated from the comparison of two
  passages, put together as well as the uncertainty of their tenor
  admits, Diodor. xvi. 34, with Demosth. cont. Aristokrat. p.
  681. s. 219 (s. 183, in Weber’s edition, whose note ought to be
  consulted). Demosthenes says, Φιλίππου γὰρ εἰς Μαρώνειαν ἐλθόντος
  ἔπεμψε (Kersobleptes) πρὸς αὐτὸν Ἀπολλωνίδην, πίστεις δοὺς ἐκείνῳ
  καὶ Παμμένει· καὶ εἰ μὴ κρατῶν τῆς χώρας Ἀμάδοκος ἀπεῖπε Φιλίππῳ
  μὴ ἐπιβαίνειν, οὐδὲν ἂν ἦν ἐν μέσῳ πολεμεῖν ἡμᾶς πρὸς Καρδιανοὺς
  ἤδη καὶ Κερσοβλέπτην. Καὶ ὅτι ταῦτ᾽ ἀληθῆ λέγω, λαβὲ τὴν Χάρητος
  ἐπιστολήν.

  The mention of Pammenes, as being within reach of communication
  with Kersobleptes—the mention of Chares as being at the
  Chersonese, and sending home despatches—and the notice of Philip
  as being at Maroneia—all conspire to connect this passage with
  the year 353-352 B. C., and with the facts referred to that
  year by Diodorus, xvi. 34. There is an interval of five years
  between the presence of Chares here alluded to, and the presence
  of Chares noticed before in the same oration, p. 678. s. 206,
  immediately after the successful expedition to Eubœa in 358 B.
  C. During these five years, Kersobleptes had acted in a hostile
  manner towards Athens in the neighborhood of the Chersonese (p.
  680. s. 214), and also towards the two rival Thracian princes,
  friends of Athens. At the same time Sestos had again revolted;
  the forces of Athens being engaged in the Social War, from 358
  to 355 B. C. In 353 B. C. Chares is at the Hellespont, recovers
  Sestos, and again defeats the intrigues of Kersobleptes, who
  makes cession to Athens of a portion of territory which he
  still held in the Chersonese. Diodorus ascribes this cession
  of Kersobleptes to the motive of aversion towards Philip and
  good-will towards the Athenians. Possibly these may have been
  the motives pretended by Kersobleptes, to whom a certain party
  at Athens gave credit for more favorable dispositions than the
  Demosthenic oration against Aristokrates recognizes—as we may see
  from that oration itself. But I rather apprehend that Diodorus,
  in describing Kersobleptes as hostile to Philip, and friendly to
  Athens, has applied to the year 353 B. C. a state of relations
  which did not become true until a later date, nearer to the time
  when peace was made between Philip and the Athenians in 346 B. C.

  [544] Dionysius, Hal. Judic. de Dinarcho, p. 664; Strabo. xiv. p.
  638.

The mention of Philip as attacking Maroneia and menacing the
Thracian Chersonese, shows the indefatigable activity of that
prince and the steady enlargement of his power. In 358 B. C., he
had taken Amphipolis; before 355 B. C., he had captured Pydna and
Potidæa, founded the new town of Philippi, and opened for himself
the resource of the adjoining auriferous region; he had established
relations with Thessaly, assisting the great family of the Aleuadæ
at Larissa in their struggle against Lykophron and Peitholaus, the
despots of Pheræ:[545] he had farther again chastised the interior
tribes bordering on Macedonia, Thracians. Pæonians, and Illyrians,
who were never long at rest, and who had combined to regain their
independence.[546] It appears to have been in 354-353 B. C., that
he attacked Methônê, the last remaining possession of Athens on
the Macedonian coast. Situated on the Thermaic Gulf, Methônê was
doubtless a convenient station for Athenian privateers to intercept
trading vessels, not merely to and from Macedonian ports, but also
from Olynthus and Potidæa; so that the Olynthians, then in alliance
with Philip against Athens, would be glad to see it pass into his
power, and may perhaps have lent him their aid. He pressed the siege
of the place with his usual vigor, employing all the engines and
means of assault then known; while the besieged on their side were
not less resolute in the defence. They repelled his attacks for so
long a time, that news of the danger of the place reached Athens, and
ample time was afforded for sending relief, had the Athenians been
ready and vigorous in their movement. But unfortunately they had not
even now learnt experience from the loss of Pydna and Potidæa. Either
the Etesian winds usual in summer, or the storms of winter, both
which circumstances were taken into account by Philip in adjusting
the season of his enterprises[547]—or (which is more probable) the
aversion of the Athenian respectable citizens to personal service
on shipboard, and their slackness even in pecuniary payment—caused
so much delay in preparations, that the expedition sent out did not
reach Methônê until too late.[548] The Methonæans, having gallantly
held out until all their means were exhausted, were at length
compelled to surrender. Diodorus tells us that Philip granted terms
so far lenient as to allow them to depart with the clothes on their
backs.[549] But this can hardly be accurate, since we know that
there were Athenian citizens among them sold as slaves, some of whom
were ransomed by Demosthenes with his own money.[550]

  [545] Diodor. xvi, 14. This passage relates to the year 357-356
  B. C., and possibly Philip may have begun to meddle in the
  Thessalian party-disputes even as early as that year; but his
  effective interference comes two or three years later. See the
  general order of Philip’s aggressions indicated by Demosthenes,
  Olynth. i. p. 12. s. 13.

  [546] Diodor. xvi. 22.

  [547] See a striking passage in Demosthenes, Philipp. i. p.
  48. s. 35. There was another place called Methônê—the Thracian
  Methônê—situated in the Chalkidic or Thracian peninsula, near
  Olynthus and Apollonia—of which we shall hear presently.

  [548] Demosthenes, Philipp. i. p. 50. s. 40; Olynth. i. p. 11. s.
  9.

  [549] Diodorus (xvi. 31-34) mentions the capture of Methônê by
  Philip twice, in two successive years: first, in 354-353 B. C.;
  again, more copiously, in 353-352 B. C. In my judgment, the
  earlier of the two dates is the more probable. In 353-352 B. C.,
  Philip carried on his war in Thrace, near Abdera and Maroneia—and
  also his war against Onomarchus in Thessaly; which transactions
  seem enough to fill up the time. From the language of Demosthenes
  (Olynth. i. p. 12. s. 13), we see that Philip did not attack
  Thessaly until after the capture of Methônê. Diodorus as well as
  Strabo (vii. p. 330), and Justin (vii. 6) state that Philip was
  wounded and lost the sight of one eye in this siege. But this
  seems to have happened afterwards, near the Thracian Methônê.

  Compare Justin, vii. 6; Polyænus, iv. 2. 15. Under the year
  354-353 B. C., Diodorus mentions not only the capture of Methônê
  by Philip, but also the capture of _Pagæ_. Παγὰς δὲ χειρωσάμενος,
  ἠνάγκασεν ὑποταγῆναι. _Pagæ_ is unknown, anywhere near Macedonia
  and Thessaly. Wesseling and Mr. Clinton suppose _Pagasæ_ in
  Thessaly to be meant. But it seems to me impossible that Philip,
  who had no considerable power at sea, can have taken Pagasæ,
  before his wars in Thessaly, and before he had become master of
  Pheræ, which events did not occur until one year or two years
  afterwards. Pagasæ is the port of Pheræ, and Lykophron the despot
  of Pheræ was still powerful and unconquered. If, therefore, the
  word intended by Diodorus be Παγασὰς instead of Παγὰς, I think
  the matter of fact asserted cannot be correct.

  [550] This fact is mentioned in the public vote of gratitude
  passed by the Athenian people to Demosthenes (Plutarch, Vitæ X.
  Orat. p. 851).

Being now master of the last port possessed by Athens in the Thermaic
Gulf—an acquisition of great importance, which had never before[551]
belonged to the Macedonian kings—Philip was enabled to extend his
military operations to the neighborhood of the Thracian Chersonese
on the one side, and to that of Thermopylæ on the other. How he
threatened the Chersonese, has been already related; and his campaign
in Thessaly was yet more important. That country was, as usual, torn
by intestine disputes. Lykophron the despot of Pheræ possessed the
greatest sway; while the Aleuadæ of Larissa, too weak to contend
against him with their own forces, invited assistance from Philip;
who entered Thessaly with a powerful army. Such a reinforcement so
completely altered the balance of Thessalian power, that Lykophron
in his turn was compelled to entreat aid from Onomarchus and the
Phokians.

  [551] Thucyd. vi. 7. Μεθώνην τὴν ὅμορον Μακεδονίᾳ, etc.

So strong were the Phokians now, that they were more than a match
for the Thebans with their other hostile neighbors, and had means to
spare for combating Philip in Thessaly. As their force consisted
of a large body of mercenaries, whom they were constrained for
security to retain in pay—to keep them employed beyond the border
was a point not undesirable. Hence they readily entered upon the
Thessalian campaign. At this moment they counted, in the comparative
assessment of Hellenic forces, as an item of first-rate magnitude.
They were hailed both by Athenians and Spartans as the natural
enemy and counterpoise of Thebes, alike odious to both. While the
Phokians maintained their actual power, Athens could manage her
foreign policy abroad, and Sparta her designs in Peloponnesus,
with diminished apprehensions of being counterworked by Thebes.
Both Athens and Sparta had at first supported the Phokians against
unjust persecution by Thebes and abuse of Amphiktyonic jurisdiction,
before the spoliation of the Delphian temple was consummated or even
anticipated. And though, when that spoliation actually occurred, it
was doubtless viewed with reprobation among Athenians, accustomed
to unlimited freedom of public discussion—as well as at Sparta, in
so far as it became known amidst the habitual secrecy of public
affairs—nevertheless political interests so far prevailed, that the
Phokians (perhaps in part by aid of bribery) were still countenanced,
though not much assisted, as useful rivals to Thebes.[552] To
restrain “the Leuktric insolence of the Thebans,”[553] and to see
the Bœotian towns Orchomenus, Thespiæ, Platæa, restored to their
pristine autonomy, was an object of paramount desire with each of
the two ancient heads of Greece. So far both Athens and Sparta felt
in unison. But Sparta cherished a farther hope—in which Athens
by no means concurred—to avail herself of the embarrassments of
Thebes for the purpose of breaking up Megalopolis and Messênê,
and recovering her former Peloponnesian dominion. These two new
Peloponnesian cities, erected by Epaminondas on the frontier of
Laconia, had been hitherto upheld against Sparta by the certainty of
Theban interference if they were menaced. But so little did Thebes
seem in a condition to interfere, while Onomarchus and the Phokians
were triumphant in 353-352 B. C., that the Megalopolitans despatched
envoys to Athens to entreat protection and alliance, while the
Spartans on their side sent to oppose the petition.

  [552] Such is the description of Athenian feeling, as it then
  stood, given by Demosthenes twenty-four years afterwards in the
  Oration De Coronâ, p. 230. s. 21.

  Τοῦ γὰρ Φωκικοῦ συστάντος πολέμου, πρῶτον μὲν ὑμεῖς οὕτω
  διέκεισθε, ὥστε Φωκέας μὲν βούλεσθαι σωθῆναι, καίπερ οὐ δίκαια
  ποιοῦντας ὁρῶντες, Θηβαίοις δ᾽ ὁτιοῦν ἂν ἐφησθῆναι παθοῦσιν, οὐκ
  ἀλόγως οὐδ᾽ ἀδίκως αὐτοῖς ὀργιζόμενοι, etc.

  [553] Diodor. xvi. 58. Βουλόμενος τὰ Λευκτρικὰ φρονήματα
  συστεῖλαι τῶν Βοιωτῶν, etc., an expression used in reference to
  Philip a few years afterwards, but more animated and emphatic
  than we usually find in Diodorus, who, perhaps, borrowed it from
  Theopompus.

It is on occasion of the political debates in Athens during the
years 354 and 353 B. C., that we first have before us the Athenian
Demosthenes, as adviser of his countrymen in the public assembly. His
first discourse of public advice was delivered in 354-353 B. C., on
an alarm of approaching war with Persia; his second, in 353-352 B.
C., was intended to point out the policy proper for Athens in dealing
with the Spartan and Megalopolitan envoys.

A few words must here be said about this eminent man, who forms the
principal ornament of the declining Hellenic world. He was about
twenty-seven years old; being born, according to what seems the
most probable among contradictory accounts, in 382-381 B. C.[554]
His father, named also Demosthenes, was a citizen of considerable
property, and of a character so unimpeachable that even Æschines
says nothing against him; his mother Kleobulê was one of the
two daughters and coheiresses of a citizen named Gylon,[555] an
Athenian exile, who, having become rich as a proprietor of land and
exporter of corn in Bosphorus, sent his two daughters to Athens;
where, possessing handsome dowries, they married two Athenian
citizens—Demochares and the elder Demosthenes. The latter was a man
of considerable wealth, and carried on two distinct manufactories;
one of swords or knives, employing thirty-two slaves—the other, of
couches or beds, employing twenty. In the new schedule of citizens
and of taxable property, introduced in the archonship of Nausinikus
(378 B. C.), the elder Demosthenes was enrolled among the richest
class, the leaders of Symmories. But he died about 375 B. C., leaving
his son Demosthenes seven years old, with a younger daughter about
five years of age. The boy and his large paternal property were
confided to the care of three guardians named under his father’s
will. These guardians—though the father, in hopes of ensuring
their fidelity, had bequeathed to them considerable legacies, away
from his own son, and though all of them were rich men as well as
family connections and friends—administered the property with such
negligence and dishonesty, that only a sum comparatively small was
left, when they came to render account to their ward. At the age of
sixteen years complete, Demosthenes attained his civil majority, and
became entitled by the Athenian law to the administration of his own
property. During his minority, his guardians had continued to enrol
him among the wealthiest class (as his father had ranked before), and
to pay the increased rate of direct taxation chargeable upon that
class; but the real sum handed over to him by his guardians was too
small to justify such a position. Though his father had died worth
fourteen talents,—which would be diminished by the sums bequeathed
as legacies, but ought to have been increased in greater proportion
by the interest on the property for the ten years of minority, had
it been properly administered—the sum paid to young Demosthenes on
his majority was less than two talents, while the guardians not only
gave in dishonest accounts, but professed not to be able to produce
the father’s will. After repeated complaints and remonstrances,
he brought a judicial action against one of them—Aphobus, and
obtained a verdict carrying damages to the amount of ten talents.
Payment however was still evaded by the debtor. Five speeches remain
delivered by Demosthenes, three against Aphobus, two against Onêtor,
brother-in-law of Aphobus. At the date of the latest oration,
Demosthenes had still received nothing; nor do we know how much he
ultimately realized, though it would seem that the difficulties
thrown in his way were such as to compel him to forego the greater
part of the claim. Nor is it certain whether he ever brought the
actions, of which he speaks as intended, against the other two
guardians Demophon and Therippides.[556]

  [554] The birth-year of Demosthenes is matter of notorious
  controversy. No one of the statements respecting it rests upon
  evidence thoroughly convincing.

  The question has been examined with much care and ability both
  by Mr. Clinton (Fasti Hellen. Appen. xx.) and by Dr. Thirlwall
  (Histor. G. vol. v. Appen. i. p. 485 seq.); by Böhnecke
  (Forschungen, p. 1-94) more copiously than cautiously, but still
  with much instruction; also by K. F. Hermann (De Anno Natali
  Demosthenis), and many other critics.

  In adopting the year Olymp. 99. 3 (the archonship of Evander,
  382-381 B. C.), I agree with the conclusion of Mr. Clinton and
  of K. F. Hermann; differing from Dr. Thirlwall, who prefers the
  previous year (Olymp. 99. 2)—and from Böhnecke, who vindicates
  the year affirmed by Dionysius (Olymp. 99. 4).

  Mr. Clinton fixes the _first month_ of Olymp. 99. 3, as the
  month in which Demosthenes was born. This appears to me greater
  precision than the evidence warrants.

  [555] Plutarch, Demosth. c. 4; Æschines adv. Ktesiph. p. 78.
  c. 57; Demosth. cont. Aphob. B. p. 835. According to Æschines,
  Gylon was put on his trial for having betrayed Nymphæum to the
  enemy; but not appearing, was sentenced to death in his absence,
  and became an exile. He then went to Bosphorus (Pantikapæum),
  obtained the favor of the king (probably Satyrus—see Mr.
  Clinton’s Appendix on the kings of Bosphorus—Fasti Hellenic.
  Append. xiii, p. 282), together with the grant of a district
  called Kepi, and married the daughter of a rich man there; by
  whom he had two daughters. In after-days, he sent these two
  daughters to Athens, where one of them, Kleobulê, was married
  to the elder Demosthenes. Æschines has probably exaggerated the
  gravity of the sentence against Gylon, who seems only to have
  been fined. The guardians of Demosthenes assert no more than that
  Gylon was fined, and died with the fine unpaid, while Demosthenes
  asserts that the fine _was_ paid.

  Upon the facts here stated by Æschines, a few explanatory remarks
  will be useful. Demosthenes being born 382-381 B. C., this would
  probably throw the birth of his mother Kleobulê to some period
  near the close of the Peloponnesian war, 405-404 B. C. We see,
  therefore, that the establishment of Gylon in the kingdom of
  Bosphorus, and his nuptial connection there formed, must have
  taken place during the closing years of the Peloponnesian war;
  between 412 B. C. (the year after the Athenian catastrophe at
  Syracuse) and 405 B. C.

  These were years of great misfortune to Athens. After the
  disaster at Syracuse, she could no longer maintain ascendency
  over, or grant protection to, a distant tributary like Nymphæum
  in the Tauric Chersonese. It was therefore natural that the
  Athenian citizens there settled, engaged probably in the export
  trade of corn to Athens, should seek security by making the best
  bargain they could with the neighboring kings of Bosphorus. In
  this transaction Gylon seems to have stood conspicuously forward,
  gaining both favor and profit to himself. And when, after the
  close of the war, the corn-trade again became comparatively
  unimpeded, he was in a situation to carry it on upon a large and
  lucrative scale. Another example of Greeks who gained favor,
  held office, and made fortunes, under Satyrus in the Bosphorus,
  is given in the Oratio (xvii.) Trapezitica of Isokrates, s. 3,
  14. Compare also the case of Mantitheus the Athenian (Lysias pro
  Mantitheo, Or. xvi. s. 4), who was sent by his father to reside
  with Satyrus for some time, before the close of the Peloponnesian
  war; which shows that Satyrus was at that time, when Nymphæum was
  probably placed under his protection, in friendly relations with
  Athens.

  I may remark that the woman whom Gylon married, though Æschines
  calls her a Scythian woman, may be supposed more probably to have
  been the daughter of some Greek (not an Athenian) resident in
  Bosphorus.

  [556] Demosth. cont. Onetor. ii. p. 880. κεκομισμένον μηδ᾽
  ὁτιοῦν, καὶ ταῦτ᾽ ἐθέλοντα ποιεῖν ὑμῖν αὐτοῖς, εἴτι τῶν δεόντων
  ἐβούλεσθε πράττειν.

  That he ultimately got much less than he was entitled to, appears
  from his own statement in the oration against Meidias, p. 540.

  See Westermann, De Litibus quas Demosthenes oravit ipse, cap. i.
  p. 15, 16.

  Plutarch (Vit. X Oratt. p. 844) says that he voluntarily
  refrained from enforcing the judgment obtained. I do not clearly
  understand what is meant by Æschines (cont. Ktesiph. p. 78), when
  he designates Demosthenes as τὰ πατρῷα καταγελάστως προέμενος.

Demosthenes received during his youth the ordinary grammatical and
rhetorical education of a wealthy Athenian. Even as a boy, he is said
to have manifested extraordinary appetite and interest for rhetorical
exercise. By earnest entreaty, he prevailed on his tutors to conduct
him to hear Kallistratus, one of the ablest speakers in Athens,
delivering an harangue in the Dikastery on the matter of Oropus.[557]
This harangue, producing a profound impression upon Demosthenes,
stimulated his fondness for rhetorical studies. Still more was the
passion excited, when on attaining his majority, he found himself
cheated of most of his paternal property, and constrained to claim
his rights by a suit at law against his guardians. Being obliged,
according to Athenian practice, to plead his own cause personally,
he was made to feel keenly the helpless condition of an incompetent
speaker, and the necessity of acquiring oratorical power, not simply
as an instrument of ambition, but even as a means of individual
defence and safety.[558] It appears also that he was, from childhood,
of sickly constitution and feeble muscular frame; so that partly from
his own disinclination, partly from the solicitude of his mother,
he took little part either as boy or youth in the exercises of the
palæstra. His delicate clothing, and somewhat effeminate habits,
procured for him as a boy the nickname of Batalus, which remained
attached to him most part of his life, and which his enemies tried
to connect with degrading imputations.[559] Such comparative bodily
disability probably contributed to incite his thirst for mental and
rhetorical acquisitions, as the only road to celebrity open. But
it at the same time disqualified him from appropriating to himself
the full range of a comprehensive Grecian education, as conceived
by Plato, Isokrates, and Aristotle; an education applying alike to
thought, word, and action—combining bodily strength, endurance, and
fearlessness, with an enlarged mental capacity and a power of making
it felt by speech. The disproportion between the physical energy,
and the mental force, of Demosthenes, beginning in childhood, is
recorded and lamented in the inscription placed on his statue after
his death.[560]

  [557] Plutarch, Demosth. c. 5; Vit. X Orator. p. 844; Hermippus
  ap. Aul. Gell. iii. 13. Nothing positive can be made out
  respecting this famous trial; neither the date, nor the exact
  point in question, nor the manner in which Kallistratus was
  concerned in it—nor who were his opponents. Many conjectures have
  been proposed, differing materially one from the other, and all
  uncertain.

  These conjectures are brought together and examined in Rehdantz,
  Vitæ Iphicratis, Chabriæ, et Timothei, p. 111-114.

  In the month of November, 361 B. C., Kallistratus was in exile
  at Methônê in the Thermaic Gulf. He had been twice condemned to
  death by the Athenians (Demosth. cont. Polykl. p. 1221). But when
  these condemnations took place, we do not know.

  [558] Plutarch. Demosth. c. 4. Such a view of the necessity of
  a power of public speaking, is put forward by Kallikles in the
  Gorgias of Plato, p. 486, 511. c. 90, 142. τὴν ῥητορικὴν τὴν ἐν
  τοῖς δικαστηρίοις ~διασώζουσαν~, etc. Compare Aristot. Rhetoric,
  i. 1, 3. Ἄτοπον, εἰ τῷ σώματι μὲν αἰσχρὸν μὴ δύνασθαι ~βοηθεῖν
  ἑαυτῷ~, λόγῳ δὲ, οὐκ αἰσχρόν· ὃ μᾶλλον ἴδιόν ἐστιν ἀνθρώπου τῆς
  τοῦ σώματος χρείας.

  The comparison of Aristotle is instructive as to the point of
  view of a free Greek. “If it be disgraceful not to be able to
  protect yourself by your bodily force, it is equally so not to be
  able to protect yourself by your powers of speaking; which is in
  a more peculiar manner the privilege of man.” See also Tacitus,
  Dialog. de Orator. c. 5.

  [559] Plutarch, Demosth. c. 4; Æschines cont. Timarch. p. 17, 18.
  c. 27, with Scholia, De Fal. Leg. p. 41. c. 31. εἰ γάρ τις σοῦ τὰ
  κομψὰ ταῦτα χλανίσκια περικλώμενος καὶ τοὺς μαλακοὺς χιτωνίσκους,
  ἐν οἷς τοὺς κατὰ τῶν φίλων λόγους γράφεις, περιενέγκας, δοίη εἰς
  τὰς χεῖρας τῶν δικαστῶν, οἶμαι ἂν αὐτοὺς εἴτις μὴ προειπὼν ταῦτα
  ποιήσειεν, ἀπορήσειν εἴτε γυναικὸς εἴτε ἀνδρὸς εἰλήφασιν ἐσθῆτα.
  Compare Æsch. Fal. Leg. p. 45.

  The foundation of the nickname _Batalus_ is not clear, and
  was differently understood by different persons; compare also
  Libanius, Vita Demosth. p. 294, ap Westermann, Scriptores
  Biographici. But it can hardly have been a very discreditable
  foundation, since Demosthenes takes the name to himself, De
  Coronâ, p. 289.

  [560] Plutarch, Demosth. c. 30.

    Εἴπερ ἴσην ῥώμην γνώμῃ, Δημόσθενες, εἶχες,
    Οὔποτ᾽ ἂν Ἑλλήνων ἦρξεν Ἄρης Μακεδών.

As a youth of eighteen years of age, Demosthenes found himself
with a known and good family position at Athens, being ranked in
the class of richest citizens and liable to the performance of
liturgies and trierarchy as his father had been before him;[561]
yet with a real fortune very inadequate to the outlay expected from
him—embarrassed by a legal proceeding against guardians wealthy as
well as unscrupulous—and an object of dislike and annoyance from
other wealthy men, such as Meidias and his brother Thrasylochus,[562]
friends of those guardians. His family position gave him a good
introduction to public affairs, for which he proceeded to train
himself carefully; first as a writer of speeches for others, next as
a speaker in his own person. Plato and Isokrates were both at this
moment in full celebrity, visited at Athens by pupils from every
part of Greece; Isæus also, who had studied under Isokrates, was in
great reputation as a composer of judicial harangues for plaintiffs
or defendants in civil causes. Demosthenes put himself under the
teaching of Isæus (who is said to have assisted him in composing the
speeches against his guardians), and also profited largely by the
discourse of Plato, of Isokrates, and others. As an ardent aspirant
he would seek instruction from most of the best sources, theoretical
as well as practical—writers as well as lecturers.[563] But besides
living teachers, there was one of the past generation who contributed
largely to his improvement. He studied Thucydides with indefatigable
labor and attention; according to one account, he copied the whole
history eight times over with his own hand; according to another,
he learnt it all by heart, so as to be able to rewrite it from
memory when the manuscript was accidentally destroyed. Without
minutely criticising these details, we ascertain at least that
Thucydides was the object of his peculiar study and imitation. How
much the composition of Demosthenes was fashioned by the reading
of Thucydides—reproducing the daring, majestic and impressive
phraseology, yet without the overstrained brevity and involutions of
that great historian—and contriving to blend with it a perspicuity
and grace not inferior to Lysias—may be seen illustrated in the
elaborate criticism of the rhetor Dionysius.[564]

  [561] Position of Demosthenes, πατὴρ τριηραρχικὸς—χρυσέα κρηπὶς,
  κατὰ Πίνδαρον, etc. (Lucian, Encomium Demosth. vol. iii. p. 499,
  ed. Reitz.)

  [562] See the account given by Demosthenes (cont. Meidiam, p.
  539, 540) of the manner in which Meidias and Thrasylochus first
  began their persecution of him, while the suit against his
  guardians was still going on. These guardians attempted to get
  rid of the suit by inducing Thrasylochus to force upon him an
  exchange of properties (Antidosis), tendered by Thrasylochus, who
  had just been put down for a trierarchy. If the exchange had been
  effected, Thrasylochus would have given the guardians a release.
  Demosthenes could only avoid it by consenting to incur the cost
  of the trierarchy—20 minæ.

  [563] Demosthenes both studied attentively the dialogues, and
  heard the discourse, of Plato (Cicero, Brutus, 31, 121; Orator.
  4, 15; Plutarch, Vit. X Orator. p. 844). Tacitus, Dialog. de
  Orator. c. 32.

  [564] Dionys. Hal. De Thucydide Judicium, p. 944; De Admirab. Vi.
  Dicend. Demosthen. p. 982, 983.

While thus striking out for himself a bold and original style,
Demosthenes had still greater difficulties to overcome in regard to
the external requisites of an orator. He was not endowed by nature,
like Æschines, with a magnificent voice; nor, like Demades, with
a ready flow of vehement improvisation. His thoughts required to
be put together by careful preparation; his voice was bad and even
lisping—his breath short—his gesticulation ungraceful; moreover he
was overawed and embarrassed by the manifestations of the multitude.
Such an accumulation of natural impediments were at least equal to
those of which Isokrates complains, as having debarred him all his
life from addressing the public assembly, and restrained him to a
select audience of friends or pupils. The energy and success with
which Demosthenes overcame his defects, in such manner as to satisfy
a critical assembly like the Athenian, is one of the most memorable
circumstances in the general history of self-education. Repeated
humiliation and repulse only spurred him on to fresh solitary
efforts for improvement. He corrected his defective elocution
by speaking with pebbles in his mouth; he prepared himself to
overcome the noise of the assembly by declaiming in stormy weather
on the sea-shore of Phalerum; he opened his lungs by running, and
extended his powers of holding breath by pronouncing sentences in
marching up-hill; he sometimes passed two or three months without
interruption in a subterranean chamber, practising night and day
either in composition or declamation, and shaving one half of his
head in order to disqualify himself from going abroad. After several
trials without success before the assembly, his courage was on the
point of giving way, when Eunomus and other old citizens reassured
him by comparing the matter of his speeches to those of Perikles,
and exhorting him to persevere a little longer in the correction
of his external defects. On another occasion, he was pouring forth
his disappointment to Satyrus the actor, who undertook to explain
to him the cause, desiring him to repeat in his own way a speech
out of Sophokles, which he (Satyrus) proceeded to repeat after him,
with suitable accent and delivery. Demosthenes, profoundly struck
with the difference, began anew the task of self-improvement;
probably taking constant lessons from good models. In his unremitting
private practice, he devoted himself especially to acquiring a
graceful action, keeping watch on all his movements while declaiming
before a tall looking-glass.[565] After pertinacious efforts for
several years, he was rewarded at length with complete success.
His delivery became full of decision and vehemence, highly popular
with the general body of the assembly; though some critics censured
his modulation as artificial and out of nature, and savoring of
low stage-effect; while others, in the same spirit, condemned his
speeches as over-labored and smelling of the lamp.[566]

  [565] These and other details are given in Plutarch’s Life of
  Demosthenes, c. 4, 9. They depend upon good evidence; for he
  cites Demetrius the Phalerean, who heard them himself from
  Demosthenes in the latter years of his life. The subterranean
  chamber where Demosthenes practised, was shown at Athens even in
  the time of Plutarch.

  Cicero (who also refers to Demetrius Phalereus), De Divinat. ii.
  46, 96. Libanius, Zosimus, and Photius, give generally the same
  statements, with some variations.

  [566] Plutarch, Demosth. c. 9. Ἐπεὶ τόλμαν γε καὶ θάρσος οἱ
  λεχθέντες ὑπ᾽ αὐτοῦ λόγοι τῶν γραφέντων μᾶλλον εἶχον· εἴ τι δεῖ
  πιστεύειν Ἐρατοσθένει καὶ Δημητρίῳ τῷ Φαληρεῖ καὶ τοῖς κωμικοῖς.
  Ὧν Ἐρατοσθένης μέν φησιν αὑτὸν ἐν τοῖς λόγοις ~πολλαχοῦ γεγονέναι
  παράβακχον~, ὁ δὲ Φαληρεὺς τὸν ἔμμετρον ἐκεῖνον ὅρκον ὀμόσαι
  ποτε πρὸς τὸν δῆμον ~ὥσπερ ἐνθουσιῶντα~. Again, c. 11. Τοῖς μὲν
  οὖν πολλοῖς ὑποκρινόμενος ἤρεσκε θαυμαστῶς, οἱ δὲ χαριέντες
  ~ταπεινὸν~ ἡγοῦντο καὶ ~ἀγεννὲς αὐτοῦ τὸ πλάσμα καὶ μαλακὸν~, ὧν
  καὶ Δημήτριος ὁ Φαληρεύς ἐστιν.

  This sentence is illustrated by a passage in Quintilian, i. 8.
  2. “Sit autem in primis lectio virilis, et cum suavitate quadam
  gravis: et non quidem prosæ similis—quia carmen est, et se poetæ
  canere testantur—non tamen in canticum dissoluta, nec _plasmate_
  (ut nunc a plerisque fit) effeminata.”

  The meaning of _plasma_, in the technical language of
  rhetoricians contemporary with Quintilian, seems different from
  that which it bears in Dionysius, p. 1060-1061. But whether
  Plutarch has exactly rendered to us what Demetrius Phalereus
  said of Demosthenes—whether Demetrius spoke of the modulation
  of Demosthenes as being _low_ and _vulgar_—I cannot but doubt.
  Æschines urges very different reproaches against him—overmuch
  labor and affectation, but combined with bitterness and malignity
  (adv. Ktesiph. p. 78-86). He denounces the _character_ of
  Demosthenes as low and vulgar—but not his oratorical delivery.
  The expression ὥσπερ ἐνθουσιῶν, which Plutarch cites from
  Demetrius Phalereus, hardly suits well with ταπεινὸν καὶ ἀγεννές.

So great was the importance assigned by Demosthenes himself to
these external means of effect, that he is said to have pronounced
“Action” to be the first, second, and third requisite for an orator.
If we grant this estimate to be correct, with reference to actual
hearers, we must recollect that his speeches are, (not less truly
than the history of Thucydides), “an everlasting possession rather
than a display for momentary effect.” Even among his contemporaries,
the effect of the speeches, when read apart from the speaker,
was very powerful. There were some who thought that their full
excellence could only be thus appreciated;[567] while to the
after-world, who know them only by reading, they have been and still
are the objects of an admiration reaching its highest pitch in the
enthusiastic sentiment of the fastidious rhetor Dionysius.[568] The
action of Demosthenes,—consummate as it doubtless was, and highly
as he may himself have prized an accomplishment so laboriously
earned,—produced its effect only in conjunction with the matter of
Demosthenes; his thoughts, sentiments, words, and above all, his
sagacity in appreciating and advising on the actual situation. His
political wisdom, and his lofty patriotic _idéal_, are in truth quite
as remarkable as his oratory. By what training he attained either
the one or the other of these qualities, we are unfortunately not
permitted to know. Our informants have little interest in him except
as a speaker; they tell us neither what he learned, nor from whom,
nor by what companions, or party-associates, his political point
of view was formed. But we shall hardly err in supposing that his
attentive meditation of Thucydides supplied him, not merely with
force and majesty of expression, but also with that conception of
Athens in her foretime which he is perpetually impressing on his
countrymen,—Athens at the commencement of the Peloponnesian war,
in days of exuberant energy, and under the advice of her noblest
statesman.

  [567] Plutarch, Demosth. c. 11. Αἰσίωνα δέ φησιν Ἕρμιππος,
  ἐρωτηθέντα περὶ τῶν πάλαι ῥητόρων καὶ τῶν καθ᾽ αὑτὸν, εἰπεῖν, ὡς
  ἀκούων μὲν ἄν τις ἐθαύμασεν ἐκείνους εὐκόσμως καὶ μεγαλοπρεπῶς
  τῷ δήμῳ διαλεγομένους, ~ἀναγινωσκόμενοι δὲ οἱ Δημοσθένους λόγοι~
  πολὺ τῇ κατασκευῇ καὶ δυνάμει διαφέρουσιν.

  [568] Dionys. Hal. De Adm. Vi Dicend. Demosth. p. 1022, a very
  remarkable passage.

In other respects, we are left in ignorance as to the mental history
of Demosthenes. Before he acquired reputation as a public adviser, he
was already known as a logographer, or composer of discourses to be
delivered either by speakers in the public assembly or by litigants
in the Dikastery; for which compositions he was paid, according to
usual practice at Athens. He had also pleaded in person before the
Dikastery; in support of an accusation preferred by others against a
law, proposed by Leptines, for abrogating votes of immunity passed
by the city in favor of individuals, and restraining such grants
in future. Nothing can be more remarkable, in this speech against
Leptines, than the intensity with which the young speaker enforces
the necessity of strict and faithful adherence to engagements on the
part of the people, in spite of great occasional inconvenience in so
doing. It would appear that he was in habitual association with some
wealthy youths,—among others, with Apollodorus son of the wealthy
banker, Pasion, whom he undertook to instruct in the art of speaking.
This we learn from the denunciations of his rival, Æschines;[569]
who accuses him of having thus made his way into various wealthy
families,—especially where there was an orphan youth and a widowed
mother,—using unworthy artifices to defraud and ruin them. How
much truth there may be in such imputations, we cannot tell. But
Æschines was not unwarranted in applying to his rival the obnoxious
appellations of logographer and sophist; appellations all the more
disparaging, because Demosthenes belonged to a trierarchic family, of
the highest class in point of wealth.[570]

  [569] Æschines cont. Timarch. p. 16, 24.

  [570] Æschines cont. Timarchum, p. 13, 17, 25, cont. Ktesiphont.
  p. 78. Περὶ δὲ τὴν καθ᾽ ἡμέραν δίαιταν τίς ἐστιν; Ἐκ τριηράρχου
  λογογράφος ἀνεφάνη, τὰ πατρῷα καταγελάστως προέμενος, etc.

  See also Demosthenes, De Fals. Legat. p. 417-420.

  Compare the shame of the rich youth Hippokrates, in the Platonic
  dialogue called Protagoras, when the idea is broached that he is
  about to visit Protagoras for the purpose of becoming himself a
  sophist (Plato, Protagor. p. 154 F, 163 A, cap. 8-19).

It will be proper here to notice another contemporary adviser, who
stands in marked antithesis and rivalry to Demosthenes. Phokion was
a citizen of small means, son of a pestle-maker. Born about the year
402 B. C., he was about twenty years older than Demosthenes. At what
precise time his political importance commenced, we do not know; but
he lived to the great age of eighty-four, and was a conspicuous man
throughout the last half-century of his life. He becomes known first
as a military officer, having served in subordinate command under
Chabrias, to whom he was greatly attached, at the battle of Naxos in
376 B. C. He was a man of thorough personal bravery, and considerable
talents for command; of hardy and enduring temperament, insensible
to cold or fatigue; strictly simple in his habits, and above all,
superior to every kind of personal corruption. His abstinence
from plunder and peculation, when on naval expeditions, formed an
honorable contrast with other Athenian admirals, and procured for him
much esteem on the part of the maritime allies. Hence, probably, his
surname of Phokion the Good.[571]

  [571] Ælian, V. H. iii. 47; Plutarch, Phokion, c. 10; Cornelius
  Nepos, Phokion, c. 1.

I have already remarked how deep and strong was the hold acquired
on the Athenian people, by any public man who once established
for himself a character above suspicion on the score of personal
corruption. Among Athenian politicians, but too many were not
innocent on this point; moreover, even when a man was really
innocent, there were often circumstances in his life which rendered
more or less of doubt admissible against him; thus Demosthenes,—being
known not only as a person of somewhat costly habits, but also
as frequenting wealthy houses, and receiving money for speeches
composed or rhetoric communicated,—was sure to be accused, justly or
unjustly, by his enemies, of having cheated rich clients, and would
never obtain unquestioned credit for a high pecuniary independence,
even in regard to the public affairs; although he certainly was not
corrupt, nor generally believed to be corrupt,—at least during the
period which this volume embraces, down to the death of Philip.[572]
But Phokion would receive neither money nor gifts from any one,—was
notoriously and obviously poor,—went barefoot and without an upper
garment even in very cold weather,—had only one female slave to
attend on his wife; while he had enjoyed commands sufficient to
enrich him if he had chosen. His personal incorruptibility thus
stood forth prominently to the public eye; and combined as it was
with bravery and fair generalship, procured for him testimonies
of confidence greater than those accorded even to Perikles. He
was elected no less than forty-five times to the annual office of
Stratêgus or General of the city,—that is, one of the Board of Ten so
denominated, the greatest executive function at Athens,—and elected
too, without having ever on any occasion solicited the office, or
even been present at the choice.[573] In all Athenian history, we
read of no similar multiplication of distinct appointments and honors
to the same individual.

  [572] I introduce here this reservation as to time, not as
  meaning to affirm the contrary with regard to the period after
  Philip’s death, but as wishing to postpone for the present the
  consideration of the later charges against Demosthenes—the
  receipt of money from Persia, and the abstraction from the
  treasures of Harpalus. I shall examine these points at the proper
  time.

  [573] Plutarch, Phokion, c. 8. Ὁμολογεῖται γὰρ, ὅτι πέντε καὶ
  τεσσαράκοντα στρατηγίας ἔλαβεν οὐδ᾽ ἅπαξ ἀρχαιρεσίοις παρατυχὼν,
  ἀλλ᾽ ἀπόντα μεταπεμπομένων αὐτὸν ἀεὶ καὶ χειροτονούντων,
  ὥστε θαυμάζειν τοὺς οὐκ εὖ φρονοῦντας τὸν δῆμον, ὅτι πλεῖστα
  τοῦ Φωκίωνος ἀντικρούοντος αὐτῷ καὶ μηδὲν εἰπόντος πώποτε
  μηδὲ πράξαντος πρὸς χάριν, ὥσπερ ἀξιοῦσι τοὺς βασιλεῖς τοῖς
  κόλαξι χρῆσθαι μετὰ τὸ κατὰ χειρὸς ὕδωρ, έχρῆτο οὗτος τοῖς μὲν
  κομψοτέροις καὶ ἱλαροῖς ἐν παιδιᾶς μέρει δημαγωγοῖς, ἐπὶ δὲ τὰς
  ἀρχὰς ἀεὶ νήφων καὶ σπουδάζων τὸν αὐστηρότατον καὶ φρονιμώτατον
  ἐκάλει τῶν πολιτῶν καὶ μόνον ἢ μᾶλλον ταῖς βουλήσεσιν αὐτοῦ καὶ
  ὁρμαῖς ἀντιτασσόμενον.

According to the picture of Athens and her democracy, as usually
presented by historians, we are taught to believe that the only road
open to honors or political influence, was, by a seductive address,
and by courting the people with fine speeches, unworthy flattery,
or unmeasured promises. Those who take this view of the Athenian
character, will find it difficult to explain the career of Phokion.
He was no orator,—from disdain rather than incompetence.[574] Besides
receiving a good education, he had profited by the conversation of
Plato, as well as of Xenokrates, in the Academy;[575] and we are
not surprised that in their school he contracted a contempt for
popular oratory, as well as a love for brief, concentrated, pungent
reply. Once, when about to speak in public, he was observed to be
particularly absorbed in thought. “You seem meditative, Phokion,”
said a friend. “Ay, by Zeus,” was the reply; “I am meditating whether
I cannot in some way abridge the speech which I am just about to
address to the Athenians.” He knew so well, however, on what points
to strike, that his telling brevity, strengthened by the weight of
character and position, cut through the fine oratory of Demosthenes
more effectively than any counter-oratory from men like Æschines.
Demosthenes himself greatly feared Phokion as an opponent, and was
heard to observe, on seeing him rise to speak, “Here comes the
cleaver of my harangues.”[576] Polyeuktus,—himself an orator and a
friend of Demosthenes,—drew a distinction highly complimentary to
Phokion, by saying, that “Demosthenes was the finest orator, but
Phokion the most formidable in speech.”[577] In public policy, in
means of political effect, and in personal character,—Phokion was the
direct antithesis of Demosthenes; whose warlike eloquence, unwarlike
disposition, paid speech-writing, and delicate habits of life, he
doubtless alike despised.

  [574] Tacit. Dialog. de Clar. Orator. c. 2. “Aper, communi
  eruditione imbutus, contemnebat potius literas quam nesciebat.”

  [575] Plutarch, Phokion, c. 4, 14.

  [576] Plutarch, Phokion, c. 5. ἡ τῶν ἐμῶν λόγων κοπὶς πάρεστιν.

  [577] Plutarch, Phokion, c. 5. εἰπεῖν—ὅτι ῥήτωρ μὲν ἄριστος εἴη
  Δημοσθένης, εἰπεῖν δὲ δεινότατος ὁ Φωκίων.

As Phokion had in his nature little of the professed orator, so
he had still less of the flatterer. He affected and sustained the
character of a blunt soldier, who speaks out his full mind without
suppression or ornament, careless whether it be acceptable to
hearers or not.[578] His estimate of his countrymen was thoroughly
and undisguisedly contemptuous. This is manifest in his whole
proceedings; and appears especially in the memorable remark ascribed
to him, on an occasion when something that he had said in the public
assembly met with peculiar applause. Turning round to a friend, he
asked, “Have I not, unconsciously, said something bad?” His manners,
moreover, were surly and repulsive, though his disposition is said
to have been kind. He had learnt, in the Academy, a sort of Spartan
self-suppression and rigor of life.[579] No one ever saw him either
laughing, or weeping, or bathing in the public baths.

  [578] So Tacitus, after reporting the exact reply of the tribune
  Subrias Flavius, when examined as an accomplice in the conspiracy
  against Nero—“Ipsa retuli verba: quia non, ut Senecæ, vulgata
  erant; nec minus nosci decebat sensus militaris viri incomptos
  sed validos.”

  [579] Plutarch, Phokion, c. 4, 5.

If, then, Phokion attained the unparalleled honor of being chosen
forty-five times general, we may be sure that there were other
means of reaching it besides the arts of oratory and demagogy. We
may indeed ask with surprise, how it was possible for him to attain
it, in the face of so many repulsive circumstances, by the mere
force of bravery and honesty; especially as he never performed any
supereminent service,[580] though on various occasions he conducted
himself with credit and ability. The answer to this question may be
found in the fact that Phokion, though not a flatterer of the people,
went decidedly along with the capital weakness of the people. While
despising their judgment, he manifested no greater foresight, as
to the public interests and security of Athens, than they did. The
Athenian people had doubtless many infirmities and committed many
errors; but the worst error of all, during the interval between
360-336 B. C., was their unconquerable repugnance to the efforts,
personal and pecuniary, required for prosecuting a hearty war against
Philip. Of this aversion to a strenuous foreign policy, Phokion made
himself the champion;[581] addressing, in his own vein, sarcastic
taunts against those who called for action against Philip, as if
they were mere brawlers and cowards, watching for opportunities to
enrich themselves at the public expense. Eubulus the orator was among
the leading statesmen who formed what may be called the peace-party
at Athens, and who continually resisted or discouraged energetic
warlike efforts, striving to keep out of sight the idea of Philip
as a dangerous enemy. Of this peace-party, there were doubtless
some who acted corruptly, in the direct pay of Philip. But many
others of them, without any taint of personal corruption, espoused
the same policy merely because they found it easier, for the time,
to administer the city under peace than under war—because war was
burdensome and disagreeable, to themselves as well as to their
fellow-citizens—and because they either did not, or would not, look
forward to the consequences of inaction. Now it was a great advantage
to this peace-party, who wanted a military leader as partner to their
civil and rhetorical leaders, to strengthen themselves by a colleague
like Phokion; a man not only of unsuspected probity, but peculiarly
disinterested in advising peace, since his importance would have
been exalted by war.[582] Moreover most of the eminent military
leaders had now come to love only the license of war, and to disdain
the details of the war-office at home; while Phokion,[583] and he
almost alone among them, was content to stay at Athens, and keep up
that combination of civil with military efficiency which had been,
formerly, habitual. Hence he was sustained, by the peace-party and by
the aversion to warlike effort prevalent among the public, in a sort
of perpetuity of the strategic functions, without any solicitation or
care for personal popularity on his own part.

  [580] Cornelius Nepos (Phocion, c. 1) found in his authors no
  account of the military exploits of Phokion but much about his
  personal integrity.

  [581] Plutarch, Phokion, c. 8. Οὕτω δὲ συντάξας ἑαυτὸν
  ἐπολιτεύετο μὲν ἀεὶ πρὸς εἰρήνην καὶ ἡσυχίαν, etc.

  [582] Plutarch, Phokion, c. 16. See the first repartee there
  ascribed to Phokion.

  [583] Plutarch, Phokion, c. 7.

The influence of Phokion as a public adviser, during the period
embraced in this volume, down to the battle of Chæroneia, was
eminently mischievous to Athens: all the more mischievous, partly
(like that of Nikias) from the respectability of his personal
qualities—partly because he espoused and sanctioned the most
dangerous infirmity of the Athenian mind. His biographers mislead our
judgment by pointing our attention chiefly to the last twenty years
of his long life, after the battle of Chæroneia. At that time, when
the victorious military force of Macedonia had been fully organized,
and that of Greece comparatively prostrated, it might be argued
plausibly (I do not say decisively, even then) that submission to
Macedonia had become a fatal necessity; and that attempts to resist
could only end by converting bad into worse. But the peace-policy
of Phokion—which might be called prudence after the accession of
Alexander—was ruinously imprudent as well as dishonorable during
the reign of Philip. The odds were all against Philip in his early
years; they shifted and became more and more in his favor, only
because his game was played well, and that of his opponents badly.
The superiority of force was at first so much on the side of Athens,
that if she had been willing to employ it, she might have made sure
of keeping Philip at least within the limits of Macedonia. All
depended upon her will; upon the question, whether her citizens were
prepared in their own minds to incur the expense and fatigue of a
vigorous foreign policy—whether they would handle their pikes, open
their purses, and forego the comforts of home, for the maintenance
of Grecian and Athenian liberty against a growing, but not as yet
irresistible destroyer. To such a sacrifice the Athenians could not
bring themselves to submit; and in consequence of that reluctance,
they were driven in the end to a much graver and more irreparable
sacrifice—the loss of liberty, dignity, and security. Now it was
precisely at such a moment, and when such a question was pending,
that the influence of the peace-loving Phokion was most ruinous.
His anxiety that the citizens should be buried at home in their own
sepulchres—his despair, mingled with contempt, of his countrymen
and their refined habits—his hatred of the orators who might profit
by an increased war-expenditure[584]—all contributed to make him
discourage public effort, and await passively the preponderance of
the Macedonian arms; thus playing the game of Philip, and siding,
though himself incorruptible, with the orators in Philip’s pay.

  [584] See the replies of Phokion in Plutarch, Phokion, c. 23.

The love of peace, either in a community or in an individual, usually
commands sympathy without farther inquiry, though there are times of
growing danger from without, in which the adviser of peace is the
worst guide that can be followed. Since the Peloponnesian war, a
revolution had been silently going on in Greece, whereby the duties
of soldiership had passed to a great degree from citizen militia
into the hands of paid mercenaries. The resident citizens generally
had become averse to the burden of military service; while on the
other hand the miscellaneous aggregate of Greeks willing to carry
arms anywhere and looking merely for pay, had greatly augmented.
Very differently had the case once stood. The Athenian citizen of
432 B. C.—by concurrent testimony of the eulogist Perikles and of
the unfriendly Corinthians—was ever ready to brave the danger,
fatigue, and privation, of foreign expeditions, for the glory of
Athens. “He accounted it holidaywork to do duty in her service (it
is an enemy who speaks[585]); he wasted his body for her as though
it had been the body of another.” Embracing with passion the idea
of imperial Athens, he knew that she could only be upheld by the
energetic efforts of her individual citizens, and that the talk in
her public assemblies, though useful as a preliminary to action,
was mischievous if allowed as a substitute for action.[586] Such
was the Periklean Athenian of 431 B. C. But this energy had been
crushed in the disasters closing the Peloponnesian war, and had
never again revived. The Demosthenic Athenian of 360 B. C. had as it
were grown old. Pugnacity, Pan-hellenic championship, and the love
of enterprise, had died within him. He was a quiet, home-keeping,
refined citizen, attached to the democratic constitution, and
executing with cheerful pride his ordinary city-duties under it;
but immersed in industrial or professional pursuits, in domestic
comforts, in the impressive manifestations of the public religion,
in the atmosphere of discussion and thought, intellectual as well as
political. To renounce all this for foreign and continued military
service, he considered as a hardship not to be endured, except under
the pressure of danger near and immediate. Precautionary exigencies
against distant perils, however real, could not be brought home to
his feelings; even to pay others for serving in his place, was a duty
which he could scarcely be induced to perform.

  [585] I have more than once referred to the memorable picture of
  the Athenian character, in contrast with the Spartan, drawn by
  the Corinthian envoy at Sparta in 432 B. C. (Thucyd. i. 70, 71).
  Among the many attributes, indicative of exuberant energy and
  activity, I select those which were most required, and most found
  wanting, as the means of keeping back Philip.

  1. Παρὰ δύναμιν τολμηταὶ, καὶ παρὰ γνώμην κινδυνευταὶ, καὶ ἐν
  τοῖς δεινοῖς εὐέλπιδες.

  2. Ἄοκνοι πρὸς ὑμᾶς μελλητὰς καὶ ~ἀποδημηταὶ πρὸς ἐνδημοτάτους~
  (in opposition to _you_, Spartans).

  3. ~Τοῖς μὲν σώμασιν ἀλλοτριωτάτοις ὑπὲρ τῆς πόλεως χρῶνται~, τῇ
  γνώμῃ δὲ οἰκειοτάτῃ ἐς τὸ πράσσειν τι ὑπὲρ αὐτῆς, etc.

  4. ~Καὶ ταῦτα μετὰ πόνων πάντα καὶ κινδύνων δι᾽ ὅλου τοῦ αἰῶνος
  μοχθοῦσι~, καὶ ~ἀπολαύουσιν ἐλάχιστα τῶν ὑπαρχόντων~, διὰ τὸ ἀεὶ
  κτᾶσθαι καὶ μήτε ~ἑορτὴν ἄλλο τι ἡγεῖσθαι ἢ τὸ τὰ δέοντα πρᾶξαι~,
  ξυμφοράν τε οὐχ ἧσσον ἡσυχίαν ἀπράγμονα ἢ ἀσχολίαν ἐπίπονον, etc.

  To the same purpose Perikles expresses himself in his funeral
  oration of the ensuing year; extolling the vigor and courage
  of his countrymen, as alike forward and indefatigable—yet as
  combined also with a love of public discussion, and a taste for
  all the refinements of peaceful and intellectual life (Thucyd.
  ii. 40, 41).

  [586] Thucyd. ii. 40, 41, 43. τῆς πόλεως δύναμιν καθ᾽ ἡμέραν ἔργῳ
  θεωμένους καὶ ἐραστὰς γιγνομένους αὐτῆς, καὶ ὅταν ὑμῖν μεγάλη
  δόξῃ εἶναι, ἐνθυμουμένους ὅτι τολμῶντες καὶ γιγνώσκοντες τὰ
  δέοντα καὶ ἐν τοῖς ἔργοις αἰσχυνόμενοι ἄνδρες αὐτὰ ἐκτήσαντο, etc.

  Compare ii. 63—the last speech of Perikles.

Not merely in Athens, but also among the Peloponnesian allies of
Sparta, the resident citizens had contracted the like indisposition
to military service. In the year 431 B. C., these Peloponnesians
(here too we have the concurrent testimony of Perikles and
Archidamus[587]) had been forward for service with their persons, and
only backward when asked for money. In 383 B. C., Sparta found them
so reluctant to join her standard, especially for operations beyond
sea, that she was forced to admit into her confederacy the principle
of pecuniary commutation;[588] just as Athens had done (about 460-450
B. C.) with the unwarlike islanders enrolled in her confederacy of
Delos.[589]

  [587] Thucyd. i. 80, 81, 141.

  [588] Xenoph. Hellen. v. 2, 21. The allied cities furnished money
  instead of men in the expedition of Mnasippus to Korkyra (Xenoph.
  Hellen. vi. 2, 16).

  [589] Thucyd. i. 99.

Amidst this increasing indisposition to citizen military service,
the floating, miscellaneous bands who made soldiership a livelihood
under any one who would pay them, increased in number from year to
year. In 402-401 B. C., when the Cyreian army (the Ten Thousand
Greeks) were levied, it had been found difficult to bring so many
together; large premiums were given to the chiefs or enlisting
agents; the recruits consisted, in great part, of settled men tempted
by lucrative promises away from their homes.[590] But active men
ready for paid foreign service were perpetually multiplying, from
poverty, exile, or love of enterprise[591]; they were put under
constant training and greatly improved, by Iphikrates and others,
as peltasts or light infantry to serve in conjunction with the
citizen force of hoplites. Jason of Pheræ brought together a greater
and better trained mercenary force than had ever been seen since
the Cyreians in their upward march[592]; the Phokians also in the
Sacred War, having command over the Delphian treasures, surrounded
themselves with a formidable array of mercenary soldiers. There arose
(as in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries in modern Europe)
Condottieri like Charidemus and others—generals having mercenary
bands under their command, and hiring themselves out to any prince or
potentate who would employ and pay them. Of these armed rovers—poor,
brave, desperate, and held by no civic ties—Isokrates makes repeated
complaint, as one of the most serious misfortunes of Greece.[593]
Such wanderers, indeed, usually formed the natural emigrants in new
colonial enterprises. But it so happened that few Hellenic colonies
were formed during the interval between 400-350 B. C.; in fact, the
space open to Hellenic colonization was becoming more circumscribed
by the peace of Antalkidas—by the despotism of Dionysius—and by the
increase of Lucanians, Bruttians, and the inland powers generally.
Isokrates, while extolling the great service formerly rendered to the
Hellenic world by Athens, in setting on foot the Ionic emigration,
and thus providing new homes for so many unsettled Greeks—insists on
the absolute necessity of similar means of emigration in his own day.
He urges on Philip to put himself at the head of an Hellenic conquest
of Asia Minor, and thus to acquire territory which might furnish
settlement to the multitudes of homeless, roving, exiles, who lived
by the sword, and disturbed the peace of Greece.[594]

  [590] Isokrates, Orat. v. (Philipp.) s. 112. ... ἐν ἐκείνοις δὲ
  τοῖς χρόνοις οὐκ ἦν ξενικὸν οὐδὲν, ὥστ᾽ ἀναγκαζόμενοι ξενολογεῖν
  ἐκ τῶν πόλεων, πλέον ἀνήλισκον εἰς τὰς διδομένας τοῖς συλλέγουσι
  δωρεὰς, ἢ τὴν εἰς τοὺς στρατιώτας μισθοφοράν.

  About the liberal rewards of Cyrus to the generals Klearchus,
  Proxenus, and others, for getting together the army, and to the
  soldiers themselves also, see Xenoph. Anabas. i. 1, 9; i. 3, 4;
  iii. 1, 4; vi. 8, 48.

  [591] See the mention of the mercenary Greeks in the service of
  the satrapess Mania in Æolis—of the satraps, Tissaphernes and
  Pharnabazus, and of the Spartan Agesilaus—Iphikrates and others,
  Xenoph. Hellen. iii. 1, 13; iii. 3, 15; iv. 2, 5; iv. 3, 15; iv.
  4, 14; iv. 8, 35; vii. 5, 10.

  Compare Harpokration—Ξενικὸν ἐν Κορίνθῳ—and Demosthenes, Philipp.
  i. p. 46.

  [592] Xenoph. Hellen. vi. 1, 5.

  [593] Isokrates pours forth this complaint in many places: in
  the fourth or Panegyrical Oration (B. C. 380); in the eighth or
  Oratio de Pace (356 B. C.); in the fifth or Oratio ad Philippum
  (346 B. C.). The latest of these discourses is delivered in the
  strongest language. See Orat. Panegyr. s. 195 τοὺς δ᾽ ἐπὶ ξένης
  μετὰ παιδῶν καὶ γυναικῶν ἀλᾶσθαι, πολλοὺς δὲ δι᾽ ἔνδειαν τῶν
  καθ᾽ ἡμέραν ἐπικουρεῖν (_i. e._ to become an ἐπικοῦρος, or paid
  soldier in foreign service) ἀναγκαζομένους ὑπὲρ τῶν ἐχθρῶν τοῖς
  φίλοις μαχομένους ἀποθνήσκειν. See also Orat. De Pace (viii.) s.
  53, 56, 58; Orat. ad. Philipp. (v.) s. 112. οὕτω γὰρ ἔχει τὰ τῆς
  Ἑλλάδος, ὥστε ῥᾷον εἶναι συστῆσαι στρατόπεδον μεῖζον καὶ κρεῖττον
  ἐκ τῶν πλανωμένων ἢ τῶν πολιτευομένων, etc.... also s. 142,
  149; Orat. de Permutat. (xv.) s. 122. ἐν τοῖς στρατοπέδοις τοῖς
  πλανωμένοις κατατετριμμένος, etc. A melancholy picture of the
  like evils is also presented in the ninth Epistle of Isokrates,
  to Archidamus, s. 9, 12. Compare Demosth. cont. Aristokrat. p.
  665. s. 162.

  For an example of a disappointed lover who seeks distraction by
  taking foreign military service, see Theokritus, xiv. 58.

  [594] Isokrates ad Philipp. (v.) s. 142-144. πρὸς δὲ τούτοις
  κτίσαι πόλεις ἐπὶ τούτῳ τῷ τόπῳ, καὶ κατοικίσαι τοὺς νῦν μὲν
  πλανωμένους δι᾽ ἔνδειαν τῶν καθ᾽ ἡμέραν καὶ λυμαινομένους οἷς ἂν
  ἐντύχωσιν. Οὓς εἰ μὴ παύσομεν ἀθροιζομένους, βίον αὐτοῖς ἱκανὸν
  πορίσαντες, λήσουσιν ἡμᾶς τοσοῦτοι γενόμενοι τὸ πλῆθος, ὥστε
  μηδὲν ἧττον αὐτοὺς εἶναι φοβεροὺς τοῖς Ἕλλησιν ἢ τοῖς βαρβάροις,
  etc.

This decline of the citizen militia, and growing aversion to personal
service, or military exercises—together with the contemporaneous
increase of the professional soldiery unmoved by civic obligations—is
one of the capital facts of the Demosthenic age. Though not peculiar
to Athens, it strikes us more forcibly at Athens, where the spirit
of self-imposed individual effort had once been so high wrought—but
where also the charm and stimulus[595] of peaceful existence was
most diversified, and the activity of industrial pursuit most
continuous. It was a fatal severance of the active force of society
from political freedom and intelligence breaking up that many-sided
combination, of cultivated thought with vigorous deed, which formed
the Hellenic _idéal_—and throwing the defence of Greece upon armed
men looking up only to their general or their paymaster. But what
made it irreparably fatal, was that just at this moment the Grecian
world was thrown upon its defence against Macedonia led by a young
prince of indefatigable enterprise; who had imbibed, and was capable
even of improving, the best ideas of military organization[596]
started by Epaminondas and Iphikrates. Philip (as described by his
enemy Demosthenes) possessed all that forward and unconquerable love
of action which the Athenians had manifested in 431 B. C., as we know
from enemies as well as from friends; while the Macedonian population
also retained, amidst rudeness and poverty, that military aptitude
and readiness which had dwindled away within the walls of the Grecian
cities.

  [595] Thucyd. ii. 41 (the funeral harangue of Perikles)—ξυνελών
  τε λέγω τήν τε πόλιν πᾶσαν τῆς Ἑλλάδος παίδευσιν εἶναι, καὶ καθ᾽
  ἕκαστον δοκεῖν ἄν μοι τὸν αὐτὸν ἄνδρα παρ᾽ ἡμῶν ἐπὶ πλεῖστ᾽ ἂν
  εἴδη καὶ μετὰ χαρίτων μάλιστ᾽ ἂν εὐτραπέλως τὸ σῶμα αὔταρκες
  παρέχεσθαι.

  [596] The remarkable organization of the Macedonian army, with
  its systematic combination of different arms and sorts of
  troops—was the work of Philip. Alexander found it ready made
  to his hands, in the very first months of his reign. It must
  doubtless have been gradually formed; year after year improved
  by Philip; and we should be glad to be enabled to trace the
  steps of his progress. But unfortunately we are left without any
  information about the military measures of Philip, beyond bare
  facts and results. Accordingly I am compelled to postpone what
  is to be said about the Macedonian military organization until
  the reign of Alexander, about whose operations we have valuable
  details.

Though as yet neither disciplined nor formidable, they were an
excellent raw material for soldiers, in the hands of an organizing
genius like Philip. They were still (as their predecessors had
been in the time of the first Perdikkas,[597] when the king’s wife
baked cakes with her own hand on the hearth), mountain shepherds
ill-clothed and ill-housed—eating and drinking from wooden platters
and cups—destitute to a great degree, not merely of cities, but
of fixed residences.[598] The men of substance were armed with
breastplates and made good cavalry; but the infantry were a rabble
destitute of order,[599] armed with wicker shields and rusty swords,
and contending at disadvantage, though constantly kept on the alert,
to repel the inroads of their Illyrian or Thracian neighbors. Among
some Macedonian tribes, the man who had never slain an enemy was
marked by a degrading badge.[600] These were the men whom Philip on
becoming king found under his rule; not good soldiers, but excellent
recruits to be formed into soldiers. Poverty, endurance, and bodies
inured to toil, were the natural attributes, well appreciated by
ancient politicians, of a military population destined to make
conquests. Such had been the native Persians, at their first outburst
under Cyrus the Great; such were even the Greeks at the invasion of
Xerxes, when the Spartan King Demaratus reckoned poverty both as an
inmate of Greece, and as a guarantee of Grecian courage.[601]

  [597] Herodot. viii. 137.

  [598] This poor condition of the Macedonian population at the
  accession of Philip, is set forth in the striking speech made
  thirty-six years afterwards by Alexander the Great (in 323 B.
  C., a few months before his death) to his soldiers, satiated
  with conquest and plunder, but discontented with his increasing
  insolence and Orientalism.

  Arrian, Exp. Alex. vii. 9. Φίλιππος γὰρ παραλαβὼν ὑμᾶς πλανήτας
  καὶ ἀπόρους, ἐν διφθέραις τοὺς πολλοὺς νέμοντας ἀνὰ τὰ ὄρη
  πρόβατα κατὰ ὀλίγα, καὶ περὶ τούτων κακῶς μαχομένους Ἰλλυρίοις
  καὶ Τριβαλλοῖς καὶ τοῖς ὁμόροις Θρᾳξὶ, χλαμύδας μὲν ὑμῖν ἀντὶ τῶν
  διφθερῶν φορεῖν ἔδωκε, κατήγαγε δὲ ἐκ τῶν ὀρῶν ἐς τὰ πεδία, etc.

  Other points are added in the version given by Quintus Curtius
  of the same speech (x. 10)—“En tandem! Illyriorum paulo ante et
  Persarum tributariis, Asia et tot gentium spolia fastidio sunt.
  Modo sub Philippo seminudis, amicula ex purpura sordent: aurum et
  argentum oculi ferre non possunt; lignea enim vasa desiderant, et
  ex cratibus scuta et rubiginem gladiorum.”

  [599] Thucydides (ii. 100) recognizes the goodness of the
  Macedonian cavalry: so also Xenophon, in the Spartan expedition
  against Olynthus (Hellen. v. 2, 40).

  That the infantry were of little military efficiency, we see from
  the judgment of Brasidas—Thucyd. iv. 26. compare also ii. 100.

  See O. Müller’s short tract on the Macedonians, annexed to his
  History of the Dorians, s. 33.

  [600] Aristot. Polit. vii. 2, 6.

  [601] Herodot. vii. 102. τῇ Ἑλλάδι πενίη μὲν αἰεί κοτε σύντροφός
  ἐστι, etc.

  About the Persians, Herodot. i. 71; Arrian, v. 4, 13.

Now it was against these rude Macedonians, to whom camp-life
presented chances of plunder without any sacrifice, that the
industrious and refined Athenian citizen had to go forth and fight,
renouncing his trade, family, and festivals; a task the more severe,
as the perpetual aggressions and systematized warfare of his new
enemies could only be countervailed by an equal continuity of effort
on his part. For such personal devotion, combined with the anxieties
of preventive vigilance, the Athenians of the Periklean age would
have been prepared, but those of the Demosthenic age were not; though
their whole freedom and security were in the end found to be at stake.

Without this brief sketch of the great military change in Greece
since the Peloponnesian war—the decline of the citizen force and the
increase of mercenaries—the reader would scarcely understand either
the proceedings of Athens in reference to Philip, or the career of
Demosthenes on which we are now about to enter.

Having by assiduous labor acquired for himself these high powers both
of speech and of composition, Demosthenes stood forward in 354 B. C.
to devote them to the service of the public. His first address to the
assembly is not less interesting, objectively, as a memorial of the
actual Hellenic political world in that year—than subjectively, as
an evidence of his own manner of appreciating its exigencies.[602]
At that moment, the predominant apprehension at Athens arose from
reports respecting the Great King, who was said to be contemplating
measures of hostility against Greece, and against Athens in
particular, in consequence of the aid recently lent by the Athenian
general Chares to the revolted Persian satrap Artabazus. By this
apprehension—which had already, in part, determined the Athenians
(a year before) to make peace with their revolted insular allies,
and close the Social War—the public mind still continued agitated. A
Persian armament of three hundred sail, with a large force of Grecian
mercenaries—and an invasion of Greece—was talked of as probable.[603]
It appears that Mausôlus, prince or satrap of Karia, who had been
the principal agent in inflaming the Social War, still prosecuted
hostilities against the islands even after the peace, announcing that
he acted in execution of the king’s designs; so that the Athenians
sent envoys to remonstrate with him.[604] The Persians seem also to
have been collecting inland forces, which were employed some years
afterwards in reconquering Egypt, but of which the destination was
not at this moment declared. Hence the alarm now prevalent at Athens.
It is material to note—as a mark in the tide of events—that few
persons as yet entertained apprehensions about Philip of Macedon,
though that prince was augmenting steadily his military force as well
as his conquests. Nay, Philip afterwards asserted that during this
alarm of Persian invasion, he was himself one of the parties invited
to assist in the defence of Greece.[605]

  [602] The oration De Symmoriis is placed by Dionysius of
  Halikarnassus in the archonship of Diotimus, 354-353 B. C.
  (Dionys. Hal. ad Ammæum. p. 724). And it is plainly composed
  prior to the expedition sent by the Thebans under Pammenês to
  assist the revolted Artabazus against the Great King; which
  expedition is placed by Diodorus (xvi. 34) in the ensuing year
  353-352 B. C. Whoever will examine the way in which Demosthenes
  argues, in the Oration De Symmoriis (p. 187. s. 40-42), as to the
  relations of the Thebans with Persia—will see that he cannot have
  known anything about assistance given by the Thebans to Artabazus
  against Persia.

  [603] Diodor. xvi. 21.

  [604] Demosthenes cont. Timokratem, s. 15; see also the second
  Argument prefixed to that Oration.

  [605] See Epistola Philipp. ap. Demosthen. p. 160. s. 6.

Though the Macedonian power had not yet become obviously formidable,
we trace in the present speech of Demosthenes that same Pan-hellenic
patriotism which afterwards rendered him so strenuous in blowing the
trumpet against Philip. The obligation incumbent upon all Greeks, but
upon Athens especially, on account of her traditions and her station,
to uphold Hellenic liberty against the foreigner at all cost, is
insisted on with an emphasis and dignity worthy of Perikles.[606]
But while Demosthenes thus impresses upon his countrymen noble
and Pan-hellenic purposes, he does not rest content with eloquent
declamation, or negative criticism on the past. His recommendations
as to means are positive and explicit; implying an attentive survey
and a sagacious appreciation of the surrounding circumstances. While
keeping before his countrymen a favorable view of their position,
he never promises them success except on condition of earnest and
persevering individual efforts, with arms and with money: and he
exhausts all his invention in the unpopular task of shaming them,
by direct reproach as well as by oblique insinuation, out of that
aversion to personal military service, which, for the misfortune of
Athens, had become a confirmed habit. Such positive and practical
character as to means, always contemplating the full exigencies of
a given situation—combined with the constant presentation of Athens
as the pledged champion of Grecian freedom, and with appeals to
Athenian foretime, not as a patrimony to rest upon, but as an example
to imitate—constitute the imperishable charm of these harangues of
Demosthenes, not less memorable than their excellence as rhetorical
compositions. In the latter merit, indeed, his rival Æschines is less
inferior to him than in the former.

  [606] Demosthenes, De Symmoriis, p. 179. s. 7. Οὐδὲ γὰρ οὐδ᾽ ἀπ᾽
  ἴσης ὁρῶ τοῖς τ᾽ ἄλλοις Ἕλλησι καὶ ὑμῖν περὶ τῶν πρὸς τὸν βασιλέα
  τὴν βουλὴν οὖσαν—ἀλλ᾽ ἐκείνων μὲν πολλοῖς ἐνδέχεσθαί μοι δοκεῖ
  τῶν ἰδίᾳ τι συμφερόντων διοικουμένοις τῶν ἄλλων Ἑλλήνων ἀμελῆσαι,
  ὑμῖν δ᾽ οὐδ᾽ ἀδικουμένοις παρὰ τῶν ἀδικούντων καλόν ἐστι λαβεῖν
  ταύτην τὴν δίκην, ἐᾶσαί τινας αὐτῶν ὑπὸ τῷ βαρβάρῳ γενέσθαι.

In no one of the speeches of Demosthenes is the spirit of practical
wisdom more predominant than in this his earliest known discourse
to the public assembly—on the Symmories—delivered by a young man of
twenty-seven years of age, who could have had little other teaching
except from the decried classes of sophists, rhetors, and actors.
While proclaiming the king of Persia as the common and dangerous
enemy of the Grecian name, he contends that no evidence of impending
Persian attack had yet transpired, sufficiently obvious and glaring
to warrant Athens in sending round[607] to invoke a general league
of Greeks, as previous speakers had suggested. He deprecates on the
one hand any step calculated to provoke the Persian king or bring on
a war—and on the other hand, any premature appeal to the Greeks for
combination, before they themselves were impressed with a feeling of
common danger. Nothing but such common terror could bring about union
among the different Hellenic cities; nothing else could silence those
standing jealousies and antipathies, which rendered intestine war so
frequent, and would probably enable the Persian king to purchase
several Greeks for his own allies against the rest.

  [607] Demosthen. De Symmor. p. 181. s. 14.

“Let us neither be immoderately afraid of the Great King, nor on
the other hand be ourselves the first to begin the war and wrong
him—as well on our own account as from the bad feeling and mistrust
prevalent among the Greeks around us. If indeed we, with the full
and unanimous force of Greece, could attack him unassisted, I should
have held that even wrong, done towards him, was no wrong at all. But
since this is impossible, I contend that we must take care not to
give the king a pretence for enforcing claims of right on behalf of
the other Greeks. While we remain quiet, he cannot do any such thing
without being mistrusted; but if we have been the first to begin war,
he will naturally seem to mean sincere friendship to the others, on
account of their aversion to us. Do not, therefore, expose to light
the sad distempers of the Hellenic world, by calling together its
members when you will not persuade them, and by going to war when
you will have no adequate force; but keep the peace, confiding in
yourselves, and making full preparation.”[608]

  [608] Demosthen. De Symmor. p. 188. s. 42-46. ... Ὥστ᾽ οὔτε
  φοβεῖσθαί φημι δεῖν πέρα τοῦ μετρίου, οὔθ᾽ ὑπαχθῆναι προτέρους
  ἐκφέρειν τὸν πόλεμον....

  ... Τοῦτον ἡμεῖς φοβώμεθα; μηδαμῶς· ἀλλὰ μηδ᾽ ἀδικῶμεν, ~αὐτῶν
  ἡμῶν ἕνεκα καὶ τῆς τῶν ἄλλων Ἑλλήνων ταραχῆς καὶ ἀπιστίας~· ἐπεὶ
  εἴ γ᾽ ὁμοθυμαδὸν ἦν μετὰ πάντων ἐπιθέσθαι μόνῳ, οὐδ᾽ ἀδικεῖν
  ἡμᾶς ἐκεῖνον ἀδίκημ᾽ ἂν ἔθηκα. Ἐπειδὴ δὲ τοῦθ᾽ οὕτως ἔχει,
  φυλάττεσθαί φημι δεῖν μὴ πρόφασιν δῶμεν βασιλεῖ τοῦ τὰ δίκαια
  ὑπὲρ τῶν ἄλλων Ἑλλήνων ζητεῖν· ἡσυχίαν μὲν γὰρ ἐχόντων ὑμῶν,
  ὕποπτος ἂν εἴη τοιοῦτό τι πράττων—πόλεμον δὲ ποιησαμένων προτέρων
  ~εἰκότως ἂν δοκοίη διὰ τὴν πρὸς ὑμᾶς ἐχθρὰν τοῖς ἄλλοις φίλος~
  εἶναι βούλεσθαι. ~Μὴ οὖν ἐξελέγξητε ὡς κακῶς ἔχει τὰ Ἑλληνικὰ,
  συγκαλοῦντες ὅτ᾽ οὐ πείσετε, καὶ πολεμοῦντες ὅτ᾽ οὐ δυνήσεσθε·
  ἀλλ᾽ ἔχετε ἡσυχίαν θαῤῥοῦντες καὶ παρασκευαζόμενοι~.

It is this necessity of making preparation, which constitutes the
special purpose of Demosthenes in his harangue. He produces an
elaborate plan, matured by careful reflection,[609] for improving
and extending the classification by Symmories; proposing a more
convenient and systematic distribution of the leading citizens as
well as of the total financial and nautical means—such as to ensure
both the ready equipment of armed force whenever required, and a fair
apportionment both of effort and of expense among the citizens. Into
the details of this plan of economical reform, which are explained
with the precision of an administrator and not with the vagueness
of a rhetor, I do not here enter; especially as we do not know that
it was actually adopted. But the spirit in which it was proposed
deserves all attention, as proclaiming, even at this early day,
the home-truth which the orator reiterates in so many subsequent
harangues. “In the preparation which I propose to you, Athenians
(he says), the first and most important point is, that your minds
shall be so set, as that each man individually will be willing and
forward in doing his duty. For you see plainly, that of all those
matters on which you have determined collectively, and on which each
man individually has looked upon the duty of execution as devolving
upon himself—not one has ever slipped through your hands; while,
on the contrary, whenever, after determination has been taken, you
have stood looking at one another, no man intending to do anything
himself, but every one throwing the burthen of action upon his
neighbor—nothing has ever succeeded. Assuming you, therefore, to be
thus disposed and wound up to the proper pitch, I recommend,”[610]
etc.

  [609] Demosthen. De Symmor. p. 181. s. 17. Τὴν μὲν παρασκευὴν,
  ὅπως ὡς ἄριστα καὶ τάχιστα γενήσεται, πάνυ πολλὰ πράγματα ἔσχον
  σκοπῶν.

  [610] Demosthenes, De Symmoriis, p. 182. s. 18. Ἔστι τοίνυν
  πρῶτον μὲν τῆς παρασκευῆς, ὦ ἄνδρες Ἀθηναῖοι, καὶ μέγιστον, οὕτω
  διακεῖσθαι τὰς γνώμας ὑμᾶς, ὡς ἕκαστον ἕκοντα προθύμως ὅ,τι
  ἂν δέῃ ποιήσοντα. Ὁρᾶτε γὰρ, ὦ ἄνδρες Ἀθηναῖοι, ~ὅτι, ὅσα μὲν
  πώποθ᾽ ἅπαντες ὑμεῖς ἠβουλήθητε, καὶ μετὰ ταῦτα τὸ πράττειν αὐτὸς
  ἕκαστος ἑαυτῷ προσήκειν ἡγήσατο, οὐδὲν πώποθ᾽ ὑμᾶς ἐξέφυγεν~·
  ὅσα δ᾽ ἠβουλήθητε μὲν, μετὰ ~ταῦτα δ᾽ ἀπεβλέψατε πρὸς ἀλλήλους
  ὡς αὐτὸς μὲν ἕκαστος οὐ ποιήσων, τὸν δὲ πλησίον πράξοντα~, οὐδὲν
  πώποθ᾽ ὑμῖν ἐγένετο. Ἐχόντων δ᾽ ~ὑμῶν οὕτω καὶ αρωξυμμένων~, etc.

This is the true Demosthenic vein of exhortation, running with
unabated force through the Philippics and Olynthiacs, and striving
to revive that conjunction—of which Perikles had boasted as an
established fact in the Athenian character[611]—energetic individual
action following upon full public debate and collective resolution.
How often here, and elsewhere, does the orator denounce the
uselessness of voters in the public assembly, even after such
votes had been passed—if the citizens individually hung back, and
shrunk from the fatigue or the pecuniary burthen indispensable
for execution! Demus in the Pnyx (to use, in an altered sense,
an Aristophanic comparison)[612] still remained Pan-hellenic and
patriotic, when Demus at home had come to think that the city would
march safely by itself without any sacrifice on his part, and that
he was at liberty to become absorbed in his property, family,
religion, and recreations. And so Athens might really have proceeded,
in her enjoyment of liberty, wealth, refinement, and individual
security—could the Grecian world have been guaranteed against the
formidable Macedonian enemy from without.

  [611] Thucyd. ii. 39, 40.

  [612] Aristophanes, Equit. 750.

It was in the ensuing year, when the alarm respecting Persia had worn
off, that the Athenians were called on to discuss the conflicting
applications of Sparta and of Megalopolis. The success of the
Phokians appeared to be such as to prevent Thebes, especially while
her troops, under Pammenes, were absent in Asia, from interfering
in Peloponnesus for the protection of Megalopolis. There were even
at Athens politicians who confidently predicted the approaching
humiliation of Thebes,[613] together with the emancipation and
reconstitution of those Bœotian towns which she now held in
dependence—Orchomenus, Thespiæ, and Platæa; predictions cordially
welcomed by the Miso-Theban sentiment at Athens. To the Spartans, the
moment appeared favorable for breaking up Megalopolis and recovering
Messênê; in which scheme they hoped to interest not only Athens, but
also Elis, Phlius, and some other Peloponnesian states. To Athens
they offered aid for the recovery of Orôpus, now and for about
twelve years past in the hands of the Thebans; to Elis and Phlius
they also tendered assistance for regaining respectively Triphylia
and the Trikaranum, from the Arcadians and Argeians.[614] This
political combination was warmly espoused by a considerable party
at Athens; being recommended not less by aversion to Thebes than by
the anxious desire for repossessing the border town of Orôpus. But
it was combated by others, and by Demosthenes among the number, who
could not be tempted by any bait to acquiesce in the reconstitution
of Lacedæmonian power as it had stood before the battle of Leuktra.
In the Athenian assembly, the discussion was animated and even angry;
the envoys from Megalopolis, as well as those from Sparta on the
other side, finding strenuous partisans.[615]

  [613] Demosthenes, Orat. pro Megalopolitanis, p. 203. s. 5. p.
  210. s. 36. Ἔστι τοίνυν ἔν τινι τοιούτῳ καιρῷ τὰ πράγματα νῦν,
  εἴ τι δεῖ τοῖς εἰρημένοις πολλάκις παρ᾽ ὑμῖν λόγοις τεκμήρασθαι,
  ὥστε Θηβαίους μὲν Ὀρχομενοῦ καὶ Θεσπιῶν καὶ Πλαταιῶν οἰκισθεισῶν
  ἀσθενεῖς γενέσθαι, etc. Ἂν μὲν τοίνυν καταπολεμηθῶσιν οἱ Θηβαῖοι,
  ὥσπερ αὐτοὺς δεῖ, etc.

  Compare Demosthenes cont. Aristokrat. p. 654. s. 120.

  [614] Demosthenes pro Megalopol. p. 206. s. 18; compare Xenoph.
  Hellen. vii. 2, 1-5.

  [615] Demosthenes pro Megalopolit. p. 202. s. 1.

Demosthenes strikes a course professedly middle between the two, yet
really in favor of defending Megalopolis against Spartan reconquest.
We remark in this oration (as in the oration De Symmoriis, a year
before) that there is no allusion to Philip; a point to be noticed
as evidence of the gradual changes in the Demosthenic point of view.
All the arguments urged turn upon Hellenic and Athenian interests,
without reference to the likelihood of hostilities from without.
In fact, Demosthenes lays down as a position not to be disputed by
any one, that for the interest of Athens, both Sparta and Thebes
ought to be weak; neither of them in condition to disturb her
security;[616]—a position, unfortunately, but too well recognized
among all the leading Grecian states in their reciprocal dealings
with each other, rendering the Pan-hellenic aggregate comparatively
defenceless against Philip or any skilful aggressor from without.
While, however, affirming a general maxim, in itself questionable
and perilous, Demosthenes deduces from it nothing but judicious
consequences. In regard to Sparta, he insists only on keeping her _in
statu quo_, and maintaining inviolate against her the independence of
Megalopolis and Messênê. He will not be prevailed upon to surrender
to her these two cities, even by the seductive prospect of assistance
to Athens in recovering Orôpus, and in reviving the autonomy of the
Bœotian cities. At that moment the prevalent disposition among the
Athenian public was antipathy against Thebes, combined with a certain
sympathy in favor of Sparta, whom they had aided at the battle of
Mantineia against the Megalopolitans.[617] Though himself sharing
this sentiment,[618] Demosthenes will not suffer his countrymen to
be misled by it. He recommends that Athens shall herself take up
the Theban policy in regard to Megalopolis and Messênê, so as to
protect these two cities against Sparta; the rather, as by such a
proceeding the Thebans will be excluded from Peloponnesus, and their
general influence narrowed. He even goes so far as to say, that if
Sparta should succeed in reconquering Megalopolis and Messênê, Athens
must again become the ally of the Thebans to restrain her farther
aggrandizement.[619]

  [616] Demosthen. pro Megalop. p. 203. s. 5, 6. Compare a similar
  sentiment, Demosthenes cont. Aristokrat. p. 654. s. 120.

  [617] Demosthen. pro Megalop. p. 203. s. 7, 9. p. 207. s. 22.

  [618] See Demosthen. cont. Leptinem, p. 489. s. 172 (delivered
  355 B. C.) and Olynthiac i. p. 16. s. 27.

  [619] Demosthenes pro Megalopol. p. 207. s. 24.

As far as we make out from imperfect information, it seems that the
views of Demosthenes did not prevail, and that the Athenians declined
to undertake the protection of Megalopolis against Sparta; since we
presently find the Thebans continuing to afford that protection, as
they had done before. The aggressive schemes of Sparta appear to
have been broached at the moment when the Phokians under Onomarchus
were so decidedly superior to Thebes as to place that city in some
embarrassment. But the superiority of the Phokians was soon lessened
by their collision with a more formidable enemy—Philip of Macedon.

That prince had been already partially interfering in Thessalian
affairs,[620] at the instigation of Eudikus and Simus, chiefs of the
Aleuadæ of Larissa, against Lykophron the despot of Pheræ. But his
recent acquisition of Methônê left him more at liberty to extend
his conquests southward, and to bring a larger force to bear on the
dissensions of Thessaly. In that country, the great cities were,[621]
as usual, contending for supremacy, and holding in subjection the
smaller by means of garrisons; while Lykophron of Pheræ was exerting
himself to regain that ascendency over the whole, which had once
been possessed by Jason and Alexander. Philip now marched into
the country and attacked him so vigorously as to constrain him to
invoke aid from the Phokians. Onomarchus, at that time victorious
over the Thebans and master as far as Thermopylæ, was interested in
checking the farther progress of Philip southward and extending his
own ascendency. He sent into Thessaly a force of seven thousand men,
under his brother Phayllus, to sustain Lykophron. But Phayllus failed
altogether; being defeated and driven out of Thessaly by Philip, so
that Lykophron of Pheræ was in greater danger than ever. Upon this,
Onomarchus went himself thither with the full force of Phokians and
foreign mercenaries. An obstinate, and seemingly a protracted contest
now took place, in the course of which he was at first decidedly
victorious. He defeated Philip in two battles, with such severe loss
that the Macedonian army was withdrawn from Thessaly, while Lykophron
with his Phokian allies remained masters of the country.[622]

  [620] Diodor. xvi. 14; Demosthenes, De Coronâ, p. 241. s. 60.
  Harpokration v. Σίμος.

  [621] Isokrates, Orat. viii. (De Pace) s. 143, 144.

  [622] Diodor. xvi. 35.

This great success of the Phokian arms was followed up by farther
victory in Bœotia. Onomarchus renewed his invasion of that territory,
defeated the Thebans in battle, and made himself master of Koroneia,
in addition to Orchomenus, which he held before.[623] It would seem
that the Thebans were at this time deprived of much of their force,
which was serving in Asia under Artabazus, and which, perhaps from
these very reverses, they presently recalled. The Phokians, on the
other hand, were at the height of their power. At this juncture
falls, probably, the aggressive combination of the Spartans against
Megalopolis, and the debate, before noticed, in the Athenian assembly.

  [623] Diodor. xvi. 35.

Philip was for some time in embarrassment from his defeats in
Thessaly. His soldiers, discouraged and even mutinous, would hardly
consent to remain under his standard. By great pains, and animated
exhortation, he at last succeeded in reanimating them. After a
certain interval for restoration and reinforcement, he advanced
with a fresh army into Thessaly, and resumed his operations against
Lykophron; who was obliged again to solicit aid from Onomarchus, and
to promise that all Thessaly should henceforward be held under his
dependence. Onomarchus accordingly joined him in Thessaly with a
large army, said to consist of twenty thousand foot and five hundred
cavalry. But he found on this occasion, within the country, more
obstinate resistance than before; for the cruel dynasty of Pheræ had
probably abused their previous victory by aggravated violence and
rapacity, so as to throw into the arms of their enemy a multitude
of exiles. On Philip’s coming into Thessaly with a new army, the
Thessalians embraced his cause so warmly, that he soon found himself
at the head of an army of twenty thousand foot and three thousand
horse. Onomarchus met him in the field, somewhere near the southern
coast of Thessaly; not diffident of success, as well from his
recent victories, as from the neighborhood of an Athenian fleet
under Chares, coöperating with him. Here a battle was joined, and
obstinately contested between the two armies, nearly equal in numbers
of infantry. Philip exalted the courage of his soldiers by decorating
them with laurel wreaths,[624] as crusaders in the service of the god
against the despoilers of the Delphian temple; while the Thessalians
also, forming the best cavalry in Greece and fighting with earnest
valor, gave decisive advantage to his cause. The defeat of the forces
of Onomarchus and Lykophron was complete. Six thousand of them are
said to have been slain, and three thousand to have been taken
prisoners; the remainder escaped either by flight, or by throwing
away their arms, and swimming off to the Athenian ships. Onomarchus
himself perished. According to one account, he was slain by his
own mercenaries, provoked by his cowardice: according to another
account, he was drowned—being carried into the sea by an unruly
horse, and trying to escape to the ships. Philip caused his dead
body to be crucified, and drowned all the prisoners as men guilty of
sacrilege.[625]

  [624] This fact is mentioned by Justin (vii. 2), and seems
  likely to be true, from the severity with which Philip, after
  his victory, treated the Phokian prisoners. But the farther
  statement of Justin is not likely to be true—that the Phokians,
  on beholding the insignia of the god, threw away their arms and
  fled without resistance.

  [625] Diodor. xvi. 55; Pausan. x. 2, 3; Philo Judæus apud
  Eusebium Præp. Evang. viii. p. 392. Diodorus states that Chares
  with the Athenian fleet was sailing by, _accidentally_. But this
  seems highly improbable. It cannot but be supposed that he was
  destined to coöperate with the Phokians.

This victory procured for Philip great renown as the avenger of
the Delphian god—and became an important step in his career of
aggrandizement. It not only terminated the power of the Phokians
north of Thermopylæ, but also finally crushed the powerful dynasty
of Pheræ in Thessaly. Philip laid siege to that city, upon which
Lykophron and Peitholaus, surrounded by an adverse population and
unable to make any long defence, capitulated, and surrendered it to
him; retiring with their mercenaries, two thousand in number, into
Phokis.[626] Having obtained possession of Pheræ and proclaimed it
a free city, Philip proceeded to besiege the neighboring town of
Pagasæ, the most valuable maritime station in Thessaly. How long
Pagasæ resisted, we do not know; but long enough to send intimation
to Athens, with entreaties for succor. The Athenians, alarmed at
the successive conquests of Philip, were well-disposed to keep this
important post out of his hands, which their naval power fully
enabled them to do. But here again (as in the previous examples of
Pydna, Potidæa, and Methônê), the aversion to personal service among
the citizens individually—and the impediments as to apportionment of
duty or cost, whenever actual outgoing was called for—produced the
untoward result, that though an expedition was voted and despatched,
it did not arrive in time.[627] Pagasæ surrendered and came into the
power of Philip; who fortified and garrisoned it for himself, thus
becoming master of the Pagasæan gulf, the great maritime inlet of
Thessaly.

  [626] Diodor. xvi. 37.

  [627] Demosthenes, Philippic i. p. 50. s. 40. Καίτοι, τί δήποτε
  νομίζετε ... τοὺς ἀποστόλους πάντας ὑμῖν ὑστερίζειν τῶν καιρῶν,
  τὸν εἰς Μεθώνην, ~τὸν εἰς Παγασὰς~, τὸν εἰς Ποτίδαιαν, etc.

  Demosthenes, Olynth. i. p. 11. s. 9. Καὶ πάλιν ἥνικα Πύδνα,
  Ποτίδαια, Μεθώνη, ~Παγασαί—πολιορκούμενα ἀπηγγέλλετο~, εἰ τότε
  τούτων ἑνὶ τῷ πρώτῳ προθύμως καὶ ὡς προσῆκεν ἐβοηθήσαμεν αὐτοὶ,
  etc.

  The first Philippic was delivered in 352-351 B. C., which proves
  that Philip’s capture of Pagasæ cannot have been later than that
  year. Nor can it have been earlier than his capture of Pheræ—as
  I have before remarked in reference to the passage of Diodorus
  (xvi. 31), where it seems to be placed in 354-353 B. C.; if Παγὰς
  is to be taken for Παγασάς.

  I apprehend that the first campaign of Philip in Thessaly against
  the Phokians, wherein he was beaten and driven out by Onomarchus,
  may be placed in the summer of 353 B. C. The second entrance
  into Thessaly, with the defeat and death of Onomarchus, belongs
  to the early spring of 352 B. C. The capture of Pheræ and Pagasæ
  comes immediately afterwards; then the expedition of Philip to
  Thermopylæ, where his progress was arrested by the Athenians
  comes about Midsummer 352 B. C.

Philip was probably occupied for a certain time in making good his
dominion over Thessaly. But as soon as sufficient precautions had
been taken for this purpose, he sought to push his advantage over
the Phokians by invading them in their own territory. He marched
to Thermopylæ, still proclaiming as his aim the liberation of the
Delphian temple and the punishment of its sacrilegious robbers; while
he at the same time conciliated the favor of the Thessalians by
promising to restore to them the Pylæa, or half-yearly Amphiktyonic
festival at Thermopylæ, which the Phokians had discontinued.[628] The
Phokians, though masters of this almost inexpugnable pass, seemed
to have been so much disheartened by their recent defeat, and the
death of Onomarchus, that they felt unable to maintain it long. The
news of such a danger, transmitted to Athens, excited extraordinary
agitation. The importance of defending Thermopylæ—and of prohibiting
the victorious king of Macedon from coming to coöperate with the
Thebans on the southern side of it,[629] not merely against the
Phokians, but probably also against Attica—were so powerfully felt,
that the usual hesitations and delay of the Athenians in respect
to military expeditions were overcome. Chiefly from this cause—but
partly also, we may suppose, from the vexatious disappointment
recently incurred in the attempt to relieve Pagasæ—an Athenian
armament under Nausikles (not less than five thousand foot and four
hundred horse, according to Diodorus[630]) was fitted out with not
less vigor and celerity than had been displayed against the Thebans
in Eubœa, seven years before. Athenian citizens shook off their
lethargy, and promptly volunteered. They reached Thermopylæ in good
time, placing the pass in such a condition of defence that Philip
did not attack it at all. Often afterwards does Demosthenes,[631]
in combating the general remissness of his countrymen when military
exigencies arose, remind them of this unwonted act of energetic
movement, crowned with complete effect. With little or no loss, the
Athenians succeeded in guarding both themselves and their allies
against a very menacing contingency, simply by the promptitude of
their action. The cost of the armament altogether was more than two
hundred talents; and from the stress which Demosthenes lays on that
portion of the expense which was defrayed by the soldiers privately
and individually,[632] we may gather that these soldiers (as in
the Sicilian expedition under Nikias[633]) were in considerable
proportion opulent citizens. Among a portion of the Grecian public,
however, the Athenians incurred obloquy as accomplices in the Phokian
sacrilege, and enemies of the Delphian god.[634]

  [628] Demosthenes, De Pace, p. 62. s. 23; Philippic ii. p. 71. s.
  24; De Fals. Legat. p. 443. s. 365.

  [629] Demosthenes, De Fals. Leg. p. 367. s. 94. p. 446. s. 375.
  Τίς γὰρ οὐκ οἶδεν ὑμῶν ὅτι τῷ Φωκέων πολέμῳ καὶ τῷ κυρίους
  εἶναι Πυλῶν Φωκέας, ἥ τε ἀπὸ Θηβαίων ἄδεια ὑπῆρχεν ἡμῖν, καὶ τὸ
  μηδέποτ᾽ ἐλθεῖν ἂν εἰς Πελοπόννησον μηδ᾽ εἰς Εὔβοιαν Φίλιππον
  μηδὲ Θηβαίους;

  [630] Diodor. xvi. 37, 38.

  [631] Demosthenes, Philippic i. p. 44. s. 20; De Coronâ, p. 236.
  s. 40; De Fals. Leg. p. 444. s. 366.

  [632] Demosthenes, De Fals. Leg. p. 367. s. 95.

  [633] Thucyd. vi. 31.

  [634] Justin, vii. 2. His rhetorical exaggerations ought not to
  make us reject the expression of this opinion against Athens, as
  a real fact.

But though Philip was thus kept out of Southern Greece, and the
Phokians enabled to reorganize themselves against Thebes, yet in
Thessaly and without the straits of Thermopylæ, Macedonian ascendency
was henceforward an uncontested fact. Before we follow his subsequent
proceedings, however, it will be convenient to turn to events both in
Phokis and in Peloponnesus.

In the depressed condition of the Phokians after the defeat of
Onomarchus, they obtained reinforcement not only from Athens, but
also from Sparta (one thousand men), and from the Peloponnesian
Achæans (two thousand men[635]). Phayllus, the successor (by some
called brother) of Onomarchus, put himself again in a condition
of defence. He had recourse a third time to that yet unexhausted
store—the Delphian treasures and valuables. He despoiled the temple
to a greater extent than Philomelus, and not less than Onomarchus;
incurring aggravated odium from the fact, that he could not now
supply himself without laying hands on offerings of conspicuous
magnificence and antiquity, which his two predecessors had spared.
It was thus that the splendid golden donatives of the Lydian king
Krœsus were now melted down and turned into money; one hundred and
seventeen bricks or ingots of gold, most of them weighing two talents
each; three hundred and sixty golden goblets, together with a female
statue three cubits high, and a lion, of the same metal—said to have
weighed in the aggregate thirty talents.[636] The abstraction of
such ornaments, striking and venerable in the eyes of the numerous
visitors of the temple, was doubtless deeply felt among the Grecian
public. And the indignation was aggravated by the fact that beautiful
youths or women, favorites of Onomarchus or Phayllus, received some
of the most precious gifts, and wore the most noted ornaments, which
had decorated the temple—even the necklaces of Helen and Eriphylê.
One woman, a flute-player named Bromias, not only received from
Phayllus a silver cup and a golden wreath (the former dedicated in
the temple by the Phokæans, the latter by the Peparethians), but was
also introduced by him, in his capacity of superintendent of the
Pythian festival, to contend for the prize in playing the sacred
Hymn. As the competitors for such prize had always been men, the
assembled crowd so loudly resented the novelty, that Bromias was
obliged to withdraw.[637] Moreover profuse largesses, and flagrant
malversation, became more notorious than ever.[638] The Phokian
leaders displayed with ostentation their newly-acquired wealth, and
either imported for the first time bought slaves, or at least greatly
multiplied the pre-existing number. It had before been the practice
in Phokis, we are told, for the wealthy men to be served by the poor
youthful freemen of the country; and complaints arose among the
latter class that their daily bread was thus taken away.[639]

  [635] Demosthenes (Fals. Leg. p. 443) affirms that no one else
  except Athens assisted or rescued the Phokians in this emergency.
  But Diodorus (xvi. 37) mentions succors from the other allies
  also; and there seems no ground for disbelieving him. The boast
  of Demosthenes, however, that Athens single-handed saved the
  Phokians, is not incorrect as to the main fact, though overstated
  in the expression. For the Athenians, commanding a naval force,
  and on this rare occasion rapid in their movements, reached
  Thermopylæ in time to arrest the progress of Philip, and before
  the Peloponnesian troops could arrive. The Athenian expedition to
  Thermopylæ seems to have occurred about May 352 B. C.—as far as
  we can make out the chronology of the time.

  [636] Diodor. xvi. 56. The account of these donatives of Krœsus
  may be read in Herodotus (i. 50, 51), who saw them at Delphi. As
  to the exact weight and number, there is some discrepancy between
  him and Diodorus; moreover the text of Herodotus himself is not
  free from obscurity.

  [637] Theopomp. Fragm. 182, 183; Phylarchus, Frag. 60, ed. Didot;
  Anaximenes and Ephorus ap. Athenæum, vi. p. 231, 232. The Pythian
  games here alluded to must have been those celebrated in August
  or September 350 B. C. It would seem therefore that Phayllus
  survived over that period.

  [638] Diodor. xvi. 56, 57. The story annexed about Iphikrates
  and the ships of Dionysius of Syracuse—a story which, at all
  events, comes quite out of its chronological place—appears to me
  not worthy of credit, in the manner in which Diodorus here gives
  it. The squadron of Dionysius, which Iphikrates captured on the
  coast of Korkyra, was coming to the aid and at the request of
  the Lacedæmonians, then at war with Athens (Xenoph. Hellen. vi.
  2, 33). It was therefore a fair capture for an Athenian general,
  together with all on board. If, amidst the cargo, there happened
  to be presents intended for Olympia and Delphi, these, as being
  on board of ships of war, would follow the fate of the other
  persons and things along with them. They would not be considered
  as the property of the god until they had been actually dedicated
  in his temple. Nor would the person sending them be entitled to
  invoke the privilege of a consecrated cargo unless he divested
  it of hostile accompaniment. The letter of complaint to the
  Athenians, which Diodorus gives as having been sent by Dionysius,
  seems to me neither genuine nor even plausible.

  [639] Timæus, Fragm. 67, ed. Didot; ap. Athenæum, vi. p. 264-272.

Notwithstanding the indignation excited by these proceedings not
only throughout Greece, but even in Phokis itself,—Phayllus carried
his point of levying a fresh army of mercenaries, and of purchasing
new alliances among the smaller cities. Both Athens and Sparta
profited more or less by the distribution; though the cost of the
Athenian expedition to Thermopylæ, which rescued the Phokians from
destruction, seems clearly to have been paid by the Athenians
themselves.[640] Phayllus carried on war for some time against both
the Bœotians and Lokrians. He is represented by Diodorus to have lost
several battles. But it is certain that the general result was not
unfavorable to him; that he kept possession of Orchomenus in Bœotia;
and that his power remained without substantial diminution.[641]

  [640] Diodor. xvi. 57: compare Demosthen. Fals. Leg. p. 367.

  [641] Diodor. xvi. 37, 38.

The stress of war seems, for the time, to have been transferred
to Peloponnesus, whither a portion both of the Phokian and Theban
troops went to coöperate. The Lacedæmonians had at length opened
their campaign against Megalopolis, of which I have already spoken
as having been debated before the Athenian public assembly. Their
plan seems to have been formed some months before, when Onomarchus
was at the maximum of his power, and when Thebes was supposed to be
in danger; but it was not executed until after his defeat and death,
when the Phokians, depressed for the time, were rescued only by the
prompt interference of Athens,—and when the Thebans had their hands
comparatively free. Moreover, the Theban division which had been sent
into Asia under Pammenes a year or two before, to assist Artabazus,
may now be presumed to have returned; especially as we know that no
very long time afterwards, Artabazus appears as completely defeated
by the Persian troops,—expelled from Asia, and constrained to take
refuge, together with his brother-in-law Memnon, under the protection
of Philip.[642] The Megalopolitans had sent envoys to entreat aid
from Athens, under the apprehension that Thebes would not be in a
condition to assist them. It may be doubted whether Athens would have
granted their prayer, in spite of the advice of Demosthenes,—but the
Thebans had now again become strong enough to uphold with their own
force their natural allies in Peloponnesus.

  [642] Diodor. xvi. 52.

Accordingly, when the Lacedæmonian army under king Archidamus invaded
the Megalopolitan territory, a competent force was soon brought
together to oppose them; furnished partly by the Argeians,—who had
been engaged during the preceding year in a border warfare with
Sparta, and had experienced a partial defeat at Orneæ,[643]—partly by
the Sikyonians and Messenians, who came in full muster. Besides this,
the forces on both sides from Bœotia and Phokis were transferred to
Peloponnesus. The Thebans sent four thousand foot, and five hundred
horse, under Kephision, to the aid of Megalopolis; while the Spartans
not only recalled their own troops from Phokis, but also procured
three thousand of the mercenaries in the service of Phayllus, and
one hundred and fifty Thessalian horse from Likophron, the expelled
despot of Pheræ. Archidamus received his reinforcements, and got
together his aggregate forces earlier than the enemy. He advanced
first into Arcadia, where he posted himself near Mantinea, thus
cutting off the Argeians from Megalopolis; he next invaded the
territory of Argos, attacked Orneæ, and defeated the Argeians in
a partial action. Presently the Thebans arrived, and effected a
junction with their Argeian and Arcadian allies. The united force was
greatly superior in number to the Lacedæmonians; but such superiority
was counterbalanced by the bad discipline of the Thebans, who had
sadly declined on this point during the interval of ten years since
the death of Epaminondas. A battle ensued, partially advantageous to
the Lacedæmonians; while the Argeians and Arcadians chose to go home
to their neighboring cities. The Lacedæmonians also, having ravaged
a portion of Arcadia, and stormed the Arcadian town of Helissus,
presently recrossed their own frontier and returned to Sparta. They
left, however, a division in Arcadia under Anaxander, who, engaging
with the Thebans near Telphusa, was worsted with great loss and made
prisoner. In two other battles, also, the Thebans were successively
victorious; in a third, they were vanquished by the Lacedæmonians.
With such balanced and undecided success was the war carried on
until, at length, the Lacedæmonians proposed and concluded peace
with Megalopolis. Either formally, or by implication, they were
forced to recognize the autonomy of that city; thus abandoning, for
the time at least, their aggressive purposes, which Demosthenes had
combated and sought to frustrate before the Athenian assembly. The
Thebans on their side returned home, having accomplished their object
of protecting Megalopolis and Messênê; and we may presume that the
Phokian allies of Sparta were sent home also.[644]

  [643] Diodor. xvi. 34.

  [644] Diodor. xvi. 39.

The war between the Bœotians and Phokians had doubtless slackened
during this episode in Peloponnesus; but it still went on in a series
of partial actions, on the river Kephissus, at Koroneia, at Abæ
in Phokis, and near the Lokrian town of Naryx. For the most part,
the Phokians are said to have been worsted; and their commander,
Phayllus, presently died of a painful disease,—the suitable
punishment (in the point of view of a Grecian historian[645]) for
his sacrilegious deeds. He left as his successor Phalækus, a young
man, son of Onomarchus, under the guardianship and advice of an
experienced friend named Mnaseas. But Mnaseas was soon surprised at
night, defeated, and slain, by the Thebans while Phalækus, left to
his own resources, was defeated in two battles near Chæroneia, and
was unable to hinder his enemies from ravaging a large part of the
Phokian territory.[646]

  [645] Diodor. xvi. 38.

  [646] Diodor. xvi. 38, 39.

We know the successive incidents of this ten years’ Sacred War
only from the meagre annals of Diodorus,—whose warm sympathy in
favor of the religious side of the question seems to betray him
into exaggeration of the victories of the Thebans, or at least
into some omission of counterbalancing reverses. For in spite of
these successive victories, the Phokians were noway put down, but
remained in possession of the Bœotian town of Orchomenus; moreover,
the Thebans became so tired out and impoverished by the war, that
they confined themselves presently to desultory incursions and
skirmishes.[647] Their losses fell wholly upon their own citizens and
their own funds; while the Phokians fought with foreign mercenaries
and with the treasures of the temple.[648] The increasing poverty of
the Thebans even induced them to send an embassy to the Persian king,
entreating pecuniary aid; which drew from him a present of three
hundred talents. As he was at this time organizing a fresh expedition
on an immense scale, for the reconquest of Phenicia and Egypt, after
more than one preceding failure, he required Grecian soldiers as much
as the Greeks required his money. Hence we shall see presently that
the Thebans were able to send him an equivalent.

  [647] Diodor. xvi. 40. ἐπὶ δὲ τούτων, Θηβαῖοι κάμνοντες τῷ πρὸς
  Φωκεῖς πολέμῳ, καὶ χρημάτων ἀπορούμενοι, πρέσβεις ἐξέπεμψαν πρὸς
  τὸν τῶν Περσῶν βασιλέα.... Τοῖς δὲ Βοιωτοῖς καὶ τοῖς Φωκεῦσιν
  ἀκροβολισμοὶ μὲν καὶ χώρας καταδρομαὶ συνέστησαν, πράξεις δὲ κατὰ
  τοῦτον τὸν ἐνιαυτὸν (351-350 B. C.—according to the chronology of
  Diodorus) οὐ συνετελέσθησαν.

  [648] Isokrates, Orat. v. (ad Philipp.) s. 61.

In the war just recounted on the Laconian and Arcadian frontier,
the Athenians had taken no part. Their struggle with Philip had
been becoming from month to month more serious and embarrassing. By
occupying in time the defensible pass of Thermopylæ, they had indeed
prevented him both from crushing the Phokians and from meddling with
the Southern states of Greece. But the final battle wherein he had
defeated Onomarchus, had materially increased both his power and his
military reputation. The numbers on both sides were very great; the
result was decisive, and ruinous to the vanquished; moreover, we
cannot doubt that the Macedonian phalanx, with the other military
improvements and manœuvres which Philip had been gradually organizing
since his accession, was now exhibited in formidable efficiency.
The King of Macedon had become the ascendent soldier and potentate,
hanging on the skirts of the Grecian world, exciting fears or hopes,
or both at once, in every city throughout its limits. In the first
Philippic of Demosthenes, and in his oration against Aristokrates,
(delivered between midsummer 352 B. C. and midsummer 351 B. C.),
we discern evident marks of the terrors which Philip had come
to inspire, within a year after his repulse from Thermopylæ, to
reflecting Grecian politicians. “It is impossible for Athens (says
the orator[649]) to provide any land-force competent to contend in
the field against that of Philip.”

  [649] Demosthenes, Philippic i. p. 46. s. 26. (352-351 B. C.)

  Compare Philippic iii. p. 124. s. 63.

The reputation of his generalship and his indefatigable activity
was already everywhere felt; as well as that of the officers and
soldiers, partly native Macedonians, partly chosen Greeks, whom he
had assembled round him,[650]—especially the lochages or front-rank
men of the phalanx and the hypaspistæ. Moreover, the excellent
cavalry of Thessaly became embodied from henceforward as an element
in the Macedonian army; since Philip had acquired unbounded
ascendency in that country, from his expulsion of the Pheræan despots
and their auxiliaries the Phokians. The philo-Macedonian party in
the Thessalian cities had constituted him federal chief (or in some
sort Tagus) of the country, not only enrolling their cavalry in his
armies, but also placing at his disposal the customs and market-dues,
which formed a standing common fund for supporting the Thessalian
collective administration.[651] The financial means of Philip, for
payment of his foreign troops, and prosecution of his military
enterprises, were thus materially increased.

  [650] Demosthenes, Olynth. ii. p. 23. s. 17. (delivered in 350 B.
  C.) ... Οἱ δὲ δὴ περὶ αὐτὸν ὄντες ξένοι καὶ πεζέταιροι δόξαν μὲν
  καὶ ἔχουσιν ὡς εἰσὶ θαυμαστοὶ καὶ συγκεκροτημένοι τὰ τοῦ πολέμου,
  etc.

  [651] Demosthenes cont. Aristokrat. p. 657. s. 133 (352-351
  B. C.); also Demosthen. Olynth. i. p. 15. s. 23. (349 B. C.)
  ἤκουον δ᾽ ἔγωγέ τινων ὡς ~οὐδὲ~ τοὺς λιμένας καὶ τὰς ἀγορὰς
  ~ἔτι δώσοιεν~ αὐτῷ καρποῦσθαι· τὰ γὰρ κοινὰ τὰ Θετταλῶν ἀπὸ
  τούτων δέοι διοικεῖν, οὐ Φίλιππον λαμβάνειν· εἰ δὲ τούτων
  ἀποστερηθήσεται τῶν χρημάτων, εἰς στενὸν κομιδῇ τὰ τῆς τροφῆς
  τοῖς ξένοις αὐτῷ καταστήσεται.

But besides his irresistible land-force, Philip had now become master
of no inconsiderable naval power also. During the early years of
the war, though he had taken not only Amphipolis, but also all the
Athenian possessions on the Macedonian coast, yet the exports from
his territory had been interrupted by the naval force of Athens, so
as to lessen seriously the produce of his export duties.[652] But
he had now contrived to get together a sufficient number of armed
ships and privateers, if not to ward off such damage from himself,
at least to retaliate it upon Athens. Her navy, indeed, was still
incomparably superior, but the languor and remissness of her citizens
refused to bring it out with efficiency; while Philip had opened for
himself a new avenue to maritime power by his acquisition of Pheræ
and Pagasæ, and by establishing his ascendency over the Magnêtes
and their territory, round the eastern border of the Pagasæan Gulf.
That gulf (now known by the name of Volo), is still the great inlet
and outlet for Thessalian trade; the eastern coast of Thessaly,
along the line of Mount Pelion, being craggy and harborless.[653]
The naval force belonging to Pheræ and its seaport Pagasæ, was very
considerable, and had been so even from the times of the despots,
Jason and Alexander;[654] at one moment painfully felt even by
Athens. All these ships now passed into the service of Philip,
together with the dues on export and import levied round the Pagasæan
Gulf; the command of which he farther secured by erecting suitable
fortifications on the Magnesian shore, and by placing a garrison in
Pagasæ.[655] Such additional naval means, combined with what he
already possessed at Amphipolis and elsewhere, made him speedily
annoying, if not formidable, to Athens, even at sea. His triremes
showed themselves everywhere, probably in small and rapidly moving
squadrons. He levied large contributions on the insular allies of
Athens, and paid the costs of war greatly out of the capture of
merchant vessels in the Ægean. His squadrons made incursions on the
Athenian islands of Lemnos and Imbros, carrying off several Athenian
citizens as prisoners. They even stretched southward as far as
Geræstus, the southern promontory of Eubœa, where they not only fell
in with and captured a lucrative squadron of corn-ships, but also
insulted the coast of Attica itself in the opposite bay of Marathon,
towing off as a prize one of the sacred triremes.[656] Such was the
mischief successfully inflicted by the flying squadrons of Philip,
though Athens had probably a considerable number of cruisers at sea,
and certainly a far superior number of ships at home in Peiræus. Her
commerce, and even her coasts, were disturbed and endangered; her
insular allies suffered yet more. Eubœa especially, the nearest and
most important of all her allies, separated only by a narrow strait
from the Pagasæan Gulf and the southern coast of Phthiotis, was now
within the immediate reach not only of Philip’s marauding vessels,
but also of his political intrigues.

  [652] Demosthenes cont. Aristokrat. p. 657. s. 131-133 (352-351
  B. C.); compare Isokrates, Orat. v. (ad Philipp. s. 5.)

  [653] Xenoph. Hellen. v. 4, 56; Hermippus ap. Athenæum, i. p.
  27. About the lucrative commerce in the Gulf, in reference to
  Demetrias and Thebæ Phthiotides, see Livy, xxxix. 25.

  [654] Demosthenes cont. Polykl. p. 1207; De Coronâ Trierarchicâ,
  p. 1230; Diodor. xv. 95; Xenoph. Hellen. vi. 1, 11.

  [655] Demosthenes, Olynth. i. p. 15. s. 23. Καὶ γὰρ Παγασὰς
  ἀπαιτεῖν αὐτόν εἰσιν ἐψηφισμένοι (the Thessalians re-demand
  the place from Philip), καὶ Μαγνησίαν κεκωλύκασι τειχίζειν. In
  Olynth. ii. p. 21. s. 11. it stands—καὶ γὰρ νῦν εἰσὶν ἐψηφισμένοι
  Παγασὰς ἀπαιτεῖν, καὶ περὶ Μαγνησίας λόγους ποιεῖσθαι. I take the
  latter expression to state the fact with more strict precision;
  the Thessalians passed a vote to _remonstrate_ with Philip; it
  is not probable that they _actually hindered him_. And if he
  afterwards “gave to them Magnesia,” as we are told in a later
  oration delivered 344 B. C. (Philippic ii. p. 71. s. 24), he
  probably gave it with reserve of the fortified posts to himself;
  since we know that his ascendency over Thessaly was not only not
  relaxed, but became more violent and compressive.

  The value which the Macedonian kings always continued to
  set, from this time forward, upon Magnesia and the recess of
  the Pagasæan Gulf, is shown in the foundation of the city of
  Demetrias in that important position, by Demetrius Poliorketes,
  about sixty years afterwards. Demetrias, Chalkis, and Corinth
  came to be considered the most commanding positions in Greece.

  This fine bay, with the fertile territory lying on its shores
  under Mount Pelion, are well described by colonel Leake, Travels
  in Northern Greece, vol. iv. ch. 41. p. 373 _seqq._ I doubt
  whether either Ulpian (ad Demosthen. Olynth. i. p. 24) or colonel
  Leake (p. 381) are borne out in supposing that there was any
  _town_ called _Magnesia_ on the shores of the Gulf. None such is
  mentioned either by Strabo or by Skylax; and I apprehend that the
  passages above cited from Demosthenes mean _Magnesia the region_
  inhabited by the Magnetes; as in Demosthenes cont. Neæram. p.
  1382. s. 141.

  [656] Demosthenes, Philippic i. p. 46. s. 25. δεῖ γὰρ, ἔχοντος
  ἐκείνου ναυτικὸν, καὶ ταχειῶν τριηρῶν ἡμῖν, ὅπως ἀσφαλῶς ἡ
  δύναμις πλέῃ.—p. 49. s. 38. Πρῶτον μὲν, τὸν μέγιστον τῶν ἐκείνου
  πόρων ἀφαιρήσεσθε· ἔστι δ᾽ οὗτος τίς; ἀπὸ τῶν ὑμετέρων ὑμῖν
  πολεμεῖ συμμάχων, ἄγων καὶ φέρων τοὺς πλέοντας τὴν θάλασσαν.
  Ἔπειτα, τί πρὸς τούτῳ; τοῦ πάσχειν αὐτοὶ κακῶς ἔξω γενήσεσθε,
  οὐχ ὥσπερ τὸν παρελθόντα χρόνον εἰς Λῆμνον καὶ Ἴμβρον ἐμβαλὼν
  αἰχμαλώτους πολίτας ὑμετέρους ᾤχετ᾽ ἄγων, πρὸς τῷ Γεραιστῷ τὰ
  πλοῖα συλλαβὼν ἀμύθητα χρήματ᾽ ἐξέλεξε, τὰ τελευταῖα εἰς Μαραθῶνα
  ἀπέβη, καὶ τὴν ἱερὰν ἀπὸ τῆς χώρας ᾤχετ᾽ ἔχων τριήρη, etc.

  We can hardly be certain that the Sacred Trireme thus taken was
  either the Paralus or the Salaminia; there may have been other
  sacred triremes besides these two.

It was thus that the war against Philip turned more and more to the
disgrace and disadvantage of the Athenians. Though they had begun
it in the hope of punishing him for his duplicity in appropriating
Amphipolis, they had been themselves the losers by the capture
of Pydna, Potidæa, Methônê, etc.; and they were now thrown upon
the defensive, without security for their maritime allies, their
commerce, or their coasts.[657] The intelligence of these various
losses and insults endured at sea, in spite of indisputable maritime
preponderance, called forth at Athens acrimonious complaints
against the generals of the state, and exaggerated outbursts of
enmity against Philip.[658] That prince, having spent a few months,
after his repulse from Thermopylæ, in Thessaly, and having so
far established his ascendency over that country that he could
leave the completion of the task to his officers, pushed with his
characteristic activity into Thrace. He there took part in the
disputes between various native princes, expelling some, confirming
or installing others, and extending his own dominion at the cost
of all.[659] Among these princes were probably Kersobleptes, and
Amadokus; for Philip carried his aggressions to the immediate
neighborhood of the Thracian Chersonese.

  [657] Demosthenes, Philippic i. p. 52. s. 49. ὁρῶν τὴν μὲν ἀρχὴν
  τοῦ πολέμου γεγενημένην ὑπὲρ τοῦ τιμωρήσασθαι Φίλιππον, τὴν
  δὲ τελευτὴν οὖσαν ἤδη ὑπὲρ τοῦ μὴ παθεῖν κακῶς ὑπὸ Φιλίππου.
  (Between Midsummer 352 and Midsummer 351 B. C.)

  [658] Demosthenes cont. Aristokrat. p. 660. s. 144. p. 656. s.
  130. Ἀλλ᾽ ὁ μάλιστα δοκῶν νῦν ἡμῖν ἐχθρὸς εἶναι Φίλιππος οὑτοσί,
  etc. (this harangue also between Midsummer 352 and Midsummer 351
  B. C.)

  [659] Demosthenes, Olynth. i. p. 13. s. 13.

In November, 352 B. C., intelligence reached Athens, that he
was in Thrace besieging Heræon Teichos; a place so near to the
Chersonese,[660] that the Athenian possessions and colonists in
that peninsula were threatened with considerable danger. So great
was the alarm and excitement caused by this news, that a vote was
immediately passed in the public assembly to equip a fleet of forty
triremes,—to man it with Athenian citizens, all persons up to the age
of forty-five being made liable to serve on the expedition,—and to
raise sixty talents by a direct property tax. At first active steps
were taken to accelerate the armament. But before the difficulties
of detail could be surmounted,—before it could be determined,
amidst the general aversion to personal service, what citizens
should go abroad, and how the burthen of trierarchy should be
distributed,—fresh messengers arrived from the Chersonese, reporting
first that Philip had fallen sick, next that he was actually
dead.[661] The last-mentioned report proved false; but the sickness
of Philip was an actual fact, and seems to have been severe enough
to cause a temporary suspension of his military operations. Though
the opportunity became thus only the more favorable for attacking
Philip, yet the Athenians, no longer spurred on by the fear of
farther immediate danger, relapsed into their former languor, and
renounced or postponed their intended armament. After passing the
whole ensuing summer in inaction, they could only be prevailed upon,
in the month of September 351, to despatch to Thrace a feeble force
under the mercenary chief Charidemus; ten triremes, without any
soldiers aboard, and with no more than five talents in money.[662]

  [660] Demosthenes, Olynth. iii. p. 29. s. 5 (delivered in the
  latter half of 350 B. C.)

  ... ἀπηγγέλθη Φίλιππος ὑμῖν ἐν Θρᾴκῃ, τρίτον ἢ τέταρτον
  ἔτος τουτὶ, Ἡραῖον τεῖχος πολιορκῶν, τότε τοίνυν μὴν μὲν ἦν
  Μαιμακτηριὼν, etc.

  This Thracian expedition of Philip (alluded to also in
  Demosthenes, Olynth. i. p. 13. s. 13) stands fixed to the date of
  November 352 B. C., on reasonably good grounds.

  That the town or fortress called Ἡραῖον Τεῖχος was near to the
  Chersonese, cannot be doubted. The commentators identify it with
  Ἡραῖον, mentioned by Herodotus (iv. 90) as being near Perinthus.
  But this hypothesis is open to much doubt. Ἡραῖον Τεῖχος is not
  quite the same as Ἡραῖον; nor was the latter place very near to
  the Chersonese; nor would Philip be yet in a condition to provoke
  or menace so powerful a city as Perinthus—though he did so ten
  years afterwards. (Diodor. xvi. 74).

  I cannot think that we know where Ἡραῖον Τεῖχος was situated;
  except that it was in Thrace, and near the Chersonese.

  [661] Demosthenes, Olynth. iii. p. 29, 30. ὡς γὰρ ἠγγέλθη
  Φίλιππος ἀσθενῶν ἢ τεθνεὼς (ἦλθε γὰρ ἀμφότερα), etc. These
  reports of the sickness and death of Philip in Thrace are alluded
  to in the first Philippic, p. 43. s. 14. The expedition of Philip
  threatening the Chersonese, and the vote passed by the Athenians
  when they first heard of this expedition, are also alluded to in
  the first Philippic, p. 44. s. 20. p. 51. s. 46. καὶ ὑμεῖς, ἂν
  ἐν Χεῤῥονήσῳ πύθησθε Φίλιππον, ἐκεῖσε βοηθεῖν ψηφίζεσθε, etc.
  When Philip was besieging Ἡραῖον Τεῖχος, he was said to be ἐν
  Χεῤῥονήσῳ.

  [662] Demosthenes, Olynth. iii. p. 30. s. 6.

At this time Charidemus was at the height of his popularity. It was
supposed that he could raise and maintain a mercenary band by his
own ingenuity and valor. His friends confidently averred, before
the Athenian assembly, that he was the only man capable of putting
down Philip, and conquering Amphipolis.[663] One of these partisans,
Aristokrates, even went so far as to propose that a vote should be
passed ensuring inviolability to his person, and enacting that any
one who killed him should be seized wherever found in the territory
of Athens or her allies. This proposition was attacked judicially by
an accuser named Euthykles, who borrowed a memorable discourse from
the pen of Demosthenes.

  [663] Demosthenes cont. Aristokrat. p. 625. s. 14. p. 682, 683.
  This oration, delivered between Midsummer 352 and Midsummer 351
  B. C., seems to have been prior to November 352 B. C., when the
  news reached Athens that Philip was besieging Ἡραῖον Τεῖχος.

It was thus that the real sickness, and reported death, of Philip
which ought to have operated as a stimulus to the Athenians by
exposing to them their enemy during a moment of peculiar weakness,
proved rather an opiate exaggerating their chronic lethargy, and
cheating them into a belief that no farther efforts were needed. That
belief appears to have been proclaimed by the leading, best-known,
and senior speakers, those who gave the tone to the public assembly,
and who were principally relied upon for advice. These men,—probably
Eubulus at their head, and Phokion, so constantly named as general,
along with him,—either did not feel, or could not bring themselves
to proclaim, the painful necessity of personal military service and
increased taxation. Though repeated debates took place on the insults
offered to Athens in her maritime dignity, and on the sufferings of
those allies to whom she owed protection,—combined with accusations
against the generals, and complaints of the inefficiency of such
mercenary foreigners as Athens took into commission but never
paid,—still, the recognized public advisers shrank from appeal
to the dormant patriotism or personal endurance of the citizens.
The serious, but indispensable, duty which they thus omitted, was
performed for them by a younger competitor, far beneath them in
established footing and influence,—Demosthenes, now about thirty
years old,—in an harangue, known as the first Philippic.

We have already had before us this aspiring man, as a public adviser
in the assembly. In his first parliamentary harangue two years
before,[664] he had begun to inculcate on his countrymen the general
lesson of energy and self-reliance, and to remind them of that
which the comfort, activity, and peaceful refinement of Athenian
life, had a constant tendency to put out of sight:—That the City,
as a whole, could not maintain her security and dignity against
enemies, unless each citizen individually, besides his home-duties,
were prepared to take his fair share, readily and without evasion,
of the hardship and cost of personal service abroad.[665] But he
had then been called upon to deal (in his discourse De Symmoriis)
only with the contingency of Persian hostilities—possible indeed,
yet neither near nor declared; he now renews the same exhortation
under more pressing exigencies. He has to protect interests already
suffering, and to repel dishonorable insults, becoming from month
to month more frequent, from an indefatigable enemy. Successive
assemblies have been occupied with complaints from sufferers, amidst
a sentiment of unwonted chagrin and helplessness among the public—yet
with no material comfort from the leading and established speakers;
who content themselves with inveighing against the negligence of
the mercenaries—taken into service by Athens but never paid—and
with threatening to impeach the generals. The assembly, wearied by
repetition of topics promising no improvement for the future, is
convoked, probably to hear some farther instance of damage committed
by the Macedonian cruisers, when Demosthenes, breaking through the
common formalities of precedence, rises first to address them.

  [664] I adopt the date accepted by most critics, on the authority
  of Dionysius of Halikarnassus, to the first Philippic; the
  archonship of Aristodemus 352-351 B. C. It belongs, I think, to
  the latter half of that year.

  The statements of Dionysius bearing on this oration have been
  much called in question; to a certain extent, with good reason,
  in what he states about the _sixth Philippic_ (ad Ammæum, p.
  736). What he calls the _sixth_, is in reality the _fifth_ in his
  own enumeration, coming next after the first Philippic and the
  three Olynthiacs. To the Oratio De Pace, which is properly the
  sixth in his enumeration, he assigns no ordinal number whatever.
  What is still more perplexing—he gives as the initial words of
  what he calls the _sixth_ Philippic, certain words which occur
  in the middle of the first Philippic, immediately after the
  financial scheme read by Demosthenes to the people, the words,
  Ἃ μὲν ἡμεῖς, ὦ ἄνδρες Ἀθηναῖοι, δεδυνήμεθα εὑρεῖν ταῦτ᾽ ἐστίν
  (Philipp. i. p. 48). If this were correct, we should have to
  divide the first Philippic into two parts, and recognize the
  latter part (after the words ἃ μὲν ἡμεῖς) as a separate and later
  oration. Some critics, among them Dr. Thirlwall, agree so far
  with Dionysius as to separate the latter part from the former,
  and to view it as a portion of some later oration. I follow the
  more common opinion, accepting the oration as one. There is a
  confusion, either in the text or the affirmations, of Dionysius,
  which has never yet been, perhaps cannot be, satisfactorily
  cleared up.

  Böhnecke (in his Forschungen auf dem Gebiete der Attischen
  Redner, p. 222 seq.) has gone into a full and elaborate
  examination of the first Philippic and all the controversy
  respecting it. He rejects the statement of Dionysius altogether.
  He considers that the oration as it stands now is one whole,
  but delivered three years later than Dionysius asserts: not
  in 351 B. C., but in the Spring of 348 B. C., after the three
  Olynthiacs, and a little before the fall of Olynthus. He notices
  various chronological points (in my judgment none of them proving
  his point) tending to show that the harangue cannot have been
  delivered so early as 351 B. C. But I think the difficulty of
  supposing that the oration was spoken at so late a period of the
  Olynthian war, and yet that nothing is said in it about that war,
  and next to nothing about Olynthus itself—is greater than any of
  those difficulties which Böhnecke tries to make good against the
  earlier date.

  [665] Demosthenes, De Symmor. p. 182. s. 18.

It had once been the practice at Athens, that the herald formally
proclaimed, when a public assembly was opened—“Who among the citizens
above fifty years old wishes to speak? and after them, which of
the other citizens in his turn?”[666] Though this old proclamation
had fallen into disuse, the habit still remained, that speakers of
advanced age and experience rose first after the debate had been
opened by the presiding magistrates. But the relations of Athens with
Philip had been so often discussed, that all these men had already
delivered their sentiments and exhausted their recommendations. “Had
their recommendations been good, you need not have been now debating
the same topic over again”[667]—says Demosthenes, as an apology for
standing forward out of his turn to produce his own views.

  [666] Æschines cont. Ktesiphont. p. 366.

  [667] Demosthen. Philipp. i. init. ... Εἰ μὲν περὶ καινοῦ τινὸς
  πράγματος προὐτίθετο λέγειν, ἐπισχὼν ἂν ἕως ~οἱ πλεῖστοι τῶν
  εἰωθότων~ γνώμην ἀπεφῄναντο ... ἐπειδὴ δὲ περὶ ὧν πολλάκις
  εἰρήκασιν οὗτοι πρότερον συμβαίνει καὶ νυνὶ σκοπεῖν, ~ἡγοῦμαι καὶ
  πρῶτος ἀναστὰς~ εἰκότως ἂν συγγνώμης τυγχάνειν· εἰ γὰρ ἐκ τοῦ
  παρεληλυθότος χρόνου τὰ δέοντα οὗτοι συνεβούλευσαν, οὐδὲν ἂν ὑμᾶς
  νῦν ἔδει βουλεύεσθαι.

His views indeed were so new, so independent of party-sympathies
or antipathies, and so plain-spoken in comments on the past as
well as in demands for the future—that they would hardly have been
proposed except by a speaker instinct with the ideal of the Periklean
foretime, familiar to him from his study of Thucydides. In explicit
language, Demosthenes throws the blame of the public misfortunes,
not simply on the past advisers and generals of the people, but
also on the people themselves.[668] It is from this proclaimed fact
that he starts, as his main ground of hope for future improvement.
Athens contended formerly with honor against the Lacedæmonians; and
now also, she will exchange disgrace for victory in her war against
Philip, if her citizens individually will shake off their past
inertness and negligence, each of them henceforward becoming ready
to undertake his full share of personal duty in the common cause.
Athens had undergone enough humiliation, and more than enough, to
teach her this lesson. She might learn it farther from her enemy
Philip himself, who had raised himself from small beginnings, and
heaped losses as well as shame upon her, mainly by his own personal
energy, perseverance, and ability; while the Athenian citizens had
been hitherto so backward as individuals, and so unprepared as a
public, that even if a lucky turn of fortune were to hand over to
them Amphipolis, they would be in no condition to seize it.[669]
Should the rumor prove true, that this Philip were dead, they would
soon make for themselves another Philip equally troublesome.

  [668] Demosthenes, Philippic i. p. 40, 41. Ὅτι ~οὐδὲν τῶν δεόντων
  ποιούντων~ ὑμῶν κακῶς τὰ πράγματα ἔχει· ἐπεί τοι, εἰ πάνθ᾽ ἃ
  προσῆκε πραττόντων οὕτως εἶχεν, οὐδ᾽ ἂν ἐλπὶς ἦν αὐτὰ βελτίω
  γενέσθαι, etc. Again, p. 42. Ἂν τοίνυν καὶ ὑμεῖς ἐπὶ τῆς τοιαύτης
  ἐθελήσητε γενέσθαι γνώμης νῦν, ~ἐπειδήπερ οὐ πρότερον~, ... καὶ
  παύσησθε αὐτὸς μὲν οὐδὲν ἕκαστος ποιήσειν ἐλπίζων, τὸν δὲ πλησίον
  πάνθ᾽ ὑπὲρ αὐτοῦ πράξειν, etc.

  Compare the previous harangue, De Symmoriis, p. 182. s. 18.

  [669] Demosthenes, Philippic i. p. 43. s. 15. ὡς δὲ νῦν ἔχετε,
  οὐδὲ διδόντων τῶν καιρῶν Ἀμφίπολιν δέξασθαι δύναισθ᾽ ἄν,
  ἀπηρτημένοι καὶ ταῖς παρασκευαῖς καὶ ταῖς γνώμαις.

After thus severely commenting on the past apathy of the citizens,
and insisting upon a change of disposition as indispensable,
Demosthenes proceeds to specify the particular acts whereby such
change ought to be manifested. He entreats them not to be startled by
the novelty of his plan, but to hear him patiently to the end. It is
the result of his own meditations; other citizens may have better to
propose; if they have, he shall not be found to stand in their way.
What is past, cannot be helped; nor is extemporaneous speech the best
way of providing remedies for a difficult future.[670]

  [670] Demosthenes, Philip. i. p. 44. ... ἐπειδὰν ἅπαντα ἀκούσητε,
  κρίνατε—μὴ πρότερον προλαμβάνετε· μηδ᾽ ἂν ἐξ ἀρχῆς ~δοκῶ τινὶ
  καινὴν παρασκευὴν~ λέγειν, ἀναβάλλειν με τὰ πράγματα ἡγείσθω· οὐ
  γὰρ οἱ ταχὺ καὶ τήμερον εἰπόντες μάλιστα εἰς δέον λέγουσιν, etc.

  ... Οἶμαι τοίνυν ἐγὼ ταῦτα λέγειν ἔχειν, μὴ κωλύων εἴ τις ἄλλος
  ἐπαγγέλλεταί τι.

  This deprecatory tone deserves notice, and the difficulty which
  the speaker anticipates in obtaining a hearing.

He advises first, that a fleet of fifty triremes shall be immediately
put in readiness; that the citizens shall firmly resolve to serve in
person on board, whenever the occasion may require, and that triremes
and other vessels shall be specially fitted out for half of the
horsemen of the city, who shall serve personally also. This force is
to be kept ready to sail at a moment’s notice, and to meet Philip
in any of his sudden out-marches—to Chersonesus, to Thermopylæ, to
Olynthus, etc.[671]

  [671] Demosthenes, Philipp. i. p. 44, 45.

Secondly, that a farther permanent force shall be set on foot
immediately, to take the aggressive, and carry on active continuous
warfare against Philip, by harassing him in various points of his
own country. Two thousand infantry, and two hundred horse, will be
sufficient; but it is essential that one-fourth part—five hundred
of the former and fifty of the latter—shall be citizens of Athens.
The remainder are to be foreign mercenaries; ten swift sailing war
triremes are also to be provided to protect the transports against
the naval force of Philip. The citizens are to serve by relays,
relieving each other; every one for a time fixed beforehand, yet none
for a very long time.[672] The orator then proceeds to calculate
the cost of such a standing force for one year. He assigns to each
seaman, and to each foot soldier, ten drachmæ per month, or two
oboli per day; to each horseman, thirty drachmæ per month, or one
drachma (six oboli) per day. No difference is made between the
Athenian citizen and the foreigner. The sum here assigned is not
full pay, but simply the cost of each man’s maintenance. At the same
time, Demosthenes pledges himself, that if thus much be furnished
by the state, the remainder of a full pay (or as much again) will
be made up by what the soldiers will themselves acquire in the war;
and that too, without wrong done to allies or neutral Greeks. The
total annual cost thus incurred will be ninety-two talents (= about
£22,000.) He does not give any estimate of the probable cost of his
other armament, of fifty triremes; which are to be equipped and ready
at a moment’s notice for emergencies, but not sent out on permanent
service.

  [672] Demosthenes, Philipp. i. p. 45, 46.

His next task is, to provide ways and means for meeting such
additional cost of ninety-two talents. Here he produces and reads
to the assembly, a special financial scheme, drawn up in writing.
Not being actually embodied in the speech, the scheme has been
unfortunately lost; though its contents would help us materially to
appreciate the views of Demosthenes.[673] It must have been more or
less complicated in its details; not a simple proposition for an
_eisphora_ or property-tax, which would have been announced in a
sentence of the orator’s speech.

  [673] Demosthen. Philipp. i. p. 48, 49. Ἃ δ᾽ ὑπάρξαι δεῖ παρ᾽
  ὑμῶν, ταῦτ᾽ ἐστὶν ἁγὼ γέγραφα.

Assuming the money, the ships, and the armament for permanent
service, to be provided, Demosthenes proposes that a formal law be
passed, making such permanent service peremptory; the general in
command being held responsible for the efficient employment of the
force.[674] The islands, the maritime allies, and the commerce of the
Ægean would then become secure; while the profits of Philip from his
captures at sea would be arrested.[675] The quarters of the armament
might be established, during winter or bad weather, in Skiathos,
Thasos, Lemnos, or other adjoining islands, from whence they could
act at all times against Philip on his own coast; while from Athens
it was difficult to arrive thither either during the prevalence of
the Etesian winds or during winter—the seasons usually selected by
Philip for his aggressions.[676]

  [674] Demosthen. Philipp. i. p. 49. s. 37.

  [675] Demosthen. Philipp. i. p. 49. s. 38, 39.

  [676] Demosthenes, Philipp. i. p. 48, 49. “The obstinacy and
  violence of the Etesian winds, in July and August, are well known
  to those who have had to struggle with them in the Ægean during
  that season” (Colonel Leake, Travels in Northern Greece, vol. iv.
  ch. 42. p. 426).

  The Etesian winds, blowing from the north, made it difficult to
  reach Macedonia from Athens.

  Compare Demosthenes, De Rebus Chersonesi, p. 93. s. 14.

The aggregate means of Athens (Demosthenes affirmed) in men,
money, ships, hoplites, horsemen, were greater than could be found
anywhere else. But hitherto they had never been properly employed.
The Athenians, like awkward pugilists, waited for Philip to strike,
and then put up their hand to follow his blow. They never sought to
look him in the face—nor to be ready with a good defensive system
beforehand—nor to anticipate him in offensive operations.[677] While
their religious festivals, the Panathenaic, Dionysiac, and others,
were not only celebrated with costly splendor, but prearranged with
the most careful pains, so that nothing was ever wanting in detail
at the moment of execution—their military force was left without
organization or predetermined system. Whenever any new encroachment
of Philip was made known, nothing was found ready to meet it; fresh
decrees were to be voted, modified, and put in execution, for each
special occasion; the time for action was wasted in preparation,
and before a force could be placed on shipboard, the moment for
execution had passed.[678] This practice of waiting for Philip to
act offensively, and then sending aid to the point attacked, was
ruinous; the war must be carried on by a standing force put in motion
beforehand.[679]

  [677] Demosthen. Philipp. i. p. 51. s. 46. ... ὑμεῖς δὲ, πλείστην
  δύναμιν ἁπάντων ἔχοντες, τριηρεῖς, ὁπλίτας, ἱππέας, χρημάτων
  πρόσοδον, τούτων μὲν μέχρι τῆς τήμερον ἡμέρας οὐδενὶ πώποτε εἰς
  δέον τι κέχρησθε.

  [678] Demosthen. Philipp. i. p. 50. ἐν δὲ τοῖς περὶ τοῦ πολέμου
  ἄτακτα, ἀδιόρθωτα, ἀόριστα, ἅπαντα. Τοιγαροῦν ἅμα ἀκηκόαμέν τι
  καὶ τριηράρχους καθίσταμεν, καὶ τούτοις ἀντιδόσεις ποιούμεθα καὶ
  περὶ χρημάτων πόρου σκοποῦμεν, etc.

  [679] Demosthen. Philipp. i. p. 48, 49. δεῖ—μὴ βοηθείαις πολεμεῖν
  (ὑστεριοῦμεν γὰρ ἁπάντων) ἀλλὰ παρασκευῇ συνεχεῖ καὶ δυνάμει.

  Compare his Oration De Rebus Chersonesi, p. 92. s. 11.

To provide and pay such a standing force, is one of the main points
in the project of Demosthenes. The absolute necessity that it shall
consist, in large proportion at least, of citizens, is another. To
this latter point he reverts again and again, insisting that the
foreign mercenaries—sent out to make their pay where or how they
could, and unaccompanied by Athenian citizens—were at best useless
and untrustworthy. They did more mischief to friends and allies,
who were terrified at the very tidings of their approach—than to
the enemy.[680] The general, unprovided with funds to pay them, was
compelled to follow them wheresoever they chose to go, disregarding
his orders received from the city. To try him afterwards for that
which he could not help, was unprofitable disgrace. But if the
troops were regularly paid; if, besides, a considerable proportion
of them were Athenian citizens, themselves interested in success,
and inspectors of all that was done; then the general would be
found willing and able to attack the enemy with vigor—and might be
held to a rigorous accountability, if he did not. Such was the only
way in which the formidable and ever-growing force of their enemy
Philip could be successfully combated. As matters now stood, the
inefficiency of Athenian operations was so ridiculous, that men might
be tempted to doubt whether Athens was really in earnest. Her chief
military officers—her ten generals, ten taxiarchs, ten phylarchs,
and two hipparchs, annually chosen—were busied only in the affairs
of the city and in the showy religious processions. They left the
real business of war to a foreign general named Menelaus.[681] Such a
system was disgraceful. The honor of Athens ought to be maintained by
her own citizens, both as generals and as soldiers.

  [680] Demosthenes, Philippic i. p. 46. s. 28. ἐξ οὗ δ᾽ αὐτὰ
  καθ᾽ αὑτὰ τὰ ξενικὰ ὑμῖν στρατεύεται, τοὺς φίλους νικᾷ καὶ
  τοὺς συμμάχους, οἱ δ᾽ ἐχθροὶ μείζους τοῦ δέοντος γεγόνασι· καὶ
  παρακύψαντα ἐπὶ τὸν τῆς πόλεως πόλεμον, πρὸς Ἀρτάβαζον καὶ
  πανταχοῖ μᾶλλον οἴχεται πλέοντα, ὁ δὲ στρατηγὸς ἀκολουθεῖ,
  εἰκότως· οὐ γὰρ ἔστιν ἄρχειν μὴ διδόντα μισθόν. Τί οὖν κελεύω;
  τὰς προφάσεις ἀφελεῖν καὶ τοῦ στρατηγοῦ καὶ τῶν στρατιωτῶν,
  μισθὸν πορίσαντας καὶ στρατιώτας οἰκείους ὥσπερ ἐπόπτας τῶν
  στρατηγουμένων παρακαταστήσαντας, etc.

  ... p 53. s. 51. καὶ οἱ μὲν ἐχθροὶ καταγελῶσιν, οἱ δὲ σύμμαχοι
  τεθνᾶσι τῷ δέει τοὺς τοιούτους ἀποστόλους, etc.

  [681] Demosthen. Philipp. i. p. 47. ἐπεὶ νῦν γε γέλως ἔσθ᾽ ὡς
  χρώμεθα τοῖς πράγμασι.

Such are the principal features in the discourse called the First
Philippic; the earliest public harangue delivered by Demosthenes
to the Athenian assembly, in reference to the war with Philip. It
is not merely a splendid piece of oratory, emphatic and forcible
in its appeal to the emotions; bringing the audience by many
different roads, to the main conviction which the orator seeks to
impress; profoundly animated with genuine Pan-hellenic patriotism,
and with the dignity of that free Grecian world now threatened
by a monarch from without. It has other merits besides, not less
important in themselves, and lying more immediately within the
scope of the historian. We find Demosthenes, yet only thirty years
old—young in political life—and thirteen years before the battle
of Chæroneia—taking accurate measure of the political relations
between Athens and Philip; examining those relations during the
past, pointing out how they had become every year more unfavorable,
and foretelling the dangerous contingencies of the future, unless
better precautions were taken; exposing with courageous frankness
not only the past mismanagement of public men, but also those
defective dispositions of the people themselves wherein such
management had its root; lastly, after fault found, adventuring on
his own responsibility to propose specific measures of correction,
and urging upon reluctant citizens a painful imposition of personal
hardship as well as of taxation. We shall find him insisting on the
same obligation, irksome alike to the leading politicians and to
the people,[682] throughout all the Olynthiacs and Philippics. We
note his warnings given at this early day, when timely prevention
would have been easily practicable; and his superiority to elder
politicians like Eubulus and Phokion, in prudent appreciation,
in foresight, and in courage of speaking out unpalatable truths.
More than twenty years after this period, when Athens had lost
the game and was in her phase of humiliation, Demosthenes (in
repelling the charges of those who imputed her misfortune to his
bad advice) measures the real extent to which a political statesman
is properly responsible. The first of all things is—“To see events
in their beginnings—to discern tendencies beforehand, and proclaim
them beforehand to others—to abridge as much as possible the
rubs, impediments, jealousies, and tardy movements, inseparable
from the march of a free city—and to infuse among the citizens
harmony, friendly feelings, and zeal for the performance of their
duties.”[683] The first Philippic is alone sufficient to prove, how
justly Demosthenes lays claim to the merit of having “seen events
in their beginnings” and given timely warning to his countrymen. It
will also go to show, along with other proofs hereafter to be seen,
that he was not less honest and judicious in his attempts to fulfil
the remaining portion of the statesman’s duty—that of working up
his countrymen to unanimous and resolute enterprise; to the pitch
requisite not merely for speaking and voting, but for acting and
suffering, against the public enemy.

  [682] Demosthenes, Philippic i. p. 54 s. 58. Ἐγὼ μὲν οὖν
  οὔτ᾽ ἄλλοτε πώποτε πρὸς χάριν εἱλόμην λέγειν, ὅ,τι ἂν μὴ καὶ
  συνοίσειν πεπεισμένος ὦ, νῦν τε ἃ γιγνώσκω πάνθ᾽ ἁπλῶς, οὐδὲν
  ὑποστειλάμενος, πεπαῤῥησίασμαι. Ἐβουλόμην δ᾽ ἄν, ὥσπερ ὅτι ὑμῖν
  συμφέρει τὰ βέλτιστα ἀκούειν οἶδα, οὕτως εἰδέναι συνοῖσον καὶ τῷ
  τὰ βέλτιστα εἰπόντι· πολλῷ γὰρ ἂν ἥδιον εἶπον. Νῦν δ᾽ ἐπ᾽ ἀδήλοις
  οὖσι τοῖς ἀπὸ τούτων ἐμαυτῷ γενησομένοις, ὅμως ἐπὶ τῷ συνοίσειν
  ὑμῖν, ἂν πράξητε, ταῦτα πεπεῖσθαι λέγειν αἱροῦμαι.

  [683] Demosthenes, De Coronâ, p. 308. s. 306. Ἀλλὰ μὴν ὧν γ᾽ ἂν ὁ
  ῥήτωρ ὑπεύθυνος εἴη, πᾶσαν ἐξέτασιν λάμβανε· οὐ παραιτοῦμαι. Τίνα
  οὖν ἐστὶ ταῦτα; Ἰδεῖν τὰ πράγματα ἀρχόμενα, καὶ προαισθέσθαι καὶ
  προειπεῖν τοῖς ἄλλοις. Ταῦτα πέπρακταί μοι. Καὶ ἔτι τὰς ἑκασταχοῦ
  βραδυτῆτας, ὄκνους, ἀγνοίας, φιλονεικίας, ἃ πολιτικὰ ταῖς πόλεσι
  πρόσεστιν ἁπάσαις καὶ ἀναγκαῖα ἁμαρτήματα, ταῦθ᾽ ὡς εἰς ἐλάχιστα
  συστεῖλαι, καὶ τοὐνάντιον εἰς ὁμόνοιαν καὶ φιλίαν καὶ τοῦ τὰ δέοντα
  ποιεῖν ὁρμὴν προτρέψαι.

We know neither the actual course, nor the concluding vote, of this
debate, wherein Demosthenes took a part so unexpectedly prominent.
But we know that neither of the two positive measures which he
recommends was carried into effect. The working armament was not
sent out, nor was the home-force, destined to be held in reserve for
instant movement in case of emergency, ever got ready. It was not
until the following month of September (the oration being delivered
some time in the first half of 351 B. C.), that any actual force
was sent against Philip; and even then nothing more was done than
to send the mercenary chief Charidemus to the Chersonese, with ten
triremes, and five talents in money, but no soldiers.[684] Nor is
there any probability that Demosthenes even obtained a favorable vote
of the assembly; though strong votes against Philip were often passed
without being ever put in execution afterwards.[685]

  [684] Demosthenes, Olynth. iii. p. 29. s. 5.

  [685] Demosthenes, Philipp. i. p. 48. s. 34; Olynth. ii. p. 21.
  s. 12; Olynth. iii. p. 29. s. 5. p. 32. s. 16; De Rhodiorum
  Libertate, p. 190. s. 1. And not merely votes against Philip, but
  against others also, remained either unexecuted or inadequately
  executed (Demosthenes, De Republicâ Ordinandâ, p. 175, 176).

Demosthenes was doubtless opposed by those senior statesmen whose
duty it would have been to come forward themselves with the same
propositions assuming the necessity to be undeniable. But what
ground was taken in opposing him, we do not know. There existed
at that time in Athens a certain party or section who undervalued
Philip as an enemy not really formidable—far less formidable than
the Persian king.[686] The reports of Persian force and preparation,
prevalent two years before when Demosthenes delivered his harangue
on the Symmories, seem still to have continued, and may partly
explain the inaction again Philip. Such reports would be magnified,
or fabricated, by another Athenian party much more dangerous;
in communication with, and probably paid by, Philip himself. To
this party Demosthenes makes his earliest allusion in the first
Philippic,[687] and reverts to them on many occasions afterwards.
We may be very certain that there were Athenian citizens serving
as Philip’s secret agents, though we cannot assign their names. It
would be not less his interest to purchase such auxiliaries, than to
employ paid spies in his operations of war:[688] while the prevalent
political antipathies at Athens, coupled with the laxity of public
morality in individuals, would render it perfectly practicable to
obtain suitable instruments. That not only at Athens, but also at
Amphipolis, Potidæa, Olynthus and elsewhere, Philip achieved his
successes, partly by purchasing corrupt partisans among the leaders
of his enemies—is an assertion so intrinsically probable, that we may
readily believe it, though advanced chiefly by unfriendly witnesses.
Such corruption alone, indeed, would not have availed him, but it was
eminently useful when combined with well-employed force and military
genius.

  [686] Demosthen. De Rhodior. Libertat. p. 197. s. 31. ὁρῶ
  δ᾽ ~ὑμῶν ἐνίους~ Φιλίππου μὲν ὡς ἄρ᾽ οὐδενὸς ἀξίου πολλάκις
  ὀλιγωροῦντας, βασιλέα δ᾽ ὡς ἰσχυρὸν ἐχθρὸν οἷς ἂν προέληται
  φοβουμένους. Εἰ δὲ ~τὸν μὲν ὡς φαῦλον οὐκ ἀμυνούμεθα~, τῷ δὲ ὡς
  φοβερῷ πάνθ᾽ ὑπείξομεν, πρὸς τίνας παραταξόμεθα;

  This oration was delivered in 351-350 B. C.; a few months after
  the first Philippic.

  [687] Demosthenes, Philipp. i. p. 45. s. 21; Olynthiac ii. p. 19.
  s. 4.

  [688] Compare the advice of the Thebans to Mardonius in 479 B.
  C.—during the Persian invasion of Greece (Herodot. ix. 2).




CHAPTER LXXXVIII.

EUBOIC AND OLYNTHIAN WARS.


If even in Athens, at the date of the first Philippic of Demosthenes,
the uneasiness about Philip was considerable, much more serious had
it become among his neighbors the Olynthians. He had gained them
over, four years before, by transferring to them the territory of
Anthemus—and the still more important town of Potidæa, captured by
his own arms from Athens. Grateful for these cessions, they had
become his allies in his war with Athens, whom they hated on every
ground. But a material change had since taken place. Since the loss
of Methônê, Athens, expelled from the coast of Thrace and Macedonia,
had ceased to be a hostile neighbor, or to inspire alarm to the
Olynthians; while the immense increase in the power of Philip,
combined with his ability and ambition alike manifest, had overlaid
their gratitude for the past by a sentiment of fear for the future.
It was but too clear that a prince who stretched his encroaching
arms in all directions—to Thermopylæ, to Illyria, and to Thrace—would
not long suffer the fertile peninsula between the Thermaic and
Strymonic gulfs to remain occupied by free Grecian communities.
Accordingly, it seems that after the great victory of Philip in
Thessaly over the Phokians (in the first half of 352 B. C.), the
Olynthians manifested their uneasiness by seceding from alliance
with him against Athens. They concluded peace with that city, and
manifested such friendly sentiments that an alliance began to be
thought possible. This peace seems to have been concluded before
November 352 B. C.[689]

  [689] Demosthen. cont. Aristokrat. p. 656. s. 129. ἐκεῖνοι
  (Olynthians) ἕως μὲν ἑώρων αὐτὸν (Philip) τηλικοῦτον ἡλίκος ὢν
  πιστὸς ὑπῆρχε, σύμμαχοί τε ἦσαν, καὶ δι᾽ ἐκεῖνον ἡμῖν ἐπολέμουν·
  ἐπειδὴ δὲ εἶδον μείζω τῆς πρὸς αὑτοὺς πίστεως γιγνόμενον ...
  ὑμᾶς, οὓς ἴσασιν ἁπάντων ἀνθρώπων ἥδιστ᾽ ἂν καὶ τοὺς ἐκείνου
  φίλους καὶ αὐτὸν τὸν Φίλιππον ἀποκτείναντας, φίλους πεποίηνται,
  φασὶ δὲ καὶ συμμάχους ποιήσεσθαι.

  We know from Dionysius that this oration was delivered between
  Midsummer 352 B. C. and Midsummer 351 B. C. I have already
  remarked that it must have been delivered, in my judgment, before
  the month Mæmakterion (November) 352 B. C.

Here was an important change of policy on the part of the Olynthians.
Though they probably intended it, not as a measure of hostility
against Philip, but simply as a precaution to ensure to themselves
recourse elsewhere in case of becoming exposed to his attack, it
was not likely that he would either draw or recognize any such
distinction. He would probably consider that by the cession of
Potidæa, he had purchased their coöperation against Athens, and would
treat their secession as at least making an end to all amicable
relations.

A few months afterwards (at the date of the first Philippic[690])
we find that he, or his soldiers, had attacked, and made sudden
excursions into their territory, close adjoining to his own.

  [690] Demosthenes, Philippic i. p. 44. s. 20. ... ἐπὶ τὰς
  ἐξαίφνης ταύτας ἀπὸ τῆς οἰκείας χώρας αὐτοῦ στρατείας, εἰς Πύλας
  καὶ Χεῤῥόνησον καὶ Ὄλυνθον καὶ ὅποι βούλεται.

In this state of partial hostility, yet without proclaimed or
vigorous war, matters seem to have remained throughout the year 351
B. C. Philip was engaged during that year in his Thracian expedition,
where he fell sick, so that aggressive enterprise was for the time
suspended. Meanwhile the Athenians seem to have proposed to Olynthus
a scheme of decided alliance against Philip.[691] But the Olynthians
had too much to fear from him, to become themselves the aggressors.
They still probably hoped that he might find sufficient enemies
and occupation elsewhere, among Thracians, Illyrians, Pæonians,
Arymbas and the Epirots, and Athenians;[692] at any rate, they would
not be the first to provoke a contest. This state of reciprocal
mistrust[693] continued for several months, until at length Philip
began serious operations against them; not very long after his
recovery from the sickness in Thrace, and seemingly towards the
middle of 350 B. C.;[694] a little before the beginning of Olympiad
107, 3.

  [691] Demosthenes, Olynthiac i. p. 11. s. 7. ... νυνὶ γὰρ, ~ὃ
  πάντες ἐθρύλλουν τέως, Ὀλυνθίους ἐκπολεμῆσαι δεῖν~ Φιλίππῳ,
  γέγονεν αὐτόματον, καὶ ταῦθ᾽ ὡς ἂν ὑμῖν μάλιστα συμφέροι. Εἰ μὲν
  γὰρ ὑφ᾽ ὑμῶν πεισθέντες ἀνείλοντο τὸν πόλεμον, σφαλεροὶ σύμμαχοι
  καὶ μέχρι του ταῦτ᾽ ἂν ἐγνωκότες ἦσαν ἴσως, etc.

  Compare Olynth. iii. p. 30. s. 9. and p. 32. s. 18. οὐχ οὓς, εἰ
  πολεμήσαιεν, ἑτοίμως σώσειν ὑπισχνούμεθα, οὗτοι νῦν πολεμοῦνται;

  [692] Demosthen. Olynth. i. p. 13. s. 13.

  [693] Demosthen. Olynth. iii. p. 30. s. 8. οὔτε Φίλιππος ἐθάῤῥει
  τούτους, οὔθ᾽ οὗτοι Φίλιππον, etc.

  [694] Demosthen. Olynth. i. p. 13. s. 13. ... ἠσθένησε· πάλιν
  ῥαΐσας οὐκ ἐπὶ τὸ ῥᾳθυμεῖν ἀπέκλινεν, ἀλλ᾽ ~εὐθὺς Ὀλυνθίοις
  ἐπεχείρησεν~.

  What length of time is denoted by the adverb εὐθὺς, must of
  course be matter of conjecture. If the expression had been found
  in the Oration De Coronâ, delivered twenty years afterwards, we
  might have construed εὐθὺς very loosely. But it occurs here in an
  oration delivered probably in the latter half of 350 B. C., but
  certainly not later than the first half of 348 B. C. Accordingly,
  it is hardly reasonable to assign to the interval here designated
  by εὐθὺς (that between Philip’s recovery and his serious attack
  upon the Olynthians) a longer time than six months. We should
  then suppose this attack to have been commenced about the
  last quartet of Olymp. 107, 2; or in the first half of 350 B.
  C. This is the view of Böhnecke, and, I think, very probable
  (Forschungen, p. 211).

It was probably during the continuance of such semi-hostile relations
that two half-brothers of Philip, sons of his father Amyntas by
another mother, sought and obtained shelter at Olynthus. They came as
his enemies; for he had put to death already one of their brothers,
and they themselves only escaped the same fate by flight. Whether
they had committed any positive act to provoke his wrath, we are not
informed; but such tragedies were not unfrequent in the Macedonian
regal family. While Olynthus was friendly and grateful to Philip,
these exiles would not have resorted thither; but they were now
favorably received, and may perhaps have held out hopes that in case
of war they could raise a Macedonian party against Philip. To that
prince, the reception of his fugitive enemies served as a plausible
pretence for war—which he doubtless would under all circumstances
have prosecuted—against Olynthus; and it seems to have been so put
forward in his public declarations.[695]

  [695] Justin, viii. 3; Orosius, iii. 12. Justin states this as
  the _cause_ of the attack made by Philip on Olynthus—which I do
  not believe. But I see no ground for doubting the fact itself—or
  for doubting that Philip laid hold of it as a _pretext_. He found
  the half-brothers in Olynthus when the city was taken, and put
  both of them to death.

But Philip, in accomplishing his conquests, knew well how to blend
the influences of deceit and seduction with those of arms, and to
divide or corrupt those whom he intended to subdue. To such insidious
approaches Olynthus was in many ways open. The power of that city
consisted, in great part, in her position as chief of a numerous
confederacy, including a large proportion, though probably not all,
of the Grecian cities in the peninsula of Chalkidikê. Among the
different members of such a confederacy, there was more or less of
dissentient interest or sentiment, which accidental circumstances
might inflame so as to induce a wish for separation. In each city
moreover, and in Olynthus itself, there were ambitious citizens
competing for power, and not scrupulous as to the means whereby it
was to be acquired or retained. In each of them, Philip could open
intrigues, and enlist partisans; in some, he would probably receive
invitations to do so; for the greatness of his exploits, while it
inspired alarm in some quarters, raised hopes among disappointed and
jealous minorities. If, through such predisposing circumstances, he
either made or found partisans and traitors in the distant cities
of Peloponnesus, much more was this practicable for him in the
neighboring peninsula of Chalkidikê. Olynthus and the other cities
were nearly all conterminous with the Macedonian territory, some
probably with boundaries not clearly settled. Perdikkas II. had
given to the Olynthians (at the beginning of the Peloponnesian
war[696]) a portion of his territory near the Lake Bolbê: Philip
himself had given to them the district of Anthemus. Possessed of so
much neighboring land, he had the means, with little loss to himself,
of materially favoring or enriching such individual citizens, of
Olynthus or other cities, as chose to promote his designs. Besides
direct bribes, where that mode of proceeding was most effective, he
could grant the right of gratuitous pasture to the flocks and herds
of one, and furnish abundant supplies of timber to another. Master as
he now was of Amphipolis and Philippi, he could at pleasure open or
close to them the speculations of the gold mines of Mount Pangæus,
for which they had always hankered.[697] If his privateers harassed
even the powerful Athens, and the islands under her protection,
much more vexatious would they be to his neighbors in the Chalkidic
peninsula, which they as it were encircled, from the Thermaic Gulf on
one side to the Strymonic Gulf on the other. Lastly, we cannot doubt
that some individuals in these cities had found it profitable to take
service, civil or military, under Philip, which would supply him with
correspondents and adherents among their friends and relatives.

  [696] Thucyd. i. 58.

  [697] Demosthenes, Fals. Leg. p. 425, 426; Xenophon, Hellen. v.
  2. 17.

It will thus be easily seen, that with reference to Olynthus and
her confederate cities, Philip had at his command means of private
benefit and annoyance to such an extent, as would ensure to him the
coöperation of a venal and traitorous minority in each; such minority
of course blending its proceedings, and concealing its purposes,
among the standing political feuds of the place. These means however
were only preliminary to the direct use of the sword. His seductions
and presents commenced the work, but his excellent generalship
and soldiers—the phalanx, the hypaspistæ, and the cavalry, all
now brought into admirable training during the ten years of his
reign—completed it.

Though Demosthenes in one passage goes so far as to say that Philip
rated his established influence so high as to expect to incorporate
the Chalkidic confederacy in his empire without serious difficulty
and without even real war[698]—there is ground for believing that he
encountered strenuous resistance, avenged by unmeasured rigors after
the victory. The two years and a half between Midsummer 350 B. C.,
and the commencement of 347 B. C. (the two last years of Olympiad
107 and the nine first months of Olympiad 108), were productive of
phænomena more terror-striking than anything in the recent annals of
Greece. No less than thirty-two free Grecian cities in Chalkidikê
were taken and destroyed, the inhabitants being reduced to slavery,
by Philip. Among them was Olynthus, one of the most powerful,
flourishing, and energetic members of the Hellenic brotherhood;
Apollonia, whose inhabitants would now repent the untoward obstinacy
of their fathers (thirty-two years before) in repudiating a generous
and equal confederacy with Olynthus, and invoking Spartan aid to
revive the falling power of Philip’s father, Amyntas; and Stageira,
the birth-place of Aristotle. The destruction of thirty-two free
Hellenic communities in two years by a foreign prince, was a calamity
the like of which had never occurred since the suppression of the
Ionic revolt and the invasion of Xerxes. I have already recounted in
a previous chapter[699] the manifestation of wrath at the festival
of the ninety-ninth Olympiad (394 B. C.) against the envoys of the
elder Dionysius of Syracuse, who had captured and subverted five or
six free Hellenic communities in Italy and Sicily. Far more vehement
would be the sentiment of awe and terror, after the Olynthian war,
against the Macedonian destroyer of thirty-two Chalkidic cities.
We shall find this plainly indicated in the phænomena immediately
succeeding. We shall see Athens terrified into a peace alike
dishonorable and improvident, which even Demosthenes does not venture
to oppose; we shall see Æschines passing out of a free spoken
Athenian citizen into a servile worshipper, if not a paid agent, of
Philip: we shall observe Isokrates, once the champion of Pan-hellenic
freedom and integrity, ostentatiously proclaiming Philip as the
master and arbiter of Greece, while persuading him at the same time
to use his power well for the purpose of conquering Persia. These
were terrible times; suitably illustrated in their cruel details by
the gangs of enslaved Chalkidic Greeks of both sexes, seen passing
even into Peloponnesus[700] as the property of new grantees who
extolled the munificence of the donor Philip; and suitably ushered in
by awful celestial signs, showers of fire and blood falling from the
heavens to the earth, in testimony of the wrath of the gods.[701]

  [698] Demosthenes, Olynth. i. p. 15. s. 22. οὔτ᾽ ἂν ἐξήνεγκε τὸν
  πόλεμόν ποτε τοῦτον ἐκεῖνος, εἰ πολεμεῖν ᾠήθη δεήσειν αὐτὸν,
  ἀλλ᾽ ὡς ἐπιὼν ἅπαντα τότε ἤλπιζε τὰ πράγματα ἀναιρήσεσθαι, κᾆτα
  διέψευσται. Τοῦτο δὴ πρῶτον αὐτὸν ταράττει παρὰ γνώμην γεγονὸς,
  etc.

  [699] See ch. lxxxiii. p. 35 of this Volume.

  [700] Demosthenes, Fals. Leg. p. 439. Æschines himself met a
  person named Atrestidas followed by one of these sorrowful
  troops. We may be sure that this case was only one among many.

  [701] Pliny, H. N. ii. 27. “Fit et cœli ipsius hiatus, quod
  vocant chasma. Fit et sanguineâ specie (quo nihil terribilius
  mortalium timori est) incendium ad terras cadens inde; _sicut
  Olympiadis centesimæ septimæ anno tertio, cum rex Philippus
  Græciam quateret_. Atque ego hæc statis temporibus naturæ, ut
  cetera, arbitror existere; non (ut plerique) variis de causis,
  quas ingeniorum acumen excogitat. _Quippe ingentium malorum fuere
  prænuntia_; sed ea accidisse non quia hæc facta sunt arbitror,
  verum hæc ideo facta, quia incasura erant illa: raritate autem
  occultam eorum esse rationem, ideoque non sicut exortus supra
  dictos defectusque et multa alia nosci.”

  The precision of this chronological note makes it valuable.
  Olymp. 107, 3—corresponds to the year between Midsummer 350 and
  Midsummer 349 B. C.

  Taylor, who cites this passage in his Prolegomena ad Demosthenem
  (ap. Reiske Oratt. Gr. vol. viii. p. 756), takes the liberty,
  without any manuscript authority, of altering _tertio_ into
  _quarto_; which Böhnecke justly pronounces to be unreasonable
  (Forschungen, p. 212). The passage as it stands is an evidence,
  not merely to authenticate the terrific character of the time,
  but also to prove, among other evidences, that the attack of
  Philip on the Olynthians and Chalkidians began in 350-349 B.
  C.—not in the following Olympic year, or in the time after
  Midsummer 349 B. C.

  Böhnecke (Forschungen, p. 201-221) has gone into an examination
  of the dates and events of this Olynthian war, and has arranged
  them in a manner different from any preceding critic. His
  examination is acute and instructive, including however some
  reasonings of little force or pertinence. I follow him generally,
  in placing the beginning of the Olynthian war, and the Olynthiacs
  of Demosthenes, before Olymp. 107, 4. This is the best opinion
  which I can form, on matters lamentably unattested and uncertain.

While, however, we make out with tolerable clearness the general
result of Philip’s Olynthian war, and the terror which it struck into
the Grecian mind—we are not only left without information as to its
details, but are even perplexed by its chronology. I have already
remarked, that though the Olynthians had contracted such suspicions
of Philip, even before the beginning of 351 B. C., as to induce them
to make peace with his enemy Athens—they had nevertheless, declined
the overtures of Athens for a closer alliance, not wishing to bring
upon themselves decided hostility from so powerful a neighbor, until
his aggressions should become such as to leave them no choice. We
have no precise information as to Philip’s movements after his
operations in Thrace and his sickness in 351 B. C. But we know that
it was not in his nature to remain inactive; that he was incessantly
pushing his conquests; and that no conquest could be so important to
him as that of Olynthus and the Chalkidic peninsula. Accordingly,
we are not surprised to find, that the Olynthian and Chalkidian
confederates became the object of his direct hostility in 350 B.
C. He raised pretences for attack against one or other of these
cities separately; avoiding to deal with the confederacy as a whole,
and disclaiming, by special envoys,[702] all purposes injurious to
Olynthus.

  [702] Demosth. Philipp. iii. p. 113. That Philip not only
  attacked, but even subdued, the thirty-two Chalkidic cities,
  before he marched directly and finally to assail Olynthus—is
  stated in the Fragment of Kallisthenes ap. Stobæum, Eclog. Tit.
  vii. p. 92.

  Kallisthenes, whose history is lost, was a native of Olynthus,
  born a few years before the capture of the city.

Probably the philippizing party in that city may have dwelt upon
this disclaimer as satisfactory, and given as many false assurances
about the purposes of Philip, as we shall find Æschines hereafter
uttering at Athens. But the general body of citizens were not so
deceived. Feeling that the time had come when it was prudent to close
with the previous Athenian overtures, they sent envoys to Athens to
propose alliance and invite coöperation against Philip. Their first
propositions were doubtless not couched in the language of urgency
and distress. They were not as yet in any actual danger; their
power was great in reality, and estimated at its full value abroad;
moreover, as prudent diplomatists, they would naturally overstate
their own dignity and the magnitude of what they were offering. Of
course they would ask for Athenian aid to be sent to Chalkidikê—since
it was there that the war was being carried on; but they would ask
for aid in order to act energetically against the common enemy,
and repress the growth of his power—not to avert immediate danger
menacing Olynthus.

There needed no discussion to induce the Athenians to accept this
alliance. It was what they had long been seeking, and they willingly
closed with the proposition. Of course they also promised—what indeed
was almost involved in the acceptance—to send a force to coöperate
against Philip in Chalkidikê. On this first recognition of Olynthus
as an ally—or perhaps shortly afterwards, but before circumstances
had at all changed—Demosthenes delivered his earliest Olynthiac
harangue. Of the three memorable compositions so denominated, the
earliest is, in my judgment, that which stands _second_ in the edited
order. Their true chronological order has long been, and still is,
matter of controversy; the best conclusion which I can form, is that
the first and the second are erroneously placed, but that the third
is really the latest;[703] all of them being delivered during the six
or seven last months of 350 B. C.

  [703] Some remarks will be found on the order of the Olynthiacs,
  in an Appendix to the present chapter.

  It must be understood that I always speak of the Olynthiacs as
  _first_, _second_, and _third_, according to the common and
  edited order; though I cannot adopt that order as correct.

In this his earliest advocacy (the speech which stands printed as
the second Olynthiac), Demosthenes insists upon the advantageous
contingency which has just turned up for Athens, through the blessing
of the gods, in the spontaneous tender of so valuable an ally. He
recommends that aid be despatched to the new ally; the most prompt
and effective aid will please him the best. But this recommendation
is contained in a single sentence, in the middle of the speech; it
is neither repeated a second time, nor emphatically insisted upon,
nor enlarged by specification of quantity or quality of aid to be
sent. No allusion is made to necessities or danger of Olynthus, nor
to the chance that Philip might conquer the town; still less to
ulterior contingencies, that Philip, if he did conquer it, might
carry the seat of war from his own coasts to those of Attica. On
the contrary, Demosthenes adverts to the power of the Olynthians—to
the situation of their territory, close on Philip’s flanks—to their
fixed resolution that they will never again enter into amity or
compromise with him—as evidences how valuable their alliance will
prove to Athens; enabling her to prosecute with improved success the
war against Philip, and to retrieve the disgraceful losses brought
upon her by previous remissness. The main purpose of the orator is
to inflame his countrymen into more hearty and vigorous efforts for
the prosecution of this general war; while to furnish aid to the
Olynthians, is only a secondary purpose, and a part of the larger
scheme. “I shall not (says the orator) expatiate on the formidable
power of Philip as an argument to urge you to the performance of
your public duty. That would be too much both of compliment to him
and of disparagement to you. I should, indeed, myself have thought
him truly formidable, if he had achieved his present eminence by
means consistent with justice. But he has aggrandized himself, partly
through your negligence and improvidence, partly by treacherous
means—by taking into pay corrupt partisans at Athens, and by cheating
successively Olynthians, Thessalians, and all his other allies.
These allies, having now detected his treachery, are deserting him;
without them, his power will crumble away. Moreover, the Macedonians
themselves have no sympathy with his personal ambition; they are
fatigued with the labor imposed upon them by his endless military
movements, and impoverished by the closing of their ports through
the war. His vaunted officers are men of worthless and dissolute
habits; his personal companions are thieves, vile ministers of
amusement, outcasts from our cities. His past good fortune imparts to
all this real weakness a fallacious air of strength; and doubtless
his good fortune has been very great. But the fortune of Athens,
and her title to the benevolent aid of the gods is still greater—if
only you, Athenians, will do your duty. Yet here you are, sitting
still, doing nothing. The sluggard cannot even command his friends
to work for him—much less the gods. I do not wonder, that Philip,
always in the field, always in movement, doing everything for
himself, never letting slip an opportunity—prevails over you who
merely talk, inquire, and vote, without action. Nay—the contrary
would be wonderful—if under such circumstances, he had _not_ been
the conqueror. But what I do wonder at is, that you Athenians—who
in former days contended for Pan-hellenic freedom against the
Lacedæmonians—who, scorning unjust aggrandizement for yourselves,
fought in person and lavished your substance to protect the rights
of other Greeks—that _you_ now shrink from personal service and
payment of money for the defence of your own possessions. You, who
have so often rescued others, can now sit still after having lost so
much of your own! I wonder you do not look back to that conduct of
yours which has brought your affairs into this state of ruin, and
ask yourselves how they can ever mend, while such conduct remains
unchanged. It was much easier at first to preserve what we once had,
than to recover it now that it is lost; we have nothing now left to
lose—we have everything to recover. This must be done by ourselves,
and at once; we must furnish money, we must serve in person by turns;
we must give our generals means to do their work well, and then exact
from them a severe account afterwards—which we cannot do so long
as we ourselves will neither pay nor serve. We must correct that
abuse which has grown up, whereby particular symmories in the state
combine to exempt themselves from burdensome duties, and to cast them
all unjustly upon others. We must not only come forward vigorously
and heartily, with person and with money, but each man must embrace
faithfully his fair share of patriotic obligation.”

Such are the main points of the earliest discourse delivered by
Demosthenes on the subject of Olynthus. In the mind of modern
readers, as in that of the rhetor Dionysius,[704] there is an
unconscious tendency to imagine that these memorable pleadings must
have worked persuasion, and to magnify the efficiency of their author
as an historical and directing person. But there are no facts to
bear out such an impression. Demosthenes was still comparatively a
young man—thirty-one years of age; admired indeed for his speeches
and his compositions written to be spoken by others;[705] but as yet
not enjoying much practical influence. It is moreover certain—to
his honor—that he described and measured foreign dangers before they
were recognized by ordinary politicians; that he advised a course,
energetic and salutary indeed, but painful for the people to act
upon, and disagreeable for recognized leaders to propose; that these
leaders, such as Eubulus and others, were accordingly adverse to him.
The tone of Demosthenes in these speeches is that of one who feels
that he is contending against heavy odds—combating an habitual and
deep-seated reluctance. He is an earnest remonstrant—an opposition
speaker—contributing to raise up gradually a body of public sentiment
and conviction which ultimately may pass into act. His rival Eubulus
is the ministerial spokesman, whom the majority, both rich and
poor, followed; a man not at all corrupt (so far as we know), but
of simple conservative routine, evading all painful necessities and
extraordinary precautions; conciliating the rich by resisting a
property-tax, and the general body of citizens by refusing to meddle
with the Theôric expenditure.

  [704] Dionys. Hal. ad Ammæ. p. 736. μετὰ γὰρ ἄρχοντα Καλλίμαχον,
  ἐφ᾽ οὗ τὰς εἰς Ὄλυνθον βοηθείας ἀπέστειλαν Ἀθηναῖοι, ~πεισθέντες
  ὑπὸ Δημοσθένους~, etc.

  He connects the three Olynthiacs of Demosthenes, with the three
  Athenian armaments sent to Olynthus in the year following
  Midsummer 349 B. C.; for which armaments he had just before cited
  Philochorus.

  [705] This is evident from the sneers of Meidias: see the oration
  of Demosthenes cont. Meidiam, p. 575, 576. (spoken in the year
  following—349-348 B. C.)

  I observe, not without regret, that Demosthenes himself is
  not ashamed to put the like sneers into the mouth of a client
  speaking before the Dikastery—against Lakritus—“this very clever
  man, who has paid ten minæ to Isokrates for a course of rhetoric,
  and thinks himself able to talk you over as he pleases,” etc.
  (Demosth. adv. Lakrit. p. 938).

The Athenians did not follow the counsel of Demosthenes. They
accepted the Olynthian alliance, but took no active step to coöperate
with Olynthus in the war against Philip.[706] Such unhappily was
their usual habit. The habit of Philip was the opposite. We need no
witness to satisfy us, that he would not slacken in his attack—and
that in the course of a month or two, he would master more than one
of the Chalkidic cities, perhaps defeating the Olynthian forces
also. The Olynthians would discover that they had gained nothing by
their new allies; while the philippizing party among themselves
would take advantage of the remissness of Athens to depreciate her
promises as worthless or insincere, and to press for accommodation
with the enemy.[707] Complaints would presently reach Athens, brought
by fresh envoys from the Olynthians, and probably also from the
Chalkidians, who were the greatest sufferers by Philip’s arms. They
would naturally justify this renewed application by expatiating
on the victorious progress of Philip; they would now call for aid
more urgently, and might even glance at the possibility of Philip’s
conquest of Chalkidikê. It was in this advanced stage of the
proceedings that Demosthenes again exerted himself in the cause,
delivering that speech which stands first in the printed order of the
Olynthiacs.

  [706] An orator of the next generation (Deinarchus cont.
  Demosthen. p. 102, s. 99) taunts Demosthenes as a mere
  opposition-talker, in contrast with the excellent administration
  of the finances and marine under Eubulus—ποῖαι γὰρ τριήρεις εἰσὶ
  κατεσκευασμέναι διὰ τοῦτον (Demosthenes) ὥσπερ επὶ Εὐβούλου,
  τῇ πόλει; ἢ ποῖοι νεώσοικοι τούτου πολιτευομένου γεγόνασι;
  The administration of Eubulus must have left a creditable
  remembrance, to be thus cited afterwards.

  See Theopompus ap. Harpokr. v. Εὔβουλος; Plutarch, Reipubl.
  Gerend. Præcept. p. 812. Compare also Demosth. Fals. Leg. p. 435;
  and Æschines adv. Ktesiph. p. 57. c. 11.

  [707] Demosth. Olynth. i. p. 9. ὡς ἔστι μάλιστα τοῦτο δέος, μὴ
  πανοῦργος ὢν καὶ δεινὸς ἅνθρωπος (Philip) πράγμασι χρῆσθαι τὰ
  μὲν εἴκων ἡνίκ᾽ ἂν τύχῃ, τὰ δ᾽ ἀπειλῶν, τὰ δ᾽ ἡμᾶς διαβάλλων καὶ
  ~τὴν ἀπουσίαν τὴν ἡμετέραν~ τρέψῃ τε καὶ παρασπάσηταί τι τῶν ὅλων
  πραγμάτων.

  This occurs in the next subsequent speech of Demosthenes,
  intimating what Philip and his partisans had already deduced as
  inference from the past neglect of the Athenians to send any aid
  to Olynthus. Of course, no such inference could be started until
  some time had been allowed for expectation and disappointment;
  which is one among many reasons for believing the first Olynthiac
  to be posterior in time to the second.

Here we have, not a Philippic, but a true Olynthiac. Olynthus is no
longer part and parcel of a larger theme, upon the whole of which
Demosthenes intends to discourse; but stands out as the prominent
feature and specialty of his pleading. It is now pronounced to be in
danger and in pressing need of succor; moreover its preservation is
strenuously pressed upon the Athenians, as essential to their own
safety. While it stands with its confederacy around it, the Athenians
can fight Philip on his own coast; if it falls, there is nothing to
prevent him from transferring the war into Attica, and assailing them
on their own soil.[708] Demosthenes is wound up to a higher pitch
of emphasis, complaining of the lukewarmness of his countrymen on
a crisis which calls aloud for instant action.[709] He again urges
that a vote be at once passed to assist Olynthus, and two armaments
despatched as quickly as possible; one to preserve to Olynthus her
confederate cities—the other, to make a diversion by simultaneous
attack on Philip at home. Without such two-fold aid (he says) the
cities cannot be preserved.[710] Advice of aid generally he had
already given, though less emphatically, in his previous harangue;
but he now superadds a new suggestion—that Athenian envoys shall
be sent thither, not merely to announce the coming of the force,
but also to remain at Olynthus and watch over the course of events.
For he is afraid, that unless such immediate encouragement be sent,
Philip may, even without the tedious process of a siege, frighten or
cajole the Olynthian confederacy into submission; partly by reminding
them that Athens had done nothing for them, and by denouncing her
as a treacherous and worthless ally.[711] Philip would be glad to
entrap them into some plausible capitulation; and though they knew
that they could have no security for his keeping the terms of it
afterwards, still he might succeed, if Athens remained idle. Now,
if ever, was the time for Athenians to come forward and do their
duty without default; to serve in person and submit to the necessary
amount of direct taxation. They had no longer the smallest pretence
for continued inaction; the very conjuncture which they had so long
desired, had turned up of itself—war between Olynthus and Philip,
and that too upon grounds special to Olynthus—not at the instigation
of Athens.[712] The Olynthian alliance had been thrown in the way of
Athens by the peculiar goodness of the gods, to enable her to repair
her numerous past errors and short-comings. She ought to look well
and deal rightly with these last remaining opportunities, in order
to wipe off the shame of the past; but if she now let slip Olynthus
and suffer Philip to conquer it, there was nothing else to hinder him
from marching whithersoever he chose. His ambition was so insatiable,
his activity so incessant, that, assuming Athens to persist in her
careless inaction, he would carry the war forward from Thrace into
Attica—of which the ruinous consequences were but too clear.[713]

  [708] Demosth. Olynth. i. p. 12, 13.

  [709] Demosth. Olynth. i. p. 9.

  [710] Demosth. Olynth. i. p. 14. Φημὶ δὴ διχῆ βοηθητέον εἶναι
  τοῖς πράγμασιν ὑμῖν· ~τῷ τε τὰς πόλεις τοῖς Ὀλυνθίοις σῴζειν~,
  καὶ τοὺς τοῦτο ποιήσοντας στρατιώτας ἐκπέμπειν—καὶ τῷ τὴν ἐκείνου
  χώραν κακῶς ποιεῖν καὶ τριήρεσι καὶ στρατιώταις ἑτέροις· εἰ δὲ
  θατέρου τούτων ὀλιγωρήσετε, ὀκνῶ μὴ μάταιος ὑμῶν ἡ στρατεία
  γένηται.

  [711] Demosth. Olynth. i. p. 9, 10.

  [712] Demosth. Olynth. i. p. 11.

  [713] Demosth. Olynth. i. p. 12, 13, 16. ... εἰ δὲ προησόμεθα
  καὶ τούτους τοὺς ἀνθρώπους, εἶτ᾽ Ὄλυνθον ἐκεῖνος καταστρέψεται,
  φρασάτω τις ἐμοὶ, τί τὸ κωλῦον ἔτ᾽ αὐτὸν ἔσται βαδίζειν ὅποι
  βούλεται.

  ... τίς οὕτως εὐήθης ἐστὶν ὑμῶν ὅστις ἀγνοεῖ τὸν ἐκεῖθεν πόλεμον
  δεῦρο ἥξοντα, ἂν ἀμελήσωμεν;

“I maintain (continued the orator) that you ought to lend aid at the
present crisis in two ways; by preserving for the Olynthians their
confederated cities, through a body of troops sent out for that
express purpose—and by employing at the same time other troops and
other triremes to act aggressively against Philip’s own coast. If you
neglect either of these measures, I fear that the expedition will
fail. As to the pecuniary provision, you have already more money than
any other city, available for purposes of war; if you will pay that
money to soldiers on service, no need exists for farther provision—if
not, then need exists; but above all things, money _must_ be found.
What then! I shall be asked—are you moving that the Theôric fund
shall be devoted to war purposes? Not I, by Zeus. I merely express
my conviction, that soldiers _must_ be equipped, and that receipt of
public money, and performance of public service, ought to go hand in
hand; but your practice is to take the public money, without any such
condition, for the festivals. Accordingly, nothing remains except
that all should directly contribute; much, if much is wanted—little,
if little will suffice. Money must be had; without it, not a single
essential step can be taken. There are moreover different ways
and means suggested by others. Choose any one of these which you
think advantageous; and lay a vigorous grasp on events while the
opportunity still lasts.”[714]

  [714] Demosth. Olynth. i. p. 15.

It was thus that Demosthenes addressed his countrymen some time after
the Olynthians had been received as allies, but before any auxiliary
force had been either sent to them or even positively decreed—yet
when such postponement of action had inspired them with mistrust,
threatening to throw them, even without resistance, into the hands of
Philip and their own philippizing party. We observe in Demosthenes
the same sagacious appreciation, both of the present and the future,
as we have already remarked in the first Philippic—foresight of the
terrible consequences of this Olynthian war, while as yet distant and
unobserved by others. We perceive the same good sense and courage
in invoking the right remedies; though his propositions of personal
military service, direct taxation, or the diversion of the Theôric
fund—were all of them the most unpopular which could be made. The
last of the three, indeed, he does not embody in a substantive
motion; nor could he move it without positive illegality, which would
have rendered him liable to the indictment called Graphê Paranomon.
But he approaches it near enough to raise in the public mind the
question as it really stood—that money must be had; that there were
only two ways of getting it—direct taxation, and appropriation of
the festival fund; and that the latter of these ought to be restored
as well as the former. We shall find this question about the Theôric
Fund coming forward again more than once, and shall have presently to
notice it more at large.

At some time after this new harangue of Demosthenes—how long after
it, or how far in consequence of it, we cannot say—the Athenians
commissioned and sent a body of foreign mercenaries to the aid of
the Olynthians and Chalkidians. The outfit and transport of these
troops was in part defrayed by voluntary subscriptions from rich
Athenian citizens. But no Athenian citizen-soldiers were sent; nor
was any money assigned for the pay of the mercenaries. The expedition
appears to have been sent towards the autumn of 350 B. C., as far as
we can pretend to affirm anything respecting the obscure chronology
of this period.[715] It presently gained some victory over Philip
or Philip’s generals, and was enabled to transmit good news to
Athens, which excited much exultation there, and led the people to
fancy that they were in a fair way of taking revenge on Philip for
past miscarriages. According to some speakers, not only were the
Olynthians beyond all reach of danger, but Philip was in a fair
way of being punished and humbled. It is indeed possible that the
success may really have been something considerable, such as to check
Philip’s progress for the time. Though victorious on the whole, he
must have experienced partial and temporary reverses, otherwise he
would have concluded the war before the early spring of 347 B. C.
Whether this success coincided with that of the Athenian general
Chares over Philip’s general Adæus,[716] we cannot say.

  [715] In my view, it is necessary to separate entirely the
  proceedings alluded to in the Demosthenic Olynthiacs, from the
  three expeditions to Olynthus mentioned by Philochorus during
  the following year—349-348 B. C., the archonship of Kallimachus.
  I see no reason to controvert the statement of Philochorus,
  that there were three expeditions during that year, such as he
  describes. But he must be mistaken (or Dionysius must have copied
  him erroneously) in setting forth those three expeditions _as the
  whole Olynthian war_, and the first of the three as being the
  beginning of the war. The Olynthian war began in 350 B. C., and
  the three Olynthiacs of Demosthenes refer, in my judgment, to the
  first months of the war. But it lasted until the early spring of
  347 B. C., so that the armaments mentioned by Philochorus may
  have occurred during the last half of the war. I cannot but think
  that Dionysius, being satisfied with finding _three_ expeditions
  to Olynthus which might be attached as results to the _three_
  orations of Demosthenes, was too hastily copied out the three
  from Philochorus, and has assigned the date of 349-348 B. C. to
  the three _orations_, simply because he found that date given to
  the three _expeditions_ by Philochorus.

  The revolt in Eubœa, the expedition of Phokion with the battle of
  Tamynæ and the prolonged war in that island, began about January
  or February 349 B. C., and continued throughout that year and the
  next. Mr. Clinton even places these events a year earlier; in
  which I do not concur, but which, if adopted, would throw back
  the beginning of the Olynthian war one year farther still. It is
  certain that there was one Athenian expedition at least sent to
  Olynthus _before the Eubœan war_, (Demosthen. cont. Meidiam, p.
  566-578)—an expedition so considerable that voluntary donations
  from the rich citizens were obtained towards the cost. Here is
  good proof (better than Philochorus, if indeed it be inconsistent
  with what he really said) that the Athenians not only contracted
  the alliance of Olynthus, but actually assisted Olynthus, during
  the year 350 B. C. Now the Olynthiacs of Demosthenes present to
  my mind strong evidence of belonging to the earliest months of
  the Olynthian war. I think it reasonable, therefore, to suppose
  that the expedition of foreign mercenaries to Olynthus, which the
  third Olynthiac implies as having been sent, is the same as that
  for which the ἐπιδόσεις mentioned in the Meidiana were required.
  See Böhnecke, Forschungen, p. 202; and K. F. Hermann, De Anno
  Natali Demosthenis, p. 9.

  [716] Theopompus ap. Athenæ;, xii. p. 532. This victory would
  seem to belong more naturally (as Dr. Thirlwall remarks) to the
  operations of Chares and Onomarchus against Philip in Thessaly,
  in 353-352 B. C. But the point cannot be determined.

But Demosthenes had sagacity enough to perceive, and frankness to
proclaim, that it was a success noway decisive of the war generally;
worse than nothing, if it induced the Athenians to fancy that they
had carried their point.

To correct the delusive fancy, that enough had been done—to combat
that chronic malady under which the Athenians so readily found
encouragement and excuses for inaction—to revive in them the
conviction, that they had contracted a debt, yet unpaid, towards
their Olynthian allies and towards their own ultimate security—is the
scope of Demosthenes in his third Olynthiac harangue; third in the
printed order, and third also, according to my judgment, in order
of time; delivered towards the close of the year 350 B. C.[717]
Like Perikles, he was not less watchful to abate extravagant and
unseasonable illusions of triumph in his countrymen, than to raise
their spirits in moments of undue alarm and despondency.[718]

  [717] Demosth. Olynth. iii. p. 29. μέμνησθε, ὅτ᾽ ἀπηγγέλθη
  Φίλιππος ὑμῖν ἐν Θρᾴκῃ τρίτον ἢ τέταρτον ἔτος τουτὶ, Ἡραῖον
  τεῖχος πολιορκῶν· τότε τοίνυν μὴν μὲν ἦν Μαιμακτηριὼν, etc. This
  was the month Mæmakterion or November 352 B. C. Calculating
  forward from that date, τρίτον ἔτος means _the next year but
  one_; that is the Attic year Olymp. 107. 3, or the year between
  Midsummer 350 and Midsummer 349 B. C. Dionysius of Halikarnassus
  says (p. 726)—Καλλιμάχου τοῦ τρίτου μετὰ Θέσσαλον ἄρξαντος—though
  there was only one archon between Thessalus and Kallimachus. When
  Demosthenes says τρίτον ἢ τέταρτον ἔτος—it is clear that both
  cannot be accurate; we must choose one or the other; and τρίτον
  ἔτος brings us to the year 350-349 B. C.

  To show that the oration was probably spoken during the first
  half of that year, or before February 349 B. C., another point of
  evidence may be noticed.

  At the time when the third Olynthiac was spoken, _no_ expedition
  of Athenian _citizens_ had yet been sent to the help of Olynthus.
  But we shall see, presently, that Athenian citizens _were_ sent
  thither during the first half of 349 B. C.

  Indeed, it would be singular, if the Olynthiacs had been spoken
  _after_ the expedition to Eubœa, that Demosthenes should make no
  allusion in any one of them to that expedition, an affair of so
  much moment and interest, which kept Athens in serious agitation
  during much of the year, and was followed by prolonged war in
  that neighboring island. In the third Olynthiac, Demosthenes
  alludes to taking arms against Corinth and Megara (p. 34). Would
  he be likely to leave the far more important proceedings in
  Eubœa unnoticed? Would he say nothing about the grave crisis in
  which the decree of Apollodorus was proposed? This difficulty
  disappears when we recognize the Olynthiacs as anterior to the
  Euboic war.

  [718] Thucyd. ii. 65. Ὅποτε γοῦν αἴσθοιτό τι αὐτοὺς παρὰ καιρὸν
  ὕβρει θαρσοῦντας, λέγων κατέπλησσεν (Perikles) εἰς τὸ φοβεῖσθαι·
  καὶ δεδιότας αὖ ἀλόγως ἀντικαθίστη πάλιν ἐπὶ τὸ θαρσεῖν.

  Compare the Argument of the third Olynthiac by Libanius.

“The talk which I hear about punishing Philip (says Demosthenes, in
substance) is founded on a false basis. The real facts of the case
teach us a very different lesson.[719] They bid us look well to our
own security, that we be not ourselves the sufferers, and that we
preserve our allies. There _was_ indeed a time—and that too within
my remembrance not long ago—when we might have held our own and
punished Philip besides; but now, our first care must be to preserve
our own allies. After we have made this sure, then it will be time
to think of punishing others. The present juncture calls for anxious
deliberation. Do not again commit the same error as you committed
three years ago. When Philip was besieging Heræum in Thrace, you
passed an energetic decree to send an expedition against him:
presently came reports that he was sick, and that he was dead: this
good news made you fancy that the expedition was unnecessary, and you
let it drop. If you had executed promptly what you resolved, Philip
would have been put down _then_, and would have given you no further
trouble.[720]

  [719] Demosth. Olynth. iii. p. 28, 29. Τοὺς μὲν γὰρ λόγους περὶ
  τοῦ τιμωρήσασθαι Φίλιππον ὁρῶ γιγνομένους, τὰ δὲ πράγματα εἰς
  τοῦτο προήκοντα, ὥστε ὅπως μὴ πεισόμεθα αὐτοὶ πρότερον κακῶς
  σκέψασθαι δέον.

  ... τοῦθ᾽ ἱκανὸν προλαβεῖν ἡμῖν εἶναι τὴν πρώτην, ὅπως τοὺς
  συμμάχους σώσομεν.

  [720] Demosth. Olynth. iii. p. 30.

“Those matters indeed are past, and cannot be mended. But I advert
to them now, because the present war-crisis is very similar, and I
trust you will not make the like mistake again. If you do not send
aid to Olynthus with all your force and means, you will play Philip’s
game for him now, exactly as you did then. You have been long anxious
and working to get the Olynthians into war with Philip. This has
now happened: what choice remains, except to aid them heartily and
vigorously? You will be covered with shame, if you do not. But this
is not all. Your own security at home requires it of you also; for
there is nothing to hinder Philip, if he conquers Olynthus, from
invading Attica. The Phokians are exhausted in funds—and the Thebans
are your enemies.

“All this is superfluous, I shall be told. We have already resolved
unanimously to succor Olynthus, and we will succor it. We only
want you to tell us how. You will be surprised, perhaps, at my
answer. Appoint Nomothetæ at once.[721] Do not submit to them any
propositions for new laws, for you have laws enough already—but
only repeal such of the existing laws as are hurtful at the present
juncture—I mean, those which regard the Theôric fund (I speak out
thus plainly), and some which bear on the citizens in military
service. By the former, you hand over money, which ought to go
to soldiers on service, in Theôric distribution among those who
stay at home. By the latter, you let off without penalty those who
evade service, and discourage those who wish to do their duty. When
you have repealed these mischievous laws, and rendered it safe to
proclaim salutary truths, then expect some one to come forward with
a formal motion such as you all know to be required. But until you
do this, expect not that any one will make these indispensable
propositions on your behalf, with the certainty of ruin at your
hands. You will find no such man; especially as he would only incur
unjust punishment for himself, without any benefit to the city—while
his punishment would make it yet more formidable to speak out upon
that subject in future, than it is even now. Moreover, the same men
who proposed these laws should also take upon them to propose the
repeal; for it is not right that these men should continue to enjoy
a popularity which is working mischief to the whole city, while the
unpopularity of a reform beneficial to us all, falls on the head of
the reforming mover. But while you retain this prohibition, you can
neither tolerate that any one among you shall be powerful enough to
infringe a law with impunity—nor expect that any one will be fool
enough to run with his eyes open into punishment.”

  [721] Demosth. Olynth. iii. p. 31, 32.

I lament that my space confines me to this brief and meagre abstract
of one of the most splendid harangues ever delivered—the third
Olynthiac of Demosthenes. The partial advantage gained over Philip
being prodigiously over-rated, the Athenians seemed to fancy that
they had done enough, and were receding from their resolution to
assist Olynthus energetically. As on so many other occasions, so on
this—Demosthenes undertook to combat a prevalent sentiment which he
deemed unfounded and unseasonable. With what courage, wisdom, and
dexterity—so superior to the insulting sarcasms of Phokion—does he
execute this self-imposed duty, well knowing its unpopularity!

Whether any movement was made by the Athenians in consequence of
the third Olynthiac of Demosthenes, we cannot determine. We have no
ground for believing the affirmative; while we are certain that the
specific measure which he recommended—the sending of an armament of
citizens personally serving—was not at that time (before the end of
350 B. C.) carried into effect. At or before the commencement of
349 B. C., the foreign relations of Athens began to be disturbed by
another supervening embarrassment—the revolt of Eubœa.

After the successful expedition of 358 B. C., whereby the Athenians
had expelled the Thebans from Eubœa, that island remained for some
years in undisturbed connection with Athens. Chalkis, Eretria, and
Oreus, its three principal cities, sent each a member to the synod
of allies holding session at Athens, and paid their annual quota
(seemingly five talents each) to the confederate fund.[722] During
the third quarter of 352 B. C., Menestratus the despot or principal
citizen of Eretria is cited as a particularly devoted friend of
Athens.[723] But this state of things changed shortly after Philip
conquered Thessaly and made himself master of the Pagasæan Gulf (in
353 and the first half of 352 B. C.). His power was then established
immediately over against Oreus and the northern coast of Eubœa, with
which island his means of communication became easy and frequent.
Before the date of the first Philippic of Demosthenes (seemingly
towards the summer of 351 B. C.) Philip had opened correspondences
in Eubœa, and had despatched thither various letters, some of which
the orator reads in the course of that speech to the Athenian
assembly. The actual words of the letters are not given; but from the
criticism of the orator himself, we discern that they were highly
offensive to Athenian feelings; instigating the Eubœans probably
to sever themselves from Athens, with offers of Macedonian aid
towards that object.[724] Philip’s naval warfare also brought his
cruisers to Geræstus in Eubœa, where they captured several Athenian
corn-ships;[725] insulting even the opposite coast of Attica at
Marathon, so as to lower the reputation of Athens among her allies.
Accordingly, in each of the Eubœan cities, parties were soon formed
aiming at the acquisition of dominion through the support of Philip;
while for the same purpose detachments of mercenaries could also be
procured across the western Eubœan strait, out of the large numbers
now under arms in Phokis.

  [722] Æschines adv. Ktesiphont. p. 67, 68.

  [723] Demosthenes cont. Aristokrat. p. 661. φέρ᾽, ἐὰν δὲ δὴ καὶ
  Μενέστρατος ἡμᾶς ὁ Ἐρετριεὺς ἀξιοῖ τὰ αὐτὰ καὶ αὑτῷ ψηφίσασθαι, ἢ
  Φάϋλλος ὁ Φωκεὺς, etc.

  [724] Demosthen. Philipp. i. p. 51.

  [725] Demosthen. Philipp. i. p. 49.

About the beginning of 349 B. C.—while the war of Philip, unknown
to us in its details, against the Olynthians and Chalkidians, was
still going on, with more or less of help from mercenaries sent by
Athens—hostilities, probably raised by the intrigues of Philip, broke
out at Eretria in Eubœa. An Eretrian named Plutarch (we do not know
what had become of Menestratus), with a certain number of soldiers at
his disposal, but opposed by enemies yet more powerful, professed to
represent Athenian interests in his city, and sent to Athens to ask
for aid. Demosthenes, suspecting this man to be a traitor, dissuaded
compliance with the application.[726] But Plutarch had powerful
friends at Athens, seemingly among the party of Eubulus; one of whom,
Meidias, a violent personal enemy of Demosthenes, while advocating
the grant of aid, tried even to get up a charge against Demosthenes,
of having himself fomented these troubles in Eubœa against the
reputed philo-Athenian Plutarch.[727] The Athenian assembly
determined to despatch a force under Phokion; who accordingly crossed
into the island, somewhat before the time of the festival Anthesteria
(February) with a body of hoplites.[728] The cost of fitting out
triremes for this transport, was in part defrayed by voluntary
contributions from rich Athenians; several of whom, Nikêratus,
Euktêmon, Euthydemus, contributed each the outfit of one vessel.[729]
A certain proportion of the horsemen of the city were sent also; yet
the entire force was not very large, as it was supposed that the
partisans there to be found would make up the deficiency.

  [726] Demosthenes, De Pace, p. 58.

  [727] Demosthenes cont. Meidiam, p. 550. ... καὶ τῶν ἐν Εὐβοίᾳ
  πραγμάτων, ἃ Πλούταρχος ὁ τούτου ξένος καὶ φίλος διεπράξατο, ὡς
  ἐγὼ αἴτιός εἰμι κατεσκεύαζε, πρὸ τοῦ τὸ πρᾶγμα γενέσθαι φανερὸν
  διὰ Πλουτάρχου γεγονός.

  [728] Demosth. cont. Meidiam, p. 558; cont. Bœotum de Nomine, p.
  999. The mention of the χόες in the latter passage, being the
  second day of the festival called Anthesteria, identifies the
  month.

  [729] Demosthen. cont. Meidiam, p. 566, 567.

This hope however turned out fallacious. After an apparently friendly
reception and a certain stay at or near Eretria, Phokion found
himself betrayed. Kallias, an ambitious leader of Chalkis, collected
as much Eubœan force as he could, declared openly against Athens,
and called in Macedonian aid (probably from Philip’s commanders in
the neighboring Pagasæan Gulf); while his brother Taurosthenes hired
a detachment of mercenaries out of Phokis.[730] The anti-Athenian
force thus became more formidable than Phokion could fairly cope
with; while the support yielded to him in the island was less
than he expected. Crossing the eminence named Kotylæum, he took a
position near the town and hippodrome of Tamynæ, on high ground
bordered by a ravine; Plutarch still professing friendship, and
encamping with his mercenaries along with him. Phokion’s position
was strong; yet the Athenians were outnumbered and beleaguered so
as to occasion great alarm.[731] Many of the slack and disorderly
soldiers deserted; a loss which Phokion affected to despise—though he
at the same time sent to Athens to make known his difficulties and
press for reinforcement. Meanwhile he kept on the defensive in his
camp, which the enemy marched up to attack. Disregarding his order,
and acting with a deliberate treason which was accounted at Athens
unparalleled—Plutarch advanced forward out of the camp to meet them;
but presently fled, drawing along with his flight the Athenian horse,
who had also advanced in some disorder. Phokion with the infantry was
now in the greatest danger. The enemy, attacking vigorously, were
plucking up the palisade, and on the point of forcing his camp. But
his measures were so well taken, and his hoplites behaved with so
much intrepidity and steadiness in this trying emergency, that he
repelled the assailants with loss, and gained a complete victory.
Thallus and Kineas distinguished themselves by his side; Kleophanes
also was conspicuous in partially rallying the broken horsemen; while
Æschines the orator, serving among the hoplites, was complimented
for his bravery, and sent to Athens to carry the first news of
the victory.[732] Phokion pursued his success, expelled Plutarch
from Eretria, and captured a strong fort called Zaretra, near the
narrowest part of the island. He released all his Greek captives,
fearing that the Athenians, incensed at the recent treachery, should
resolve upon treating them with extreme harshness.[733] Kallias seems
to have left the island and found shelter with Philip.[734]

  [730] Æschines cont. Ktesiphont. p. 399. ... Ταυροσθένης, τοὺς
  Φωκικοὺς ξένους διαβιβάσας, etc. There is no ground for inferring
  from this passage (with Böhnecke, p. 20, and others), that the
  Phokians themselves seconded Philip in organizing Eubœan parties
  against Athens. The Phokians were then in alliance with Athens,
  and would not be likely to concur in a step alike injurious and
  offensive to her, without any good to themselves. But some of
  the mercenaries on service in Phokis might easily be tempted to
  change their service and cross to Eubœa, by the promise of a
  handsome gratuity.

  [731] Demosth. cont. Meidiam, p. 567. ἐπειδὴ δὲ πολιορκεῖσθαι
  τοὺς ἐν Ταμύναις στρατιώτας ἐξηγγέλλετο, etc.

  [732] Æschines, Fals. Leg. p. 300. c. 53; cont. Ktesiphont. p.
  399. c. 32. Plutarch, Phokion, c. 13. Plutarch has no clear idea
  of the different contests carried on in the island of Eubœa. He
  passes on, without a note of transition, from this war in the
  island (in 349-348 B. C.) to the subsequent war in 341 B. C.

  Nothing indeed can be more obscure and difficult to disentangle
  than the sequence of Eubœan transactions.

  It is to be observed that Æschines lays the blame of the
  treachery, whereby the Athenian army was entrapped and
  endangered, on Kallias of Chalkis; while Demosthenes throws it on
  Plutarch of Eretria. Probably both Plutarch and Kallias deserved
  the stigma. But Demosthenes is on this occasion more worthy of
  credit than Æschines, since the harangue against Meidias, in
  which the assertion occurs, was delivered only a few months
  after the battle of Tamynæ; while the allegation of Æschines is
  contained in his harangue against Ktesiphon, which was not spoken
  till many years afterwards.

  [733] Plutarch, Phokion, c. 13.

  [734] Æschines indeed says, that Kallias, having been forgiven by
  Athens on this occasion, afterwards, gratuitously and from pure
  hostility and ingratitude to Athens, went to Philip. But I think
  this is probably an exaggeration. The orator is making a strong
  point against Kallias, who afterwards became connected with
  Demosthenes, and rendered considerable service to Athens in Eubœa.

  The treason of Kallias and Taurosthenes is alluded to by
  Deinarchus in his harangue against Demosthenes, s. 45.

The news brought by Æschines (before the Dionysiac festival) of
the victory of Tamynæ, relieved the Athenians from great anxiety.
On the former despatch from Phokion, the Senate had resolved to
send to Eubœa another armament, including the remaining half of
the cavalry, a reinforcement of hoplites, and a fresh squadron of
triremes. But the victory enabled them to dispense[735] with any
immediate reinforcement, and to celebrate the Dionysiac festival
with cheerfulness. The festival was on this year of more than usual
notoriety. Demosthenes, serving in it as chorêgus for his tribe
the Pandionis, was brutally insulted, in the theatre and amid the
full pomp of the ceremony, by his enemy the wealthy Meidias; who,
besides other outrages, struck him several times with his fist on
the head. The insult was the more poignant, because Meidias at this
time held the high office of Hipparch, or one of the commanders
of the horse. It was the practice at Athens to convene a public
assembly immediately after the Dionysiac festival, for the special
purpose of receiving notifications and hearing complaints about
matters which had occurred at the festival itself. At this special
assembly Demosthenes preferred a complaint against Meidias for the
unwarrantable outrage offered, and found warm sympathy among the
people, who passed a unanimous vote of censure. This procedure
(called Probolê), did not by itself carry any punishment, but served
as a sort of _præjudicium_, or finding of a true bill; enabling
Demosthenes to quote the public as a witness to the main fact of
insult, and encouraging him to pursue Meidias before the regular
tribunals; which he did a few months afterwards, but was induced to
accept from Meidias the self-imposed fine of thirty minæ before the
final passing of sentence by the Dikasts.[736]

  [735] Demosthenes cont. Meidiam, p. 567.

  [736] Æschines cont. Ktesiph. p. 61; Plutarch, Demosth. c. 12.
  Westermann and many other critics (De Litibus quas Demosthenes
  oravit ipse, p. 25-28) maintain that the discourse against
  Meidias can never have been really spoken by Demosthenes to the
  Dikastery, since if it had been spoken, he could not afterwards
  have entered into the compromise. But it is surely possible,
  that he may have delivered the discourse and obtained judgment
  in his favor; and then afterwards—when the second vote of the
  Dikasts was about to come on, for estimation of the penalty—may
  have accepted the offer of the defendant to pay a moderate fine
  (compare Demosth. cont. Neæram, p. 1348) in fear of exasperating
  too far the powerful friends around Meidias. The action of
  Demosthenes against Meidias was certainly an ἀγὼν τιμητός. About
  προβολὴ, see Meier and Schömann, Der Attische Prozess, p. 271.

From the despatches of Phokion, the treason of Plutarch of Eretria
had become manifest; so that Demosthenes gained credit for his
previous remarks on the impolicy of granting the armament; while
the friends of Plutarch—Hegesilaus and others of the party of
Eubulus—incurred displeasure; and some, as it appears, were
afterwards tried.[737] But he was reproached by his enemies for
having been absent from the battle of Tamynæ; and a citizen named
Euktêmon, at the instigation of Meidias, threatened an indictment
against him for desertion of his post. Whether Demosthenes had
actually gone over to Eubœa as a hoplite in the army of Phokion, and
obtained leave of absence to come back for the Dionysia—or whether
he did not go at all—we are unable to say. In either case, his
duties as chorêgus for this year furnished a conclusive excuse; so
that Euktêmon, though he formally hung up before the statues of the
Eponymous Heroes public proclamation of his intended indictment,
never thought fit to take even the first step for bringing it to
actual trial, and incurred legal disgrace for such non-performance
of his engagement.[738] Nevertheless the opprobrious and undeserved
epithet of deserter was ever afterwards applied to Demosthenes by
Æschines and his other enemies; and Meidias even heaped the like
vituperation upon most of those who took part in that assembly[739]
wherein the Probolê or vote of censure against him had been passed.
Not long after the Dionysiac festival, however, it was found
necessary to send fresh troops, both horsemen and hoplites, to Eubœa;
probably to relieve either some or all of those already serving
there. Demosthenes on this occasion put on his armor and served
as a hoplite in the island. Meidias also went to Argura in Eubœa,
as commander of the horsemen: yet, when the horsemen were summoned
to join the Athenian army, he did not join along with them, but
remained as trierarch of a trireme the outfit of which he had himself
defrayed.[740] How long the army stayed in Eubœa, we do not know.
It appears that Demosthenes had returned to Athens by the time when
the annual Senate was chosen in the last month of the Attic year
(Skirrophorion—June); having probably by that time been relieved. He
was named (by the lot) among the Five Hundred Senators for the coming
Attic year (beginning Midsummer 349 B. C. = Olymp. 107, 4);[741] his
old enemy Meidias in vain impugning his qualification as he passed
through the Dokimasy or preliminary examination previous to entering
office.

  [737] Demosthenes, De Pace, p. 58; De Fals. Leg. p. 434—with the
  Scholion.

  [738] Demosthen. cont. Meidiam, p. 548. ... ἐφ᾽ ᾗ γὰρ ἐκεῖνος
  (Euktemon) ἠτίμωκεν αὑτὸν οὐκ ἐπεξελθὼν, οὐδεμιᾶς ἔγωγ᾽ ἔτι
  προσδέομαι δίκης, ἀλλ᾽ ἱκανὴν ἔχω.

  Æschines says that Nikodemus entered an indictment against
  Demosthenes for deserting his place in the ranks; but that he was
  bought off by Demosthenes, and refrained from bringing it before
  the Dikastery (Æsch. Fals. Leg. p. 292).

  [739] Demosth. cont. Meid. p. 577.

  [740] Demosth. cont. Meid. p. 558-567.

  [741] Demosth. cont. Meid. p. 551.

What the Athenian army did farther in Eubœa, we cannot make
out. Phokion was recalled—we do not know when—and replaced by a
general named Molossus; who is said to have managed the war very
unsuccessfully, and even to have been made prisoner himself by the
enemy.[742] The hostile parties in the island, sided by Philip, were
not subdued, nor was it until the summer of 348 B. C. that they
applied for peace. Even then, it appears, none was concluded, so that
the Eubœans remained unfriendly to Athens until the peace with Philip
in 346 B. C.

  [742] Plutarch, Phokion, c. 14; Pausanias, i. 36, 3.

But while the Athenians were thus tasked for the maintenance of
Eubœa, they found it necessary to undertake more effective measures
for the relief of Olynthus, and they thus had upon their hands at
the same time the burthen of two wars. We know that they had to
provide force for both Eubœa and Olynthus at once;[743] and that
the occasion which called for these simultaneous efforts was one
of stringent urgency. The Olynthian requisition and communications
made themselves so strongly felt, as to induce Athens to do, what
Demosthenes in his three Olynthiacs had vainly insisted on during
the preceding summer and autumn—to send thither a force of native
Athenians, in the first half of 349 B. C. Of the horsemen who had
gone from Athens to Eubœa, under Meidias, to serve under Phokion,
either all, or a part, crossed by sea from Eubœa to Olynthus, during
that half-year.[744] Meidias did not cross with them, but came back
as trierarch in his trireme to Athens. Now the Athenian horsemen were
not merely citizens, but citizens of wealth and consequence; moreover
the transport of them by sea was troublesome as well as costly.
The sending of such troops implies a strenuous effort and sense of
urgency on the part of Athens. We may farther conclude that a more
numerous body of hoplites were sent along with the horsemen at the
same time; for horsemen would hardly under any circumstances be sent
across sea alone; moreover Olynthus stood most in need of auxiliary
hoplites, since her native force consisted chiefly of horsemen and
peltasts.[745]

  [743] Demosthen. cont. Neæram, p. 1346. ... συμβάντος τῇ
  πόλει καιροῦ τοιούτου καὶ πολέμου, ἐν ᾧ ἦν ἢ κρατήσασιν ὑμῖν
  μεγίστοις τῶν Ἑλλήνων εἶναι, καὶ ἀναμφισβητήτως τά τε ὑμέτερα
  αὐτῶν κεκομίσθαι καὶ ~καταπεπολεμηκέναι Φίλιππον—ἢ ὑστερήσασι
  τῇ βοηθείᾳ καὶ προεμένοις τοὺς συμμάχους~, δι᾽ ἀπορίαν χρημάτων
  καταλυθέντος τοῦ στρατοπέδου, τούτους τ᾽ ἀπολέσαι καὶ τοῖς
  ἄλλοις Ἕλλησιν ἀπίστους εἶναι δοκεῖν, καὶ κινδυνεύειν περὶ
  τῶν ὑπολοίπων, περί τε Λήμνου καὶ Ἴμβρου καὶ Σκύρου καὶ
  Χεῤῥονήσου—καὶ ~μελλόντων στρατεύεσθαι ὑμῶν πανδημεὶ εἴς τε
  Εὔβοιαν καὶ Ὄλυνθον~—ἔγραψε ψήφισμα ἐν τῇ βουλῇ Ἀπολλόδωρος
  βουλεύων, etc.

  This speech was delivered before the Dikastery by a person named
  Theomnestus, in support of an indictment against Neæra—perhaps
  six or eight years after 349 B. C. Whether Demosthenes was the
  author of the speech or not, its value as evidence will not be
  materially altered.

  [744] Demosthen. cont. Meidiam, p. 578. ... οὗτος τῶν μεθ᾽ ἑαυτοῦ
  στρατευσαμένων ἱππέων, ~ὅτε εἰς Ὄλυνθον διέβησαν, ἐλθὼν~ πρὸς
  ὑμᾶς εἰς τὴν ἐκκλησίαν κατηγόρει. Compare the same oration, p.
  558—περὶ δὲ τῶν συστρατευσαμένων εἰς Ἄργουραν (in Eubœa) ἴστε
  δήπου πάντες οἷα ἐδημηγόρησε παρ᾽ ὑμῖν, ~ὅτ᾽ ἧκεν ἐκ Χαλκίδος~,
  κατηγορῶν καὶ φάσκων ὄνειδος ἐξελθεῖν τὴν στρατιὰν ταύτην τῇ
  πόλει.

  This transit of the Athenian horsemen to Olynthus, which took
  place after the battle of Tamynæ, is a distinct occurrence from
  the voluntary contributions at Athens towards an Olynthian
  expedition (ἐπιδόσεις εἰς Ὄλυνθον—Demosth. cont. Meidiam, p.
  566); which contributions took place before the battle of Tamynæ,
  and before the expedition to Eubœa of which that battle made part.

  These horsemen went from Eubœa to Olynthus _before Meidias
  returned to Athens_. But we know that he returned to Athens
  before the beginning of the new Attic or Olympic year (Olymp.
  107, 4, 349-348 B. C.); that is, speaking approximatively, before
  the 1st of July 349 B. C. For he was present at Athens and
  accused Demosthenes in the senatorial Dokimasy, or preliminary
  examination, which all senators underwent before they took their
  seats with the beginning of the new year (Demosth. cont. Meid. p.
  551).

  It seems, therefore, clear that the Athenian expedition—certainly
  horsemen, and probably hoplites also—went to Olynthus before July
  1, 349 B. C. I alluded to this expedition of Athenian citizens
  to Olynthus in a previous note—as connected with the date of the
  third Olynthiac of Demosthenes.

  [745] Xenoph. Hellen. v. 2, 41; v. 3, 3-6.

The evidence derived from the speech against Neæra being thus
corroborated by the still better evidence of the speech against
Meidias, we are made certain of the important fact, that the first
half of the year 349 B. C. was one in which Athens was driven to
great public exertions—even to armaments of native citizens—for
the support of Olynthus as well as for the maintenance of Eubœa.
What the Athenians achieved, indeed, or helped to achieve, by these
expeditions to Olynthus—or how long they stayed there—we have no
information. But we may reasonably presume—though Philip during this
year 349 B. C., probably conquered a certain number of the thirty-two
Chalkidic towns—that the allied forces, Olynthian, Chalkidic and
Athenian, contended against him with no inconsiderable effect, and
threw back his conquest of Chalkidikê into the following year. After
a summer’s campaign in that peninsula, the Athenian citizens would
probably come home. We learn that the Olynthians made prisoner a
Macedonian of rank named Derdas, with other Macedonians attached to
him.[746]

  [746] Theopompus, Fragm. 155; ap. Athenæum, x. p. 436; Ælian, V.
  H. ii. 41.

So extraordinary a military effort, however, made by the Athenians
in the first half of 349 B. C.—to recover Eubœa and to protect
Olynthus at once—naturally placed them in a state of financial
embarrassment. Of this, one proof is to be found in the fact, that
for some time there was not sufficient money to pay the Dikasteries,
which accordingly sat little; so that few causes were tried for some
time—for how long we do not know.[747]

  [747] See Demosthenes adv. Bœotum De Nomine, p. 999. ... καὶ εἰ
  μισθὸς ἐπορίσθη τοῖς δικαστηρίοις, εἰσῆγον ἂν δῆλον ὅτι. This
  oration was spoken shortly after the battle of Tamynæ, p. 999.

To meet in part the pecuniary wants of the moment, a courageous
effort was made by the senator Apollodorus. He moved a decree in
the Senate, that it should be submitted to the vote of the public
assembly, whether the surplus of revenue, over and above the ordinary
and permanent peace establishment of the city, should be paid to
the Theôric Fund for the various religious festivals—or should be
devoted to the pay, outfit, and transport of soldiers for the actual
war. The Senate approved the motion of Apollodorus, and adopted a
(probouleuma) preliminary resolution authorizing him to submit it
to the public assembly. Under such authority, Apollodorus made the
motion in the assembly, where also he was fully successful. The
assembly (without a single dissentient voice, we are told) passed a
decree enjoining that the surplus of revenue should under the actual
pressure of war be devoted to the pay and other wants of soldiers.
Notwithstanding such unanimity, however, a citizen named Stephanus
impeached both the decree and its mover on the score of illegality,
under the Graphê Paranomon. Apollodorus was brought before the
Dikastery, and there found guilty; mainly (according to his friend
and relative the prosecutor of Neæra) through suborned witnesses
and false allegations foreign to the substance of the impeachment.
When the verdict of guilty had been pronounced, Stephanus as accuser
assessed the measure of punishment at the large fine of fifteen
talents, refusing to listen to any supplications from the friends of
Apollodorus, when they entreated him to name a lower sum. The Dikasts
however, more lenient than Stephanus, were satisfied to adopt the
measure of fine assessed by Apollodorus upon himself—one talent—which
he actually paid.[748]

  [748] Demosthen. cont. Neær. p. 1346, 1347.

There can hardly be a stronger evidence both of the urgency and
poverty of the moment, than the fact, that both Senate and people
passed this decree of Apollodorus. That fact there is no room for
doubting. But the additional statement—that there was not a single
dissentient, and that every one, both at the time and afterwards,
always pronounced the motion to have been an excellent one[749]—is
probably an exaggeration. For it is not to be imagined that the
powerful party, who habitually resisted the diversion of money from
the Theôric Fund to war purposes, should have been wholly silent
or actually concurrent on this occasion, though they may have been
outvoted. The motion of Apollodorus was one which could not be made
without distinctly breaking the law, and rendering the mover liable
to those penal consequences which afterwards actually fell upon him.
Now, that even a majority, both of senate and assembly, should have
overleaped this illegality, is a proof sufficiently remarkable how
strongly the crisis pressed upon their minds.

  [749] Demosthen. cont. Neær. p. 1346. ἀλλὰ καὶ νῦν ἔτι, ἄν που
  λόγος γέγνηται, ὁμολογεῖται παρὰ πάντων, ὡς τὰ βέλτιστα εἴπας
  ἄδικα πάθοι.

The expedition of Athenian citizens, sent to Olynthus before
Midsummer 349 B. C., would probably return after a campaign of two
or three months, and after having rendered some service against
the Macedonian army. The warlike operations of Philip against
the Chalkidians and Olynthians were noway relaxed. He pressed
the Chalkidians more and more closely throughout all the ensuing
eighteen months (from Midsummer 349 B. C. to the early spring of
347 B. C.). During the year Olymp. 407, 4, if the citation from
Philochorus[750] is to be trusted, the Athenians despatched to
their aid three expeditions; one, at the request of the Olynthians,
who sent envoys to pray for it—consisting of two thousand peltasts
under Chares, in thirty ships partly manned by Athenian seamen. A
second under Charidemus, at the earnest entreaty of the suffering
Chalkidians; consisting of eighteen triremes, four thousand peltasts
and one hundred and fifty horsemen. Charidemus, in conjunction
with the Olynthians, marched over Bottiæa and the peninsula of
Pallênê, laying waste the country; whether he achieved any important
success, we do not know. Respecting both Chares and Charidemus,
the anecdotes descending to us are of insolence, extortion, and
amorous indulgences, rather than of military exploits.[751] It is
clear that neither the one nor the other achieved anything effectual
against Philip, whose arms and corruption made terrible progress
in Chalkidikê. So grievously did the strength of the Olynthians
fail, that they transmitted a last and most urgent appeal to Athens;
imploring the Athenians not to abandon them to ruin, but to send them
a force of citizens in addition to the mercenaries already there.
The Athenians complied, despatching thither seventeen triremes, two
thousand hoplites, and three hundred horsemen, all under the command
of Chares.

  [750] Philochorus ap. Dionys. Hal. ad Amm. p. 734, 735.
  Philochorus tells us that the Athenians _now_ contracted the
  alliance with Olynthus; which certainly is not accurate. The
  alliance had been contracted in the preceding year.

  [751] Theopomp. Fragm. 183-238; Athenæus, xii. p. 532.

To make out anything of the successive steps of this important war
is impossible; but we discern that during this latter portion of
the Olynthian war, the efforts made by Athens were considerable.
Demosthenes (in a speech six years afterwards) affirms that the
Athenians had sent to the aid of Olynthus four thousand citizens,
ten thousand mercenaries, and fifty triremes.[752] He represents
the Chalkidic cities as having been betrayed successively to
Philip by corrupt and traitorous citizens. That the conquest was
achieved greatly by the aid of corruption, we cannot doubt; but
the orator’s language carries no accurate information. Mekyberna
and Torônê are said to have been among the towns betrayed without
resistance.[753] After Philip had captured the thirty-two Chalkidic
cities, he marched against Olynthus itself, with its confederate
neighbors,—the Thracian Methônê and Apollonia. In forcing the passage
of the river Sardon, he encountered such resistance that his troops
were at first repulsed; and he was himself obliged to seek safety
by swimming back across the river. He was moreover wounded in the
eye by an Olynthian archer, named Aster, and lost the sight of that
eye completely, notwithstanding the skill of his Greek surgeon,
Kritobulus.[754] On arriving within forty furlongs of Olynthus,
he sent to the inhabitants a peremptory summons, intimating that
either they must evacuate the city, or he must leave Macedonia.[755]
Rejecting this notice, they determined to defend their town to the
last. A considerable portion of the last Athenian citizen-armament
was still in the town to aid in the defence;[756] so that the
Olynthians might reasonably calculate that Athens would strain every
nerve to guard her own citizens against captivity. But their hopes
were disappointed. How long the siege lasted,—or whether there was
time for Athens to send farther reinforcement, we cannot say. The
Olynthians are said to have repulsed several assaults of Philip with
loss; but according to Demosthenes, the philippizing party, headed
by the venal Euthykrates and Lasthenes, brought about the banishment
of their chief opponent Apollonides, nullified all measures for
energetic defence, and treasonably surrendered the city. Two defeats
were sustained near its walls, and one of the generals of this
party, having five hundred cavalry under his command, betrayed them
designedly into the hands of the invader.[757] Olynthus, with all its
inhabitants and property, at length fell into the hands of Philip.
His mastery of the Chalkidic peninsula thus became complete towards
the end of winter, 348-347 B. C.

  [752] Demosth. Fals. Leg. p. 426.

  [753] Diodor. xvi. 52.

  [754] Kallisthenes ap. Stobæum, t. vii. p. 92; Plutarch,
  Parallel. c. 8; Demosth. Philipp. iii. p. 117. Kritobulus could
  not save the sight of the eye, but he is said to have prevented
  any visible disfigurement. “Magna et Critobulo fama est, extracta
  Philippi regis oculo sagitta et citra deformitatem oris curata,
  orbitate luminis” (Pliny, H. N. vii. 37).

  [755] Demosth. Philipp. iii. p. 113.

  [756] Æschines, Fals. Leg. p. 30.

  [757] Demosth. Philipp. iii. p. 125-128; Fals. Leg. p. 426;
  Diodor. xvi. 53.

Miserable was the ruin which fell upon this flourishing peninsula.
The persons of the Olynthians,—men, women and children,—were sold
into slavery. The wealth of the city gave to Philip the means of
recompensing his soldiers for the toils of the war; the city itself
he is said to have destroyed, together with Apollonia, Methônê,
Stageira, etc.,—in all, thirty-two Chalkidic cities. Demosthenes,
speaking about five years afterwards, says that they were so
thoroughly and cruelly ruined as to leave their very sites scarcely
discernible.[758] Making every allowance for exaggeration, we may
fairly believe that they were dismantled, and bereft of all citizen
proprietors; that the buildings and visible marks of Hellenic
city-life were broken up or left to decay; that the remaining
houses, as well as the villages around, were tenanted by dependent
cultivators or slaves,—now working for the benefit of new Macedonian
proprietors, in great part nonresident, and probably of favored
Grecian grantees also.[759] Though various Greeks thus received
their recompense for services rendered to Philip, yet Demosthenes
affirms that Euthykrates and Lasthenes, the traitors who had sold
Olynthus, were not among the number; or at least that, not long
afterwards, they were dismissed with dishonor and contempt.[760]

  [758] Demosth. Philipp. iii. p. 117; Justin, viii. 3.

  [759] Demosthenes, (Fals. Leg. p. 386) says, that both
  Philokrates and Æschines received from Philip, not only presents
  of timber and corn, but also grants of productive and valuable
  farms in the Olynthian territory. He calls some Olynthian
  witnesses to prove his assertion; but their testimony is not
  given at length.

  [760] Demosth. De Chersones. p. 99. The existence of these
  Olynthian traitors, sold to Philip, proves that he could not
  have needed the aid of the Stageirite philosopher Aristotle to
  indicate to him who were the richest Olynthian citizens, at
  the time when the prisoners were put up for sale as slaves.
  The Athenian Demochares, about thirty years afterwards, in his
  virulent speech against the philosophers, alleged that Aristotle
  had rendered this disgraceful service to Philip (Aristokles
  ap. Eusebium, Præp. Ev. p. 792) Wesseling (ad Diodor. xvi.
  53) refutes the charge by saying that Aristotle was at that
  time, along with Hermeias, at Atarneus; a refutation not very
  conclusive, which I am glad to be able to strengthen.

In this Olynthian war,—ruinous to the Chalkidic Greeks, terrific to
all other Greeks, and doubling the power of Philip,—Athens too must
have incurred a serious amount of expense. We find it stated loosely,
that in her entire war against Philip,—from the time of his capture
of Amphipolis in 358-357 B. C. down to the peace of 346 B. C. or
shortly afterwards,—she had expended not less than fifteen hundred
talents.[761] On these computations no great stress is to be laid;
but we may well believe that her outlay was considerable. In spite
of all reluctance, she was obliged to do something; what she did was
both too little, and too intermittent,—done behind time so as to
produce no satisfactory result; but nevertheless, the aggregate cost,
in a series of years, was a large one. During the latter portion of
the Olynthian war, as far as we can judge, she really seems to have
made efforts, though she had done little in the beginning. We may
presume that the cost must have been defrayed, in part at least, by a
direct property-tax; for the condemnation of Apollodorus put an end
to the proposition of taking from the Theôric Fund.[762] Means may
also have been found of economizing from the other expenses of the
state.

  [761] Æschines, Fals. Leg. p. 37. c. 24. Demosthenes (Olynth.
  iii. p. 36) mentions the same amount of public money as having
  been wasted εἰς οὐδὲν δέον—even in the early part of the
  Olynthiac war and before the Eubœan war. As evidences of actual
  amount, such statements are of no value.

  [762] Ulpian, in his Commentary on the first Olynthiac, tells us
  that after the fine imposed upon Apollodorus, Eubulus moved and
  carried a law, enacting that any future motion to encroach on the
  Theôric Fund should be punished with death.

  The authority of Ulpian is not sufficient to accredit this
  statement. The fine inflicted by the Dikastery upon Apollodorus
  was lenient; we may therefore reasonably doubt whether the
  popular sentiment would go along with the speaker in making the
  like offence capital in future.

Though the appropriation of the Theôric Fund to other purposes
continued to be thus interdicted to any formal motion, yet, in the
way of suggestion and insinuation it was from time to time glanced
at by Demosthenes, and others;—and whenever money was wanted for
war, the question whether it should be taken from this source or
from direct property-tax, was indirectly revived. The appropriation
of the Theôric Fund, however, remained unchanged until the very eve
of the battle of Chæroneia. Just before that Dies Iræ, when Philip
was actually fortifying Elateia, the fund was made applicable to
war-purposes; the views of Demosthenes were realized,—twelve years
after he had begun to enforce them.

This question about the Theôric expenditure is rarely presented by
modern authors in the real way that it affected the Athenian mind. It
has been sometimes treated as a sort of almsgiving to the poor,—and
sometimes as an expenditure by the Athenians upon their pleasures.
Neither the one nor the other gives a full or correct view of the
case; each only brings out a part of the truth.

Doubtless, the Athenian democracy cared much for the pleasures of
the citizens. It provided for them the largest amount of refined and
imaginative pleasures ever tasted by any community known to history;
pleasures essentially social and multitudinous, attaching the
citizens to each other, rich and poor, by the strong tie of community
of enjoyment.

But pleasure, though an usual accessory, was not the primary idea or
predominant purpose of the Theôric expenditure. That expenditure was
essentially religious in its character, incurred only for various
festivals, and devoted exclusively to the honor of the gods. The
ancient religion, not simply at Athens, but throughout Greece and
the contemporary world,—very different in this respect from the
modern,—included within itself and its manifestations nearly the
whole range of social pleasures.[763] Now the Theôric Fund was
essentially the Church-Fund at Athens; that upon which were charged
all the expenses incurred by the state in the festivals and the
worship of the gods. The Diobely, or distribution of two oboli to
each present citizen, was one part of this expenditure; given in
order to ensure that every citizen should have the opportunity of
attending the festival, and doing honor to the god; never given
to any one who was out of Attica because, of course, he could not
attend;[764] but given to all alike within the country, rich or
poor.[765] It was essential to that universal communion which formed
a prominent feature of the festival, not less in regard to the
god, than in regard to the city;[766] but it was only one portion
of the total disbursements covered by the Theôric Fund. To this
general religious fund it was provided by law that the surplus of
ordinary revenue should be paid over, after all the cost of the
peace establishment had been defrayed. There was no appropriation
more thoroughly coming home to the common sentiment, more conducive
as a binding force to the unity of the city, or more productive of
satisfaction to each individual citizen.

  [763] Among the many passages which illustrate this association
  in the Greek mind, between the idea of a religious festival, and
  that of enjoyment—we may take the expressions of Herodotus about
  the great festival at Sparta called Hyakinthia. In the summer
  of 479 B. C., the Spartans were tardy in bringing out their
  military force for the defence of Attica—being engaged in that
  festival. Οἱ γὰρ Λακεδαιμόνιοι ὅρταζόν τε τὸν χρόνον τοῦτον, καί
  σφι ἦν Ὑακίνθια· ~περὶ πλείστου δ᾽ ἦγον τὰ τοῦ θεοῦ πορσύνειν~
  (Herod. ix. 7). Presently the Athenian envoys come to Sparta
  to complain of the delay in the following language: Ὑμεῖς μὲν,
  ὦ Λακεδαιμόνιοι, αὐτοῦ τῇδε μένοντες, ~Ὑακίνθιά τε ἄγετε καὶ
  παίζετε~, καταπροδόντες τοὺς συμμάχους.

  Here the expressions “to fulfil the requirements of the god,”
  and “to amuse themselves,” are used in description of the same
  festival, and almost as equivalents.

  [764] Harpokration, v. Θεωρικά ... διένειμεν Εὔβουλος εἰς τὴν
  θυσίαν, ἵνα πάντες ἑορτάζωσι, καὶ μηδεὶς τῶν πολιτῶν ἀπολίπηται
  δἰ᾽ ἀσθένειαν τῶν ἰδίων.... Ὅτι δὲ οὐκ ἐξῆν τοῖς ἀποδημοῦσι
  θεωρικὸν λαμβάνειν, Ὑπερίδης δεδήλωκεν ἐν τῷ κατ᾽ Ἀρχεστρατίδου.

  [765] See Demosth. adv. Leocharem, p. 1091, 1092; Philipp. iv. p.
  141. Compare also Schömann, Antiq. Jur. Att. s. 69.

  [766] See the directions of the old oracles quoted by Demosthenes
  cont. Meidiam, p. 531. ἱστάναι ὡραίων Βρομίῳ χάριν ~ἄμμιγα
  πάντας~, etc. στεφανηφορεῖν ἐλευθέρους καὶ δούλους, etc.

We neither know the amount of the Theôric Fund, nor of the
distributions connected with it. We cannot, therefore, say what
proportion it formed of the whole peace-expenditure,—itself
unknown also. But we cannot doubt that it was large. To be sparing
of expenditure in manifestations for the honor of the gods, was
accounted the reverse of virtue by Greeks generally; and the
Athenians especially, whose eyes were every day contemplating the
glories of their acropolis, would learn a different lesson,—moreover,
magnificent religious display was believed to conciliate the
protection and favor of the gods.[767] We may affirm, however,
upon the strongest presumptions, that this religious expenditure
did not absorb any funds required for the other branches of a
peace-establishment. Neither naval, nor military, nor administrative
exigencies, were starved in order to augment the Theôric surplus.
Eubulus was distinguished for his excellent keeping of the docks and
arsenals, and for his care in replacing the decayed triremes by new
ones. And after all the wants of a well-mounted peace-establishment
were satisfied, no Athenian had scruple in appropriating what
remained under the conspiring impulses of piety, pleasure and social
brotherhood.

  [767] See the boast of Isokrates, Orat. iv. (Panegyr.) s. 40;
  Plato, Alkibiad. ii. p. 148. Xenophon (Vectigal. vi. 1.), in
  proposing some schemes for the improvement of the Athenian
  revenue, sets forth as one of the advantages, that “the religious
  festivals will be celebrated then with still greater magnificence
  than they are now.”

It is true that the Athenians might have laid up that surplus
annually in the acropolis, to form an accumulating war-fund. Such
provision had been made half a century before, under the full energy
and imperial power of Athens, when she had a larger revenue, with
numerous tribute-paying allies, and when Perikles presided over
her councils. It might have been better if she had done something
of the same kind in the age after the Peloponnesian war. Perhaps,
if men like Perikles, or even like Demosthenes, had enjoyed marked
ascendency, she would have been advised and prevailed on to
continue such a precaution. But before we can measure the extent
of improvidence with which Athens is here fairly chargeable, we
ought to know what was the sum thus expended on the festivals.
What amount of money could have been stored up for the contingency
of war, even if all the festivals and all the distributions had
been suppressed? How far would it have been possible, in any other
case than that of obvious present necessity, to carry economy into
the festival-expenditure,—truly denominated by Demades the cement
of the political system,[768]—without impairing in the bosom of
each individual that sentiment of communion, religious, social
and patriotic, which made the Athenians a City, and not a simple
multiplication of units? These are points on which we ought to have
information, before we can fairly graduate our censure upon Athens
for not converting her Theôric Fund into an accumulated capital to
meet the contingency of war. We ought also to ask, as matter for
impartial comparison, how many governments, ancient or modern, have
ever thought it requisite to lay up during peace a stock of money
available for war?

  [768] Plutarch, Quæstion. Platonic. p. 1011. ὡς ἔλεγε Δημάδης,
  κόλλαν ὀνομάζων τὰ θεωρικὰ τοῦ πολιτεύματος (erroneously written
  θεωρητικὰ).

The Athenian peace-establishment maintained more ships of war, larger
docks, and better-stored arsenals, than any city in Greece, besides
expending forty talents annually upon the Horsemen of the state, and
doubtless something farther (though we know not how much) upon the
other descriptions of military force. All this, let it be observed,
and the Theôric expenditure besides, was defrayed without direct
taxation, which was reserved for the extraordinary cost incident to a
state of war, and was held to be sufficient to meet it, without any
accumulated war-fund. When the war against Philip became serious,
the proprietary classes at Athens, those included in the schedule of
assessment, were called upon to defray the expense by a direct tax,
from which they had been quite free in time of peace. They tried to
evade this burthen by requiring that the festival-fund should be
appropriated instead;[769] thus menacing what was dearest to the
feelings of the majority of the citizens. The ground which they took
was the same in principle, as if the proprietors in France or Belgium
claimed to exempt themselves from direct taxation for the cost of a
war, by first taking either all or half of the annual sum voted out
of the budget for the maintenance of religion.[770] We may judge how
strong a feeling would be raised among the Athenian public generally,
by the proposal of impoverishing the festival expenditure in order
to save a property-tax. Doubtless, after the proprietary class had
borne a certain burthen of direct taxation, their complaints would
become legitimate. The cost of the festivals could not be kept up
undiminished, under severe and continued pressure of war. As a second
and subsidiary resource, it would become essential to apply the whole
or a part of the fund in alleviation of the burthens of the war. But
even if all had been so applied, the fund could not have been large
enough to dispense with the necessity of a property-tax besides.

  [769] According to the author of the oration against Neæra,
  the law did actually provide, that in time of war, the surplus
  revenue should be devoted to warlike purposes—κελευόντων τῶν
  νόμων, ὅταν πόλεμος ᾖ, τὰ περιόντα χρήματα τῆς διοικήσεως
  στρατιωτικὰ εἶναι (p. 1346). But it seems to me that this must be
  a misstatement, got up to suit the speaker’s case. If the law had
  been so, Apollodorus would have committed no illegality in his
  motion; moreover, all the fencing and manœuvring of Demosthenes
  in his first and third Olynthiacs would have been to no purpose.

  [770] The case here put, though analogous in principle, makes
  against the Athenian proprietors, in degree; for, even in time
  of peace, one half of the French revenue is raised by direct
  taxation.

We see this conflict of interests,—between direct taxation on one
side, and the festival-fund on the other as a means of paying for
war,—running through the Demosthenic orations, and especially marked
in the fourth Philippic.[771] Unhappily, the conflict served as an
excuse to both parties for throwing the blame on each other, and
starving the war; as well as for giving effect to the repugnance,
shared by both rich and poor, against personal military service
abroad. Demosthenes sides with neither, tries to mediate between
them, and calls for patriotic sacrifice from both alike. Having
before him an active and living enemy, with the liberties of Greece
as well as of Athens at stake,—he urges every species of sacrifice
at once—personal service, direct-tax payments, abnegation of the
festivals. Sometimes the one demand stands most prominent, sometimes
the other; but oftenest of all, comes his appeal for personal
service. Under such military necessities, in fact the Theôric
expenditure became mischievous, not merely because it absorbed the
public money, but also because it chained the citizens to their home
and disinclined them to active service abroad. The great charm and
body of sentiment connected with the festival, essentially connected
as it was with presence in Attica, operated as a bane; at an exigency
when one-third or one-fourth of the citizens ought to have been
doing hard duty as soldiers on the coasts of Macedonia or Thrace,
against an enemy who never slept. Unfortunately for the Athenians,
they could not be convinced, by all the patriotic eloquence of
Demosthenes, that the festivals which fed their piety and brightened
their home-existence during peace, were unmaintainable during such a
war, and must be renounced for a time, if the liberty and security
of Athens were to be preserved. The same want of energy which made
them shrink from the hardship of personal service, also rendered
them indisposed to so great a sacrifice as that of their festivals;
nor indeed would it have availed them to spare all the cost of their
festivals, had their remissness as soldiers still continued. Nothing
less could have saved them, than simultaneous compliance with all
the three requisitions urged by Demosthenes in 350 B. C.; which
compliance ultimately came, but came too late, in 339-338 B. C.

  [771] Demosth. Philipp. iv. p. 141-143; De Republicâ Ordinandâ,
  p. 167. Whether these two orations were actually delivered in
  their present form may perhaps be doubted. But I allude to them
  with confidence as Demosthenic compositions; put together out of
  Demosthenic fragments and thoughts.




APPENDIX TO CHAPTER LXXXVIII

ON THE ORDER OF THE OLYNTHIAC ORATIONS OF DEMOSTHENES.


Respecting the true chronological order of these three harangues,
dissentient opinions have been transmitted from ancient times, and
still continue among modern critics.

Dionysius of Halikarnassus cites the three speeches by their initial
words, but places them in a different chronological order from that
in which they stand edited. He gives the second as being first in the
series; the third, as second; and the first, as third.

It will be understood that I always speak of and describe these
speeches by the order in which they stand edited; though, as far as I
can judge, that order is not the true one.

  Edited Order            I.       II.       III.
  Order of Dionysius      II.      III.      I.

The greater number of modern critics defend the edited order; the
main arguments for which have been ably stated in a dissertation
published by Petrenz in 1833. Dindorf, in his edition of Demosthenes,
places this Dissertation in front of his notes to the Olynthiacs;
affirming that it is conclusive, and sets the question at rest.
Böhnecke also, (Forschungen, p. 151), treats the question as no
longer open to doubt.

On the other hand, Flathe (Geschichte Makedoniens, p. 183-187)
expresses himself with equal confidence in favor of the order stated
by Dionysius. A much higher authority, Dr. Thirlwall, agrees in
the same opinion; though with less confidence, and with a juster
appreciation of our inadequate means for settling the question. See
the Appendix iii. to the 5th volume of his History of Greece, p. 512.

Though I have not come to the same conclusion as Dr. Thirlwall, I
agree with him, that unqualified confidence, in any conclusion as
to the order of these harangues, is unsuitable and not warranted by
the amount of evidence. We have nothing to proceed upon except the
internal evidence of the speeches, taken in conjunction with the
contemporaneous history; of which we know little or nothing from
information in detail.

On the best judgment that I can form, I cannot adopt wholly either
the edited order or that of Dionysius, though agreeing in part with
both. I concur with Dionysius and Dr. Thirlwall in placing the second
Olynthiac _first_ of the three. I concur with the edited order in
placing the third _last_. I observe, in Dr. Thirlwall’s Appendix,
that this arrangement has been vindicated in a Dissertation by
Stueve. I have not seen this Dissertation; and my own conclusion
was deduced (even before I knew that it had ever been advocated
elsewhere) only from an attentive study of the speeches.

  Edited Order                              I.       II.       III.
  Order of Dionysius                        II.      III.      I.
  Order of Stueve                     }
    (which I think the most probable) }     II.      I.        III.

To consider, first, the proper place of the _second_ Olynthiac (I
mean that which stands second in the edited order).

The most remarkable characteristic of this oration is, that scarcely
anything is said in it about Olynthus. It is, in fact, a Philippic
rather than an Olynthiac. This characteristic is not merely admitted,
but strongly put forward, by Petrenz, p. 11:—“Quid! quod ipsorum
Olynthiorum hac quidem in causâ tantum uno loco facta mentio est—ut
uno illo versiculo sublato, vix ex ipsâ oratione, quâ in causâ esset
habita, certis rationibus evinci posset.” How are we to explain the
absence of all reference to Olynthus? According to Petrenz, it is
because the orator had already, in his former harangue, said all
that could be necessary in respect to the wants of Olynthus, and
the necessity of upholding that city even for the safety of Athens;
he might now therefore calculate that his first discourse remained
impressed on his countrymen, and that all that was required was, to
combat the extraordinary fear of Philip which hindered them from
giving effect to a resolution already taken to assist the Olynthians.

In this hypothesis I am unable to acquiesce. It may appear natural
to a reader of Demosthenes, who passes from the first printed
discourse to the second without any intervening time to forget what
he has just read. But it will hardly fit the case of a real speaker
in busy Athens. Neither Demosthenes in the fluctuating Athenian
assembly—nor even any orator in the more fixed English Parliament or
American Congress—could be rash enough to calculate that a discourse
delivered some time before had remained engraven on the minds of
his audience. If Demosthenes had previously addressed the Athenians
with so strong a conviction of the distress of Olynthus, and of the
motives for Athens to assist Olynthus, as is embodied in the first
discourse—if his speech, however well received, was not acted upon,
so that in the course of a certain time he had to address them
again for the same purpose—I cannot believe that he would allude
to Olynthus only once by the by, and that he would merely dilate
upon the general chances and conditions of the war between Athens
and Philip. However well calculated the second Olynthiac may be “ad
concitandos exacerbandosque civium animos” (to use the words of
Petrenz), it is not peculiarly calculated to procure aid to Olynthus.
If the orator had failed to procure such aid by a discourse like the
first Olynthiac, he would never resort to a discourse like the second
Olynthiac to make good the deficiency; would repeat anew, and more
impressively than before, the danger of Olynthus, and the danger to
Athens herself if she suffered Olynthus to fall. This would be the
way to accomplish his object, and at the same time to combat the fear
of Philip in the minds of the Athenians.

According to my view of the subject, the omission (or mere single
passing notice) of Olynthus clearly shows that the wants of that
city, and the urgency of assisting it, were _not_ the main drift of
Demosthenes in the second Olynthiac. His main drift is, to encourage
and stimulate his countrymen in their general war against Philip;
taking in, thankfully, the new ally Olynthus, whom they have just
acquired—but taking her only as a valuable auxiliary (ἐν προσθήκης
μέρει), to coöperate with Athens against Philip as well as to receive
aid from Athens—not presenting her either as peculiarly needing
succor, or as likely, if allowed to perish, to expose the vitals of
Athens.

Now a speech of this character is what I cannot satisfactorily
explain, as following after the totally different spirit of the first
Olynthiac; but it is natural and explicable, if we suppose it to
precede the first Olynthiac. Olynthus does not approach Athens at
first in _formâ pauperis_, as if she were in danger and requiring
aid against an overwhelming enemy. She presents herself as an equal,
offering to coöperate against a common enemy, and tendering an
alliance which the Athenians had hitherto sought in vain. She will,
of course, want aid,—but she can give coöperation of equal value.
Demosthenes advises to assist her; this comes of course, when her
alliance is accepted:—but he dwells more forcibly upon the value of
what she will _give_ to the Athenians, in the way of coöperation
against Philip. Nay, it is remarkable that the territorial vicinity
of Olynthus to Philip is exhibited, not as a peril to _her_ which the
Athenians must assist her in averting, but as a godsend to enable
them the better to attack Philip in conjunction with her. Moreover
Olynthus is represented, not as apprehending any danger from Philip’s
arms, but as having recently discovered how dangerous it is to be
in alliance with him. Let us thank the gods (says Demosthenes at
the opening of the second Olynthiac)—τὸ τοὺς πολεμήσοντας Φιλίππῳ
γεγενῆσθαι καὶ ~χώραν ὅμορον~ καὶ δύναμίν τινα κεκτημένους, καὶ τὸ
μέγιστον ἁπάντων, τὴν ὑπὲρ τοῦ πολέμου γνώμην τοιαύτην ἔχοντας, ὥστε
τὰς πρὸς ἐκεῖνον διαλλαγὰς, πρῶτον μὲν ἀπίστους, εἶτα τῆς ἑαυτῶν
πατρίδος νομίζειν ἀνάστασιν εἶναι, δαιμονίᾳ τινι καὶ θείᾳ παντάπασιν
ἔοικεν εὐεργεσίᾳ (p. 18).

The general tenor of the second Olynthiac is in harmony with this
opening. Demosthenes looks forward to a vigorous aggressive war
carried on by Athens and Olynthus jointly against Philip, and he
enters at large into the general chances of such war, noticing the
vulnerable as well as odious points of Philip, and striving (as
Petrenz justly remarks) to “excite and exasperate the minds of the
citizens.”

Such is the first bright promise of the Olynthian alliance with
Athens. But Athens, as usual, makes no exertions; leaving the
Olynthians and Chalkidians to contend against Philip by themselves.
It is presently found that he gains advantages over them; bad news
comes from Thrace, and probably complaining envoys to announce
them. It is then that Demosthenes delivers his first Olynthiac, so
much more urgent in its tone respecting Olynthus. The main topic is
now—“Protect the Olynthians; save their confederate cities; think
what will happen if they are ruined; there is nothing to hinder
Philip, in that case, from marching into Attica.” The views of
Demosthenes have changed from the offensive to the defensive.

I cannot but think, therefore, that all the internal evidence of
the Olynthiacs indicates the second as prior in point of time both
to the first and to the third. Stueve (as cited by Dr. Thirlwall)
mentions another reason tending to the same conclusion. Nothing
is said in the second Olynthiac about meddling with the Theôric
Fund; whereas in the first, that subject is distinctly adverted
to—and in the third, forcibly and repeatedly pressed, though with
sufficient artifice to save the illegality. This is difficult to
explain, assuming the second to be posterior to the first; but noway
difficult, if we suppose the second to be the earliest of the three,
and to be delivered with the purpose which I have pointed out.

On the other hand, this manner of handling the Theôric Fund in the
third oration, as compared with the first, is one strong reason for
believing (as Petrenz justly contends) that the third is posterior to
the first—and not prior, as Dionysius places it.

As to the third Olynthiac, its drift and purpose appear to me
correctly stated in the argument prefixed by Libanius. It was
delivered after Athens had sent some succor to Olynthus; whereas,
both the first and the second were spoken before anything at all had
yet been done. I think there is good ground for following Libanius
(as Petrenz and others do) in his statement that the third oration
recognizes Athens as having done _something_, which the two first do
not; though Dr. Thirlwall (p. 509) agrees with Jacobs in doubting
such a distinction. The successes of mercenaries, reported at Athens
(p. 38), must surely have been successes of mercenaries commissioned
by her; and the triumphant hopes, noticed by Demosthenes as actually
prevalent, are most naturally explained by supposing such news
to have arrived. Demosthenes says no more than he can help about
the success actually gained, because he thinks it of no serious
importance. He wishes to set before the people, as a corrective to
the undue confidence prevalent, that all the real danger yet remained
to be dealt with.

Though Athens had done something, she had done little—sent no
citizens—provided no pay. This Demosthenes urges her to do without
delay, and dwells upon the Theôric Fund as one means of obtaining
money along with personal service. Dr. Thirlwall indeed argues that
the first Olynthiac is more urgent than the third, in setting forth
the crisis; from whence he infers that it is posterior in time.
His argument is partly founded upon a sentence near the beginning
of the first Olynthiac, wherein the safety of _Athens herself_ is
mentioned as involved—τῶν πραγμάτων ὑμῖν αὐτοῖς ἀντιληπτέον ἐστὶν,
εἴπερ ὑπὲρ σωτηρίας ~αὑτῶν~ φροντίζετε: upon which I may remark, that
the reading ~αὑτῶν~ is not universally admitted. Dindorf, in his
edition, reads ~αὐτῶν~, referring it to πραγμάτων: and stating in
his note that ~αὐτῶν~ is the reading of the vulgate, first changed
by Reiske into ~αὑτῶν~ on the authority of the Codex Bavaricus. But
even if we grant that the first Olynthiac depicts the crisis as more
dangerous and urgent than the third, we cannot infer that the first
is posterior to the third. The third was delivered immediately after
news received of success near Olynthus; Olynthian affairs did really
prosper for the moment and to a certain extent—though the amount of
prosperity was greatly exaggerated by the public. Demosthenes sets
himself to combat this exaggeration; he passes as lightly as he can
over the recent good news, but he cannot avoid allowing something for
them, and throwing the danger of Olynthus a little back into more
distant contingency. At the same time he states it in the strongest
manner, both section 2 and sections 9, 10.

Without being insensible, therefore, to the fallibility of all
opinions founded upon such imperfect evidence, I think that the true
chronological order of the Olynthiacs is that proposed by Stueve, II.
I. III. With Dionysius I agree so far as to put the second first; and
with the common order, in putting the third last.




CHAPTER LXXXIX.

FROM THE CAPTURE OF OLYNTHUS TO THE TERMINATION OF THE SACRED WAR BY
PHILIP.


It was during the early spring of 347 B. C., as far as we can make
out, that Olynthus, after having previously seen the thirty Chalkidic
cities conquered, underwent herself the like fate from the arms of
Philip. Exile and poverty became the lot of such Olynthians and
Chalkidians as could make their escape; while the greater number
of both sexes were sold into slavery. A few painful traces present
themselves of the diversities of suffering which befel these unhappy
victims. Atrestidas, an Arcadian who had probably served in the
Macedonian army, received from Philip a grant of thirty Olynthian
slaves, chiefly women and children, who were seen following him
in a string as he travelled homeward through the Grecian cities.
Many young Olynthian women were bought for the purpose of having
their persons turned to account by their new proprietors. Of these
purchasers, one, an Athenian citizen who had exposed his new purchase
at Athens, was tried and condemned for the proceeding by the
Dikastery.[772] Other anecdotes come before us, inaccurate probably
as to names and details,[773] yet illustrating the general hardships
brought upon this once free Chalkidic population. Meanwhile the
victor Philip was at the maximum of his glory. In commemoration of
his conquests, he celebrated a splendid festival to the Olympian
Zeus in Macedonia, with unbounded hospitality, and prizes of every
sort, for matches and exhibitions, both gymnastic and poetical. His
donations were munificent, as well to the Grecian and Macedonian
officers who had served him, as to the eminent poets or actors who
pleased his taste. Satyrus the comic actor, refusing all presents for
himself, asked and obtained from him the release of two young women
taken in Olynthus, daughters of his friend the Pydnæan Apollophanes,
who had been one of the persons concerned in the death of Philip’s
elder brother Alexander. Satyrus announced his intention not only
of ensuring freedom to these young women, but likewise of providing
portions for them and giving them out in marriage.[774] Philip also
found at Olynthus his two exile half-brothers, who had served as
pretexts for the war—and put both of them to death.[775]

  [772] Deinarchus cont. Demosth. p. 93; Demosth. Fals. Leg. p.
  439, 440. Demosthenes asserts also that Olynthian women were
  given, as a present, by Philip to Philokrates (p. 386-440). The
  outrage which he imputes (p. 401) to Æschines and Phrynon in
  Macedonia, against the Olynthian woman—is not to be received as
  a fact, since it is indignantly denied by Æschines (Fals. Leg.
  init. and p. 48). Yet it is probably but too faithful a picture
  of real deeds, committed by others, if not by Æschines.

  [773] The story of the old man of Olynthus (Seneca, Controv. v.
  10) bought by Parrhasius the painter and tortured in order to
  form a subject for a painting of the suffering Prometheus—is more
  than doubtful: since Parrhasius, already in high repute as a
  painter before 400 B. C. (see Xenoph. Mem. iii. 10), can hardly
  have been still flourishing in 347 B. C. It discloses, however,
  at least, one of the many forms of slave-suffering occasionally
  realized.

  [774] Demosth. Fals. Leg. p. 384-401; Diodor. xvi. 55.

  [775] Justin, viii. 3.

It has already been stated that Athens had sent to Olynthus more than
one considerable reinforcement, especially during the last year of
the war. Though we are ignorant what these expeditions achieved, or
even how much was their exact force, we find reason to suspect that
they were employed by Chares and other generals to no good purpose.
The opponents of Chares accused him, as well as Deiares and other
mercenary chiefs, of having wasted the naval and military strength of
the city in idle enterprises or rapacious extortions upon the traders
of the Ægean. They summed up 1500 talents and 150 triremes thus lost
to Athens, besides wide-spread odium incurred among the islanders by
the unjust contributions levied upon them to enrich the general.[776]
In addition to this disgraceful ill-success, came now the fearful
ruin in Olynthus and Chalkidikê, and the great aggrandizement
of their enemy Philip. The loss of Olynthus, with the miserable
captivity of its population, would have been sufficient of themselves
to excite powerful sentiment among the Athenians. But there was a
farther circumstance which came yet more home to their feelings.
Many of their own citizens were serving in Olynthus as an auxiliary
garrison, and had now become captives along with the rest.[777] No
such calamity as this had befallen Athens for a century past, since
the defeat of Tolmides at Koroneia in Bœotia. The whole Athenian
people, and especially the relations of the captives, were full
of agitation and anxiety, increased by alarming news from other
quarters. The conquest threatened the security of all the Athenian
possessions in Lemnos, Imbros, and the Chersonese. This last
peninsula, especially, was altogether unprotected against Philip,
who was even reported to be on his march thither; insomuch that the
Athenian settlers within it began to forsake their properties and
transfer their families to Athens. Amidst the grief and apprehension
which disturbed the Athenian mind, many special assemblies were held
to discuss suitable remedies. What was done, we are not exactly
informed. But it seems that no one knew where the general Chares,
with his armament, was; so that it became necessary even for his
friends in the assembly to echo the strong expressions of displeasure
among the people, and to send a light vessel immediately in search of
him.[778]

  [776] Æschines, Fals. Leg. p. 37. c. 24.

  [777] Æschines, Fals. Leg. p. 30.

  [778] Æschines, Fals. Leg. p. 37.

The gravity of the crisis forced even Eubulus and others among the
statesmen hitherto languid in the war, to hold a more energetic
language than before against Philip. Denouncing him now as the common
enemy of Greece,[779] they proposed missions into Peloponnesus and
elsewhere for the purpose of animating the Grecian states into
confederacy against him. Æschines assisted strenuously in procuring
the adoption of this proposition, and was himself named as one of the
envoys into Peloponnesus.[780]

  [779] Demosth. Fals. Leg. p. 434. καὶ ἐν μὲν τῷ δήμῳ κατηρῶ (you,
  Eubulus) Φιλίππῳ, καὶ κατὰ τῶν παίδων ὤμνυες ἦ μὴν ἀπολωλέναι
  Φίλιππον ἂν βούλεσθαι, etc.

  [780] Demosth. Fals. Leg. p. 438, 439.

This able orator, immortalized as the rival of Demosthenes, has
come before us hitherto only as a soldier in various Athenian
expeditions—to Phlius in Peloponnesus (368)—to the battle of
Mantineia (362)—and to Eubœa under Phokion (349 B. C.); in which
last he had earned the favorable notice of the general, and had been
sent to Athens with the news of the victory at Tamynæ. Æschines was
about six years older than Demosthenes, but born in a much humbler
and poorer station. His father Atromêtus taught to boys the elements
of letters; his mother Glaukothea made a living by presiding over
certain religious assemblies and rites of initiation, intended
chiefly for poor communicants; the boy Æschines assisting both one
and the other in a mental capacity. Such at least is the statement
which comes to us, enriched with various degrading details, on the
doubtful authority of his rival Demosthenes;[781] who also affirms,
what we may accept as generally true, that Æschines had passed his
early manhood partly as an actor, partly as a scribe or reader to
the official boards. For both functions he possessed some natural
advantages—an athletic frame, a powerful voice, a ready flow of
unpremeditated speech. After some years passed as scribe, in which
he made himself useful to Eubulus and others, he was chosen public
scribe to the assembly—acquired familiarity with the administrative
and parliamentary business of the city—and thus elevated himself by
degrees to influence as a speaker. In rhetorical power, he seems to
have been surpassed only by Demosthenes.[782]

  [781] Demosthenes affirms this at two distinct times—Fals. Leg.
  p. 415-431; De Coronâ, p. 313.

  Stechow (Vita Æschinis, p. 1-10) brings together the little which
  can be made out respecting Æschines.

  [782] Dionys. Hal. De Adm. Vi Dicend. Demosth. p. 1063; Cicero,
  Orator, c. 9, 29.

As envoy of Athens despatched under the motion of Eubulus, Æschines
proceeded into Peloponnesus in the spring of 347; others being
sent at the same time to other Grecian cities. Among other places,
he visited Megalopolis, where he was heard before the Arcadian
collective assembly called the Ten Thousand. He addressed them
in a strain of animated exhortation, adjuring them to combine
with Athens for the defence of the liberties of Greece against
Philip, and inveighing strenuously against those traitors who, in
Arcadia as well as in other parts of Greece, sold themselves to
the aggressor and paralyzed all resistance. He encountered however
much opposition from a speaker named Hieronymus, who espoused the
interest of Philip in the assembly: and though he professed to
bring back some flattering hopes, it is certain that neither in
Arcadia, nor elsewhere in Peloponnesus, was his influence of any real
efficacy.[783] The strongest feeling among the Arcadians was fear
and dislike of Sparta, which rendered them in the main indifferent,
if not favorable, to the Macedonian successes. In returning from
Arcadia to Athens, Æschines met the Arcadian Atrestidas, with the
unhappy troop of Olynthian slaves following; a sight which so deeply
affected the Athenian orator, that he dwelt upon it afterwards in his
speech before the assembly, with indignant sympathy; deploring the
sad effects of Grecian dissension, and the ruin produced by Philip’s
combined employment of arms and corruption.

  [783] Demosth. Fals. Leg. p. 344-438; Æschin. Fals. Leg. p. 38.
  The conduct of Æschines at this juncture is much the same, as
  described by his rival, and as admitted by himself. It was, in
  truth, among the most honorable epochs of his life.

Æschines returned probably about the middle of the summer of 347 B.
C. Other envoys, sent to more distant cities, remained out longer;
some indeed even until the ensuing winter. Though it appears that
some envoys from other cities were induced in return to visit Athens,
yet no sincere or hearty coöperation against Philip could be obtained
in any part of Greece. While Philip, in the fulness of triumph,
was celebrating his magnificent Olympic festival in Macedonia, the
Athenians were disheartened by finding that they could expect little
support from independent Greeks, and were left to act only with
their own narrow synod of allies. Hence Eubulus and Æschines became
earnest partisans of peace, and Demosthenes also seems to have been
driven by the general despondency into a willingness to negotiate.
The two orators, though they afterwards became bitter rivals, were
at this juncture not very discordant in sentiment. On the other
hand, the philippizing speakers at Athens held a bolder tone than
ever. As Philip found his ports greatly blocked up by the Athenian
cruisers, he was likely to profit by his existing ascendency for the
purpose of strengthening his naval equipments. Now there was no place
so abundantly supplied as Athens, with marine stores and muniments
for armed ships. Probably there were agents or speculators taking
measures to supply Philip with these articles, and it was against
them that a decree of the assembly was now directed, adopted on the
motion of a senator named Timarchus—to punish with death all who
should export from Athens to Philip either arms or stores for ships
of war.[784] This severe decree, however, was passed at the same
time that the disposition towards peace, if peace were attainable,
was on the increase at Athens.

  [784] Demosth. Fals. Leg. p. 433. This decree must have been
  proposed by Timarchus either towards the close of Olymp. 108,
  1—or towards the beginning of the following year, Olymp. 108, 2;
  that is, not long before, or not long after, Midsummer 347 B.
  C. But which of these two dates is to be preferred, is matter
  of controversy. Franke (Prolegom. ad Æschin. cont. Timarchum,
  p. xxxviii.—xli.) thinks that Timarchus was senator in Olymp.
  108, 1—and proposed the decree then; he supposes the oration of
  Æschines to have been delivered in the beginning of Olymp. 108,
  3—and that the expression (p. 11) announcing Timarchus as having
  been senator “the year before” (πέρυσιν), is to be construed
  loosely as signifying “the year but one before.”

  Mr. Clinton, Boeckh, and Westermann, suppose the oration of
  Æschines against Timarchus to have been delivered in Olymp.
  108, 4—not in Olymp. 108, 3. On that supposition, if we take
  the word πέρυσιν in its usual sense, Timarchus was senator in
  108, 3. Now it is certain that he did not propose the decree
  forbidding the export of naval stores to Philip, at a date so
  late as 108, 3; because the peace with Philip was concluded
  in Elaphebolion Olymp. 108, 2. (March, 346 B. C.) But the
  supposition might be admissible, that Timarchus was senator in
  two different years,—both in Olymp. 108, 1 and in Olymp. 108, 3
  (not in two consecutive years). In that case, the senatorial year
  of Timarchus, to which Æschines alludes (cont. Timarch. p. 11),
  would be Olymp. 108, 3, while the other senatorial year, in which
  Timarchus moved the decree prohibiting export, would be Olymp.
  108, 1.

  Nevertheless, I agree with the views of Böhnecke (Forschungen,
  p. 294) who thinks that the oration was delivered Olymp. 108,
  3—and that Timarchus had been senator and had proposed the
  decree prohibiting export of stores to Philip, in the year
  preceding,—that is, Olymp. 108, 2; at the beginning of the
  year,—Midsummer 347 B. C.

Some months before the capture of Olynthus, ideas of peace had
already been started, partly through the indirect overtures of Philip
himself. During the summer of 348 B. C., the Eubœans had tried to
negotiate an accommodation with Athens; the contest in Eubœa, though
we know no particulars of it, having never wholly ceased for the
last year and a half. Nor does it appear that any peace was even
now concluded; for Eubœa is spoken of as under the dependence of
Philip during the ensuing year.[785] The Eubœan envoys, however,
intimated that Philip had desired them to communicate from him a
wish to finish the war and conclude peace with Athens.[786] Though
Philip had at this time conquered the larger portion of Chalkidikê,
and was proceeding successfully against the remainder, it was still
his interest to detach Athens from the war, if he could. Her manner
of carrying on war was indeed faint and slack; yet she did him much
harm at sea, and she was the only city competent to organize an
extensive Grecian confederacy against him; which, though it had not
yet been brought about, was at least a possible contingency under her
presidency.

  [785] Demosth. Fals. Leg. p. 348-445.

  [786] Æschin. Fals. Leg. p. 29.

An Athenian of influence named Phrynon had been captured by Philip’s
cruisers, during the truce of the Olympic festival in 348 B. C.:
after a certain detention, he procured from home the required ransom
and obtained his release. On returning to Athens, he had sufficient
credit to prevail on the public assembly to send another citizen
along with him, as public envoy from the city to Philip; in order to
aid him in getting back his ransom, which he alleged to have been
wrongfully demanded from one captured during the holy truce. Though
this seems a strange proceeding during mid-war,[787] yet the Athenian
people took up the case with sympathy; Ktesiphon was named envoy, and
went with Phrynon to Philip, whom they must have found engaged in the
war against Olynthus. Being received in the most courteous manner,
they not only obtained restitution of the ransom, but were completely
won over by Philip. With his usual good policy, he had seized the
opportunity of gaining (we may properly say, of bribing, since
the restoration of ransom was substantially a bribe) two powerful
Athenian citizens, whom he now sent back to Athens as his pronounced
partisans.

  [787] There is more than one singularity in the narrative given
  by Æschines about Phrynon. The complaint of Phrynon implies an
  assumption, that the Olympic truce suspended the operations of
  war everywhere throughout Greece between belligerent Greeks. But
  such was not the maxim recognized or acted on; so far as we know
  the operations of warfare. Vœmel (Proleg. ad Demosth. De Pace, p.
  246) feeling this difficulty, understands the Olympic truce, here
  mentioned, to refer to the Olympic festival celebrated by Philip
  himself in Macedonia, in the spring or summer of 347 B. C. This
  would remove the difficulty about the effect of the truce; for
  Philip of course would respect his own proclaimed truce. But it
  is liable to another objection: that Æschines plainly indicates
  the capture of Phrynon to have been _anterior_ to the fall of
  Olynthus. Besides, Æschines would hardly use the words ἐν ταῖς
  Ὀλυμπικαῖς σπονδαῖς, without any special addition, to signify the
  Macedonian games.

Phrynon and Ktesiphon, on their return, expatiated warmly on the
generosity of Philip, and reported much about his flattering
expressions towards Athens, and his reluctance to continue the war
against her. The public assembly being favorably disposed, a citizen
named Philokrates, who now comes before us for the first time,
proposed a decree, granting to Philip leave to send a herald and
envoys, if he chose, to treat for peace; which was what Philip was
anxious to do, according to the allegation of Ktesiphon. The decree
was passed unanimously in the assembly, but the mover Philokrates
was impeached some time afterwards before the Dikastery, as for an
illegal proposition, by a citizen named Lykinus. On the cause coming
to trial, the Dikastery pronounced an acquittal so triumphant,
that Lykinus did not even obtain the fifth part of the suffrages.
Philokrates being so sick as to be unable to do justice to his own
case, Demosthenes stood forward as his supporter, and made a long
speech in his favor.[788]

  [788] Æschines, Fals. Leg. p. 30. c. 7; cont. Ktesiph. p. 63.
  Our knowledge of these events is derived almost wholly from one,
  or other, or both, of the two rival orators, in their speeches
  delivered four or five years afterwards, on the trial De Falsâ
  Legatione. Demosthenes seeks to prove that before the embassy
  to Macedonia, in which he and Æschines were jointly concerned,
  Æschines was eager for continued war against Philip, and only
  became the partisan of Philip during and after the embassy.
  Æschines does not deny that he made efforts at that juncture to
  get up more effective war against Philip; nor is the fact at
  all dishonorable to him. On the other hand, he seeks to prove
  against Demosthenes, that he (Demosthenes) was at that time both
  a partisan of peace with Philip, and a friend of Philokrates to
  whom he afterwards became so bitterly opposed. For this purpose
  Æschines adverts to the motion of Philokrates about permitting
  Philip to send envoys to Athens—and the speech of Demosthenes in
  the Dikastery in favor of Philokrates.

  It would prove nothing discreditable to Demosthenes if both these
  allegations were held to be correct. The motion of Philokrates
  was altogether indefinite, pledging Athens to nothing; and
  Demosthenes might well think it unreasonable to impeach a
  statesman for such a motion.

The motion of Philokrates determined nothing positive, and only made
an opening; of which, however, it did not suit Philip’s purpose
to avail himself. But we see that ideas of peace had been thrown
out by some persons at Athens, even during the last months of the
Olynthian war, and while a body of Athenian citizens were actually
assisting Olynthus against the besieging force of Philip. Presently
arrived the terrible news of the fall of Olynthus, and of the
captivity of the Athenian citizens in garrison there. While this
great alarm (as has been already stated) gave birth to new missions
for anti-Macedonian alliances, it enlisted on the side of peace
all the friends of those captives whose lives were now in Philip’s
hands. The sorrow thus directly inflicted on many private families,
together with the force of individual sympathy widely diffused among
the citizens, operated powerfully upon the decisions of the public
assembly. A century before, the Athenians had relinquished all their
acquisitions in Bœotia, in order to recover their captives taken in
the defeat of Tolmides at Koroneia; and during the Peloponnesian
war, the policy of the Spartans had been chiefly guided for three or
four years by the anxiety to ensure the restoration of the captives
of Sphakteria. Moreover, several Athenians of personal consequence
were taken at Olynthus; among them, Eukratus and Iatrokles. Shortly
after the news arrived, the relatives of these two men, presenting
themselves before the assembly in the solemn guise of suppliants,
deposited an olive branch on the altar hard by, and entreated that
care might be had for the safety of their captive kinsmen.[789]
This appeal, echoed as it would be by the cries of so many other
citizens in the like distress, called forth unanimous sympathy in
the assembly. Both Philokrates and Demosthenes spoke in favor of it;
Demosthenes probably, as having been a strenuous advocate of the war,
was the more anxious to shew that he was keenly alive to so much
individual suffering. It was resolved to open indirect negotiations
with Philip for the release of the captives, through some of the
great tragic and comic actors; who, travelling in the exercise of
their profession to every city in Greece, were everywhere regarded
in some sort as privileged persons. One of these, Neoptolemus,[790]
had already availed himself of his favored profession and liberty
of transit to assist in Philip’s intrigues and correspondences
at Athens; another, Aristodemus, was also in good esteem with
Philip; both were probably going to Macedonia to take part in the
splendid Olympic festival there preparing. They were charged to make
application, and take the best steps in their power, for the safety
or release of the captives.[791]

  [789] Æschines, Fals. Leg. p. 30. c. 8. Ὑπὸ δὲ τοὺς αὐτοὺς
  χρόνους Ὄλυνθος ἥλω, καὶ πολλοὶ τῶν ὑμετέρων ἐγκατελήφθησαν
  πολιτῶν, ὧν ἦν Ἰατροκλῆς καὶ Εὔκρατος. Ὑπὲρ δὴ τούτων ἱκετηρίαν
  θέντες οἱ οἰκεῖοι, ἐδέοντο ὑμῶν ἐπιμέλειαν ποιήσασθαι·
  παρελθόντες δ᾽ αὐτοῖς συνηγόρουν Φιλοκράτης καὶ Δημοσθένης, ἀλλ᾽
  οὐκ Αἰσχίνης.

  To illustrate the effect of this impressive ceremony upon the
  Athenian assembly, we may recall the memorable scene mentioned
  by Xenophon and Diodorus (Xen. Hell. i. 7, 8; Diodor. xiii. 101)
  after the battle of Arginusæ, when the relatives of the warriors
  who had perished on board of the foundered ships, presented
  themselves before the assembly with shaven heads and in mourning
  garb. Compare also, about presentments of solemn supplication to
  the assembly, Demosthenes, De Coronâ, p. 262—with the note of
  Dissen, and Æschines contra Timarchum p. 9. c. 13.

  [790] Demosth. De Pace, p. 58.

  [791] Æschines (Fals. Leg. p. 30. c. 8) mentions only
  Aristodemus. But from various passages in the oration of
  Demosthenes (De Fals. Leg. p. 344, 346, 371, 443), we gather
  that the actor Neoptolemus must have been conjoined with him;
  perhaps also the Athenian Ktesiphon, though this is less certain.
  Demosthenes mentions Aristodemus again, in the speech De Coronâ
  (p. 232) as the first originator of the peace.

  Demosthenes (De Pace, p. 58) had, even before this, denounced
  Neoptolemus as playing a corrupt game, for the purposes of
  Philip, at Athens. Soon after the peace, Neoptolemus sold up all
  his property at Athens, and went to reside in Macedonia.

It would appear that these actors were by no means expeditious in
the performance of their mission. They probably spent some time in
their professional avocations in Macedonia; and Aristodemus, not
being a responsible envoy, delayed some time even after his return,
before he made any report. That his mission had not been wholly
fruitless, however, became presently evident from the arrival of
the captive Iatrokles, whom Philip had released without ransom. The
Senate then summoned Aristodemus before them, inviting him to make
a general report of his proceedings, which he did; first before the
Senate,—next, before the public assembly. He affirmed that Philip
had entertained his propositions kindly, and that he was in the
best dispositions towards Athens; desirous not only to be at peace
with her, but even to be admitted as her ally. Demosthenes, then a
senator, moved a vote of thanks and a wreath to Aristodemus.[792]

  [792] Æschin. Fals. Leg. p. 30. c. 8.

This report, as far as we can make out, appears to have been made
about September or October 347 B. C.; Æschines, and the other
roving commissioners sent out by Athens to raise up anti-Macedonian
combinations, had returned with nothing but disheartening
announcement of refusal or lukewarmness. And there occurred also
about the same time in Phokis and Thermopylæ, other events of grave
augury to Athens, showing that the Sacred War and the contest between
the Phokians and Thebans was turning,—as all events had turned for
the last ten years,—to the farther aggrandizement of Philip.

During the preceding two years, the Phokians, now under the
command of Phalækus, in place of Phayllus, had maintained their
position against Thebes; had kept possession of the Bœotian towns,
Orchomenus, Koroneia, and Korsia, and were still masters of
Alpônus, Thronium, and Nikæa, as well as of the important pass of
Thermopylæ adjoining.[793] But though on the whole successful in
regard to Thebes, they had fallen into dissension among themselves.
The mercenary force, necessary to their defence, could only be
maintained by continued appropriation of the Delphian treasures; an
appropriation becoming from year to year both less lucrative and
more odious. By successive spoliation of gold and silver ornaments,
the temple is said to have been stripped of ten thousand talents
(about two million three hundred thousand pounds), all its available
wealth; so that the Phokian leaders were now reduced to dig for an
unauthenticated treasure, supposed (on the faith of a verse in the
Iliad, as well as on other grounds of surmise), to lie concealed
beneath its stone floor. Their search, however, was not only
unsuccessful, but arrested, as we are told, by violent earthquakes,
significant of the anger of Apollo.[794]

  [793] Diodor. xvi. 58; Demosth. Fals. Leg. p. 385-387; Æschines,
  Fals. Leg. p. 45. c. 41.

  [794] Diodor. xvi. 56.

As the Delphian treasure became less and less, so the means of
Phalækus to pay troops and maintain ascendency declined. While
the foreign mercenaries relaxed in their obedience, his opponents
in Phokis manifested increased animosity against his continued
sacrilege. So greatly did these opponents increase in power, that
they deposed Phalækus, elected Deinokrates with two others in
his place, and instituted a strict inquiry into the antecedent
appropriation of the Delphian treasure. Gross peculation was
found to have been committed for the profit of individual leaders,
especially one named Philon; who, on being seized and put to the
torture, disclosed the names of several accomplices. These men
were tried, compelled to refund, and ultimately put to death.[795]
Phalækus however still retained his ascendency over the mercenaries,
about eight thousand in number, so as to hold Thermopylæ and the
places adjacent, and even presently to be re-appointed general.[796]

  [795] Diodor. xvi. 56, 57.

  [796] Æschin. Fals. Leg. p. 62. c. 41; Diodor. xvi. 59. Φάλαικον,
  πάλιν τῆς στρατηγίας ἠξιωμένον, etc.

Such intestine dispute, combined with the gradual exhaustion of
the temple-funds, sensibly diminished the power of the Phokians.
Yet they still remained too strong for their enemies the Thebans;
who, deprived of Orchomenus and Koroneia, impoverished by military
efforts of nine years, and unable to terminate the contest by their
own force, resolved to invoke foreign aid. An opportunity might
perhaps have been obtained for closing the war by some compromise,
if it had been possible now to bring about an accommodation
between Thebes and Athens; which some of the philo-Theban orators,
(Demosthenes seemingly among them), attempted, under the prevalent
uneasiness about Philip.[797] But the adverse sentiments in both
cities, especially in Thebes, were found invincible; and the Thebans,
little anticipating consequences, determined to invoke the ruinous
intervention of the conqueror of Olynthus. The Thessalians, already
valuable allies of Philip, joined them in soliciting him to crush
the Phokians, and to restore the ancient Thessalian privilege of the
Pylæa, (or regular yearly Amphiktyonic meeting at Thermopylæ), which
the Phokians had suppressed during the last ten years. This joint
prayer for intervention was preferred in the name of the Delphian
god, investing Philip with the august character of champion of
the Amphiktyonic assembly, to rescue the Delphian temple from its
sacrilegious plunderers.

  [797] Æschines cont. Ktesiph. p. 73. c. 44; Demosth. De Coronâ,
  p. 231. Demosthenes, in his oration De Coronâ, spoken many years
  after the facts, affirms the contingency of alliance between
  Athens and Thebes at this juncture, as having been much more
  probable than he ventures to state it in the earlier speech De
  Falsâ Legatione.

The King of Macedon, with his past conquests and his well-known
spirit of aggressive enterprise, was now a sort of present deity,
ready to lend force to all the selfish ambition, or blind fear and
antipathy, prevalent among the discontented fractions of the Hellenic
world. While his intrigues had procured numerous partisans even in
the centre of Peloponnesus,—as Æschines, on return from his mission,
had denounced, not having yet himself enlisted in the number,—he was
now furnished with a pious pretence, and invited by powerful cities,
to penetrate into the heart of Greece, within its last line of common
defence, Thermopylæ.

The application of the Thebans to Philip excited much alarm in
Phokis. A Macedonian army under Parmenio did actually enter
Thessaly,—where we find them, three months later, besieging
Halus.[798] Reports seem to have been spread, about September 347
B. C., that the Macedonians were about to march to Thermopylæ; upon
which the Phokians took alarm, and sent envoys to Athens as well
as to Sparta, entreating aid to enable them to hold the pass, and
offering to deliver up the three important towns near it,—Alpônus,
Thronium, and Nikæa. So much were the Athenians alarmed by the
message, that they not only ordered Proxenus, their general at Oreus,
to take immediate possession of the pass, but also passed a decree
to equip fifty triremes, and to send forth their military citizens
under thirty years of age, with an energy like that displayed when
they checked Philip before at the same place. But it appears that the
application had been made by the party in Phokis opposed to Phalækus.
So vehemently did that chief resent the proceeding, that he threw
the Phokian envoys into prison on their return; refusing to admit
either Proxenus or Archidamus into possession of Thermopylæ, and even
dismissing without recognition the Athenian heralds, who came in
their regular rounds to proclaim the solemn truce of the Eleusinian
mysteries.[799] This proceeding on the part of Phalækus was dictated
seemingly by jealousy of Athens and Sparta, and by fear that they
would support the party opposed to him in Phokis. It could not have
originated (as Æschines alleges) in superior confidence and liking
towards Philip; for if Phalækus had entertained such sentiments,
he might have admitted the Macedonian troops at once; which he
did not do until ten months later, under the greatest pressure of
circumstances.

  [798] Demosth. Fals. Leg. p. 392.

  [799] Æschines, Fals. Leg. p. 40. c. 41. It is this notice of
  the μυστηριωτίδες σπονδαὶ which serves as indication of time for
  the event. The Eleusinian mysteries were celebrated in the month
  Boëdromion (September). These events took place in September, 347
  B. C., Olymp. 108, 2—the archonship of Themistokles at Athens.
  There is also a farther indication of time given by Æschines:
  that the event happened before he was nominated envoy,—πρὶν
  ἐμὲ χειροτονηθῆναι πρεσβευτήν (p. 46. c. 41). This refutes the
  supposition of Vœmel (Proleg. ad Demosth. de Pace, p. 255),
  who refers the proceeding to the following month Elaphebolion
  (March), on the ground of some other words of Æschines,
  intimating “that the news reached Athens while the Athenians were
  deliberating about the peace.” Böhnecke, too, supposes that the
  mysteries here alluded to are the lesser mysteries, celebrated
  in Anthesterion; not the greater, which belong to Boëdromion.
  This supposition appears to me improbable and unnecessary. We may
  reasonably believe that there were many discussions on the peace
  at Athens, before the envoys were actually nominated. Some of
  these debates may well have taken place in the month Boëdromion.

Such insulting repudiation of the aid tendered by Proxenus at
Thermopylæ, combined with the distracted state of parties in Phokis,
menaced Athens with a new embarrassment. Though Phalækus still held
the pass, his conduct had been such as to raise doubts whether he
might not treat separately with Philip. Here was another circumstance
operating on Athens,—besides the refusal of coöperation from other
Greeks and the danger of her captives at Olynthus,—to dishearten her
in the prosecution of the war, and to strengthen the case of those
who advocated peace. It was a circumstance the more weighty, because
it really involved the question of safety or exposure to her own
territory, through the opening of the pass of Thermopylæ. It was
here that she was now under the necessity of keeping watch; being
thrown on the defensive for her own security at home,—not, as before,
stretching out a long arm for the protection of distant possessions
such as the Chersonese, or distant allies such as the Olynthians.
So speedily had the predictions of Demosthenes been realized, that
if the Athenians refused to carry on strenuous war against Philip
on _his_ coast, they would bring upon themselves the graver evil of
having to resist him on or near their own frontier.

The maintenance of freedom in the Hellenic world against the
extra-Hellenic invader, now turned once more upon the pass of
Thermopylæ; as it had turned one hundred and thirty-three years
before, during the onward march of the Persian Xerxes.

To Philip, that pass was of incalculable importance. It was his only
road into Greece; it could not be forced by any land-army; while at
sea the Athenian fleet was stronger than his. In spite of the general
remissness of Athens in warlike undertakings, she had now twice
manifested her readiness for a vigorous effort to maintain Thermopylæ
against him. To become master of the position, it was necessary that
he should disarm Athens by concluding peace,—keep her in ignorance
or delusion as to his real purposes,—prevent her from conceiving
alarm or sending aid to Thermopylæ,—and then overawe or buy off the
isolated Phokians. How ably and cunningly his diplomacy was managed
for this purpose, will presently appear.[800]

  [800] It is at this juncture, in trying to make out the
  diplomatic transactions between Athens and Philip, from the
  summer of 347 to that of 346 B. C., that we find ourselves
  plunged amidst the contradictory assertions of the two rival
  orators,—Demosthenes and Æschines; with very little of genuine
  historical authority to control them. In 343-342 B. C.,
  Demosthenes impeached Æschines for corrupt betrayal of the
  interest of Athens in the second of his three embassies to
  Philip (in 346 B. C.). The long harangue (De Falsâ Legatione),
  still remaining, wherein his charge stands embodied, enters
  into copious details respecting the peace with its immediate
  antecedents and consequents. We possess also the speech delivered
  by Æschines in his own defence, and in counter-accusation of
  Demosthenes; a speech going over the same ground, suitably to his
  own purpose and point of view. Lastly, we have the two speeches,
  delivered several years later (in 330 B. C.), of Æschines in
  prosecuting Ktesiphon, and of Demosthenes in defending him;
  wherein the conduct of Demosthenes as to the peace of 346 B. C.
  again becomes matter of controversy. All these harangues are
  interesting, not merely as eloquent compositions, but also from
  the striking conception which they impart of the living sentiment
  and controversy of the time. But when we try to extract from
  them real and authentic matter of history, they become painfully
  embarrassing; so glaring are the contradictions not only between
  the two rivals, but also between the earlier and later discourses
  of the same orator himself, especially Æschines; so evident is
  the spirit of perversion, so unscrupulous are the manifestations
  of hostile feeling, on both sides. We can place little faith
  in the allegations of either orator against the other, except
  where some collateral grounds of fact or probability can be
  adduced in confirmation. But the allegations of each as to
  matters which do not make against the other, are valuable; even
  the misrepresentations, since we have them on both sides, will
  sometimes afford mutual correction: and we shall often find it
  practicable to detect a basis of real matter of fact which one or
  both may seek to pervert, but which neither can venture to set
  aside, or can keep wholly out of sight. It is indeed deeply to be
  lamented that we know little of the history except so much as it
  suits the one or the other of these rival orators, each animated
  by purposes totally at variance with that of the historian, to
  make known either by direct notice or oblique allusion.

On the other hand, to Athens, to Sparta, and to the general cause
of Pan-hellenic independence, it was of capital moment that Philip
should be kept on the outside of Thermopylæ. And here Athens had
more at stake than the rest; since not merely her influence abroad,
but the safety of her own city and territory against invasion,
was involved in the question. The Thebans had already invited the
presence of Philip, himself always ready even without invitation,
to come within the pass; it was the first interest, as well as the
first duty, of Athens, to counterwork them, and to keep him out.
With tolerable prudence, her guarantee of the past might have been
made effective; but we shall find her measures ending only in shame
and disappointment, through the flagrant improvidence, and apparent
corruption, of her own negotiators.

The increasing discouragement as to war, and yearning for peace,
which prevailed at Athens during the summer and autumn of 347 B.
C., has been already described. We may be sure that the friends of
the captives taken at Olynthus would be importunate in demanding
peace, because there was no other way of procuring their release;
since Philip did not choose to exchange them for money, reserving
them as an item in political negotiation. At length, about the month
of November, the public assembly decreed that envoys should be sent
to Philip to ascertain on what conditions peace could be made; ten
Athenian envoys, and one from the synod of confederate allies,
sitting at Athens. The mover of the decree was Philokrates, the same
who had moved the previous decree permitting Philip to send envoys if
he chose. Of this permission Philip had not availed himself, in spite
of all that the philippizers at Athens had alleged about his anxiety
for peace and alliance with the city. It suited his purpose to have
the negotiations carried on in Macedonia, where he could act better
upon the individual negotiators of Athens.

The decree having been passed in the assembly, ten envoys were
chosen: Philokrates, Demosthenes, Æschines, Ktesiphon, Phrynon,
Iatroklês, Derkyllus, Kimon, Nausiklês, and Aristodemus the
actor. Aglaokreon of Tenedos was selected to accompany them, as
representative of the allied synod. Of these envoys, Ktesiphon,
Phrynon, and Iatroklês, had already been gained over as partisans
by Philip while in Macedonia; moreover, Aristodemus was a person
to whom, in his histrionic profession, the favor of Philip was
more valuable than the interests of Athens. Æschines was proposed
by Nausiklês; Demosthenes, by Philokrates the mover.[801] Though
Demosthenes had been before so earnest in advocating vigorous
prosecution of the war, it does not appear that he was now adverse to
the opening of negotiations. Had he been ever so adverse, he would
probably have failed in obtaining even a hearing, in the existing
temper of the public mind. He thought indeed that Athens inflicted so
much damage on her enemy by ruining the Macedonian maritime commerce,
that she was not under the necessity of submitting to peace on bad or
humiliating terms.[802] But still he did not oppose the overtures,
nor did his opposition begin until afterwards, when he saw the turn
which the negotiations were taking. Nor, on the other hand, was
Æschines as yet suspected of a leaning towards Philip. Both he and
Demosthenes obeyed, at this moment, the impulse of opinion generally
prevalent at Athens. Their subsequent discordant views and bitter
rivalry grew out of the embassy itself; out of its result and the
behavior of Æschines.

  [801] Æschines, Fals. Leg. p. 30. s. 9. p. 31. c. 10. p. 34. c.
  20; Argumentum ii ad Demosth. Fals. Leg.

  [802] Demosth. Fals. Leg. p 442. Compare p. 369, 387, 391.

The eleven envoys were appointed to visit Philip, not with any power
of concluding peace, but simply to discuss with him and ascertain on
what terms peace could be had. So much is certain; though we do not
possess the original decree under which they were nominated. Having
sent before them a herald to obtain a safe-conduct from Philip, they
left Athens about December 347 B. C., and proceeded by sea to Oreus,
on the northern coast of Eubœa, where they expected to meet the
returning herald. Finding that he had not yet come back, they crossed
the strait at once, without waiting for him, into the Pagasæan Gulf,
where Parmenio with a Macedonian army was then besieging Halus.
To him they notified their arrival, and received permission to
pass on, first to Pagasæ, next to Larissa. Here they met their own
returning herald, under whose safeguard they pursued their journey to
Pella.[803]

  [803] Demosth. Fals. Leg. p. 392.

Our information respecting this (first) embassy proceeds almost
wholly from Æschines. He tells us that Demosthenes was, from the
very day of setting out, intolerably troublesome both to him and
to his brother envoys; malignant, faithless, and watching for such
matters as might be turned against them in the way of accusation
afterwards; lastly, boastful even to absurd excess, of his own
powers of eloquence. In Greece, it was the usual habit to transact
diplomatic business, like other political matters, publicly before
the governing number—the council, if the constitution happened to
be oligarchical—the general assembly, if democratical. Pursuant to
this habit, the envoys were called upon to appear before Philip in
his full pomp and state, and there address to him formal harangues
(either by one or more of their number as they chose), setting forth
the case of Athens; after which Philip would deliver his reply in
the like publicity, either with his own lips or by those of a chosen
minister. The Athenian envoys resolved among themselves, that when
introduced, each of them should address Philip, in the order of
seniority; Demosthenes being the youngest of the Ten, and Æschines
next above him. Accordingly, when summoned before Philip, Ktesiphon,
the oldest envoy, began with a short address; the other seven
followed with equal brevity, while the stress of the business was
left to Æschines and Demosthenes.[804]

  [804] Æschines, Fals. Leg. p. 31. c. 10, 11.

Æschines recounts in abridgment to the Athenians, with much
satisfaction, his own elaborate harangue, establishing the right
of Athens to Amphipolis, the wrong done by Philip in taking it
and holding it against her, and his paramount obligation to make
restitution—but touching upon no other subject whatever.[805] He
then proceeds to state—probably with yet greater satisfaction—that
Demosthenes, who followed next, becoming terrified and confused,
utterly broke down, forgot his prepared speech, and was obliged to
stop short, in spite of courteous encouragements from Philip.[806]
Gross failure, after full preparation, on the part of the greatest
orator of ancient or modern times, appears at first hearing so
incredible, that we are disposed to treat it as a pure fabrication
of his opponent. Yet I incline to believe that the fact was
substantially as Æschines states it; and that Demosthenes was
partially divested of his oratorical powers by finding himself not
only speaking before the enemy whom he had so bitterly denounced, but
surrounded by all the evidences of Macedonian power, and doubtless
exposed to unequivocal marks of well-earned hatred, from those
Macedonians who took less pains than Philip to disguise their real
feelings.[807]

  [805] Æschines, Fals. Leg. p. 31. c. 11.

  [806] Æschines, Fals. Leg. p. 32. c. 13, 14.

  [807] Æschines, Fals. Leg. p. 32, 33. c. 15. Demosthenes himself
  says little or nothing about this first embassy, and nothing at
  all either about his own speech or that of Æschines.

Having dismissed the envoys after their harangues, and taken a short
time for consideration, Philip recalled them into his presence. He
then delivered his reply with his own lips, combating especially
the arguments of Æschines, and according to that orator, with such
pertinence and presence of mind, as to excite the admiration of
all the envoys, Demosthenes among the rest. What Philip said, we
do not learn from Æschines; who expatiates only on the shuffling,
artifice, and false pretences of Demosthenes, to conceal his failure
as an orator, and to put himself on a point of advantage above his
colleagues. Of these personalities it is impossible to say how much
is true; and even were they true, they are scarcely matter of general
history.

It was about the beginning of March when the envoys returned to
Athens. Some were completely fascinated by the hospitable treatment
and engaging manners of Philip,[808] especially when entertaining
them at the banquet: with others, he had come to an understanding at
once more intimate and more corrupt. They brought back a letter from
Philip, which was read both in the Senate and the assembly; while
Demosthenes, senator of that year, not only praised them all in the
Senate, but also became himself the mover of a resolution that they
should be crowned with a wreath of honor, and invited to dine next
day in the prytaneium.[809]

  [808] Æschines, Fals. Leg. p. 33. c. 17, 18. The effect of the
  manner and behavior of Philip upon Ktesiphon the envoy, is
  forcibly stated here by Æschines.

  [809] Æschines, Fals. Leg. p. 34. c. 19; Demosth. Fals. Leg. p.
  414. This vote of thanks, and invitation to dinner, appears to
  have been so uniform a custom, that Demosthenes (Fals. Leg. p.
  350) comments upon the withholding of the compliment, when the
  second embassy returned, as a disgrace without parallel. That
  Demosthenes should have proposed a motion of such customary
  formality, is a fact of little moment any way. It rather proves
  that the relations of Demosthenes with his colleagues during
  the embassy, cannot have been so ill-tempered as Æschines had
  affirmed. Demosthenes himself admits that he did not begin to
  suspect his colleagues until the debates at Athens after the
  return of this first embassy.

We have hardly any means of appreciating the real proceedings of
this embassy, or the matters treated in discussion with Philip.
Æschines tells us nothing, except the formalities of the interview,
and the speeches about Amphipolis. But we shall at any rate do him no
injustice, if we judge him upon his own account; which, if it does
not represent what he actually did, represents what he wished to
be thought to have done. His own account certainly shows a strange
misconception of the actual situation of affairs. In order to justify
himself for being desirous of peace, he lays considerable stress on
the losing game which Athens had been playing during the war, and on
the probability of yet farther loss if she persisted. He completes
the cheerless picture by adding—what was doubtless but too familiar
to his Athenian audience—that Philip on his side, marching from one
success to another, had raised the Macedonian kingdom to an elevation
truly formidable, by the recent extinction of Olynthus. Yet under
this state of comparative force between the two contending parties,
Æschines presents himself before Philip with a demand of exorbitant
magnitude,—for the cession of Amphipolis. He says not a word about
anything else. He delivers an eloquent harangue to convince Philip
of the incontestible right of Athens to Amphipolis, and to prove to
him that he was in the wrong for taking and keeping it. He affects
to think, that by this process he should induce Philip to part
with a town, the most capital and unparalleled position in all his
dominions; which he had now possessed for twelve years, and which
placed him in communication with his new foundation Philippi and
the auriferous region around it. The arguments of Æschines would
have been much to the purpose, in an action tried between two
litigants before an impartial Dikastery at Athens. But here were two
belligerent parties, in a given ratio of strength and position as to
the future, debating terms of peace. That an envoy on the part of
Athens, the losing party, should now stand forward to demand from
a victorious enemy the very place which formed the original cause
of the war, and which had become far more valuable to Philip than
when he first took it—was a pretension altogether preposterous. When
Æschines reproduces his eloquent speech reclaiming Amphipolis, as
having been the principal necessity and most honorable achievement
of his diplomatic mission, he only shows how little qualified he was
to render real service to Athens in that capacity—to say nothing
as yet about corruption. The Athenian people, extremely retentive
of past convictions, had it deeply impressed on their minds that
Amphipolis was theirs by right; and probably the first envoys to
Macedonia,—Aristodemus, Neoptolemus, Ktesiphon, Phrynon,[810]
etc.—had been so cajoled by the courteous phrases, deceptions, and
presents of Philip, that they represented him on their return as
not unwilling to purchase friendship with Athens by the restoration
of Amphipolis. To this delusive expectation in the Athenian mind
Æschines addressed himself, when he took credit for his earnest
pleading before Philip on behalf of Athenian right to the place,
as if it were the sole purpose of his mission.[811] We shall see
him throughout, in his character of envoy, not only fostering the
actual delusions of the public at Athens, but even circulating gross
fictions and impostures of his own, respecting the proceedings and
purposes of Philip.

  [810] Demosth. Fals. Leg. p. 344. Compare p. 371. τοὺς περὶ τῆς
  εἰρήνης πρέσβεις πέμπειν ὡς Φίλιππον ἐπείσθητε ὑπ᾽ Ἀριστοδήμου
  καὶ Νεοπτολέμου καὶ Κτησιφῶντος, καὶ τῶν ἄλλων τῶν ἐκεῖθεν
  ἀπαγγελλόντων οὐδ᾽ ὁτιοῦν ὑγιὲς, etc.

  [811] There is great contradiction between the two orators,
  Æschines and Demosthenes, as to this speech of Æschines before
  Philip respecting Amphipolis. Demosthenes represents Æschines
  as having said in this report to the people on his return, “I
  (Æschines) said nothing about Amphipolis, in order that I might
  leave that subject fresh for Demosthenes,” etc.

  Compare Demosth. Fals. Leg. p. 421; Æschines, Fals. Leg. p. 33,
  34. c. 18, 19, 21.

  As to this particular matter of fact, I incline to believe
  Æschines rather than his rival. He probably did make an eloquent
  speech about Amphipolis before Philip.

It was on or about the first day of the month Elaphebolion[812]
(March) when the envoys reached Athens on returning from the court of
Philip. They brought a letter from him couched in the most friendly
terms; expressing great anxiety not only to be at peace with Athens,
but also to become her ally; stating moreover that he was prepared to
render her valuable service, and that he would have specified more
particularly what the service would be, if he could have felt certain
that he should be received as her ally.[813] But in spite of such
amenities of language, affording an occasion for his partisans in the
assembly, Æschines, Philokrates, Ktesiphon, Phrynon, Iatroklês and
others, to expatiate upon his excellent dispositions, Philip would
grant no better terms of peace than that each party should retain
what they already possessed. Pursuant to this general principle, the
Chersonesus was assured to Athens, of which Æschines appears to have
made some boast.[814] Moreover, at the moment when the envoys were
quitting Pella to return home, Philip was also leaving it at the
head of his army on an expedition against Kersobleptes in Thrace.
He gave a special pledge to the envoys that he would not attack the
Chersonese, until the Athenians should have had an opportunity of
debating,—accepting or rejecting the propositions of peace. His
envoys, Antipater and Parmenio, received orders to visit Athens with
little delay; and a Macedonian herald accompanied the Athenian envoys
on their return.[815]

  [812] The eighth day of Elaphebolion fell some little time after
  their arrival, so that possibly they may have even reached
  Athens on the last days of the month Anthesterion (Æschines
  adv. Ktesiph. p. 63. c. 24). The reader will understand that
  the Grecian lunar months do not correspond precisely, but only
  approximatively, with ours.

  [813] Demosth. Fals. Leg. p. 353, 354. ... ὁ γὰρ εἰς τὴν
  ~προτέραν~ γράψας ~ἐπιστολὴν, ἣν ἠνέγκαμεν ἡμεῖς~, ὅτι “ἔγραφόν
  τ᾽ ἂν καὶ διαῤῥήδην, ἥλικα ὑμᾶς εὖ ποιήσω, εἰ εὖ ᾔδειν καὶ τὴν
  συμμαχίαν μοι γενησομένην,” etc. Compare Pseudo-Demosth. De
  Halonneso, p. 85. Æschines alludes to this letter, Fals. Leg. p.
  34. c. 21.

  [814] Demosth. Fals. Leg. p 365.

  [815] Æschines, Fals. Leg. p. 39. c. 26; Æschines cont.
  Ktesiphont. p. 63. c. 23. παρηγγέλλετο δ᾽ ἐπ᾽ αὐτὸν
  (Kersobleptes) ἤδη στρατεία, etc.

Having ascertained on what terms peace could be had, the envoys
were competent to advise the Athenian people, and prepare them for
a definite conclusion, as soon as this Macedonian mission should
arrive. They first gave an account of their proceedings to the
public assembly. Ktesiphon, the oldest, who spake first, expatiated
on the graceful presence and manners of Philip, as well as upon the
charm of his company in wine-drinking.[816] Æschines dwelt upon
his powerful and pertinent oratory; after which he recounted the
principal occurrences of the journey, and the debate with Philip,
intimating that in the previous understanding of the envoys among
themselves, the duty of speaking about Amphipolis had been confided
to Demosthenes, in case any point should have been omitted by the
previous speakers. Demosthenes then made his own statement, in
language (according to Æschines) censorious and even insulting
towards his colleagues; especially affirming that Æschines, in his
vanity, chose to preoccupy all the best points in his own speech,
leaving none open for any one else.[817] Demosthenes next proceeded
to move various decrees; one, to greet by libation the herald who
had accompanied them from Philip,—and the Macedonian envoys who
were expected; another, providing that the prytanes should convene
a special assembly on the eighth day of Elaphebolion, (a day sacred
to Æsculapius, on which generally no public business was ever
transacted), in order that if the envoys from Macedonia had then
arrived, the people might discuss without delay their political
relations with Philip; a third, to commend the behavior of the
Athenian envoys (his colleagues and himself), and to invite them to
dinner in the prytaneium. Demosthenes farther moved in the Senate,
that when Philip’s envoys came, they should be accommodated with
seats of honor at the Dionysiac festival.[818]

  [816] Æschines, Fals. Leg. p. 34. c. 20. τῆς ἐν τοῖς πότοις
  ἐπιδεξιότητος—συμπιεῖν δεινὸς ἦν (c. 21).

  [817] Æschines, Fals. Leg. p. 34, 35. c. 21; Dem. Fals. Leg. p.
  421. Yet Æschines, when describing the same facts in his oration
  against Ktesiphon (p. 62. c. 23), simply says that Demosthenes
  gave to the assembly an account of the proceedings of the first
  embassy, similar to that given by the other envoys—ταὐτὰ τοῖς
  ἄλλοις πρέσβεσιν ἀπήγγειλε, etc.

  The point noticed in the text (that Demosthenes charged Æschines
  with reluctance to let any one else have anything to say) is one
  which appears both in Æschines and Demosthenes, De Fals. Legat.,
  and may therefore in the main be regarded as having really
  occurred. But probably the statement made by Demosthenes to the
  people as to the proceedings of the embassy, _was_ substantially
  the same as that of his colleagues. For though the later oration
  of Æschines is, in itself, less trustworthy evidence than the
  earlier—yet when we find two different statements of Æschines
  respecting Demosthenes, we may reasonably presume that the one
  which is _least unfavorable_ is the _most credible_ of the two.

  [818] Æschines, Fals. Leg. p. 34, 35, 42. c 20, 21, 34; Æschines
  adv. Ktesiphont. p. 62, 63. c. 23, 24. In the first of the two
  speeches, Æschines makes no mention of the decree proposed
  by Demosthenes relative to the assembly on the eighth of
  Elaphebolion. He mentions it in the speech against Ktesiphon,
  with considerable specification.

Presently, these Macedonian envoys, Antipater, Parmenio and
Eurylochus, arrived; yet not early enough to allow the full debate
to take place on the assembly of the eighth of Elaphebolion.
Accordingly (as it would seem, in that very assembly), Demosthenes
proposed and carried a fresh decree, fixing two later days for the
special assemblies to discuss peace and alliance with Macedonia. The
days named were the eighteenth and nineteenth days of the current
month Elaphebolion (March); immediately after the Dionysiac festival,
and the assembly in the temple of Dionysius which followed upon
it.[819] At the same time Demosthenes showed great personal civility
to the Macedonian envoys, inviting them to a splendid entertainment,
and not only conducting them to their place of honor at the Dionysiac
festival, but also providing for them comfortable seats and
cushions.[820]

  [819] Æschines, Fals. Leg. p. 36. c. 22. ἕτερον ψήφισμα, Æsch.
  adv. Ktesiph. p. 63. c. 24. This last decree, fixing the two
  special days of the month, could scarcely have been proposed
  until after Philip’s envoys had actually reached Athens.

  [820] Æschines, Fals. Leg. p. 42. c. 34; adv. Ktesiphont. p.
  62. c. 22; Demosth. Fals. Leg. p. 414; De Coronâ, p. 234. This
  courtesy and politeness towards the Macedonian envoys is admitted
  by Demosthenes himself. It was not a circumstance of which he had
  any reason to be ashamed.

Besides the public assembly held by the Athenians themselves, to
receive report from their ten envoys returned out of Macedonia, the
synod of Athenian confederates was also assembled to hear the report
of Aglaokreon, who had gone as their representative along with the
Ten. This synod agreed to a resolution, important in reference to
the approaching debate in the Athenian assembly, yet unfortunately
nowhere given to us entire, but only in partial and indirect notice
from the two rival orators. It has been already mentioned that
since the capture of Olynthus, the Athenians had sent forth envoys
throughout a large portion of Greece, urging the various cities
to unite with them either in conjoint war against Philip, or in
conjoint peace to obtain some mutual guarantee against his farther
encroachments. Of these missions, the greater number had altogether
failed, demonstrating the hopelessness of the Athenian project.
But some had been so far successful, that deputies, more or fewer,
were actually present in Athens, pursuant to the invitation; while
a certain number were still absent and expected to return,—the same
individuals having perhaps been sent to different places at some
distance from each other. The resolution of the synod (noway binding
upon the Athenian people, but merely recommendatory), was adapted to
this state of affairs, and to the dispositions recently manifested
at Athens towards conjoint action with other Greeks against Philip.
The synod advised, that immediately on the return of the envoys still
absent on mission (when probably all such Greeks, as were willing
even to talk over the proposition, would send their deputies also),
the Athenian prytanes should convene two public assemblies, according
to the laws, for the purpose of debating and deciding the question
of peace. Whatever decision might be here taken, the synod adopted
it beforehand as their own. They farther recommended that an article
should be annexed, reserving an interval of three months for any
Grecian city not a party to the peace, to declare its adhesion, to
inscribe its name on the column of record, and to be included under
the same conditions as the rest. Apparently this resolution of the
synod was adopted before the arrival of the Macedonian deputies in
Athens, and before the last-mentioned decree proposed by Demosthenes
in the public assembly; which decree, fixing two days, (the 18th and
19th of Elaphebolion), for decision of the question of peace and
alliance with Philip, coincided in part with the resolution of the
synod.[821]

  [821] I insert in the text what appears to me the probable
  truth about this resolution of the confederate synod. The
  point is obscure, and has been differently viewed by different
  commentators.

  Demosthenes affirms, in his earlier speech (De Fals. Leg. p.
  346), that Æschines held disgraceful language in his speech
  before the public assembly on the 19th Elaphebolion (to the
  effect that Athens ought to act for herself alone, and to take no
  thought for any other Greeks except such as had assisted her);
  and that, too, in the presence and hearing of those envoys from
  other Grecian cities, whom the Athenians had sent for at the
  instigation of Æschines himself. The presence of these envoys
  in the assembly, here implied, is not the main charge, but a
  collateral aggravation; nevertheless, Æschines (as is often the
  case throughout his defence) bestows nearly all his care upon
  the aggravation, taking comparatively little notice of the main
  charge. He asserts with great emphasis (Fals. Leg. p. 35), that
  the envoys sent out from Athens on mission had _not returned_,
  and that there were _no envoys present_ from any Grecian cities.

  It seems to me reasonable here to believe the assertion of
  Demosthenes, that there _were_ envoys from other Grecian cities
  present; although he himself in his later oration (De Coronâ,
  p. 232, 233) speaks as if such were not the fact, as if all
  the Greeks had been long found out as recreants in the cause
  of liberty, and as if no envoys from Athens were then absent
  on mission. I accept the _positive_ assertion of Æschines as
  true—that there were Athenian envoys then absent on mission, who
  might possibly, on their return, bring in with them deputies from
  other Greeks; but I do not admit his _negative_ assertion—that
  no Athenian envoys had returned from their mission, and that no
  deputies had come in from other Greeks. That among many Athenian
  envoys sent out, _all_ should fail—appears to me very improbable.

  If we follow the argument of Æschines (in the speech De Fals.
  Leg.), we shall see that it is quite enough if we suppose _some_
  of the envoys sent out on mission, and not _all_ of them, to be
  absent. To prove this fact, he adduces (p. 35, 36) the resolution
  of the confederate synod, alluding to the absent envoys, and
  recommending a certain course to be taken after their return.
  This does not necessarily imply that _all_ were absent. Stechow
  remarks justly, that some of the envoys would necessarily be out
  a long time, having to visit more than one city, and perhaps
  cities distant from each other (Vita Æschinis, p. 41).

  I also accept what Æschines says about the resolution of the
  confederate synod, as being substantially true. About the actual
  import of this resolution, he is consistent with himself, both
  in the earlier and in the later oration. Winiewski (Comment.
  Historic. in Demosth. De Coronâ, p. 74-77) and Westermann (De
  Litibus quas Demosthenes oravit ipse, p. 38-42) affirm, I think
  without reason, that the import of this resolution is differently
  represented by Æschines in the earlier and in the later orations.
  What is really different in the two orations, is the way in which
  Æschines perverts the import of the resolution to inculpate
  Demosthenes; affirming in the later oration, that if Athens had
  waited for the return of her envoys on mission, she might have
  made peace with Philip jointly with a large body of Grecian
  allies; and that it was Demosthenes who hindered her from doing
  this, by hurrying on the discussions about the peace (Æsch. adv.
  Ktesiph. p. 61-63), etc. Westermann thinks that the synod would
  not take upon them to prescribe how many assemblies the Athenians
  should convene for the purpose of debating about peace. But it
  seems to have been a common practice with the Athenians, about
  peace or other special and important matters, to convene two
  assemblies on two days immediately succeeding: all that the synod
  here recommended was, that the Athenians should follow the usual
  custom—προγράψαι τοὺς πρυτάνεις ἐκκλησίας δύο κατὰ τοὺς νόμους,
  etc. That two assemblies, neither less nor more, should be
  convened for the purpose, was a point of no material importance;
  except that it indicated a determination to decide the question
  at once—_sans désemparer_.

Accordingly, after the great Dionysiac festival, these two prescribed
assemblies were held,—on the 18th and 19th of Elaphebolion. The
three ambassadors from Philip, Parmenio, Antipater, and Eurylochus
were present, both at the festival and the assemblies.[822] The
general question of the relations between Athens and Philip being
here submitted for discussion, the resolution of the confederate
synod was at the same time communicated. Of this resolution the
most significant article was, that the synod accepted beforehand
the decree of the Athenian assembly, whatever that might be; the
other articles were recommendations, doubtless heard with respect,
and constituting a theme for speakers to insist on, yet carrying no
positive authority. But in the pleadings of the two rival orators
some years afterwards, (from which alone we know the facts), the
entire resolution of the synod appears invested with a factitious
importance; because each of them had an interest in professing to
have supported it,—each accuses the other of having opposed it; both
wished to disconnect themselves from Philokrates, then a disgraced
exile, and from the peace moved by him, which had become discredited.
It was Philokrates who stood forward in the assembly as the prominent
mover of peace and alliance with Philip. His motion did not embrace
either of the recommendations of the synod, respecting absent
envoys, and interval to be left for adhesions from other Greeks; nor
did he confine himself, as the synod had done, to the proposition of
peace with Philip. He proposed that not only peace, but alliance,
should be concluded between the Athenians and Philip; who had
expressed by letter his great anxiety both for one and for the other.
He included in his proposition, Philip with all his allies, on one
side,—and Athens, with all her allies, on the other; making special
exception, however, of two among the allies of Athens, the Phokians,
and the town of Halus near the Pagasæan Gulf, recently under siege by
Parmenio.[823]

  [822] Æschines, adv. Ktesiph. p. 64.

  [823] Demosthen. Fals. Leg. p. 391. τήν τε γὰρ εἰρήνην οὐχὶ
  δυνηθέντων ὡς ἐπεχείρησαν οὗτοι, “πλὴν Ἁλέων καὶ Φωκέων,”
  γράψαι—ἀλλ᾽ ἀναγκασθέντος ὑφ᾽ ὑμῶν τοῦ Φιλοκράτους ταῦτα μὲν
  ἀπαλείψαι, γράψαι δ᾽ ἀντικρὺς “~Ἀθηναίους καὶ τοὺς Ἀθηναίων
  συμμάχους~,” etc.

What part Æschines and Demosthenes took in reference to this motion,
it is not easy to determine. In their speeches, delivered three
years afterwards, both denounce Philokrates; each accuses the other
of having supported him; each affirms himself to have advocated
the recommendations of the synod. The contradictions between the
two, and between Æschines in his earlier and Æschines in his later
speech, are here very glaring. Thus, Demosthenes accuses his rival
of having, on the 18th of the month or on the first of the two
assemblies, delivered a speech strongly opposed to Philokrates;[824]
but of having changed his politics during the night and spoken on the
19th in support of the latter, so warmly as to convert the hearers
when they were predisposed the other way. Æschines altogether denies
such sudden change of opinion; alleging that he made but one speech,
and that in favor of the recommendation of the synod; and averring
moreover that to speak on the second assembly-day was impossible,
since that day was exclusively consecrated to putting questions and
voting, so that no oratory was allowed.[825] Yet Æschines, though in
his earlier harangue (De Fals. Leg.) he insists so strenuously on
this impossibility of speaking on the 19th,—in his later harangue
(against Ktesiphon) accuses Demosthenes of having spoken at great
length on that very day, the 19th, and of having thereby altered the
temper of the assembly.[826]

In spite, however, of the discredit thus thrown by Æschines upon
his own denial, I do not believe the sudden change of speech in the
assembly, ascribed to him by Demosthenes. It is too unexplained, and
in itself too improbable, to be credited on the mere assertion of
a rival. But I think it certain that neither he, nor Demosthenes,
can have advocated the recommendations of the synod, though both
profess to have done so,—if we are to believe the statement of
Æschines (we have no statement from Demosthenes), as to the tenor
of those recommendations. For the synod (according to Æschines) had
recommended to await the return of the absent envoys before the
question of peace was debated. Now this proposition was impracticable
under the circumstances; since it amounted to nothing less than an
indefinite postponement of the question. But the Macedonian envoys,
Antipater and Parmenio, were now in Athens, and actually present in
the assembly; having come, by special invitation, for the purpose
either of concluding peace or of breaking off the negotiation; and
Philip had agreed (as Æschines[827] himself states), to refrain from
all attack on the Chersonese, while the Athenians were debating
about peace. Under these conditions, it was imperatively necessary
to give some decisive and immediate answer to the Macedonian envoys.
To tell them—“We can say nothing positive at present; you must wait
until our absent envoys return, and until we ascertain how many
Greeks we can get into our alliance,” would have been not only in
itself preposterous, but would have been construed by able men like
Antipater and Parmenio as a mere dilatory manœuvre for breaking off
the peace altogether. Neither Demosthenes nor Æschines can have
really supported such a proposition, whatever both may pretend
three years afterwards. For at that time of the actual discussion,
not only Æschines himself, but the general public of Athens were
strongly anxious for peace; while Demosthenes, though less anxious,
was favorable to it.[828] Neither of them were at all disposed to
frustrate the negotiations by insidious delay; nor, if they had been
so disposed, would the Athenian public have tolerated the attempt.

  [824] Demosthen. Fals. Leg. p. 345, 346.

  [825] Æschines. Fals. Leg. p. 36.

  [826] Æschines adv. Ktesiph. p. 63, 64.

  [827] Æschines, Fals. Leg. p. 39.

  [828] From the considerations here stated, we can appreciate the
  charges of Æschines against Demosthenes, even on his own showing;
  though the precise course of either is not very clear.

  He accuses Demosthenes of having sold himself to Philip (adv.
  Ktes. p. 63, 64); a charge utterly futile and incredible,
  refuted by the whole conduct of Demosthenes, both before and
  after. Whether Demosthenes received bribes from Harpalus—or from
  the Persian court—will be matter of future inquiry. But the
  allegation that he had been bribed by Philip is absurd. Æschines
  himself confesses that it was quite at variance with the received
  opinion at Athens (adv. Ktes. p. 62. c. 22).

  He accuses Demosthenes of having, under the influence of these
  bribes, opposed and frustrated the recommendation of the
  confederate synod—of having hurried on the debate about peace at
  once—and of having thus prevented Athens from waiting for the
  return of her absent envoys, which would have enabled her to make
  peace in conjunction with a powerful body of coöperating Greeks.
  This charge is advanced by Æschines, first in the speech De Fals.
  Leg. p. 36—next, with greater length and emphasis, in the later
  speech, adv. Ktesiph. p. 63, 64. From what has been said in the
  text, it will be seen that such indefinite postponement, when
  Antipater and Parmenio were present in Athens by invitation, was
  altogether impossible, without breaking off the negotiation.
  Not to mention, that Æschines himself affirms, in the strongest
  language, the ascertained impossibility of prevailing upon any
  other Greeks to join Athens, and complains bitterly of their
  backward dispositions (Fals. Leg. p. 38. c. 25). In this point
  Demosthenes perfectly concurs with him (De Coronâ, p. 231, 232).
  So that even if postponement could have been had, it would have
  been productive of no benefit, nor of any increase of force, to
  Athens, since the Greeks were not inclined to coöperate with her.

  The charge of Æschines against Demosthenes is thus untenable, and
  suggests its own refutation, even from the mouth of the accuser
  himself. Demosthenes indeed replies to it in a different manner.
  When Æschines says—“You hurried on the discussion about peace,
  without allowing Athens to await the return of her envoys, then
  absent on mission”—Demosthenes answers—“There were _no_ Athenian
  envoys then absent on mission. All the Greeks had been long ago
  detected as incurably apathetic.” (De Coronâ, p. 233). This is a
  slashing and decisive reply, which it might perhaps be safe for
  Demosthenes to hazard, at an interval of thirteen years after the
  events. But it is fortunate that another answer can be provided;
  for I conceive the assertion to be neither correct in point of
  fact, nor consistent with the statements of Demosthenes himself
  in the speech De Falsâ Legatione.

On the best conclusion which I can form, Demosthenes supported the
motion of Philokrates (enacting both peace and alliance with Philip),
except only that special clause which excluded both the Phokians
and the town of Halus, and which was ultimately negatived by the
assembly.[829] That Æschines supported the same motion entire, and
in a still more unqualified manner, we may infer from his remarkable
admission in the oration against Timarchus[830] (delivered in the
year after the peace, and three years before his own trial), wherein
he acknowledges himself as joint author of the peace along with
Philokrates, and avows his hearty approbation of the conduct and
language of Philip, even after the ruin of the Phokians. Eubulus,
the friend and partisan of Æschines, told the Athenians[831] the
plain alternative: “You must either march forthwith to Peiræus,
serve on shipboard, pay direct taxes, and convert the Theôric Fund
to military purposes,—or else you must vote the terms of peace moved
by Philokrates.” Our inference respecting the conduct of Æschines is
strengthened by what is here affirmed respecting Eubulus. Demosthenes
had been vainly urging upon his countrymen, for the last five years,
at a time when Philip was less formidable, the real adoption of these
energetic measures; Eubulus, his opponent, now holds them out _in
terrorem_, as an irksome and intolerable necessity, constraining the
people to vote for the terms of peace proposed. And however painful
it might be to acquiesce in the _statu quo_, which recognized
Philip as master of Amphipolis and of so many other possessions
once belonging to Athens,—I do not believe that even Demosthenes,
at the time when the peace was actually under debate, would put
the conclusion of it to hazard, by denouncing the shame of such
unavoidable cession, though he professes three years afterwards to
have vehemently opposed it.[832]

  [829] Demosth. Fals. Leg. p. 391-430. Æschines affirms strongly,
  in his later oration against Ktesiphon (p. 63), that Demosthenes
  warmly advocated the motion of Philokrates for alliance as well
  as peace with Philip. He professes to give the precise phrase
  used by Demosthenes—which he censures as an inelegant phrase—οὐ
  δεῖν ἀποῤῥῆξαι τῆς εἰρήνης τὴν συμμαχίαν, etc. He adds that
  Demosthenes called up the Macedonian ambassador Antipater to the
  rostrum, put a question to him, and obtained an answer concerted
  beforehand. How much of this is true, I cannot say. The version
  given by Æschines in his later speech, is, as usual, different
  from that in his earlier.

  The accusation against Demosthenes, of corrupt collusion with
  Antipater, is incredible and absurd.

  [830] Æschines, adv. Timarch. p. 24, 25. c. 34. παρεμβάλλων
  (Demosthenes) τὰς ἐμὰς δημηγορίας, καὶ ~ψέγων τὴν εἰρήνην τὴν
  δι᾽ ἐμοῦ καὶ Φιλοκράτους γεγενημένην~, ὥστε οὐδὲ ἀπαντήσεσθαί με
  ἐπὶ τὸ δικαστήριον ἀπολογησόμενον, ὅταν τὰς τῆς πρεσβείας εὐθύνας
  διδῶ, etc. ... Φίλιππον δὲ νῦν μὲν διὰ τὴν τῶν λόγων εὐφημίαν
  ἐπαινῶ, etc.

  [831] Demosth. Fals. Leg. p. 434. φήσας (Eubulus) καταβαίνειν εἰς
  Πειραιᾶ δεῖν ἤδη καὶ χρήματ᾽ εἰσφέρειν καὶ τὰ θεωρικὰ στρατιωτικὰ
  ποιεῖν—ἢ χειροτονεῖν ἃ συνεῖπε μὲν οὗτος (Æschines) ἔγραψε δ᾽ ὁ
  βδελυρὸς Φιλοκράτης.

  [832] Demosthen. Fals. Leg. p. 385.

I suspect therefore that the terms of peace proposed by Philokrates
met with unqualified support from one of our two rival orators,
and with only partial opposition, to one special clause, from
the other. However this may be, the proposition passed, with no
other modification (so far as we know) except the omission of that
clause which specially excepted Halus and the Phokians. Philokrates
provided, that all the possessions actually in the hands of each of
the belligerent parties, should remain to each, without disturbance
from the other;[833] that on these principles, there should be both
peace and alliance between Athens with all her allies on the one
side, and Philip with all his allies on the other. These were the
only parties included in the treaty. Nothing was said about other
Greeks, not allies either of Philip or of Athens.[834] Nor was any
special mention made about Kersobleptes.[835]

  [833] Pseudo-Demosthen. De Halonneso, p. 81-83. Demosthenes, in
  one passage (Fals. Leg. p. 385), speaks as if it were a part of
  the Athenian oath—that they would oppose and treat as enemies
  all who should try to save from Philip and to restore to Athens
  the places now recognized as Philip’s possession for the future.
  Though Vœmel (Proleg. ad Demosth. De Pace, p. 265) and Böhnecke
  (p. 303) insert these words as a part of the actual formula,
  I doubt whether they are anything more than a constructive
  expansion, given by Demosthenes himself, of the import of the
  formula.

  [834] This fact we learn from the subsequent discussions about
  _amending_ the peace, mentioned in Pseudo-Demosth. De Halonneso,
  p. 84.

  [835] Æschines, Fals. Leg. p. 33. c. 26.

Such was the decree of peace and alliance, enacted on the second of
the two assembly-days,—the nineteenth of the month Elaphebolion. Of
course, without the fault of any one, it was all to the advantage
of Philip. He was in the superior position; and it sanctioned his
retention of all his conquests. For Athens, the inferior party, the
benefit to be expected was, that she would prevent these conquests
from being yet farther multiplied, and protect herself against being
driven from bad to worse.

But it presently appeared that even thus much was not realized. On
the twenty-fifth day of the same month[836] (six days after the
previous assembly), a fresh assembly was held, for the purpose of
providing ratification by solemn oath for the treaty which had
been just decreed. It was now moved and enacted, that the same ten
citizens, who had been before accredited to Philip, should again be
sent to Macedonia for the purpose of receiving the oaths from him
and from his allies.[837] Next, it was resolved that the Athenians,
together with the deputies of their allies then present in Athens,
should take the oath forthwith, in the presence of Philip’s envoys.

  [836] This date is preserved by Æschines adv. Ktesiph. p. 64.
  c. 27. ἕκτῃ φθίνοντος τοῦ Ἐλαφηβολιῶνος μηνὸς, etc. In the
  earlier oration (De Fals. Leg. p. 40. c. 29) Æschines states
  that Demosthenes was among the Proedri or presiding senators of
  a public assembly held ἑβδόμῃ φθίνοντος—the day before. It is
  possible that there might have been two public assemblies held,
  on two successive days (the 23d and 24th, or the 24th and 25th,
  according as the month Elaphebolion happened in that year to have
  30 days or 29 days), and that Demosthenes may have been among the
  Proedri in both. But the transaction described (in the oration
  against Ktesiphon) as having happened on the latter of the two
  days—must have preceded that which is mentioned (in the Oration
  De Fals. Leg.) as having happened on the earlier of the two days;
  or at least cannot have followed it; so that there seems to be
  an inaccuracy in one or in the other. If the word ἕκτῃ, in the
  oration against Ktesiphon, and ἑβδόμῃ in the speech on the False
  Legation, are both correct, the transactions mentioned in the
  one cannot be reconciled chronologically with those narrated in
  the other. Various conjectural alterations have bean proposed.
  See Vœmel, Prolegg. ad Demosth. Orat. De Pace, p. 257; Böhnecke,
  Forschungen, p. 399.

  [837] Æschines, Fals. Leg. p. 39. ἤδη δὲ ἡμῶν κεχειροτονημένων
  εἰς τοὺς ὅρκους, οὔπω δὲ ἀπῃρκότων ἐπὶ τὴν ὑστέραν πρεσβείαν,
  ἐκκλησία γίνεται, etc.

  This ἐκκλησία seems to be the same as that which is named by
  Æschines in the speech against Ktesiphon, as having been held on
  the 25th Elaphebolion.

But now arose the critical question, Who were to be included as
allies of Athens? Were the Phokians and Kersobleptes to be included?
The one and the other represented those two capital positions,[838]
Thermopylæ and the Hellespont, which Philip was sure to covet, and
which it most behooved Athens to ensure against him. The assembly, by
its recent vote, had struck out the special exclusion of the Phokians
proposed by Philokrates, thus by implication admitting them as allies
along with the rest. They were in truth allies of old standing and
valuable; they had probably envoys present in Athens, but no deputies
sitting in the synod. Nor had Kersobleptes any such deputy in that
body; but a citizen of Lampsakus, named Kritobulus, claimed on this
occasion to act for him, and to take the oaths in his name.

  [838] Demosth. Fals. Leg. p. 397. καίτοι δύο χρησιμωτέρους
  τόπους τῆς οἰκουμένης οὐδ᾽ ἂν εἷς ἐπιδείξαι τῇ πόλει, κατὰ μὲν
  γῆν, Πυλῶν—ἐκ θαλάττης δὲ τοῦ Ἑλλησπόντου· ἃ συναμφότερα οὗτοι
  πεπράκασιν αἰσχρῶς καὶ καθ᾽ ὑμῶν ἐγκεχειρίκασι Φιλίππῳ.

As to the manner of dealing with Kersobleptes, Æschines tells us
two stories (one in the earlier oration, the other in the later)
quite different from each other; and agreeing only in this—that in
both Demosthenes is described as one of the presiding magistrates
of the public assembly, as having done all that he could to prevent
the envoy of Kersobleptes from being admitted to take the oaths as
an ally of Athens. Amidst such discrepancies, to state in detail
what passed is impossible. But it seems clear,—both from Æschines
(in his earliest speech) and Demosthenes,—first, that the envoy
from Kersobleptes, not having a seat in the confederate synod, but
presenting himself and claiming to be sworn as an ally of Athens,
found his claim disputed; secondly, that upon this dispute arising,
the question was submitted to the vote of the public assembly, who
decided that Kersobleptes was an ally, and should be admitted to take
the oath as such.[839]

  [839] Compare Æschines, Fals. Leg. p. 39. c. 26, with Æschines
  cont. Ktesiphont. p. 64. c. 27.

  Franke (Proleg. ad Demosth. Fals. Leg. p. 30, 31) has some severe
  comments on the discrepancy between the two statements.

  That the question was put, and affirmed by vote, to admit
  Kersobleptes appears from the statement of Æschines in the speech
  De Fals. Leg.—τὸ ψήφισμα ἐπεψηφίσθη—ἐψηφισμένου δὲ τοῦ δήμου.
  Compare Demosth. De Fals. Leg. p. 398, and Demosthen. Philipp.
  iv. p. 133.

  Philip, in his letter some years afterwards to the Athenians,
  affirmed that Kersobleptes wished to be admitted to take the
  oaths, but was excluded by the Athenian generals, who declared
  him to be an enemy of Athens (Epist. Phil. ap. Demosth. p. 160).
  If it be true that the generals tried to exclude him, their
  exclusion must have been overruled by the vote of the assembly.

Antipater and Parmenio, on the part of Philip, did not refuse to
recognize Kersobleptes as an ally of Athens, and to receive his
oath. But in regard to the Phokians, they announced a determination
distinctly opposite. They gave notice, at or after the assembly of
the 25th Elaphebolion, that Philip positively refused to admit the
Phokians as parties to the convention.

This determination, formally announced by Antipater at Athens, must
probably have been made known by Philip himself to Philokrates and
Æschines, when on mission in Macedonia. Hence Philokrates, in his
motion about the terms of peace, had proposed that the Phokians and
Halus should be specially excluded (as I have already related).
Now, however, when the Athenian assembly, by expressly repudiating
such exclusion, had determined that the Phokians should be received
as parties, while the envoys of Philip were not less express in
rejecting them,—the leaders of the peace, Æschines and Philokrates,
were in great embarrassment. They had no other way of surmounting
the difficulty, except by holding out mendacious promises, and
unauthorized assurances of future intention in the name of Philip.
Accordingly, they confidently announced that the King of Macedon,
though precluded by his relations with the Thebans and Thessalians
(necessary to him while he remained at war with Athens), from openly
receiving the Phokians as allies, was nevertheless in his heart
decidedly adverse to the Thebans; and that, if his hands were once
set free by concluding peace with Athens, he would interfere in the
quarrel just in the manner that the Athenians would desire; that
he would uphold the Phokians, put down the insolence of Thebes,
and even break up the integrity of the city; restoring also the
autonomy of Thespiæ, Platæa and the other Bœotian towns, now in
Theban dependence. The general assurances,—previously circulated
by Aristodemus, Ktesiphon, and others,—of Philip’s anxiety to win
favorable opinions from the Athenians, were now still farther
magnified into a supposed community of antipathy against Thebes;
and even into a disposition to compensate Athens for the loss of
Amphipolis, by making her complete mistress of Eubœa as well as by
recovering for her Orôpus.

By such glowing fabrications and falsehoods, confidently asseverated,
Philokrates, Æschines, and the other partisans of Philip present,
completely deluded the assembly; and induced them, not indeed to
decree the special exclusion of the Phokians, as Philokrates had
at first proposed,—but to swear the convention with Antipater and
Parmenio without the Phokians.[840] These latter were thus shut
out in fact, though by the general words of the peace, Athens had
recognized their right to be included. Their deputies were probably
present, claimed to be admitted, and were refused by Antipater,
without any peremptory protest on the part of Athens.

  [840] Demosthenes, Fals. Leg. p. 444. ἐντεῦθεν ~οἱ μὲν παρ᾽
  ἐκείνου πρέσβεις προὔλεγον ὑμῖν ὅτι Φωκέας οὐ προσδέχεται
  Φίλιππος συμμάχους, οὗτοι δ᾽ ἐκδεχόμενοι τοιαῦτ᾽ ἐδημηγόρουν, ὡς
  φανερῶς μὲν οὐχὶ καλῶς ἔχει τῷ Φιλίππῳ προσδέξασθαι τοὺς Φωκέας~
  συμμάχους, διὰ τοὺς Θηβαίους καὶ τοὺς Θετταλοὺς, ἂν δὲ γένηται
  τῶν πραγμάτων κύριος ~καὶ τῆς εἰρήνης τύχῃ~, ἅπερ ἂν συνθέσθαι
  νῦν ἀξιώσαιμεν αὐτὸν, ταῦτα ποιήσει τότε. ~Τὴν μὲν τοίνυν εἰρήνην
  ταύταις ταῖς ἐλπίσι καὶ ταῖς ἐπαγωγαῖς εὕροντο παρ᾽ ὑμῶν ἄνευ
  Φωκέων~.

  Ibid. p. 409. Εἰ δὲ πάντα τἀναντία τούτων καὶ πολλὰ καὶ
  φιλάνθρωπα εἰπόντες Φίλιππον, φιλεῖν τὴν πόλιν, Φωκέας σώσειν,
  Θηβαίους παύσειν τῆς ὕβρεως, ἔτι πρὸς τούτοις ~μείζονα ἢ κατ᾽
  Ἀμφίπολιν εὖ ποιήσειν ὑμᾶς, ἐὰν τύχῃ τῆς εἰρήνης, Εὔβοιαν,
  Ὠρωπὸν~ ἀποδώσειν—εἰ ταῦτ᾽ εἰπόντες καὶ ὑποσχόμενοι πάντ᾽
  ἐξηπατήκασι καὶ πεφενακίκασι, etc.

  Compare also, p. 346, 388, 391, about the false promises under
  which the Athenians were induced to consent to the peace—τῶν
  ὑποσχέσεων, ἐφ᾽ αἷς εὑρίσκετο (Philip) τὴν εἰρήνην. The same
  false promises put forward _before_ the peace and determining the
  Athenians to conclude it, are also noticed by Demosthenes in the
  second Philippic (p. 69), τὰς ὑποσχέσεις, ἐφ᾽ αἷς τῆς εἰρήνης
  ἔτυχεν (Philip)—p. 72. τοὺς ἐνεγκόντας τὰς ὑποσχέσεις, ἐφ᾽ αἷς
  ἐπείσθητε ποιήσασθαι τὴν εἰρήνην. This second Philippic is one
  year earlier in date than the oration de Falsâ Legatione, and is
  better authority than that oration, not merely on account of its
  earlier date, but because it is a parliamentary harangue, not
  tainted with an accusatory purpose nor mentioning Æschines by
  name.

This tissue, not of mere exaggerations, but of impudent and
monstrous falsehood, respecting the purposes of Philip,—will be seen
to continue until he had carried his point of penetrating within
the pass of Thermopylæ, and even afterwards. We can hardly wonder
that the people believed it, when proclaimed and guaranteed to
them by Philokrates, Æschines, and the other envoys, who had been
sent into Macedonia for the express purpose of examining on the
spot and reporting, and whose assurance was the natural authority
for the people to rely upon. In this case, the deceptions found
easier credence and welcome because they were in complete harmony
with the wishes and hopes of Athens, and with the prevalent thirst
for peace. To betray allies like the Phokians appeared of little
consequence, when once it became a settled conviction that the
Phokians themselves would be no losers by it. But this plea, though
sufficient as a tolerable excuse for the Athenian people, will not
serve for a statesman like Demosthenes; who, on this occasion (as
far as we can make out even from his own language), did not enter
any emphatic protest against the tacit omission of the Phokians,
though he had opposed the clause (in the motion of Philokrates)
which formally omitted them by name. Three months afterwards, when
the ruin of the isolated Phokians was about to be consummated as a
fact, we shall find Demosthenes earnest in warning and denunciation;
but there is reason to presume that his opposition[841] was at
best only faint, when the positive refusal of Antipater was first
proclaimed against that acquiescence on the part of Athens, whereby
the Phokians were really surrendered to Philip. Yet in truth this was
the great diplomatic turning-point, from whence the sin of Athens,
against duty to allies as well as against her own security, took
its rise. It was a false step of serious magnitude, difficult, if
not impossible, to retrieve afterwards. Probably the temper of the
Athenians, then eager for peace, trembling for the lives of their
captives, and prepossessed with the positive assurances of Æschines
and Philokrates,—would have heard with repugnance any strong protest
against abandoning the Phokians, which threatened to send Antipater
home in disgust and intercept the coming peace,—the more so as
Demosthenes, if he called in question the assurances of Æschines as
to the projects of Philip, would have no positive facts to produce
in refuting them, and would be constrained to take the ground of
mere scepticism and negation;[842] of which a public, charmed with
hopeful auguries and already disarmed through the mere comfortable
anticipations of peace, would be very impatient. Nevertheless, we
might have expected from a statesman like Demosthenes, that he would
have begun his energetic opposition to the disastrous treaty of
346 B. C., at that moment when the most disastrous and disgraceful
portion of it,—the abandonment of the Phokians,—was first shuffled in.

  [841] Demosthenes speaks of the omission of the Phokians, in
  taking the oaths at Athens, as if it were a matter of small
  importance (Fals. Leg. p. 387, 388; compare p. 372); that is, on
  the supposition that the promises made by Æschines turned out to
  be realized.

  In his speech De Pace (p. 59), he takes credit for his protests
  on behalf of the Phokians; but only for protests made _after
  his_ return from the second embassy—not for protests made when
  Antipater refused to admit the Phokians to the oaths.

  Westermann (De Litibus quas Demosthenes oravit ipse, p. 48)
  suspects that Demosthenes did not see through the deception of
  Æschines until the Phokians were utterly ruined. This, perhaps,
  goes beyond the truth; but at the time when the oaths were
  exchanged at Athens, he either had not clearly detected the
  consequences of that miserable shuffle into which Athens was
  tricked by Philokrates, etc.—or he was afraid to proclaim them
  emphatically.

  [842] Demosth. Fals. Leg. p. 355. τραχέως ~δ᾽ ὑμῶν τῷ “μηδὲ
  προσδοκᾷν” σχόντων~, etc. (the Athenian public were displeased
  with Demosthenes when he told them that he did not expect the
  promises of Æschines to be realized; this was after the second
  embassy, but it illustrates the temper of the assembly even
  before the second embassy)—ibid. p. 349. τίς γὰρ ἂν ἠνέσχετο,
  τηλικαῦτα καὶ τοσαῦτα ἔσεσθαι προσδοκῶν ἀγαθὰ, ἢ ~ταῦθ᾽ ὡς οὐκ
  ἔσται λέγοντός τινος~, ἢ κατηγοροῦντος τῶν πεπραγμένων τούτοις;

  How unpopular it was to set up mere negative mistrust against
  glowing promises of benefits to come, is here strongly urged by
  Demosthenes.

  Respecting the premature disarming of the Athenians, see Demosth.
  De Coronâ, p. 234.

After the assembly of the 25th Elaphebolion, Antipater administered
the oaths of peace and alliance to Athens and to all her other allies
(seemingly including the envoy of Kersobleptes) in the Board-room of
the Generals.[843] It now became the duty of the ten Athenian envoys,
with one more from the confederate synod,—the same persons who had
been employed in the first embassy,—to go and receive the oaths from
Philip. Let us see how this duty was performed.

  [843] Æschines, Fals. Leg. p. 39. c. 27.

The decree of the assembly, under which these envoys held their
trust, was large and comprehensive. They were to receive an oath, of
amity and alliance with Athens and her allies, from Philip as well
as from the chief magistrate in each city allied with him. They were
forbidden (by a curious restriction) to hold any intercourse singly
and individually with Philip;[844] but they were farther enjoined,
by a comprehensive general clause, “to do anything else which might
be within their power for the advantage of Athens.”—“It was our duty
as prudent envoys (says Æschines to the Athenian people) to take
a right measure of the whole state of affairs, as they concerned
either you or Philip.”[845] Upon these rational views of the duties
of the envoys, however, Æschines unfortunately did not act. It was
Demosthenes who acted upon them, and who insisted, immediately after
the departure of Antipater and Parmenio, on going straight to the
place where Philip actually was; in order that they might administer
the oath to him with as little delay as possible. It was not only
certain that the King of Macedon, the most active of living men,
would push his conquests up to the last moment; but it was farther
known to Æschines and the envoys, that he had left Pella to make war
against Kersobleptes in Thrace, at the time when they returned from
their first embassy.[846] Moreover, on the day of, or the day after,
the public assembly last described (that is, on the 25th or 26th of
the month Elaphebolion), a despatch had reached Athens from Chares,
the Athenian commander at the Hellespont, intimating that Philip
had gained important advantages in Thrace, had taken the important
place called the Sacred Mountain, and deprived Kersobleptes of great
part of his kingdom.[847] Such successive conquests on the part of
Philip strengthened the reasons for despatch on the part of the
envoys, and for going straight to Thrace to arrest his progress. As
the peace concluded was based on the _uti possidetis_, dating from
the day on which the Macedonian envoys had administered the oaths at
Athens,—Philip was bound to restore all conquests made after that
day. But it did not escape Demosthenes, that this was an obligation
which Philip was likely to evade; and which the Athenian people, bent
as they were on peace, were very unlikely to enforce.[848] The more
quickly the envoys reached him, the fewer would be the places in
dispute, the sooner would he be reduced to inaction,—or at least, if
he still continued to act, the more speedily would his insincerity be
exposed.

  [844] Demosth. Fals. Leg. p. 430. οὐ τὸ μὲν ψήφισμα “οὐδαμοῦ
  μόνους ἐντυγχάνειν Φιλίππῳ,” οὗτοι δ᾽ οὐδὲν ἐπαύσαντο ἰδίᾳ
  χρηματίζοντες;

  [845] Æschines, Fals. Leg. p. 41. c. 32. Τὸ δὲ ~ὑπὲρ τῶν ὅλων
  ὀρθῶς βουλεύσασθαι~, ὅσα καθ᾽ ἡμᾶς ~ἐστιν~ ἢ Φίλιππον, τοῦτο ἤδη
  ἔργον ἐστὶ πρεσβέων φρονίμων.... Ἀφίγμεθα δ᾽ ἡμεῖς ἔχοντες τοῦ
  δήμου ψήφισμα, ἐν ᾧ γέγραπται, ~Πράττειν δὲ τοὺς πρέσβεις, καὶ
  ἄλλ᾽ ὅ,τι ἂν δύνωνται ἀγαθόν~.

  [846] Æschines, Fals. Leg. p. 39. c. 26.

  [847] Æschines, Fals. Leg. p. 40. c. 29. ὅτι Κερσοβλέπτης
  ἀπολώλεκε τὴν ἀρχὴν, καὶ τὸ ἱερὸν ὄρος κατείληφε Φίλιππος.

  There is no fair ground for supposing that the words ἀπολώλεκε
  τὴν ἀρχὴν are the actual words used by Chares, or that
  Kersobleptes was affirmed by Chares to have lost everything that
  he had. It suited the argument of Æschines to give the statement
  in a sweeping and exaggerated form.

  [848] See the just and prudent reasoning of Demosthenes, Fals.
  Leg. p. 388, and De Coronâ, p. 234.

  Compare also Pseudo-Demosthenes, De Halonneso, p. 85, 86.

Impressed with this necessity for an immediate interview with
Philip, Demosthenes urged his colleagues to set out at once. But
they resisted his remonstrances, and chose to remain at Athens;
which, we may remark, was probably in a state of rejoicing and
festivity in consequence of the recent peace. So reckless was their
procrastination and reluctance to depart, that on the 3d of the
month Munychion (April—nine days after the solemnity of oath-taking
before Antipater and Parmenio) Demosthenes made complaint and moved a
resolution in the Senate, peremptorily ordering them to begin their
journey forthwith, and enjoining Proxenus the Athenian commander at
Oreus in Eubœa, to transport them without delay to the place where
Philip was, wherever that might be.[849] But though the envoys were
forced to leave Athens and repair to Oreus, nothing was gained in
respect to the main object; for they, as well as Proxenus, took upon
them to disobey the express order of the Senate, and never went to
find Philip. After a certain stay at Oreus, they moved forward by
leisurely journeys to Macedonia; where they remained inactive at
Pella until the return of Philip from Thrace, fifty days after they
had left Athens.[850]

  [849] Demosth. Fals. Leg. p. 389; De Coronâ, p. 234. Æschines
  (Fals. Leg. p. 40. c. 29, 30) recognizes the fact that this
  decree was passed by the Senate on the 3d of Munychion, and that
  the envoys left Athens in consequence of it. He does not mention
  that it was proposed by Demosthenes. Æschines here confirms, in
  a very important manner, the fact of the delay, as alleged by
  Demosthenes, while the explanation which he gives, why the envoys
  did not go to Thrace, is altogether without value.

  A document, purporting to be this decree, is given in Demosth. De
  Coronâ, p. 234, but the authenticity is too doubtful to admit of
  citing it.

  [850] Demosth. Fals. Leg. p. 390.

Had the envoys done their duty as Demosthenes recommended, they
might have reached the camp of Philip in Thrace within five or six
days after the conclusion of the peace at Athens; had they been
even content to obey the express orders of the Senate, they might
have reached it within the same interval after the 3d of Munychion;
so that from pure neglect, or deliberate collusion, on their part,
Philip was allowed more than a month to prosecute his conquests in
Thrace, after the Athenians on their side had sworn to peace. During
this interval, he captured Doriskus with several other Thracian
towns; some of them garrisoned by Athenian soldiers; and completely
reduced Kersobleptes, whose son he brought back as prisoner and
hostage.[851] The manner in which these envoys, employed in an
important mission at the public expense, wasted six weeks of a
critical juncture in doing nothing—and that too in defiance of an
express order from the Senate—confirms the supposition before stated,
and would even of itself raise a strong presumption, that the leaders
among them were lending themselves corruptly to the schemes of Philip.

  [851] Æschines, Fals. Leg. p. 38. c. 26; Demosth. De Halonneso,
  p. 85; Fals. Leg. p. 390-448: compare Philippic iii. p. 114.
  Among the Thracian places captured by Philip during this
  interval, Demosthenes enumerates the Sacred Mountain. But this
  is said to have been captured before the end of Elaphebolion, if
  Æschines quotes correctly from the letter of Chares, Fals. Leg.
  p. 40. c. 29.

The protests and remonstrances addressed by Demosthenes to his
colleagues, became warmer and more unmeasured as the delay was
prolonged.[852] His colleagues doubtless grew angry on their side, so
that the harmony of the embassy was overthrown. Æschines affirms that
none of the other envoys would associate with Demosthenes, either in
the road or at the resting-places.[853]

  [852] Demosth. Fals. Leg. p. 390.

  [853] Æschines, Fals. Leg. p. 41. c. 30. Demosthenes (and
  doubtless the other envoys also) walked on the journey, with two
  slaves to carry his clothes and bedding. In the pack carried by
  one slave, was a talent in money, destined to aid some of the
  poor prisoners towards their ransom.

Pella was now the centre of hope, fear, and intrigue, for the entire
Grecian world. Ambassadors were already there from Thebes, Sparta,
Eubœa, and Phokis; moreover a large Macedonian army was assembled
around, ready for immediate action.

At length the Athenian envoys, after so long a delay of their own
making, found themselves in the presence of Philip. And we should
have expected that they would forthwith perform their special
commission by administering the oaths. But they still went on
postponing this ceremony, and saying nothing about the obligation
incumbent on him, to restore all the places captured since the day
of taking the oaths to Antipater at Athens;[854] places, which had
now indeed become so numerous, through waste of time on the part
of the envoys themselves, that Philip was not likely to yield the
point even if demanded. In a conference held with his colleagues,
Æschines—assuming credit to himself for a view larger than that taken
by them, of the ambassadorial duties—treated the administration
of the oath as merely secondary; he insisted on the propriety of
addressing Philip on the subject of the intended expedition to
Thermopylæ (which he was on the point of undertaking, as was plain
from the large force mustered near Pella), and exhorting him to
employ it so as to humble Thebes and reconstitute the Bœotian cities.
The envoys (he said) ought not to be afraid of braving any ill-will
that might be manifested by the Thebans. Demosthenes (according to
the statement of Æschines) opposed this recommendation—insisting
that the envoys ought not to mingle in disputes belonging to
other parts of Greece, but to confine themselves to their special
mission—and declared that he should take no notice of Philip’s march
to Thermopylæ.[855] At length, after much discussion, it was agreed
among the envoys, that each of them, when called before Philip,
should say what he thought fit, and that the youngest should speak
first.

  [854] Demosth. Fals. Leg. p. 388. ἢ γὰρ παρόντων (we the envoys)
  καὶ κατὰ τὸ ψήφισμα αὐτὸν (Philip) ἐξορκωσάντων, ἃ μὲν εἰλήφει
  τῆς πόλεως, ἀποδώσειν, τῶν δὲ λοιπῶν ἀφέξεσθαι—ἢ μὴ ποιοῦντος
  ταῦτα ἀπαγγελεῖν ἡμᾶς εὐθέως δεῦρο, etc.

  [855] Æschines, Fals. Leg. p. 42. c. 33. πορεύεται Φίλιππος εἰς
  Πύλας· ἐγὼ δ᾽ ἐγκαλύπτομαι, etc. This is the language which
  Æschines affirms to have been held by Demosthenes during the
  embassy. It is totally at variance with all that Demosthenes
  affirms, over and over again, respecting his own proceedings; and
  (in my judgment) with all the probabilities of the case.

According to this rule, Demosthenes was first heard, and delivered
a speech (if we are to believe Æschines) not only leaving out all
useful comment upon the actual situation, but so spiteful towards
his colleagues, and so full of extravagant flattery to Philip, as
to put the hearers to shame.[856] The turn now came to Æschines,
who repeats in abridgment his own long oration delivered to Philip.
We can reason upon it with some confidence, in our estimate of
Æschines, though we cannot trust his reports about Demosthenes.
Æschines addressed himself exclusively to the subject of Philip’s
intended expedition to Thermopylæ. He exhorted Philip to settle
the controversy, pending with respect to the Amphiktyons and the
Delphian temple, by peaceful arbitration and not by arms. But if
armed interference was inevitable, Philip ought carefully to inform
himself of the ancient and holy bond whereby the Amphiktyonic synod
was held together. That synod consisted of twelve different nations
or sections of the Hellenic name, each including many cities small
as well as great; each holding two votes and no more; each binding
itself by an impressive oath, to uphold and protect every other
Amphiktyonic city. Under this venerable sanction, the Bœotian cities,
being Amphiktyonic like the rest, were entitled to protection against
the Thebans their destroyers. The purpose of Philip’s expedition, to
restore the Amphiktyonic council, was (Æschines admitted) holy and
just.[857] He ought to carry it through in the same spirit; punishing
the individuals originally concerned in the seizure of the Delphian
temple, but not the cities to which they belonged, provided those
cities were willing to give up the wrong-doers. But if Philip should
go beyond this point, and confirm the unjust dominion of Thebes over
the other Bœotian towns, he would do wrong on his own side, add to
the number of his enemies, and reap no gratitude from those whom he
favored.[858]

  [856] Æschines, Fals. Leg. p. 42. c. 34.

  [857] Æschines, Fals. Leg. p. 43. c. 36. Τὴν μὲν οὖν ἀρχὴν τῆς
  στρατείας ταύτης ὁσίαν καὶ δικαίαν ἀπεφηνάμην εἶναι, etc.

  ... Ἀπεφηνάμην ὅτι ἐμοὶ δοκεῖ δίκαιον εἶναι, μὴ περιορᾷν
  κατεσκαμμένας τὰς ἐν Βοιωτοῖς πόλεις, ὅτι δὴ ἦσαν Ἀμφικτυονίδες
  καὶ ἔνορκοι.

  [858] Æschines, Fals. Leg. p. 43. c. 37; compare Demosth. Fals.
  Leg. p. 347.

Demosthenes, in his comments upon this second embassy, touches
little on what either Æschines or himself said to Philip. He
professes to have gone on the second embassy with much reluctance,
having detected the treacherous purposes of Æschines and Philokrates.
Nay, he would have positively refused to go (he tells us) had he not
bound himself by a promise made during the first embassy, to some of
the poor Athenian prisoners in Macedonia, to provide for them the
means of release. He dwells much upon his disbursements for their
ransom during the second embassy, and his efforts to obtain the
consent of Philip.[859] This (he says) was all that lay in his power
to do, as an individual; in regard to the collective proceedings of
the embassy, he was constantly outvoted. He affirms that he detected
the foul play of Æschines and the rest with Philip; that he had
written a despatch to send home for the purpose of exposing it; that
his colleagues not only prevented him from forwarding it, but sent
another despatch of their own with false information.[860] Then, he
had resolved to come home personally, for the same purpose, sooner
than his colleagues, and had actually hired a merchant-vessel—but was
hindered by Philip from sailing out of Macedonia.[861]

  [859] Demosthen. Fals. Leg. p. 393, 394, 395.

  [860] Demosth. Fals. Leg. p. 396. καὶ τὴν μὲν γραφεῖσαν ἐπιστολὴν
  ὑπ᾽ ἐμοῦ πρὸς ὑμᾶς ἀπεψηφίσαντο μὴ πέμπειν, αὐτοὶ δ᾽ οὐδ᾽ ὁτιοῦν
  ὑγιὲς γράψαντες ἔπεμψαν. Compare p. 419.

  [861] Demosthen. Fals. Leg. p. 445. ἐγὼ δ᾽, ὥσπερ ἀκηκόατ᾽ ἤδη
  πολλάκις, οὐχὶ δυνηθεὶς προαπελθεῖν, ἀλλὰ ~καὶ μισθωσάμενος
  πλοῖον κατακωλυθεὶς ἐκπλεῦσαι~. Compare p. 357.—οὐδ᾽ ἂν ἐμὲ,
  ἡνίκα δεῦρο ἀποπλεῖν ἐβουλόμην, κατεκώλυεν (Philip), etc.

The general description here given by Demosthenes, of his own conduct
during the second embassy, is probably true. Indeed, it coincided
substantially with the statement of Æschines, who complains of him as
in a state of constant and vexatious opposition to his colleagues.
We must recollect that Demosthenes had no means of knowing what the
particular projects of Philip really were. This was a secret to every
one except Philip himself, with his confidential agents or partisans.
Whatever Demosthenes might suspect, he had no public evidence by
which to impress his suspicions upon others, or to countervail
confident assertions on the favorable side transmitted home by his
colleagues.

The army of Philip was now ready, and he was on the point of
marching southward towards Thessaly and Thermopylæ. That pass
was still held by the Phokians, with a body of Lacedæmonian
auxiliaries;[862] a force quite sufficient to maintain it against
Philip’s open attack, and likely to be strengthened by Athens from
seaward, if the Athenians came to penetrate his real purposes. It
was therefore essential to Philip to keep alive a certain belief in
the minds of others, that he was marching southward with intentions
favorable to the Phokians,—though not to proclaim it in any such
authentic manner as to alienate his actual allies the Thebans and
Thessalians. And the Athenian envoys were his most useful agents in
circulating the imposture.

  [862] The Lacedæmonian troops remained at Thermopylæ until a
  little time before Philip reached it (Demosth. Fals. Leg. p. 365).

Some of the Macedonian officers round Philip gave explicit assurance,
that the purpose of his march was to conquer Thebes, and reconstitute
the Bœotian cities. So far, indeed, was this deception carried, that
(according to Æschines) the Theban envoys in Macedonia, and the
Thebans themselves, became seriously alarmed.[863] The movements
of Philip were now the pivot on which Grecian affairs turned, and
Pella the scene wherein the greatest cities in Greece were bidding
for his favor. While the Thebans and Thessalians were calling upon
him to proclaim himself openly Amphiktyonic champion against the
Phokians,—the Phokian envoys,[864] together with those from Sparta
and Athens, were endeavoring to enlist him in their cause against
Thebes. Wishing to isolate the Phokians from such support, Philip
made many tempting promises to the Lacedæmonian envoys; who, on
their side, came to open quarrel, and indulged in open menace,
against those of Thebes.[865] Such was the disgraceful auction,
wherein these once great states, in prosecution of their mutual
antipathies, bartered away to a foreign prince the dignity of the
Hellenic name and the independence of the Hellenic world;[866]
following the example set by Sparta in her applications to the Great
King, during the latter years of the Peloponnesian war, and at the
peace of Antalkidas. Amidst such a crowd of humble petitioners
and expectants, all trembling to offend him,—with the aid too of
Æschines, Philokrates, and the other Athenian envoys who consented
to play his game,—Philip had little difficulty in keeping alive the
hopes of all, and preventing the formation of any common force or
decisive resolution to resist him.[867]

  [863] Æschines, Fals. Leg. p. 46. c. 41. ~αὐτοὶ δὲ οὐκ ἠπόρουν
  καὶ ἐφοβοῦντο οἱ τῶν Θηβαίων πρέσβεις; ... τῶν δ᾽ ἑταίρων τινες
  τῶν Φιλίππου οὐ διαῤῥήδην πρός τινας ἡμῶν ἔλεγον, ὅτι τὰς ἐν
  Βοιωτίᾳ πόλεις κατοικιεῖ Φίλιππος;~ Θηβαῖοι δ᾽ οὐκ ἐξεληλύθεσαν
  πανδημεὶ, ἀπιστοῦντες τοῖς πράγμασιν;

  Demosthenes greatly eulogizes the incorruptibility and hearty
  efforts of the Theban envoys (Fals. Leg. p. 384); which assertion
  is probably nothing better at bottom, than a rhetorical contrast,
  to discredit Æschines—fit to be inserted in the numerous list of
  oratorical exaggerations and perversions of history, collected
  in the interesting Treatise of Weiske, De Hyperbolê, errorum in
  Historiâ Philippi commissorum genitrice (Meissen, 1819).

  [864] Demosth. Philipp. iii. p. 113; Justin, viii. 4. “Contra
  Phocensium legati, adhibitis Lacedæmoniis et Atheniensibus,
  bellum deprecabantur, cujus ab eo dilationem ter jam emerant.” I
  do not understand to what facts Justin refers, when he states,
  that the Phokians “had already purchased thrice from Philip a
  postponement of war.”

  [865] Demosthen. Fals. Leg. p. 365. τοὺς Λακεδαιμονίους
  μετεπέμπετο, πάντα τὰ πράγματα ὑποσχόμενος πράξειν ἐκείνοις, etc.

  Æschines, Fals. Leg. p. 46. c. 41. Λακεδαιμονίοι δὲ οὐ μεθ᾽ ἡμῶν
  τἀναντία Θηβαίοις ἐπρέσβευον, καὶ τελευτῶντες προσέκρουον φανερῶς
  ἐν Μακεδονίᾳ, καὶ διηπείλουν τοῖς τῶν Θηβαίων πρέσβεισιν;

  [866] This thought is strikingly presented by Justin (viii.
  4), probably from Theopompus—“Fœdum prorsus miserandumque
  spectaculum, Græciam, etiam nunc et viribus et dignitate orbis
  terrarum principem, regum certo gentiumque semper victricem
  et multarum adhuc urbium dominam, alienis excubare sedibus,
  aut rogantem bellum aut deprecantem: in alterius ope omnem
  spem posuisse orbis terrarum vindices; eoque discordia sua
  civilibusque bellis redactos, ut adulentur ultro sordidam paulo
  ante clientelæ suæ partem: et hæc potissimum facere Thebanos
  Lacedæmoniosque, antea inter se imperii, nunc gratiæ imperantis,
  æmulos.”

  [867] Justin, viii. 4.

After completing his march southward through Thessaly, he reached
Pheræ near the Pagasæan Gulf, at the head of a powerful army of
Macedonians and allies. The Phokian envoys accompanied his march, and
were treated, if not as friends, at least in such manner as to make
it appear doubtful whether Philip was going to attack the Phokians or
the Thebans.[868] It was at Pheræ that the Athenian envoys at length
administered the oath both to Philip and to his allies.[869] This was
done the last thing before they returned to Athens; which city they
reached on the 13th of the month Skirrophorion;[870] after an absence
of seventy days, comprising all the intervening month Thargelion,
and the remnant (from the third day) of the month Munychion. They
accepted, as representatives of the allied cities, all whom Philip
sent to them; though Demosthenes remarks that their instructions
directed them to administer the oath to the chief magistrate in each
city respectively.[871] And among the cities whom they admitted
to take the oath as Philip’s allies, was comprised Kardia, on the
borders of the Thracian Chersonese. The Athenians considered Kardia
as within the limits of the Chersonese, and therefore as belonging to
them.[872]

  [868] Demosth. Philipp. iii. p. 113. τοῦτο δ᾽ εἰς Φωκέας ὡς πρὸς
  συμμάχους ἐπορεύετο, καὶ πρέσβεις Φωκέων ἦσαν οἳ παρηκολούθουν
  αὐτῷ πορευομένῳ· καὶ παρ᾽ ἡμῖν ἤριζον πολλοὶ, Θηβαίοις οὐ
  λυσιτελήσειν τὴν ἐκείνου πάροδον. The words παρ᾽ ἡμῖν denote the
  Athenian envoys (of whom Demosthenes was one) and the persons
  around them, marching along with Philip; the oaths not having
  been yet taken.

  [869] Demosth. Fals. Leg. p. 390. The oath was administered in
  the inn in front of the chapel of the Dioskuri, near Pheræ.

  [870] Demosth. Fals. Leg. p. 359. In more than one passage,
  he states their absence from Athens to have lasted three
  entire months (p. 390; also De Coronâ, p. 235). But this is
  an exaggeration of the time. The decree of the Senate, which
  constrained them to depart, was passed on the third of Munychion.
  Assuming that they set out on that very day (though it is more
  probable that they did not set out until the ensuing day), their
  absence would only have lasted seventy days.

  [871] Demosth. Fals. Leg. p. 430. The Magnesian and Achæan cities
  round the Pagasæan Gulf, all except Halus, were included in the
  oath as allies of Philip (Epistola Philippi ap. Demosthen. p.
  159).

  [872] Demosth. Fals. Leg. p. 395. Compare Pseudo-Demosth. De
  Halonneso, p. 87.

It was thus that the envoys postponed both the execution of their
special mission, and their return, until the last moment, when Philip
was within three days’ march of Thermopylæ. That they so postponed
it, in corrupt connivance with him, is the allegation of Demosthenes,
sustained by all the probabilities of the case. Philip was anxious
to come upon Thermopylæ by surprise,[873] and to leave as little
time as possible either to the Phokians or to Athens for organizing
defence. The oath, which ought to have been administered in
Thrace,—but at any rate at Pella—was not taken until Philip had got
as near as possible to the important pass; nor had the envoys visited
one single city among his allies in execution of their mandate.
And as Æschines was well aware that this would provoke inquiry, he
took the precaution of bringing with him a letter from Philip to
the Athenian people, couched in the most friendly terms; wherein
Philip took upon himself any blame which might fall upon the envoys,
affirming that they themselves had been anxious to go and visit the
allied cities, but that he had detained them in order that they might
assist him in accommodating the difference between the cities of
Halus and Pharsalus. This letter, affording farther presumption of
the connivance between the envoys and Philip, was besides founded on
a false pretence; for Halus was (either at that very time or shortly
afterwards) conquered by his arms, given up to the Pharsalians, and
its population sold or expelled.[874]

  [873] Demosth. Fals. Leg. p. 351. ἦν γὰρ τοῦτο πρῶτον ἁπάντων τῶν
  ἀδικημάτων, τὸ τὸν Φίλιππον ἐπιστῆσαι τοῖς πράγμασι τούτοις, καὶ
  δέον ὑμᾶς ἀκοῦσαι περὶ τῶν πραγμάτων, εἶτα βουλεύσασθαι, μετὰ
  ταῦτα δὲ πράττειν ὅ,τι δόξαι, ἅμα ἀκούειν κἀκεῖνον παρεῖναι,
  καὶ μηδ᾽ ὅ,τι χρὴ ποιεῖν ῥᾴδιον εἰπεῖν εἶναι. Compare Demosth.
  De Coronâ, p. 236. πάλιν ὠνεῖται παρ᾽ αὐτῶν ὅπως μὴ ἄπίωμεν ἐκ
  Μακεδονίας ἕως τὰ τῆς στρατείας τῆς ἐπὶ τοὺς Φωκέας εὐτρεπῆ
  ποιήσαιτο, etc.

  [874] Demosthen. Fals. Leg. p. 352, 353; ad Philipp. Epistol. p.
  152. Demosthenes affirms farther that Æschines himself _wrote_
  the letter in Philip’s name. Æschines denies that he wrote it,
  and sustains his denial upon sufficient grounds. But he does not
  deny that he brought it (Æschines, Fals. Leg. p. 44. c. 40, 41).

  The inhabitants of Pharsalus were attached to Philip; while those
  of Pheræ were opposed to him as much as they dared, and even
  refused (according to Demosthenes, Fals. Leg. p. 444) to join his
  army on this expedition. The old rivalry between the two cities
  here again appears.

In administering the oaths at Pheræ to Philip and his allies,
Æschines and the majority of the Athenian envoys had formally and
publicly pronounced the Phokians to be excluded and out of the
treaty, and had said nothing about Kersobleptes. This was, if not
a departure from their mandate, at least a step beyond it; for the
Athenian people had expressly rejected the same exclusion when
proposed by Philokrates at Athens; though when the Macedonian envoy
declared that he could not admit the Phokians, the Athenians had
consented to swear the treaty without them. Probably Philip and
his allies would not consent to take the oath, to Athens and her
allies, without an express declaration that the Phokians were out
of the pale.[875] But though Philokrates and Æschines thus openly
repudiated the Phokians, they still persisted in affirming that the
intentions of Philip towards that people were highly favorable. They
affirmed this probably to the Phokians themselves, as an excuse for
having pronounced the special exclusion; they repeated it loudly and
emphatically at Athens, immediately on their return. It was then that
Demosthenes also, after having been outvoted and silenced during
the mission, obtained an opportunity for making his own protest
public. Being among the senators of that year, he made his report
to the Senate forthwith, seemingly on the day, or the day next but
one, after his arrival, before a large audience of private citizens
standing by to witness so important a proceeding. He recounted all
the proceedings of the embassy,—recalling the hopes and promises
under which Æschines and others had persuaded the Athenians to agree
to the peace,—arraigning these envoys as fabricators, in collusion
with Philip, of falsehoods and delusive assurances,—and accusing them
of having already by their unwarrantable delays betrayed Kersobleptes
to ruin. Demosthenes at the same time made known to the Senate the
near approach and rapid march of Philip; entreating them to interpose
even now at the eleventh hour, for the purpose of preventing what
yet remained, the Phokians and Thermopylæ, from being given up under
the like treacherous fallacies.[876] A fleet of fifty triremes had
been voted, and were ready at a moment’s notice to be employed on
sudden occasion.[877] The majority of the Senate went decidedly along
with Demosthenes, and passed a resolution[878] in that sense to be
submitted to the public assembly. So adverse was this resolution to
the envoys, that it neither commended them nor invited them to dinner
in the prytaneium; an insult (according to Demosthenes) without any
former precedent.

  [875] Demosthen. Fals. Leg. p. 355. ἐκ τοῦ, ὅτε τοὺς ὅρκους
  ἤμελλε Φίλιππος ὀμνύναι τοὺς περὶ τῆς εἰρήνης, ~ἐκσπόνδους
  ἀποφανθῆναι τοὺς Φωκέας~ ὑπὸ τούτων, ὃ σιωπᾷν καὶ ἐᾷν εἰκὸς ἦν,
  εἴπερ ἤμελλον σώζεσθαι. Compare p. 395. Πρῶτον μὲν τοίνυν ~Φωκεῖς
  ἐκσπόνδους καὶ Ἁλεῖς ἀπέφηναν~ καὶ Κερσοβλέπτην, παρὰ τὸ ψήφισμα
  καὶ τὰ πρὸς ὑμᾶς εἰρημένα, etc.; also p. 430.

  [876] Demosth. Fals. Leg. p. 346.

  [877] Demosth. Fals. Leg. p. 444. ἐφ᾽ ἣν αἱ πεντήκοντα τριήρεις
  ὅμως ἐφώρμουν, etc. Compare Æschines, Fals. Leg. p. 33.

  [878] Demosth. Fals. Leg. p. 350, 351. Demosthenes causes this
  resolution of the Senate (προβούλευμα) to be read to the Dikasts,
  together with the testimony of the senator who moved it. The
  document is not found _verbatim_, but Demosthenes comments upon
  it before the Dikasts after it has been read, and especially
  points out that it contains neither praise nor invitation, which
  the Senate was always in the habit of voting to returning envoys.
  This is sufficient to refute the allegation of Æschines (Fals.
  Leg. p. 44. c. 38), that Demosthenes himself moved a resolution
  to praise the envoys and invite them to a banquet in the
  Prytaneium. Æschines does not produce such resolution, nor cause
  it to be read before the Dikasts.

On the 16th of the month Skirrophorion, three days after the return
of the envoys, the first public assembly was held: where, according
to usual form, the resolution just passed by the Senate ought to
have been discussed. But it was not even read to the assembly; for
immediately on the opening of business (so Demosthenes tells us),
Æschines rose and proceeded to address the people, who were naturally
impatient to hear him before any one else, speaking as he did in
the name of his colleagues generally.[879] He said nothing either
about the recent statements of Demosthenes before the Senate, or the
senatorial resolution following, or even the past history of the
embassy—but passed at once to the actual state of affairs, and the
coming future. He acquainted the people that Philip, having sworn
the oaths at Pheræ, had by this time reached Thermopylæ with his
army. “But he comes there (said Æschines) as the friend and ally of
Athens, the protector of the Phokians, the restorer of the enslaved
Bœotian cities, and the enemy of Thebes alone. We your envoys have
satisfied him that the Thebans are the real wrong-doers, not only in
their oppression towards the Bœotian cities, but also in regard to
the spoliation of the temple, which they had conspired to perpetrate
earlier than the Phokians. I (Æschines) exposed in an emphatic speech
before Philip the iniquities of the Thebans, for which proceeding
they have set a price on my life. You Athenians will hear, in two
or three days, without any trouble of your own, that Philip is
vigorously prosecuting the siege of Thebes. You will find that he
will capture and break up that city—that he will exact from the
Thebans compensation for the treasure ravished from Delphi—and that
he will restore the subjugated communities of Platæa and Thespiæ.
Nay more—you will hear of benefits still more direct, which we have
determined Philip to confer upon you, but which it would not be
prudent as yet to particularize. Eubœa will be restored to you as
a compensation for Amphipolis: the Eubœans have already expressed
the greatest alarm at the confidential relations between Athens
and Philip, and the probability of his ceding to you their island.
There are other matters too, on which I do not wish to speak out
fully, because I have false friends even among my own colleagues.”
These last ambiguous allusions were generally understood, and
proclaimed by the persons round the orator, to refer to Oropus,
the ancient possession of Athens, now in the hands of Thebes.[880]
Such glowing promises, of benefits to come, were probably crowned
by the announcement, more worthy of credit, that Philip had engaged
to send back all the Athenian prisoners by the coming Panathenaic
festival,[881] which fell during the next month Hekatombæon.

  [879] Demosth. Fals. Leg. p. 347, 351, 352. τοῦτο μὲν οὐδεὶς
  ἀνέγνω τῷ δήμῳ τὸ προβούλευμα, οὐδ᾽ ἤκουσεν ὁ δῆμος, ἀναστὰς
  δ᾽ οὗτος ἐδημηγόρει. The date of the 16th Skirrophorion is
  specified, p. 359.

  [880] I have here condensed the substance of what is stated by
  Demosthenes, Fals. Leg. p. 347, 348, 351, 352, 364, 411, etc.
  Another statement, to the same effect, made by Demosthenes in the
  Oration De Pace (delivered only a few months after the assembly
  here described, and not a judicial accusation against Æschines,
  but a deliberative harangue before the public assembly), is
  even better evidence than the accusatory speech De Falsâ
  Legatione—ἡνίκα τοὺς ὅρκους τοὺς περὶ τῆς εἰρήνης ἀπειληφότες
  ἥκομεν οἱ πρέσβεις, τότε Θεσπιάς τινων καὶ Πλαταιὰς ὑπισχνουμένων
  οἰκισθήσεσθαι, καὶ τοὺς μὲν Φωκέας τὸν Φίλιππον, ἂν γένηται
  κύριος, σώσειν, τὴν δὲ Θηβαίων πόλιν διοικιεῖν, καὶ τὸν Ὠρωπὸν
  ὑμῖν ὑπάρξειν, καὶ τὴν Εὔβοιαν ἀντ᾽ Ἀμφιπόλεως ἀποδοθήσεσθαι,
  καὶ τοιαύτας ἐλπίδας καὶ φενακισμοὺς, οἷς ἐπαχθέντες ὑμεῖς οὔτε
  συμφόρως οὔτ᾽ ἴσως οὔτε καλῶς προεῖσθε Φωκέας ... οὐδὲν τούτων
  οὔτ᾽ ἐξαπατήσας οὔτε σιγήσας ἐγὼ φανήσομαι, ἀλλὰ προειπὼν ὑμῖν,
  ὡς οἶδ᾽ ὅτι μνημονεύετε, ὅτι ταῦτα οὔτε οἶδα οὔτε προσδοκῶ,
  νομίζω δὲ τὸν λέγοντα ληρεῖν (De Pace, p. 59).

  Compare also Philippic ii. p. 72, 73, where Demosthenes repeats
  the like assertion; also De Chersoneso, p. 105; De Coronâ, p.
  236, 237.

  [881] Demosthenes states (Fals. Leg. p. 394. εἰς τὰ Παναθήναια
  φήσας ἀποπέμψειν) that _he_ received this assurance from Philip,
  while he was busying himself during the mission in efforts to
  procure the ransom or liberation of the prisoners. But we may be
  sure that Æschines, so much more in the favor of Philip, must
  have received it also, since it would form so admirable a point
  for his first speech at Athens, in this critical juncture.

The first impression of the Athenians, on hearing Æschines, was
that of surprise, alarm, and displeasure, at the unforeseen
vicinity of Philip;[882] which left no time for deliberation, and
scarcely the minimum of time for instant precautionary occupation
of Thermopylæ, if such a step were deemed necessary. But the sequel
of the speech—proclaiming to them the speedy accomplishment of
such favorable results, together with the gratification of their
antipathy against Thebes—effaced this sentiment, and filled them
with agreeable prospects. It was in vain that Demosthenes rose
to reply, arraigned the assurances as fallacious, and tried to
bring forward the same statement as had already prevailed with the
Senate. The people refused to hear him; Philokrates with the other
friends of Æschines hooted him off; and the majority were so full
of the satisfactory prospect opened to them, that all mistrust or
impeachment of its truth appeared spiteful and vexatious.[883] It is
to be remembered that these were the same promises previously made
to them by Philokrates and others, nearly three months before, when
the peace with Philip was first voted. The immediate accomplishment
of them was now again promised on the same authority—by envoys who
had communicated a second time with Philip, and thus had farther
means of information—so that the comfortable anticipation previously
raised was confirmed and strengthened. No one thought of the danger
of admitting Philip within Thermopylæ, when the purpose of his
coming was understood to be, the protection of the Phokians, and the
punishment of the hated Thebans. Demosthenes was scarcely allowed
even to make a protest, or to disclaim responsibility as to the
result. Æschines triumphantly assumed the responsibility to himself;
while Philokrates amused the people by saying: “No wonder, Athenians,
that Demosthenes and I should not think alike; he is an ungenial
water-drinker; I am fond of wine.”[884]

  [882] Demosth. Fals. Leg. p. 352. ὥσθ᾽ ὑμᾶς, ἐκπεπληγμένους
  τῇ παρουσίᾳ τοῦ Φιλίππου, καὶ τούτοις ὀργιζομένους ἐπὶ τῷ μὴ
  προηγγελκέναι, πρᾳοτέρους γενέσθαι τινὸς, πάνθ᾽ ὅσ᾽ ἐβούλεσθ᾽
  ὑμῖν ἔσεσθαι προσδοκήσαντας, etc.

  [883] Demosth. Fals. Leg. p. 348, 349, 352. οἱ δ᾽ ~ἀντιλέγοντες
  ὄχλος ἄλλως καὶ βασκανία κατεφαίνετο~, etc.

  [884] Dem. Fals. Leg. p. 355; Phil. ii. p. 73.

It was during this temper of the assembly that the letter of
Philip, brought by the envoys, was produced and read. His abundant
expressions of regard, and promises of future benefit, to Athens,
were warmly applauded; while, prepossessed as the hearers were,
none of them discerned, nor was any speaker permitted to point
out, that these expressions were thoroughly vague and general, and
that not a word was said about the Thebans or the Phokians.[885]
Philokrates next proposed a decree, extolling Philip for his just
and beneficent promises—providing that the peace and alliance with
him should be extended, not merely to the existing Athenians, but
also to their posterity—and enacting that if the Phokians should
still refuse to yield possession of the Delphian temple to the
Amphiktyons, the people of Athens would compel them to do so by armed
intervention.[886]

  [885] Dem. Fals. Leg. p. 353.

  [886] Demosth. Fals. Leg. p. 356. Οὗτος (Æschines) ἦν ὁ λέγων
  ὑπὲρ αὐτοῦ καὶ ὑπισχνούμενος· πρὸς δὲ τοὺς παρὰ τούτου λόγους
  ὡρμηκότας λαβὼν ὑμᾶς ὁ Φιλοκράτης, ἐγγράφει τοῦτ᾽ εἰς τὸ ψήφισμα,
  ἐὰν μὴ ποιῶσι Φωκεῖς ἃ δεῖ, καὶ παραδίδωσι τοῖς Ἀμφικτύοσι τὸ
  ἱερὸν, ὅτι βοηθήσει ὁ δῆμος ὁ Ἀθηναίων ἐπὶ τοὺς διακωλύοντας
  ταῦτα γίγνεσθαι.

  The fact, that by this motion of Philokrates the peace was
  extended to “the posterity” of the Athenians—is dwelt upon by
  Demosthenes as “the greatest disgrace of all;” with an intensity
  of emphasis which it is difficult to enter into (Philippic ii. p.
  73).

During the few days immediately succeeding the return of the
envoys to Athens (on the 13th of Skirrophorion), Philip wrote
two successive letters, inviting the Athenian troops to join him
forthwith at Thermopylæ.[887] Probably these were sent at the
moment when Phalækus, the Phokian leader at that pass, answered
his first summons by a negative reply.[888] The two letters must
have been despatched one immediately after the other, betraying
considerable anxiety on the part of Philip; which it is not difficult
to understand. He could not be at first certain what effect would
be produced by his unforeseen arrival at Thermopylæ on the public
mind at Athens. In spite of all the persuasions of Æschines and
Philokrates, the Athenians might conceive so much alarm as to
obstruct his admission within that important barrier; while Phalækus
and the Phokians—having a powerful mercenary force, competent,
even unaided, to a resistance of some length—were sure to attempt
resistance, if any hope of aid were held out to them from Athens.
Moreover it would be difficult for Philip to carry on prolonged
military operations in the neighborhood, from the want of provisions;
the lands having been unsown through the continued antecedent war,
and the Athenian triremes being at hand to intercept his supplies
by sea.[889] Hence it was important to him to keep the Athenians
in illusion and quiescence for the moment; to which purpose his
letters were well adapted, in whichever way they were taken. If the
Athenians came to Thermopylæ, they would come as his allies—not as
allies of the Phokians. Not only would they be in the midst of his
superior force and therefore as it were hostages;[890] but they
would be removed from contact with the Phokians, and would bring
to bear upon the latter an additional force of intimidation. If,
on the contrary, the Athenians determined not to come, they would
at any rate interpret his desire for their presence as a proof
that he contemplated no purposes at variance with their wishes and
interests; and would trust the assurances, given by Æschines and his
other partisans at Athens, that he secretly meant well towards the
Phokians. This last alternative was what Philip both desired and
anticipated. He wished only to deprive the Phokians of all chance
of aid from Athens, and to be left to deal with them himself. His
letters served to blind the Athenian public, but his partisans took
care not to move the assembly[891] to a direct compliance with their
invitation. Indeed the proposal of such an expedition (besides the
standing dislike of the citizens towards military service) would have
been singularly repulsive, seeing that the Athenians would have had
to appear, ostensibly at least, in arms against their Phokian allies.
The conditional menace of the Athenian assembly against the Phokians
(in case of refusal to surrender the temple to the Amphiktyons),
decreed on the motion of Philokrates, was in itself sufficiently
harsh, against allies of ten years’ standing; and was tantamount
at least to a declaration that Athens would not interfere on their
behalf—which was all that Philip wanted.

  [887] Demosth. Fals. Leg. p. 357. Demosthenes causes the two
  letters to be read, and proceeds—Αἱ μὲν τοίνυν ἐπιστολαὶ καλοῦσιν
  αὗται, καὶ νὴ ~Δία ἤδη γε~.

  So also Æschines, Fals. Leg. p. 46. c. 4. ὑμῖν δὲ ταῦθ᾽ ὁρῶν οὐκ
  ἔγραψεν ἐπιστολὴν ὁ Φίλιππος, ἐξιέναι πάσῃ τῇ δυνάμει βοηθήσοντας
  τοῖς δικαίοις; Æschines only notices one of the two letters.
  Böhnecke (Forschungen, p. 412) conceives the letters as having
  been written and sent between the 16th and 23d of the month
  Skirrophorion.

  [888] Demosth. Fals. Leg. p. 359.

  [889] Demosth. Fals. Leg. p. 379.

  [890] This was among the grounds of objection, taken by
  Demosthenes and his friends, against the despatch of forces to
  Thermopylæ in compliance with the letter of Philip—according to
  the assertion of Æschines (Fals. Leg. p. 46. c. 41); who treats
  the objection with contempt, though it seems well-grounded and
  reasonable.

  [891] Demosth. Fals. Leg. p. 356, 357.

Among the hearers of these debates at Athens, were deputies from
these very Phokians, whose fate now hung in suspense. It has
already been stated that during the preceding September, while the
Phokians were torn by intestine dissensions, Phalækus, the chief
of the mercenaries, had repudiated aid (invited by his Phokian
opponents), both from Athens and Sparta;[892] feeling strong enough
to hold Thermopylæ by his own force. During the intervening months,
however, both his strength and his pride had declined. Though he
still occupied Thermopylæ with eight thousand or ten thousand
mercenaries, and still retained superiority over Thebes, with
possession of Orchomenus, Koroneia, and other places taken from the
Thebans,[893]—yet his financial resources had become so insufficient
for a numerous force, and the soldiers had grown so disorderly from
want of regular pay,[894] that he thought it prudent to invite
aid from Sparta during the spring,—while Athens was deserting the
Phokians to make terms with Philip. Archidamus accordingly came to
Thermopylæ with one thousand Lacedæmonian auxiliaries.[895] The
defensive force thus assembled was amply sufficient against Philip
by land; but that important pass could not be held without the
coöperation of a superior fleet at sea.[896] Now the Phokians had
powerful enemies even within the pass—the Thebans; and there was no
obstacle, except the Athenian fleet under Proxenus at Oreus,[897] to
prevent Philip from landing troops in the rear of Thermopylæ, joining
the Thebans, and making himself master of Phokis from the side
towards Bœotia.

  [892] Æschin. Fals. Leg. p. 46. c. 41.

  [893] Demosth. Fals. Leg. p. 387.

  [894] Æschines, Fals. Leg. p. 46. c. 41. This statement of
  Æschines—about the declining strength of the Phokians and the
  causes thereof—has every appearance of being correct in point of
  fact; though it will not sustain the conclusions which he builds
  upon it.

  Compare Demosth. Olynth. iii. p. 30 (delivered four years
  earlier) ἀπειρηκότων δὲ χρήμασι Φωκέων, etc.

  [895] Demosth. Fals. Leg. p. 365; Diodor. xvi. 59.

  [896] For the defence of Thermopylæ, at the period of the
  invasion of Xerxes, the Grecian fleet at Artemisium was not less
  essential than the land force of Leonidas encamped in the pass
  itself.

  [897] That the Phokians could not maintain Thermopylæ without
  the aid of Athens—and that Philip could march to the frontier
  of Attica, without any intermediate obstacle to prevent him,
  if Olynthus were suffered to fall into his hand—is laid down
  emphatically by Demosthenes in the first Olynthiac, nearly four
  years before the month of Skirrophorion, 346 B. C.

  Ἂν δ᾽ ἐκεῖνα Φίλιππος λάβῃ, τίς αὐτὸν κωλύσει δεῦρο βαδίζειν;
  Θηβαῖοι; οἳ, εἰ μὴ λίαν πικρὸν εἰπεῖν, καὶ συνεισβαλοῦσιν
  ἑτοίμως. Ἀλλὰ Φωκεῖς; οἱ τὴν οἰκείαν οὐχ οἷοί τε ὄντες φυλάττειν,
  ἐὰν μὴ βοηθήσεθ᾽ ὑμεῖς (Demosth. Olynth. i. p. 16).

To the safety of the Phokians, therefore, the continued maritime
protection of Athens was indispensable; and they doubtless watched
with trembling anxiety the deceitful phases of Athenian diplomacy
during the winter and spring of 347-346 B. C. Their deputies must
have been present at Athens when the treaty was concluded and sworn
in March 346 B. C. Though compelled to endure not only the refusal
of Antipater excluding them from the oath, but also the consent of
their Athenian allies, tacitly acted upon without being formally
announced, to take the oath without them,—they nevertheless heard the
assurances, confidently addressed by Philokrates and Æschines to the
people, that this refusal was a mere feint to deceive the Thessalians
and Thebans,—that Philip would stand forward as the protector of
the Phokians, and that all his real hostile purposes were directed
against Thebes. How the Phokians interpreted such tortuous and
contradictory policy, we are not told. But their fate hung upon the
determination of Athens; and during the time when the Ten Athenian
envoys were negotiating or intriguing with Philip at Pella, Phokian
envoys were there also, trying to establish some understanding with
Philip, through Lacedæmonian and Athenian support. Both Philip and
Æschines probably amused them with favorable promises. And though,
when the oaths were at last administered to Philip at Pheræ, the
Phokians were formally pronounced to be excluded,—still the fair
words of Æschines, and his assurances of Philip’s good intentions
towards them, were not discontinued.

While Philip marched straight from Pheræ to Thermopylæ,—and while
the Athenian envoys returned to Athens,—Phokian deputies visited
Athens also, to learn the last determination of the Athenian people,
upon which their own destiny turned. Though Philip, on reaching the
neighborhood of Thermopylæ, summoned the Phokian leader, Phalækus to
surrender the pass, and offered him terms,—Phalækus would make no
reply until his deputies returned to Athens.[898] These deputies,
present at the public assembly of the 16th Skirrophorion, heard the
same fallacious assurances as before respecting Philip’s designs,
repeated by Philokrates and Æschines with unabated impudence, and
still accepted by the people. But they also heard, in the very
same assembly, the decree proposed by Philokrates and adopted,
that unless the Phokians restored the Delphian temple forthwith to
the Amphiktyons, the Athenian people would compel them to do so by
armed force. If the Phokians still cherished hopes, this conditional
declaration of war, from a city which still continued by name to be
their ally, opened their eyes, and satisfied them that no hope was
left except to make the best terms they could with Philip.[899] To
defend Thermopylæ successfully without Athens, much more against
Athens, was impracticable.

  [898] Demosth. Fals. Leg. p. 359. ἥκομεν δὲ δεῦρο ἀπὸ τῆς
  πρεσβείας τῆς ἐπὶ τοὺς ὅρκους τρίτῃ ἐπὶ δέκα τοῦ Σκιῤῥοφοριῶνος
  μηνὸς, καὶ παρῆν ὁ Φίλιππος ἐν Πύλαις ἤδη καὶ τοῖς Φωκεῦσιν
  ἐπηγγέλλετο ὧν οὐδὲν ἐπίστευον ἐκεῖνοι. Σημεῖον δὲ—οὐ γὰρ ἂν
  δεῦρ᾽ ἧκον ὡς ὑμᾶς ... παρῆσαν γὰρ οἱ τῶν Φωκέων πρέσβεις ἐνθάδε,
  καὶ ἦν αὐτοῖς καὶ τί ἀπαγγελοῦσιν οὗτοι (Æschines, Philokrates,
  etc.) καὶ τί ψηφιεῖσθε ὑμεῖς, ἐπιμελὲς εἰδέναι.

  [899] Demosth. Fals. Leg. p. 357. οἱ μὲν τοίνυν Φωκεῖς, ὡς τὰ
  παρ᾽ ὑμῶν ἐπύθοντο ἐκ τῆς ἐκκλησίας καὶ τό τε ψήφισμα τοῦτ᾽
  ἔλαβον τὸ τοῦ Φιλοκράτους, καὶ τὴν ἀπαγγελίαν ἐπύθοντο τὴν τούτου
  καὶ τὰς ὑποσχέσεις—κατὰ πάντας τοὺς τρόπους ἀπώλοντο.

  Æschines (Fals. Leg. p. 45. c. 41) touches upon the statements
  made by Demosthenes respecting the envoys of Phalækus at Athens,
  and the effect of the news which they carried back in determining
  the capitulation. He complains of them generally as being “got
  up against him” (ὁ κατήγορος μεμηχάνηται), but he does not
  contradict them upon any specific point. Nor does he at all
  succeed in repelling the main argument, brought home with great
  precision of date by Demosthenes.

Leaving Athens after the assembly of the 16th Skirrophorion, the
Phokian deputies carried back the tidings of what had passed to
Phalækus, whom they reached at Nikæa, near Thermopylæ, about the 20th
of the same month.[900] Three days afterwards, Phalækus, with his
powerful army of eight thousand or ten thousand mercenary infantry
and one thousand cavalry, had concluded a convention with Philip.
The Lacedæmonian auxiliaries, perceiving the insincere policy of
Athens, and the certain ruin of the Phokians, had gone away a little
before.[901] It was stipulated in the convention that Phalækus should
evacuate the territory, and retire wherever else he pleased, with
his entire mercenary force and with all such Phokians as chose to
accompany him. The remaining natives threw themselves upon the mercy
of the conqueror.

  [900] Demosth. Fals. Leg. p. 359: compare Diodor. xvi. 59. In
  this passage, Demosthenes reckons up _seven_ days between the
  final assembly at Athens, and the capitulation concluded by the
  Phokians. In another passage, he states the same interval at only
  _five_ days (p. 365); which is doubtless inaccurate. In a third
  passage, the same interval, seemingly, stands at five or six
  days, p. 379.

  [901] Demosth. Fals. Leg. p. 356-365. ἐπειδὴ δ᾽ ἧκεν (Philip) εἰς
  Πύλας, Λακεδαιμόνιοι δ᾽ αἰσθόμενοι τὴν ἐνέδραν ὑπεχώρησαν, etc.

All the towns in Phokis, twenty-two in number, together with the pass
of Thermopylæ, were placed in the hands of Philip; all surrendering
at discretion; all without resistance. The moment Philip was thus
master of the country, he joined his forces with those of the
Thebans, and proclaimed his purpose of acting thoroughly upon their
policy; of transferring to them a considerable portion of Phokis; of
restoring to them Orchomenus, Korsiæ, and Koroneia, Bœotian towns
which the Phokians had taken from them; and of keeping the rest of
Bœotia in their dependence, just as he found it.[902]

  [902] Demosth. Fals. Leg p. 359, 360, 365, 379, 413. ὁ δὲ
  (Æschines) τοσοῦτον δεῖ τῶν ὑπαρχόντων τινα αἰχμάλωτον σῶσαι,
  ὥσθ᾽ ὅλον τόπον καὶ πλεῖν ἢ μυρίους μὲν ὁπλίτας, ὁμοῦ δὲ χιλίους
  ἱππέας τῶν ὑπαρχόντων συμμάχων, ὅπως αἰχμάλωτοι γένωνται Φιλίππῳ
  συμπαρεσκεύασεν.

  Diodorus (xvi. 59) states the mercenaries of Phalækus at eight
  thousand men.

  Because the Phokians capitulated to Philip and not to the
  Thebans (p. 360)—because not one of their towns made any
  resistance—Demosthenes argues that this proves their confidence
  in the favorable dispositions of Philip, as testified by
  Æschines. But he overstrains this argument against Æschines. The
  Phokians had no choice but to surrender, as soon as all chance
  of Athenian aid was manifestly shut out. The belief of favorable
  dispositions on the part of Philip, was doubtless an auxiliary
  motive, but not the primary or predominant.

In the meantime, the Athenians, after having passed the decree above
mentioned, re-appointed (in the very same assembly of the 16th
Skirrophorion, June), the same ten envoys to carry intelligence
of it to Philip, and to be witnesses of the accomplishment of the
splendid promises made in his name. But Demosthenes immediately swore
off, and refused to serve; while Æschines, though he did not swear
off, was nevertheless so much indisposed, as to be unable to go.
This at least is his own statement; though Demosthenes affirms that
the illness was a mere concerted pretence, in order that Æschines
might remain at home to counterwork any reaction of public feeling
at Athens, likely to arise on the arrival of the bad news, which
Æschines knew to be at hand, from Phokis.[903] Others having been
chosen in place of Æschines and Demosthenes,[904] the ten envoys set
out, and proceeded as far as Chalkis in Eubœa. It was there that they
learned the fatal intelligence from the main land on the other side
of the Eubœan strait. On the 23d of Skirrophorion, Phalækus and all
the Phokian towns had surrendered; Philip was master of Thermopylæ,
had joined his forces with the Thebans, and proclaimed an unqualified
philo-Theban policy; on the 27th of Skirrophorion, Derkyllus, one of
the envoys, arrived in haste back at Athens, having stopped short in
his mission on hearing the facts.

  [903] Demosthen. Fals. Leg. p. 378; Æschines, Fals. Leg. p. 40.
  c. 30. It appears that the ten envoys were not all the same—τῶν
  ἄλλων ~τοῦς πλείστους~ τοὺς αὐτοὺς, etc.

  [904] Demosthen. Fals. Leg. p. 380. οὔθ᾽ ὅτι πρεσβευτὴς ἄλλος
  ᾕρητο ἀνθ᾽ αὑτοῦ, etc.

  Æschines (Fals. Leg. p. 46. c. 43) does not seem to deny this
  distinctly.

At the moment when he arrived, the people were holding an assembly
in the Peiræus, on matters connected with the docks and arsenal; and
to this assembly, actually sitting, Derkyllus made his unexpected
report.[905] The shock to the public of Athens was prodigious. Not
only were all their splendid anticipations of anti-Theban policy from
Philip (hitherto believed and welcomed by the people on the positive
assurances of Philokrates and Æschines) now dashed to the ground—not
only were the Athenians smitten with the consciousness that they had
been overreached by Philip, that they had played into the hands of
their enemies the Thebans, and that they had betrayed their allies
the Phokians to ruin—but they felt also that they had yielded up
Thermopylæ, the defence at once of Attica and of Greece, and that
the road to Athens lay open to their worst enemies the Thebans, now
aided by Macedonian force. Under this pressure of surprise, sorrow,
and terror, the Athenians, on the motion of Kallisthenes, passed
these votes:—To put the Peiræus, as well as the fortresses throughout
Attica, in immediate defence—To bring within these walls, for safety,
all the women and children, and all the movable property, now spread
abroad in Attica—To celebrate the approaching festival of the
Herakleia, not in the country, as was usual, but in the interior of
Athens.[906]

  [905] Demosthen. Fals. Leg. p. 359, 360, 365, 379.

  [906] Demosthen. Fals. Leg. p. 368-379. Æschines also
  acknowledges the passing of this vote, for bringing in the
  movable property of Athens into a place of safety; though he
  naturally says very little about it (Fals. Leg. p. 46. c. 42).

  In the oration of Demosthenes, De Coronâ, p. 238, this decree,
  moved by Kallisthenes, is not only alluded to, but purports to
  be given _verbatim_. The date as we there read it—the 21st of
  the month Mæmakterion—is unquestionably wrong; for the real
  decree must have been passed in the concluding days of the month
  Skirrophorion, immediately after hearing the report of Derkyllus.
  This manifest error of date will not permit us to believe in
  the authenticity of the document. Of these supposed original
  documents, inserted in the oration De Coronâ, Droysen and other
  critics have shown some to be decidedly spurious; and all are so
  doubtful that I forbear to cite them as authority.

Such were the significant votes, the like of which had not been
passed at Athens since the Peloponnesian war, attesting the terrible
reaction of feeling occasioned at Athens by the disastrous news
from Phokis. Æschines had now recovered from his indisposition;
or (if we are to believe Demosthenes) found it convenient to lay
aside the pretence. He set out as self-appointed envoy, without any
new nomination by the people—probably with such of the Ten as were
favorable to his views—to Philip and to the joint Macedonian and
Theban army in Phokis. And what is yet more remarkable, he took his
journey thither through Thebes itself;[907] though his speeches and
his policy had been for months past (according to his own statement)
violently anti-Theban;[908] and though he had affirmed (this,
however, rests upon the testimony of his rival) that the Thebans
had set a price upon his head. Having joined Philip, Æschines took
part in the festive sacrifices and solemn pæans celebrated by the
Macedonians, Thebans and Thessalians,[909] in commemoration and
thanksgiving for their easy, though long-deferred, triumph over the
Phokians, and for the conclusion of the Ten-Years Sacred War.

  [907] Demosthen. Fals. Leg. p. 380.

  [908] Æschines, Fals. Leg. p. 41. c. 32. p. 43. c. 36. Æschines
  accuses Demosthenes of traitorous partiality for Thebes.

  [909] Demosthen. Fals. Leg. p. 380; De Coronâ, p. 321. Æschines
  (Fals. Leg. p. 49, 50) admits, and tries to justify, the
  proceeding.

Shortly after Philip had become master of Thermopylæ and Phokis, he
communicated his success in a letter to the Athenians. His letter
betokened a full consciousness of the fear and repugnance which his
recent unexpected proceedings had excited at Athens:[910] but in
other respects, it was conciliatory and even seductive; expressing
great regard for them as his sworn allies, and promising again
that they should reap solid fruits from the alliance. It allayed
that keen apprehension of Macedonian and Theban attack, which had
induced the Athenians recently to sanction the precautionary measures
proposed by Kallisthenes. In his subsequent communications also with
Athens, Philip found his advantage in continuing to profess the
same friendship and to intersperse similar promises;[911] which,
when enlarged upon by his partisans in the assembly, contributed to
please the Athenians and to lull them into repose, thus enabling
him to carry on without opposition real measures of an insidious or
hostile character. Even shortly after Philip’s passage of Thermopylæ,
when he was in full coöperation with the Thebans and Thessalians,
Æschines boldly justified him by the assertion, that these Thebans
and Thessalians had been too strong for him, and had constrained him
against his will to act on their policy, both to the ruin of the
Phokians and to the offence of Athens.[912] And we cannot doubt that
the restoration of the prisoners taken at Olynthus, which must soon
have occurred, diffused a lively satisfaction at Athens, and tended
for the time to countervail the mortifying public results of her
recent policy.

  [910] Demosth. De Coronâ, p. 237, 238, 239. It is evident that
  Demosthenes found little in the letter which could be turned
  against Philip. Its tone must have been plausible and winning.

  A letter is inserted _verbatim_ in this oration, professing to
  be the letter of Philip to the Athenians. I agree with those
  critics who doubt or disbelieve the genuineness of this letter,
  and therefore I do not cite it. If Demosthenes had had before him
  a letter so peremptory and insolent in its tone, he would have
  animadverted upon it much more severely.

  [911] Æschines went on boasting about the excellent dispositions
  of Philip towards Athens, and the great benefits which Philip
  promised to confer upon her, for at least several months after
  this capture of Thermopylæ Æschines, cont. Timarch. p. 24. c. 33.
  Φίλιππον δὲ νῦν μὲν διὰ τὴν τῶν λόγων εὐφημίαν ἐπαινῶ· ἐὰν δ᾽
  αὐτὸς ἐν τοῖς πρὸς ὑμᾶς ἔργοις γένηται, οἷος νῦν ἐστὶν ἐν ταῖς
  ὑποσχέσεσιν, ἀσφαλῆ καὶ ῥᾴδιον τὸν καθ᾽ αὑτοῦ ποιήσεται ἔπαινον.

  This oration was delivered apparently about the middle of Olymp.
  108, 3; some months after the conquest of Thermopylæ by Philip.

  [912] Demosth. De Pace, p. 62, Philippic ii. p. 69.

Master as he now was of Phokis, at the head of an irresistible force
of Macedonians and Thebans, Philip restored the Delphian temple
to its inhabitants, and convoked anew the Amphiktyonic assembly,
which had not met since the seizure of the temple by Philomelus.
The Amphiktyons reassembled under feelings of vindictive antipathy
against the Phokians, and of unqualified devotion to Philip. Their
first vote was to dispossess the Phokians of their place in the
assembly as one of the twelve ancient Amphiktyonic races, and to
confer upon Philip the place and two votes (each of the twelve
races had two votes) thus left vacant. All the rights to which the
Phokians laid claim over the Delphian temple were formally cancelled.
All the towns in Phokis, twenty-two in number, were dismantled and
broken up into villages. Abæ alone was spared; being preserved by
its ancient and oracular temple of Apollo, and by the fact that
its inhabitants had taken no part in the spoliation of Delphi.[913]
No village was allowed to contain more than fifty houses, nor to
be nearer to another than a minimum distance of one furlong. Under
such restriction, the Phokians were still allowed to possess and
cultivate their territory, with the exception of a certain portion
of the frontier transferred to the Thebans;[914] but they were
required to pay to the Delphian temple an annual tribute of fifty
talents, until the wealth taken away should have been made good. The
horses of the Phokians were directed to be sold; their arms were to
be cast down the precipices of Parnassus, or burnt. Such Phokians
as had participated individually in the spoliation, were proclaimed
accursed, and rendered liable to arrest wherever they were found.[915]

  [913] Pausanias, x. 3, 2.

  [914] This transfer to the Thebans is not mentioned by Diodorus,
  but seems contained in the words of Demosthenes (Fals. Leg. p.
  385)—τῆς τῶν Φωκέων χώρας ὁπόσην βούλονται: compare p. 380.

  [915] Diodor. xvi. 60; Demosth. Fals. Leg. p. 385. ὅλων τῶν
  τειχῶν καὶ τῶν πόλεων ἀναιρέσεις. Demosthenes causes this severe
  sentence of the Amphiktyonic council to be read to the Dikastery
  (Demosth. Fals. Leg. p. 361.) Unfortunately it has not been
  preserved.

By the same Amphiktyonic assembly, farther, the Lacedæmonians, as
having been allies of the Phokians, were dispossessed of their
franchise, that is, of their right to concur in the Amphiktyonic
suffrage of the Dorian nation. This vote probably emanated from the
political antipathies of the Argeians and Messenians.[916]

  [916] Pausanias, x. 8, 2.

The sentence, rigorous as it is, pronounced by the Amphiktyons
against the Phokians, was merciful as compared with some of the
propositions made in the assembly. The Œtæans went so far as to
propose, that all the Phokians of military age should be cast
down the precipice; and Æschines takes credit to himself for
having induced the assembly to hear their defence, and thereby
preserved their lives.[917] But though the terms of the sentence
may have been thus softened, we may be sure that the execution of
it by Thebans, Thessalians, and other foreigners quartered on the
country,—all bitter enemies of the Phokian name, and giving vent
to their antipathies under the mask of pious indignation against
sacrilege,—went far beyond the literal terms in active cruelty.
That the Phokians were stripped and slain[918]—that children were
torn from their parents, wives from their husbands, and the images
of the gods from their temples,—that Philip took for himself the
lion’s share of the plunder and movable property,—all these are facts
naturally to be expected, as incidental to the violent measure of
breaking up the cities and scattering the inhabitants. Of those,
however, who had taken known part in the spoliation of the temple,
the greater number went into exile with Phalækus; and not they alone,
but even all such of the moderate and meritorious citizens as could
find means to emigrate.[919] Many of them obtained shelter at Athens.
The poorer Phokians remained at home by necessity. But such was the
destruction inflicted by the conquerors, that even two or three years
afterwards, when Demosthenes and other Athenian envoys passed through
the country in their way to the Amphiktyonic meeting at Delphi,
they saw nothing but evidences of misery; old men, women and little
children, without adults,—ruined houses, impoverished villages,
half-cultivated fields.[920] Well might Demosthenes say that events
more terrific and momentous had never occurred in the Grecian world,
either in his own time or in that of his predecessors.[921]

  [917] Æschines, Fals. Leg p. 47. c. 44.

  [918] Justin, viii. 5. “Victi igitur necessitate, pactâ salute
  se dediderunt. Sed pactio ejus fidei fuit, cujus antea fuerat
  deprecati belli promissio. Igitur cæduntur passim rapiunturque:
  non liberi parentibus, non conjuges maritis, non deorum simulacra
  templis suis relinquuntur. Unum tantum miseris solatium fuit,
  quod cum Philippus portione prædæ socios fraudasset, nihil rerum
  suarum apud inimicos viderunt.”

  Compare Demosthen. Fals. Leg. p. 366.

  [919] Æschines, Fals. Leg. p. 47. c. 44; Demosth. Fals. Leg. p.
  366; Demosthen. De Pace, p. 61. ὅτι τοὺς Φωκέων φυγάδας σώζομεν,
  etc.

  [920] Demosthen. Fals. Leg. p. 361. θέαμα δεινὸν καὶ ἐλεεινόν·
  ὅτε γὰρ ~νῦν ἐπορευόμεθα εἰς Δελφοὺς~ ἐξ ἀνάγκης ἦν ὁρᾷν ἡμῖν
  πάντα ταῦτα, οἰκίας κατεσκαμμένας, τείχη περιῃρημένα, χώραν
  ἔρημον τῶν ἐν τῇ ἡλικίᾳ, γύναια δὲ καὶ παιδάρια ὀλίγα καὶ
  πρεσβύτας ἀνθρώπους οἰκτροὺς, οὐδ᾽ ἂν εἷς δύναιτ᾽ ἐφικέσθαι τῷ
  λόγῳ ~τῶν ἐκεῖ κακῶν νῦν ὄντων~.

  As this oration was delivered in 343-342 B. C., the adverb of
  time νῦν may be reasonably referred to the early part of that
  year, and the journey to Delphi was perhaps undertaken for the
  spring meeting of the Amphiktyonic council of that year; between
  two and three years after the destruction of the Phokians by
  Philip.

  [921] Demosth. Fals. Leg. p. 361.

It was but two years since the conquest and ruin of Olynthus, and
of thirty-two Chalkidic Grecian cities besides, had spread abroad
everywhere the terror and majesty of Philip’s name. But he was
now exalted to a still higher pinnacle by the destruction of the
Phokians, the capture of Thermopylæ, and the sight of a permanent
Macedonian garrison, occupying from henceforward Nikæa and other
places commanding the pass.[922] He was extolled as restorer of the
Amphiktyonic assembly, and as avenging champion of the Delphian god,
against the sacrilegious Phokians. That he should have acquired
possession of an unassailable pass, dismissed the formidable
force of Phalækus, and become master of twenty-two Phokian cites,
all without striking a blow,—was accounted the most wonderful of
all his exploits. It strengthened more than ever the prestige of
his constant good fortune. Having been now, by the vote of the
Amphiktyons, invested with the right of Amphiktyonic suffrage
previously exercised by the Phokians, he acquired a new Hellenic
rank, with increased facilities for encroachment and predominance
in Hellenic affairs. Moreover, in the month of August 346 B. C.,
about two months after the surrender of Phokis to Philip, the season
recurring for celebrating the great Pythian festival, after the
usual interval of four years, the Amphiktyons conferred upon Philip
the signal honor of nominating him president to celebrate this
festival, in conjunction with the Thebans and Thessalians;[923] an
honorary preëminence, which ranked among the loftiest aspirations of
ambitious Grecian despots, and which Jason, of Pheræ, had prepared
to appropriate for himself twenty-four years before, at the moment
when he was assassinated.[924] It was in vain that the Athenians,
mortified and indignant at the unexpected prostration of their
hopes and the utter ruin of their allies, refused to send deputies
to the Amphiktyons,—affected even to disregard the assembly as
irregular,—and refrained from despatching their sacred legation as
usual, to sacrifice at the Pythian festival.[925] The Amphiktyonic
vote did not the less pass; without the concurrence, indeed, either
of Athens or of Sparta, yet with the hearty support not only of
Thebans and Thessalians, but also of Argeians, Messenians, Arcadians,
and all those who counted upon Philip as a probable auxiliary against
their dangerous Spartan neighbor.[926] And when envoys from Philip
and from the Thessalians arrived at Athens, notifying that he had
been invested with the Amphiktyonic suffrage, and inviting the
concurrence of Athens in his reception,—prudential considerations
obliged the Athenians, though against their feelings, to pass a
vote of concurrence. Even Demosthenes was afraid to break the
recent peace, however inglorious,—and to draw upon Athens a general
Amphiktyonic war, headed by the King of Macedon.[927]

  [922] Demosth. ad Philipp. Epistolam, p. 153. Νικαίαν μὲν φρουρᾷ
  κατέχων, etc.

  [923] Diodor. xvi. 60. τιθέναι δὲ καὶ τὸν ἀγῶνα τῶν Πυθίων
  Φίλιππον μετὰ Βοιωτῶν καὶ Θετταλῶν, διὰ τὸ ~Κορινθίους~
  μετεσχηκέναι τοῖς Φωκεῦσι τῆς εἰς τὸ θεῖον παρανομίας.

  The reason here assigned by Diodorus, why the Amphiktyons placed
  the celebration of the Pythian festival in the hands of Philip,
  cannot be understood. It may be true, as matter of fact, that the
  Corinthians had allied themselves with the Phokians during the
  Sacred War—though there is no other evidence of the fact except
  this passage. But the Corinthians were never invested with any
  authoritative character in reference to the _Pythian_ festival.
  They were the recognized presidents of the _Isthmian_ festival. I
  cannot but think that Diodorus has been misled by a confusion of
  these two festivals one with the other.

  [924] Xenoph. Hellen. vi.

  [925] Demosth. Fals. Leg. p. 380-398. οὕτω δεινὰ καὶ σχέτλια
  ἡγουμένων τοὺς ταλαιπώρους πάσχειν Φωκέας, ὥστε μήτε τοὺς ἐκ τῆς
  βουλῆς θεωροὺς μήτε τοὺς θεσμοθέτας εἰς τὰ Πύθια πέμψαι, ἀλλ᾽
  ἀποστῆναι τῆς πατρίου θεωρίας, etc. Demosth. De Pace, p. 60.
  ~τοὺς συνεληλυθότας τούτους καὶ φάσκοντας Ἀμφικτύονας εἶναι~, etc.

  [926] Demosth. Fals. Leg. p. 61; Philippic ii. p. 68, 69.

  [927] Demosth. De Pace, p. 60-63; Demosth. Fals. Leg. p. 375.
  In the latter passage, p. 375, Demosthenes accuses Æschines of
  having been the only orator in the city who spoke in favor of the
  proposition, there being a strong feeling in the assembly and in
  the people against it. Demosthenes must have forgotten, or did
  not wish to remember, his own harangue De Pace, delivered three
  years before. In spite of the repugnance of the people, very
  easy to understand, I conclude that the decree must have passed;
  since, if it had been rejected, consequences must have arisen
  which would have come to our knowledge.

Here then was a momentous political change doubly fatal to the
Hellenic world; first, in the new position of Philip both as master
of the keys of Greece and as recognized Amphiktyonic leader, with
means of direct access and influence even on the inmost cities of
Peloponnesus; next, in the lowered banner, and uncovered frontier, of
Athens, disgraced by the betrayal both of her Phokian allies and of
the general safety of Greece,—and recompensed only in so far as she
regained her captives.

How came the Athenians to sanction a peace at once dishonorable and
ruinous, yielding to Philip that important pass, the common rampart
of Attica and of Southern Greece, which he could never have carried
in war at the point of the sword? Doubtless, the explanation of
this proceeding is to be found, partly in the general state of the
Athenian mind; repugnance to military cost and effort,—sickness
and shame at their past war with Philip,—alarm from the prodigious
success of his arms,—and pressing anxiety to recover the captives
taken at Olynthus. But the feelings here noticed, powerful as they
were, would not have ended in such a peace, had they not been
seconded by the deliberate dishonesty of Æschines and a majority
of his colleagues; who deceived their countrymen with a tissue of
false assurances as to the purposes of Philip, and delayed their
proceedings on the second embassy in such a manner that he was
actually at Thermopylæ before the real danger of the pass was known
at Athens.

Making all just allowance for mistrust of Demosthenes as a witness,
there appears in the admissions of Æschines himself sufficient
evidence of corruption. His reply to Demosthenes, though successfully
meeting some collateral aggravations, seldom touches, and never
repels, the main articles of impeachment against himself. The
dilatory measures of the second embassy,—the postponement of
the oath-taking until Philip was within three days’ march of
Thermopylæ,—the keeping back of information about the danger of that
pass, until the Athenians were left without leisure for deliberating
on the conjuncture,—all these grave charges remain without denial
or justification. The refusal to depart at once on the second
embassy, and to go straight to Philip in Thrace for the protection
of Kersobleptes, is indeed explained, but in a manner which makes
the case rather worse than better. And the gravest matter of all—the
false assurances given to the Athenian public respecting Philip’s
purposes,—are plainly admitted by Æschines.[928]

  [928] Æschin. Fals. Leg. p. 43. c. 37. Τοῦτο οὐκ ἀπαγγεῖλαι, ἀλλ᾽
  ὑποσχέσθαι μέ φησίν.

  Compare p. 43. c. 36. p. 46. c. 41. p. 52. c. 54—also p.
  31-41—also the speech against Ktesiphon, p. 65. c. 30. ὡς τάχιστα
  εἴσω Πυλῶν Φίλιππος παρῆλθε καὶ τὰς μὲν ἐν Φωκεῦσι πόλεις
  ~παραδόξως~ ἀναστάτους ἐποίησε, etc.

In regard to these public assurances given by Æschines about Philip’s
intentions, corrupt mendacity appears to me the only supposition
admissible. There is nothing, even in his own account, to explain
how he came to be beguiled into such flagrant misjudgment; while
the hypothesis of honest error is yet farther refuted by his own
subsequent conduct. “If (argues Demosthenes), Æschines had been
sincerely misled by Philip, so as to pledge his own veracity and
character to the truth of positive assurances given publicly before
his countrymen, respecting Philip’s designs,—then on finding that
the result belied him, and that he had fatally misled those whom he
undertook to guide, he would be smitten with compunction, and would
in particular abominate the name of Philip as one who had disgraced
him and made him an unconscious instrument of treachery. But the fact
has been totally otherwise; immediately after the peace, Æschines
visited Philip to share his triumph, and has been ever since his
avowed partisan and advocate.”[929] Such conduct is inconsistent
with the supposition of honest mistake, and goes to prove,—what the
proceedings of the second embassy all bear out,—that Æschines was
the hired agent of Philip for deliberately deceiving his countrymen
with gross falsehood. Even as reported by himself, the language of
Æschines betokens his ready surrender of Grecian freedom, and his
recognition of Philip as a master; for he gives not only his consent,
but his approbation, to the entry of Philip within Thermopylæ,[930]
only exhorting him, when he comes there, to act against Thebes and
in defence of the Bœotian cities. This, in an Athenian envoy, argues
a blindness little short of treason. The irreparable misfortune, both
for Athens and for free Greece generally, was to bring Philip within
Thermopylæ, with power sufficient to put down Thebes and reconstitute
Bœotia,—even if it could have been made sure that such would be the
first employment of his power. The same negotiator, who had begun
his mission by the preposterous flourish of calling upon Philip to
give up Amphipolis, ended by treacherously handing over to him a new
conquest which he could not otherwise have acquired. Thermopylæ,
betrayed once before by Ephialtes the Malian to Xerxes, was now
betrayed a second time by the Athenian envoys to an extra-Hellenic
power yet more formidable.

  [929] Demosth. Fals. Leg. p. 373, 374. I translate the substance
  of the argument, not the words.

  [930] Æschines, Fals. Leg. p. 43. c. 36. In rebutting the charge
  against him of having betrayed the Phokians to Philip, Æschines
  (Fals. Leg. p. 46, 47) dwells upon the circumstance, that none of
  the Phokian exiles appeared to assist in the accusation, and that
  some three or four Phokians and Bœotians (whom he calls by name)
  were ready to appear as witnesses in his favor.

  The reason, why none of them appeared against him, appears to
  me sufficiently explained by Demosthenes. The Phokians were
  in a state far too prostrate and terror-stricken to incur new
  enmities, or to come forward as accusers of one of the Athenian
  partisans of Philip, whose soldiers were in possession of their
  country.

  The reason why some of them appeared in his favor is also
  explained by Æschines himself, when he states that he had pleaded
  for them before the Amphiktyonic assembly, and had obtained
  for them a mitigation of that extreme penalty which their most
  violent enemies urged against them. To captives at the mercy of
  their opponents, such an interference might well appear deserving
  of gratitude; quite apart from the question, how far Æschines as
  envoy, by his previous communications to the Athenian people, had
  contributed to betray Thermopylæ and the Phokians to Philip.

The ruinous peace of 346 B. C. was thus brought upon Athens not
simply by mistaken impulses of her own, but also by the corruption of
Æschines and the major part of her envoys. Demosthenes had certainly
no hand in the result. He stood in decided opposition to the majority
of the envoys; a fact manifest as well from his own assurances, as
from the complaints vented against him, as a colleague insupportably
troublesome, by Æschines. Demosthenes affirms, too, that after
fruitless opposition to the policy of the majority, he tried to make
known their misconduct to his countrymen at home both by personal
return, and by letter; and that in both cases his attempts were
frustrated. Whether he did all that he could towards this object,
cannot be determined; but we find no proof of any short-coming. The
only point upon which Demosthenes appears open to censure, is, on
his omission to protest emphatically during the debates of the month
Elaphebolion at Athens, when the Phokians were first practically
excluded from the treaty. I discover no other fault established on
probable grounds against him, amidst the multifarious accusations,
chiefly personal and foreign to the main issue, preferred by his
opponent.

Respecting Philokrates—the actual mover, in the Athenian assembly, of
all the important resolutions tending to bring about this peace—we
learn that being impeached by Hyperides[931] not long afterwards,
he retired from Athens without standing trial, and was condemned
in his absence. Both he and Æschines (so Demosthenes asserts) had
received from Philip bribes and grants out of the spoils of Olynthus;
and Philokrates, especially, displayed his newly-acquired wealth
at Athens with impudent ostentation.[932] These are allegations in
themselves probable, though coming from a political rival. The peace,
having disappointed every one’s hopes, came speedily to be regarded
with shame and regret, of which Philokrates bore the brunt as its
chief author. Both Æschines and Demosthenes sought to cast upon each
other the imputation of confederacy with Philokrates.

  [931] Demosth. Fals. Leg. p. 376.

  [932] Demosth. Fals. Leg. p. 375, 376, 377, 386

  The pious feeling of Diodorus leads him to describe, with
  peculiar seriousness, the divine judgments which fell on all
  those concerned in despoiling the Delphian temple. Phalækus, with
  his mercenaries out of Phokis, retired first into Peloponnesus;
  from thence seeking to cross to Tarentum, he was forced back when
  actually on shipboard by a mutiny of his soldiers, and passed
  into Krete. Here he took service with the inhabitants of Knossus
  against those of Lyktus. Over the latter he gained a victory,
  and their city was only rescued from him by the unexpected
  arrival of the Spartan king Archidamus. That prince, recently the
  auxiliary of Phalækus in Phokis, was now on his way across the
  sea towards Tarentum; near which city he was slain a few years
  afterwards. Phalækus, repulsed from Lyktus, next laid siege to
  Kydonia, and was bringing up engines to batter the walls, when
  a storm of thunder and lightning arose, so violent, that his
  engines “were burnt by the divine fire,”[933] and he himself with
  several soldiers perished in trying to extinguish the flames.
  His remaining army passed into Peloponnesus, where they embraced
  the cause of some Eleian exiles against the government of Elis;
  but were vanquished, compelled to surrender, and either sold
  into slavery or put to death.[934] Even the wives of the Phokian
  leaders, who had adorned themselves with some of the sacred
  donatives out of the Delphian Temple, were visited with the like
  extremity of suffering. And while the gods dealt thus rigorously
  with the authors of the sacrilege, they exhibited favor no less
  manifest towards their champion Philip, whom they exalted more
  and more towards the pinnacle of honor and dominion.[935]

  [933] Diodor. xvi. 63. ὑπὸ τοῦ θείου πυρὸς κατεφλέχθησαν, etc.

  [934] Diodor. xvi. 61, 62, 63.

  [935] Diodor. xvi. 64; Justin, viii. 2. “Dignum itaque qui a Diis
  proximus habeatur, per quem Deorum majestas vindicata sit.”

  Some of these mercenaries, however, who had been employed in
  Phokis perished in Sicily in the service of Timoleon—as has been
  already related.




CHAPTER XC.

FROM THE PEACE OF 346 B. C., TO THE BATTLE OF CHÆRONEIA AND THE DEATH
OF PHILIP.


I have described in my last chapter the conclusion of the Sacred
War, and the reëstablishment of the Amphiktyonic assembly by Philip;
together with the dishonorable peace of 346 B. C., whereby Athens,
after a war, feeble in management and inglorious in result, was
betrayed by the treachery of her own envoys into the abandonment
of the pass of Thermopylæ;—a new sacrifice, not required by her
actual position, and more fatal to her future security than any
of the previous losses. This important pass, the key of Greece,
had now come into possession of Philip, who occupied it, together
with the Phokian territory, by a permanent garrison of his own
troops.[936] The Amphiktyonic assembly had become an instrument for
his exaltation. Both Thebans and Thessalians were devoted to his
interest; rejoicing in the ruin of their common enemies the Phokians,
without reflecting on the more formidable power now established on
their frontiers. Though the power of Thebes had been positively
increased by regaining Orchomenus and Koroneia, yet, comparatively
speaking, the new position of Philip brought upon her, as well as
upon Athens and the rest of Greece, a degradation and extraneous
mastery such as had never before been endured.[937]

  [936] Demosth. Philipp. iii. p. 119.

  [937] Demosth. De Pace, p. 62. νυνὶ δὲ Θηβαίοις πρὸς μὲν τὸ τὴν
  χώραν κεκομίσθαι, κάλλιστα πέπρακται, πρὸς δὲ τιμὴν καὶ δόξαν,
  αἴσχιστα, etc.

This new position of Philip, as champion of the Amphiktyonic
assembly, and within the line of common Grecian defence, was
profoundly felt by Demosthenes. A short time after the surrender of
Thermopylæ, when the Thessalian and Macedonian envoys had arrived
at Athens, announcing the recent determination of the Amphiktyons
to confer upon Philip the place in that assembly from whence the
Phokians had been just expelled, concurrence of Athens in this
vote was invited; but the Athenians, mortified and exasperated
at the recent turn of events, were hardly disposed to acquiesce.
Here we find Demosthenes taking the cautious side, and strongly
advising compliance. He insists upon the necessity of refraining
from any measure calculated to break the existing peace, however
deplorable may have been its conditions; and of giving no pretence
to the Amphiktyons for voting conjoint war against Athens, to be
executed by Philip.[938] These recommendations, prudent under the
circumstances, prove that Demosthenes, though dissatisfied with the
peace, was anxious to keep it now that it was made; and that if he
afterwards came to renew his exhortations to war, this was owing to
new encroachments and more menacing attitude on the part of Philip.

  [938] Demosth. De Pace, p. 60, 61.

We have other evidences, besides the Demosthenic speech just cited,
to attest the effect of Philip’s new position on the Grecian mind.
Shortly after the peace, and before the breaking up of the Phokian
towns into villages had been fully carried into detail—Isokrates
published his letter addressed to Philip—the Oratio ad Philippum.
The purpose of this letter is, to invite Philip to reconcile the
four great cities of Greece—Sparta, Athens, Thebes, and Argos; to
put himself at the head of their united force, as well as of Greece
generally; and to invade Asia, for the purpose of overthrowing
the Persian empire, of liberating the Asiatic Greeks, and of
providing new homes for the unsettled wanderers in Greece. The
remarkable point here is, that Isokrates puts the Hellenic world
under subordination and pupilage to Philip, renouncing all idea
of it as a self-sustaining and self-regulating system. He extols
Philip’s exploits, good fortune, and power, above all historical
parallels—treats him unequivocally as the chief of Greece—and only
exhorts him to make as good use of his power, as his ancestor
Herakles had made in early times.[939] He recommends him, by
impartial and conciliatory behavior towards all, to acquire for
himself the same devoted esteem among the Greeks as that which
now prevailed among his own Macedonian officers—or as that which
existed among the Lacedæmonians towards the Spartan kings.[940]
Great and melancholy indeed is the change which had come over the
old age of Isokrates, since he published the Panegyrical Oration
(380 B. C.—thirty-four years before) wherein he invokes a united
Pan-hellenic expedition against Asia, under the joint guidance of the
two Hellenic chiefs by land and sea—Sparta and Athens; and wherein he
indignantly denounces Sparta for having, at the peace of Antalkidas,
introduced for her own purposes a Persian rescript to impose laws on
the Grecian world. The prostration of Grecian dignity, serious as it
was, involved in the peace of Antalkidas, was far less disgraceful
than that recommended by Isokrates towards Philip—himself indeed
personally of Hellenic parentage, but a Macedonian or barbarian (as
Demosthenes[941] terms him) by power and position. As Æschines,
when employed in embassy from Athens to Philip, thought that his
principal duty consisted in trying to persuade him by eloquence
to restore Amphipolis to Athens, and put down Thebes—so Isokrates
relies upon his skilful pen to dispose the new chief to a good use
of imperial power—to make him protector of Greece, and conquerer of
Asia. If copious and elegant flattery could work such a miracle,
Isokrates might hope for success. But it is painful to note the
increasing subservience, on the part of estimable Athenian freemen
like Isokrates, to a foreign potentate; and the declining sentiment
of Hellenic independence and dignity, conspicuous after the peace of
346 B. C. in reference to Philip.

  [939] Isokrates. Or. v. ad Philipp. s. 128-135.

  [940] Isokrat. Or. v. ad Philipp. s. 91. ὅταν οὕτω διαθῆς τοὺς
  Ἕλληνας, ὥσπερ ὁρᾷς Λακεδαιμονίους τε πρὸς τοὺς ἑαυτῶν βασιλέας
  ἔχοντας, τοὺς δ᾽ ἑταίρους τοὺς σοὺς πρὸς σὲ διακειμένους. Ἔστι δ᾽
  οὐ χαλεπὸν τυχεῖν τούτων, ἢν ἐθελήσῃς κοινὸς ἅπασι γενέσθαι, etc.

  [941] Demosth. Philipp. iii. p. 118.

From Isokrates as well as from Demosthenes, we thus obtain evidence
of the imposing and intimidating effect of Philip’s name in
Greece after the peace of 346 B. C. Ochus, the Persian king, was
at this time embarrassed by unsubdued revolt among his subjects;
which Isokrates urges as one motive for Philip to attack him. Not
only Egypt, but also Phenicia and Cyprus, were in revolt against
the Persian king. One expedition (if not two) on a large scale,
undertaken by him for the purpose of reconquering Egypt, had been
disgracefully repulsed, in consequence of the ability of the
generals (Diophantus an Athenian and Lamius a Spartan) who commanded
the Grecian mercenaries in the service of the Egyptian prince
Nektanebus.[942] About the time of the peace of 346 B. C. in Greece,
however, Ochus appears to have renewed with better success his
attack on Cyprus, Phenicia, and Egypt. To reconquer Cyprus, he put
in requisition the force of the Karian prince Idrieus (brother and
successor of Mausolus and Artemisia), at this time not only the most
powerful prince in Asia Minor, but also master of the Grecian islands
Chios, Kos, and Rhodes, probably by means of an internal oligarchy
in each, who ruled in his interest and through his soldiers.[943]
Idrieus sent to Cyprus a force of forty triremes and eight thousand
mercenary troops, under the command of the Athenian Phokion and of
Evagoras, an exiled member of the dynasty reigning at Salamis in the
island. After a long siege of Salamis itself, which was held against
the Persian king by Protagoras, probably another member of the same
dynasty—and after extensive operations throughout the rest of this
rich island, affording copious plunder to the soldiers, so as to
attract numerous volunteers from the mainland—all Cyprus was again
brought under the Persian authority.[944]

  [942] Isokrates, Or. v. Philipp. s. 118; Diodor. xv. 40, 44, 48.
  Diodorus alludes three several times to this repulse of Ochus
  from Egypt. Compare Demosth. De Rhod. Libert. p. 193.

  Trogus mentioned three different expeditions of Ochus against
  Egypt (Argument. ad Justin. lib. x).

  [943] Isokrates, Or. v. Philipp. s. 102. Ἰδριέα γε τὸν
  εὐπορώτατον ~τῶν νῦν~ περὶ τὴν ἤπειρον, etc.

  Demosth. De Pace, p. 63. ἡμεῖς δὲ ἐῶμεν—καὶ τὸν Κᾶρα τὰς ~νήσους~
  καταλαμβάνειν, Χίον καὶ Κῶν καὶ Ῥόδον, etc. An oration delivered
  in the latter half of 346 B. C. after the peace.

  Compare Demosth. De Rhod. Libertat. p. 121, an oration four years
  earlier.

  [944] Diodor. xvi. 42-46. In the Inscription No. 87. of Boeckh’s
  Corpus Inscriptt., we find a decree passed by the Athenians
  recognizing friendship and hospitality with the Sidonian prince
  Strato—from whom they seem to have received a donation of ten
  talents. The note of date in this decree is not preserved; but M.
  Boeckh conceives it to date between Olympiad 101-104.

The Phenicians had revolted from Ochus at the same time as the
Cypriots, and in concert with Nektanebus prince of Egypt, from whom
they received a reinforcement of four thousand Greek mercenaries
under Mentor the Rhodian. Of the three great Phenician cities,
Sidon, Tyre, and Aradus—each a separate political community, but
administering their common affairs at a joint town called Tripolis,
composed of three separate walled circuits, a furlong apart from each
other—Sidon was at once the oldest, the richest, and the greatest
sufferer from Persian oppression. Hence the Sidonian population,
with their prince Tennes, stood foremost in the revolt against
Ochus, employing their great wealth in hiring soldiers, preparing
arms, and accumulating every means of defence. In the first outbreak
they expelled the Persian garrison, seized and punished some of
the principal officers, and destroyed the adjoining palace and
park reserved for the satrap or king. Having farther defeated the
neighboring satraps of Kilikia and Syria, they strengthened the
defences of the city by triple ditches, heightened walls, and a
fleet of one hundred triremes and quinqueremes. Incensed at these
proceedings, Ochus marched with an immense force from Babylon.
But his means of corruption served him better than his arms. The
Sidonian prince Tennes, in combination with Mentor, entered into
private bargain with him, betrayed to him first one hundred of the
principal citizens, and next placed the Persian army in possession of
the city-walls. Ochus, having slain the hundred citizens surrendered
to him, together with five hundred more who came to him with boughs
of supplication, intimated his purpose of taking signal revenge on
the Sidonians generally; who took the desperate resolution, first
of burning their fleet that no one might escape—next, of shutting
themselves up with their families, and setting fire each man to his
own house. In this deplorable conflagration forty thousand persons
are said to have perished; and such was the wealth destroyed, that
the privilege of searching the ruins was purchased for a large sum of
money. Instead of rewarding the traitor Tennes, Ochus concluded the
tragedy by putting him to death.[945]

  [945] Diodor. xvi. 42, 43, 45. “Occisis optimatibus Sidona cepit
  Ochus” (Trogus, Argum. ad Justin. lib x).

Flushed with this unexpected success, Ochus marched with an immense
force against Egypt. He had in his army ten thousand Greeks; six
thousand by requisition from the Greek cities in Asia Minor; three
thousand by request from Argos; and one thousand from Thebes.[946] To
Athens and Sparta, he had sent a like request, but had received from
both a courteous refusal. His army, Greek and Asiatic, the largest
which Persia had sent forth for many years, was distributed into
three divisions, each commanded by one Greek and one Persian general;
one of the three divisions was confided to Mentor and the eunuch
Bagoas, the two ablest servants of the Persian king. The Egyptian
prince Nektanebus, having been long aware of the impending attack,
had also assembled a numerous force: no less than twenty thousand
mercenary Greeks, with a far larger body of Egyptians and Libyans.
He had also taken special care to put the eastern branch of the
Nile, with the fortress of Pelusium at its mouth, in a full state of
defence. But these ample means of defence were rendered unavailing,
partly by his own unskilfulness and incompetence, partly by the
ability and cunning of Mentor and Bagoas. Nektanebus was obliged
to retire into Ethiopia; all Egypt fell, with little resistance,
into the hands of the Persians; the fortified places capitulated—the
temples were pillaged, with an immense booty to the victors—and
even the sacred archives of the temples were carried off, to be
afterwards resold to the priests for an additional sum of money. The
wealthy territory of Egypt again became a Persian province, under the
satrap Pherendates; while Ochus returned to Babylon, with a large
increase both of dominion and of reputation. The Greek mercenaries
were dismissed to return home, with an ample harvest both of pay
and plunder.[947] They constituted in fact the principal element of
force on both sides; some Greeks enabled the Persian king to subdue
revolters,[948] while others lent their strength to the revolters
against him.

  [946] Diodor. xvi. 47; Isokrates, Or. xii. Panathenaic. s. 171.

  [947] Diodor. xvi. 47-51. Ley, Fata et Conditio, Ægypti sub Regno
  Persarum, p. 25, 26.

  [948] Isokrates, Or. iv. Philipp. s. 149. καὶ τοὺς ἀφισταμένους
  τῆς ἀρχῆς τῆς βασιλέως συγκαταστρεφόμεθα, etc.

By this reconquest of Phenicia and Egypt, Ochus relieved himself
from that contempt into which he had fallen through the failure of
his former expedition,[949] and even exalted the Persian empire in
force and credit to a point nearly as high as it had ever occupied
before. The Rhodian Mentor, and the Persian Bagoas, both of whom had
distinguished themselves in the Egyptian campaign, became from this
time among his most effective officers. Bagoas accompanied Ochus
into the interior provinces, retaining his full confidence; while
Mentor, rewarded with a sum of 100 talents, and loaded with Egyptian
plunder, was invested with the satrapy of the Asiatic seaboard.[950]
He here got together a considerable body of Greek mercenaries, with
whom he rendered signal service to the Persian king. Though the whole
coast was understood to belong to the Persian empire, yet there were
many separate strong towns and positions, held by chiefs who had
their own military force; neither paying tribute nor obeying orders.
Among these chiefs, one of the most conspicuous was Hermeias, who
resided in the stronghold of Atarneus (on the mainland opposite
to Lesbos), but had in pay many troops and kept garrisons in many
neighboring places. Though partially disabled by accidental injury in
childhood,[951] Hermeias was a man of singular energy and ability,
and had conquered for himself this dominion. But what has contributed
most to his celebrity, is, that he was the attached friend and
admirer of Aristotle; who passed three years with him at Atarneus,
after the death of Plato in 348-347 B. C.—and who has commemorated
his merits in a noble ode. By treachery and false promises, Mentor
seduced Hermeias into an interview, seized his person, and employed
his signet-ring to send counterfeit orders whereby he became master
of Atarneus and all the remaining places held by Hermeias. Thus,
by successful perfidy, Mentor reduced the most vigorous of the
independent chiefs on the Asiatic coast; after which, by successive
conquests of the same kind, he at length brought the whole coast
effectively under Persian dominion.[952]

  [949] Isokrates, Or. iv. Philipp. s. 117, 121, 160. Diodorus
  places the successful expeditions of Ochus against Phenicia and
  Egypt during the three years between 351-348 B. C. (Diodor. xvi.
  40-52). In my judgment, they were not executed until after the
  conclusion of the peace between Philip and Athens in March 346
  B. C.; they were probably brought to a close in the two summers
  of 346-345 B. C. The Discourse or Letter of Isokrates to Philip
  appears better evidence on this point of chronology, than the
  assertion of Diodorus. The Discourse of Isokrates was published
  shortly after the peace of March 346 B. C., and addressed to a
  prince perfectly well informed of all the public events of his
  time. One of the main arguments used by Isokrates to induce
  Philip to attack the Persian empire, is the weakness of Ochus
  in consequence of Egypt and Phenicia being still in revolt and
  unsubdued—and the contempt into which Ochus had fallen from
  having tried to reconquer Egypt and having been ignominiously
  repulsed—ἀπῆλθεν ἐκεῖθεν (Ochus) οὐ μόνον ἡττηθεὶς ἀλλὰ καὶ
  καταγελασθεὶς, καὶ δόξας οὔτε βασιλεύειν οὔτε στρατηγεῖν ἄξιος
  εἶναι (s. 188) ... οὕτω σφόδρα μεμισημένος καὶ καταπεφρονημένος
  ὑφ᾽ ἁπάντων ὡς οὐδεὶς πώποτε τῶν βασιλευσάντων (s. 160).

  The reconquest of Egypt by Ochus, with an immense army and a
  large number of Greeks engaged on both sides, must have been one
  of the most impressive events of the age. Diodorus may perhaps
  have confounded the date of the _first_ expedition, wherein Ochus
  failed, with that of the _second_, wherein he succeeded.

  [950] Diodor. xvi. 50-52.

  [951] Strabo, xvi. p. 610. Suidas v. Aristotelis—θλιβίας ἐκ
  παιδός.

  [952] Diodorus places the appointment of Mentor to the satrapy of
  the Asiatic coast, and his seizure of Hermeias, in Olymp. 107,
  4 (349-348 B. C.), immediately after the successful invasion of
  Egypt.

  But this date cannot be correct, since Aristotle visited Hermeias
  at Atarneus after the death of Plato, and passed three years
  with him—from the archonship of Theophilus (348-347 B. C. Olymp.
  108, 1), in which year Plato died—to the archonship of Eubulus
  (345-344 B. C. Olymp. 108, 4) (Vita Aristotelis ap. Dionys.
  Hal. Epist. ad Ammæum, c. 5; Scriptt. Biographici, p. 397, ed.
  Westermann); Diogen. Laert. v. 7.

  Here is another reason confirming the remark made in my former
  note, that Diodorus has placed the conquest of Egypt by Ochus
  three or four years too early; since the appointment of Mentor
  to the satrapy of the Asiatic coast follows naturally and
  immediately after the distinguished part which he had taken in
  the conquest of Egypt.

  The seizure of Hermeias by Mentor must probably have taken place
  about 343 B. C. The stay of Aristotle with Hermeias will probably
  have occupied the three years between 347 and 344 B. C.

  Respecting the chronology of these events, Mr. Clinton follows
  Diodorus; Böhnecke dissents from him—rightly, in my judgment
  (Forschungen, p. 460-734, note). Böhnecke seems to think that
  the person mentioned in Demosth. Philipp. iv. (p. 139, 140) as
  having been seized and carried up prisoner to the king of Persia,
  accused of plotting with Philip measures of hostility against the
  latter—is Hermeias. This is not in itself improbable, but the
  authority of the commentator Ulpian seems hardly sufficient to
  warrant us in positively asserting the identity.

  It is remarkable that Diodorus makes no mention of the peace of
  346 B. C. between Philip and the Athenians.

The peace between Philip and the Athenians lasted without any formal
renunciation on either side for more than six years; from March
346 B. C. to beyond Midsummer 340 B. C. But though never formally
renounced during that interval, it became gradually more and more
violated in practice by both parties. To furnish a consecutive
history of the events of these few years, is beyond our power. We
have nothing to guide us but a few orations of Demosthenes;[953]
which, while conveying a lively idea of the feeling of the time,
touch, by way of allusion, and as materials for reasoning, upon some
few facts; yet hardly enabling us to string together those facts into
an historical series. A brief sketch of the general tendencies of
this period is all that we can venture upon.

  [953]
                                           Delivered in
  Demosthenes, Philippic ii.               B. C. 344-343
      ——       De Halonneso, not genuine   B. C. 343-342
      ——       De Falsâ Legatione              _ib._
  Æschines,    De Falsâ Legatione              _ib._
  Demosthenes, De Chersoneso               B. C. 342-341
      ——       Philipp. iii.                   _ib._
      ——       Philipp. iv.                B. C. 341-340
      ——       ad Philipp. Epist.          B. C. 340-339

Philip was the great aggressor of the age. The movement everywhere,
in or near Greece, began with him, and with those parties in the
various cities, who acted on his instigation and looked up to him for
support. We hear of his direct intervention, or of the effects of
his exciting suggestions, everywhere; in Peloponnesus, at Ambrakia
and Leukas, in Eubœa, and in Thrace. The inhabitants of Megalopolis,
Messênê, and Argos, were soliciting his presence in Peloponnesus, and
his active coöperation against Sparta. Philip intimated a purpose
of going there himself, and sent in the mean time soldiers and
money, with a formal injunction to Sparta that she must renounce all
pretension to Messênê.[954] He established a footing in Elis,[955]
by furnishing troops to an oligarchical faction, and enabling them
to become masters of the government, after a violent revolution.
Connected probably with this intervention in Elis, was his capture
of the three Eleian colonies, Pandosia, Bucheta, and Elateia, on
the coast of the Epirotic Kassopia, near the Gulf of Ambrakia. He
made over these three towns to his brother-in-law Alexander, whom
he exalted to be prince of the Epirotic Molossians[956]—deposing
the reigning prince Arrhybas. He farther attacked the two principal
Grecian cities in that region, Ambrakia and Leukas; but here he
appears to have failed.[957] Detachments of his troops showed
themselves near Megara and Eretria, to the aid of philippizing
parties in these cities and to the serious alarm of the Athenians.
Philip established more firmly his dominion over Thessaly,
distributing the country into four divisions, and planting a garrison
in Pheræ, the city most disaffected to him.[958] We also read,
that he again overran and subdued the Illyrian, Dardanian, and
Pæonian tribes on his northern and western boundary; capturing many
of their towns, and bringing back much spoil; and that he defeated
the Thracian prince Kersobleptes, to the great satisfaction of the
Greek cities on and near the Hellespont.[959] He is said farther
to have redistributed the population of Macedonia, transferring
inhabitants from one town to another according as he desired to favor
or discourage residence—to the great misery and suffering of the
families so removed.[960]

  [954] Demosth. De Pace, p. 61; Philippic ii. p. 69.

  [955] Demosth. Fals. Leg. p. 424; Pausan. iv. 28, 3.

  [956] Justin, viii. 6. Diodorus states that Alexander did not
  become prince until after the death of Arrhybas (xvi. 72).

  [957] Pseudo-Demosth. De Halonneso, p. 84; Demosth. Fals. Leg. p.
  424-435; Philippic iii. p. 117-120; Philippic iv. p. 133.

  As these enterprises of Philip against Ambrakia and Leukas are
  not noticed in the second Philippic, but only in orations of
  later date, we may perhaps presume that they did not take place
  till after Olymp. 109, 1 = B. C. 344-343. But this is not a very
  certain inference.

  [958] Demosth. Fals. Leg. p. 368, 424, 436; Philipp. iii. 117,
  118. iv. p. 133; De Coronâ, p. 324; Pseudo-Demosth. De Halonneso,
  p. 84.

  Compare Harpokration v. Δεκαδαρχία.

  [959] Diodor. xvi. 69, 71.

  [960] Justin, viii. 5, 6. “Reversus in regnum, ut pecora pastores
  nunc in hybernos, nunc in æstivos saltus trajiciunt—sic ille
  populos et urbes, ut illi vel replenda vel derelinquenda quæquæ
  loca videbantur, ad libidinem suam transfert. Miseranda ubique
  facies et similis excidio erat,” etc. Compare Livy, xl. 3, where
  similar proceedings of Philip son of Demetrius (B. C. 182) are
  described.

Such was the exuberant activity of Philip, felt everywhere from the
coasts of the Propontis to those of the Ionian sea and the Corinthian
Gulf. Every year his power increased; while the cities of the Grecian
world remained passive, uncombined, and without recognizing any
one of their own number as leader. The philippizing factions were
everywhere rising in arms or conspiring to seize the governments for
their own account under Philip’s auspices; while those who clung
to free and popular Hellenism were discouraged and thrown on the
defensive.[961]

  [961] See a striking passage in the fourth Philippic of
  Demosthenes, p. 132.

It was Philip’s policy to avoid or postpone any breach of peace with
Athens; the only power under whom Grecian combination against him was
practicable. But a politician like Demosthenes foresaw clearly enough
the coming absorption of the Grecian world, Athens included, into the
dominion of Macedonia, unless some means could be found of reviving
among its members a spirit of vigorous and united defence. In or
before the year 344 B. C., we find this orator again coming forward
in the Athenian assembly, persuading his countrymen to send a mission
into Peloponnesus, and going himself among the envoys.[962] He
addressed both to the Messenians and Argeians emphatic remonstrances
on their devotion to Philip; reminding them that from excessive fear
and antipathy towards Sparta, they were betraying to him their own
freedom, as well as that of all their Hellenic brethren.[963] Though
heard with approbation, he does not flatter himself with having
worked any practical change in their views.[964] But it appears
that envoys reached Athens (in 344-343 B. C.), to whom some answer
was required, and it is in suggesting that answer that Demosthenes
delivers his second Philippic. He denounces Philip anew, as an
aggressor stretching his power on every side, violating the peace
with Athens, and preparing ruin for the Grecian world.[965] Without
advising immediate war, he calls on the Athenians to keep watch and
ward, and to organize defensive alliance among the Greeks generally.

  [962] Demosth. De Coronâ, p. 252.

  [963] Demosth. Philipp. ii. p. 71, 72. Demosthenes himself
  reports to the Athenian assembly (in 344-343 B. C.) what he had
  said to the Messenians and Argeians.

  [964] Demosth. Philipp. ii. p. 72.

  [965] Demosth. Philipp. ii. p. 66-72. Who these envoys were, or
  from whence they came, does not appear from the oration. Libanius
  in his Argument says that they had come jointly from Philip, from
  the Argeians, and from the Messenians. Dionysius Hal. (ad Ammæum,
  p. 737) states that they came out of Peloponnesus.

  I cannot bring myself to believe, on the authority of Libanius,
  that there were any envoys present from Philip. The tenor of the
  discourse appears to contradict that supposition.

The activity of Athens, unfortunately, was shown in nothing but
words; to set off against the vigorous deeds of Philip. But they
were words of Demosthenes, the force of which was felt by Philip’s
partisans in Greece, and occasioned such annoyance to Philip
himself that he sent to Athens more than once envoys and letters of
remonstrance. His envoy, an eloquent Byzantine named Python,[966]
addressed the Athenian assembly with much success, complaining of
the calumnies of the orators against Philip—asserting emphatically
that Philip was animated with the best sentiments towards Athens,
and desired only to have an opportunity of rendering service to
her—and offering to review and amend the terms of the late peace.
Such general assurances of friendship, given with eloquence and
emphasis, produced considerable effect in the Athenian assembly, as
they had done from the mouth of Æschines during the discussions on
the peace. The proposal of Python was taken up by the Athenians, and
two amendments were proposed. 1. Instead of the existing words of the
peace—“that each party should have what they actually had”—it was
moved to substitute this phrase—“That each party should have their
own.”[967] 2. That not merely the allies of Athens and of Philip,
but also all the other Greeks, should be included in the peace; That
all of them should remain free and autonomous; That if any of them
were attacked, the parties to the treaty on both sides would lend
them armed assistance forthwith. 3. That Philip should be required to
make restitution of those places, Doriskus, Serreium, etc., which he
had captured from Kersobleptes after the day when peace was sworn at
Athens.

  [966] Pseudo-Demosth. De Halonneso, p. 81, 82. Winiewski (Comment
  Histor. in Demosth. De Coronâ, p. 140) thinks that the embassy
  of Python to Athens is the very embassy to which the second
  Philippic of Demosthenes provides or introduces a reply. I agree
  with Böhnecke in regarding this supposition as improbable.

  [967] Pseudo-Demosth. De Halonneso, p. 81. Περὶ δὲ τῆς εἰρήνης,
  ἢν ~ἔδοσαν ἡμῖν οἱ πρέσβεις οἱ παρ᾽ ἐκείνου πεμφθέντες
  ἐπανορθώσασθαι, ὅτι ἐπηνωρθωσάμεθα~, ὃ παρὰ πᾶσιν ἀνθρώποις
  ὁμολογεῖται δίκαιον εἶναι, ~ἑκατέρους ἔχειν τὰ ἑαυτῶν~,
  ἀμφισβητεῖ (Philip) μὴ δεδωκέναι, μηδὲ τοὺς πρέσβεις ταῦτ᾽
  εἰρηκέναι πρὸς ὑμᾶς, etc.

  Compare Demosthen. Fals. Leg. p. 398.

The first amendment appears to have been moved by a citizen named
Hegesippus, a strenuous anti-philippizing politician, supporting
the same views as Demosthenes. Python, with the other envoys of
Philip, present in the assembly, either accepted these amendments,
or at least did not protest against them. He partook of the
public hospitality of the city as upon an understanding mutually
settled.[968] Hegesippus with other Athenians was sent to Macedonia
to procure the ratification of Philip; who admitted the justice of
the second amendment, offered arbitration respecting the third, but
refused to ratify the first—disavowing both the general proposition,
and the subsequent acceptance of his envoys at Athens.[969] Moreover
he displayed great harshness in the reception of Hegesippus and his
colleagues; banishing from Macedonia the Athenian poet Xenokleides,
for having shown hospitality towards them.[970] The original treaty,
therefore, remained unaltered.

  [968] Pseudo-Demosth. De Halonneso, p. 81. See Ulpian ad Demosth.
  Fals. Leg. p. 364.

  [969] Pseudo-Demosth. De Halonneso, p. 81, 84, 85. ἀμφισβητεῖ μὴ
  δεδωκέναι (Philip contends that he never tendered the terms of
  peace for amendment) μηδὲ τοὺς πρέσβεις ταῦτ᾽ εἰρηκέναι πρὸς ὑμᾶς
  ... Τοῦτο δὲ τὸ ἐπανόρθωμα (the second amendment) ὁμολογῶν ἐν τῇ
  ἐπιστολῇ, ὡς ἀκούετε, δίκαιόν τ᾽ εἶναι καὶ δέχεσθαι, etc.

  [970] Hegesippus was much denounced by the philippizing orators
  at Athens (Demosthen. Fals. Leg. p. 364). His embassy to Philip
  has been treated by some authors as enforcing a “grossly
  sophistical construction of an article in the peace,” which
  Philip justly resented. But in my judgment it was no construction
  of the original treaty, nor was there any sophistry on the part
  of Athens. It was an amended clause, presented by the Athenians
  in place of the original. They never affirmed that the amended
  clause meant the same thing as the clause prior to amendment. On
  the contrary, they imply that the meaning is _not_ the same—and
  it is on that ground that they submit the amended form of words.

Hegesippus and his colleagues had gone to Macedonia, not simply to
present for Philip’s acceptance the two amendments just indicated,
but also to demand from him the restoration of the little island
of Halonnesus (near Skiathos), which he had taken since the peace.
Philip denied that the island belonged to the Athenians, or that they
had any right to make such a demand; affirming that he had taken it,
not from them, but from a pirate named Sostratus, who was endangering
the navigation of the neighboring sea—and that it now belonged
to him. If the Athenians disputed this, he offered to submit the
question to arbitration; to _restore_ the island to Athens, should
the arbitrators decide against him—or to _give_ it to her, even
should they decide in his favor.[971]

  [971] Compare Pseudo-Demosth. De Halonneso, p. 77, and the
  Epistola Philippi, p. 162. The former says, ἔλεγε δὲ καὶ πρὸς
  ἡμᾶς τοιούτους λόγους, ~ὅτε πρὸς αὐτὸν ἐπρεσβεύσαμεν~, ὡς λῃστὰς
  ἀφελόμενος ταύτην τὴν νῆσον κτήσαιτο, καὶ προσήκειν αὐτὴν ἑαυτοῦ
  εἶναι.

  Philip’s letter agrees as to the main facts.

Since we know that Philip treated Hegesippus and the other envoys
with peculiar harshness, it is probable that the diplomatic argument
between them, about Halonnesus as well as about other matters, was
conducted with angry feeling on both sides. Hence an island, in
itself small and insignificant, became the subject of prolonged
altercation for two or three years. When Hegesippus and Demosthenes
maintained that Philip had wronged the Athenians about Halonnesus,
and that it could only be received from him in restitution of
rightful Athenian ownership, not as a gift _proprio motu_—Æschines
and others treated the question with derision, as a controversy about
syllables.[972] “Philip (they said) offers to give us Halonnesus. Let
us take it, and set the question at rest. What need to care whether
he _gives it_ to us, or _gives it back_ to us?” The comic writers
made various jests on the same verbal distinction, as though it
were a mere silly subtlety. But though party-orators and wits might
here find a point to turn or a sarcasm to place, it is certain that
well-conducted diplomacy, modern as well as ancient, has been always
careful to note the distinction as important. The question here had
no reference to capture during war, but during peace. No modern
diplomatist will accept restitution of what has been unlawfully
taken, if he is called upon to recognize it as gratuitous cession
from the captor. The plea of Philip—that he had taken the island, not
from Athens, but from the pirate Sostratus—was not a valid excuse,
assuming that the island really belonged to Athens. If Sostratus had
committed piratical damage, Philip ought to have applied to Athens
for redress, which he evidently did not do. It was only in case of
redress being refused, that he could be entitled to right himself by
force; and even then, it may be doubted whether his taking of the
island could give him any right to it against Athens. The Athenians
refused his proposition of arbitration; partly because they were
satisfied of their own right to the island—partly because they were
jealous of admitting Philip to any recognized right of interference
with their insular ascendency.[973]

  [972] Æschines adv. Ktesiph. p. 65. c. 30. περὶ συλλαβῶν
  διαφερόμενος, etc.

  [973] Pseudo-Demosth. De Halonneso, p. 78-80.

Halonnesus remained under garrison by Philip, forming one among many
topics of angry communication by letters and by envoys, between
him and Athens—until at length (seemingly about 341 B. C.) the
inhabitants of the neighboring island of Peparêthus retook it and
carried off his garrison. Upon this proceeding, Philip addressed
several remonstrances, both to the Peparethians and to the Athenians.
Obtaining no redress, he attacked Peparêthus and took severe revenge
upon the inhabitants. The Athenians then ordered their admiral to
make reprisals upon him, so that the war, though not yet actually
declared, was approaching nearer and nearer towards renewal.[974]

  [974] Epistol. Philipp. ap. Demosth. p. 162. The oration of
  Pseudo-Demosthenes De Halonneso is a discourse addressed to the
  people on one of these epistolary communications of Philip,
  brought by some envoys who had also addressed the people _vivâ
  voce_. The letter of Philip adverted to several other topics
  besides, but that of Halonnesus came first.

But it was not only in Halonnesus that Athens found herself beset by
Philip and the philippizing factions. Even her own frontier on the
side towards Bœotia now required constant watching, since the Thebans
had been relieved from their Phokian enemies; so that she was obliged
to keep garrisons of hoplites at Drymus and Panaktum.[975] In Megara
an insurgent party under Perilaus had laid plans for seizing the city
through the aid of a body of Philip’s troops, which could easily be
sent from the Macedonian army now occupying Phokis, by sea to Pegæ,
the Megarian post on the Krissæan Gulf. Apprized of this conspiracy,
the Megarian government solicited aid from Athens. Phokion,
conducting the Athenian hoplites to Megara with the utmost celerity,
assured the safety of the city, and at the same time reëstablished
the Long Walls to Nisæa, so as to render it always accessible to
Athenians by sea.[976] In Eubœa, the cities of Oreus and Eretria
fell into the hands of the philippizing leaders, and became hostile
to Athens. In Oreus, the greater part of the citizens were persuaded
to second the views of Philip’s chief adherent, Philistides; who
prevailed on them to silence the remonstrances, and imprison the
person, of the opposing leader Euphræus, as a disturber of the
public peace. Philistides then, watching his opportunity, procured
the introduction of a body of Macedonian troops, by means of whom
he assured to himself the rule of the city as Philip’s instrument;
while Euphræus, agonized with grief and alarm, slew himself in
prison. At Eretria, Kleitarchus with others carried on the like
conspiracy. Having expelled their principal opponents, and refused
admission to Athenian envoys, they procured a thousand Macedonian
troops under Hipponikus; they thus mastered Eretria itself, and
destroyed the fortified seaport called Porthmus, in order to break
the easy communication with Athens. Oreus and Eretria are represented
by Demosthenes as suffering miserable oppression under these two
despots, Philistides and Kleitarchus.[977] On the other hand,
Chalkis, the chief city in Eubœa, appears to have been still free,
and leaning to Athens rather than to Philip, under the predominant
influence of a leading citizen named Kallias.

  [975] Demosth. Fals. Leg. p. 446. I take these words to denote,
  not any one particular outmarch to these places, but a standing
  guard kept there, since the exposure of the northern frontier of
  Attica after the peace. For the great importance of Panaktum, as
  a frontier position between Athens and Thebes, see Thucydides, v.
  35, 36, 39.

  [976] Demosth. Fals. Leg. p. 368, 435, 446, 448; Philippic iv. p.
  133; De Coronâ, p. 324; Plutarch, Phokion, c. 16.

  [977] The general state of things, as here given, at Oreus and
  Eretria, existed at the time when Demosthenes delivered his two
  orations—the third Philippic and the oration on the Chersonese;
  in the late spring and summer of 341 B. C.—De Chersoneso, p. 98,
  99, 104; Philipp. iii. p. 112, 115, 125, 126.

  ... δουλεύουσί γε μαστιγούμενοι καὶ στρεβλούμενοι (the people of
  Eretria under Kleitarchus, p. 128).

At this time, it appears, Philip was personally occupied with
operations in Thrace; where he passed at least eleven months and
probably more,[978] leaving the management of affairs in Eubœa to his
commanders in Phokis and Thessaly. He was now seemingly preparing
his schemes for mastering the important outlets from the Euxine into
the Ægean—the Bosphorus and Hellespont—and the Greek cities on those
coasts. Upon these straits depended the main supply of imported corn
for Athens and a large part of the Grecian world; and hence the great
value of the Athenian possession of the Chersonese.

  [978] Demosth. De Chersoneso, p. 99.

Respecting this peninsula, angry disputes now arose. To protect
her settlers there established, Athens had sent Diopeithes with a
body of mercenaries—unprovided with pay, however, and left to levy
contributions where they could; while Philip had taken under his
protection and garrisoned Kardia—a city situated within the peninsula
near its isthmus, but ill-disposed to Athens, asserting independence,
and admitted at the peace of 346 B. C., by Æschines and the Athenian
envoys, as an ally of Philip to take part in the peace-oaths.[979]
In conjunction with the Kardians, Philip had appropriated and
distributed lands which the Athenian settlers affirmed to be theirs;
and when they complained, he insisted that they should deal with
Kardia as an independent city, by reference to arbitration.[980] This
they refused, though their envoy Æschines had recognized Kardia as an
independent ally of Philip when the peace was sworn.

  [979] Demosth. cont. Aristokrat. p 677. De Fals. Leg. p. 396; De
  Chersoneso, p. 104, 105.

  [980] Pseudo-Demosth. De Halonneso, p. 87.

Here was a state of conflicting pretensions, out of which hostilities
were sure to grow. The Macedonian troops overran the Chersonese,
while Diopeithes on his side made excursions out of the peninsula,
invading portions of Thrace subject to Philip; who sent letters of
remonstrance to Athens.[981] While thus complaining at Athens, Philip
was at the same time pushing his conquests in Thrace against the
Thracian princes Kersobleptes, Teres, and Sitalkes,[982] upon whom
the honorary grant of Athenian citizenship had been conferred.

  [981] Demosth. De Chersoneso, p. 93; Pseudo-Demosth. De
  Halonneso, p. 87; Epistol. Philipp. ap. Demosth. p. 161.

  [982] Epistol. Philipp. _l. c._

The complaints of Philip, and the speeches of his partisans at
Athens, raised a strong feeling against Diopeithes at Athens, so that
the people seemed disposed to recall and punish him. It is against
this step that Demosthenes protests in his speech on the Chersonese.
Both that speech, and his third Philippic were delivered in 341-340
B. C.; seemingly in the last half of 341 B. C. In both, he resumes
that energetic and uncompromising tone of hostility towards Philip,
which had characterized the first Philippic and the Olynthiacs.
He calls upon his countrymen not only to sustain Diopeithes, but
also to renew the war vigorously against Philip in every other way.
Philip (he says), while pretending in words to keep the peace, had
long ago broken it by his acts, and by aggressions in numberless
quarters. If Athens chose to imitate him by keeping the peace in
name, let her do so; but at any rate, let her imitate him also by
prosecuting a strenuous war in reality.[983] Chersonesus, the ancient
possession of Athens, could be protected only by encouraging and
reinforcing Diopeithes; Byzantium also was sure to become the next
object of Philip’s attack, and ought to be preserved, as essential
to the interests of Athens, though hitherto the Byzantines had been
disaffected towards her. But even these interests, important as
they were, must be viewed only as parts of a still more important
whole. The Hellenic world altogether was in imminent danger;[984]
overridden by Philip’s prodigious military force; torn in pieces
by local factions leaning upon his support; and sinking every day
into degradation more irrecoverable. There was no hope of rescue
for the Hellenic name except from the energetic and well-directed
military action of Athens. She must stand forth in all her might
and resolution; her citizens must serve in person, pay direct taxes
readily, and forego for the time their festival-fund; when they had
thus shown themselves ready to bear the real pinch and hardship of
the contest, then let them send round envoys to invoke the aid of
other Greeks against the common enemy.[985]

  [983] Philippic iii. p. 112.

  [984] Philippic iii. p. 118, 119.

  [985] Philippic iii. p. 129, 130.

Such, in its general tone, is the striking harangue known as the
third Philippic. It appears that the Athenians were now coming round
more into harmony with Demosthenes than they had ever been before.
They perceived,—what the orator had long ago pointed out,—that
Philip went on pushing from one acquisition to another, and became
only the more dangerous in proportion as others were quiescent. They
were really alarmed for the safety of the two important positions
of the Hellespont and Bosphorus. From this time to the battle of
Chæroneia, the positive influence of Demosthenes in determining
the proceedings of his countrymen, becomes very considerable. He
had already been employed several times as envoy,—to Peloponnesus
(344-343 B. C.), to Ambrakia, Leukas, Korkyra, the Illyrians,
and Thessaly. He now moved, first a mission of envoys to Eubœa,
where a plan of operations was probably concerted with Kallias
and the Chalkidians,—and subsequently, the despatch of a military
force to the same island, against Oreus and Eretria.[986] This
expedition, commanded by Phokion, was successful. Oreus and Eretria
were liberated; Kleitarchus and Philistides, with the Macedonian
troops, were expelled from the island, though both in vain tried to
propitiate Athens.[987] Kallias, also, with the Chalkidians of Eubœa,
and the Megarians, contributed as auxiliaries to this success.[988]
On his proposition, supported by Demosthenes, the attendance and
tribute from deputies of the Euboic cities to the synod at Athens,
were renounced; and in place of it was constituted an Euboic synod,
sitting at Chalkis; independent of, yet allied with, Athens.[989]
In this Euboic synod Kallias was the leading man; forward both
as a partisan of Athens and as an enemy of Philip. He pushed his
attack beyond the limits of Eubœa to the Gulf of Pagasæ, from whence
probably came the Macedonian troops who had formed the garrison
of Oreus under Philistides. He here captured several of the towns
allied with or garrisoned by Philip; together with various Macedonian
vessels, the crews of which he sold as slaves. For these successes
the Athenians awarded to him a public vote of thanks.[990] He also
employed himself (during the autumn and winter of 341-340 B. C.)
in travelling as missionary throughout Peloponnesus, to organize a
confederacy against Philip. In that mission he strenuously urged the
cities to send deputies to a congress at Athens, in the ensuing month
Anthesterion (February), 340 B. C. But though he made flattering
announcement at Athens of concurrence and support promised to him,
the projected congress came to nothing.[991]

  [986] Demosth. De Coronâ, p. 252.

  [987] Diodor. xvi. 74.

  [988] Stephanus Byz. v. Ὠρεός.

  [989] Æschines adv. Ktesiphont. p. 67, 68. Æschines greatly
  stigmatizes Demosthenes for having deprived the Athenian synod of
  these important members. But the Eubœan members certainly had not
  been productive of any good to Athens by their attendance, real
  or nominal, at her synod, for some years past. The formation of a
  free Euboic synod probably afforded the best chance of ensuring
  real harmony between the island and Athens.

  Æschines gives here a long detail of allegations, about the
  corrupt intrigues between Demosthenes and Kallias at Athens. Many
  of these allegations are impossible to reconcile with what we
  know of the course of history at the time. We must recollect that
  Æschines makes the statement eleven years after the events.

  [990] Epistol. Philipp. ap. Demosth. p. 159.

  [991] Æschines adv. Ktesiph. _l. c._ Æschines here specifies the
  month, but not the year. It appears to me that Anthesterion, 340
  B. C. (Olymp. 109, 4) is the most likely date; though Böhnecke
  and others place it a year earlier.

While the important success in Eubœa relieved Athens from anxiety
on that side, Demosthenes was sent as envoy to the Chersonese and
to Byzantium. He would doubtless encourage Diopeithes, and may
perhaps have carried to him some reinforcements. But his services
were principally useful at Byzantium. That city had long been badly
disposed towards Athens,—from recollections of the Social War, and
from jealousy about the dues on corn-ships passing the Bosphorus;
moreover, it had been for some time in alliance with Philip; who was
now exerting all his efforts to prevail on the Byzantines to join
him in active warfare against Athens. So effectively did Demosthenes
employ his eloquence, at Byzantium, that he frustrated this purpose,
overcame the unfriendly sentiment of the citizens, and brought them
to see how much it concerned both their interest and their safety
to combine with Athens in resisting the farther preponderance of
Philip. The Byzantines, together with their allies and neighbors
the Perinthians, contracted alliance with Athens. Demosthenes takes
just pride in having achieved for his countrymen this success as
a statesman and diplomatist, in spite of adverse probabilities.
Had Philip been able to obtain the active coöperation of Byzantium
and Perinthus, he would have become master of the corn-supply, and
probably of the Hellespont also, so that war in those regions would
have become almost impracticable for Athens.[992]

  [992] Demosth. De Coronâ, p. 254, 304, 308. βουλόμενος τῆς
  σιτοπομπίας κύριος γενέσθαι (Philip), παρελθὼν ἐπὶ Θρᾴκης
  Βυζαντίους συμμάχους ὄντας αὑτῷ τὸ μὲν πρῶτον ἠξίου συμπολεμεῖν
  τὸν πρὸς ὑμᾶς πόλεμον, etc.

  ἡ μὲν ἐμὴ πολίτεια ... ἀντὶ δὲ τοῦ τὸν Ἑλλήσποντον ἔχειν
  Φίλιππον, λαβόντα Βυζάντιον, συμπολεμεῖν τοὺς Βυζαντίους μεθ᾽
  ἡμῶν πρὸς αὐτὸν (ἐποίησεν) ... Τίς ὁ κωλύσας τὸν Ἑλλήσποντον
  ἀλλοτριωθῆναι κατ᾽ ἐκείνους τοὺς χρόνους; (p. 255.)

  Compare Æschines adv. Ktesiph. p. 90.

  That Demosthenes foresaw, several months earlier, the plans
  of Philip upon Byzantium, is evident from the orations De
  Chersoneso, p. 93-106, and Philippic iii. p. 115.

As this unexpected revolution in the policy of Byzantium was
eminently advantageous to Athens, so it was proportionally mortifying
to Philip; who resented it so much, that he shortly afterwards
commenced the siege of Perinthus by land and sea,[993] a little
before midsummer 340 B. C. He brought up his fleet through the
Hellespont into the Propontis, and protected it in its passage,
against the attack of the Athenians in the Chersonese,[994] by
causing his land-force to traverse and lay waste that peninsula.
This was a violation of Athenian territory, adding one more to the
already accumulated causes of war. At the same time, it appears
that he now let loose his cruisers against the Athenian merchantmen,
many of which he captured and appropriated. These captures, together
with the incursions on the Chersonese, served as last additional
provocations, working up the minds of the Athenians to a positive
declaration of war.[995] Shortly after midsummer 340 B. C., at the
beginning of the archonship of Theophrastus, they passed a formal
decree[996] to remove the column on which the peace of 346 B. C.
stood recorded, and to renew the war openly and explicitly against
Philip. It seems probable that this was done while Demosthenes
was still absent on his mission at the Hellespont and Bosphorus;
for he expressly states that none of the decrees immediately
bringing on hostilities were moved by him, but all of them by other
citizens;[997] a statement which we may reasonably believe, since he
would be rather proud than ashamed of such an initiative.

  [993] Diodor. xvi. 74.

  [994] Epistola Philippi ap. Demosth. p. 163.

  [995] That these were the two last causes which immediately
  preceded and determined the declaration of war, we may see by
  Demosthenes, De Coronâ, p. 249—Καὶ μὴν τὴν εἰρήνην γ᾽ ἐκεῖνος
  ἔλυσε τὰ πλοῖα λαβὼν, οὐχ ἡ πόλις, etc.

  Ἀλλ᾽ ἐπειδὴ φανερῶς ἤδη τὰ πλοῖα ἐσεσύλητο, Χεῤῥόνησος ἐπορθεῖτο,
  ἐπὶ τὴν Ἀττικὴν ἐπορεύεθ᾽ ἄνθρωπος, οὐκέτ᾽ ἐν ἀμφισβητησίμῳ τὰ
  πράγματα ἦν, ἀλλ᾽ ἐνειστήκει πόλεμος, etc. (p. 274.)

  [996] Philochorus, Frag. 135. ed. Didot; Dionys. Hal. ad Ammæum,
  p. 738-741; Diodorus, xvi. 77. The citation given by Dionysius
  out of Philochorus is on one point not quite accurate. It states
  that Demosthenes moved the decisive resolution for declaring war;
  whereas Demosthenes himself tells us that none of the motions at
  this juncture were made by him (De Coronâ, p. 250).

  [997] Demosth. De Coronâ, p. 250. It will be seen that I take
  no notice of the two decrees of the Athenians, and the letter
  of Philip, embodied in the oration De Coronâ, p. 249, 250,
  251. I have already stated that all the documents which we
  read as attached to this oration are so tainted either with
  manifest error or with causes of doubt, that I cannot cite them
  as authorities in this history, wherever they stand alone.
  Accordingly, I take no account either of the supposed siege of
  Selymbria, mentioned in Philip’s pretended letter, but mentioned
  nowhere else—nor of the twenty Athenian ships captured by the
  Macedonian admiral Amyntas, and afterwards restored by Philip on
  the remonstrance of the Athenians, mentioned in the pretended
  Athenian decree moved by Eubulus. Neither Demosthenes, nor
  Philochorus, nor Diodorus, nor Justin, says anything about the
  siege of Selymbria, though all of them allude to the attacks
  on Byzantium and Perinthus. I do not believe that the siege of
  Selymbria ever occurred. Moreover, Athenian vessels captured, but
  afterwards restored by Philip on remonstrance from the Athenians,
  can hardly have been the actual cause of war.

  The pretended decrees and letter do not fit the passage of
  Demosthenes to which they are attached.

About the same time, as it would appear, Philip on his side,
addressed a manifesto and declaration of war to the Athenians.
In this paper he enumerated many wrongs done by them to him, and
still remaining unredressed in spite of formal remonstrance; for
which wrongs he announced his intention of taking a just revenge by
open hostilities.[998] He adverted to the seizure, on Macedonian
soil, of Nikias his herald carrying despatches; the Athenians (he
alleged) had detained this herald as prisoner for ten months and
had read the despatches publicly in their assembly. He complained
that Athens had encouraged the inhabitants of Thasos, in harboring
triremes from Byzantium and privateers from other quarters, to
the annoyance of Macedonian commerce. He dwelt on the aggressive
proceedings of Diopeithes in Thrace, and of Kallias in the Gulf of
Pagasæ. He denounced the application made by Athens to the Persians
for aid against him, as a departure from Hellenic patriotism, and
from the Athenian maxims of aforetime. He alluded to the unbecoming
intervention of Athens in defence of the Thracian princes Teres
and Kersobleptes, neither of them among the sworn partners in the
peace, against him; to the protection conferred by Athens on the
inhabitants of Peparethus, whom he had punished for hostilities
against his garrison in Halonnesus; to the danger incurred by his
fleet in sailing up the Hellespont, from the hostilities of the
Athenian settlers in the Chersonese, who had coöperated with his
enemies the Byzantines, and had rendered it necessary for him to
guard the ships by marching a land-force through the Chersonese. He
vindicated his own proceedings in aiding his allies the inhabitants
of Kardia, complaining that the Athenians had refused to submit their
differences with that city to an equitable arbitration. He repelled
the Athenian pretensions of right to Amphipolis, asserting his own
better right to the place, on all grounds. He insisted especially
on the offensive behavior of the Athenians, in refusing, when he
had sent envoys conjointly with all his allies, to “conclude a just
convention on behalf of the Greeks generally”—“Had you acceded to
this proposition (he said), you might have placed out of danger all
those who really suspected my purposes, or you might have exposed
me publicly as the most worthless of men. It was to the interest of
your people to accede, but not to the interest of your orators. To
them—as those affirm who know your government best—peace is war,
and war, peace; for they always make money at the expense of your
generals, either as accusers or as defenders; moreover by reviling in
the public assembly your leading citizens at home, and other men of
eminence abroad, they acquire with the multitude credit for popular
dispositions. It would be easy for me, by the most trifling presents,
to silence their invectives and make them trumpet my praises. But
I should be ashamed of appearing to purchase your good-will from
_them_.[999]”

  [998] Epistol. Philipp. ap. Demosth. p. 165. This Epistle of
  Philip to the Athenians appears here inserted among the orations
  of Demosthenes. Some critics reject it as spurious; but I
  see no sufficient ground for such an opinion. Whether it be
  the composition of Philip himself, or of some Greek employed
  in Philip’s cabinet, is a point which we have no means of
  determining.

  The oration of Demosthenes which is said to be delivered in reply
  to this letter of Philip (Orat. xi), is, in my judgment, wrongly
  described. Not only it has no peculiar bearing on the points
  contained in the letter—but it must also be two or three months
  later in date, since it mentions the aid sent by the Persian
  satraps to Perinthus, and the raising of the siege of that city
  by Philip (p. 153).

  [999] Epistol. Philipp. ap. Demosth. p. 159, 164; compare
  Isokrates. Or. v. (Philip.) s. 82.

It is of little moment to verify or appreciate the particular
complaints here set forth, even if we had adequate information for
the purpose. Under the feeling which had prevailed during the last
two years between the Athenians and Philip, we cannot doubt that many
detached acts of a hostile character had been committed on their
side as well as on his. Philip’s allegation—that he had repeatedly
proposed to them amicable adjustment of differences—whether true or
not, is little to the purpose. It was greatly to his interest to keep
Athens at peace and tranquil, while he established his ascendency
everywhere else, and accumulated a power for ultimate employment
such as she would be unable to resist. The Athenians had at length
been made to feel, that farther acquiescence in these proceedings
would only ensure to them the amount of favor tendered by Polyphemus
to Odysseus—that they should be devoured last. But the lecture
which he thinks fit to administer both to them and to their popular
orators, is little better than insulting derision. It is strange to
read encomiums on peace—as if it were indisputably advantageous to
the Athenian public, and as if recommendations of war originated only
with venal and calumnious orators for their own profit—pronounced by
the greatest aggressor and conqueror of his age, whose whole life was
passed in war and in the elaborate organization of great military
force; and addressed to a people whose leading infirmity then was,
an aversion almost unconquerable to the personal hardships and
pecuniary sacrifices of effective war. This passage of the manifesto
may probably be intended as a theme for Æschines and the other
philippizing partisans in the Athenian assembly.

War was now an avowed fact on both sides. At the instigation of
Demosthenes and others, the Athenians decreed to equip a naval force,
which was sent under Chares to the Hellespont and Propontis.

Meanwhile Philip brought up to the siege of Perinthus an army of
thirty thousand men, and a stock of engines and projectiles such
as had never before been seen.[1000] His attack on this place was
remarkable not only for great bravery and perseverance on both sides,
but also for the extended scale of the military operations.[1001]
Perinthus was strong and defensible; situated on a promontory
terminating in abrupt cliffs southward towards the Propontis,
unassailable from seaward, but sloping, though with a steep declivity
towards the land, with which it was joined by an isthmus of not more
than a furlong in breadth. Across this isthmus stretched the outer
wall, behind which were seen the houses of the town, lofty, strongly
built, and rising one above the other in terraces up the ascent of
the promontory. Philip pressed the place with repeated assaults on
the outer wall; battering it with rams, undermining it by sap, and
rolling up movable towers said to be one hundred and twenty feet in
height (higher even than the towers of the Perinthian wall), so as to
chase away the defenders by missiles, and to attempt an assault by
boarding-planks hand to hand. The Perinthians, defending themselves
with energetic valor, repelled him for a long time from the outer
wall. At length the besieging engines, with the reiterated attacks of
Macedonian soldiers animated by Philip’s promises, overpowered this
wall, and drove them back into the town. It was found, however, that
the town itself supplied a new defensible position to its citizens.
The lower range of houses, united by strong barricades across the
streets, enabled the Perinthians still to hold out. In spite of
all their efforts, however, the town would have shared the fate of
Olynthus, had they not been sustained by effective foreign aid. Not
only did their Byzantine kinsmen exhaust themselves to furnish every
sort of assistance by sea, but also the Athenian fleet, and Persian
satraps on the Asiatic side of the Propontis, coöperated. A body of
Grecian mercenaries under Apollodorus, sent across from Asia by the
Phrygian satrap Arsites, together with ample supplies of stores by
sea, placed Perinthus in condition to defy the besiegers.[1002]

  [1000] How much improvement Philip had made in engines for siege,
  as a part of his general military organization—is attested in
  a curious passage of a later author on mechanics. Athenæus, De
  Machinis ap. Auctor. Mathem. Veter. p. 3, ed. Paris.—ἐπίδοσιν δὲ
  ἔλαβεν ἡ τοαιύτη μηχανοποιΐα ἅπασα κατὰ τὴν τοῦ Διονυσίου τοῦ
  Σικελιώτου τυραννίδα, κατά τε τὴν Φιλίππου τοῦ Ἀμύντου βασίλειαν,
  ὅτε ἐπολιόρκει Βυζαντίους Φίλιππος. Εὐημέρει δὲ τῇ τοιαύτῃ τέχνῃ
  Πολύειδος ὁ Θεσσαλὸς, οὗ οἱ μαθηταὶ συνεστρατεύοντο Ἀλεξάνδρῷ.

  Respecting the engines employed by Dionysius of Syracuse, see
  Diodor. xiv. 42, 48, 50.

  [1001] Diodor. xvi. 74-76; Plutarch, Vit. Alexandri, c. 70; also
  Laconic. Apophthegm. p. 215, and De Fortunâ Alexan. p. 339.

  [1002] Demosth. ad Philip. Epistol. p. 153; Diodor. xvi. 75;
  Pausanias, i. 29, 7.

After a siege which can hardly have lasted less than three months,
Philip found all his efforts against Perinthus baffled. He then
changed his plan, withdrew a portion of his forces, and suddenly
appeared before Byzantium. The walls were strong, but inadequately
manned and prepared; much of the Byzantine force being in service
at Perinthus. Among several vigorous attacks, Philip contrived to
effect a surprise on a dark and stormy night, which was very near
succeeding. The Byzantines defended themselves bravely, and even
defeated his fleet; but they too were rescued chiefly by foreign aid.
The Athenians—now acting under the inspirations of Demosthenes, who
exhorted them to bury in a generous oblivion all their past grounds
of offence against Byzantium—sent a still more powerful fleet to the
rescue, under the vigorous guidance of Phokion[1003] instead of the
loose and rapacious Chares. Moreover the danger of Byzantium called
forth strenuous efforts from the chief islanders of the Ægean—Chians,
Rhodians, Koans, etc., to whom it was highly important that Philip
should not become master of the great passage for imported corn into
the Grecian seas. The large combined fleet thus assembled was fully
sufficient to protect Byzantium.[1004] Compelled to abandon the siege
of that city as well as of Perinthus, Philip was farther baffled in
an attack on the Chersonese. Phokion not only maintained against him
the full security of the Propontis and its adjoining straits, but
also gained various advantages over him both by land and sea.[1005]

  [1003] Plutarch, Phokion, c. 14; Plutarch, Vit. X. Orat. p.
  848-851. To this fleet of Phokion, Demosthenes contributed the
  outfit of a trireme, while the orator Hyperides sailed with
  the fleet as trierarch. See Boeckh, Urkunden über das Attische
  Seewesen, p. 441, 442, 498. From that source the obscure
  chronology of the period now before us derives some light;
  since it becomes certain that the expedition of Chares began
  during the archonship of Nichomaclides; that is, in the year
  _before_ Midsummer 340 B. C.; while the expedition of Phokion and
  Kephisophon began in the year following—_after_ Midsummer 340 B. C.

  See some anecdotes respecting this siege of Byzantium by Philip,
  collected from later authors (Dionysius Byzantinus, Hesychius
  Milesius, and others) by the diligence of Böhnecke—Forschungen,
  p. 470 _seqq._

  [1004] Diodor. xvi. 77: Plutarch, Demosthen. c. 17.

  [1005] Plutarch, Phokion, c. 14.

These operations probably occupied the last six months of 340 B. C.
They constituted the most important success gained by Athens, and the
most serious reverse experienced by Philip, since the commencement of
war between them. Coming as they did immediately after the liberation
of Eubœa in the previous year, they materially improved the position
of Athens against Philip. Phokion and his fleet not only saved the
citizens of Byzantium from all the misery of a capture by Macedonian
soldiers, but checked privateering, and protected the trade-ships
so efficaciously, that corn became unusually abundant and cheap both
at Athens and throughout Greece:[1006] and Demosthenes, as statesman
and diplomatist, enjoyed the credit of having converted Eubœa into
a friendly and covering neighbor for Athens, instead of being a
shelter for Philip’s marauding cruisers—as well as of bringing round
Byzantium from the Macedonian alliance to that of Athens, and thus
preventing both the Hellespont and the corn-trade from passing into
Philip’s hands.[1007] The warmest votes of thanks, together with
wreaths in token of gratitude, were decreed to Athens by the public
assemblies of Byzantium, Perinthus, and the various towns of the
Chersonese;[1008] while the Athenian public assembly also decreed
and publicly proclaimed a similar vote of thanks and admiration to
Demosthenes. The decree, moved by Aristonikus, was so unanimously
popular at the time, that neither Æschines nor any of the other
enemies of Demosthenes thought it safe to impeach the mover.[1009]

  [1006] Demosth. De Coronâ, p. 255; Plutarch, De Glor. Athen. p.
  350.

  [1007] Demosth. De Coronâ, p. 305, 306, 307: comp. p. 253. μετὰ
  ταῦτα δὲ τοὺς ἀποστόλους πάντας ἀπέστειλα, καθ᾽ οὓς Χεῤῥόνησος
  ἐσώθη, καὶ Βυζάντιον καὶ πάντες οἱ σύμμαχοι, etc.

  [1008] Demosth. De Coronâ, p. 255, 257. That these votes of
  thanks were passed, is authenticated by the words of the oration
  itself. Documents are inserted in the oration, purporting to be
  the decree of the Byzantines and Perinthians, and that of the
  Chersonesite cities. I do not venture to cite these as genuine,
  considering how many of the other documents annexed to this
  oration are decidedly spurious.

  [1009] Demosth. p. 253. Aristonikus is again mentioned, p.
  302. A document appears, p. 253, purporting to be the vote
  of the Athenians to thank and crown Demosthenes, proposed by
  Aristonikus. The name of the Athenian archon is wrong, as in all
  the other documents embodied in this oration, where the name of
  an Athenian archon appears.

In the recent military operations, on so large a scale, against
Byzantium and Perinthus, Philip had found himself in conflict not
merely with Athens, but also with Chians, Rhodians and others; an
unusually large muster of confederate Greeks. To break up this
confederacy, he found it convenient to propose peace, and to abandon
his designs against Byzantium and Perinthus—the point on which
the alarm of the confederates chiefly turned. By withdrawing his
forces from the Propontis, he was enabled to conclude peace with
the Byzantines and most of the maritime Greeks who had joined in
relieving them. The combination against him was thus dissolved,
though with Athens[1010] and her more intimate allies his naval war
still continued. While he multiplied cruisers and privateers to make
up by prizes his heavy outlay during the late sieges, he undertook
with his land-force an enterprize, during the spring of 339 B. C.,
against the Scythian king Atheas; whose country, between Mount Hæmus
and the Danube, he invaded with success, bringing away as spoil a
multitude of youthful slaves of both sexes, as well as cattle. On
his return however across Mount Hæmus, he was attacked on a sudden
by the Thracian tribe Triballi, and sustained a defeat; losing all
his accompanying captives, and being badly wounded through the
thigh.[1011] This expedition and its consequences occupied Philip
during the spring and summer of 339 B. C.

  [1010] Diodorus (xvi. 77) mentions this peace; stating that
  Philip raised the sieges of Byzantium and Perinthus, and made
  peace πρὸς Ἀθηναίους καὶ τοὺς ἄλλους Ἕλληνας τοὺς ἐναντιουμένους.

  Wesseling (ad loc.) and Weiske (De Hyperbolê, ii. p. 41) both
  doubt the reality of this peace. Neither Böhnecke nor Winiewski
  recognize it. Mr. Clinton admits it in a note to his Appendix 16.
  p. 292; though he does not insert it in his column of events in
  the tables.

  I perfectly concur with these authors in dissenting from
  Diodorus, so far as _Athens_ is concerned. The supposition that
  peace was concluded between Philip and Athens at this time is
  distinctly negatived by the language of Demosthenes (De Coronâ,
  p. 275, 276); indirectly also by Æschines. Both from Demosthenes
  and from Philochorus it appeals sufficiently clear, in my
  judgment, that the war between Philip and the Athenians went on
  without interruption from the summer of 340 B. C., to the battle
  of Chæroneia, in August 338.

  But I see no reason for disbelieving Diodorus, in so far as he
  states that Philip made peace with the other Greeks—Byzantines,
  Perinthians, Chians, Rhodians, etc.

  [1011] Justin, ix. 2, 3. Æschines alludes to this expedition
  against the Scythians during the spring of the archon
  Theophrastus, or 339 B. C. (Æschin. cont. Ktesiph. p. 71).

Meanwhile the naval war of Athens against Philip was more effectively
carried on, and her marine better organized, than ever it had been
before. This was chiefly owing to an important reform proposed and
carried by Demosthenes, immediately on the declaration of war against
Philip in the summer of 340 B. C. Enjoying as he did, now after long
public experience, the increased confidence of his fellow-citizens,
and being named superintendent of the navy,[1012] he employed his
influence not only in procuring energetic interference both as to
Eubœa and Byzantium, but also in correcting deep-seated abuses which
nullified the efficiency of the Athenian marine department.

  [1012] Æschines cont. Ktesiph. p. 85. c. 80. ἐπιστάτης τοῦ
  ναυτικοῦ.

The law of Periander (adopted in 357 B. C.) had distributed the
burthen of the trierarchy among the twelve hundred richest citizens
on the taxable property-schedule, arranged in twenty fractions called
Symmories, of sixty persons each. Among these men, the three hundred
richest, standing distinguished, as leaders of the Symmories, were
invested with the direction and enforcement of all that concerned
their collective agency and duties. The purpose of this law had
been to transfer the cost of trierarchy—a sum of about forty, fifty
or sixty minæ for each trireme, defraying more or less of the
outfit—which had originally been borne by a single rich man as his
turn came round, and afterwards by two rich men in conjunction—to
a partnership more or less numerous, consisting of five, six, or
even fifteen or sixteen members of the same symmory. The number of
such partners varied according to the number of triremes required
by the state to be fitted out in any one year. If only few triremes
were required, sixteen contributors might be allotted to defray
collectively the trierarchic cost of each: if on the other hand many
triremes were needed, a less number of partners, perhaps no more
than five or six, could be allotted to each—since the total number
of citizens whose turn it was to be assessed in that particular year
was fixed. The assessment upon each partner was of course heavier,
in proportion as the number of partners assigned to a trireme was
smaller. Each member of the partnership, whether it consisted of
five, of six, or of sixteen, contributed in equal proportion towards
the cost.[1013] The richer members of the partnership thus paid no
greater sum than the poorer; and sometimes even evaded any payment
of their own, by contracting with some one to discharge the duties
of the post, on condition of a total sum not greater than that which
they had themselves collected from these poorer members.

  [1013] Demosthen. De Coronâ, p. 260-262. ἦν γὰρ αὐτοῖς (τοῖς
  ἡγεμόσι τῶν συμμοριῶν) ἐκ μὲν τῶν προτέρων νόμων συνεκκαίδεκα
  λειτουργεῖν—αὐτοῖς μὲν μικρὰ καὶ οὐδὲν ἀναλίσκουσιν, τοὺς δ᾽
  ἀπόρους τῶν πολιτῶν ἐπιτρίβουσιν ... ἐκ δὲ τοῦ ἐμοῦ νόμου τὸ
  γιγνόμενον κατὰ τὴν οὐσίαν ἕκαστον τιθέναι· καὶ δυοῖν ἐφάνη
  τριήραρχος ὁ τῆς μιᾶς ἕκτος καὶ δέκατος πρότερον συντελής· οὐδὲ
  γὰρ τριηράρχους ἔτι ὠνόμαζον ἑαυτοὺς, ἀλλὰ συντελεῖς.

  The trierarchy, and the trierarchic symmories, at Athens, are
  subjects not perfectly known; the best expositions respecting
  them are to be found in Boeckh’s Public Economy of Athens (b. iv.
  ch. 11-13), and in his other work, Urkunden über das Attische
  Seewesen (ch. xi. xii. xiii.); besides Parreidt, De Symmoriis,
  part ii. p. 22, seq.

  The fragment of Hyperides (cited by Harpokration v. Συμμορία)
  alluding to the trierarchic reform of Demosthenes, though briefly
  and obscurely, is an interesting confirmation of the oration De
  Coronâ.

According to Demosthenes, the poorer members of these trierarchic
symmories were sometimes pressed down almost to ruin by the sums
demanded; so that they complained bitterly, and even planted
themselves in the characteristic attitude of suppliants at Munychia
or elsewhere in the city. When their liabilities to the state were
not furnished in time, they became subject to imprisonment by the
officers superintending the outfit of the armament In addition to
such private hardship, there arose great public mischief from the
money not being at once forthcoming; the armament being delayed in
its departure, and forced to leave Peiræus either in bad condition or
without its full numbers. Hence arose in great part, the ill-success
of Athens in her maritime enterprises against Philip, before the
peace of 346 B. C.[1014]

  [1014] There is a point in the earlier oration of Demosthenes
  De Symmoriis, illustrating the grievance which he now reformed.
  That grievance consisted, for one main portion, in the fact,
  that the richest citizen in a trierarchic partnership paid a
  sum no greater (sometimes even less) than the poorest. Now it
  is remarkable that this unfair apportionment of charge might
  have occurred, and is noway guarded against, in the symmories as
  proposed by Demosthenes himself. His symmories, each comprising
  sixty persons or one-twentieth of the total active twelve
  hundred, are directed to divide themselves into five fractions
  of twelve persons each, or a hundredth of the twelve hundred.
  Each group of twelve is to comprise the richest alongside of
  the poorest members of the sixty (ἀνταναπληροῦντας πρὸς τὸν
  εὐπορώτατον ἀεὶ τοὺς ἀπορωτάτους, p. 182), so that each group
  would contain individuals very unequal in wealth, though the
  aggregate wealth of one group would be nearly equal to that of
  another. These twelve persons were to defray collectively the
  cost of trierarchy for one ship, two ships, or three ships,
  according to the number of ships which the state might require
  (p. 183). But Demosthenes nowhere points out in what proportions
  they were to share the expense among them; whether the richest
  citizens among the twelve were to pay only an equal sum with
  the poorest, or a sum greater in proportion to their wealth.
  There is nothing in his project to prevent the richer members
  from insisting that all should pay equally. This is the very
  abuse that he denounced afterwards (in 340 B. C.), as actually
  realized—and corrected by a new law. The oration of Demosthenes
  De Symmoriis, omitting as it does all positive determination as
  to proportions of payment, helps us to understand how the abuse
  grew up.

The same influences, which had led originally to the introduction of
such abuses, stood opposed to the orator in his attempted amendment.
The body of Three Hundred, the richest men in the state—the leader
or richest individual in each symmory, with those who stood second
or third in order of wealth—employed every effort to throw out
the proposition, and tendered large bribes to Demosthenes (if we
may credit his assertion) as inducements for dropping it. He was
impeached moreover under the Graphê Paranomon, as mover of an
unconstitutional or illegal decree. It required no small share of
firmness and public spirit, combined with approved eloquence and an
established name, to enable Demosthenes to contend against these
mighty enemies.

His new law caused the charge of trierarchy to be levied upon all
the members of the symmories, or upon all above a certain minimum of
property, in proportion to their rated property; but it seems, if we
rightly make out, to have somewhat heightened the minimum, so that
the aggregate number of persons chargeable was diminished.[1015]
Every citizen rated at ten talents was assessed singly for the
charge of trierarchy belonging to one trireme; if rated at twenty
talents, for the trierarchy of two; at thirty talents, for the
trierarchy of three; if above thirty talents, for that of three
triremes and a service boat—which was held to be the maximum
payable by any single individual. Citizens rated at less than ten
talents, were grouped together into ratings of ten talents in the
aggregate, in order to bear collectively the trierarchy of one of a
trireme; the contributions furnished by each person in the group
being proportional to the sum for which he stood rated. This new
proposition, while materially relieving the poorer citizens, made
large addition to the assessments of the rich. A man rated at twenty
talents, who had before been chargeable for only the sixteenth part
of the expense of one trierarchy, along with partners much poorer
than himself but equally assessed—now became chargeable with the
entire expense of two trierarchies. All persons liable were assessed
in fair proportion to the sum for which they stood rated in the
schedule. When the impeachment against Demosthenes came to be tried
before the Dikastery, he was acquitted by more than four-fifths
of the Dikasts; so that the accuser was compelled to pay the
established fine. And so animated was the temper of the public at
that moment, in favor of vigorous measures for prosecuting the war
just declared, that they went heartily along with him, and adopted
the main features of his trierarchic reform. The resistance from
the rich, however, though insufficient to throw out the measure,
constrained him to modify it more than once, during the progress of
the discussion;[1016] partly in consequence of the opposition of
Æschines, whom he accuses of having been hired by the rich for the
purpose.[1017] It is deeply to be regretted that the speeches of
both of them—especially those of Demosthenes, which must have been
numerous—have not been preserved.

  [1015] Æschines (adv. Ktesiph. p. 86) charges Demosthenes with
  “having stolen away from the city the trierarchs of sixty-five
  swift sailing vessels.” This implies, I imagine, that the new law
  diminished the total number of persons chargeable with trierarchy.

  [1016] Deinarchus adv. Demosthen. p. 95. s. 43. Εἰσί τινες ἐν
  τῷ δικαστηρίῳ τῶν ἐν τοῖς τριακοσίοις γεγενημένων, ὅθ᾽ οὗτος
  (Demosthenes) ἐτίθει τὸν περὶ τῶν τριηράρχων νόμον. Οὐ φράσετε
  τοῖς πλησίον ὅτι τρία τάλαντα λαβὼν μετέγραφε καὶ μετεσκεύαζε τὸν
  νόμον καθ᾽ ἑκάστην ἐκκλησίαν, καὶ τὰ μὲν ἐπώλει ὦν εἰλήφει τὴν
  τιμὴν, τὰ δ᾽ ἀποδόμενος οὐκ ἐβεβαίου;

  Without accepting this assertion of a hostile speaker, so far
  as it goes to accuse Demosthenes of having accepted bribes—we
  may safely accept it, so far as it affirms that he made several
  changes and modifications in the law before it finally passed; a
  fact not at all surprising, considering the intense opposition
  which it called forth.

  Some of the Dikasts, before whom Deinarchus was pleading, had
  been included among the Three Hundred (that is, the richest
  citizens in the State) when Demosthenes proposed his trierarchic
  reform. This will show, among various other proofs which might
  be produced, that the Athenian Dikasts did not always belong to
  the poorest class of citizens, as the jests of Aristophanes would
  lead us to believe.

  [1017] Demosthen. De Coronâ, p. 329. Boeckh (Attisch. Seewesen,
  p. 183, and Publ. Econ. Ath. iv. 14) thinks that this
  passage—διτάλαντον δ᾽ εἶχες ἔρανον δωρεὰν παρὰ τῶν ἡγεμόνων
  τῶν συμμοριῶν, ἐφ᾽ οἷς ἐλυμῄνω τὸν τριηραρχικὸν νόμον—must
  allude to injury done by Æschines to the law in later years,
  after it became a law. But I am unable to see the reason for so
  restricting its meaning. The rich men would surely bribe most
  highly, and raise most opposition, against the first passing of
  the law, as they were then most likely to be successful; and
  Æschines, whether bribed or not bribed, would most naturally as
  well as most effectively stand out against the novelty introduced
  by his rival, without waiting to see it actually become a part of
  the laws of the State.

Thus were the trierarchic symmories distributed and assessed anew
upon each man in the ratio of his wealth, and therefore most largely
upon the Three Hundred richest.[1018] How long the law remained
unchanged, we do not know. But it was found to work admirably well;
and Demosthenes boasts that during the entire war (that is, from
the renewal of the war about August 340 B. C., to the battle of
Chæroneia in August 338 B. C.) all the trierarchs named under the law
were ready in time without complaint or suffering; while the ships,
well-equipped and exempt from the previous causes of delay, were
found prompt and effective for all exigencies. Not one was either
left behind, or lost at sea, throughout these two years.[1019]

  [1018] See the citation from Hyperides in Harpokrat. v. Συμμορία.
  The Symmories are mentioned in Inscription xiv. of Boeckh’s
  Urkunden über das Attische Seewesen (p. 465), which Inscription
  bears the date of 325 B. C. Many of these Inscriptions name
  individual citizens, in different numbers three, five, or six, as
  joint trierarchs of the same vessel.

  [1019] Demosth. De Coronâ, p. 262.

Probably the first fruits of the Demosthenic reform in Athenian naval
administration, was, the fleet equipped under Phokion, which acted
so successfully at and near Byzantium. The operations of Athenians
at sea, though not known in detail, appear to have been better
conducted and more prosperous in their general effect than they had
ever been since the Social War. But there arose now a grave and
melancholy dispute in the interior of Greece, which threw her upon
her defence by land. This new disturbing cause was nothing less than
another Sacred War, declared by the Amphiktyonic assembly against
the Lokrians of Amphissa. Kindled chiefly by the Athenian Æschines,
it more than compensated Philip for his repulse at Byzantium and
his defeat by the Triballi; bringing, like the former Sacred War,
aggrandizement to him alone, and ruin to Grecian liberty.

I have recounted, in the fourth volume of this work,[1020] the first
Sacred War recorded in Grecian history (590-580 B. C.), about two
centuries before the birth of Æschines and Demosthenes. That war
had been undertaken by the Amphiktyonic Greeks to punish, and ended
by destroying, the flourishing seaport of Kirrha, situated near
the mouth of the river Pleistus, on the coast of the fertile plain
stretching from the southern declivity of Delphi to the sea. Kirrha
was originally the port of Delphi; and of the ancient Phokian town
of Krissa, to which Delphi was once an annexed sanctuary.[1021] But
in process of time Kirrha increased at the expense of both; through
profits accumulated from the innumerable visitors by sea who landed
there as the nearest access to the temple. The prosperous Kirrhæans,
inspiring jealousy at Delphi and Krissa, were accused of extortion
in the tolls levied from visitors, as well as of other guilty or
offensive proceedings. An Amphiktyonic war, wherein the Athenian
Solon stood prominently forward, being declared against them,
Kirrha was taken and destroyed. Its fertile plain was consecrated
to the Delphian god, under an oath taken by all the Amphiktyonic
members, with solemn pledges and formidable imprecations against
all disturbers. The entire space between the temple and the sea now
became, as the oracle had required, sacred property of the god; that
is, incapable of being tilled, planted, or occupied in any permanent
way, by man, and devoted only to spontaneous herbage with pasturing
animals.

  [1020] Chap. xxviii. p. 62 _seqq._

  [1021] For the topography of the country round Delphi, see
  the instructive work of Ulrichs, Reisen und Forschungen in
  Griechenland (Bremen, 1840) chapters i. and ii. about Kirrha and
  Krissa.

But though the Delphians thus procured the extirpation of their
troublesome neighbors at Kirrha, it was indispensable that on or
near the same spot there should exist a town and port, for the
accommodation of the guests who came from all quarters to Delphi;
the more so, as such persons, not merely visitors, but also traders
with goods to sell, now came in greater multitudes than ever, from
the increased attractions imparted out of the rich spoils of Kirrha
itself, to the Pythian festival. How this want was at first supplied,
while the remembrance of the oath was yet fresh, we are not informed.
But in process of time Kirrha became reoccupied and refortified by
the western neighbors of Delphi—the Lokrians of Amphissa—on whose
borders it stood, and for whom probably it served as a port not less
than for Delphi. These new occupants received the guests coming to
the temple, enriched themselves by the accompanying profit and took
into cultivation a certain portion of the plain around the town.[1022]

  [1022] Æschines adv. Ktesiph. p. 69; compare Livy, xlii. 5;
  Pausanias, x. 37, 4. The distance from Delphi to Kirrha is given
  by Pausanias at sixty stadia, or about seven English miles: by
  Strabo at eighty stadia.

At what period the occupation by the Lokrians had its origin, we
are unable to say. So much however we make out—not merely from
Demosthenes, but even from Æschines—that in their time it was an
ancient and established occupation—not a recent intrusion or novelty.
The town was fortified; the space immediately adjacent being tilled
and claimed by the Lokrians as their own.[1023] This indeed was
a departure from the oath, sworn by Solon with his Amphiktyonic
contemporaries, to consecrate Kirrha and its lands to the Delphian
god. But if that oath had been literally carried out, the god
himself, and the Delphians among whom he dwelt, would have been the
principal losers; because the want of a convenient port would have
been a serious discouragement, if not a positive barrier, against
the arrival of visitors, most of whom came by sea. Accordingly the
renovation of the town and port of Kirrha, doubtless on a modest
scale, together with a space of adjacent land for tillage, was at
least tolerated, if not encouraged. Much of the plain, indeed, still
remained unfilled and unplanted, as the property of Apollo; the
boundaries being perhaps not accurately drawn.

  [1023] Æschines, _l. c._; Demosth. De Coronâ, p. 277. τὴν
  χώραν ἣν οἱ μὲν Ἀμφισσεῖς σφῶν αὐτῶν γεωργεῖν ἔφασαν, οὗτος δὲ
  (Æschines) τῆς ἱερᾶς χώρας ᾐτιᾶτο εἶναι, etc.

While the Lokrians had thus been serviceable to the Delphian
temple by occupying Kirrha, they had been still more valuable as
its foremost auxiliaries and protectors against the Phokians,
their enemies of long standing.[1024] One of the first objects of
Philomelus the Phokian, after defeating the Lokrian armed force, was
to fortify the sacred precinct of Delphi on its western side, against
their attacks;[1025] and we cannot doubt that their position in close
neighborhood to Delphi must have been one of positive suffering as
well as of danger, during the years when the Phokian leaders, with
their numerous mercenary bands, remained in victorious occupation of
the temple, and probably of the harbor of Kirrha also. The subsequent
turn of fortune,—when Philip crushed the Phokians and when the
Amphiktyonic assembly was reorganized, with him as its chief,—must
have found the Amphissian Lokrians among the warmest allies and
sympathizers. Resuming possession of Kirrha, they may perhaps have
been emboldened, in such a moment of triumphant reaction, to enlarge
their occupancy round the walls to a greater extent than they had
done before. Moreover they were animated with feelings attached to
Thebes; and were hostile to Athens, as the ally and upholder of their
enemies the Phokians.

  [1024] Diodor. xvi. 24; Thucyd. iii. 101.

  [1025] Diodor. xvi. 25.

Matters were in this condition when the spring meeting of the
Amphiktyonic assembly (February or March 339 B. C.) was held at
Delphi. Diognetus was named by the Athenians to attend it as
Hieromnemon, or chief legate; with three Pylagoræ or vice-legates,
Æschines, Meidias, and Thrasykles.[1026] We need hardly believe
Demosthenes, when he states that the name of Æschines was put up
without foreknowledge on the part of any one; and that though it
passed, yet not more than two or three hands were held up in his
favor.[1027] Soon after they reached Delphi, Diognetus was seized
with a fever, so that the task of speaking in the Amphiktyonic
assembly was confided to Æschines.

  [1026] Æschines adv. Ktesiph. p. 69.

  [1027] Demosthen. De Coronâ, p. 277.

There stood in the Delphian temple some golden or gilt shields
dedicated as an offering out of the spoils taken at the battle of
Platæa, a century and a half before,—with an inscription to this
effect,—“Dedicated by the Athenians, out of the spoils of Persians
and Thebans engaged in joint battle against the Greeks.” It appears
that these shields had recently been set up afresh (having been
perhaps stript of their gilding by the Phokian plunderers), in a
new cell or chapel, without the full customary forms of prayer or
solemnities;[1028] which perhaps might be supposed unnecessary,
as the offering was not now dedicated for the first time. The
inscription, little noticed and perhaps obscured by the lapse of
time on the original shields, would now stand forth brightly and
conspicuously on the new gilding; reviving historical recollections
highly offensive to the Thebans,[1029] and to the Amphissian Lokrians
as friends of Thebes. These latter not only remonstrated against it
in the Amphiktyonic assembly, but were even preparing (if we are
to believe Æschines), to accuse Athens of impiety; and to invoke
against her a fine of fifty talents, for omission of the religious
solemnities.[1030] But this is denied by Demosthenes;[1031] who
states that the Lokrians could not bring any such accusation against
Athens without sending a formal summons,—which they had never sent.
Demosthenes would be doubtless right as to the regular form, probably
also as to the actual fact; though Æschines accuses him of having
received bribes[1032] to defend the iniquities of the Lokrians.
Whether the Lokrians went so far as to invoke a penalty, or not,—at
any rate they spoke in terms of complaint against the proceeding.
Such complaint was not without real foundation; since it was better
for the common safety of Hellenic liberty against the Macedonian
aggressor, that the treason of Thebes at the battle of Platæa should
stand as a matter of past antiquity, rather than be republished in a
new edition. But this was not the ground taken by the complainants,
nor could they directly impeach the right of Athens to burnish up her
old donatives. Accordingly they assailed the act on the allegation
of impiety, as not having been preceded by the proper religious
solemnities; whereby they obtained the opportunity of inveighing
against Athens, as ally of the Phokians in their recent sacrilege,
and enemy of Thebes the steadfast champion of the god.

  [1028] This must have been an ἀποκατάστασις τῶν ἀναθημάτων
  (compare Plutarch, Demetrius, c. 13), requiring to be preceded by
  solemn ceremonies, sometimes specially directed by the oracle.

  [1029] How painfully the Thebans of the Demosthenic age felt the
  recollection of the alliance of their ancestors with the Persians
  at Platæa, we may read in Demosthenes, De Symmoriis, p. 187.

  It appears that the Thebans also had erected a new chapel at
  Delphi (after 346 B. C.) out of the spoils acquired from the
  conquered Phokians—ὁ ἀπὸ Φωκέων ναὸς, ὃν ἱδρύσαντο Θηβαῖοι
  (Diodor. xvii. 10).

  [1030] Æschines adv. Ktesiph. p. 70. The words of his speech
  do not however give either a full or a clear account of the
  transaction; which I have endeavored, as well as I can, to supply
  in the text.

  [1031] Demosthen. De Coronâ, p. 277.

  [1032] Æschines adv. Ktesiph. p. 69.

“The Amphiktyons being assembled (I here give the main recital,
though not the exact words, of Æschines), a friendly person came to
acquaint us that the Amphissians were bringing on their accusation
against Athens. My sick colleagues requested me immediately to enter
the assembly and undertake her defence. I made haste to comply, and
was just beginning to speak, when an Amphissian,—of extreme rudeness
and brutality,—perhaps even under the influence of some misguiding
divine impulse,—interrupted me and exclaimed,—‘Do not hear him,
men of Hellas! Do not permit the name of the Athenian people to be
pronounced among you at this holy season! Turn them out of the sacred
ground, like men under a curse.’ With that he denounced us for our
alliance with the Phokians, and poured out many other outrageous
invectives against the city.

“To me (continues Æschines) all this was intolerable to hear; I
cannot even now think on it with calmness—and at the moment, I was
provoked to anger such as I had never felt in my life before. The
thought crossed me that I would retort upon the Amphissians for their
impious invasion of the Kirrhæan land. That plain, lying immediately
below the sacred precinct in which we were assembled, was visible
throughout. ‘You see, Amphiktyons (said I), that plain cultivated
by the Amphissians, with buildings erected in it for farming and
pottery! You have before your eyes the harbor, consecrated by the
oath of your forefathers, now occupied and fortified. You know
of yourselves, without needing witnesses to tell you, that these
Amphissians have levied tolls and are taking profit out of the
sacred harbor!’ I then caused to be read publicly the ancient
oracle, the oath, and the imprecations (pronounced after the first
Sacred War, wherein Kirrha was destroyed). Then continuing, I
said—‘Here am I, ready to defend the god and the sacred property,
according to the oath of our forefathers, with hand, foot, voice,
and all the powers that I possess. I stand prepared to clear my own
city of her obligations to the gods do you take counsel forthwith
for yourselves. You are here about to offer sacrifice and pray
to the gods for good things, publicly and individually. Look well
then,—where will you find voice, or soul, or eyes, or courage,
to pronounce such supplications, if you permit these accursed
Amphissians to remain unpunished, when they have come under the
imprecations of the recorded oath? Recollect that the oath distinctly
proclaims the sufferings awaiting all impious transgressors, and even
menaces those who tolerate their proceedings, by declaring,—They who
do not stand forward to vindicate Apollo, Artemis, Latona, and Athênê
Pronæa, may not sacrifice undefiled or with favorable acceptance.’”

Such is the graphic and impressive description,[1033] given by
Æschines himself some years afterwards to the Athenian assembly,
of his own address to the Amphiktyonic meeting in spring 339 B.
C.; on the lofty sight of the Delphian Pylæa, with Kirrha and its
plain spread out before his eyes, and with the ancient oath and
all its fearful imprecations recorded on the brass plate hard by,
readable by every one. His speech, received with loud shouts, roused
violent passion in the bosoms of the Amphiktyons, as well as of the
hearers assembled round. The audience at Delphi was not like that
of Athens. Athenian citizens were accustomed to excellent oratory,
and to the task of balancing opposite arguments: though susceptible
of high-wrought intellectual excitement—admiration or repugnance
as the case might be—they discharged it all in the final vote, and
then went home to their private affairs. But to the comparatively
rude men at Delphi, the speech of a first-rate Athenian orator was
a rarity. When Æschines, with great rhetorical force, unexpectedly
revived in their imaginations the ancient and terrific history of the
curse of Kirrha[1034]—assisted by all the force of visible and local
association—they were worked up to madness; while in such minds as
theirs, the emotion raised would not pass off by simple voting, but
required to be discharged by instant action.

  [1033] Æschines adv. Ktesiph, p. 70.

  [1034] Demosth. De Coronâ, p. 277. ὡς δὲ τὸ τῆς πόλεως ἀξίωμα
  λαβὼν (Æschines) ἀφίκετο εἰς τοὺς Ἀμφικτύονας, πάντα τἄλλ᾽ ἀφεὶς
  καὶ παριδὼν ἐπέραινεν ἐφ᾽ οἷς ἐμισθώθη, καὶ λόγους εὐπροσώπους
  καὶ μύθους, ὅθεν ἡ Κιῤῥαία χώρα καθιερώθη, συνθεὶς καὶ διεξελθὼν,
  ~ἀνθρώπους ἀπείρους λόγων~ καὶ τὸ μέλλον οὐ προορωμένους, τοὺς
  Ἀμφικτύονας, πείθει ψηφίσασθαι, etc.

How intense and ungovernable that emotion became, is shown by
the monstrous proceedings which followed. The original charge of
impiety brought against Athens, set forth by the Amphissian speaker
coarsely and ineffectively, and indeed noway lending itself to
exaggeration—was now altogether forgotten in the more heinous impiety
of which Æschines had accused the Amphissians themselves. About
the necessity of punishing them, there was but one language. The
Amphissian speakers appear to have fled—since even their persons
would hardly have been safe amidst such an excitement. And if the day
had not been already far advanced, the multitude would have rushed
at once down from the scene of debate to Kirrha.[1035] On account of
the lateness of the hour, a resolution was passed which the herald
formally proclaimed,—That on the morrow at daybreak, the whole
Delphian population, of sixteen years and upwards, freemen as well as
slaves, should muster at the sacrificing place, provided with spades
and pickaxes: That the assembly of Amphiktyonic legates would there
meet them, to act in defence of the god and the sacred property: That
if there were any city whose deputies did not appear, it should be
excluded from the temple, and proclaimed unholy and accursed.[1036]

  [1035] Æschin. adv. Ktesiph. p. 70. κραυγὴ πολλὴ καὶ θόρυβος ἦν
  τῶν Ἀμφικτυόνων, καὶ λόγος ἦν οὐκέτι περὶ τῶν ἀσπίδων ἃς ἡμεῖς
  ἀνέθεμεν, ἀλλ᾽ ἤδη περὶ τῆς τῶν Ἀμφισσέων τιμωρίας. Ἤδη δὲ πόῤῥω
  τῆς ἡμέρας οὔσης, προελθὼν ὁ κῆρυξ, etc.

  [1036] Æschines adv. Ktesiph. p. 71.

At daybreak, accordingly, the muster took place. The Delphian
multitude came with their implements for demolition:—the Amphiktyons
with Æschines placed themselves at the head:—and all marched down
to the port of Kirrha. Those there resident—probably astounded and
terrified at so furious an inroad from an entire population with
whom, a few hours before, they had been on friendly terms—abandoned
the place without resistance, and ran to acquaint their
fellow-citizens at Amphissa. The Amphiktyons with their followers
then entered Kirrha, demolished all the harbor-conveniences, and
even set fire to the houses in the town. This Æschines himself tells
us; and we may be very sure (though he does not tell us) that the
multitude thus set on were not contented with simply demolishing,
but plundered and carried away whatever they could lay hands on.
Presently, however, the Amphissians, whose town was on the high
ground about seven or eight miles west of Delphi, apprised of the
destruction of their property and seeing their houses in flames,
arrived in haste to the rescue, with their full-armed force. The
Amphiktyons and the Delphian multitude were obliged in their turn to
evacuate Kirrha, and hurry back to Delphi at their best speed. They
were in the greatest personal danger. According to Demosthenes, some
were actually seized; but they must have been set at liberty almost
immediately.[1037] None were put to death; an escape which they
probably owed to the respect borne by the Amphissians, even under
such exasperating circumstances, to the Amphiktyonic function.

  [1037] Demosthen. De Coronâ, p. 277. According to the second
  decree of the Amphiktyons cited in this oration (p. 278), some of
  the Amphiktyons were wounded. But I concur with Droysen, Franke,
  and others, in disputing the genuineness of these decrees; and
  the assertion, that some of the Amphiktyons were wounded, is one
  among the grounds for disputing it: for if such had been the
  fact, Æschines could hardly have failed to mention it; since it
  would have suited exactly the drift and purpose of his speech.

  Æschines is by far the best witness for the proceedings at this
  spring meeting of the Amphiktyons. He was not only present, but
  the leading person concerned; if he makes a wrong statement,
  it must be by design. But if the facts as stated by Æschines
  are at all near the truth, it is hardly possible that the two
  decrees cited in Demosthenes can have been the real decrees
  passed by the Amphiktyons. The substance of what was resolved,
  as given by Æschines, pp. 70, 71, is materially different from
  the first decree quoted in the oration of Demosthenes, p. 278.
  There is no mention, in the letter, of those vivid and prominent
  circumstances—the summoning of all the Delphians, freemen and
  slaves above sixteen years of age, with spades and mattocks—the
  exclusion from the temple, and the cursing, of any city which did
  not appear to take part.

  The compiler of those decrees appears to have had only
  Demosthenes before him, and to have known nothing of Æschines.
  Of the violent proceedings of the Amphiktyons, both provoked and
  described by Æschines, Demosthenes says nothing.

On the morning after this narrow escape, the president, a Thessalian
of Pharsalus, named Kottyphus, convoked a full Amphiktyonic Ekklesia;
that is, not merely the Amphiktyons proper, or the legates and
co-legates deputed from the various cities,—but also, along with
them, the promiscuous multitude present for purpose of sacrifice and
consultation of the oracle. Loud and indignant were the denunciations
pronounced in this meeting against the Amphissians; while Athens
was eulogized as having taken the lead in vindicating the rights
of Apollo. It was finally resolved that the Amphissians should be
punished as sinners against the god and the sacred domain, as well
as against the Amphiktyons personally; that the legates should now
go home, to consult each his respective city; and that as soon as
some positive resolution for executory measures could be obtained,
each should come to a special meeting, appointed at Thermopylæ for
a future day,—seemingly not far distant, and certainly prior to the
regular season of autumnal convocation.

Thus was the spark applied, and the flame kindled, of a second
Amphiktyonic war, between six and seven years after the conclusion
of the former in 346 B. C. What has been just recounted comes to us
from Æschines, himself the witness as well as the incendiary. We here
judge him, not from accusations preferred by his rival Demosthenes,
but from his own depositions; and from facts which he details not
simply without regret, but with a strong feeling of pride. It is
impossible to read them without becoming sensible of the profound
misfortune which had come over the Grecian world; since the unanimity
or dissidence of its component portions were now determined, not
by political congresses at Athens or Sparta, but by debates in the
religious convocation at Delphi and Thermopylæ. Here we have the
political sentiment of the Amphissian Lokrians,—their sympathy for
Thebes, and dislike to Athens,—dictating complaint and invective
against the Athenians on the allegation of impiety. Against every
one, it was commonly easy to find matter for such an allegation, if
parties were on the look-out for it; while defence was difficult,
and the fuel for kindling religious antipathy all at the command
of the accuser. Accordingly Æschines troubles himself little with
the defence, but plants himself at once on the vantage-ground of
the accuser, and retorts the like charge of impiety against the
Amphissians, on totally different allegations. By superior oratory,
as well as by the appeal to an ancient historical fact of a character
peculiarly terror-striking, he exasperates the Amphiktyons to a
pitch of religious ardor, in vindication of the god, such as to make
them disdain alike the suggestions either of social justice or of
political prudence. Demosthenes—giving credit to the Amphiktyons
for something like the equity of procedure, familiar to Athenian
ideas and practice—affirmed that no charge against Athens could have
been made before them by the Lokrians, because no charge would be
entertained without previous notice given to Athens. But Æschines,
when accusing the Lokrians,—on a matter of which he had given no
notice, and which it first crossed his mind to mention at the moment
when he made his speech[1038]—found these Amphiktyons so inflammable
in their religious antipathies, that they forthwith call out and head
the Delphian mob armed with pickaxes for demolition. To evoke, from a
far-gone and half-forgotten past, the memory of that fierce religious
feud, for the purpose of extruding established proprietors, friends
and defenders of the temple, from an occupancy wherein they rendered
essential service to the numerous visitors of Delphi—to execute this
purpose with brutal violence, creating the maximum of exasperation
in the sufferers, endangering the lives of the Amphiktyonic legates,
and raising another Sacred War pregnant with calamitous results—this
was an amount of mischief such as the bitterest enemy of Greece could
hardly have surpassed. The prior imputations of irreligion, thrown
out by the Lokrian orator against Athens, may have been futile and
malicious; but the retort of Æschines was far worse, extending as
well as embittering the poison of pious discord, and plunging the
Amphiktyonic assembly in a contest from which there was no exit
except by the sword of Philip.

  [1038] Æschines adv. Ktesiph. p. 70. ~ἐπῆλθε δ᾽ οὖν μοι ἐπὶ
  τὴν γνώμην~ μνησθῆναι τῆς τῶν Ἀμφισσέων περὶ τὴν γῆν τὴν ἱερὰν
  ἀσεβείας, etc.

Some comments on this proceeding appeared requisite, partly because
it is the only distinct matter known to us, from an actual witness,
respecting the Amphiktyonic council—partly from its ruinous
consequences, which will presently appear. At first, indeed, these
consequences did not manifest themselves; and when Æschines returned
to Athens, he told his story to the satisfaction of the people. We
may presume that he reported the proceedings at the time in the same
manner as he stated them afterwards, in the oration now preserved.
The Athenians, indignant at the accusation brought by the Lokrians
against Athens, were disposed to take part in that movement of pious
enthusiasm which Æschines had kindled on the subject of Kirrha,
pursuant to the ancient oath sworn by their forefathers.[1039] So
forcibly was the religious point of view of this question thrust
upon the public mind, that the opposition of Demosthenes was hardly
listened to. He laid open at once the consequences of what had
happened, saying—“Æschines, you are bringing war into Attica—an
Amphiktyonic war.” But his predictions were cried down as allusions
or mere manifestations of party feeling against a rival.[1040]
Æschines denounced him openly as the hired agent of the impious
Lokrians;[1041] a charge sufficiently refuted by the conduct of these
Lokrians themselves, who are described by Æschines as gratuitously
insulting Athens.

  [1039] Æschines adv. Ktesiph. p. 71. καὶ τὰς πράξεις ἡμῶν
  ἀποδεξαμένου τοῦ δήμου, καὶ τῆς πόλεως πάσης προαιρουμένης
  εὐσεβεῖν, etc. Οὐκ ἐᾷ (Demosthenes) μεμνῆσθαι τῶν ὅρκων, οὓς οἱ
  πρόγονοι ὤμοσαν, οὐδὲ τῆς ἀρᾶς οὐδὲ τῆς τοῦ θεοῦ μαντείας.

  [1040] Demosth. De Coronâ, p. 275.

  [1041] Æschines adv. Ktesiph. p. 69-71.

But though the general feeling at Athens, immediately after the
return of Æschines, was favorable to his proceedings at Delphi, it
did not long continue so. Nor is the change difficult to understand.
The first mention of the old oath, and the original devastation
of Kirrha, sanctioned by the name and authority of Solon, would
naturally turn the Athenian mind into a strong feeling of pious
sentiment against the tenants of that accursed spot. But farther
information would tend to prove that the Lokrians were more sinned
against than sinning; that the occupation of Kirrha as a harbor
was a convenience to all Greeks, and most of all to the temple
itself; lastly, that the imputations said to have been cast by the
Lokrians upon Athens had either never been made at all (so we find
Demosthenes affirming), or were nothing worse than an unauthorized
burst of ill-temper from some rude individual.—Though Æschines had
obtained at first a vote of approbation for his proceedings, yet
when his proposition came to be made—that Athens should take part
in the special Amphiktyonic meeting convened for punishing the
Amphissians—the opposition of Demosthenes was found more effective.
Both the Senate, and the public assembly passed a resolution
peremptorily forbidding all interference on the part of Athens at
that special meeting. “The Hieromnemon and the Pylagoræ of Athens (so
the decree prescribed) shall take no part either in word or deed or
resolution, with the persons assembled at that special meeting. They
shall visit Delphi and Thermopylæ at the regular times fixed by our
forefathers.” This important decree marks the change of opinion at
Athens. Æschines indeed tells us, that it was only procured by crafty
manœuvre on the part of Demosthenes; being hurried through in a thin
assembly, at the close of business, when most citizens (and Æschines
among them) had gone away. But there is nothing to confirm such
insinuations; moreover Æschines, if he had still retained the public
sentiment in his favor, could easily have baffled the tricks of his
rival.[1042]

  [1042] Æschines adv. Ktesiph. p. 71.

The special meeting of Amphiktyons at Thermopylæ accordingly took
place, at some time between the two regular periods of spring and
autumn. No legates attended from Athens—nor any from Thebes; a
fact made known to us by Æschines, and remarkable as evincing an
incipient tendency towards concurrence, such as had never existed
before, between these two important cities. The remaining legates
met, determined to levy a joint force for the purpose of punishing
the Amphissians, and chose the president Kottyphus general. According
to Æschines, this force was brought together, marched against the
Lokrians, and reduced them to submission, but granted to them
indulgent terms; requiring from them a fine to the Delphian god,
payable at stated intervals—sentencing some of the Lokrian leaders
to banishment as having instigated the encroachment on the sacred
domain—and recalling others who had opposed it. But the Lokrians (he
says), after the force had retired, broke faith, paid nothing, and
brought back all the guilty leaders. Demosthenes, on the contrary,
states, that Kottyphus summoned contingents from the various
Amphiktyonic states; but some never came at all, while those that did
come were lukewarm and inefficient; so that the purpose altogether
miscarried.[1043] The account of Demosthenes is the more probable of
the two: for we know from Æschines himself that neither Athens nor
Thebes took part in the proceeding, while Sparta had been excluded
from the Amphiktyonic council in 346 B. C. There remained therefore
only the secondary and smaller states. Of these, the Peloponnesians,
even if inclined, could not easily come, since they could neither
march by land through Bœotia, nor come with ease by sea while the
Amphissians were masters of the port of Kirrha; and the Thessalians
and their neighbors were not likely to take so intense an interest in
the enterprize as to carry it through without the rest. Moreover, the
party who were only waiting for a pretext to invite the interference
of Philip, would rather prefer to do nothing, in order to show how
impossible it was to act without him. Hence we may fairly assume
that what Æschines represents as indulgent terms granted to the
Lokrians and afterwards violated by them, was at best nothing more
than a temporary accommodation; concluded because Kottyphus could
not do anything—probably did not wish to do anything—without the
intervention of Philip.

  [1043] Demosthen. De Coronâ, p. 277; Æschines adv. Ktesiph. p. 72.

The next Pylæa, or the autumnal meeting of the Amphiktyons at
Thermopylæ, now arrived; yet the Lokrians were still unsubdued.
Kottyphus and his party now made the formal proposition to
invoke the aid of Philip. “If you do not consent (they told the
Amphiktyons[1044]), you must come forward personally in force,
subscribe ample funds, and fine all defaulters. Choose which you
prefer.” The determination of the Amphiktyons was taken to invoke
the interference of Philip; appointing him commander of the combined
force, and champion of the god, in the new Sacred War, as he had been
in the former.

  [1044] Demosth. De Coronâ, p. 277, 278.

At the autumnal meeting[1045] where this fatal measure of calling
in Philip was adopted, legates from Athens were doubtless present
(Æschines among them), according to usual custom; for the decree of
Demosthenes had enacted that the usual custom should be followed,
though it had forbidden the presence of legates at the special or
extraordinary meeting. Æschines[1046] was not backward in advocating
the application to Philip; nor indeed could he take any other course,
consistently with what he had done at the preceding spring meeting.
He himself only laments that Athens suffered herself to be deterred,
by the corrupt suggestions of Demosthenes, from heading the crusade
against Amphissa, when the gods themselves had singled her out for
that pious duty.[1047] What part Thebes took in the nomination of
Philip, or whether her legates attended at the autumnal Amphiktyonic
meeting, we do not know. But it is to be remembered that one of the
twelve Amphiktyonic double suffrages now belonged to the Macedonians
themselves; while many of the remaining members had become dependent
on Macedonia—the Thessalians, Phthiot Achæans, Perrhæbians,
Dolopians, Magnetes, etc.[1048] It was probably not very difficult
for Kottyphus and Æschines to procure a vote investing Philip with
the command. Even those who were not favorable might dread the charge
of impiety if they opposed it.

  [1045] The chronology of the events here recounted has been
  differently conceived by different authors. According to my
  view, the first motion raised by Æschines against the Amphissian
  Lokrians, occurred in the spring meeting of the Amphiktyons at
  Delphi in 339 B. C. (the year of the archon Theophrastus at
  Athens); next, there was held a special or extraordinary meeting
  of Amphiktyons, and a warlike manifestation against the Lokrians;
  after which came the regular autumnal meeting at Thermopylæ (B.
  C. 339—September—the year of the archon Lysimachides at Athens),
  where the vote was passed to call in the military interference of
  Philip.

  This chronology does not, indeed, agree with the two so-called
  decrees of the Amphiktyons, and with the documentary
  statement—Ἄρχων Μνησιθείδης, Ἀνθεστηριῶνος ἕκτῃ ἐπὶ δέκα—which we
  read as incorporated in the oration De Coronâ, p. 279. But I have
  already stated that I think these documents spurious.

  The archon Mnesitheides (like all the other archons named in
  the documents recited in the oration De Coronâ) is a wrong
  name, and cannot have been quoted from any genuine document.
  Next, the first decree of the Amphiktyons is not in harmony
  with the statement of Æschines, himself the great mover, of
  what the Amphiktyons really did. Lastly, the second decree
  plainly intimates that the person who composed the two decrees
  conceived the nomination of Philip to have taken place in the
  very same Amphiktyonic assembly as the first movement against
  the Lokrians. The same words, ἐπὶ ἱερέως Κλειναγόρου, ἐαρινῆς
  πυλαίας—prefixed to both decrees, must be understood to indicate
  the same assembly. Mr. Clinton’s supposition that the first
  decree was passed at the spring meeting of 339 B. C.—and the
  second at the spring meeting of 338 B. C.—Kleinagoras being the
  eponymus in both years—appears to me nowise probable. The special
  purpose and value of an eponymus would disappear, if the same
  person served in that capacity for two successive years. Boeckh
  adopts the conjecture of Reiske, altering ἐαρινῆς πυλαίας in the
  second decree into ὀπωρινῆς πυλαίας. This would bring the second
  decree into better harmony with chronology; but there is nothing
  in the state of the text to justify such an innovation. Böhnecke
  (Forsch. p. 498-508) adopts a supposition yet more improbable.
  He supposes that Æschines was chosen Pylagoras at the beginning
  of the Attic year 340-339 B. C., and that he attended first at
  Delphi at the _autumnal_ meeting of the Amphiktyons 340 B. C.;
  that he there raised the violent storm which he himself describes
  in his speech; and that he afterwards, at the subsequent spring
  meeting, came both the two decrees which we now read in the
  oration De Coronâ. But the first of these two decrees can
  never have come _after_ the outrageous proceeding described by
  Æschines. I will add, that in the form of decree, the president
  Kottyphus is called an Arcadian; whereas Æschines designates him
  as a _Pharsalian_.

  [1046] Demosth. De Coronâ, p. 278.

  [1047] Æschines adv. Ktesiph. p. 72 ... τῶν μὲν θεῶν τὴν
  ἡγεμονίαν τῆς εὐσεβείας ἡμῖν παραδεδωκότων, τῆς δὲ Δημοσθένους
  δωροδοκίας ἐμποδὼν γεγενημένης.

  [1048] See Isokrates, Orat. V. (Philipp.) s. 22. 23.

During the spring and summer of this year 339 B. C. (the interval
between the two Amphiktyonic meetings), Philip had been engaged
in his expedition against the Scythians, and in his battle, while
returning, against the Triballi, wherein he received the severe wound
already mentioned. His recovery from this wound was completed, when
the Amphiktyonic vote, conferring upon him the command, was passed.
He readily accepted a mission which his partisans, and probably
his bribes, had been mainly concerned in procuring. Immediately
collecting his forces, he marched southward through Thessaly and
Thermopylæ, proclaiming his purpose of avenging the Delphian god
upon the unholy Lokrians of Amphissa. The Amphiktyonic deputies,
and the Amphiktyonic contingents in greater or less numbers,
accompanied his march. In passing through Thermopylæ, he took Nikæa
(one of the towns most essential to the security of the pass) from
the Thebans, in whose hands it had remained since his conquest of
Phokis in 346 B. C., though with a Macedonian garrison sharing in
the occupation.[1049] Not being yet assured of the concurrence of
the Thebans in his farther projects, he thought it safer to consign
this important town to the Thessalians, who were thoroughly in his
dependence.

  [1049] Æschines adv. Ktesiph. p. 73. ἐπειδὴ Φίλιππος αὐτῶν
  ἀφελόμενος Νίκαιαν Θετταλοῖς παρέδωκε, etc.

  Compare Demosthen. ad Philipp. Epistol. p. 153. ὑποπτεύεται δὲ
  ὑπὸ Θηβαίων Νίκαιαν μὲν φρουρᾷ κατέχων, etc.

His march from Thermopylæ whether to Delphi and Amphissa, or into
Bœotia, lay through Phokis. That unfortunate territory still
continued in the defenceless condition to which it had been condemned
by the Amphiktyonic sentence of 346 B. C., without a single fortified
town, occupied merely by small dispersed villages and by a population
scanty as well as poor. On reaching Elateia, once the principal
Phokian town, but now dismantled, Philip halted his army, and began
forthwith to reëstablish the walls, converting it into a strong place
for permanent military occupation. He at the same time occupied
Kytinium,[1050] the principal town in the little territory of Doris,
in the upper portion of the valley of the river Kephissus, situated
in the short mountain road from Thermopylæ to Amphissa.

  [1050] Philochorus ap. Dionys. Hal. ad Ammæum, p. 742.

The seizure of Elateia by Philip, coupled with his operations for
reconstituting it as a permanent military post, was an event of the
gravest moment, exciting surprise and uneasiness throughout a large
portion of the Grecian world. Hitherto he had proclaimed himself as
general acting under the Amphiktyonic vote of nomination, and as on
his march simply to vindicate the Delphian god against sacrilegious
Lokrians. Had such been his real purpose, however, he would have had
no occasion to halt at Elateia, much less to re-fortify and garrison
it. Accordingly it now became evident that he meant something
different—or at least something ulterior. He himself indeed no longer
affected to conceal his real purposes. Sending envoys to Thebes, he
announced that he had come to attack the Athenians, and earnestly
invited her coöperation as his ally, against enemies odious to her
as well as to himself. But if the Thebans, in spite of an excellent
opportunity to crush an ancient foe, should still determine to stand
aloof—he claimed of them at least a free passage through Bœotia, that
he might invade Attica with his own forces.[1051]

  [1051] Demosthen. De Coronâ, p. 293-299. Justin, ix. 3, “diu
  dissimulatum bellum Atheniensibus infert.” This expression is
  correct in the sense, that Philip, who had hitherto pretended
  to be on his march against Amphissa, disclosed his real purpose
  to be against Athens at the moment when he seized Elateia.
  Otherwise, he had been at open war with Athens, ever since the
  sieges of Byzantium and Perinthus in the preceding year.

The relations between Athens and Thebes at this moment were
altogether unfriendly. There had indeed been no actual armed
conflict between them since the conclusion of the Sacred War in
346 B. C. Yet the old sentiment of enmity and jealousy, dating
from earlier days and aggravated during that war, still continued
unabated. To soften this reciprocal dislike, and to bring about
coöperation with Thebes, had always been the aim of some Athenian
politicians—Eubulus—Aristophon—and Demosthenes himself, whom Æschines
tries to discredit as having been complimented and corrupted by
the Thebans.[1052] Nevertheless, in spite of various visits and
embassies to Thebes, where a philo-Athenian minority also subsisted,
nothing had ever been accomplished.[1053] The enmity still remained,
and had been even artificially aggravated (if we are to believe
Demosthenes[1054]) during the six months which elapsed since the
breaking out of the Amphissian quarrel, by Æschines and the partisans
of Philip in both cities.

  [1052] Æschines, Fals. Leg. p. 46, 47.

  [1053] Æschines adv. Ktesiph. p. 73; Demosth. De Coronâ, p. 281.

  [1054] Demosth. De Coronâ, p. 276, 281, 284. Ἀλλ᾽ ἐκεῖσε
  ἐπάνειμι, ὅτι τὸν ἐν Ἀμφίσσῃ πόλεμον τούτου (Æschines) μὲν
  ποιήσαντος, συμπεραναμένων δὲ τῶν ἄλλων τῶν συνέργων αὐτοῦ τὴν
  πρὸς Θηβαίους ἐχθρὰν, συνέβη τὸν Φίλιππον ἐλθεῖν ἐφ᾽ ἡμᾶς,
  οὗπερ ἕνεκα τὰς πόλεις οὗτοι συνέκρουον, etc. Οὕτω μέχρι πόῤῥω
  προήγαγον οὗτοι τὴν ἐχθράν.

The ill-will subsisting between Athens and Thebes at the moment when
Philip took possession of Elateia, was so acknowledged, that he had
good reason for looking upon confederacy of the two against him as
impossible.[1055] To enforce the request, that Thebes, already his
ally, would continue to act as such at this critical juncture, he
despatched thither envoys not merely Macedonian, but also Thessalian,
Dolopian, Phthiot Achæan, Ætolian, and Ænianes—the Amphiktyonic
allies who were now accompanying his march.[1056]

  [1055] Demosth. De Coronâ—ἧκεν ἔχων (Philip) τὴν δύναμιν καὶ τὴν
  Ἐλάτειαν κατέλαβεν, ὡς οὐδ᾽ ἂν εἴ τι γένοιτο ἔτι συμπνευσάντων ἂν
  ἡμῶν καὶ τῶν Θηβαίων.

  [1056] Philochorus ap. Dionys. Hal. ad Ammæum, p. 742.

If such were the hopes, and the reasonable hopes, of Philip, we may
easily understand how intense was the alarm among the Athenians,
when they first heard of the occupation of Elateia. Should the
Thebans comply, Philip would be in three days on the frontier of
Attica; and from the sentiment understood as well as felt to be
prevalent, the Athenians could not but anticipate, that free passage,
and a Theban reinforcement besides, would be readily granted. Ten
years before, Demosthenes himself (in his first Olynthiac) had
asserted that the Thebans would gladly join Philip in an attack on
Attica.[1057] If such was then the alienation, it had been increasing
rather than diminishing ever since. As the march of Philip had
hitherto been not merely rapid, but also understood as directed
towards Delphi and Amphissa, the Athenians had made no preparations
for the defence of their frontier. Neither their families nor their
movable property had yet been carried within walls. Nevertheless
they had now to expect, within little more than forty-eight hours,
an invading army as formidable and desolating as any of those during
the Peloponnesian war, under a commander far abler than Archidamus or
Agis.[1058]

  [1057] Demosth. Olynth. i. p. 16. Ἂν δ᾽ ἐκεῖνα Φίλιππος λάβῃ,
  τίς αὐτὸν κωλύσει δεῦρο βαδίζειν; Θηβαῖοι; οἳ, εἰ μὴ λίαν πικρὸν
  εἰπεῖν, καὶ συνεισβαλοῦσιν ἑτοίμως.

  [1058] Demosth. De Coronâ, p. 304. ἡ γὰρ ἐμὴ πολιτεία, ἧς οὗτος
  (Æschines) κατηγορεῖ, ἀντὶ μὲν τοῦ Θηβαίους μετὰ Φιλίππου
  συνεμβαλεῖν εἰς τὴν χώραν, ~ὃ πάντες ᾤοντο~, μεθ᾽ ἡμῶν
  παραταξαμένους ἐκεῖνον κωλύειν ἐποίησεν, etc.

Though the general history of this important period can be made out
only in outline, we are fortunate enough to obtain from Demosthenes
a striking narrative, in some detail, of the proceedings at Athens
immediately after the news of the capture of Elateia by Philip. It
was evening when the messenger arrived, just at the time when the
prytanes (or senators of the presiding tribe) were at supper in their
official residence. Immediately breaking up their meal, some ran to
call the generals whose duty it was to convoke the public assembly,
with the trumpeter who gave public notice thereof; so that the Senate
and assembly were convoked for the next morning at daybreak. Others
bestirred themselves in clearing out the market-place, which was full
of booths and stands, for traders selling merchandize. They even
set fire to these booths, in their hurry to get the space clear.
Such was the excitement and terror throughout the city, that the
public assembly was crowded at the earliest dawn, even before the
Senate could go through their forms and present themselves for the
opening ceremonies. At length the Senate joined the assembly, and the
prytanes came forward to announce the news, producing the messenger
with his public deposition. The herald then proclaimed the usual
words—“Who wishes to speak?” Not a man came forward. He proclaimed it
again and again; yet still no one rose.

At length, after a considerable interval of silence, Demosthenes rose
to speak. He addressed himself to that alarming conviction which
beset the minds of all, though no one had yet given it utterance—that
the Thebans were in hearty sympathy with Philip. “Suffer not
yourselves (he said) to believe any such thing. If the fact had been
so, Philip would have been already on your frontier, without halting
at Elateia. He has a large body of partisans at Thebes, procured by
fraud and corruption; but he has not the whole city. There is yet
a considerable Theban party, adverse to him and favorable to you.
It is for the purpose of emboldening his own partisans in Thebes,
overawing his opponents, and thus extorting a positive declaration
from the city in his favor—that he is making display of his force at
Elateia. And in this he will succeed, unless you, Athenians, shall
exert yourselves vigorously and prudently in counteraction. If you,
acting on your old aversion towards Thebes, shall now hold aloof,
Philip’s partisans in the city will become all-powerful, so that the
whole Theban force will march along with him against Attica. For
your own security, you must shake off these old feelings, however
well-grounded—and stand forward for the protection of Thebes, as
being in greater danger than yourselves. March forth your entire
military strength to the frontier, and thus embolden your partisans
in Thebes, to speak out openly against their philippizing opponents
who rely upon the army at Elateia. Next, send ten envoys to Thebes;
giving them full powers, in conjunction with the generals, to call
in your military force whenever they think fit. Let your envoys
demand neither concessions nor conditions from the Thebans; let them
simply tender the full force of Athens to assist the Thebans in their
present straits. If the offer be accepted, you will have secured an
ally inestimable for your own safety, while acting with a generosity
worthy of Athens; if it be refused, the Thebans will have themselves
to blame, and you will at least stand unimpeached on the score of
honor as well as of policy.”[1059]

  [1059] Demosth. De Coronâ, p. 286, 287; Diodor. xvi. 84. I have
  given the substance, in brief, of what Demosthenes represents
  himself to have said.

The recommendation of Demosthenes, alike wise and generous,
was embodied in a decree and adopted by the Athenians without
opposition.[1060] Neither Æschines, nor any one else, said a word
against it. Demosthenes himself, being named chief of the ten envoys,
proceeded forthwith to Thebes; while the military force of Attica was
at the same time marched to the frontier.

  [1060] This decree, or a document claiming to be such, is
  given _verbatim_ in Demosthenes, De Coronâ, p. 289, 290. It
  bears date on the 16th of the month Skirrophorion (June),
  under the archonship of Nausikles. This archon is a wrong or
  pseud-eponymous archon: and the document, to say nothing of its
  verbosity, implies that Athens was now about to pass out of
  pacific relations with Philip, and to begin war against him—which
  is contrary to the real fact.

  There also appear inserted, a few pages before, in the same
  speech (p. 282), four other documents, purporting to relate to
  the time immediately preceding the capture of Elateia by Philip.
  1. A decree of the Athenians, dated in the month Elaphebolion
  of the archon _Heropythus_. 2. Another decree, in the month
  Munychion of the same _archon_. 3. An answer addressed by Philip
  to the Athenians. 4. An answer addressed by Philip to the Thebans.

  Here again, the archon called _Heropythus_ is a wrong and unknown
  archon. Such manifest error of date would alone be enough to
  preclude me from trusting the document as genuine. Droysen is
  right, in my judgment, in rejecting all these five documents as
  spurious. The answer of Philip to the Athenians is adapted to the
  two decrees of the Athenians, and cannot be genuine if they are
  spurious.

  These decrees, too, like that dated in Skirrophorion, are not
  consistent with the true relations between Athens and Philip.
  They imply that she was at peace with him, and that hostilities
  were first undertaken against him by her after his occupation of
  Elateia; whereas open war had been prevailing between them for
  more than a year, ever since the summer of 340 B. C., and the
  maritime operations against him in the Propontis. That the war
  was going on without interruption during all this period—that
  Philip could not get near to Athens to strike a blow at her and
  close the war, except by bringing the Thebans and Thessalians
  into coöperation with him—and that for the attainment of this
  last purpose, he caused the Amphissian war to be kindled, through
  the corrupt agency of Æschines—is the express statement of
  Demosthenes, De Coronâ, p. 275, 276. Hence I find it impossible
  to believe in the authenticity either of the four documents here
  quoted, or of this supposed very long decree of the Athenians, on
  forming their alliance with Thebes, bearing date on the 16th of
  the month Skirrophorion, and cited De Coronâ, p. 289. I will add,
  that the two decrees which we read in p. 282, profess themselves
  as having been passed in the months Elaphebolion and Munychion,
  and bear the name of the archon _Heropythus_; while the decree
  cited, p. 289, bears date the 16th of Skirrophorion, and the
  name of a different archon, _Nausikles_. Now if the decrees
  were genuine, the events which are described in both must have
  happened under the same archon, at an interval of about six weeks
  between the last day of Munychion and the 16th of Skirrophorion.
  It is impossible to suppose an interval of one year and six weeks
  between them.

  It appears to me, on reading attentively the words of Demosthenes
  himself, that the _falsarius_ or person who composed these four
  first documents, has not properly conceived what it was that
  Demosthenes caused to be read by the public secretary. The point
  which Demosthenes is here making, is to show how ably he had
  managed, and how well he had deserved of his country, by bringing
  the Thebans into alliance with Athens immediately after Philip’s
  capture of Elateia. For this purpose he dwells upon the bad state
  of feeling between Athens and Thebes before that event, brought
  about by the secret instigations of Philip through corrupt
  partisans in both places. Now it is to illustrate this hostile
  feeling _between Athens and Thebes_, that he causes the secretary
  to read certain decrees and answers—ἐν οἷς δ᾽ ἦτη ἤδη ~τὰ πρὸς
  ἀλλήλους~, τουτωνὶ τῶν ψηφισμάτων ἀκούσαντες καὶ τῶν ἀποκρίσεων
  εἴσεσθε. Καί μοι λέγε ταῦτα λαβών.... (p. 282). The documents
  here announced to be read do not bear upon the relations between
  _Athens and Philip_ (which were those of active warfare, needing
  no illustration)—but to the relation between _Athens and Thebes_.
  There had plainly been interchanges of bickering and ungracious
  feeling between the two cities, manifested in public decrees or
  public answers to complaints or remonstrances. Instead of which,
  the two Athenian decrees, which we now read as following, are
  addressed, not to the Thebans, but to Philip; the first of them
  does not mention Thebes at all; the second mentions Thebes only
  to recite as a ground of complaint against Philip, that he was
  trying to put the two cities at variance; and this too, among
  other grounds of complaint, much more grave and imputing more
  hostile purposes. Then follow two answers—which are not answers
  between Athens and Thebes, as they ought to be—but answers from
  Philip, the first to the Athenians, the second to the Thebans.
  Neither the decrees, nor the answers, as they here stand, go
  to illustrate the point at which Demosthenes is aiming—the bad
  feeling and mutual provocations which had been exchanged a little
  before between Athens and Thebes. Neither the one nor the other
  justify the words of the orator immediately after the documents
  have been read—Οὕτω διαθεὶς ὁ Φίλιππος τὰς πόλεις ~πρὸς ἀλλήλας
  διὰ τούτων~ (through Æschines and his supporters), καὶ τούτοις
  ἐπαρθεὶς τοῖς ψηφίσμασι καὶ ταῖς ἀποκρίσεσιν, ἧκεν ἔχων τὴν
  δύναμιν καὶ τὴν Ἐλάτειαν κατέλαβεν, ὡς οὐδ᾽ ἂν εἴ τι γένοιτο ἔτι
  συμπνευσάντων ἂν ἡμῶν καὶ τῶν Θηβαίων.

  Demosthenes describes Philip as acting upon Thebes and Athens
  through the agency of corrupt citizens in each; the author of
  these documents conceives Philip as acting by his own despatches.

  The decree of the 16th Skirrophorion enacts, not only that
  there shall be alliance with Thebes, but also that the right of
  _intermarriage_ between the two cities shall be established. Now
  at the moment when the decree was passed, the Thebans both had
  been, and still were, on bad terms with Athens, so that it was
  doubtful whether they would entertain or reject the proposition;
  nay, the chances even were, that they would reject it and join
  Philip. We can hardly believe it possible, that under such a
  state of probabilities, the Athenians would go so far as to
  pronounce for the establishment of _intermarriage_ between the
  two cities.

At Thebes they found the envoys of Philip and his allies, and the
philippizing Thebans full of triumph; while the friends of Athens
were so dispirited, that the first letters of Demosthenes, sent
home immediately on reaching Thebes, were of a gloomy cast.[1061]
According to Grecian custom, the two opposing legations were heard
in turn before the Theban assembly. Amyntas and Klearchus were the
Macedonian envoys, together with the eloquent Byzantine Python, as
chief spokesman, and the Thessalians Daochus and Thrasylaus.[1062]
Having the first word, as established allies of Thebes, these orators
found it an easy theme to denounce Athens, and to support their case
by the general tenor of past history since the battle of Leuktra.
The Macedonian orator contrasted the perpetual hostility of Athens
with the valuable aid furnished to Thebes by Philip, when he rescued
her from the Phokians, and confirmed her ascendency over Bœotia.
“If (said the orator) Philip had stipulated, before he assisted
you against the Phokians, that you should grant him in return a
free passage against Attica, you would have gladly acceded. Will
you refuse it now, when he has rendered to you the service without
stipulation? Either let us pass through to Attica—or join our march;
whereby you will enrich yourself with the plunder of that country,
instead of being impoverished by having Bœotia as the seat of
war.”[1063]

  [1061] Demosth. De Coronâ, p. 298.

  [1062] Plutarch, Demosth. c. 18. Daochus and Thrasylaus are named
  by Demosthenes as Thessalian partisans of Philip (Demosth. De
  Coronâ, p. 324).

  [1063] Demosth. De Coronâ, p. 298, 299. Aristot. Rhetoric. ii.
  23; Dionys. Hal. ad Ammæum, p. 744; Diodor. xvi. 85.

All these topics were so thoroughly in harmony with the previous
sentiments of the Thebans, that they must have made a lively
impression. How Demosthenes replied to them, we are not permitted to
know. His powers of oratory must have been severely tasked; for the
preëstablished feeling was all adverse, and he had nothing to work
upon, except fear, on the part of Thebes, of too near contact with
the Macedonian arms—combined with her gratitude for the spontaneous
and unconditional tender of Athens. And even as to fears, the Thebans
had only to choose between admitting the Athenian army or that
of Philip; a choice in which all presumption was in favor of the
latter, as present ally and recent benefactor—against the former,
as standing rival and enemy. Such was the result anticipated by the
hopes of Philip as well as by the fears of Athens. Yet with all the
chances thus against him, Demosthenes carried his point in the Theban
assembly; determining them to accept the offered alliance of Athens
and to brave the hostility of Philip. He boasts with good reason, of
such a diplomatic and oratorical triumph;[1064] by which he not only
obtained a powerful ally against Philip, but also—a benefit yet more
important—rescued Attica from being overrun by a united Macedonian
and Theban army. Justly does the contemporary historian Theopompus
extol the unrivalled eloquence whereby Demosthenes kindled in the
bosoms of the Thebans a generous flame of Pan-hellenic patriotism.
But it was not simply by superior eloquence[1065]—though that
doubtless was an essential condition—that his triumph at Thebes was
achieved. It was still more owing to the wise and generous offer
which he carried with him, and which he had himself prevailed on the
Athenians to make—of unconditional alliance without any references
to the jealousies and animosities of the past, and on terms even
favorable to Thebes, as being mere exposed than Athens in the war
against Philip.[1066]

  [1064] Demosth. De Coronâ, p. 304-307. εἰ μὲν οὖν μὴ ~μετέγνωσαν~
  εὐθέως, ὡς ταῦτ᾽ εἶδον, οἱ Θηβαῖοι, καὶ μεθ᾽ ἡμῶν ἐγένοντο, etc.

  [1065] Theopompus, Frag. 239, ed. Didot; Plutarch, Demosth. c. 18.

  [1066] We may here trust the more fully the boasts made by
  Demosthenes of his own statesmanship and oratory, since we
  possess the comments of Æschines, and therefore know the worst
  that can be said by an unfriendly critic. Æschines (adv. Ktesiph.
  p. 73, 74) says that the Thebans were induced to join Athens, not
  by the oratory of Demosthenes, but by the fear of Philip’s near
  approach, and by their displeasure in consequence of having Nikæa
  taken from them. Demosthenes says in fact the same. Doubtless
  the ablest orator must be furnished with some suitable points to
  work up in his pleadings. But the orators on the other side would
  find in the history of the past a far more copious collection
  of matters, capable of being appealed to as causes of antipathy
  against Athens, and of favour to Philip; and against this
  superior case Demosthenes had to contend.

The answer brought back by Demosthenes was cheering. The important
alliance, combining Athens and Thebes in defensive war against
Philip, had been successfully brought about. The Athenian army,
already mustered in Attica, was invited into Bœotia, and marched to
Thebes without delay. While a portion of them joined the Theban force
at the northern frontier of Bœotia to resist the approach of Philip,
the rest were left in quarters at Thebes. And Demosthenes extols not
only the kindness with which they were received in private houses,
but also their correct and orderly behavior amidst the families and
properties of the Thebans; not a single complaint being preferred
against them.[1067] The antipathy and jealousy between the two cities
seemed effaced in cordial coöperation against the common enemy. Of
the cost of the joint operations, on land and sea, two-thirds were
undertaken by Athens. The command was shared equally between the
allies; and the centre of operations was constituted at Thebes.[1068]

  [1067] Demosthen. De Coronâ, p. 299, 300.

  [1068] Æschines adv. Ktesiph. p. 74.

In this as well as in other ways, the dangerous vicinity of Philip,
giving increased ascendency to Demosthenes, impressed upon the
counsels of Athens a vigor long unknown. The orator prevailed
upon his countrymen to suspend the expenditure going on upon the
improvement of their docks and the construction of a new arsenal,
in order that more money might be devoted to military operations.
He also carried a farther point which he had long aimed at
accomplishing by indirect means, but always in vain; the conversion
of the Theoric Fund to military purposes.[1069] So preponderant was
the impression of danger at Athens, that Demosthenes was now able to
propose this motion directly, and with success. Of course, he must
first have moved to suspend the standing enactment, whereby it was
made penal even to submit the motion.

  [1069] Philochorus Frag. 135, ed. Didot; Dionys. Hal. ad Ammæum,
  p. 742.

To Philip, meanwhile, the new alliance was a severe disappointment
and a serious obstacle. Having calculated on the continued adhesion
of Thebes, to which he conceived himself entitled as a return
for benefits conferred—and having been doubtless assured by his
partisans in the city that they could promise him Theban coöperation
against Athens, as soon as he should appear on the frontier with
an overawing army—he was disconcerted at the sudden junction of
these two powerful cities, unexpected alike by friends and enemies.
Henceforward we shall find him hating Thebes, as guilty of desertion
and ingratitude, worse than Athens, his manifest enemy.[1070] But
having failed in inducing the Thebans to follow his lead against
Athens, he thought it expedient again to resume his profession of
acting on behalf of the Delphian god against Amphissa,—and to write
to his allies in Peloponnesus to come and join him, for this specific
purpose. His letters were pressing, often repeated, and implying
much embarrassment, according to Demosthenes.[1071] As far as we can
judge they do not seem to have produced much effect; nor was it easy
for the Peloponnesians to join Philip—either by land, while Bœotia
was hostile—or by sea while the Amphissians held Kirrha, and the
Athenians had a superior navy.

  [1070] Æschines adv. Ktesiph. p. 73. Æschines remarks the
  fact—but perverts the inferences deducible from it.

  [1071] Demosthen. De Coronâ, p. 279. Δὸς δή μοι τὴν ἐπιστολὴν,
  ἥν, ὡς οὐχ ὑπήκουον οἱ Θηβαῖοι, πέμπει πρὸς τοὺς ἐν Πελοποννήσῳ
  συμμάχους ὁ Φίλιππος, ἵν᾽ εἴδητε καὶ ἐκ ταύτης σαφῶς ὅτι τὴν
  μὲν ἀληθῆ πρόφασιν τῶν πραγμάτων, τὸ ταῦτ᾽ ἐπὶ τὴν Ἑλλάδα καὶ
  τοὺς Θηβαίους καὶ ὑμᾶς πράττειν, ἀπεκρύπτετο, κοινὰ δὲ καὶ τοῖς
  Ἀμφικτύοσι δόξαντα ποιεῖν προσεποιεῖτο, etc.

  Then follows a letter, purporting to be written by Philip to
  the Peloponnesians. I concur with Droysen in mistrusting its
  authenticity. I do not rest any statements on its evidence.
  The Macedonian month Löus does not appear to coincide with the
  Attic Boëdromion; nor is it probable that Philip in writing to
  Peloponnesians, would allude at all to Attic months. Various
  subsequent letters written by Philip to the Peloponnesians, and
  intimating much embarrassment, are alluded to by Demosthenes
  further on—Ἀλλὰ μὴν οἵας τότ᾽ ἠφίει φωνὰς ὁ Φίλιππος καὶ ἐν οἵαις
  ἦν ταραχαῖς ἐπὶ τούτοις, ἐκ τῶν ἐπιστολῶν ἐκείνου μαθήσεσθε ὧν
  εἰς Πελοπόννησον ἔπεμπεν (p. 301, 302). Demosthenes causes the
  letters to be read publicly, but no letters appear _verbatim_.

War was now carried on, in Phokis and on the frontiers of Bœotia,
during the autumn and winter of 339-338 B. C. The Athenians and
Thebans not only maintained their ground against Philip, but even
gained some advantages over him; especially in two engagements—called
the battle on the river, and the winter-battle—of which Demosthenes
finds room to boast, and which called forth manifestations of
rejoicing and sacrifice, when made known at Athens.[1072] To
Demosthenes himself, as the chief adviser of the Theban alliance, a
wreath of gold was proposed by Demomeles and Hyperides, and decreed
by the people; and though a citizen named Diondas impeached the mover
for an illegal decree, yet he did not even obtain the fifth part of
the suffrages of the Dikastery, and therefore became liable to the
fine of one thousand drachms.[1073] Demosthenes was crowned with
public proclamation at the Dionysiac festival of March 338 B. C.[1074]

  [1072] Demosth. De Coronâ, p. 300.

  [1073] Demosth. De Coronâ, p. 302; Plutarch, Vit. X. Orator., p.
  848.

  [1074] That Demosthenes was crowned at the Dionysiac festival
  (March 338 B. C.) is contended by Böhnecke (Forschungen, p. 534,
  535); upon grounds which seem sufficient, against the opinion of
  Boeckh and Winiewski (Comment. ad Demosth. De Coronâ, p. 250),
  who think that he was not crowned until the Panathenaic festival,
  in the ensuing July.

But the most memorable step taken by the Athenians and Thebans,
in this joint war against Philip, was that of reconstituting the
Phokians as an independent and self-defending section of the Hellenic
name. On the part of the Thebans, hitherto the bitterest enemies
of the Phokians, this proceeding evinced adoption of an improved
and generous policy, worthy of the Pan-hellenic cause in which they
had now embarked. In 346 B. C., the Phokians had been conquered
and ruined by the arms of Philip, under condemnation pronounced by
the Amphiktyons. Their cities had all been dismantled, and their
population distributed in villages, impoverished, or driven into
exile. These exiles, many of whom were at Athens, now returned, and
the Phokian population were aided by the Athenians and Thebans in
reoccupying and securing their towns.[1075] Some indeed of these
towns were so small, such as Parapotamii[1076] and others, that
it was thought inexpedient to reconstitute them. Their population
was transferred to the others, as a means of increased strength.
Ambrysus, in the south-western portion of Phokis, was refortified
by the Athenians and Thebans with peculiar care and solidity. It
was surrounded with a double circle of wall of the black stone of
the country; each wall being fifteen feet high and nearly six feet
in thickness, with an interval of six feet between the two.[1077]
These walls were seen, five centuries afterwards, by the traveller
Pausanias, who numbers them among the most solid defensive structures
in the ancient world.[1078] Ambrysus was valuable to the Athenians
and Thebans as a military position for the defence of Bœotia,
inasmuch as it lay on that rough southerly road near the sea, which
the Lacedæmonian king Kleombrotus[1079] had forced when he marched
from Phokis to the position of Leuktra; eluding Epaminondas and
the main Theban force, who were posted to resist him on the more
frequented road by Koroneia. Moreover, by occupying the south-western
parts of Phokis on the Corinthian Gulf, they prevented the arrival of
reinforcements to Philip by sea out of Peloponnesus.

  [1075] Pausanias, x. 3, 2.

  [1076] Pausanias, x. 33, 4.

  [1077] Pausanias, x. 36, 2.

  [1078] Pausanias, iv. 31, 5. He places the fortifications of
  Ambrysus in a class with those of Byzantium and Rhodes.

  [1079] Pausan. ix. 13, 2; Diodor. xv. 53; Xenoph. Hell. vi. 4, 3.

The war in Phokis, prosecuted seemingly upon a large scale and with
much activity, between Philip and his allies on one side, and the
Athenians and Thebans with their allies on the other—ended with
the fatal battle of Chæroneia, fought in August 338 B. C.; having
continued about ten months from the time when Philip, after being
named general at the Amphiktyonic assembly (about the autumnal
equinox), marched southward and occupied Elateia.[1080] But
respecting the intermediate events, we are unfortunately without
distinct information. We pick up only a few hints and allusions which
do not enable us to understand what passed. We cannot make out either
the auxiliaries engaged, or the total numbers in the field, on either
side. Demosthenes boasts of having procured for Athens as allies,
the Eubœans, Achæans, Corinthians, Thebans, Megarians, Leukadians,
and Korkyræans—arraying along with the Athenian soldiers not less
than fifteen thousand infantry and two thousand cavalry;[1081] and
pecuniary contributions besides, to no inconsiderable amount, for the
payment of mercenary troops. Whether all these troops fought either
in Phokis or at Chæroneia, we cannot determine; we verify the Achæans
and the Corinthians.[1082] As far as we can trust Demosthenes, the
autumn and winter of 339-338 B. C. was a season of advantages gained
by the Athenians and Thebans over Philip, and of rejoicing in their
two cities; not without much embarrassment to Philip, testified by
his urgent requisitions of aid from his Peloponnesian allies, with
which they did not comply. Demosthenes was the war-minister of the
day, exercising greater influence than the generals—deliberating
at Thebes in concert with the Bœotarchs—advising and swaying the
Theban public assembly as well as the Athenian—and probably in
mission to other cities also, for the purpose of pressing military
efforts.[1083] The crown bestowed upon him at the Dionysiac festival
(March 338 B. C.) marks the pinnacle of his glory and the meridian of
his hopes, when there seemed a fair chance of successfully resisting
the Macedonian invasion.

  [1080] The chronology of this period has caused much perplexity,
  and has been differently arranged by different authors. But
  it will be found that all the difficulties and controversies
  regarding it have arisen from resting on the spurious decrees
  embodied in the speech of Demosthenes De Coronâ, as if they were
  so much genuine history. Mr. Clinton, in his Fasti Hellenici,
  cites these decrees as if they were parts of Demosthenes himself.
  When we once put aside these documents, the general statements
  both of Demosthenes and Æschines, though they are not precise or
  specific, will appear perfectly clear and consistent respecting
  the chronology of the period.

  That the battle of Chæroneia took place on the 7th of the Attic
  month Metageitnion (August) B. C. 338 (the second month of the
  archon Chærondas at Athens)—is affirmed by Plutarch (Camill. c.
  19) and generally admitted.

  The time when Philip first occupied Elateia has been stated
  by Mr. Clinton and most authors as the preceding month of
  Skirrophorion, fifty days or thereabouts earlier. But this
  rests exclusively on the evidence of the pretended decree, for
  alliance between Athens and Thebes, which appears in Demosthenes
  De Coronâ, p. 289. Even those who defend the authenticity of the
  decree, can hardly confide in the truth of the month-date, when
  the name of the archon Nausikles is confessedly wrong. To me
  neither this document, nor the other so-called Athenian decrees
  professing to bear date in Munychion and Elaphebolion (p. 282),
  carry any evidence whatever.

  The general statements both of Demosthenes and Æschines, indicate
  the appointment of Philip as Amphiktyonic general to have been
  made in the autumnal convocation of Amphiktyons at Thermopylæ.
  Shortly after this appointment, Philip marched his army into
  Greece with the professed purpose of acting upon it. In this
  march he came upon Elateia and began to fortify it; probably
  about the month of October 339 B. C. The Athenians, Thebans,
  and other Greeks, carried on the war against him in Phokis for
  about ten months, until the battle of Chæroneia. That this war
  must have lasted as long as ten months, we may see by the facts
  mentioned in my last page—the reëstablishment of the Phokians
  and their towns, and especially the elaborate fortification
  of Ambrysus. Böhnecke (Forschungen, p. 533) points out justly
  (though I do not agree with his general arrangement of the events
  of the war) that this restoration of the Phokian towns implies
  a considerable interval between the occupation of Elateia and
  the battle of Chæroneia. We have also two battles gained against
  Philip, one of them a μάχη χειμερινὴ, which perfectly suits with
  this arrangement.

  [1081] Demosth. De Coronâ, p. 306; Plutarch, Demosth. c. 17. In
  the decree of the Athenian people (Plutarch, Vit. X. Orat. p.
  850) passed after the death of Demosthenes, granting various
  honors and a statue to his memory—it is recorded that he brought
  in by his persuasions not only the allies enumerated in the text,
  but also the Lokrians and the Messenians; and that he procured
  from the allies a total contribution of above five hundred
  talents. The Messenians, however, certainly did not fight at
  Chæroneia; nor is it correct to say that Demosthenes induced the
  Amphissian Lokrians to become allies of Athens.

  [1082] Strabo, ix. p. 414; Pausanias, vii. 6, 3.

  [1083] Plutarch, Demosth. c. 48. Æschines (adv. Ktesiph. p.
  74) puts these same facts—the great personal ascendency of
  Demosthenes at this period—in an invidious point of view.

Philip had calculated on the positive aid of Thebes; at the very
worst, upon her neutrality between him and Athens. That she would
cordially join Athens, neither he nor any one else imagined; nor
could so improbable a result have been brought about, had not the
game of Athens been played with unusual decision and judgment by
Demosthenes. Accordingly, when opposed by the unexpected junction
of the Theban and Athenian force, it is not wonderful that Philip
should have been at first repulsed. Such disadvantages would hardly
indeed drive him to send instant propositions of peace;[1084] but
they would admonish him to bring up fresh forces, and to renew his
invasion during the ensuing spring and summer with means adequate to
the known resistance. It seems probable that the full strength of the
Macedonian army, now brought to a high excellence of organization
after the continued improvements of his twenty years’ reign—would
be marched into Phokis during the summer of 338 B. C., to put down
the most formidable combination of enemies that Philip had ever
encountered. His youthful son Alexander, now eighteen years of age,
came along with them.

  [1084] Plutarch, Demosth. c. 18. ὥστε εὐθὺς ἐπικηρυκεύεσθαι
  δεόμενον εἰρήνης, etc.

  It is possible that Philip may have tried to disunite the enemies
  assembled against him, by separate propositions addressed to some
  of them.

It is among the accusations urged by Æschines against Demosthenes,
that in levying mercenary troops, he wrongfully took the public money
to pay men who never appeared; and farther, that he placed at the
disposal of the Amphissians a large body of ten thousand mercenary
troops, thus withdrawing them from the main Athenian and Bœotian
army; whereby Philip was enabled to cut to pieces the mercenaries
separately, while the entire force, if kept together, could never
have been defeated. Æschines affirms that he himself strenuously
opposed this separation of forces, the consequences of which were
disastrous and discouraging to the whole cause.[1085] It would
appear that Philip attacked and took Amphissa. We read of his having
deceived the Athenians and Thebans by a false despatch intended to be
intercepted; so as to induce them to abandon their guard of the road
which led to that place.[1086] The sacred domain was restored, and
the Amphissians, or at least such of them as had taken a leading part
against Delphi, were banished.[1087]

  [1085] Æschines adv. Ktesiph. p. 74. Deinarchus mentions a Theban
  named Proxenus, whom he calls a traitor, as having commanded
  these mercenary troops at Amphissa (Deinarchus adv. Demosth. p.
  99).

  [1086] Polyænus, iv. 2, 8.

  [1087] We gather this from the edict issued by Polysperchon some
  years afterwards (Diodor. xviii. 56).

It was on the seventh day of the month Metageitnion (the second month
of the Attic year, corresponding nearly to August) that the allied
Grecian army met Philip near Chæroneia; the last Bœotian town on
the frontiers of Phokis. He seems to have been now strong enough to
attempt to force his way into Bœotia, and is said to have drawn down
the allies from a strong position into the plain, by laying waste
the neighboring fields.[1088] His numbers are stated by Diodorus at
thirty thousand foot and two thousand horse; he doubtless had with
him Thessalians and other allies from Northern Greece; but not a
single ally from Peloponnesus. Of the united Greeks opposed to him,
the total is not known.[1089] We can therefore make no comparison
as to numbers, though the superiority of the Macedonian army in
organization is incontestable. The largest Grecian contingents
were those of Athens, under Lysikles and Chares—and of Thebes,
commanded by Theagenes; there were, besides, Phokians, Achæans, and
Corinthians—probably also Eubœans and Megarians. The Lacedæmonians,
Messenians, Arcadians, Eleians, and Argeians, took no part in the
war.[1090] All of them had doubtless been solicited on both sides;
by Demosthenes as well as by the partisans of Philip. But jealousy
and fear of Sparta led the last four states rather to look towards
Philip as a protector against her—though on this occasion they took
no positive part.

  [1088] Polyænus, iv. 2, 14.

  [1089] Diodorus affirms that Philip’s army was superior in
  number; Justin states the reverse (Diodor. xvi. 85; Justin, ix.
  3).

  [1090] Pausanias, iv. 2, 82; v. 4, 5; viii. 6, 1.

The command of the army was shared between the Athenians and
Thebans, and its movements determined by the joint decision of
their statesmen and generals. As to statesmen, the presence of
Demosthenes at least ensured to them sound and patriotic counsel
powerfully set forth; as to generals, not one of the three was fit
for an emergency so grave and terrible. It was the sad fortune
of Greece, that at this crisis of her liberty, when everything
was staked on the issue of the campaign, neither an Epaminondas
nor an Iphikrates was at hand. Phokion was absent as commander of
the Athenian fleet in the Hellespont or the Ægean.[1091] Portents
were said to have occurred—oracles, and prophecies, were in
circulation—calculated to discourage the Greeks; but Demosthenes,
animated by the sight of so numerous an army hearty and combined in
defence of Grecian independence, treated all such stories with the
same indifference[1092] as Epaminondas had shown before the battle
of Leuktra, and accused the Delphian priestess of philippizing.
Nay, so confident was he in the result (according to the statement
of Æschines), that when Philip, himself apprehensive, was prepared
to offer terms of peace, and the Bœotarchs inclined to accept
them—Demosthenes alone stood out, denouncing as a traitor any one
who should broach the proposition of peace,[1093] and boasting that
if the Thebans were afraid, his countrymen the Athenians desired
nothing better than a free passage through Bœotia to attack Philip
single-handed. This is advanced as an accusation by Æschines;
who however himself furnishes the justification of his rival, by
intimating that the Bœotarchs were so eager for peace, that they
proposed, even before the negotiations had begun, to send home the
Athenian soldiers into Attica, in order that deliberations might
be taken concerning the peace. We can hardly be surprised that
Demosthenes “became out of his mind”[1094] (such is the expression of
Æschines) on hearing a proposition so fraught with imprudence. Philip
would have gained his point even without a battle, if, by holding
out the lure of negotiation for peace, he could have prevailed upon
the allied army to disperse. To have united the full force of Athens
and Thebes, with other subordinate states, in the same ranks and
for the same purpose, was a rare good fortune, not likely to be
reproduced, should it once slip away. And if Demosthenes, by warm or
even passionate remonstrance, prevented such premature dispersion, he
rendered the valuable service of ensuring to Grecian liberty a full
trial of strength under circumstances not unpromising; and at the
very worst, a catastrophe worthy and honorable.

  [1091] Plutarch, Phokion, c. 16.

  [1092] Plutarch, Demosth. c. 19, 20; Æschin. adv. Ktesiph. p. 72.

  [1093] Æschin. adv. Ktesiph. p. 74, 75.

  [1094] Æschines adv. Ktesiph. p. 75. Ὡς δ᾽ οὐ προσεῖχον αὐτῷ
  (Δημοσθένει) οἱ ἄρχοντες οἱ ἐν ταῖς Θήβαις, ἀλλὰ καὶ τοὺς
  στρατιώτας τοὺς ὑμετέρους πάλιν ἀνέστρεψαν ἐξεληλυθότας, ἵνα
  βουλεύσαισθε περὶ τῆς εἰρήνης, ἐνταῦθα παντάπασιν ἔκφρων ἐγένετο,
  etc.

  It is, seemingly, this disposition on the part of Philip to open
  negotiations which is alluded to by Plutarch as having been
  (Plutarch, Phokion, c. 16) favorably received by Phokion.

In the field of battle near Chæroneia, Philip himself commanded a
chosen body of troops on the wing opposed to the Athenians, while his
youthful son, Alexander, aided by experienced officers, commanded
against the Thebans on the other wing. Respecting the course of the
battle, we are scarcely permitted to know anything. It is said to
have been so obstinately contested, that for some time the result
was doubtful. The Sacred Band of Thebes, who charged in one portion
of the Theban phalanx, exhausted all their strength and energy in an
unavailing attempt to bear down the stronger phalanx and multiplied
pikes opposed to them. The youthful Alexander[1095] here first
displayed his great military energy and ability. After a long and
murderous struggle, the Theban Sacred Band were all overpowered and
perished in their ranks,[1096] while the Theban phalanx was broken
and pushed back. Philip on his side was still engaged in undecided
conflict with the Athenians, whose first onset is said to have been
so impetuous, as to put to flight some of the troops in his army;
insomuch that the Athenian general exclaimed in triumph, “Let us
pursue them even to Macedonia.”[1097] It is farther said that Philip
on his side simulated a retreat, for the purpose of inducing them
to pursue and to break their order. We read another statement, more
likely to be true—that the Athenian hoplites, though full of energy
at the first shock, could not endure fatigue and prolonged struggle
like the trained veterans in the opposite ranks.[1098] Having
steadily repelled them for a considerable time, Philip became emulous
on witnessing the success of his son, and redoubled his efforts; so
as to break and disperse them. The whole Grecian army was thus put to
flight with severe loss.[1099]

  [1095] Diodor. xvi. 85. Alexander himself, after his vast
  conquests in Asia and shortly before his death, alludes briefly
  to his own presence at Chæroneia, in a speech delivered to his
  army (Arrian, vii. 9, 5).

  [1096] Plutarch, Pelopidas, c. 18.

  [1097] Polyænus, iv. 2, 2. He mentions Stratokles as the Athenian
  general from whom this exclamation came. We know from Æschines
  (adv. Ktesiph. p. 74) that Stratokles was general of the Athenian
  troops at or near Thebes shortly after the alliance with the
  Thebans was formed. But it seems that Chares and Lysikles
  commanded at Chæroneia. It is possible, therefore, that the
  anecdote reported by Polyænus may refer to one of the earlier
  battles fought, before that of Chæroneia.

  [1098] Polyænus, iv. 2, 7; Frontinus.

  [1099] Diodor. xvi. 85, 86.

The Macedonian phalanx, as armed and organized by Philip, was sixteen
deep; less deep than that of the Thebans either at Delium or at
Leuktra. It had veteran soldiers of great strength and complete
training, in its front ranks; yet probably soldiers hardly superior
to the Sacred Band, who formed the Theban front rank. But its great
superiority was in the length of the Macedonian pike or sarissa—in
the number of these weapons which projected in front of the foremost
soldiers—and the long practice of the men to manage this impenetrable
array of pikes in an efficient manner. The value of Philip’s improved
phalanx was attested by his victory at Chæroneia.

But the victory was not gained by the phalanx alone. The military
organization of Philip comprised an aggregate of many sorts of troops
besides the phalanx; the body-guards, horse as well as foot—the
hypaspistæ, or light hoplites—the light cavalry, bowmen, slingers,
etc. When we read the military operations of Alexander, three years
afterwards, in the very first year of his reign, before he could have
made any addition of his own to the force inherited from Philip;
and when we see with what efficiency all these various descriptions
of troops are employed in the field;[1100] we may feel assured that
Philip both had them near him and employed them at the battle of
Chæroneia.

  [1100] Arrian, Exp. Alex. i. 2, 3, 10.

One thousand Athenian citizens perished in this disastrous field;
two thousand more fell into the hands of Philip as prisoners.[1101]
The Theban loss is said also to have been terrible, as well as
the Achæan.[1102] But we do not know the numbers; nor have we any
statement of the Macedonian loss. Demosthenes, himself present in
the ranks of the hoplites, shared in the flight of his defeated
countrymen. He is accused by his political enemies of having behaved
with extreme and disgraceful cowardice; but we see plainly from the
continued confidence and respect shown to him by the general body
of his countrymen, that they cannot have credited the imputation.
The two Athenian generals Chares and Lysikles, both escaped from the
field. The latter was afterwards publicly accused at Athens by the
orator Lykurgus—a citizen highly respected for his integrity and
diligence in the management of the finances, and severe in arraigning
political delinquents. Lysikles was condemned to death by the
Dikastery.[1103] What there was to distinguish his conduct from that
of his colleague Chares—who certainly was not condemned, and is not
even stated to have been accused—we do not know. The memory of the
Theban general Theagenes[1104] also, though he fell in the battle,
was assailed by charges of treason.

  [1101] This is the statement of the contemporary orators
  (Demades, Frag. p. 179) Lykurgus (ap. Diodor. xvi. 85; adv.
  Leokratem, p. 236. c. 36) and Demosthenes (De Coronâ, p. 314).
  The latter does not specify the number of prisoners, though he
  states the slain at one thousand. Compare Pausanias, vii. 10, 2.

  [1102] Pausanias, vii. 6, 3.

  [1103] Diodor. xvi. 88.

  [1104] Plutarch, Alexand. c. 12; Deinarchus adv. Demosth. p. 99.
  Compare the Pseudo-Demosthenic Oratio Funebr. p. 1395.

Unspeakable was the agony at Athens, on the report of this disaster,
with a multitude of citizens as yet unknown left on the field
or prisoners, and a victorious enemy within three or four days’
march of the city. The whole population, even old men, women, and
children, were spread about the streets in all the violence of
grief and terror, interchanging effusions of distress and sympathy,
and questioning every fugitive as he arrived about the safety of
their relatives in the battle.[1105] The flower of the citizens of
military age had been engaged; and before the extent of loss had been
ascertained, it was feared that none except the elders would be left
to defend the city. At length the definite loss became known: severe
indeed and terrible—yet not a total shipwreck, like that of the army
of Nikias in Sicily.

  [1105] Lykurgus adv. Leokrat. p. 164, 166. c. 11; Deinarchus
  cont. Demosth. p. 99.

As on that trying occasion, so now: amidst all the distress and
alarm, it was not in the Athenian character to despair. The mass of
citizens hastened unbidden to form a public assembly,[1106] wherein
the most energetic resolutions were taken for defence. Decrees were
passed enjoining every one to carry his family and property out of
the open country of Attica into the various strongholds; directing
the body of the senators, who by general rule were exempt from
military service, to march down in arms to Peiræus, and put that
harbor in condition to stand a siege; placing every man without
exception at the disposal of the generals, as a soldier for defence,
and imposing the penalties of treason on every one who fled;[1107]
enfranchising all slaves fit for bearing arms, granting the
citizenship to metics under the same circumstances, and restoring
to the full privilege of citizens those who had been disfranchised
by judicial sentence.[1108] This last-mentioned decree was proposed
by Hyperides; but several others were moved by Demosthenes, who,
notwithstanding the late misfortune of the Athenian arms, was
listened to with undiminished respect and confidence. The general
measures requisite for strengthening the walls, opening ditches,
distributing military posts and constructing earthwork, were decreed
on his motion; and he seems to have been named member of a special
Board for superintending the fortifications.[1109] Not only he, but
also most of the conspicuous citizens and habitual speakers in the
assembly, came forward with large private contributions to meet the
pressing wants of the moment.[1110] Every man in the city lent a hand
to make good the defective points in the fortification. Materials
were obtained by felling the trees near the city, and even by taking
stones from the adjacent sepulchres[1111]—as had been done after
the Persian war when the walls were built under the contrivance of
Themistokles.[1112] The temples were stripped of the arms suspended
within them, for the purpose of equipping unarmed citizens.[1113] By
such earnest and unanimous efforts, the defences of the city and of
Peiræus were soon materially improved. At sea Athens had nothing to
fear. Her powerful naval force was untouched, and her superiority to
Philip on that element incontestable. Envoys were sent to Trœzen,
Epidaurus, Andros, Keos, and other places, to solicit aid, and
collect money; in one or other of which embassies Demosthenes served,
after he had provided for the immediate exigencies of defence.[1114]

  [1106] Lykurgus adv. Leokrat. p. 146. Γεγενημένης γὰρ τῆς ἐν
  Χαιρωνείᾳ μάχης, καὶ συνδραμόντων ἁπάντων ὑμῶν εἰς ἐκκλησίαν,
  ἐψηφίσατο ὁ δῆμος, παῖδας μὲν καὶ γυναῖκας ἐκ τῶν ἀγρῶν εἰς τὰ
  τείχη κατακομίζειν, etc.

  [1107] Lykurgus adv. Leokrat. p. 177. c. 13.

  [1108] Lykurgus adv. Leokrat. p. 170. c. 11. ἥνιχ᾽ ὁρᾷν ἦν
  τὸν δῆμον ψηφισάμενον τοὺς μὲν δούλους ἐλευθέρους, τοὺς δὲ
  ξένους Ἀθηναίους, τοὺς δὲ ἀτίμους ἐντίμους. The orator causes
  this decree, proposed by Hyperides, to be read publicly by the
  secretary, in court.

  Compare Pseudo-Plutarch, Vit. X. Orat. p. 849. and Demosth. cont.
  Aristog. p. 803.

  [1109] Demosth. De Coronâ, p. 309; Deinarchus adv. Demosth. p.
  100.

  [1110] Demosth. De Coronâ, p. 329; Deinarchus adv. Demosth. p.
  100; Plutarch, Vit. X. Orat. p. 851.

  [1111] Lykurgus adv. Leokrat. p. 172. c. 11; Æschines adv.
  Ktesiph. p. 87.

  [1112] Thucyd. i. 93.

  [1113] Lykurgus adv. Leokrat. _l. c._

  [1114] Lykurgus (adv. Leokrat. p. 171 c. 11) mentions these
  embassies; Deinarchus (adv. Demosth. p. 100) affirms that
  Demosthenes provided for himself an escape from the city as an
  envoy—αὐτὸς ἑαυτὸν πρεσβευτὴν κατασκεύασας, ἵν᾽ ἐκ τῆς πόλεως
  ἀποδραίη, etc. Compare Æschines adv. Ktesiph. p. 76.

  The two hostile orators treat such temporary absence of
  Demosthenes on the embassy to obtain aid, as if it were a
  cowardly desertion of his post. This is a construction altogether
  unjust.

What was the immediate result of these applications to other cities,
we do not know. But the effect produced upon some of these Ægean
islands by the reported prostration of Athens, is remarkable. An
Athenian citizen named Leokrates, instead of staying at Athens to
join in the defence, listened only to a disgraceful timidity,[1115]
and fled forthwith from Peiræus with his family and property. He
hastened to Rhodes, where he circulated the false news that Athens
was already taken and the Peiræus under siege. Immediately on hearing
this intelligence, and believing it to be true, the Rhodians with
their triremes began a cruise to seize the merchant-vessels at
sea.[1116] Hence we learn, indirectly, that the Athenian naval power
constituted the standing protection for these merchant vessels;
insomuch that so soon as that protection was removed, armed cruisers
began to prey upon them from various islands in the Ægean.

  [1115] Leokrates was not the only Athenian who fled, or tried to
  flee. Another was seized in the attempt (according to Æschines)
  and condemned to death by the Council of Areopagus (Æschines
  adv. Ktesiph. p. 89). A member of the Areopagus itself, named
  Autolykus (the same probably who is mentioned with peculiar
  respect by Æschines cont. Timarchum, p. 12), sent away his family
  for safety; Lykurgus afterwards impeached him for it, and he was
  condemned by the Dikastery (Harpokration v. Αὐτόλυκος).

  [1116] Lykurgus adv. Leokrat. p. 149. Οὕτω δὲ σφόδρα ταῦτ᾽
  ἐπίστευσαν οἱ Ῥόδιοι, ὥστε τριήρεις πληρώσαντες τὰ πλοῖα κατῆγον,
  etc.

Such were the precautions taken at Athens after this fatal day. But
Athens lay at a distance of three or four days’ march from the field
of Chæroneia; while Thebes, being much nearer, bore the first attack
of Philip. Of the behavior of that prince after his victory, we have
contradictory statements. According to one account, he indulged in
the most insulting and licentious exultation on the field of battle,
jesting especially on the oratory and motions of Demosthenes; a
temper, from which he was brought round by the courageous reproof of
Demades, then his prisoner as one of the Athenian hoplites.[1117] At
first he even refused to grant permission to inter the slain, when
the herald came from Lebadeia to make the customary demand.[1118]
According to another account, the demeanor of Philip towards the
defeated Athenians was gentle and forbearing.[1119] However the fact
may have stood as to his first manifestations, it is certain that
his positive measures were harsh towards Thebes and lenient towards
Athens. He sold the Theban captives into slavery; he is said also
to have exacted a price for the liberty granted to bury the Theban
slain—which liberty, according to Grecian custom, was never refused
and certainly never sold, by the victor. Whether Thebes made any
farther resistance, or stood a siege, we do not know. But presently
the city fell into Philip’s power, who put to death several of the
leading citizens, banished others, and confiscated the property of
both. A council of Three Hundred—composed of philippizing Thebans,
for the most part just recalled from exile—was invested with the
government of the city, and with powers of life and death over every
one.[1120] The state of Thebes became much the same as it had been
when the Spartan Phœbidas, in concert with the Theban party headed
by Leontiades, surprised the Kadmeia. A Macedonian garrison was
now placed in the Kadmeia, as a Spartan garrison had been placed
then. Supported by this garrison, the philippizing Thebans were
uncontrolled masters of the city; with full power, and no reluctance,
to gratify their political antipathies. At the same time, Philip
restored the minor Bœotian towns—Orchomenus, and Platæa, probably
also Thespiæ and Koroneia—to the condition of free communities
instead of subjection to Thebes.[1121]

  [1117] Diodor. xvi. 87. The story respecting Demades is told
  somewhat differently in Sextus Empiricus adv. Grammaticos, p. 281.

  [1118] Plutarch, Vit. X. Orator, p. 849.

  [1119] Justin, ix. 4; Polybius, v. 10; Theopomp. Frag. 262. See
  the note of Wichers ad Theopompi Fragmenta, p. 259.

  [1120] Justin, ix. 4. Dienarch. cont. Demosth. s. 20. p. 92.

  [1121] Pausanias, iv. 25, 5; ix. 1, 3.

At Athens also, the philippizing orators raised their voices
loudly and confidently, denouncing Demosthenes and his policy.
New speakers,[1122] who would hardly have come forward before,
were now put up against him. The accusations however altogether
failed; the people continued to trust him, omitting no measure of
defence which he suggested. Æschines, who had before disclaimed all
connection with Philip, now altered his tone, and made boast of the
ties of friendship and hospitality subsisting between that prince
and himself.[1123] He tendered his services to go as envoy to the
Macedonian camp; whither he appears to have been sent, doubtless with
others, perhaps with Xenokrates and Phokion.[1124] Among them was
Demades also, having been just released from his captivity. Either by
the persuasions of Demades, or by a change in his own dispositions,
Philip had now become inclined to treat with Athens on favorable
terms. The bodies of the slain Athenians were burned by the victors,
and their ashes collected to be carried to Athens; though the formal
application of the herald to the same effect, had been previously
refused.[1125] Æschines (according to the assertion of Demosthenes)
took part as a sympathizing guest in the banquet and festivities
whereby Philip celebrated his triumph over Grecian liberty.[1126] At
length Demades with the other envoys returned to Athens, reporting
the consent of Philip to conclude peace, to give back the numerous
prisoners in his hands, and also to transfer Oropus from the Thebans
to Athens.

  [1122] Demosth. De Coronâ, p. 310. οὐ δι᾽ ἑαυτῶν τό γε πρῶτον,
  ἀλλὰ δι᾽ ὧν μάλισθ᾽ ὑπελάμβανον ἀγνοήσεσθαι, etc.

  So the enemies of Alkibiades put up against him in the assembly
  speakers of affected candor and impartiality—ἄλλους ῥήτορας
  ἐνιέντες, etc. Thucyd. vi. 29.

  [1123] Demosth. De Coronâ, p. 319, 320.

  [1124] Demosth. De Coronâ, p. 319. ὃς εὐθέως μετὰ τὴν μάχην
  πρεσβευτὴς ἐπορεύου πρὸς Φίλιππον, etc. Compare Plutarch,
  Phokion, c. 16. Diogen. Laert. iv. 5. in his Life of the
  Philosopher Xenokrates.

  [1125] Demades, Fragment. Orat. p. 179. χιλίων ταφὴ Ἀθηναίων
  μαρτυρεῖ μοι, κηδευθεῖσα ταῖς τῶν ἐναντίων χερσὶν, ἃς ἀντὶ
  πολεμίων φιλίας ἐποίησα τοῖς ἀποθανοῦσιν. Ἐνταῦθα ἐπιστὰς τοῖς
  πράγμασιν ἔγραψα τὴν εἰρήνην· ὁμολογῶ. Ἔγραψα καὶ Φιλίππῳ τιμάς·
  οὐκ ἀρνοῦμαι· δισχιλίους γὰρ αἰχμαλώτους ἄνευ λύτρων καὶ χίλια
  πολιτῶν σώματα χωρὶς κήρυκος, καὶ τὸν Ὠρωπὸν ἄνευ πρεσβείας λαβὼν
  ὑμῖν, ταῦτ᾽ ἔγραψα. See also Suidas v. Δημάδης.

  [1126] Demosth. De Coronâ, p. 321.

Demades proposed the conclusion of peace to the Athenian assembly,
by whom it was readily decreed. To escape invasion and siege by
the Macedonian army, was doubtless an unspeakable relief; while
the recovery of the two thousand prisoners without ransom, was an
acquisition of great importance, not merely to the city collectively,
but to the sympathies of numerous relatives. Lastly, to regain
Oropus—a possession which they had once enjoyed, and for which
they had long wrangled with the Thebans—was a farther cause of
satisfaction. Such conditions were doubtless acceptable at Athens.
But there was a submission to be made on the other side, which to the
contemporaries of Perikles would have seemed intolerable, even as
the price of averted invasion or recovered captives. The Athenians
were required to acknowledge the exaltation of Philip to the headship
of the Grecian world, and to promote the like acknowledgment by all
other Greeks, in a congress to be speedily convened. They were to
renounce all pretensions of headship, not only for themselves, but
for every other Grecian state; to recognize not Sparta or Thebes,
but the king of Macedon, as Pan-hellenic chief; to acquiesce in the
transition of Greece from the position of a free, self-determining,
political aggregate, into a provincial dependency of the kings of
Pella and Ægæ. It is not easy to conceive a more terrible shock
to that traditional sentiment of pride and patriotism, inherited
from forefathers, who, after repelling and worsting the Persians,
had first organized the maritime Greeks into a confederacy running
parallel with and supplementary to the non-maritime Greeks allied
with Sparta; thus keeping out foreign dominion and casting the
Grecian world into a system founded on native sympathies and free
government. Such traditional sentiment, though it no longer governed
the character of the Athenians or impressed upon them motives of
action, had still a strong hold upon their imagination and memory,
where it had been constantly kept alive by the eloquence of
Demosthenes and others. The peace of Demades, recognizing Philip as
chief of Greece, was a renunciation of all this proud historical
past, and the acceptance of a new and degraded position, for Athens
as well as for Greece generally.

Polybius praises the generosity of Philip in granting such favorable
terms, and even affirms, not very accurately, that he secured thereby
the steady gratitude and attachment of the Athenians.[1127] But
Philip would have gained nothing by killing his prisoners; not to
mention that he would have provoked an implacable spirit of revenge
among the Athenians. By selling his prisoners for slaves he would
have gained something, but by the use actually made of them he
gained more. The recognition of his Hellenic supremacy by Athens
was the capital step for the prosecution of his objects. It ensured
him against dissentients among the remaining Grecian states, whose
adhesion had not yet been made certain, and who might possibly have
stood out against a proposition so novel and so anti-Hellenic, had
Athens set them the example. Moreover, if Philip had not purchased
the recognition of Athens in this way, he might have failed in trying
to extort it by force. For though, being master of the field, he
could lay waste Attica with impunity, and even establish a permanent
fortress in it like Dekeleia—yet the fleet of Athens was as strong
as ever, and her preponderance at sea irresistible. Under these
circumstances, Athens and Peiræus might have been defended against
him, as Byzantium and Perinthus had been, two years before; the
Athenian fleet might have obstructed his operations in many ways;
and the siege of Athens might have called forth a burst of Hellenic
sympathy, such as to embarrass his farther progress. Thebes—an inland
city, hated by the other Bœotian cities—was prostrated by the battle
of Chæroneia, and left without any means of successful defence. But
the same blow was not absolutely mortal to Athens, united in her
population throughout all the area of Attica, and superior at sea.
We may see therefore, that—with such difficulties before him if he
pushed the Athenians to despair—Philip acted wisely in employing
his victory and his prisoners to procure her recognition of his
headship. His political game was well-played, now as always; but to
the praise of generosity bestowed by Polybius, he has little claim.

  [1127] Polybius, v. 10; xvii. 14; Diodor. Fragm. lib. xxxii.

Besides the recognition of Philip as chief of Greece, the Athenians,
on the motion of Demades, passed various honorary and complimentary
votes in his favor; of what precise nature we do not know.[1128]
Immediate relief from danger, with the restoration of two thousand
captive citizens, were sufficient to render the peace popular at
the first moment; moreover, the Athenians, as if conscious of
failing resolution and strength, were now entering upon that career
of flattery to powerful kings, which we shall hereafter find them
pushing to disgraceful extravagance. It was probably during the
prevalence of this sentiment, which did not long continue, that the
youthful Alexander of Macedon, accompanied by Antipater, paid a visit
to Athens.[1129]

  [1128] Demades, Frag. p. 179. ἔγραψα καὶ Φιλίππῳ τιμὰς, οὐκ
  ἀρνοῦμαι, etc. Compare Arrian, Exp. Alex. i. 2, 3—καὶ πλείονα ἔτι
  τῶν Φιλίππῳ δοθέντων Ἀλεξάνδρῳ ἐς τιμὴν ξυγχωρῆσαι, etc., and
  Clemens Alex. Admonit. ad Gent. p. 36 B. τὸν Μακεδόνα Φίλιππον ἐν
  Κυνοσάργει νομοθετοῦντες προσκυνεῖν, etc.

  [1129] Justin, ix. 4.

Meanwhile the respect enjoyed by Demosthenes among his countrymen was
noway lessened. Though his political opponents thought the season
favorable for bringing many impeachments against him, none of them
proved successful: and when the time came for electing a public
orator to deliver the funeral discourse at the obsequies celebrated
for the slain at Chæroneia—he was invested with that solemn duty,
not only in preference to Æschines, who was put up in competition,
but also to Demades the recent mover of the peace[1130]—and honored
with strong marks of esteem and sympathy from the surviving
relatives of these gallant citizens. Moreover it farther appears
that Demosthenes was continued in an important financial post as one
of the joint managers of the Theôric Fund, and as member of a Board
for purchasing corn; he was also continued, or shortly afterwards
re-appointed, superintendent of the walls and defences of the city.
The orator Hyperides, the political coadjutor of Demosthenes, was
impeached by Aristogeiton under the Graphê Paranomon, for his illegal
and unconstitutional decree (proposed under the immediate terror
of the defeat at Chæroneia), to grant manumission to the slaves,
citizenship to metics, and restoration of citizenship to those
who had been disfranchised by judicial sentence. The occurrence
of peace had removed all necessity for acting upon this decree;
nevertheless an impeachment was entered and brought against its
mover. Hyperides, unable to deny its illegality, placed his defence
on the true and obvious ground—“The Macedonian arms (he said)
darkened my vision. It was not I who moved the decree; it was the
battle of Chæroneia.”[1131] The substantive defence was admitted by
the Dikastery; while the bold oratorical turn attracted notice from
rhetorical critics.

  [1130] Demosth. De Coronâ, p. 310-320.

  [1131] Plutarch, Vit. X. Orat. p. 849.

Having thus subjugated and garrisoned Thebes—having reconstituted the
anti-Theban cities in Bœotia—having constrained Athens to submission
and dependent alliance—and having established a garrison in Ambrakia,
at the same time mastering Akarnania, and banishing the leading
Akarnanians who were opposed to him—Philip next proceeded to carry
his arms into Peloponnesus. He found little positive resistance
anywhere, except in the territory of Sparta. The Corinthians,
Argeians, Messenians, Eleians, and many Arcadians, all submitted to
his dominion; some even courted his alliance, from fear and antipathy
against Sparta. Philip invaded Laconia with an army too powerful for
the Spartans to resist in the field. He laid waste the country, and
took some detached posts; but he did not take, nor do we know that
he even attacked, Sparta itself. The Spartans could not resist; yet
would they neither submit, nor ask for peace. It appears that Philip
cut down their territory and narrowed their boundaries on all the
three sides; towards Argos, Messênê, and Megalopolis.[1132] We have
no precise account of the details of his proceedings; but it is clear
that he did just what seemed to him good, and that the governments of
all the Peloponnesian cities came into the hands of his partisans.
Sparta was the only city which stood out against him; maintaining her
ancient freedom and dignity, under circumstances of feebleness and
humiliation, with more unshaken resolution than Athens.

  [1132] Polybius, ix. 28, 33, xvii. 14; Tacitus, Annal. iv. 43;
  Strabo, viii. p. 361; Pausanias, ii. 20, 1. viii. 7, 4. viii. 27,
  8. From Diodorus xvii. 3, we see how much this adhesion to Philip
  was obtained under the pressure of necessity.

Philip next proceeded to convene a congress of Grecian cities at
Corinth. He here announced himself as resolved on an expedition
against the Persian king, for the purpose both of liberating the
Asiatic Greeks, and avenging the invasion of Greece by Xerxes. The
general vote of the congress nominated him leader of the united
Greeks for this purpose, and decreed a Grecian force to join him,
to be formed of contingents furnished by the various cities. The
total of the force promised is stated only by Justin, who gives it
at two hundred thousand foot, and fifteen thousand horse; an army
which Greece certainly could not have furnished, and which we can
hardly believe to have been even promised.[1133] The Spartans stood
aloof from the congress, continuing to refuse all recognition of
the headship of Philip. The Athenians attended and concurred in the
vote; which was in fact the next step to carry out the peace made
by Demades. They were required to furnish a well-equipped fleet
to serve under Philip; and they were at the same time divested of
their dignity of chiefs of a maritime confederacy, the islands being
enrolled as maritime dependencies of Philip, instead of continuing
to send deputies to a synod meeting at Athens.[1134] It appears that
Samos was still recognized as belonging to them[1135]—or at least
such portion of the island as was occupied by the numerous Athenian
kleruchs or out-settlers, first established in the island after the
conquest by Timotheus in 365 B. C., and afterwards reinforced. For
several years afterwards, the naval force in the dockyards of Athens
still continued large and powerful; but her maritime ascendency
henceforward disappears.

  [1133] Justin, ix. 5.

  [1134] Plutarch, Phokion, c. 16; Pausanias, i. 25, 3. Τὸ γὰρ
  ἀτύχημα τὸ ἐν Χαιρωνείᾳ ἅπασι τοῖς Ἕλλησιν ἦρξε κακοῦ, καὶ οὐχ
  ἥκιστα δούλους ἐποίησε τοὺς ὑπεριδόντας, καὶ ὅσοι μετὰ Μακεδόνων
  ἐτάχθησαν. Τὰς μὲν δὴ πολλὰς Φίλιππος τῶν πόλεων εἷλεν. Ἀθηναίοις
  δὲ λόγῳ συνθέμενος, ἔργῳ σφᾶς μάλιστα ἐκάκωσε, νήσους τε
  ἀφελόμενος καὶ τῆς εἰς τὰ ναυτικὰ παύσας ἀρχῆς.

  [1135] Diodor. xviii. 56. Σάμον δὲ δίδομεν Ἀθηναίοις, ἐπειδὴ καὶ
  Φίλιππος ἔδωκεν ὁ πατήρ. Compare Plutarch, Alexand. c. 28.

The Athenians, deeply mortified by such humiliation, were reminded
by Phokion that it was a necessary result of the peace which they
had accepted on the motion of Demades, and that it was now too late
to murmur.[1136] We cannot wonder at their feelings. Together with
the other free cities of Greece, they were enrolled as contributory
appendages of the king of Macedon; a revolution, to them more galling
than to the rest, since they passed at once, not merely from simple
autonomy, but from a condition of superior dignity, into the common
dependence. Athens had only to sanction the scheme dictated by
Philip and to furnish her quota towards the execution. Moreover,
this scheme—the invasion of Persia—had ceased to be an object of
genuine aspiration throughout the Grecian world. The Great King,
no longer inspiring terror to Greece collectively, might now be
regarded as likely to lend protection against Macedonian oppression.
To emancipate the Asiatic Greeks from Persian dominion would be
in itself an enterprise grateful to Grecian feeling, though all
such wishes must have been gradually dying out since the peace of
Antalkidas. But emancipation, accomplished by Philip, would be only
a transfer of the Asiatic Greeks from Persian dominion to his. The
synod of Corinth served no purpose except to harness the Greeks to
his car, for a distant enterprise lucrative to his soldiers and
suited to his insatiable ambition.

  [1136] Plutarch, Phokion, c. 16.

It was in 337 B. C. that this Persian expedition was concerted and
resolved. During that year preparations were made of sufficient
magnitude to exhaust the finances of Philip;[1137] who was at the
same time engaged in military operations, and fought a severe battle
against the Illyrian king Pleurias.[1138] In the spring of 336 B.
C., a portion of the Macedonian army under Parmenio and Attalus, was
sent across to Asia to commence military operations; Philip himself
intending speedily to follow.[1139]

  [1137] Arrian, vii. 9, 5.

  [1138] Diodor. xvi. 93.

  [1139] Justin, ix. 5; Diodor. xvi. 91.

Such however was not the fate reserved for him. Not long before,
he had taken the resolution of repudiating, on the allegation of
infidelity, his wife Olympias; who is said to have become repugnant
to him, from the furious and savage impulses of her character.
He had successively married several wives, the last of whom was
Kleopatra, niece of the Macedonian Attalus. It was at her instance
that he is said to have repudiated Olympias; who retired to her
brother Alexander of Epirus.[1140] This step provoked violent
dissensions among the partisans of the two queens, and even between
Philip and his son Alexander, who expressed a strong resentment
at the repudiation of his mother. Amidst the intoxication of the
marriage banquet, Attalus proposed a toast and prayer, that there
might speedily appear a legitimate son, from Philip and Kleopatra,
to succeed to the Macedonian throne. Upon which Alexander exclaimed
in wrath—“Do you then proclaim _me_ as a bastard?”—at the same time
hurling a goblet at him. Incensed at this proceeding, Philip started
up, drew his sword, and made furiously at his son; but fell to the
ground from passion and intoxication. This accident alone preserved
the life of Alexander; who retorted—“Here is a man, preparing to
cross from Europe into Asia—who yet cannot step surely from one
couch to another.[1141]” After this violent quarrel the father and
son separated. Alexander conducted his mother into Epirus, and then
went himself to the Illyrian king. Some months afterwards, at the
instance of the Corinthian Demaratus, Philip sent for him back, and
became reconciled to him; but another cause of displeasure soon
arose, because Alexander had opened a negotiation for marriage with
the daughter of the satrap of Karia. Rejecting such an alliance
as unworthy, Philip sharply reproved his son, and banished from
Macedonia several courtiers whom he suspected as intimate with
Alexander;[1142] while the friends of Attalus stood high in favor.

  [1140] Athenæus, xiii. p. 557; Justin, ix. 7.

  [1141] Plutarch, Alexand. c. 9; Justin, ix. 7; Diodor. xvi. 91-93.

  [1142] Plutarch, Alexand. c. 10; Arrian, iii. 6, 5.

Such were the animosities distracting the court and family of Philip.
A son had just been born to him from his new wife Kleopatra.[1143]
His expedition against Persia, resolved and prepared during the
preceding year, had been actually commenced; Parmenio and Attalus
having been sent across to Asia with the first division, to be
followed presently by himself with the remaining army. But Philip
foresaw that during his absence danger might arise from the furious
Olympias, bitterly exasperated by the recent events, and instigating
her brother Alexander king of Epirus, with whom she was now residing.
Philip indeed held a Macedonian garrison in Ambrakia,[1144] the chief
Grecian city on the Epirotic border; and he had also contributed much
to establish Alexander as prince. But he now deemed it essential to
conciliate him still farther, by a special tie of alliance; giving to
him in marriage Kleopatra, his daughter by Olympias.[1145] For this
marriage, celebrated at Ægæ in Macedonia in August 336 B. C., Philip
provided festivals of the utmost cost and splendor, commemorating
at the same time the recent birth of his son by Kleopatra.[1146]
Banquets, munificent presents, gymnastic and musical matches, tragic
exhibitions,[1147] among which Neoptolemus the actor performed in
the tragedy of Kinyras, etc. with every species of attraction known
to the age—were accumulated, in order to reconcile the dissentient
parties in Macedonia, and to render the effect imposing on the
minds of the Greeks; who, from every city, sent deputies for
congratulation. Statues of the twelve great gods, admirably executed,
were carried in solemn procession into the theatre; immediately after
them, the statue of Philip himself as a thirteenth god.[1148]

  [1143] Pausanias (viii. 7, 5) mentions a son born to Philip by
  Kleopatra; Diodorus (xvii. 2) also notices a son. Justin in one
  place (ix. 7) mentions a daughter, and in another place (xi. 2)
  a son named Caranus. Satyrus (ap. Athenæum, xiii. p. 557) states
  that a daughter named Eurôpê was born to him by Kleopatra.

  It appears that the son was born only a short time before the
  last festival and the assassination of Philip, But I incline to
  think that the marriage with Kleopatra may well have taken place
  two years or more before that event, and that there may have been
  a daughter born before the son. Certainly Justin distinguishes
  the two, stating that the daughter was killed by order of
  Olympias, and the son by that of Alexander (ix. 7; xi. 2).

  Arrian (iii. 6, 5) seems to mean _Kleopatra_ the wife of Philip,
  though he speaks of Eurydikê.

  [1144] Diodor. xvii. 3.

  [1145] This Kleopatra—daughter of Philip, sister of Alexander the
  Great, and bearing the same name as Philip’s last wife—was thus
  niece of the Epirotic Alexander, her husband. Alliances of that
  degree of kindred were then neither disreputable nor unfrequent.

  [1146] Diodor. xvii. 2.

  [1147] Josephus, Antiq. xix. 1, 13; Suetonius, Caligula, c. 57.
  See Mr. Clinton’s Appendix (4) on the Kings of Macedonia. Fast.
  Hellen. p. 230, note.

  [1148] Diodor. xvi. 92.

Amidst this festive multitude, however, there were not wanting
discontented partisans of Olympias and Alexander, to both of whom the
young queen with her new-born child threatened a formidable rivalry.
There was also a malcontent yet more dangerous—Pausanias, one of the
royal body-guards, a noble youth born in the district called Orestis
in Upper Macedonia; who, from causes of offence peculiar to himself,
nourished a deadly hatred against Philip. The provocation which he
had received is one which we can neither conveniently transcribe,
nor indeed accurately make out, amidst discrepancies of statement.
It was Attalus, the uncle of the new queen Kleopatra, who had given
the provocation, by inflicting upon Pausanias an outrage of the
most brutal and revolting character. Even for so monstrous an act,
no regular justice could be had in Macedonia, against a powerful
man. Pausanias complained to Philip in person. According to one
account, Philip put aside the complaint with evasions, and even
treated it with ridicule; according to another account, he expressed
his displeasure at the act, and tried to console Pausanias by
pecuniary presents. But he granted neither redress nor satisfaction
to the sentiment of an outraged man.[1149] Accordingly Pausanias
determined to take revenge for himself. Instead of revenging himself
on Attalus—who indeed was out of his reach, being at the head of the
Macedonian troops in Asia—his wrath fixed upon Philip himself, by
whom the demand for redress had been refused. It appears that this
turn of sentiment, diverting the appetite for revenge away from the
real criminal, was not wholly spontaneous on the part of Pausanias,
but was artfully instigated by various party conspirators who wished
to destroy Philip. The enemies of Attalus and queen Kleopatra (who
herself is said to have treated Pausanias with insult[1150])—being of
course also partisans of Olympias and Alexander—were well disposed
to make use of the maddened Pausanias as an instrument, and to
direct his exasperation against the king. He had poured forth his
complaints both to Olympias and to Alexander; the former is said to
have worked him up vehemently against her late husband—and even the
latter repeated to him a verse out of Euripides, wherein the fierce
Medea, deserted by her husband Jason who had married the daughter of
the Corinthian king Kreon, vows to include in her revenge the king
himself, together with her husband and his new wife.[1151] That the
vindictive Olympias would positively spur on Pausanias to assassinate
Philip, is highly probable. Respecting Alexander, though he also
was accused, there is no sufficient evidence to warrant a similar
assertion; but that some among his partisans—men eager to consult
his feelings and to ensure his succession—lent their encouragements,
appears tolerably well established. A Greek sophist named Hermokrates
is also said to have contributed to the deed, though seemingly
without intention, by his conversation; and the Persian king (an
improbable report) by his gold.[1152]

  [1149] Aristot. Polit. v. 8. 10. Ἡ Φιλίππου (ἐπίθεσις) ὑπὸ
  Παυσανίου, διὰ τὸ ἐᾶσαι ὑβρισθῆναι αὐτὸν ὑπὸ τῶν περὶ Ἄτταλον, etc.
  Justin, ix. 6; Diodor. xvi. 93.

  [1150] Plutarch, Alex. c. 10.

  [1151] Plutarch, Alex. c. 10.

  [1152] Arrian, Exp. Alex. ii. 14, 10.

Unconscious of the plot, Philip was about to enter the theatre,
already crowded with spectators. As he approached the door, clothed
in a white robe, he felt so exalted with impressions of his own
dignity, and so confident in the admiring sympathy of the surrounding
multitude, that he advanced both unarmed and unprotected, directing
his guards to hold back. At this moment Pausanias, standing near with
a Gallic sword concealed under his garment, rushed upon him, thrust
the weapon through his body, and killed him. Having accomplished
his purpose, the assassin immediately ran off, and tried to reach
the gates, where he had previously caused horses to be stationed.
Being strong and active, he might have succeeded in effecting
his escape—like most of the assassins of Jason of Pheræ[1153]
under circumstances very similar—had not his foot stumbled amidst
some vine-stocks. The guards and friends of Philip were at first
paralyzed with astonishment and consternation. At length however some
hastened to assist the dying king; while others rushed in pursuit
of Pausanias. Leonnatus and Perdikkas overtook him and slew him
immediately.[1154]

  [1153] Xenoph. Hellen. vi. 4, 32.

  [1154] Diodor. xvi. 94; Justin, ix. 7; Plutarch, Alex. c. 10.

In what way, or to what extent, the accomplices of Pausanias lent
him aid, we are not permitted to know. It is possible that they
may have posted themselves artfully so as to obstruct pursuit,
and favor his chance of escape; which would appear extremely
small, after a deed of such unmeasured audacity. Three only of the
reputed accomplices are known to us by name—three brothers from
the Lynkestian district of Upper Macedonia—Alexander, Heromenes,
and Arrhibæus, sons of Æropus;[1155] but it seems that there were
others besides. The Lynkestian Alexander—whose father-in-law
Antipater was one of the most conspicuous and confidential officers
in the service of Philip—belonged to a good family in Macedonia,
perhaps even descendants from the ancient family of the princes of
Lynkestis.[1156] It was he, who, immediately after Pausanias had
assassinated Philip, hastened to salute the prince Alexander as king,
helped him to put on his armor, and marched as one of his guards to
take possession of the regal palace.[1157]

  [1155] Arrian, Exp. Alex. i. 25, 1.

  [1156] Justin, xii. 14; Quintus Curtius, vii. 1, 5, with the note
  of Mützell.

  [1157] Arrian, i. 25, 2; Justin, xi. 2. “Soli Alexandro
  Lyncistarum fratri pepercit, servans in eo auspicium dignitatis
  suæ; nam regem eum primus salutaverat.”

This “prima vox”[1158] was not simply an omen or presage to Alexander
of empire to come, but essentially serviceable to him as a real
determining cause or condition. The succession to the Macedonian
throne was often disturbed by feud or bloodshed among the members
of the regal family; and under the latter circumstances of Philip’s
reign, such disturbance was peculiarly probable. He had been on
bad terms with Alexander, and on still worse terms with Olympias.
While banishing persons attached to Alexander, he had lent his ear
to Attalus with the partisans of the new queen Kleopatra. Had these
latter got the first start after the assassination, they would have
organized an opposition to Alexander in favor of the infant prince;
which opposition might have had some chances of success, since they
had been in favor with the deceased king, and were therefore in
possession of many important posts. But the deed of Pausanias took
them unprepared, and for the moment paralyzed them; while, before
they could recover or take concert, one of the accomplices of the
assassin ran to put Alexander in motion without delay. A decisive
initiatory movement from him and his friends, at this critical
juncture, determined waverers and forestalled opposition. We need not
wonder therefore that Alexander, when king, testified extraordinary
gratitude and esteem for his Lynkestian namesake; not simply
exempting him from the punishment of death inflicted on the other
accomplices, but also promoting him to great honors and important
military commands. Neither Alexander and Olympias on the one side,
nor Attalus and Kleopatra on the other, were personally safe, except
by acquiring the succession. It was one of the earliest proceedings
of Alexander to send over a special officer to Asia, for the purpose
of bringing home Attalus prisoner, or of putting him to death; the
last of which was done, seemingly through the coöperation of Parmenio
(who was in joint command with Attalus) and his son Philotas.[1159]
The unfortunate Kleopatra and her child were both put to death
shortly afterwards.[1160] Other persons also were slain, of whom I
shall speak farther in describing the reign of Alexander.

  [1158] Tacitus, Hist. ii. 80. “Dum quæritur tempus locusque,
  quodque in re tali difficillimum est, _prima vox_; dum animo
  spes, timor, ratio, casus observantur; egressum cubiculo
  Vespasianum, pauci milites solito adsistentes ordine,
  _Imperatorem_ salutavere. Tum cæteri accurrere, _Cæsarem_, et
  _Augustum_, et omnia principatus vocabula cumulare: mens a metu
  ad fortunam transierat.”

  [1159] Quintus Curtius, vii. 1, 3; Diodorus, xvii. 2, 5. Compare
  Justin, xi. 5.

  [1160] Justin, ix. 7; xi. 2. Pausanias, viii. 7, 5; Plutarch,
  Alex. c. 10.

  According to Pausanias, Olympias caused Kleopatra and her infant
  boy to perish by a horrible death; being roasted or baked on a
  brazen vessel surrounded by fire. According to Justin, Olympias
  first slew the daughter of Kleopatra on her mother’s bosom, and
  then caused Kleopatra herself to be hanged; while Alexander
  put to death Caranus, the infant son of Kleopatra. Plutarch
  says nothing about this; but states that the cruel treatment of
  Kleopatra was inflicted by order of Olympias during the absence
  of Alexander, and that he was much displeased at it. The main
  fact, that Kleopatra and her infant child were despatched by
  violence, seems not open to reasonable doubt; though we cannot
  verify the details.

We could have wished to learn from some person actually present,
the immediate effect produced upon the great miscellaneous crowd in
the theatre, when the sudden murder of Philip first became known.
Among the Greeks present, there were doubtless many who welcomed it
with silent satisfaction, as seeming to reopen for them the door of
freedom. One person alone dared to manifest satisfaction; and that
one was Olympias.[1161]

  [1161] After the solemn funeral of Philip, Olympias took down
  and burned the body of Pausanias (which had been crucified),
  providing for him a sepulchral monument and an annual ceremony of
  commemoration. Justin, ix. 7.

Thus perished the destroyer of freedom and independence in the
Hellenic world, at the age of forty-six or forty-seven, after a reign
of twenty-three years.[1162] Our information about him is signally
defective. Neither his means, nor his plans, nor the difficulties
which he overcame, nor his interior government, are known to us with
exactness or upon contemporary historical authority. But the great
results of his reign, and the main lines of his character, stand
out incontestably. At his accession, the Macedonian kingdom was a
narrow territory round Pella, excluded partially, by independent and
powerful Grecian cities, even from the neighboring sea-coast. At his
death, Macedonian ascendency was established from the coasts of the
Propontis to those of the Ionian Sea, and the Ambrakian, Messenian,
and Saronic Gulfs. Within these boundaries, all the cities recognized
the supremacy of Philip; except only Sparta, and mountaineers like
the Ætolians and others, defended by a rugged home. Good fortune had
waited on Philip’s steps, with a few rare interruptions;[1163] but
it was good fortune crowning the efforts of a rare talent, political
and military. Indeed the restless ambition, the indefatigable
personal activity and endurance, and the adventurous courage, of
Philip, were such as, in a king, suffice almost of themselves to
guarantee success, even with abilities much inferior to his. That
among the causes of Philip’s conquests, one was corruption, employed
abundantly to foment discord and purchase partisans among neighbors
and enemies—that with winning and agreeable manners, he combined
recklessness in false promises, deceit and extortion even towards
allies, and unscrupulous perjury when it suited his purpose—this
we find affirmed, and there is no reason for disbelieving it.[1164]
Such dissolving forces smoothed the way for an efficient and
admirable army, organized, and usually commanded, by himself. Its
organization adopted and enlarged the best processes of scientific
warfare employed by Epaminondas and Iphikrates.[1165] Begun as well
as completed by Philip, and bequeathed as an engine ready-made for
the conquests of Alexander, it constitutes an epoch in military
history. But the more we extol the genius of Philip as a conqueror,
formed for successful encroachment and aggrandizement at the expense
of all his neighbors—the less can we find room for that mildness and
moderation which some authors discover in his character. If, on some
occasions of his life, such attributes may fairly be recognized, we
have to set against them the destruction of the thirty-two Greek
cities in Chalkidikê and the wholesale transportation of reluctant
and miserable families from one inhabitancy to another.

  [1162] Justin (ix. 3) calls Philip forty-seven years of age;
  Pausanias (viii. 7, 4) speaks of him as forty-six. See Mr.
  Clinton’s Fast. Hellen. Appen. 4. p. 227.

  [1163] Theopompus, Frag. 265. ap. Athenæ. iii. p. 77. καὶ
  εὐτυχῆσαι πάντα Φίλιππον. Compare Demosth. Olynth. ii. p. 24.

  [1164] Theopomp. Frag. 249; Theopompus ap. Polybium, viii. 11.
  ἀδικώτατον δὲ καὶ κακοπραγμονέστατον περὶ τὰς τῶν φίλων καὶ
  συμμάχων κατασκευὰς, πλείστας δὲ πόλεις ἐξηνδραποδισμένον καὶ
  πεπραξικοπηκότα μετὰ δόλου καὶ βίας, etc.

  Justin, ix. 8. Pausanias, vii. 7, 3; vii. 10, 4; viii. 7, 4.
  Diodor. xvi. 54.

  The language of Pausanias about Philip, after doing justice to
  his great conquests and exploits, is very strong—ὅς γε καὶ ὅρκους
  θεῶν κατεπάτησεν ἀεὶ, καὶ σπονδὰς ἐπὶ πάντι ἐψεύσατο, πίστιν τε
  ἠτίμασε μάλιστα ἀνθρώπων, etc. By such conduct, according to
  Pausanias, Philip brought the divine wrath both upon himself and
  upon his race, which became extinct with the next generation.

  [1165] A striking passage occurs, too long to cite, in the third
  Philippic of Demosthenes (p. 123-124) attesting the marvellous
  stride made by Philip in the art and means of effective warfare.

Besides his skill as a general and a politician, Philip was no mean
proficient in the Grecian accomplishments of rhetoric and letters.
The testimony of Æschines as to his effective powers of speaking,
though requiring some allowance, is not to be rejected. Isokrates
addresses him as a friend of letters and philosophy; a reputation
which his choice of Aristotle as instructor of his son Alexander,
tends to bear out. Yet in Philip, as in the two Dionysii of Syracuse
and other despots, these tastes were not found inconsistent either
with the crimes of ambition, or the licenses of inordinate appetite.
The contemporary historian Theopompus, a warm admirer of Philip’s
genius, stigmatizes not only the perfidy, of his public dealings, but
also the drunkenness, gambling, and excesses of all kinds in which
he indulged—encouraging the like in those around him. His Macedonian
and Grecian body-guard, eight hundred in number, was a troop in which
no decent man could live; distinguished indeed for military bravery
and aptitude, but sated with plunder, and stained with such shameless
treachery, sanguinary rapacity, and unbridled lust, as befitted only
Centaurs and Læstrygons.[1166] The number of Philip’s mistresses and
wives was almost on an Oriental scale;[1167] and the dissensions thus
introduced into his court through his offspring by different mothers,
were fraught with mischievous consequences.

  [1166] Theopomp. Frag. 249. Ἁπλῶς δ᾽ εἰπεῖν ... ἡγοῦμαι τοιαῦτα
  θηρία γεγονέναι, καὶ τοιοῦτον τοὺς φίλους καὶ τους ἑταίρους
  Φιλίππου προσαγορευθέντας, οἵους οὔτε τοὺς Κενταύρους τοὺς τὸ
  Πήλιον κατασχόντας, οὔτε τοὺς Λαιστρυγόνας τοὺς Λεοντῖνον πεδίον
  οἰκήσαντας, οὔτ’ ἄλλους οὐδ᾽ ὁποίους.

  Compare Athenæ. iv. p. 166, 167; vi. p. 260, 261. Demosthen.
  Olynth. ii. p. 23.

  Polybius (viii. 11) censures Theopompus for self-contradiction,
  in ascribing to Philip both unprincipled means and intemperate
  habits, and yet extolling his ability and energy as a king. But
  I see no contradiction between the two. The love of enjoyment
  was not suffered to stand in the way of Philip’s military and
  political schemes, either in himself or his officers. The
  master-passion overpowered all appetites; but when that passion
  did not require effort, intemperance was the habitual relaxation.
  Polybius neither produces any sufficient facts, nor cites any
  contemporary authority, to refute Theopompus.

  It is to be observed that the statements of Theopompus,
  respecting both the public and private conduct of Philip, are as
  disparaging as anything in Demosthenes.

  [1167] Satyrus ap. Athenæ. xiii. p. 557. Ὁ δὲ Φίλιππος ἀεὶ κατὰ
  πόλεμον ἐγάμει, etc.

In appreciating the genius of Philip, we have to appreciate also
the parties to whom he stood opposed. His good fortune was nowhere
more conspicuous than in the fact, that he fell upon those days of
disunion and backwardness in Greece (indicated in the last sentence
of Xenophon’s Hellenica) when there was neither leading city
prepared to keep watch, nor leading general to take command, nor
citizen-soldiers willing and ready to endure the hardships of steady
service. Philip combated no opponents like Epaminondas, or Agesilaus,
or Iphikrates. How different might have been his career, had
Epaminondas survived the victory of Mantineia, gained only two years
before Philip’s accession! To oppose Philip, there needed a man like
himself, competent not only to advise and project, but to command in
person, to stimulate the zeal of citizen-soldiers, and to set the
example of braving danger and fatigue. Unfortunately for Greece, no
such leader stood forward. In counsel and speech Demosthenes sufficed
for the emergency. Twice before the battle of Chæroneia—at Byzantium
and at Thebes—did he signally frustrate Philip’s combinations. But he
was not formed to take the lead in action, nor was there any one near
him to supply the defect. In the field, Philip encountered only that
“public inefficiency,” at Athens and elsewhere in Greece, of which
even Æschines complains;[1168] and to this decay of Grecian energy,
not less than to his own distinguished attributes, the unparalleled
success of his reign was owing. We shall find during the reign of
his son Alexander (to be described in our next volume) the like
genius and vigor exhibited on a still larger scale, and achieving
still more wonderful results; while the once stirring politics of
Greece, after one feeble effort, sink yet lower, into the nullity of
a subject-province.

  [1168] Æschines cont. Timarchum, p. 26. εἶτα τί θαυμάζομεν ~τὴν
  κοινὴν~ ἀπραξίαν, τοιούτων ῥητόρων ἐπὶ τὰς τοῦ δήμου γνώμας
  ἐπιγραφομένων;

  Æschines would ascribe this public inefficiency—which many
  admitted and deplored, though few except Demosthenes persevered
  in contending against it—to the fact that men of scandalous
  private lives (like Timarchus) were permitted, against the law,
  to move decrees in the public assembly. Compare Æschines, Fals.
  Leg. p. 37.







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