Chapter LXXXVIII: Euboic and Olynthian Wars (2)

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.