Chapter LXXXIX (4)

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.