Chapter XLIX: The Triumphs of Philip (1)

DEMOSTHENES, THE ORATOR

The trite proverb that “the pen is mightier than the sword,” like all other proverbs, expresses hardly half the truth. Never was there a more definite combat between the two sharp instruments than in the history of Greece at this period, for that history becomes hardly more than a pitched battle between a splendid organiser of armies and a splendid captain of arguments, and the parallel is the closer inasmuch as Demosthenes, though commonly thought of as an orator, was much more distinctly a writer; for he was decidedly inferior as a speaker to his great rival Æschines, and his orations are chiefly valuable for their logic and their cautious reasoning. Unlike the perishable glories of the art of oratory pure and simple, the art of Demosthenes has come down to us in considerable completeness, and forms a text-book whose eloquence is little appreciated by the students that reluctantly unravel its close-knit fabric.

As this duel between the king of Macedonia and the manufacturer’s son of Athens was so nearly a combat of equals, it will be well to cast a brief look at the biography of Demosthenes, since we have given so much attention to the formation of Philip’s character.[a]

The father of this great orator was an Athenian by birth, and exercised the trade of an armourer, by which he acquired considerable wealth. He married the daughter of one Gylon who had settled upon the borders of the Euxine Sea and contracted an alliance with a rich heiress of the country.[15] At the age of seven Demosthenes was deprived of his father, who left him a fortune which entitled him to rank with the wealthiest citizens. Though guardians had been appointed to manage his estate and direct his education, they seem to have dilapidated the one, and neglected the other. Left at an early age entirely to himself, he launched out into expenses with all the extravagance and vanity of youth, acted as choregus or president of theatrical entertainments, and equipped a ship of war for the service of the republic. He spent the first part of his life without any fixed purpose or aim, indulging in such a state of indolence and effeminacy, as to have his name stigmatised by a term of reproach [Batalos]. But the seeds of genius, being either allowed to shoot up in wild luxuriance or to lie dormant through neglect, were soon to spring up with amazing vigour. He determined thenceforth to devote himself wholly to the study of eloquence. At that time learning of all kinds, but particularly philosophy and the art of rhetoric, was cultivated with great eagerness by the Athenian youth. Plato had established his school in the Academy, and was attended by a vast concourse. Demosthenes attended it with great assiduity, as well as that of Isæus the rhetorician. After these preparatory studies, he tried his strength against his guardians, whom he obliged to refund a part of his property. Emboldened by this success, he mounted the tribunal to harangue the people upon the state of affairs, but was heard with very little attention, and no signs of approbation. Not discouraged by this unfavourable reception, he made a second attempt and was equally unsuccessful.

As he retired, exceedingly depressed by his ill-success, and determined in his mind to relinquish a pursuit for which nature seemed to have rendered him unfit, by denying him the free use of the organs of speech, and a sufficient quantity of breath to articulate distinctly a sentence of moderate length, he was met by one of his friends, a comedian, who exhorted him to conquer the natural and acquired defects under which he laboured. He instantly set about correcting, with the greatest perseverance and most extraordinary means, his rapid and inarticulate pronunciation, ungraceful and awkward gestures in declaiming, and several natural defects under which he laboured.[c]

The anecdotes of Demosthenes’ struggle with his defects are remembered by many people to whom the very name of King Philip is obscure. These anecdotes rest upon the orator’s own authority. The reader need hardly be reminded of the hours he spent talking with his mouth full of pebbles, shouting against the roar of the stormy ocean, practising his gestures before a mirror, expanding his lungs by running and by declaiming as he climbed the steep hills of which Greece is made, shaving half his head to compel himself to keep indoors at his studies, and shutting himself up for months at a time in an underground room where he copied all Thucydides eight times, and polished his own phrases to incandescence.

Thus prepared, he undertook a losing battle in defence of that system of municipal isolation and jealousy which he thought of as freedom, but which had brought on Greece innumerable crimes and sorrows and kept the little peninsula always under the shadow of complete disaster before a larger foe. In a sense, Demosthenes may be compared with the advocates of States’ Rights in the United States before the Civil War, except that the Americans never dreamed of carrying their theories to such an extent. To put the two instances on a par, it would be necessary to imagine the Southerners of America demanding not merely that the states have no federation whatsoever, but that even the smallest town of each state should go its own petty way.

ÆSCHINES, THE RIVAL OF DEMOSTHENES

Heroic as the figure of Demosthenes is in many respects one must not forget to do justice to the opposition he met, not only from Macedonia but from within his own city. Posterity is likely to generalise too vigorously, and Æschines has suffered more than his due from the fact that he happened to be the opponent of Demosthenes. It is customary to think of Æschines as a traitor, a hypocrite, and the paid attorney of Philip in Athens. Yet it might be well to remember that if his advice had been taken and the Macedonians treated with welcome instead of warfare as preached by Demosthenes, the result would have been exactly the same except that much bloodshed would have been saved and a loathsome amount of intrigue and villainy avoided. When Demosthenes is praised for his determination and persistence in his one idea, Æschines must be praised for the same to the same degree. When sympathy is felt for Demosthenes in the enmity he met, it must be remembered that Æschines suffered exile and suffered it with dignity. Æschines was never proved guilty of accepting money from Macedonia, while Demosthenes gloated over the poverty of Æschines and boasted of his own riches. On the other hand it is known that Demosthenes accepted money from Persia. And, if one may be permitted to distinguish between degrees of guilt in bribery, one might feel that Persian money was far dirtier for a Grecian to handle than the semi-Grecian gold of Macedonia, coming from the hand of a king whose great ambition was to organise Greece into a federated monarchy and lead her against Persia.

Æschines claimed to have been of distinguished blood, and, while Demosthenes declared him to be of the lowest possible origin, and that dishonest, he certainly represented the aristocratic party. His friendship for Philip’s cause cannot be imputed to a cowardly desire for peace at any price, since he proved himself a brave soldier, while Demosthenes threw away his shield and fled from the very battle-ground of Chæronea to which his eloquence had summoned the Greeks. Æschines was a writer of great skill and the three of his orations still extant are rated almost as high as those of Demosthenes. Æschines seems to have had a far better voice and presence than the effeminate student whom posterity thinks of as a majestic thunderer. The good and ill in the character of the latter have been nowhere more briskly summarised than by Prévost-Paradol[d]:

THE UNPOPULARITY OF DEMOSTHENES

“Demosthenes was never entirely popular. He had nothing grand in him but his eloquence and will. Dignity of character was wanting. Is it to be said that the highest virtues were necessary in Athens for the popularity of a political man? By no means. Virtue was a title, but the contrary of virtue had also its influence when it was joined to elegance. For Demosthenes, who owed a ridiculous surname [Batalos] to hidden debauches, and who devoted the rest of his youth to an ungrateful work, had neither the graces of vice nor the dignity of virtue. He was neither Aristides nor Alcibiades. Nor had he the easy levity of Cleon and many other demagogues. He was a man of anxiety and toil. He had not the good-natured and happy insolence of a popular orator, who plays with the people and himself, and enlivens the tribune: neither did he possess that which was the contrary, that is to say, natural dignity, the majestic calm which made Pericles the organ of divine reason, a kind of medium between Athens and its destiny, between the people and the spirit of the republic. Demosthenes was violent and laborious. His discourses smelt of oil, but smoothness was absent from them. It was premeditated vehemence, the result of art as much as of inspiration. In short, the people had seen this orator raise himself slowly from mediocrity, and buy his power with long night studies; he inoculated himself patiently with genius. They had hissed at Demosthenes and had seen him come back stronger; they had hissed again and he had returned all-powerful. The mob is wrong in rarely pardoning such marvels. The mob, with eternal injustice, more willingly gives its approbation to the idleness of genius than to the fertile preparation of work; it adds its partiality in favour of destiny, and the glory which gives itself is more brilliant in its eyes than that which must be conquered. The conduct of Demosthenes, as haughty as his eloquence, would often have irritated a less suspicious democracy. This energetic spirit, nourished by contests, which struggle and effort had alone rendered fruitful, never distrusted its natural impetuosity. Demosthenes applied to political difficulties the same violence he had so happily used against his natural difficulties; he treated his adversaries like the obstacles which had prevented his becoming eloquent. One day an accomplice of Philip, Antiphon, arraigned before the assembly of the people, is sent away acquitted. Demosthenes snatched away the benefit of the popular sentence, arraigned him before the Areopagus, and never rested until he was condemned to death. When has a democracy patiently allowed itself to be thus defended against itself and its judgments broken?

“Demosthenes was of the aristocracy; the aristocracy of money, it is true, but it is sufficient to read Aristophanes to feel that this aristocracy was the heaviest to bear, when one had the misfortune to belong to it. Demosthenes was rich, the son of riches, and he boasted about it with perilous intemperance. In the _Discourse on the Crown_ he opposed his fortune to the poverty of Æschines, with a disgust and hardness contrary to the Athenian spirit.

“Add to so many causes of unpopularity, the natural inconsistency of the people, the sacrifices Demosthenes claimed from them, the dangers and the reverses of his politics, and one will be surprised at the lasting power of this great man. The explanation thereof is entirely in the strength and clearness of his wonderful genius. Every day he showed his prodigious eloquence, which consisted in raising his audience above its ordinary intelligence, communicated for a moment to the crowd the generosity of a great soul and the divination of a superior mind. He made the people capable of feeling what was noble in politics, and understanding what was necessary. He showed them in this policy the natural result of the Athenian destiny. He identified his work with the work of that superior power against which all complaint is useless and all anger ridiculous, the work of Necessity.”

But perhaps the most satisfactory claim Demosthenes has on the memory of all time is to be found in that inevitable beauty which surrounds a losing battle fought to the end. Professor Jebb[e] has said, “As a statesman, Demosthenes needs no epitaph but his own words in the speech _On the Crown_: ‘I say that, if the event had been manifest to the whole world beforehand, not even then ought Athens to have forsaken this course, if Athens had any regard for her glory, or for her past, or for the ages to come.’”

PHILIP’S BETTER SIDE

But finally, while we are endeavouring to be judicial, it is appropriate to think of the better side of King Philip. He, too, had obstacles to overcome, and he suffers from the pathetic consequences of success; for we forgive the weaknesses and vices and the underhand measures of the one who fails, but we are prone to impute the success of the man who succeeds, purely to the evil of his ways. Once more we may quote Prévost-Paradol[d]:

“Philip had closely observed Greece, with its incurable and daily augmenting weaknesses, and he had foreseen, as a magnificent future, the reunion of these powerless and divided people, under his sovereign authority. He had understood that the Grecian empire, defended by mercenaries and void of citizens, belonged to those who could put in the ranks the greatest number of trained soldiers, and that patriotism had no longer any part to play in this supreme struggle. The instinct and passion of craftiness, patience, the art of bribery, made him eminently suitable for those corrupting and lying manœuvres, which divide the enemy and prepare victory. And to these precious gifts were added an unrestrained ambition, sufficiently strong so as not to draw back in the face of any danger, sufficiently enlightened only to seek opportune contests, and to become great only through success. It is because Philip always saw ahead of his actions, and hoped for great things, that they were always appropriate and useful, and that he did them with such terrible activity. He gave himself up entirely to intrigues, to battles, to the formation of his army, to the subjection of Greece, and to vast hopes.

“It is with a sort of terror that Demosthenes saw and described him as being consumed by desires always greater, and carried away by a hidden strength from enterprise to enterprise. ‘I saw Philip with one eye put out, one shoulder broken, a crippled hand, a wounded thigh, abandon to fortune without ceremony or hesitation all that it wished to take of his body, provided the rest remained powerful and honoured.’ Who does not see that his unchecked activity followed a more elevated aim than the submission of Greece and that this great man, in a hurry to have finished, was afraid of seeing life suddenly fail his ambition? What could Greece do to such a genius, sustained by such a character?”

Professor Bury[f] is even more direct in Philip’s praise and in blame for Demosthenes: “To none of the world’s great rulers has history done less justice than to Philip. The overwhelming greatness of a son greater than himself has overshadowed him and drawn men’s eyes to achievements which could never have been wrought but for Philip’s life of toil.” He also notes that we have no information of Philip’s stupendous conquest of Thrace, and that what we know of him at all has come through Athenian mouths and chiefly from “the malignant eloquence” of Demosthenes, on which account the Greek history of Philip’s time has often been regarded “as little more than a biography of Demosthenes,” whose policy Professor Bury finds retrograde and retarding, unrelieved by any new ideas. The time needed an Athenian statesman of adaptability and judgment. In the long look, Æschines was more nearly that man than Demosthenes.[a]

THE SACRED WAR

[Sidenote: [359-351 B.C.]]

Alexander, the tyrant of Pheræ, was assassinated in 359 by his brothers-in-law, at the instigation of his wife, Thebe, she having taken care to deprive him of his sword while he slept and to remove the dogs which guarded the entrance to his chamber. She then introduced her brothers, and on their hesitating to deal the blow she threatened to awake her husband. The murderers assumed Alexander’s tyranny, and one of them, Lycophron, was on the throne when Philip was summoned to oppose him by the powerful family of the Aleuadæ of Larissa, who, like the Macedonian kings, pretended to descend from Hercules. Philip was then besieging Methone, the only city of the Thermaic Gulf which still formed part of the Athenian federation. After having received a wound which cost him one eye, he took the city, razed it to the ground, and seized the occasion which then offered to enter Thessaly. Lycophron having made an alliance with the Phocians, Phayllus, brother of Onomarchus, came to his aid with seven thousand men. Philip defeated Phayllus, but was himself defeated by Onomarchus, who forced him back into Macedonia while he, Onomarchus, returned to Bœotia to gain possession of Coronea. But Philip reappeared shortly with a new army: his forces united to those of Thessaly amounted to twenty thousand men and three thousand horses. Against the Phocians, who had stolen the treasure of the temple of Delphi, he appeared as an avenger of Apollo, and all his soldiers wore crowns made of laurel leaves from Tempe.

The encounter took place near the Gulf of Pagasæ, where was stationed an Athenian fleet. Philip obtained a complete victory, due principally to the Thessalian cavalry. The Phocians lost six thousand men; of those made prisoners three thousand were cast into the sea as being sacrilegious, but many of them were able to reach the Athenian vessels by swimming. Onomarchus had been killed in battle, and his body crucified. Lycophron obtained by bribes permission to retire to the Peloponnesus with his troops, delivering the city of Pheræ over to Philip, who seized the port of Pagasæ and the fleet constructed by Alexander. Philip caused to be paid over to him by his Thessalian allies, as war indemnity, a large part of the revenues of the country. He wished to penetrate farther, and under pretext of entering Phocia marched towards Thermopylæ in order to take up his position on a spot that was the key to all Greece. But an Athenian corps commanded by Diophantus occupied the pass, and Philip was obliged to turn back (352).

THE FIRST PHILIPPIC

[Sidenote: [351 B.C.]]

It was at this epoch that Demosthenes pronounced, before the people of Athens, his first Philippic. So absorbed had been the Greeks by their private rivalries that they had paid no heed to the rapid and increasing progress made by the Macedonian monarchy. One man alone saw the danger; he had no other arms than his patriotism and his eloquence, but with these he fought valiantly, and though he could not preserve to his country liberty, he at least preserved its honour. The unequal conflict which was about to take place between Demosthenes and Philip was not alone a duel between the ablest of politicians and the greatest of orators; it was a duel to the death between two principles, monarchism and republicanism. These two principles had once before, in the reign of Xerxes, been arrayed against each other; but at that time the Greeks were able to forget their private differences in the common danger, and to superiority of numbers they had opposed, not alone heroism, which does not always suffice to conquer, but military tactics. Now conditions were different; Philip had borrowed of the Greeks their tactics, which he brought to perfection, and he managed to turn to his own advantage the condition of the land, now more than ever divided. It was never again to have that unity of military command so necessary in the face of the enemy. The hegemony of Sparta which Athens nobly accepted in the Median War was forever destroyed, and Sparta, which struggled vainly under its double burden, Megalopolis and Messene, took no notice of the progress of Philip. Thebes, which had broken Sparta’s power, was not strong enough to take its place, and foolishly inviting the approach of the enemy, repented too late and died in expiation of its fault. Athens remained, but how fallen from its former condition of active energy. In vain Demosthenes tried to awaken it; it asked but to sleep the long sleep of worn-out races. “When, Athenians,” cried the great demagogue, “will you rouse and do your duty? What new event, what pressing need, do you await? What contingency more urgent for free men than the danger of dishonour? Will you always assemble in the public squares to ask each other, ‘Well, what is new?’ What can be newer than a man from Macedonia making himself victor of Athens and master over all Greece? Is Philip dead? No, he is only ailing. But what matter to you if he be sick or dead; if heaven were to deliver you from him to-day, to-morrow you would cause another Philip to arise, for his victorious advance is far less a result of his own power than of your inertia.”

The war of the allies had exhausted Athens’ principal source of revenue, and, as frequently happens in the case of spendthrifts who are obliged to economise, the city preferred to do without necessities rather than deny itself the superfluous; the sovereign people refused absolutely to curtail its civil list. Pericles in instituting the public funds could not foresee that the day was to come when the Athenians would prefer amusement to the preservation of the nation’s safety. “Why be surprised at Philip’s success,” asks Demosthenes, “when all the sums formerly allotted to defray the cost of war are now squandered in useless festivity, a decree, furthermore, menacing with pain of death any one who undertakes to restore them to their former purpose?” He reverts frequently to this incurable propensity of Athenian dilettantism, citing the extreme punctuality with which public feast days were observed as against the tardiness of the administration in all that concerned marine matters, or war. “Tell me why your pompous feasts of Panathenæa or of Dionysia, which cost more than the armament of a fleet, are always celebrated on the day set, while your fleets, as at Methone, Pagasæ, and Potidæa, arrive too late? In the observance of your feasts all has been regulated by law; each of you knows in advance the choregus, the gymnasiarch of his tribe; he knows just what he is to receive and the exact moment when he is to receive it; nothing is uncertain, unexpected, neglected. In time of war, with all the preparations war demands, there is no order, no foresight, nothing but confusion on all sides. At the first alarm trierarchs are named, exchanges are made, subsidies are demanded. Then, to the ships are summoned first the metœci, then the freedmen, then the citizens, then--but pending all this work of preparation, that which our fleet should save has perished. All this, citizens, is doubtless very disagreeable to hear, but if in leaving out of a discourse all that offends we exclude the matter itself, what need to speak save for the mere pleasure of your ears?” And this was virtually true; the people listened to Demosthenes because he spoke well, then went to hear the orators of the opposite side, and in the enjoyment of this fine oratorical display were as royally amused as though they had visited the theatre or the Odeum.

PHILIP AND ATHENS

[Sidenote: [351-349 B.C.]]

Philip endeavoured by apparent inaction to make the Athenians forget the attack on Thermopylæ by which he justified Demosthenes’ fears. But his time was not wasted; he employed it in making partisans, even drawing around himself certain of the pillagers of the Delphic temple. He received their money in trust, thus attaching them firmly to his interests. He had established or was maintaining tyrants in the island of Eubœa, two of whom, feigning treachery to him, called the Athenians to their aid, only to betray them as soon as they had responded to this appeal; it was with difficulty that Phocion could save the Athenian army from destruction. To obtain possession of Amphipolis, Philip had caused the Olynthians to withdraw from the Athenian alliance by ceding to them Potidæa; they, however, regretted this step as soon as they saw their independence menaced. Philip accused them of having given refuge to Macedonian conspirators, and took successively several cities of the Olynthian federation, Apollonia, Stagira, Mecyberna, Torone. The Olynthians asked help of Athens, and Demosthenes, in support of their appeal, delivered three of his most celebrated discourses called the _Olynthiacs_. The first showed the Athenians the danger they were in, since if Philip were to become master of Olynthus he would not fail to fall upon Athens with all his forces. He then indicated the remedy: a better use of public moneys. Unable to attack the Theorica directly, he evaded the difficulty by demanding a reform in the laws governing its use.

“Be not surprised, Athenians, if I speak contrary to the opinion of the majority. Establish nomothetes, not to create new laws, but to abolish such as work you harm, and these I will designate clearly. They are the laws regulating the theatre and military service. One set sacrifices to the idlers of the town the funds set apart for war, the other assures impunity to cowards. We stood formerly without a rival, rulers at home, arbiters in foreign lands. Sparta was crushed, Thebes occupied abroad, confronting us was no power that could dispute our empire. What have we done? We have lost our provinces, and uselessly dissipated fifteen hundred talents. War restored to us our allies; in time of peace wise counsellors caused us to lose them, and our enemy has waxed great and powerful. Can any one deny that it is through us that Philip has risen? Undoubtedly you will reply, things on the outside are not favourable to us, but within, what marvels have been accomplished! Name them! Walls restored, roads repaired, fountains rebuilt, and a hundred other trifling matters. Look upon the authors of these splendid works; formerly poor, they are now rich, and in proportion to the rise in their fortunes has been the decline of the state’s. The power to pardon is in their hands, nothing is accomplished save through them; and you, Athenians, suffer everything to be taken from you, allies as well as money. Great in numbers, you are treated like menials, happy when your masters throw you your daily pittance, the price of admission to the theatre. The shame of such a condition! They give you your own, and you render thanks as though for a mercy shown you! I know well that it may cost me dear to place your disgrace so clearly before you; but dearer still will it cost those who have brought that disgrace about.”

[Sidenote: [349-347 B.C.]]

Only in a democracy could a ruler be found who would accept reproaches so severe. The Athenians knew that Demosthenes was right, but to give up the theatre--that was very hard; to reform the administration of the finances--that would take a long, long time! The most urgent need was attended to first: two armies were sent to succour the Olynthians, who were struggling bravely in their own defence. But these armies were formed of mercenaries, commanded by Chares, an indifferent general who was in the pay of every land. The presence of such troops had for effect to create disturbance among the besieged without rendering them the slightest aid. It was finally decided to send an army of citizens; but it was already too late; two traitors had delivered over the city to the enemy (347).

There was stupefaction in Athens and in all Greece when it was learned that Philip had destroyed Olynthus and sold its inhabitants. But pity was of short duration: “Each people,” says Demosthenes, “seemed to look upon as gained the time spent by Philip in destroying another.” Nevertheless the possession of Chalcidice made him master over the Ægean Sea and brought him nearer to the Thracian Chersonesus, ceded to the Athenians by the king, Cersobleptes. His fleet, already greater than that of Athens, threatened Imbros, Scyros, Lemnos, and Eubœa, made a descent on Attica, carried off the Paralian galley, and tore down the trophies at Marathon. The Athenians, tired of carrying on the struggle alone, tried to form against Philip a general alliance, but his liberality had created for him a numerous faction. Even at Athens little was spoken of but the good intentions of the king. Among those who upheld him were many who had been bought over, notably the orator Demades, possibly also Æschines; but some of the dupes were honest, among them the rhetorician Isocrates, who was dazzled by Philip’s success, and many resembling Phocion, who always looked on the dark side, preaching peace because he believed victory impossible, although he was the best general Athens possessed. “Have military greatness,” he advised the Athenians, “or make those who have it your friends.” When Demosthenes saw this man arise to reply to him, “There,” he said, “is the axe of my discourse.”

[Sidenote: [352-346 B.C.]]

The Sacred War still continued. After the death of Onomarchus his brother Phayllus succeeded him in command. With the aid of the Delphic treasure he got together a large army of mercenaries. The Spartans furnished him one thousand men, the Achæans two thousand, the Athenians five thousand and four hundred horses; thus Sparta and Athens participated indirectly in the pillage, Phayllus paying for the maintenance of the troops sent to him. He invaded Bœotia and took the greater part of the cities of Epicnemidian Locris; but falling ill he died and his place was taken by Phalæcus, son of Onomarchus. The command of this army of bandits came to be a sort of hereditary royalty. Phalæcus being still very young a tutor was given him in the person of Mnaseas, who was shortly after killed. Phalæcus continued the war; but ten thousand talents, the last of the treasure of Delphi, had been expended and the Phocians were clamouring for a reckoning. The Thebans were also at the end of their resources, in spite of the three hundred talents they had obtained from the king of Persia. They called on Philip for assistance, but he not being willing to risk again finding the pass of Thermopylæ, guarded by Athenians, they were obliged to drop out of the contest. The Athenians were in reality glad to discontinue a war which had lasted ten years without bringing them any profit, and desired a reconciliation with the Thebans.

It even seemed possible to establish a general peace among the Grecian states, for all were equally tired of the long and fruitless war. Philip indirectly gave the Athenians to understand that he was disposed to treat for peace. It being difficult to divine their motive these advances were looked upon as suspicious. Still at Philocrates’ proposal it was voted to send off ten ambassadors, among whom was Philocrates himself, the rival orators, Demosthenes and Æschines, and the actor Aristodemus. Æschines later reproached Demosthenes with having failed in eloquence before Philip, a fact which had in it nothing extraordinary, since only Alcibiades or Lysander could compete with Philip in guile, and Demosthenes was used to speaking his thoughts openly to a free people. He was at least, contrary to many of his colleagues, proof against fine speeches, banquets, and gifts.

A TREATY OF PEACE

The ambassadors returned without having obtained anything from Philip save a vague promise to respect the Athenian possessions in Thrace. Three Macedonian envoys followed them; the terms of a treaty of peace were decided upon and another embassy, similar probably to the first, was charged to obtain Philip’s signature. Contrary to the advice of Demosthenes, this embassy travelled by short stages on land, and waited a month for Philip at Pella, giving him time to wage war upon the king of Thrace, Athens’ ally. He at last returned and persuaded the ambassadors to accompany him as far as Pheræ, under the pretext of desiring their mediation between two Thessalian cities. At Pheræ he signed the treaty but refused to inscribe upon it the name of the Phocians. The ambassadors having left he marched rapidly upon Thermopylæ and took possession of the pass which this time he found unguarded. This had been the aim of all his hesitation and delay. The Athenians were outwitted, and their ambassadors either dupes or accomplices; later Demosthenes even accused Æschines of having sold himself to Philip.

Phalæcus’ treason is still more apparent. Before peace was concluded he had refused the assistance first of the Athenians, then of the Spartans, who offered to occupy the fortresses. The Phocians were left to their fate. Philip presented himself and the fortresses were delivered up to him on the sole condition that Phalæcus be permitted to retire to Peloponnesus with ten thousand mercenaries. In such fashion this chieftain of a robber band, finding nothing more to steal at Delphi, abandoned without a struggle his country to the enemy. The Phocians were at the mercy of Philip who delivered them over to the hatred of the Thebans.[b]

The king occupied the country without striking a blow and then summoned the Amphictyonic council to Delphi, that he might hold a trial of the Phocians and their allies and re-order the affairs of the national sanctuary.

PUNISHMENT OF THE PHOCIANS

[Sidenote: [346 B.C.]]

The sentence was sufficiently severe. The court, attended only by representatives of the peoples which, like the Thebans, Locrians, and Thessalians, had taken part in the Sacred War, followed the dictates of revenge and passion. The Phocians, as being accursed, were expelled from the Amphictyonic league and the two votes which they had hitherto possessed were transferred to Philip and his successors; all the towns, twenty-two in number, were (with the exception of Abæ) to be destroyed and the inhabitants to settle in villages of not more than fifty inhabitants. The fugitives were to be accursed and outlawed wherever they were encountered; those who remained were to pay Apollo a yearly tribute of fifty talents [£10,000 or $50,000] and to be despoiled of their arms and horses until the stolen treasure should be made up. Philip was in future to preside at the Pythian games. The desire for vengeance went so far that the Œtæans even made a suggestion that the whole male population, exclusive of the boys and the old men, should be thrown down from the rock as temple robbers: an inhuman proposal which Philip rejected with anger. In contrast with such unbridled fury the Macedonian king, who had little mercy for his own enemies, appeared as a mild ruler.

The execution of the sentence was undertaken with relentless severity; ancient towns like Hyampolis, Panopeus, Daulis, Lilæa disappear henceforth from history; their former inhabitants either wandered homeless in foreign countries or lived out their days in mournful servitude. Many joined the bands of mercenaries which Timoleon the Corinthian conducted to Syracuse in the following year; others passed over with Phalæcus into Crete, where some time afterwards the leader met his death at the siege of Cydonia. All the Phocians who had taken part in the robbing of the temple met with a fearful end, but the lot of those who remained behind was not more enviable. Some years later, when Demosthenes went to Delphi, he beheld a picture of misery: “houses torn down, walls in ruins, the country emptied of men of vigorous age, and a few mourning women and children and old people; such wretchedness as admits of no description in words.”

THE ATTITUDE OF THE ATHENIANS

The tidings of these events fell on the betrayed Athenians like a thunderbolt out of a clear sky. Relying on the royal grace and mercy, they had delivered the Phocians to their enemies with their hands tied, and how had that trust been rewarded! In Athens consequently, no one joined in the songs of rejoicing which pealed through Delphi when the Amphictyonic council and the Greek envoys who hailed Philip as the protector of the venerable sanctuary were entertained by him at a banquet and sacrifices, and libations and prayers were offered in favour of Apollo; on the contrary there was great excitement among the citizens and a mingled feeling of sorrow, indignation, and fear. Men fancied that they already saw the Macedonian king in Attica. On the suggestion of Callisthenes they decided to bring the women and children into the city from the country, to hide their possessions and make preparations for defence. In defiance of the Amphictyonic ban the fugitive Phocians were assured of welcome and protection.

Still when Philip, by an embassy of his own, unfolded his peaceful intentions, but at the same time remained in the neighbourhood with his army in readiness, the position began to be considered more calmly. Nevertheless in the first assembly the people clamoured so that the orators could not make themselves heard, and Æschines called out to Philip’s messengers: “The criers are many, the fighters few.” But when in view of the pressure of circumstances, even Demosthenes raised his voice “for the peace,” and warned the general assembly against inconsiderate action, since it would after all be “foolish and sheer nonsense” to engage in a general war over the “shadow at Delphi,” they submitted to the inevitable and recognised the _fait accompli_. A new embassy, with Æschines at its head, carried to the Macedonian ruler the consent of Athens to the decision of the Amphictyons and to her own entrance into the temple union. Satisfied with this result, the king now arranged for the Pythian games with unusual magnificence, and then returned to Macedonia, leaving a garrison behind him in Phocis.

THE MACEDONIAN PARTY

During the years which followed while Philip made his hereditary kingdom more compact and extended its borders by successful contest with the Illyrians and Triballians, with the Epirots and Molossians, and with the eastern Thracians, and while the land of Hellas lay ruined and broken, the Athenians made use of the time to revive their trade, strengthen and equip their fleet, and erect new and magnificent buildings for public purposes. But the civil breach became more and more clearly apparent, and prevented the lasting healing and cure of the sick commonwealth from the severe wounds of the past years. Since the fraudulent embassy the Macedonian faction which adhered to Æschines and Philocrates and the patriots who honoured Demosthenes, Lycurgus, and Hyperides as their leaders had occupied a hostile position towards one another.

If Æschines had at first placed himself on Philip’s side from a natural inclination because he was dazzled by the royal personality, and he was able to deceive himself concerning his intentions, he was now on personal grounds the warmest supporter of the king, since the latter had called him his friend and enriched him with presents. He who had once made so poor and modest an appearance, now carried his head proudly, walked about in long flowing garments, and showed by his liberal expenditures the alteration in the means at his disposal. The man of practical wisdom had long since recognised the Macedonian’s deceitful game, but he continued to “tread the bridge for him.”

Philocrates flaunted his dishonour still more shamelessly. He openly acknowledged that Philip had royally rewarded him, and his prodigality, his dissolute life, and the careless fashion in which he abandoned himself to sensual pleasures and vices were evidence of the great gifts of his wealthy patron. But among all the partisans of Macedon the greatest zeal was shown by Demades, the son of a poor mariner whose rough wit and popular style of eloquence still revealed the ex-sailor. Round these men, to whom must be added the clever but unprincipled Pytheas, swarmed the mass of people who desired peace at any price that they might enjoy life in ease and comfort and such base spirits as set gold and pleasures above honour and their native country.

THE PATRIOTIC PARTY

[Sidenote: [346-343 B.C.]]

This party had its roots and its support in the selfish and pleasure-loving nature of the multitude, and in proportion as it gained in power and adherents the greater was the merit of the men whom no favours and no profit could shake in their fidelity to their country, who looked with suspicious eyes on all Philip’s undertakings and intrigues and recognised the preservation of the liberty they had received from their fathers as the worthy aim of all struggle and effort. Amongst these men, besides Demosthenes, who in these years developed a marvellous activity, sought to thwart Philip’s plans in every direction, and in especial endeavoured to prevent the intriguing interference of Macedonia in the Peloponnesus by pacification and reconciliation, the noble orator Lycurgus was distinguished in the first rank of the patriots by his unassuming simplicity and austerity. Like Socrates and Phocion an enemy to all sensual pleasures and effeminacy, he effected more through his worth and noble disposition than through his somewhat awkward eloquence. Hyperides was a frank and energetic defender of the interests of his country, but also much addicted to the joys of this world, the pleasures of the table, and fair women. His love affair with the charming courtesan Phryne was notorious. Talented, sprightly, and cultivated, he enchained his listeners by the fresh and natural charm of his oratory. Moreover the “curly-headed” Hegesippus and Timarchus belonged to the patriotic party, but they damaged it in the eyes of the people by their ill repute.

The position of parties was first revealed in the action against Timarchus who in union with Demosthenes had brought before the court of auditors (logistæ) an accusation against Æschines on the subject of the fraudulent embassy (344). To defeat this accusation Æschines endeavoured to represent that Timarchus was absolutely disqualified from taking such proceedings by his shameless life and notorious character, and he demonstrated this so effectually that his adversary was punished with the loss of civil rights while his own integrity was shown in a most favourable light. If Æschines had taken up arms in moral indignation at his opponent’s vicious conduct, we could only approve his action; but far from appearing as a defender of virtue he treats vice and the prevailing immorality with the greatest leniency and only lifts the veil as much as may serve his party aims. A more successful accusation was that which Hyperides brought in the next year against Philocrates. Conscious of his guilt, the accused went into exile even before judgment was pronounced. Demosthenes might feel encouraged by this result to launch a second documentary accusation against Æschines respecting the treachery and bribery in connection with the fraudulent embassy; but thanks to the skilful defence of the accused and the support of the peace-party, this famous contest also ended with the acquittal of the orator (343).

PHILIP’S INTRIGUES AND THE OUTBREAK OF WAR

[Sidenote: [344-341 B.C.]]

Philip employed the deceitful peace to form alliances for himself by means of bribery and intrigues in all the Hellenic states; and to acquire partisans and supporters and nourish the civil divisions. He took especial pains to make his own profit out of the internal dissensions in the Peloponnesian states and the irreconcilable hatred of Arcadians, Messenians, and Argeians against Sparta; to win a reputation for himself as the protector of the weal and thus gradually to bring the power of chief arbitrator into his own hands. The fact that these intrigues were not completely successful and that the Athenians, forewarned and filled with distrust, rendered the task of the Macedonian negotiators much more difficult, may be considered as an effect of the _Second Philippic_ of Demosthenes. Philip’s ill will was consequently especially directed against the Athenians, in whom he recognised the sole opponents of his thirst for dominion, and he sought to damage them in every way without directly violating the peace.

He expelled the pirates from the Attic island of Halonesus and retained the isle as his own property, and when the Athenians complained, he offered it to them as his personal gift; with his newly created naval power he injured Athenian trade and also brought the dominion of the sea more and more into his own hands, and instead of his restoring Eubœa to the Athenians, as had once been hoped, he strengthened his own power by maintaining a secret understanding with his partisans to secure them the supremacy in Eretria and Oreus; in Thessaly he abolished the office of tagus, or chief of the confederation, and set over the four districts four tetrarchs on whom he could rely, a government which was calculated “to break all efforts at union and make the divided forces of the country completely subservient to his aims.”

Above all a great stir was created among the Athenians when Philip again turned his arms against the princes Cersobleptes and Teres, with whom they were on friendly terms. In this it was evidently his intention to secure himself a passage into Asia by the subjection of the Thracian coast lands and at the same time to cut the main arteries of Athenian maritime trade, namely the entrance to the Pontus. A royal document with some conciliatory proposals and the offer to lay the disputed points before an impartial tribunal, was designed to divert the attention of the Athenians from their possessions on the Chersonesus, but its suggestions and demands were opposed by Demosthenes or, as the newer criticism has convincingly shown, by Hegesippus, in the _Speech On Halonesus_. And in order to cover their Thracian possessions with the old and new cleruchs, the Athenians sent the general Diopeithes with a squadron and mercenary troops. By two successful campaigns Philip now overcame the Thracians in several encounters after a brave resistance and dethroned their princes; he took one town after another on the Middle Hebrus where his soldiers wintered in earth-holes (in “mud-pits”), and secured his new dominions by planting several colonies (Philippopolis, Berœa, Cabyle, etc.); meantime Diopeithes cruised in the Pontic waters, compelled the cities to purchase a safe voyage for their merchant vessels either by a tribute or, as the commander of the fleet expressed it, of good will, and undertook a military expedition in the Macedonian coasts along the Propontis.

When Philip lodged complaints at Athens at this breach of the peace, and threatened reprisals, the Macedonian party was of opinion that they ought to endeavour to conciliate the king by the recall and punishment of the general. Then Demosthenes demonstrated, in the sublime speech _The Affairs of the Chersonesus_, that the peace had actually been broken long ago by Philip himself, and that the Athenians, instead of punishing their bold leader, as the corrupt servants of the king and the cowardly advocates of peace demanded, ought to supply him with new troops and munitions of war before Philip could bring all his plans to maturity and fall upon Athens herself.

THE THIRD PHILIPPIC

[Sidenote: [341 B.C.]]

After this “act in words,” which had the desired effect, Demosthenes in the _Third Philippic_, made clear to the Athenians the necessity of concluding an alliance with the rest of the Hellenic towns for the furnishing of mutual aid so that a check might be given to the insolent and mischievous disposition of the Macedonian, who was perpetrating acts of war and violence under cover of a pretended peace.

(In the British Museum)]

“In former days, when any Hellenes abused their power for the oppression of others,” so ran this remarkable, wise, and energetic speech, “all Hellas rose to guard the right, and now we permit a ‘good-for-nothing Macedonian,’ a ‘barbarian of the most abandoned character,’ to destroy Greek cities and hold the Pythian games, or cause them to be held by his servants. The Hellenes look on this and do nothing, ‘as a man regards a shower of hail, praying it may not hit him’; his power is allowed to continue growing, no step being taken against it, each reckoning the moment at which another is shipwrecked to his own gain instead of thinking how to save the existence of Hellas and being active in its cause, though none can help knowing that the evil will attain even the most remote. Once the man who allowed himself to be corrupted by the ambitious and malevolent enemies of his country, fell a victim to the general hate, and was visited with the severest punishment as a grievous criminal; now all this is as it were done away and in its stead is introduced that of which Greece lies sick unto death, jealousy of him to whom aught has been given, laughter when he confesses to it, hatred of whoever shall rebuke.”

In the _Third Philippic_ Demosthenes rebukes the indolence and degeneracy of the people with more cutting sarcasm; and although all faith had not disappeared from his soul, yet it is not without reason that the piece has been called “a study in shadows, in whose gloomy colours is revealed a saddened spirit and far from joyful anticipations, whilst through the speech on the Chersonesus, which was written under the influence of bright hopes, there breathes a fresher air.”

The tempestuous eloquence of the _Third Philippic_ made a powerful impression. Now at the eleventh hour the assembly was roused to decisive action; it placed the conduct of business for a time chiefly in the hands of the patriotic party and made energetic preparations for defence. Whilst Hyperides brought the islands of Chios and Rhodes over to the side of Athens, Demosthenes went himself to the scene of the war, persuaded Byzantium, abandoning her ancient jealousy, to reconcile herself with Athens and conclude an offensive and defensive alliance (341), and acquired Abydos and with it the undisturbed navigation of the Hellespont. Meanwhile the Persian governors, who for a long time past had looked with anxiety and uneasiness on the rise and extension of the Macedonian kingdom, were requested to give assistance, and several states in the Peloponnesus were induced to join in “the Hellenic alliance against Philip.” This was a free confederation under the leadership of Athens, with fixed contributions in money and men. Eubœa was also won over to the alliance after the Macedonian governors in Eretria and Oreus had been, the one killed, the other expelled by Phocion. In recognition of these services a golden wreath was awarded to Demosthenes and set on his head in the theatre at the Dionysia.

To make the members of the alliance more ready for sacrifices Athens herself set a magnanimous example of patriotic devotion. It was not only that, on Demosthenes’ suggestion, a change had been effected in the organisation of the trierarchy and thus the less wealthy were secured from oppressive tradition and the rich constrained to make greater efforts in proportion to their resources; the people also agreed that the sums which it had hitherto been customary to apply to festival expenses, entertainments, and dramatic representations should be utilised for military operations. “The people,” says Niebuhr, “whose poverty was dominant in the assembly and refused the gifts by which alone they obtained the luxury of eating meat on certain festival days since all the rest of the year they ate only olives, cabbages, and onions with dry bread and salt fish,--they who made this sacrifice to provide for the honour of their country; this people has my whole heart and my deepest veneration.”

PHILIP RETURNS TO THE FRAY

[Sidenote: [341-340 B.C.]]

The warlike impulse in Athens did not long remain unknown to the Macedonian king. He concealed his anger so long as the Thracian War was still in progress; but when he had destroyed the once powerful Odrysian kingdom and secured the Thracian districts by means of colonies and garrisons, when he had led his army across the Hæmus to the Getæ and had won over the colonies on the western shore of the Pontus by conciliation or force, he proceeded to send the Athenians a defiant letter, full of complaints and accusations, and added to them such insults by marching into their possessions on the Chersonesus and seizing Athenian merchantmen, that the assembly of the people declared the peace to have been violated, threw down the peace column, and took measures to furnish substantial aid to the Byzantines whom Philip was even then threatening with a siege.

There was no delusion in Athens as to the importance of the step. When Hegesippus recommended the refusal of Philip’s last proposals, there was a cry “Thou art bringing war upon us,” whereupon he answered: “Not war alone, but early death and mourning garments and public burials and funeral orations if ye will give yourselves in earnest to free the Hellenes and win back the hegemony which your fathers maintained.”