We obtain little from the biographers of Timoleon, except a few

incidents, striking, impressive, and somewhat theatrical, like those

just recounted. But what is really important is, the tone and temper

which these incidents reveal, both in Timoleon and in the Syracusan

people. To see him unperverted by a career of superhuman success,

retaining the same hearty convictions with which he had started from

Corinth; renouncing power, the most ardent of all aspirations with a

Greek politician, and descending to a private station, in spite of

every external inducement to the contrary; resisting the temptation

to impose his own will upon the people, and respecting their free

speech and public vote in a manner which made it imperatively

necessary for every one else to follow his example; foregoing

command, and contenting himself with advice when his opinion was

asked—all this presents a model of genuine and intelligent public

spirit, such as is associated with few other names except that of

Timoleon. That the Syracusan people should have yielded to such

conduct and obedience not merely voluntary, but heartfelt and

almost reverential, is no matter of wonder. And we may be quite

sure that the opinion of Timoleon, tranquilly and unostentatiously

consulted, was the guiding star which they followed on most points

of moment or difficulty; over and above those of exceptional cases

of aggravated dissent where he was called in with such imposing

ceremony as an umpire. On the value of such an oracle close at hand

it is needless to insist; especially in a city which for the last

half century had known nothing but the dominion of force, and amidst

a new miscellaneous aggregate composed of Greek settlers from many

different quarters.

Timoleon now enjoyed, as he had amply earned, what Xenophon calls

“that good, not human, but divine—command over willing men—given

manifestly to persons of genuine and highly trained temperance of

character.[404]” In him the condition indicated by Xenophon was found

completely realized—temperance in the largest and most comprehensive

sense of the word—not simply sobriety and continence (which had

belonged to the elder Dionysius also), but an absence of that fatal

thirst for coercive power at all price, which in Greece was the

fruitful parent of the greater crimes and enormities.

[404] Xenoph. Œconomic. xxi. 12. Οὐ γὰρ πάνυ μοι δοκεῖ ὅλον τουτὶ

τὸ ἀγαθὸν ἀνθρώπινον εἶναι, ἀλλὰ θεῖον, ~τὸ ἐθελόντων ἄρχειν~·

σαφῶς δὲ δίδοται τοῖς ἀληθινῶς σωφροσύνῃ τετελεσμένοις. Τὸ δὲ

ἀκόντων τυραννεῖν διδόασιν, ὡς ἐμοὶ δοκεῖ, οὓς ἂν ἡγῶνται ἀξίους

εἶναι βιοτεύειν, ὥσπερ ὁ Τάνταλος ἐν ᾅδου λέγεται τὸν ἀεὶ χρόνον

διατρίβειν, φοβούμενος μὴ δὶς ἀποθάνῃ.

Timoleon lived to see his great work of Sicilian enfranchisement

consummated, to carry it through all its incipient difficulties, and

to see it prosperously moving on. Not Syracuse alone, but the other

Grecian cities in the island also, enjoyed under their revived free

institutions a state of security, comfort, and affluence, to which

they had been long strangers. The lands became again industriously

tilled; the fertile soil yielded anew abundant exports; the temples

were restored from their previous decay, and adorned with the

votive offerings of pious munificence.[405] The same state of

prosperous and active freedom, which had followed on the expulsion

of the Gelonian dynasty a hundred and twenty years before, and

lasted about fifty years, without either despots within or invaders

from without—was now again made prevalent throughout Sicily under

the auspices of Timoleon. It did not indeed last so long. It was

broken up in the year 316 B. C., twenty-four years after the battle

of the Krimêsus, by the despot Agathokles, whose father was among

the immigrants to Syracuse under the settlement of Timoleon. But

the interval of security and freedom with which Sicily was blessed

between these two epochs, she owed to the generous patriotism and

intelligent counsel of Timoleon. There are few other names among

the Grecian annals, with which we can connect so large an amount of

predetermined and beneficent result.

[405] Diodor. xvi. 83.

Endeared to the Syracusans as a common father and benefactor,[406]

and exhibited as their hero to all visitors from Greece, he passed

the remainder of his life amidst the fulness of affectionate honor.

Unfortunately for the Syracusans, that remainder was but too short;

for he died of an illness apparently slight, in the year 337-336 B.

C.—three or four years after the battle of the Krimêsus. Profound

and unfeigned was the sorrow which his death excited, universally,

throughout Sicily. Not merely the Syracusans, but crowds from all

other parts of the island, attended to do honor to his funeral,

which was splendidly celebrated at the public cost. Some of the

chosen youths of the city carried the bier whereon his body was

deposited: a countless procession of men and women followed, in their

festival attire, crowned with wreaths, and mingling with their tears

admiration and envy for their departed liberator. The procession was

made to pass over that ground which presented the most honorable

memento of Timoleon; where the demolished Dionysian stronghold had

once reared its head, and where the court of justice was now placed,

at the entrance of Ortygia. At length it reached the Nekropolis,

between Ortygia and Achradina, where a massive funeral pile had been

prepared. As soon as the bier had been placed on this pile, and fire

was about to be applied, the herald Demetrius, distinguished for the

powers of his voice, proclaimed with loud announcement as follows:—

[406] Plutarch. Timoleon, c. 39. Ἐν τοιαύτῃ δὲ γηροτροφούμενος

τιμῇ μετ᾽ εὐνοίας, ὥσπερ πατὴρ κοινὸς, ἐκ μικρᾶς προφάσεως τῷ

χρόνῳ συνεφαψαμένης ἐτελεύτησεν.

“The Syracusan people solemnize, at the cost of two hundred minæ, the

funeral of this man, the Corinthian Timoleon, son of Timodemus. They

have passed a vote to honor him for all future time with festival

matches in music, horse and chariot race, and gymnastics,—because,

after having put down the despots, subdued the foreign enemy, and

re-colonized the greatest among the ruined cities, he restored to the

Sicilian Greeks their constitution and laws.”

A sepulchral monument, seemingly with this inscription recorded on

it, was erected to the memory of Timoleon in the agora of Syracuse.

To this monument other buildings were presently annexed; porticos,

for the assembling of persons in business or conversation—and

palæstræ, for the exercises of youths. The aggregate of buildings all

taken together was called the Timoleontion.[407]

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

When we reflect that the fatal battle of Chæroneia had taken place

the year before Timoleon’s decease, and that his native city Corinth

as well as all her neighbors were sinking deeper and deeper into

the degradation of subject towns of Macedonia, we shall not regret,

for his sake, that a timely death relieved him from so mournful

a spectacle. It was owing to him that the Sicilian Greeks were

rescued, for nearly one generation, from the like fate. He had the

rare glory of maintaining to the end, and executing to the full, the

promise of liberation with which he had gone forth from Corinth.

His early years had been years of acute suffering—and that, too,

incurred in the cause of freedom—arising out of the death of his

brother; his later period, manifesting the like sense of duty under

happier auspices, had richly repaid him, by successes overpassing

all reasonable expectation, and by the ample flow of gratitude and

attachment poured forth to him amidst the liberated Sicilians. His

character appears most noble, and most instructive, if we contrast

him with Dion. Timoleon had been brought up as the citizen of a

free, though oligarchical community in Greece, surrounded by other

free communities, and amidst universal hatred of despots. The

politicians whom he had learnt to esteem were men trained in this

school, maintaining a qualified ascendency against more or less of

open competition from rivals, and obliged to look for the means

of carrying their views apart from simple dictation. Moreover,

the person whom Timoleon had selected for his peculiar model, was

Epaminondas, the noblest model that Greece afforded.[408] It was to

this example that Timoleon owed in part his energetic patriotism

combined with freedom from personal ambition—his gentleness of

political antipathy—and the perfect habits of conciliatory and

popular dealing—which he manifested amidst so many new and trying

scenes to the end of his career.

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

Τιμολέοντος Ἐπαμεινώνδας, etc.

Polybius reckons Hermokrates, Timoleon, and Pyrrhus, to be the

most complete men of action (πραγματικωτάτους) of all those who

had played a conspicuous part in Sicilian affairs (Polyb. xii.

25. ed. Didot).

Now the education of Dion (as I have recounted in the preceding

chapter) had been something totally different. He was the member

of a despotic family, and had learnt his experience under the

energetic, but perfectly self-willed, march of the elder Dionysius.

Of the temper or exigencies of a community of freemen, he had never

learnt to take account. Plunged in this corrupting atmosphere, he

had nevertheless imbibed generous and public-spirited aspirations:

he had come to hold in abhorrence a government of will, and to look

for glory in contributing to replace it by a qualified freedom and

a government of laws. But the source from whence he drank was,

the Academy and its illustrious teacher Plato; not from practical

life, nor from the best practical politicians like Epaminondas.

Accordingly, he had imbibed at the same time the idea, that though

despotism was a bad thing, government thoroughly popular was a bad

thing also; that, in other words, as soon as he had put down the

despotism, it lay with him to determine how much liberty he would

allow, or what laws he would sanction, for the community; that

instead of a despot, he was to become a despotic lawgiver.

Here then lay the main difference between the two conquerors of

Dionysius. The mournful letters written by Plato after the death of

Dion contrast strikingly with the enviable end of Timoleon, and with

the grateful inscription of the Syracusans on his tomb.

CHAPTER LXXXVI.

CENTRAL GREECE: THE ACCESSION OF PHILIP OF MACEDON TO THE BIRTH OF

ALEXANDER. 359-356 B. C.

My last preceding chapters have followed the history of the

Sicilian Greeks through long years of despotism, suffering, and

impoverishment, into a period of renovated freedom and comparative

happiness, accomplished under the beneficent auspices of Timoleon,

between 344-336 B. C. It will now be proper to resume the thread of

events in Central Greece, at the point where they were left at the

close of the preceding volume—the accession of Philip of Macedon in

360-359 B. C. The death of Philip took place in 336 B. C.; and the

closing years of his life will bring before us the last struggles of

full Hellenic freedom; a result standing in mournful contrast with

the achievements of the contemporary liberator Timoleon in Sicily.

No such struggles could have appeared within the limits of

possibility, even to the most far-sighted politician either of Greece

or of Macedon—at the time when Philip mounted the throne. Among the

hopes and fears of most Grecian cities, Macedonia then passed wholly

unnoticed; in Athens, Olynthus, Thasus, Thessaly, and a few others,

it formed an item not without moment, yet by no means of first-rate

magnitude.

The Hellenic world was now in a state different from anything which

had been seen since the repulse of Xerxes in 480-479 B. C. The defeat

and degradation of Sparta had set free the inland states from the

only presiding city whom they had ever learned to look up to. Her

imperial ascendency, long possessed and grievously abused, had been

put down by the successes of Epaminondas and the Thebans. She was

no longer the head of a numerous body of subordinate allies, sending

deputies to her periodical synods—submitting their external politics

to her influence—placing their military contingents under command

of her officers (xenagi)—and even administering their internal

government through oligarchies devoted to her purposes, with the

reinforcement, wherever needed, of a Spartan harmost and garrison.

She no longer found on her northern frontier a number of detached

Arcadian villages, each separately manageable under leaders devoted

to her, and furnishing her with hardy soldiers; nor had she the

friendly city of Tegea, tied to her by a long-standing philo-Laconian

oligarchy and tradition. Under the strong revolution of feeling

which followed on the defeat of the Spartans at Leuktra, the small

Arcadian communities, encouraged and guided by Epaminondas, had

consolidated themselves into the great fortified city of Megalopolis,

now the centre of a Pan-Arcadian confederacy, with a synod (called

the Ten thousand) frequently assembled there to decide upon matters

of interest and policy common to the various sections of the Arcadian

name. Tegea too had undergone a political revolution; so that these

two cities, conterminous with each other and forming together the

northern frontier of Sparta, converted her Arcadian neighbors from

valuable instruments into formidable enemies.

But this loss of foreign auxiliary force and dignity was not the

worst which Sparta had suffered. On her north-western frontier

(conterminous also with Megalopolis) stood the newly-constituted city

of Messênê, representing an amputation of nearly one-half of Spartan

territory and substance. The western and more fertile half of Laconia

had been severed from Sparta, and was divided between Messênê and

various other independent cities; being tilled chiefly by those who

had once been Periœki and Helots of Sparta.

In the phase of Grecian history on which we are now about to

enter—when the collective Hellenic world, for the first time since

the invasion of Xerxes, was about to be thrown upon its defence

against a foreign enemy from Macedonia—this altered position of

Sparta was a circumstance of grave moment. Not only were the

Peloponnesians disunited, and deprived of their common chief; but

Megalopolis and Messênê, knowing the intense hostility of Sparta

against them—and her great superiority of force even reduced as she

was, to all that they could muster—lived in perpetual dread of her

attack. Their neighbors the Argeians, standing enemies of Sparta,

were well-disposed to protect them; but such aid was insufficient

for their defence, without extra-Peloponnesian alliance. Accordingly

we shall find them leaning upon the support either of Thebes or

of Athens, whichever could be had; and ultimately even welcoming

the arms of Philip of Macedon, as protector against the inexpiable

hostility of Sparta. Elis—placed in the same situation with reference

to Triphylia, as Sparta with reference to Messênê—complained that

the Triphylians, whom she looked upon as subjects, had been admitted

as freemen into the Arcadian federation. We shall find Sparta

endeavoring to engage Elis in political combinations, intended

to ensure, to both, the recovery of lost dominion.[409] Of these

combinations more will be said hereafter; at present I merely notice

the general fact that the degradation of Sparta, combined with

her perpetually menaced aggression against Messênê and Arcadia,

disorganized Peloponnesus, and destroyed its powers of Pan-hellenic

defence against the new foreign enemy now slowly arising.

[409] Demosthenes, Orat. pro Megalopolit. p. 203, 204, s.

6-10; p. 206. s. 18—and indeed the whole Oration, which is an

instructive exposition of policy.

The once powerful Peloponnesian system was in fact completely broken

up. Corinth, Sikyon, Phlius, Trœzen, and Epidaurus, valuable as

secondary states and as allies of Sparta, were now detached from all

political combination, aiming only to keep clear, each for itself,

of all share in collision between Sparta and Thebes.[410] It would

appear also that Corinth had recently been oppressed and disturbed by

the temporary despotism of Timophanes, described in my last chapter;

though the date of that event cannot be precisely made out.

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

But the grand and preponderating forces of Hellas now resided, for

the first time in our history, without, and not within, Peloponnesus;

at Athens and Thebes. Both these cities were in full vigor and

efficiency. Athens had a numerous fleet, a flourishing commerce, a

considerable body of maritime and insular allies, sending deputies

to her synod and contributing to a common fund for the maintenance

of the joint security. She was by far the greatest maritime power

of Greece. I have recounted in my last preceding volume, how her

general Timotheus had acquired for her the important island of

Samos, together with Pydna, Methônê, and Potidæa, in the Thermaic

Gulf; how he failed (as Iphikrates had failed before him) in more

than one attempt upon Amphipolis; how he planted Athenian conquest

and settlers in the Thracian Chersonese, which territory, after

having been attacked and endangered by the Thracian prince Kotys,

was regained by the continued efforts of Athens in the year 358 B.

C. Athens had sustained no considerable loss, during the struggles

which ended in the pacification after the battle of Mantinea; and her

condition appears on the whole to have been better than it had ever

been since her disasters at the close of the Peloponnesian war.

The power of Thebes also was imposing and formidable. She had indeed

lost many of those Peloponnesian allies who formed the overwhelming

array of Epaminondas when he first invaded Laconia, under the fresh

anti-Spartan impulse immediately succeeding the battle of Leuktra.

She retained only Argos, together with Tegea, Megalopolis, and

Messênê. The last three added little to her strength, and needed

her watchful support; a price which Epaminondas had been perfectly

willing to pay for the establishment of a strong frontier against

Sparta. But the body of extra Peloponnesian allies grouped round

Thebes was still considerable:[411] the Phokians and Lokrians, the

Malians, the Herakleots, most of the Thessalians, and most (if not

all) of the inhabitants of Eubœa; perhaps also the Akarnanians. The

Phokians were indeed reluctant allies, disposed to circumscribe their

obligations within the narrowest limits of mutual defence in case

of invasion and we shall presently find the relations between the

two becoming positively hostile. Besides these allies, the Thebans

possessed the valuable position of Oropus, on the north-eastern

frontier of Attica; a town which had been wrested from Athens six

years before, to the profound mortification of the Athenians.

[411] Xenoph. Hellen. vi. 5, 23; vii 5, 4. Diodor. xv. 62.

The Akarnanians had been allies of Thebes at the time of the

first expedition of Epaminondas into Peloponnesus; whether they

remained so at the time of his last expedition, is not certain.

But as the Theban ascendency over Thessaly was much greater at

the last of those two periods than at the first, we may be sure

that they had not lost their hold upon the Lokrians and Malians

who (as well as the Phokians) lay between Bœotia and Thessaly.

But ever and above allies without Bœotia, Thebes had prodigiously

increased the power of her city within Bœotia. She had appropriated

to herself the territories of Platæa and Thespiæ on her southern

frontier, and of Koroneia and Orchomenus near upon her northern; by

conquest and partial expulsion of their prior inhabitants. How and

when these acquisitions had been brought about, has been explained

in my preceding volume:[412] here I merely recall the fact, to

appreciate the position of Thebes in 359 B. C.—that these four

towns, having been in 372 B. C. autonomous—joined with her only by

the definite obligations of the Bœotian confederacy—and partly even

in actual hostility against her—had now lost their autonomy with

their free citizens, and had become absorbed into her property and

sovereignty. The domain of Thebes thus extended across Bœotia from

the frontiers of Phokis[413] on the north-west to the frontiers of

Attica on the south.

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

p. 312.

[413] Orchomenus was conterminous with the Phokian territory

(Pausanias, ix. 39, 1.)

The new position thus acquired by Thebes in Bœotia, purchased at the

cost of extinguishing three or four autonomous cities, is a fact of

much moment in reference to the period now before us; not simply

because it swelled the power and pride of the Thebans themselves; but

also because it raised a strong body of unfavorable sentiment against

them in the Hellenic mind. Just at the time when the Spartans had

lost nearly one-half of Laconia, the Thebans had annexed to their own

city one-third of the free Bœotian territory. The revival of free

Messenian citizenship, after a suspended existence of more than two

centuries, had recently been welcomed with universal satisfaction.

How much would that same feeling be shocked when Thebes extinguished,

for her own aggrandizement, four autonomous communities, all of her

own Bœotian kindred—one of these communities too being Orchomenus,

respected both for its antiquity and its traditionary legends!

Little pains was taken to canvass the circumstances of the case,

and to inquire whether Thebes had exceeded the measure of rigor

warranted by the war-code of the time. In the patriotic and national

conceptions of every Greek, Hellas consisted of an aggregate of

autonomous, fraternal, city-communities. The extinction of any

one of these was like the amputation of a limb from the organized

body. Repugnance towards Thebes, arising out of these proceedings,

affected strongly the public opinion of the time, and manifests

itself especially in the language of Athenian orators, exaggerated by

mortification on account of the loss of Oropus.[414]

[414] Isokrates, Or. viii. De Pace, s. 21; Demosthenes adv.

Leptinem, p. 490. s. 121; pro Megalopol. p. 208. s. 29; Philippic

ii. p. 69. s. 15.

The great body of Thessalians, as well as the Magnetes and the

Phthiot Achæans, were among those subject to the ascendency of

Thebes. Even the powerful and cruel despot, Alexander of Pheræ, was

numbered in this catalogue.[415] The cities of fertile Thessaly,

possessed by powerful oligarchies with numerous dependent serfs,

were generally a prey to intestine conflict and municipal rivalry

with each other; disorderly as well as faithless.[416] The Aleuadæ,

chiefs at Larissa—and the Skopadæ, at Krannon—had been once the

ascendent families in the country. But in the hands of Lykophron and

the energetic Jason, Pheræ had been exalted to the first rank. Under

Jason as tagus (federal general), the whole force of Thessaly was

united, together with a large number of circumjacent tributaries,

Macedonian, Epirotic, Dolopian, etc., and a well-organized standing

army of mercenaries besides. He could muster eight thousand cavalry,

twenty thousand hoplites, and peltasts or light infantry in numbers

far more considerable.[417] A military power of such magnitude, in

the hands of one alike able and aspiring, raised universal alarm, and

would doubtless have been employed in some great scheme of conquest,

either within or without Greece, had not Jason been suddenly cut off

by assassination in 370 B. C., in the year succeeding the battle

of Leuktra.[418] His brothers Polyphron and Polydorus succeeded to

his position as tagus, but not to his abilities or influence. The

latter a brutal tyrant, put to death the former, and was in his turn

slain, after a short interval, by a successor yet worse, his nephew

Alexander, who lived and retained power at Pheræ, for about ten years

(368-358 B. C.).

[415] Xenoph. Hellen. vii. 5, 4; Plutarch, Pelopidas, c. 35.

Wachsmuth states, in my judgment, erroneously, that Thebes was

disappointed in her attempt to establish ascendency in Thessaly

(Hellenisch. Alterthümer, vol. ii. x. p. 338).

[416] Plato, Kriton, p. 53 D; Xenoph. Memorab. i. 2. 24;

Demosthen. Olynth. i. p. 15. s. 23; Demosth. cont. Aristokratem,

p. 658. s. 133.

“Pergit ire (the Roman consul Quinctius Flamininus) in Thessaliam:

ubi non liberandæ modo civitates erant, sed ex omni colluvione

et confusione in aliquam tolerabilem formam redigendæ. Nec enim

temporum modo vitiis, ac violentiâ et licentiâ regiâ (_i. e._ the

Macedonian) turbati erant; sed inquieto etiam ingenio gentis, nec

comitia, nec conventum nec concilium ullum, non per seditionem

et tumultum, jam inde a principio ad nostram usque ætatem,

traducentis” (Livy, xxxiv. 51).

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

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

During a portion of that time Alexander contended with success

against the Thebans, and maintained his ascendency in Thessaly. But

before the battle of Mantineia in 362 B. C., he had been reduced

into the condition of a dependent ally of Thebes, and had furnished

a contingent to the army which marched under Epaminondas into

Peloponnesus. During the year 362-361 B. C., he even turned his

hostilities against Athens, the enemy of Thebes; carrying on a naval

war against her, not without partial success, and damage to her

commerce.[419] And as the foreign ascendency of Thebes everywhere

was probably impaired by the death of her great leader Epaminondas,

Alexander of Pheræ recovered strength; continuing to be the greatest

potentate in Thessaly, as well as the most sanguinary tyrant, until

the time of his death in the beginning of 359 B. C.[420] He then

perished, in the vigor of age and in the fulness of power. Against

oppressed subjects or neighbors he could take security by means of

mercenary guards; but he was slain by the contrivance of his wife

Thêbê and the act of her brothers:—a memorable illustration of the

general position laid down by Xenophon, that the Grecian despot could

calculate neither on security nor on affection anywhere, and that

his most dangerous enemies were to be found among his own household

or kindred.[421] The brutal life of Alexander, and the cruelty of

his proceedings, had inspired his wife with mingled hatred and fear.

Moreover she had learnt from words dropped in a fit of intoxication,

that he was intending to put to death her brothers Tisiphonus,

Pytholaus, and Lykophron—and along with them herself; partly because

she was childless, and he had formed the design of re-marrying

with the widow of the late despot Jason, who resided at Thebes.

Accordingly Thêbê, apprising her brothers of their peril, concerted

with them the means of assassinating Alexander. The bed-chamber which

she shared with him was in an upper story, accessible only by a

removable staircase or ladder; at the foot of which there lay every

night a fierce mastiff in chains, and a Thracian soldier tattooed

after the fashion of his country. The whole house moreover was

regularly occupied by a company of guards; and it is even said that

the wardrobe and closets of Thêbê were searched every evening for

concealed weapons. These numerous precautions of mistrust, however,

were baffled by her artifice. She concealed her brothers during all

the day in a safe adjacent hiding-place. At night Alexander, coming

to bed intoxicated, soon fell fast asleep; upon which Thêbê stole

out of the room—directed the dog to be removed from the foot of the

stairs, under pretence that the despot wished to enjoy undisturbed

repose—and then called her armed brothers. After spreading wool upon

the stairs, in order that their tread might be noiseless, she went

again up into the bed-room, and brought away the sword of Alexander,

which always hung near him. Notwithstanding this encouragement,

however, the three young men, still trembling at the magnitude of the

risk, hesitated to mount the stair; nor could they be prevailed upon

to do so, except by her distinct threat, that if they flinched, she

would awaken Alexander and expose them. At length they mounted, and

entered the bed-chamber, wherein a lamp was burning; while Thêbê,

having opened the door for them, again closed it, and posted herself

to hold the bar. The brothers then approached the bed: one seized the

sleeping despot by the feet, another by the hair of his head, and the

third with a sword thrust him through.[422]

[419] Demosthenes adv. Polyklem. p. 1207. s. 5, 6; Diodor. xv.

61-95. See my previous Volume X. Ch. lxxx. p. 370.

[420] I concur with Mr. Fynes Clinton (Fast. Hellen. ad. ann.

359 B. C., and Appendix, c. 15) in thinking that this is the

probable date of the assassination of Alexander of Pheræ; which

event is mentioned by Didorus (xvi. 14) under the year 357-356 B.

C., yet in conjunction with a series of subsequent events, and

in a manner scarcely constraining us to believe that he meant to

affirm the assassination itself as having actually taken place in

that year.

To the arguments adduced by Mr. Clinton, another may be added,

borrowed from the expression of Plutarch (Pelopidas, c. 35)

ὀλίγον ὕστερον. He states that the assassination of Alexander

occurred “a little while” after the period when the Thebans,

avenging the death of Pelopidas, reduced that despot to

submission. Now this reduction cannot be placed later than 363 B.

C. That interval therefore which Plutarch calls “a little while,”

will be three years, if we place the assassination in 359 B. C.,

six years, if we place it in 357-356 B. C. Three years is a more

suitable interpretation of the words than _six_ years.

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

[422] Xenoph. Hellen. vi. 4, 36, 37; Plutarch, Pelopidas, c. 35;

Conon, ap. Photium, Narr. 50. Codex, 186; Cicero, de Offic. ii.

7. The details of the assassination, given in these authors,

differ. I have principally followed Xenophon, and have admitted

nothing positively inconsistent with his statements.

After successfully and securely consummating this deed, popular on

account of the odious character of the slain despot, Thêbê contrived

to win over the mercenary troops, and to insure the sceptre to

herself and her eldest brother Tisiphonus. After this change, it

would appear that the power of the new princes was not so great as

that of Alexander had been, so that additional elements of weakness

and discord were introduced into Thessaly. This is to be noted as one

of the material circumstances paving the way for Philip of Macedon to

acquire ascendency in Greece—as will hereafter appear.

It was in the year 360-359 B. C., that Perdikkas, elder brother and

predecessor of Philip on the throne of Macedonia, was slain, in

the flower of his age. He perished, according to one account, in a

bloody battle with the Illyrians, wherein four thousand Macedonians

fell also; according to another statement, by the hands of assassins

and the treacherous subornation of his mother Eurydikê.[423] Of the

exploits of Perdikkas during the five years of his reign we know

little. He had assisted the Athenian general Timotheus in war against

the Olynthian confederacy, and in the capture of Pydna, Potidæa,

Torônê, and other neighboring places; while on the other hand he

had opposed the Athenians in their attempt against Amphipolis,

securing that important place by a Macedonian garrison, both against

them and for himself. He was engaged in serious conflicts with

the Illyrians.[424] It appears too that he was not without some

literary inclinations—was an admirer of intellectual men, and in

correspondence with Plato at Athens. Distinguished philosophers or

sophists, like Plato and Isokrates, enjoyed renown, combined with

a certain measure of influence, throughout the whole range of the

Grecian world. Forty years before, Archelaus king of Macedonia

had shown favor to Plato,[425] then a young man, as well as to

his master Sokrates. Amyntas, the father both of Perdikkas and of

Philip, had throughout his reign cultivated the friendship of leading

Athenians, especially Iphikrates and Timotheus; the former of whom

he had even adopted as his son; Aristotle, afterwards so eminent

as a philosopher (son of Nikomachus the confidential physician of

Amyntas[426]), had been for some time studying at Athens as a pupil

of Plato; moreover Perdikkas during his reign had resident with him a

friend of the philosopher—Euphræus of Oreus. Perdikkas lent himself

much to the guidance of Euphræus, who directed him in the choice of

his associates, and permitted none to be his guests except persons

of studious habits; thus exciting much disgust among the military

Macedonians.[427] It is a signal testimony to the reputation of

Plato, that we find his advice courted, at one and the same time, by

Dionysius the younger at Syracuse, and by Perdikkas in Macedonia.

[423] Justin, vii. 5; Diodor. xvi. 2. The allusion in the speech

of Philotas immediately prior to his execution (Curtius, vi.

43. p. 591, Mützell) supports the affirmation of Justin—that

Perdikkas was assassinated.

[424] Antipater (the general of Philip and viceroy of his son

Alexander in Macedonia) is said to have left an historical work,

Περδίκκου πράξεις Ἰλλυρικὰς (Suidas, v. Ἀντίπατρος), which can

hardly refer to any other Perdikkas than the one now before us.

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

ὄντα Ἀρχελάῳ, etc.

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

[427] Athenæus, xi. p. 506 E. p. 508 E. The fourth among the

letters of Plato (alluded to by Diogenes Laert. iii. 62) is

addressed to Perdikkas partly in recommendation and praise of

Euphræus. There appears nothing to prove it to be spurious;

but whether it be spurious or genuine, the fact that Plato

corresponded with Perdikkas is sufficiently probable.

On the suggestion of Plato, conveyed through Euphræus, Perdikkas

was induced to bestow upon his own brother Philip a portion of

territory or an appanage in Macedonia. In 368 B. C. (during the reign

of Alexander elder brother of Perdikkas and Philip), Pelopidas had

reduced Macedonia to partial submission and had taken hostages for

its fidelity; among which hostages was the youthful Philip, then

about fifteen years of age. In this character Philip remained about

two or three years at Thebes.[428] How or when he left that city,

we cannot clearly make out. He seems to have returned to Macedonia

after the murder of Alexander by Ptolemy Alorites; probably without

opposition from the Thebans, since his value as a hostage was

then diminished. The fact that he was confided (together with his

brother Perdikkas) by his mother Eurydikê to the protection of the

Athenian general Iphikrates, then on the coast of Macedonia—has been

recounted in a previous chapter. How Philip fared during the regency

of Ptolemy Alorites in Macedonia, we do not know; we might ever

suspect that he would return back to Thebes as a safer residence. But

when his brother Perdikkas, having slain Ptolemy Alorites, became

king, Philip resided in Macedonia, and even obtained from Perdikkas

(as already stated), through the persuasion of Plato, a separate

district to govern as subordinate. Here he remained until the death

of Perdikkas in 360-359 B. C.; organizing a separate military force

of his own (like Derdas in 382 B. C., when the Lacedæmonians made war

upon Olynthus;[429]) and probably serving at its head in the wars

carried on by his brother.

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

habitus,” etc.

Compare Plutarch, Pelopidas, c. 26; Diodor. xv. 67; xvi. 2; and

the copious note of Wesseling upon the latter passage. The two

passages of Diodorus are not very consistent; in the latter, he

states that Philip had been deposited at Thebes by the Illyrians,

to whom he had been made over as a hostage by his father Amyntas.

This is highly improbable; as well for other reasons (assigned

by Wesseling), as because the Illyrians, if they ever received

him as a hostage, would not send him to Thebes, but keep him

in their own possession. The memorable interview described

by Æschines—between the Athenian general Iphikrates and the

Macedonian queen Eurydikê with her two youthful sons Perdikkas

and Philip—must have taken place some time before the death of

Ptolemy Alorites, and before the accession of Perdikkas. The

expressions of Æschines do not, perhaps, necessarily compel us

to suppose the interview to have taken place _immediately_ after

the death of Alexander (Æschines, Fal. Leg. p. 31, 32): yet it

is difficult to reconcile the statement of the orator with the

recognition of three years’ continuous residence at Thebes.

Flathe (Geschichte Makedoniens, vol. i. p. 39-47) supposes

Æschines to have allowed himself an oratorical misrepresentation,

when he states that Philip was present in Macedonia at the

interview with Iphikrates. This is an unsatisfactory mode of

escaping from the difficulty; but the chronological statements,

as they now stand, can hardly be all correct. It is possible that

Philip may have gone again back to Thebes, or may have been sent

back, after the interview with Iphikrates; we might thus obtain a

space of three years for his stay, at two several times, in that

city. We are not to suppose that his condition at Thebes was one

of durance and ill-treatment. See Mr. Clinton, Fast. Hell. App.

iv. p. 229.

[429] Athenæus, xi. p. 506. διατρέφων δ᾽ ἐνταῦθα δύναμιν

(Philippus), etc. About Derdas, see Xenoph. Hellen. v. 2, 38.

The time passed by Philip at Thebes, however, from fifteen to

eighteen years of age, was an event of much importance in determining

his future character.[430] Though detained at Thebes, Philip was

treated with courtesy and respect. He resided with Pammenes, one

of the principal citizens; he probably enjoyed good literary and

rhetorical teaching, since as a speaker, in after life, he possessed

considerable talent;[431] and he may also have received some

instruction in philosophy, though he never subsequently manifested

any taste for it, and though the assertion of his having been

taught by Pythagoreans merits little credence. But the lesson, most

indelible of all, which he imbibed at Thebes, was derived from the

society and from the living example of men like Epaminondas and

Pelopidas. These were leading citizens, manifesting those qualities

which insured for them the steady admiration of a free community—and

of a Theban community, more given to action than to speech; moreover

they were both of them distinguished military leaders—one of them the

ablest organizer and the most scientific tactician of his day. The

spectacle of the Theban military force, excellent both as cavalry

and as infantry under the training of such a man as Epaminondas, was

eminently suggestive to a young Macedonian prince; and became still

more efficacious when combined with the personal conversation of the

victor of Leuktra—the first man whom Philip learnt to admire, and

whom he strove to imitate in his military career.[432] His mind was

early stored with the most advanced strategic ideas of the day, and

thrown into the track of reflection, comparison, and invention, on

the art of war.

[430] It was in after times a frequent practice with the Roman

Senate, when imposing terms of peace on kings half-conquered, to

require hostages for fidelity, with a young prince of the royal

blood among the number; and it commonly happened that the latter,

after a few years’ residence at Rome, returned home an altered

man on many points.

See the case of Demetrius, younger son of the last Philip of

Macedon, and younger brother of Perseus (Livy, xxxiii. 13; xxxix.

53; xl. 5), of the young Parthian princes, Vonones (Tacitus,

Annal. ii. 1, 2), Phraates (Tacit. Annal. vi. 32), Meherdates

(Tacit. Ann. xii. 10, 11).

[431] Even in the opinion of very competent judges: see Æschines,

Fals. Leg. c. 18. p. 253.

[432] Plutarch, Pelopidas, c. 26. ζηλωτὴς γεγονέναι ἔδοξεν

Ἐπαμεινώνδου, τὸ περὶ τοὺς πολέμους καὶ τὰς στρατηγίας δραστήριον

ἴσως κατανοήσας, ὃ μικρὸν ἦν τῆς τοῦ ἀνδρὸς ἀρετῆς μόριον, etc.

When transferred from Thebes to the subordinate government of a

district in Macedonia under his elder brother Perdikkas, Philip

organized a military force; and in so doing had the opportunity

of applying to practice, though at first on a limited scale, the

lessons learnt from the illustrious Thebans. He was thus at the head

of troops belonging to and organized by himself—when the unexpected

death of Perdikkas opened to him the prospect of succeeding to the

throne. But it was a prospect full of doubt and hazard. Perdikkas

had left an infant son; there existed, moreover, three princes,

Archelaus, Aridæus, and Menelaus,[433] sons of Amyntas by another

wife or mistress Gygæa, and therefore half-brothers of Perdikkas and

Philip: there were also two other pretenders to the crown—Pausanias

(who had before aspired to the throne after the death of Amyntas),

seconded by a Thracian prince—and Argæus, aided by the Athenians. To

these dangers was to be added, attack from the neighboring barbaric

nations, Illyrians, Pæonians, and Thracians—always ready[434] to

assail and plunder Macedonia at every moment of intestine weakness.

It would appear that Perdikkas, shortly before his death, had

sustained a severe defeat, with the loss of four thousand men, from

the Illyrians: his death followed, either from a wound then received,

or by the machinations of his mother Eurydikê. Perhaps both the wound

in battle and the assassination, may be real facts.[435]

[433] Justin, vii. 4. Menelaus, the father of Amyntas and

grandfather of Philip, is stated to have been an illegitimate

son; while Amyntas himself is said to have been originally

an attendant or slave of Æropus (Ælian, V. H. xii. 43). Our

information respecting the relations of the successive kings,

and pretenders to the throne, in Macedonia, is obscure and

unsatisfactory. Justin (_l. c._) agrees with Ælian in calling the

father of Amyntas Menelaus; but Dexippus (ap. Syncellum, p. 263)

calls him Aridæus; while Diodorus (xiv. 92) calls him Tharraleus.

[434] Justin, xxix. 1.

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

Philip at first assumed the government of the country as guardian of

his young nephew Amyntas the son of Perdikkas. But the difficulties

of the conjuncture were so formidable, that the Macedonians around

constrained him to assume the crown.[436] Of his three half-brothers

he put to death one, and was only prevented from killing the other

two by their flight into exile; we shall find them hereafter at

Olynthus. They had either found, or were thought likely to find, a

party in Macedonia to sustain their pretensions to the crown.[437]

[436] Justin, vii. 5. Amyntas lived through the reign of Philip,

and was afterwards put to death by Alexander, on the charge of

conspiracy. See Justin, xii 6; Quintus Curtius, vi. 34, 17; with

the note of Mützell.

[437] Justin, viii. 3. “Post hæc Olynthios aggreditur (Philip):

receperant enim per misericordiam, post cædem unius, duos fratres

ejus, quos Philippus, ex novercâ genitos, velut participes regni,

interficere gestiebat.”

The succession to the throne in Macedonia, though descending in a

particular family, was open to frequent and bloody dispute between

the individual members of that family, and usually fell to the most

daring and unscrupulous among them. None but an energetic man,

indeed, could well maintain himself there, especially under the

circumstances of Philip’s accession. The Macedonian monarchy has

been called a limited monarchy; and in a large sense of the word,

this proposition is true. But what the limitations were, or how they

were made operative, we do not know. That there were some ancient

forms and customs, which the king habitually respected, we cannot

doubt;[438] as there probably were also among the Illyrian tribes,

the Epirots, and others of the neighboring warlike nations. A general

assembly was occasionally convened, for the purpose of consenting

to some important proposition, or trying some conspicuous accused

person. But though such ceremonies were recognized and sometimes

occurred, the occasions were rare in which they interposed any

serious constitutional check upon the regal authority.[439] The

facts of Macedonian history, as far as they come before us, exhibit

the kings acting on their own feelings and carrying out their own

schemes—consulting whom they please and when they please—subject only

to the necessity of not offending too violently the sentiments of

that military population whom they commanded. Philip and Alexander,

combining regal station with personal ability and unexampled success,

were more powerful than any of their predecessors. Each of them

required extraordinary efforts from their soldiers, whom they were

therefore obliged to keep in willing obedience and attachment;

just as Jason of Pheræ had done before with his standing army of

mercenaries.[440] During the reign of Alexander the army manifests

itself as the only power by his side to which even he is constrained

occasionally to bow; after his death, its power becomes for a time

still more ascendent. But so far as the history of Macedonia is

known to us, I perceive no evidence of coördinate political bodies,

or standing apparatus (either aristocratical or popular) to check

the power of the king—such as to justify in any way the comparison

drawn by a modern historian between the Macedonian and English

constitutions.

[438] Arrian, Exp. Alex. iv. 11. οὐ βίᾳ, ἀλλὰ νόμῳ Μακεδόνων

ἄρχοντες διετέλεσαν (Alexander and his ancestors before him).

[439] The trial of Philotas, who is accused by Alexander for

conspiracy before an assembly of the Macedonian soldiers near to

head-quarters, is the example most insisted on of the prevalence

of this custom, of public trial in criminal accusations. Quintus

Curtius says (vi. 32. 25), “De capitalibus rebus vetusto

Macedonum more inquirebat exercitus; in pace erat vulgi: et nihil

potestas regum valebat, nisi prius valuisset auctoritas.” Compare

Arrian, iii. 26; Diodor. xvii. 79, 80.

That this was an ancient Macedonian custom, in reference to

conspicuous persons accused of treason, we may readily believe;

and that an officer of the great rank and military reputation

of Philotas, if suspected of treason, could hardly be dealt

with in any other way. If he was condemned, all his relatives

and kinsmen, whether implicated or not, became involved in the

same condemnation. Several among the kinsmen of Philotas either

fled or killed themselves; and Alexander then issued an edict

pardoning them all, except Parmenio; who was in Media, and whom

he sent secret orders instantly to despatch. If the proceedings

against Philotas, as described by Curtius, are to be taken

as correct, it is rather an appeal made by Alexander to the

soldiery, for their consent to his killing a dangerous enemy,

than an investigation of guilt or innocence.

Olympias, during the intestine contests which followed after

the death of Alexander, seems to have put to death as many

illustrious Macedonians as she chose, without any form of trial.

But when her enemy Kassander got the upper hand, subdued and

captured her, he did not venture to put her to death without

obtaining the consent of a Macedonian assembly (Diodor. xix.

11, 51; Justin, xiv. 6; Pausanias, i. 11, 2). These Macedonian

assemblies, insofar as we read of them, appear to be summoned

chiefly as mere instruments to sanction some predetermined

purpose of the king or the military leader predominant at the

time. Flathe (Geschicht. Makedon. p. 43-45) greatly overrates,

in my judgment, the rights and powers enjoyed by the Macedonian

people.

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

The first proceeding of Philip, in dealing with his numerous enemies,

was to buy off the Thracians by seasonable presents and promises; so

that the competition of Pausanias for the throne became no longer

dangerous. There remained as assailants the Athenians with Argæus

from seaward, and the Illyrians from landward.

But Philip showed dexterity and energy sufficient to make head

against all. While he hastened to reorganize the force of the

country, to extend the application of those improved military

arrangements which he had already been attempting in his own

province, and to encourage his friends and soldiers by collective

harangues,[441] in a style and spirit such as the Macedonians had

never before heard from regal lips—he contrived to fence off the

attack of the Athenians until a more convenient moment.

[441] Diodor. xvi. 2, 3.

He knew that the possession of Amphipolis was the great purpose for

which they had been carrying on war against Macedonia for some years,

and for which they now espoused the cause of Argæus. Accordingly he

professed his readiness at once to give up to them this important

place, withdrawing the Macedonian garrison whereby Perdikkas had held

it against them, and leaving the town to its own citizens. This act

was probably construed by the Athenians as tantamount to an actual

cession; for even if Amphipolis should still hold out against them,

they doubted not of their power to reduce it when unaided. Philip

farther despatched letters to Athens, expressing an anxious desire

to be received into her alliance, on the same friendly terms as his

father Amyntas before him.[442] These proceedings seem to have had

the effect of making the Athenians lukewarm in the cause of Argæus.

For Mantias the Athenian admiral, though he conveyed that prince

by sea to Methônê, yet stayed in the seaport himself, while Argæus

marched inland—with some returning exiles, a body of mercenaries,

and a few Athenian volunteers—to Ægæ or Edessa;[443] hoping to

procure admission into that ancient capital of the Macedonian kings.

But the inhabitants refused to receive him; and in his march back,

to Methônê, he was attacked and completely defeated by Philip. His

fugitive troops found shelter on a neighboring eminence, but were

speedily obliged to surrender. Philip suffered the greater part

of them to depart on terms, requiring only that Argæus and the

Macedonian exiles should be delivered up to him. He treated the

Athenian citizens with especial courtesy, preserved to them all their

property, and sent them home full of gratitude, with conciliatory

messages to the people of Athens. The exiles, Argæus among them,

having become his prisoners, were probably put to death.[444]

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

[443] Diodor. xvi. 3; Demosthen. cont. Aristokrat. p. 660 _ut

sup._ τῶν ἡμετέρων τινὰς πολιτῶν, etc. Justin, vii 6.

[444] Diodor. xvi. 3.

The prudent lenity exhibited by Philip towards the Athenian

prisoners, combined with his evacuation of Amphipolis, produced the

most favorable effect upon the temper of the Athenian public, and

disposed them to accept his pacific offers. Peace was accordingly

concluded. Philip renounced all claim to Amphipolis, acknowledging

that town as a possession rightfully belonging to Athens.[445] By

such renunciation he really abandoned no rightful possession; for

Amphipolis had never belonged to the Macedonian kings; nor had

any Macedonian soldiers ever entered it until three or four years

before, when the citizens had invoked aid from Perdikkas to share

in the defence against Athens. But the Athenians appeared to have

gained the chief prize for which they had been so long struggling.

They congratulated themselves in the hope, probably set forth

with confidence by the speakers who supported the peace, that the

Amphipolitans alone would never think of resisting the acknowledged

claims of Athens.

[445] Diodor. xvi. 4.

Philip was thus relieved from enemies on the coast, and had his hands

free to deal with the Illyrians and Pæonians of the interior. He

marched into the territory of the Pæonians (seemingly along the upper

course of the river Axius), whom he found weakened by the recent

death of their king Agis. He defeated their troops, and reduced

them to submit to Macedonian supremacy. From thence he proceeded to

attack the Illyrians—a more serious and formidable undertaking. The

names _Illyrians_, _Pæonians_, _Thracians_, etc., did not designate

any united national masses, but were applied to a great number of

kindred tribes or clans, each distinct, separately governed, and

having its particular name and customs. The Illyrian and Pæonian

tribes occupied a wide space of territory to the north and north-west

of Macedonia, over the modern Bosnia nearly to the Julian Alps and

the river Save. But during the middle of the fourth century before

Christ, it seems that a large immigration of Gallic tribes from

the westward was taking place, invading the territory of the more

northerly Illyrians and Pæonians, circumscribing their occupancy and

security, and driving them farther southward; sometimes impelling

them to find subsistence and plunder by invasions of Macedonia or by

maritime piracies against Grecian commerce in the Adriatic.[446] The

Illyrians had become more dangerous neighbors to Macedonia than they

were in the time of Thucydides; and it seems that a recent coalition

of their warriors, for purposes of invasion and plunder, was now

in the zenith of its force. It was under a chief named Bardylis,

who had raised himself to command from the humble occupation of

a charcoal burner; a man renowned for his bravery, but yet more

renowned for dealings rigidly just towards his soldiers, especially

in the distribution of plunder.[447] Bardylis and his Illyrians had

possessed themselves of a considerable portion of Western Macedonia

(west of Mount Bermius), occupying for the most part the towns,

villages, and plains,[448] and restricting the native Macedonians

to the defensible, yet barren hills. Philip marched to attack them,

at the head of a force which he had now contrived to increase to

the number of ten thousand foot and six hundred horse. The numbers

of Bardylis were about equal; yet on hearing of Philip’s approach,

he sent a proposition tendering peace, on the condition that each

party should retain what it actually possessed. His proposition being

rejected, the two armies speedily met. Philip had collected around

him on the right wing his chosen Macedonian troops, with whom he made

his most vigorous onset: manœuvring at the same time with a body of

cavalry so as to attack the left flank of the Illyrians. The battle,

contested with the utmost obstinacy on both sides, was for some time

undecided; nor could the king of Macedon break the oblong square into

which his enemies had formed themselves. But at length his cavalry

were enabled to charge them so effectively in flank and rear, that

victory declared in his favor. The Illyrians fled, were vigorously

pursued with the loss of seven thousand men, and never again rallied.

Bardylis presently sued for peace, and consented to purchase it by

renouncing all his conquests in Macedonia; while Philip pushed his

victory so strenuously, as to reduce to subjection all the tribes

eastward of Lake Lychnidus.[449]

[446] See the remarks of Niebuhr, on these migrations of Gallic

tribes from the west, and their effect upon the prior population

established between the Danube and the Ægean Sea (Niehbuhr,

Vorträge über alte Geschichte, vol. iii. p. 225, 281; also the

earlier work of the same author—Kleine Schriften, Untersuchungen

über die Geschichte der Skythen, p. 375).

[447] Theopompus, Fragm. 35, ed. Didot; Cicero de Officiis, ii.

11; Diodor. xvi. 4.

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

[449] Diodor. xvi. 4-8. Frontinus (Strategem. ii. 3, 2) mentions

a battle gained by Philip against the Illyrians; wherein,

observing that their chosen troops were in the centre, he placed

his own greatest strength in his right wing, attacked and beat

their left wing; then came upon their centre in flank and

defeated their whole army. Whether this be the battle alluded

to, we cannot say. The tactics employed are the same as those

of Epaminondas at Leuktra and Mantinea; strengthening one wing

peculiarly for the offensive, and keeping back the rest of the

army upon the defensive.

These operations against the inland neighbors of Macedonia must have

occupied a year or two. During that interval, Philip left Amphipolis

to itself, having withdrawn from it the Macedonian garrison as a

means of conciliating the Athenians. We might have expected that

they would forthwith have availed themselves of the opening and

taken active measures for regaining Amphipolis. They knew the value

of that city: they considered it as of right theirs; they had long

been anxious for its repossession, and had even besieged it five

years before, though seemingly only with a mercenary force, which

was repelled mainly by the aid of Philip’s predecessor Perdikkas.

Amphipolis was not likely to surrender to them voluntarily; but when

thrown upon its own resources, it might perhaps have been assailed

with success. Yet they remained without making any attempt on the

region at the mouth of the river Strymon. We must recollect (as has

been narrated in my last preceding volume[450]), that during 359 B.

C., and the first part of 358 B. C., they were carrying on operations

in the Thracian Chersonese, against Charidemus and Kersobleptes,

with small success and disgraceful embarrassment. These vexatious

operations in the Chersonese—in which peninsula many Athenians were

interested as private proprietors, besides the public claims of the

city—may perhaps have absorbed wholly the attention of Athens, so

as to induce her to postpone the acquisition of Amphipolis until

they were concluded; a conclusion which did not arrive (as we shall

presently see) until immediately before she became plunged in the

dangerous crisis of the Social War. I know no better explanation

of the singular circumstance, that Athens, though so anxious, both

before and after, for the possession of Amphipolis, made no attempt

to acquire it during more than a year after its evacuation by Philip;

unless indeed we are to rank this opportunity among the many which

she lost (according to Demosthenes[451]) from pure negligence; little

suspecting how speedily such opportunity would disappear.

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

[451] Demosthenes, Orat. de Chersonese, p. 98, s. 34. φέρε γὰρ,

πρὸς Διὸς, εἰ λόγον ὑμᾶς ἀπαιτήσειαν οἱ Ἕλληνες ὧν νυνὶ παρείκατε

καιρῶν διὰ ῥᾳθυμίαν, etc.

In 358 B. C., an opening was afforded to the Athenians for

regaining their influence in Eubœa; and for this island, so near

their own shores, they struck a more vigorous blow than for the

distant possessions of Amphipolis. At the revival of the maritime

confederacy under Athens (immediately after 378 B. C.), most of

the cities in Eubœa had joined it voluntarily; but after the

battle of Leuktra (in 371 B. C.), the island passed under Theban

supremacy. Accordingly Eubœans from all the cities served in the

army of Epaminondas, both in his first and his last expedition into

Peloponnesus (369-362 B. C.).[452] Moreover, Orôpus, the frontier

town of Attica and Bœotia—immediately opposite to Eubœa, having been

wrested from Athens[453] in 366 B. C. by a body of exiles crossing

the strait from Eretria, through the management of the Eretrian

despot Themison—had been placed in the keeping of the Thebans,

with whom it still remained. But in the year 358 B. C., discontent

began in the Eubœan cities, from what cause we know not, against

the supremacy of Thebes; whereupon a powerful Theban force was sent

into the island to keep them down. A severe contest ensued, in which

if Thebes had succeeded, Chalkis and Eretria might possibly have

shared the fate of Orchomenus.[454] These cities sent urgent messages

entreating aid from the Athenians, who were powerfully moved by the

apprehension of seeing their hated neighbor Thebes reinforced by so

large an acquisition close to their borders. The public assembly,

already disposed to sympathize with the petitioners, was kindled

into enthusiasm by the abrupt and emphatic appeal of Timotheus son

of Konon.[455] “How! Athenians (said he), when you have the Thebans

actually in the island, are you still here debating what is to be

done, or how you shall deal with the case? Will you not fill the

sea with triremes? Will you not start up at once, hasten down to

Peiræus, and haul the triremes down to the water?” This animated

apostrophe, reported and doubtless heard by Demosthenes himself,

was cordially responded to by the people. The force of Athens,

military as well as naval, was equipped with an eagerness, and sent

forth with a celerity, seldom paralleled. Such was the general

enthusiasm, that the costly office of trierarchy was for the first

time undertaken by volunteers, instead of awaiting the more tardy

process of singling out those rich men whose turn it was to serve,

with the chance of still farther delay from the legal process called

Antidosis or Exchange of property,[456] instituted by any one of

the persons so chosen who might think himself hardly used by the

requisition. Demosthenes himself was among the volunteer trierarchs;

he and a person named Philinus being co-trierarchs of the same

ship. We are told that in three or in five days the Athenian fleet

and army, under the command of Timotheus,[457] were landed in full

force on Eubœa; and that in the course of thirty days the Thebans

were so completely worsted, as to be forced to evacuate it under

capitulation. A body of mercenaries under Chares contributed to the

Athenian success. Yet it seems not clear that the success was so easy

and rapid as the orators are fond of asserting.[458] However, their

boast, often afterwards repeated, is so far well-founded, that Athens

fully accomplished her object, rescued the Eubœans from Thebes, and

received the testimonial of their gratitude in the form of a golden

wreath dedicated in the Athenian acropolis.[459] The Eubœan cities,

while acknowledged as autonomous, continued at the same time to be

enrolled as members of the Athenian confederacy, sending deputies

to the synod at Athens; towards the general purposes of which they

paid an annual tribute, assessed at five talents each for Oreus (or

Histiæa) and Eretria.[460]

[452] Xenoph. Hellen. vi. 5, 23. Εὐβοεῖς ἀπὸ πασῶν τῶν πόλεων:

also vii. 5, 4. Βοιωτοὺς ἔχων πάντας καὶ Εὐβοέας (Epaminondas),

etc.

Winiewski, in his instructive commentary upon the historical

facts of the Oration of Demosthenes de Coronâ, states erroneously

that Eubœa continued in the dependence of Athens without

interruption from 377 to 358 B. C. (Winiewski, Commentarii

Historici et Chronologici in Demosthenis Orationem de Coronâ, p.

30).

[453] Xenoph. Hellen. vii. 4, 1; Diodor. xv. 76; Demosthen. de

Coronâ, p. 259. s. 123.

[454] Demosthenes, Orat. de Chersones. p. 108. s. 80. τοὺς

Εὐβοέας σώζειν, ὅτε Θηβαῖοι κατεδουλοῦντ᾽ αὐτοὺς, etc.: compare

Demosthen. de Coronâ, p. 259. s. 123. Θηβαίων σφετεριζομένων τὴν

Εὔβοιαν, etc.; and Æschines cont. Ktesiphont. p. 397. c. 31.

ἐπειδὴ διέβησαν εἰς Εὔβοιαν Θηβαῖοι, καταδουλώσασθαι τὰς πόλεις

πειρώμενοι, etc.

[455] Demosthen. Orat. de Chersones. p. 108. s. 80. Εἶπέ μοι,

βουλεύεσθε, ἔφη (Timotheus), Θηβαίους ἔχοντες ἐν νήσῳ, τί

χρήσεσθε, καὶ τί δεῖ ποιεῖν; Οὐκ ἐμπλήσετε τὴν θάλασσαν, ὦ ἄνδρες

Ἀθηναῖοι, τριηρῶν; Οὐκ ἀναστάντες ἤδη πορεύσεσθε εἰς τὸν Πειραιᾶ;

Οὐ καθέλξετε τὰς ναῦς;

[456] See, in illustration of these delays, Demosthenes,

Philippic i. p. 50 s. 42.

Any citizen who thought that he had been called upon out of his

fair turn to serve a trierarchy or other expensive duty, and

that another citizen had been unduly spared, might tender to

this latter an exchange of properties, offering to undertake

the duty if the other’s property were made over to him. The

person, to whom tender was made, was compelled to do one of

three things; either, 1. to show, at legal process, that it was

not his turn, and that he was not liable; 2. or to relieve the

citizen tendering from the trierarchy just imposed upon him; 3.

or to accept the exchange, receiving the other’s property, and

making over his own property in return; in which case the citizen

tendering undertook the trierarchy.

This obligatory exchange of properties, with the legal process

attached to it, was called Antidosis.

[457] That Timotheus was commander, is not distinctly stated by

Demosthenes, but may be inferred from Plutarch, De Gloriâ Athen.

p. 350 F. ἐν ᾧ Τιμόθεος Εὔβοιαν ἠλευθέρου, which, in the case of

a military man like Timotheus, can hardly allude merely to the

speech which he made in the assembly. Diokles is mentioned by

Demosthenes as having concluded the convention with the Thebans;

but this does not necessarily imply that he was commander: see

Demosth. cont. Meidiam, p. 570 s. 219.

About Philinus as colleague of Demosthenes in the trierarchy, see

Demosthen. cont. Meidiam, p. 566. s. 204.

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

for some considerable time.

Demosthenes talks of the expedition as having reached its

destination in three days, Æschines in five days; the latter

states also that within thirty days the Thebans were vanquished

and expelled (Demosthenes cont. Androtion. p. 597. s. 17;

Æschines cont. Ktesiphont. p. 397. c. 31).

About Chares and the mercenaries, see Demosthenes cont.

Aristokrat. p. 678. s. 206.

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

p. 756. s. 205.

[460] Æschines cont. Ktesiphont. p. 401, 403, 404. c. 32. 33;

Demosthenes pro Megalopolitan. p. 204. s. 16.

On the conclusion of this Eubœan enterprise, Chares with his

mercenaries was sent forward to the Chersonese, where he at length

extorted from Charidemus and Kersobleptes the evacuation of that

peninsula and its cession to Athens, after a long train of dilatory

manœuvres and bad faith on their part. I have in my last preceding

volume, described these events, remarking at the same time that

Athens attained at this moment the maximum of her renewed foreign

power and second confederacy, which had begun in 378 B. C.[461] But

this period of exaltation was very short. It was speedily overthrown

by two important events—the Social war and the conquests of Philip in

Thrace.

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

The Athenian confederacy, recently strengthened by the rescue of

Eubœa, numbered among its members a large proportion of the islands

in the Ægean as well as the Grecian seaports in Thrace. The list

included the islands Lesbos, Chios, Samos (this last now partially

occupied by a body of Athenian Kleruchs or settlers), Kos and Rhodes;

together with the important city of Byzantium. It was shortly after

the recent success in Eubœa, that Chios, Kos, Rhodes, and Byzantium

revolted from Athens by concert, raising a serious war against her,

known by the name of the Social War.

Respecting the proximate causes of this outbreak, we find,

unfortunately, little information. There was now, and had always been

since 378 B. C., a synod of deputies from all the confederate cities

habitually assembling at Athens; such as had not subsisted under the

first Athenian empire in its full maturity. How far the Synod worked

efficiently, we do not know. At least it must have afforded to the

allies, if aggrieved, a full opportunity of making their complaints

heard; and of criticising the application of the common fund, to

which each of them contributed. But I have remarked in the preceding

volume, that the Athenian confederacy, which had begun (378 B. C.)

in a generous and equal spirit of common maritime defence,[462] had

gradually become perverted, since the humiliation of the great enemy

Sparta at Leuktra, towards purposes and interests more exclusively

Athenian. Athens had been conquering the island of Samos—Pydna,

Potidæa, and Methônê, on the coast of Macedonia and Thrace—and the

Thracian Chersonese; all of them acquisitions made for herself alone,

without any advantage to the confederate synod—and made, too, in

great part, to become the private property of her own citizens as

kleruchs, in direct breach of her public resolution, passed in 378 B.

C., not to permit any appropriation of lands by Athenian citizens out

of Attica.

[462] Demosthenes, De Rhodior. Libertat. p. 194. s. 17. παρὸν

αὐτοῖς (the Rhodians) Ἕλλησι καὶ ~βελτίοσιν αὐτῶν ὑμῖν ἐξ ἴσου

συμμαχεῖν~, etc.

In proportion as Athens came to act more for her own separate

aggrandizement, and less for interests common to the whole

confederacy, the adherence of the larger confederate states

grew more and more reluctant. But what contributed yet farther

to detach them from Athens, was, the behavior of her armaments

on service, consisting in great proportion of mercenaries,

scantily and irregularly paid; whose disorderly and rapacious

exaction, especially at the cost of the confederates of Athens,

are characterized in strong terms by all the contemporary

orators—Demosthenes, Æschines, Isokrates, etc. The commander, having

no means of paying his soldiers, was often compelled to obey their

predatory impulses, and conduct them to the easiest place from whence

money could be obtained; indeed, some of the commanders, especially

Chares, were themselves not less ready than their soldiers to profit

by such depredations.[463] Hence the armaments sent out by Athens

sometimes saw little of the enemy whom they were sent to combat,

preferring the easier and more lucrative proceeding of levying

contributions from friends, and of plundering the trading-vessels

met with at sea. Nor was it practicable for Athens to prevent such

misconduct, when her own citizens refused to serve personally,

and when she employed foreigners, hired for the occasion, but

seldom regularly paid.[464] The suffering, alarm, and alienation

arising from hence among the confederates, was not less mischievous

than discreditable to Athens. We cannot doubt that complaints in

abundance were raised in the confederate synod; but they must have

been unavailing, since the abuse continued until the period shortly

preceding the battle of Chæroneia.

[463] Diodor. xv. 95.

[464] Demosthenes, Philip, i. 46. s. 28. ἐξ οὗ δ᾽ αὐτὰ καθ᾽ αὑτὰ

τὰ ξενικὰ ὑμῖν στρατεύεται, τοὺς φίλους νικᾷ καὶ τοὺς συμμάχους,

οἱ δ᾽ ἐχθροὶ μείζους τοῦ δέοντος γεγόνασιν. Καὶ παρακύψαντα ἐπὶ

τὸν τῆς πόλεως πόλεμον, πρὸς Ἀρτάβαζον ἢ πανταχοῦ μᾶλλον οἴχεται

πλέοντα· ὁ δὲ στρατηγὸς ἀκολουθεῖ· εἰκότως· οὐ γὰρ ἔστιν ἄρχειν

μὴ διδόντα μισθόν.

Ibid. p. 53. s. 51. Ὅποι δ᾽ ἂν στρατηγὸν καὶ ψήφισμα κενὸν καὶ

τὰς ἀπὸ τοῦ βήματος ἐλπίδας ἐκπέμψητε, οὐδὲν ὑμῖν τῶν δεόντων

γίγνεται, ἀλλ᾽ ~οἱ μὲν ἐχθροὶ καταγελῶσιν, οἱ δὲ σύμμαχοι τεθνᾶσι

τῷ δέει τοὺς τοιούτους ἀποστόλους~.

Ibid. p. 53. s. 53. Νῦν δ᾽ εἰς τοῦθ᾽ ἥκει τὰ πράγματα αἰσχύνης,

ὥστε τῶν στρατηγῶν ἕκαστος δὶς καὶ τρὶς κρίνεται παρ᾽ ὑμῖν περὶ

θανάτου, πρὸς δὲ τοὺς ἐχθροὺς οὐδεὶς οὐδ᾽ ἅπαξ αὐτῶν ἀγωνίσασθαι

περὶ θανάτου τολμᾷ, ἀλλὰ τὸν τῶν ἀνδραποδιστῶν καὶ λωποδυτῶν

θάνατον μᾶλλον αἱροῦνται τοῦ προσήκοντος.

Compare Olynthiac ii. p. 26. s. 28; De Chersoneso, p. 95. s.

24-27, cont. Aristokrat. p. 639. s. 69; De Republ. Ordinand. περὶ

Συντάξεως, p. 167. s. 7. Also Æschines de Fals. Legat. p. 264. c.

24; Isokrates, De Pace, s. 57. 160.

Amidst such apparent dispositions on the part of Athens to

neglect the interests of the confederacy for purposes of her own

and to tolerate or encourage the continued positive depredations

of unpaid armaments—discontent naturally grew up, manifesting

itself most powerfully among some of the larger dependencies

near the Asiatic coast. The islands of Chios, Kos, and Rhodes,

together with the important city of Byzantium on the Thracian

Bosphorus, took counsel together, and declared themselves detached

from Athens and her confederacy. According to the spirit of the

convention, sworn at Sparta, immediately before the battle of

Leuktra, and of the subsequent alliance, sworn at Athens, a few

months afterwards[465]—obligatory and indefeasible confederacies

stood generally condemned among the Greeks, so that these islands

were justified in simply seceding when they thought fit. But their

secession, which probably Athens would, under all circumstances,

have resisted, was proclaimed in a hostile manner, accompanied with

accusations of treacherous purposes on her part against them. It was

moreover fomented by the intrigues, as well as aided by the arms,

of the Karian prince Mausôlus.[466] Since the peace of Antalkidas,

the whole Asiatic coast had been under the unresisted dominion

either of satraps or subordinate princes dependent upon Persia,

who were watching for opportunities of extending their conquests

in the neighboring islands. Mausôlus appears to have occupied both

Rhodes and Kos; provoking in the former island a revolution which

placed it under an oligarchy, not only devoted to him, but farther

sustained by the presence of a considerable force of his mercenary

troops.[467] The government of Chios appears to have been always

oligarchical; which fact was one ground for want of sympathy between

the Chians and Athens. Lastly, the Byzantines had also a special

ground for discontent; since they assumed the privilege of detaining

and taxing the corn-ships from the Euxine in their passage through

the Bosphorus[468]—while Athens, as chief of the insular confederacy,

claimed that right for herself, and at any rate protested against the

use of such power by any other city for its own separate profit.

[465] Xenoph. Hellen. vi. 3, 18; vi. 5, 2.

[466] Demosthenes, De Rhodior. Libertat. p. 191. s. 3. ᾐτιάσαντο

γὰρ ἡμᾶς ἐπιβουλεύειν αὑτοῖς Χῖοι καὶ Βυζάντιοι καὶ Ῥόδιοι, καὶ

διὰ ταῦτα συνέστησαν ἐφ᾽ ἡμᾶς τὸν τελευταῖον τουτονὶ πόλεμον·

φανήσεται δ᾽ ὁ μὲν πρυτανεύσας ταῦτα καὶ πείσας Μαύσωλος, φίλος

εἶναι φάσκων Ῥοδίων, τὴν ἐλευθερίαν αὐτῶν ἀφῃρημένος.

[467] Demosthen. de Rhodior. Libert. p. 195. s. 17. p. 198 s. 34;

de Pace, p. 63. s. 25; Diodor. xvi. 7.

[468] Demosthen. de Pace, p. 63. s. 25. (ἐῶμεν) τὸν Κᾶρα τὰς

νήσους καταλαμβάνειν, Χίον καὶ Κῶν καὶ Ῥόδον, καὶ ~Βυζαντίους

κατάγειν τὰ πλοῖα~, etc.

Compare Demosthenes adv. Polykl. p. 1207 s. 6. p. 1211. s. 22;

adv. Leptinem, p. 475. s. 68.

This revolt, the beginning of what is termed the Social War, was a

formidable shock to the foreign ascendency of Athens. Among all her

confederates, Chios was the largest and most powerful, the entire

island being under one single government. Old men, like Plato and

Isokrates, might perhaps recollect the affright occasioned at Athens

fifty-four years before (B. C. 412) by the news of the former revolt

of Chios,[469] shortly after the great disaster before Syracuse. And

probably the alarm was not much less, when the Athenians were now

apprised of the quadruple defection among their confederates near the

Asiatic coast. The joint armament of all four was mustered at Chios,

whither Mausôlus also sent a reinforcement. The Athenians equipped a

fleet with land-forces on board, to attack the island; and on this

critical occasion we may presume that their citizens would overcome

the reluctance to serve in person. Chabrias was placed in command of

the fleet, Chares of the land-force; the latter was disembarked on

the island, and a joint attack upon the town of Chios, by sea and

land at the same moment, was concerted. When Chares marched up to

the walls, the Chians and their allies felt strong enough to come

forth and hazard a battle, with no decisive result; while Chabrias

at the same time attempted with the fleet to force his way into the

harbor. But the precautions for defence had been effectively taken,

and the Chian seamen were resolute. Chabrias, leading the attack with

his characteristic impetuosity, became entangled among the enemy’s

vessels, was attacked on all sides, and fell gallantly fighting. The

other Athenian ships either were not forward in following him, or

could make no impression. Their attack completely failed, and the

fleet was obliged to retire, with little loss apparently, except that

of the brave admiral. Chares with his land-force having been again

taken aboard, the Athenians forthwith sailed away from Chios.[470]

[469] Thucyd. viii. 15.

[470] The account of this event comes to us in a meagre and

defective manner, Diodorus xvi. 7; Cornelius Nepos, Chabrias, c.

4; Plutarch, Phokion, c. 6.

Demosthenes, in an harangue delivered three years afterwards,

mentions the death of Chabrias, and eulogizes his conduct at

Chios among his other glorious deeds; but gives no particulars

(Demosth. cont. Leptin. p. 481, 482).

Cornelius Nepos says that Chabrias was not commander, but

only serving as a private soldier on shipboard. I think this

less probable than the statement of Diodorus, that he was

joint-commander with Chares.

This repulse at Chios was a serious misfortune to Athens. Such

was the dearth of military men and the decline of the military

spirit, in that city, that the loss of a warlike citizen, daring

as a soldier and tried as a commander, like Chabrias, was never

afterwards repaired. To the Chians and their allies, on the other

hand, the event was highly encouraging. They were enabled, not merely

to maintain their revolt, but even to obtain fresh support, and to

draw into the like defection other allies of Athens,—among them,

seemingly, Sestos, and other cities on the Hellespont. For some

months they appear to have remained masters of the sea, with a fleet

of one hundred triremes, disembarking and inflicting devastation on

the Athenian islands of Lemnos, Imbros, Samos, and elsewhere, so

as to collect a sum for defraying their expenses. They were even

strong enough to press the town of Samos, by close siege, until at

length the Athenians, not without delay and difficulty, got together

a fleet of one hundred and twenty triremes, under the joint command

of Chares, Iphikrates with his son Menestheus, and Timotheus.

Notwithstanding that Samos was under siege, the Athenian admirals

thought it prudent to direct their first efforts to the reduction of

Byzantium; probably from the paramount importance of keeping open

the two straits between the Euxine and the Ægean, in order that the

corn-ships, out of the former, might come through in safety.[471]

To protect Byzantium, the Chians and their allies raised the siege

of Samos, and sailed forthwith to the Hellespont, in which narrow

strait both fleets were collected,—as the Athenians and Lacedæmonians

had been during the closing years of the Peloponnesian war. A plan

of naval action had been concerted by the three Athenian commanders,

and was on the point of taking place, when there supervened a sudden

storm, which in the judgment both of Iphikrates and Timotheus,

rendered it rash and perilous to persist in the execution. They

therefore held off, while Chares, judging differently, called upon

the trierachs and seamen to follow him, and rushed into the fight

without his colleagues. He was defeated, or at least was obliged to

retire without accomplishing anything. But so incensed was he against

his two colleagues, that he wrote a despatch to Athens accusing them

of corruption and culpable backwardness against the enemy.[472]

[471] It appears that there was a great and general scarcity of

corn during this year 357 B. C. Demosthenes adv. Leptinem, p.

467. s. 38. ~προπέρυσι~ σιτοδείας παρὰ πᾶσιν ἀνθρώποις γενομένης,

etc. That oration was delivered in 355 B. C.

[472] I follow chiefly the account given of these transactions

by Diodorus, meagre and unsatisfactory as it is (xvi. 21). Nepos

(Timotheus, c. 3) differs from Diodorus on several points. He

states that both Samos and the Hellespont had revolted from

Athens; and that the locality in which Chares made his attack,

contrary to the judgment of his two colleagues, was near

Samos—not in the Hellespont. He affirms farther that Menestheus,

son of Iphikrates, was named as colleague of Chares; and that

Iphikrates and Timotheus were appointed as advisers of Menestheus.

As to the last assertion—that Timotheus only served as adviser to

his junior relative and not as a general formally named—this is

not probable in itself; nor seemingly consistent with Isokrates

(Or. xv. De Permutat. s. 137), who represents Timotheus as

afterwards passing through the usual trial of accountability.

Nor can Nepos be correct in saying that Samos had now revolted:

for we find it still in possession of Athens after the Social

War, and we know that a fresh batch of Athenian Kleruchs were

afterwards sent there.

On the other hand, I think Nepos is probably right in his

assertion, that the Hellespont now revolted (“descierat

Hellespontus”). This is a fact in itself noway improbable, and

helping us to understand how it happened that Chares conquered

Sestos afterwards in 353 B. C. (Diodor. xvi. 34), and that the

Athenians are said to have _then_ recovered the Chersonesus from

Kersobleptes.

Polyænus (iii. 9, 29) has a story representing the reluctance of

Iphikrates to fight, as having been manifested near Embata; a

locality not agreeing either with Nepos or with Diodorus. Embata

was on the continent of Asia, in the territory of Erythræ.

See respecting the relations of Athens with Sestos, my last

preceding volume, Vol. X. Ch. lxxx. p. 380 note.

Our evidence respecting this period is so very defective, that

nothing like certainty is attainable.

The three joint admirals were thus placed not merely in opposition,

but in bitter conflict, among themselves. At the trial of

accountability, undergone by all of them not long afterwards at

Athens, Chares stood forward as the formal accuser of his two

colleagues, who in their turn also accused him. He was seconded

in his attack by Aristophon, one of the most practised orators of

the day. Both of them charged Iphikrates and Timotheus with having

received bribes from the Chians and Rhodians,[473] and betrayed their

trust; by deserting Chares at the critical moment when it had been

determined beforehand to fight, and when an important success might

have been gained.

[473] Deinarchus cont. Philokl. s. 17. ἕκατον ταλάντων τιμήσαντες

(Τιμόθεον), ὅτι χρήματ᾽ αὐτὸν Ἀριστοφῶν ἔφη παρὰ Χίων εἰληφέναι

καὶ Ῥοδίων: compare Deinarch. cont. Demosthen. s. 15, where the

same charge of bribery is alluded to, though αὐτὸς ἔφη is put

in place of αὐτὸν Ἀριστοφῶν ἔφη, seemingly by mistake of the

transcriber.

How the justice of the case stood, we cannot decide. The characters

of Iphikrates and Timotheus raise strong presumption that they

were in the right and their accuser in the wrong. Yet it must be

recollected that the Athenian public, (and probably every other

public,—ancient or modern,—Roman, English, or French), would

naturally sympathize with the forward and daring admiral, who led the

way into action, fearing neither the storm nor the enemy, and calling

upon his colleagues to follow. Iphikrates and Timotheus doubtless

insisted upon the rashness of his proceedings, and set forth the

violence of the gale. But this again would be denied by Chares, and

would stand as a point where the evidence was contradictory; captains

and seamen being produced as witnesses on both sides, and the fleet

being probably divided into two opposing parties. The feelings of the

Athenian Dikasts might naturally be, that Iphikrates and Timotheus

ought never to have let their colleague go into action unassisted,

even though they disapproved of the proceeding. Iphikrates defended

himself partly by impeaching the behavior of Chares, partly by bitter

retort upon his other accuser Aristophon. “Would _you_ (he asked),

betray the fleet for money?” “No,” was the reply. “Well, then,

_you_, Aristophon, would not betray the fleet; shall _I_, Iphikrates

do so?”[474]

[474] See Aristotel. Rhetoric. ii. 24; iii. 10. Quintilian, Inst.

Or. v. 12, 10.

The issue of this important cause was, that Iphikrates was acquitted,

while Timotheus was found guilty and condemned to the large fine of

one hundred talents. Upon what causes such difference of sentence

turned, we make out imperfectly. And it appears that Iphikrates, far

from exonerating himself by throwing blame on Timotheus, emphatically

assumed the responsibility of the whole proceeding; while his son,

Menestheus tendered an accurate account within his own knowledge, of

all the funds received and disbursed by the army.[475]

[475] Isokrates, Or. xv. (Permutat.) s. 137. εἰ τοσαύτας μὲν

πόλεις ἑλόντα, μηδεμίαν δ᾽ ἀπολέσαντα, περὶ προδοσίας ἔκρινε (ἡ

πόλις Τιμόθεον), καὶ πάλιν εἰ διδόντος εὐθύνας αὐτοῦ, καὶ τὰς μὲν

πράξεις Ἰφικράτους ἀναδεχομένου, τὸν δ᾽ ὑπὲρ τῶν χρημάτων λόγον

Μενεσθέως, τούτους μὲν ἀπέλυσε, Τιμόθεον δὲ τοσούτοις ἐζημίωσε

χρήμασιν, ὅσοις οὐδένα πώποτε τῶν προγεγενημένων.

The cause assigned by Isokrates, the personal friend of Timotheus,

is, the extreme unpopularity of the latter in the city. Though

as a general and on foreign service, Timotheus conducted himself

not only with scrupulous justice to every one, but with rare

forbearance towards the maritime allies whom other generals vexed

and plundered,—yet at home his demeanor was intolerably arrogant

and offensive, especially towards the leading speakers who took

part in public affairs. While recognized as a man of ability and as

a general who had rendered valuable service, he had thus incurred

personal unpopularity and made numerous enemies; chiefly among those

most able to do him harm. Isokrates tells us that he had himself

frequently remonstrated with Timotheus (as Plato admonished Dion),

on this serious fault, which overclouded his real ability, caused

him to be totally misunderstood, and laid up against him a fund of

popular dislike sure to take melancholy effect on some suitable

occasion. Timotheus (according to Isokrates), though admitting

the justice of the reproof, was unable to conquer his own natural

disposition.[476] If such was the bearing of this eminent man, as

described by his intimate friend, we may judge how it would incense

unfriendly politicians and even indifferent persons who knew him only

from his obvious exterior. Iphikrates, though by nature a proud man,

was more discreet and conciliatory in his demeanor, and more alive

to the mischief of political odium.[477] Moreover, he seems to have

been an effective speaker[478] in public, and his popularity among

the military men in Athens was so marked, that on this very trial

many of them manifested their sympathy by appearing in arms near the

Dikastery.[479] Under these circumstances, we may easily understand

that Chares and Aristophon might find it convenient to press their

charge more pointedly against Timotheus than against Iphikrates; and

that the Dikastery, while condemning the former, may have been less

convinced of the guilt of the latter, and better satisfied in every

way to acquit him.[480]

[476] Isokrates, Or. xv. (Permutat.) s. 146. Ταῦτα δ᾽ ἀκούων

ὀρθῶς μὲν ἔφασκέ με λέγειν, οὐ μὴν οἷός τ᾽ ἦν τὴν φύσιν

μεταβαλεῖν, etc.

Isokrates goes at some length into the subject from s. 137 to s.

147. The discourse was composed seemingly in 353 B. C., about one

year after the death of Timotheus, and four years after the trial

here described.

[477] Demosthenes cont. Meidiam, p. 534, 535; Xenoph. Hellen. vi.

2. 39.

[478] Dionysius Halikarnass., Judicium de Lysiâ, p. 481; Justin,

vi. 5. Aristotle in his Rhetorica borrows several illustrations

on rhetorical points from the speeches of Iphikrates; but none

from any speeches of Timotheus.

[479] Polyænus, iii. 9, 29. That this may have been done with

the privity and even by the contrivance of Iphikrates, is

probable enough. But it seems to me that any obvious purpose of

intimidating the Dikastery would have been likely to do him more

harm than good.

[480] Rehdantz (Vitæ Iphicratis, Chabriæ, et Timothei, p. 224

_seqq._), while collecting and discussing instructively all the

facts respecting these two commanders, places the date of this

memorable trial in the year 354 B. C.; three years after the

events to which it relates, and two years after the peace which

concluded the Social War. Mr. Clinton (Fast. Hellenici, B. C.

354) gives the same statement. I dissent from their opinion on

the date and think that the trial must have occurred very soon

after the abortive battle in the Hellespont—that is in 357 B. C.

(or 356 B. C.), while the Social War was still going on.

Rehdantz and Mr. Clinton rely on the statement of Dionysius

Halikarnass. (De Dinarcho Judicium, p. 667). Speaking of an

oration falsely ascribed to Deinarchus, Dionysius says, that

it was spoken before the maturity of that orator—εἴρηται γὰρ

ἐπὶ τοῦ στρατηγοῦ Τιμοθέου ζῶντος, κατὰ τὸν χρόνον τὸν τῆς μετὰ

Μενεσθέως στρατηγίας, ἐφ᾽ ᾗ τὰς εὐθύνας ὑποσχὼν, ἑάλω. Τιμόθεος

δὲ τὰς εὐθύνας ὑπέσχηκεν ἐπὶ Διοτίμου, τοῦ μετὰ Καλλίστρατον, ὅτε

καὶ.... These are the last words in the MS., so that the sentence

stands defective; Mr. Clinton supplies ἐτελεύτησεν, which is very

probable.

The archonship of Diotimus is in 354-353 B. C.; so that Dionysius

here states the trial to have taken place in 354 B. C. But on

the other hand, the same Dionysius, in another passage, states

the same trial to have taken place while the Social War was yet

going on; that is, some time between 358 and 355 B. C. De Lysiâ

Judicium, p. 480. ἐν γὰρ τῷ συμμαχικῷ πολέμῳ τὴν εἰσαγγελίαν

Ἰφικράτης ἠγώνισται, καὶ τὰς εὐθύνας ὑπέσχηκε τῆς στρατηγίας,

~ὡς ἐξ αὐτοῦ τοῦ λόγου γίγνεται καταφανές~· οὗτος δὲ ὁ πόλεμος

πίπτει κατὰ Ἀγαθοκλέα καὶ Ἐλπίνην ἄρχοντας. The archonships of

Agathokles and Elpines cover the interval between Midsummer 357

B. C. and Midsummer 355 B. C.

It is plain that these two passages of Dionysius contradict

each other. Rehdantz and Mr. Clinton notice the contradiction,

but treat the passage first cited as containing the truth, and

the other as erroneous. I cannot but think that the passage

last cited is entitled to most credit, and that the true date

of the trial was 357-356 B. C., not 354 B. C. When Dionysius

asserts that the trial took place while the Social War was yet

going on, he adds, “as is evident from the speech itself—ὡς ἐξ

αὐτοῦ γίγνεται τοῦ λόγου καταφανές.” Here therefore there was no

possibility of being misled by erroneous tables; the evidence

is direct and complete; whereas he does not tell us on what

authority he made the other assertion, about the archonship of

Diotimus. Next, it is surely improbable that the abortive combat

in the Hellespont, and the fierce quarrel between Chares and

his colleagues, probably accompanied with great excitement in

the fleet, could have remained without judicial settlement for

three years. Lastly, assuming the statement about the archonship

of Diotimus to be a mistake, we can easily see how the mistake

arose. Dionysius has confounded the year in which Timotheus died,

with the year of his trial. He seems to have died in 354 B. C. I

will add that the text in this passage is not beyond suspicion.

A fine of one hundred talents is said to have been imposed upon

Timotheus, the largest fine (according to Isokrates), ever imposed

at Athens. Upon his condemnation he retired to Chalkis, where he

died three years afterwards, in 354 B. C. In the year succeeding his

death, his memory was still very unpopular; yet it appears that the

fine was remitted to his family, and that his son Konon was allowed

to compromise the demand by a disbursement of the smaller sum of ten

talents for the repairs of the city walls. It seems evident that

Timotheus by his retirement evaded payment of the full fine; so that

his son Konon appears after him as one of the richest citizens in

Athens.[481]

[481] Cornelius Nepos, Timoth. c. 4; Rehdantz, Vit. Iph., Ch. et

Timoth. p. 235; Isokrates, Or. xv. (Permutat.) s. 108, 110. 137.

The loss of such a citizen as Timotheus was a fresh misfortune to

her. He had conducted her armies with signal success, maintained

the honor of her name throughout the eastern and western seas, and

greatly extended the list of her foreign allies. She had recently

lost Chabrias in battle; a second general, Timotheus, was now

taken from her; and the third, Iphikrates, though acquitted at the

last trial, seems, as far as we can make out, never to have been

subsequently employed on military command. These three were the

last eminent military citizens at Athens; for Phokion, though brave

and deserving, was not to be compared with either of them. On the

other hand, Chares, a man of great personal courage, but of no other

merit, was now in the full swing of reputation. The recent judicial

feud between the three Athenian admirals had been doubly injurious

to Athens, first as discrediting Iphikrates and Timotheus, next as

exalting Chares, to whom the sole command was now confided.

In the succeeding year, 356 B. C., Chares conducted another powerful

fleet to attack the revolted allies. Being however not furnished

with adequate funds from home to pay his troops, chiefly foreign

mercenaries, he thought it expedient, on his own responsibility,

to accept an offer from Artabazus (satrap of Daskylium and the

region south of the Propontis), then in revolt against the Persian

king.[482] Chares joined Artabazus with his own army, reinforced by

additional bodies of mercenaries recently disbanded by the Persian

satraps. With this entire force he gave battle to the king’s troops

under the command of Tithraustes, and gained a splendid victory;

upon which Artabazus remunerated him so liberally, as to place the

whole Athenian army in temporary affluence. The Athenians at home

were at first much displeased with their general, for violating

his instructions, and withdrawing his army from its prescribed

and legitimate task. The news of his victory, however, and of the

lucrative recompense following it, somewhat mollified them. But

presently they learned that the Persian king, indignant at such a

gratuitous aggression on their part, was equipping a large fleet to

second the operations of their enemies. Intimidated by the prospect

of Persian attack, they became anxious to conclude a peace with

the revolted allies; who, on their part, were not less anxious to

terminate the war. Embassies being exchanged, and negotiations

opened, in the ensuing year (355 B. C., the third of the war), a

peace was sworn, whereby the Athenians recognized the complete

autonomy, and severance from their confederacy, of the revolted

cities, Chios, Rhodes, Kos, and Byzantium.[483]

[482] Diodor. xvi. 22. Demosthenes (Philippic. i. p. 46. s. 28)

has an emphatic passage, alluding to this proceeding on the part

of Chares; which he represents as a necessary result of the

remissness of the Athenians, who would neither serve personally

themselves, nor supply their general with money to pay his

foreign troops—and as a measure which the general could not avoid.

... ἐξ οὗ δ᾽ αὐτὰ καθ᾽ αὑτὰ τὰ ξενικὰ ὑμῖν στρατεύεται, τοὺς

φίλους νικᾷ καὶ τοὺς συμμάχους, οἱ δ᾽ ἐχθροὶ μείζους τοῦ δέοντος

γεγόνασιν, καὶ παρακύψαντα ἐπὶ τὸν τῆς πόλεως πόλεμον, ~πρὸς

Ἀρτάβαζον καὶ πανταχοῦ μᾶλλον~ οἴχεται πλέοντα· ὁ δὲ στρατηγὸς

ἀκολουθεῖ· εἰκότως—οὐ γὰρ ἔστιν ἄρχειν, μὴ διδόντα μισθόν.

Compare the Scholia on the same oration, a passage which occurs

somewhat earlier, p. 44. s. 22.

It seems evident, from this passage, that the Athenians were at

first displeased with such diversion from the regular purpose of

the war, though the payment from Artabazus afterwards partially

reconciled them to it; which is somewhat different from the

statement of Diodorus.

From an inscription (cited in Rehdantz, Vitæ Iphicratis, Chabriæ,

etc., p. 158) we make out that Chares, Charidemus, and Phokion,

were about this time in joint-command of the Athenian fleet near

Lesbos, and that they were in some negotiation as to pecuniary

supplies with the Persian Orontes on the mainland. But the

inscription is so mutilated, that no distinct matter of fact can

be ascertained.

[483] Diodor. xvi. 22. I place little reliance on the Argument

prefixed to the Oration of Isokrates De Pace. As far as I am

able to understand the facts of this obscure period, it appears

to me that the author of that Argument has joined them together

erroneously, and misconceived the situation.

The assertion of Demosthenes, in the Oration against Leptines (p.

481. s. 90), respecting the behavior of the Chians towards the

memory of Chabrias, seems rather to imply that the peace with

Chios had been concluded before that oration was delivered. It

was delivered in the very year of the peace 355 B. C.

Such was the termination of the Social War, which fatally impaired

the power, and lowered the dignity, of Athens. Imperfectly as

we know the events, it seems clear that her efforts to meet this

formidable revolt were feeble and inadequate; evincing a sad downfall

of energy since the year 412 B. C., when she had contended with

transcendent vigor against similar and even greater calamities, only

a year after her irreparable disaster before Syracuse. Inglorious as

the result of the Social War was, it had nevertheless been costly,

and left Athens poor. The annual revenues of her confederacy were

greatly lessened by the secession of so many important cities,

and her public treasury was exhausted. It is just at this time

that the activity of Demosthenes as a public adviser begins. In a

speech delivered this year (355 B. C.), he notes the poverty of the

treasury; and refers back to it in discourses of after time as a fact

but too notorious.[484]

[484] Demosthenes adv. Leptinem, p. 464. s. 26, 27; and De

Coronâ, p. 305 s. 293.

But the misfortunes arising to Athens from the Social War did not

come alone. It had the farther effect of rendering her less competent

for defence against the early aggressions of Philip of Macedon.

That prince, during the first year of his accession (359 B. C.), had

sought to conciliate Athens by various measures, but especially by

withdrawing his garrison from Amphipolis, while he was establishing

his military strength in the interior against the Illyrians and

Pæonians. He had employed in this manner a period apparently somewhat

less than two years; and employed it with such success, as to humble

his enemies in the interior, and get together a force competent for

aggressive operations against the cities on the coast. During this

interval, Amphipolis remained a free and independent city; formally

renounced by Philip, and not assailed by the Athenians. Why they

let slip this favorable opportunity of again enforcing by arms

pretensions on which they laid so much stress—I have before partially

(though not very satisfactorily) explained. Philip was not the man to

let them enjoy the opportunity longer than he could help, or to defer

the moment of active operations as they did. Towards the close of

358 B. C., finding his hands free from impediments in the interior,

he forthwith commenced the siege of Amphipolis. The inhabitants are

said to have been unfavorably disposed towards him, and to have

given him many causes for war.[485] It is not easy to understand what

these causes could have been, seeing that so short a time before, the

town had been garrisoned by Macedonians invoked as protectors against

Athens; nor were the inhabitants in any condition to act aggressively

against Philip.

[485] Diodor. xvi. 8.

Having in vain summoned Amphipolis to surrender, Philip commenced a

strenuous siege, assailing the walls with battering-rams and other

military engines. The weak points of the fortification must have been

well known to him, from his own soldiers who had been recently in

garrison. The inhabitants defended themselves with vigor; but such

was now the change of circumstances, that they were forced to solicit

their ancient enemy Athens for aid against the Macedonian prince.

Their envoys Hierax and Stratokles, reaching Athens shortly after

the successful close of the Athenian expedition to Eubœa, presented

themselves before the public assembly, urgently inviting the

Athenians to come forthwith and occupy Amphipolis, as the only chance

of rescue from Macedonian dominion.[486] We are not certain whether

the Social War had yet broken out; if it had, Athens would be too

much pressed with anxieties arising out of so formidable a revolt, to

have means disposable even for the tempting recovery of the long-lost

Amphipolis. But at any rate Philip had foreseen and counterworked

the prayers of the Amphipolitans. He sent a courteous letter to

the Athenians, acquainting them that he was besieging the town,

yet recognizing it as belonging of right to them, and promising to

restore it to them when he should have succeeded in the capture.[487]

[486] Demosthenes, Olynth. i. p. 11. s. 8 ... εἰ γὰρ, ὅθ᾽

ἥκομεν Εὐβοεῦσι βεβοηθηκότες καὶ παρῆσαν Ἀμφιπολιτῶν Ἱέραξ

καὶ Στρατοκλῆς ἐπὶ τουτὶ τὸ βῆμα, κελεύοντες ἡμᾶς πλεῖν καὶ

παραλαμβάνειν τὴν πόλιν, τὴν αὐτὴν παρειχόμεθ᾽ ὑπὲρ ἡμῶν αὐτῶν

προθυμίαν ἥνπερ ὑπὲρ τῆς Εὐβοέων σωτηρίας, εἴχετ᾽ ἂν Ἀμφίπολιν

τότε καὶ πάντων τῶν μετὰ ταῦτα ἂν ἦτε ἀπαλλαγμένοι πραγμάτων.

[487] Demosthenes cont. Aristokrat. p. 659. s. 138. ... κἀκεῖνο

εἰδότες, ὅτι Φίλιππος, ὅτε μὲν Ἀμφίπολιν ἐπολιόρκει, ἵν᾽

ὑμῖν παραδῷ, πολιορκεῖν ἔφη· ἐπειδὴ δ᾽ ἔλαβε, καὶ Ποτείδαιαν

προσαφείλετο.

Also the Oration De Halonneso, p. 83. s. 28. ... τῆς δ᾽

ἐπιστολῆς, ἣν πρὸς ὑμᾶς ἔπεμψεν (Philip) ὅτ᾽ Ἀμφίπολιν

ἐπολιόρκει, ἐπιλέλησται, ἐν ᾗ ὡμολόγει τὴν Ἀμφίπολιν ὑμετέραν

εἶναι· ἔφη γὰρ ἐκπολιορκήσας ὑμῖν ἀποδώσειν ὡς οὖσαν ὑμετέραν,

ἀλλ᾽ οὐ τῶν ἐχόντων.

Much of the future history of Greece turned upon the manner in which

Athens dealt with these two conflicting messages. The situation of

Amphipolis, commanding the passage over the Strymon, was not only

all-important—as shutting up Macedonia to the eastward and as opening

the gold regions around Mount Pangæus—but was also easily defensible

by the Athenians from seaward, if once acquired. Had they been

clear-sighted in the appreciation of chances, and vigilant in respect

to future defence, they might now have acquired this important place,

and might have held it against the utmost efforts of Philip. But that

fatal inaction which had become their general besetting sin, was on

the present occasion encouraged by some plausible, yet delusive,

pleas. The news of the danger of the Amphipolitans would be not

unwelcome at Athens—where strong aversion was entertained towards

them, as refractory occupants of a territory not their own, and as

having occasioned repeated loss and humiliation to the Athenian arms.

Nor could the Athenians at once shift their point of view, so as

to contemplate the question on the ground of policy alone, and to

recognize these old enemies as persons whose interests had now come

into harmony with their own. On the other hand, the present temper of

the Athenians towards Philip was highly favorable. Not only had they

made peace with him during the preceding year, but they also felt

that he had treated them well both in evacuating Amphipolis and in

dismissing honorably their citizens who had been taken prisoners in

the army of his competitor Argæus.[488] Hence they were predisposed

to credit his positive assurance, that he only wished to take the

place in order to expel a troublesome population who had wronged and

annoyed him, and that he would readily hand it over to its rightful

owners the Athenians. To grant the application of the Amphipolitans

for aid, would thus appear, at Athens, to be courting a new war and

breaking with a valuable friend, in order to protect an odious enemy,

and to secure an acquisition which would at all events come to them,

even if they remained still, through the cession of Philip. It is

necessary to dwell upon the motives which determined Athens on this

occasion to refrain from interference; since there were probably few

of her resolutions which she afterwards more bitterly regretted. The

letter of assurance from Philip was received and trusted; the envoys

from Amphipolis were dismissed with a refusal.

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

Deprived of all hope of aid from Athens, the Amphipolitans still

held out as long as they could. But a party in the town entered

into correspondence with Philip to betray it, and the defence thus

gradually became feebler. At length he made a breach in the walls,

sufficient, with the aid of partisans within, to carry the city by

assault, not without a brave resistance from those who still remained

faithful. All the citizens unfriendly to him were expelled or fled,

the rest were treated with lenity; but we are told that little favor

was shown by Philip towards those who had helped in the betrayal.[489]

[489] Diodor. xvi. 8, with the passage from Libanius cited in

Wesseling’s note. Demosthenes, Olynth. i. p. 10. s. 5.

Hierax and Stratokles were the Amphipolitan envoys despatched to

Athens to ask for aid against Philip. An Inscription yet remains,

recording the sentence of perpetual banishment of Philo and

Stratokles. See Boeckh, Corp. Inscr. No. 2008.

Amphipolis was to Philip an acquisition of unspeakable importance,

not less for defence than for offence. It was not only the most

convenient maritime station in Thrace, but it also threw open to

him all the country east of the Strymon, and especially the gold

region near Mount Pangæus. He established himself firmly in his new

position, which continued from henceforward one of the bulwarks of

Macedonia, until the conquest of that kingdom by the Romans. He took

no steps to fulfil his promise of handing over the place to the

Athenians, who doubtless sent embassies to demand it. The Social

War, indeed, which just now broke out, absorbed all their care and

all their forces, so that they were unable, amidst their disastrous

reverses at Chios and elsewhere, to take energetic measures in

reference to Philip and Amphipolis. Nevertheless he still did not

peremptorily refuse the surrender, but continued to amuse the

Athenians with delusive hopes, suggested through his partisans, paid

or voluntary, in the public assembly.

It was the more necessary for him to postpone any open breach with

Athens, because the Olynthians had conceived serious alarm from

his conquest of Amphipolis, and had sent to negotiate a treaty of

amity and alliance with the Athenians. Such an alliance, had it

been concluded, would have impeded the farther schemes of Philip.

But his partisans at Athens procured the dismissal of the Olynthian

envoys, by renewed assurances that the Macedonian prince was still

the friend of Athens, and still disposed to cede Amphipolis as her

legitimate possession. They represented, however, that he had good

ground for complaining that Athens continued to retain Pydna, an

ancient Macedonian seaport.[490] Accordingly they proposed to open

negotiations with him for the exchange of Pydna against Amphipolis.

But as the Pydnæans were known to be adverse to the transfer, secrecy

was indispensable in the preliminary proceedings, so that Antiphon

and Charidemus, the two envoys named, took their instructions from

the Senate and made their reports only to the Senate. The public

assembly being informed that negotiations, unavoidably secret, were

proceeding, to ensure the acquisition of Amphipolis—was persuaded to

repel the advances of Olynthus, as well as to look upon Philip still

as a friend.[491]

[490] Thucyd. i. 61, 137; Diodor. xiii. 49. Pydna had been

acquired to Athens by Timotheus.

[491] This secret negotiation, about the exchange of Pydna for

Amphipolis, is alluded to briefly by Demosthenes, and appears to

have been fully noticed by Theopompus (Demosthenes, Olynth. ii.

p. 19. s. 6. with the comments of Ulpian; Theopompus, Fr. 189,

ed. Didot).

The proffered alliance of the Olynthians was thus rejected, as the

entreaty of the Amphipolitans for aid had previously been. Athens had

good reason to repent of both. The secret negotiation brought her

no nearer to the possession of Amphipolis. It ended in nothing, or

in worse than nothing, as it amused her with delusive expectations,

while Philip opened a treaty with the Olynthians, irritated, of

course, by their recent repulse at Athens. As yet he had maintained

pacific relations with the Athenians, even while holding Amphipolis

contrary to his engagement. But he now altered his policy, and

contracted alliance with the Olynthians; whose friendship he

purchased not only by ceding to them the district of Anthemus (lying

between Olynthus and Therma, and disputed by the Olynthians with

former Macedonian kings), but also by conquering and handing over to

them the important Athenian possession of Potidæa.[492] We know no

particulars of these important transactions. Our scanty authorities

merely inform us, that during the first two years (358-356 B. C.),

while Athens was absorbed by her disastrous Social War, Philip began

to act as her avowed enemy. He conquered from her not only Pydna and

other places for himself, but also Potidæa for the Olynthians. We are

told that Pydna was betrayed to Philip by a party of traitors in the

town;[493] and he probably availed himself of the secret propositions

made by Athens respecting the exchange of Pydna for Amphipolis, to

exasperate the Pydnæans against her bad faith; since they would have

good ground for resenting the project of transferring them underhand,

contrary to their own inclination. Pydna was the first place besieged

and captured. Several of its inhabitants, on the ground of prior

offence towards Macedonia,[494] are said to have been slain, while

even those who had betrayed the town were contemptuously treated. The

siege lasted long enough to transmit news to Athens, and to receive

aid, had the Athenians acted with proper celerity in despatching

forces. But either the pressure of the Social War—or the impatience

of personal service as well as of pecuniary payment—or both causes

operating together—made them behindhand with the exigency. Several

Athenian citizens were taken in Pydna and sold into slavery, some

being ransomed by Demosthenes out of his own funds; yet we cannot

make out clearly that any relief at all was sent from Athens.[495] If

any was sent, it came too late.

[492] Demosthenes, Philipp. ii. p. 71. s. 22.

[493] Demosthen. adv. Leptinem, p. 476. s. 71. ... φέρε δὴ

κἀκεῖνο ἐξετάσωμεν, οἱ προδόντες τὴν Πύδναν καὶ τἄλλα χωρία τῷ

Φιλίππῳ τῷ ποτ᾽ ἐπαρθέντες ὑμᾶς ἠδίκουν; ἢ πᾶσι πρόδηλον τοῦτο,

ὅτι ταῖς παρ᾽ ἐκείνου δωρειαῖς, ἃς διὰ ταῦτα ἔσεσθαι σφίσιν

ἡγοῦντο;

Compare Olynthiac i. p. 10. s. 5.

This discourse was pronounced in 355 B. C., thus affording

confirmatory evidence of the date assigned to the surrender of

Pydna and Potidæa.

What the “other places” here alluded to by Demosthenes are

(besides Pydna and Potidæa), we do not know. It appears by

Diodorus (xvi. 31) that Methônê was not taken till 354-353 B. C.

[494] The conquests of Philip are always enumerated by

Demosthenes in this order, Amphipolis, Pydna, Potidæa, Methônê,

etc., Olynthiac i. p. 11. s. 9. p. 12. s. 13; Philippic i. p. 41.

s. 6; De Coronâ, p. 248. s. 85.

See Ulpian ad Demosthenem, Olynth. i. p. 10. s. 5; also Diodor.

xvi. 8 and Wesseling’s note.

[495] In the public vote of gratitude passed many years

afterwards by the Athenian assembly towards Demosthenes, his

merits are recited; and among them we find this contribution

towards the relief of captives at Pydna, Methônê, and Olynthus

(Plutarch, Vit. X. Orator, p. 851).

Equal tardiness was shown in the relief sent to Potidæa[496]—though

the siege, carried on jointly by Philip and the Olynthians, was

both long and costly[497]—and though there were a body of Athenian

settlers (Kleruchs) resident there, whom the capture of the place

expelled from their houses and properties.[498] Even for the rescue

of these fellow-citizens, it does not appear that any native

Athenians would undertake the burden of personal service; the

relieving force despatched seems to have consisted of a general

with mercenary foreigners; who, as no pay was provided for them,

postponed the enterprise on which they were sent to the temptation

of plundering elsewhere for their own profit.[499] It was thus that

Philip, without any express declaration of war, commenced a series of

hostile measures against Athens, and deprived her of several valuable

maritime possessions on the coast of Macedonia and Thrace, besides

his breach of faith respecting the cession of Amphipolis.[500]

After her losses from the Social War, and her disappointment about

Amphipolis, she was yet farther mortified by seeing Pydna pass

into his hands, and Potidæa (the most important possession in

Thrace next to Amphipolis) into those of Olynthus. Her impoverished

settlers returned home, doubtless with bitter complaint against the

aggression, but also with just vexation against the tardiness of

their countrymen in sending relief.

[496] Compare Demosthenes, Olynthiac i. p. 11. s. 9; Philippic

i. p. 50. s. 40 (where he mentions the expedition to Potidæa as

having come too late, but does not mention any expedition for

relief of Pydna.)

[497] Demosthenes cont. Aristokrat. p. 656. s. 128. πρὸς ὑμᾶς

πολεμῶν, χρήματα πολλὰ ἀναλώσας (Philip, in the siege of

Potidæa). In this oration (delivered B. C. 352) Demosthenes

treats the capture of Potidæa as mainly the work of Philip; in

the second Olynthiac, he speaks as if Philip had been a secondary

agent, a useful adjunct to the Olynthians in the siege, πάλιν αὖ

πρὸς Ποτίδαιαν Ὀλυνθίοις ἐφάνη τι τοῦτο συναμφότερον—_i. e._

the Macedonian power was προσθήκη τις οὐ σμικρά.... The first

representation, delivered two or three years before the second,

is doubtless the more correct.

[498] Demosthenes, Philipp. ii. p. 71. s. 22. Ποτίδαιαν δ᾽

ἐδίδου, τοὺς Ἀθηναίων ἀποίκους ἐκβάλλων (Philip gave it to the

Olynthians), καὶ τὴν μὲν ἐχθρὰν πρὸς ἡμᾶς αὐτὸς ἀνῄρητο, τὴν

χώραν δ᾽ ἐκείνοις ἐδεδώκει καρποῦσθαι. The passage in the Oratio

de Halonneso (p. 79. s. 10) alludes to this same extrusion and

expropriation of the Athenian Kleruchs, though Vœmel and Franke

(erroneously, I think) suppose it to allude to the treatment of

these Kleruchs by Philip some years afterwards, when he took

Potidæa for himself. We may be sure that no Athenian Kleruchs

were permitted to stay at Potidæa even after the first capture.

[499] The general description given in the first Philippic of

Demosthenes of the ἀπόστολοι from Athens, may doubtless be

applied to the expedition for the relief of Potidæa—Demosthenes,

Philippic i. p. 46. s. 28. p. 53, s. 52. and the general tenor of

the harangue.

[500] Diodorus (xvi. 8), in mentioning the capture of Potidæa,

considers it an evidence of the kind disposition of Philip, and

of his great respect for the dignity of Athens (φιλανθρώπως

προσενεγκάμενος) that he spared the persons of these Athenians

in the place, and permitted them to depart. But it was a great

wrong, under the circumstances, that he should expel and

expropriate them, when no offence had been given to him, and when

there was no formal war (Demosth. Or. de Halonneso, p. 79. s. 10).

Diodorus states also that Philip gave Pydna, as well as Potidæa,

to the Olynthians; which is not correct.

These two years had been so employed by Philip as to advance

prodigiously his power and ascendency. He had deprived Athens of her

hold upon the Thermaic gulf, in which she now seems only to have

retained the town of Methônê, instead of the series of ports round

the gulf acquired for her by Timotheus.[501] He had conciliated the

good-will of the Olynthians by his cession of Anthemus and Potidæa;

the latter place, from its commanding situation on the isthmus of

Pallenê, giving them the mastery of that peninsula,[502] and ensuring

(what to Philip was of great importance) their enmity with Athens.

He not only improved the maritime conveniences of Amphipolis, but

also extended his acquisitions into the auriferous regions of Mount

Pangæus eastward of the Strymon. He possessed himself of that

productive country immediately facing the island of Thasos; where

both Thasians and Athenians had once contended for the rights of

mining, and from whence, apparently, both had extracted valuable

produce. In the interior of this region he founded a new city called

Philippi, enlarged from a previous town called Krenides, recently

founded by the Thasians; and he took such effective measures for

increasing the metallic works in the neighborhood, that they

presently yielded to him a large revenue; according to Diodorus,

not less than one thousand talents per annum.[503] He caused a new

gold coin to be struck, bearing a name derived from his own. The

fresh source of wealth thus opened was of the greatest moment to

him, as furnishing means to meet the constantly increasing expense

of his military force. He had full employment to keep his soldiers

in training: for the nations of the interior—Illyrians, Pæonians,

and Thracians—humbled but not subdued, rose again in arms, and tried

again jointly to reclaim their independence. The army of Philip—under

his general Parmenio, of whom we now hear for the first time—defeated

them, and again reduced them to submission.[504]

[501] Demosthenes, Philippic i. p. 41. s. 6 ... εἴχομέν ποτε

ἡμεῖς Πύδναν καὶ Ποτίδαιαν καὶ Μεθώνην, καὶ ~πάντα τὸν τόπον

τοῦτον οἰκεῖον κύκλῳ~, etc.

[502] Demosthenes, Philipp. ii. p. 70. s. 22.