[805] Æschines, Fals. Leg. p. 31. c. 11.

[806] Æschines, Fals. Leg. p. 32. c. 13, 14.

[807] Æschines, Fals. Leg. p. 32, 33. c. 15. Demosthenes himself

says little or nothing about this first embassy, and nothing at

all either about his own speech or that of Æschines.

Having dismissed the envoys after their harangues, and taken a short

time for consideration, Philip recalled them into his presence. He

then delivered his reply with his own lips, combating especially

the arguments of Æschines, and according to that orator, with such

pertinence and presence of mind, as to excite the admiration of

all the envoys, Demosthenes among the rest. What Philip said, we

do not learn from Æschines; who expatiates only on the shuffling,

artifice, and false pretences of Demosthenes, to conceal his failure

as an orator, and to put himself on a point of advantage above his

colleagues. Of these personalities it is impossible to say how much

is true; and even were they true, they are scarcely matter of general

history.

It was about the beginning of March when the envoys returned to

Athens. Some were completely fascinated by the hospitable treatment

and engaging manners of Philip,[808] especially when entertaining

them at the banquet: with others, he had come to an understanding at

once more intimate and more corrupt. They brought back a letter from

Philip, which was read both in the Senate and the assembly; while

Demosthenes, senator of that year, not only praised them all in the

Senate, but also became himself the mover of a resolution that they

should be crowned with a wreath of honor, and invited to dine next

day in the prytaneium.[809]

[808] Æschines, Fals. Leg. p. 33. c. 17, 18. The effect of the

manner and behavior of Philip upon Ktesiphon the envoy, is

forcibly stated here by Æschines.

[809] Æschines, Fals. Leg. p. 34. c. 19; Demosth. Fals. Leg. p.

414. This vote of thanks, and invitation to dinner, appears to

have been so uniform a custom, that Demosthenes (Fals. Leg. p.

350) comments upon the withholding of the compliment, when the

second embassy returned, as a disgrace without parallel. That

Demosthenes should have proposed a motion of such customary

formality, is a fact of little moment any way. It rather proves

that the relations of Demosthenes with his colleagues during

the embassy, cannot have been so ill-tempered as Æschines had

affirmed. Demosthenes himself admits that he did not begin to

suspect his colleagues until the debates at Athens after the

return of this first embassy.

We have hardly any means of appreciating the real proceedings of

this embassy, or the matters treated in discussion with Philip.

Æschines tells us nothing, except the formalities of the interview,

and the speeches about Amphipolis. But we shall at any rate do him no

injustice, if we judge him upon his own account; which, if it does

not represent what he actually did, represents what he wished to

be thought to have done. His own account certainly shows a strange

misconception of the actual situation of affairs. In order to justify

himself for being desirous of peace, he lays considerable stress on

the losing game which Athens had been playing during the war, and on

the probability of yet farther loss if she persisted. He completes

the cheerless picture by adding—what was doubtless but too familiar

to his Athenian audience—that Philip on his side, marching from one

success to another, had raised the Macedonian kingdom to an elevation

truly formidable, by the recent extinction of Olynthus. Yet under

this state of comparative force between the two contending parties,

Æschines presents himself before Philip with a demand of exorbitant

magnitude,—for the cession of Amphipolis. He says not a word about

anything else. He delivers an eloquent harangue to convince Philip

of the incontestible right of Athens to Amphipolis, and to prove to

him that he was in the wrong for taking and keeping it. He affects

to think, that by this process he should induce Philip to part

with a town, the most capital and unparalleled position in all his

dominions; which he had now possessed for twelve years, and which

placed him in communication with his new foundation Philippi and

the auriferous region around it. The arguments of Æschines would

have been much to the purpose, in an action tried between two

litigants before an impartial Dikastery at Athens. But here were two

belligerent parties, in a given ratio of strength and position as to

the future, debating terms of peace. That an envoy on the part of

Athens, the losing party, should now stand forward to demand from

a victorious enemy the very place which formed the original cause

of the war, and which had become far more valuable to Philip than

when he first took it—was a pretension altogether preposterous. When

Æschines reproduces his eloquent speech reclaiming Amphipolis, as

having been the principal necessity and most honorable achievement

of his diplomatic mission, he only shows how little qualified he was

to render real service to Athens in that capacity—to say nothing

as yet about corruption. The Athenian people, extremely retentive

of past convictions, had it deeply impressed on their minds that

Amphipolis was theirs by right; and probably the first envoys to

Macedonia,—Aristodemus, Neoptolemus, Ktesiphon, Phrynon,[810]

etc.—had been so cajoled by the courteous phrases, deceptions, and

presents of Philip, that they represented him on their return as

not unwilling to purchase friendship with Athens by the restoration

of Amphipolis. To this delusive expectation in the Athenian mind

Æschines addressed himself, when he took credit for his earnest

pleading before Philip on behalf of Athenian right to the place,

as if it were the sole purpose of his mission.[811] We shall see

him throughout, in his character of envoy, not only fostering the

actual delusions of the public at Athens, but even circulating gross

fictions and impostures of his own, respecting the proceedings and

purposes of Philip.

[810] Demosth. Fals. Leg. p. 344. Compare p. 371. τοὺς περὶ τῆς

εἰρήνης πρέσβεις πέμπειν ὡς Φίλιππον ἐπείσθητε ὑπ᾽ Ἀριστοδήμου

καὶ Νεοπτολέμου καὶ Κτησιφῶντος, καὶ τῶν ἄλλων τῶν ἐκεῖθεν

ἀπαγγελλόντων οὐδ᾽ ὁτιοῦν ὑγιὲς, etc.

[811] There is great contradiction between the two orators,

Æschines and Demosthenes, as to this speech of Æschines before

Philip respecting Amphipolis. Demosthenes represents Æschines

as having said in this report to the people on his return, “I

(Æschines) said nothing about Amphipolis, in order that I might

leave that subject fresh for Demosthenes,” etc.

Compare Demosth. Fals. Leg. p. 421; Æschines, Fals. Leg. p. 33,

34. c. 18, 19, 21.

As to this particular matter of fact, I incline to believe

Æschines rather than his rival. He probably did make an eloquent

speech about Amphipolis before Philip.

It was on or about the first day of the month Elaphebolion[812]

(March) when the envoys reached Athens on returning from the court of

Philip. They brought a letter from him couched in the most friendly

terms; expressing great anxiety not only to be at peace with Athens,

but also to become her ally; stating moreover that he was prepared to

render her valuable service, and that he would have specified more

particularly what the service would be, if he could have felt certain

that he should be received as her ally.[813] But in spite of such

amenities of language, affording an occasion for his partisans in the

assembly, Æschines, Philokrates, Ktesiphon, Phrynon, Iatroklês and

others, to expatiate upon his excellent dispositions, Philip would

grant no better terms of peace than that each party should retain

what they already possessed. Pursuant to this general principle, the

Chersonesus was assured to Athens, of which Æschines appears to have

made some boast.[814] Moreover, at the moment when the envoys were

quitting Pella to return home, Philip was also leaving it at the

head of his army on an expedition against Kersobleptes in Thrace.

He gave a special pledge to the envoys that he would not attack the

Chersonese, until the Athenians should have had an opportunity of

debating,—accepting or rejecting the propositions of peace. His

envoys, Antipater and Parmenio, received orders to visit Athens with

little delay; and a Macedonian herald accompanied the Athenian envoys

on their return.[815]

[812] The eighth day of Elaphebolion fell some little time after

their arrival, so that possibly they may have even reached

Athens on the last days of the month Anthesterion (Æschines

adv. Ktesiph. p. 63. c. 24). The reader will understand that

the Grecian lunar months do not correspond precisely, but only

approximatively, with ours.

[813] Demosth. Fals. Leg. p. 353, 354. ... ὁ γὰρ εἰς τὴν

~προτέραν~ γράψας ~ἐπιστολὴν, ἣν ἠνέγκαμεν ἡμεῖς~, ὅτι “ἔγραφόν

τ᾽ ἂν καὶ διαῤῥήδην, ἥλικα ὑμᾶς εὖ ποιήσω, εἰ εὖ ᾔδειν καὶ τὴν

συμμαχίαν μοι γενησομένην,” etc. Compare Pseudo-Demosth. De

Halonneso, p. 85. Æschines alludes to this letter, Fals. Leg. p.

34. c. 21.

[814] Demosth. Fals. Leg. p 365.

[815] Æschines, Fals. Leg. p. 39. c. 26; Æschines cont.

Ktesiphont. p. 63. c. 23. παρηγγέλλετο δ᾽ ἐπ᾽ αὐτὸν

(Kersobleptes) ἤδη στρατεία, etc.

Having ascertained on what terms peace could be had, the envoys

were competent to advise the Athenian people, and prepare them for

a definite conclusion, as soon as this Macedonian mission should

arrive. They first gave an account of their proceedings to the

public assembly. Ktesiphon, the oldest, who spake first, expatiated

on the graceful presence and manners of Philip, as well as upon the

charm of his company in wine-drinking.[816] Æschines dwelt upon

his powerful and pertinent oratory; after which he recounted the

principal occurrences of the journey, and the debate with Philip,

intimating that in the previous understanding of the envoys among

themselves, the duty of speaking about Amphipolis had been confided

to Demosthenes, in case any point should have been omitted by the

previous speakers. Demosthenes then made his own statement, in

language (according to Æschines) censorious and even insulting

towards his colleagues; especially affirming that Æschines, in his

vanity, chose to preoccupy all the best points in his own speech,

leaving none open for any one else.[817] Demosthenes next proceeded

to move various decrees; one, to greet by libation the herald who

had accompanied them from Philip,—and the Macedonian envoys who

were expected; another, providing that the prytanes should convene

a special assembly on the eighth day of Elaphebolion, (a day sacred

to Æsculapius, on which generally no public business was ever

transacted), in order that if the envoys from Macedonia had then

arrived, the people might discuss without delay their political

relations with Philip; a third, to commend the behavior of the

Athenian envoys (his colleagues and himself), and to invite them to

dinner in the prytaneium. Demosthenes farther moved in the Senate,

that when Philip’s envoys came, they should be accommodated with

seats of honor at the Dionysiac festival.[818]

[816] Æschines, Fals. Leg. p. 34. c. 20. τῆς ἐν τοῖς πότοις

ἐπιδεξιότητος—συμπιεῖν δεινὸς ἦν (c. 21).

[817] Æschines, Fals. Leg. p. 34, 35. c. 21; Dem. Fals. Leg. p.

421. Yet Æschines, when describing the same facts in his oration

against Ktesiphon (p. 62. c. 23), simply says that Demosthenes

gave to the assembly an account of the proceedings of the first

embassy, similar to that given by the other envoys—ταὐτὰ τοῖς

ἄλλοις πρέσβεσιν ἀπήγγειλε, etc.

The point noticed in the text (that Demosthenes charged Æschines

with reluctance to let any one else have anything to say) is one

which appears both in Æschines and Demosthenes, De Fals. Legat.,

and may therefore in the main be regarded as having really

occurred. But probably the statement made by Demosthenes to the

people as to the proceedings of the embassy, _was_ substantially

the same as that of his colleagues. For though the later oration

of Æschines is, in itself, less trustworthy evidence than the

earlier—yet when we find two different statements of Æschines

respecting Demosthenes, we may reasonably presume that the one

which is _least unfavorable_ is the _most credible_ of the two.

[818] Æschines, Fals. Leg. p. 34, 35, 42. c 20, 21, 34; Æschines

adv. Ktesiphont. p. 62, 63. c. 23, 24. In the first of the two

speeches, Æschines makes no mention of the decree proposed

by Demosthenes relative to the assembly on the eighth of

Elaphebolion. He mentions it in the speech against Ktesiphon,

with considerable specification.

Presently, these Macedonian envoys, Antipater, Parmenio and

Eurylochus, arrived; yet not early enough to allow the full debate

to take place on the assembly of the eighth of Elaphebolion.

Accordingly (as it would seem, in that very assembly), Demosthenes

proposed and carried a fresh decree, fixing two later days for the

special assemblies to discuss peace and alliance with Macedonia. The

days named were the eighteenth and nineteenth days of the current

month Elaphebolion (March); immediately after the Dionysiac festival,

and the assembly in the temple of Dionysius which followed upon

it.[819] At the same time Demosthenes showed great personal civility

to the Macedonian envoys, inviting them to a splendid entertainment,

and not only conducting them to their place of honor at the Dionysiac

festival, but also providing for them comfortable seats and

cushions.[820]

[819] Æschines, Fals. Leg. p. 36. c. 22. ἕτερον ψήφισμα, Æsch.

adv. Ktesiph. p. 63. c. 24. This last decree, fixing the two

special days of the month, could scarcely have been proposed

until after Philip’s envoys had actually reached Athens.

[820] Æschines, Fals. Leg. p. 42. c. 34; adv. Ktesiphont. p.

62. c. 22; Demosth. Fals. Leg. p. 414; De Coronâ, p. 234. This

courtesy and politeness towards the Macedonian envoys is admitted

by Demosthenes himself. It was not a circumstance of which he had

any reason to be ashamed.

Besides the public assembly held by the Athenians themselves, to

receive report from their ten envoys returned out of Macedonia, the

synod of Athenian confederates was also assembled to hear the report

of Aglaokreon, who had gone as their representative along with the

Ten. This synod agreed to a resolution, important in reference to

the approaching debate in the Athenian assembly, yet unfortunately

nowhere given to us entire, but only in partial and indirect notice

from the two rival orators. It has been already mentioned that

since the capture of Olynthus, the Athenians had sent forth envoys

throughout a large portion of Greece, urging the various cities

to unite with them either in conjoint war against Philip, or in

conjoint peace to obtain some mutual guarantee against his farther

encroachments. Of these missions, the greater number had altogether

failed, demonstrating the hopelessness of the Athenian project.

But some had been so far successful, that deputies, more or fewer,

were actually present in Athens, pursuant to the invitation; while

a certain number were still absent and expected to return,—the same

individuals having perhaps been sent to different places at some

distance from each other. The resolution of the synod (noway binding

upon the Athenian people, but merely recommendatory), was adapted to

this state of affairs, and to the dispositions recently manifested

at Athens towards conjoint action with other Greeks against Philip.

The synod advised, that immediately on the return of the envoys still

absent on mission (when probably all such Greeks, as were willing

even to talk over the proposition, would send their deputies also),

the Athenian prytanes should convene two public assemblies, according

to the laws, for the purpose of debating and deciding the question

of peace. Whatever decision might be here taken, the synod adopted

it beforehand as their own. They farther recommended that an article

should be annexed, reserving an interval of three months for any

Grecian city not a party to the peace, to declare its adhesion, to

inscribe its name on the column of record, and to be included under

the same conditions as the rest. Apparently this resolution of the

synod was adopted before the arrival of the Macedonian deputies in

Athens, and before the last-mentioned decree proposed by Demosthenes

in the public assembly; which decree, fixing two days, (the 18th and

19th of Elaphebolion), for decision of the question of peace and

alliance with Philip, coincided in part with the resolution of the

synod.[821]

[821] I insert in the text what appears to me the probable

truth about this resolution of the confederate synod. The

point is obscure, and has been differently viewed by different

commentators.

Demosthenes affirms, in his earlier speech (De Fals. Leg. p.

346), that Æschines held disgraceful language in his speech

before the public assembly on the 19th Elaphebolion (to the

effect that Athens ought to act for herself alone, and to take no

thought for any other Greeks except such as had assisted her);

and that, too, in the presence and hearing of those envoys from

other Grecian cities, whom the Athenians had sent for at the

instigation of Æschines himself. The presence of these envoys

in the assembly, here implied, is not the main charge, but a

collateral aggravation; nevertheless, Æschines (as is often the

case throughout his defence) bestows nearly all his care upon

the aggravation, taking comparatively little notice of the main

charge. He asserts with great emphasis (Fals. Leg. p. 35), that

the envoys sent out from Athens on mission had _not returned_,

and that there were _no envoys present_ from any Grecian cities.

It seems to me reasonable here to believe the assertion of

Demosthenes, that there _were_ envoys from other Grecian cities

present; although he himself in his later oration (De Coronâ,

p. 232, 233) speaks as if such were not the fact, as if all

the Greeks had been long found out as recreants in the cause

of liberty, and as if no envoys from Athens were then absent

on mission. I accept the _positive_ assertion of Æschines as

true—that there were Athenian envoys then absent on mission, who

might possibly, on their return, bring in with them deputies from

other Greeks; but I do not admit his _negative_ assertion—that

no Athenian envoys had returned from their mission, and that no

deputies had come in from other Greeks. That among many Athenian

envoys sent out, _all_ should fail—appears to me very improbable.

If we follow the argument of Æschines (in the speech De Fals.

Leg.), we shall see that it is quite enough if we suppose _some_

of the envoys sent out on mission, and not _all_ of them, to be

absent. To prove this fact, he adduces (p. 35, 36) the resolution

of the confederate synod, alluding to the absent envoys, and

recommending a certain course to be taken after their return.

This does not necessarily imply that _all_ were absent. Stechow

remarks justly, that some of the envoys would necessarily be out

a long time, having to visit more than one city, and perhaps

cities distant from each other (Vita Æschinis, p. 41).

I also accept what Æschines says about the resolution of the

confederate synod, as being substantially true. About the actual

import of this resolution, he is consistent with himself, both

in the earlier and in the later oration. Winiewski (Comment.

Historic. in Demosth. De Coronâ, p. 74-77) and Westermann (De

Litibus quas Demosthenes oravit ipse, p. 38-42) affirm, I think

without reason, that the import of this resolution is differently

represented by Æschines in the earlier and in the later orations.

What is really different in the two orations, is the way in which

Æschines perverts the import of the resolution to inculpate

Demosthenes; affirming in the later oration, that if Athens had

waited for the return of her envoys on mission, she might have

made peace with Philip jointly with a large body of Grecian

allies; and that it was Demosthenes who hindered her from doing

this, by hurrying on the discussions about the peace (Æsch. adv.

Ktesiph. p. 61-63), etc. Westermann thinks that the synod would

not take upon them to prescribe how many assemblies the Athenians

should convene for the purpose of debating about peace. But it

seems to have been a common practice with the Athenians, about

peace or other special and important matters, to convene two

assemblies on two days immediately succeeding: all that the synod

here recommended was, that the Athenians should follow the usual

custom—προγράψαι τοὺς πρυτάνεις ἐκκλησίας δύο κατὰ τοὺς νόμους,

etc. That two assemblies, neither less nor more, should be

convened for the purpose, was a point of no material importance;

except that it indicated a determination to decide the question

at once—_sans désemparer_.

Accordingly, after the great Dionysiac festival, these two prescribed

assemblies were held,—on the 18th and 19th of Elaphebolion. The

three ambassadors from Philip, Parmenio, Antipater, and Eurylochus

were present, both at the festival and the assemblies.[822] The

general question of the relations between Athens and Philip being

here submitted for discussion, the resolution of the confederate

synod was at the same time communicated. Of this resolution the

most significant article was, that the synod accepted beforehand

the decree of the Athenian assembly, whatever that might be; the

other articles were recommendations, doubtless heard with respect,

and constituting a theme for speakers to insist on, yet carrying no

positive authority. But in the pleadings of the two rival orators

some years afterwards, (from which alone we know the facts), the

entire resolution of the synod appears invested with a factitious

importance; because each of them had an interest in professing to

have supported it,—each accuses the other of having opposed it; both

wished to disconnect themselves from Philokrates, then a disgraced

exile, and from the peace moved by him, which had become discredited.

It was Philokrates who stood forward in the assembly as the prominent

mover of peace and alliance with Philip. His motion did not embrace

either of the recommendations of the synod, respecting absent

envoys, and interval to be left for adhesions from other Greeks; nor

did he confine himself, as the synod had done, to the proposition of

peace with Philip. He proposed that not only peace, but alliance,

should be concluded between the Athenians and Philip; who had

expressed by letter his great anxiety both for one and for the other.

He included in his proposition, Philip with all his allies, on one

side,—and Athens, with all her allies, on the other; making special

exception, however, of two among the allies of Athens, the Phokians,

and the town of Halus near the Pagasæan Gulf, recently under siege by

Parmenio.[823]

[822] Æschines, adv. Ktesiph. p. 64.

[823] Demosthen. Fals. Leg. p. 391. τήν τε γὰρ εἰρήνην οὐχὶ

δυνηθέντων ὡς ἐπεχείρησαν οὗτοι, “πλὴν Ἁλέων καὶ Φωκέων,”

γράψαι—ἀλλ᾽ ἀναγκασθέντος ὑφ᾽ ὑμῶν τοῦ Φιλοκράτους ταῦτα μὲν

ἀπαλείψαι, γράψαι δ᾽ ἀντικρὺς “~Ἀθηναίους καὶ τοὺς Ἀθηναίων

συμμάχους~,” etc.

What part Æschines and Demosthenes took in reference to this motion,

it is not easy to determine. In their speeches, delivered three

years afterwards, both denounce Philokrates; each accuses the other

of having supported him; each affirms himself to have advocated

the recommendations of the synod. The contradictions between the

two, and between Æschines in his earlier and Æschines in his later

speech, are here very glaring. Thus, Demosthenes accuses his rival

of having, on the 18th of the month or on the first of the two

assemblies, delivered a speech strongly opposed to Philokrates;[824]

but of having changed his politics during the night and spoken on the

19th in support of the latter, so warmly as to convert the hearers

when they were predisposed the other way. Æschines altogether denies

such sudden change of opinion; alleging that he made but one speech,

and that in favor of the recommendation of the synod; and averring

moreover that to speak on the second assembly-day was impossible,

since that day was exclusively consecrated to putting questions and

voting, so that no oratory was allowed.[825] Yet Æschines, though in

his earlier harangue (De Fals. Leg.) he insists so strenuously on

this impossibility of speaking on the 19th,—in his later harangue

(against Ktesiphon) accuses Demosthenes of having spoken at great

length on that very day, the 19th, and of having thereby altered the

temper of the assembly.[826]

In spite, however, of the discredit thus thrown by Æschines upon

his own denial, I do not believe the sudden change of speech in the

assembly, ascribed to him by Demosthenes. It is too unexplained, and

in itself too improbable, to be credited on the mere assertion of

a rival. But I think it certain that neither he, nor Demosthenes,

can have advocated the recommendations of the synod, though both

profess to have done so,—if we are to believe the statement of

Æschines (we have no statement from Demosthenes), as to the tenor

of those recommendations. For the synod (according to Æschines) had

recommended to await the return of the absent envoys before the

question of peace was debated. Now this proposition was impracticable

under the circumstances; since it amounted to nothing less than an

indefinite postponement of the question. But the Macedonian envoys,

Antipater and Parmenio, were now in Athens, and actually present in

the assembly; having come, by special invitation, for the purpose

either of concluding peace or of breaking off the negotiation; and

Philip had agreed (as Æschines[827] himself states), to refrain from

all attack on the Chersonese, while the Athenians were debating

about peace. Under these conditions, it was imperatively necessary

to give some decisive and immediate answer to the Macedonian envoys.

To tell them—“We can say nothing positive at present; you must wait

until our absent envoys return, and until we ascertain how many

Greeks we can get into our alliance,” would have been not only in

itself preposterous, but would have been construed by able men like

Antipater and Parmenio as a mere dilatory manœuvre for breaking off

the peace altogether. Neither Demosthenes nor Æschines can have

really supported such a proposition, whatever both may pretend

three years afterwards. For at that time of the actual discussion,

not only Æschines himself, but the general public of Athens were

strongly anxious for peace; while Demosthenes, though less anxious,

was favorable to it.[828] Neither of them were at all disposed to

frustrate the negotiations by insidious delay; nor, if they had been

so disposed, would the Athenian public have tolerated the attempt.

[824] Demosthen. Fals. Leg. p. 345, 346.

[825] Æschines. Fals. Leg. p. 36.

[826] Æschines adv. Ktesiph. p. 63, 64.

[827] Æschines, Fals. Leg. p. 39.

[828] From the considerations here stated, we can appreciate the

charges of Æschines against Demosthenes, even on his own showing;

though the precise course of either is not very clear.

He accuses Demosthenes of having sold himself to Philip (adv.

Ktes. p. 63, 64); a charge utterly futile and incredible,

refuted by the whole conduct of Demosthenes, both before and

after. Whether Demosthenes received bribes from Harpalus—or from

the Persian court—will be matter of future inquiry. But the

allegation that he had been bribed by Philip is absurd. Æschines

himself confesses that it was quite at variance with the received

opinion at Athens (adv. Ktes. p. 62. c. 22).

He accuses Demosthenes of having, under the influence of these

bribes, opposed and frustrated the recommendation of the

confederate synod—of having hurried on the debate about peace at

once—and of having thus prevented Athens from waiting for the

return of her absent envoys, which would have enabled her to make

peace in conjunction with a powerful body of coöperating Greeks.

This charge is advanced by Æschines, first in the speech De Fals.

Leg. p. 36—next, with greater length and emphasis, in the later

speech, adv. Ktesiph. p. 63, 64. From what has been said in the

text, it will be seen that such indefinite postponement, when

Antipater and Parmenio were present in Athens by invitation, was

altogether impossible, without breaking off the negotiation.

Not to mention, that Æschines himself affirms, in the strongest

language, the ascertained impossibility of prevailing upon any

other Greeks to join Athens, and complains bitterly of their

backward dispositions (Fals. Leg. p. 38. c. 25). In this point

Demosthenes perfectly concurs with him (De Coronâ, p. 231, 232).

So that even if postponement could have been had, it would have

been productive of no benefit, nor of any increase of force, to

Athens, since the Greeks were not inclined to coöperate with her.

The charge of Æschines against Demosthenes is thus untenable, and

suggests its own refutation, even from the mouth of the accuser

himself. Demosthenes indeed replies to it in a different manner.

When Æschines says—“You hurried on the discussion about peace,

without allowing Athens to await the return of her envoys, then

absent on mission”—Demosthenes answers—“There were _no_ Athenian

envoys then absent on mission. All the Greeks had been long ago

detected as incurably apathetic.” (De Coronâ, p. 233). This is a

slashing and decisive reply, which it might perhaps be safe for

Demosthenes to hazard, at an interval of thirteen years after the

events. But it is fortunate that another answer can be provided;

for I conceive the assertion to be neither correct in point of

fact, nor consistent with the statements of Demosthenes himself

in the speech De Falsâ Legatione.

On the best conclusion which I can form, Demosthenes supported the

motion of Philokrates (enacting both peace and alliance with Philip),

except only that special clause which excluded both the Phokians

and the town of Halus, and which was ultimately negatived by the

assembly.[829] That Æschines supported the same motion entire, and

in a still more unqualified manner, we may infer from his remarkable

admission in the oration against Timarchus[830] (delivered in the

year after the peace, and three years before his own trial), wherein

he acknowledges himself as joint author of the peace along with

Philokrates, and avows his hearty approbation of the conduct and

language of Philip, even after the ruin of the Phokians. Eubulus,

the friend and partisan of Æschines, told the Athenians[831] the

plain alternative: “You must either march forthwith to Peiræus,

serve on shipboard, pay direct taxes, and convert the Theôric Fund

to military purposes,—or else you must vote the terms of peace moved

by Philokrates.” Our inference respecting the conduct of Æschines is

strengthened by what is here affirmed respecting Eubulus. Demosthenes

had been vainly urging upon his countrymen, for the last five years,

at a time when Philip was less formidable, the real adoption of these

energetic measures; Eubulus, his opponent, now holds them out _in

terrorem_, as an irksome and intolerable necessity, constraining the

people to vote for the terms of peace proposed. And however painful

it might be to acquiesce in the _statu quo_, which recognized

Philip as master of Amphipolis and of so many other possessions

once belonging to Athens,—I do not believe that even Demosthenes,

at the time when the peace was actually under debate, would put

the conclusion of it to hazard, by denouncing the shame of such

unavoidable cession, though he professes three years afterwards to

have vehemently opposed it.[832]

[829] Demosth. Fals. Leg. p. 391-430. Æschines affirms strongly,

in his later oration against Ktesiphon (p. 63), that Demosthenes

warmly advocated the motion of Philokrates for alliance as well

as peace with Philip. He professes to give the precise phrase

used by Demosthenes—which he censures as an inelegant phrase—οὐ

δεῖν ἀποῤῥῆξαι τῆς εἰρήνης τὴν συμμαχίαν, etc. He adds that

Demosthenes called up the Macedonian ambassador Antipater to the

rostrum, put a question to him, and obtained an answer concerted

beforehand. How much of this is true, I cannot say. The version

given by Æschines in his later speech, is, as usual, different

from that in his earlier.

The accusation against Demosthenes, of corrupt collusion with

Antipater, is incredible and absurd.

[830] Æschines, adv. Timarch. p. 24, 25. c. 34. παρεμβάλλων

(Demosthenes) τὰς ἐμὰς δημηγορίας, καὶ ~ψέγων τὴν εἰρήνην τὴν

δι᾽ ἐμοῦ καὶ Φιλοκράτους γεγενημένην~, ὥστε οὐδὲ ἀπαντήσεσθαί με

ἐπὶ τὸ δικαστήριον ἀπολογησόμενον, ὅταν τὰς τῆς πρεσβείας εὐθύνας

διδῶ, etc. ... Φίλιππον δὲ νῦν μὲν διὰ τὴν τῶν λόγων εὐφημίαν

ἐπαινῶ, etc.

[831] Demosth. Fals. Leg. p. 434. φήσας (Eubulus) καταβαίνειν εἰς

Πειραιᾶ δεῖν ἤδη καὶ χρήματ᾽ εἰσφέρειν καὶ τὰ θεωρικὰ στρατιωτικὰ

ποιεῖν—ἢ χειροτονεῖν ἃ συνεῖπε μὲν οὗτος (Æschines) ἔγραψε δ᾽ ὁ

βδελυρὸς Φιλοκράτης.

[832] Demosthen. Fals. Leg. p. 385.

I suspect therefore that the terms of peace proposed by Philokrates

met with unqualified support from one of our two rival orators,

and with only partial opposition, to one special clause, from

the other. However this may be, the proposition passed, with no

other modification (so far as we know) except the omission of that

clause which specially excepted Halus and the Phokians. Philokrates

provided, that all the possessions actually in the hands of each of

the belligerent parties, should remain to each, without disturbance

from the other;[833] that on these principles, there should be both

peace and alliance between Athens with all her allies on the one

side, and Philip with all his allies on the other. These were the

only parties included in the treaty. Nothing was said about other

Greeks, not allies either of Philip or of Athens.[834] Nor was any

special mention made about Kersobleptes.[835]

[833] Pseudo-Demosthen. De Halonneso, p. 81-83. Demosthenes, in

one passage (Fals. Leg. p. 385), speaks as if it were a part of

the Athenian oath—that they would oppose and treat as enemies

all who should try to save from Philip and to restore to Athens

the places now recognized as Philip’s possession for the future.

Though Vœmel (Proleg. ad Demosth. De Pace, p. 265) and Böhnecke

(p. 303) insert these words as a part of the actual formula,

I doubt whether they are anything more than a constructive

expansion, given by Demosthenes himself, of the import of the

formula.

[834] This fact we learn from the subsequent discussions about

_amending_ the peace, mentioned in Pseudo-Demosth. De Halonneso,

p. 84.

[835] Æschines, Fals. Leg. p. 33. c. 26.

Such was the decree of peace and alliance, enacted on the second of

the two assembly-days,—the nineteenth of the month Elaphebolion. Of

course, without the fault of any one, it was all to the advantage

of Philip. He was in the superior position; and it sanctioned his

retention of all his conquests. For Athens, the inferior party, the

benefit to be expected was, that she would prevent these conquests

from being yet farther multiplied, and protect herself against being

driven from bad to worse.

But it presently appeared that even thus much was not realized. On

the twenty-fifth day of the same month[836] (six days after the

previous assembly), a fresh assembly was held, for the purpose of

providing ratification by solemn oath for the treaty which had

been just decreed. It was now moved and enacted, that the same ten

citizens, who had been before accredited to Philip, should again be

sent to Macedonia for the purpose of receiving the oaths from him

and from his allies.[837] Next, it was resolved that the Athenians,

together with the deputies of their allies then present in Athens,

should take the oath forthwith, in the presence of Philip’s envoys.

[836] This date is preserved by Æschines adv. Ktesiph. p. 64.

c. 27. ἕκτῃ φθίνοντος τοῦ Ἐλαφηβολιῶνος μηνὸς, etc. In the

earlier oration (De Fals. Leg. p. 40. c. 29) Æschines states

that Demosthenes was among the Proedri or presiding senators of

a public assembly held ἑβδόμῃ φθίνοντος—the day before. It is

possible that there might have been two public assemblies held,

on two successive days (the 23d and 24th, or the 24th and 25th,

according as the month Elaphebolion happened in that year to have

30 days or 29 days), and that Demosthenes may have been among the

Proedri in both. But the transaction described (in the oration

against Ktesiphon) as having happened on the latter of the two

days—must have preceded that which is mentioned (in the Oration

De Fals. Leg.) as having happened on the earlier of the two days;

or at least cannot have followed it; so that there seems to be

an inaccuracy in one or in the other. If the word ἕκτῃ, in the

oration against Ktesiphon, and ἑβδόμῃ in the speech on the False

Legation, are both correct, the transactions mentioned in the

one cannot be reconciled chronologically with those narrated in

the other. Various conjectural alterations have bean proposed.

See Vœmel, Prolegg. ad Demosth. Orat. De Pace, p. 257; Böhnecke,

Forschungen, p. 399.

[837] Æschines, Fals. Leg. p. 39. ἤδη δὲ ἡμῶν κεχειροτονημένων

εἰς τοὺς ὅρκους, οὔπω δὲ ἀπῃρκότων ἐπὶ τὴν ὑστέραν πρεσβείαν,

ἐκκλησία γίνεται, etc.

This ἐκκλησία seems to be the same as that which is named by

Æschines in the speech against Ktesiphon, as having been held on

the 25th Elaphebolion.

But now arose the critical question, Who were to be included as

allies of Athens? Were the Phokians and Kersobleptes to be included?

The one and the other represented those two capital positions,[838]

Thermopylæ and the Hellespont, which Philip was sure to covet, and

which it most behooved Athens to ensure against him. The assembly, by

its recent vote, had struck out the special exclusion of the Phokians

proposed by Philokrates, thus by implication admitting them as allies

along with the rest. They were in truth allies of old standing and

valuable; they had probably envoys present in Athens, but no deputies

sitting in the synod. Nor had Kersobleptes any such deputy in that

body; but a citizen of Lampsakus, named Kritobulus, claimed on this

occasion to act for him, and to take the oaths in his name.

[838] Demosth. Fals. Leg. p. 397. καίτοι δύο χρησιμωτέρους

τόπους τῆς οἰκουμένης οὐδ᾽ ἂν εἷς ἐπιδείξαι τῇ πόλει, κατὰ μὲν

γῆν, Πυλῶν—ἐκ θαλάττης δὲ τοῦ Ἑλλησπόντου· ἃ συναμφότερα οὗτοι

πεπράκασιν αἰσχρῶς καὶ καθ᾽ ὑμῶν ἐγκεχειρίκασι Φιλίππῳ.

As to the manner of dealing with Kersobleptes, Æschines tells us

two stories (one in the earlier oration, the other in the later)

quite different from each other; and agreeing only in this—that in

both Demosthenes is described as one of the presiding magistrates

of the public assembly, as having done all that he could to prevent

the envoy of Kersobleptes from being admitted to take the oaths as

an ally of Athens. Amidst such discrepancies, to state in detail

what passed is impossible. But it seems clear,—both from Æschines

(in his earliest speech) and Demosthenes,—first, that the envoy

from Kersobleptes, not having a seat in the confederate synod, but

presenting himself and claiming to be sworn as an ally of Athens,

found his claim disputed; secondly, that upon this dispute arising,

the question was submitted to the vote of the public assembly, who

decided that Kersobleptes was an ally, and should be admitted to take

the oath as such.[839]

[839] Compare Æschines, Fals. Leg. p. 39. c. 26, with Æschines

cont. Ktesiphont. p. 64. c. 27.

Franke (Proleg. ad Demosth. Fals. Leg. p. 30, 31) has some severe

comments on the discrepancy between the two statements.

That the question was put, and affirmed by vote, to admit

Kersobleptes appears from the statement of Æschines in the speech

De Fals. Leg.—τὸ ψήφισμα ἐπεψηφίσθη—ἐψηφισμένου δὲ τοῦ δήμου.

Compare Demosth. De Fals. Leg. p. 398, and Demosthen. Philipp.

iv. p. 133.

Philip, in his letter some years afterwards to the Athenians,

affirmed that Kersobleptes wished to be admitted to take the

oaths, but was excluded by the Athenian generals, who declared

him to be an enemy of Athens (Epist. Phil. ap. Demosth. p. 160).

If it be true that the generals tried to exclude him, their

exclusion must have been overruled by the vote of the assembly.

Antipater and Parmenio, on the part of Philip, did not refuse to

recognize Kersobleptes as an ally of Athens, and to receive his

oath. But in regard to the Phokians, they announced a determination

distinctly opposite. They gave notice, at or after the assembly of

the 25th Elaphebolion, that Philip positively refused to admit the

Phokians as parties to the convention.

This determination, formally announced by Antipater at Athens, must

probably have been made known by Philip himself to Philokrates and

Æschines, when on mission in Macedonia. Hence Philokrates, in his

motion about the terms of peace, had proposed that the Phokians and

Halus should be specially excluded (as I have already related).

Now, however, when the Athenian assembly, by expressly repudiating

such exclusion, had determined that the Phokians should be received

as parties, while the envoys of Philip were not less express in

rejecting them,—the leaders of the peace, Æschines and Philokrates,

were in great embarrassment. They had no other way of surmounting

the difficulty, except by holding out mendacious promises, and

unauthorized assurances of future intention in the name of Philip.

Accordingly, they confidently announced that the King of Macedon,

though precluded by his relations with the Thebans and Thessalians

(necessary to him while he remained at war with Athens), from openly

receiving the Phokians as allies, was nevertheless in his heart

decidedly adverse to the Thebans; and that, if his hands were once

set free by concluding peace with Athens, he would interfere in the

quarrel just in the manner that the Athenians would desire; that

he would uphold the Phokians, put down the insolence of Thebes,

and even break up the integrity of the city; restoring also the

autonomy of Thespiæ, Platæa and the other Bœotian towns, now in

Theban dependence. The general assurances,—previously circulated

by Aristodemus, Ktesiphon, and others,—of Philip’s anxiety to win

favorable opinions from the Athenians, were now still farther

magnified into a supposed community of antipathy against Thebes;

and even into a disposition to compensate Athens for the loss of

Amphipolis, by making her complete mistress of Eubœa as well as by

recovering for her Orôpus.

By such glowing fabrications and falsehoods, confidently asseverated,

Philokrates, Æschines, and the other partisans of Philip present,

completely deluded the assembly; and induced them, not indeed to

decree the special exclusion of the Phokians, as Philokrates had

at first proposed,—but to swear the convention with Antipater and

Parmenio without the Phokians.[840] These latter were thus shut

out in fact, though by the general words of the peace, Athens had

recognized their right to be included. Their deputies were probably

present, claimed to be admitted, and were refused by Antipater,

without any peremptory protest on the part of Athens.

[840] Demosthenes, Fals. Leg. p. 444. ἐντεῦθεν ~οἱ μὲν παρ᾽

ἐκείνου πρέσβεις προὔλεγον ὑμῖν ὅτι Φωκέας οὐ προσδέχεται

Φίλιππος συμμάχους, οὗτοι δ᾽ ἐκδεχόμενοι τοιαῦτ᾽ ἐδημηγόρουν, ὡς

φανερῶς μὲν οὐχὶ καλῶς ἔχει τῷ Φιλίππῳ προσδέξασθαι τοὺς Φωκέας~

συμμάχους, διὰ τοὺς Θηβαίους καὶ τοὺς Θετταλοὺς, ἂν δὲ γένηται

τῶν πραγμάτων κύριος ~καὶ τῆς εἰρήνης τύχῃ~, ἅπερ ἂν συνθέσθαι

νῦν ἀξιώσαιμεν αὐτὸν, ταῦτα ποιήσει τότε. ~Τὴν μὲν τοίνυν εἰρήνην

ταύταις ταῖς ἐλπίσι καὶ ταῖς ἐπαγωγαῖς εὕροντο παρ᾽ ὑμῶν ἄνευ

Φωκέων~.

Ibid. p. 409. Εἰ δὲ πάντα τἀναντία τούτων καὶ πολλὰ καὶ

φιλάνθρωπα εἰπόντες Φίλιππον, φιλεῖν τὴν πόλιν, Φωκέας σώσειν,

Θηβαίους παύσειν τῆς ὕβρεως, ἔτι πρὸς τούτοις ~μείζονα ἢ κατ᾽

Ἀμφίπολιν εὖ ποιήσειν ὑμᾶς, ἐὰν τύχῃ τῆς εἰρήνης, Εὔβοιαν,

Ὠρωπὸν~ ἀποδώσειν—εἰ ταῦτ᾽ εἰπόντες καὶ ὑποσχόμενοι πάντ᾽

ἐξηπατήκασι καὶ πεφενακίκασι, etc.

Compare also, p. 346, 388, 391, about the false promises under

which the Athenians were induced to consent to the peace—τῶν

ὑποσχέσεων, ἐφ᾽ αἷς εὑρίσκετο (Philip) τὴν εἰρήνην. The same

false promises put forward _before_ the peace and determining the

Athenians to conclude it, are also noticed by Demosthenes in the

second Philippic (p. 69), τὰς ὑποσχέσεις, ἐφ᾽ αἷς τῆς εἰρήνης

ἔτυχεν (Philip)—p. 72. τοὺς ἐνεγκόντας τὰς ὑποσχέσεις, ἐφ᾽ αἷς

ἐπείσθητε ποιήσασθαι τὴν εἰρήνην. This second Philippic is one

year earlier in date than the oration de Falsâ Legatione, and is

better authority than that oration, not merely on account of its

earlier date, but because it is a parliamentary harangue, not

tainted with an accusatory purpose nor mentioning Æschines by

name.

This tissue, not of mere exaggerations, but of impudent and

monstrous falsehood, respecting the purposes of Philip,—will be seen

to continue until he had carried his point of penetrating within

the pass of Thermopylæ, and even afterwards. We can hardly wonder

that the people believed it, when proclaimed and guaranteed to

them by Philokrates, Æschines, and the other envoys, who had been

sent into Macedonia for the express purpose of examining on the

spot and reporting, and whose assurance was the natural authority

for the people to rely upon. In this case, the deceptions found

easier credence and welcome because they were in complete harmony

with the wishes and hopes of Athens, and with the prevalent thirst

for peace. To betray allies like the Phokians appeared of little

consequence, when once it became a settled conviction that the

Phokians themselves would be no losers by it. But this plea, though

sufficient as a tolerable excuse for the Athenian people, will not

serve for a statesman like Demosthenes; who, on this occasion (as

far as we can make out even from his own language), did not enter

any emphatic protest against the tacit omission of the Phokians,

though he had opposed the clause (in the motion of Philokrates)

which formally omitted them by name. Three months afterwards, when

the ruin of the isolated Phokians was about to be consummated as a

fact, we shall find Demosthenes earnest in warning and denunciation;

but there is reason to presume that his opposition[841] was at

best only faint, when the positive refusal of Antipater was first

proclaimed against that acquiescence on the part of Athens, whereby

the Phokians were really surrendered to Philip. Yet in truth this was

the great diplomatic turning-point, from whence the sin of Athens,

against duty to allies as well as against her own security, took

its rise. It was a false step of serious magnitude, difficult, if

not impossible, to retrieve afterwards. Probably the temper of the

Athenians, then eager for peace, trembling for the lives of their

captives, and prepossessed with the positive assurances of Æschines

and Philokrates,—would have heard with repugnance any strong protest

against abandoning the Phokians, which threatened to send Antipater

home in disgust and intercept the coming peace,—the more so as

Demosthenes, if he called in question the assurances of Æschines as

to the projects of Philip, would have no positive facts to produce

in refuting them, and would be constrained to take the ground of

mere scepticism and negation;[842] of which a public, charmed with

hopeful auguries and already disarmed through the mere comfortable

anticipations of peace, would be very impatient. Nevertheless, we

might have expected from a statesman like Demosthenes, that he would

have begun his energetic opposition to the disastrous treaty of

346 B. C., at that moment when the most disastrous and disgraceful

portion of it,—the abandonment of the Phokians,—was first shuffled in.

[841] Demosthenes speaks of the omission of the Phokians, in

taking the oaths at Athens, as if it were a matter of small

importance (Fals. Leg. p. 387, 388; compare p. 372); that is, on

the supposition that the promises made by Æschines turned out to

be realized.

In his speech De Pace (p. 59), he takes credit for his protests

on behalf of the Phokians; but only for protests made _after

his_ return from the second embassy—not for protests made when

Antipater refused to admit the Phokians to the oaths.

Westermann (De Litibus quas Demosthenes oravit ipse, p. 48)

suspects that Demosthenes did not see through the deception of

Æschines until the Phokians were utterly ruined. This, perhaps,

goes beyond the truth; but at the time when the oaths were

exchanged at Athens, he either had not clearly detected the

consequences of that miserable shuffle into which Athens was

tricked by Philokrates, etc.—or he was afraid to proclaim them

emphatically.

[842] Demosth. Fals. Leg. p. 355. τραχέως ~δ᾽ ὑμῶν τῷ “μηδὲ

προσδοκᾷν” σχόντων~, etc. (the Athenian public were displeased

with Demosthenes when he told them that he did not expect the

promises of Æschines to be realized; this was after the second

embassy, but it illustrates the temper of the assembly even

before the second embassy)—ibid. p. 349. τίς γὰρ ἂν ἠνέσχετο,

τηλικαῦτα καὶ τοσαῦτα ἔσεσθαι προσδοκῶν ἀγαθὰ, ἢ ~ταῦθ᾽ ὡς οὐκ

ἔσται λέγοντός τινος~, ἢ κατηγοροῦντος τῶν πεπραγμένων τούτοις;

How unpopular it was to set up mere negative mistrust against

glowing promises of benefits to come, is here strongly urged by

Demosthenes.

Respecting the premature disarming of the Athenians, see Demosth.

De Coronâ, p. 234.

After the assembly of the 25th Elaphebolion, Antipater administered

the oaths of peace and alliance to Athens and to all her other allies

(seemingly including the envoy of Kersobleptes) in the Board-room of

the Generals.[843] It now became the duty of the ten Athenian envoys,

with one more from the confederate synod,—the same persons who had

been employed in the first embassy,—to go and receive the oaths from

Philip. Let us see how this duty was performed.

[843] Æschines, Fals. Leg. p. 39. c. 27.

The decree of the assembly, under which these envoys held their

trust, was large and comprehensive. They were to receive an oath, of

amity and alliance with Athens and her allies, from Philip as well

as from the chief magistrate in each city allied with him. They were

forbidden (by a curious restriction) to hold any intercourse singly

and individually with Philip;[844] but they were farther enjoined,

by a comprehensive general clause, “to do anything else which might

be within their power for the advantage of Athens.”—“It was our duty

as prudent envoys (says Æschines to the Athenian people) to take

a right measure of the whole state of affairs, as they concerned

either you or Philip.”[845] Upon these rational views of the duties

of the envoys, however, Æschines unfortunately did not act. It was

Demosthenes who acted upon them, and who insisted, immediately after

the departure of Antipater and Parmenio, on going straight to the

place where Philip actually was; in order that they might administer

the oath to him with as little delay as possible. It was not only

certain that the King of Macedon, the most active of living men,

would push his conquests up to the last moment; but it was farther

known to Æschines and the envoys, that he had left Pella to make war

against Kersobleptes in Thrace, at the time when they returned from

their first embassy.[846] Moreover, on the day of, or the day after,

the public assembly last described (that is, on the 25th or 26th of

the month Elaphebolion), a despatch had reached Athens from Chares,

the Athenian commander at the Hellespont, intimating that Philip

had gained important advantages in Thrace, had taken the important

place called the Sacred Mountain, and deprived Kersobleptes of great

part of his kingdom.[847] Such successive conquests on the part of

Philip strengthened the reasons for despatch on the part of the

envoys, and for going straight to Thrace to arrest his progress. As

the peace concluded was based on the _uti possidetis_, dating from

the day on which the Macedonian envoys had administered the oaths at

Athens,—Philip was bound to restore all conquests made after that

day. But it did not escape Demosthenes, that this was an obligation

which Philip was likely to evade; and which the Athenian people, bent

as they were on peace, were very unlikely to enforce.[848] The more

quickly the envoys reached him, the fewer would be the places in

dispute, the sooner would he be reduced to inaction,—or at least, if

he still continued to act, the more speedily would his insincerity be

exposed.

[844] Demosth. Fals. Leg. p. 430. οὐ τὸ μὲν ψήφισμα “οὐδαμοῦ

μόνους ἐντυγχάνειν Φιλίππῳ,” οὗτοι δ᾽ οὐδὲν ἐπαύσαντο ἰδίᾳ

χρηματίζοντες;

[845] Æschines, Fals. Leg. p. 41. c. 32. Τὸ δὲ ~ὑπὲρ τῶν ὅλων

ὀρθῶς βουλεύσασθαι~, ὅσα καθ᾽ ἡμᾶς ~ἐστιν~ ἢ Φίλιππον, τοῦτο ἤδη

ἔργον ἐστὶ πρεσβέων φρονίμων.... Ἀφίγμεθα δ᾽ ἡμεῖς ἔχοντες τοῦ

δήμου ψήφισμα, ἐν ᾧ γέγραπται, ~Πράττειν δὲ τοὺς πρέσβεις, καὶ

ἄλλ᾽ ὅ,τι ἂν δύνωνται ἀγαθόν~.

[846] Æschines, Fals. Leg. p. 39. c. 26.

[847] Æschines, Fals. Leg. p. 40. c. 29. ὅτι Κερσοβλέπτης

ἀπολώλεκε τὴν ἀρχὴν, καὶ τὸ ἱερὸν ὄρος κατείληφε Φίλιππος.

There is no fair ground for supposing that the words ἀπολώλεκε

τὴν ἀρχὴν are the actual words used by Chares, or that

Kersobleptes was affirmed by Chares to have lost everything that

he had. It suited the argument of Æschines to give the statement

in a sweeping and exaggerated form.

[848] See the just and prudent reasoning of Demosthenes, Fals.

Leg. p. 388, and De Coronâ, p. 234.

Compare also Pseudo-Demosthenes, De Halonneso, p. 85, 86.

Impressed with this necessity for an immediate interview with

Philip, Demosthenes urged his colleagues to set out at once. But

they resisted his remonstrances, and chose to remain at Athens;

which, we may remark, was probably in a state of rejoicing and

festivity in consequence of the recent peace. So reckless was their

procrastination and reluctance to depart, that on the 3d of the

month Munychion (April—nine days after the solemnity of oath-taking

before Antipater and Parmenio) Demosthenes made complaint and moved a

resolution in the Senate, peremptorily ordering them to begin their

journey forthwith, and enjoining Proxenus the Athenian commander at

Oreus in Eubœa, to transport them without delay to the place where

Philip was, wherever that might be.[849] But though the envoys were

forced to leave Athens and repair to Oreus, nothing was gained in

respect to the main object; for they, as well as Proxenus, took upon

them to disobey the express order of the Senate, and never went to

find Philip. After a certain stay at Oreus, they moved forward by

leisurely journeys to Macedonia; where they remained inactive at

Pella until the return of Philip from Thrace, fifty days after they

had left Athens.[850]

[849] Demosth. Fals. Leg. p. 389; De Coronâ, p. 234. Æschines

(Fals. Leg. p. 40. c. 29, 30) recognizes the fact that this

decree was passed by the Senate on the 3d of Munychion, and that

the envoys left Athens in consequence of it. He does not mention

that it was proposed by Demosthenes. Æschines here confirms, in

a very important manner, the fact of the delay, as alleged by

Demosthenes, while the explanation which he gives, why the envoys

did not go to Thrace, is altogether without value.

A document, purporting to be this decree, is given in Demosth. De

Coronâ, p. 234, but the authenticity is too doubtful to admit of

citing it.

[850] Demosth. Fals. Leg. p. 390.

Had the envoys done their duty as Demosthenes recommended, they

might have reached the camp of Philip in Thrace within five or six

days after the conclusion of the peace at Athens; had they been

even content to obey the express orders of the Senate, they might

have reached it within the same interval after the 3d of Munychion;

so that from pure neglect, or deliberate collusion, on their part,

Philip was allowed more than a month to prosecute his conquests in

Thrace, after the Athenians on their side had sworn to peace. During

this interval, he captured Doriskus with several other Thracian

towns; some of them garrisoned by Athenian soldiers; and completely

reduced Kersobleptes, whose son he brought back as prisoner and

hostage.[851] The manner in which these envoys, employed in an

important mission at the public expense, wasted six weeks of a

critical juncture in doing nothing—and that too in defiance of an

express order from the Senate—confirms the supposition before stated,

and would even of itself raise a strong presumption, that the leaders

among them were lending themselves corruptly to the schemes of Philip.

[851] Æschines, Fals. Leg. p. 38. c. 26; Demosth. De Halonneso,

p. 85; Fals. Leg. p. 390-448: compare Philippic iii. p. 114.

Among the Thracian places captured by Philip during this

interval, Demosthenes enumerates the Sacred Mountain. But this

is said to have been captured before the end of Elaphebolion, if

Æschines quotes correctly from the letter of Chares, Fals. Leg.

p. 40. c. 29.

The protests and remonstrances addressed by Demosthenes to his

colleagues, became warmer and more unmeasured as the delay was

prolonged.[852] His colleagues doubtless grew angry on their side, so

that the harmony of the embassy was overthrown. Æschines affirms that

none of the other envoys would associate with Demosthenes, either in

the road or at the resting-places.[853]

[852] Demosth. Fals. Leg. p. 390.

[853] Æschines, Fals. Leg. p. 41. c. 30. Demosthenes (and

doubtless the other envoys also) walked on the journey, with two

slaves to carry his clothes and bedding. In the pack carried by

one slave, was a talent in money, destined to aid some of the

poor prisoners towards their ransom.

Pella was now the centre of hope, fear, and intrigue, for the entire

Grecian world. Ambassadors were already there from Thebes, Sparta,

Eubœa, and Phokis; moreover a large Macedonian army was assembled

around, ready for immediate action.

At length the Athenian envoys, after so long a delay of their own

making, found themselves in the presence of Philip. And we should

have expected that they would forthwith perform their special

commission by administering the oaths. But they still went on

postponing this ceremony, and saying nothing about the obligation

incumbent on him, to restore all the places captured since the day

of taking the oaths to Antipater at Athens;[854] places, which had

now indeed become so numerous, through waste of time on the part

of the envoys themselves, that Philip was not likely to yield the

point even if demanded. In a conference held with his colleagues,

Æschines—assuming credit to himself for a view larger than that taken

by them, of the ambassadorial duties—treated the administration

of the oath as merely secondary; he insisted on the propriety of

addressing Philip on the subject of the intended expedition to

Thermopylæ (which he was on the point of undertaking, as was plain

from the large force mustered near Pella), and exhorting him to

employ it so as to humble Thebes and reconstitute the Bœotian cities.

The envoys (he said) ought not to be afraid of braving any ill-will

that might be manifested by the Thebans. Demosthenes (according to

the statement of Æschines) opposed this recommendation—insisting

that the envoys ought not to mingle in disputes belonging to

other parts of Greece, but to confine themselves to their special

mission—and declared that he should take no notice of Philip’s march

to Thermopylæ.[855] At length, after much discussion, it was agreed

among the envoys, that each of them, when called before Philip,

should say what he thought fit, and that the youngest should speak

first.

[854] Demosth. Fals. Leg. p. 388. ἢ γὰρ παρόντων (we the envoys)

καὶ κατὰ τὸ ψήφισμα αὐτὸν (Philip) ἐξορκωσάντων, ἃ μὲν εἰλήφει

τῆς πόλεως, ἀποδώσειν, τῶν δὲ λοιπῶν ἀφέξεσθαι—ἢ μὴ ποιοῦντος

ταῦτα ἀπαγγελεῖν ἡμᾶς εὐθέως δεῦρο, etc.

[855] Æschines, Fals. Leg. p. 42. c. 33. πορεύεται Φίλιππος εἰς

Πύλας· ἐγὼ δ᾽ ἐγκαλύπτομαι, etc. This is the language which

Æschines affirms to have been held by Demosthenes during the

embassy. It is totally at variance with all that Demosthenes

affirms, over and over again, respecting his own proceedings; and

(in my judgment) with all the probabilities of the case.

According to this rule, Demosthenes was first heard, and delivered

a speech (if we are to believe Æschines) not only leaving out all

useful comment upon the actual situation, but so spiteful towards

his colleagues, and so full of extravagant flattery to Philip, as

to put the hearers to shame.[856] The turn now came to Æschines,

who repeats in abridgment his own long oration delivered to Philip.

We can reason upon it with some confidence, in our estimate of

Æschines, though we cannot trust his reports about Demosthenes.

Æschines addressed himself exclusively to the subject of Philip’s

intended expedition to Thermopylæ. He exhorted Philip to settle

the controversy, pending with respect to the Amphiktyons and the

Delphian temple, by peaceful arbitration and not by arms. But if

armed interference was inevitable, Philip ought carefully to inform

himself of the ancient and holy bond whereby the Amphiktyonic synod

was held together. That synod consisted of twelve different nations

or sections of the Hellenic name, each including many cities small

as well as great; each holding two votes and no more; each binding

itself by an impressive oath, to uphold and protect every other

Amphiktyonic city. Under this venerable sanction, the Bœotian cities,

being Amphiktyonic like the rest, were entitled to protection against

the Thebans their destroyers. The purpose of Philip’s expedition, to

restore the Amphiktyonic council, was (Æschines admitted) holy and

just.[857] He ought to carry it through in the same spirit; punishing

the individuals originally concerned in the seizure of the Delphian

temple, but not the cities to which they belonged, provided those

cities were willing to give up the wrong-doers. But if Philip should

go beyond this point, and confirm the unjust dominion of Thebes over

the other Bœotian towns, he would do wrong on his own side, add to

the number of his enemies, and reap no gratitude from those whom he

favored.[858]

[856] Æschines, Fals. Leg. p. 42. c. 34.

[857] Æschines, Fals. Leg. p. 43. c. 36. Τὴν μὲν οὖν ἀρχὴν τῆς

στρατείας ταύτης ὁσίαν καὶ δικαίαν ἀπεφηνάμην εἶναι, etc.

... Ἀπεφηνάμην ὅτι ἐμοὶ δοκεῖ δίκαιον εἶναι, μὴ περιορᾷν

κατεσκαμμένας τὰς ἐν Βοιωτοῖς πόλεις, ὅτι δὴ ἦσαν Ἀμφικτυονίδες

καὶ ἔνορκοι.

[858] Æschines, Fals. Leg. p. 43. c. 37; compare Demosth. Fals.

Leg. p. 347.

Demosthenes, in his comments upon this second embassy, touches

little on what either Æschines or himself said to Philip. He

professes to have gone on the second embassy with much reluctance,

having detected the treacherous purposes of Æschines and Philokrates.

Nay, he would have positively refused to go (he tells us) had he not

bound himself by a promise made during the first embassy, to some of

the poor Athenian prisoners in Macedonia, to provide for them the

means of release. He dwells much upon his disbursements for their

ransom during the second embassy, and his efforts to obtain the

consent of Philip.[859] This (he says) was all that lay in his power

to do, as an individual; in regard to the collective proceedings of

the embassy, he was constantly outvoted. He affirms that he detected

the foul play of Æschines and the rest with Philip; that he had

written a despatch to send home for the purpose of exposing it; that

his colleagues not only prevented him from forwarding it, but sent

another despatch of their own with false information.[860] Then, he

had resolved to come home personally, for the same purpose, sooner

than his colleagues, and had actually hired a merchant-vessel—but was

hindered by Philip from sailing out of Macedonia.[861]

[859] Demosthen. Fals. Leg. p. 393, 394, 395.

[860] Demosth. Fals. Leg. p. 396. καὶ τὴν μὲν γραφεῖσαν ἐπιστολὴν

ὑπ᾽ ἐμοῦ πρὸς ὑμᾶς ἀπεψηφίσαντο μὴ πέμπειν, αὐτοὶ δ᾽ οὐδ᾽ ὁτιοῦν

ὑγιὲς γράψαντες ἔπεμψαν. Compare p. 419.

[861] Demosthen. Fals. Leg. p. 445. ἐγὼ δ᾽, ὥσπερ ἀκηκόατ᾽ ἤδη

πολλάκις, οὐχὶ δυνηθεὶς προαπελθεῖν, ἀλλὰ ~καὶ μισθωσάμενος

πλοῖον κατακωλυθεὶς ἐκπλεῦσαι~. Compare p. 357.—οὐδ᾽ ἂν ἐμὲ,

ἡνίκα δεῦρο ἀποπλεῖν ἐβουλόμην, κατεκώλυεν (Philip), etc.

The general description here given by Demosthenes, of his own conduct

during the second embassy, is probably true. Indeed, it coincided

substantially with the statement of Æschines, who complains of him as

in a state of constant and vexatious opposition to his colleagues.

We must recollect that Demosthenes had no means of knowing what the

particular projects of Philip really were. This was a secret to every

one except Philip himself, with his confidential agents or partisans.

Whatever Demosthenes might suspect, he had no public evidence by

which to impress his suspicions upon others, or to countervail

confident assertions on the favorable side transmitted home by his

colleagues.

The army of Philip was now ready, and he was on the point of

marching southward towards Thessaly and Thermopylæ. That pass

was still held by the Phokians, with a body of Lacedæmonian

auxiliaries;[862] a force quite sufficient to maintain it against

Philip’s open attack, and likely to be strengthened by Athens from

seaward, if the Athenians came to penetrate his real purposes. It

was therefore essential to Philip to keep alive a certain belief in

the minds of others, that he was marching southward with intentions

favorable to the Phokians,—though not to proclaim it in any such

authentic manner as to alienate his actual allies the Thebans and

Thessalians. And the Athenian envoys were his most useful agents in

circulating the imposture.

[862] The Lacedæmonian troops remained at Thermopylæ until a

little time before Philip reached it (Demosth. Fals. Leg. p. 365).

Some of the Macedonian officers round Philip gave explicit assurance,

that the purpose of his march was to conquer Thebes, and reconstitute

the Bœotian cities. So far, indeed, was this deception carried, that

(according to Æschines) the Theban envoys in Macedonia, and the

Thebans themselves, became seriously alarmed.[863] The movements

of Philip were now the pivot on which Grecian affairs turned, and

Pella the scene wherein the greatest cities in Greece were bidding

for his favor. While the Thebans and Thessalians were calling upon

him to proclaim himself openly Amphiktyonic champion against the

Phokians,—the Phokian envoys,[864] together with those from Sparta

and Athens, were endeavoring to enlist him in their cause against

Thebes. Wishing to isolate the Phokians from such support, Philip

made many tempting promises to the Lacedæmonian envoys; who, on

their side, came to open quarrel, and indulged in open menace,

against those of Thebes.[865] Such was the disgraceful auction,

wherein these once great states, in prosecution of their mutual

antipathies, bartered away to a foreign prince the dignity of the

Hellenic name and the independence of the Hellenic world;[866]

following the example set by Sparta in her applications to the Great

King, during the latter years of the Peloponnesian war, and at the

peace of Antalkidas. Amidst such a crowd of humble petitioners

and expectants, all trembling to offend him,—with the aid too of

Æschines, Philokrates, and the other Athenian envoys who consented

to play his game,—Philip had little difficulty in keeping alive the

hopes of all, and preventing the formation of any common force or

decisive resolution to resist him.[867]

[863] Æschines, Fals. Leg. p. 46. c. 41. ~αὐτοὶ δὲ οὐκ ἠπόρουν

καὶ ἐφοβοῦντο οἱ τῶν Θηβαίων πρέσβεις; ... τῶν δ᾽ ἑταίρων τινες

τῶν Φιλίππου οὐ διαῤῥήδην πρός τινας ἡμῶν ἔλεγον, ὅτι τὰς ἐν

Βοιωτίᾳ πόλεις κατοικιεῖ Φίλιππος;~ Θηβαῖοι δ᾽ οὐκ ἐξεληλύθεσαν

πανδημεὶ, ἀπιστοῦντες τοῖς πράγμασιν;

Demosthenes greatly eulogizes the incorruptibility and hearty

efforts of the Theban envoys (Fals. Leg. p. 384); which assertion

is probably nothing better at bottom, than a rhetorical contrast,

to discredit Æschines—fit to be inserted in the numerous list of

oratorical exaggerations and perversions of history, collected

in the interesting Treatise of Weiske, De Hyperbolê, errorum in

Historiâ Philippi commissorum genitrice (Meissen, 1819).

[864] Demosth. Philipp. iii. p. 113; Justin, viii. 4. “Contra

Phocensium legati, adhibitis Lacedæmoniis et Atheniensibus,

bellum deprecabantur, cujus ab eo dilationem ter jam emerant.” I

do not understand to what facts Justin refers, when he states,

that the Phokians “had already purchased thrice from Philip a

postponement of war.”

[865] Demosthen. Fals. Leg. p. 365. τοὺς Λακεδαιμονίους

μετεπέμπετο, πάντα τὰ πράγματα ὑποσχόμενος πράξειν ἐκείνοις, etc.

Æschines, Fals. Leg. p. 46. c. 41. Λακεδαιμονίοι δὲ οὐ μεθ᾽ ἡμῶν

τἀναντία Θηβαίοις ἐπρέσβευον, καὶ τελευτῶντες προσέκρουον φανερῶς

ἐν Μακεδονίᾳ, καὶ διηπείλουν τοῖς τῶν Θηβαίων πρέσβεισιν;

[866] This thought is strikingly presented by Justin (viii.

4), probably from Theopompus—“Fœdum prorsus miserandumque

spectaculum, Græciam, etiam nunc et viribus et dignitate orbis

terrarum principem, regum certo gentiumque semper victricem

et multarum adhuc urbium dominam, alienis excubare sedibus,

aut rogantem bellum aut deprecantem: in alterius ope omnem

spem posuisse orbis terrarum vindices; eoque discordia sua

civilibusque bellis redactos, ut adulentur ultro sordidam paulo

ante clientelæ suæ partem: et hæc potissimum facere Thebanos

Lacedæmoniosque, antea inter se imperii, nunc gratiæ imperantis,

æmulos.”

[867] Justin, viii. 4.

After completing his march southward through Thessaly, he reached

Pheræ near the Pagasæan Gulf, at the head of a powerful army of

Macedonians and allies. The Phokian envoys accompanied his march, and

were treated, if not as friends, at least in such manner as to make

it appear doubtful whether Philip was going to attack the Phokians or

the Thebans.[868] It was at Pheræ that the Athenian envoys at length

administered the oath both to Philip and to his allies.[869] This was

done the last thing before they returned to Athens; which city they

reached on the 13th of the month Skirrophorion;[870] after an absence

of seventy days, comprising all the intervening month Thargelion,

and the remnant (from the third day) of the month Munychion. They

accepted, as representatives of the allied cities, all whom Philip

sent to them; though Demosthenes remarks that their instructions

directed them to administer the oath to the chief magistrate in each

city respectively.[871] And among the cities whom they admitted

to take the oath as Philip’s allies, was comprised Kardia, on the

borders of the Thracian Chersonese. The Athenians considered Kardia

as within the limits of the Chersonese, and therefore as belonging to

them.[872]

[868] Demosth. Philipp. iii. p. 113. τοῦτο δ᾽ εἰς Φωκέας ὡς πρὸς

συμμάχους ἐπορεύετο, καὶ πρέσβεις Φωκέων ἦσαν οἳ παρηκολούθουν

αὐτῷ πορευομένῳ· καὶ παρ᾽ ἡμῖν ἤριζον πολλοὶ, Θηβαίοις οὐ

λυσιτελήσειν τὴν ἐκείνου πάροδον. The words παρ᾽ ἡμῖν denote the

Athenian envoys (of whom Demosthenes was one) and the persons

around them, marching along with Philip; the oaths not having

been yet taken.

[869] Demosth. Fals. Leg. p. 390. The oath was administered in

the inn in front of the chapel of the Dioskuri, near Pheræ.

[870] Demosth. Fals. Leg. p. 359. In more than one passage,

he states their absence from Athens to have lasted three

entire months (p. 390; also De Coronâ, p. 235). But this is

an exaggeration of the time. The decree of the Senate, which

constrained them to depart, was passed on the third of Munychion.

Assuming that they set out on that very day (though it is more

probable that they did not set out until the ensuing day), their

absence would only have lasted seventy days.

[871] Demosth. Fals. Leg. p. 430. The Magnesian and Achæan cities

round the Pagasæan Gulf, all except Halus, were included in the

oath as allies of Philip (Epistola Philippi ap. Demosthen. p.

159).

[872] Demosth. Fals. Leg. p. 395. Compare Pseudo-Demosth. De

Halonneso, p. 87.

It was thus that the envoys postponed both the execution of their

special mission, and their return, until the last moment, when Philip

was within three days’ march of Thermopylæ. That they so postponed

it, in corrupt connivance with him, is the allegation of Demosthenes,

sustained by all the probabilities of the case. Philip was anxious

to come upon Thermopylæ by surprise,[873] and to leave as little

time as possible either to the Phokians or to Athens for organizing

defence. The oath, which ought to have been administered in

Thrace,—but at any rate at Pella—was not taken until Philip had got

as near as possible to the important pass; nor had the envoys visited

one single city among his allies in execution of their mandate.

And as Æschines was well aware that this would provoke inquiry, he

took the precaution of bringing with him a letter from Philip to

the Athenian people, couched in the most friendly terms; wherein

Philip took upon himself any blame which might fall upon the envoys,

affirming that they themselves had been anxious to go and visit the

allied cities, but that he had detained them in order that they might

assist him in accommodating the difference between the cities of

Halus and Pharsalus. This letter, affording farther presumption of

the connivance between the envoys and Philip, was besides founded on

a false pretence; for Halus was (either at that very time or shortly

afterwards) conquered by his arms, given up to the Pharsalians, and

its population sold or expelled.[874]

[873] Demosth. Fals. Leg. p. 351. ἦν γὰρ τοῦτο πρῶτον ἁπάντων τῶν

ἀδικημάτων, τὸ τὸν Φίλιππον ἐπιστῆσαι τοῖς πράγμασι τούτοις, καὶ

δέον ὑμᾶς ἀκοῦσαι περὶ τῶν πραγμάτων, εἶτα βουλεύσασθαι, μετὰ

ταῦτα δὲ πράττειν ὅ,τι δόξαι, ἅμα ἀκούειν κἀκεῖνον παρεῖναι,

καὶ μηδ᾽ ὅ,τι χρὴ ποιεῖν ῥᾴδιον εἰπεῖν εἶναι. Compare Demosth.

De Coronâ, p. 236. πάλιν ὠνεῖται παρ᾽ αὐτῶν ὅπως μὴ ἄπίωμεν ἐκ

Μακεδονίας ἕως τὰ τῆς στρατείας τῆς ἐπὶ τοὺς Φωκέας εὐτρεπῆ

ποιήσαιτο, etc.

[874] Demosthen. Fals. Leg. p. 352, 353; ad Philipp. Epistol. p.

152. Demosthenes affirms farther that Æschines himself _wrote_

the letter in Philip’s name. Æschines denies that he wrote it,

and sustains his denial upon sufficient grounds. But he does not

deny that he brought it (Æschines, Fals. Leg. p. 44. c. 40, 41).

The inhabitants of Pharsalus were attached to Philip; while those

of Pheræ were opposed to him as much as they dared, and even

refused (according to Demosthenes, Fals. Leg. p. 444) to join his

army on this expedition. The old rivalry between the two cities

here again appears.

In administering the oaths at Pheræ to Philip and his allies,

Æschines and the majority of the Athenian envoys had formally and

publicly pronounced the Phokians to be excluded and out of the

treaty, and had said nothing about Kersobleptes. This was, if not

a departure from their mandate, at least a step beyond it; for the

Athenian people had expressly rejected the same exclusion when

proposed by Philokrates at Athens; though when the Macedonian envoy

declared that he could not admit the Phokians, the Athenians had

consented to swear the treaty without them. Probably Philip and

his allies would not consent to take the oath, to Athens and her

allies, without an express declaration that the Phokians were out

of the pale.[875] But though Philokrates and Æschines thus openly

repudiated the Phokians, they still persisted in affirming that the

intentions of Philip towards that people were highly favorable. They

affirmed this probably to the Phokians themselves, as an excuse for

having pronounced the special exclusion; they repeated it loudly and

emphatically at Athens, immediately on their return. It was then that

Demosthenes also, after having been outvoted and silenced during

the mission, obtained an opportunity for making his own protest

public. Being among the senators of that year, he made his report

to the Senate forthwith, seemingly on the day, or the day next but

one, after his arrival, before a large audience of private citizens

standing by to witness so important a proceeding. He recounted all

the proceedings of the embassy,—recalling the hopes and promises

under which Æschines and others had persuaded the Athenians to agree

to the peace,—arraigning these envoys as fabricators, in collusion

with Philip, of falsehoods and delusive assurances,—and accusing them

of having already by their unwarrantable delays betrayed Kersobleptes

to ruin. Demosthenes at the same time made known to the Senate the

near approach and rapid march of Philip; entreating them to interpose

even now at the eleventh hour, for the purpose of preventing what

yet remained, the Phokians and Thermopylæ, from being given up under

the like treacherous fallacies.[876] A fleet of fifty triremes had

been voted, and were ready at a moment’s notice to be employed on

sudden occasion.[877] The majority of the Senate went decidedly along

with Demosthenes, and passed a resolution[878] in that sense to be

submitted to the public assembly. So adverse was this resolution to

the envoys, that it neither commended them nor invited them to dinner

in the prytaneium; an insult (according to Demosthenes) without any

former precedent.

[875] Demosthen. Fals. Leg. p. 355. ἐκ τοῦ, ὅτε τοὺς ὅρκους

ἤμελλε Φίλιππος ὀμνύναι τοὺς περὶ τῆς εἰρήνης, ~ἐκσπόνδους

ἀποφανθῆναι τοὺς Φωκέας~ ὑπὸ τούτων, ὃ σιωπᾷν καὶ ἐᾷν εἰκὸς ἦν,

εἴπερ ἤμελλον σώζεσθαι. Compare p. 395. Πρῶτον μὲν τοίνυν ~Φωκεῖς

ἐκσπόνδους καὶ Ἁλεῖς ἀπέφηναν~ καὶ Κερσοβλέπτην, παρὰ τὸ ψήφισμα

καὶ τὰ πρὸς ὑμᾶς εἰρημένα, etc.; also p. 430.

[876] Demosth. Fals. Leg. p. 346.

[877] Demosth. Fals. Leg. p. 444. ἐφ᾽ ἣν αἱ πεντήκοντα τριήρεις

ὅμως ἐφώρμουν, etc. Compare Æschines, Fals. Leg. p. 33.

[878] Demosth. Fals. Leg. p. 350, 351. Demosthenes causes this

resolution of the Senate (προβούλευμα) to be read to the Dikasts,

together with the testimony of the senator who moved it. The

document is not found _verbatim_, but Demosthenes comments upon

it before the Dikasts after it has been read, and especially

points out that it contains neither praise nor invitation, which

the Senate was always in the habit of voting to returning envoys.

This is sufficient to refute the allegation of Æschines (Fals.

Leg. p. 44. c. 38), that Demosthenes himself moved a resolution

to praise the envoys and invite them to a banquet in the

Prytaneium. Æschines does not produce such resolution, nor cause

it to be read before the Dikasts.

On the 16th of the month Skirrophorion, three days after the return

of the envoys, the first public assembly was held: where, according

to usual form, the resolution just passed by the Senate ought to

have been discussed. But it was not even read to the assembly; for

immediately on the opening of business (so Demosthenes tells us),

Æschines rose and proceeded to address the people, who were naturally

impatient to hear him before any one else, speaking as he did in

the name of his colleagues generally.[879] He said nothing either

about the recent statements of Demosthenes before the Senate, or the

senatorial resolution following, or even the past history of the

embassy—but passed at once to the actual state of affairs, and the

coming future. He acquainted the people that Philip, having sworn

the oaths at Pheræ, had by this time reached Thermopylæ with his

army. “But he comes there (said Æschines) as the friend and ally of

Athens, the protector of the Phokians, the restorer of the enslaved

Bœotian cities, and the enemy of Thebes alone. We your envoys have

satisfied him that the Thebans are the real wrong-doers, not only in

their oppression towards the Bœotian cities, but also in regard to

the spoliation of the temple, which they had conspired to perpetrate

earlier than the Phokians. I (Æschines) exposed in an emphatic speech

before Philip the iniquities of the Thebans, for which proceeding

they have set a price on my life. You Athenians will hear, in two

or three days, without any trouble of your own, that Philip is

vigorously prosecuting the siege of Thebes. You will find that he

will capture and break up that city—that he will exact from the

Thebans compensation for the treasure ravished from Delphi—and that

he will restore the subjugated communities of Platæa and Thespiæ.

Nay more—you will hear of benefits still more direct, which we have

determined Philip to confer upon you, but which it would not be

prudent as yet to particularize. Eubœa will be restored to you as

a compensation for Amphipolis: the Eubœans have already expressed

the greatest alarm at the confidential relations between Athens

and Philip, and the probability of his ceding to you their island.

There are other matters too, on which I do not wish to speak out

fully, because I have false friends even among my own colleagues.”

These last ambiguous allusions were generally understood, and

proclaimed by the persons round the orator, to refer to Oropus,

the ancient possession of Athens, now in the hands of Thebes.[880]

Such glowing promises, of benefits to come, were probably crowned

by the announcement, more worthy of credit, that Philip had engaged

to send back all the Athenian prisoners by the coming Panathenaic

festival,[881] which fell during the next month Hekatombæon.

[879] Demosth. Fals. Leg. p. 347, 351, 352. τοῦτο μὲν οὐδεὶς

ἀνέγνω τῷ δήμῳ τὸ προβούλευμα, οὐδ᾽ ἤκουσεν ὁ δῆμος, ἀναστὰς

δ᾽ οὗτος ἐδημηγόρει. The date of the 16th Skirrophorion is

specified, p. 359.

[880] I have here condensed the substance of what is stated by

Demosthenes, Fals. Leg. p. 347, 348, 351, 352, 364, 411, etc.

Another statement, to the same effect, made by Demosthenes in the

Oration De Pace (delivered only a few months after the assembly

here described, and not a judicial accusation against Æschines,

but a deliberative harangue before the public assembly), is

even better evidence than the accusatory speech De Falsâ

Legatione—ἡνίκα τοὺς ὅρκους τοὺς περὶ τῆς εἰρήνης ἀπειληφότες

ἥκομεν οἱ πρέσβεις, τότε Θεσπιάς τινων καὶ Πλαταιὰς ὑπισχνουμένων

οἰκισθήσεσθαι, καὶ τοὺς μὲν Φωκέας τὸν Φίλιππον, ἂν γένηται

κύριος, σώσειν, τὴν δὲ Θηβαίων πόλιν διοικιεῖν, καὶ τὸν Ὠρωπὸν

ὑμῖν ὑπάρξειν, καὶ τὴν Εὔβοιαν ἀντ᾽ Ἀμφιπόλεως ἀποδοθήσεσθαι,

καὶ τοιαύτας ἐλπίδας καὶ φενακισμοὺς, οἷς ἐπαχθέντες ὑμεῖς οὔτε

συμφόρως οὔτ᾽ ἴσως οὔτε καλῶς προεῖσθε Φωκέας ... οὐδὲν τούτων

οὔτ᾽ ἐξαπατήσας οὔτε σιγήσας ἐγὼ φανήσομαι, ἀλλὰ προειπὼν ὑμῖν,

ὡς οἶδ᾽ ὅτι μνημονεύετε, ὅτι ταῦτα οὔτε οἶδα οὔτε προσδοκῶ,

νομίζω δὲ τὸν λέγοντα ληρεῖν (De Pace, p. 59).

Compare also Philippic ii. p. 72, 73, where Demosthenes repeats

the like assertion; also De Chersoneso, p. 105; De Coronâ, p.

236, 237.

[881] Demosthenes states (Fals. Leg. p. 394. εἰς τὰ Παναθήναια

φήσας ἀποπέμψειν) that _he_ received this assurance from Philip,

while he was busying himself during the mission in efforts to

procure the ransom or liberation of the prisoners. But we may be

sure that Æschines, so much more in the favor of Philip, must

have received it also, since it would form so admirable a point

for his first speech at Athens, in this critical juncture.

The first impression of the Athenians, on hearing Æschines, was

that of surprise, alarm, and displeasure, at the unforeseen

vicinity of Philip;[882] which left no time for deliberation, and

scarcely the minimum of time for instant precautionary occupation

of Thermopylæ, if such a step were deemed necessary. But the sequel

of the speech—proclaiming to them the speedy accomplishment of

such favorable results, together with the gratification of their

antipathy against Thebes—effaced this sentiment, and filled them

with agreeable prospects. It was in vain that Demosthenes rose

to reply, arraigned the assurances as fallacious, and tried to

bring forward the same statement as had already prevailed with the

Senate. The people refused to hear him; Philokrates with the other

friends of Æschines hooted him off; and the majority were so full

of the satisfactory prospect opened to them, that all mistrust or

impeachment of its truth appeared spiteful and vexatious.[883] It is

to be remembered that these were the same promises previously made

to them by Philokrates and others, nearly three months before, when

the peace with Philip was first voted. The immediate accomplishment

of them was now again promised on the same authority—by envoys who

had communicated a second time with Philip, and thus had farther

means of information—so that the comfortable anticipation previously

raised was confirmed and strengthened. No one thought of the danger

of admitting Philip within Thermopylæ, when the purpose of his

coming was understood to be, the protection of the Phokians, and the

punishment of the hated Thebans. Demosthenes was scarcely allowed

even to make a protest, or to disclaim responsibility as to the

result. Æschines triumphantly assumed the responsibility to himself;

while Philokrates amused the people by saying: “No wonder, Athenians,

that Demosthenes and I should not think alike; he is an ungenial

water-drinker; I am fond of wine.”[884]

[882] Demosth. Fals. Leg. p. 352. ὥσθ᾽ ὑμᾶς, ἐκπεπληγμένους

τῇ παρουσίᾳ τοῦ Φιλίππου, καὶ τούτοις ὀργιζομένους ἐπὶ τῷ μὴ

προηγγελκέναι, πρᾳοτέρους γενέσθαι τινὸς, πάνθ᾽ ὅσ᾽ ἐβούλεσθ᾽

ὑμῖν ἔσεσθαι προσδοκήσαντας, etc.

[883] Demosth. Fals. Leg. p. 348, 349, 352. οἱ δ᾽ ~ἀντιλέγοντες

ὄχλος ἄλλως καὶ βασκανία κατεφαίνετο~, etc.

[884] Dem. Fals. Leg. p. 355; Phil. ii. p. 73.

It was during this temper of the assembly that the letter of

Philip, brought by the envoys, was produced and read. His abundant

expressions of regard, and promises of future benefit, to Athens,

were warmly applauded; while, prepossessed as the hearers were,

none of them discerned, nor was any speaker permitted to point

out, that these expressions were thoroughly vague and general, and

that not a word was said about the Thebans or the Phokians.[885]

Philokrates next proposed a decree, extolling Philip for his just

and beneficent promises—providing that the peace and alliance with

him should be extended, not merely to the existing Athenians, but

also to their posterity—and enacting that if the Phokians should

still refuse to yield possession of the Delphian temple to the

Amphiktyons, the people of Athens would compel them to do so by armed

intervention.[886]

[885] Dem. Fals. Leg. p. 353.

[886] Demosth. Fals. Leg. p. 356. Οὗτος (Æschines) ἦν ὁ λέγων

ὑπὲρ αὐτοῦ καὶ ὑπισχνούμενος· πρὸς δὲ τοὺς παρὰ τούτου λόγους

ὡρμηκότας λαβὼν ὑμᾶς ὁ Φιλοκράτης, ἐγγράφει τοῦτ᾽ εἰς τὸ ψήφισμα,

ἐὰν μὴ ποιῶσι Φωκεῖς ἃ δεῖ, καὶ παραδίδωσι τοῖς Ἀμφικτύοσι τὸ

ἱερὸν, ὅτι βοηθήσει ὁ δῆμος ὁ Ἀθηναίων ἐπὶ τοὺς διακωλύοντας

ταῦτα γίγνεσθαι.

The fact, that by this motion of Philokrates the peace was

extended to “the posterity” of the Athenians—is dwelt upon by

Demosthenes as “the greatest disgrace of all;” with an intensity

of emphasis which it is difficult to enter into (Philippic ii. p.

73).

During the few days immediately succeeding the return of the

envoys to Athens (on the 13th of Skirrophorion), Philip wrote

two successive letters, inviting the Athenian troops to join him

forthwith at Thermopylæ.[887] Probably these were sent at the

moment when Phalækus, the Phokian leader at that pass, answered

his first summons by a negative reply.[888] The two letters must

have been despatched one immediately after the other, betraying

considerable anxiety on the part of Philip; which it is not difficult

to understand. He could not be at first certain what effect would

be produced by his unforeseen arrival at Thermopylæ on the public

mind at Athens. In spite of all the persuasions of Æschines and

Philokrates, the Athenians might conceive so much alarm as to

obstruct his admission within that important barrier; while Phalækus

and the Phokians—having a powerful mercenary force, competent,

even unaided, to a resistance of some length—were sure to attempt

resistance, if any hope of aid were held out to them from Athens.

Moreover it would be difficult for Philip to carry on prolonged

military operations in the neighborhood, from the want of provisions;

the lands having been unsown through the continued antecedent war,

and the Athenian triremes being at hand to intercept his supplies

by sea.[889] Hence it was important to him to keep the Athenians

in illusion and quiescence for the moment; to which purpose his

letters were well adapted, in whichever way they were taken. If the

Athenians came to Thermopylæ, they would come as his allies—not as

allies of the Phokians. Not only would they be in the midst of his

superior force and therefore as it were hostages;[890] but they

would be removed from contact with the Phokians, and would bring

to bear upon the latter an additional force of intimidation. If,

on the contrary, the Athenians determined not to come, they would

at any rate interpret his desire for their presence as a proof

that he contemplated no purposes at variance with their wishes and

interests; and would trust the assurances, given by Æschines and his

other partisans at Athens, that he secretly meant well towards the

Phokians. This last alternative was what Philip both desired and

anticipated. He wished only to deprive the Phokians of all chance

of aid from Athens, and to be left to deal with them himself. His

letters served to blind the Athenian public, but his partisans took

care not to move the assembly[891] to a direct compliance with their

invitation. Indeed the proposal of such an expedition (besides the

standing dislike of the citizens towards military service) would have

been singularly repulsive, seeing that the Athenians would have had

to appear, ostensibly at least, in arms against their Phokian allies.

The conditional menace of the Athenian assembly against the Phokians

(in case of refusal to surrender the temple to the Amphiktyons),

decreed on the motion of Philokrates, was in itself sufficiently

harsh, against allies of ten years’ standing; and was tantamount

at least to a declaration that Athens would not interfere on their

behalf—which was all that Philip wanted.

[887] Demosth. Fals. Leg. p. 357. Demosthenes causes the two

letters to be read, and proceeds—Αἱ μὲν τοίνυν ἐπιστολαὶ καλοῦσιν

αὗται, καὶ νὴ ~Δία ἤδη γε~.

So also Æschines, Fals. Leg. p. 46. c. 4. ὑμῖν δὲ ταῦθ᾽ ὁρῶν οὐκ

ἔγραψεν ἐπιστολὴν ὁ Φίλιππος, ἐξιέναι πάσῃ τῇ δυνάμει βοηθήσοντας

τοῖς δικαίοις; Æschines only notices one of the two letters.

Böhnecke (Forschungen, p. 412) conceives the letters as having

been written and sent between the 16th and 23d of the month

Skirrophorion.

[888] Demosth. Fals. Leg. p. 359.

[889] Demosth. Fals. Leg. p. 379.

[890] This was among the grounds of objection, taken by

Demosthenes and his friends, against the despatch of forces to

Thermopylæ in compliance with the letter of Philip—according to

the assertion of Æschines (Fals. Leg. p. 46. c. 41); who treats

the objection with contempt, though it seems well-grounded and

reasonable.

[891] Demosth. Fals. Leg. p. 356, 357.

Among the hearers of these debates at Athens, were deputies from

these very Phokians, whose fate now hung in suspense. It has

already been stated that during the preceding September, while the

Phokians were torn by intestine dissensions, Phalækus, the chief

of the mercenaries, had repudiated aid (invited by his Phokian

opponents), both from Athens and Sparta;[892] feeling strong enough

to hold Thermopylæ by his own force. During the intervening months,

however, both his strength and his pride had declined. Though he

still occupied Thermopylæ with eight thousand or ten thousand

mercenaries, and still retained superiority over Thebes, with

possession of Orchomenus, Koroneia, and other places taken from the

Thebans,[893]—yet his financial resources had become so insufficient

for a numerous force, and the soldiers had grown so disorderly from

want of regular pay,[894] that he thought it prudent to invite

aid from Sparta during the spring,—while Athens was deserting the

Phokians to make terms with Philip. Archidamus accordingly came to

Thermopylæ with one thousand Lacedæmonian auxiliaries.[895] The

defensive force thus assembled was amply sufficient against Philip

by land; but that important pass could not be held without the

coöperation of a superior fleet at sea.[896] Now the Phokians had

powerful enemies even within the pass—the Thebans; and there was no

obstacle, except the Athenian fleet under Proxenus at Oreus,[897] to

prevent Philip from landing troops in the rear of Thermopylæ, joining

the Thebans, and making himself master of Phokis from the side

towards Bœotia.

[892] Æschin. Fals. Leg. p. 46. c. 41.

[893] Demosth. Fals. Leg. p. 387.

[894] Æschines, Fals. Leg. p. 46. c. 41. This statement of

Æschines—about the declining strength of the Phokians and the

causes thereof—has every appearance of being correct in point of

fact; though it will not sustain the conclusions which he builds

upon it.

Compare Demosth. Olynth. iii. p. 30 (delivered four years

earlier) ἀπειρηκότων δὲ χρήμασι Φωκέων, etc.

[895] Demosth. Fals. Leg. p. 365; Diodor. xvi. 59.

[896] For the defence of Thermopylæ, at the period of the

invasion of Xerxes, the Grecian fleet at Artemisium was not less

essential than the land force of Leonidas encamped in the pass

itself.

[897] That the Phokians could not maintain Thermopylæ without

the aid of Athens—and that Philip could march to the frontier

of Attica, without any intermediate obstacle to prevent him,

if Olynthus were suffered to fall into his hand—is laid down

emphatically by Demosthenes in the first Olynthiac, nearly four

years before the month of Skirrophorion, 346 B. C.

Ἂν δ᾽ ἐκεῖνα Φίλιππος λάβῃ, τίς αὐτὸν κωλύσει δεῦρο βαδίζειν;

Θηβαῖοι; οἳ, εἰ μὴ λίαν πικρὸν εἰπεῖν, καὶ συνεισβαλοῦσιν

ἑτοίμως. Ἀλλὰ Φωκεῖς; οἱ τὴν οἰκείαν οὐχ οἷοί τε ὄντες φυλάττειν,

ἐὰν μὴ βοηθήσεθ᾽ ὑμεῖς (Demosth. Olynth. i. p. 16).

To the safety of the Phokians, therefore, the continued maritime

protection of Athens was indispensable; and they doubtless watched

with trembling anxiety the deceitful phases of Athenian diplomacy

during the winter and spring of 347-346 B. C. Their deputies must

have been present at Athens when the treaty was concluded and sworn

in March 346 B. C. Though compelled to endure not only the refusal

of Antipater excluding them from the oath, but also the consent of

their Athenian allies, tacitly acted upon without being formally

announced, to take the oath without them,—they nevertheless heard the

assurances, confidently addressed by Philokrates and Æschines to the

people, that this refusal was a mere feint to deceive the Thessalians

and Thebans,—that Philip would stand forward as the protector of

the Phokians, and that all his real hostile purposes were directed

against Thebes. How the Phokians interpreted such tortuous and

contradictory policy, we are not told. But their fate hung upon the

determination of Athens; and during the time when the Ten Athenian

envoys were negotiating or intriguing with Philip at Pella, Phokian

envoys were there also, trying to establish some understanding with

Philip, through Lacedæmonian and Athenian support. Both Philip and

Æschines probably amused them with favorable promises. And though,

when the oaths were at last administered to Philip at Pheræ, the

Phokians were formally pronounced to be excluded,—still the fair

words of Æschines, and his assurances of Philip’s good intentions

towards them, were not discontinued.

While Philip marched straight from Pheræ to Thermopylæ,—and while

the Athenian envoys returned to Athens,—Phokian deputies visited

Athens also, to learn the last determination of the Athenian people,

upon which their own destiny turned. Though Philip, on reaching the

neighborhood of Thermopylæ, summoned the Phokian leader, Phalækus to

surrender the pass, and offered him terms,—Phalækus would make no

reply until his deputies returned to Athens.[898] These deputies,

present at the public assembly of the 16th Skirrophorion, heard the

same fallacious assurances as before respecting Philip’s designs,

repeated by Philokrates and Æschines with unabated impudence, and

still accepted by the people. But they also heard, in the very

same assembly, the decree proposed by Philokrates and adopted,

that unless the Phokians restored the Delphian temple forthwith to

the Amphiktyons, the Athenian people would compel them to do so by

armed force. If the Phokians still cherished hopes, this conditional

declaration of war, from a city which still continued by name to be

their ally, opened their eyes, and satisfied them that no hope was

left except to make the best terms they could with Philip.[899] To

defend Thermopylæ successfully without Athens, much more against

Athens, was impracticable.

[898] Demosth. Fals. Leg. p. 359. ἥκομεν δὲ δεῦρο ἀπὸ τῆς

πρεσβείας τῆς ἐπὶ τοὺς ὅρκους τρίτῃ ἐπὶ δέκα τοῦ Σκιῤῥοφοριῶνος

μηνὸς, καὶ παρῆν ὁ Φίλιππος ἐν Πύλαις ἤδη καὶ τοῖς Φωκεῦσιν

ἐπηγγέλλετο ὧν οὐδὲν ἐπίστευον ἐκεῖνοι. Σημεῖον δὲ—οὐ γὰρ ἂν

δεῦρ᾽ ἧκον ὡς ὑμᾶς ... παρῆσαν γὰρ οἱ τῶν Φωκέων πρέσβεις ἐνθάδε,

καὶ ἦν αὐτοῖς καὶ τί ἀπαγγελοῦσιν οὗτοι (Æschines, Philokrates,

etc.) καὶ τί ψηφιεῖσθε ὑμεῖς, ἐπιμελὲς εἰδέναι.

[899] Demosth. Fals. Leg. p. 357. οἱ μὲν τοίνυν Φωκεῖς, ὡς τὰ

παρ᾽ ὑμῶν ἐπύθοντο ἐκ τῆς ἐκκλησίας καὶ τό τε ψήφισμα τοῦτ᾽

ἔλαβον τὸ τοῦ Φιλοκράτους, καὶ τὴν ἀπαγγελίαν ἐπύθοντο τὴν τούτου

καὶ τὰς ὑποσχέσεις—κατὰ πάντας τοὺς τρόπους ἀπώλοντο.

Æschines (Fals. Leg. p. 45. c. 41) touches upon the statements

made by Demosthenes respecting the envoys of Phalækus at Athens,

and the effect of the news which they carried back in determining

the capitulation. He complains of them generally as being “got

up against him” (ὁ κατήγορος μεμηχάνηται), but he does not

contradict them upon any specific point. Nor does he at all

succeed in repelling the main argument, brought home with great

precision of date by Demosthenes.

Leaving Athens after the assembly of the 16th Skirrophorion, the

Phokian deputies carried back the tidings of what had passed to

Phalækus, whom they reached at Nikæa, near Thermopylæ, about the 20th

of the same month.[900] Three days afterwards, Phalækus, with his

powerful army of eight thousand or ten thousand mercenary infantry

and one thousand cavalry, had concluded a convention with Philip.

The Lacedæmonian auxiliaries, perceiving the insincere policy of

Athens, and the certain ruin of the Phokians, had gone away a little

before.[901] It was stipulated in the convention that Phalækus should

evacuate the territory, and retire wherever else he pleased, with

his entire mercenary force and with all such Phokians as chose to

accompany him. The remaining natives threw themselves upon the mercy

of the conqueror.

[900] Demosth. Fals. Leg. p. 359: compare Diodor. xvi. 59. In

this passage, Demosthenes reckons up _seven_ days between the

final assembly at Athens, and the capitulation concluded by the

Phokians. In another passage, he states the same interval at only

_five_ days (p. 365); which is doubtless inaccurate. In a third

passage, the same interval, seemingly, stands at five or six

days, p. 379.

[901] Demosth. Fals. Leg. p. 356-365. ἐπειδὴ δ᾽ ἧκεν (Philip) εἰς

Πύλας, Λακεδαιμόνιοι δ᾽ αἰσθόμενοι τὴν ἐνέδραν ὑπεχώρησαν, etc.

All the towns in Phokis, twenty-two in number, together with the pass

of Thermopylæ, were placed in the hands of Philip; all surrendering

at discretion; all without resistance. The moment Philip was thus

master of the country, he joined his forces with those of the

Thebans, and proclaimed his purpose of acting thoroughly upon their

policy; of transferring to them a considerable portion of Phokis; of

restoring to them Orchomenus, Korsiæ, and Koroneia, Bœotian towns

which the Phokians had taken from them; and of keeping the rest of

Bœotia in their dependence, just as he found it.[902]

[902] Demosth. Fals. Leg p. 359, 360, 365, 379, 413. ὁ δὲ

(Æschines) τοσοῦτον δεῖ τῶν ὑπαρχόντων τινα αἰχμάλωτον σῶσαι,

ὥσθ᾽ ὅλον τόπον καὶ πλεῖν ἢ μυρίους μὲν ὁπλίτας, ὁμοῦ δὲ χιλίους

ἱππέας τῶν ὑπαρχόντων συμμάχων, ὅπως αἰχμάλωτοι γένωνται Φιλίππῳ

συμπαρεσκεύασεν.

Diodorus (xvi. 59) states the mercenaries of Phalækus at eight

thousand men.

Because the Phokians capitulated to Philip and not to the

Thebans (p. 360)—because not one of their towns made any

resistance—Demosthenes argues that this proves their confidence

in the favorable dispositions of Philip, as testified by

Æschines. But he overstrains this argument against Æschines. The

Phokians had no choice but to surrender, as soon as all chance

of Athenian aid was manifestly shut out. The belief of favorable

dispositions on the part of Philip, was doubtless an auxiliary

motive, but not the primary or predominant.

In the meantime, the Athenians, after having passed the decree above

mentioned, re-appointed (in the very same assembly of the 16th

Skirrophorion, June), the same ten envoys to carry intelligence

of it to Philip, and to be witnesses of the accomplishment of the

splendid promises made in his name. But Demosthenes immediately swore

off, and refused to serve; while Æschines, though he did not swear

off, was nevertheless so much indisposed, as to be unable to go.

This at least is his own statement; though Demosthenes affirms that

the illness was a mere concerted pretence, in order that Æschines

might remain at home to counterwork any reaction of public feeling

at Athens, likely to arise on the arrival of the bad news, which

Æschines knew to be at hand, from Phokis.[903] Others having been

chosen in place of Æschines and Demosthenes,[904] the ten envoys set

out, and proceeded as far as Chalkis in Eubœa. It was there that they

learned the fatal intelligence from the main land on the other side

of the Eubœan strait. On the 23d of Skirrophorion, Phalækus and all

the Phokian towns had surrendered; Philip was master of Thermopylæ,

had joined his forces with the Thebans, and proclaimed an unqualified

philo-Theban policy; on the 27th of Skirrophorion, Derkyllus, one of

the envoys, arrived in haste back at Athens, having stopped short in

his mission on hearing the facts.

[903] Demosthen. Fals. Leg. p. 378; Æschines, Fals. Leg. p. 40.

c. 30. It appears that the ten envoys were not all the same—τῶν

ἄλλων ~τοῦς πλείστους~ τοὺς αὐτοὺς, etc.

[904] Demosthen. Fals. Leg. p. 380. οὔθ᾽ ὅτι πρεσβευτὴς ἄλλος

ᾕρητο ἀνθ᾽ αὑτοῦ, etc.

Æschines (Fals. Leg. p. 46. c. 43) does not seem to deny this

distinctly.

At the moment when he arrived, the people were holding an assembly

in the Peiræus, on matters connected with the docks and arsenal; and

to this assembly, actually sitting, Derkyllus made his unexpected

report.[905] The shock to the public of Athens was prodigious. Not

only were all their splendid anticipations of anti-Theban policy from

Philip (hitherto believed and welcomed by the people on the positive

assurances of Philokrates and Æschines) now dashed to the ground—not

only were the Athenians smitten with the consciousness that they had

been overreached by Philip, that they had played into the hands of

their enemies the Thebans, and that they had betrayed their allies

the Phokians to ruin—but they felt also that they had yielded up

Thermopylæ, the defence at once of Attica and of Greece, and that

the road to Athens lay open to their worst enemies the Thebans, now

aided by Macedonian force. Under this pressure of surprise, sorrow,

and terror, the Athenians, on the motion of Kallisthenes, passed

these votes:—To put the Peiræus, as well as the fortresses throughout

Attica, in immediate defence—To bring within these walls, for safety,

all the women and children, and all the movable property, now spread

abroad in Attica—To celebrate the approaching festival of the

Herakleia, not in the country, as was usual, but in the interior of

Athens.[906]

[905] Demosthen. Fals. Leg. p. 359, 360, 365, 379.

[906] Demosthen. Fals. Leg. p. 368-379. Æschines also

acknowledges the passing of this vote, for bringing in the

movable property of Athens into a place of safety; though he

naturally says very little about it (Fals. Leg. p. 46. c. 42).

In the oration of Demosthenes, De Coronâ, p. 238, this decree,

moved by Kallisthenes, is not only alluded to, but purports to

be given _verbatim_. The date as we there read it—the 21st of

the month Mæmakterion—is unquestionably wrong; for the real

decree must have been passed in the concluding days of the month

Skirrophorion, immediately after hearing the report of Derkyllus.

This manifest error of date will not permit us to believe in

the authenticity of the document. Of these supposed original

documents, inserted in the oration De Coronâ, Droysen and other

critics have shown some to be decidedly spurious; and all are so

doubtful that I forbear to cite them as authority.

Such were the significant votes, the like of which had not been

passed at Athens since the Peloponnesian war, attesting the terrible

reaction of feeling occasioned at Athens by the disastrous news

from Phokis. Æschines had now recovered from his indisposition;

or (if we are to believe Demosthenes) found it convenient to lay

aside the pretence. He set out as self-appointed envoy, without any

new nomination by the people—probably with such of the Ten as were

favorable to his views—to Philip and to the joint Macedonian and

Theban army in Phokis. And what is yet more remarkable, he took his

journey thither through Thebes itself;[907] though his speeches and

his policy had been for months past (according to his own statement)

violently anti-Theban;[908] and though he had affirmed (this,

however, rests upon the testimony of his rival) that the Thebans

had set a price upon his head. Having joined Philip, Æschines took

part in the festive sacrifices and solemn pæans celebrated by the

Macedonians, Thebans and Thessalians,[909] in commemoration and

thanksgiving for their easy, though long-deferred, triumph over the

Phokians, and for the conclusion of the Ten-Years Sacred War.

[907] Demosthen. Fals. Leg. p. 380.

[908] Æschines, Fals. Leg. p. 41. c. 32. p. 43. c. 36. Æschines

accuses Demosthenes of traitorous partiality for Thebes.

[909] Demosthen. Fals. Leg. p. 380; De Coronâ, p. 321. Æschines

(Fals. Leg. p. 49, 50) admits, and tries to justify, the

proceeding.

Shortly after Philip had become master of Thermopylæ and Phokis, he

communicated his success in a letter to the Athenians. His letter

betokened a full consciousness of the fear and repugnance which his

recent unexpected proceedings had excited at Athens:[910] but in

other respects, it was conciliatory and even seductive; expressing

great regard for them as his sworn allies, and promising again

that they should reap solid fruits from the alliance. It allayed

that keen apprehension of Macedonian and Theban attack, which had

induced the Athenians recently to sanction the precautionary measures

proposed by Kallisthenes. In his subsequent communications also with

Athens, Philip found his advantage in continuing to profess the

same friendship and to intersperse similar promises;[911] which,

when enlarged upon by his partisans in the assembly, contributed to

please the Athenians and to lull them into repose, thus enabling

him to carry on without opposition real measures of an insidious or

hostile character. Even shortly after Philip’s passage of Thermopylæ,

when he was in full coöperation with the Thebans and Thessalians,

Æschines boldly justified him by the assertion, that these Thebans

and Thessalians had been too strong for him, and had constrained him

against his will to act on their policy, both to the ruin of the

Phokians and to the offence of Athens.[912] And we cannot doubt that

the restoration of the prisoners taken at Olynthus, which must soon

have occurred, diffused a lively satisfaction at Athens, and tended

for the time to countervail the mortifying public results of her

recent policy.

[910] Demosth. De Coronâ, p. 237, 238, 239. It is evident that

Demosthenes found little in the letter which could be turned

against Philip. Its tone must have been plausible and winning.

A letter is inserted _verbatim_ in this oration, professing to

be the letter of Philip to the Athenians. I agree with those

critics who doubt or disbelieve the genuineness of this letter,

and therefore I do not cite it. If Demosthenes had had before him

a letter so peremptory and insolent in its tone, he would have

animadverted upon it much more severely.

[911] Æschines went on boasting about the excellent dispositions

of Philip towards Athens, and the great benefits which Philip

promised to confer upon her, for at least several months after

this capture of Thermopylæ Æschines, cont. Timarch. p. 24. c. 33.

Φίλιππον δὲ νῦν μὲν διὰ τὴν τῶν λόγων εὐφημίαν ἐπαινῶ· ἐὰν δ᾽

αὐτὸς ἐν τοῖς πρὸς ὑμᾶς ἔργοις γένηται, οἷος νῦν ἐστὶν ἐν ταῖς

ὑποσχέσεσιν, ἀσφαλῆ καὶ ῥᾴδιον τὸν καθ᾽ αὑτοῦ ποιήσεται ἔπαινον.

This oration was delivered apparently about the middle of Olymp.

108, 3; some months after the conquest of Thermopylæ by Philip.

[912] Demosth. De Pace, p. 62, Philippic ii. p. 69.

Master as he now was of Phokis, at the head of an irresistible force

of Macedonians and Thebans, Philip restored the Delphian temple

to its inhabitants, and convoked anew the Amphiktyonic assembly,

which had not met since the seizure of the temple by Philomelus.

The Amphiktyons reassembled under feelings of vindictive antipathy

against the Phokians, and of unqualified devotion to Philip. Their

first vote was to dispossess the Phokians of their place in the

assembly as one of the twelve ancient Amphiktyonic races, and to

confer upon Philip the place and two votes (each of the twelve

races had two votes) thus left vacant. All the rights to which the

Phokians laid claim over the Delphian temple were formally cancelled.

All the towns in Phokis, twenty-two in number, were dismantled and

broken up into villages. Abæ alone was spared; being preserved by

its ancient and oracular temple of Apollo, and by the fact that

its inhabitants had taken no part in the spoliation of Delphi.[913]

No village was allowed to contain more than fifty houses, nor to

be nearer to another than a minimum distance of one furlong. Under

such restriction, the Phokians were still allowed to possess and

cultivate their territory, with the exception of a certain portion

of the frontier transferred to the Thebans;[914] but they were

required to pay to the Delphian temple an annual tribute of fifty

talents, until the wealth taken away should have been made good. The

horses of the Phokians were directed to be sold; their arms were to

be cast down the precipices of Parnassus, or burnt. Such Phokians

as had participated individually in the spoliation, were proclaimed

accursed, and rendered liable to arrest wherever they were found.[915]

[913] Pausanias, x. 3, 2.

[914] This transfer to the Thebans is not mentioned by Diodorus,

but seems contained in the words of Demosthenes (Fals. Leg. p.

385)—τῆς τῶν Φωκέων χώρας ὁπόσην βούλονται: compare p. 380.

[915] Diodor. xvi. 60; Demosth. Fals. Leg. p. 385. ὅλων τῶν

τειχῶν καὶ τῶν πόλεων ἀναιρέσεις. Demosthenes causes this severe

sentence of the Amphiktyonic council to be read to the Dikastery

(Demosth. Fals. Leg. p. 361.) Unfortunately it has not been

preserved.

By the same Amphiktyonic assembly, farther, the Lacedæmonians, as

having been allies of the Phokians, were dispossessed of their

franchise, that is, of their right to concur in the Amphiktyonic

suffrage of the Dorian nation. This vote probably emanated from the

political antipathies of the Argeians and Messenians.[916]

[916] Pausanias, x. 8, 2.

The sentence, rigorous as it is, pronounced by the Amphiktyons

against the Phokians, was merciful as compared with some of the

propositions made in the assembly. The Œtæans went so far as to

propose, that all the Phokians of military age should be cast

down the precipice; and Æschines takes credit to himself for

having induced the assembly to hear their defence, and thereby

preserved their lives.[917] But though the terms of the sentence

may have been thus softened, we may be sure that the execution of

it by Thebans, Thessalians, and other foreigners quartered on the

country,—all bitter enemies of the Phokian name, and giving vent

to their antipathies under the mask of pious indignation against

sacrilege,—went far beyond the literal terms in active cruelty.

That the Phokians were stripped and slain[918]—that children were

torn from their parents, wives from their husbands, and the images

of the gods from their temples,—that Philip took for himself the

lion’s share of the plunder and movable property,—all these are facts

naturally to be expected, as incidental to the violent measure of

breaking up the cities and scattering the inhabitants. Of those,

however, who had taken known part in the spoliation of the temple,

the greater number went into exile with Phalækus; and not they alone,

but even all such of the moderate and meritorious citizens as could

find means to emigrate.[919] Many of them obtained shelter at Athens.

The poorer Phokians remained at home by necessity. But such was the

destruction inflicted by the conquerors, that even two or three years

afterwards, when Demosthenes and other Athenian envoys passed through

the country in their way to the Amphiktyonic meeting at Delphi,

they saw nothing but evidences of misery; old men, women and little

children, without adults,—ruined houses, impoverished villages,

half-cultivated fields.[920] Well might Demosthenes say that events

more terrific and momentous had never occurred in the Grecian world,

either in his own time or in that of his predecessors.[921]

[917] Æschines, Fals. Leg p. 47. c. 44.

[918] Justin, viii. 5. “Victi igitur necessitate, pactâ salute

se dediderunt. Sed pactio ejus fidei fuit, cujus antea fuerat

deprecati belli promissio. Igitur cæduntur passim rapiunturque:

non liberi parentibus, non conjuges maritis, non deorum simulacra

templis suis relinquuntur. Unum tantum miseris solatium fuit,

quod cum Philippus portione prædæ socios fraudasset, nihil rerum

suarum apud inimicos viderunt.”

Compare Demosthen. Fals. Leg. p. 366.

[919] Æschines, Fals. Leg. p. 47. c. 44; Demosth. Fals. Leg. p.

366; Demosthen. De Pace, p. 61. ὅτι τοὺς Φωκέων φυγάδας σώζομεν,

etc.

[920] Demosthen. Fals. Leg. p. 361. θέαμα δεινὸν καὶ ἐλεεινόν·

ὅτε γὰρ ~νῦν ἐπορευόμεθα εἰς Δελφοὺς~ ἐξ ἀνάγκης ἦν ὁρᾷν ἡμῖν

πάντα ταῦτα, οἰκίας κατεσκαμμένας, τείχη περιῃρημένα, χώραν

ἔρημον τῶν ἐν τῇ ἡλικίᾳ, γύναια δὲ καὶ παιδάρια ὀλίγα καὶ

πρεσβύτας ἀνθρώπους οἰκτροὺς, οὐδ᾽ ἂν εἷς δύναιτ᾽ ἐφικέσθαι τῷ

λόγῳ ~τῶν ἐκεῖ κακῶν νῦν ὄντων~.

As this oration was delivered in 343-342 B. C., the adverb of

time νῦν may be reasonably referred to the early part of that

year, and the journey to Delphi was perhaps undertaken for the

spring meeting of the Amphiktyonic council of that year; between

two and three years after the destruction of the Phokians by

Philip.

[921] Demosth. Fals. Leg. p. 361.