24
Sources
Xenophon’s Hellenica ends in 362. Diodorus covers the reign of Philip in book XVI: Ephorus wrote as far as the siege of Perinthus in 340/39 but without completing his history, and his son Demophilus filled a gap by writing book XXX, on the Third Sacred War. A possible source for Diodorus where they were not available is the rhetorical and anecdotal Athenian Diyllus (FGrH 73: cf. Diod. Sic. XVI. 14. iii – v, 76. v – vi). The result in Diodorus is an account which is generally favourable to Philip, and more detailed before 346 than after. Our other narrative account is in Latin, in the epitome of the Philippic History of Pompeius Trogus (first century bc) by Justin (variously dated between c. 200 and c. 400 ad), VII – IX, which is hostile to Philip.
There is plentiful but difficult material in the Athenian orators, particularly Demosthenes and Aeschines, who were much involved in the history of the period and anxious to justify the positions which they had adopted at different times. Demosthenes was born probably in 384/3, the son of a rich manufacturer of knives and beds. His father died when Demosthenes was seven, leaving him under guardians who misappropriated his inheritance. It is alleged that he originally studied oratory so that he could prosecute his guardians, and he won his cases in 363 but had difficulty in recovering the property. From 355 he made speeches in the assembly (he is the only Athenian orator from whom assembly speeches survive: as with lawcourt speeches, the relationship between the texts transmitted and the speeches originally delivered is controversial; cf. p. 353) and in public prosecutions, but for some time he was consistently on the losing side. He regarded Philip as a major threat from c. 351 onwards, but between 348 and 346 favoured a peace which he expected to prove that his fears were justified. He was therefore behind the Peace of Philocrates made with Philip in 346 but did not expect it to last; from 344 he looked for renewed conflict, and gained support inside and outside Athens, but the conflict led to Philip’s victory at Chaeronea in 338. He led the rejoicing when Philip was killed in 336, and supported the revolt of Thebes in 335, but for much of Alexander’s reign he was out of the limelight. He was involved in the scandal surrounding Alexander’s fleeing treasurer, Harpalus, in 324 – 323; he was behind the rising against Macedon in the Lamian War after Alexander’s death; in 322 when Athens was defeated he was demanded by Macedon but committed suicide. His speeches and his policies have elicited strong reactions. In trying to evaluate them we need to distinguish different questions: whether Philip was indeed a threat to Athens and to all of Greece, and, if so, whether Demosthenes’ was the right policy for opposing him.
Aeschines, one of Demosthenes’ opponents, was an older man, born probably c. 390, and not from a rich background. His father was on the democratic side and lost property in 404 – 403, and afterwards worked as a schoolmaster; his mother was perhaps a priestess in a secret cult. He learned the art of speaking as an actor, and by serving among the state secretaries he gained familiarity with the working of Athens’ institutions and with the archives. Politically, he was a supporter of Eubulus, opposed to Demosthenes’ plans for resistance to Philip. Until 346 opposition to Demosthenes’ plans did not entail opposition to any plans for resistance, but when the plans which Aeschines was supporting at the beginning of 346 collapsed he felt peace had to be made with Philip, and then and afterwards he wanted to trust Philip and make the best of the peace. In 343 he was narrowly acquitted when Demosthenes prosecuted him for his role in 346 (Dem. XIX. Embassy and Aeschin. II. Embassy belong to this trial); in 330 he was overwhelmingly defeated when he revived the prosecution, started but abandoned in 336, of a man who had proposed honours for Demosthenes (Aeschin. III. Ctesiphon, Dem. XVIII. Crown); and he then left Athens.
Isocrates was old but still writing. Speech – pamphlets from this period include VIII. Peace, c. 355, and VII. Areopagitic, c. 354, on the external and internal politics of Athens respectively; X V. Antidosis, c. 353, and XII. Panathenaic, 342 – 339, defences of his career and the policies he had urged; V. Philip, 346, and two Letters to Philip, urging Philip to lead the Greeks in a patriotic war against Persia (cf. p. 226). Hyperides was a supporter of Demosthenes against Macedon from the late 340 s onwards, but prosecuted him in the affair of Harpalus. Lycurgus is best known as a financier, but his one preserved speech is Against Leocrates, a man accused of deserting Athens at the time of Chaeronea. From the Corinthian Dinarchus we have three prosecution speeches for the Harpalus affair. Demades was a man willing to collaborate with Macedon in the 330’s and 320’ s, but the speech On the Twelve Years defending his policies is a student’s exercise.
From Plutarch for the reign of Philip we have lives of two Athenians, Demosthenes and Phocion. We have inscriptions from Athens and elsewhere, including part of the foundation document of Philip’s League of Corinth.
Macedon before Philip
Lower Macedonia was the plain surrounding the Thermaic Gulf (which stretched farther inland than it does now: Pella was not far from the coast), with communications in four directions: south via Tempe and Thessaly to central and southern Greece, east through coastal Thrace to the Hellespont (these were the two most attractive options for a king looking to expand), west across the mountains to Illyria and the Adriatic, north by the Axius (present -day Vardar/Axios) valley to the Danube basin. Surrounding the plain were the hilly regions of Upper Macedonia, peopled by tribes with their own rulers, which the kings of Macedon hoped to control.
In terms of ancient perceptions, the Macedonians were fringe Greeks, who could be regarded as Greek or barbarian according to one’s convenience. Their language was probably a dialect of Greek; their kings claimed to be descended from Heracles, and were accepted as Greek for the purpose of competing in the Olympic games from the beginning of the fifth century (cf. Hdt. V. 22, VIII. 137. i, Thuc. II. 99. iii, V. 80. ii). In terms of present - day boundaries, Lower and the southern part of Upper Macedonia are in Greece, but the northern part of Upper Macedonia is in the Republic of Macedonia which was part of the former Yugoslavia.
Macedon in the classical period had a kingship limited by tacit understanding rather than by explicit rules (Thuc. I. 13. i was perhaps thinking of Macedon; cf. Arr. Anab. IV. 11. vi): the succession was within the Temenid family, but not necessarily from father to son, and the new king had to be acceptable to the people embodied in the army; capital trials also were decided by the people (Curt. VI. viii. 25). The ruler of Macedon was commonly referred to as king, but probably did not use basileus as a formal title; the oath sworn by the members of his League of Corinth in 338/7 refers to his basileia (IG ii 2 236 = R&O 76 ~ Harding 99. a. 11 – 12), but basileus first appears as a title in Alexander’s letter to Chios in 334 (Tod 192 = R&O 84. A∽ Harding 107. 1, 18). Until the fourth century the army effectively comprised the cavalry force of the king and his ‘companions’ (hetairoi), and the infantry was a disorganised mob (Thuc. IV. 124. i).
If Amyntas I made token submission to the Persians after Darius’ Scythian expedition of c. 514 (Hdt. V. 17 – 21), that had little effect; Macedon was (re) -conquered in 492 (Hdt. VI. 44. i), and in 480 – 479 Alexander I was nominally on the Persian side but was on good terms with the Greeks and was used as a go - between. Before and during the Peloponnesian War Perdiccas I manoeuvred successfully between Athens and Sparta until his death c. 413. His successor Archelaus was pro - Athenian, at a time when Athens needed his support more than he needed Athens’; Thucydides describes him as a strong king who constructed roads and buildings, strengthened the cavalry and infantry, and achieved more than the eight kings before him (II. 100. ii). It is probably he who moved the capital from Aegeae (now discovered at Vergina and excavated: cf. pp. 360 – 1) to Pella; he attracted a cultural court circle; and at the end of his reign he was strong enough to interfere in Thessaly (cf. p. 286). But his death in 399 was followed by a period of dynastic trouble, until Amyntas III, from another branch of the family, became king c. 393. At least once he was driven out by the Illyrians and some of his territory was taken by Olynthus (Diod. Sic. XIV. 92. iii – iv, XV. 19. ii, perhaps records the same episode twice), but he returned and remained king until his death in 370/69.
Then followed another period of instability, with a succession of kings who were all sons of Amyntas III apart from Ptolemy of Alorus, who was husband of Amyntas’ daughter and technically regent for Perdiccas (Aeschin. II. Embassy 29). Athens became involved with Macedon through its attempt to recover former possessions in the north, in particular Amphipolis, and Thebes became involved through its interest in Thessaly (cf. pp. 272 – 3, 288 – 9). Perdiccas III was killed in 359 in an attack on the Illyrians. He had a son, Amyntas, but he was very young; only Justin claims that Philip was appointed regent for him, and since one charge never made against Philip by Demosthenes is that he was not rightfully king, we should accept that Philip was made king on Perdiccas’ death (Diod. Sic. XVI. 2. i – iv, Just. Epit. VII. 5. viii – x); after returning from Thebes (cf. p. 288) he had held some regional command (Ath. XI. 506 e – f). Amyntas lived through Philip’s reign, and at some point married Philip’s daughter Cynanne, but was one of those put to death after Philip’s assassination.
Philip in the 350’s
The Illyrians, to the west, and the Paeonians, to the north, were both threatening, and there were also other claimants to the throne. Perdiccas’ son Amyntas was left alive throughout Philip’s reign, to be put to death by Alexander (cf. p. 390); it was perhaps now that Archelaus, eldest son of Amyntas III by his first wife, was put to death and his brothers were exiled (cf. Just. VIII. 3. x); but the two claimants of whom we hear most were apparently from other branches of the Temenid family: Pausanias, backed by Thracians (probably by Berisades, in western Thrace), and Argaeus, backed by Athens (Diod. Sic. XVI. 2. v – vi).
Fig. 7 Amyntas III of Macedon and his descendants (This stemma does not include all the wives and children of Philip II)
Diodorus (XVI. 3. i – ii) credits Philip immediately with an army reform which must have taken some time, in particular organising an effective infantry phalanx for the first time (whether or not he was the first to give this body the name pezetairoi, ‘foot companions’: cf. p. 402). These men were more lightly armed than Greek hoplites, but equipped with the sarissa, a spear which at 18 ft. = 5.5 m. was twice as long as Greek hoplites’ spears, so that, when Macedonian infantry fought Greek hoplites, the Greeks would be impaled on the Macedonians’ spears before the Macedonians came within reach of the Greeks’ (cf. ill. 22). He used his cavalry in wedge - shaped units, echoing the diamond used by Jason of Pherae (Arr. Tact. 16. vi, cf. iii). Demosthenes commented several times on the variety of his forces and his ability to use them all the year round, without having to disclose his plans in advance through the public procedures of a polis (Dem. I. Ol. i. 4, IX. Phil. iii. 49 – 50, XVIII. Crown 235). The military development was accompanied by economic and social development. Arrian gives Alexander a speech in which he claims that Philip transformed the Macedonians from primitive pastoralists into city - dwelling agriculturalists (Anab. VII. 9. ii): how much had already been done before Philip and how much was left for him to do is disputed, but it must be under Philip that the plain of Philippi was drained (Theophr. Caus. Pl. V. 14. v – vi). His conquests enabled him to found cities (cf. Just. Epit. VIII. 5. vii); and by making grants of estates he recruited Thessalians and other Greeks to the ranks of his cavalry companions (Theopompus FGrH 115 F 224).
To give himself time, by bribes and promises Philip made peace with the Paeonians (and presumably with the Illyrians too; this is probably when he married the Illyrian Audata: e.g. list in Ath. XIII. 557 b – e), and detached the Thracians from Pausanias (Diod. Sic. XVI. 3. iv, cf. Just. Epit. VII. 6. i – v). To detach the Athenians from Argaeus, he withdrew a garrison installed in Amphipolis by Perdiccas; Argaeus, accompanied by an Athenian general to Methone, advanced on Aegeae but was unwelcome there and was defeated by Philip; then, says Diodorus, Philip made peace with Athens on the basis that he abandoned all claims to Amphipolis (Diod. Sic. XVI. 3. iii, v – vi, 4. i). When, in 357, he captured Amphipolis (below), the Athenians claimed to have been cheated, and referred to a secret (Dem. XXIII. Aristocrates 116, II. Olynth. ii. 6, [Dem.] VII. Halonnesus 27, Theopompus FGrH 115 F 30): there cannot have been a secret treaty, since only the assembly could commit Athens to a treaty, but there could have been secret negotiations, and Philip was to prove very good at dropping hints which were accepted as promises by others but not intended as promises by him.
Ill. 22 Macedonian phalanx armed with sarissa
In 358 the army was sufficiently revived for Philip to fight successfully first against the Paeonians and then against the Illyrians (Diod. Sic. XVI. 4. ii – vii, crediting him with 10,000 infantry and 600 cavalry). In 35 8 /7 he seems to have made his first contact with the Thessalian koinon, marrying Philinna of Larissa, who bore him the mentally handicapped Philip Arrhidaeus (garbled in Just. Epit. VII. 6. viii); and in 357 he made an alliance with Molossis, marrying Olympias, the niece of king Arybbas, who bore him Alexander in 356 and a daughter, Cleopatra (Just. Epit. VII. 6. x – xii). Then, late in 357, he captured Amphipolis (by force: a consequence of the developments in machinery which were tipping the balance in favour of the attackers: cf. p. 354): the Athenians, trusting his hints, had rejected Amphipolis’ plea for help (Dem. I. Olynth. i. 8, TheopompusFGrH 115 F 42), but Philip kept Amphipolis for himself (Diod. Sic. XVI. 8. ii, cf. Tod 150 = R&O 49 ∼ Harding 63). The Athenians indignantly declared war (Isoc. V.Philip 2, Aeschin. II. Embassy 70, III. Ctesiphon 54), but were distracted by the stasis in Euboea in 357 and the outbreak of the Social War in 356 (cf. pp. 274 – 5).
Olynthus, which the Athenians had spurned when they thought Philip would be cooperative, abandoned an earlier alliance with the Illyrians (Staatsvertr ä ge 307) and made an alliance with him, by which he promised to capture Potidaea for Olynthus. In 356 he did that, letting the Athenian cleruchs leave but selling the Potidaeans into slavery; he also took Pydna (which the Athenians had perhaps contemplated giving him in exchange for Amphipolis) for himself (Diod. Sic. XVI. 8. iii – v, Tod 158 = R&O 50 ∼ Harding 67). In western Thrace Datus had been refounded as Crenides by Thasos in 360/59, about the time of Cotys’ death, and in 356 Philip responded to its appeal for help against the Thracians and refounded it again as Philippi. With Amphipolis and Philippi he controlled the gold and silver mines of the Mount Pangaeum region, and this provided him with a secure financial base (Diod. Sic. XVI. 3. viii, 8. vi – vii, Steph. Byz. s.v. Philippoi). At first Philippi continued coining under its new name (Kraay, Archaic and Classical Greek Coins, p. 145 nos. 509, 510); and Philip’s own coinage, in silver and after 348 in gold, was to supplant Athens’ coinage as the most desirable currency in the Greek world (Kraay pp. 146 – 7 nos. 511 – 13).
In the summer of 356 Athens made an alliance with Philip’s barbarian enemies, western Thrace, Paeonia and Illyria, but it was still preoccupied with the Social War, and in 355 Philip was able to frighten the barbarians into submission (Diod. Sic. XVI. 22. iii, IGii 2 127 = R&O 53 ∼ Harding 70). It was perhaps in 355 too that Philip responded to another invitation from the Thessalian koinon: in 358 /7 Alexander of Pherae was murdered by his wife Thebe and her brothers (cf. p. 285, fig. 5); one of these, Tisiphonus, took over the city, and after an initial period of good rule became as despotic as Alexander. We should regard as indecisive an episode recorded by Diodorus in which Philip intervened and defeated Pherae (XVI. 14. i – ii). Methone, on the coast of Macedon, remained hostile to Philip, but it was besieged and captured in the first half of 354, in a campaign during which an arrow blinded Philip in one eye (Diod. Sic. XVI. 31. vi, 34. v – vi, Just. Epit. VII. 6. xiii – xiv).
Thus by the mid 350’s Philip had made substantial advances both eastwards and southwards. His further southward progress is bound up with the Third Sacred War, which we shall consider below, but it will be convenient to pursue his Thracian activity here. In 353 Chares, recalled to Athens’ service after supporting the Persian rebel Artabazus (cf. p. 275), was based at Neapolis, on the Thracian coast: he failed to obstruct a naval squadron of Philip’ s, returning from an attack on Abdera and Maronea; he perhaps now defeated a mercenary force commanded for Philip by Adaeus; and he reported a meeting of Philip, the Theban Pammenes and Apollonides, agent of the east Thracian Cersebleptes (Polyaenus Strat. IV. 2. xxii, Theopompus FGrH 115 F 249, Dem. XXIII.Aristocrates 183). Chares also captured Sestos, in the Chersonese, for Athens. Perhaps as a result of that, Cersebleptes decided against an alliance with Philip, and in 353/2 allowed Athens to send cleruchs to the Chersonese (Diod. Sic. XVI. 34. iii – iv, IG ii 2 1613. 297 – 8, cf. Dem. XXIII. Aristocrates 181).
In 352 after his successes in Thessaly Philip advanced to Thermopylae, but the Athenians blocked his passage there (cf. p. 343). He promptly returned to Thrace, and late in 352 at the invitation of Byzantium, Perinthus and the central Thracian Amadocus was engaged in a siege of Heraion Teichos, a fortress of Cersebleptes near the Propontis. Athens voted a relief expedition of forty ships, but delayed when the news came that Philip was ill, and finally sent ten ships in the autumn of 351. How much Philip finally achieved now is uncertain: Cersebleptes was left in his kingdom, but on sufferance, and perhaps now had to send his son as a hostage to Macedon (Theopompus FGrH 115 F 101, schol. Aeschin. II. Embassy 81 [178 Dilts], Dem. III. Olynth. iii. 4 – 5). On his way to or from Thrace Philip made a demonstration against Olynthus, which had welcomed him as an ally earlier but was now feeling threatened by him: Olynthus made peace with Athens, and there was talk of an alliance (Dem. XXIII. Aristocrates 108, III. Olynth. iii. 7). In the Aegean, Philip’s ships attacked Lemnos and Imbros, and the southern tip of Euboea, and even raided Marathon and captured a sacred trireme (Dem. I V. Phil. i. 34).
Philip was a long way from making war on Athens, but by advancing to Thermopylae and the Hellespont he could be perceived as threatening Athens (cf. Dem. XIX. Embassy 180), and he had harmed Athens’ interests and pride in various ways. We should probably date to 352/ 1 the first speech in which Demosthenes treats Philip as a major threat to Athens, his (IV) First Philippic. The message of the speech is that Athens has lost allies and northern settlements by waiting for Philip to strike and reacting apathetically; Athens should seize the initiative by maintaining a permanent raiding force in the north, with a nucleus of citizens (a sign of the extent to which fourth - century wars were being fought by mercenaries), living largely off booty (since the Social War Eubulus had been trying to prevent unprofitable military expenditure: cf. pp. 371 – 2). The Athenians did not follow this advice – probably rightly. Philip was certainly conscious of Athens, as a city whose interests had several times clashed with his, but it is doubtful if at this stage he was specifically targeting Athens. In any case, Demosthenes was recommending this policy too late: it might have achieved something in the early years of Philip’s reign, but by now he was too strong in and near Macedon to be vulnerable to attacks on a scale which Athens could afford.
The Third Sacred War to 352
Many scholars have supposed that Diodorus without realising it narrated one year of the war twice, but what I say below is based on the view that that supposition is mistaken. Diodorus’ account probably does, however, include some smaller duplications, with an episode included in the main narrative at one point and noted from his chronological source at another.
We have seen that in the 360’s Thebes took an interest in Delphi (cf. p. 290). In the early 350’s the Amphictyony imposed fines on two enemies of Thebes: on Sparta, for sacrilege committed in the occupation of the Theban Cadmea from 382 to 379; and on Phocis, which had refused to support the Thebans at Mantinea in 362 (cf. p. 290), probably for cultivating the sacred plain of Cirrha, by the Gulf of Corinth below Delphi, which was used for pasturing sacrificial animals. Both refused to pay, and one of the Phocians, Philomelus, urged his people to assert their traditional claim to control Delphi (cf. pp. 56 – 7). He was elected strategos autokrator, and gained a promise of unofficial support from king Archidamus of Sparta (Diod. Sic. XVI. 23 – 24. ii, cf. 29. ii – iv, Just. Epit.VIII. 1. iv – vii).
In 357/ 6 (Diod. Sic. X V. 14. iii – iv, Paus. X. 2. iii) Philomelus seized Delphi, killing the Thracidae who opposed him but reassuring the other Delphians, defeated a Locrian attack, erased the decree against the Phocians, and insisted that he would not plunder the sanctuary but was merely asserting the Phocians’ rights. While the Boeotians prepared to fight against him, he raided Locris; and, being in possession of Delphi, he ‘consulted’ the oracle by forcing the frightened Pythia on to the tripod, in reaction to which she exclaimed that he could do what he liked (Diod. Sic. XVI. 24. iii – 27. ii, Just. Epit. VIII. 1. viii – xi). In the winter of 356/5 he sent embassies to the Greek cities, gaining the support of Athens, Sparta and some other Peloponnesian cities, and did not touch the sacred treasures but taxed the rich Delphians to build up a mercenary army (Diod. Sic. XVI. 27. iii – 28. ii, Just. Epit. VIII. 1. ix – x).
Ill. 23 Delphi: The temple of Apollo and the stoa of the Athenians (the drawing shows the sixth-century temple which was destroyed in 373/2; the replacement was built on the old plan, and as far as possible used the old columns). From Guide de Delphes, le Site. © EFA/Y. Fomine, D. Laroche
Inscriptions from Delphi show that the men expelled in 363 (cf. p. 290) returned and one of them, Aristoxenus, was archon of Delphi for 356/5. The board of naopoioi responsible for rebuilding the temple functioned normally until 357/6. However, there were no sessions in 355 or 354; then ‘wartime naopoioi’ from states on the Phocian side met from spring 353 to spring 351 (they deposited their funds, with which the Phocians did not interfere, with the city of Delphi). After that, meetings were abandoned until after the war (C. Delphes ii 31. 1 – 70; resumption 345/4, C. Delphesii 34 = R&O 66). The wartime naopoioi include unspecified Locrians, perhaps from Amphissa (cf. below), and we have a fragment of an Athenian alliance with unspecified Locrians of about this time (IG ii 2148). Probably in 356/ 5 the city of Delphi honoured the sons of Athens’ ally Cersebleptes (SIG3 195: archon restored). An inscription from Thebes records contributions of money to the Boeotians for the war over three years c. 354 – 352: the contributors include Byzantium, which in the Social War had left the Athenian League, and the Boeotian proxenos in the pro - Athenian Tenedos (IG vii 2418 = R&O 57 ∽ Harding 74). Xenophon’s Poroi, of the late 350’s, says that all will be supportive if Athens works not by fighting but by diplomacy to make Delphi ‘autonomous as in the past’ (v. 8 – 9).
In 355 Philomelus was attacked by the Locrians but defeated them by the Phaedriadae cliffs. The Locrians then appealed to the Thebans, who appealed to the Thessalian koinon. The Amphictyony formally declared a sacred war against the Phocians, and most of the central Greeks joined the Amphictyonic side (Diod. Sic. XVI. 28. iii – 29. i): alignments were much as they had been in the 360’s. In winter 355/4 Philomelus further increased his forces, and possibly now did use the sacred treasures (Diod. Sic. XVI. 30. i – ii; contr. acquittal 56. v). His successes continued in 354, with a cavalry victory over the Locrians and Thebans, and then a victory over the Thessalians at Argolas, in eastern Locris; but later in the year he was defeated by the Thebans at Neon, near the head of the Cephisus valley, and committed suicide (Diod. Sic. XVI. 30. iii – 31. iv, Just. Epit. VIII. 1. xii – xiii, cf. Paus. X. 2. iv). This might have ended the war. The Thebans did not follow up their victory, and were confident enough to send their general Pammenes to support the Persian rebel Artabazus in 353 (Diod. Sic. XVI. 34. i – ii). The Phocians considered admitting defeat, but Onomarchus, the first of three generals from the same family, persuaded them to persevere and drew on the sacred treasures to strengthen his forces (Diod. Sic. XVI. 31. v, 32. i – 33. ii, Just. Epit. VIII. 1. xiv).
In 353 Onomarchus had a series of successes in the territories around Phocis, among other things gaining the submission of the Locrians of Amphissa; in Boeotia he took Orchomenus but was unsuccessful in a siege of Chaeronea. Philip was brought in to support the Thessalian koinon, while Onomarchus’ brother Phayllus went to support Lycophron of Pherae (Tisiphonus was dead). Philip defeated Phayllus, but Onomarchus went to Thessaly and in two battles gave Philip the most serious defeats in his reign – which perhaps gave the Greeks the false impression that he was not strong enough to pose a serious threat. Late that year or early 352 Onomarchus turned to Boeotia, where he won a battle and took Coronea (Diod. Sic. XVI. 33. iii – iv, 35. i – iii, Just. Epit. VIII. 2. i – ii, Arist. Eth.Nic. III. 1116 b 15 – 23, Ephorus FGrH 70 F 94).
In 352 Philip returned to Thessaly and persuaded the Thessalians ‘to undertake the war jointly’; it was probably at this point that the koinon took the surprising step of appointing him as its archon (cf. Alexander’s succession to the position, p. 391). On the other side Lycophron summoned Onomarchus and the Phocians, ‘offering to organise the affairs of Thessaly together with them’; the Athenians sent Chares by sea to the Gulf of Pagasae. In the major ‘battle of the Crocus Field’, to the west of the Gulf, Philip’s soldiers wore laurel crowns so symbolise their holy cause, the Phocians were defeated, and Onomarchus was among those killed in the stampede to the ships. Phayllus took over the command of the Phocians, and set about reviving their forces; but Lycophron and Pitholaus surrendered Pherae to Philip (they and their mercenaries were allowed to withdraw, and joined the Phocians). Philip went on to capture Pagasae (an earlier capture, after that of Methone, must be either an error by Diodorus or a mistaken restoration in the text of XVI. 31. vi). He then advanced to Thermopylae, but the Athenians reacted promptly, and he did not force the passage. Phayllus moved into Boeotia but was three times defeated (Diod. Sic. XVI. 35. iii – 36. i, 37 – 38. ii, Just. Epit. VIII. 2. iii – xii, cf. Dem. XIX.Embassy 84, 319).
An episode in the Peloponnese displays the same alignment of the Greek states. While the Greeks were preoccupied with the Sacred War, Sparta tried to exploit the principle of echein ta heauton (cf. p. 233) to recover Messenia, and in 353 attacked Megalopolis. Megalopolis appealed to its allies, including (thanks to the treaty after Mantinea) Athens; Athens’ sympathies were with Sparta, on the same side in the Sacred War; Demosthenes in (XVI) For the Megalopolitans urged Athens to support Megalopolis rather than leave it to Thebes to do so. Athens reaffirmed its support for the independent Messene but did not take part in the war; Thebes and several Peloponnesian states supported Megalopolis; Sparta was supported by the Phocians and, from the summer of 352, the mercenaries from Pherae. In 352 Sparta captured Orneae, west of Argos, and sacked Helisson, west of Mantinea; in 351, with little happening in central Greece, the Thebans sent a larger force and were victorious at Thelphusa, in the west of Arcadia, and elsewhere; in 350 there was a Spartan victory and the war ended with a truce which changed nothing (Diod. Sic. XVI. 34. iii, 39).
Olynthus and Euboea
Two crises blew up in 349/8, both of concern to Athens. We have seen that in the late 350’s Olynthus was feeling threatened by Philip and was moving towards Athens. Olynthus took in Philip’s surviving step - brothers as refugees (Just. Epit. VIII. 3. x); this provided Philip with the excuse for an attack, and he began in the summer of 349 by taking some of the smaller cities of Chalcidice. Olynthus made an alliance with Athens, which sent Chares with an expedition in support (Diod. Sic. XVI. 52. ix, Philoch. FGrH 328 F 49). It may be true that Philip then had to interfere in Pherae, but hardly that Pitholaus had returned and had to be expelled again (Diod. Sic. XVI. 52. ix, cf. Dem. I. Ol. i. 22, II. Ol. ii. 11).
Euboea had rejoined Athens in 357 (cf. pp. 274 – 5), but in enemy hands could provide an invader from the north with a means of by - passing Thermopylae. Early in 348 Plutarchus of Eretria appealed for Athenian support when challenged by the exiled Clitarchus, and Phocion was sent with a small force; Callias of Chalcis obtained mercenaries from Phocis to support the other side. There was anxiety in Athens: Apollodorus proposed that surplus revenue should be transferred to the stratiotic (army) fund (cf. p. 372) and the council proposed a major expedition. However, Apollodorus’ proposal was quashed, and the major expedition was not sent since Phocion reported that he had won a victory although Plutarchus had turned against Athens. Early in the summer Phocion called for reinforcements, expelled Plutarchus from Eretria and returned to Athens. But by midsummer things had gone badly wrong for Athens: Molossus, Phocion’s successor, was captured by Plutarchus, Athens had to pay 50 talents to ransom him and others, and all of Euboea except Carystus, in the south, passed out of Athens’ sphere of influence (Plut. Phoc. 12 – 14. ii, Dem. XXI. Midias 161 – 4, and various allusions by Demosthenes and Aeschines; schol. Dem. V. Peace 5 [21 Dilts], Aeschin. III. Ctesiphon 86 [190 Dilts]). There are slight indications that Philip gave some help to the anti - Athenian side (Aeschin. III, Ctesiphon 87, Plut. Phoc. 12. i).
Meanwhile, in spring 348 Athens sent further help to Olynthus, transferring a force under Charidemus from the Hellespont. Philip took more of the cities of Chalcidice; the Olynthians were defeated in battle and besieged; and when they appealed for a citizen force Athens prepared a substantial expedition, once more under Chares. But during the summer that was delayed by the regular ‘etesian’ winds, which hampered sailing to the north; at some point the pro -Athenian Apollonides was expelled from Olynthus and fled to Athens, and a decree to grant him citizenship was proposed but was quashed through a graphe paranomon (Dem. IX. Phil. iii. 56, 66, [Dem.] LIX. Neaera 91). In late summer, before Athens’ expedition could arrive, Olynthus was betrayed to Philip; the population was enslaved and the city destroyed (Philoch. FGrH 328 FF 50 – 1, 156, Diod. Sic. XVI. 53. ii – iii, 55. i).
For Demosthenes, supporting Olynthus was in line with the policy of the First Philippic, to strike at Philip as near to the heart of Macedon as possible, and he was energetic in championing Olynthus. His (I – III) Olynthiacs i – iii were probably delivered, in that order, in the second half of 349. In a speech of 346 he describes the Euboean campaign as inglorious and expensive, and claims to have been the only man to have opposed it (V. Peace 5). But Athens could not save Olynthus if Philip was determined to take it; Euboea in 348, like Thermopylae in 352, was more obviously relevant to the security of Athens, and it is not surprising that most Athenians thought Euboea more important than Olynthus. The Euboean campaign was a campaign of Eubulus and his supporters: Demosthenes describes Eubulus’ friend Midias as an agent of Plutarchus (Dem. XXI. Midias110, 200), and Eubulus’ relative Hegesilaus was prosecuted for deceiving the people in connection with it (Dem. XIX. Embassy 290 with schol. [513 Dilts]).
In midsummer 348 there were reports that Philip would like peace with Athens (Olynthus had not yet fallen, and this suggestion was probably a device to undermine Athenian support). Philocrates proposed that Athens should receive a deputation from Philip; he was prosecuted in a graphe paranomon, was defended by Demosthenes, and, in Demosthenes’ first success in a public issue, was acquitted (Aeschin. II. Embassy 12 – 15, III. Ctesiphon 62). From this point until peace was made in 346 Demosthenes was in favour of peace, and we have to assume that he was sulking at the Athenians’ failure to take notice of his warnings, and wanted a treaty not because he believed in peace but because he believed that Philip’s subsequent conduct would show that his warnings had after all been justified. On the other hand, Eubulus and his associates, including Aeschines, were alarmed after the failure in Euboea and the fall of Olynthus, and in winter 348/7 under a decree of Eubulus embassies were sent out to rouse the Greeks against Philip, Aeschines going to Arcadia (Dem. XIX. Embassy 9 – 11, 203 – 14, Aeschin. II. Embassy 79).
The End of the Third Sacred War
Phayllus had succeeded Onomarchus as Phocian general after the battle of the Crocus Field. In 351, while the Thebans were making their main effort in the Peloponnese, he was defeated in one night attack but nevertheless captured the whole of eastern Locris. He died in the winter of 351/0, and was succeeded by Onomarchus’ son Phalaecus under the guardianship of Mnaseas. In 350 the Thebans pulled out of the Peloponnese. They first killed Mnaseas in a night attack and then defeated Phalaecus in a cavalry battle; Phalaecus took Chaeronea but was driven out, and the Boeotians then ravaged Phocis. In 349 there were only minor skirmishes (Diod. Sic. XVI. 38. iii – vii, 39. viii, 40. ii, Paus. X. 2. vi – vii). Although Athens and Phocis were on the same side in the Sacred War, the Phocians supported the anti - Athenian side in Euboea. In the Sacred War 348 was a largely successful year for them: after a Boeotian raid on Hyampolis, north of Boeotia, Phalaecus defeated the Boeotians at Coronea and captured several cities, and another Boeotian raiding party was defeated as it returned home (Diod. Sic. XVI. 56. i – ii).
The Phocians had good prospects of victory, but some were feeling uneasy about their use of sacred treasures to pay for mercenaries, and so in winter 348/7 Phalaecus was deposed, a triumvirate was appointed in his place, and an investigation into the use of the sacred treasures was made. Philomelus was absolved, but the treasurer, Philo, and the remaining generals were found guilty (Diod. Sic. XVI. 56. iii – 57, cf. Paus. X. 2. vii). In 347 the Phocians continued the war, building on their successes of 348, and the Thebans appealed to Philip, who had played no part in the war since 352. He sent a token force, not displeased at the Thebans’ weakness but not wanting to condone the Phocians’ sacrilege, according to Diodorus, and the Thebans successfully attacked a fort which the Phocians were building at Abae, near Hyampolis (Diod. Sic. XVI. 58, cf. Dem. XIX.Embassy 141).
The Thebans asked Philip to support them again in 346. The Phocians appealed to Sparta and Athens, inviting the Athenians to occupy forts in Locris to the east of Thermopylae, and Athens sent Proxenus with an expedition of fifty ships. But in a counter - revolution about February 346 Phalaecus returned to power, Athenian and Spartan offers of help were rebuffed, and the Phocians refused the truce for the Lesser Eleusinian Mysteries (Diod. Sic. XVI. 59. i – ii, Aeschin. II. Embassy 132 – 5, cf. 37, Dem. XIX.Embassy 322): presumably there had been contact between Phalaecus and Philip, and Philip was dropping encouraging hints to Phalaecus.
We shall look in more detail below at the effect of this on Athens. Eubulus and his associates had been trying to organise resistance to Philip by the southern Greeks, but this depended on cooperation with Phocis, and without that cooperation resistance was no longer feasible, so they turned to peace. The terms – peace for ‘Athens and its allies’, i.e. the Second Athenian League – were agreed and sworn to in Athens in mid to late April. Philip and his allies had to swear, but he was in Thrace fighting against Cersebleptes, and envoys from Athens and almost all of Greece spent June waiting at Pella for him to return. When he did return he was in no hurry to swear, but assembled a large army, and the envoys accompanied him and it south. There was considerable uncertainty about his intentions, and Aeschines hoped that the Phocians might yet be saved. When the Athenian embassy reached home, on 8 July, Philip was at Thermopylae, giving dubious assurances to the Phocians; Demosthenes in his report to the council urged that the Phocians should not be abandoned; but on 11 July, when the assembly met, Philip’s position was known and Athens could only advise the Phocians to submit. On 18 July the Phocians capitulated; Phalaecus secured terms by which he and his mercenaries were allowed to withdraw (Dem. XIX. Embassy 53 – 66, Diod. Sic. XVI. 59. iii, Just. Epit. VIII. 5. i – iii). In a caricature of the roaming mercenaries’ existence, Phalaecus first tried to take them to a war in Italy, but they mutinied (cf. p. 330); he then took them to Crete, where in fighting for Cnossus they were defeated and he was killed by Archidamus and a Spartan force fighting for Lyctus (cf. p. 385). Philip had remained true to the Amphictyony’s aim of punishing the sacrilegious Phocians, and by encouraging uncertainty about his intentions he had on behalf of the Amphictyony won a bloodless victory.
In late summer 346 he convened an extraordinary meeting of the Amphictyonic council. The Phocians were expelled from the Amphictyony, required to repay the stolen funds, allegedly more than 10,000 talents altogether, originally at the rate of 30 talents per half - year (they began in autumn 343 [C. Delphes ii 36 = R&O 67], and by the last attested payment, probably in 319/8, had paid c. 400 talents; cf. below), were disarmed and were made to live in small villages. Nicaea, immediately to the east of Thermopylae, which had been in the hands of the Phocians, was given to the Thessalians (Aeschin. III. Ctesiphon 140). Sparta also was expelled from the Amphictyony (Paus. X. 8. ii: it had perhaps voted with the Dorians of central Greece), but Athens (which had one of the two Ionian votes) was not. The Amphictyony was reconstituted, with Thessaly, of which Philip was archon, taking first place and Philip himself (not Macedon) second. If it had not already happened earlier, two of the smaller peoples who had originally been represented separately were now combined in a single unit, and the unit thus freed was assigned to the polis of Delphi. In the autumn Philip presided over the Pythian games (Diod. Sic. XVI. 59. iv – 60, Just. Epit. VIII. 5. iv – vi). In 34 3 /2 the Delphian building accounts record the removal of statues of Onomarchus and Philomelus (C. Delphes ii 34 = R&O 66. ii. 56 – 9): either this was a surprisingly delayeddamnatio memoriae or in their current position the statues were simply in the way of the building works.
What Philip hoped to achieve in 346 will be discussed below. What he did achieve was a recognised position of importance in the Greek world through his membership of the Amphictyony. The Phocians had been justly, though perhaps not as drastically as the Thebans and Thessalians wished, punished for their sacrilege; the Thebans, after ten years of war, much of it fought in Boeotian territory, were weakened and gained little from being on the winning side (cf. Isoc. V. Philip 53 – 5); Athens and Sparta had both been on the losing side, and Greek states or parties within states hostile to them were increasingly likely to look to Philip for support (cf. Isoc. V. Philip 74, Dem. V. Peace 18, Polyb. IX. 33. ii – xii, XVIII. 14).
The Peace of Philocrates
Demosthenes and Aeschines told their stories in 343, when Demosthenes prosecuted Aeschines, and again in 330, when Aeschines prosecuted Ctesiphon (in this section their four major speeches are cited briefly as A. II, III, D. XIX, XVIII). What actually happened is hard to disentangle, since each had made a major change in policy which he was anxious to conceal: Demosthenes from 348 until peace was made wanted to get peace on whatever terms he could, but once it had been made looked for renewed conflict (once Philip provided a justification: see p. 350 on Dem. V. Peace); Aeschines originally, from 348 until in 346 Phalaecus made resistance impossible, wanted to resist, but he was then forced to look for peace, and wanted to make the best of Philip’s hints at the time and of the disappointing outcome afterwards (he was still proud of the peace in 346/5, I.Timarchus 174; contrast his defensiveness in 343, A. II. 56, 79).
Theoretically Athens had been at war with Philip since his capture of Amphipolis in 357, and the Peace of Philocrates was to end that war. In the summer of 348, to weaken Athens’ support for Olynthus, Philip let it be known that he was interested in peace, Philocrates proposed that Athens should receive a deputation from him, and he was successfully defended by Demosthenes (cf. p. 345). No deputation came, but Philocrates and Demosthenes had Aristodemus (an actor with contacts in Macedon and elsewhere) sent to negotiate with Philip over Athenians captured in Olynthus; eventually, perhaps early 346, Aristodemus reported that Philip would like even an alliance (A. II. 15 – 17). Eubulus and Aeschines had become alarmed about Philip: embassies were sent to southern Greek states in winter 348/7 (cf. above); and again in winter 347/6 to invite representatives to a war congress (A. II. 87 – 9, III. 64 – 70, D. XIX. 15, XVIII. 23 – 4). About February 346 Phalaecus returned to power in Phocis and rejected Athenian and Spartan help.
Probably the news of that rejection led the Athenians to seek peace (cf. A. II. 134). Late in February Philocrates proposed the dispatch of the first embassy to Philip, including himself, Demosthenes (he was nominated by Philocrates, but in his speeches he tries to distance himself from Philocrates), Aeschines and Aristodemus (A. II. 18 – 20, D. XIX. 12 – 13). The envoys hurried (D. XIX. 163); allegedly Demosthenes as the youngest member lost his nerve when addressing Philip (A. II. 34 – 5). In mid March they returned, bringing a letter from Philip. Demosthenes was a councillor for this crucial year 347/6. In the council he proposed the standard honours for the envoys; in the assembly, again speaking last, he disparaged Philip but proposed that the assembly should meet on two successive days (cf. the decision over Corcyra and Corinth in 433, pp. 88– 9) to discuss peace and alliance (A. II. 45 – 54, 110, D. XIX. 234).
The synedrion of Athens’ League proposed waiting until the envoys inviting to a war congress had returned, and then holding assemblies to discuss peace; but added that it would accept what Athens decided (A. II. 60). Demosthenes’ original plan was for assemblies on 8 – 9 Elaphebolion = 5 – 6 April, before the Dionysia (A. III. 67), but Philip’s envoys did not arrive in time. Demosthenes saw to their entertainment at the Dionysia (A. II. 55, 110 – 11, III. 76, D. XIX. 234, XVIII. 28), and his revised plan was for assemblies on the first two days available after the festival, 18 – 19 Elaphebolion = 15 – 16 April, with discussion on the first day and the vote on the second (A. II. 61 – 2, 65, 109).
It now becomes particularly hard to work out what happened, but a possible solution is as follows. On the 18th there were at any rate two proposals under discussion: one from the League synedrion, that there should be a common peace, which any Greek state might join within three months (A. III. 69 – 70); and another from Philocrates, that there should be a peace explicitly excluding Phocis and Halus, a city on the Gulf of Pagasae which was currently being besieged by Pharsalus with support from Philip (D. XIX. 159). The synedrion’s proposal was supported by Aeschines, who wanted peace but did not want to abandon Phocis (A. II. 63, III. 71, D. XIX. 14), and also by Demosthenes, who proposed that it should be put to Philip’s envoys (D. XIX. 144). Philip’s envoys were not brought in until the 19th. Demosthenes alleges that on that day he continued to support a common peace but Aeschines had changed his position and now supported Philocrates. Demosthenes goes on to claim that the Macedonians said an alliance with Phocis was impossible, and Aeschines said they had to say that because of Thebes and Thessaly but Athens should nevertheless trust Philip (D. XIX. 15 – 16, 144, 321, cf. A. II. 63). To Demosthenes’ allegations Aeschines has various responses: that there was to be no debate on the 19th, so he could not have supported Philocrates; that Demosthenes himself had prepared a motion identical with that of Philocrates (A. II. 64 – 8); that when circumstances were against Athens Aeschines did advocate the peace which Demosthenes calls disgraceful (A. II. 79). In 330 Aeschines claims that Demosthenes said the synedrion’s proposal was pointless unless the Macedonians accepted, there could not be peace without alliance and Athens could not wait on others; and that after that Demosthenes interrogated Antipater, Philip’s chief representative, and gained acceptance for Philocrates’ motion (A. III. 71 – 2).
On the 18th, it seems, the Athenians had discussed unrealistically what kind of peace they would like; on the 19th Demosthenes discovered from Antipater what kind of peace Philip would allow – and then there must have been a renewed debate, considering peace on Philip’s terms or no peace. Aeschines, trusting in Philip’s hints, wanted peace; Demosthenes, wanting Philip to be committed to something, wanted peace; Eubulus dwelled on the financial consequences of not making peace (D. XIX. 291). Not everybody agreed: Hegesippus, who had proposed the alliance with the Phocians at the beginning of the Sacred War, was opposed on their account (A. III. 118 with schol. [265 Dilts]; D. XIX. 72 – 4 with schol. 72 [172 Dilts]), and Aristophon insisted on Athens’ claim to Amphipolis and thought it had the resources to fight (Theopompus FGrH 115 F 166). Philocrates’ proposal was carried but in an amended form, not excluding Phocis and Halus but including ‘Athens and its allies’ (D. XIX. 159). As what followed in the next few days makes clear, that was taken to mean Athens and the League, but there was a loophole which people could try to exploit, since the words might mean Athens and every state allied to Athens, including Phocis.
The peace was not made until both sides had sworn to it. After meeting Athens’ first embassy Philip had set out for Thrace, promising not to touch the Chersonese. On 23 or 24 Elaphebolion = 20 or 21 April he captured Hieron Oros, and Cersebleptes ‘lost his kingdom’ (though he was not finally evicted until 342). The next day in Athens Demosthenes tried to rule out of order, and the assembly considered but rejected, a request from Cersebleptes to be admitted to the League and the peace; and on the proposal of Philocrates the League synedroi swore to the peace (A. II. 82 – 90, III. 73 – 4, D. XIX. 174, 181). Philip and his allies had to swear too. Athens’ second embassy, to receive their oaths, did not hurry; but, despite Demosthenes’ indignation (D. XIX. 154 – 6, XVIII. 25 – 31), while Philip was in Thrace there was no point in hurrying. They arrived at Pella in late May, and Philip arrived in late June. As he prepared for a major expedition, the envoys from Athens and elsewhere lobbied him. Demosthenes, at odds with his colleagues, refused to tangle with Philip over Phocis and Thebes but arranged the ransom of some Athenian prisoners (A. II. 97 – 100, 106 – 12, D. XIX. 166 – 73). Aeschines claims to have urged Philip to punish only the individuals responsible for the sacrilege at Delphi and not to allow Boeotia to be dominated by Thebes (A. II. 101 – 5, 113 – 19); Demosthenes blames Aeschines for excluding Phocis, Halus and Cersebleptes from the peace (D. XIX. 44, 174, 278). Probably Philip did drop hints that he would not punish the innocent and did not want a powerful Thebes; Aeschines wanted to believe and did, Demosthenes did not.
Philip swore at Pella (D. XVIII. 32), but his allies did not swear until the expedition reached Pherae (D. XIX. 158). He was at Thermopylae when the Athenians reached home, on 13 Scirophorion = 8 July. Demosthenes persuaded the council to recommend to the assembly not to abandon Phocis, but in the assembly on 16 Scirophorion = 11 July this probouleuma was not read out: presumably it was now known that it was too late to save Phocis. Aeschines reported Philip’s hints and urged the Athenians to trust them; a formal letter from Philip was read out; a motion of Philocrates (who seems to have been a sincere supporter of peace with Philip) was carried, extending the treaty with Philip to his descendants, calling on the Phocians to surrender Delphi to the Amphictyony, and promising that Athens would help to enforce that (D. XIX. 31 – 50, cf. A. II. 119 – 23). A third embassy was appointed, to report this to Philip; Demosthenes refused to serve, and Aeschines stayed in Athens too. Philip sent a letter asking Athens to send its army against the Phocians, but Demosthenes persuaded the assembly not to do so (D. XIX. 121 – 4, cf. 51 – 2, A. II. 94 – 5, 137 – 8).
The Phocians capitulated on 23 Scirophorion = 18 July; the third embassy turned back on hearing the news. The Athenians panicked, deciding to strengthen their fortifications, bring their women and children into the city and celebrate the Heraclea inside the city – but Philip made no move against Athens. He dealt with Phocis through the Amphictyonic council; he captured Halus and gave it to Pharsalus (D. XIX. 36 – 9, Str. 433. IX. v. 8). A fourth embassy went to Philip, and Aeschines claims to have saved some innocent Phocians (D. XIX. 59 – 60, 86, 125, A. II. 95 – 6, 139, 142 – 3).
The hints encouraged by Aeschines had proved vain, and the Athenians were angry. They boycotted the Pythian games (D. XIX. 128); they gave a hostile reception to the request to recognise Philip’s admission to the Amphictyony (D. XIX. 111 – 13); and they remained in touch with Sparta (Dem. V. Peace 18). It seems that some men were prepared to go to war against Philip, but Demosthenes in (V) On the Peace took the line that war was inevitable but Athens should wait for a suitable occasion; if they fought now they would be technically in the wrong and the Greeks would unite against them; they should not risk that for the sake of ‘a shadow at Delphi’. Isocrates, however, now focused on Philip as the man to lead the Greeks in a patriotic war against the Persians (V. Philip, of 346; Letters to Philip).
What of Philip? Some have thought that his hints were intended seriously, and that he would have preferred to act on them but was prevented by the intransigence of Demosthenes. That is hard to believe – he had no reason to turn against Thebes, and would have lost face badly if he had decided that the Phocians were not wicked after all – but he was fond of keeping his opponents guessing and undermining their opposition, and by doing this now he was able to win the war without a battle. Others have suggested that he was already thinking of a war against the Persians, and wanted a cooperative Athens for the sake of its navy; but despite Isocrates there is no sign that Philip was interested in Persia before 341 (the claim that at some point there was an alliance between Philip and Artaxerxes, in Darius’ letter in Arr. Anab. II. 14. ii, is almost certainly false). More probably, for a man brought up on the edge of the Greek world, a recognised position in Greece was an important objective in its own right; Demosthenes’ opposition was tiresome, but there were Athenians willing to acknowledge him; and Athens was a well - fortified city and could not easily be taken by force.
Philip’s Final Victory
In Athens there was a revision of the citizen registers (Aeschin. I. Timarchus 77 with schol. [169 Dilts], 86, Androtion FGrH 324 F 52, Philoch. FGrH 328 F 52, cf. Isae. XII. Euphiletus, Dem. LVII. Eubulides), and one of the men rejected was to be charged by Demosthenes with attempting to burn Athens’ dockyards for Philip (cf. p. 379). Although Phocis was a sore point, Philip’s campaign in Thrace while the peace was pending was more obviously unfair and more of a threat to Athens’ interests: Euclides was sent to remonstrate, and Philip offered to cut a canal through the isthmus of the Chersonese (Dem. VI. Phil. ii. 30, [Dem.] VII. Halonnesus 39 – 40).
Philip strengthened his position at home, with various movements of population (Dem. XIX. Embassy 89, Just. Epit. VIII. 5. vi – 6. ii). Perhaps in 345, he campaigned against the Illyrians and was wounded (Diod. Sic. XVI. 69. vii, Just. Epit. VIII. 6. iii, Didymus xii. 64 – xiii. 2). In 344 he ‘expelled tyrants’ from Thessaly (there was trouble involving a man called Simus in Larisa, and he installed a garrison in Pherae), and Demosthenes refers to his instituting a ‘decadarchy’, the rule of a clique of ten men (Diod. Sic. XVI. 69. viii; Dem. XVIII. Crown 48, Arist. Pol. V. 1306 a 26 – 30 with Kraay p. 119 no. 395; [Dem.] VII. Halonnesus 32; Dem. VI. Phil. ii. 22). In 343/2 Athens tried to win over the Thessalians (schol. Aeschin. III. Ctesiphon 83 [181 Dilts]), but did not succeed, and in 342 Philip revived the old organisation of Thessaly in four regional units known as tetrads (Dem. IX. Phil. iii. 26, Theopompus FGrH 115 FF 208 – 9).
In the course of 344 various envoys from Philip and his allies went to Athens, complaining of slanders against Philip and support for Sparta, and offering an amendment (epanorthosis) of the peace terms. Demosthenes’ (VI) Second Philippic is a fairly early reply. A little later there coincided with a deputation from Philip one from Persia, and the Athenians together with the Spartans confirmed their friendship with Persia but (unlike Thebes) declined to send troops for the latest attempt on Egypt (Philoch. FGrH 328 F 157, Diod. Sic. XVI. 44. i – ii [misdated: cf. p. 364]). At this stage Athens was without a settled policy, but the pendulum swung towards hostility to Philip. Hegesippus persuaded the Athenians to take a hard line, demanding under the principle of echein ta heauton the return of Amphipolis and of forts in Thrace which Philip had captured in 346, and the expansion of the Peace of Philocrates into a common peace. Hegesippus visited Macedon and made himself highly unpopular, and in response to Philip’s offer to give (didonai) to Athens Halonnesus, an island in the north Aegean which he had cleared of pirates, Hegesippus insisted that it belonged to Athens and Philip could only give it back (apodidonai). The matter dragged on to 342, when Philip was willing to submit to arbitration over the Thracian forts (where he had a strong case) and to accept a common peace (which he now thought he could use to his advantage), but only to ‘give’ Halonnesus and not to give Amphipolis. [Dem.] VII. Halonnesus is Hegesippus’ unrepentant reaction; and Philip seems to have lost patience. Plato’s nephew Speusippus in his Letter to Philip of 343/ 2, trying to outdo Theopompus and Isocrates, suggested that through Heracles Amphipolis (§ 6) and other places ‘belonged’ to Philip.
Immediately after the peace Demosthenes planned with Timarchus to prosecute Aeschines for his conduct on the second embassy (Aeschin. II. Embassy 96), but Timarchus’ private life left him vulnerable and in 346/5 Aeschines prosecuted him (Aeschin. I. T imarchus: cf. p. 375). In 343, as attitudes to Philip were hardening, charges were brought to court. Philocrates was prosecuted by Hyperides, and was condemned in absence (Dem. XIX. Embassy 116 – 19, Aeschin. II. Embassy 6, Hyp. IV. Euxenippus 29 – 30); Proxenus was perhaps condemned for delay in conveying the second embassy to Philip (Dem. XIX. Embassy 280 with schol. [493 Dilts]). Nevertheless, when Demosthenes himself prosecuted Aeschines, Eubulus spoke for the defence, and by a small majority Aeschines was acquitted (Idomeneus FGrH 338 F 10 ap. Plut. Dem. 15. v, [Plut.] X Orat. 840 c).
In various parts of Greece there were local conflicts, not stirred up by Athens or Philip but often leading to their being invoked as supporters. In 344 Argos and Messene accepted help from Philip against Sparta, despite a warning from Demosthenes (Dem. VI.Phil. ii. 15, 19 – 26); but in 343/2they and other Peloponnesian states became allies of Athens (schol. Aeschin. III. Ctesiphon 83 [181 Dilts], cf. IG ii 2 225). In Megara (with which Athens had had frontier problems in the late 350’ s: IG ii 2 204 = R&O 58, Androtion FGrH 324 F 30, Philoch. FGrH 328 F 155) a pro - Athenian party asked Athens for help against an aristocratic, pro - Philip party, and Phocion was sent and rebuilt the long walls linking Megara to the harbour town of Nisaea (Dem. XIX. Embassy 87, 204, 294 – 5, 326, 394, Plut. Phoc. 15). In Elis there was a revolution, for which Demosthenes blamed Philip (Dem. XIX. Embassy 260, 294, X. Phil. iv. 10). In 343/2 Philip intervened in Molossis, ousting king Arybbas in favour of Alexander, Arybbas’ nephew and Olympias’ brother: Arybbas fled to Athens and was welcomed with a decree making the (unfulfilled) promise to restore him to his realm ([Dem.] VII. Halonnesus 32, Theopompus FGrH 115 FF 206 – 7, Just. Epit. VIII. 6. iv – viii, Diod. Sic. XVI. 72. i [garbled],IG ii 2 226 = R&O 70). Demosthenes served on an embassy to Ambracia and Acarnania, and to oblige Corinth the Athenians campaigned in Acarnania (Dem. IX.Phil. iii. 34, 72, [Dem.] XLVIII. Olympiodorus 24 – 6, Aeschin. III. Ctesiphon 97 – 8).
In Euboea, which Athens had lost in 348, Philip’s interventions were badly judged. Demosthenes refers to Philip’s partisans as tyrants and their opponents as the demos: probably ‘tyrant’ is simply a smear - word, and Philip might have reversed the labels, but the men Philip supported do seem to have been unpopular. In Eretria in 343 he destroyed the harbour town of Porthmus and put Clitarchus and others in power; in 342 further expeditions were needed to keep them in power. In Oreus Philip established Philistides and others (Dem. IX. Phil. iii. 57 – 62). Callias of Chalcis fell out with Philip and, failing to get help from Thebes, gained an alliance with Athens. With his help the Athenians overthrew the régime in Oreus at the end of 342/1 and the régime in Eretria at the beginning of 341 /0 (a recently published Eretrian law to protect their democracy probably belongs to this context). Callias then with Demosthenes’ support created a Euboean League affiliated to the Athenian, on terms that if the Euboeans paid syntaxeis to their own league they did not have to pay to the Athenians also (Aeschin. III. Ctes. 89 – 94, 100 – 5, schol. 85, 103 [184, 222 Dilts], Philoch. FGrH 328 FF 159 – 60, Diod. Sic. XVI. 74. i).
Open conflict between Philip and Athens was to arise from the Chersonese. In 342 Philip returned to Thrace, finally expelled Amadocus’ son Teres from the middle kingdom and Cersebleptes from the eastern ([Dem.] XII. Philip’s Letter 8 – 10), and set about founding military colonies. Athens sent further cleruchs to the Chersonese, with a garrison under Diopithes; and Diopithes came into conflict with Cardia, on the isthmus. Cardia had been retained by Cersebleptes when he ceded the Chersonese to Athens (Dem. XXIII. Aristocrates 181 – 3) and had been specified as an ally of Philip in the Peace of Philocrates, but Athens had been disputing the extent of its territory ([Dem.] VII. Halonnesus 39 – 44). Philip, spending the winter of 342/1 in Thrace, protested to Athens, and ‘the philippisers among the politicians’ wanted to give way (Dem. VIII. Chersonese, hyp. 3); but Demosthenes championed Diopithes, claiming that Philip could not want Thrace for its own sake but, although he was not openly at war, his aim was to conquer Athens and all Greece (cf. Diod. Sic. XVI. 71. i – ii). The Demosthenic corpus contains three speeches of 341: VIII. Chersonese, IX.Philippic iii (in longer and shorter versions), X. Philippic iv (repeating some material from VIII). It need not surprise us if at this crucial time Demosthenes revised and recycled material for delivery in Athens and for circulation outside. Thrace was not as undesirable as Demosthenes claims, but, if Philip did not want Thrace for its own sake and needed some further motive for reaching the Hellespont, cutting Athens’ corn supply was not the only possibility: Dem. X. Phil. iv. 31 – 4 shows the earliest awareness that Philip might make war on Persia.
Diopithes was left in command: by midsummer he had attacked the Thracian coast and Philip was known to be supporting Cardia. Demosthenes was determined to represent Philip as a threat not just to Athens but to everybody. He won over Byzantium and various others to the Athenian side (Dem. XVIII. Crown 244, 302, Aeschin. III. Ctesiphon 256); Hyperides won back Rhodes and Chios ([Plut.] X Orat. 850 a, cf. Dem. IX. Phil. iii. 71, Hyp. frs. 5 – 6 Burtt). Persia too was approached, and Persian money reached Diopithes after his death (Arist. Rhet. II. 1386 a 13) and perhaps reached Demosthenes and Hyperides too ([Plut.] X Orat. 848 e). In winter 341/0 Demosthenes and Callias of Chalcis toured the Peloponnese to invite representatives to a war congress. Aeschines gives a date and suggests that the congress never met; but, whether or not it did meet then or later, it is clear that an alliance against Philip was growing.
Various acts of hostility were committed against Philip: Callias attacked cities on the Gulf of Pagasae and captured ships bound for Macedon; the people of Peparethus expelled Philip’s troops from Halonnesus; the Athenians seized a Macedonian herald and published his dispatches ([Dem.] XII. Philip’s Letter 5, 12 – 15, 2). Diopithes was kept in the north - east, and by spring 340 Chares was there too (IG ii 2 228 = R&O 71 ∼ Harding 94). Tenedos lent money to Athens to help pay for action against Philip (IG ii 2 233 = R&O 72 ∼ Harding 97). A mercenary force was stationed on Thasos ([Plut.] X Orat. 845 f). At the Dionysia of 340 Demosthenes was for the first time awarded a crown for his services to Athens (Dem. XVIII. Crown 83, 223). In summer 340 Philip sent a fleet into the Propontis and, because of the hostility of the Athenian cleruchs, an army to support it. He began a siege of Perinthus, using the most up - to - date machinery. There seems to have been a particularly significant development in military technology under Philip and Alexander: at Perinthus both sides used arrow - firing catapults, and Philip’s may have been torsion - powered, but there is still no sign of stone - throwing catapults, though the Phocians are said to have had what may have been non - torsion stone - throwers in 353 – 352 (Polyaen. II. 38. ii); for the attribution of the first catapults to Dionysius I of Syracuse cf. p. 318. The Persian King ordered his satraps to support Perinthus; and Byzantium sent help, so Philip detached part of his force to besiege that, and probably Selymbria too (Diod. Sic. XVI. 74. ii – 76. iv, Just. Epit. IX. 1. ii – v, Philoch. FGrH 328 FF 53 – 4).
[Dem.] XII. Philip’s Letter to Athens, complaining of incidents to the summer of 340, and effectively if not explicitly declaring war (§ 23), appears to be authentic in substance if not word for word (but [Dem.] XI. Reply is a compilation from Demosthenes’ speeches). When Philip captured Athenian merchant ships waiting for Chares to escort them from the Black Sea, Athens declared war on Philip, with each side accusing the other of breaking the Peace of Philocrates (Diod. Sic. XVI. 77. ii, Just. Epit. IX. 1. v – viii, Philoch. FGrH 328 FF 55, 162, schol. Dem. XVIII. Crown 76 [140 Dilts]). Chares was unpopular with the cities under siege, but Phocion and Cephisophon were acceptable (Plut. Phoc. 14. iii – viii, IG ii 2 1629. 957 – 65); help came from Athens’ allies, and from Persia (Paus. I. 29. x, Arr. Anab. II. 14. v). Philip was making no progress, and in spring 339 decided to withdraw, tricking the Athenians in order to extract his ships from the Black Sea (Frontin. Str. I. iv. 13, 13 a). He surely did not, as Diodorus claims (XVI. 77. iii), make a treaty, but this was his first setback since he had been stopped at Thermopylae in 352. He went north and raided the lands of a Scythian ruler in the Dobrudja, but as he returned he was attacked and wounded by the Triballians (Just. Epit. IX. 1. ix – 3. iii).
Philip was brought back into Greece by the Fourth Sacred War. At Delphi Athens had been renewing Persian War dedications, with inscriptions emphasising that Thebes had then fought on the enemy side. At the Amphictyonic council in autumn 340, when the representatives of Thebes’ ally Amphissa used that as the starting - point for a denunciation of Athens, Aeschines as Athens’ representative responded by pointing out that the Amphissans were themselves at fault for cultivating the sacred plain of Cirrha, and a skirmish on the plain followed. In the winter an extraordinary meeting of the Amphictyonic council was held, and declared a sacred war against Amphissa. Thebes, not wanting to attack Amphissa, stood out of the war; and Demosthenes, now seeing Thebes as the only possible bulwark between Philip and Athens, by sharp practice in the assembly kept Athens out too. Early in 339 an Amphictyonic force, commanded by a Thessalian as was appropriate when Thessaly occupied the leading position in the Amphictyony, attacked Amphissa, and Amphissa submitted; at the spring council the Amphictyony imposed a fine on Amphissa. However, by the time of the autumn council the fine had still not been paid, and Philip, back from the Propontis and the Dobrudja, was invited to command. In their accounts of this affair in their speeches of 330, Aeschines accuses Amphissa of acting for Thebes, while Demosthenes accuses Aeschines of acting for Philip. Very probably Aeschines innocently thought that the best way to avoid trouble for Athens was to make trouble for somebody else, and the affair ran out of control; Philip did not plan or want the war, but when called in he made effective use of it (Aeschin. III. Ctesiphon 107 – 29, Dem. XVIII. Crown 143 – 55).
Philip had a garrison in Nicaea, east of Thermopylae, which he had taken over from the Phocians in 346. By the time he marched south, Thebes had expelled this garrison (Philoch. FGrH 328 F 56). Instead of going through Thermopylae to attack Nicaea, he took the high - level north – south route which begins west of Thermopylae; but from Cytinium, instead of continuing south to Amphissa, he turned south - east down the Cephisus valley. The news that he had captured Elatea in that valley caused panic in Athens, vividly described by Demosthenes, and (in spite of Thebes’ action at Nicaea) fear that Philip and Thebes would again act as allies and would attack Athens. Demosthenes got himself sent to Thebes; Philip also sent a deputation; but Demosthenes succeeded in securing an alliance with Thebes. The alliance came at a price – Thebes’ control of Boeotia was recognised, Thebes was to command solely on land and jointly at sea, Athens was to pay two thirds of the campaign’s cost – but if Thebes was to join Athens against Philip the price had to be paid (Dem. XVIII. Crown 156 – 88, 211 – 17, Aeschin. III. Ctesiphon 130 – 51, Plut. Dem. 18, Diod. Sic. XVI. 84. ii – 85. iv, Just. Epit. IX. 3. iv – vi). Each side appealed to allies for support; many joined Athens and Thebes, and none from the Peloponnese is known to have joined Philip (Dem. XVIII. Crown 237).
In the winter Thebes and Athens held a line running west – east from Mount Parnassus to Parapotamii, and Philip failed to break through. In spring 338 Demosthenes was honoured in Athens for the second time. But Philip tricked the Theban Proxenus and the Athenian Chares by pretending to withdraw from Cytinium, and then advanced to take Amphissa and to reach the Gulf of Corinth at Naupactus. With Philip in their rear, his opponents’ position was untenable. They moved to Chaeronea, and it was not until early August (7 Metageitnion in the Athenian calendar: Plut. Cam. 19. viii) that the final battle was fought there. Philip had 30,000 infantry and 2,000 cavalry, his opponents perhaps about the same numbers. In the Cephisus valley below the city he was facing south - east, probably on the right himself with his young son Alexander on the left; his opponents were facing north - west, probably with the Athenians on the left and the Thebans and other Boeotians on the right. Philip with his wing drew back, tiring the Athenians, before he attacked, while Alexander with the other annihilated the Theban sacred band; the Macedonians were victorious. Among the Athenian captives were the general Chares and Demades, who for the next twenty years was to be a leading pro - Macedonian politician; among those who escaped after the battle was Demosthenes (Diod. Sic. XVI. 85. ii– 86, Just. Epit. IX. 3. ix – xi, Polyaenus Strat. I V. 2. ii, vii, Plut.Dem. 20. i – ii). The evidence we have does not justify Demosthenes’ attempt to blame the Theban generals for the defeat (Dem. LX. Epitaph. 22).
After Chaeronea
In Athens the news was greeted with alarm: Hyperides was responsible for emergency measures (Lycurg. Leocrates 36 – 7, [Plut.] X Orat. 848 f – 849 a, cf. Hyp. fr. 18 Burtt), and so after his return was Demosthenes, perhaps through his friends (Dem. XVIII.Crown 248, Aeschin. III. Ctesiphon159, Plut. Dem. 21. iii); originally there was a proposal to make Charidemus, an extreme opponent of Macedon, commander in chief, but in the end the position went to the experienced Phocion (cf. p. 379). Philip exulted in his victory, chanting the decree preamble ‘Demosthenes son of Demosthenes, of Paeania, proposed’, but was reproached by Demades, who afterwards went with Aeschines to negotiate, and obtained lenient terms (Diod. Sic. XVI. 87, Just. Epit. IX. 4. i – v, Plut. Dem.20. iii). As in 346, it is hard to think that Philip could have taken Athens by force if he had wanted to do so, and he had reason to be lenient to Athens. By now he was thinking of a Persian war, for which the Athenian navy could be useful – and, while Athens had been an honest enemy, Thebes was an ally which had turned against him.
Philip toured Greece, to have his supremacy acknowledged by all except Sparta, which he deprived of border territories and which could conveniently be left in isolation (Just. Epit. IX. 5. iii; Diod. Sic. XVII. 3. iv – v says Arcadia). Otherwise he imposed a general settlement designed to keep his enemies weak. In Boeotia the federation was retained, but Plataea, Thespiae and Orchomenus were to be refounded (their rebuilding took some time), and Thebes was given a garrison and a régime dominated by returned pro - Macedonian exiles (Diod. Sic. XVI. 87. iii, Just. Epit. IX. 4. vi – x, cf. Arr. Anab. I. 7. xi, Just. Epit. XI. 3. viii). Oropus was probably made independent (IG vii 4250 – 1 = R&O 75, dating the inscriptions 338 – 335). Philip also installed garrisons in Corinth (Plut.Arat. 23. iv) and Ambracia (Diod. Sic. XVII. 3. iii), but Chalcis, another ‘fetter of Greece’, may not have been garrisoned until later. For Athens ‘deprivation of the islands and the ending of sea power’ (Paus. I. 25. iii) meant the loss of the League, but not of Lemnos, Imbros, Scyros, Delos and Samos. On what now seems to be the best dating of the Phocians’ repayments to Delphi (cf., e.g., Ellis, Philip II and Macedonian Imperialism, 123 table 2), after beginning in 34 3 /2 to make semestrial payments of 30 talents, they changed in 341/0 to annual payments of 30 talents, made no payment in 338/7, and changed to annual payments of 10 talents in 336/5 or 335/4. Non - payment in 338/7 may be linked to the Chaeronea campaign, in which (some of) the Phocians were restored to their cities by Thebes and Athens and fought on their side (Paus. X. 3. iii – iv), but the other changes cannot be linked to known events.
To consolidate his arrangements, Philip convened a meeting in Corinth in winter 338/7, at which he imposed on the Greeks a common peace treaty and organised them in what modern scholars call the League of Corinth (Diod. Sic. XVI. 89, Just. Epit. IX. 5. i – iv). An inscription gives us part of the oath sworn by the members, and part of the list of members, with numerals against the names (IG ii 2 236 = R&O 76 ∼ Harding 99. A [see box]). The undertakings include: not to overthrow the kingdom of Philip or his descendants, or the constitution which each participant had when it joined; not to break the agreement or allow anyone else to do so; if anyone did break it, to respond to the injured party’s call and to fight against the offender as decided by the synedrion and called on by the hegemon (‘leader’). Another text provides the qualification that the constitutional guarantee did not apply when the existing constitution was a ‘tyranny’, and mentions guarantees against execution and exile, land reform, liberation of slaves and the like ([Dem.] XVII. Treaty with Alexander 7; 15 – 16).
Oath. I swear by Zeus, Earth, Sun, Poseidon, Athena, Ares, all the gods and goddesses: I shall abide by the peace (?), and I shall neither break the agreement with Philip (?) nor take up arms for harm against any of those who abide by the oaths (?), neither by land nor by sea; nor shall I take any city or guard - post nor harbour, for war, of any of those participating in the peace, by any craft or contrivance; nor shall I overthrow the kingdom of Philip or his descendants, nor the constitution existing in each state when they swore the oaths concerning the peace; nor shall I myself do anything contrary to these agreements, nor shall I allow any one else as far as possible.
If any one does commit any breach of treaty concerning the agreements, I shall go in support as called on by those who are wronged (?), and I shall make war against the one who transgresses the common peace (?) as decided by the common council [synedrion] and called on by the hegemon; and I shall not abandon (IG ii 2 236, a. 2 - 22)
Enforcement of a common peace had always been problematic, though the later treaties had tried to make some provision; now the obligations were drawn up stringently, and enforcement was guaranteed by combining the common peace with a league of allies, which had a synedrion and ahegemon. The guarantee of constitutional stability may be compared with the guarantee of constitutional freedom in the Second Athenian League (cf. p. 265); the numerals in the list suggest not one vote for each state but proportional voting and military contributions as in the Boeotian federation prior to 386. But Philip was in control: it was inconceivable that anyone but he would be hegemon (and Alexander succeeded to this position as of right in 336: cf. p. 391); in the hegemon’s absence a board of ‘those appointed to the common protection’ (cf. the title of the Comitéde Salut Public in France in 1793) deputised for him (e.g. [Dem.] XVII. Treaty with Alexander 15); and the members swore allegiance to the kingdom of Macedon in perpetuity. Certainly when the League was revived in 302, and perhaps in the League as originally organised, decisions were binding on member states, and they could not call their representatives to account (IG iv 2. i 68 = Staatsvertr ä ge 446. iii. 18 – 21).
Earlier in the century Sparta, Athens and Thebes in turn had used the common peace as a means of advancing their partisan interests; now Philip used the common peace and the League to dress up in familiar diplomatic garb his control of Greece. For the lesser cities, membership of a league controlled by Philip (distant, and with other things to think of) was probably preferable to membership of a league controlled by Sparta, Athens or Thebes, and preserving what autonomy they could between or under the shadow of one of their powerful neighbours had always been the best they could hope for. For the major cities, by contrast, freedom meant freedom both to give orders to lesser cities and not to take orders from any superior, and they had now lost that freedom. (The ideal of freedom combined with rule over others is found in many texts from Hdt. I. 210. ii onwards; Lycurg. Leocrates 42 disingenuously represents Athens as a champion of freedom for the Greeks but a ruler over barbarians, and § 50 makes Chaeronea the end of freedom for all the Greeks.)
The kind of position Philip finally attained in Greece is presumably the kind of position he wanted to attain, both in 338/7 and earlier: he wanted a recognised position as the leader of the Greeks; he wanted the Greeks to cooperate in his further plans; but except when they ungratefully turned against him, as Thebes did, he wanted to get his way without direct interference in their affairs, and he was happy to control them through the League of Corinth rather than by direct conquest. Demosthenes was right to see him as a threat to Athens, and to the position in the Greek world to which Athens had aspired for the past century and a half, but he was not right to see him as a threat to the freedom of all the Greeks.
Probably a foundation meeting of the League was followed by a second meeting which decided on a war of revenge against Persia (coincidentally, being weakened by dynastic troubles: cf. p. 365) and appointed Philip to command (Diod. Sic. XVI. 89, Just. Epit.IX. 5. v – vii), and which outlawed any Greeks who might fight for the Persians (Arr. Anab. I. 16. vi). The theme of Greek revenge was convenient; but when the Persians had invaded Greece in 480 Macedon was on the Persian side, and in the last years of Philip’s reign and the first years of Alexander’s some Greeks looked to Persia for support against Philip. In due course the Aegean islands were to be added to the League, but the Greeks of mainland Asia Minor probably were not (cf. p. 409). To confirm the incorporation of the islands in the League, we have an inscription which shows Argos arbitrating between Melos and Cimolus ‘in accordance with the resolution of the council of the Greeks’ (IG xii. iii 1259 = R&O 82).
While prosecutions raged in Athens (cf. pp. 377 – 8), Philip returned to Macedon and ended his reign with dynastic trouble (cf. fig. 7). There had been many women in Philip’s life: it is not profitable to distinguish between wives and mistresses, but, since Philip Arrhidaeus had been judged unsuitable and Alexander had been recognised as heir (cf. p. 338), Alexander’s mother, Olympias of Molossis, will have had an entrenched position. But in 337, in love (according to the sources) and/or under pressure from the Macedonian nobility, Philip took a Macedonian wife, Cleopatra, and her uncle Attalus prayed for a ‘legitimate’ heir. Probably this marriage produced only a daughter, but it could have produced a son, who if Philip lived long enough could have supplanted Alexander. Alexander and Olympias fled to Molossis, but a reconciliation with Alexander was arranged (Plut. Alex. 9. v – xiv, cf. Just. Epit. IX. 5. ix, 7. ii – vi, XI. 11. iii – v). Plutarch has a story that Pixodarus, satrap of Caria, offered his daughter in marriage to Philip Arrhidaeus, Alexander angrily claimed her for himself, and Alexander was not exiled but several of his friends were (Plut. Alex.10. i – iv; cf. Arr. Anab. III. 6. v, confirming the exile of several friends). In spring 336 Philip sent out his advance forces to Asia Minor, commanded by Parmenio, his best general, an Amyntas, probably of Lyncestis in Upper Macedonia, and Attalus, the uncle of his new wife (Diod. Sic. XVI. 91. ii – v, XVII. 2. iv, Just. Epit. V. 9. viii).
Ill. 24 Reconstruction of Philip’s skull, from tomb II at Vergina. Manchester Museum, University of Manchester
Alexander of Molossis was angered by Philip’s breach with his sister Olympias, and to placate him Philip offered him in marriage the Cleopatra who was his daughter by Olympias. The marriage was celebrated at Aegeae in summer 336; but at the celebration Philip was stabbed to death. The killer, a member of his bodyguard called Pausanias, was caught and killed by friends of Alexander before he could tell his story; Antipater presented Alexander to the soldiers as the new king. Pausanias had a personal motive, which Aristotle believed: he had been sexually humiliated by Attalus, and Philip would not allow him revenge. The official investigation blamed the princely family of Lyncestis (though Alexander of Lyncestis himself was spared because he was quick to acknowledge Alexander) and Philip’s nephew Amyntas. Philip’s new wife Cleopatra and her daughter, and Cleopatra’s uncle Attalus, who was in Asia Minor with Philip’s advance forces, might pose a threat to Alexander, so they were put to death. There were rumours that Olympias and/or Alexander were behind the murder, not wanting to be supplanted by Cleopatra and a son she might bear. It is likely enough that Pausanias acted from more than personal motives, but the truth is irrecoverable (Diod. Sic. XVI. 91. iv – 94, XVII. 2. iii – vi, 5. i – ii, Just. Epit. IX. 6, 7. i, viii – xiv, Plut. Alex. 10. v – vii, De Alex. Fort. i. 327 c, cf. Arist. Pol. V. 1311 b 1 – 3, Arr. Anab. I. 25. i – ii; Amyntas Arr. FGrH 156 F 9. 22 cf. Polyaenus Strat. VIII. 60).
Among the finds at Aegeae (Vergina) are lavish tombs under a great tumulus, with grave - goods pointing to the second half of the fourth century. It has been suggested that tomb II was the tomb of Philip and one of his wives, that one of the ivories in the tomb is a portrait of Philip, and that the bones found there are the bones of Philip, reflecting his loss of an eye in the siege of Methone (and an over - developed right side and under - developed left side for which there is no other evidence): cf. ill. 24. This has been accepted by many scholars though not by all, and may be judged likely; most of those who do not accept it consider this tomb to be that of Philip Arrhidaeus and his wife Eurydice.
Theopompus wrote that Europe had never produced a man like Philip (FGrH 115 F 27). Diodorus described him as the man who from the lowest of beginnings had created the greatest of kingdoms, achieving this not so much by fighting as by talking to people (XVI. 95. ii – iii, but more emphasis on military achievement in 1. iii – vi). For Justin he was a man given to deceit, for whom no means of prevailing were shameful (Epit. IX. 8). Arrian gives Alexander a speech in which he says that Philip transformed the Macedonians from primitive pastoralists into city - dwelling agriculturalists (cf. p. 337) and made Macedon powerful in Greece (Arr. Anab. VII. 9. ii – v). Philip did not begin with a totally primitive Macedon, but at his accession it was weak and threatened by its Greek and barbarian neighbours, and in twenty - three years he made it prosperous and the ruler of the mainland from the Peloponnese to the Hellespont. But at the moment of his assassination it must have seemed entirely possible that the throne would be contested and that what Philip had gained would be lost. In Athens, Demosthenes led the rejoicing, while Phocion deplored it (Aeschin. III. Ctesiphon 77 – 8, Diod. Sic. XVII. 3. ii, Plut. Dem. 22, Phoc. 16. viii).
APPENDIX: PERSIA AND THE GREEKS IN THE REIGN OF ARTAXERXES III
Artaxerxes II (Mnemon) died in 359/8, and was succeeded by his son Artaxerxes III (Ochus), who ruled until 338. The Satraps’ Revolt of the 360’s had collapsed, but the new king took the precaution of ordering the satraps to disband their mercenary armies (cf. p. 259).
Prominent between Persia and the Greeks in the reign of Artaxerxes III was Caria, which c. 392/1 had been detached from the satrapy of Sardis and entrusted to the local aristocrat Hecatomnos (cf. p. 257). He died in 377/6, and power then passed to his various sons and daughters in succession, the daughters marrying the sons and retaining power when their husbands died. The Carians were not Greek, but their history had been bound up with that of the Asiatic Greeks for a long time, and they were considerably hellenised. Hecatomnos gained control of Miletus, and issued coins of Milesian type, which continued into the early years of Mausolus (Kraay p. 275 no. 998). Miletus must then have been lost, since we hear of Mausolus’ failing to capture it (Polyaenus Strat. VI. 8); but later Miletus set up statues of Idrieus and Ada at Delphi (Tod 161. B = Fouilles de Delphes, iii. iv 176). Early in his term of office, which coincided with the beginnings of the Second Athenian League, Mausolus moved his capital from inland Mylasa to coastal Halicarnassus, and strengthened that by incorporating neighbouring communities (Vitr. De Arch. II. viii. 10 – 11, Strabo 611. XIII. i. 59). His tomb there, the Mausoleum, a building which combined Greek and near - eastern motifs, was one of the wonders of the ancient world (Plin. H.N. XXXVI. 30 – 1, ill. 25) (for statues perhaps to be identified as Hecatomnid ancestors rather than Mausolus and his sister = wife Artemisia see ill. 26).
Fig. 8 Satraps of Caria
Ill. 25 Reconstruction of the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus. © Museum of Ancient Art, University of Aarhus, Denmark
In the 360’s Mausolus dabbled in the Satraps’ Revolt, but not sufficiently to make his position untenable (cf. pp. 258 – 9); after that he decided that the Greek world offered the better prospects for expansion. He was behind the League members which revolted against Athens in the Social War of 356 – 355 (Diod. Sic. X V. 7. iii, Dem. XV. Liberty of Rhodians 3: cf. p. 275), and after the war Rhodes, where an oligarchy replaced a democracy, Cos and Chios came under his control (Dem. XV, hyp., V. Peace 25). Between 353/2 and 351/0 (§ 27) exiled Rhodian democrats appealed to Athens for support which Demosthenes wanted to grant (XV. Liberty of Rhodians), but the Athenians did not act there, though they did in 352/1 reinforce their cleruchy in Samos (Philoch. FGrH 328 F 154). The islands of the south - east Aegean were still in Carian hands in 346; and when in 341 Hyperides made them allies of Athens once more this does not mean that they had broken away from Caria. In 341 Ada was ousted by the last brother, Pixodarus. Presumably under pressure from the centre, he married his daughter, another Ada, to a Persian, Orontobates, who was made joint satrap of Caria and retained the satrapy when Pixodarus died in 336/5. The elder Ada submitted to Alexander and was reinstated by him – but made him her heir, and after her death he appointed an ordinary satrap (Diod. Sic. XVI. 74. ii, XVII. 24. ii, Arr. Anab. I. 23. vii – viii, VII. 23. i, Strabo 656 – 7. XIV. ii. 17).
Ill. 26 Statues of Mausolus and Artemisia, or Hecatomnid ancestors. © The Trustees of the British Museum
Inscriptions shed interesting light on the rule of the Hecatomnids. We have a series of decrees in Greek from Mylasa (dated by Persian Kings and Mausolus as satrap), and a decree from Iasus (dated by local officials), dealing with the punishment of men disloyal to Mausolus (IK Mylasa 1 – 3 = R&O 54, SIG3 169 = IK Iasos 1). We have decrees of Erythrae, opposite Chios, honouring ‘Mausolus son of Hecatomnos, of Mylasa’ and Artemisia, and ‘Idrieus son of Hecatomnos, of Mylasa’, as if they were citizens of a Greek city (IK Erythrai und Klazomenai 8 = R&O 56, SEG xxxi 969 ∼Harding 28. B). Also we have a decree of Mausolus and Artemisia themselves, identified simply by name, and referring in the text to ‘as much territory as Mausolus rules’, which by either an ignorant or a creative adaptation of a Greek institution confers the status of proxenos on the whole Cretan city of Cnossus (Labraunda iii. ii 40 = R&O 55). We have a decree of Xanthus, in Lycia (to the east of Caria), of 337, whose dating formula names Pixodarus as ‘satrap of Lycia’ and officials whom he had appointed: this is a trilingual inscription, in Greek, Lycian (these two texts are fairly close) and Aramaic, the administrative language of the Persian empire (this text seems to be aimed more at the Persians, inter alia dating by Artaxerxes IV and styling Pixodarus ‘satrap of Caria and Lycia’) (Fouilles de Xanthos, vi; Greek text R&O 78). Technically the Hecatomnids were satraps, and at some point they acquired Lycia in addition to Caria. In the Aegean world, however, their subordination to Persia was played down, they behaved like independent rulers, and Erythrae at least treated them as distinguished citizens of a city: they may be seen as forerunners of the hellenistic kings.
By the end of the Satraps’ Revolt Artabazus had taken over the satrapy of Dascylium, but by 355 he was in revolt. After the Social War the Athenian Chares joined him with a mercenary army, and in 354 they won a famous victory over a Persian commander called Tithraustes; but Persia complained to Athens, Demosthenes was with the majority in opposing conflict with Persia, and Chares was recalled. Instead in 353 Thebes sent Pammenes to support Artabazus, and they won two victories but Artabazus then fell out with Pammenes (Diod. Sic. XVI. 22. i – ii, 34. i – ii, schol. Dem. III. Ol. iii. 31, I V. Phil. i. 19 [146, 84b Dilts], FGrH 105 F 4, Polyaenus Strat. VII. 33. ii, Dem. XIV. Symmories 2 – 13). We then hear no more of Artabazus until the late 340’ s, when he was a refugee in Macedon (cf. below).
Artaxerxes campaigned twice against Egypt, unsuccessfully in the late 350’s and successfully in the late 340’ s; but Diodorus records the successful campaign under 351/0 – 350/49 and nothing under the 340’s (traces of the unsuccessful campaign XVI. 40. iii, iv – v, 44. i, 48. i – ii; cf. Dem. XV. Liberty of Rhodians 5, 11 – 12, Isoc. V. Philip 101). If Persia’s subsidy to Thebes (Diod. Sic. XVI. 40. i – ii) belongs to this war, Thebes like Athens must have recanted its support for Artabazus.
By the mid 340’s Egypt’s revolt had spread to Phoenicia and Cyprus (Diod. Sic. XVI. 41, 42. iii – iv, cf. 40. v). In 344 Artaxerxes, preparing to campaign in person, sent an appeal for support to the Greek cities: Athens and Sparta merely confirmed their friend ship, but Thebes, Argos and the Asiatic Greeks provided a total of 10,000 men (Diod. Sic. XVI. 40. vi, 44. i – iv: cf. p. 352) – while there were 4,000 Greeks with Mentor and 20,000 with Nectanebo (42. ii, 47. vi). The recovery of Cyprus was entrusted to Idrieus of Caria (though in 346 Isocrates had thought he might join the rebels: V. Philip. 102 – 3), accompanied by the Athenian Phocion as a mercenary commander: Salamis in Cyprus endured a siege for a while, but finally submitted (Diod. Sic. XVI. 42. vi – ix, 44. i – iii). In 343 the Phoenicians, with Greek mercenaries from Egypt under Mentor of Rhodes, repelled Persia’s advance forces. The revolt there collapsed when Tennes of Sidon betrayed the city to the Persians; the city was destroyed but Tennes was put to death (Diod. Sic. XVI. 43, 44. iv – 45. i). A story of the Egyptian Nectanebo’s dream about his neglect of the temple of the war - god Onuris is dated 5/6 July 343; Speusippus’ Letter to Philip, probably of 343/ 2, complains of a shortage of papyrus because of the recon- quest (§ 14; date from § 7); so the recovery of Egypt should be dated winter 343/2. Artaxerxes was joined by his Greek mercenaries, and Mentor with his force defected to him. Nectanebo held Pelusium, at the eastern mouth of the Nile delta, but failed to make trusting use of his mercenary commanders; after a defeat which need not have been fatal he withdrew to Memphis, at the apex of the delta. The Persians’ forces mas tered Egypt (thanks particularly to Mentor and the grand vizier Bagoas), and Nectanebo fled to Ethiopia (Diod. Sic. XVI. 46. iv – 51). At some point in the next few years (perhaps 338 – 336) Egypt rebelled again, under Khababash, but was conquered by Persia again (cf. the hieroglyphic ‘satrap stele’ of 312/1: see note on further reading at the end of the chapter).
After this success Mentor was able to intercede for his brother Memnon and his brother - in - law Artabazus, who were now exiles in Macedon. Mentor was given a command on the coast of Asia Minor, where he dealt with Hermias of Atarneus (said by Demosthenes to be in league with Philip) and other trouble - makers (Diod. Sic. XVI. 50. vii, 52, cf. Theopompus FGrH 115 F 291, Dem. X. Phil. iv. 32); on his death he was succeeded by Memnon, who was to be important in the resistance to Alexander in 335 – 334. Bagoas remained with Artaxerxes, and in Diodorus’ account came to fancy himself as a king - maker. In November 338 he poisoned the king, killed his older sons and put the youngest, Arses, on the throne as Artaxerxes IV, hoping to rule through him. Arses proved intractable, so in June 336 Bagoas killed him and his children, extinguishing the direct royal line, and installing as Darius III Codoman, descended from a son of Darius II. After that he tried to kill Darius too, but Darius switched the cups and it was Bagoas who died (Diod. Sic. XVI. 50. viii, VII. 5. iii – 6. iii, Just. Epit. X. 3, cf. Trogus Prologue X, Arr. Anab. II. 14. v). Darius had a good record, and was not an unworthy successor; but his succession certainly resulted from a period of major upheaval, in which members of the royal family may have played a greater part and Bagoas a lesser than in Diodorus’ story.
NOTE ON FURTHER READING
On Macedon before Philip II see Hammond and Griffith, History of Macedonia, vol. ii, chs. 1 – 4 (by Hammond: accepting the Argive origins claimed by the royal family, as other scholars do not, and taking a more formal view than other scholars of the working of the kingdom); Borza, In the Shadow of Olympus.
On the reign of Philip see Cawkwell, Philip of Macedon (preceded by various articles, which are cited there: some of these are reprinted in Perlman’s collection, noted below); Ellis , Philip II and Macedonian Imperialism; Hammond and Griffith , History of Macedonia , vol. ii, chs. 5 – 21 (ch. 20 by Hammond, otherwise by Griffith); Worthington , Philip II of Macedonia. Hatzopoulos and Loukopoulos (eds.), Philip of Macedon , contains chapters by experts as well as good pictures.
The point that Athens could not make a secret treaty with Philip about Amphipolis was made by G. E. M. de Ste. Croix, ‘The Alleged Secret Pact Between Athens and Philip II Concerning Amphipolis and Pydna’ , CQ2 xiii 1963, 110 – 19 (reprinted in Perlman, ch. 3). On the Third Sacred War see Buckler , Philip II and the Sacred Wa r; the once - popular view that Diodorus had reduplicated a whole year of the war was rebutted by N. G. L. Hammond , ‘Diodorus’ Narrative of the Sacred War’ , JHS lvii 1937, 44 – 78 = hisStudies in Greek History , ch. 15 (but he was perhaps wrong not to allow minor doublets).
Among many treatments of Athens’ responses to Philip see Harris , Aeschines and Athenian Politics; Sealey , Demosthenes and His Time. Perlman (ed.), Philip and Athens , reprints a number of important articles. On Euboea in the 340’s see P. A. Brunt, ‘Euboea in the Time of Philip II’ , CQ2xix 1969, 245 – 65; J. M. Carter, ‘Athens, Euboea and Olynthus’ , Hist. xx 1971, 418 – 29. The view championed by Ellis, that in 346 Philip would have preferred to cooperate with Athens against Thebes but was frustrated by Demosthenes, was first advanced by M. M. Markle, ‘The Strategy of Philip in 346 bc’ , CQ2 xxiv 1974, 253 – 68. For Speusippus’ letter see Natoli , The Letter of Speusippus to Philip II.
The Eretrian law to protect the democracy is published by D. Knoepfler, ‘Loid’Érétrie contre la tyrannie et l’ oligarchie’ , BCH cxxv 2001, 195 – 238 and cxxvi 2002, 149 – 204.
On military technology see especially Marsden , Greek and Roman Artillery , i. Historical Development.
On the origins of the Fourth Sacred War see P. D. Londey, ‘The Outbreak of the 4th Sacred War’ , Chiron xx 1990, 239 – 60 (not planned by Philip). On the battle of Chaeronea see N. G. L. Hammond , ‘The Two Battles of Chaeronea (338 bc and 86 bc)’ , Klio xxxi 1938, 186 – 218, of which the part on 338 is reprinted in his Studies in Greek History , ch. 16; W. K. Pritchett, ‘Observations on Chaironeia’ , AJA 2 lxii 1958, 307 – 11. Much of the traditional reconstruction of the battle, including the placing of Alexander on the Macedonians’ left and of the Thebans on the anti - Macedonians’ right, is questioned by J. Ma, ‘Chaironeia 338: Topographies of Commemoration’ , JHS cxxviii 2008, 72 – 91: he locates the battle further to the west than other scholars. On Philip’s territorial settlements after the battle see C. Roebuck , ‘The Settlements of Philip 11 with the Greek States in 338 bc’ , CP xliii 1948, 73 – 102 = his Economy and Society in the Early Greek World , 131 – 50 (and reprinted in Perlman [ed.], Philip and Athens , ch. 12 – but by a printer’s error there the first half of the article was originally omitted).
On the murder of Philip, Alexander was suspected by E. Badian, ‘The Death of Philip II’ , Phoen. xvii 1963, 244 – 50; Olympias by R. Develin, ‘The Murder of Philip II’ , Antichthon xv 1981, 86 – 99; the official verdict was accepted by N. G. L. Hammond, ‘The End of Philip’ , in Hatzopoulos and Loukopoulos (eds.), Philip of Macedon , 166 – 75; Olympias and Alexander are exonerated by E. Carney, ‘The Politics of Polygamy: Olympias, Alexander and the Murder of Philip II’ , Hist. xli 1992, 169 – 89.
For tomb II at Vergina as that of Philip and one of his wives see N. G. L. Hammond , ‘The Evidence for the Identity of the Royal Tombs at Vergina’ , in Adams and Borza (eds.), Philip II, Alexander the Great and the Macedonian Heritage , 111 – 27 = his CollectedStudies , ii. 271 – 87, and for the reconstruction of the skull as Philip’s skull A. J. N. W. Prag et al., ‘The Skull from Tomb II at Vergina: King Philip II of Macedon’ , JHS civ 1984, 60 – 78; in favour of Philip Arrhidaeus and Eurydice see Borza , In the Shadow of Olympus , 256 – 66.
On the Hecatomnids of Caria see Hornblower, Mausolus. For the story of Nectanebo’s dream see L. Koenen, ‘The Dream of Nektanebos’ , BASP xxii 1985, 171 – 94; for Speusippus’ letter see Natoli , The Letter of Speusippus to Philip II. The ‘satrap stele’ is translated by Bevan , A History of Egypt under the Ptolemaic Dynasty , 28 – 32; and the episode of Khababash is discussed by Briant , From Cyrus to Alexander , 717 – 18 with 1017 – 18, S. Burstein, ‘Prelude to Alexander: The Reign of Khababash’ , AHB xiv 2000, 149 – 54. On Hermias of Atarneus see P. Green, ‘Hermias of Atarneus and His Friendship with Aristotle’ , in Heckel and Tritle (eds.), Crossroads of History: The Age of Alexander , ch. 2. Against Diodorus’ account of Bagoas and the Achaemenid royal family see Briant , From Cyrus to Alexander , 769 – 80 with 1033 – 4; also E. Badian, ‘Darius III’ ,HSCP c 2000, 241 – 68.