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126 the people of Amphissa were denounced as having incurred the guilt of sacrilege; and it was finally decided that the Amphictyonic deputies should shortly assemble at Thermopylæ to consider how they were to be punished.

A new sacred war was thus in effect begun six years after the disastrous termination of the previous war in 346 B.C. That had ended in the destruction of a member of the Greek community; this was to end in the ruin and fall of Greece. The danger was not at once perceived at Athens. We cannot wonder at this. Æschines' vindication of his countrymen at the Council might well seem spirited and patriotic. Athens, through him, had stood forward as the champion of the god of Delphi. It was easy for him to argue that those who took a different view, and regretted the rash act to which the Amphictyons had been prompted by his oratory, were little better than the paid agents of those sacrilegious Locrians, who had allowed one of their speakers openly to insult Athens. Demosthenes, however—so he tells us—at once declared in the Assembly, "You are bringing war into Attica, Æschines—an Amphictyonic war." The popular sentiment at the time was in favour of Æschines, and this his political rival must have known and felt. Still, Demosthenes was able—a proof this of the high respect in which he was held—to persuade the people not to send any deputies to the special congress at Thermopylæ, which was to deliberate on the punishment of the Locrians. Thebes, too, allowed herself to be unrepresented. War was decided on; the Locrian territory was invaded,