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PHILIP AND OLYNTHUS—SPEECHES OF DEMOSTHENES ON BEHALF OF THE OLYNTHIANS.

Demosthenes, some time in the year 352 B.C., made his first speech against Philip, there were good grounds for an uneasy feeling throughout the Greek world as to the king's possible movements and designs. He had already raised Macedon to a position it had never before held. It had become a distinct power in the politics of Greece. For a while, however, the usually active Philip seemed to be really resting from his labours, and next to nothing was heard of him. Demosthenes does not so much as allude to him in his speech "for the freedom of the people of Rhodes." We may fairly infer from his silence that anything like serious apprehensions at Athens of peril from "the barbarian," as Philip was called, had died away. The peace party, always strong, and able to make out a plausible case for itself, would thus be strengthened; and it would not be easy, even in the face of manifest danger, thoroughly to rouse the Athenians to a sense of the duty which they owed both to themselves and to Greece.