Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1870) - Volume 1.djvu/1002

Rh 984 DEMOSTHENES. were tired of the war and unable to form a coali- tion against the king, had accepted the proposal. Philocrates accordingly advised the Athenians to commence negotiations and to send an embassy to Philip, Demosthenes supported the plan, and Philocrates, Aeschines, and Demosthenes were among the ambassadors who went to the king. The transactions with Philip are not quite clear, though they must have referred to the Phocians and Thebans also, for the Phocians were allied with Athens, and the Athenian ambassadors pro- bably demanded that the Phocians should be in- cluded in the treaty of peace and alliance between Macedonia and Athens. But this was more than Philip was inclined to agree to, since he had already resolved upon the destruction of the Pho- cians. It is, therefore, very probable that he may have quieted the ambassadors by vague promises, and have declined to comply with their demand under the pretext that he could not make a public decliiration in favour of the Phocians on account of his relation to the Thessalians and Thebans. After the return of the ambassadors to Athens, the peace was discussed in two successive assemblies of the people, and it was at lengtli sanctioned and sworn to by an oath to the king's ambassadors. Aeschines censures Demosthenes for having hurried the con- clusion of this peace so much, that the Athenians did not even wait for the arrivid of the deputies of their allies, who had been invited, and the contni- dictory manner in which Demosthenes himself (de Fain. Leif. p. 346, de Coruii. p. 2'.i'2) speaks of the matter seems indeed to cast some suspicion upon him ; but the cause of Demostlieiies's actin;; as he did may have been the vague manner in which Philip had expressed himself in regjird to the Phocians. At any rate, however, quick decision was absolutely necessary, since Philip was in the meantime nuiking war upon Cersobleptes, a king of Thrace, and since, in spite of his promises to spare the posses- sions of Athens in the Chersonesus, he might easily have been tempted to stretch out his hands after them: in order to prevent this, it was necessiiry that Philip, as soon as possible, should take his oath to the treaty of peace and alliance with Athens. It was on this occasion that the treacherous designs of Aeschines and his party became manifest, for not- withstanding ihe urgent admonitions of Demos- thenes not to lose any time, the embassy to receive the king's oath (nrl toi)s 6pKovs), of which both Aeschines and Demosthenes were again members I the statement in the article Aeschines, p. 37, that T)emosthene8 was not one of the ambassadors, must lie corrected : see Newman in the Classkul Miispum^ vol. i. p. 145), set out with a slowness as if there had been no danger whatever, and in- stead of taking the shortest road to ^Macedonia by sea, the ambassjidors travelled by land. On their arrival in Macedonia they quietly waited till Philip returned from Thrace. Nearly three months passed away in this manner, and when at length Piiilip sirnved, he deferred taking his oath until he had completed his preparations against the Phocians. Accompanied by the Athenian ambassjidors, he then marched into Thessaly, and it was not till his arrival at Pherae that he took his oath to the treaty, from which he now excluded the Phocians. When the ambassadors arrived at Athens, Demos- thenes immediately and boldly denomiced the treachery of his colleagues in the embassy ; but in vain. Aeschines succeeded in allaying i^ fears of DEMOSTHENES, the people, and persuaded them quietly to wait for the issue of the events. Philip in the meantime passed Thenuopylae, and the fate of Phocis w:is decided without a blow. The king was now ad- mitted as a member of the Amphictyonic league, and the Athenians, who had allowed themselves to act the part of mere spectators during those pro- ceedings, were now unable to do anything, but still they ventured to express their indignation at the knig's conduct by refusing their sanction to his becoming a member of the Amphictyonic league. The mischief, however, was done, and in order to prevent still more serious consequences, Demos- thenes, in B. c. 34, delivered his oration "on the peace" {irepl e/pTjvTjy), and the people gave way. From this time forward the two political parties are fully developed, and openly act against each other ; the party or rather the faction to which Aeschines belonged, was bribed by Philip to op- pose the true patriots, who were headed by De- mosthenes. He was assisted in his great work by such able men as Lycurgus, Hyperides, Polyeuctus, Hegesippus, and others, and being supported by his confidence in the good cause, he soon reached the highest point in his career as a statesman and orator. The basis of his power and influence was the people's conviction of his incorruptible love of justice and of his pure and enthusiastic love of his country. This conviction manifested itself clearly in the vengeance which the people took upon the treacherous Philocrates. (Aeschin. c. Ctesiph. § 79.) But this admiration and reverence for real and virtuous greatness soon cooled, and it was in vain that Demosthenes endeavoured to place tiie other men who had betrayed tlieir country to Phi- lip in their embassy to him, in the same light as Philocrates (Dem. de Fats. Ley. p. 370"), for the people were unwilling to sjicritice more than the one man, whom the Macedonian party itself had given up in order to save the rest. It was un- doubtedly owing to the influence of this party that Aeschines, when after a long delay he consented to render an account of his conduct during the embassy, n. c. 343, escaped punishment, notwith-. standing the vehement attacks of Demosthenes in the written oration irepl Trapanpeafiiias. [Aes- chines, p. 38.] In the mean time Philip followed up his plans for the reduction of Greece. With a view of draw- ing the Peloponnesians into his interests, he tried to win the confidence of the Argives and Messe- nians, who were then perilled by Sparta ; he even sent them subsidies and threatened Sparta with an attack. (Dem. Fhil. ii. p. (Ji).) SparUi did not venture to offer any resistance, and the Athenians, who were allied with Sparta, ieit unable to do any- thing more than send ambassadors to Peloponne- sus, among whom was Demosthenes, to draw tiie Peloponnesians away from the Macedonian, and to caution them against his intrigues. (Dem. J'/dU/j. ii. p. 70, 6ic.) In consequence of these proceed- ings, ambassadors from Philip and the Peloponne- sians met at Athens to complain of the Athenians favouring the ambitious schemes of Sparta, which aimed at suppressing the freedom of the peninsula, and to demand an explanation of their conduct. The Macedonian party at Athens, of course, sup- ported those complaints ; their endeavours to dis- guise Philip's real intentions and to represent them to the people in a favourable light, afforded an opportunity for Demosthenes, when the answer to