Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1870) - Volume 3.djvu/288

Rh 276 PHILIPPUS. against the Persian king, by receiving and shelter- j ing the rebels, Artabazus and Memnon. In B. c. 349 he commenced his attacks on the Chalcidian cities. Olynthus, in alarm, applied to Athens for aid, and Demosthenes, in his three Olynthiac orations, roused the people to eflPorts against the common enemy, not very vigorous at first and fruit- less in the end. Bat it was not from Athens only that Philip might expect opposition. The Thessa- lians had for some time been murmuring at his re- tention of Pagasae and Magnesia, and his diversion to his own purposes of the revenues of the country arising from harbour and market dues. These complaints he had hitherto endeavoured to still by assurances and promises ; but just at this crisis the recovery of Pherae by Peitholaus gave him an op- portunity of marching again bto Thessaly. He ex- pelled the tyrant, and the discontent among his allies was calmed or silenced by the appearance of the necessity for his interference, and their expe- rience of its efficacy. Returning to the north, he prosecuted the Olynthian war. Town after town fell before him, for in all of them there were traitors, and his course was marked by wholesale bribery. In B. c. 348 he laid siege to Olynthus itself, and, having taken it in the following year through the treachery of Lasthenes and Euthycrates, he razed it to the ground and sold the inhabitants for slaves. The conquest made him master of the threefold peninsula of Pallene, Sithonia, and Acta, and he celebrated his triumph at Dium with a magnificent festival and games. [Lasthenes ; Archelaus.] After the fall of Olynthus the Athenians had every reason to expect the utmost hostility from Philip, and they endeavoured, therefore, to bring about a coalition of Greek states against him. The attempt issued in failure ; but the course of events in Greece, and in particular the turn which aflfairs in Phocis had taken, and the symptoms which Athens had given of a conciliatory policy towards Thebes, seemed to Philip to point to such a league as by no means improbable ; and he took care ac- cordingly that the Athenians should become aware of his willingness to make peace. This disposition on his part was more than they had ventured to hope for, and, on the motion of Philocrates, ten am- bassadors were appointed to treat with him, Aes- chines and Demosthenes being among the number. Philip received the embassy at Pella, and both then and in the subsequent negotiations employed effectually his usual craft. Thus, while he seems to have been explicit in requiring the surrender of the Athenian claim to Amphipolis and the recog- nition of the independence of Cardia, he kept the envoys in the dark as to his intentions with regard to the Thebans and Phocians, — a point of the highest interest to Athens, which still cast a jealous eye upon Thebes and her influence in Boeotia. Nor were his purposes with respect to these matters revealed even when the terms of peace and alliance with him were settled at Athens, as the Phocians were neither included in the treaty nor expressly shut out from it. The same course was adopted with reference to Cersobleptes, king of Thrace, and the town of Halus in Thessaly, which, acting on behalf of the Pharsalians, Philip had sent Parmenion to besiege. As for Thrace, — since the dominions of Cersobleptes formed a barrier between Mace- donia and the Athenian possessions in the Cherso- nesus, — it was of the greatest importance to Philip to establish his power there before the final ratifi- PHILIPPUS. cation of the treaty, in which the Athenians might have insisted on a guarantee for its safety. Accord- ingly, when the second embassy, consisting' probably of the same members as the former one, arrived in Macedonia to receive the king's oath to the com- pact of alliance, they found that he was absent in Thrace, nor did he return to give them an audience till he had entirel}' conquered Cersobleptes. Even then he delayed taking the oath, unwilling clearly that the Athenian ambassadors should I'eturn home before he was quite prepared for the invasion of Phocis. Having induced them to accompany him on his march into Thessaly, he at length swore to the treaty at Pherae, and now expressly excluded the Phocians from it. Deserted by Phalaecus, who had made conditions for himself and his mercenaries, the Phocians offered no resistance to Philip. Their cities were destroyed, and their place in the Am- phictyonic council was made over to the king of Macedonia, who was appointed also, jointly with the Thebans and Thessalians, to the presidency of the Pythian games. Ruling as he did over a barbaric nation, such a recognition of his Hellenic character was of the greatest value to him, especially as he looked forward to an invasion of the Persian empire in the name of Greece, united under him in a great national confederacy. That his own am- bition should point to this was natural enough ; but the " Philip" of Isocrates, which was composed at this period, and which urged the king to the enter- prise in question, is perhaps one of the most striking instances of the blindness of an amiable visionary. The delusion of the rhetorician was at any rate not shared by his fellow-citizens. The Athenians, in- dignant at having been out-witted and at the dis- appointment of their hopes from the treaty, showed their resentment by omitting to send their ordinary deputation to the Pythian games, at which Philip presided, and were disposed to withhold their re- cognition of him as a member of the Amphictyonic league. They were dissuaded, however, by De- mosthenes, in his oration "on the Peace" (b. c. 346), from an exhibition of anger so perilous at once and impotent. Philip now began to spread his snares for the establishment of his influence in the Peloponnesus, by holding himself out to the Messenians, Mega- lopolitans, and Argives, as their protector against Sparta. To counteract these attempts, and to awaken the states in question to the true view of Philip's character and designs, Demosthenes went into the Peloponnesus at the head of an embiissy ; but his eloquence and representations met with no success, and Philip sent ambassadors to Athens to complain of the step which had been taken against him and of the accusations with which he had been assailed. These circumstances (b. c. 344) gave oc- casion to the second Philippic of Demosthenes, but, though the jealousy of the Athenians was fully roused, and the answer which they returned to Philip does not appear to have thoroughly satisfied him, still no infringement of the peace took place. The same j^ear (344) was marked also by a suc- cessful expedition of Philip into Illyria, and by his expulsion for the third time of the party of the tyrants from Pherae, a circumstance which fur- nished him with an excuse and an opportunity for reducing the whole of Thessaly to a more thorough dependence on himself (Diod. xvi. 69 ; Dem. in Phil. Ep. p. 153 ; Pseudo-Dem. de Hal p. 84). It appears to have been in B. c. 343 that he made