Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 15.djvu/157

Rh MACEDONIAN EMPIRE 139 felt. He fortified a new capital, Pella, safe amidst its lake-like marshes, from which he could act against the coast. Greece was at the moment completely disorganized. Sparta had lost, not only her supremacy over the other Greek states, but the control over Messenia and Arcadia, which leant on Thebes for defence against her revenge. Thebes had incurred odium from her conduct towards the free cities of Bo3otia, was at feud with Athens, and had but a precarious hold over Phocis and Thessaly ; while Thessaly itself, after the fall of the tyrants of PheraB, was a prey to internal feuds. Athens was the first to come into collision with Philip, owing to her holding possessions on the coast of Macedonia and Thrace, whence she procured ship timber and naval stores. Philip had conciliated her for the time by withdrawing his troops from Amphipolis, her old colony in the bend of the river Stryinon, while he was driving off the Illyrians and reducing the tribes to the west as far as the Lake Lychnitis. But Athens was at this moment threatened by the revolt of her allies which led to the Social War, and so lost the chance of reoccupy- ing Amphipolis while Philip was busied in the interior. The moment his hands were free, he retook the place, which was all-important to him, as it was not only the most convenient maritime station in Thrace, but also threw open to him all the country east of the Strymon, and especially the gold region near Mount Pangajus, the productive country facing the island of Thasos; and to secure his conquests he founded a new city in the interior called Philippi. His gold coins, struck on the Attic standard, soon became well known, and even the early gold coins of distant Britain copied the types of the Macedonian money. He also took Pydna and Potidaea, thus depriving Athens of her hold on the Thermaic Gulf, while the occupation of Methone opened the way into Thessaly. Moreover, the Social War had not yet ended when the disastrous Sacred War began, which added religious to political enmity, and benefited only the aggressor from the north. The Amphictyonic League was called into activity to crush the Phocians, who in their despair seized Delphi, and by the use of its treasures collected troops enough to hold Thebes in check for some years. It was the misfortune of Greece that there had arisen mercenary bands, like the condottieri of mediaeval Italy, who hired themselves out to any one that would employ them. The citizens became more averse to service as civilization increased, and the work of war was now done by alien hands. Only a standing army could face the standing army of Macedonia, but the industrious and refined citizens naturally disliked continuous service, and it was long before even Demosthenes could arouse Athens to the necessity of the struggle. He was opposed by the old statesmen, by honest men such as Phocion (whose peace policy, however expedient after Chaeronea, was impolitic during most of Philip s reign), and by others whom Philip had bribed for he loved to &quot; plough with a silver plough share.&quot; The Sacred War gave Philip a pretence for interfering on behalf of the Delphic god. He drove the Phocian mercenaries from Thessaly, incorporated the ex cellent Thessalian cavalry in his army, and gained a good naval position on the Gulf of Pagasae (Volo), the great inlet and outlet for the trade of the country. This also opened the way to Eubcea, for the possession of which, however, Athens struggled hard. It was on the Gulf of Pagasse that Demetrias was afterwards founded, which, with Chalcis and Corinth, became the &quot; fetters of Greece.&quot; Philip also laid a strong hand on Epirus, occupied Acarnania, won over the ^Etolians by the gift of Naupactus, and thus hemmed in Athens on the land side. It is true that, when he marched on Thermopylae, B.C. 352, a sudden effort of the Athenians enabled them to reach the pass in time to arrest his progress, and save the Phocians for a while ; but Philip had now a large seaboard, and he pro ceeded to increase his fleet, to extend his dominion in Thrace on both sides of the Hebrus, and secure it by the founda tion of Philippopolis, Calybe, Beroea, and Alexandropolis, while the Greek colonies along the Euxine up to Odessus sought his alliance. There was worse to come, for Philip by the year 347 had destroyed Olynthus and thirty-one other free cities in Chalcidice, and sold their inhabitants as slaves, a calamity such as had not happened since the invasion of Xerxes. This struck terror into all the south country, and we find Isocrates, once the champion of Panhellenic freedom, proclaiming Philip the arbiter of Greece, and advising him to use his power for the purpose of conquer ing Persia. He found himself bitterly deceived, and &quot; that dishonest victory at Chseronea, fatal to liberty, killed with report that old man eloquent.&quot; The Thebans were still unwilling to combine with Athens, and even called in Philip to end the Sacred War. This gave him the command of Thermopylae, and the means of marching into Bceotia and Attica, while the destruction of the Phocians spread the terror still more widely. Philip now became the recognized religious leader of the Amphictyonic League, and began to interfere authoritatively in the Peloponnese. He was also preparing to master the Bo^phorus and the Hellespont, the outlets from the Euxine into the Aegean, through which the main supplies of corn came from the country north of the Euxine to Athens, which therefore laid great stress on the possession of the Chersonese. Once again Athens gained a success when she sent Phocion to relieve Byzantium from his attack (339). The Greek cities began again to lean on her, and her trade increased owing to the destruction of Olynthus by Philip, and of Sidon by the Persian king Ochus. The Greeks too began to see that Philip s allies were being swallowed up one by one. Philip himself, when returning through the passes of Haemus from an attack on the Scythian king, who ruled between the mountains and the Danube, suffered heavily from a surprise by the Triballi. But a second Sacred War against the Locrians of Amphissa, caused by /Eschines s troublesome activity, again brought Philip into the heart of Greece. He fortified Elatea in Phocis, and demanded a passage through Boeotia to attack Athens. On this Demosthenes won his greatest triumph, when he induced Thebes to join in the struggle for freedom and independence ; and, though the patriots were defeated at Chaeronea, 338 B.C., yet their blood was not shed in vain; their example has told on all future time. Philip used his victory moderately, for he wished to leave Greece quiet behind him when he crossed into Asia to assail the great king. He garrisoned the citadel of Thebes, and demanded from Athens an acknowledgment of his leadership in the national war against Darius ; and a congress at Corinth recognized him as its chief, and arranged what contingents were to be sent from each state. His assassination in 336, at the early age of forty-seven, hardly delayed the execution of the plan, for he was succeeded by Alexander, who combined the qualities cf a king of the heroic ages with all that Greek training could give. Though the Macedonians had a dialect of their own, yet they had neither language for communicating with others nor any literature except what they derived from Greeks, and Philip had taken care to give his son even a better training than he had received himself. Alexander was also as prompt and cruel as his father. He at once rid himself of his cousin and brother- in-law Amyntas and other kinsmen and possible com- petitors for the throne, or persons otherwise dangerous. Then he dealt some heavy blows against the barbarians east, north, and west, some of whose chiefs he took for further security with him into Asia. He was just south