Page:Greece from the Coming of the Hellenes to AD. 14.djvu/244

2l6 twenty-three years old, and had spent some years at Thebes in the house of the father of Epaminondas, as a hostage or because he had been brought there for safety by Pelopidas. On his accession he promptly showed his energy and ability by suppressing two pretenders to the throne, and conquering the Paeonians on his northern frontier, as well as the Illyrians, those constant enemies in battle with whom his brother had fallen. He at the same time disarmed Athenian opposition by withdrawing the Macedonian garrison from Amphipolis and acknowledging its autonomy. The Athenians were also engaged in recovering Euboea, which had for some years been a member of the Theban confederacy (B.C. 358), and were for the time less interested in affairs of the North. Philip availed himself of the opportunity to seize Pydna, on the coast of Pieria, thus securing a port on the Thermaic gulf, and again occupied Amphipolis on the Strymon, while by making an alliance with Olynthus he secured himself against opposition from Chalcidice. These proceedings would naturally have aroused enmity in Greece. But Sparta, weakened and humiliated, held aloof for some years while she was engaged in trying to recover her hegemony in the Peloponnese; while Thebes and Athens were now effectually weakened by two wars: the former by the “Sacred War,” which was undertaken at the order of the Amphictyonic Council to punish the Phocians for encroaching upon the sacred territory of Delphi, and lasted nearly nine years (B.C. 357–346); the latter by the “Social War” (B.C. 357–355) caused by the defection of Chios