Page:Greece from the Coming of the Hellenes to AD. 14.djvu/245

Rh and Byzantium, Rhodes and Cos from the league of B.C. 378. The pretexts alleged were that the Athenians had broken the covenant by sending out fresh cleruchs, and that their generals commanding mercenary forces (now constantly employed by Athens) not receiving sufficient pay from home, harassed the allies with requisitions beyond the stipulated contribution or syntaxis. The war ended in the acknowledgment of the independence of the revolting states, and, worse still, in the death or the discredit and ruin of the last great generals serving Athens, Iphicrates, Chabrias, and Timotheos. The state was also impoverished by the loss of contributions, and disabled from offering effectual opposition to Philip.

In these circumstances the king was able to secure one advantage after another. In B.C. 356 he seized Potidaea, expelled Athenian cleruchs, and sold most of the inhabitants into slavery, while his general, Parmenion, defeated the Illyrians in the West. He next enriched himself by occupying the district of Mount Pangaeus with its gold-mines, and founded the city of Philippi to secure it (B.C. 356–353). As the Athenians had been too late to relieve Potidaea, so now they were too late to prevent his seizing Methone in Magnesia; after which he began to interfere at every point of disturbance in Greece. Now it was in Thessaly, to assist the Thessalian cities to resist the tyrants of Pherae (B.C. 356); now it was in Phocis, as champion of the god of Delphi, where, after sustaining two defeats, he eventually destroyed the Phocian army with its leader, Onomarchus.