Page:Greece from the Coming of the Hellenes to AD. 14.djvu/270

240 to give up all authority there. It is true that in the struggles that ensued between the governors, who had divided the Empire among themselves, the freedom of Greece and the independence of its cities was more than once proclaimed—as in B.C. 318 by Polyperchon, the successor of Antipater as regent, in B.C. 314 by Antigonus in order to drive out Cassander, Antipater's son, and in B.C. 311, when these governors made formal peace with each other. But this declaration only served as an excuse for fresh war between these princes under pretext of freeing Greek towns, which suffered sieges and devastations from both sides alternately. The constant quarrels between the Diadochi, however—especially the disputes as to the regency, and then the throne, of Macedonia—did allow the Greek cities in Europe gradually to assert a kind of independence. There were Macedonian garrisons in some towns, but not in all, and banished democrats found their way back from time to time and restored some sort of free government.

Athens underwent more changes of fortune, perhaps, than any other state. After the Lamian war (B.C. 322) twelve thousand citizens had been banished. In B.C. 318, Cassander, son of the late regent Antipater, having only the office of Chiliarch, tried to secure his position against the regent Polyperchon by making himself master of Athens with the connivance of the oligarchical party headed by Phocion, the old opponent of Demosthenes. The Athenian democrats, seeing an opportunity, sided with Polyperchon, who had proclaimed the independence of