Page:History of Greece Vol XI.djvu/233

 PH1LIIP AT THEBES. 207 dikkas was induced to bestow upon his own brother Philip a p<r- tion of territory or an appanage in Macedonia. In 368 B. c. (during the reign of Alexander elder brother of Perdikkas and Philip), Pelopidas had reduced Macedonia to partial submission, and had taken hostages for its fidelity ; among which hostages was the youthful Philip, then about fifteen years of age. In this character Philip remained about two or three years at Thebes. 1 How or when he left that city, we cannot clearly make out. He seems to have returned to Macedonia after the murder of Alex- ander by Ptolemy Alorites ; probably without opposition from the Thebans, since his value as a hostage was then diminished. The fact that he was confided (together with his brother Perdikkas) by his mother Eurydike to the protection of the Athenian general Iphikrates, then on the coast of Macedonia has been recounted in a previous chapter. How Philip fared during the regency of 1 Justin, vi. 9; vii. 5. "Philippus obses tricnnio Thebis habitus," etc. Compare Plutarch, Pelopidas, c. 26; Diodor. xv. 67; xvi. 2; and the copious note of Wesseling upon the latter passage. The two passages of Diodorus are not very consistent ; in the latter, he states that Philip had been deposited at Thebes by the lllyrians, to whom he had been made over as a hostage by his father Amyntas. This is highly improbable; as well for other reasons (assigned by Wesseling), as because the lllyrians, if they ever received him as a hostage, would not send him to Thebes, but keep him in their own possession. The memorable interview described by jEschines between the Athenian general Iphikrates and the Macedonian queen Eurydike with her two youthful sons Perdikkas and Philip must have taken place some time before the death of Ptolemy Alorites, and be- fore the accession of Perdikkas. The expressions of _<Eschines do not, per- haps, necessarily compel us to suppose the interview to have taken place immediately after the death of Alexander (JEschines, Fal. Leg. p. 31, 32): yet it is difficult to reconcile the statement of the orator with the recogni- tion _f three years' continuous residence at Thebes. Flathe (Geschichto Makedonicns, vol. i. p. 39-47) supposes ^Eschines to have allowed himself an oratorical misrepresentation, when he states that Philip was present in Macedonia at the interview with Iphikrates. This is an unsatisfactory mode of escaping from the difficulty ; but the chronological statements, as they now stand, can hardly be all correct. It is possible that Philip may have gone again back to Thebes, or may have been sent back, after the in- terview with Iphikrates ; we might thus obtain a space of three years for his stay, at two several times, in that city. We are not to suppose that hii condition at Thebes was one of durance and ill-treatment. See Mr. Clin ton, Fast. Hell. App. iv. p. 229.