Page:History of Greece Vol XI.djvu/410

384 prove to him that he was in the wrong for taking and keeping it, He affects to think, that by this process he should induce Philip to part with a town, the most capital and unparalleled position in all his dominions ; which he had now possessed for twelve years, and which placed him in communication with his new foundation Philippi and the auriferous region around it. The arguments of Æschines would have been much to the purpose, in an action tried between two litigants before an impartial Dikastery at Athens. But here were two belligerent parties, in a given ratio of strength and position as to the future, debating terms of peace. That an envoy on the part of Athens, the losing party, should now stand forward to demand from a victorious enemy the very place which formed the original cause of the war, and which had become far more valuable to Philip than when he first took it—was a pretension altogether preposterous. When Æschines reproduces his eloquent speech reclaiming Amphipolis, as having been the principal necessity and most honorable achievement of his diplomatic mission, he only shows how little qualified he was to render real service to Athens in that capacity to say nothing as yet about corruption. The Athenian people, extremely retentive of past convictions, had it deeply impressed on their minds that Amphipolis was theirs by right; and probably the first envoys to Macedonia, Aristodemus, Neoptolemus, Ktesiphon, Phrynon, etc. had been so cajoled by the courteous phrases, deceptions, and presents of Philip, that they represented him on their return as not unwilling to purchase friendship with Athens by the restoration of Amphipolis. To this delusive expectation in the Athenian mind Æsehines addressed himself, when he took credit for his earnest pleading before Philip on behalf of Athenian right to the place, as if it were the sole purpose of his mission. "We shall see him