Page:History of Greece Vol XI.djvu/424

 8i>8 HISTORY OF GREECE. to recognize Kersobleptes as an ally of Athens, and to receive his oath. But in regai-d to the Phokians, they announced a de termination distinctly opposite. They gave notice, at or after the assembly of the 25th Elaphebolion, that Philip positively refused to admit the Phokians as parties to the convention. This determination, formally announced by Antipater at Athens, must probably have been made known by Philip himself to Phi- lokrates and ^Eschines, when on mission in Macedonia. Hence. Philokrates, in his motion about the terms of peace, had proposed that the Phokians and Halus should be specially excluded (as I have already related). Now, however, when the Athenian as- sembly, by expressly repudiating such exclusion, had determined that the Phokians should be received as parties, while the envoys of Philip were not less express in rejecting them, the leaders af the peace, 2Eschines and Philokrates, were in great embarrass- ment. They had no other way of surmounting the difficulty, except by holding out mendacious promises, and unauthorized as- surances of future intention in the name of Philip. Accordingly, they confidently announced that the King of Macedon, though precluded by his relations with the Thebans and Thessalians (necessary to him while he remained at war with Athens), from openly receiving the Phokians as allies, w r as nevertheless in his heart decidedly adverse to the Thebans ; and that, if his hands were once set free by concluding peace with Athens, he would in- terfere in the quarrel just in the manner that the Athenians would desire ; that he would uphold the Phokians, put down the insolence of Thebes, and even break up the integrity of the city; restoring also the autonomy of Thespia;, Plataea and the other Bceotian towns, now in Theban dependence. The general as- surances, previously circulated by Aristodemus, Ktesiphon, and others, of Philip's anxiety to win favorable opinions from the Athenians, were now still farther magnified into a supposed com- munity of antipathy against Thebes ; and even into a disposition to compensate Athens for the loss of Amphipolis, by making hei complete mistress of Euboea as well as by recovering for her Oropus. By such glowing fabrications and falsehoods, confidently as- severated, Philokrates, ^Eschines, and the other partisans of Philip present, completely deluded the assembly ; and induced them, not