Page:History of Greece Vol XI.djvu/434

 408 HISTORY OF GREECE. of marching southward towards Thessalyand Thermopylae. Tliat pass was still held by the Phokians, with a body of Lacedaemonian auxiliaries ; l a force quite sufficient to maintain it against Philip's* open attack, and likely to be strengthened by Athens from sea- ward, if the Athenians came to penetrate his real purposes. I*. was therefore essential to Philip to keep alive a certain belief in the minds of others, that he was marching southward with inten- tions favorable to the Phokians, though not to proclaim it in any such authentic manner as to alienate his actual allies the Thebans and Thessalians. And the Athenian envoys were his most useful agents in circulating the imposture. Some of the Macedonian officers round Philip gave explicit as- surance, that the purpose of his march was to conquer Thebes, and reconstitute the Bosotian cities. So far, indeed, was this de- ception carried, that (according to .yEschines) the Theban envoys in Macedonia, and the Thebans themselves, became seriously alarmed. 2 The movements of Philip were now the pivot on which Grecian affairs turned, and Pella the scene wherein the greatest cities in Greece were bidding for his favor. While the Thebans and Thessalians were calling upon him to proclaim him- self openly Amphiktyonic champion against the Phokians, the Phokian envoys, 3 together with those from Sparta and Athens, 1 The Lacedaemonian troops remained at Thermopylae until a little? time before Philip reached it (Demosth. Fals. Leg. p. 365). etyoflovvTO ol T uv Qrj /Saiuv Trpea/Seif,. . . . T uv (5 ' T at p uv T tves T uv $ ihiir irov o v 6 i a p p T] 8 T] v TT p of T ivaf ii [j.uv e.lf- yov, on T&f kv BoiuTip jro/letf KaroiKiei Qihiinroe; Qrj- 6aloi 6' OVK e^eTir/^v^effav nav6rjfi.Ei, uniaTovvref rolf irpuynaatv ; Demosthenes greatly eulogizes the incorruptibility and hearty efforts of the Theban envoys (Fals. Leg. p. 384) ; which assertion is probably nothing better at bottom, than a rhetorical contrast, to discredit -ZEschines fit to be inserted in the numerous list of oratorical exaggerations and perversions of history, collected in the interesting Treatise of Weiske, De Hyperbole, errorum in Historia Philippi commissorum genitrice (Meissen, 1819). 3 Demosth. Philipp. iii. p. 113; Justin, viii. 4. " Contra Phocensium le- gati, adhibitis Laccdaemoniis ct Atheniensibus, bcllum deprecabantur, cujua ab eo dilationem ter jam emerant." I do not understand to what lacts Jus- tin refers, when he states, that the Phokians " had already purchased thrice from Philip a postpcncment of war.''
 * JEschines, Fals. Leg. p. 46. c. 41. aiirol 6e ov K jjTropovv Kal