Page:History of Greece Vol XI.djvu/455

 COKKUl'TION OF AESCHINES. 429 which ranked among the loftiest aspirations of ambitious Grecian despots, and which Jason, of Pheras, had prepared to appropriate tor himself twenty-four years before, at the moment when he was assassinated. 1 It was in vain that the Athenians, mortified and indignant at the unexpected prostration of their hopes and the utter ruin of their allies, refused to send deputies to the Amphik tyon 3, affected even to disregard the assembly as irregular, ard refrained from despatching their sacred legation as usual, to .acrifice at the Pythian festival. 2 The Amphiktyonic vote did not the less pass ; without the concurrence, indeed, either of Ath- ens or of Sparta, yet with the hearty support not only of Thebans and Thessalians, but also of Argeians, Messenians, Arcadians, and all those who counted upon Philip as a probable auxiliary against their dangerous Spartan neighbor. 3 And when envoys from Philip and from the Thessalians arrived at Athens, notifying that lie had been invested with the Amphiktyonic suffrage, and inviting the concurrence of Athens in his reception, prudential consid- erations obliged the Athenians, though against their feelings, to pass a vote of concurrence. Even Demosthenes was afraid to break the recent peace, however inglorious, and to draw upon Athens a general Amphiktyonic war, headed by the King of Macedon. 4 Here then was a momentous political change doubly fatal to cannot but think that Diodorus has been misled by a confusion of these two festivals one with the other. 1 Xenoph. Hellen. vi. 5 Demosth. Fals. Leg. p. 380-398. ovru &EIVU. KOI (T^er/Ua i/yovfievuv rovf raAaiTrwpovf nuaxeiv 4>6j/ceaf, ware //;/re rot)f IK TJJC (3ov?.}jf deupovf ur/re rovf &cafj.o-&Taf elf TO. Hii-&ia 7repf>ai, {M? anoffTf/vat rfjg irarpiov f, el ;. Demosth. De Pace, p. 60. roi>e aw ehri^vd oras row- nal ua KOV TO.( 'A//0 1 K TV ov a f eZva/, etc. 3 Demosth. Fals. Leg. p. 61 ; Philippic ii. p. 68, 69. 4 Demosth. De Pace, p. 60-63 ; Demosth. Fals. Leg. p. 375. In the Jatter passage, p. 375, Demosthenes accuses JEschines of having been the only orator in the city who spoke in favor of the proposition, there being a itrong feeling in the assembly and in the people against it. Demosthenea must have forgotten, or did not wish to remember, his own harangue De Pace, delivered three years before. In spite of the repugnance of the people, very easy to understand, I conclude that the decree must have passed ; since, if it had been rejected, consequences must have arisen which would have come to our knowledge.