Page:History of Greece Vol XI.djvu/462

 436 HISTORY OF GREECE. Phokian towns into villages had been fully carried into detail Isokrates published his letter addressed to Philip the Oratio ad Philippum. The purpose of this letter is, to invite Philip to reconcile the four great cities of Greece Sparta, Athens, Thebes, and Argos ; to put himself at the head of their united force, as well as of Greece generally; and to invade Asia, for the pur- Dose of overthrowing the Persian empire, of liberating the Asiatic Greeks, and of providing new homes for the unsettled wanderers in Greece. The remarkable point here is, that Iso- krates puts the Hellenic world under subordination and pupilage to Philip, renouncing all idea of it as a self-sustaining and self- regulating system. He extols Philip's exploits, good fortune, and power, above all historical parallels treats him unequivocally ns the chief of Greece and only exhorts him to make as good use of his power, as his ancestor Herakles had made in early times. 1 He recommends him, by impartial and conciliatory be- havior towards all, to acquire for himself the same devoted esteem among the Greeks as that which now prevailed among his own Macedonian officers or as that which existed among the Lacedaemonians towards the Spartan kings. 2 Great and mel- ancholy indeed is the change 'which had come over the old age of Isokrates, since he published the Panegyrical Oration (380 B. c. thirty-four years before) wherein he invokes a united Pan- hellenic expedition against Asia, under the joint guidance of the two Hellenic chiefs by land and sea Sparta and Athens ; and wherein he indignantly denounces Sparta for having, at the peace of Antalkidas, introduced for her own purposes a Persian rescript to impose laws on the Grecian world. The prostration of Gre- cian dignity, serious as it was, involved in the peace of Antalki- das, was far less disgraceful than that recommended by Isokrates towards Philip himself indeed personally of Hellenic parent- age, but a Macedonian or barbarian (as Demosthenes 3 terms him) 1 Isokrates, Or. v. ad Philipp. s. 128 135. iffTTfp opac AaKedai(j.oviovf TE irpbf rot)f eavruv (3aai%ea.f i^ovraf, rove ff t-aipove rove aoijf irpof ere 6ia.Kfi[ievov(. "Ecri J' ov xafentiv iv%eiv Tovr<*v /v f?e/,j7<T77f ov6f uiraai yevc:a$ai, etc.
 * Isokrat. Or. v. ad Philipp. s. 91. 5rav OVTU (5tai9?/f rovf "
 * Dcmostli. Philipp iii. p. 118.