Page:History of Greece Vol XI.djvu/469

 ENCROACHMENTS OF PHILIP. 443 sketch of the general tendencies of this period is all that we can venture upon. Philip was the great aggressor of the age. The movement everywhere, in or near Greece, began with him, and with those parties in the various cities, who acted on his instigation and looked up to him for support. We hear of his direct intervention, or of the effects of his exciting suggestions, everywhere ; in Pelopon- nesus, at Ambrakia and Leukas, in Eubrea, and in Thrace. The inhabitants of Megalopolis, Messene, and Argos, were soliciting his presence in Peloponnesus, and his active cooperation against Sparta. Philip intimated a purpose of going there himself, and sent in the mean time soldiers and money, with a formal injunc- tion to Sparta that she must renounce all pretension to Messene. 1 He established a footing in Elis, 2 by furnishing troops to an oli- garchical faction, and enabling them to become masters of the government, after a violent revolution. Connected probably with this intervention in Elis, was his capture of the three Eleian colo- nies, Pandosia, Bucheta, and Elateia, on the coast of the Epirotic Kassopia, near the Gulf of Ambrakia. He made over these three towns to his brother-in-law Alexander, whom he exalted to be prince of the Epirotic Molossians 3 deposing the reigning prince Arrhybas. He farther attacked the two principal Grecian cities in that region, Ambrakia and Leukas ; but here he appears to have failed. 4 Detachments of his troops showed themselves near Megara and Eretria, to the aid of philippizing parties in these cities and to the serious alarm of the Athenians. Philip established more firmly his dominion over Thessaly, distributing the country into four divisions, and planting a garrison in Pherae, the city 1 Demosth. De Pace, p. 61 ; Philippic ii. p. 69. 2 Demosth. Fals. Leg. p. 424 ; Pausan. iv. 28, 3. 3 Justin, viii. 6. Diodorus states 'that Alexander di.f not become prince until after the death of Arrhybas (xvi. 72). 4 Pseudo-Demosth. De Halonneso, p. 84 ; Demosth. Fals. Leg. p. 424- 435 ; Philippic iii. p. 117-120; Philippic iv. p. 133. As these enterprises of Philip against Ambrakia and Leukas are net noticed in the second Philippic, but only in orations of later date, we mjf perhaps presume that they did not take place till after Olymp. 1(19, 1 =B. C 3 14 -343. But tl.is is not a very certain inference