Page:History of Greece Vol XI.djvu/481

 ATHENS DECLARES WAR. 455 accumulated causes of war. At the same time, it appears that lie now let loose his cruisers against the Athenian merchantmen, many of which he captured and appropriated. These captures, together with the incursions on the Chersonese, served as last ad- ditional provocations, working up the minds of the Athenians to a positive declaration of war. 1 Shortly after midsummer 340 B. c., nt the beginning of the archonship of Theophrastus, they passed a formal decree 2 to remove the column on which the peace of 346 a. c. stood recorded, and to renew the war openly and explicitly against Philip. It seems probable that this was done while De- mosthenes was still absent on his mission at the Hellespont and Bosphorus ; for he expressly states that none of the decrees im- mediately bringing on hostilities were moved by him, but all of them by other citizens ; 3 a statement which we may reasonably 1 That these were the two last causes which immediately preceded and determined the declaration of war, we may see by Demosthenes, De Coron, p. 249 Kal fjLrjv TT/V eipr/vjjv y ' iKEivof e^vae TU -KAola Aa/3wv, oi>% q TTO- /Uf, etc. 'AAA' eireidrj Qavepuf f]6ri TU. TT?Mia eoeavAijro, Xeppbvrjaos liropdeiTO, inl TTJV 'Am/c^v kiropeveW uv&puTrof, otiKtV h> uft^ta^rirrjai[iu TU irpu.yna.Ta i/v, {MS ivEiarrjKei 7r6Ae//of, etc. (p. 274.) 8 Philochorus, Frag. 135. ed. Didot ; Dionys. Hal. ad Ammaeum, p. 738- 741; Diodorus, xvi. 77. The citation given by Dionysius out of Philocho- rus is on one point not quite accurate. It states that Demosthenes moved the decisive resolution for declaring war ; whereas Demosthenes himself tells us that none of the motions at this juncture were made by him (De Corona, p. 250). 3 Demosth. De Corona, p. 250. It will be seen that I take no notice of the two decrees of the Athenians, and the letter of Philip, embodied in the oration De Corona, p. 249, 250, 251. I have already stated that all tho documents which we read as attached to this oration are so tainted either with manifest error or with causes of doubt, that I cannot cite them as au- thorities in this history, wherever they stand alone. Accordingly, I take no account either of the supposed siege of Selymbria, mentioned in Philip's pretended letter, but mentioned nowhere else nor of the twenty Athenian ships captured by the Macedonian admiral Amyntas, and afterwards re- stored by Philip on the remonstrance of the Athenians, mentioned in th* pretended Athenian decree moved by Eubulus. Neither Demosthenes, nor Philochorus, nor Diodorus, nor Justin, says anything about the siege of Se- lymbria, though all of them allude to the attacks on Byzantium and Perin thus. I do not believe that the siege of Sel/mbria ever occurred. More wer, Athenian vessels captured, but aferwanls restored l jy Philip en r