Page:History of Greece Vol XI.djvu/484

 458 HISTORY OF GREECE. lated a power for ultimate employment such as she would be una- ble to resist. The Athenians had at length been made to feel that farther acquiescence in these proceedings would only ensure to them the amount of favor tendered by Polyphemus to Odys- seus that they should be devoured last. But the lecture which he thinks fit to administer both to them and to their popular ora- tors, is little better than insulting derision. It is strange to read encomiums on peace as if it were indisputably advantageous to the Athenian public, and as if recommendations of war originat- ed only with venal and calumnious orators for their own profit pronounced by the greatest aggressor and conqueror of his age, whose whole life was passed in war and in the elaborate organiza- tion of great military force ; and addressed to a people whose leading infirmity then was, an aversion almost unconquerable to the personal hardships and pecuniary sacrifices of effective war. This passage of the manifesto may probably be intended as a theme for -/Eschines and the other philippizing partisans in the Athenian assembly. War was now an avowed fact on both sides. At the instiga- tion of Demothenes and others, the Athenians decreed to equip a naval force, which was sent under Chares to the Hellespont and Propontis. Meanwhile Philip brought up to the siege of Perinthus an army of thirty thousand men, and a stock of engines and projec- tiles such as had never before been seen. 1 His attack on this place was remarkable not only for great bravery and persever- ance on both sides, but also for the extended scale of the military operations. 3 Perinthus was strong and defensible ; situated on a 1 How much improvement Philip bad made in engines for siege, as a part of his general military organization is attested in a curious passage of a later author on mechanics. Athenaeus, De Machinis ap. Auctor. Mathcm. Veter. p. 3, ed. Paris. eirifioaiv 6e eXajSsv TJ rotavTij [iijxaroiroiia tnraaa Kara TTJV rov Aiovvaiov rov St/ceAiwrow rvpavvida, Kara re rr)v bMrnrov Toi 'AUVVTOV (3a.cifat.av, ore kito'h.iopKei Bv&vriovc QiAnrirof. ~E.vrjfj.epei. 6e ry roi- aiir-g re^vy IloAiif.riof 6 Qeaaahbf, ovoi fiadriTai avvearpaTEVovTO 'Afaguvdp^t Respecting the engines employed by Dionysius of Syracuse, see Diodor xiv. 42, 48, 50. . p. '215, and Do Fortunu Alcxau. p. 33'J.
 * Diodor. xvi. 74-76 : Plutarch, Vit. Alexandri, c. 70 ; also Laconic. Ap>