Page:History of Greece Vol XI.djvu/487

 BYZANTIUM SAVED. 46 ! checked privateering, and protected the trade-ships so efficaciously, that corn became unusually abundant and cheap both at Athens and throughout Greece :' and Demosthenes, as statesman and diplomatist, enjoyed the credit of having converted Euboea into a friendly and covering neighbor for Athens, instead of being a shelter for Philip's marauding cruisers as well as of bringing round Byzantium from the Macedonian alliance to that of Athena, and thus preventing both the Hellespont and the corn-trade from passing into Philip's hands. 2 The warmest votes of thanks, to- gether with wreaths in token of gratitude, were decreed to Athens by the public assemblies of Byzantium, Perinthus, and the vaii- ous towns of the Chersonese ; 3 while the Athenian public assem- bly also decreed and publicly proclaimed a similar vote of thanks and admiration to Demosthenes. The decree, moved by Aris tonikus, was so unanimously popular at the time, that neithei ^schines nor any of the other enemies of Demosthenes thought it safe to impeach the mover .4 In the recent military operations, on so large a scale, against Byzantium and Perinthus, Philip had found himself in conflict not merely with Athens, but also with Chians, Rhodians and oth- ers ; an unusually large muster of confederate Greeks. To break up this confederacy, he found it convenient to propose peace, and to abandon his designs against Byzantium and Perinthus th* point on which the alarm of the confederates chiefly turned. By withdrawing his forces from the Propontis, he was enabled to ccn- 1 Demosth. DC CoiWi, p. 255 ; Plutarch, De Glor. Athen. p. 350. 8 Demosth. De Corona, p. 305, 306, 307 : comp. p. 253. /zerd raiira 6t Toijf unuffTu^ovg iruvraf uireaTeiZa, KO.&' oiif XspfiovjjGOf eau-dri, Kal Bvav~ riov Kal iruvref ol avp/iaxot, etc. passed, is authenticated by the words of the oration itself. Documents are inserted in the oration, purporting to be the decree of the Byzantines and Perinthians, and that of the Chersonesite cities. I do not venture to cite these as genuine, considering how many of the other documents an- nexed to this oration are decidedly spurious. 4 Demosth. p. 253. Aristonikus is again mentioned, p. 302. A docu- ment appears, p. 253, purporting to be the vote of the Athenians to thank and crown Demosthenes, proposed by Aristonikus. Tte name ot the Athenian archon is wrong, as in all the other documents embodied ic. thi* oration, where the name of an Athenian archon appears. 39*
 * Demosth. De Corona, p. 255, 257. That these votes of thanks were