Page:History of Greece Vol XI.djvu/506

 130 HISTORY OF GREECE. Athens nor Thebes took part in the proceeding, while Sparta had been excluded from the Amphiktyonic council in 346 B. c. There remained therefore only the secondary and smaller states. Of these, the Peloponnesians, even if inclined, could not easily come, since they could neither march by land through Bocotia, nor come with ease by sea while the Amphissians were masters of the port of Kirrha ; and the Thessalians and their neighbors were not likely to take so intense an interest in the enterprize as to carry it through without the rest. Moreover, the party who were only waiting for a pretext to invite the interference of Philip, would rather prefer to do nothing, in order to show how impossible it was to act without him. Hence we may fairly assume that what ^Eschines represents as indulgent terms granted to the Lokrians and afterwards violated by them, was at best nothing more than a temporary accommodation ; concluded because Kottyphus could not do anything probably did not wish to do anything without the intervention of Philip. The next Pylasa, or the autumnal meeting of the Amphiktyons at Thermopylae, now arrived ; yet the Lokrians were still unsub- dued. Kottyphus and his party now made the formal proposi- tion to invoke the aid of Philip. " If you do not consent (they told the Amphiktyons 1 ), you must come forward personally in force, subscribe ample funds, and fine all defaulters. Choose which you prefer." The determination of the Amphiktyons was taken to invoke the interference of Philip ; appointing him com- mander of the combined force, and champion of the god, in the new Sacred War, as he had been in the former. At the autumnal meeting, 2 where this fatal measure of calling 1 Demosth. De Coron&, p. 277, 278. v The chronology of the events here recounted lias been differently con- trived by different authors. According to my view, the first motion raised by^schines against the Amphissian Lokrians, occurred in the spring meet- ing of the Amphiktyons at Delphi in 339 B. c. (the year of the archon Theo phrastus at Athens) ; next, there was held, a special or extraordinary meet- i.ig of Amphiktyons, and a warlike manifestation against the Lokrians ; after which came the regulai autumnal meeting at Thermopylae (B.C. 339 September the year of the nrchon Lysimachides at Athens), where the fate was passed to call in the military interference of Philip. This chronology Iocs not, indeed, agree with the two so-callc 1 decrees of