Page:History of Greece Vol XI.djvu/548

 522 HISTORY OF GREECE. have been his career, had Epaminondas survived the victory of Mantineia, gained only two years before Philip's accession ! To rppose Philip, there needed a man like himself, competent not only ,o advise and project, but to command in person, to stimulate the zeal of citizen-soldiers, and to set the example of braving danger and fatigue. Unfortunately for Greece, no such leader stood foi'- ward. In counsel and speech Demosthenes sufficed for the emer- gency. Twice before the battle of Chaeroneia at Byzantium and at Thebes did he signally frustrate Philip's combinations. But he was not formed to take the lead in action, nor was there any one near him to supply the defect. In the field, Philip en- countered only that "public inefficiency," at Athens and elsewhere in Greece, of which even jEschines complains ; l and to this decay of Grecian energy, not less than to his own distinguished attributes, the unparalleled success of his reign was owing. We shall find during the reign of his son Alexander (to be described in our next volume) the like genius and vigor exhibited on a still larger scale, and achieving still more wonderful results ; while the once stirring politics of Greece, after one feeble effort, sink yet lower, into the nullity of a subject-province. 1 jEschines cont. Timarchum, p. 26. d ra ri T?ei>/iab//ev rqv KO ivr)* unpaZiav, TOIUVTUV pqropuv inl rue TOV dr)jj.av yvu[j.a^ imypatfo/Lievuv ; JSschines would ascribe this public inefficiency which many admitted and deplored; though few except Demosthenes persevered in contending against it to the fact that men of scandalous private lues (like Timar chus) were permitted, against the law, to move decrees ic tbe public r icmbly. Compare ^Eschines, Pals. Leg p. 37.