Page:History of Greece Vol XII.djvu/414

 382 HISTORY OF GREECE. Shortly after the departure of Demetrius from Greece to Cy- prus, Kassander and Polysperchon renewed the war in Pelo* ponnesus and its neighborhood.^ We make out no particulars respecting this war. The ^tolians were in hostility with Ath- ens, and committed annoying depredations.2 The fleet of Athens, repaired or increased by the timber received from Antigonus, was made to furnish thirty quadriremes to assist Demetrius in Cyprus, and was employed in certain operations near the island of Amorgos, wherein it suffered defeat.* But we can discover little respecting the course of the war, except that Kassander gained ground upon the Athenians, and that about the beginning of 303 B. c, he was blockading or threatening to blockade, Ath- ens. The Athenians invoked the aid of Demetrius Poliorketes, who, having recently concluded an accommodation with the Rho- dians, came again across from Asia, with a powerful fleet and army, to Aulis in Boeotia.* He was received at Athens with demonstrations of honor equal or superior to those which had marked his previous visit. He seems to have passed a year and a half, partly at Athens, partly in military operations carried suc- cessfully over many parts of Greece. He compelled the Boeo- tians to evacuate the Euboean city of Chalkis, and to relinquish their alliance with Kassander. He drove that prince out of At- tica — expelled his garrisons from the two frontier fortresses of Attica, — Phyle and Panaktum — and pursued him as far as Thermopylae. He captured, or obtained by bribing the garri- sons, the important towns of Corinth, Argos, and Sikyon ; mas- tering also ^gium, Bura, all the Arcadian towns (except Man- ' Diodor. xx. 100. '^ That the ^itolians were just now most vexatious enemies to AthenS; may be seen by the Ithyphallic ode addressed to Demetrius Poliorketes (Athensens, vi. p. 253). ' Diodor. xx. 50; Plutarch, Demetr. 11. In reference to this defeat near Amorgos, Stratokles (the complaisant orator who moved the votes of flat- tery towards Demetrius and Antigonus) is said to have announced it first as a victory, to the great joy of the people. Presently evidences of the de- feat arrived, and the people were angry with Stratokles. " What harm has happened to you ? (replied he) — have you not had two days of pleasnra and satisfaction ? " This is at any rate a very good story. ■* Diodor. xx. lOO; Plutarch, Demetr. 23.