Page:The City-State of the Greeks and Romans.djvu/324

300 despaired of war, and the event proved him right. The faithfulness of the Athenians towards him is a proof that they also instinctively felt that he was right. But he was wanting on the practical and creative side, and never really dominated either Athens, Greece, or Philip.

There seems then to have been no way of saving the from the threatening power of Macedon, either by united resistance or by the acceptance of Macedonian leadership. A policy of resistance found the City-State too weak to defend itself; a policy of inaction would land it in a Macedonian empire which would still further weaken its remaining vitality. The first policy, that of Demosthenes, did actually result in disaster and the presence of Macedonian garrisons in Greek cities. The second policy then took its place, and initiated a new era for Greece. After the fatal battle of Chæronea (338 B.C.) Philip assumed the position of leader of the Greek cities. Inspired by his Greek education, by the memory of the Persian wars, by the career of the Spartan Agesilaus, and by the writings of Isocrates, he determined to lead a united Greece against Persia, and summoned representatives of the cities to meet him at the Isthmus as the first step. Assassination cut short his designs; but in his son Greece found a still mightier exponent of this idea of her true relation to Macedon. Under Alexander it was not Macedon that conquered the East, but Greece. And at home it was not only Alexander's generals who kept Greece under the influence of Macedon, but Greeks and even Athenians — Phocion