Olympias, during the intestine contests which followed after the death of Alexander, seems to have put to death as many illustrious Macedonians as she chose, without any form of trial. But when her enemy Kassander got the upper hand, subdued and captured her, he did not venture to put her to death without obtaining the consent of a Macedonian assembly (Diodor. xix. 11, 51; Justin, xiv. 6; Pausanias, i. 11, 2). These Macedonian assemblies, insofar as we read of them, appear to be summoned chiefly as mere instruments to sanction some predetermined purpose of the king or the military leader predominant at the time. Flathe (Geschicht. Makedon. p. 43-45) greatly overrates, in my judgment, the rights and powers enjoyed by the Macedonian people.
[440] Xenoph. Hellen. vi. 1, 6, 16.
[441] Diodor. xvi. 2, 3.
[442] Demosthenes cont. Aristokrat. p. 660. s. 144.
[443] Diodor. xvi. 3; Demosthen. cont. Aristokrat. p. 660 ut sup. τῶν ἡμετέρων τινὰς πολιτῶν, etc. Justin, vii 6.
[444] Diodor. xvi. 3.
[445] Diodor. xvi. 4.
[446] See the remarks of Niebuhr, on these migrations of Gallic tribes from the west, and their effect upon the prior population established between the Danube and the Ægean Sea (Niehbuhr, Vorträge über alte Geschichte, vol. iii. p. 225, 281; also the earlier work of the same author—Kleine Schriften, Untersuchungen über die Geschichte der Skythen, p. 375).
[447] Theopompus, Fragm. 35, ed. Didot; Cicero de Officiis, ii. 11; Diodor. xvi. 4.
[448] Arrian, vii. 9, 2, 3.