How far Æschines really promised to the Athenians that which Demosthenes here alleges him to have promised—is a matter to be investigated when we arrive at the transactions of the year 346 B. C. But it seems to me clear that the imputation (true or false) against the Thebans, of having been themselves in conspiracy to seize the temple, must have emanated first from the Phokians, as part of the justification of their own proceedings. If the Thebans ever conceived such an idea, it must have been before the actual occupation of the temple by the Phokians, if they were falsely charged with conceiving it, the false charge would also be preferred at the time. Demosthenes would hardly invent it twelve years after the Phokian occupation.
[516] Herodot. i. 54.
[517] Strabo, ix. p. 423.
[518] Thucyd. i. 12.
[519] Thucyd. v. 18.
[520] Justin (viii. 1) takes no notice of this first position of the Phokians in regard to the temple of Delphi. He treats them as if they had been despoilers of the temple even at first; “velut deo irascentes.”
[521] Diodor. xvi. 24. Hesychius (v. Λαφριάδαι) mentions another phratry or gens at Delphi, called Laphriadæ. See Wilhelm Götte, Das Delphische Orakel, p. 83. Leipsic, 1839.
It is stated by Pausanias, that the Phokians were bent upon dealing with Delphi and its inhabitants in the harshest manner; intending to kill all the men of military age, to sell the remaining population as slaves, and to raze the whole town to the ground. Archidamus, king of Sparta, (according to Pausanias) induced the Phokians to abandon this resolution (Pausan. iii. 10, 4).
At what moment the Phokians ever determined on this step—or, indeed, whether they ever really determined on it—we cannot feel any certainty. Nor can we decide confidently, whether Pausanias borrowed the statement from Theopompus, whom he quotes a little before.
[522] Didorus xvi. 27. Ὁμοίως δὲ καὶ πρὸς τὰς ἄλλας τὰς ἐπισημοτάτας τῶν κατὰ τὴν Ἑλλάδα πόλεων ἀπέστειλεν, ἀπολογούμενος, ὅτι κατείληπται τοὺς Δελφοὺς, οὐ τοῖς ἱεροῖς χρήμασιν ἐπιβουλεύων, ἀλλὰ τῆς τοῦ ἱεροῦ προστασίας ἀμφισβητῶν· εἶναι γὰρ Φωκέων αὐτὴν ἰδίαν ἐν τοῖς παλαιοῖς χρόνοις ἀποδεδειγμένην. Τῶν δὲ χρημάτων τὸν λόγον ἔφη πᾶσι τοῖς Ἕλλησιν ἀποδώσειν, καὶ τόν τε σταθμὸν καὶ τὸν ἀριθμὸν τῶν ἀναθημάτων ἕτοιμος εἶναι παραδιδόναι τοῖς βουλομένοις ἐξετάζειν. Ἠξίου δὲ, ἄν τις δι᾽ ἐχθρὰν ἢ φθόνον πολέμῃ Φωκεῦσι, μάλιστα μὲν ξυμμαχεῖν, εἰ δὲ μή γε, τὴν ἡσυχίαν ἄγειν.