[1040] Demosth. De Coronâ, p. 275.
[1041] Æschines adv. Ktesiph. p. 69-71.
[1042] Æschines adv. Ktesiph. p. 71.
[1043] Demosthen. De Coronâ, p. 277; Æschines adv. Ktesiph. p. 72.
[1044] Demosth. De Coronâ, p. 277, 278.
[1045] The chronology of the events here recounted has been differently conceived by different authors. According to my view, the first motion raised by Æschines against the Amphissian Lokrians, occurred in the spring meeting of the Amphiktyons at Delphi in 339 B. C. (the year of the archon Theophrastus at Athens); next, there was held a special or extraordinary meeting of Amphiktyons, and a warlike manifestation against the Lokrians; after which came the regular autumnal meeting at Thermopylæ (B. C. 339—September—the year of the archon Lysimachides at Athens), where the vote was passed to call in the military interference of Philip.
This chronology does not, indeed, agree with the two so-called decrees of the Amphiktyons, and with the documentary statement—Ἄρχων Μνησιθείδης, Ἀνθεστηριῶνος ἕκτῃ ἐπὶ δέκα—which we read as incorporated in the oration De Coronâ, p. 279. But I have already stated that I think these documents spurious.
The archon Mnesitheides (like all the other archons named in the documents recited in the oration De Coronâ) is a wrong name, and cannot have been quoted from any genuine document. Next, the first decree of the Amphiktyons is not in harmony with the statement of Æschines, himself the great mover, of what the Amphiktyons really did. Lastly, the second decree plainly intimates that the person who composed the two decrees conceived the nomination of Philip to have taken place in the very same Amphiktyonic assembly as the first movement against the Lokrians. The same words, ἐπὶ ἱερέως Κλειναγόρου, ἐαρινῆς πυλαίας—prefixed to both decrees, must be understood to indicate the same assembly. Mr. Clinton’s supposition that the first decree was passed at the spring meeting of 339 B. C.—and the second at the spring meeting of 338 B. C.—Kleinagoras being the eponymus in both years—appears to me nowise probable. The special purpose and value of an eponymus would disappear, if the same person served in that capacity for two successive years. Boeckh adopts the conjecture of Reiske, altering ἐαρινῆς πυλαίας in the second decree into ὀπωρινῆς πυλαίας. This would bring the second decree into better harmony with chronology; but there is nothing in the state of the text to justify such an innovation. Böhnecke (Forsch. p. 498-508) adopts a supposition yet more improbable. He supposes that Æschines was chosen Pylagoras at the beginning of the Attic year 340-339 B. C., and that he attended first at Delphi at the autumnal meeting of the Amphiktyons 340 B. C.; that he there raised the violent storm which he himself describes in his speech; and that he afterwards, at the subsequent spring meeting, came both the two decrees which we now read in the oration De Coronâ. But the first of these two decrees can never have come after the outrageous proceeding described by Æschines. I will add, that in the form of decree, the president Kottyphus is called an Arcadian; whereas Æschines designates him as a Pharsalian.
[1046] Demosth. De Coronâ, p. 278.
[1047] Æschines adv. Ktesiph. p. 72 ... τῶν μὲν θεῶν τὴν ἡγεμονίαν τῆς εὐσεβείας ἡμῖν παραδεδωκότων, τῆς δὲ Δημοσθένους δωροδοκίας ἐμποδὼν γεγενημένης.