[1080] The chronology of this period has caused much perplexity, and has been differently arranged by different authors. But it will be found that all the difficulties and controversies regarding it have arisen from resting on the spurious decrees embodied in the speech of Demosthenes De Coronâ, as if they were so much genuine history. Mr. Clinton, in his Fasti Hellenici, cites these decrees as if they were parts of Demosthenes himself. When we once put aside these documents, the general statements both of Demosthenes and Æschines, though they are not precise or specific, will appear perfectly clear and consistent respecting the chronology of the period.
That the battle of Chæroneia took place on the 7th of the Attic month Metageitnion (August) B. C. 338 (the second month of the archon Chærondas at Athens)—is affirmed by Plutarch (Camill. c. 19) and generally admitted.
The time when Philip first occupied Elateia has been stated by Mr. Clinton and most authors as the preceding month of Skirrophorion, fifty days or thereabouts earlier. But this rests exclusively on the evidence of the pretended decree, for alliance between Athens and Thebes, which appears in Demosthenes De Coronâ, p. 289. Even those who defend the authenticity of the decree, can hardly confide in the truth of the month-date, when the name of the archon Nausikles is confessedly wrong. To me neither this document, nor the other so-called Athenian decrees professing to bear date in Munychion and Elaphebolion (p. 282), carry any evidence whatever.
The general statements both of Demosthenes and Æschines, indicate the appointment of Philip as Amphiktyonic general to have been made in the autumnal convocation of Amphiktyons at Thermopylæ. Shortly after this appointment, Philip marched his army into Greece with the professed purpose of acting upon it. In this march he came upon Elateia and began to fortify it; probably about the month of October 339 B. C. The Athenians, Thebans, and other Greeks, carried on the war against him in Phokis for about ten months, until the battle of Chæroneia. That this war must have lasted as long as ten months, we may see by the facts mentioned in my last page—the reëstablishment of the Phokians and their towns, and especially the elaborate fortification of Ambrysus. Böhnecke (Forschungen, p. 533) points out justly (though I do not agree with his general arrangement of the events of the war) that this restoration of the Phokian towns implies a considerable interval between the occupation of Elateia and the battle of Chæroneia. We have also two battles gained against Philip, one of them a μάχη χειμερινὴ, which perfectly suits with this arrangement.
[1081] Demosth. De Coronâ, p. 306; Plutarch, Demosth. c. 17. In the decree of the Athenian people (Plutarch, Vit. X. Orat. p. 850) passed after the death of Demosthenes, granting various honors and a statue to his memory—it is recorded that he brought in by his persuasions not only the allies enumerated in the text, but also the Lokrians and the Messenians; and that he procured from the allies a total contribution of above five hundred talents. The Messenians, however, certainly did not fight at Chæroneia; nor is it correct to say that Demosthenes induced the Amphissian Lokrians to become allies of Athens.
[1082] Strabo, ix. p. 414; Pausanias, vii. 6, 3.
[1083] Plutarch, Demosth. c. 48. Æschines (adv. Ktesiph. p. 74) puts these same facts—the great personal ascendency of Demosthenes at this period—in an invidious point of view.
[1084] Plutarch, Demosth. c. 18. ὥστε εὐθὺς ἐπικηρυκεύεσθαι δεόμενον εἰρήνης, etc.
It is possible that Philip may have tried to disunite the enemies assembled against him, by separate propositions addressed to some of them.
[1085] Æschines adv. Ktesiph. p. 74. Deinarchus mentions a Theban named Proxenus, whom he calls a traitor, as having commanded these mercenary troops at Amphissa (Deinarchus adv. Demosth. p. 99).