But the misfortunes arising to Athens from the Social War did not come alone. It had the farther effect of rendering her less competent for defence against the early aggressions of Philip of Macedon.
That prince, during the first year of his accession (359 B. C.), had sought to conciliate Athens by various measures, but especially by withdrawing his garrison from Amphipolis, while he was establishing his military strength in the interior against the Illyrians and Pæonians. He had employed in this manner a period apparently somewhat less than two years; and employed it with such success, as to humble his enemies in the interior, and get together a force competent for aggressive operations against the cities on the coast. During this interval, Amphipolis remained a free and independent city; formally renounced by Philip, and not assailed by the Athenians. Why they let slip this favorable opportunity of again enforcing by arms pretensions on which they laid so much stress—I have before partially (though not very satisfactorily) explained. Philip was not the man to let them enjoy the opportunity longer than he could help, or to defer the moment of active operations as they did. Towards the close of 358 B. C., finding his hands free from impediments in the interior, he forthwith commenced the siege of Amphipolis. The inhabitants are said to have been unfavorably disposed towards him, and to have given him many causes for war.[485] It is not easy to understand what these causes could have been, seeing that so short a time before, the town had been garrisoned by Macedonians invoked as protectors against Athens; nor were the inhabitants in any condition to act aggressively against Philip.
Having in vain summoned Amphipolis to surrender, Philip commenced a strenuous siege, assailing the walls with battering-rams and other military engines. The weak points of the fortification must have been well known to him, from his own soldiers who had been recently in garrison. The inhabitants defended themselves with vigor; but such was now the change of circumstances, that they were forced to solicit their ancient enemy Athens for aid against the Macedonian prince. Their envoys Hierax and Stratokles, reaching Athens shortly after the successful close of the Athenian expedition to Eubœa, presented themselves before the public assembly, urgently inviting the Athenians to come forthwith and occupy Amphipolis, as the only chance of rescue from Macedonian dominion.[486] We are not certain whether the Social War had yet broken out; if it had, Athens would be too much pressed with anxieties arising out of so formidable a revolt, to have means disposable even for the tempting recovery of the long-lost Amphipolis. But at any rate Philip had foreseen and counterworked the prayers of the Amphipolitans. He sent a courteous letter to the Athenians, acquainting them that he was besieging the town, yet recognizing it as belonging of right to them, and promising to restore it to them when he should have succeeded in the capture.[487]
Much of the future history of Greece turned upon the manner in which Athens dealt with these two conflicting messages. The situation of Amphipolis, commanding the passage over the Strymon, was not only all-important—as shutting up Macedonia to the eastward and as opening the gold regions around Mount Pangæus—but was also easily defensible by the Athenians from seaward, if once acquired. Had they been clear-sighted in the appreciation of chances, and vigilant in respect to future defence, they might now have acquired this important place, and might have held it against the utmost efforts of Philip. But that fatal inaction which had become their general besetting sin, was on the present occasion encouraged by some plausible, yet delusive, pleas. The news of the danger of the Amphipolitans would be not unwelcome at Athens—where strong aversion was entertained towards them, as refractory occupants of a territory not their own, and as having occasioned repeated loss and humiliation to the Athenian arms. Nor could the Athenians at once shift their point of view, so as to contemplate the question on the ground of policy alone, and to recognize these old enemies as persons whose interests had now come into harmony with their own. On the other hand, the present temper of the Athenians towards Philip was highly favorable. Not only had they made peace with him during the preceding year, but they also felt that he had treated them well both in evacuating Amphipolis and in dismissing honorably their citizens who had been taken prisoners in the army of his competitor Argæus.[488] Hence they were predisposed to credit his positive assurance, that he only wished to take the place in order to expel a troublesome population who had wronged and annoyed him, and that he would readily hand it over to its rightful owners the Athenians. To grant the application of the Amphipolitans for aid, would thus appear, at Athens, to be courting a new war and breaking with a valuable friend, in order to protect an odious enemy, and to secure an acquisition which would at all events come to them, even if they remained still, through the cession of Philip. It is necessary to dwell upon the motives which determined Athens on this occasion to refrain from interference; since there were probably few of her resolutions which she afterwards more bitterly regretted. The letter of assurance from Philip was received and trusted; the envoys from Amphipolis were dismissed with a refusal.
Deprived of all hope of aid from Athens, the Amphipolitans still held out as long as they could. But a party in the town entered into correspondence with Philip to betray it, and the defence thus gradually became feebler. At length he made a breach in the walls, sufficient, with the aid of partisans within, to carry the city by assault, not without a brave resistance from those who still remained faithful. All the citizens unfriendly to him were expelled or fled, the rest were treated with lenity; but we are told that little favor was shown by Philip towards those who had helped in the betrayal.[489]
Amphipolis was to Philip an acquisition of unspeakable importance, not less for defence than for offence. It was not only the most convenient maritime station in Thrace, but it also threw open to him all the country east of the Strymon, and especially the gold region near Mount Pangæus. He established himself firmly in his new position, which continued from henceforward one of the bulwarks of Macedonia, until the conquest of that kingdom by the Romans. He took no steps to fulfil his promise of handing over the place to the Athenians, who doubtless sent embassies to demand it. The Social War, indeed, which just now broke out, absorbed all their care and all their forces, so that they were unable, amidst their disastrous reverses at Chios and elsewhere, to take energetic measures in reference to Philip and Amphipolis. Nevertheless he still did not peremptorily refuse the surrender, but continued to amuse the Athenians with delusive hopes, suggested through his partisans, paid or voluntary, in the public assembly.
It was the more necessary for him to postpone any open breach with Athens, because the Olynthians had conceived serious alarm from his conquest of Amphipolis, and had sent to negotiate a treaty of amity and alliance with the Athenians. Such an alliance, had it been concluded, would have impeded the farther schemes of Philip. But his partisans at Athens procured the dismissal of the Olynthian envoys, by renewed assurances that the Macedonian prince was still the friend of Athens, and still disposed to cede Amphipolis as her legitimate possession. They represented, however, that he had good ground for complaining that Athens continued to retain Pydna, an ancient Macedonian seaport.[490] Accordingly they proposed to open negotiations with him for the exchange of Pydna against Amphipolis. But as the Pydnæans were known to be adverse to the transfer, secrecy was indispensable in the preliminary proceedings, so that Antiphon and Charidemus, the two envoys named, took their instructions from the Senate and made their reports only to the Senate. The public assembly being informed that negotiations, unavoidably secret, were proceeding, to ensure the acquisition of Amphipolis—was persuaded to repel the advances of Olynthus, as well as to look upon Philip still as a friend.[491]
The proffered alliance of the Olynthians was thus rejected, as the entreaty of the Amphipolitans for aid had previously been. Athens had good reason to repent of both. The secret negotiation brought her no nearer to the possession of Amphipolis. It ended in nothing, or in worse than nothing, as it amused her with delusive expectations, while Philip opened a treaty with the Olynthians, irritated, of course, by their recent repulse at Athens. As yet he had maintained pacific relations with the Athenians, even while holding Amphipolis contrary to his engagement. But he now altered his policy, and contracted alliance with the Olynthians; whose friendship he purchased not only by ceding to them the district of Anthemus (lying between Olynthus and Therma, and disputed by the Olynthians with former Macedonian kings), but also by conquering and handing over to them the important Athenian possession of Potidæa.[492] We know no particulars of these important transactions. Our scanty authorities merely inform us, that during the first two years (358-356 B. C.), while Athens was absorbed by her disastrous Social War, Philip began to act as her avowed enemy. He conquered from her not only Pydna and other places for himself, but also Potidæa for the Olynthians. We are told that Pydna was betrayed to Philip by a party of traitors in the town;[493] and he probably availed himself of the secret propositions made by Athens respecting the exchange of Pydna for Amphipolis, to exasperate the Pydnæans against her bad faith; since they would have good ground for resenting the project of transferring them underhand, contrary to their own inclination. Pydna was the first place besieged and captured. Several of its inhabitants, on the ground of prior offence towards Macedonia,[494] are said to have been slain, while even those who had betrayed the town were contemptuously treated. The siege lasted long enough to transmit news to Athens, and to receive aid, had the Athenians acted with proper celerity in despatching forces. But either the pressure of the Social War—or the impatience of personal service as well as of pecuniary payment—or both causes operating together—made them behindhand with the exigency. Several Athenian citizens were taken in Pydna and sold into slavery, some being ransomed by Demosthenes out of his own funds; yet we cannot make out clearly that any relief at all was sent from Athens.[495] If any was sent, it came too late.
Equal tardiness was shown in the relief sent to Potidæa[496]—though the siege, carried on jointly by Philip and the Olynthians, was both long and costly[497]—and though there were a body of Athenian settlers (Kleruchs) resident there, whom the capture of the place expelled from their houses and properties.[498] Even for the rescue of these fellow-citizens, it does not appear that any native Athenians would undertake the burden of personal service; the relieving force despatched seems to have consisted of a general with mercenary foreigners; who, as no pay was provided for them, postponed the enterprise on which they were sent to the temptation of plundering elsewhere for their own profit.[499] It was thus that Philip, without any express declaration of war, commenced a series of hostile measures against Athens, and deprived her of several valuable maritime possessions on the coast of Macedonia and Thrace, besides his breach of faith respecting the cession of Amphipolis.[500] After her losses from the Social War, and her disappointment about Amphipolis, she was yet farther mortified by seeing Pydna pass into his hands, and Potidæa (the most important possession in Thrace next to Amphipolis) into those of Olynthus. Her impoverished settlers returned home, doubtless with bitter complaint against the aggression, but also with just vexation against the tardiness of their countrymen in sending relief.
These two years had been so employed by Philip as to advance prodigiously his power and ascendency. He had deprived Athens of her hold upon the Thermaic gulf, in which she now seems only to have retained the town of Methônê, instead of the series of ports round the gulf acquired for her by Timotheus.[501] He had conciliated the good-will of the Olynthians by his cession of Anthemus and Potidæa; the latter place, from its commanding situation on the isthmus of Pallenê, giving them the mastery of that peninsula,[502] and ensuring (what to Philip was of great importance) their enmity with Athens. He not only improved the maritime conveniences of Amphipolis, but also extended his acquisitions into the auriferous regions of Mount Pangæus eastward of the Strymon. He possessed himself of that productive country immediately facing the island of Thasos; where both Thasians and Athenians had once contended for the rights of mining, and from whence, apparently, both had extracted valuable produce. In the interior of this region he founded a new city called Philippi, enlarged from a previous town called Krenides, recently founded by the Thasians; and he took such effective measures for increasing the metallic works in the neighborhood, that they presently yielded to him a large revenue; according to Diodorus, not less than one thousand talents per annum.[503] He caused a new gold coin to be struck, bearing a name derived from his own. The fresh source of wealth thus opened was of the greatest moment to him, as furnishing means to meet the constantly increasing expense of his military force. He had full employment to keep his soldiers in training: for the nations of the interior—Illyrians, Pæonians, and Thracians—humbled but not subdued, rose again in arms, and tried again jointly to reclaim their independence. The army of Philip—under his general Parmenio, of whom we now hear for the first time—defeated them, and again reduced them to submission.[504]