Probably the Thebans were at this time much pressed, and prevented from acting effectively against the Phokians, by want of money. We know at least that in the midst of the Phokian war they hired out a force of 5000 hoplites commanded by Pammenes, to Artabazus the revolted Phrygian satrap. Here Pammenes with his soldiers acquired some renown, gaining two important victories over the Persians.[539] The Thebans, it would seem, having no fleet and no maritime dependencies, were less afraid of giving offence to the Great King than Athens had been, when she interdicted Chares from aiding Artabazus, and acquiesced in the unfavorable pacification which terminated the Social War. How long Pammenes and the Thebans remained in Asia, we are not informed. But in spite of the victories gained by them, Artabazus was not long able to maintain himself against the Persian arms. Three years afterwards, we hear of him and his brother-in-law Memnon as expelled from Asia, and as exiles residing with Philip of Macedon.[540]
While Pammenes was serving under Artabazus, the Athenian general Chares recaptured Sestos in the Hellespont, which appears to have revolted from Athens during the Social War. He treated the captive Sestians with rigor; putting to death the men of military age, and selling the remainder as slaves.[541] This was an important acquisition for Athens, as a condition of security in the Chersonese as well as of preponderance in the Hellespont.
Alarmed at the successes of Chares in the Hellespont, the Thracian prince Kersobleptes now entered on an intrigue with Pammenes in Asia, and with Philip of Macedon (who was on the coast of Thrace, attacking Abdêra and Maroneia), for the purpose of checking the progress of the Athenian arms. Philip appears to have made a forward movement, and to have menaced the possessions of Athens in the Chersonese; but his access thither was forbidden by Amadokus, another prince of Thrace, master of the intermediate territory, as well as by the presence of Chares with his fleet off the Thracian coast.[542] Apollonides of Kardia was the agent of Kersobleptes; who however finding his schemes abortive, and intimidated by the presence of Chares, came to terms with Athens, and surrendered to her the portion of the Chersonese which still remained to him, with the exception of Kardia. The Athenians sent to the Chersonese a farther detachment of Kleruchs or out-settlers, for whom considerable room must have been made as well by the depopulation of Sestos, as by the recent cession from Kersobleptes.[543] It was in the ensuing year (352 B. C.) that the Athenians also despatched a fresh batch of 2000 citizens as settlers to Samos, in addition to those who had been sent thither thirteen years before.[544]
The mention of Philip as attacking Maroneia and menacing the Thracian Chersonese, shows the indefatigable activity of that prince and the steady enlargement of his power. In 358 B. C., he had taken Amphipolis; before 355 B. C., he had captured Pydna and Potidæa, founded the new town of Philippi, and opened for himself the resource of the adjoining auriferous region; he had established relations with Thessaly, assisting the great family of the Aleuadæ at Larissa in their struggle against Lykophron and Peitholaus, the despots of Pheræ:[545] he had farther again chastised the interior tribes bordering on Macedonia, Thracians. Pæonians, and Illyrians, who were never long at rest, and who had combined to regain their independence.[546] It appears to have been in 354-353 B. C., that he attacked Methônê, the last remaining possession of Athens on the Macedonian coast. Situated on the Thermaic Gulf, Methônê was doubtless a convenient station for Athenian privateers to intercept trading vessels, not merely to and from Macedonian ports, but also from Olynthus and Potidæa; so that the Olynthians, then in alliance with Philip against Athens, would be glad to see it pass into his power, and may perhaps have lent him their aid. He pressed the siege of the place with his usual vigor, employing all the engines and means of assault then known; while the besieged on their side were not less resolute in the defence. They repelled his attacks for so long a time, that news of the danger of the place reached Athens, and ample time was afforded for sending relief, had the Athenians been ready and vigorous in their movement. But unfortunately they had not even now learnt experience from the loss of Pydna and Potidæa. Either the Etesian winds usual in summer, or the storms of winter, both which circumstances were taken into account by Philip in adjusting the season of his enterprises[547]—or (which is more probable) the aversion of the Athenian respectable citizens to personal service on shipboard, and their slackness even in pecuniary payment—caused so much delay in preparations, that the expedition sent out did not reach Methônê until too late.[548] The Methonæans, having gallantly held out until all their means were exhausted, were at length compelled to surrender. Diodorus tells us that Philip granted terms so far lenient as to allow them to depart with the clothes on their backs.[549] But this can hardly be accurate, since we know that there were Athenian citizens among them sold as slaves, some of whom were ransomed by Demosthenes with his own money.[550]
Being now master of the last port possessed by Athens in the Thermaic Gulf—an acquisition of great importance, which had never before[551] belonged to the Macedonian kings—Philip was enabled to extend his military operations to the neighborhood of the Thracian Chersonese on the one side, and to that of Thermopylæ on the other. How he threatened the Chersonese, has been already related; and his campaign in Thessaly was yet more important. That country was, as usual, torn by intestine disputes. Lykophron the despot of Pheræ possessed the greatest sway; while the Aleuadæ of Larissa, too weak to contend against him with their own forces, invited assistance from Philip; who entered Thessaly with a powerful army. Such a reinforcement so completely altered the balance of Thessalian power, that Lykophron in his turn was compelled to entreat aid from Onomarchus and the Phokians.
So strong were the Phokians now, that they were more than a match for the Thebans with their other hostile neighbors, and had means to spare for combating Philip in Thessaly. As their force consisted of a large body of mercenaries, whom they were constrained for security to retain in pay—to keep them employed beyond the border was a point not undesirable. Hence they readily entered upon the Thessalian campaign. At this moment they counted, in the comparative assessment of Hellenic forces, as an item of first-rate magnitude. They were hailed both by Athenians and Spartans as the natural enemy and counterpoise of Thebes, alike odious to both. While the Phokians maintained their actual power, Athens could manage her foreign policy abroad, and Sparta her designs in Peloponnesus, with diminished apprehensions of being counterworked by Thebes. Both Athens and Sparta had at first supported the Phokians against unjust persecution by Thebes and abuse of Amphiktyonic jurisdiction, before the spoliation of the Delphian temple was consummated or even anticipated. And though, when that spoliation actually occurred, it was doubtless viewed with reprobation among Athenians, accustomed to unlimited freedom of public discussion—as well as at Sparta, in so far as it became known amidst the habitual secrecy of public affairs—nevertheless political interests so far prevailed, that the Phokians (perhaps in part by aid of bribery) were still countenanced, though not much assisted, as useful rivals to Thebes.[552] To restrain “the Leuktric insolence of the Thebans,”[553] and to see the Bœotian towns Orchomenus, Thespiæ, Platæa, restored to their pristine autonomy, was an object of paramount desire with each of the two ancient heads of Greece. So far both Athens and Sparta felt in unison. But Sparta cherished a farther hope—in which Athens by no means concurred—to avail herself of the embarrassments of Thebes for the purpose of breaking up Megalopolis and Messênê, and recovering her former Peloponnesian dominion. These two new Peloponnesian cities, erected by Epaminondas on the frontier of Laconia, had been hitherto upheld against Sparta by the certainty of Theban interference if they were menaced. But so little did Thebes seem in a condition to interfere, while Onomarchus and the Phokians were triumphant in 353-352 B. C., that the Megalopolitans despatched envoys to Athens to entreat protection and alliance, while the Spartans on their side sent to oppose the petition.
It is on occasion of the political debates in Athens during the years 354 and 353 B. C., that we first have before us the Athenian Demosthenes, as adviser of his countrymen in the public assembly. His first discourse of public advice was delivered in 354-353 B. C., on an alarm of approaching war with Persia; his second, in 353-352 B. C., was intended to point out the policy proper for Athens in dealing with the Spartan and Megalopolitan envoys.
A few words must here be said about this eminent man, who forms the principal ornament of the declining Hellenic world. He was about twenty-seven years old; being born, according to what seems the most probable among contradictory accounts, in 382-381 B. C.[554] His father, named also Demosthenes, was a citizen of considerable property, and of a character so unimpeachable that even Æschines says nothing against him; his mother Kleobulê was one of the two daughters and coheiresses of a citizen named Gylon,[555] an Athenian exile, who, having become rich as a proprietor of land and exporter of corn in Bosphorus, sent his two daughters to Athens; where, possessing handsome dowries, they married two Athenian citizens—Demochares and the elder Demosthenes. The latter was a man of considerable wealth, and carried on two distinct manufactories; one of swords or knives, employing thirty-two slaves—the other, of couches or beds, employing twenty. In the new schedule of citizens and of taxable property, introduced in the archonship of Nausinikus (378 B. C.), the elder Demosthenes was enrolled among the richest class, the leaders of Symmories. But he died about 375 B. C., leaving his son Demosthenes seven years old, with a younger daughter about five years of age. The boy and his large paternal property were confided to the care of three guardians named under his father’s will. These guardians—though the father, in hopes of ensuring their fidelity, had bequeathed to them considerable legacies, away from his own son, and though all of them were rich men as well as family connections and friends—administered the property with such negligence and dishonesty, that only a sum comparatively small was left, when they came to render account to their ward. At the age of sixteen years complete, Demosthenes attained his civil majority, and became entitled by the Athenian law to the administration of his own property. During his minority, his guardians had continued to enrol him among the wealthiest class (as his father had ranked before), and to pay the increased rate of direct taxation chargeable upon that class; but the real sum handed over to him by his guardians was too small to justify such a position. Though his father had died worth fourteen talents,—which would be diminished by the sums bequeathed as legacies, but ought to have been increased in greater proportion by the interest on the property for the ten years of minority, had it been properly administered—the sum paid to young Demosthenes on his majority was less than two talents, while the guardians not only gave in dishonest accounts, but professed not to be able to produce the father’s will. After repeated complaints and remonstrances, he brought a judicial action against one of them—Aphobus, and obtained a verdict carrying damages to the amount of ten talents. Payment however was still evaded by the debtor. Five speeches remain delivered by Demosthenes, three against Aphobus, two against Onêtor, brother-in-law of Aphobus. At the date of the latest oration, Demosthenes had still received nothing; nor do we know how much he ultimately realized, though it would seem that the difficulties thrown in his way were such as to compel him to forego the greater part of the claim. Nor is it certain whether he ever brought the actions, of which he speaks as intended, against the other two guardians Demophon and Therippides.[556]
Demosthenes received during his youth the ordinary grammatical and rhetorical education of a wealthy Athenian. Even as a boy, he is said to have manifested extraordinary appetite and interest for rhetorical exercise. By earnest entreaty, he prevailed on his tutors to conduct him to hear Kallistratus, one of the ablest speakers in Athens, delivering an harangue in the Dikastery on the matter of Oropus.[557] This harangue, producing a profound impression upon Demosthenes, stimulated his fondness for rhetorical studies. Still more was the passion excited, when on attaining his majority, he found himself cheated of most of his paternal property, and constrained to claim his rights by a suit at law against his guardians. Being obliged, according to Athenian practice, to plead his own cause personally, he was made to feel keenly the helpless condition of an incompetent speaker, and the necessity of acquiring oratorical power, not simply as an instrument of ambition, but even as a means of individual defence and safety.[558] It appears also that he was, from childhood, of sickly constitution and feeble muscular frame; so that partly from his own disinclination, partly from the solicitude of his mother, he took little part either as boy or youth in the exercises of the palæstra. His delicate clothing, and somewhat effeminate habits, procured for him as a boy the nickname of Batalus, which remained attached to him most part of his life, and which his enemies tried to connect with degrading imputations.[559] Such comparative bodily disability probably contributed to incite his thirst for mental and rhetorical acquisitions, as the only road to celebrity open. But it at the same time disqualified him from appropriating to himself the full range of a comprehensive Grecian education, as conceived by Plato, Isokrates, and Aristotle; an education applying alike to thought, word, and action—combining bodily strength, endurance, and fearlessness, with an enlarged mental capacity and a power of making it felt by speech. The disproportion between the physical energy, and the mental force, of Demosthenes, beginning in childhood, is recorded and lamented in the inscription placed on his statue after his death.[560]
As a youth of eighteen years of age, Demosthenes found himself with a known and good family position at Athens, being ranked in the class of richest citizens and liable to the performance of liturgies and trierarchy as his father had been before him;[561] yet with a real fortune very inadequate to the outlay expected from him—embarrassed by a legal proceeding against guardians wealthy as well as unscrupulous—and an object of dislike and annoyance from other wealthy men, such as Meidias and his brother Thrasylochus,[562] friends of those guardians. His family position gave him a good introduction to public affairs, for which he proceeded to train himself carefully; first as a writer of speeches for others, next as a speaker in his own person. Plato and Isokrates were both at this moment in full celebrity, visited at Athens by pupils from every part of Greece; Isæus also, who had studied under Isokrates, was in great reputation as a composer of judicial harangues for plaintiffs or defendants in civil causes. Demosthenes put himself under the teaching of Isæus (who is said to have assisted him in composing the speeches against his guardians), and also profited largely by the discourse of Plato, of Isokrates, and others. As an ardent aspirant he would seek instruction from most of the best sources, theoretical as well as practical—writers as well as lecturers.[563] But besides living teachers, there was one of the past generation who contributed largely to his improvement. He studied Thucydides with indefatigable labor and attention; according to one account, he copied the whole history eight times over with his own hand; according to another, he learnt it all by heart, so as to be able to rewrite it from memory when the manuscript was accidentally destroyed. Without minutely criticising these details, we ascertain at least that Thucydides was the object of his peculiar study and imitation. How much the composition of Demosthenes was fashioned by the reading of Thucydides—reproducing the daring, majestic and impressive phraseology, yet without the overstrained brevity and involutions of that great historian—and contriving to blend with it a perspicuity and grace not inferior to Lysias—may be seen illustrated in the elaborate criticism of the rhetor Dionysius.[564]