It was thus that the war against Philip turned more and more to the disgrace and disadvantage of the Athenians. Though they had begun it in the hope of punishing him for his duplicity in appropriating Amphipolis, they had been themselves the losers by the capture of Pydna, Potidæa, Methônê, etc.; and they were now thrown upon the defensive, without security for their maritime allies, their commerce, or their coasts.[657] The intelligence of these various losses and insults endured at sea, in spite of indisputable maritime preponderance, called forth at Athens acrimonious complaints against the generals of the state, and exaggerated outbursts of enmity against Philip.[658] That prince, having spent a few months, after his repulse from Thermopylæ, in Thessaly, and having so far established his ascendency over that country that he could leave the completion of the task to his officers, pushed with his characteristic activity into Thrace. He there took part in the disputes between various native princes, expelling some, confirming or installing others, and extending his own dominion at the cost of all.[659] Among these princes were probably Kersobleptes, and Amadokus; for Philip carried his aggressions to the immediate neighborhood of the Thracian Chersonese.
In November, 352 B. C., intelligence reached Athens, that he was in Thrace besieging Heræon Teichos; a place so near to the Chersonese,[660] that the Athenian possessions and colonists in that peninsula were threatened with considerable danger. So great was the alarm and excitement caused by this news, that a vote was immediately passed in the public assembly to equip a fleet of forty triremes,—to man it with Athenian citizens, all persons up to the age of forty-five being made liable to serve on the expedition,—and to raise sixty talents by a direct property tax. At first active steps were taken to accelerate the armament. But before the difficulties of detail could be surmounted,—before it could be determined, amidst the general aversion to personal service, what citizens should go abroad, and how the burthen of trierarchy should be distributed,—fresh messengers arrived from the Chersonese, reporting first that Philip had fallen sick, next that he was actually dead.[661] The last-mentioned report proved false; but the sickness of Philip was an actual fact, and seems to have been severe enough to cause a temporary suspension of his military operations. Though the opportunity became thus only the more favorable for attacking Philip, yet the Athenians, no longer spurred on by the fear of farther immediate danger, relapsed into their former languor, and renounced or postponed their intended armament. After passing the whole ensuing summer in inaction, they could only be prevailed upon, in the month of September 351, to despatch to Thrace a feeble force under the mercenary chief Charidemus; ten triremes, without any soldiers aboard, and with no more than five talents in money.[662]
At this time Charidemus was at the height of his popularity. It was supposed that he could raise and maintain a mercenary band by his own ingenuity and valor. His friends confidently averred, before the Athenian assembly, that he was the only man capable of putting down Philip, and conquering Amphipolis.[663] One of these partisans, Aristokrates, even went so far as to propose that a vote should be passed ensuring inviolability to his person, and enacting that any one who killed him should be seized wherever found in the territory of Athens or her allies. This proposition was attacked judicially by an accuser named Euthykles, who borrowed a memorable discourse from the pen of Demosthenes.
It was thus that the real sickness, and reported death, of Philip which ought to have operated as a stimulus to the Athenians by exposing to them their enemy during a moment of peculiar weakness, proved rather an opiate exaggerating their chronic lethargy, and cheating them into a belief that no farther efforts were needed. That belief appears to have been proclaimed by the leading, best-known, and senior speakers, those who gave the tone to the public assembly, and who were principally relied upon for advice. These men,—probably Eubulus at their head, and Phokion, so constantly named as general, along with him,—either did not feel, or could not bring themselves to proclaim, the painful necessity of personal military service and increased taxation. Though repeated debates took place on the insults offered to Athens in her maritime dignity, and on the sufferings of those allies to whom she owed protection,—combined with accusations against the generals, and complaints of the inefficiency of such mercenary foreigners as Athens took into commission but never paid,—still, the recognized public advisers shrank from appeal to the dormant patriotism or personal endurance of the citizens. The serious, but indispensable, duty which they thus omitted, was performed for them by a younger competitor, far beneath them in established footing and influence,—Demosthenes, now about thirty years old,—in an harangue, known as the first Philippic.
We have already had before us this aspiring man, as a public adviser in the assembly. In his first parliamentary harangue two years before,[664] he had begun to inculcate on his countrymen the general lesson of energy and self-reliance, and to remind them of that which the comfort, activity, and peaceful refinement of Athenian life, had a constant tendency to put out of sight:—That the City, as a whole, could not maintain her security and dignity against enemies, unless each citizen individually, besides his home-duties, were prepared to take his fair share, readily and without evasion, of the hardship and cost of personal service abroad.[665] But he had then been called upon to deal (in his discourse De Symmoriis) only with the contingency of Persian hostilities—possible indeed, yet neither near nor declared; he now renews the same exhortation under more pressing exigencies. He has to protect interests already suffering, and to repel dishonorable insults, becoming from month to month more frequent, from an indefatigable enemy. Successive assemblies have been occupied with complaints from sufferers, amidst a sentiment of unwonted chagrin and helplessness among the public—yet with no material comfort from the leading and established speakers; who content themselves with inveighing against the negligence of the mercenaries—taken into service by Athens but never paid—and with threatening to impeach the generals. The assembly, wearied by repetition of topics promising no improvement for the future, is convoked, probably to hear some farther instance of damage committed by the Macedonian cruisers, when Demosthenes, breaking through the common formalities of precedence, rises first to address them.
It had once been the practice at Athens, that the herald formally proclaimed, when a public assembly was opened—“Who among the citizens above fifty years old wishes to speak? and after them, which of the other citizens in his turn?”[666] Though this old proclamation had fallen into disuse, the habit still remained, that speakers of advanced age and experience rose first after the debate had been opened by the presiding magistrates. But the relations of Athens with Philip had been so often discussed, that all these men had already delivered their sentiments and exhausted their recommendations. “Had their recommendations been good, you need not have been now debating the same topic over again”[667]—says Demosthenes, as an apology for standing forward out of his turn to produce his own views.
His views indeed were so new, so independent of party-sympathies or antipathies, and so plain-spoken in comments on the past as well as in demands for the future—that they would hardly have been proposed except by a speaker instinct with the ideal of the Periklean foretime, familiar to him from his study of Thucydides. In explicit language, Demosthenes throws the blame of the public misfortunes, not simply on the past advisers and generals of the people, but also on the people themselves.[668] It is from this proclaimed fact that he starts, as his main ground of hope for future improvement. Athens contended formerly with honor against the Lacedæmonians; and now also, she will exchange disgrace for victory in her war against Philip, if her citizens individually will shake off their past inertness and negligence, each of them henceforward becoming ready to undertake his full share of personal duty in the common cause. Athens had undergone enough humiliation, and more than enough, to teach her this lesson. She might learn it farther from her enemy Philip himself, who had raised himself from small beginnings, and heaped losses as well as shame upon her, mainly by his own personal energy, perseverance, and ability; while the Athenian citizens had been hitherto so backward as individuals, and so unprepared as a public, that even if a lucky turn of fortune were to hand over to them Amphipolis, they would be in no condition to seize it.[669] Should the rumor prove true, that this Philip were dead, they would soon make for themselves another Philip equally troublesome.
After thus severely commenting on the past apathy of the citizens, and insisting upon a change of disposition as indispensable, Demosthenes proceeds to specify the particular acts whereby such change ought to be manifested. He entreats them not to be startled by the novelty of his plan, but to hear him patiently to the end. It is the result of his own meditations; other citizens may have better to propose; if they have, he shall not be found to stand in their way. What is past, cannot be helped; nor is extemporaneous speech the best way of providing remedies for a difficult future.[670]
He advises first, that a fleet of fifty triremes shall be immediately put in readiness; that the citizens shall firmly resolve to serve in person on board, whenever the occasion may require, and that triremes and other vessels shall be specially fitted out for half of the horsemen of the city, who shall serve personally also. This force is to be kept ready to sail at a moment’s notice, and to meet Philip in any of his sudden out-marches—to Chersonesus, to Thermopylæ, to Olynthus, etc.[671]
Secondly, that a farther permanent force shall be set on foot immediately, to take the aggressive, and carry on active continuous warfare against Philip, by harassing him in various points of his own country. Two thousand infantry, and two hundred horse, will be sufficient; but it is essential that one-fourth part—five hundred of the former and fifty of the latter—shall be citizens of Athens. The remainder are to be foreign mercenaries; ten swift sailing war triremes are also to be provided to protect the transports against the naval force of Philip. The citizens are to serve by relays, relieving each other; every one for a time fixed beforehand, yet none for a very long time.[672] The orator then proceeds to calculate the cost of such a standing force for one year. He assigns to each seaman, and to each foot soldier, ten drachmæ per month, or two oboli per day; to each horseman, thirty drachmæ per month, or one drachma (six oboli) per day. No difference is made between the Athenian citizen and the foreigner. The sum here assigned is not full pay, but simply the cost of each man’s maintenance. At the same time, Demosthenes pledges himself, that if thus much be furnished by the state, the remainder of a full pay (or as much again) will be made up by what the soldiers will themselves acquire in the war; and that too, without wrong done to allies or neutral Greeks. The total annual cost thus incurred will be ninety-two talents (= about £22,000.) He does not give any estimate of the probable cost of his other armament, of fifty triremes; which are to be equipped and ready at a moment’s notice for emergencies, but not sent out on permanent service.