Without being insensible, therefore, to the fallibility of all opinions founded upon such imperfect evidence, I think that the true chronological order of the Olynthiacs is that proposed by Stueve, II. I. III. With Dionysius I agree so far as to put the second first; and with the common order, in putting the third last.
CHAPTER LXXXIX.
FROM THE CAPTURE OF OLYNTHUS TO THE TERMINATION OF THE SACRED WAR BY PHILIP.
It was during the early spring of 347 B. C., as far as we can make out, that Olynthus, after having previously seen the thirty Chalkidic cities conquered, underwent herself the like fate from the arms of Philip. Exile and poverty became the lot of such Olynthians and Chalkidians as could make their escape; while the greater number of both sexes were sold into slavery. A few painful traces present themselves of the diversities of suffering which befel these unhappy victims. Atrestidas, an Arcadian who had probably served in the Macedonian army, received from Philip a grant of thirty Olynthian slaves, chiefly women and children, who were seen following him in a string as he travelled homeward through the Grecian cities. Many young Olynthian women were bought for the purpose of having their persons turned to account by their new proprietors. Of these purchasers, one, an Athenian citizen who had exposed his new purchase at Athens, was tried and condemned for the proceeding by the Dikastery.[772] Other anecdotes come before us, inaccurate probably as to names and details,[773] yet illustrating the general hardships brought upon this once free Chalkidic population. Meanwhile the victor Philip was at the maximum of his glory. In commemoration of his conquests, he celebrated a splendid festival to the Olympian Zeus in Macedonia, with unbounded hospitality, and prizes of every sort, for matches and exhibitions, both gymnastic and poetical. His donations were munificent, as well to the Grecian and Macedonian officers who had served him, as to the eminent poets or actors who pleased his taste. Satyrus the comic actor, refusing all presents for himself, asked and obtained from him the release of two young women taken in Olynthus, daughters of his friend the Pydnæan Apollophanes, who had been one of the persons concerned in the death of Philip’s elder brother Alexander. Satyrus announced his intention not only of ensuring freedom to these young women, but likewise of providing portions for them and giving them out in marriage.[774] Philip also found at Olynthus his two exile half-brothers, who had served as pretexts for the war—and put both of them to death.[775]
It has already been stated that Athens had sent to Olynthus more than one considerable reinforcement, especially during the last year of the war. Though we are ignorant what these expeditions achieved, or even how much was their exact force, we find reason to suspect that they were employed by Chares and other generals to no good purpose. The opponents of Chares accused him, as well as Deiares and other mercenary chiefs, of having wasted the naval and military strength of the city in idle enterprises or rapacious extortions upon the traders of the Ægean. They summed up 1500 talents and 150 triremes thus lost to Athens, besides wide-spread odium incurred among the islanders by the unjust contributions levied upon them to enrich the general.[776] In addition to this disgraceful ill-success, came now the fearful ruin in Olynthus and Chalkidikê, and the great aggrandizement of their enemy Philip. The loss of Olynthus, with the miserable captivity of its population, would have been sufficient of themselves to excite powerful sentiment among the Athenians. But there was a farther circumstance which came yet more home to their feelings. Many of their own citizens were serving in Olynthus as an auxiliary garrison, and had now become captives along with the rest.[777] No such calamity as this had befallen Athens for a century past, since the defeat of Tolmides at Koroneia in Bœotia. The whole Athenian people, and especially the relations of the captives, were full of agitation and anxiety, increased by alarming news from other quarters. The conquest threatened the security of all the Athenian possessions in Lemnos, Imbros, and the Chersonese. This last peninsula, especially, was altogether unprotected against Philip, who was even reported to be on his march thither; insomuch that the Athenian settlers within it began to forsake their properties and transfer their families to Athens. Amidst the grief and apprehension which disturbed the Athenian mind, many special assemblies were held to discuss suitable remedies. What was done, we are not exactly informed. But it seems that no one knew where the general Chares, with his armament, was; so that it became necessary even for his friends in the assembly to echo the strong expressions of displeasure among the people, and to send a light vessel immediately in search of him.[778]
The gravity of the crisis forced even Eubulus and others among the statesmen hitherto languid in the war, to hold a more energetic language than before against Philip. Denouncing him now as the common enemy of Greece,[779] they proposed missions into Peloponnesus and elsewhere for the purpose of animating the Grecian states into confederacy against him. Æschines assisted strenuously in procuring the adoption of this proposition, and was himself named as one of the envoys into Peloponnesus.[780]
This able orator, immortalized as the rival of Demosthenes, has come before us hitherto only as a soldier in various Athenian expeditions—to Phlius in Peloponnesus (368)—to the battle of Mantineia (362)—and to Eubœa under Phokion (349 B. C.); in which last he had earned the favorable notice of the general, and had been sent to Athens with the news of the victory at Tamynæ. Æschines was about six years older than Demosthenes, but born in a much humbler and poorer station. His father Atromêtus taught to boys the elements of letters; his mother Glaukothea made a living by presiding over certain religious assemblies and rites of initiation, intended chiefly for poor communicants; the boy Æschines assisting both one and the other in a mental capacity. Such at least is the statement which comes to us, enriched with various degrading details, on the doubtful authority of his rival Demosthenes;[781] who also affirms, what we may accept as generally true, that Æschines had passed his early manhood partly as an actor, partly as a scribe or reader to the official boards. For both functions he possessed some natural advantages—an athletic frame, a powerful voice, a ready flow of unpremeditated speech. After some years passed as scribe, in which he made himself useful to Eubulus and others, he was chosen public scribe to the assembly—acquired familiarity with the administrative and parliamentary business of the city—and thus elevated himself by degrees to influence as a speaker. In rhetorical power, he seems to have been surpassed only by Demosthenes.[782]
As envoy of Athens despatched under the motion of Eubulus, Æschines proceeded into Peloponnesus in the spring of 347; others being sent at the same time to other Grecian cities. Among other places, he visited Megalopolis, where he was heard before the Arcadian collective assembly called the Ten Thousand. He addressed them in a strain of animated exhortation, adjuring them to combine with Athens for the defence of the liberties of Greece against Philip, and inveighing strenuously against those traitors who, in Arcadia as well as in other parts of Greece, sold themselves to the aggressor and paralyzed all resistance. He encountered however much opposition from a speaker named Hieronymus, who espoused the interest of Philip in the assembly: and though he professed to bring back some flattering hopes, it is certain that neither in Arcadia, nor elsewhere in Peloponnesus, was his influence of any real efficacy.[783] The strongest feeling among the Arcadians was fear and dislike of Sparta, which rendered them in the main indifferent, if not favorable, to the Macedonian successes. In returning from Arcadia to Athens, Æschines met the Arcadian Atrestidas, with the unhappy troop of Olynthian slaves following; a sight which so deeply affected the Athenian orator, that he dwelt upon it afterwards in his speech before the assembly, with indignant sympathy; deploring the sad effects of Grecian dissension, and the ruin produced by Philip’s combined employment of arms and corruption.
Æschines returned probably about the middle of the summer of 347 B. C. Other envoys, sent to more distant cities, remained out longer; some indeed even until the ensuing winter. Though it appears that some envoys from other cities were induced in return to visit Athens, yet no sincere or hearty coöperation against Philip could be obtained in any part of Greece. While Philip, in the fulness of triumph, was celebrating his magnificent Olympic festival in Macedonia, the Athenians were disheartened by finding that they could expect little support from independent Greeks, and were left to act only with their own narrow synod of allies. Hence Eubulus and Æschines became earnest partisans of peace, and Demosthenes also seems to have been driven by the general despondency into a willingness to negotiate. The two orators, though they afterwards became bitter rivals, were at this juncture not very discordant in sentiment. On the other hand, the philippizing speakers at Athens held a bolder tone than ever. As Philip found his ports greatly blocked up by the Athenian cruisers, he was likely to profit by his existing ascendency for the purpose of strengthening his naval equipments. Now there was no place so abundantly supplied as Athens, with marine stores and muniments for armed ships. Probably there were agents or speculators taking measures to supply Philip with these articles, and it was against them that a decree of the assembly was now directed, adopted on the motion of a senator named Timarchus—to punish with death all who should export from Athens to Philip either arms or stores for ships of war.[784] This severe decree, however, was passed at the same time that the disposition towards peace, if peace were attainable, was on the increase at Athens.
Some months before the capture of Olynthus, ideas of peace had already been started, partly through the indirect overtures of Philip himself. During the summer of 348 B. C., the Eubœans had tried to negotiate an accommodation with Athens; the contest in Eubœa, though we know no particulars of it, having never wholly ceased for the last year and a half. Nor does it appear that any peace was even now concluded; for Eubœa is spoken of as under the dependence of Philip during the ensuing year.[785] The Eubœan envoys, however, intimated that Philip had desired them to communicate from him a wish to finish the war and conclude peace with Athens.[786] Though Philip had at this time conquered the larger portion of Chalkidikê, and was proceeding successfully against the remainder, it was still his interest to detach Athens from the war, if he could. Her manner of carrying on war was indeed faint and slack; yet she did him much harm at sea, and she was the only city competent to organize an extensive Grecian confederacy against him; which, though it had not yet been brought about, was at least a possible contingency under her presidency.