An Athenian of influence named Phrynon had been captured by Philip’s cruisers, during the truce of the Olympic festival in 348 B. C.: after a certain detention, he procured from home the required ransom and obtained his release. On returning to Athens, he had sufficient credit to prevail on the public assembly to send another citizen along with him, as public envoy from the city to Philip; in order to aid him in getting back his ransom, which he alleged to have been wrongfully demanded from one captured during the holy truce. Though this seems a strange proceeding during mid-war,[787] yet the Athenian people took up the case with sympathy; Ktesiphon was named envoy, and went with Phrynon to Philip, whom they must have found engaged in the war against Olynthus. Being received in the most courteous manner, they not only obtained restitution of the ransom, but were completely won over by Philip. With his usual good policy, he had seized the opportunity of gaining (we may properly say, of bribing, since the restoration of ransom was substantially a bribe) two powerful Athenian citizens, whom he now sent back to Athens as his pronounced partisans.
Phrynon and Ktesiphon, on their return, expatiated warmly on the generosity of Philip, and reported much about his flattering expressions towards Athens, and his reluctance to continue the war against her. The public assembly being favorably disposed, a citizen named Philokrates, who now comes before us for the first time, proposed a decree, granting to Philip leave to send a herald and envoys, if he chose, to treat for peace; which was what Philip was anxious to do, according to the allegation of Ktesiphon. The decree was passed unanimously in the assembly, but the mover Philokrates was impeached some time afterwards before the Dikastery, as for an illegal proposition, by a citizen named Lykinus. On the cause coming to trial, the Dikastery pronounced an acquittal so triumphant, that Lykinus did not even obtain the fifth part of the suffrages. Philokrates being so sick as to be unable to do justice to his own case, Demosthenes stood forward as his supporter, and made a long speech in his favor.[788]
The motion of Philokrates determined nothing positive, and only made an opening; of which, however, it did not suit Philip’s purpose to avail himself. But we see that ideas of peace had been thrown out by some persons at Athens, even during the last months of the Olynthian war, and while a body of Athenian citizens were actually assisting Olynthus against the besieging force of Philip. Presently arrived the terrible news of the fall of Olynthus, and of the captivity of the Athenian citizens in garrison there. While this great alarm (as has been already stated) gave birth to new missions for anti-Macedonian alliances, it enlisted on the side of peace all the friends of those captives whose lives were now in Philip’s hands. The sorrow thus directly inflicted on many private families, together with the force of individual sympathy widely diffused among the citizens, operated powerfully upon the decisions of the public assembly. A century before, the Athenians had relinquished all their acquisitions in Bœotia, in order to recover their captives taken in the defeat of Tolmides at Koroneia; and during the Peloponnesian war, the policy of the Spartans had been chiefly guided for three or four years by the anxiety to ensure the restoration of the captives of Sphakteria. Moreover, several Athenians of personal consequence were taken at Olynthus; among them, Eukratus and Iatrokles. Shortly after the news arrived, the relatives of these two men, presenting themselves before the assembly in the solemn guise of suppliants, deposited an olive branch on the altar hard by, and entreated that care might be had for the safety of their captive kinsmen.[789] This appeal, echoed as it would be by the cries of so many other citizens in the like distress, called forth unanimous sympathy in the assembly. Both Philokrates and Demosthenes spoke in favor of it; Demosthenes probably, as having been a strenuous advocate of the war, was the more anxious to shew that he was keenly alive to so much individual suffering. It was resolved to open indirect negotiations with Philip for the release of the captives, through some of the great tragic and comic actors; who, travelling in the exercise of their profession to every city in Greece, were everywhere regarded in some sort as privileged persons. One of these, Neoptolemus,[790] had already availed himself of his favored profession and liberty of transit to assist in Philip’s intrigues and correspondences at Athens; another, Aristodemus, was also in good esteem with Philip; both were probably going to Macedonia to take part in the splendid Olympic festival there preparing. They were charged to make application, and take the best steps in their power, for the safety or release of the captives.[791]
It would appear that these actors were by no means expeditious in the performance of their mission. They probably spent some time in their professional avocations in Macedonia; and Aristodemus, not being a responsible envoy, delayed some time even after his return, before he made any report. That his mission had not been wholly fruitless, however, became presently evident from the arrival of the captive Iatrokles, whom Philip had released without ransom. The Senate then summoned Aristodemus before them, inviting him to make a general report of his proceedings, which he did; first before the Senate,—next, before the public assembly. He affirmed that Philip had entertained his propositions kindly, and that he was in the best dispositions towards Athens; desirous not only to be at peace with her, but even to be admitted as her ally. Demosthenes, then a senator, moved a vote of thanks and a wreath to Aristodemus.[792]
This report, as far as we can make out, appears to have been made about September or October 347 B. C.; Æschines, and the other roving commissioners sent out by Athens to raise up anti-Macedonian combinations, had returned with nothing but disheartening announcement of refusal or lukewarmness. And there occurred also about the same time in Phokis and Thermopylæ, other events of grave augury to Athens, showing that the Sacred War and the contest between the Phokians and Thebans was turning,—as all events had turned for the last ten years,—to the farther aggrandizement of Philip.
During the preceding two years, the Phokians, now under the command of Phalækus, in place of Phayllus, had maintained their position against Thebes; had kept possession of the Bœotian towns, Orchomenus, Koroneia, and Korsia, and were still masters of Alpônus, Thronium, and Nikæa, as well as of the important pass of Thermopylæ adjoining.[793] But though on the whole successful in regard to Thebes, they had fallen into dissension among themselves. The mercenary force, necessary to their defence, could only be maintained by continued appropriation of the Delphian treasures; an appropriation becoming from year to year both less lucrative and more odious. By successive spoliation of gold and silver ornaments, the temple is said to have been stripped of ten thousand talents (about two million three hundred thousand pounds), all its available wealth; so that the Phokian leaders were now reduced to dig for an unauthenticated treasure, supposed (on the faith of a verse in the Iliad, as well as on other grounds of surmise), to lie concealed beneath its stone floor. Their search, however, was not only unsuccessful, but arrested, as we are told, by violent earthquakes, significant of the anger of Apollo.[794]
As the Delphian treasure became less and less, so the means of Phalækus to pay troops and maintain ascendency declined. While the foreign mercenaries relaxed in their obedience, his opponents in Phokis manifested increased animosity against his continued sacrilege. So greatly did these opponents increase in power, that they deposed Phalækus, elected Deinokrates with two others in his place, and instituted a strict inquiry into the antecedent appropriation of the Delphian treasure. Gross peculation was found to have been committed for the profit of individual leaders, especially one named Philon; who, on being seized and put to the torture, disclosed the names of several accomplices. These men were tried, compelled to refund, and ultimately put to death.[795] Phalækus however still retained his ascendency over the mercenaries, about eight thousand in number, so as to hold Thermopylæ and the places adjacent, and even presently to be re-appointed general.[796]
Such intestine dispute, combined with the gradual exhaustion of the temple-funds, sensibly diminished the power of the Phokians. Yet they still remained too strong for their enemies the Thebans; who, deprived of Orchomenus and Koroneia, impoverished by military efforts of nine years, and unable to terminate the contest by their own force, resolved to invoke foreign aid. An opportunity might perhaps have been obtained for closing the war by some compromise, if it had been possible now to bring about an accommodation between Thebes and Athens; which some of the philo-Theban orators, (Demosthenes seemingly among them), attempted, under the prevalent uneasiness about Philip.[797] But the adverse sentiments in both cities, especially in Thebes, were found invincible; and the Thebans, little anticipating consequences, determined to invoke the ruinous intervention of the conqueror of Olynthus. The Thessalians, already valuable allies of Philip, joined them in soliciting him to crush the Phokians, and to restore the ancient Thessalian privilege of the Pylæa, (or regular yearly Amphiktyonic meeting at Thermopylæ), which the Phokians had suppressed during the last ten years. This joint prayer for intervention was preferred in the name of the Delphian god, investing Philip with the august character of champion of the Amphiktyonic assembly, to rescue the Delphian temple from its sacrilegious plunderers.
The King of Macedon, with his past conquests and his well-known spirit of aggressive enterprise, was now a sort of present deity, ready to lend force to all the selfish ambition, or blind fear and antipathy, prevalent among the discontented fractions of the Hellenic world. While his intrigues had procured numerous partisans even in the centre of Peloponnesus,—as Æschines, on return from his mission, had denounced, not having yet himself enlisted in the number,—he was now furnished with a pious pretence, and invited by powerful cities, to penetrate into the heart of Greece, within its last line of common defence, Thermopylæ.
The application of the Thebans to Philip excited much alarm in Phokis. A Macedonian army under Parmenio did actually enter Thessaly,—where we find them, three months later, besieging Halus.[798] Reports seem to have been spread, about September 347 B. C., that the Macedonians were about to march to Thermopylæ; upon which the Phokians took alarm, and sent envoys to Athens as well as to Sparta, entreating aid to enable them to hold the pass, and offering to deliver up the three important towns near it,—Alpônus, Thronium, and Nikæa. So much were the Athenians alarmed by the message, that they not only ordered Proxenus, their general at Oreus, to take immediate possession of the pass, but also passed a decree to equip fifty triremes, and to send forth their military citizens under thirty years of age, with an energy like that displayed when they checked Philip before at the same place. But it appears that the application had been made by the party in Phokis opposed to Phalækus. So vehemently did that chief resent the proceeding, that he threw the Phokian envoys into prison on their return; refusing to admit either Proxenus or Archidamus into possession of Thermopylæ, and even dismissing without recognition the Athenian heralds, who came in their regular rounds to proclaim the solemn truce of the Eleusinian mysteries.[799] This proceeding on the part of Phalækus was dictated seemingly by jealousy of Athens and Sparta, and by fear that they would support the party opposed to him in Phokis. It could not have originated (as Æschines alleges) in superior confidence and liking towards Philip; for if Phalækus had entertained such sentiments, he might have admitted the Macedonian troops at once; which he did not do until ten months later, under the greatest pressure of circumstances.