I have described in my last chapter the conclusion of the Sacred War, and the reëstablishment of the Amphiktyonic assembly by Philip; together with the dishonorable peace of 346 B. C., whereby Athens, after a war, feeble in management and inglorious in result, was betrayed by the treachery of her own envoys into the abandonment of the pass of Thermopylæ;—a new sacrifice, not required by her actual position, and more fatal to her future security than any of the previous losses. This important pass, the key of Greece, had now come into possession of Philip, who occupied it, together with the Phokian territory, by a permanent garrison of his own troops.[936] The Amphiktyonic assembly had become an instrument for his exaltation. Both Thebans and Thessalians were devoted to his interest; rejoicing in the ruin of their common enemies the Phokians, without reflecting on the more formidable power now established on their frontiers. Though the power of Thebes had been positively increased by regaining Orchomenus and Koroneia, yet, comparatively speaking, the new position of Philip brought upon her, as well as upon Athens and the rest of Greece, a degradation and extraneous mastery such as had never before been endured.[937]
This new position of Philip, as champion of the Amphiktyonic assembly, and within the line of common Grecian defence, was profoundly felt by Demosthenes. A short time after the surrender of Thermopylæ, when the Thessalian and Macedonian envoys had arrived at Athens, announcing the recent determination of the Amphiktyons to confer upon Philip the place in that assembly from whence the Phokians had been just expelled, concurrence of Athens in this vote was invited; but the Athenians, mortified and exasperated at the recent turn of events, were hardly disposed to acquiesce. Here we find Demosthenes taking the cautious side, and strongly advising compliance. He insists upon the necessity of refraining from any measure calculated to break the existing peace, however deplorable may have been its conditions; and of giving no pretence to the Amphiktyons for voting conjoint war against Athens, to be executed by Philip.[938] These recommendations, prudent under the circumstances, prove that Demosthenes, though dissatisfied with the peace, was anxious to keep it now that it was made; and that if he afterwards came to renew his exhortations to war, this was owing to new encroachments and more menacing attitude on the part of Philip.
We have other evidences, besides the Demosthenic speech just cited, to attest the effect of Philip’s new position on the Grecian mind. Shortly after the peace, and before the breaking up of the Phokian towns into villages had been fully carried into detail—Isokrates published his letter addressed to Philip—the Oratio ad Philippum. The purpose of this letter is, to invite Philip to reconcile the four great cities of Greece—Sparta, Athens, Thebes, and Argos; to put himself at the head of their united force, as well as of Greece generally; and to invade Asia, for the purpose of overthrowing the Persian empire, of liberating the Asiatic Greeks, and of providing new homes for the unsettled wanderers in Greece. The remarkable point here is, that Isokrates puts the Hellenic world under subordination and pupilage to Philip, renouncing all idea of it as a self-sustaining and self-regulating system. He extols Philip’s exploits, good fortune, and power, above all historical parallels—treats him unequivocally as the chief of Greece—and only exhorts him to make as good use of his power, as his ancestor Herakles had made in early times.[939] He recommends him, by impartial and conciliatory behavior towards all, to acquire for himself the same devoted esteem among the Greeks as that which now prevailed among his own Macedonian officers—or as that which existed among the Lacedæmonians towards the Spartan kings.[940] Great and melancholy indeed is the change which had come over the old age of Isokrates, since he published the Panegyrical Oration (380 B. C.—thirty-four years before) wherein he invokes a united Pan-hellenic expedition against Asia, under the joint guidance of the two Hellenic chiefs by land and sea—Sparta and Athens; and wherein he indignantly denounces Sparta for having, at the peace of Antalkidas, introduced for her own purposes a Persian rescript to impose laws on the Grecian world. The prostration of Grecian dignity, serious as it was, involved in the peace of Antalkidas, was far less disgraceful than that recommended by Isokrates towards Philip—himself indeed personally of Hellenic parentage, but a Macedonian or barbarian (as Demosthenes[941] terms him) by power and position. As Æschines, when employed in embassy from Athens to Philip, thought that his principal duty consisted in trying to persuade him by eloquence to restore Amphipolis to Athens, and put down Thebes—so Isokrates relies upon his skilful pen to dispose the new chief to a good use of imperial power—to make him protector of Greece, and conquerer of Asia. If copious and elegant flattery could work such a miracle, Isokrates might hope for success. But it is painful to note the increasing subservience, on the part of estimable Athenian freemen like Isokrates, to a foreign potentate; and the declining sentiment of Hellenic independence and dignity, conspicuous after the peace of 346 B. C. in reference to Philip.
From Isokrates as well as from Demosthenes, we thus obtain evidence of the imposing and intimidating effect of Philip’s name in Greece after the peace of 346 B. C. Ochus, the Persian king, was at this time embarrassed by unsubdued revolt among his subjects; which Isokrates urges as one motive for Philip to attack him. Not only Egypt, but also Phenicia and Cyprus, were in revolt against the Persian king. One expedition (if not two) on a large scale, undertaken by him for the purpose of reconquering Egypt, had been disgracefully repulsed, in consequence of the ability of the generals (Diophantus an Athenian and Lamius a Spartan) who commanded the Grecian mercenaries in the service of the Egyptian prince Nektanebus.[942] About the time of the peace of 346 B. C. in Greece, however, Ochus appears to have renewed with better success his attack on Cyprus, Phenicia, and Egypt. To reconquer Cyprus, he put in requisition the force of the Karian prince Idrieus (brother and successor of Mausolus and Artemisia), at this time not only the most powerful prince in Asia Minor, but also master of the Grecian islands Chios, Kos, and Rhodes, probably by means of an internal oligarchy in each, who ruled in his interest and through his soldiers.[943] Idrieus sent to Cyprus a force of forty triremes and eight thousand mercenary troops, under the command of the Athenian Phokion and of Evagoras, an exiled member of the dynasty reigning at Salamis in the island. After a long siege of Salamis itself, which was held against the Persian king by Protagoras, probably another member of the same dynasty—and after extensive operations throughout the rest of this rich island, affording copious plunder to the soldiers, so as to attract numerous volunteers from the mainland—all Cyprus was again brought under the Persian authority.[944]
The Phenicians had revolted from Ochus at the same time as the Cypriots, and in concert with Nektanebus prince of Egypt, from whom they received a reinforcement of four thousand Greek mercenaries under Mentor the Rhodian. Of the three great Phenician cities, Sidon, Tyre, and Aradus—each a separate political community, but administering their common affairs at a joint town called Tripolis, composed of three separate walled circuits, a furlong apart from each other—Sidon was at once the oldest, the richest, and the greatest sufferer from Persian oppression. Hence the Sidonian population, with their prince Tennes, stood foremost in the revolt against Ochus, employing their great wealth in hiring soldiers, preparing arms, and accumulating every means of defence. In the first outbreak they expelled the Persian garrison, seized and punished some of the principal officers, and destroyed the adjoining palace and park reserved for the satrap or king. Having farther defeated the neighboring satraps of Kilikia and Syria, they strengthened the defences of the city by triple ditches, heightened walls, and a fleet of one hundred triremes and quinqueremes. Incensed at these proceedings, Ochus marched with an immense force from Babylon. But his means of corruption served him better than his arms. The Sidonian prince Tennes, in combination with Mentor, entered into private bargain with him, betrayed to him first one hundred of the principal citizens, and next placed the Persian army in possession of the city-walls. Ochus, having slain the hundred citizens surrendered to him, together with five hundred more who came to him with boughs of supplication, intimated his purpose of taking signal revenge on the Sidonians generally; who took the desperate resolution, first of burning their fleet that no one might escape—next, of shutting themselves up with their families, and setting fire each man to his own house. In this deplorable conflagration forty thousand persons are said to have perished; and such was the wealth destroyed, that the privilege of searching the ruins was purchased for a large sum of money. Instead of rewarding the traitor Tennes, Ochus concluded the tragedy by putting him to death.[945]
Flushed with this unexpected success, Ochus marched with an immense force against Egypt. He had in his army ten thousand Greeks; six thousand by requisition from the Greek cities in Asia Minor; three thousand by request from Argos; and one thousand from Thebes.[946] To Athens and Sparta, he had sent a like request, but had received from both a courteous refusal. His army, Greek and Asiatic, the largest which Persia had sent forth for many years, was distributed into three divisions, each commanded by one Greek and one Persian general; one of the three divisions was confided to Mentor and the eunuch Bagoas, the two ablest servants of the Persian king. The Egyptian prince Nektanebus, having been long aware of the impending attack, had also assembled a numerous force: no less than twenty thousand mercenary Greeks, with a far larger body of Egyptians and Libyans. He had also taken special care to put the eastern branch of the Nile, with the fortress of Pelusium at its mouth, in a full state of defence. But these ample means of defence were rendered unavailing, partly by his own unskilfulness and incompetence, partly by the ability and cunning of Mentor and Bagoas. Nektanebus was obliged to retire into Ethiopia; all Egypt fell, with little resistance, into the hands of the Persians; the fortified places capitulated—the temples were pillaged, with an immense booty to the victors—and even the sacred archives of the temples were carried off, to be afterwards resold to the priests for an additional sum of money. The wealthy territory of Egypt again became a Persian province, under the satrap Pherendates; while Ochus returned to Babylon, with a large increase both of dominion and of reputation. The Greek mercenaries were dismissed to return home, with an ample harvest both of pay and plunder.[947] They constituted in fact the principal element of force on both sides; some Greeks enabled the Persian king to subdue revolters,[948] while others lent their strength to the revolters against him.
By this reconquest of Phenicia and Egypt, Ochus relieved himself from that contempt into which he had fallen through the failure of his former expedition,[949] and even exalted the Persian empire in force and credit to a point nearly as high as it had ever occupied before. The Rhodian Mentor, and the Persian Bagoas, both of whom had distinguished themselves in the Egyptian campaign, became from this time among his most effective officers. Bagoas accompanied Ochus into the interior provinces, retaining his full confidence; while Mentor, rewarded with a sum of 100 talents, and loaded with Egyptian plunder, was invested with the satrapy of the Asiatic seaboard.[950] He here got together a considerable body of Greek mercenaries, with whom he rendered signal service to the Persian king. Though the whole coast was understood to belong to the Persian empire, yet there were many separate strong towns and positions, held by chiefs who had their own military force; neither paying tribute nor obeying orders. Among these chiefs, one of the most conspicuous was Hermeias, who resided in the stronghold of Atarneus (on the mainland opposite to Lesbos), but had in pay many troops and kept garrisons in many neighboring places. Though partially disabled by accidental injury in childhood,[951] Hermeias was a man of singular energy and ability, and had conquered for himself this dominion. But what has contributed most to his celebrity, is, that he was the attached friend and admirer of Aristotle; who passed three years with him at Atarneus, after the death of Plato in 348-347 B. C.—and who has commemorated his merits in a noble ode. By treachery and false promises, Mentor seduced Hermeias into an interview, seized his person, and employed his signet-ring to send counterfeit orders whereby he became master of Atarneus and all the remaining places held by Hermeias. Thus, by successful perfidy, Mentor reduced the most vigorous of the independent chiefs on the Asiatic coast; after which, by successive conquests of the same kind, he at length brought the whole coast effectively under Persian dominion.[952]
The peace between Philip and the Athenians lasted without any formal renunciation on either side for more than six years; from March 346 B. C. to beyond Midsummer 340 B. C. But though never formally renounced during that interval, it became gradually more and more violated in practice by both parties. To furnish a consecutive history of the events of these few years, is beyond our power. We have nothing to guide us but a few orations of Demosthenes;[953] which, while conveying a lively idea of the feeling of the time, touch, by way of allusion, and as materials for reasoning, upon some few facts; yet hardly enabling us to string together those facts into an historical series. A brief sketch of the general tendencies of this period is all that we can venture upon.
Philip was the great aggressor of the age. The movement everywhere, in or near Greece, began with him, and with those parties in the various cities, who acted on his instigation and looked up to him for support. We hear of his direct intervention, or of the effects of his exciting suggestions, everywhere; in Peloponnesus, at Ambrakia and Leukas, in Eubœa, and in Thrace. The inhabitants of Megalopolis, Messênê, and Argos, were soliciting his presence in Peloponnesus, and his active coöperation against Sparta. Philip intimated a purpose of going there himself, and sent in the mean time soldiers and money, with a formal injunction to Sparta that she must renounce all pretension to Messênê.[954] He established a footing in Elis,[955] by furnishing troops to an oligarchical faction, and enabling them to become masters of the government, after a violent revolution. Connected probably with this intervention in Elis, was his capture of the three Eleian colonies, Pandosia, Bucheta, and Elateia, on the coast of the Epirotic Kassopia, near the Gulf of Ambrakia. He made over these three towns to his brother-in-law Alexander, whom he exalted to be prince of the Epirotic Molossians[956]—deposing the reigning prince Arrhybas. He farther attacked the two principal Grecian cities in that region, Ambrakia and Leukas; but here he appears to have failed.[957] Detachments of his troops showed themselves near Megara and Eretria, to the aid of philippizing parties in these cities and to the serious alarm of the Athenians. Philip established more firmly his dominion over Thessaly, distributing the country into four divisions, and planting a garrison in Pheræ, the city most disaffected to him.[958] We also read, that he again overran and subdued the Illyrian, Dardanian, and Pæonian tribes on his northern and western boundary; capturing many of their towns, and bringing back much spoil; and that he defeated the Thracian prince Kersobleptes, to the great satisfaction of the Greek cities on and near the Hellespont.[959] He is said farther to have redistributed the population of Macedonia, transferring inhabitants from one town to another according as he desired to favor or discourage residence—to the great misery and suffering of the families so removed.[960]
Such was the exuberant activity of Philip, felt everywhere from the coasts of the Propontis to those of the Ionian sea and the Corinthian Gulf. Every year his power increased; while the cities of the Grecian world remained passive, uncombined, and without recognizing any one of their own number as leader. The philippizing factions were everywhere rising in arms or conspiring to seize the governments for their own account under Philip’s auspices; while those who clung to free and popular Hellenism were discouraged and thrown on the defensive.[961]