In the recent military operations, on so large a scale, against Byzantium and Perinthus, Philip had found himself in conflict not merely with Athens, but also with Chians, Rhodians and others; an unusually large muster of confederate Greeks. To break up this confederacy, he found it convenient to propose peace, and to abandon his designs against Byzantium and Perinthus—the point on which the alarm of the confederates chiefly turned. By withdrawing his forces from the Propontis, he was enabled to conclude peace with the Byzantines and most of the maritime Greeks who had joined in relieving them. The combination against him was thus dissolved, though with Athens[1010] and her more intimate allies his naval war still continued. While he multiplied cruisers and privateers to make up by prizes his heavy outlay during the late sieges, he undertook with his land-force an enterprize, during the spring of 339 B. C., against the Scythian king Atheas; whose country, between Mount Hæmus and the Danube, he invaded with success, bringing away as spoil a multitude of youthful slaves of both sexes, as well as cattle. On his return however across Mount Hæmus, he was attacked on a sudden by the Thracian tribe Triballi, and sustained a defeat; losing all his accompanying captives, and being badly wounded through the thigh.[1011] This expedition and its consequences occupied Philip during the spring and summer of 339 B. C.
Meanwhile the naval war of Athens against Philip was more effectively carried on, and her marine better organized, than ever it had been before. This was chiefly owing to an important reform proposed and carried by Demosthenes, immediately on the declaration of war against Philip in the summer of 340 B. C. Enjoying as he did, now after long public experience, the increased confidence of his fellow-citizens, and being named superintendent of the navy,[1012] he employed his influence not only in procuring energetic interference both as to Eubœa and Byzantium, but also in correcting deep-seated abuses which nullified the efficiency of the Athenian marine department.
The law of Periander (adopted in 357 B. C.) had distributed the burthen of the trierarchy among the twelve hundred richest citizens on the taxable property-schedule, arranged in twenty fractions called Symmories, of sixty persons each. Among these men, the three hundred richest, standing distinguished, as leaders of the Symmories, were invested with the direction and enforcement of all that concerned their collective agency and duties. The purpose of this law had been to transfer the cost of trierarchy—a sum of about forty, fifty or sixty minæ for each trireme, defraying more or less of the outfit—which had originally been borne by a single rich man as his turn came round, and afterwards by two rich men in conjunction—to a partnership more or less numerous, consisting of five, six, or even fifteen or sixteen members of the same symmory. The number of such partners varied according to the number of triremes required by the state to be fitted out in any one year. If only few triremes were required, sixteen contributors might be allotted to defray collectively the trierarchic cost of each: if on the other hand many triremes were needed, a less number of partners, perhaps no more than five or six, could be allotted to each—since the total number of citizens whose turn it was to be assessed in that particular year was fixed. The assessment upon each partner was of course heavier, in proportion as the number of partners assigned to a trireme was smaller. Each member of the partnership, whether it consisted of five, of six, or of sixteen, contributed in equal proportion towards the cost.[1013] The richer members of the partnership thus paid no greater sum than the poorer; and sometimes even evaded any payment of their own, by contracting with some one to discharge the duties of the post, on condition of a total sum not greater than that which they had themselves collected from these poorer members.
According to Demosthenes, the poorer members of these trierarchic symmories were sometimes pressed down almost to ruin by the sums demanded; so that they complained bitterly, and even planted themselves in the characteristic attitude of suppliants at Munychia or elsewhere in the city. When their liabilities to the state were not furnished in time, they became subject to imprisonment by the officers superintending the outfit of the armament In addition to such private hardship, there arose great public mischief from the money not being at once forthcoming; the armament being delayed in its departure, and forced to leave Peiræus either in bad condition or without its full numbers. Hence arose in great part, the ill-success of Athens in her maritime enterprises against Philip, before the peace of 346 B. C.[1014]
The same influences, which had led originally to the introduction of such abuses, stood opposed to the orator in his attempted amendment. The body of Three Hundred, the richest men in the state—the leader or richest individual in each symmory, with those who stood second or third in order of wealth—employed every effort to throw out the proposition, and tendered large bribes to Demosthenes (if we may credit his assertion) as inducements for dropping it. He was impeached moreover under the Graphê Paranomon, as mover of an unconstitutional or illegal decree. It required no small share of firmness and public spirit, combined with approved eloquence and an established name, to enable Demosthenes to contend against these mighty enemies.
His new law caused the charge of trierarchy to be levied upon all the members of the symmories, or upon all above a certain minimum of property, in proportion to their rated property; but it seems, if we rightly make out, to have somewhat heightened the minimum, so that the aggregate number of persons chargeable was diminished.[1015] Every citizen rated at ten talents was assessed singly for the charge of trierarchy belonging to one trireme; if rated at twenty talents, for the trierarchy of two; at thirty talents, for the trierarchy of three; if above thirty talents, for that of three triremes and a service boat—which was held to be the maximum payable by any single individual. Citizens rated at less than ten talents, were grouped together into ratings of ten talents in the aggregate, in order to bear collectively the trierarchy of one of a trireme; the contributions furnished by each person in the group being proportional to the sum for which he stood rated. This new proposition, while materially relieving the poorer citizens, made large addition to the assessments of the rich. A man rated at twenty talents, who had before been chargeable for only the sixteenth part of the expense of one trierarchy, along with partners much poorer than himself but equally assessed—now became chargeable with the entire expense of two trierarchies. All persons liable were assessed in fair proportion to the sum for which they stood rated in the schedule. When the impeachment against Demosthenes came to be tried before the Dikastery, he was acquitted by more than four-fifths of the Dikasts; so that the accuser was compelled to pay the established fine. And so animated was the temper of the public at that moment, in favor of vigorous measures for prosecuting the war just declared, that they went heartily along with him, and adopted the main features of his trierarchic reform. The resistance from the rich, however, though insufficient to throw out the measure, constrained him to modify it more than once, during the progress of the discussion;[1016] partly in consequence of the opposition of Æschines, whom he accuses of having been hired by the rich for the purpose.[1017] It is deeply to be regretted that the speeches of both of them—especially those of Demosthenes, which must have been numerous—have not been preserved.
Thus were the trierarchic symmories distributed and assessed anew upon each man in the ratio of his wealth, and therefore most largely upon the Three Hundred richest.[1018] How long the law remained unchanged, we do not know. But it was found to work admirably well; and Demosthenes boasts that during the entire war (that is, from the renewal of the war about August 340 B. C., to the battle of Chæroneia in August 338 B. C.) all the trierarchs named under the law were ready in time without complaint or suffering; while the ships, well-equipped and exempt from the previous causes of delay, were found prompt and effective for all exigencies. Not one was either left behind, or lost at sea, throughout these two years.[1019]
Probably the first fruits of the Demosthenic reform in Athenian naval administration, was, the fleet equipped under Phokion, which acted so successfully at and near Byzantium. The operations of Athenians at sea, though not known in detail, appear to have been better conducted and more prosperous in their general effect than they had ever been since the Social War. But there arose now a grave and melancholy dispute in the interior of Greece, which threw her upon her defence by land. This new disturbing cause was nothing less than another Sacred War, declared by the Amphiktyonic assembly against the Lokrians of Amphissa. Kindled chiefly by the Athenian Æschines, it more than compensated Philip for his repulse at Byzantium and his defeat by the Triballi; bringing, like the former Sacred War, aggrandizement to him alone, and ruin to Grecian liberty.
I have recounted, in the fourth volume of this work,[1020] the first Sacred War recorded in Grecian history (590-580 B. C.), about two centuries before the birth of Æschines and Demosthenes. That war had been undertaken by the Amphiktyonic Greeks to punish, and ended by destroying, the flourishing seaport of Kirrha, situated near the mouth of the river Pleistus, on the coast of the fertile plain stretching from the southern declivity of Delphi to the sea. Kirrha was originally the port of Delphi; and of the ancient Phokian town of Krissa, to which Delphi was once an annexed sanctuary.[1021] But in process of time Kirrha increased at the expense of both; through profits accumulated from the innumerable visitors by sea who landed there as the nearest access to the temple. The prosperous Kirrhæans, inspiring jealousy at Delphi and Krissa, were accused of extortion in the tolls levied from visitors, as well as of other guilty or offensive proceedings. An Amphiktyonic war, wherein the Athenian Solon stood prominently forward, being declared against them, Kirrha was taken and destroyed. Its fertile plain was consecrated to the Delphian god, under an oath taken by all the Amphiktyonic members, with solemn pledges and formidable imprecations against all disturbers. The entire space between the temple and the sea now became, as the oracle had required, sacred property of the god; that is, incapable of being tilled, planted, or occupied in any permanent way, by man, and devoted only to spontaneous herbage with pasturing animals.
But though the Delphians thus procured the extirpation of their troublesome neighbors at Kirrha, it was indispensable that on or near the same spot there should exist a town and port, for the accommodation of the guests who came from all quarters to Delphi; the more so, as such persons, not merely visitors, but also traders with goods to sell, now came in greater multitudes than ever, from the increased attractions imparted out of the rich spoils of Kirrha itself, to the Pythian festival. How this want was at first supplied, while the remembrance of the oath was yet fresh, we are not informed. But in process of time Kirrha became reoccupied and refortified by the western neighbors of Delphi—the Lokrians of Amphissa—on whose borders it stood, and for whom probably it served as a port not less than for Delphi. These new occupants received the guests coming to the temple, enriched themselves by the accompanying profit and took into cultivation a certain portion of the plain around the town.[1022]