It appears that during the nine months which succeeded the swearing of the convention, Alexander and his officers (after his return to Macedonia) were active, both by armed force and by mission of envoys, in procuring new adhesions and in re-modelling the governments of various cities suitably to their own views. Complaints of such aggressions were raised in the public assembly of Athens, the only place in Greece where any liberty of discussion still survived. An oration, pronounced by Demosthenes, Hyperides, or one of the contemporary, anti-Macedonian politicians (about the spring or early summer of 335 B. C.),[40] imparts to us some idea both of the Macedonian interventions steadily going on, and of the unavailing remonstrances raised against them by individual Athenian citizens. At the time of this oration, such remonstrances had already been often repeated. They were always met by the macedonizing Athenians with peremptory declarations that the convention must be observed. But in reply, the remonstrants urged, that it was unfair to call upon Athens for strict observance of the convention, while the Macedonians and their partisans in the various cities were perpetually violating it for their own profit. Alexander and his officers (affirms this orator) had never once laid down their arms since the convention was settled. They had been perpetually tampering with the governments of the various cities, to promote their own partisans to power.[41] In Messênê, Sikyon, and Pellênê, they had subverted the popular constitutions, banished many citizens, and established friends of their own as despots. The Macedonian force, destined as a public guarantee to enforce the observance of the convention, had been employed only to overrule its best conditions, and to arm the hands of factious partisans.[42] Thus Alexander in his capacity of Imperator, disregarding all the restraints of the convention, acted as chief despot for the maintenance of subordinate despots in the separate cities.[43] Even at Athens, this imperial authority had rescinded sentences of the dikastery, and compelled the adoption of measures contrary to the laws and constitution.[44]
At sea, the wrongful aggressions of Alexander or his officers had been not less manifest than on land. The convention, guaranteeing to all cities the right of free navigation, distinctly forbade each to take or detain vessels belonging to any other. Nevertheless the Macedonians had seized, in the Hellespont, all the merchantmen coming out with cargoes from the Euxine, and carried them into Tenedos, where they were detained, under various fraudulent pretences, in spite of remonstrances from the proprietors and cities whose supply of corn was thus intercepted. Among these sufferers, Athens stood conspicuous; since consumers of imported corn, ship-owners, and merchants, were more numerous there than elsewhere. The Athenians, addressing complaints and remonstrances without effect, became at length so incensed, and perhaps uneasy about their provisions, that they passed a decree to equip and despatch 100 triremes, appointing Menestheus (son of Iphikrates) admiral. By this strenuous manifestation, the Macedonians were induced to release the detained vessels. Had the detention been prolonged, the Athenian fleet would have sailed to extort redress by force; so that, as Athens was more than a match for Macedon on sea, the maritime empire of the latter would have been overthrown, while even on land much encouragement would have been given to malcontents against it.[45] Another incident had occurred, less grave than this, yet still dwelt upon by the orator as an infringement of the convention, and as an insult to Athenians. Though an express article of the convention prohibited armed ships of one city from entering the harbor of another, still a Macedonian trireme had been sent into Pieræus to ask permission that smaller vessels might be built there for Macedonian account. This was offensive to a large proportion of Athenians, not only as violating the convention, but as a manifest step towards employing the nautical equipments and seamen of Athens for the augmentation of the Macedonian navy.[46]
“Let those speakers who are perpetually admonishing us to observe the convention (the orator contends), prevail on the imperial chief to set the example of observing it on his part. I too impress upon you the like observance. To a democracy nothing is more essential than scrupulous regard to equity and justice.[47] But the convention itself enjoins all its members to make war against transgressors; and pursuant to this article, you ought to make war against Macedon.[48] Be assured that all Greeks will see that the war is neither directed against them nor brought on by your fault.[49] At this juncture, such a step for the maintenance of your own freedom as well as Hellenic freedom generally, will be not less opportune and advantageous than it is just.[50] The time is come for shaking off your disgraceful submission to others, and your oblivion of our own past dignity.[51] If you encourage me, I am prepared to make a formal motion—To declare war against the violators of the convention, as the convention itself directs.”[52]
A formal motion for declaring war would have brought upon the mover a prosecution under the Graphê Paranomôn. Accordingly, though intimating clearly that he thought the actual juncture (what it was, we do not know) suitable, he declined to incur such responsibility without seeing beforehand a manifestation of public sentiment sufficient to give him hopes of a favorable verdict from the Dikastery. The motion was probably not made. But a speech so bold, even though not followed up by a motion, is in itself significant of the state of feeling in Greece during the months immediately following the Alexandrine convention. This harangue is only one among many delivered in the Athenian assembly, complaining of Macedonian supremacy as exercised under the convention. It is plain that the acts of Macedonian officers were such as to furnish ample ground for complaint; and the detention of all the trading ships coming out of the Euxine, shows us that even the subsistence of Athens and the islands had become more or less endangered. Though the Athenians resorted to no armed interference, their assembly at least afforded a theatre where public protest could be raised and public sympathy manifested.
It is probable too that at this time Demosthenes and the other anti-Macedonian speakers were encouraged by assurances and subsidies from Persia. Though the death of Philip, and the accession of an untried youth of twenty, had led Darius to believe for the moment that all danger of Asiatic invasion was past, yet his apprehensions were now revived by Alexander’s manifested energy, and by the renewal of the Grecian league under his supremacy.[53] It was apparently during the spring of 335 B. C., that Darius sent money to sustain the anti-Macedonian party at Athens and elsewhere. Æschines affirms, and Deinarchus afterwards repeats (both of them orators hostile to Demosthenes)—That about this time, Darius sent to Athens 300 talents, which the Athenian people refused, but which Demosthenes took, reserving however 70 talents out of the sum for his own private purse: That public inquiry was afterwards instituted on the subject. Yet nothing is alleged as having been made out;[54] at least Demosthenes was neither condemned, nor even brought (as far as appears) to any formal trial. Out of such data we can elicit no specific fact. But they warrant the general conclusion, that Darius, or the satraps in Asia Minor, sent money to Athens in the spring of 335 B. C., and letters or emissaries to excite hostilities against Alexander.
That Demosthenes, and probably other leading orators, received such remittances from Persia, is no evidence of that personal corruption which is imputed to them by their enemies. It is no way proved that Demosthenes applied the money to his own private purposes. To receive and expend it in trying to organize combinations for the enfranchisement of Greece, was a proceeding which he would avow as not only legitimate but patriotic. It was aid obtained from one foreign prince to enable Hellas to throw off the worse dominion of another. At this moment, the political interests of Persia coincided with that of all Greeks who aspired to freedom. Darius had no chance of becoming master of Greece; but his own security prescribed to him to protect her from being made an appendage of the Macedonian kingdom, and his means of doing so were at this moment ample, had they been efficaciously put forth. Now the purpose of a Greek patriot would be to preserve the integrity and autonomy of the Hellenic world against all foreign interference. To invoke the aid of Persia against Hellenic enemies,—as Sparta had done both in the Peloponnesian war and at the peace of Antalkidas, and as Thebes and Athens had followed her example in doing afterwards—was an unwarrantable proceeding: but to invoke the same aid against the dominion of another foreigner, at once nearer and more formidable, was open to no blame on the score either of patriotism or policy. Demosthenes had vainly urged his countrymen to act with energy against Philip, at a time when they might by their own efforts have upheld the existing autonomy both for Athens and for Greece generally. He now seconded or invited Darius, at a time when Greece single-handed had become incompetent to the struggle against Alexander, the common enemy both of Grecian liberty and of the Persian empire. Unfortunately for Athens as well as for himself, Darius, with full means of resistance in his hands, played his game against Alexander even with more stupidity and improvidence than Athens had played hers against Philip.
While such were the aggressions of Macedonian officers in the exercise of their new imperial authority, throughout Greece and the islands—and such the growing manifestations of repugnance to it at Athens—Alexander had returned home to push the preparations for his Persian campaign. He did not however think it prudent to transport his main force into Asia, until he had made his power and personal ascendency felt by the Macedonian dependencies, westward, northward, and north-eastward of Pella—Illyrians, Pæonians, and Thracians. Under these general names were comprised a number[55] of distinct tribes, or nations, warlike and for the most part predatory. Having remained unconquered until the victories of Philip, they were not kept in subjection even by him without difficulty: nor were they at all likely to obey his youthful successor, until they had seen some sensible evidence of his personal energy.
Accordingly, in the spring, Alexander put himself at the head of a large force, and marched in an easterly direction from Amphipolis, through the narrow Sapæan pass between Philippi and the sea.[56] In ten days’ march he reached the difficult mountain path over which alone he could cross Mount Hæmus (Balkan.) Here he found a body of the free Thracians and of armed merchants of the country, assembled to oppose his progress; posted on the high ground with waggons in their front, which it was their purpose to roll down the steep declivity against the advancing ranks of the Macedonians. Alexander eluded this danger by ordering his soldiers either to open their ranks, so as to let the waggons go through freely—or where there was no room for such loose array, to throw themselves on the ground with their shields closely packed together and slanting over their bodies; so that the waggons, dashing down the steep and coming against the shields, were carried off the ground, and made to bound over the bodies of the men to the space below. All the waggons rolled down without killing a single man. The Thracians, badly armed, were then easily dispersed by the Macedonian attack, with the loss of 1500 men killed, and all their women and children made prisoners.[57] The captives and plunder were sent back under an escort to be sold at the seaports.
Having thus forced the mountain road, Alexander led his army over the chain of Mount Hæmus, and marched against the Triballi: a powerful Thracian tribe,—extending (as far as can be determined) from the plain of Kossovo in modern Servia northward towards the Danube,—whom Philip had conquered, yet not without considerable resistance and even occasional defeat. Their prince Syrmus had already retired with the women and children of the tribe into an island of the Danube called Peukê, where many other Thracians had also sought shelter. The main force of the Triballi took post in woody ground on the banks of the rivet Zyginus, about three days’ march from the Danube. Being tempted however, by an annoyance from the Macedonian light-armed, to emerge from their covered position into the open plain, they were here attacked by Alexander with his cavalry and infantry, in close combat, and completely defeated. Three thousand of them were slain, but the rest mostly eluded pursuit by means of the wood, so that they lost few prisoners. The loss of the Macedonians was only eleven horsemen and forty foot slain; according to the statement of Ptolemy, son of Lagus, then one of Alexander’s confidential officers, and afterwards founder of the dynasty of Greco-Egyptian kings.[58]
Three days’ march, from the scene of action, brought Alexander to the Danube, where he found some armed ships which had been previously ordered to sail (probably with stores of provision) from Byzantium round by the Euxine and up the river. He first employed these ships in trying to land a body of troops on the island of Peukê; but his attempt was frustrated by the steep banks, the rapid stream, and the resolute front of the defenders on shore. To compensate for this disappointment, Alexander resolved to make a display of his strength by crossing the Danube and attacking the Getæ; tribes, chiefly horsemen armed with bows,[59] analogous to the Thracians in habits and language. They occupied the left bank of the river, from which their town was about four miles distant. The terror of the Macedonian successes had brought together a body of 4000 Getæ, visible from the opposite shore, to resist any crossing. Accordingly Alexander got together a quantity of the rude boats (hollowed out of a single trunk) employed for transport on the river, and caused the tent-skins of the army to be stuffed with hay in order to support rafts. He then put himself on shipboard during the night, and contrived to carry across the river a body of 4000 infantry, and 1500 cavalry; landing on a part of the bank where there was high standing wheat and no enemy’s post. The Getæ, intimidated not less by this successful passage than by the excellent array of Alexander’s army, hardly stayed to sustain a charge of cavalry, but hastened to abandon their poorly fortified town and retire father away from the river. Entering the town without resistance, he destroyed it, carried away such movables as he found, and then returned to the river without delay. Before he quitted the northern bank, he offered sacrifice to Zeus the Preserver—to Hêraklês—and to the god Ister (Danube) himself, whom he thanked for having shown himself not impassable.[60] On the very same day, he recrossed the river to his camp; after an empty demonstration of force, intended to prove that he could do what neither his father nor any Grecian army had ever yet done, and what every one deemed impossible—crossing the greatest of all known rivers without a bridge and in the face of an enemy.[61]