Such were the precautions taken at Athens after this fatal day. But Athens lay at a distance of three or four days’ march from the field of Chæronea; while Thebes, being much nearer, bore the first attack of Philip. Of the behaviour of that prince after his victory, we have contradictory statements. According to one account, he indulged in the most insulting and licentious exultation on the field of battle, jesting especially on the oratory and motions of Demosthenes; a temper from which he was brought round by the courageous reproof of Demades, then his prisoner as one of the Athenian hoplites.[17] At first he even refused to grant permission to inter the slain, when the herald came from Lebadea to make the customary demand. According to another account, the demeanour of Philip towards the defeated Athenians was gentle and forbearing. However the fact may have stood as to his first manifestations, it is certain that his positive measures were harsh towards Thebes and lenient towards Athens. He sold the Theban captives into slavery; he is said also to have exacted a price for the liberty granted to bury the Theban slain—which liberty, according to Grecian custom, was never refused, and certainly never sold, by the victor. Whether Thebes made any further resistance, or stood a siege, we do not know. But presently the city fell into Philip’s power, who put to death several of the leading citizens, banished others, and confiscated the property of both. A council of Three Hundred—composed of philippising Thebans, for the most part just recalled from exile—was invested with the government of the city, and with powers of life and death over every one. The state of Thebes became much the same as it had been when the Spartan Phœbidas, in concert with the Theban party headed by Leontiades, surprised the Cadmea. A Macedonian garrison was now placed in the Cadmea, as a Spartan garrison had been placed then. Supported by this garrison, the philippising Thebans were uncontrolled masters of the city; with full power, and no reluctance, to gratify their political antipathies. At the same time, Philip restored the minor Bœotian towns—Orchomenos, and Platæa, probably also Thespiæ and Coronea—to the condition of free communities instead of subjection to Thebes.
At Athens also, the philippising orators raised their voices loudly and confidently, denouncing Demosthenes and his policy. New speakers, who would hardly have come forward before, were now put up against him. The accusations however altogether failed; the people continued to trust him, omitting no measure of defence which he suggested. Æschines, who had before disclaimed all connection with Philip, now altered his tone, and made boast of the ties of friendship and hospitality subsisting between that prince and himself. He tendered his services to go as envoy to the Macedonian camp; whither he appears to have been sent, doubtless with others, perhaps with Xenocrates and Phocion. Among them was Demades also, having been just released from his captivity. Either by the persuasions of Demades, or by a change in his own dispositions, Philip had now become inclined to treat with Athens on favourable terms. The bodies of the slain Athenians were burned by the victors, and their ashes collected to be carried to Athens; though the formal application of the herald, to the same effect, had been previously refused. Æschines (according to the assertion of Demosthenes) took part as a sympathising guest in the banquet and festivities whereby Philip celebrated his triumph over Grecian liberty. At length Demades with the other envoys returned to Athens, reporting the consent of Philip to conclude peace, to give back the numerous prisoners in his hands, and also to transfer Oropus from the Thebans to Athens.
PEACE OF DEMADES
Demades proposed the conclusion of peace to the Athenian assembly, by whom it was readily decreed. To escape invasion and siege by the Macedonian army was doubtless an unspeakable relief; while the recovery of the two thousand prisoners without ransom was an acquisition of great importance, not merely to the city collectively but to the sympathies of numerous relatives. Lastly, to regain Oropus—a possession which they had once enjoyed, and for which they had long wrangled with the Thebans—was a further cause of satisfaction. Such conditions were doubtless acceptable at Athens. But there was a submission to be made on the other side, which to the contemporaries of Pericles would have seemed intolerable, even as the price of averted invasion or recovered captives. The Athenians were required to acknowledge the exaltation of Philip to the headship of the Grecian world, and to promote the like acknowledgment by all other Greeks, in a congress to be speedily convened. They were to renounce all pretensions to headship, not only for themselves, but for every other Grecian state; to recognise not Sparta nor Thebes, but the king of Macedon, as Panhellenic chief; to acquiesce in the transition of Greece from the position of a free, self-determining, political aggregate, into a provincial dependency of the kings of Pella and Ægæ. It is not easy to conceive a more terrible shock to that traditional sentiment of pride and patriotism, inherited from forefathers who, after repelling and worsting the Persians, had first organised the maritime Greeks into a confederacy running parallel with and supplementary to the non-maritime Greeks allied with Sparta; thus keeping out foreign dominion and casting the Grecian world into a system founded on native sympathies and free government. Such traditional sentiment, though it no longer governed the character of the Athenians nor impressed upon them motives of action, had still a strong hold upon their imagination and memory, where it had been constantly kept alive by the eloquence of Demosthenes and others. The Peace of Demades, recognising Philip as chief of Greece, was a renunciation of all this proud historical past, and the acceptance of a new and degraded position, for Athens as well as for Greece generally.
If Philip had not purchased the recognition of Athens, he might have failed in trying to extort it by force. For though, being master of the field, he could lay waste Attica with impunity, and even establish a permanent fortress in it like Decelea—yet the fleet of Athens was as strong as ever, and her preponderance at sea irresistible. Under these circumstances, Athens and Piræus might have been defended against him, as Byzantium and Perinthus had been, two years before; the Athenian fleet might have obstructed his operations in many ways; and the siege of Athens might have called forth a burst of Hellenic sympathy, such as to embarrass his further progress. We may see therefore that, with such difficulties before him if he pushed the Athenians to despair, Philip acted wisely in employing his victory and his prisoners to procure her recognition of his headship. His political game was well played, now as always; but to the praise of generosity bestowed by Polybius he has little claim.
Besides the recognition of Philip as chief of Greece, the Athenians, on the motion of Demades, passed various honorary and complimentary votes in his favour; of what precise nature we do not know. Immediate relief from danger, with the restoration of two thousand captive citizens, was sufficient to render the peace generally popular at the first moment; moreover, the Athenians, as if conscious of failing resolution and strength, were now entering upon that career of flattery to powerful kings which we shall hereafter find them pushing to disgraceful extravagance. It was probably during the prevalence of this sentiment, which did not long continue, that the youthful Alexander of Macedon, accompanied by Antipater, paid a visit to Athens. Meanwhile the respect enjoyed by Demosthenes among his countrymen was noway lessened. Though his political opponents thought the season favourable for bringing many impeachments against him, none of them proved successful.
Greek Marble Chair
PHILIP IN PELOPONNESUS
Having thus subjugated and garrisoned Thebes, having reconstituted the anti-Theban cities in Bœotia, having constrained Athens to submission and dependent alliance, and having established a garrison in Ambracia, at the same time mastering Acarnania, and banishing the leading Acarnanians who were opposed to him, Philip next proceeded to carry his arms into Peloponnesus. He found little positive resistance anywhere, except in the territory of Sparta. The Corinthians, Argives, Messenians, Eleans, and many Arcadians, all submitted to his dominion; some even courted his alliance, from fear and antipathy against Sparta. Philip invaded Laconia with an army too powerful for the Spartans to resist in the field. He laid waste the country, and took some detached posts; but he did not take, nor do we know that he even attacked, Sparta itself. The Spartans could not resist; yet would they neither submit nor ask for peace. It appears that Philip cut down their territory and narrowed their boundaries on all the three sides; towards Argos, Messene, and Megalopolis. We have no precise account of the details of his proceedings; but it is clear that he did just what seemed to him good, and that the governments of all the Peloponnesian cities came into the hands of his partisans. Sparta was the only city which stood out against him; maintaining her ancient freedom and dignity, under circumstances of feebleness and humiliation, with more unshaken resolution than Athens.