The Historians' History of the World 04 [Greece to the Roman Conquest]

Greek Mirror

(In the British Museum)

“In former days, when any Hellenes abused their power for the oppression of others,” so ran this remarkable, wise, and energetic speech, “all Hellas rose to guard the right, and now we permit a ‘good-for-nothing Macedonian,’ a ‘barbarian of the most abandoned character,’ to destroy Greek cities and hold the Pythian games, or cause them to be held by his servants. The Hellenes look on this and do nothing, ‘as a man regards a shower of hail, praying it may not hit him’; his power is allowed to continue growing, no step being taken against it, each reckoning the moment at which another is shipwrecked to his own gain instead of thinking how to save the existence of Hellas and being active in its cause, though none can help knowing that the evil will attain even the most remote. Once the man who allowed himself to be corrupted by the ambitious and malevolent enemies of his country, fell a victim to the general hate, and was visited with the severest punishment as a grievous criminal; now all this is as it were done away and in its stead is introduced that of which Greece lies sick unto death, jealousy of him to whom aught has been given, laughter when he confesses to it, hatred of whoever shall rebuke.”

In the Third Philippic Demosthenes rebukes the indolence and degeneracy of the people with more cutting sarcasm; and although all faith had not disappeared from his soul, yet it is not without reason that the piece has been called “a study in shadows, in whose gloomy colours is revealed a saddened spirit and far from joyful anticipations, whilst through the speech on the Chersonesus, which was written under the influence of bright hopes, there breathes a fresher air.”

The tempestuous eloquence of the Third Philippic made a powerful impression. Now at the eleventh hour the assembly was roused to decisive action; it placed the conduct of business for a time chiefly in the hands of the patriotic party and made energetic preparations for defence. Whilst Hyperides brought the islands of Chios and Rhodes over to the side of Athens, Demosthenes went himself to the scene of the war, persuaded Byzantium, abandoning her ancient jealousy, to reconcile herself with Athens and conclude an offensive and defensive alliance (341), and acquired Abydos and with it the undisturbed navigation of the Hellespont. Meanwhile the Persian governors, who for a long time past had looked with anxiety and uneasiness on the rise and extension of the Macedonian kingdom, were requested to give assistance, and several states in the Peloponnesus were induced to join in “the Hellenic alliance against Philip.” This was a free confederation under the leadership of Athens, with fixed contributions in money and men. Eubœa was also won over to the alliance after the Macedonian governors in Eretria and Oreus had been, the one killed, the other expelled by Phocion. In recognition of these services a golden wreath was awarded to Demosthenes and set on his head in the theatre at the Dionysia.

To make the members of the alliance more ready for sacrifices Athens herself set a magnanimous example of patriotic devotion. It was not only that, on Demosthenes’ suggestion, a change had been effected in the organisation of the trierarchy and thus the less wealthy were secured from oppressive tradition and the rich constrained to make greater efforts in proportion to their resources; the people also agreed that the sums which it had hitherto been customary to apply to festival expenses, entertainments, and dramatic representations should be utilised for military operations. “The people,” says Niebuhr, “whose poverty was dominant in the assembly and refused the gifts by which alone they obtained the luxury of eating meat on certain festival days since all the rest of the year they ate only olives, cabbages, and onions with dry bread and salt fish,—they who made this sacrifice to provide for the honour of their country; this people has my whole heart and my deepest veneration.”

PHILIP RETURNS TO THE FRAY

[341-340 B.C.]

The warlike impulse in Athens did not long remain unknown to the Macedonian king. He concealed his anger so long as the Thracian War was still in progress; but when he had destroyed the once powerful Odrysian kingdom and secured the Thracian districts by means of colonies and garrisons, when he had led his army across the Hæmus to the Getæ and had won over the colonies on the western shore of the Pontus by conciliation or force, he proceeded to send the Athenians a defiant letter, full of complaints and accusations, and added to them such insults by marching into their possessions on the Chersonesus and seizing Athenian merchantmen, that the assembly of the people declared the peace to have been violated, threw down the peace column, and took measures to furnish substantial aid to the Byzantines whom Philip was even then threatening with a siege.

There was no delusion in Athens as to the importance of the step. When Hegesippus recommended the refusal of Philip’s last proposals, there was a cry “Thou art bringing war upon us,” whereupon he answered: “Not war alone, but early death and mourning garments and public burials and funeral orations if ye will give yourselves in earnest to free the Hellenes and win back the hegemony which your fathers maintained.”

Thus ended the hollow Peace of Philocrates which had lasted seven years, and although from the aspect of affairs and the previous course of events there could be no hope of a successful struggle of divided Hellas against the advancing power of the Macedonian kingdom, now in the youthful vigour of its military strength; yet we cannot but feel the deepest respect for the manly impulse, the resolution which defied death, and preferred to fall gloriously and honourably under the feet of hostile armies, rather than be any longer a prey to the deceitful trickery of the king and his purchased satellites, or hover any longer in the undignified and ruinous state between war and peace. It was not a question of preserving “a piece of finery which had grown old-fashioned,” but of saving liberty and the popular government handed down from their forefathers, of passing on unimpaired to their successors the institutions and political forms for which former generations had staked their property and their blood, and of avoiding the break with the great historical past as long as possible.