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

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.