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Demosthenes’ Second Philippic: A Valid Policy for the Athenians against Philip

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 May 2015

M.M. Markle III*
Affiliation:
University of New England, N.S.W.

Extract

In the negotiations which were concluded by the Peace of Philocrates, Philip hoped to gain control of the Greek states so that he could invade Persia with his own kingdom secure from invasion by powerful enemies in his rear. Elimination of the Thebans as a leading state was an essential step in his plan, because he could foresee that the only combination sufficiently strong to thwart him would be Athens and Thebes. For this reason he insisted on an alliance with the Athenians as a necessary condition for the peace: he hoped that on the basis of this alliance the Athenians would send hoplites to Thermopylae who would aid him both in the suppression of his Theban allies and in the expulsion of Phalaecus and his mercenaries from the forts. He expected that, when the Thebans learned that the tyrant and his troops were to be punished severely and the Phocian people treated leniently, the Thebans would be provoked into attacking him and the Athenians would come to his aid by taking them in the rear.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Australasian Society for Classical Studies 1981

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References

1 Markle, MM., ‘The Strategy of Philip in 346 B.C.’, CQ n.s. 24 (1974), 253–68,CrossRefGoogle Scholar and The Peace of Philocrates: a study in Athenian Foreign Relations 348-346 B. C. (Princeton University Ph.D. dissertation, 1967), available on demand from University Microfilms, Ann Arbor, Michigan. The treatment of the Peace of Philocrates presented briefly in this article and in detail in the dissertation was accepted in large part by Ellis, J.R. in his book Philip II and Macedonian Imperialism (London 1976),Google Scholar but he wrongly condemned Demosthenes for his policy with regard to the peace (see my review in AJPh 100 [1979], 327–31 on 329–30). Cawkwell, G.L., ‘The Peace of Philocrates Again’, CQ n.s. 28 (1978), 93104 and Philip of Macedonia, (London 1978), 109–11,Google Scholar and Griffith, G.T., in Hammond, N.G.L. and Griffith, G.T., A History of Macedonia, Vol. 2 550–336 B.C. (Oxford 1979), 345 n. 1,Google Scholar raise some objections to my views. Though I plan to attack their interpretations in detail in Classical Quarterly, I respond briefly to their objections below in Appendix I.

2 The alliance concluded between Philip and the Athenians was, of course, a defensive alliance. This form ‘was normal between two parties who negotiated an alliance as equals’(Griffith [ above n. 1] 339). Such an agreement could, however, form the basis for offensive action if the two parties deemed such action mutually advantageous. Neither Cawkwell nor Griffith adequately explains why Philip made an alliance with Athens a necessary condition for peace. Cawkwell writes (Philip 111): ‘Philip wanted alliance with Athens because he had already decided to attack Persia.’ I would agree that in the long term Phiip hoped that his alliance with Athens would serve this purpose ( Markle, , CQ 1974, 267–8),Google Scholar but in 346 he was not yet in a position to attack Persia: he could not risk such an invasion without securing control of the Greek states. If he had intended his alliance with Athens only to provide a navy to facilitate an invasion of Asia Minor, he would have had ample timeto arrange it after a period of peace had allowed an improvement of his relations with Athens.His insistence on the alliance as a precondition of peace shows that he had an immediate purpose in mind.

3 Calhoun, G.M., TAPA 44 (1933), 117,Google Scholar argued that Libanius’ hypothesis ought to be ignored and that the envoys to whom Demosthenes responded were from Sparta. Wüst, F.R., Philipp II (Munich 1938), 56–8 & 57 n. 1,Google Scholar rightly rejected Calhoun’s view, but he got the related Persian affairs all wrong. Most recently, Cawkwell, G.L., CQ n.s. 13 (1963), 120–38,CrossRefGoogle Scholar has confused both the synchronism and sequence of events in the Attic years 344/3 and 343/2 by erring in two respects: (1) He has misdated the Persian reconquest of Egypt, which actually took place in spring 344/3, to spring 343/2 (for a detailed treatment of his chronology, see below, Appendix II). (2) He has proposed wrongly that the Persian embassy to Athens of September 344, coincided with Python–s embassy and that Demosthenes replied to Python in the Second Philippic (for my argument that he has telescoped three embassies, which occurred at different times, into one, see below, Appendix III).

4 See Jacoby, , FGrH 3 b (suppl.) i.532,Google Scholar for the date, which is rightly accepted by Cawkwell, , CQ 1963, 121.Google Scholar Brunt, P.A., ‘Euboea in the time of Philip II’, CQ n.s. 19 (1969), 245–65 at 256,CrossRefGoogle Scholar opposes ‘Jacoby’s belief that επί τούτου prefaced the first entry Philochorus made in each archon year …’, but Cawkwell, G.L., ‘Euboea in the Late 340s’, Phoenix 32 (1978), 4267 at 58–9,CrossRefGoogle Scholar rightly opposes him. Though I agree with Cawkwell on this point, I still think that the chronology of Brunt for Euboean affairs in the late 340s is generally more probable than that of Cawkwell. I hope to discuss these problems in a forthcoming article.

5 Harding, P., ‘Androtion’s Political Career’, Historia 25 (1976), 186200 at 197–9,Google Scholar has indicated some difficulties with the restoration of the text of Didymus, col. 8, lines 14 and 15, but he does not propose any new readings. The matter has been debated from time to time, but scholars are in general agreement that Jacoby’s text is sound. Those who call it intoquestion are obliged to propose an improved text, if they expect their views to find acceptance.

6 Cawkwell, , CQ 1963, 123,Google Scholar stresses the usually prolonged time required by the Persian king to raise land and naval forces from the empire at large, and Diodorus (16.44.5) attests that ‘during the King’s delay the Sidonians had taken much care in their preparations’ for the siege. Artaxerxes’ lengthy preparations, however, are utterly irrelevant to how many months in advance he would have sought the aid of Greek mercenaries. The beds, cloaks, tents, robes, couches, bowls, weapons, pack animals and other supplies enumerated by Theopompus, (FGrH 115 F 263)Google Scholar could have been collected by the king for a considerable time before he requested aid from the Greek cities. Greek mercenaries were abundant at this time, and easily obtained. Isocrates repeatedly warns of the threat to private property of the large numbers of unemployed mercenaries ‘wandering about’.Greece at this time (see Fuks, A., ‘Isocrates and the Social-Economic Situation in Greece’, Ancient Society 3 [1972], 1744, esp. 26–30).Google Scholar For the abundance of mercenaries available immediately after Philip’s solution of the Sacred War, see Isoc. 5.96, who contraststheir plentiful numbers with their greater scarcity in the time of Cyrus. Thus, if six months was sufficient time for Cyrus to collect Greek mercenaries in 402, the same period would have been more than enough time for Ochus in 344/3. See also Isoc. 5.120–3, Ep. 9.8–10.

7 There is, of course, no reason why the Second Philippic should contain any reference to the Persian request for help against Egypt, since on my dating that request was made seven or eight months before Demosthenes delivered the Second Philippic. On the other hand, the diatribe against Argos and Thebes (6.10–12)may have reminded the Athenian assembly that at that very moment mercenaries from those two cities were again fighting on behalf of the Great King.

8 I wish to thank Professor Christian Habicht of the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, New Jersey, for suggesting this argument to me in our discussion of an earlier version of this article during my year as a member of that institution, 1978–9.

9 Anaximenes, probably drawing on Androtion, did record Athenian decrees which were passed in response to embassies (e.g. FGrH 72 F 28), and thus his History of Philip would have contained the kind of specific information which is given by Libanius in his hypothesis. For a discussion of Libanius’ source, see Bielski, J., De aetatis Demosthenicae studiis Libanianis (Breslau Phil. Abhand. 48, 1914),Google Scholar who points out (3) that the hypothesis to Dem. 6 is the only place where Libanius names a source other than Demosthenes and argues (14–15) that Libanius used a work deriving, like Plutarch’s Demosthenes, from Theopompus.

10 What is the evidence for the conciliatory mood ofthe Athenian assembly towards Philip at the time Demosthenes delivered the Second Philippic? Libanius reports that Philip through his ambassadors who were present at the assembly in Athens at which Demosthenes delivered the Second Philippic ‘accused the Athenians of slandering him without reason among the Hellenes with the claim that he had promisedthem many great benefits but had deceived them: for he said that he had promised nothing and had not deceived them, and he demanded proof of these charges’ (p. 64.2). Libanius (3) records that the Athenians ‘were at a loss for an answer to Philip… because, although they had failed to obtain what they had expected, they did not think that they had been deceived by him, for neither had Philip written any promise in his letters nor had he made any promise through his ambassadors, but some Athenians were the ones who had put the Assembly in expectation that Philip would preserve the Phocians and eliminate the insolence of the Thebans.’ The conciliatory mood of the Athenians towards Philip is demonstrated by their avoidance of making the obvious response to his ambassadors: they could justifiably have replied that the Macedonian king had persuaded Athenian ambassadors by deceit or bribery to report false promises to the Athenian assembly in order to obtain peace and alliance and that once Philip had achieved these two goals he denied having made the promises on the specious grounds that he had not put them into writing or instructed his own ambassadors to report them. Instead of making such a response, the Athenians concede the force of the protest made by Philip’s ambassadors and vaguely blame ‘some Athenians’ for deceiving the Assembly. Such a concession can only indicate that the Athenians wished to conciliate Philip.

11 Cawkwell, G.L., CQ n.s. 13 (1963), 200–13 at 200,CrossRefGoogle Scholar employs the argumentum exsilentio to discredit this accusation, but Demosthenes had no need to mention these troops and funds again in his speech On the Treasonable Embassy; in the late summer of 343, the massacre at Elis by the oligarchic partisans of Philip (Dem. 19.260,294) was a more current and arresting case of the increase of Philip’s influence in the Peloponnese. Demosthenes, however, in his speech On the Treasonable Embassy (19.261) does mention in passing that the Argives were emulating the Arcadians in their gestures of admiration towards Philip. This admiration must reflect the gratitude which the Argives felt because of the aid and support given them by Philip against the Lacedaemonians, described by Demosthenes in the Second Philippic (6.15).

12 For the chronology of the Sacred War, see Hammond, N.G.L., JHS 57 (1937), 4477, and now Studies in Greek History (Oxford 1973), 486–532.Google Scholar

13 Dionysius, of Halicarnassus, , Ep. ad Ammae. 1, p. 725,Google Scholar assigns Demosthenes (16) On behalf of the Megalopolitans to the archonship of Thoudemos, 353/2, and Demosthenes’ statements (16.28)‘… while the war still occupies the Thebans’ and (31)‘if the Thebans are finally beaten…’ show that the speech must have been delivered before the battle of Crocus Field which Philip and his Thessalian allies won in the spring of 352. After that decisive defeat of the Phocians, the Thebans could no longer have been regarded as occupied by the war. For the repugnance felt by the Athenians towards supporting the Thebans against the Spartans, see Dem. 16.6–8,14. For Demosthenes’ advice see esp. 7–8, 27, 30–1.

14 For Philip’s victory at Crocus Field, see Diod. 16.35.3–6; cf. 61.1; Paus. 10.2.5; Just. 8.2; for the site of the battle, see Beloch, K.J., Griechische Geschichte 2 (Berlin 1923), 3.1.477 n.l.Google Scholar

15 The Peace of Philocrates did not nullify any alliances which existed between Philip and his allies and Athens and her allies; it merely brought about an alliance between the Athenians and Philip, and Demosthenes (5.13) seems to imply that it prohibited each party from concluding alliances that would deprive the other of an ally. Demosthenes does not mention Athenian obligations to the Messenians under the Common Peace of 362/1 in the Second Philippic, but the Athenians had ignored these ties for so long a time that perhaps he felt that a reminder would serve no purpose. For continuing Athenian friendship towards Sparta, see Dem. 5.18; hyp. to Dem. 6, pp. 64–5,2–3; Dem. 6.15–16. Spartan enmity towards Thebes: Dem. 6.15–16, 19. Athenian hostility towards Thebes: Dem. 5.9–10, 14–15, 22; 6.7, 12, 19, 28–36.

16 For other evidence of hostility between Athens and Boeotia at this time, see Dem. 19.326; 54.3.

17 Dem. 19.87‘ … a force of Philip andmercenaries at Porthmus’; also 204,334. Base for an attack on Attica: Dem. 19.219,326. Threat to Eretrian democracy: Dem. 9.33. Plots against Geraestus: Dem. 19.326. Demosthenes’ statement (19.75) ούδεγαρ Λακεδαι-μονίους Sia την άρετην αυτών ποτ εσώσατε, ούδε τους καταράτους Έύβοέας τουτουσί, ο£ άλλους, άλλ' ότι συμφέρον ην σως είναι τη πάλει… would indicate that the Athenians had taken action in Euboea. τουτουσί would seem to indicate that it was recent, and καταράτους that little co-operation had been given by the Shilleto, Euboeans. R., ed. Demosthenis de Falsa Legatione6 (Cambridge 1886), 66,Google Scholar citing Schaefer, comments on this passage: ‘τουτουσ ι est demonstratio temporis, non loci; hos, quos nunc servastis. Opponuntur Lacedaemonii, quorum saluti civitas olim (ποτέ) perspexit.’

18 Dem. 18.48, 295; Plut. Arat. 13; Theopompus, Book 33 deals with Sicyon (FGrH 115 F 176-7); see Schaefer, A., Demosthenes und seine Zeit2 (Leipzig 1885), 2.364 n. 4.Google Scholar

19 Dem. 19.294–6; also 87, 204, 326, 334; 9.17–18; 10.9; 18.48, 295; Plut.Phoc. 15; cf. Aesch. 2.184. Dem. 19.334 shows that the attempt had failed by late summer 343; see Schaefer 2.365–6 with notes.

20 For this treaty, see Markle, M., ‘Support of Athenian Intellectuals for Philip’, JHS 96 (1976), 92–3 andn. 35.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

21 Cawkwell, , CQ 1963, 201–4; a view he still maintains in 1978, Phoenix 1978,51–2,53.Google Scholar

22 CQ 1969, 252 and n. 4.

23 For documentation and a more detailed account of these events, see Markle (above n. 20) 92. For Androtion, see also above n. 5.

24 For the procedure and size of a jury at a εουνα, see Gilbert, G., Constitutional Antiquities of Sparta and Athens, trans. Brooks (London 1895), 226 Google Scholar and Busolt, G., Griechische Staatskunde (Munich 1926), 2.1154–5.Google Scholar His support by Eubulus (Dem. 19.289–94; Aesch. 2.184), by hocion (Aesch. 2.170,184), and by Nausikles (Aesch. 2.184). Acquitted by thirty votes (Idomeneus of Lampsacus apud Plut. Dem. 15; cf. Mor. 840 b-c).

25 For the alliance with Megara: Charax, , FGrH 103 F 19; Dem. 9.74; 18.237; Aesch. 3.95.Google Scholar

26 Dem. 48.24–6 shows that the campaign took place in the archonship of Pythodotus, 343/2, and Hegesippus’ speech On Halonnesus, which was delivered in winter 342, mentions the campaign as in progress (Ps.-Dem. 7.32); cf. Diod. 16.72.1, who erroneously dates this event to the archonship of Sosigenes, 342/1. See also Just. 7.6.10–12.

27 IG ii2 226=Tod 173; cf. Diod. 16.72.1 which states that Arybbas died.

28 For a brief, documented history of the close relations between Corinth and Ambracia, see Markle (above n. 20) 96.

29 Dem. 9.34; Strabo9.4.7; Philochorus, , FGrH 328 F 56.Google Scholar On Philip and Aetolia, see Bosworth, A.B., ‘Early Relations between Aetolia and Macedonia’, Amer. Journ. Anc. Hist. 1 (1976), 164–81.Google Scholar

30 Philip’s threat to Ambracia resulted in an alliance between Athens and Corinth, Corcyra, and Acarnania: Dem. 18.237, undated, but in effect at beginning of 340, Aesch. 3.98. Dem. 9.34 shows that Ambracia and Leucas were still dependent on Corinth at this time. To defend these allies, Athens sent troops to Acarnania: Dem. 48.24–6. Demosthenes and others went to Acarnania to counter the diplomatic moves of Philip: Dem. 9.72; 18.244. Athenian embassy to the Peloponnese and alliances concluded there: Dem. 9.72 (chronology); Aesch. 3.83 with schol. 97; Dem. 18.237; IG ii2 237.

31 Beloch 3.1.546 ignores the evidence of Isoc. 12.91 when he states that Sparta, because of Athenian and Macedonian alliances with her enemies, was ‘forced to maintain peace with her neighbours’. Moreover, he assumes that it was because of this peace that Archidamus was able to leave for his campaign in Italy. Brunt, CQ 1969, 261 also ignores this passage when he states that ‘it was because of Archidamus’ absence that the anti-Spartan cities … were ready in the summer of 342 to conclude an alliance with Athens’. Neither Beloch nor Brunt, who differ in the dates for the departure of Archidamus to the West, whether it was before or after the Athenian alliance, defends his chronology. For the date of lsocrates’ Panathenaicus (no. 12), which was composed from 342-339, see Zucker, F., Bert. Sächs. Akad. d. Wiss. Philol.-Hist. Kl. 101.7 (1954), 130, on p. 3.Google Scholar

32 Dem. 9.72. Date of Philip’s march to Thrace is about July 342, as argued by Beloch 3.2.293–4. Cawkwell, , Phoenix 1978, 62,Google Scholar contrary to the evidence, finds these affairs ‘largely a matter of the Greek imagination‘ and (63) states: ‘It is true that Demosthenes speaks as if all these embassies contributed to checking the advance of Philip. But he may be speaking loosely …’ Cawkwell wants to prove that these alliances accomplished nothing, and he thus cavalierly dismisses inconvenient testimony.

33 See e.g. Beloch 3.1.507, who writes that Demosthenes opposed alliance with Philip ‘whose superior power could only lead to the subordination of Athens and this idea was intolerable both to Demosthenes’ local patriotism and his republican pride’. Beloch’s judgement after his account of Chaeronea is typical of these historians (580): ‘It is certainly true that after Chaeronea not everything was achieved for which one then was justified in hoping. The old hereditary disease of the state — particularism — broke out again as well as the internal struggles which paved the way for the foreign conqueror. Yet the few years of unity which followed Philip’s victory at Chaeronea were sufficient to free their Hellenic brethren from the barbarian domination.’

34 For an opposing view, see Dunkel, H.B., ‘Was Demosthenes a Panhellenist?’, CP 33 (1938), 291305,Google Scholar recently reprinted in Perlman, S., Philip and Athens (Cambridge 1973), 129–43.Google Scholar Dunkel’s method is to select from Demosthenes’ speeches statements out of context which he labels either ‘Panhellenic’ or ‘not Panhellenic’.