Dionysius II succeeded his father Dionysius
I as tyrant
in Sicily in 367 BC by preventing Dion from arranging
with his dying father that his half brothers
Hipparinus and Nysaeus
share power.
Dionysius II invited Plato
to come advise him and also recalled
from exile the historian
Philistus, who caused Dionysius
to suspect the influence of Plato on Dion.
When Plato lectured
on the goodness of justice
and the misery of unjust tyranny,
Dionysius
was displeased and finally admitted that if Plato
was looking for a virtuous man, his labor was lost there.
Jealous
of the friendship between Plato
and Dion,
Dionysius II sent Dion into exile for writing a letter
to
Carthaginian commanders in Sicily even though
he was their
usual diplomatic contact;
so Plato
returned to Athens.
Plato visited Syracuse briefly
one more time in 360 BC,
but Dionysius II confiscated the property
of Dion,
who moved to Athens; Dionysius then forced Dion's wife
Arete
to marry another man while corrupting
and brutalizing Dion's
young son.
In 357 BC aided by three members of Plato's Academy
and with only 800 soldiers in five ships,
Dion sailed back to
Sicily, hoping to gain reinforcements
from the people in western
Sicily.
When they arrived in the Carthaginian port of Minoa,
they
learned that Dionysius II had sailed for Italy with 80 ships.
With popular local support Dion's forces entered Syracuse,
and
the assembly authorized the government of twenty generals
led
by Dion and his brother Megacles.
The supporters of Dionysius II were confined to the
Ortygia
citadel when Dion and the Syracusans took the
garrison Epipolae
and the fort of Euryalus,
freeing the political prisoners.
A week
later Dionysius II returned to the island fortress
of Ortygia
and offered peace but then sent forth his army
from the citadel
into a hard-fought battle with Dion's forces,
which prevailed
by killing 800 of Dionysius' men
and burying them with honors.
While Dionysius was in the citadel, his general Philistus
gathered
2,000 soldiers and attacked rebelling Leontini.
The Syracusans
went and drove out Philistus.
Heracleides arrived with ships from
the Peloponnese,
and in a naval battle involving sixty ships on
each side
he defeated Philistus, who committed suicide.
Dionysius
II was now ready to give up the fortress
if he could leave with
his property and privileges;
Dion advised acceptance, but the
Syracusans wanted
to force the tyrant to surrender by siege.
So
Dionysius, leaving his mercenaries to guard the citadel,
escaped
the blockade of Heracleides and sailed away.
The Syracusans divided into two factions—
those supporting
the admiral Heracleides and the
Peloponnesian mercenaries backing
Dion, who refused to
attack Syracusans and marched out with his
forces to Leontini.
The Syracusans attacked them as they were
going;
but after defeating the Syracusans, Dion released
the many
captives without ransom.
On the morning the mercenaries of Dionysius
II were going
to give up because of hunger, ships led by Nypsius
arrived.
The Syracusans attacked the ships
as they were unloading
the supplies.
While the Syracusans were celebrating this victory,
10,000 mercenaries of Dionysius entered the city to ravage
and
kill many until the forces of Dion
came to their rescue from Leontini.
After this victory the assembly elected
Dion general with supreme
power.
Finally the son of Dionysius II surrendered the citadel,
and Dion was reunited with his wife, sister, and son.
Following Platonic principles of justice and forgiveness,
Dion
spared the life of Heracleides.
The supporters of Heracleides
insisted he remain admiral,
and Dion consented; but Dion resisted
their efforts
to redistribute the lands and homes.
The Syracusans
wanted their democracy restored,
but Dion preferred an aristocratic
government and refused
to
demolish the fortress that symbolized
and threatened tyranny.
Eventually he permitted his associates
to assassinate
Heracleides, and Dion became more unpopular
and
a tyrant in all but name.
A former student of Plato
named Callippus swore
by the great goddesses Demeter
and Persephone that
he had no evil
intentions against Dion, but during the
festival of the Maiden
(Persephone) he hired
some men
of Zacynthus to murder Dion.
In 354 BC Callippus became tyrant
for a year
before he was driven out of Sicily and killed at Rhegium,
being replaced in the Ortygia fortress by the two half brothers
of Dionysius II, Hipparinus and Nysaeus.
After two years Hipparinus
was murdered while drunk,
and his dissolute brother Nysaeus
held
on to power for five more years.
Meanwhile Dionysius II was ruling
Locri; but in 346 BC
he left his wife and daughters, who were
tortured
and killed by the Locrians after he took over Ortygia.
The Syracusans looked for leadership to a follower of Dion
named Hicetas, whom they made general,
and they appealed to Corinth
for aid against the Carthaginians.
The Corinthians selected Timoleon,
who had saved
his brother Timophanes' life in battle and then
later
when Timophanes became a tyrant and would not relent,
stood
by while his two associates killed his brother.
His mother after
this would not see Timoleon,
who
after a long fast withdrew into
solitude for nearly twenty years.
By sending Timoleon the Corinthians
resolved to test whether
his character inclined more to tyrannicide
or fratricide.
With ten ships and a thousand mercenaries Timoleon
was welcomed at Rhegion,
though Carthage had twenty ships there.
Hicetas, who was hoping to rule with the help of the
Carthaginians,
told him to send his ships back to Corinth,
because the navy of
Carthage would
not let them stay in these waters.
Timoleon delayed
and then escaped with his ships
to Tauromenion before crossing
over to Sicily.
With the support of Naxos, Timoleon defeated Hicetas' forces
that were five times his at Hadranum.
Hicetas sent two men to
assassinate Timoleon, but they failed.
Dionysius II, after being
defeated by Hicetas,
eventually offered to give Ortygia to Timoleon
if he could retire safely to Corinth.
Timoleon took over the fortress
with the mercenaries there,
and Dionysius spent the rest of his
life in Corinth.
A fleet of 150 Carthaginian ships under Mago supported
Hicetas, but Corinth sent some more ships to Timoleon.
While the Greek mercenaries on opposite sides fished
together
for eels wondering why some of them were
fighting to establish
Phoenicians closer to Greece,
the idea of joining together against
the foreigners
persuaded Mago to take his fleet back to Carthage,
where he killed himself.
Timoleon then drove Hicetas out of Epipolae
and Syracuse;
the hated fortress of Ortygia was finally torn down,
and courts for administering justice
were erected in its place.
Syracuse was repopulated with 60,000 people,
as exiles were invited
to return; the land was
divided into just and equal proportions,
and democratic laws were instituted.
Timoleon compelled Hicetas
at Leontini to capitulate
and become a private citizen, and the
despot
Leptines was removed from Apollonia.
In 339 BC Carthage sent a large force of 70,000 soldiers
and
10,000 horses in 200 warships and a thousand transports.
With
only about 10,000 men, from which a thousand
mercenaries deserted,
Timoleon led his army to victory
at Crimisus aided by a torrential
storm at their backs.
Carthage lost their sacred band of 2,500
plus 10,000 soldiers killed and 15,000 captured.
The one thousand
deserters were expelled to Italy,
where after sacking Bruttium
they were killed by the Bruttians.
Then Timoleon's force was able
to remove every tyrant
from Greek Sicily including Mamercus of
Catane,
Hippo of Messena, Nicodemus of Centoripa,
and Apolloniades
of Agyrium.
The Carthaginians made peace, and the Halycus River
was recognized as the border.
Timoleon retired from power and
lived near Syracuse
greatly honored and summoned for his judgment
in difficult
cases for two years before he went blind and died.
When he was charged by slanderers for actions
during his generalship,
Timoleon opposed those who
would have hindered the proceeding;
having taken risks for the sake of just procedures
he was grateful
that the Syracusans
now enjoyed freedom of speech.
Sicily experienced
democracy, peace,
and prosperity for the next twenty years.
In southern Italy Spartan king Archidamus had brought to
the aid of Taras mercenaries gathered from Phocian survivors
of the
Sacred War, but after five years of fighting
he was killed at
Mandonion by the Lucanians in 338 BC.
Four years later Alexander
of Epirus helped Taras defeat
the Brettian league and made a treaty
with Rome,
but the little Epirote empire was defeated in 330 BC
when Alexander was killed at the battle of Pandosia.
In northern Greece kings Cotys of Thrace,
Alexander of Pherae, and Perdiccas of Macedonia
were all killed about the year 359
BC,
weakening rulership in the region
and allowing Philip II as
guardian of his young nephew
Amyntas to rule as regent in Macedonia.
Only 24 himself Philip consolidated his power by defeating
his
rival Argaeus, who was supported by an Athenian fleet.
Philip
released Athenian prisoners and renounced
Macedonian claims on
Amphipolis.
Having been educated by the Theban hero Epaminondas
while living as a hostage in the home of general Pammenes,
Philip
reorganized and trained his army, which in 358 BC
defeated the
Paeonians and then killed 7,000 Illyrians
in taking back territory
from them.
The Macedonians marched east to capture the fortress
on the Strymon River in order to control the
valuable Mount Pangaeus
gold mines,
which soon were bringing in a thousand talents a year.
Philip was to use this gold so skillfully with bribes
in conquering
diplomatically more than militarily
that Diodorus Siculus wrote
that thus
he corrupted the ethics of the people.
Philip took Amphipolis but released the Athenian prisoners,
and he renamed the fortress of Crenides after himself Philippi.
Having killed one half brother while two others fled into exile,
Philip declared himself king and moved the capital to Pella.
He
captured Pydna and then Potidaea, which he gave to the
Olynthians
in forming an alliance with them in 356 BC,
the year his son Alexander
was born.
Athenian citizens taken in Pydna were sold into slavery;
some of them were ransomed by
Demosthenes with his own money.
Athens sent a force under Chares to the Chersonese;
they captured
Sestos, killing the men and enslaving the rest.
Following a change
in policy that started a few years before
on Samos, Athens sent
settlers to the Chersonese.
Chares negotiated a treaty with the
three Thracian kings
Cersobleptes, Amadocus, and Berisades,
which
Athens accepted.
However, the next year these three kings were
defeated
by and submitted to Philip's Macedonia.
In 357 BC Euboea was also won back into the
Athenian League,
but at the same time the islands of
Chios, Rhodes, and Cos were
seceding along with Byzantium.
In what is called the Social War,
Athens sent Chabrias
and Chares with a fleet of 60 ships to attack
Chios;
the Chian fleet of 100 ships fought them off, killed Chabrias
and then turned to blockade the settlers (cleruchs) on
Samos.
Athens sent 60 more ships with Iphicrates and Timotheus,
who both decided not to attack during a storm,
although Chares
did and was repulsed.
In Athens Chares brought charges against
these two
outstanding generals; Iphicrates was acquitted,
but
Timotheus was fined 100 talents, according to Isocrates
the largest
fine ever imposed at Athens.
Timotheus went to Chalcis, where
he soon died.
Chares, not given money by Athens for his troops,
supported
Artabazus, satrap of Phrygia, in his rebellion
against Persia
and received enough to pay his army.
This angered Artaxerxes III
(Ochus) and stimulated grandiose
ideas in Athens, but even Isocrates,
who favored a campaign
against Persia and Demosthenes in his
first major speech
both realized the time was not right for that.
Instead Chares was recalled;
Isocrates
wrote his great speech against Athenian imperialism,
"On
the Peace;" and a peace was made recognizing the
independence
of Chios, Rhodes, Cos, and Byzantium.
The powerful Mausolus of
Caria helped oligarchies
overthrow the democracies in these places
and protected
them with Carian garrisons.
Demosthenes asked Athenians
to support the democracy
in Rhodes with forces,
but the peace
party led by Eubulus refused.
Mausolus died and was buried in
a beautiful tomb
called after him a mausoleum;
his widow Artemisia
held on to Rhodes.
The Sacred War was called so, because the funds used to
promote
it were taken from the temple at Delphi by Phocians.
After the
battle of Leuctra in 371 BC the Thebans in the
Amphictyonic council
had accused Sparta of seizing the
Cadmean citadel in time of peace,
and the Spartans were
fined 500 talents, which was doubled when
they did not pay.
Now Thebans also got some rich Phocians fined
for sacrilege.
To prevent enforcement of this, Philomelus suggested
that
Phocis seize the treasury of Delphi; the Phocians approved,
and with 15 talents he got from Spartan king Archidamus,
Philomelus
hired mercenaries to do that in 356 BC.
Most of the Delphians
were not hurt,
but the resisting clan of Thracidae was put to
death.
Philomelus tried to get the priestess to prophesy for him;
but she refused, and threatened by force
she said he could do
as he wished.
Taking this as a pronouncement, Philomelus got Sparta
and Athens to promise support,
while Thebes and its allies prepared
for war and gained
the authorization of the Amphictyonic council
meeting at Thermopylae.
Using the Delphic treasures to offer high
salaries
to mercenaries, Philomelus gathered an army of 10,000;
but they were defeated by Thebans and Locrians,
and rather than
be captured,
Philomelus jumped off a cliff and died.
At first the
Thebans put to death all their prisoners as
sacrilegious, which
caused the Phocians to kill Theban
prisoners until the Thebans
desisted.
The Thebans retired, and the Phocians debated whether
to make
peace; but Onomarchus, who faced high fines
from the Amphictyonic
council, persuaded the Phocians
to melt down gold and silver ornaments
to make coins
to pay another army and even had bronze and iron
beat into armor and weapons.
The Thebans, needing money, hired
their forces under
Pammenes out to Artabazus in his revolt against Persia,
but Pammenes was suspected by Artabazus
and thrown into prison.
Onomarchus used the gold
to gain an alliance with the tyrant
Lycophron of Pherae, causing
the Thessalian federation
to turn for help to Philip's Macedonian
army, which
had taken Methone away from the Athenians in 353 BC.
Onomarchus sent his brother Phayllus with 7,000 troops;
but when
they were beaten back by the Macedonians,
Onomarchus took 20,000
men and defeated Philip's forces,
which then withdrew from Thessaly.
Onomarchus led his troops back into Boeotia
and captured Coroneia.
However, the battle near the port of Pagasae, to which
Athens had sent the navy of Chares in aid of the Phocians,
was won by
the Macedonians.
More than a third of the Phocian army was killed
or captured,
and Onomarchus was killed.
Philip ordered all the
prisoners drowned for their sacrilege.
Controlling Thessaly, Philip marched his forces south;
but
Eubulus and the Athenians sent a large force of
more than 5,000
under Nausicles to defend the pass
at Thermopylae, rescuing Phocis
for a while.
Sparta threatened to win back Messenia and Megalopolis,
which appealed to Athens for support;
but Eubulus and the Athenian
assembly did not agree
with Demosthenes that they should interfere.
However, with Theban help the Messenians, Arcadians,
and Argives
were able to defend themselves
against the Spartans, who were
aided by 3,000 Phocians.
Eventually the Lacedaemonians made peace
with Megalopolis.
Onomarchus was succeeded by his brother Phayllus,
who after two years also died of illness to be succeeded
by Phalaecus,
son of Onomarchus, whose forces
were twice defeated near Chaeronea.
Thebes was so impoverished by war that they sent
an embassy to
the king of Persia,
which gained them 300 talents.
For a few years
Phocis controlled Delphi and continued
the building of the temple,
although the lavish display
of the valuable ornaments on their
women at
the Pythian games of 350 BC was resented.
Philip had incorporated the excellent Thessalian cavalry
into his Macedonian army and invaded Thrace to besiege
and take Heiron-Teichos,
the capital of Cersobleptes,
before Athens could react.
However,
Philip fell ill; Athens postponed sending their fleet;
and Philip
did not attack the Chersonese.
Demosthenes began to warn the Athenians
about Philip
and urged them to build up their military forces.
Olynthians had withdrawn from their alliance with Macedonia,
and
in 349 BC Philip demanded the surrender of his
half-brother from
Olynthus; they refused.
Thirty-two cities of Chalcide submitted
to Philip,
or if they resisted like Stagira, they were destroyed.
Athens sent only privately financed mercenaries under
Chares and
Charidemus to Chalcide, because when
the Euboean cities of Eretria,
Chalcis, and Oreus revolted,
Athens had to send a force under
Phocion;
they returned defeated, and Athens had to
pay fifty talents to ransom their prisoners.
Euboea, with the exception of Carystus,
was now independent.
Before 2,000 citizen soldiers from Athens
could arrive,
Philip's forces captured Olynthus and enslaved the
inhabitants;
Philip was wounded and lost an eye;
but finding both
his half-brothers, he had them killed.
Broke and unable even to pay their juries,
Athens led by Eubulus
sought peace, though anger at Philip
for taking Olynthus caused
them to send Aeschines
and other ambassadors to Peloponnesian
cities for help,
an apparently useless exercise to assuage public
opinion.
However, the Athenian assembly did decree that anyone
who exported arms or ships to Philip was to be executed.
An embassy,
led by Philocrates that included Demosthenes
and Aeschines, went
to Pella
to negotiate peace with Macedonia.
Athens surrendered
claim to Amphipolis,
and Philip recognized Athenian control of
the Chersonese.
Before the treaty was sworn to in Athens,
Macedonia
insisted that Phocis be excluded.
By the time the envoys reached
Philip for his oath,
his armies had taken several fortresses in
Thrace
and made Cersobleptes his vassal.
Demosthenes denounced
the other envoys for being
corrupted by Philip, but Aeschines
defended their behavior.
Philip moved his army south, and the Phocians,
led by Phalaecus
and supported by 1,000 Lacedaemonian
troops, surrendered the pass
at Thermopylae after the
Athenian assembly had passed a resolution
calling for Phocis to surrender Delphi to the Amphictyons.
Philip
allied himself with Thebes.
The Amphictyonic council ordered Phocis
to repay 60 talents
a year to the Delphi treasury plundered of
10,000 talents
and to disband their 22 cities into villages,
giving
their two seats on the council to Macedonia.
Philip was elected
president of the Pythian festival,
which disgruntled Athenians
refused to attend.
However, even Demosthenes realized that it
would
be foolish to go to war with Philip at this time over the
shadow at Delphi, though Athens strengthened its defenses.
Phalaecus
gave up Nicaea and other forts and withdrew
with 8,000 mercenaries
south to the Peloponnese.
In 343 BC Persian king Ochus took 6,000
Greek soldiers
from Asia Minor along with 3,000 from Argos
and
1,000 from Thebes and his large Persian
army
to try to win back Egypt into
his empire;
Egyptian prince Nekht-har-hebi hired 20,000 Greek
mercenaries and had 60,000 Egyptians
and 20,000 Libyans on his
side,
but he had to retire to Ethiopia.
Philip was elected ruler of Thessaly and organized it into
four tetrarchies, and in the Peloponnese he won over
Messenia, Megalopolis, and Argos.
Demosthenes and Timarchus accused Aeschines
of
accepting bribes from Philip, but he reacted by
charging Timarchus for his personal vices.
Philip sent Python of Byzantium to Athens
to attempt
to put right the peace of Philocrates.
The Athenian
Hegesippus proposed that
(1) each side should keep what rightfully
was theirs
instead of what they held;
(2) other Greeks states
should be recognized as free
and if attacked be defended by parties
to the peace; and
(3) Philip should restore the places he captured
from
Cersobleptes after the peace was sworn at Athens.
The Athenians
and Macedonians argued over a tiny island
off the coast of Thessaly
called Halonnesus,
which had been taken from Athens by pirates
before Macedonia captured it.
Philip was willing to give it to
Athens,
but they believed it should be "restored" to
them.
In 343 BC the chief peace negotiator Philocrates was
charged
by Hyperides with having accepted bribes
from Philip, fled into
exile, and was condemned to death.
Demosthenes' case against Aeschines
finally came up;
supported by the outstanding characters of Eubulus
and Phocion, Aeschines barely was acquitted.
Macedonian influence established oligarchies in Eretria
and
Oreus in Euboea, though the democracy
at Chalcis allied itself
with Athens.
Athens sent a force under Phocion that was able to
expel the
tyrant Cleitarchus from Eretria; Phocion released the
captives
so that the Athenians would not treat them cruelly;
they
joined Chalcis in an independent federation.
When the king of
Epirus died, Philip's army helped his
brother-in-law Alexander
take the throne there.
Philip then annexed Cassopia into Epirus
and threatened
Ambracia, which allied itself with Athens along
with
Acarnania, Achaea, and Corcyra.
Next Philip's army spent
ten months campaigning in Thrace.
Demosthenes got the Athenians
to send troops to Acarnania
and, to protect the Chersonese, mercenaries
led
by Diopeithes to settle disputes with Cardia,
a treaty-recognized
ally of Macedonia.
Philip complained to Athens, but Demosthenes
was able
to get the assembly to sustain Diopeithes' activities
even though they were treaty violations.
Demosthenes himself went to the Propontis and won over
Byzantium
and Perinthus from the Macedonian alliance.
Philip's forces besieged
Perinthus; but unable to blockade
it by sea, the Macedonian army
marched against Byzantium.
Philip sent a land force, which captured
the Athenian fleet of grain ships at Hieron.
All this caused Athens
to pull down the stele inscribed
with the Peace of Philocrates
and send forces under
Chares and then Phocion to Byzantium's relief.
Forces from Rhodes and Chios also arrived,
and Philip withdrew
his army to Thrace, where he put down
Scythian rebellion and was
severely wounded in the leg.
Neighbors of Halonnesus from the
island of Peparethus
carried off the Macedonian garrison,
bringing
a severe revenge on their island by
Philip's forces; the Athenians
ordered
their admiral to make reprisals.
Macedonians in Phocis
plotted to support a revolution
in Megara, but Athens quickly
sent Phocion with hoplites
to defend Megara and rebuild the long
wall to Nisaea.
At the Amphictyonic council in 340 BC Amphissa,
friends of
Thebes, intended to accuse Athens of sacrilege
for having displayed
at Phocian-controlled Delphi
a golden war memorial for the battle
of Plataea
when the invading Persians with Theban support
had
been defeated in the previous century.
Hearing of it, Aeschines
accused Amphissa first of
cultivating an accursed field with such
persuasive oratory
that the next day the Amphictyons and Delphians
laid waste the place that had been unlawfully cultivated,
and
they were assaulted by the Amphissans.
Demosthenes, who favored
alliance with Thebes,
complained that Aeschines was causing an
Amphictyonic
war in Attica even though Aeschines had perhaps
prevented an Amphictyonic war against Athens.
Athens and Thebes both decided
not to attend the
special meeting, and the Amphictyons, unable
to enforce their will on the Amphissans,
called in Philip to lead
the sacred war.
Attempting to get them on his side, Philip told
the Thebans he intended to invade Attica.
Athens sent ten envoys
led by Demosthenes to Thebes,
and they were able to form an alliance
with the Thebans.
Demosthenes was able to get the Athenian assembly
to convert the Theoric Fund to military purposes
even though to
propose such a thing
was against Athenian law.
In the summer of 338 BC the Macedonian army defeated
these
allies led by Chares, captured Amphissa, and seized
Naupactus
on the Corinthian Gulf.
The allies fell back to the plain of Chaeronea,
where they
were attacked by Philip's army of 30,000 soldiers
and
2,000 cavalry commanded by 18-year-old Alexander.
Although the
Theban Sacred Band fought courageously
to the death, the Athenians
had 1,000 killed and
2,000 captured while the rest,
including
Demosthenes, ran away.
Philip treated Thebes harshly, killing
or confiscating the
property of his leading opponents, selling
Theban captives
into slavery, charging them a fee to bury their
dead
contrary to Greek custom, establishing a Macedonian
garrison
in the Cadmea, and breaking up the
Boeotian league by giving all
those cities independence.
Although Hyperides proposed arming everyone in Athens
including
the slaves, Philip sent a captive named Damades,
who had said
the drunk Philip was acting like Thersites
instead of Agamemnon,
to negotiate a peace with Athens.
All their prisoners would be
restored if Athens would dissolve
its confederacy and join the
Hellenic union Philip proposed
and give up the Chersonese to Macedonia,
though they
were allowed to keep Lemnos, Imbros, Scyros, and Samos,
while Oropus was restored.
Athens was so grateful for these terms
that
they set up a statue of Philip in the marketplace;
even Demosthenes
had to admit he had been kind.
Next Philip marched his forces into the Peloponnese,
where
only Sparta resisted and lost its surrounding territory
to Argos,
Messene, Megalopolis, and Tegea
while retaining its dual kingship.
Philip invited all the southern Greek cities to send delegates
to a congress at Corinth, and the confederation formed
guaranteed
all their constitutions and promised federal action
against any
subversion or aggression against member states.
At the second
meeting a year later the delegates of the
Hellenic confederacy
approved a war on Persia
and elected Philip general with supreme
powers.
War preparations were exhausting the Macedonian treasury,
and a severe battle was fought against the Illyrian king Pleurias.
In 336 BC Philip sent a force under his generals
Parmenio, Amyntas,
and Attalus to secure
the Hellespont and enter the Troad.
Philip divorced Alexander's mother Olympias in order
to marry
Cleopatra, the niece of Attalus, who at a
drunken feast prayed
for a legitimate heir.
The insulted Alexander threw his goblet
at Attalus,
causing Philip to stand up and draw his sword;
but
when Philip reeled and fell, Alexander jeered
at his father for
having an ambition to pass from Europe
to Asia when he trips moving
from one couch to another.
Alexander and his mother went to Epirus.
Philip and his guards combined military discipline
with a rapacious
life-style of drinking, gambling, and lust,
Philip having numerous
wives and mistresses.
After Cleopatra bore Philip a son, a lavish
wedding was
celebrated at Aegae for the marriage of Philip's daughter
(by Olympias) Cleopatra and her uncle Alexander of Epirus.
A solemn
procession carried twelve statues of gods
into the theatre followed
by the statue of Philip,
the thirteenth god.
A disgruntled body-guard
named Pausanias,
who had been outrageously offended by Attalu
and may have been instigated by Olympias,
assassinated Philip
with a Celtic dagger
as he entered the theatre.
Alexander succeeded
his father, supported by
the two leading generals, Parmenio and
Antipater.
Demosthenes was born in 384 BC; his father died
before he was
eight, leaving his sword and furniture factories
with their 55
slaves, an estate worth nearly 14 talents,
in the custody of two
nephews and a friend.
When Demosthenes became 18, he was given
only
one-twelfth of the inheritance his father left.
So after
studying for two years with Isaeus, a rhetorician
expert in inheritance
cases, he sued the trustees
of his estate for ten talents each.
They and Meidias countered by getting Thrasylochus to
challenge
Demosthenes to an exchange of property
or to pay for a warship.
Demosthenes mortgaged his house to raise
the twenty minae
for the trireme.
Arbitration failed, and he eventually won his
case
against Aphobas, the first of the trustees;
but Demosthenes
was never able to collect the ten talents.
To overcome his tendency to lisp, Demosthenes put pebbles
in
his mouth; by reciting speeches while running or going uphill
he increased his breathing capacity for long sentences;
and by
practicing in front of a mirror he perfected his gestures.
Demosthenes
won a case against Meidias for insulting
his sister and mother
and damaging his house,
but he did not collect on this one either.
He successfully defended one of his witnesses, Phanus,
who was
charged with perjury.
To take possession of some land he had won
from Aphobus,
Demosthenes had to prosecute Onetor.
In another
case of personal injury over these property
disputes, Demosthenes
accepted some money
as compensation from Demomeles.
For about
ten years Demosthenes made a good living writing
speeches for
private cases, becoming more wealthy than his
father had been,
and he continued this work
after he began making public speeches.
His speech against Callicles complained that a channel
in his
land caused a flood on his neighbor's property.
The first public speech of Demosthenes in 355 BC was against
Leptines and complained that a changed law took away
deserved
honors and the people's right to confer honors
on others in the
future for the sake of gaining only a
little more revenue for
the state.
The same year Demosthenes spoke against Androtion
for
illegally getting the assembly to vote the council
gold crowns even though they did not raise a single warship
during their year
in office.
In another complicated case involving Androtion and
some
money from a captured Egyptian ship, Demosthenes argued
against
a law of Timocrates that would have allowed those
refusing to
pay the money to remain out on bail, although
the money was handed
over before the case came up.
After the Social War, Isocrates
wrote his famous oration
On the Peace urging the Athenians
to abandon
their imperialistic ambitions.
Athens had recalled
Chares for earning money to pay
his navy
by fighting for Artabazus
against the Persian king,
and
peace with Persia was maintained.
Some Athenians proposed a war with the Persian
empire,
but Demosthenes opposed that while recommending reforms
in military procurement in his speech on the Navy Boards.
Demosthenes
advised against taking on alone Persian
power
and wealth that could hire Greek mercenaries.
He proposed
a complicated taxing scheme that could
build a navy of 300 ships
to prepare themselves militarily
so that when a crisis arose,
they could gain allies.
Demosthenes spoke against doing wrong
unless the
Greeks could all together do wrong to Persia.
The navy reform proposal of Demosthenes
was not passed by the
assembly.
When the Arcadians of Megalopolis appealed to Athens
for military
defense against Spartan threats, Demosthenes
supported intervention,
arguing that an unjust attack on
Megalopolis by the Lacedaemonians
could be followed
by one on Messenia, which would force them to
fight on
the side of Thebes anyway.
However, the peace policy
of Eubulus prevailed;
Athens did not intervene, and the Arcadians
managed
to hold on to their independence.
In 353 BC Aristocrates proposed in the council that the
mercenary
general Charidemus, who supported Cersobleptes
in Thrace, be declared
inviolable as the best Athenian hope
to recover Amphipolis.
Demosthenes
opposed this decree in three ways:
it was unconstitutional, an
injurious policy,
and the man was unworthy.
The inviolability
meant that if anyone killed Charidemus,
any country which harbored
the killer
would become an enemy of Athens.
This violated Athenian
homicide statutes, went against the
principle that everyone was
equal before the law,
and illegally made a decree superior to
laws.
Demosthenes argued that the policy was bad, because by
supporting
Cersobleptes Athens would alienate
the other princes in the region.
If Amadocus, who controlled the country, had not kept
Philip's
Macedonians out, Athens might have found itself
at war with the
Cardians and Cersobleptes.
Demosthenes held that Charidemus was
not worthy
of such an honor and could not be trusted
to support
Athenian interests.
The first speech of Demosthenes warning against
aggression
by Philip was made in 351 BC.
Though young, Demosthenes courageously
spoke first on this issue.
He blamed Philip's rise more on Athenian
apathy
than Macedonian power.
Demosthenes proposed the building
of fifty triremes to be
manned by Athenian citizens with 2,000
men,
including 500 Athenians as a raiding force in order to avoid
a war of single expeditions that always arrive late,
as they had
at Methone, Pagasae, and Potidaea.
They should not be following
in the trail of events
like a boxer who covers the body part that
has just been
hit only to get hit somewhere else,
but they should
learn to be in front of events.
Demosthenes believed that Philip
would continue to
defy right in stealing their possessions and
advance
unless his way was impeded.
If Athens did not fight him
on his territory,
they would have to fight him on their own.
The
Athenian response at this time was to send
the mercenary force
led by Charidemus.
The same year Rhodes asked for help from Athens
against the Persian empire.
Demosthenes argued
they should be grateful that the states
that rebelled in the Social
War are now turning to them again,
and he blamed King Mausolus
of Caria for fomenting
that earlier revolt and taking away their
freedom
by establishing oligarchies.
Demosthenes held that fighting
against dispossession and
for a free state is honorable, while
any friendship
with oligarchies is precarious.
Athens is well
known for supporting
democracies and freedom.
They should have
the same attitude toward victimized states
as they would want
others to have toward them
if they were suffering.
Demosthenes
personally believed it was right to restore
Rhodian democracy,
but his proposal was defeated by the
party of Eubulus, which wanted
to avoid war with Persia.
In 349 BC when Philip demanded that Olynthus surrender
his
step-brother, the Olynthians appealed to Athens for aid.
Demosthenes
proposed that they immediately send an
expeditionary force so
that Philip would not
take advantage of the situation.
He reviewed
how Philip had already captured Amphipolis,
Pydna, Potidaea, Methone,
Thessaly, Pherae, Pagasae,
Magnesia, Thrace, Illyria, and Paeonia,
and he suggested
Olynthus was their best opportunity to stop his
expansion.
To avoid war on their own territory Demosthenes advised
sending a force to support the Olynthian confederation
and a second
naval force to attack Macedonian territory.
They should not be
ashamed or lack courage to do to him
what he would do to them
if he could.
Many opposed this proposal of Demosthenes;
but they
did send Chares with 2,000 mercenaries and
30 ships, which were
already under his command,
and they added eight more ships, though
apparently
supportive funds were inadequate.
In the second Olynthian oration Demosthenes reviewed
the duplicity
of Philip in promising Athens Amphipolis,
giving Olynthus Potidaea,
and giving Thessaly Magnesia
while promising to go to war against
Phocis.
Demosthenes predicted that power rooted in greed
and violence
would fall into ruin;
such empires only stand for a short time.
People's lives must be based on truth and justice.
The Macedonians
will tire of the misery and hardship
of marching, while their
ports are closed by war.
Yet Philip has thrived because of his
energy,
attention to detail, and opportunism,
while their democracy
has hesitated in deliberation.
Athenian forces have not been paid
for prosecuting the war
and so are encouraged to capture booty
elsewhere.
Thus Demosthenes advised that all should contribute
money according to their means; all should serve
in turn on the
campaigns; and all who wish
to speak should be freely heard.
Philip's
forces began attacking the cities of the
Chalcidic league, while
Charidemus, who replaced Chares
with 18 ships and 4,000 light
infantry, went to Chalcidice
but engaged in debauchery instead
of prosecuting the war.
Apollodorus, for whom Demosthenes wrote several speeches,
proposed
using the surplus Theoric Fund;
this passed unanimously, but then
he was prosecuted for
an illegal decree and fined one talent.
So in the third Olynthian oration Demosthenes suggested
they repeal
such laws so that
these funds could go to military purposes.
Demosthenes
called Philip an uncivilized intruder, an enemy
in possession
of their property who is at war
with their friends they have promised
to support;
yet the Athenians were more concerned
about trivial
affairs with Corinth and Megara.
Demosthenes pleaded that the
nation perform
the tasks it commends in others.
The Olynthians
had requested citizen soldiers from Athens,
and they sent a citizen
force of 2,000 heavy infantry
and 300 cavalry under Chares; but
formal charges
against Chares and bad weather delayed the expedition.
Olynthus fell to the Macedonians by treachery,
and its inhabitants
were sold into slavery.
Athens had problems closer to home in Euboea,
where Plutarchus
in Eretria was supported
by Athenians such as the rich Meidias,
but Demosthenes opposed an expedition.
Athens sent the honest
general, Phocion, who managed
to triumph despite the betrayal
of Plutarchus.
Meidias, who had commanded cavalry and later raised
a warship, out of resentment against Demosthenes,
did everything
he could to sabotage the chorus Demosthenes
financed at the Dionysian
festival, finally slugging
Demosthenes in the head while he was
sitting
in the first row of chairs at the theatre.
Demosthenes
won a complaint and prepared a criminal
prosecution against Meidias,
and he eventually accepted a settlement of half a talent.
Demosthenes participated in the peace embassy to Philip,
which
resulted in the Peace of Philocrates in 346 BC.
In a speech on
this peace Demosthenes argued that
he did not realize that Philip
would attack Phocis afterward,
and he advised them not to give
the Amphictyonic council
any grounds for a war against Athens.
Demosthenes claimed that he always worked for the
national interest,
because he did not put
financial profit into the scale.
They should
avoid war,
because no one else is likely to support them.
While
Philip was campaigning in Illyria and reorganizing
Thessaly, Demosthenes
was sent
to make speeches in the Peloponnese.
Believing that the Athenian peace embassy had been
betrayed by Philip's bribes, Demosthenes and his
colleague on the council
in the previous year,
Timarchus, brought charges against Aeschines.
Aeschines, born about 390 BC, had been an actor,
fought heroically
at Euboea,
and was a clerk in the civil service.
Like Demosthenes,
he had warned
against the danger of Philip's aggression.
Aeschines
countered the charges against him
by prosecuting Timarchus for
having been a prostitute,
which disqualified him from public speaking;
Timarchus was condemned and lost his citizenship.
Demosthenes' second Philippic speech was given in 344 BC.
He
suggested they needed to change their approach,
because Philip
succeeded in action but they only in words.
They must regard Philip
as their enemy and take
practical measures, for his intention
was clearly
not justice but to control all of Greece.
Thus Philip
was currently giving assistance
to Messene and Argos.
Only Athens
seemed to place goodwill to all Greece
above private satisfaction.
Demosthenes warned that Philip intended to fortify Elatea
in Phocis,
and he did capture it three years later.
Demosthenes argued that
because Philip believed that
Athens was the main obstacle to his
imperial ambitions,
he cultivated anti-Athenian support among
Thebans and Peloponnesians.
Demosthenes tried to get these people
to see farther into the future.
There could be no safety for free
states
in being too familiar with dictators.
Demosthenes told
them, "Every king and tyrant is
an enemy to freedom and an
opponent of law.
Take good care that in your eagerness to avoid
war
you do not acquire a despot."1
Demosthenes admitted that
he had been misled
by the Peace of Philocrates,
and he denounced the betrayal of Thermopylae and Phocis.
The next year Demosthenes had Antiphon arrested for
plotting
with Philip to set fire to the Peiraeus docks.
Aeschines got Antiphon
released, but he was re-arrested
by the Areopagus, tried, condemned,
and executed.
Next Philocrates was prosecuted by Hyperides for
misconduct on the delegation to Macedonia and was also
condemned,
but he escaped death by fleeing.
Hyperides was then appointed
to replace Aeschines
to plead the Athenian case to the Amphictyonic
council
on a dispute about Delos even though Aeschines
had been
successful.
In this context Demosthenes' prosecution of Aeschines
for misconduct as an ambassador was heard before
a large jury
of perhaps 1501 Athenians.
Aeschines was acquitted by the narrow
margin of thirty votes.
Both the long speeches of the adversaries
survive,
although they were probably revised afterwards
to counter
arguments of the other.
These speeches, which contradict each
other
on numerous points, are the best evidence for these
diplomatic
events, and without the additional evidence
presented in court
it is difficult to tell
who is telling the truth; clearly at least
one of them,
and perhaps both of them, lied.
Demosthenes believed that the Athenians were hoodwinked,
and
he claimed he told the council that Aeschines had
betrayed them
after the first delegation
returned from Macedonia.
When it went
to the assembly, Demosthenes stated that
Aeschines and Philocrates
stood on either side of him and,
by shouting and using ridicule,
would not let him speak.
Demosthenes charged Aeschines as an accomplice
with
Philip in losing Athenian control of the Phocian position.
By the time the assembly met in July 346 BC
after the treaty was
ratified,
Philip had already taken Thermopylae.
The resolution
of the council was not reported,
and Demosthenes was not heard.
Instead, a letter from Philip, which Demosthenes
alleged Aeschines
wrote, was read aloud.
Demosthenes tried to speak but could only
say that
he knew nothing about the letter and did not believe
it.
Philocrates then jumped up and said that the reason
why he
and Demosthenes did not agree was because
he drank wine while
Demosthenes drank water,
which made everyone laugh.
Demosthenes accused Aeschines of supporting
a corrupt proposal
for corrupt motives.
After the embassies, Aeschines participated
in Philip's
celebrations and drank to his health.
Demosthenes
complained that these negotiations resulted
in Thebes becoming
friendly with Philip as they gained
Orchomenus, Coronea, Corsia,
Tilphosaeum,
and much of Phocis.
He charged that Philocrates ended
up with
a talent of income from these allied territories,
and
Aeschines gained half that amount.
The Thebans had looked out
for their interests,
but Athenian interests had been sold
by Aeschines
and Philocrates.
After Athens swore to the treaty, Demosthenes
urged
the delegation, which included Aeschines, Philocrates,
and
himself, to sail immediately for the Hellespont;
but going by
land and lingering in Pella, it took them
fifty days to reach
Philip,
who was capturing more territory in Thrace.
Philip finally
swore to the treaty at an inn in Pherae.
Demosthenes brought a
talent of money
to ransom Athenians, who had been captured at
Olynthus,
and claimed he refused to accept money from Philip
as
the other delegates did,
asking that it be used for ransoming.
This Demosthenes explained was his only reason for
associating
with the delegates after they had negotiated
such a bad treaty,
and he refused to join the third delegation.
Demosthenes blamed them for putting Phocis and Halus
outside
the treaty along with Cersobleptes in Thrace.
To impugn the character
of Aeschines, Demosthenes related
how at a drunken feast Aeschines
whipped an Olynthian
woman who declined to sing for them.
Demosthenes
felt that a plague had descended on all Greece
and cited the Macedonian
slaughter of mercenaries from
the Phocian war hired to protect
Elis in the Peloponnese.
Aeschines, who was a humble clerk,
had
now become a proud landowner.
Demosthenes summarized the misconduct
of Aeschines
on the embassy as siding with Philocrates instead
of
with what was right, accepting bribes, manipulating
the time schedule and failing to carry out his instructions,
deluding Athens
into hoping that Philip would accept
their wishes which resulted
in catastrophe,
and then standing by Philip in spite of the warnings.
In defending himself Aeschines began by noting that
the Athenians
refused to listen to Demosthenes' allegation
about the Olynthian
woman which he flatly denied.
He satirized Demosthenes as standing
alone in the interest
of Athens, while all the rest were traitors.
In the narration of Aeschines the whole business
originated with Demosthenes and Philocrates.
When they met with Philip, Aeschines
described how
Demosthenes after much bravado could not speak at
all
and then behaved disgracefully at a dinner.
Demosthenes was
supposed to deal with the issue
of Amphipolis, but instead he
suggested an agreement with
Philip and the normal compliments
at the Prytaneum
Demosthenes had denied took place.
Aeschines
claimed that Philocrates was closer to
Demosthenes than himself,
but this contradicts what
he wrote in his speech against Timarchus.
Demosthenes had said that Aeschines changed his mind
about the
treaty over night, but Aeschines argued that
on that second day
Demosthenes himself proposed that
they vote without a debate,
and he had the decree
of Demosthenes read as evidence.
Aeschines argued that he had helped to unite Arcadia
with the
rest of Greece against Philip.
Then arranging peace with Philip
he thought was much more honorable than war.
He warned that if
diplomats have to face investigation
and prosecution, no one will
want to sit at a
peace conference, and wars will be unrelenting.
Philip agreed not to invade the Chersonese
and kept his word on
that.
Aeschines charged that Demosthenes, not himself,
had excluded
Cersobleptes' deputy from swearing
to the treaty as an ally of
Athens.
He presented evidence that Cersobleptes had lost his
Thracian
kingdom several days before the decree
ordering the oath to the
treaty.
Aeschines accused Demosthenes of being pro-Theban,
and
he claimed that Demosthenes intentionally
shut his eyes to Philip's
going to Thermopylae.
On the second embassy Aeschines told how Demosthenes
demanded
to speak first as the youngest, which is
opposite to the usual
procedure,
and then flattered Philip in a most servile way.
Aeschines
described how he himself reasonably presented
the Athenian concerns
related to Thermopylae, Delphi
and the Amphictyonic states,
urging
Philip not to use force but accept arbitration.
As to causing
the collapse of Phocis, Aeschines attributed
this to their ten-year-long
war, the Phocian tyranny,
and the exhaustion of the Delphic funds
it had seized.
Aeschines also brought in a witness to testify
that
Demosthenes had tried to bribe him to say that
his wife had
been abused by Aeschines.
Finally, Aeschines took responsibility
for the discussion
leading to the peace, but he felt that he was
being held
responsible for the results expected.
Aeschines concluded
by calling on the support of
Eubulus and Phocion; the respect
these men commanded
probably helped him gain the narrow acquittal.
Demosthenes' speech on the Chersonese urged Athens
to prepare
for war against Philip, because he had seized a
number of their
possessions, stirred up anti-Athenian behavior,
and committed
depredations against other states.
Demosthenes argued for resistance
to this aggression.
Philip had been successful, he said, because
he had been
taking the initiative, using his standing army
to
attack wherever he liked.
The interests of Athens must be defended,
because it was not certain that
he would not attack the Chersonese.
The force led by Diopeithes needed more financial support
so that
they would not have to raid.
If they unjustifiably exacted dues,
the law allowed
for indictments, but not for an expedition of
triremes
to watch over them,
which Demosthenes considered madness.
Troops were for their enemies outside their law.
Demosthenes complained
of the latest two tyrants
Philip had installed in Euboea.
Demosthenes
believed that Philip was an irreconcilable
enemy to free and democratic
institutions.
He saw his every act as aimed at Athens
and their
actions against Philip
as defense of their country.
The financing of military operations must be organized
so that
Philip could be compelled to maintain peace
with justice and keep
in his own territory,
or else they would have to meet him in warfare.
Demosthenes asked why people believed that a leader in
arms wrongly
seizing towns was not considered to be at war,
while politicians,
who urged that he not be allowed to do this,
were accused of making
war.
The only alternative Demosthenes saw to the policy
of resistance
and war was slavery, if the alternatives
of peace and self-defense
were denied them.
Just as Philip seduced and attacked Thessaly
and Olynthus,
now Thebes was being led astray
by being given control
over Boeotia.
Demosthenes concluded that money must be raised,
their forces maintained and details corrected,
and they should
send representatives to all states
to gather information and urge
them to action.
In the third Philippic Demosthenes repeated many of these
arguments,
adding that Philip had encroached on Corinthian
preserves at Ambracia
and Leucas.
He described how Philip had interfered again at Eretria
and Oreus on Euboea with persuasive bribes and soldiers.
Demosthenes
argued they must take measures for defense
with ships, money,
and men.
Then he declared, "Even if the whole world submits
to slavery,
Athens must fight for freedom.
This is what we must
in our own persons bring to reality
and to clear vision, and then
we can call upon others
and send our representatives to point
it out."2
He and his friends Polyeuctus, Hegesippus, and
others
must go to the Peloponnese, Rhodes, Chios,
and even Persia to rouse alarm and call for supplies
in order to unify, instruct,
and incite all Greeks.
As a result of these speeches, reinforcements were sent to
Diopeithes, followed by Chares, and Athenian garrisons
were placed
at Proconnesus and Tenedos.
Demosthenes himself successfully persuaded
Byzantium and
Abydos to ally themselves with Athens, while Hyperides
secured the alliance of Rhodes and Chios;
even the Persian king
sent money to Diopeithes.
At the Dionysian festival of 340 BC
Athenians crowned Demosthenes for his efforts.
Demosthenes reformed
the system for financing ship-building
with graduated contributions
based on property;
soon the Athenian navy had 300 ships prepared
for war;
Demosthenes had finally persuaded the Athenians to make
the Theoric Fund reserved for festivals
and the poor available
for military purposes.
After Demosthenes gained the military alliance of Thebes
against
Philip, he was crowned again
in the theatre in March 338 BC.
However,
the Thebans and Athenians were defeated at the
battle of Chaeronea
during which Demosthenes fled.
In 337 BC Demosthenes began serving
as Theoric
commissioner, and the next year Ctesiphon proposed
a decree
that Demosthenes be crowned once again in the theatre;
but Aeschines decided to indict Ctesiphon for making
an illegal
proposal, which stopped the crowning
although the case did not
come up in court until 330 BC.
Meanwhile Philip was assassinated,
and Alexander destroyed Thebes, demanding that
Demosthenes and
other anti-Macedonian orators
and generals be turned over to him.
Demosthenes argued that this would be like sending the
sheep-dogs
to the wolves, and the assembly decided instead
to send an embassy,
which successfully asked for pardon.
By 330 BC the patriotic party
was still active,
as Lycurgus prosecuted Leocrates with treason
for deserting at Chaeronea,
but he was narrowly acquitted.
While
Alexander was in Asia, Sparta's revolt
against Macedonian rule
was put down.
The suit Aeschines brought against Ctesiphon for proposing
that Demosthenes be crowned in the theatre finally came to
a trial
between the two greatest orators in Greece.
Never had so many
been interested in a court case before.
Aeschines' case rested
mostly on two technical grounds.
Athenian law prohibited proposing
a crown for anyone
still in office who had not undergone the usual
examination
after serving in an official position.
Demosthenes
was serving at the time as superintendent
of the walls and receiving
ten talents to execute this function.
Secondly, the law ordered
that a crown conferred by the
council must be proclaimed in the
council and one proposed
by the people in the assembly.
Aeschines
argued that such awards had been banned in the
theatre, because
many false or minor awards had been
presented there before all
Greece,
and it had become a nuisance and misrepresentation.
However,
the third argument that Demosthenes was
not worthy of this honor
was what got the most attention,
and on this apparently the jurors
voted.
Aeschines charged that their misfortunes
in Athens were caused
by Demosthenes.
He accused Demosthenes of having been elected
to the council in 348 BC by bribery so that
he could second the
efforts of Philocrates.
Aeschines held Demosthenes' rhetoric responsible
for
pushing through the unpopular peace treaty with Philip,
the
terms of which had been worded by Philocrates.
Aeschines argued
that when Demosthenes saw that
the peace treaty was going to be
unpopular,
he decided to betray his friends and his principles
in order to further his reputation
and show that he was a true
patriot.
Promoting hostility, Demosthenes resisted peace overtures
from Philip, quarreled over the words "giving" and
"giving
back" in regard to Halonnesus, and by awarding
crowns to
delegates from Thessaly and Magnesia
broke the peace and precipitated
war and disaster.
Aeschines believed that Demosthenes' efforts
to make
a strong and independent Euboea were against
the interests
of Athens and were done because
he was bribed by Callias of Chalcis;
Aeschines complained that Oreus was expected
to pay its contribution
to Callias instead of to Athens.
He also charged that Demosthenes
received a talent
from the tyrant Cleitarchus of Eretria while
the democracy in Oreus paid him interest on one talent.
When Demosthenes was elected to represent Athens on the
Amphictyonic
council, Aeschines accused him of accepting
a bribe of twenty
minae from the Amphissans
and another twenty minae per
year after that.
In forming the alliance with Thebes, whom Demosthenes
represented as their consul in Athens,
Aeschines felt that Demosthenes
had put all of Boeotia into
the hands of the Thebans, while two-thirds
of the war budget
had to be paid by Athens and only one-third
by Thebes,
whose danger was much greater;
this he also attributed
to bribery.
Then Demosthenes had ten thousand mercenaries stationed
out of the way at Amphissa in spite of Aeschines' protests
and
objections in the assembly.
According to Aeschines, Demosthenes
"swore that anyone who advocated peace with Philip
should
be hauled off to prison by the hair."3
He compared it to
when Cleophon had refused
peace with Sparta near the disastrous
end
of the Peloponnesian War.
Demosthenes shamed the Thebans into
abandoning
peace and mobilizing by saying they would be
traitors
to Greece if they did not.
Yet after the disastrous battle in which
he ran away like a
coward,
Demosthenes was chosen to give the funeral oration
and
dared to praise the courage of the dead.
Aeschines asked why should
Athens crown a man
for virtue and bravery who is a coward and
a deserter.
How could they present him to the people he made orphans?
The theatre of Dionysus should not be used to present a
trophy of Athenian defeat, not to mention the miseries
of the Thebans, who were driven from their homes
because of the bribery of Demosthenes
and Persian gold.
Aeschines referred
to the old Solonian law that cowardice
and desertion deserve penalties,
and thus he argued it
certainly forbids a crown and public ceremonies.
Receiving early intelligence from Charidemus of Philip's death,
Demosthenes pretended to have a divine dream,
and he put on a
white robe and crown to celebrate illegally
even though his only
daughter had died seven days before.
Shortly before Alexander crossed over to Asia,
the Persian
king sent three hundred talents of gold
to the Athenians, which
they refused.
However, Aeschines accused Demosthenes
of taking seventy talents and getting away with it.
Then he criticized Demosthenes
for not giving five talents
to help the Thebans remove the Macedonian
mercenaries
from the citadel at Thebes or nine talents to help
the Arcadian
in the Spartan revolt, while Demosthenes himself
lived
in wealth, and they were beset with dangers.
Aeschines concluded
that they should not give a gold crown
to an opponent of Greece
who is in the service of Persia.
In his speech on the crown Demosthenes gave his response.
He
pointed out the long delay in time which allowed
Aeschines to
accumulate charges, abuse, and distortions.
Once again Demosthenes
noted that Philocrates was
more closely associated with Aeschines
than himself
in the peace treaty, that he urged the delegates
to sail
at once to get Philip's oath sooner,
and that it was Aeschines who accepted land in Boeotia
and sold out to Philip and the Thebans.
After the treaty Aeschines went again to Macedonia,
and Demosthenes
called him a hired employee
of Philip and Alexander.
For Demosthenes
the larger question was what Athens'
policy should be, faced with
Philip's continued
machinations to achieve tyranny over the Greek
world.
Demosthenes saw the whole world being enslaved
by Philip, stood against him, and gave continual
warnings and admonitions
not to allow it.
He was responsible for sending forces to save
the Chersonese and Byzantium, while representatives
of the tyrants
Cleitarchus and Philistides
stayed with Aeschines, who sponsored
them.
Demosthenes noted that a crown had been awarded
to him before,
and Aeschines made
no indictment against the proposer.
When Demosthenes
passed a law compelling the rich
to fulfill their obligations
and relieve the troubles of the poor
and enabling the country
to equip itself, a similar indictment
was brought against him;
he was acquitted, and the accuser
did not even get the minimum
votes needed to avoid a penalty.
Leaders of committees offered
him much at this time,
but he refused to back down from his just
obligations.
At home he did not favor the rich at the expense
of the poor,
and abroad he did not pursue good relations with
Philip
at the expense of the common interests of Greeks.
Demosthenes argued that an examination of his office
was not
relevant, because he was being honored
for his gift while he controlled
the Theoric Fund;
also when he was commissioner of the walls,
he waived his expenses and made no charge for them.
He argued
it was intolerable to forbid an office-holder
from presenting
property to the state,
or instead of showing gratitude to investigate
him.
He should be held to account for his offices
but not for
what gained him the crown.
Demosthenes noted that there have been
hundreds
of such proclamations in the theatre, and he believed
they were beneficial to stimulate patriotic action.
For this reason
the state enacted a law that
excepted decrees of the people or
the council
which thus may be so proclaimed.
When Philip sent Pytho to Athens to discredit them,
Demosthenes
claimed he showed that Philip was wrong,
while Aeschines put forward
false evidence
for Philip and against Athens.
Later Aeschines
was caught with the spy
Anaxinus at Thraso's house.
Then he recounted
how Aeschines was bribed to betray
Athens on the Amphictyonic
council by claiming the
Amphissans' farming their own land was
sacrilege,
which led to the council appointing Philip as leader
in
preference to raising money for this war,
enabling Philip to
come down and seize Elatea.
Demosthenes thanked heaven that
Thebes
had a change of heart;
then he claimed that if any individual
should be given credit for that, it was he.
He described the panic
in Athens at the news about Elatea
and how he spoke in the assembly
for mobilizing,
and all men of military age marched to Eleusis.
He then suggested they make no demands on Thebes
in securing an
alliance with them.
Demosthenes asked how much worse Athens
might
have fared if it had not been for the battle
that took place three-days
distance from Attica.
Did Aeschines have any better policy to
offer?
Rather Aeschines and his party had brought their
nearest
neighbors in Megara, Thebes, and Euboea
closer to enmity than
to friendship,
while Demosthenes secured their assistance along
with that of Achaea, Corinth, Leucas, and Corcyra,
which all together
raised 15,000 mercenary troops
and 2,000 citizen cavalry.
Philip had achieved his successes with his army
and by corrupting
politicians with bribery
that defeats the man who accepts it.
Demosthenes believed that by refusing such bribes,
in him at least,
Athens was undefeated.
After the battle at Chaeronea, the Athenians
voted
for the defense measures proposed by Demosthenes
and elected
him grain commissioner,
while Aeschines went on a delegation to
Philip.
Demosthenes argued that his policies were approved,
since
in the impeachments against him the prosecutors
did not even get
the minimum vote.
In astonishment Demosthenes declared that a
man,
who could accuse him of supporting Philip,
was capable of
any assertion imaginable.
Demosthenes summarized his strategy
as using Euboea
as a defense for Attica on the sea,
Boeotia on
the mainland, and the Peloponnesians there,
while maintaining
the grain route to Peiraeus
along the coasts and in the Chersonese
and
depriving the enemy of their sources of power.
The Athenians clearly supported Demosthenes over Aeschines,
who in failing to receive one-fifth of the vote was subject
to
penalties for a malicious prosecution.
Rather than pay a fine
of ten minae and lose his rights,
Aeschines went to Ephesus
and later Rhodes,
where he taught rhetoric.
Nevertheless in Athens
the non-resistance party remained
strong, as Phocion was re-elected
general every year,
and Demades retained his power in the assembly.
Demosthenes had tried to form a league to oppose
Alexander and
wrote letters to Persia inciting them
to war against Macedonia.
However, when Alexander had appeared in Boeotia
with his army,
the Athenians abandoned the Thebans
and sent ambassadors to Alexander;
but Demosthenes lost heart, turned back at Cithaeron,
and left
the embassy.
When Harpalus took 5,000 talents from Alexander's treasure
in Persia and came to Athens
with 6,000 mercenaries,
Demosthenes advised Athens not to join
his revolt;
he proposed they confine Harpalus
and hold the money
for Alexander.
Harpalus said he had 700 talents,
but only 350
was deposited at the Acropolis.
In regard to the missing money,
Demosthenes proposed
that those who brought it back should not
be punished,
and the council should investigate.
When Alexander
demanded that the Greek states
recognize his divinity in 324 BC,
Demosthenes opposed it.
Then Alexander required that the Greek
cities obey his
announcement that all exiles should be allowed
to return.
Demosthenes also opposed this violation of their autonomy,
and his election to represent Athens
at the Olympic festival showed
his popularity.
There he saw enough danger to change his mind
about the symbolic divinity issue, saying that Alexander
could
be son of Zeus or son of Poseidon for all he cared.
Demosthenes was charged by his enemies with accepting
money
from Harpalus, and the council reported that
he had received twenty
talents of the missing money.
In his trial Demosthenes asked for
a detailed accounting
of the sums he had received and from whom,
and he argued that the council was trying to please Alexander
by prosecuting him; he was convicted, fined fifty talents,
and
put in prison until he could pay.
It has been reasonably argued
by scholars that he may have
used some of this money to prepare
for war,
just as he had used Persian
gold to help Thebes against Philip.
Unable to bear prison at his
age,
Demosthenes escaped to Aegina and Troezen.
After Alexander
died, and as the Macedonians became
unpopular, the Athenian assembly
voted to recall
Demosthenes and paid him fifty talents to decorate
an altar so that he could pay his fine.
When the Athenian revolt
against Macedonian rule
was crushed by Antipater, Demosthenes
and other patriotic
orators were sentenced to death for high treason.
Demosthenes took refuge in the sanctuary of Poseidon
at Calaureia;
but when the Macedonian soldiers refused
to honor that, he poisoned
himself
with the ink in a quill, dying in 322 BC.
Endeavoring to have his son Alexander educated by
persuasion rather than by compelling him, Philip arranged
for Aristotle to tutor Alexander for three years.
Then Philip appointed Alexander
regent in Macedonia
at the age of 16 while he campaigned against
the Byzantines.
The young prince led his soldiers against the
rebellious Maedi,
took their chief town, drove out the "barbarians,"
and planting a colony there, renamed it after himself.
At the
battle of Chaeronea Alexander was said to be
the first man to
charge the Thebans' Sacred Band.
After the quarrel following Philip's
wedding to Cleopatra,
Alexander took his mother Olympia to Epirus
and went himself to Illyria.
A Corinthian named Demaratus persuaded
Philip to recall his son.
Afraid of being cut out of the succession
when his
half-brother Arrhidaeus was betrothed to a Carian princess,
Alexander offered himself as a husband to her without
even consulting
his father, which brought a severe
reprimand and the banishment
of his friends
Harpalus, Nearchus, Erigyius, and Ptolemy.
Many
have blamed Olympia for urging
Pausanias to murder Philip.
Alexander
immediately took power and informed the army
that only the name
of the king had changed to Alexander III.
Faced with many challenges to the empire Philip had
established,
Alexander acted quickly and decisively.
He sent Hecataeus to Asia
to bring back Attalus if he could,
or assassinate him if he was
plotting against him;
Attalus was killed, and Parmenio sided with
Alexander.
In July 335 BC Parmenio's army attacked Grynium
on
the Ionian coast and sold its inhabitants into slavery.
Olympia
has also been blamed for the death of Philip's
infant son and
daughter and their mother Cleopatra.
Alexander got the Thessalian
league and the Amphictyonic
council to recognize his leadership
of Greece.
Thebes had driven out the Macedonian garrison
from
the Cadmea; but when Alexander appeared
with his army, it was
re-established;
Athens also decided to submit.
At Corinth delegates
from throughout Greece elected
Alexander supreme general to replace
his father,
and they authorized an expedition against Persia
in
retaliation for the invasions of a century and half before.
First,
however, Alexander went on a rugged campaign
in Thrace against
the Triballi and crossed the Danube River;
about 4,500 were killed.
In Illyria the young commander followed a narrow escape
with a
surprise attack on the Talauntines.
Most threatening was the money Persian
king Darius III
began sending to support rebellions in Greece.
Believing Alexander was dead, Thebes revolted;
although Athens
publicly refused 300 talents from Persia,
Demosthenes privately accepted it
and sent a gift of weapons to
Thebes.
Alexander quickly marched his army of 30,000 soldiers
and 3,000 cavalry back to Thebes in the summer of 335 BC.
He demanded
only that the Thebans turn over the
two authors of the rebellion,
and he proclaimed
a pardon to all who came over to him.
However,
the Thebans demanded Philotas and Antipater
and called on all
Greeks to assert their liberty
and destroy the tyrant.
The enraged
Alexander ordered the city stormed,
and it was sacked.
Much of
the killing of the 6,000 Thebans was done
by the Phocians, Plataeans,
and other Boeotians
who resented past Theban hegemony;
500 Macedonians
were also killed.
30,000 Thebans were captured and either sold
into slavery
or ransomed for a total of 440 talents.
The war council
voted to raze the city for having
supported the Persians in their
historic invasion.
According to Plutarch, Alexander felt severe
remorse
for his harsh treatment of Thebes and after that
always
treated Thebans generously,
but for the Greeks the annihilation
of a large and
historic city left them with a bitter hatred
toward Alexander and his Macedonians.
Alexander demanded the surrender of ten Athenian political
leaders including Demosthenes and Lycurgus,
and Phocion suggested
they make the sacrifice
for the good of the city.
However, he
and Demades, who reportedly was bribed
with five talents by Demosthenes,
sent a diplomatic mission.
Alexander, swayed by his late father's
respect for Phocion,
settled for the banishment of Charidemus
and Ephialtes.
Later Alexander sent Phocion a hundred talents;
but Phocion, who lived simply, preferred to keep his honor
and
sent it back to show the Greek world that the one
who could afford
to give such a gift
was not as rich as he who could refuse it.
Phocion did plead for four men under arrest at Sardis,
and Alexander
released them.
Alexander crossed the Hellespont into Asia in the spring
of
334 BC with about 32,000 soldiers and 5,000 cavalry.
He visited
Troy, and because of his admiration for Achilles
and other heroes
of the Trojan war, Alexander commanded
that Ilion should be a
favored city
with self-government and immunity from taxation.
About 40,000 Persians and Greek mercenaries tried to stop
the
Macedonians at the Granicus River.
In hand-to-hand fighting Alexander
killed the son-in-law
of Darius, Mithridates, while Cleitus may
have saved
Alexander's life in killing Spithridates.
According
to Diodorus more than 10,000 Persian
infantry
and 2,000 of their cavalry were killed,
and 20,000 were
captured, while the Macedonians
lost less than a hundred men.
Alexander made no administrative changes in the satrapy
of Phrygia
except to put Callas in charge.
Alexander then marched to Sardis; as the Lydians submitted,
he restored their ancestral constitution after two centuries
of Persian rule since the conquest
of Cyrus.
He appointed Parmenio's brother Asander satrap there
and set out to establish democracies in Ionia,
causing the oligarchs
to support Persia
and admit Persian garrisons.
In Ephesus Alexander's
army broke up the oligarchy
and ordered their tribute to Persia
to go instead
to the temple of Artemis.
When the Ephesians began
stoning the oligarchs to death,
Alexander ordered it stopped lest
they kill the innocent
along with the guilty out of hatred or
to seize their property.
Miletus was stormed with Macedonian siege
engines,
while the Macedonian fleet of 160 ships
blockaded the
harbor.
Alexander persuaded 300 Greek mercenaries, who had
escaped
to an island, to surrender and serve as his soldiers.
Avoiding
a sea battle with the Persians' powerful Phoenician
fleet of 400
ships, Alexander disbanded his fleet
but spent the next two years
seizing and blockading
all the strong ports in the eastern Mediterranean
with land forces.
The mercenary Greek general Memnon sent his wife and
children
to the Persian court and was
entrusted with
command of the Persian
army concentrated at Halicarnassus.
Marching there, Alexander
won over many cities
with kind treatment and by granting the Greek
ones
independence and exemption from taxation while assuring
them
that freedom of the Greeks
was the purpose of his expedition.
The Athenian general Ephialtes and other mercenaries
fighting
for Halicarnassus were killed.
When Halicarnassus was set on fire
and abandoned by
Memnon, Alexander appointed Ada queen of Caria,
while she adopted him as a son.
He gained popularity by sending
his recently married soldiers
back to Macedonia for the winter;
they and additional recruits were to meet him at Gordion,
where
it was said that whoever loosened the knot
would rule Asia.
Alexander
showed his usual impatience and penchant
for violence; when he
could not untangle the famous knot
on a wagon, he drew his sword
and cut it.
Not finding resistance in Lycia,
Alexander left their confederation
in place.
Tribute that had gone before to Persia was now called
contributions, supplying the Macedonian invaders.
Memnon went
to sea and took Chios and most of Lesbos
but died of illness while
besieging Mytilene.
Charidemus advised King Darius that a 100,000
soldiers
would be adequate if a third of them were Greek mercenaries;
but suspicion, mistrust and a quarrel led Darius to have
Charidemus
put to death instead of putting him in charge.
Moving south toward
Cilicia, the Macedonian cavalry
arrived at Tarsus before it could
be destroyed.
Parched by the summer sun, Alexander went swimming
in the cold Cydnus River and caught pneumonia.
A letter from Parmenio
warned him that his physician Philip
was going to poison him for
the reward offered by Darius;
but Alexander drank the medicine
as he gave Philip
the letter; he went through a crisis but recovered.
The army of Darius found the sick the Macedonians
had left
behind in Issus and killed them.
Following the Macedonian army,
Darius ordered the
stragglers' hands cut off and their arms cauterized
so that
they could go and report about the size of the Persian
army.
Alexander turned back and was pleased to encounter the
massive Persian army estimated at 400,000
infantry and
100,000 cavalry away from a broad plain.
Once again
the Persians waited behind a river
for the Macedonian attack.
Alexander was wounded in the leg, but Darius abandoned
his chariot
and fled on a horse.
As the Persian
cavalry retreated, followed by the
running soldiers, it became
a rout.
The opulent accommodations of Darius with his mother,
wife,
and children were captured.
A king himself, Alexander graciously
treated them as royalty.
About 100,000 of the Persian infantry
and 10,000 cavalry
were killed, while the Macedonians had less
than 300 killed.
Alexander sent Parmenio for the Persian
treasury in Damascus
that amounted to 2,600 talents in coins and
500 talents of silver.
Darius wrote Alexander a letter offering 10,000 talents
as
a ransom for his family and expressing his willingness
to make
a treaty of alliance and friendship.
Alexander wrote back complaining
of the previous Persian
invasions
and accusing Darius of offering rewards for assassins
to kill
his father and himself, of inciting the Greeks against him,
and
of gaining his throne by murder.
He characterized Darius as the
aggressor in an unholy war
and himself as acting in self-defense.
He declared himself lord of Asia and was willing to return
the family of Darius if he would recognize him as such;
otherwise
they would have to fight.
Next Syria capitulated to Alexander's army except for the
island
fortress of old Tyre, which refused him permission
to sacrifice
there to Heracles; they killed his heralds
and threw their bodies
into the sea.
This violation of international conventions outraged
Alexander, and his men took six months to build a
mole across
the half mile of ocean.
The Carthaginians promised to help Phoenician
Tyre,
but with a Syracusan army camped outside of Carthage
they
could do no more than accept
some of the women and children.
Realizing
he needed control of the sea and Tyre to safely
take Egypt
and march east to Babylon,
Alexander soon won over the fleet of
Cyprus
with its 120 ships and gained other ships in the area.
Finally the Macedonians stormed Tyre, killing 8,000;
only those
who had taken refuge in the temple of Heracles
were spared; then
2,000 men were crucified,
and thousands were sold into slavery.
Darius now raised the ransom to 20,000 talents and offered
territory west of the Halys River with his daughter in marriage,
but Alexander declined to accept what he already had.
Rules, he
said, were made by the victors
and must be accepted by the defeated.
Now Palestine submitted, but the eunuch king Betis
in Gaza also
tried to hold out.
A huge ramp was built;
Alexander was wounded
in the shoulder;
and it was said that the slaughter
was even greater
than that of Tyre.
According to Curtius, angry at the defiance
of Betis,
Alexander had him dragged from his chariot around
the
city until he died in imitation of what
Achilles had done to the
corpse of Hector.
In Greece Spartan king Agis used Persian
money to hire
8,000 mercenaries, who had fled from Cilicia, and
with
Phoenician ships they captured most of Crete.
Amyntas, who
had fled Macedonia and joined the Persians
in Cilicia, escaped
from the battle of Issus with
4,000 mercenaries, took the best
ships of the Persian's
Phoenician fleet at Tripolis and burned
the rest.
Amyntas gathered more forces at Cyprus, and claiming
he was replacing the Egyptian satrap,
who had been killed at Issus,
he then attacked the Egyptians at Memphis;
but as they were looting
the country,
Amyntas and all his men were killed by the Egyptians.
Meanwhile Antigonus, commanding in Lydia,
won three battles against
the Persians.
The Macedonian fleet held the Hellespont and
recaptured
Miletus and Mytilene.
Most of the cities on Lesbos came over voluntarily.
Pharnabazus had taken money from the Milesians
and garrisoned
Chios; he was made a prisoner
when Chios was retaken, but later
he escaped.
The Macedonian army and navy then went to Egypt,
where the Persian satrap Mazaces
surrendered it
with 800 talents of gold to Alexander at Pelusium.
At Memphis Alexander sacrificed to the Egyptian gods
and held
athletic games and
poetical contests in the Greek manner.
He ordered
the Athenians captured at Granicus released
and sent Amphoterus
and a hundred Phoenician and Cypriot
ships to counter the Spartan
revolt in the Peloponnese.
Alexander marched eight days through
the desert,
replenished by a timely rain, in order to get confirmation
from the priests of Amen-Re that he was
the son of Amen-Zeus and
would rule the world;
they did not disappoint him.
Plutarch noted
though that the Egyptian philosopher
Psammon taught that all people
are governed by God,
who is in all and chief.
Thus God is the
common father of us all
but especially of the best.
Next to the
island of Pharos, Alexander founded the city
named after himself
and had a causeway built
with a harbor on each side.
Alexandria
was to be a Greek city to replace the
commercial center of Phoenician
Tyre;
he also invited a Jewish colony to settle in a quarter there,
where they could preserve their customs.
After a respite in Tyre Alexander marched his army east,
crossing
the Euphrates and then the Tigris rivers.
After nearly two years
of captivity,
the wife of Darius died in child-birth.
The grief-stricken
Darius offered Alexander all territory west
of the Euphrates River
and 30,000 talents,
which Parmenio suggested they accept;
but
Alexander wanted all of the Persian
empire and refused.
He argued that as the order of the earth could
not be
preserved if there were two suns, the inhabited world
would
not be calm and free from war
so long as two kings ruled.
On the broad plain of Gaugamela the army of the Persian
empire estimated at a million men waited,
though many scholars
believe these numbers
are greatly exaggerated.
Alexander, whose
army numbered 7,000 cavalry
and about 40,000 infantry, declined
Parmenio's suggestion
that they attack at night, because he did
not want Darius
to have that excuse so that he might try again.
This rumor may have kept most Persians awake,
while Alexander
slept well the morning of the battle,
because he was relieved
that he would no longer have to
search for the Persian
army in a parched land.
Although their baggage was attacked,
Alexander
closed in on Darius, and according to Diodorus
threw a javelin
that killed the driver of Darius,
causing some Persians to retreat
because they feared their king had fallen.
So many dead bodies
surrounded the royal chariot
that unable to move, Darius mounted
a horse
and once again fled the battle.
An estimated 300,000 Persians
were killed,
and even more were captured.
The Macedonians lost
several hundred men
and had many more wounded.
The air was so
polluted by the corpses that the
Macedonians immediately left
the area.
Darius fled to Media, while Ariobarzanes led the remainder
of the army south to Persia.
In October 331 BC Alexander marched his forces into
Babylon, where
Mazaeus, in exchange for being kept on
as satrap, had agreed to
give them a friendly welcome.
Alexander ordered all persecuted
religions revived
and ordered their temples rebuilt.
In Susa Philoxenus
secured the surrender and treasure,
which amounted to about 50,000
talents,
before Alexander even got there.
In the middle of winter
Alexander pushed on over the
mountains toward Persepolis but was
completely blocked
at the rocky Persian Gates by
Ariobarzanes
and his 40,000 troops.
However, Alexander found guides to take
him around behind,
and in a surprise attack the Macedonians killed
and scattered the Persian defenders.
At Persepolis they found an enormous treasury
of 120,000 talents, and Alexander allowed the Macedonians
to loot the capital so wildly
that they were injuring
and killing each other over the spoils;
women no longer worth ransoming were stripped and raped,
and Alexander
had to order such behavior stopped.
Although he surely wanted to capture Darius,
Alexander stayed
in Persepolis for several months,
probably hoping to celebrate
the new year
as the new king of kings;
but the Zoroastrian priests
apparently refused to cooperate.
So at a drunken feast an Athenian
courtesan suggested
they burn the place down in revenge for the
burning
of Athens by the Persians a century and a half before,
and Alexander lit the first flame and she the second;
this capital
of the Persian empire was never
rebuilt.
In the late spring Alexander went on to Ecbatana,
where
he dismissed the troops of the Hellenic league
with generous rewards
and offered even more,
three talents each, to any who wished
to
enlist in his imperial army.
The cavalry was no longer organized
by tribes and nations,
but men were assigned to units of their
choosing
without regard to race.
The most valorous were selected
by Alexander
as chiliarchs to command units of a thousand men.
As he continued to pursue Darius, the Bactrian viceroy Bessus,
Arachotian viceroy Barsaentes, and cavalry commander
Nabarzanes
took Darius prisoner,
hoping to offer him to Alexander; but they
had to kill the king
and flee when they were being defeated in
battle.
Back in Greece in the fall of 331 BC Spartan king Agis' army
of 22,000 Spartans, Arcadians, and mercenaries
had 5,300 killed
in one battle near Megalopolis,
as Antipater's Macedonian army,
after dealing with Thrace,
defeated the revolt.
Antipater sent
back to Alexander the remainder of the
mercenaries, who likely
added to the resentment
in the army at Bactria.
Meanwhile Aristotle's
studies were benefiting from the
800 talents Alexander had authorized
for research.
While Bessus fled to Bactria, Alexander inspired his troops
to follow him, and they pursued the Persians into the region
of
the Caspian Sea, where Nabarzanes
and the Greek mercenaries capitulated.
Those mercenaries, who had joined Persian forces before
the Hellenic
council pledged support for Macedonia,
were released; the others
were compelled to serve in
Alexander's army for the same pay Darius
had given them.
Bessus began calling himself Artaxerxes as the
great king
and tried to rally support.
The Macedonians marched
into Drangiana as its defenders
scattered, and the new capital
of Alexandria Areion
was founded; the fleeing satrap Barsaentes
was
surrendered by the Indians and executed.
Alexander learned
of a plot to kill him and had the
prominent Philotas tortured
for not reporting it;
after he confessed, he and his father Parmenio,
the most experienced and powerful commander
Alexander had, were
killed.
The others implicated in the plot were stoned
to death in the traditional Macedonian way.
The Lyncestrian Alexander,
who had been a prisoner
under suspicion for three years, was killed
with lances
when he was unable to make his case.
After wintering in more southern regions,
Alexander crossed the Caucasus mountains to
enter Bactria, where Bessus laid waste
the country
and fled across the Oxus River.
The Sogdian leaders
Spitamenes and Dataphernes
gave up Bessus to Alexander, who asked
the usurper
why he had seized and killed his king, Darius.
His
reply that he hoped to win the conqueror's favor
was to no avail,
and Bessus was eventually sentenced
and punished according to
Persian law
by mutilation and crucifixion.
In Sogdiana Menedemus
was ambushed,
and 2,000 Macedonian soldiers and 300 cavalry
were
killed by Spitamenes' Dahae.
Alexander suppressed this bad news
by threatening
any survivors with death if they mentioned it.
The Scythians tried to persuade the conqueror
to be more friendly
with the following speech:
As for you, you proudly claim that you come in
pursuit of bandits, but to all the people you have
visited you are the bandit.
You took Lydia; you over-ran Syria; you are
in control of Persia; you have the Bactrians
in your power; you have set your course for India.
Now you are stretching out your greedy
insatiable hands toward our flocks.
Why do you need riches?
They merely stimulate your craving for more.
You are the first man ever to have created hunger
by having too much—so that the more you have
the keener your desire for what you do not have.
Do you not realize how long you have been
delayed around Bactria?
While you have been subjugating the Bactrians,
the Sogdians have commenced hostilities.
In your case victory spawns further war.
No matter how far you surpass others
in power and strength, the fact remains
that nobody wants a foreign master.4
This wise Scythian went on to argue that if he is a god,
then
it is his duty to confer benefits on mortal men,
not steal their
possessions from them.
If he did not attack, he could rely on
firm friendship
between equals; but there can be no friendship
between master and slave; even in peacetime they are at war.
The
Scythians are his neighbors in both his empires.
The Scythian
concluded by asking Alexander
if he wanted to be enemies or friends.
Though wounded in the neck, Alexander led his forces
against the
Scythians and crushed them in battle,
convincing many Asians that
if the Scythians could not,
no race could match Macedonian arms.
Alexander thus fixed the northeastern limit of his empire
between
Sogdiana and the Scythians, but to do so
he had to overpower seven
fortresses
and the Massagatae and Scythian tribes.
Alexander returned
to Bactria, where he was reinforced
by 8,000 Greeks sent by Antipater
and a total of
12,000 infantry with 2,000 cavalry brought
from
Lycia, Syria, and Thrace.
At Samarkand Alexander, overcome with
wine and anger
in a quarrel, murdered his foster-brother Cleitus,
who had saved his life at Granicus.
The repentant Alexander was
stopped from committing suicide
and became severely depressed.
The sophist Anaxarchus argued that as a god he could make
his
own laws, causing Alexander to question
the austere philosophy
of Callisthenes.
Macedonian resentment of his
adopting Persian
ways was growing.
Alexander was trying to mix and balance
Greek
and Persian customs;
he ordered
30,000 Persian boys to be taught the Greek
language and trained
in Macedonian military discipline.
He allowed the Milesians to
massacre all the inhabitants
of Branchidae, because their distant
ancestors had betrayed
Miletus to the Persians, though some scholars
have denied
this atrocity took place or that it was sanctioned
by Alexander.
The Scythians finally killed Spitamenes, and Alexander
fell
in love with and married Roxane, the daughter of Oxyartes.
Aristotle's
nephew Callisthenes, whose reports glorified the
conquest but
whose frankness and refusal to do prostrate
obeisance to Alexander
irritated the Macedonian king,
was connected to a conspiracy of
some pages
led by Hermolaus to kill Alexander.
The pages were
tried by the army for treason and executed,
while Callisthenes
was imprisoned and died in custody.
Alexander's Invasion of India
is discussed in
Political and Social Ethics of India.
After going in 1800 ships down the Indus River
to the Indian
Ocean, Alexander marched his army of
30,000 men through the horrendous
Gedrosian desert,
while Nearchus led the ships along the coast.
They met at Kirman where they were joined by Craterus
and his
troops, who had suppressed a revolt in Arachosia.
Back in Persia, Alexander had to replace
several satraps,
who had misbehaved as though
they had expected
him never to return.
Six hundred soldiers from the garrison of
Media were
executed for having plundered temples and sepulchers;
the Persian rebel leaders captured
by Craterus
were killed the same day.
Alexander even had the generous Persian satrap Orsines killed,
because he was resented by his homosexual lover Bagoas;
Phradates
was executed on mere suspicion
of coveting the throne.
The treasurer
Harpalus had squandered so much money
on two Athenian courtesans
that he absconded with
5,000 talents of silver to Cilicia, where
he hired
6,000 mercenaries and eventually fled to Athens.
There
his gifts of grain had made him a citizen,
but his money caused
a scandal; he was arrested,
imprisoned, and escaped only to be
murdered by a companion on Crete.
At Susa Alexander married Darius' daughter Statira,
as eighty
of his officers wed daughters
of the Persian
aristocracy.
With the intention of erasing the distinction between
the
conquered and conqueror, Alexander also rewarded 10,000
of
his men who took Asian wives,
and he wed a third princess in Ochus'
daughter Parysatis.
When the 30,000 Persian youths he had trained
joined his army,
many of the Macedonian veterans felt they were
being replaced.
Alexander attempted to prevent their mutiny with
speeches,
had thirteen of his most vociferous critics executed
without a trial,
paid their debts with 20,000 talents, gave them
extra money
to return to Greece, and promised to educate their
Asian children.
At the Olympic games of 324 BC where 20,000 exiles had
gathered,
Alexander had Aristotle's son-in-law Nicanor
proclaim that the
Greek cities must allow their exiles to return.
This order was
resisted by the Aetolians because of Oeniadae
and by Athenians
because it meant abandoning Samos;
they considered it a violation
of the Hellenic league's convention
of local autonomy established
at Corinth,
and it led to the Lamian war after Alexander's death
in which
these two allies were joined by
8,000 mercenaries Alexander
had discharged.
Alexander was heart-broken when his closest friend
Hephaestion
died, and he spent more than 20,000 talents
on his funeral and
tomb.
A month later in Babylon, Alexander himself became ill
and
had to postpone his next ambitious plan to invade Arabia.
He died
in June 323 BC shortly before his 33rd birthday
after an amazing
reign of only thirteen years.
The similar deaths of Hephaestion
and Alexander
led to suspicions they were poisoned.
As he lay
dying, Alexander gave the ring
with his seal to Perdiccas.
When
asked to whom he left his empire, it was reported
Alexander said
either, "To the strongest" or "To the best."
His last words were said to predict that a great funeral
contest
would be held over him.
Alexander's method of conquest failed
to establish a
stable empire, and the conflicts between his generals
were to last more than a generation.
He had spread the Hellenic
spirit of war and exploited
the accumulated treasuries of the
Persian empire
but at a tremendous cost in human lives and misery.
In Athens Lycurgus administered the finances for twelve years
until 326 BC, rebuilding the gymnasium and stadiums,
decorating
the temples, enlarging the dockyards and the navy
to 360 triremes
and 50 quadriremes
(Athens contributed twenty ships to Alexander's
conquest.),
reconstructing the Dionysian theatre with marble benches,
setting up statues of Aeschylus,
Sophocles, and Euripides
and protecting the texts of their plays.
Lycurgus was a deadly
prosecutor of crimes,
but he also passed a law prohibiting Athenians
from purchasing as slaves any free men captured in war.
Athenian
youths at 18 were trained for two years in military
discipline
and served as police, prison guards,
and on garrison duty.
A food
shortage enabled Cleomenes in Egypt to raise the
price of wheat
so that Athens was paying sixteen
drachmas a bushel instead
of five.
In 328 BC Demosthenes became wheat commissioner
and raised
money to subsidize a lower price,
and grain was rationed.
The
foreign policy of Phocion and Demades
maintained the peace; although
the latter
accepted gifts from Harpalus, the former did not.
Greek culture had spread early to Cyrene in Libya
and as far
west as Massalia (Marseilles) and to a few
trading posts on the
coast of Iberia (Spain).
Massalia had an oligarchic republic of
600 senators elected
for life and an executive council of fifteen;
strangers were not allowed
to carry weapons inside the city gates.
In the north the Greeks went as far as the Scythians,
where kings
of the Pontus area struggled for power.
Alexander had conquered Egypt in the south
and the entire Persian empire as far as India
in the east.
However, the satraps and Macedonian military garrisons
he established beyond Asia Minor did little to encourage
democracy,
and the resulting influence of Greek culture in
the eastern portion
of Persia and India was minimal.
1. Demosthenes, Second Philippic, tr. A. N. W. Saunders,
25.
2. Demosthenes, Third Philippic, tr. A. N. W. Saunders,
70-71.
3. Aeschines, Against Ctesiphon, tr. A. N. W. Saunders,
150.
4. Quintus Curtius Rufus, The History of Alexander, tr.
John Yardley, 7:8, p. 168-169.
This chapter has been published in the book Greece & Rome to 30 BC.
For ordering information please click here.