Note 717 — Chapter LXXXVIII · EUBOIC AND OLYNTHIAN WARS.

Demosth. Olynth. iii. p. 29. μέμνησθε, ὅτ᾽ ἀπηγγέλθη Φίλιππος ὑμῖν ἐν Θρᾴκῃ τρίτον ἢ τέταρτον ἔτος τουτὶ, Ἡραῖον τεῖχος πολιορκῶν· τότε τοίνυν μὴν μὲν ἦν Μαιμακτηριὼν, etc. This was the month Mæmakterion or November 352 B. C. Calculating forward from that date, τρίτον ἔτος means the next year but one; that is the Attic year Olymp. 107. 3, or the year between Midsummer 350 and Midsummer 349 B. C. Dionysius of Halikarnassus says (p. 726)—Καλλιμάχου τοῦ τρίτου μετὰ Θέσσαλον ἄρξαντος—though there was only one archon between Thessalus and Kallimachus. When Demosthenes says τρίτον ἢ τέταρτον ἔτος—it is clear that both cannot be accurate; we must choose one or the other; and τρίτον ἔτος brings us to the year 350-349 B. C.

To show that the oration was probably spoken during the first half of that year, or before February 349 B. C., another point of evidence may be noticed.

At the time when the third Olynthiac was spoken, no expedition of Athenian citizens had yet been sent to the help of Olynthus. But we shall see, presently, that Athenian citizens were sent thither during the first half of 349 B. C.

Indeed, it would be singular, if the Olynthiacs had been spoken after the expedition to Eubœa, that Demosthenes should make no allusion in any one of them to that expedition, an affair of so much moment and interest, which kept Athens in serious agitation during much of the year, and was followed by prolonged war in that neighboring island. In the third Olynthiac, Demosthenes alludes to taking arms against Corinth and Megara (p. 34). Would he be likely to leave the far more important proceedings in Eubœa unnoticed? Would he say nothing about the grave crisis in which the decree of Apollodorus was proposed? This difficulty disappears when we recognize the Olynthiacs as anterior to the Euboic war.