Volume 12 — CHAPTER XCVI. FROM THE LAMIAN WAR TO THE CLOSE OF THE HISTORY OF FREE HELLAS AND HELLENISM.

The death of Demosthenes, with its tragical circumstances recounted in my last chapter, is on the whole less melancholy than the prolonged life of Phokion, as agent of Macedonian supremacy in a city half-depopulated, where he had been born a free citizen, and which he had so long helped to administer as a free community. The dishonor of Phokion’s position must have been aggravated by the distress in Athens, arising both out of the violent deportation of one-half of its free citizens, and out of the compulsory return of the Athenian settlers from Samos; which island was now taken from Athens, after she had occupied it forty-three years, and restored to the Samian people and to their recalled exiles, by a rescript of Perdikkas in the name of Aridæus.[779] Occupying this obnoxious elevation, Phokion exercised authority with his usual probity and mildness. Exerting himself to guard the citizens from being annoyed by disorders on the part of the garrison of Munychia, he kept up friendly intercourse with its commander Menyllus, though refusing all presents both from him and from Antipater. He was anxious to bestow the gift of citizenship upon the philosopher Xenokrates, who was only a metic, or resident non-freeman; but Xenokrates declined the offer, remarking, that he would accept no place in a constitution against which he had protested as envoy.[780] This mark of courageous independence, not a little remarkable while the Macedonians were masters of the city, was a tacit reproach to the pliant submission of Phokion.

Throughout Peloponnesus, Antipater purged and remodelled the cities, Argos, Megalopolis, and others, as he had done at Athens; installing in each an oligarchy of his own partisans—sometimes with a Macedonian garrison—and putting to death, deporting, or expelling, hostile, or intractable, or democratical citizens.[781] Having completed the subjugation of Peloponnesus, he passed across the Corinthian Gulf to attack the Ætolians, now the only Greeks remaining unsubdued. It was the purpose of Antipater, not merely to conquer this warlike and rude people, but to transport them in mass across into Asia, and march them up to the interior deserts of the empire.[782] His army was too powerful to be resisted on even ground, so that all the more accessible towns and villages fell into his hands. But the Ætolians defended themselves bravely, withdrew their families into the high towns and mountain tops of their very rugged country, and caused serious loss to the Macedonian invaders. Nevertheless, Kraterus, who had carried on war of the same kind with Alexander in Sogdiana, manifested so much skill in seizing the points of communication, that he intercepted all their supplies and reduced them to extreme distress, amidst the winter which had now supervened. The Ætolians, in spite of bravery and endurance, must soon have been compelled to surrender from cold and hunger, had not the unexpected arrival of Antigonus from Asia communicated such news to Antipater and Kraterus, as induced them to prepare for marching back to Macedonia, with a view to the crossing of the Hellespont and operating in Asia. They concluded a pacification with the Ætolians—postponing till a future period their design of deporting that people,—and withdrew into Macedonia; where Antipater cemented his alliance with Kraterus by giving to him his daughter Phila in marriage.[783]

Another daughter of Antipater, named Nikæa, had been sent over to Asia not long before, to become the wife of Perdikkas. That general, acting as guardian or prime minister to the kings of Alexander’s family (who are now spoken of in the plural number, since Roxana had given birth to a posthumous son, called Alexander, and made king jointly with Philip Aridæus), had at first sought close combination with Antipater, demanding his daughter in marriage. But new views were presently opened to him by the intrigues of the princesses at Pella (Olympias, with her daughter Kleopatra, widow of the Molossian Alexander)—who had always been at variance with Antipater, even throughout the life of Alexander—and Kynanê (daughter of Philip by an Illyrian mother, and widow of Amyntas, first cousin of Alexander, but slain by Alexander’s order) with her daughter Eurydikê. It has been already mentioned that Kleopatra had offered herself in marriage to Leonnatus, inviting him to come over and occupy the throne of Macedonia: he had obeyed the call, but had been slain in his first battle against the Greeks, thus relieving Antipater from a dangerous rival. The first project of Olympias being thus frustrated, she had sent to Perdikkas proposing to him a marriage with Kleopatra. Perdikkas had already pledged himself to the daughter of Antipater; nevertheless he now debated whether his ambition would not be better served by breaking his pledge, and accepting the new proposition. To this step he was advised by Eumenes, his ablest friend and coadjutor, steadily attached to the interest of the regal family, and withal personally hated by Antipater. But Alketas, brother of Perdikkas, represented that it would be hazardous to provoke openly and immediately the wrath of Antipater. Accordingly Perdikkas resolved to accept Nikæa for the moment, but to send her away after no long time, and take Kleopatra; to whom secret assurances from him were conveyed by Eumenes. Kynanê also (daughter of Philip and widow of his nephew Amyntas) a warlike and ambitious woman, had brought into Asia her daughter Eurydikê for the purpose of espousing the king Philip Aridæus. Being averse to this marriage, and probably instigated by Olympias also, Perdikkas and Alketas put Kynanê to death. But the indignation excited among the soldiers by this deed was so furious as to menace their safety, and they were forced to permit the marriage of the king with Eurydikê.[784]

All these intrigues were going on through the summer of 322 B. C., while the Lamian war was still effectively prosecuted by the Greeks. About the autumn of the year, Antigonus (called Monophthalmus), the satrap of Phrygia, detected these secret intrigues of Perdikkas; who, for that and other reasons, began to look on him as an enemy, and to plot against his life. Apprised of his danger, Antigonus made his escape from Asia into Europe to acquaint Antipater and Kraterus with the hostile manœuvres of Perdikkas; upon which news, the two generals, immediately abandoning the Ætolian war, withdrew their army from Greece for the more important object of counteracting Perdikkas in Asia.

To us, these contests of the Macedonian officers belong only so far as they affect the Greeks. And we see, by the events just noticed, how unpropitious to the Greeks were the turns of Fortune, throughout the Lamian war: the grave of Grecian liberty, not for the actual combatants only, but for their posterity also.[785] Until the battle of Krannon and the surrender of Athens, everything fell out so as to relieve Antipater from embarrassment, and impart to him double force. The intrigues of the princesses at Pella, who were well known to hate him, first raised up Leonnatus, next Perdikkas, against him. Had Leonnatus lived, the arm of Antipater would have been at least weakened, if not paralyzed; had Perdikkas declared himself earlier, the forces of Antipater must have been withdrawn to oppose him, and the battle of Krannon would probably have had a different issue. As soon as Perdikkas became hostile to Antipater, it was his policy to sustain and seek alliance with the Greeks, as we shall find him presently doing with the Ætolians.[786] Through causes thus purely accidental, Antipater obtained an interval of a few months, during which his hands were not only free, but armed with new and unexpected strength from Leonnatus and Kraterus, to close the Lamian war. The disastrous issue of that war was therefore in great part the effect of casualties, among which we must include the death of Leosthenes himself. Such issue is not to be regarded as proving that the project was desperate or ill-conceived on the part of its promoters, who had full right to reckon, among the probabilities of their case, the effects of discord between the Macedonian chiefs.

In the spring of 321 B. C., Antipater and Kraterus, having concerted operations with Ptolemy governor of Egypt, crossed into Asia, and began their conflict with Perdikkas; who himself, having the kings along with him, marched against Egypt to attack Ptolemy; leaving his brother Alketas, in conjunction with Eumenes as general, to maintain his cause in Kappadokia and Asia Minor. Alketas, discouraged by the adverse feeling of the Macedonians generally, threw up the enterprise as hopeless. But Eumenes, though embarrassed and menaced in every way by the treacherous jealousy of his own Macedonian officers, and by the discontent of the soldiers against him as a Greek—and though compelled to conceal from these soldiers the fact that Kraterus, who was popular among them, commanded on the opposite side,—displayed nevertheless so much ability that he gained an important victory,[787] in which both Neoptolemus and Kraterus perished. Neoptolemus was killed by Eumenes with his own hand, after a personal conflict desperate in the extreme and long doubtful, and at the cost of a severe wound to himself.[788] After the victory, he found Kraterus still alive, though expiring from his wound. Deeply afflicted at the sight, he did his utmost to restore the dying man; and when this proved to be impossible, caused his dead body to be honorably shrouded and transmitted into Macedonia for burial.

This new proof of the military ability and vigor of Eumenes, together with the death of two such important officers as Kraterus and Neoptolemus—proved ruinous to the victor himself, without serving the cause in which he fought. Perdikkas his chief did not live to hear of it. That general was so overbearing and tyrannical in his demeanor towards the other officers—and withal so unsuccessful in his first operations against Ptolemy on the Pelusiac branch of the Nile—that his own army mutinied and slew him.[789] His troops joined Ptolemy, whose conciliatory behavior gained their goodwill. Only two days after this revolution, a messenger from Eumenes reached the camp, announcing his victory and the death of Kraterus. Had this intelligence been received by Perdikkas himself at the head of his army, the course of subsequent events might have been sensibly altered. Eumenes would have occupied the most commanding position in Asia, as general of the kings of the Alexandrine family, to whom both his interests and his feelings attached him. But the news, arriving at the moment when it did, caused throughout the army only the most violent exasperation against him; not simply as ally of the odious Perdikkas, but as cause of death to the esteemed Kraterus. He, together with Alketas and fifty officers, was voted by the soldiers a public enemy. No measures were kept with him henceforward by Macedonian officers or soldiers. At the same time several officers attached to Perdikkas in the camp, and also Atalanta his sister, were slain.[790]

By the death of Perdikkas, and the defection of his soldiers, complete preponderance was thrown into the hands of Antipater, Ptolemy, and Antigonus. Antipater was invited to join the army, now consisting of the forces both of Ptolemy and Perdikkas united. He was there invested with the guardianship of the persons of the kings, and with the sort of ministerial supremacy previously held by Perdikkas. He was however exposed to much difficulty, and even to great personal danger, from the intrigues of the princess Eurydikê, who displayed a masculine boldness in publicly haranguing the soldiers—and from the discontents of the army, who claimed presents, formerly promised to them by Alexander, which there were no funds to liquidate at the moment. At Triparadisus in Syria, Antipater made a second distribution of the satrapies of the empire; somewhat modified, yet coinciding in the main with that which had been drawn up shortly after the death of Alexander. To Ptolemy was assured Egypt and Libya,—to Antigonus, the Greater Phrygia, Lykia, and Pamphylia—as each had had before.[791]

Antigonus was placed in command of the principal Macedonian army in Asia, to crush Eumenes and the other chief adherents of Perdikkas; most of whom had been condemned to death by a vote of the Macedonian army. After a certain interval, Antipater himself, accompanied by the kings, returned to Macedonia, having eluded by artifice a renewed demand on the part of his soldiers for the promised presents. The war of Antigonus, first against Eumenes in Kappadokia, next against Alketas and the other partisans of Perdikkas in Pisidia, lasted for many months, but was at length successfully finished.[792] Eumenes, beset by the constant treachery and insubordination of the Macedonians, was defeated and driven out of the field. He took refuge with a handful of men in the impregnable and well-stored fortress of Nora in Kappadokia, where he held out a long blockade, apparently more than a year, against Antigonus.[793]

Before the prolonged blockade of Nora had been brought to a close, Antipater, being of very advanced age, fell into sickness, and presently died. One of his latest acts was, to put to death the Athenian orator Demades, who had been sent to Macedonia as envoy to solicit the removal of the Macedonian garrison at Munychia. Antipater had promised, or given hopes, that if the oligarchy which he had constituted at Athens maintained unshaken adherence to Macedonia, he would withdraw the garrison. The Athenians endeavored to prevail on Phokion to go to Macedonia as solicitor for the fulfilment of this promise; but he steadily refused. Demades, who willingly undertook the mission, reached Macedonia at a moment very untoward for himself. The papers of the deceased Perdikkas had come into possession of his opponents; and among them had been found a letter written to him by Demades, inviting him to cross over and rescue Greece from her dependence “on an old and rotten warp”—meaning Antipater. This letter gave great offence to Antipater—the rather, as Demades is said to have been his habitual pensioner—and still greater offence to his son Kassander; who caused Demades with his son to be seized—first killed the son in the immediate presence and even embrace of the father—and then slew the father himself, with bitter invective against his ingratitude.[794] All the accounts which we read depict Demades, in general terms, as a prodigal spendthrift and a venal and corrupt politician. We have no ground for questioning this statement: at the same time, we have no specific facts to prove it.

Antipater by his last directions appointed Polysperchon, one of Alexander’s veteran officers, to be chief administrator, with full powers on behalf of the imperial dynasty; while he assigned to his own son Kassander only the second place, as Chiliarch, or general of the body-guard.[795] He thought that this disposition of power would be more generally acceptable throughout the empire, as Polysperchon was older and of longer military service than any other among Alexander’s generals. Moreover, Antipater was especially afraid of letting dominion fall into the hands of the princesses;[796] all of whom—Olympias, Kleopatra, and Eurydikê—were energetic characters; and the first of the three (who had retired to Epirus from enmity towards Antipater) furious and implacable.

But the views of Antipater were disappointed from the beginning, because Kassander would not submit to the second place, nor tolerate Polysperchon as his superior. Immediately after the death of Antipater, but before it became publicly known, Kassander despatched Nikanor with pretended orders from Antipater to supersede Menyllus in the government of Munychia. To this order Menyllus yielded. But when after a few days the Athenian public came to learn the real truth, they were displeased with Phokion for having permitted the change to be made—assuming that he knew the real state of the facts, and might have kept out the new commander.[797] Kassander, while securing this important post in the hands of a confirmed partisan, affected to acquiesce in the authority of Polysperchon, and to occupy himself with a hunting-party in the country. He at the same time sent confidential adherents to the Hellespont and other places in furtherance of his schemes; and especially to contract alliance with Antigonus in Asia and with Ptolemy in Egypt. His envoys being generally well received, he himself soon quitted Macedonia suddenly, and went to concert measures with Antigonus in Asia.[798] It suited the policy of Ptolemy, and still more that of Antigonus, to aid him against Polysperchon and the imperial dynasty. On the death of Antipater, Antigonus had resolved to make himself the real sovereign of the Asiatic Alexandrine empire, possessing as he did the most powerful military force within it.

Even before this time the imperial dynasty had been a name rather than a reality; yet still a respected name. But now, the preference shown to Polysperchon by the deceased Antipater, and the secession of Kassander, placed all the real great powers in active hostility against the dynasty. Polysperchon and his friends were not blind to the difficulties of their position. The principal officers in Macedonia having been convened to deliberate, it was resolved to invite Olympias out of Epirus, that she might assume the tutelage of her grandson Alexander (son of Roxana)—to place the Asiatic interests of the dynasty in the hands of Eumenes, appointing him to the supreme command[799]—and to combat Kassander in Europe, by assuring to themselves the general goodwill and support of the Greeks. This last object was to be obtained by granting to the Greeks general enfranchisement, and by subverting the Antipatrian oligarchies and military governments now paramount throughout the cities.

The last hope of maintaining the unity of Alexander’s empire in Asia, against the counter-interests of the great Macedonian officers, who were steadily tending to divide and appropriate it—now lay in the fidelity and military skill of Eumenes. At his disposal Polysperchon placed the imperial treasures and soldiers in Asia; especially the brave, but faithless and disorderly, Argyraspides. Olympias also addressed to him a pathetic letter, asking his counsel as the only friend and savior to whom the imperial family could now look. Eumenes replied by assuring them of his devoted adherence to their cause. But he at the same time advised Olympias not to come out of Epirus into Macedonia; or if she did come, at all events to abstain from vindictive and cruel proceedings. Both these recommendations, honorable as well to his prudence as to his humanity, were disregarded by the old queen. She came into Macedonia to take the management of affairs; and although her imposing title, of mother to the great conqueror, raised a strong favorable feeling, yet her multiplied executions of the Antipatrian partisans excited fatal enmity against a dynasty already tottering. Nevertheless Eumenes, though his advice had been disregarded, devoted himself in Asia with unshaken fidelity to the Alexandrine family, resisting the most tempting invitations to take part with Antigonus against them.[800] His example contributed much to keep alive the same active sentiment in those around him; indeed, without him, the imperial family would have had no sincere or commanding representative in Asia. His gallant struggles, first in Kilikia and Phenicia, next (when driven from the coast), in Susiana, Persis, Media, and Parætakênê—continued for two years against the greatly preponderant forces of Ptolemy, Antigonus, and Seleukus, and against the never-ceasing treachery of his own officers and troops[801]—do not belong to Grecian history. They are however among the most memorable exploits of antiquity. While even in a military point of view, they are hardly inferior to the combinations of Alexander himself—they evince, besides, a flexibility and aptitude such as Alexander neither possessed nor required, for overcoming the thousand difficulties raised by traitors and mutineers around him. To the last, Eumenes remained unsubdued; he was betrayed to Antigonus by the base and venal treachery of his own soldiers, the Macedonian Argyraspides.[802]

For the interests of the imperial dynasty (the extinction of which we shall presently follow), it is perhaps to be regretted that they did not abandon Asia at once, at the death of Antipater, and concentrate their attention on Macedonia alone, summoning over Eumenes to aid them. To keep together in unity the vast aggregate of Asia was manifestly impracticable, even with his consummate ability. Indeed, we read that Olympias wished for his presence in Europe, not trusting any one but him as protector of the child Alexander.[803] In Macedonia, apart from Asia, Eumenes, if the violent temper of Olympias had permitted him, might have upheld the dynasty; which, having at that time a decided interest in conciliating the Greeks, might probably have sanctioned his sympathies in favor of free Hellenic community.[804]

On learning the death of Antipater, most of the Greek cities had sent envoys to Pella.[805] To all the governments of these cities, composed as they were of his creatures, it was a matter of the utmost moment to know what course the new Macedonian authority would adopt. Polysperchon, persuaded that they would all adhere to Kassander, and that his only chance of combating that rival was by enlisting popular sympathy and interests in Greece, or at least by subverting these Antipatrian oligarchies—drew up in conjunction with his counsellors a proclamation which he issued in the name of the dynasty.

After reciting the steady goodwill of Philip and Alexander towards Greece, he affirmed that this feeling had been interrupted by the untoward Lamian war, originating with some ill-judged Greeks, and ending in the infliction of many severe calamities upon the various cities. But all these severities (he continued) had proceeded from the generals (Antipater and Kraterus): the kings had now determined to redress them. It was accordingly proclaimed that the political constitution of each city should be restored, as it had stood in the times of Philip and Alexander; that before the thirtieth of the month Xanthikus, all those who had been condemned to banishment, or deported, by the generals, should be recalled and received back; that their properties should be restored, and past sentences against them rescinded; that they should live in amnesty as to the past, and good feeling as to the future, with the remaining citizens. From this act of recall were excluded, the exiles of Amphissa, Trikka, Pharkadon, and Herakleia, together with a certain number of Megalopolitans, implicated in one particular conspiracy. In the particular case of those cities, the governments of which had been denounced as hostile by Philip or Alexander, special reference and consultation was opened with Pella, for some modification to meet the circumstances. As to Athens, it was decreed that Samos should be restored to her, but not Orôpus; in all other respects, she was placed on the same footing as in the days of Philip and Alexander. “All the Greeks (concluded this proclamation) shall pass decrees, forbidding every one either to bear arms or otherwise act in hostility against us—on pain of exile and confiscation of goods, for himself and his family. On this and on all other matters, we have ordered Polysperchon to take proper measures. Obey him—as we have before written you to do; for we shall not omit to notice those who on any point disregard our proclamation.”[806]

Such was the new edict issued by the kings, or rather by Polysperchon in their names. It directed the removal of all the garrisons, and the subversion of all the oligarchies, established by Antipater after the Lamian war. It ordered the recall of the host of exiles then expelled. It revived the state of things prevalent before the death of Alexander—which indeed itself had been, for the most part, an aggregate of macedonizing oligarchies interspersed with Macedonian garrisons. To the existing Antipatrian oligarchies, however, it was a deathblow; and so it must have been understood by the Grecian envoys—including probably deputations from the exiles, as well as envoys from the civic governments—to whom Polysperchon delivered it at Pella. Not content with the general edict, Polysperchon addressed special letters to Argos and various other cities, commanding that the Antipatrian leading men should be banished with confiscation of property, and in some cases put to death;[807] the names being probably furnished to him by the exiles. Lastly, as it was clear that such stringent measures could not be executed without force,—the rather as these oligarchies would be upheld by Kassander from without—Polysperchon resolved to conduct a large military force into Greece; sending thither first, however, a considerable detachment, for immediate operations, under his son Alexander.

To Athens, as well as to other cities, Polysperchon addressed special letters, promising restoration of the democracy and recall of the exiles. At Athens, such change was a greater revolution than elsewhere, because the multitude of exiles and persons deported had been the greatest. To the existing nine thousand Athenian citizens, it was doubtless odious and alarming; while to Phokion with the other leading Antipatrians, it threatened not only loss of power, but probably nothing less than the alternative of flight or death.[808] The state of interests at Athens, however, was now singularly novel and complicated. There were the Antipatrians and the nine thousand qualified citizens. There were the exiles, who, under the new edict, speedily began re-entering the city, and reclaiming their citizenship as well as their properties. Polysperchon and his son were known to be soon coming with a powerful force. Lastly, there was Nikanor, who held Munychia with a garrison, neither for Polysperchon, nor for the Athenians, but for Kassander; the latter being himself also expected with a force from Asia. Here then were several parties; each distinct in views and interests from the rest—some decidedly hostile to each other.

The first contest arose between the Athenians and Nikanor respecting Munychia; which they required him to evacuate, pursuant to the recent proclamation. Nikanor on his side returned an evasive answer, promising compliance as soon as circumstances permitted, but in the mean time entreating the Athenians to continue in alliance with Kassander, as they had been with his father Antipater.[809] He seems to have indulged hopes of prevailing on them to declare in his favor—and not without plausible grounds, since the Antipatrian leaders and a proportion of the nine thousand citizens could not but dread the execution of Polysperchon’s edict. And he had also what was of still greater moment—the secret connivance and support of Phokion: who put himself in intimate relation with Nikanor, as he had before done with Menyllus[810]—and who had greater reason than any one else to dread the edict of Polysperchon. At a public assembly held in Peiræus to discuss the subject, Nikanor even ventured to present himself in person, in the company and under the introduction of Phokion, who was anxious that the Athenians should entertain the proposition of alliance with Kassander. But with the people, the prominent wish was to get rid altogether of the foreign garrison, and to procure the evacuation of Munychia—for which object, of course, the returned exiles would be even more anxious than the nine thousand. Accordingly, the assembly refused to hear any propositions from Nikanor; while Derkyllus with others even proposed to seize his person. It was Phokion who ensured to him the means of escaping; even in spite of serious wrath from his fellow-citizens, to whom he pleaded, that he had made himself guarantee for Nikanor’s personal safety.[811]

Foreseeing the gravity of the impending contest, Nikanor had been secretly introducing fresh soldiers into Munychia. And when he found that he could not obtain any declared support from the Athenians, he laid a scheme for surprising and occupying the town and harbor of Peiræus, of which Munychia formed the adjoining eminence and harbor, on the southern side of the little peninsula. Notwithstanding all his precautions, it became known to various Athenians that he was tampering with persons in Peiræus, and collecting troops in the neighboring isle of Salamis. So much anxiety was expressed in the Athenian assembly for the safety of Peiræus, that a decree was passed, enjoining all citizens to hold themselves in arms for its protection, under Phokion as general. Nevertheless Phokion, disregarding such a decree, took no precautions, affirming that he would himself be answerable for Nikanor. Presently that officer, making an unexpected attack from Munychia and Salamis, took Peiræus by surprise, placed both the town and harbor under military occupation, and cut off its communication with Athens by a ditch and palisade. On this palpable aggression, the Athenians rushed to arms. But Phokion as general damped their ardor, and even declined to head them in an attack for the recovery of Peiræus before Nikanor should have had time to strengthen himself in it. He went however, with Konon (son of Timotheus), to remonstrate with Nikanor, and to renew the demand that he should evacuate, under the recent proclamation, all the posts which he held in garrison. But Nikanor would give no other answer, except that he held his commission from Kassander, to whom they must address their application.[812] He thus again tried to bring Athens into communication with Kassander.

The occupation of Peiræus in addition to Munychia was a serious calamity to the Athenians, making them worse off than they had been even under Antipater. Peiræus, rich, active, and commercial, containing the Athenian arsenal, docks, and muniments of war, was in many respects more valuable than Athens itself; for all purposes of war, far more valuable. Kassander had now an excellent place of arms and base, which Munychia alone would not have afforded, for his operations in Greece against Polysperchon; upon whom therefore the loss fell hardly less severely than upon the Athenians. Now Phokion, in his function as general, had been forewarned of the danger, might have guarded against it, and ought to have done so. This was a grave dereliction of duty, and admits of hardly any other explanation except that of treasonable connivance. It seems that Phokion, foreseeing his own ruin and that of his friends in the triumph of Polysperchon and the return of the exiles, was desirous of favoring the seizure of Peiræus by Nikanor, as a means of constraining Athens to adopt the alliance with Kassander; which alliance indeed would probably have been brought about, had Kassander reached Peiræus by sea sooner than the first troops of Polysperchon by land. Phokion was here guilty, at the very least, of culpable neglect, and probably of still more culpable treason, on an occasion seriously injuring both Polysperchon and the Athenians; a fact which we must not forget, when we come to read presently the bitter animosity exhibited against him.[813]

The news, that Nikanor had possessed himself of Peiræus, produced a strong sensation. Presently arrived a letter addressed to him by Olympias herself, commanding him to surrender the place to the Athenians, upon whom she wished to confer entire autonomy. But Nikanor declined obedience to her order, still waiting for support from Kassander. The arrival of Alexander (Polysperchon’s son) with a body of troops, encouraged the Athenians to believe that he was come to assist in carrying Peiræus by force, for the purpose of restoring it to them. Their hopes, however, were again disappointed. Though encamped near Peiræus, Alexander made no demand for the Athenian forces to co-operate with him in attacking it; but entered into open parley with Nikanor, whom he endeavored to persuade or corrupt into surrendering the place.[814] When this negotiation failed, he resolved to wait for the arrival of his father, who was already on his march towards Attica with the main army. His own force unassisted was probably not sufficient to attack Peiræus; nor did he choose to invoke assistance from the Athenians, to whom he would then have been compelled to make over the place when taken, which they so ardently desired. The Athenians were thus as far from their object as ever; moreover, by this delay the opportunity of attacking the place was altogether thrown away; for Kassander with his armament reached it before Polysperchon.

It was Phokion and his immediate colleagues who induced Alexander to adopt this insidious policy; to decline reconquering Peiræus for the Athenians, and to appropriate it for himself. To Phokion, the reconstitution of autonomous Athens, with its democracy and restored exiles, and without any foreign controlling force—was an assured sentence of banishment, if not of death. Not having been able to obtain protection from the foreign force of Nikanor and Kassander, he and his friends resolved to throw themselves upon that of Alexander and Polysperchon. They went to meet Alexander as he entered Attica—represented the impolicy of his relinquishing so important a military position as Peiræus, while the war was yet unfinished,—and offered to co-operate with him for this purpose, by proper management of the Athenian public. Alexander was pleased with these suggestions, accepted Phokion with the others as his leading adherents at Athens, and looked upon Peiræus as a capture to be secured for himself.[815] Numerous returning Athenian exiles accompanied Alexander’s army. It seems that Phokion was desirous of admitting the troops, along with the exiles, as friends and allies into the walls of Athens, so as to make Alexander master of the city—but that this project was impracticable in consequence of the mistrust created among the Athenians by the parleys of Alexander with Nikanor.[816]

The strategic function of Phokion, however, so often conferred and re-conferred upon him—and his power of doing either good or evil—now approached its close. As soon as the returning exiles found themselves in sufficient numbers, they called for a revision of the list of state-officers, and for the re-establishment of the democratical forms. They passed a vote to depose those who had held office under the Antipatrian oligarchy and who still continued to hold it down to the actual moment. Among these Phokion stood first: along with him were his son-in-law Charikles, the Phalerean Demetrius, Kallimedon, Nikokles, Thudippus, Hegemon, and Philokles. These persons were not only deposed, but condemned, some to death, some to banishment and confiscation of property. Demetrius, Charikles, and Kallimedon sought safety by leaving Attica; but Phokion and the rest merely went to Alexander’s camp, throwing themselves upon his protection on the faith of the recent understanding.[817] Alexander not only received them courteously, but gave them letters to his father Polysperchon, requesting safety and protection for them, as men who had embraced his cause, and who were still eager to do all in their power to support him.[818] Armed with these letters, Phokion and his companions went through Bœotia and Phokis to meet Polysperchon on his march southward. They were accompanied by Deinarchus and by a Platæan named Solon, both of them passing for friends of Polysperchon.[819]

The Athenian democracy, just reconstituted, which had passed the recent condemnatory votes, was disquieted at the news that Alexander had espoused the cause of Phokion and had recommended the like policy to his father. It was possible that Polysperchon might seek, with his powerful army, both to occupy Athens and to capture Peiræus, and might avail himself of Phokion (like Antipater after the Lamian war) as a convenient instrument of government. It seems plain that this was the project of Alexander, and that he counted on Phokion as a ready auxiliary in both. Now the restored democrats, though owing their restoration to Polysperchon, were much less compliant towards him than Phokion had been. Not only they would not admit him into the city, but they would not even acquiesce in his separate occupation of Munychia and Peiræus. On the proposition of Agnonides and Archestratus, they sent a deputation to Polysperchon accusing Phokion and his comrades of high treason; yet at the same time claiming for Athens the full and undiminished benefit of the late regal proclamation—autonomy and democracy, with restoration of Peiræus and Munychia free and ungarrisoned.[820]

The deputation reached Polysperchon at Pharyges in Phokis, as early as Phokion’s company, which had been detained for some days at Elateia by the sickness of Deinarchus. That delay was unfortunate for Phokion. Had he seen Polysperchon, and presented the letter of Alexander, before the Athenian accusers arrived, he might probably have obtained a more favorable reception. But as the arrival of the two parties was nearly simultaneous, Polysperchon heard both of them at the same audience, before King Philip Aridæus in his throne with the gilt ceiling above it. When Agnonides,—chief of the Athenian deputation, and formerly friend and advocate of Demosthenes in the Harpalian cause—found himself face to face with Phokion and his friends, their reciprocal invectives at first produced nothing but confusion; until Agnonides himself exclaimed—“Pack us all into one cage and send us back to Athens to receive judgment from the Athenians.” The king laughed at this observation, but the bystanders around insisted upon more orderly proceedings, and Agnonides then set forth the two demands of the Athenians—condemnation of Phokion and his friends, partly as accomplices of Antipater, partly as having betrayed Peiræus to Nikanor—and the full benefit of the late regal proclamation to Athens.[821] Now, on the last of these two heads, Polysperchon was noway disposed to yield—nor to hand over Peiræus to the Athenians as soon as he should take it. On this matter, accordingly, he replied by refusal or evasion. But he was all the more disposed to satisfy the Athenians on the other matter—the surrender of Phokion; especially as the sentiment now prevalent at Athens evinced clearly that Phokion could not be again useful to him as an instrument. Thus disposed to sacrifice Phokion, Polysperchon heard his defence with impatience, interrupted him several times, and so disgusted him, that he at length struck the ground with his stick, and held his peace. Hegemon, another of the accused, was yet more harshly treated. When he appealed to Polysperchon himself, as having been personally cognizant of his (the speaker’s) good dispositions towards the Athenian people (he had probably been sent to Pella, as envoy for redress of grievances under the Antipatrian oligarchy), Polysperchon exclaimed—“Do not utter falsehoods against me before the king.” Moreover, king Philip himself was so incensed, as to start from his throne and snatch his spear; with which he would have run Hegemon through,—imitating the worst impulses of his illustrious brother—had he not been held back by Polysperchon. The sentence could not be doubtful. Phokion and his companions were delivered over as prisoners to the Athenian deputation, together with a letter from the king, intimating that in his conviction they were traitors, but that he left them to be judged by the Athenians, now restored to freedom and autonomy.[822]

The Macedonian Kleitus was instructed to convey them to Athens as prisoners under a guard. Mournful was the spectacle as they entered the city; being carried along the Kerameikus in carts, through sympathizing friends and an embittered multitude, until they reached the theatre, wherein the assembly was to be convened. That assembly was composed of every one who chose to enter, and is said to have contained many foreigners and slaves. But it would have been fortunate for Phokion had such really been the case; for foreigners and slaves had no cause of antipathy towards him. The assembly was mainly composed of Phokion’s keenest enemies, the citizens just returned from exile or deportation; among whom may doubtless have been intermixed more or less of non-qualified persons, since the lists had probably not yet been verified. When the assembly was about to be opened, the friends of Phokion moved, that on occasion of so important a trial, foreigners and slaves should be sent away. This was in every sense an impolitic proceeding; for the restored exiles, chiefly poor men, took it as an insult to themselves, and became only the more embittered, exclaiming against the oligarchs who were trying to exclude them.

It is not easy to conceive stronger grounds of exasperation than those which inflamed the bosoms of these returned exiles. We must recollect that at the close of the Lamian war, the Athenian democracy had been forcibly subverted. Demosthenes and its principal leaders had been slain, some of them with antecedent cruelties; the poorer multitude, in number more than half of the qualified citizens, had been banished or deported into distant regions. To all the public shame and calamity, there was thus superadded a vast mass of individual suffering and impoverishment, the mischiefs of which were very imperfectly healed, even by that unexpected contingency which had again thrown open to them their native city. Accordingly, when these men returned from different regions, each hearing from the rest new tales of past hardship, they felt the bitterest hatred against the authors of the Antipatrian revolution; and among these authors Phokion stood distinctly marked. For although he had neither originated nor advised these severities, yet he and his friends, as administering the Antipatrian government at Athens, must have been agents in carrying them out, and had rendered themselves distinctly liable to the fearful penalties pronounced by the psephism of Demophantus,[823] consecrated by an oath taken by Athenians generally, against any one who should hold an official post after the government was subverted.

When these restored citizens thus saw Phokion brought before them, for the first time after their return, the common feeling of antipathy against him burst out into furious manifestations. Agnonides the principal accuser, supported by Epikurus[824] and Demophilus, found their denunciations welcomed and even anticipated, when they arraigned Phokion as a criminal who had lent his hand to the subversion of the constitution,—to the sufferings of his deported fellow-citizens,—and to the holding of Athens in subjection under a foreign potentate; in addition to which, the betrayal of Peiræus to Nikanor[825] constituted a new crime; fastening on the people the yoke of Kassander, when autonomy had been promised to them by the recent imperial edict. After the accusation was concluded, Phokion was called on for his defence; but he found it impossible to obtain a hearing. Attempting several times to speak, he was as often interrupted by angry shouts; several of his friends were cried down in like manner; until at length he gave up the case in despair, and exclaimed, “For myself, Athenians, I plead guilty; I pronounce against myself the sentence of death for my political conduct; but why are you to sentence these men near me, who are not guilty?” “Because they are your friends, Phokion”—was the exclamation of those around. Phokion then said no more; while Agnonides proposed a decree, to the effect, that the assembled people should decide by show of hands, whether the persons now arraigned were guilty or not; and that if declared guilty, they should be put to death. Some persons present cried out, that the penalty of torture ought to precede death; but this savage proposition, utterly at variance with Athenian law in respect to citizens, was repudiated not less by Agnonides than by the Macedonian officer Kleitus. The decree was then passed; after which the show of hands was called for. Nearly every hand in the assembly was held up in condemnation; each man even rose from his seat to make the effect more imposing; and some went so far as to put on wreaths in token of triumph. To many of them doubtless, the gratification of this intense and unanimous vindictive impulse,—in their view not merely legitimate, but patriotic,—must have been among the happiest moments of life.[826]

After sentence, the five condemned persons, Phokion, Nikokles, Thudippus, Hegemon, and Pythokles, were consigned to the supreme magistrates of Police, called The Eleven, and led to prison for the purpose of having the customary dose of poison administered. Hostile bystanders ran alongside, taunting and reviling them. It is even said that one man planted himself in the front, and spat upon Phokion; who turned to the public officers and exclaimed—“Will no one check this indecent fellow?” This was the only emotion which he manifested; in other respects, his tranquillity and self-possession were resolutely maintained, during this soul-subduing march from the theatre to the prison, amidst the wailings of his friends, the broken spirit of his four comrades, and the fiercest demonstrations of antipathy from his fellow-citizens generally. One ray of comfort presented itself as he entered the prison. It was the nineteenth of the month Munychion, the day on which the Athenian Horsemen or Knights (the richest class in the city, men for the most part of oligarchical sentiments) celebrated their festal procession with wreaths on their heads in honor of Zeus. Several of these horsemen halted in passing, took off their wreaths, and wept as they looked through the gratings of the prison.

Being asked whether he had anything to tell his son Phokus, Phokion replied—“I tell him emphatically, not to hold evil memory of the Athenians.” The draught of hemlock was then administered to all five—to Phokion last. Having been condemned for treason, they were not buried in Attica; nor were Phokion’s friends allowed to light a funeral pile for the burning of his body; which was carried out of Attica into the Megarid, by a hired agent named Konopion, and there burnt by fire obtained at Megara. The wife of Phokion, with her maids, poured libations and marked the spot by a small mound of earth; she also collected the bones and brought them back to Athens in her bosom, during the secrecy of night. She buried them near her own domestic hearth, with this address—“Beloved Hestia, I confide to thee these relics of a good man. Restore them to his own family vault, as soon as the Athenians shall come to their senses.”[827]

After a short time (we are told by Plutarch) the Athenians did thus come to their senses. They discovered that Phokion had been a faithful and excellent public servant, repented of their severity towards him, celebrated his funeral obsequies at the public expense, erected a statue in his honor, and put to death Agnonides by public judicial sentence; while Epikurus and Demophilus fled from the city and were slain by Phokion’s son.[828]

These facts are ostensibly correct; but Plutarch omits to notice the real explanation of them. Within two or three months after the death of Phokion, Kassander, already in possession of Peiræus and Munychia, became also master of Athens; the oligarchical or Phokionic party again acquired predominance; Demetrius the Phalerean was recalled from exile, and placed to administer the city under Kassander, as Phokion had administered it under Antipater.

No wonder, that under such circumstances, the memory of Phokion should be honored. But this is a very different thing from spontaneous change of popular opinion respecting him. I see no reason why such change of opinion should have occurred, nor do I believe that it did occur. The Demos of Athens, banished and deported in mass, had the best ground for hating Phokion, and were not likely to become ashamed of the feeling. Though he was personally mild and incorruptible, they derived no benefit from these virtues. To them it was of little moment that he should steadily refuse all presents from Antipater, when he did Antipater’s work gratuitously. Considered as a judicial trial, the last scene of Phokion before the people in the theatre is nothing better than a cruel imposture; considered as a manifestation of public opinion already settled, it is one for which the facts of the past supplied ample warrant.

We cannot indeed read without painful sympathy the narrative of an old man above eighty,—personally brave, mild, and superior to all pecuniary temptation, so far as his positive administration was concerned,—perishing under an intense and crushing storm of popular execration. But when we look at the whole case—when we survey, not merely the details of Phokion’s administration, but the grand public objects which those details subserved, and towards which he conducted his fellow-citizens—we shall see that this judgment is fully merited. In Phokion’s patriotism—for so doubtless he himself sincerely conceived it—no account was taken of Athenian independence; of the autonomy or self-management of the Hellenic world; of the conditions, in reference to foreign kings, under which alone such autonomy could exist. He had neither the Panhellenic sentiment of Aristeides, Kallikratidas, and Demosthenes—nor the narrower Athenian sentiment, like the devotion of Agesilaus to Sparta, and of Epaminondas to Thebes. To Phokion it was indifferent whether Greece was an aggregate of autonomous cities, with Athens as first or second among them—or one of the satrapies under the Macedonian kings. Now this was among the most fatal defects of a Grecian public man. The sentiment in which Phokion was wanting, lay at the bottom of all those splendid achievements which have given to Greece a substantive and pre-eminent place in the history of the world. Had Themistokles, Arsiteides, and Leonidas resembled him, Greece would have passed quietly under the dominion of Persia, and the brilliant, though checkered, century and more of independent politics which succeeded the repulse of Xerxes would never have occurred. It was precisely during the fifty years of Phokion’s political and military influence, that the Greeks were degraded from a state of freedom, and Athens from ascendency as well as freedom, into absolute servitude. Insofar as this great public misfortune can be imputed to any one man—to no one was it more ascribable than to Phokion. He was stratêgus during most of the long series of years when Philip’s power was growing; it was his duty to look ahead for the safety of his countrymen, and to combat the yet immature giant. He heard the warnings of Demosthenes, and he possessed exactly those qualities which were wanting to Demosthenes—military energy and aptitude. Had he lent his influence to inform the short-sightedness, to stimulate the inertia, to direct the armed efforts, of his countrymen, the kings of Macedon might have been kept within their own limits, and the future history of Greece might have been altogether different. Unfortunately, he took the opposite side. He acted with Æschines and the Philippizers; without receiving money from Philip, he did gratuitously all that Philip desired— by nullifying and sneering down the efforts of Demosthenes and the other active politicians. After the battle of Chæroneia, Phokion received from Philip first, and from Alexander afterwards, marks of esteem not shown towards any other Athenian. This was both the fruit and the proof of his past political action—anti-Hellenic as well as anti-Athenian. Having done much, in the earlier part of his life, to promote the subjugation of Greece under the Macedonian kings, he contributed somewhat, during the latter half, to lighten the severity of their dominion; and it is the most honorable point in his character that he always refrained from abusing their marked favor towards himself, for purposes either of personal gain or of oppression over his fellow-citizens. Alexander not only wrote letters to him, even during the plenitude of imperial power, in terms of respectful friendship, but tendered to him the largest presents—at one time the sum of 100 talents, at another time the choice of four towns on the coast of Asia Minor, as Xerxes gave to Themistokles. He even expressed his displeasure when Phokion, refusing everything, consented only to request the liberation of three Grecian prisoners confined at Sardis.[829]

The Lamian war and its consequences, were Phokion’s ruin. He continued at Athens, throughout that war, freely declaring his opinion against it; for it is to be remarked, that in spite of his known macedonizing politics, the people neither banished nor degraded him, but contented themselves with following the counsels of others. On the disastrous termination of the war, Phokion undertook the thankless and dishonorable function of satrap under Antipater at Athens, with the Macedonian garrison at Munychia to back him. He became the subordinate agent of a conqueror who not only slaughtered the chief Athenian orators, but disfranchised and deported the Demos in mass. Having accepted partnership and responsibility in these proceedings, Phokion was no longer safe except under the protection of a foreign prince. After the liberal proclamation issued in the name of the Macedonian kings, permitting the return of the banished Demos, he sought safety for himself, first by that treasonable connivance which enabled Nikanor to seize the Peiræus, next by courting Polysperchon the enemy of Nikanor. A voluntary expatriation (along with his friend the Phalerean Demetrius) would have been less dangerous, and less discreditable, than these manœuvres, which still farther darkened the close of his life, without averting from him, after all, the necessity of facing the restored Demos. The intense and unanimous wrath of the people against him is an instructive, though a distressing spectacle. It was directed, not against the man or the administrator—for in both characters Phokion had been blameless, except as to the last collusion with Nikanor in the seizure of the Peiræus—but against his public policy. It was the last protest of extinct Grecian freedom, speaking as it were from the tomb in a voice of thunder, against that fatal system of mistrust, inertia, self-seeking, and corruption, which had betrayed the once autonomous Athens to a foreign conqueror.

I have already mentioned that Polysperchon with his army was in Phokis when Phokion was brought before him, on his march towards Peloponnesus. Perhaps he may have been detained by negotiation with the Ætolians, who embraced his alliance.[830] At any rate he was tardy in his march, for before he reached Attica, Kassander arrived at Peiræus to join Nikanor with a fleet of thirty-five ships and 4000 soldiers obtained from Antigonus. On learning this fact, Polysperchon hastened his march also, and presented himself under the walls of Athens and Peiræus with a large force of 20,000 Macedonians, 4000 Greek allies, 1000 cavalry, and sixty-five elephants; animals which were now seen for the first time in European Greece. He at first besieged Kassander in Peiræus, but finding it difficult to procure subsistence in Attica for so numerous an army, he marched with the larger portion into Peloponnesus, leaving his son Alexander with a division to make head against Kassander. Either approaching in person the various Peloponnesian towns—or addressing them by means of envoys—he enjoined the subversion of the Antipatrian oligarchies, and the restoration of liberty and free speech to the mass of the citizens.[831] In most of the towns, this revolution was accomplished; but in Megalopolis, the oligarchy held out; not only forcing Polysperchon to besiege the city, but even defending it against him successfully. He made two or three attempts to storm it, by movable towers, by undermining the walls, and even by the aid of elephants; but he was repulsed in all of them,[832] and obliged to relinquish the siege with considerable loss of reputation. His admiral Kleitus was soon afterwards defeated in the Propontis, with the loss of his whole fleet, by Nikanor (whom Kassander had sent from Peiræus) and Antigonus.[833]

After these two defeats, Polysperchon seems to have evacuated Peloponnesus, and to have carried his forces across the Corinthian Gulf into Epirus, to join Olympias. His party was greatly weakened all over Greece, and that of Kassander proportionally strengthened. The first effect of this was, the surrender of Athens. The Athenians in the city, including all or many of the restored exiles, could no longer endure that complete severance from the sea, to which the occupation of Peiræus and Munychia by Kassander had reduced them. Athens without a port was hardly tenable; in fact, Peiræus was considered by its great constructor, Themistokles, as more indispensable to the Athenians than Athens itself.[834] The subsistence of the people was derived in large proportion from imported corn, received through Peiræus; where also the trade and industrial operations were carried on, most of the revenue collected, and the arsenals, docks, ships, etc. of the state kept up. It became evident that Nikanor, by seizing on the Peiræus, had rendered Athens disarmed and helpless; so that the irreparable mischief done by Phokion, in conniving at that seizure, was felt more and more every day. Hence the Athenians, unable to capture the port themselves, and hopeless of obtaining it through Polysperchon, felt constrained to listen to the partisans of Kassander, who proposed that terms should be made with him. It was agreed that they should become friends and allies of Kassander; that they should have full enjoyment of their city, with the port Peiræus, their ships and revenues; that the exiles and deported citizens should be readmitted; that the political franchise should for the future be enjoyed by all citizens who possessed 1000 drachmæ of property and upwards; that Kassander should hold Munychia with a governor and garrison, until the war against Polysperchon was brought to a close; and that he should also name some one Athenian citizen, in whose hands the supreme government of the city should be vested. Kassander named Demetrius the Phalerean (i. e. an Athenian of the Deme Phalerum), one of the colleagues of Phokion; who had gone into voluntary exile since the death of Antipater, but had recently returned.[835]

This convention restored substantially at Athens the Antipatrian government; yet without the severities which had marked its original establishment—and with some modifications in various ways. It made Kassander virtually master of the city (as Antipater had been before him), by means of his governing nominee, upheld by the garrison, and by the fortification of Munychia; which had now been greatly enlarged and strengthened,[836] holding a practical command over Peiræus, though that port was nominally relinquished to the Athenians. But there was no slaughter of orators, no expulsion of citizens: moreover, even the minimum of 1000 drachmæ, fixed for the political franchise, though excluding the multitude, must have been felt as an improvement compared with the higher limit of 2000 drachmæ prescribed by Antipater. Kassander was not, like his father, at the head of an overwhelming force, master of Greece. He had Polysperchon in the field against him with a rival army and an established ascendency in many of the Grecian cities; it was therefore his interest to abstain from measures of obvious harshness towards the Athenian people.

Towards this end his choice of the Phalerean Demetrius appears to have been judicious. That citizen continued to administer Athens, as satrap or despot under Kassander, for ten years. He was an accomplished literary man, friend both of the philosopher Theophrastus, who had succeeded to the school of Aristotle—and of the rhetor Deinarchus. He is described also as a person of expensive and luxurious habits; towards which he devoted the most of the Athenian public revenue, 1200 talents in amount, if Duris is to be believed. His administration is said to have been discreet and moderate. We know little of its details, but we are told that he made sumptuary laws, especially restricting the cost and ostentation of funerals.[837] He himself extolled his own decennial period as one of abundance and flourishing commerce at Athens.[838] But we learn from others, and the fact is highly probable, that it was a period of distress and humiliation, both at Athens and in other Grecian towns; and that Athenians, as well as others, welcomed new projects of colonization (such as that of Ophellas from Kyrênê) not simply from prospects of advantage, but also as an escape from existing evils.[839]

What forms of nominal democracy were kept up during this interval, we cannot discover. The popular judicature must have been continued for private suits and accusations, since Deinarchus is said to have been in large practice as a logographer, or composer of discourses for others.[840] But the fact that three hundred and sixty statues were erected in honor of Demetrius while his administration was still going on, demonstrates the gross flattery of his partisans, the subjection of the people, and the practical abolition of all free-spoken censure or pronounced opposition. We learn that, in some one of the ten years of his administration, a census was taken of the inhabitants of Attica; and that there were numbered, 21,000 citizens, 10,000 metics, and 400,000 slaves.[841] Of this important enumeration we know the bare fact, without its special purpose or even its precise date. Perhaps some of those citizens, who had been banished or deported at the close of the Lamian war, may have returned and continued to reside at Athens. But there still seems to have remained, during all the continuance of the Kassandrian Oligarchy, a body of adverse Athenian exiles, watching for an opportunity of overthrowing it, and seeking aid for that purpose from the Ætolians and others.[842]

The acquisition of Athens by Kassander, followed up by his capture of Panaktum and Salamis, and seconded by his moderation towards the Athenians, procured for him considerable support in Peloponnesus, whither he proceeded with his army.[843] Many of the cities, intimidated or persuaded, joined him and deserted Polysperchon; while the Spartans, now feeling for the first time their defenceless condition, thought it prudent to surround their city with walls.[844] This fact, among many others contemporaneous, testifies emphatically, how the characteristic sentiments of the Hellenic autonomous world were now dying out everywhere. The maintenance of Sparta as an unwalled city, was one of the deepest and most cherished of the Lykurgean traditions; a standing proof of the fearless bearing and self-confidence of the Spartans against dangers from without. The erection of the walls showed their own conviction, but too well borne out by the real circumstances around them, that the pressure of the foreigner had become so overwhelming as hardly to leave them even safety at home.

The warfare between Kassander and Polysperchon became now embittered by a feud among the members of the Macedonian imperial family. King Philip Aridæus and his wife Eurydikê, alarmed and indignant at the restoration of Olympias which Polysperchon was projecting, solicited aid from Kassander, and tried to place the force of Macedonia at his disposal. In this however they failed. Olympias, assisted not only by Polysperchon, but by the Epirotic prince Æakides, made her entry into Macedonia out of Epirus, apparently in the autumn of 317 B. C. She brought with her Roxana and her child—the widow and son of Alexander the Great. The Macedonian soldiers, assembled by Philip Aridæus and Eurydikê to resist her, were so overawed by her name and the recollection of Alexander, that they refused to fight, and thus ensured to her an easy victory. Philip and Eurydikê became her prisoners; the former she caused to be slain; to the latter she offered only an option between the sword, the halter, and poison. The old queen next proceeded to satiate her revenge against the family of Antipater. One hundred leading Macedonians, friends of Kassander, were put to death, together with his brother Nikanor;[845] while the sepulchre of his deceased brother Iollas, accused of having poisoned Alexander the Great, was broken up.

During the winter, Olympias remained thus completely predominant in Macedonia; where her position seemed strong, since her allies the Ætolians were masters of the pass at Thermopylæ, while Kassander was kept employed in Peloponnesus by the force under Alexander, son of Polysperchon. But Kassander, disengaging himself from these embarrassments, and eluding Thermopylæ by a maritime transit to Thessaly, seized the Perrhæbian passes before they had been put under guard, and entered Macedonia without resistance. Olympias, having no army competent to meet him in the field, was forced to shut herself up in the maritime fortress of Pydna, with Roxana, the child Alexander, and Thessalonikê daughter of her late husband Philip son of Amyntas.[846] Here Kassander blocked her up for several months by sea, as well as by land, and succeeded in defeating all the efforts of Polysperchon and Æakides to relieve her. In the spring of the ensuing year (316 B. C.), she was forced by intolerable famine to surrender. Kassander promised her nothing more than personal safety, requiring from her the surrender of the two great fortresses, Pella and Amphipolis, which made him master of Macedonia. Presently however, the relatives of those numerous victims, who had perished by order of Olympias, were encouraged by Kassander to demand her life in retribution. They found little difficulty in obtaining a verdict of condemnation against her from what was called a Macedonian assembly. Nevertheless, such was the sentiment of awe and reverence connected with her name, that no one except these injured men themselves could be found to execute the sentence. She died with a courage worthy of her rank and domineering character. Kassander took Thessalonikê to wife—confined Roxana with the child Alexander in the fortress of Amphipolis—where (after a certain interval) he caused both of them to be slain.[847]

While Kassander was thus master of Macedonia—and while the imperial family were disappearing from the scene in that country—the defeat and death of Eumenes (which happened nearly at the same time as the capture of Olympias[848]) removed the last faithful partisan of that family in Asia. But at the same time, it left in the hands of Antigonus such overwhelming preponderance throughout Asia, that he aspired to become vicar and master of the entire Alexandrine empire, as well as to avenge upon Kassander the extirpation of the regal family. His power appeared indeed so formidable, that Kassander of Macedonia, Lysimachus of Thrace, Ptolemy of Egypt, and Seleukus of Babylonia, entered into a convention, which gradually ripened into an active alliance, against him.

During the struggles between these powerful princes, Greece appears simply as a group of subject cities, held, garrisoned, grasped at, or coveted, by all of them. Polysperchon, abandoning all hopes in Macedonia after the death of Olympias, had been forced to take refuge among the Ætolians, leaving his son Alexander to make the best struggle that he could in Peloponnesus; so that Kassander was now decidedly preponderant throughout the Hellenic regions. After fixing himself on the throne of Macedonia, he perpetuated his own name by founding, on the isthmus of the peninsula of Pallênê and near the site where Potidæa had stood, the new city of Kassandreia; into which he congregated a large number of inhabitants from the neighborhood, and especially the remnant of the citizens of Olynthus and Potidæa,—towns taken and destroyed by Philip more than thirty years before.[849] He next marched into Peloponnesus with his army against Alexander son of Polysperchon. Passing through Bœotia, he undertook the task of restoring the city of Thebes, which had been destroyed twenty years previously by Alexander the Great, and had ever since existed only as a military post on the ancient citadel called Kadmeia. The other Bœotian towns, to whom the old Theban territory had been assigned, were persuaded or constrained to relinquish it; and Kassander invited from all parts of Greece the Theban exiles or their descendants. From sympathy with these exiles, and also with the ancient celebrity of the city, many Greeks, even from Italy and Sicily, contributed to the restoration. The Athenians, now administered by Demetrius Phalereus under Kassander’s supremacy, were particularly forward in the work; the Messenians and Megalopolitans, whose ancestors had owed so much to the Theban Epaminondas, lent strenuous aid. Thebes was re-established in the original area which it had occupied before Alexander’s siege; and was held by a Kassandrian garrison in the Kadmeia, destined for the mastery of Bœotia and Greece.[850]

After some stay at Thebes, Kassander advanced toward Peloponnesus. Alexander (son of Polysperchon) having fortified the Isthmus, he was forced to embark his troops with his elephants at Megara, and cross over the Saronic Gulf to Epidaurus. He dispossessed Alexander of Argos, of Messenia, and even of his position on the Isthmus, where he left a powerful detachment, and then returned to Macedonia.[851] His increasing power raised both apprehension and hatred in the bosom of Antigonus, who endeavored to come to terms with him, but in vain.[852] Kassander preferred the alliance with Ptolemy, Seleukus, and Lysimachus—against Antigonus, who was now master of nearly the whole of Asia, inspiring common dread to all of them.[853] Accordingly, from Asia to Peloponnesus, with arms and money Antigonus despatched the Milesian Aristodemus to strengthen Alexander against Kassander; whom he further denounced as an enemy of the Macedonian name, because he had slain Olympias, imprisoned the other members of the regal family, and re-established the Olynthian exiles. He caused the absent Kassander to be condemned by what was called a Macedonian assembly, upon these and other charges.

Antigonus farther proclaimed, by the voice of this assembly, that all the Greeks should be free, self-governing, and exempt from garrisons or military occupation.[854] It was expected that these brilliant promises would enlist partisans in Greece against Kassander; accordingly Ptolemy ruler of Egypt, one of the enemies of Antigonus, thought fit to issue similar proclamations a few months afterwards, tendering to the Greeks the same boon from himself.[855] These promises, neither executed, not intended to be executed, by either of the kings, appear to have produced little or no effect upon the Greeks.

The arrival of Aristodemus in Peloponnesus had re-animated the party of Alexander, (son of Polysperchon), against whom Kassander was again obliged to bring his full forces from Macedonia. Though successful against Alexander at Argos, Orchomenus, and other places, Kassander was not able to crush him, and presently thought it prudent to gain him over. He offered to him the separate government of Peloponnesus, though in subordination to himself: Alexander accepted the offer, becoming Kassander’s ally[856]—and carried on war, jointly with him, against Aristodemus, with varying success, until he was presently assassinated by some private enemies. Nevertheless his widow Kratesipolis, a woman of courage and energy, still maintained herself in considerable force at Sikyon.[857] Kassander’s most obstinate enemies were the Ætolians, of whom we now first hear formal mention as a substantive confederacy.[858] These Ætolians became the allies of Antigonus as they had been before of Polysperchon, extending their predatory ravages even as far as Attica. Protected against foreign garrisons, partly by their rude and fierce habits, partly by their mountainous territory, they were almost the only Greeks who could still be called free. Kassander tried to keep them in check through their neighbors the Akarnanians, whom he induced to adopt a more concentrated habit of residence, consolidating their numerous petty townships into a few considerable towns,—Stratus, Sauria, and Agrinium—convenient posts for Macedonian garrisons. He also made himself master of Leukas, Apollonia, and Epidamnus, defeating the Illyrian king Glaukias, so that his dominion now extended across from the Thermaic to the Adriatic Gulf.[859] His general Philippus gained two important victories over the Ætolians and Epirots, forcing the former to relinquish some of their most accessible towns.[860]

The power of Antigonus in Asia underwent a material diminution, by the successful and permanent establishment which Seleukus now acquired in Babylonia; from which event the era of the succeeding Seleukidæ takes its origin. In Greece, however, Antigonus gained ground on Kassander. He sent thither his nephew Ptolemy with a large force to liberate the Greeks, or in other words, to expel the Kassandrian garrisons; while he at the same time distracted Kassander’s attention by threatening to cross the Hellespont and invade Macedonia. This Ptolemy (not the Egyptian) expelled the soldiers of Kassander from Eubœa, Bœotia, and Phokis. Chalkis in Eubœa was at this time the chief military station of Kassander; Thebes (which he had recently re-established) was in alliance with him; but the remaining Bœotian towns were hostile to him. Ptolemy, having taken Chalkis—the citizens of which he conciliated by leaving them without any garrison—together with Oropus, Eretria, and Karystus—entered Attica and presented himself before Athens. So much disposition to treat with him was manifested in the city, that Demetrius the Phalerean was obliged to gain time by pretending to open negotiations with Antigonus, while Ptolemy withdrew from Attica. Nearly at the same epoch, Apollonia, Epidamnus, and Leukas, found means, assisted by an armament from Korkyra, to drive out Kassander’s garrisons, and to escape from his dominion.[861] The affairs of Antigonus were now prospering in Greece, but they were much thrown back by the discontent and treachery of his admiral Telesphorus, who seized Elis and even plundered the sacred treasures of Olympia. Ptolemy presently put him down, and restored these treasures to the god.[862]

In the ensuing year, a convention was concluded between Antigonus, on one side—and Kassander, Ptolemy (the Egyptian) and Lysimachus, on the other, whereby the supreme command in Macedonia was guaranteed to Kassander, until the maturity of Alexander son of Roxana; Thrace being at the same time assured to Lysimachus, Egypt to Ptolemy, and the whole of Asia to Antigonus. It was at the same time covenanted by all, that the Hellenic cities should be free.[863] Towards the execution of this last clause, however, nothing was actually done. Nor does it appear that the treaty had any other effect, except to inspire Kassander with increased jealousy about Roxana and her child; both of whom (as has been already stated) he caused to be secretly assassinated soon afterwards, by the governor Glaukias, in the fortress of Amphipolis, where they had been confined.[864] The forces of Antigonus, under his general Ptolemy, still remained in Greece. But this general presently (310 B. C.) revolted from Antigonus, and placed them in co-operation with Kassander; while Ptolemy of Egypt, accusing Antigonus of having contravened the treaty by garrisoning various Grecian cities, renewed the war and the triple alliance against him.[865]

Polysperchon,—who had hitherto maintained a local dominion over various parts of Peloponnesus, with a military force distributed in Messênê and other towns[866]—was now encouraged by Antigonus to espouse the cause of Herakles (son of Alexander by Barsinê), and to place him on the throne of Macedonia in opposition to Kassander. This young prince Herakles, now seventeen years of age, was sent to Greece from Pergamus in Asia, and his pretensions to the throne were assisted not only by a considerable party in Macedonia itself, but also by the Ætolians. Polysperchon invaded Macedonia, with favorable prospects of establishing the young prince; yet he thought it advantageous to accept treacherous propositions from Kassander, who offered to him partnership in the sovereignty of Macedonia, with an independent army and dominion in Peloponnesus. Polysperchon, tempted by these offers, assassinated the young prince Herakles, and withdrew his army towards Peloponnesus. But he found such unexpected opposition, in his march through Bœotia, from Bœotians and Peloponnesians, that he was forced to take up his winter quarters in Lokris[867] (309 B. C.). From this time forward, as far as we can make out, he commanded in Southern Greece as subordinate ally or partner of Kassander;[868] whose Macedonian dominion, thus confirmed, seems to have included Akarnania and Amphilochia on the Ambrakian Gulf, together with the town of Ambrakia itself, and a supremacy over many of the Epirots.

The assassination of Herakles was speedily followed by that of Kleopatra, sister of Alexander the Great, and daughter of Philip and Olympias. She had been for some time at Sardis, nominally at liberty, yet under watch by the governor, who received his orders from Antigonus; she was now preparing to quit that place, for the purpose of joining Ptolemy in Egypt, and of becoming his wife. She had been invoked as auxiliary, or courted in marriage, by several of the great Macedonian chiefs, without any result. Now, however, Antigonus, afraid of the influence which her name might throw into the scale of his rival Ptolemy, caused her to be secretly murdered as she was preparing for her departure; throwing the blame of the deed on some of her women, whom he punished with death.[869] All the relatives of Alexander the Great (except Thessalonikê wife of Kassander, daughter of Philip by a Thessalian mistress) thus successively perished, and all by the orders of one or other among his principal officers. The imperial family, with the prestige of its name, thus came to an end.

Ptolemy of Egypt now set sail for Greece with a powerful armament. He acquired possession of the important cities—Sikyon and Corinth—which were handed over to him by Kratesipolis, widow of Alexander son of Polysperchon. He then made known by proclamation his purpose as a liberator, inviting aid from the Peloponnesian cities themselves against the garrisons of Kassander. From some he received encouraging answers and promises; but none of them made any movement, or seconded him by armed demonstrations. He thought it prudent therefore to conclude a truce with Kassander and retire from Greece, leaving however secure garrisons in Sikyon and Corinth.[870] The Grecian cities had now become tame and passive. Feeling their own incapacity of self-defence, and averse to auxiliary efforts, which brought upon them enmity without any prospect of advantage—they awaited only the turns of foreign interference and the behests of the potentates around them.

The Grecian ascendency of Kassander, however, was in the following year exposed to a graver shock than it had ever yet encountered—by the sudden invasion of Demetrius called Poliorketes, son of Antigonus. This young prince, sailing from Ephesus with a formidable armament, contrived to conceal his purposes so closely, that he actually entered the harbor of Peiræus (on the 26th of the month Thargelion—May) without expectation, or resistance from any one; his fleet being mistaken for the fleet of the Egyptian Ptolemy. The Phalerean Demetrius, taken unawares, and attempting too late to guard the harbor, found himself compelled to leave it in possession of the enemy, and to retire within the walls of Athens; while Dionysius, the Kassandrian governor, maintained himself with his garrison in Munychia, yet without any army competent to meet the invaders in the field. This accomplished Phalerean, who had administered for ten years as the viceroy and with the force of Kassander, now felt his position and influence at Athens overthrown, and even his personal safety endangered. He with other Athenians went as envoys on the ensuing day to ascertain what terms would be granted. The young prince ostentatiously proclaimed, that it was the intention of his father Antigonus and himself to restore and guarantee to the Athenians unqualified freedom and autonomy. Hence the Phalerean Demetrius foresaw that his internal opponents, condemned as they had been to compulsory silence during the last ten years, would now proclaim themselves with irresistible violence, so that there was no safety for him except in retreat. He accordingly asked and obtained permission from the invader to retire to Thebes, from whence he passed over soon after to Ptolemy in Egypt. The Athenians in the city declared in favor of Demetrius Poliorketes; who however refused to enter the walls until he should have besieged and captured Munychia, as well as Megara, with their Kassandrian garrisons. In a short time he accomplished both these objects. Indeed energy, skill, and effective use of engines, in besieging fortified places, were among the most conspicuous features in his character; procuring for him the surname whereby he is known to history. He proclaimed the Megarians free, levelling to the ground the fortifications of Munychia, as an earnest to the Athenians that they should be relieved for the future from all foreign garrison.[871]

After these successes, Demetrius Poliorketes made his triumphant entry into Athens. He announced to the people, in formal assembly, that they were now again a free democracy, liberated from all dominion either of soldiers from abroad or oligarchs at home. He also promised them a farther boon from his father Antigonus and himself—150,000 medimni of corn for distribution, and ship-timber in quantity sufficient for constructing 100 triremes. Both these announcements were received with grateful exultation. The feelings of the people were testified not merely in votes of thanks and admiration towards the young conqueror, but in effusions of unmeasured and exorbitant flattery. Stratokles (who has already been before us as one of the accusers of Demosthenes in the Harpalian affair) with others exhausted their invention in devising new varieties of compliment and adulation. Antigonus and Demetrius were proclaimed to be not only kings, but gods and saviors: a high priest of these saviors was to be annually chosen, after whom each successive year was to be named (instead of being named after the first of the nine Archons, as had hitherto been the custom), and the dates of decrees and contracts commemorated; the month Munychion was re-named as Demetrion—two new tribes, to be called Antigonis and Demetrias, were constituted in addition to the preceding ten:—the annual senate was appointed to consist of 600 members instead of 500; the portraits and exploits of Antigonus and Demetrius were to be woven, along with those of Zeus and Athênê, into the splendid and voluminous robe periodically carried in procession, as an offering at the Panathenaic festival; the spot of ground where Demetrius had alighted from his chariot, was consecrated with an altar erected in honor of Demetrius Katæbates or the Descender. Several other similar votes were passed, recognizing, and worshipping as gods, the saviors Antigonus and Demetrius. Nay, we are told that temples or altars were voted to Phila-Aphroditê, in honor of Phila wife of Demetrius; and a like compliment was paid to his two mistresses, Leæna and Lamia. Altars are said to have been also dedicated to Adeimantus and others, his convivial companions or flatterers.[872] At the same time the numerous statues which had been erected in honor of the Phalerean Demetrius during his decennial government, were overthrown, and some of them even turned to ignoble purposes, in order to cast greater scorn upon the past ruler.[873] The demonstrations of servile flattery at Athens, towards Demetrius Poliorketes, were in fact so extravagantly overdone, that he himself is said to have been disgusted with them, and to have expressed contempt for these degenerate Athenians of his own time.[874]

In reviewing such degrading proceedings, we must recollect that thirty-one years had now elapsed since the battle of Chæroneia, and that during all this time the Athenians had been under the practical ascendancy, and constantly augmenting pressure, of foreign potentates. The sentiment of this dependence on Macedonia had been continually strengthened by all the subsequent events—by the capture and destruction of Thebes, and the subsequent overwhelming conquests of Alexander—by the deplorable conclusion of the Lamian war, the slaughter of the free-spoken orators, the death of the energetic military leaders, and the deportation of Athenian citizens—lastly, by the continued presence of a Macedonian garrison in Peiræus or Munychia. By Phokion, Demetrius Phalereus, and the other leading statesmen of this long period, submission to Macedonia had been inculcated as a virtue, while the recollection of the dignity and grandeur of old autonomous Athens had been effaced or denounced as a mischievous dream. The fifteen years between the close of the Lamian war and the arrival of Demetrius Poliorketes (322-307 B. C.), had witnessed no free play, nor public discussion and expression, of conflicting opinions; the short period during which Phokion was condemned must be excepted, but that lasted only long enough to give room for the outburst of a preconceived but suppressed antipathy.

During this thirty years, of which the last half had been an aggravation of the first, a new generation of Athenians had grown up, accustomed to an altered phase of political existence. How few of those who received Demetrius Poliorketes, had taken part in the battle of Chæroneia, or listened to the stirring exhortations of Demosthenes in the war which preceded that disaster![875] Of the citizens who yet retained courage and patriotism to struggle again for their freedom after the death of Alexander, how many must have perished with Leosthenes in the Lamian war! The Athenians of 307 B. C. had come to conceive their own city, and Hellas generally, as dependent first on Kassander, next on the possible intervention of his equally overweening rivals, Ptolemy, Antigonus, Lysimachus, etc. If they shook off the yoke of one potentate, it could only be by the protectorate of another. The sentiment of political self-reliance and autonomy had fled; the conception of a citizen military force, furnished by confederate and co-operating cities, had been superseded by the spectacle of vast standing armies, organized by the heirs of Alexander and of his traditions.

Two centuries before (510 B. C.), when the Lacedæmonians expelled the despot Hippias and his mercenaries from Athens, there sprang up at once among the Athenian people a forward and devoted patriotism, which made them willing to brave, and competent to avert, all dangers in defence of their newly-acquired liberty.[876] At that time, the enemies by whom they were threatened were Lacedæmonians, Thebans, Æginetans, Chalkidians, and the like (for the Persian force did not present itself until after some interval, and attacked not Athens alone, but Greece collectively). These hostile forces, though superior in number and apparent value to those of Athens, were yet not so disproportionate as to engender hopelessness and despair. Very different were the facts in 307 B. C., when Demetrius Poliorketes removed the Kassandrian mercenaries with their fortress Munychia, and proclaimed Athens free. To maintain that freedom by their own strength—in opposition to the evident superiority of organized force residing in the potentates around, one or more of whom had nearly all Greece under military occupation,—was an enterprise too hopeless to have been attempted even by men such as the combatants of Marathon or the contemporaries of Perikles. “Who would be free, themselves must strike the blow!” but the Athenians had not force enough to strike it; and the liberty proclaimed by Demetrius Poliorketes was a boon dependent upon him for its extent and even for its continuance. The Athenian assembly of that day was held under his army as masters of Attica, as it had been held a few months before under the controlling force of the Phalerean Demetrius together with the Kassandrian governor of Munychia; and the most fulsome votes of adulation proposed in honor of Demetrius Poliorketes by his partisans, though perhaps disapproved by many, would hardly find a single pronounced opponent.

One man, however, there was, who ventured to oppose several of the votes—the nephew of Demosthenes—Demochares; who deserves to be commemorated as the last known spokesman of free Athenian citizenship. We know only that such were his general politics, and that his opposition to the obsequious rhetor Stratokles ended in banishment, four years afterwards.[877] He appears to have discharged the functions of general during this period—to have been active in strengthening the fortifications and military equipment of the city—and to have been employed in occasional missions.[878]

The altered politics of Athens were manifested by impeachment against Demetrius Phalereus and other leading partisans of the late Kassandrian government. He and many others had already gone into voluntary exile; when their trials came on, they were not forthcoming, and all were condemned to death. But all those who remained, and presented themselves for trial, were acquitted;[879] so little was there of reactionary violence on this occasion. Stratokles also proposed a decree, commemorating the orator Lykurgus (who had been dead about seventeen years) by a statue, an honorary inscription, and a grant of maintenance in the Prytaneum to his eldest surviving descendant.[880] Among those who accompanied the Phalerean Demetrius into exile was the rhetor or logographer Deinarchus.

The friendship of this obnoxious Phalerean, and of Kassander also, towards the philosopher Theophrastus, seems to have been one main cause which occasioned the enactment of a restrictive law against the liberty of philosophizing. It was decreed, on the proposition of a citizen named Sophokles, that no philosopher should be allowed to open a school or teach, except under special sanction obtained from a vote of the Senate and people. Such was the disgust and apprehension occasioned by the new restriction, that all the philosophers with one accord left Athens. This spirited protest, against authoritative restriction on the liberty of philosophy and teaching, found responsive sympathy among the Athenians. The celebrity of the schools and professors was in fact the only characteristic mark of dignity still remaining to them—when their power had become extinct, and when even their independence and free constitution had degenerated into a mere name. It was moreover the great temptation for young men, coming from all parts of Greece, to visit Athens. Accordingly, a year had hardly passed, when Philon, impeaching Sophokles the author of the law, under the Graphê Paranomôn, prevailed on the Dikastery to find him guilty, and condemn him to a fine of five talents. The restrictive law being thus repealed, the philosophers returned.[881] It is remarkable that Demochares stood forward as one of its advocates; defending Sophokles against the accuser Philon. From scanty notices remaining of the speech of Demochares, we gather that, while censuring the opinions no less than the characters of Plato and Aristotle, he denounced yet more bitterly their pupils, as being for the most part ambitious, violent, and treacherous men. He cited by name several among them, who had subverted the freedom of their respective cities, and committed gross outrages against their fellow-citizens.[882]

Athenian envoys were despatched to Antigonus in Asia, to testify the gratitude of the people, and communicate the recent complimentary votes. Antigonus not only received them graciously, but sent to Athens, according to the promise made by his son, a large present of 150,000 medimni of wheat, with timber sufficient for 100 ships. He at the same time directed Demetrius to convene at Athens a synod of deputies from the allied Grecian cities, where resolutions might be taken for the common interests of Greece.[883] It was his interest at this moment to raise up a temporary self-sustaining authority in Greece, for the purpose of upholding the alliance with himself, during the absence of Demetrius; whom he was compelled to summon into Asia with his army—requiring his services for the war against Ptolemy in Syria and Cyprus.

The following three years were spent by Demetrius—1. In victorious operations near Cyprus, defeating Ptolemy and making himself master of that island; after which Antigonus and Demetrius assumed the title of kings, and the example was followed by Ptolemy, in Egypt—by Lysimachus, in Thrace—and by Seleukus in Babylonia, Mesopotamia, and Syria[884]—thus abolishing even the titular remembrance of Alexander’s family. 2. In an unsuccessful invasion of Egypt by land and sea, repulsed with great loss. 3. In the siege of Rhodes. The brave and intelligent citizens of this island resisted for more than a year the most strenuous attacks and the most formidable siege-equipments of Demetrius Poliorketes. All their efforts however would have been vain had they not been assisted by large reinforcements and supplies from Ptolemy, Lysimachus, and Kassander. Such are the conditions under which alone even the most resolute and intelligent Greeks can now retain their circumscribed sphere of autonomy. The siege was at length terminated by a compromise; the Rhodians submitted to enrol themselves as allies of Demetrius, yet under proviso not to act against Ptolemy.[885] Towards the latter they carried their grateful devotion so far, as to erect a temple to him, called the Ptolemæum, and to worship him (under the sanction of the oracle of Ammon) as a god.[886] Amidst the rocks and shoals through which Grecian cities were now condemned to steer, menaced on every side by kings more powerful than themselves, and afterwards by the giant-republic of Rome—the Rhodians conducted their political affairs with greater prudence and dignity than any other Grecian city.

Shortly after the departure of Demetrius from Greece to Cyprus, Kassander and Polysperchon renewed the war in Peloponnesus and its neighborhood.[887] We make out no particulars respecting this war. The Ætolians were in hostility with Athens, and committed annoying depredations.[888] The fleet of Athens, repaired or increased by the timber received from Antigonus, was made to furnish thirty quadriremes to assist Demetrius in Cyprus, and was employed in certain operations near the island of Amorgos, wherein it suffered defeat.[889] But we can discover little respecting the course of the war, except that Kassander gained ground upon the Athenians, and that about the beginning of 303 B. C., he was blockading or threatening to blockade, Athens. The Athenians invoked the aid of Demetrius Poliorketes, who, having recently concluded an accommodation with the Rhodians, came again across from Asia, with a powerful fleet and army, to Aulis in Bœotia.[890] He was received at Athens with demonstrations of honor equal or superior to those which had marked his previous visit. He seems to have passed a year and a half, partly at Athens, partly in military operations carried successfully over many parts of Greece. He compelled the Bœotians to evacuate the Eubœan city of Chalkis, and to relinquish their alliance with Kassander. He drove that prince out of Attica—expelled his garrisons from the two frontier fortresses of Attica,—Phylê and Panaktum—and pursued him as far as Thermopylæ. He captured, or obtained by bribing the garrisons, the important towns of Corinth, Argos, and Sikyon; mastering also Ægium, Bura, all the Arcadian towns (except Mantineia), and various other towns in Peloponnesus.[891] He celebrated, as president, the great festival of the Heræa at Argos; on which occasion he married Deidameia, sister of Pyrrhus, the young king of Epirus. He prevailed on the Sikyonians to transfer to a short distance the site of their city, conferring upon the new city the name of Demetrias.[892] At a Grecian synod, convened in Corinth under his own letters of invitation, he received by acclamation the appointment of leader or Emperor of the Greeks, as it had been conferred on Philip and Alexander. He even extended his attacks as far as Leukas and Korkyra. The greater part of Greece seems to have been either occupied by his garrisons, or enlisted among his subordinates.

So much was Kassander intimidated by these successes, that he sent envoys to Asia, soliciting peace from Antigonus; who, however, elate and full of arrogance, refused to listen to any terms short of surrender at discretion. Kassander, thus driven to despair, renewed his applications to Lysimachus, Ptolemy, and Seleukus. All these princes felt equally menaced by the power and dispositions of Antigonus—and all resolved upon an energetic combination to put him down.[893]

After uninterrupted prosperity in Greece, throughout the summer of 302 B. C., Demetrius returned from Leukas to Athens, about the month of September, near the time of the Eleusinian mysteries.[894] He was welcomed by festive processions, hymns, pæans, choric dances, and bacchanalian odes of joyous congratulation. One of these hymns is preserved, sung by a chorus of Ithyphalli—masked revellers, with their heads and arms encircled by wreaths,—clothed in white tunics, and in feminine garments reaching almost to the feet.[895]

This song is curious, as indicating the hopes and fears prevalent among Athenians of that day, and as affording a measure of their self-appreciation. It is moreover among the latest Grecian documents that we possess, bearing on actual and present reality. The poet, addressing Demetrius as a god, boasts that two of the greatest and best-beloved of all divine beings are visiting Attica at the same moment—Demeter (coming for the season of her mysteries), and Demetrius, son of Poseidon and Aphroditê. “To thee we pray (the hymn proceeds); for other gods are either afar off—or have no ears—or do not exist—or care nothing about us; but thee we see before us, not in wood or marble, but in real presence. First of all things, establish peace; for thou hast the power—and chastise that Sphinx who domineers, not merely over Thebes, but over all Greece—the Ætolian, who, (like the old Sphinx) rushes from his station on the rock to snatch and carry away our persons, and against whom we cannot fight. At all times, the Ætolians robbed their neighbors; but now, they rob far as well as near.[896]”

Effusions such as these, while displaying unmeasured idolatry and subservience towards Demetrius, are yet more remarkable, as betraying a loss of force, a senility, and a consciousness of defenceless and degraded position, such as we are astonished to find publicly proclaimed at Athens. It is not only against the foreign potentates that the Athenians avow themselves incapable of self-defence, but even against the incursions of the Ætolians.—Greeks like themselves, though warlike, rude, and restless.[897] When such were the feelings of a people, once the most daring, confident, and organizing—and still the most intelligent—in Greece, we may see that the history of the Greeks as a separate nation or race is reaching its close—and that from henceforward they must become merged in one or other of the stronger currents that surround them.

After his past successes, Demetrius passed some months in enjoyment and luxury at Athens. He was lodged in the Parthenon, being considered as the guest of the goddess Athênê. But his dissolute habits provoked the louder comments, from being indulged in such a domicile; while the violences which he offered to beautiful youths of good family led to various scenes truly tragical. The subservient manifestations of the Athenians towards him, however, continued unabated. It is even affirmed, that, in order to compensate for something which he had taken amiss, they passed a formal decree, on the proposition of Stratokles, declaring that every thing which Demetrius might command was holy in regard to the gods, and just in regard to men.[898] The banishment of Demochares is said to have been brought on by his sarcastic comments upon this decree.[899] In the month Munychion (April) Demetrius mustered his forces and his Grecian allies for a march into Thessaly against Kassander; but before his departure, he was anxious to be initiated in the Eleusinian mysteries. It was however not the regular time for this ceremony; the Lesser Mysteries being celebrated in February, the Greater in September. The Athenians overruled the difficulty by passing a special vote, enabling him to be initiated at once, and to receive in immediate succession, the preparatory and the final initiation, between which ceremonies a year of interval was habitually required. Accordingly, he placed himself disarmed in the hands of the priests, and received both first and second initiation in the month of April, immediately before his departure from Athens.[900]