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Isokrates: Political Writings

I. On the relations of Greece with Persia.

I 1. Panegyrikos.

1. Panegyrikos [Or. IV.]—The date of the speech is determined by § 126. It is there said that the Spartans are besieging Olynthos and Phlius. Olynthos was besieged in 383 B.C., Phlius early in 380; both fell towards the close of 379. The speech cannot, then, have been published before 380 or after 379. Now the year 380 B.C. was the first of the hundredth Olympiad. The title Panegyrikos— given to the speech by Isokrates himself—points only to some great festival, and has been referred by one critic¹ to the Greater Panathenaea. But, taking the other circumstances into account, it seems hardly doubtful that the Panegyrikos was published at the time of the Olympic festival in the autumn ² of 380 B.C.³

The duty of Hellenic unity against the barbarian had already been the theme of Gorgias and of Lysias in speeches delivered at Olympia⁴. It is not likely ⁵ that, like theirs, the oration of Isokrates was recited at the festival by its author. His want of nerve and voice, and much in the contents of the speech itself, would probably have deterred him from such an attempt. The speech may, indeed, have been recited for him; but it is more likely that it was first introduced to the Greek public by copies circulated at Olympia, and sent to cities in which Isokrates had friends among the leading men⁶ .

His appeal to Panhellenic patriotism was made ⁷ at a time when such patriotism was sorely needed. By the Peace of Antalkidas in 387 B. C. Artaxerxes II. had become master of the Asiatic Greeks, and ultimate arbiter in the affairs of western Hellas; the Aegean, no longer protected by an Athenian fleet, was infested by pirates; the party strife which the dekarchies had exasperated was everywhere filling the smaller cities with bloodshed; and Sparta, regardless of the autonomy which the Peace had guaranteed to every state, was using these troubles for her own ends. In 385 the Spartans had destroyed Mantineia; in 383, besieged Olynthos; in 382, seized the Kadmeia; in 380, besieged Phlius.

The Panegyrikos falls into two main divisions. ⁸ In the first (§§ 1—132) Isokrates urges that Athens and Sparta, laying aside their jealousies, should assume the joint leadership of Greece. He argues that, if Sparta at present holds the first place, Athens has the better historical claim to it; and that, therefore, a compromise might well be made. In the second part (§§ 133—189) he shows the direction in which the forces of Greece, once consolidated, ought to be turned — namely against Persia.

I. ‘It is strange that the founders of the great Festivals should have kept all their rewards for a physical prowess which serves only the athlete himself, and should have assigned no honour to the mental toil from which flow benefits to all. Content, however, with the hope of simple approbation, I am here to offer counsels of unity among Greeks and ⁹ war against the barbarian (§§ 1—3). If the theme is not new, it admits of better treatment than it has received (§§ 4 —5). The crisis is not yet past,—nor, therefore, the season for advice (§§ 3—5); and it is of the essence of oratory that it seeks to put familiar facts in a more impressive way (§§ 7—10). There are some who dislike all elaborate speaking, and who cannot distinguish between occasions for safe plainness and for a loftier effort. I address myself to those who expect speakers on a great theme to rise above the common level; and I crave no indulgence if I fail to do so (§§ 11—14).

‘That the various cities of Greece should renounce their ¹⁰ feuds and turn together against the barbarian, has often been urged; but the point from which such unity must begin has been missed. Hellas is divided, for the most part, between oligarchies dependent on Sparta and democracies dependent on Athens. Before the lesser States can be in harmony, the leaders must be reconciled, and must consent to share the headship ( τὰς ἡγεμονίας διελέσθαι, § 17). Sparta is the obstacle. She fancies that she has an ancestral right to sovereignty. If it can be shown that this right belongs rather to Athens, Sparta will either yield something, or, if she does not, will be clearly in the wrong (§§ 15—20).

‘Maritime Empire belongs of right to Athens, whether ¹¹ the test be ( a) naval efficiency, ( b) antiquity, or ( c) services done to Greece. Her services have been of two kinds, (1) civil, and (2) military (§§ 21—27).

(1.) ‘The first things which human life needs came to ¹² Hellas through Athens. Demeter, visiting Attica in her search for Persephone, gave to its inhabitants two gifts,—the corn-crop, and the rite of the Mysteries. Athens did not keep these blessings to herself, but freely shared them with all. If the tradition be questioned because it is lost in antiquity, on the other hand this antiquity implies wide acceptance. It is accredited by the fact that most Greek cities pay to Athens a yearly tribute of first-fruits. It has also an a priori likelihood. The earliest men, most needing, were most likely to obtain, direct help from the gods; and the people of Attica are confessedly the oldest of races (§§ 28—33).

‘The next great boon which Athens bestowed on early ¹³ Greece, was the enlargement of the area covered by Greeks. Seeing the barbarians widely spread and the Hellenes straitened for space, she provided the cities with leaders under whom they conquered from the alien new homes both in Europe and in Asia; peopled islands in every sea; and, in opening a career to colonists, saved the mother country (§§ 34—37).

‘These primary benefits were followed by others. Athens ¹⁴ was not content with having given the Hellenes the necessaries of life; she gave them civilisation. Hers were the earliest laws, hers was the earliest Constitutional Polity. With her originated the arts which minister to men's needs or pleasures. The central emporium of Hellas, the Peiraeus, was established by her. All the advantages, all the charms of those great gatherings at which Greeks of every city forget their differences in a sense of common worship and of common blood, are supplied in an unequalled measure by the ¹⁵ festivals of Athens; nay, she herself is for all visitors a perpetual festival. Practical philosophy, the deviser and organiser of all these things—rational eloquence, the permanent distinction of high natures—are honoured by her as by no other city. So pre-eminently is she the seat of national culture that a man is not considered in the fullest sense a Hellene merely because he is of Hellenic blood, unless, further, he bears the stamp of the Athenian mind (§§ 38—50).

(2.) ‘Such are the services which Athens has rendered ¹⁶ to the civil life of Hellas. Her military services have been equally great, both in wars between Greeks, and in wars of Greek against barbarian.

‘In Greece she has always shown herself the unselfish ¹⁷ champion of the oppressed. Thus she successfully aided Adrastos against the Thebans and the Herakleidae against Eurystheus. The greatness of Sparta was founded by the succour which Athens lent to the Heraklid invaders of the Peloponnese—a recollection which ought to restrain Sparta from injuring, or claiming to rule, Athens. Argos, Thebes, Sparta, were in early times, as they are now, the foremost cities of Hellas; but Athens was greater than them all—the avenger of Argos, the chastiser of Thebes, the patron of those who founded Sparta (§§ 51—65).

‘Against the barbarians Athens has waged more wars ¹⁸ than could fitly be told here: a few of the chief only shall be named. In the infancy of Hellas, Attica was invaded by the Thracians under Eumolpos, son of Poseidon, and, later, by the Scythians leagued with the Amazons, daughters of Ares. The Thracians were so crushed that they withdrew from their old seats on the Attic frontier to a more distant abode. Of the Amazons, not one who came hither returned; and those who had stayed behind were driven from their realm on account of the disaster (§§ 66—70).

‘Similar in spirit and in result were the wars against ¹⁹ Dareios and Xerxes. In these, Athens won a double victory; she drove back the apparently irresistible hordes of the enemy, and took the prize for valour from allies whose bravery it seemed impossible to surpass. Lacedaemon, indeed, did brilliant service; the greater the glory for Athens of having outshone such a rival. The Persian Wars claim special mention here, illustrating, as they do at once the heroism of our ancestors and the hostility of Greek to barbarian. The subject has been well-nigh exhausted by the speakers of Funeral Orations²⁰; but, as it relates to my present purpose, I must not shrink from touching upon it (§§ 71—74).

‘Praise is due, first of all, to those earlier generations of ²¹ Athenian and Spartan statesmen who sowed the seed of the valour which afterwards saved Hellas. They were characterised in all things by unselfish public spirit. They were thrifty of the resources of the state; they were sensitively loyal to its honour and to its interest in their personal conduct and in their legislation. Political parties, political clubs then vied only in benefits to the city. Thus were formed the men who, surpassing the captors of Troy, vanquished Asia; men whose merit transcends all that has been said or sung of them. Surely some god must have ordained that struggle in order to bring into full light natures worthy of the demigods of old (§§ 75—84).

‘The rivalry between Athens and Sparta was never so noble as in the Persian wars. When the army of Dareios invaded Greece, the Athenians, without waiting for the allies, met it at Marathon; the Lacedaemonians, on hearing of the ²² peril, had no thought but to hasten to the rescue. When, later, Xerxes came with his host, marching over the Hellespont and sailing through Athos, Sparta won glory at ²³ Thermopylae, Athens at Artemision. Then began the last period of the war: and in this the Athenians distanced all competitors. Scorning the overtures of an enemy who actually held their city, and true to allies who had forsaken them, they made ready to fight alone at Salamis. Shame brought the ²⁴ Peloponnesians to their side; but, of the Greek ships engaged, Athens furnished more than all the other States together.

‘If there is now to be an expedition against the barbarians, who ought to lead it? Who but the foremost fighters, the most unselfish sufferers, in the former war; the founders, in ancient days, of cities to which, later, they became saviours? Would it not be hard if, having borne most evil, we did not receive most honour; if, having once been chosen to lead, we should now be forced to follow? (§§ 85—99.)

‘Everyone must allow that, up to the close of the Persian ²⁵ wars, Athens had deserved the supremacy. But it is objected that, after her attainment of maritime empire, she did much evil to Greece; notably in the cases of Melos and of Skione²⁶. Now, these were towns which had made war upon her; they were treated simply with a rigour usual in war. The true test of Imperial Athens is to be found in the condition of her ²⁷ loyal subjects. These, during seventy years, enjoyed exemption from tyrants, from barbarians, from the strife of factions, from enmity in any quarter. The settlement of Athenian citizens upon the lands of conquered rebels has been quoted in evidence of her rapacity. But such settlements ²⁸ were meant merely as defensive garrisons, not as outposts of aggression. If Athens is indeed so acquisitive, why has she never seized Euboea? (§§ 100—109.)

‘Though we have given such proofs of moderation, we ²⁹ are actually accused of selfishness and harshness by those partisans of Sparta who supported the dekarchies in the various cities;—who inflicted on their own countries a fate worse than that of Melos;—who enslaved themselves to a Helot³⁰, and honoured the assassins of their fellow-citizens more than their own parents;—who brought such misery to every hearth that no man had time to grieve for his neighbour. These presume to criticise the tribunals of Imperial Athens,—although they, in three months, put to death untried a greater number of persons than Athens put on trial during the whole period of her empire. A single decree might have cancelled the ‘severities’ of our rule; the bloodshed and lawlessness of theirs are irreparable (§§ 110—114).

‘Sparta has, indeed, given nominal peace³¹ and nominal ³² independence to the Greek cities. But the state of Hellas is very different from what it was in the days of Athenian ascendancy. Pirates on the sea, marauders on land render life insecure. The ‘independent’ towns, if not desolate, are subject to despots, to harmosts, or to Persia. Formerly, when the Great King invaded our territory, Athens made him tremble for his own: she even forbade him to launch a warship west of Phaselis³³. Now, he has landed troops in Laconia, taken Cythera, ravaged the Peloponnesos. The treaty made with Persia under our empire was a notable contrast to that which has just been concluded. Sparta went to war for the purpose of freeing the Greeks, and has ended by giving up a large proportion of them to Persia. The Ionians are not merely tributaries to the barbarian, they do not merely see his garrisons in their citadels: they suffer worse bodily usage than our bought slaves. Sparta is answerable for this. She has become the ally of absolutism against constitutional freedom. She has devastated Mantineia, seized the Kadmeia, besieged Olynthos and Phlius; she is in league with Amyntas of Macedon³⁴, with Dionysios of Syracuse, and with the master ³⁵ of Asia. Is it not monstrous that the city which claims to lead the Hellenes should have formed against them a perpetual alliance with the barbarians?

‘I have spoken harshly of Sparta; but not as an enemy who would denounce,—rather as a friend who would admonish. Instead of making her neighbours helots to herself, ³⁶ let her make the barbarians dependents of Greece. Instead of crushing the Aegean islands with taxation, let her seek wealth on the continent of Asia (§§ 115—132).

II. ‘To lookers-on our conduct would seem madness. While we quarrel among ourselves, the king of Persia profits by our divisions. We suffer him to blockade one Greek ³⁷ armament [that of Evagoras] in Cyprus³⁸; while another—the Ionian contingent with Teiribazos³⁹—fights his battles. If, instead of disputing about the Kyklades⁴⁰, we united in marching on Asia, these very Ionians would be with us. As it is, Artaxerxes holds such a position as no Persian king ever reached before. He is king of all Asia and master of the Asiatic Greeks (§§ 133—137).

‘Some stand in awe of his strength. Were he indeed ⁴¹ strong, that would be but another reason for attacking him before he is stronger. But he is not strong. His importance has been due to our dissensions. Even Chios⁴² has ere now made a difference by throwing itself into one or other of two trembling scales. Egypt resisted for three years⁴³, and finally discomfited, the three best generals of the great king— ⁴⁴ Abrokomas, Tithraustes and Pharnabazos. Evagoras has kept him at bay for six years. In the war around Rhodes⁴⁵ Artaxerxes allowed the whole fleet,—led by the ablest living commander, Konon, and favoured by the sympathy of Sparta's oppressed subjects—to be held in check⁴⁶ for three years by 100 Lacedaemonian triremes. It was only the formation of the league⁴⁷ of which Corinth was the centre which at last drove him to fight—and conquer. I pass over the successes, against Persia, of Derkyllidas, of Drakon, of Thimbron⁴⁸, of Agesilaos. Nor is the mettle of Persian troops better than the quality of Persian generalship. This was well seen in the case of the Greeks who accompanied Cyrus. After the loss of their leader, surrounded by difficulties of every kind, ⁴⁹ they effected their retreat as smoothly as if the Persian force which sought to harass it had been a guard of honour. Chastised when he invaded Europe—defeated on the seaboards of Asia—the Persian king has actually been mocked under the walls of his own palaces⁵⁰. (§§ 138—149.)

‘This weakness naturally results from the political and ⁵¹ social system of Persia. The country cannot have good soldiers while the mass of the people is an unruly, nerveless, slavish mob. It cannot have good generals while the men of the upper classes are insolent and abject by turns, with pampered bodies and craven spirits, grovelling before their human master, and scorning the gods. The satraps who come down to the coast of Asia do not belie their home training. Faithless and arrogant to friends, they quail and cringe before enemies. Thus they lavished gifts on the army of Agesilaos, but maltreated the Greeks who helped them against Cyprus. Konon, who led them to victory, was seized that he might be put to death⁵²: Themistokles, who defeated them, was enriched. (§§ 150—154.)

‘They merit our hatred; and they are hateful also to our ⁵³ gods, whose shrines they have desecrated. The Ionians did well when they swore that every temple burnt by the Persians should remain in ruins, a perpetual record of the impiety which had destroyed it. Nor has Athens been less constant in its enmity. The business of our Ekklesia and of our Senate is always prefaced by an anathema upon any citizen who shall make overtures to Persia. We delight most in those legends which immortalise the disasters of Asia. Nay, we find a special charm in the poetry of Homer, because it embodies our hereditary loathing of the barbarians. (§§ 155 —159.)

‘We have every motive, then, for attacking Persia. The ⁵⁴ moment is favourable. Egypt and Cyprus⁵⁵ are in revolt; Phoenicia and Syria⁵⁶ are desolate; Tyre has been stormed; the greater part of Cilicia is with us. The prince of Karia, Hekatomnos⁵⁷, has virtually, if not openly, rebelled. From Knidos to Sinope the Greeks are impatient to rise. If we delay, Rhodes, Samos and Chios may incline to the enemy; but, if we preoccupy them, Lydia, Phrygia and the up-country generally will probably come into our power. Our fathers, having allowed Persia to be beforehand with them and to get Ionia, were forced to stand a death-struggle at home. Let us take warning. Let us go in time to Asia. There is a further reason for making war now. The present generation has a claim to be indemnified for long sufferings and privations. There never was in Hellas a greater mass of individual distress; though, indeed, the troubles of individuals seem ⁵⁸ almost trivial at a time when whole countries are afflicted— as Italy⁵⁹ has been devastated and Sicily⁶⁰ enslaved by Dionysios. (§§ 160—169.)

‘Since the leading statesmen of the various cities are apathetic or timid, it is the more incumbent on men outside the political sphere to press this grave question. Before we can have firm peace, we must have common war against Asia. Before we can shake off our poverty, we must cease to prey upon each other, and must unite in gathering spoils elsewhere.

‘The Treaty of Antalkidas is no real obstacle. Its more ⁶¹ creditable articles—those guaranteeing the autonomy of the Greek cities in Europe—have been violated already. Only its shameful articles—those which surrender our allies to Persia—have been observed. These must forthwith be annulled: they were never compacts—they were dictates. The negociators of the Treaty are much to blame. One of three courses ought to have been taken by them. They ought to ⁶² have stipulated that each Greek State should hold (1) simply its own original territory; or (2) all that it had ever acquired by conquest; or (3) as much as it actually held at the time of the treaty.—As it was, the terms of peace were left to be settled arbitrarily by the Great King. As if he were parcelling out the world between himself and Zeus, he has taken one-half of it⁶³; and this stands recorded in our public temples. If, for Helen's sake, our fathers rallied against Troy, ⁶⁴ ought not an insult to Hellas to kindle a war now—a war which will move forward, not liable to repulse, but with the stately progress of a sacred embassy⁶⁵? (§§ 170—182.) ⁶⁶

‘From every point of view this is the right course. Those who look to nothing but abstract justice cannot refuse to punish our malignant foes. Those whom the sight of unmerited prosperity provokes, indeed, yet leaves prudent, may safely resent a grandeur almost superhuman which is, at the same time, divorced from merit. Those who wish to consult both justice and expediency see before them evil-doers who are rich and helpless. The cities will gladly bear the burden of the campaign; and its fame will surpass that of the war against Troy. (§§ 183—186.)

‘At the outset I had hopes of doing some justice to my subject; now, at the close, I feel how inadequately I have handled it. Try, then, to imagine for yourselves what an ⁶⁷ achievement it would be to transfer to Europe the prosperity of Asia. And let aspirants to oratorical distinction, instead of engaging in petty rivalries, vie in the treatment of this great theme. So shall they benefit themselves, and be regarded as benefactors by others.’ (§§ 187—189.)⁶⁸

The Panegyrikos is the greatest work of Isokrates. The renown which it enjoyed in antiquity is attested by Dionysios⁶⁹ and Philostratos⁷⁰; and the tradition, found in several writers⁷¹, that it employed Isokrates for ten or more years, whether literally true or not, at least shows that the speech was recognised as a masterpiece of careful work. It is, indeed, artistic in a double relation, in regard to expression and in regard to structure. ⁷² The expression has not only a finished and uniform— almost too uniform—brilliancy; it has also in some places a wonderful felicity, a deep poetical suggestiveness; as when it is said that the expedition to Asia will be less a march through an enemy's country than such a solemn and secure procession as, at the seasons of the great Festivals, goes forth from each city to the welcoming shrine of the Delphian Apollo or the Olympian Zeus (§ 182); and that Sparta, instead of making Greeks helots to herself, ought to make the barbarians dependents of Greece ( περίοικοι, § 131). It is, however, in the structure of the ⁷³ entire work that the highest power of the master is seen. The central idea is simple:—‘To give counsel about war against the barbarian and unity among Greeks’ (§ 3). But in the development of this idea a vast range of topics must be surveyed;— the historical claims of Athens and of Sparta to lead Greece; the recent history and actual state of Persia, with all the multitude of particulars which group themselves round each of these large questions. As the speech goes on, the mass of facts with which it has to deal is ever growing. Yet so thorough is the writer's grasp that each thought leads to the next without violence and without confusion. As the circle of ideas gradually widens, the central point is still kept clearly in view; and the details, even where most complex, are seen to belong to an organic whole.

Foremost among its author's works in merits of ⁷⁴ execution, the Panegyrikos stands first also in the interest of its subject-matter. Its value as a political pamphlet has been considered in a former chapter⁷⁵; and on this head, one remark only need be added here. Isokrates emphatically claims (§§ 15—17) to be not only more philosophical, but more practical, than previous speakers on the same subject; alluding, no doubt, to Gorgias and Lysias among the rest. As regards Gorgias, this claim cannot now be decided. As regards Lysias, it is questionable: at least the large fragment of his Olympiakos offers advice not less definite or less sensible than that in the Panegyrikos⁷⁶. But whatever was, at the time, the political worth of the Panegyrikos, its permanent historical worth can hardly be overrated. To the history of Greece it contributes a vivid picture of the whole Hellenic world, and of the barbarian world⁷⁷ in contact with Hellas, at a critical moment. To the history of Athens it contributes a striking sketch of the growth and influence in Greece of the specially Athenian ideas, religious, political and social⁷⁸. For the personal history of Isokrates it is of surpassing interest; it is the earliest⁷⁹ and most complete⁸⁰ expression of the ruling thought of his life; the thought which he afterwards urged upon Dionysios, upon Archidamos,—at last upon Philip.

I. 2 Philippos.

2. Philippos [Or. v.]—Philip had taken Amphipolis in 358 B. C. and Potidaea in 356. The hostilities between him and Athens, carried on intermittently from 356⁸¹, were closed in March, 346, by the socalled Peace of Philokrates. Before that event Isokrates had been composing a letter to Philip ‘On Amphipolis,’ urging peace on the ground that Amphipolis, the chief cause of the war, was not a desirable possession either for Athens or for the king of Macedon (§§ 1, 3).

This letter had not been sent when peace was concluded (§ 7). Isokrates now writes on another ⁸² and a larger subject. He sees in Philip, at length reconciled to Athens, the man who can lead the united Hellenes against Persia. Ever since the failure of the Panegyrikos to bring about such an expedition under the joint leadership of Athens and Sparta, he had been looking for an individual powerful enough to execute his favourite plan (§§ 84, 128, 129). He had already applied to Dionysios I.— probably about 368 B. C. ( Ep. I. § 8)—and in 356 to Archidamos III. ( Ep. IX. § 16). This oration was addressed to Philip soon after the peace (§§ 8, 56), but before the conclusion of the Sacred War (§§ 54, ⁸³ 74); that is, between March and July⁸⁴, 346 B. C.

‘Do not be surprised, Philip, if before entering upon the ⁸⁵ immediate subject of this address I say a few words upon another. The war between Athens and you, which arose out of your acquisition of Amphipolis, has just been closed by a Peace (§ 7). Before this Peace was concluded, I was preparing to write to you in reference to Amphipolis. It was my purpose to show that it was not your interest to hold that town, since, if you surrendered it to Athens, you would still be virtual master of it, and enjoy our goodwill besides; nor yet the interest of Athens to receive it from you, since she would, in return, have been obliged to consult your designs in that quarter—paying you the same kind of homage which the elder Amadokos⁸⁶ formerly received for protecting our colonists in the Chersonese. This argument for peace has become unnecessary; but the desire that the Peace itself should be permanent leads me to offer you counsel on another subject. (§§ 1—9.) This subject is a noble one—too great, perhaps, for my failing powers. I am going to urge you to place yourself at the head of a united Hellas, and to make ⁸⁷ war upon the barbarian. (§§ 10—16.) Friends at first dissuaded me from the presumptuous design of offering advice to the statesman who has brought Thessaly to acquiesce in obeying, instead of ruling, Macedonia—to the general who has subdued the Magnetes, the Perrhaebi, the Paeonians, all Illyria save the seaboard of the Adriatic; and who has given to Thrace what masters he pleased. But when my dissuaders heard what I had to say, their opposition was changed into encouragement. (§§ 17—23.) Advice on great and pressing questions is more effective when it is given orally. Mine will not have that advantage; nor is it set off with rhetorical ornament. It is a plain statement of facts; but these facts are so supremely important to you that I hope for your attention. (§§ 24—29.)

‘I say, then, that you ought, as their common friend, to ⁸⁸ bring into amity the four great cities of Hellas—Argos, Sparta, Thebes, Athens.

‘This obligation is laid upon you by your descent. Argos ⁸⁹ was the native city of your ancestors⁹⁰. Thebes honours above other deities Herakles, the founder of your line. Sparta has long been ruled by the Herakleidae: and Athens was their friend at need. No quarrel should ever have divided these cities from you or from each other. There have been faults on all parts. But now you have a glorious opportunity of benefiting them and yourself too,—when harassed by war, each of them resembles rather a single combatant, following a blind, vindictive impulse, than a State with a government and a policy. (§§ 30—38.)

‘The attempt which I propose to you can be shown to be feasible:—and first, on general grounds. The difficulty which would have been presented by the great predominance of any one State, as of Athens and Sparta, has vanished; changes of fortune have placed all the cities of Greece upon one level. Your position, on the other hand, is supreme. Experience ⁹¹ proves that no enmities are too bitter to be overcome. Greece was reconciled to Xerxes; Athens has been the ally successively of Sparta and of Thebes. The interest of the moment is, in fact, the sovereign controller of political combinations. (§§ 39—45.)

‘The practicability of the attempt may be shown, further, on particular grounds. It is favoured by the respective conditions of the several States concerned.

‘Sparta wishes for peace, because, deprived of her empire ⁹² Leuktra, she is now harassed by her neighbours and by her own serfs—distrusted and disliked throughout Hellas—and in daily dread of the Thebans making up their quarrel with the Phocians and turning upon her.

‘Argos desires peace, because her distress resembles, but ⁹³ exceeds, that of Sparta. She, too, is constantly harassed by her neighbours—with this difference, that they are stronger than herself. And in the intervals of war she is a prey to fierce democratic risings.

‘Thebes wishes for peace, because, through abusing the ⁹⁴ results of her great victory, she is now worse off than if it had been a defeat. No sooner had she won Leuktra than she began to interfere in the Peloponnese; enslaved Thessaly; threatened Megara; encroached upon Athens; ravaged Euboea; sent a fleet to Byzantium. Lastly she has made war upon Phokis,—a war which she thought to finish rapidly and to pay for out of the treasures of Delphi; but which, in the event, has brought her to the brink of despair.

‘Athens is no longer yearning for peace; she has had the ⁹⁵ good sense to embrace it already. (§§ 46—56.)

‘The possibility of reconciling Hellas may be seen from ⁹⁶ these considerations. The ease, for you, of the attempt may be judged from the cases of other men, who, though less favoured by circumstances, have changed the destinies of whole countries. Alkibiades, exiled from Athens and resolved to force his way back, effected it by first throwing all Greece into a tumult. Konon, disgraced through no fault of his own, not only retrieved the disgrace by his own unaided energy, but lived to restore the glory of Athens. Dionysios, an ordinary Syracusan, made himself master of Sicily. The elder Cyrus, whom, in his infancy, his mother left to perish at the roadside, became sovereign of Asia. Shall not the achievements of these men be equalled by one who is, from the outset the descendant of Herakles, the king of Macedonia, the lord of such great multitudes? (§§ 57—67.)

‘The enterprise is one which may well rouse your ambition. What nobler position can be imagined than that of president of Greece—acknowledged arbiter of her destinies? It is also an enterprise which would silence certain calumnies now current against you. Some ill-disposed persons pretend ⁹⁷ that your avowed purpose of helping the Messenians merely veils a scheme for subjugating the Peloponnesos, as a step to subjugating all Greece. These slanders are heard gladly by three classes of people—by those who, like the slanderers, secretly desirc such an event; by those who, themselves indifferent to the public safety, are grateful to those who affect to care for it;—and by men who, admiring you, fancy that imputations such as these are fitted to raise your importance in the eyes of Greece;—not seeing that a project, which, if imputed to the king of Persia, would increase his reputation for courage, would be infamy for a Greek—for a Heraklid. Having a perfectly good conscience, you perhaps think it beneath you to notice such calumniators. Still you ought not to underrate the importance of being cordially trusted by all Greece,—trusted as your own friends trust you, or as Sparta trusts her Heraklid kings. (§§ 68—80.)

‘The counsel which I offer to you—as I offered it to Dionysios after he became master of Syracuse⁹⁸—does not come from a General, from a public speaker, from a person of influence in any way—but merely from one who lays claim to common sense and to education. (§§ 81, 82.)

‘Your duty towards Greece has been spoken of; it ⁹⁹ remains to speak of the expedition against Asia. The Panegyrikos has left me little that is new to say upon this topic —but I will attempt to trace its outlines with additional clearness.

‘The first condition of a successful attack upon Persia is ¹⁰⁰ this—that you should have all the Greeks either as helpers or at least as favouring spectators. It was here that Agesilaos failed. He tried to do two things at once—to make war ¹⁰¹ upon the Great King, and to restore his friends¹⁰² to power in their respective cities. The feuds engendered by the latter purpose defeated the former. (§§ 83—88.)

‘All would admit that the sympathy, active or passive, of Hellas is a primary requisite. But most people, if they wished to encourage you by example, would quote wars in which Greece triumphed over Asia. I prefer to cite an expedition in which we were considered to have been worsted ¹⁰³ —that which was led by the younger Cyrus and Klearchos. The Greeks, victorious at Kynaxa, missed the rewards of victory by the death of Cyrus. Yet, though they were left forlorn and in danger by his loss, the Great King did not dare to attack them openly. He resorted to treachery in order to seize their leaders.—The example has been used by me before¹⁰⁴; but fact, not literary novelty, is important here.

‘Next, consider how far more favourable circumstances ¹⁰⁵ will be for you than they were for Cyrus. First, as regards facility of raising troops. The Asiatic Greeks looked coldly on his expedition, thinking that its success would probably aggravate the Spartan tyranny under which they groaned:— they will favour your expedition; and the great multitudes of homeless exiles and wanderers, ready to serve as mercenaries, will make it easy to raise a large army. Secondly, as regards the character of the former, and the actual, king of Persia. The father¹⁰⁶ of the present king proved too strong both for ¹⁰⁷ Athens and for Sparta; the reigning king¹⁰⁸ is unable even to hold the towns given up to him by the treaty of Antalkidas. Thirdly, as regards the position of Persia. Then, as now, ¹⁰⁹ Egypt was in revolt¹¹⁰; but then Egypt dreaded an attack of the Great King; now, the attack has been made—and has failed. Cyprus, Phoenicia, Cilicia, were then¹¹¹ arsenals of the Persian navy: now, Cyprus and Cilicia have revolted, Phoenicia is desolate. Idrieus¹¹², the wealthiest prince in Asia Minor, is bitter against Persia. Not he alone, but some of the satraps also will come over to you if you make heard throughout ¹¹³ Asia that word— Liberty—which in Hellas has been the spell before which our empire, and the Spartan empire, vanished. (§§ 89—104.)

‘If I went on to offer you advice as to the conduct of the war, I might be reproached with want of military experience. But as to the object of the war, and as regards the general ¹¹⁴ spirit of my counsels, I feel sure that the voices of your ancestors, if they could be heard, would be with me. The voice of your father¹¹⁵—for he was ever friendly to the cities which I urge you to befriend. The voice of the founder¹¹⁶ of the Macedonian kingdom—for, while establishing his own power securely, he abstained from every attempt to impose it upon Greece; and thus, alone of all Greeks, came safely through the perils of monarchy. The voice of Herakles, author of your line—for, after composing a distracted Hellas, he made war upon Troy—after conquering it, he slew all the kings of barbarian tribes¹¹⁷ on the shore of either continent,— and then set up the pillars which bear his name as memorials of his victory over the barbarians, and as boundaries of the Hellenic territory. If you cannot rival him in all things, you can emulate the spirit of his dealing with Greece. You have only to look to the examples in your own family to learn with whom, and against whom, an Heraklid should fight. (§§ 105—115.)—You may think that I am saying too much on ‘gentleness’ and ‘kindliness.’ Yet are not the kindly and gentle gods called ‘Olympian,’ and honoured with shrines and temples, while expiatory rites express our horror of an omnipotence which is cruel? (§§ 116—118.)

‘The popularity which a Persian war would command in Greece may be estimated from the case of Jason of Pherae. ¹¹⁸ He rose to greatness through his profession—never fulfilled —of an intention to attack Persia¹¹⁹. What will your reputation be, if you put such a scheme into act?

‘Three different degrees of success—the lowest of which is glorious—are possible. You may conquer the Persian empire. ¹²⁰ Or you may detach from it the portion of Asia Minor west of a line drawn from Cilicia to Sinôpê, and found, in this, new cities for the homeless Greeks who now are roving mercenaries. Or, at the worst, you cannot fail to free from Persia the existing Greek cities of Asia. We should be mad if, instead of wasting our strength on quarrels at home, we did not turn it upon our certain prey, the effeminate Asiatics. (§§ 119—127.)

‘It may be made a reproach to me that I call upon you, and not upon my own city, to lead the enterprise. I have ¹²¹ already appealed to Athens; but she gives less heed to me than to the brawlers of the platform. The greater credit is mine for constancy in asserting my principle, and for seeking everywhere the agents who seem most capable of putting it into practice. (§§ 128—131.)

‘Shame should forbid us to see, unmoved, Asia more prosperous than Europe,—the descendants of Cyrus more prosperous than the descendants of Herakles. It is not power or wealth—you have more than enough of both already—it is glory that ought to be your motive. Hear, in this counsel of mine—would that it were more complete!—the suggestion of your forefathers,—of the heroes,—of the present opportunity. Do not believe that the despotism built up by a ¹²² rude barbarian can defy a Greek champion of freedom. If, in a single city, the man who combines statesmanship and generalship is honoured, what honour will be yours, when the field of your statesmanship is Hellas,—of your strategy, Asia? No successor will surpass your fame; your have already outdone all your predecessors.

‘Beneficence, not brilliancy, is the ultimate test of ¹²³ exploits, not only for the olden time, but in our own. Tantalos, Pelops, Eurystheus yield in popular repute to Herakles, Theseus and the captors of Troy. Athens took her highest glory, not from her empire or her wealth, but from Marathon and Salamis: Sparta owed more renown to the defeat at Thermopylae than to any of her victories. (§§ 132—148.)

‘If my words seem, in themselves, weak and poor, set it ¹²⁴ down to old age; but receive the thoughts which they have strived to utter as a message from the gods. The gods do not benefit men directly, but through human agents. They have prompted me to speak for them—they have chosen you to act. Your triumphs hitherto have been given to prepare you for this crowning effort. It is no disparagement, but the best praise, to say that what you have already done falls short of what you are worthy to do. (§§ 149—153.)

‘This, then, is the sum:—“Be the benefactor of Greece; ¹²⁵ the king (not the despot) of Macedonia; the governor, in a free Hellenic spirit, of Asia.”’ (§§ 154, 155.)

Dionysios extols the Philippos as an appeal to ¹²⁶ a powerful man to use his power for the noblest ends¹²⁷. That generous earnestness which the Discourse certainly breathes is not for us, however, its most striking feature¹²⁸. The leading characteristic of the whole is emphatic recognition of Philip as the first of Hellenes and the natural champion of Hellas¹²⁹. It is an accident that his subjects are aliens; the Heraklid spirit is still as true in him as it was in the Argive founder of his dynasty. This was the sincere belief of Isokrates. For Demosthenes, Philip was no Hellene who chanced to rule barbarians; he was in his own person the representative barbarian¹³⁰—the head and front of the antihellenic interest.

II. On the internal affairs of Greece.

II. 1. Plataikos.

1. Plataikos [Or. XIV.]—The revolution of 379 B. C. at Thebes had been a blow to Spartan influence throughout Hellas, and especially in Boeotia. Agesilaos in 378 and 377, Kleombrotos in 378 and 376, ¹³¹ had invaded Boeotia without gaining any advantage. By the end of 376 the oligarchies supported by Sparta had been abolished in all the Boeotian towns except Orchomenos¹³²; and the Boeotian Confederacy, with Thebes at its head, had been reconstituted.

After its destruction in 427 Plataea had been ¹³³ non-existent till 386, when it was rebuilt by Sparta as a stronghold against Thebes. Cut off from Spartan support, Plataea had been brought, in 377 or 376, into the revived Boeotian Confederacy; but, like Thespiae and Tanagra (§ 9), had joined it unwillingly. The relief felt by most other towns at riddance from the philo-Spartan oligarchies was more than balanced, in the case of Thespiae, Tanagra and Plataea, by hatred of Thebes. Diodoros¹³⁴ states that the Plataeans secretly offered their town to Athens. At any rate the alarm felt at Plataea was so great that it was only on the days of public assemblies at Thebes that the men ventured to go into the fields, leaving their wives and children within the walls¹³⁵. On one of these days a Theban force under the ¹³⁶ Boeotarch Neokles surprised Plataea, in the latter half of 373 B. C.¹³⁷. The town was destroyed and the territory was again annexed to Thebes. The inhabitants, with such property as they could carry, sought refuge, like their ancestors in 427, at Athens. Their case was discussed there, not merely in the ekklesia, but in the congress of the allies ( συνέδριον § 21); Kallistratos being the foremost advocate of Plataea, as Epameinondas of Thebes¹³⁸. It was not till 338, after Chaeroneia, that Plataea was restored; this time through the enmity of Philip, as formerly through the enmity of Sparta, towards Thebes¹³⁹.

The speech of Isokrates is supposed to be spoken by a Plataean before the ekklesia; and there is nothing in the matter or form of the speech itself to make it improbable that it was actually so delivered¹⁴⁰. The date is 373 B. C.¹⁴¹

‘We know, Athenians, that it is your custom to help the ¹⁴² wronged and to remember those who have done you good. We have come, therefore, to beg that you will not allow ¹⁴³ Plataea to be devastated, in time of peace¹⁴⁴, by Thebes. No people have ever been more injured than we are; no people are more closely bound to you. We have to contend, not only against the Thebans, but against those Athenian advocates whose aid they have procured with our property. It will be necessary for us, then, to speak at some length. To describe our wrongs adequately would be difficult; enough that you know our town to have been razed and our lands seized. We will try to expose the arguments by which the Thebans hope to mislead you (§§ 1—7).

‘It is sometimes their pretence that they have thus dealt ¹⁴⁵ with us because we refused to be enrolled as dependents of Thebes. Judge if this is a sufficient warranty for such usage, or if it became Plataea to accept upon compulsion such a dependence. Thespiae¹⁴⁶ and Tanagra also refused it; but they were not treated as Plataea has been treated; they were not destroyed, but simply compelled to obey. It is difficult to see what is the claim of Thebes to such obedience. Historically speaking, Orchomenos is the head of Boeotia. Or if the peace of Antalkidas is to be recognised, then all cities, great or small, are independent (§§ 8—10).

‘Perhaps, however, the Thebans will take a different ¹⁴⁷ ground. They may say that we were leagued with Sparta against them, and that they have acted in the interest of their entire Confederacy. In any case the treaty ought to have protected us. But, moreover, we were the allies of Sparta perforce. A harmost and a garrison being in our town, while our army was at Thespiae, we had no choice. Many other Greek States are in the same plight. By allowing us to be punished, you will alienate them (§§ 11—16).

‘Remember that the war which you suddenly undertook, ¹⁴⁸ with Thebes, against Sparta, was not for liberty—you and your allies had liberty already—but for the independence of those whose rights, conferred by the Peace of Antalkidas, were being violated. Will you allow cities which you wished to vindicate from slavery to Sparta to be destroyed by Thebes? The Thebans complain of the Lacedaemonian seizure of the Kadmeia; but they themselves raze the walls of their neighbours. They were jealous of Oropos¹⁴⁹ having voluntarily given itself to Athens; yet they themselves usurp territory by force (§§ 17—20).

‘They pretend that they have acted in the common ¹⁵⁰ interest of their allies. But, before the act, Athens ought to have been consulted. While the war lasted, Thebes spoke much of the common cause; now that she is secured by peace, she thinks only of her own advantage (§§ 21—25).

‘They cannot plead that there is danger lest, if we get ¹⁵¹ back our territory, we should go over to Lacedaemon. Plataea has been twice besieged and twice taken¹⁵² on account of its loyalty to Athens. The Thebans, on the other hand, have been repeatedly false to you. Having caused the Corinthian war, and having been brought safely through it by you, on the conclusion of peace they forsook your alliance for that of Sparta; while Chios, Mytilene and Byzantium remained true. They were punished by the Spartan seizure of the Kadmeia,—when they found a refuge at Athens. But no sooner had they been restored to their city, than they made new overtures to Sparta, which were frustrated only by the severity of her terms. Yet these Thebans taunt others with ‘Laconism,’—they, who have been the slaves of Spartan ambition. Did they ever fail to take part in an invasion of Attica? Were they not your worst foes in the war of Dekeleia? Did they not, finally, give their solitary vote¹⁵³ for the enslavement of your population and the conversion of your country into sheep-pastures like those of Krisa? (§§ 26—32).

‘It may be said that Boeotia is the bulwark of Attica; ¹⁵⁴ and that, if you break off your friendship with the Thebans, they will join Sparta. They will not be so mad. It would be the ruin of the democratic party at Thebes,—watched, as it is, at once by the oligarchical exiles and by the malcontents in the Boeotian towns. Treat them as you did when they blustered about your acquisition of Oropos. When you excluded them from the peace¹⁵⁵, they became humble; and they will become so now, if treated with like firmness (§§ 33—38).

‘Even supposing, however, that they were likely to act ¹⁵⁶ differently, it does not become Athens to regard their friendship more than the treaty to which she has sworn. Experience shows, moreover, the value in war of being able to appeal to a just cause. It was thus that Sparta roused Hellas against Athens; it was thus that Athens reft the empire from Sparta. Show your readiness to espouse the cause of right, and, in any future war, all Hellas will be with you. If, on the contrary, you allow Thebes to break her oaths, who, hereafter, will help you to make Sparta keep hers? Would it not be monstrous if you upheld the constant allies of Sparta against those who, in a single instance, were forced to side with her? (§§ 39—45).

‘Who could be found more wretched than we are? Our ¹⁵⁷ city, our land, our fortunes have been taken from us in a single day. With whom shall we take refuge? If with fellow-sufferers, we shall share their troubles; if with happier men, we shall be reminded of our own. Parents comfortless in their old age—children threatened with slavery on account of some paltry debt¹⁵⁸—wives separated from husbands, daughters from mothers—are the miseries which we mourn daily. Have care for us; we are near to you in friendship,—many of us, in blood; for, through the right of intermarriage given to us, many of us are sons of Athenian mothers. Athens helped Adrastos to get from the Thebans burial for his dead; let her help us to save those who yet live (§§ 46—55).

‘We ask you to give us back our land and town. Alone ¹⁵⁹ of all the Greeks, you owe us this charity. It is said that when, in the Persian Wars, your fathers were driven from their homes, our fathers, alone of all the dwellers outside the Peloponnesos, shared their perils. At least, if you do not care for our lives, defend our land—in which are the trophies of the victory won by Hellas from all Asia. Think of the ¹⁶⁰ gods and heroes who hold the place; think of your fathers, and of the feeling which would be theirs, if they could know that their graves were unvisited by offerings because the traitors who fought against them had swept their comrades from the soil. You used to make it the greatest reproach against the Spartans that Plataea had been destroyed to please Thebes; do not let that reproach fall upon you. Much must be left unsaid. But remember your oaths and the treaty; remember our friendship and their enmity; and give righteous judgment in our cause’ (§§ 56—63).

The Plataikos shows great power of a certain ¹⁶¹ kind: it is a glowing denunciation of a cruelty; and the peroration especially has true and noble pathos (§§ 56—62). But if the reasoning is examined it will appear that the pleas urged are liable to some abatement; and that, on grounds of general policy, there was something to be said for the Thebans. When the Plataean speaker appeals to the peace of Antalkidas¹⁶², he forgets that Plataea could derive no right from that treaty, since Plataea did not exist when the treaty was made¹⁶³. And, though the character of the town since 386 as a Spartan outpost may have been imposed upon it by force¹⁶⁴, it was still natural that that character should make Plataea obnoxious to the head of an anti-Spartan Confederacy. Thebes might urge with plausibility that the measures taken against Plataea, however severe, were necessary in the interest of the allies¹⁶⁵. This view—as we learn from the speech itself—was taken by several Athenian debaters¹⁶⁶; and it was the view which prevailed, ¹⁶⁷ for no attempt was at this time made to restore Plataea.

II. 2. On the Peace.

2. On the Peace [Or. VIII.]. Like the Areopagitikos, this political pamphlet has the form of a deliberative speech, purporting to be spoken in the ekklesia (§§ 1, 15). But the fiction is not so well kept up as in the case of the Areopagitikos, which concludes with an appeal to the assembly. Here the conclusion is more suitable to an essay than to a speech in debate, as if the writer had forgotten the supposition with which he set out (§ 145). In 357 B.C. Chios, Kos, Rhodes and Byzantium revolted from Athens. The Social War was concluded about midsummer, 355, by a treaty which declared the revolted states to be independent, and no longer members of the Athenian Confederacy. The Speech On the Peace¹⁶⁸ was probably written while negotiations for peace were pending, i.e. in the first half of 355 B. C.¹⁶⁹. The ambassadors whose ‘offers’ are spoken of in § 25 must be envoys sent by the allies¹⁷⁰. But the first overtures of peace had come from Athens, under pressure of Persian threats; and it is rather singular that no allusion to Persian hostility occurs in the speech¹⁷¹.

‘It is the custom of everyone who addresses this assembly ¹⁷² to premise that the subject on which he is about to speak is the greatest and the gravest that could be discussed. In this instance, if in any, such a preface would be fitting. We are here to consider the question of peace or war.

‘You are wont to drive from the platform all speakers but those whose advice meets your wishes; for, though in private life you hate flattery, you tolerate it in the counsels of the State. On the present occasion the advocates of war are ¹⁷³ naturally your favourites. They promise you the recovery of wealth and power. The supporters of peace have no such inducements to offer; they can only represent that it is best to remain quiet and not to seek dishonest gains. They preach that most difficult of virtues,—contentment. I fear for their success; for I observe that some are as eager for war as if it had been revealed to them by a god that we must conquer. If, however, the future is not indeed so certain, you ought not only to hear both sides, but to hear with especial attention that side to which your first inclinations do not lean.

‘The older among you ought to recollect, the younger must have heard, that advocates of war have ere now brought us into trouble,—but advocates of peace, never. Yet we are ¹⁷⁴ always ready to plunge into war in anyone's quarrel, even when we cannot promote our own advantage. The reason is that, whereas in our private affairs we pick our advisers carefully, in public concerns we listen to drunkards rather than to sober men, to folly rather than to prudence.

‘It is up-hill work to oppose your prejudices; we have a democracy, but freedom of speech is enjoyed only by the most foolish members of this Assembly and by the comic poets in the theatre. As, however, I am not here to court your votes, I shall say what I think; first, about the special business which the presidents have brought before us; then, about the affairs of Athens generally (§§ 1—15).

‘I say, then, that we ought to make peace, not only with ¹⁷⁵ Chios and Rhodes, and Byzantium but with all the world;— that we ought to adopt, not any special treaty drawn up for this occasion, but that broad treaty, arranged between Sparta and Persia, which guaranteed the independence of every Hellenic city.

‘It will be asked why, if Thebes is to keep Plataea and Thespiae, Athens should needlessly resign what she holds. I hope to show on general grounds that all unjust acquisition is impolitic; but I will first endeavour to show what would be the results of this particular peace.

‘Security—prosperity—the esteem of Greece:—should ¹⁷⁶ we be satisfied if we obtained these things? What more we can desire, I know not. Well, all these things have been taken from us by the war, and will be restored by the peace. The war has given us peril—poverty—unpopularity. If we renounced it, we could obtain by diplomacy all that we are vainly fighting for. Philip¹⁷⁷ would not contest Amphipolis with us;—Kersobleptes¹⁷⁸ would not contest the Chersonese,— if they were once convinced that we were safe neighbours and that our policy was not aggressive. They would even resign to us something of their own, in order to have us as guarantors of their own power. We could get a slice of Thrace large enough for ourselves and for some of the distressed Greeks too. Athenodoros¹⁷⁹, a private man, and Kallistratos¹⁸⁰, an exile, have planted towns there; much more could we. And such enterprises would become our rank in Hellas better than wars waged by mercenary troops (§§ 16—24).

‘This is enough to show that the offer of the envoys is advantageous. But I wish you to go away, not merely ¹⁸¹ persuaded to accept this peace, but convinced that, universally, it is better to be quiet than to meddle. We fancy that nothing can go well with us unless we hold the sea with a large fleet and force the other cities to pay rates to us and to send deputies to Athens. It would not be difficult to show that honesty is the best national pohcy; and that a State which is tempted to become aggressive is like an animal which a bait draws into a trap. But, after proving this in theory, it is less easy to enforce it in practice. Athens has long been corrupted by a class of bribed impostors who presume to bid us imitate our ancestors. What ancestors? Those who won Marathon, or those who brought on the disaster in Sicily? If the former, then ¹⁸² the contrast between their policy and that recommended to us is such as nothing but a sense of our desperate state could give me the courage to bring before you. Those ancestors fought for the Greeks against Asia. We bring Asiatic mercenaries against Greece. They exposed their lives for the safety of Hellas. We will not risk ours even to gratify our greed. Out of our penury, we pay mercenaries whose crimes we screen, but who would join a higher bidder against us. Not only when Athens was popular, but when she was most hated, her citizens fought her battles themselves, although the treasury was overflowing. Then, the aliens and slaves rowed the triremes and the citizens fought. Now, ¹⁸³ Athens is like Persia—an employer of hireling troops; and, in her fleet, the needy citizens are forced to row, while foreigners carry arms. When we make a descent on a hostile coast, the alien comes ashore with shield and spear,—the citizen—with a cushion (§§ 25—48).

‘Our prospects abroad, however, would not be hopeless if ¹⁸⁴ it was well with our domestic affairs. But these are in a state which calls for indignation. We, who are so proud of ¹⁸⁵ being children of the soil, have lavished our franchise on aliens with as little care for the purity of our blood as if we were Triballi or Leukani. The penalty for bribing is death; and yet the largest bribers of the ekklesia become our generals. ¹⁸⁶ We cherish the Constitution as the very life of the State; yet we reproach the advocates of peace with desiring an oligarchy, and court war, though by war the democracy has twice been overthrown. We are practised in debate and administration; yet we do not know our own minds for a day. We consider ourselves the most intelligent of the Greeks—and listen to the most contemptible advisers, making the worst citizens guardians of the city. Our ancestors judged that the ablest counsellors made the best generals. Our ¹⁸⁷ counsellors are not trusted to lead; we send out as generals, with plenary powers, our most incapable men (§§ 49—56).

‘Some one to whom these remarks apply may be stung into asking—‘How is it that, if our policy is so bad, we are still on a level with any city in Greece?’ ‘Because,’ I ¹⁸⁸ answer, ‘our competitors are as weak as ourselves. We save the Thebans, and they save us. It would be worth the while of either to provide pay for the ekklesiasts of the other. The oftener either holds assemblies, the better for its rival.’ If some more thoughtful questioner, admitting that the evils exist, were to ask me what remedy I propose, I should be more at a loss for an answer; not for a satisfactory answer, but for one which would find favour with you (§§ 57—62).

‘True national prosperity depends on a religious respect ¹⁸⁹ for the rights of one's neighbours. How is the character which respects those rights most readily to be produced among us? By the surrender of our maritime Empire. Bear with me if I tell you that that empire is unjust, untenable, unprofitable. Unjust, because one city cannot claim to rule Hellas—a principle which we ourselves proclaimed in the case of Sparta; untenable, because wealth failed to hold it, and we are poor; unprofitable for both these reasons, and for others of which I will speak, if you will hear me as the admonisher, not denouncer, of Athens (§§ 63—73).

‘Let us compare the period before, and the period after, ¹⁹⁰ the city's acquisition of maritime empire. The difference between them is the difference between Aristeides, Themistokles, Miltiades on the one hand, and Hyperbolos, Kleophon, the demagogues of to-day, on the other. Athens had formerly commanded the admiration and the confidence of the Greeks for whom she had fought. Empire demoralised and abased her; her citizens dared not go outside their walls to meet the enemy; her fleet, manned by all the scoundrels in Greece, was its scourge; nothing but the moderation of Sparta saved her from political annihilation. The men of Imperial ¹⁹¹ Athens had reduced the art of unpopularity to a science. In the theatre, at the Dionysia, they used to display the balance of the money levied on their allies,—bringing in, at the same time, the children of those who had fallen in the war; thus reminding the allies of the extortion practised upon them, and the other Greeks present of the misery wrought by means of this plunder. It was the men of the empire who formed designs against Sicily, Italy, Carthage, at a moment when enemies held the suburbs¹⁹² of Athens. Under their ¹⁹³ rule more disasters happened than in all the earlier or later history of the city—disasters in Egypt¹⁹⁴, at Cyprus¹⁹⁵, at Daton¹⁹⁶, in Sicily, in the Hellespont; until the public tombs were filled with citizens and the public registers with aliens. The happiest people is that by whom the old families are cherished; the best statesmen are those who deserve, but do not grasp, power. Such was the Athens, such were the Athenians of the time of the Persian Wars; and therefore they did not lead the lives of pirates. Their successors, instead of ruling for the good of their subjects, wished to tyrannise for their own; and they met with the fate of tyrants. No person not reckless alike of the past and of the future could wish to imitate them. The earlier and the later experiences of Athens prove, in fact, two things; that Attica produces good men, and that empire spoils them (§§ 74—94).

‘The effect of naval supremacy may be further seen in ¹⁹⁷ the case of Sparta. Her polity, unaltered and unshaken through seven centuries¹⁹⁸, was all but overthrown when she became imperial. Her sins against Greece were thus far worse than ours, that faction and bloodshed, entailing perpetual feuds, were rife in her subject cities. She was ¹⁹⁹ ungrateful, also, to all her benefactors in turn—to Thebes, to Chios, to Persia. She established despots in Italy and Sicily; and in the Peloponnesos outraged Elis, Corinth, Mantineia, Phlius, Argos. In fact she never ceased doing violence until she had prepared for herself the calamity of ²⁰⁰ Leuktra,—which was not the beginning of her misfortunes but the result of her folly. She was ruined by the arrogance of Empire—Empire, which allures and betrays like a false mistress. Ought not the traitress to be detested who has brought both Athens and Sparta to misery? It is no marvel that, nevertheless, all woo Empire. No men know their own real ²⁰¹ interests. We, by meddling, prepared the Spartan ascendancy, and they, by insolence, brought about a reaction in our favour. The demagogues led up to the Thirty Tyrants, and these, in turn, made all of us ultra-democrats. The case is the same in regard to monarchy. Absolute power is universally coveted, though all know that an absolute ruler has an anxious life and usually a violent death. You admit this, and are yet unwilling to apply the same reasoning to the case of an Imperial State. You even allow that the despotism of Thebes wrongs Boeotia; but will not admit that your own government injures your allies. If, then, you listen to me, you will consider through what causes Athens and Sparta rose to rule Hellas, and then came into peril of enslavement; through what causes the Thessalians have lost their hereditary wealth, while the Megarians, placed among enemies and originally ²⁰² poor, have become the richest of the Greeks. It is moderation that has brought the blessing, intemperance that has brought the curse,—a curse which sometimes tarries, which an individual sometimes eludes by death, but from which there is no escape for the immortality of a State (§§ 95—120).

‘Remembering this, you must not be led by demagogues ²⁰³ who, in their words and in their deeds, resemble those who brought Athens to ruin. It was not such men as these who made, and kept, the city great; or who brought back from exile the victims of the Peisistratidae or of the Thirty. While Athens acquires a name for rapacity throughout Greece, these men enrich themselves at our cost. Perikles, one of ²⁰⁴ the earliest demagogues²⁰⁵, at least did not fill his own purse, though he left 8,000 talents in the akropolis. Now, we hear nothing but the lamentations of those who are absolutely starving, or of those who, though not destitute, are crushed by public imposts. Unprincipled speakers and demagogues are our worst enemies. They do not merely compromise our national name; it is their interest that each one of us should be in actual want, and so at their mercy. They delight, therefore, in impeachments, indictments, and all that machinery of calumny by which we can be brought to the beggary which makes their wealth (§§ 121—131).

‘To sum up—the conditions of restoring Athens to ²⁰⁶ prosperity are three:—that we should cease to assume that every informer is a true democrat, and every honourable man an oligarch;—that we should treat allies as friends, not as slaves;—that we should value above all things the esteem of Greece.

‘If you do this—and if, at the same time, you show yourselves warlike in preparation, but peaceful in the justice. of your policy—Greece will be tranquillised, seeing your power ready to step in to the support of the injured. In any event, however, Athens will gain reputation. If wars cease, the credit will be ours. If they do not, we shall be the recognised champions of the weak. The infirmities of age do not suffer me to express all that I foresee as in store for us. But, in one word, let us be the deliverers, not the despoilers of Greece.

‘The position among the Hellenes at which Athens ought to aim is like that which the kings of Sparta held among the Lacedaemonians. These kings are not despots, but leaders ²⁰⁷ who command a devoted loyalty; the Spartan who shrank from dying for them would be more disgraced than if he cast away his shield.

‘Two things warn me to cease—the length of this speech, and the number of my years. Let younger men strive, by speaking and writing, to give an honest direction to the politics of Greece. They may remember that, when Greece prospers, her most thoughtful men prosper too’ (§§ 132—145).

The Speech On the Peace excels in one respect ²⁰⁸ almost all the other compositions of Isokrates. The elaborate evenness of his usual style is here broken by a sincere indignation; the disasters, moral and material, brought on Athens by the war rouse him to direct and vigorous utterance. Chares and Aristophon, the leaders of the War Party, are the men at whom his attack is specially levelled²⁰⁹. It is this definite significance which gives their sting to his invectives against the corrupt generals²¹⁰ and the corrupt statesmen²¹¹.

Dionysios admires the Speech as an exhortation to a just and upright policy²¹²; Isokrates himself quotes it in the Antidosis²¹³ as an example of practical advice on contemporary affairs. The tenor of the advice is this:—Let Athens resign empire ( ἀρχή), and be content with hegemony,—the headship of a Confederacy of which all the members shall be free —such a Confederacy as she presided over just after the Persian Wars. Abstinence from aggression, and the manifestation of a just temper, of a resolution to protect the weak against the strong, will suffice to place and to keep Athens at the head of such a league. Isokrates fails to remark that the Athenian hegemony of 478, and the revived hegemony of 378, had passed into empire by the same inevitable process. He has an ideal of a free confederacy which experience has not taught him to be impossible; and for the attainment of this ideal he believes nothing to be needful but that Athens should become and appear virtuous. In the Areopagitikos he propounds a simple return to old constitutional forms as the remedy for the internal disorders of Athens; in the speech he maintains that her ²¹⁴ foreign policy may be amended and made triumphant by a return to the spirit of Aristeides²¹⁵. The counsel is in itself good and noble, but is thoroughly unpractical; it estimates in a manner infinitely too flattering what Athens was capable of doing and what Hellas was ready to accept.

II. 3. Archidamos

Archidamos [Or. VI.]. At the beginning of 366 B. C. Sparta, Athens, Corinth and the smaller states dependent on Corinth, as Epidauros and Phlius, were allied, and were at war with Thebes and her allies, of whom the chief was Argos. But in that year the treacherous attempt of Athens to seize Corinth gave the Corinthians a sense of insecurity and a desire for peace. They²¹⁶ accordingly sent envoys to Thebes, asking on what terms peace would be granted to the allies. The Thebans prescribed, as one condition of peace, the recognition of the independence of Messene, the new state founded by Epameinondas in 370²¹⁷. A congress met at Sparta. The Spartans refused to recognise the independence of Messene; and accordingly remained, with Athens, at war against Thebes. The Corinthians, Epidaurians, Phliasians, and probably some other small states²¹⁸, accepted the condition, and made peace on their own account, B.C. 366: see § 91.

The Archidamos is in the form of a deliberative speech. It purports to be spoken, in 366 B. C., by ²¹⁹ Archidamos III., son of the king Agesilaos, during a debate²²⁰ at Sparta on the Theban proposal. There seems no reason to doubt that the speech was written in 366 B.C., either just before or soon after the actual decision of the question²²¹. It may have been composed in the first instance as an exercise²²²; yet, as discussing a question of contemporary politics from the point of view which a large party at Sparta must really have taken, it claims to be considered as something more. Isokrates probably sent it to Archidamos,—not, of course, for delivery, but as a proof of sympathy with the Spartan policy²²³.

‘Perhaps some of you will be surprised that I, who have always been loyal to the customs of Sparta, should, in spite of my youth²²⁴, come forward to advise. Had my elders given counsel worthy of Sparta, I should have been silent. As it is, some of them have supported the demand of the enemy; others have but faintly opposed it. I must not, through regard for what becomes me individually, allow the State to pass a resolution which would dishonour it.

‘The royal house of Sparta is responsible for the conduct of war; surely it ought to have a voice in the debates on which war depends. The present crisis is the gravest in which Sparta has ever been placed. The question is not ²²⁵ whether we shall rule others, but whether we shall obey the dictates of an enemy. As a descendant of Herakles, as son of a king of Sparta and heir of his dignity, I cannot look on in silence while the country left to us by our ancestors is made over to our slaves. Such a surrender would be for Thebes a triumph greater than Leuktra; a victory over that which they failed to conquer when they broke our ranks— the Spartan spirit (§§ 1—10).

‘Our allies urge us to resign Messenia and to make ²²⁶ peace. Worse traitors than those who revolted from us formerly and ruined only themselves, these seek to rob us of the glory which our ancestors were seven hundred years²²⁷ in winning. We have often fought for our allies; they refuse to fight for us, and threaten, if we hold out, to make peace on their own account. Let them: a struggle without them will bring us the more honour (§§ 11—14).

‘I am no lover of words; but it will be useful at this moment to trace the historical claims of Sparta to Messene (§§ 15—16).

‘When Herakles had passed from earth to the gods, his ²²⁸ children were long vexed by Eurystheus; then, after their enemy's death, they settled among the Dorians. Their descendants in the third generation had occasion to consult the oracle at Delphi. It told them nothing as to the special object of their visit; but bade them go to their fatherland. Reflecting, they found that Argos belonged to them by hereditary right—since the offspring of Herakles were now the only representatives of Perseus: Lacedaemon, by gift—for Heracles had bestowed it upon Herakles who had restored him from exile: Messene, by conquest—for Herakles, wronged by Neleus and his sons, had slain them and taken their town.

‘Deeming that the oracle spoke of all these places, the ²²⁹ Herakleidae rallied your ancestors around them, promising to divide the territory among their followers, but reserving the royalty to themselves. It need not be told how they conquered the Peloponnesos and divided it into three chief kingdoms. You have kept to this day the compact which your ancestors made with mine. But the Dorian invaders of Messenia had scarcely been settled in it when they slew their own leader and founder, the Heraklid Kresphontes. His sons fled to Sparta, imploring vengeance for their father, and offering Messenia to us. Encouraged by an oracle, we made war and conquered the country. Our right to it thus ²³⁰ rests on the same grounds as our right to Lacedaemon; that is,—on the gift of the Herakleidae; on an oracle; and on conquest (§§ 17—25).

‘All titles to possession are made stronger by length of occupancy. We acquired Messene before the Persians were masters of Asia, and before some of the Greek cities had been founded. Yet the Thebans, while recognising, in the ²³¹ case of Persia, a right less than two hundred years²³² old, deny, in ours, a right of more than twice that age. Only the other day²³³ they devastated Thespiae and Plataea; after an interval of four hundred years²³⁴ they restore Messene—in each instance breaking oaths and treaties. Were they only bringing back genuine Messenians, it would be unjust; but in fact they are planting Helots on our frontier.

‘Further, our claim to Messene has been indirectly allowed by our enemies. We have had ere now to make a humiliating peace; but neither Persia nor Athens has ever asked us for Messene. Our claim was also recognised by the oracle at Delphi,—the most august in Greece. It advised ²³⁵ us to accept the offer of the sons of Kresphontes, and showed us how to succeed in the war; but was silent to our enemies. In brief—we received Messene from its former owners—established our own right of conquest—drove out the impious foe of the Heraklidae—and have had our title confirmed by time, by the verdict of enemies, by the voice of the gods (§§ 26—33).

‘We are urged to make our decision on grounds of expediency, not of abstract justice. This is wrong in principle, and not easy in practice; for what is expediency? It is not clear that, supposing we obeyed Thebes, we should obtain a firm peace. Concessions of this kind always invite new attacks (§§ 34—39).

‘There are plenty of instances in which disasters as great ²³⁶ as ours have been retrieved. Athens, to say nothing of her perils in remote times, came safely through the Persian war, and gained empire, because, when her position seemed desperate, she refused to listen to the dictates of the enemy. Dionysios²³⁷ was on the point of abandoning Syracuse to the Carthaginians, when a friend reminded him that “royalty is a good winding-sheet”:—he remained, and triumphed. Amyntas²³⁸ of Macedon, defeated by his neighbours and temporarily robbed of his whole realm, rallied, with a like result, from a like despair. Thebes is great now because she had patience to endure our attacks steadfastly. In short, good government and military skill are the two things needful to repair national misfortunes. No one will deny that in both these things we stand unrivalled (§§ 40—48).

‘Some advocate peace because war is a bad thing in itself. But that depends on circumstances. Peace is for the prosperous: war is certainly the best hope of the unfortunate. Those who would be free must make peace, not when the enemy bids them, but when they have become stronger than, or equal to, him (§§ 49—51).

‘We ought not to be less spirited in defending ourselves ²³⁹ than we have always been in succouring others. Formerly, if a single Lacedaemonian went to the aid of a city allied with us, its deliverance was always ascribed to him. Pedaritos²⁴⁰ saved Chios, Brasidas saved Amphipolis, Gylippos saved Syracuse. What one Spartan could do for others, shall not the whole Lacedaemonian people be able to do for themselves? Asia and Europe are full of the trophies of our victories in the causes of others; in the cause of Sparta shall not one blow be struck? We can afford to keep numbers of horses at a great cost; and shall we make peace as if we were beggars? We have the name of being the most laborious of the Hellenes; and shall we accept the terms of the enemy after one defeat²⁴¹, one invasion²⁴²—resigning so quickly the country for which the Messenians themselves stood a siege of twenty years²⁴³, and forgetting the dangers by which our ancestors won it? (§§ 52—57).

‘Some, reckless of our honour, advise peace because ²⁴⁴ Sparta is weak and Thebes strong. But we have at least the strength of a good government, of temperate habits, of a brave spirit. Nor shall we lack external aid. Athens, though she is not with us in all things, will not see us destroyed. Dionysios of Syracuse; the king of Egypt; the various dynasts of Asia; the richest and most distinguished individuals in Hellas, whose political sympathies are with us—will help. Nay, even the democrats of the Peloponnese will soon begin to long once more for our protecting care, now that they have tasted the fruits of anarchy (§§ 58—69).

‘Even, however, if we were utterly forsaken, I should be ashamed to give up Messene, and to admit, either that our ancestral title to it was bad, or that we had relinquished a right. Probably the tide will turn soon. But, if the worst ²⁴⁵ comes, we must send away our women and children and old men to Sicily, Italy, Cyrene, Asia; we must quit Sparta; seize some strong position; and, from it, harass the enemy by land and sea. No city in the Peloponnese would long be able to bear what an army of desperadoes, unfettered by any polity, and able to plant themselves where they pleased, could inflict. Or if several towns combined, and brought their ill-disciplined levies to meet us in our fastnesses, what could serve us better? The essence of Sparta's strength lies in the resemblance of her civic system to an orderly and disciplined camp. If this resemblance becomes identity, what ²⁴⁶ can resist us? The Athenians, in the cause of Hellenic freedom, once left their homes; the Phokaeans removed to Massalia rather than submit to the Persian king. It would be strange if we did not choose to quit Sparta for a time rather than to obey the dictates of our former subjects. But our thoughts ought not to dwell on the possible necessity of leaving Sparta,—they ought to anticipate our triumphant return to it. I have not spoken of what must happen; rather of what ought to happen before we surrender Messene. No lasting peace could be gained by such a compromise. If the Helots were once established at our side, endless annoyance and danger would be our portion (§§ 70—87).

‘There could be no nobler cause in which to die than the present, when the prestige, when the very existence of Sparta is threatened. Epidauros, Corinth, Phlius²⁴⁷ may ²⁴⁸ without reproach prefer safety to honour; Sparta cannot. The reputation of the city ought to be as dear to each Spartan as his own: he ought not to suffer it to desert the post at which our fathers placed it. How could we ever show our faces at Olympia²⁴⁹ or at any Hellenic gathering, if we were to find our own slaves outshining us there by means of wealth taken from us? Dipaea²⁵⁰, where a single line of Spartans routed many myriads of Arcadians; Thyrea, where three hundred Spartans defeated all the Argives; Thermopylae, where a thousand Spartans held their ground against the seventy myriads of Persia—ought to teach us selfreliance now. Nothing is hopeless in war. It was by war, not peace, that Athens and Thebes grew. And in this struggle we should be stimulated by remembering that all Hellas is watching us (§§ 88—106).

‘The true view of this crisis may be shortly given. By ²⁵¹ staking our lives on this good cause we shall save them; cowardice would be not only base but fatal. Let us imagine children and parents pleading with us—these, for Sparta's future name; those, for her past. No king of our house has ever led you to defeat. Listen, then, as prudent men listen, to the advice of those who in practice have been found trusty guides’ (§§ 107—111).

The Archidamos has a real historical interest: it ²⁵² may be taken as an expression, highly coloured but in the main faithful, of the feeling excited in a majority of Spartans by the reestablishment of Messenia at their side. The damage thus inflicted on Sparta did not consist merely in the reanimation of a hostile State which had long been in decay. It consisted in the creation anew of a hostile State which for three centuries had been dead; and in the subtraction, for that purpose, from Sparta of what had been for three centuries the fairest portion of her territory—of all the country from the Neda to C. Akritas and from the Western slopes of Taygetos to the sea²⁵³. Archidamos denounces the allies who consented to such a measure as worse enemies to Sparta than helots and Messenians²⁵⁴. He proposes that, if need be, the Spartans should send away the old and helpless— abandon Sparta—and pour themselves upon Messenia as homeless and desperate invaders²⁵⁵. If the matter-of-fact narrative of Xenophon²⁵⁶ gives no hint of any feeling so passionate as that which is expressed by the second Tyrtaeos, it vouches at least for a resolution no less firm; a resolution which, four years later, again decided Sparta against accepting a peace²⁵⁷.

II. 4 Areopagitikos.

Areopagitikos [Or. VII.]—In this speech Isokrates contrasts the Athenian democracy as it existed in the middle of the 4th century B.C. with the democracy of Solon and of Kleisthenes (§ 16). He dwells chiefly on two features of the elder democracy:— 1. the preference of election ( αἵρεσις) to ballot ( κλήρωσις) in the appointment of state officers, §§ 22 ff.; 2. the supervision of public morals exercised by the Council of the Areiopagos: §§ 36—55. It is owing to the prominence of the latter topic that the speech has been called Ἀρεοπαγιτικός. It is cast in a ²⁵⁸ deliberative form. Isokrates supposes himself to have given notice in writing to the prytanes of an intention to speak ‘On the Safety of Athens’ ( περὶ σωτηρίας πρόσοδον ἀπογράψασθαι, §§ 1, 15); and to be now urging in the ekklesia, as absolutely necessary to the welfare of the city, the restoration of censorial power to the Areiopagos (cf. § 84). Like the De Pace (Or. VIII.), this speech was not delivered, or meant for delivery, in the assembly. The deliberative form was adopted merely for the sake of giving greater life and impressiveness to the pleading.

The date is to be inferred from five indications:— ²⁵⁹ (1) There was now peace on the frontiers of Attica ( τὰ περὶ τὴν χώραν), and a confident sense of security at Athens, §§ 1—3: (2) The Athenians had ‘lost all the cities in Thrace’, (§ 9): (3) had spent more than 1000 talents on mercenaries, ib.: (4) had got a bad name in Hellas and incurred the enmity of Persia, § 10: (5) had been forced ‘to save the friends of the Thebans’ and to lose their own allies, ib.

These notices point to one of two dates; to 346 B.C., in which peace was concluded between Athens and Philip; or to 355, in which the Social War, begun in 357, was closed by a peace between Athens and her allies.

The year 346 best suits (2), since it was only in ²⁶⁰ 347 that Philip became master of Olynthos and its confederate towns. On the other hand, a general sense of security (1) could not be said to have existed at Athens in 346. The war with Philip had been thoroughly disheartening; and the deep dismay at Athens when Philip occupied Phokis a few days²⁶¹ after the final ratification of the peace, has been described by Demosthenes²⁶². Further, if the speech belonged to 346, we should have expected in §§ 6, 7 some mention of Olynthos, the latest and most striking instance of sudden disaster to a confident city; and in §§ 8, 81 some mention of Macedonia as a quarter from which danger was supposed to threaten Athens; for, though Isokrates did not himself admit any such danger, he could not ignore the large party who in 346 apprehended it, and to whom he refers when he writes in that very year to Philip: Or. V. §§ 73—80.

The year 355 evidently fits (1), (2) and (4) of ²⁶³ the conditions mentioned above. Though the necessity of recognising the autonomy of Chios, Kos, Rhodes and Byzantium had been humiliating for Athens, the number of smaller States which still paid the syntaxis was large enough to inspire the Athenians with pride and confidence, in the absence of any danger so formidable as that which presently began to threaten them from Macedonia. The troops of Chares had been almost wholly mercenaries, and it had been felt as a relief at Athens when Artabazos helped to pay them. Artaxerxes III., incensed by the aid given to his rebellious satrap, had sent (probably in 355) an embassy to Athens, threatening to help the Chians with 300 ships; and this threat had hastened the peace²⁶⁴. As regards (2), it must be allowed that, if 355 is the true date, the ἁπάσας of § 9 is a rhetorical exaggeration. According to common usage, αἱ ἐπὶ Θρᾴκης πόλεις mean not only the towns of the Chalkidic peninsula, but often also the Greek colonies all along the southern coasts of Thrace²⁶⁵. Philip had not yet got Olynthos or the 32 towns of its confederacy. He had, however, alienated the entire Olynthian confederacy from the Athenian interest; and had taken, in 358—356, Amphipolis, Pydna and Potidaea. As to (5), the words in § 10, τοὺς μὲν τῶν Θηβαίων φίλους σώζειν ἠναγκασμένοι τοὺς δ’ ἡμετέρους αὐτῶν ἀπολωλεκότες, have been explained in two different ways. Schäfer²⁶⁶ refers them to the circumstance that during the Phokian war the Messenians, Argives and Megalopolitans had been threatened by Sparta, and on applying to Sparta had received a qualified promise of support. Rauchenstein²⁶⁷ finds a better clue in the fact that Chios, Rhodes and Byzantium had been, since 364, friendly with Thebes²⁶⁸. In allowing these important allies to be severed from her confederacy, and in guaranteeing their autonomy, Athens was therefore giving a deliverance to ‘friends of the Thebans.’ The sense thus put on σώζειν is somewhat strange; but, on the whole, the explanation seems tenable. The latter half of 355²⁶⁹ B.C. may be taken as the date of the Areopagitikos.

‘It will be asked why I come forward to speak on the “safety” of Athens at a time when she has a fleet of more than two hundred triremes; peace on her frontiers; the command of the sea; numerous allies. It is, in truth, this very persuasion of security which alarms me. The rise and the fall, first of Athens, then of Sparta, prove that anxious watchfulness leads to success,—arrogance, to ruin. Our ²⁷⁰ present prosperity is hollow. We have lost the cities in Thrace, spent great sums on mercenaries,—become unpopular in Greece,—revived our enmity with Persia,—saved the friends of Thebes and lost our own. Yet we have twice²⁷¹ held a public thanksgiving; and in the ekklesia we are taking affairs as easily as if their position was absolutely satisfactory. The reason of this apathy lies deep. The whole political constitution of Athens is vitiated. When the victories, first of Konon, then of Timotheos, had given Athens the control of Hellas, she could not keep it for a moment. Her polity, her very soul, is distempered; and yet we do not attempt to minister to its disease. Chatting in the workshops, we admit that never under a democracy was there worse government; but in practice we are content to have it so. It is on this account that I have given notice of an intention to speak on the “safety” of Athens. Year by year her course becomes more perilous; and the only hope which I can see for her is in a return to the old paths. I wish to put before you the characteristics of that elder democracy which Solon founded and which Kleisthenes reconstituted. You can then choose between it and the present (§§ 1—19).

‘Under that democracy, licence was not confounded with freedom. Political “equality” has been understood in two ²⁷² senses—as meaning either that all are to share absolutely alike, or that every man is to receive his due. Our ancestors preferred that “equality” which does not efface the distinction between merit and worthlessness. They did not take officials ²⁷³ at random from the crowd, but picked the fittest for each task²⁷⁴. They held, also, that appointment to office by lot was less truly democratic than selection. In the one case, chance prevails—in the other, the desire of choosing genuine friends of popular government. This system satisfied the people generally, because, in those days, everyone had his own business to attend to. Office was not yet looked upon as an easier source of income than private industry. The people collectively reigned; the rich men, who had leisure, served it as a duty (§§ 20—27).

‘Such was their political system. From it followed their ²⁷⁵ relations to the gods and to each other. Their zeal in the services of religion was not spasmodic, but equable as the blessings for which it expressed their gratitude—regular as the sequence of seed-time and harvest. Their private intercourse was embittered by no class-feeling; the poor were proud of the great houses, and the rich helped all the enterprises of the needy. In a word, it was safe to have money, and easy to borrow it (§§ 28—35).

‘If it is inquired to what causes such results may be ²⁷⁶ traced, the principal cause will be found to be this—that the education of the citizen did not end with his boyhood. The Court of the Areiopagos was the recognised guardian of public decorum. Its influence at that time upon the whole community may be judged from its influence at this day upon its own members. We see how the worst men, when raised to it, cease to obey their own natures and become loyal to its traditions. It was the principle of this Court that deterrent laws, however strict, are useless without positive moral discipline; that the happiness of citizens depends, not on ²⁷⁷ having the walls of their porticoes covered with laws, but on having justice in their hearts. The Areiopagos aimed, not at punishing merely, but at preventing crime. It was especially watchful over young men. For the poorer youths, work was found in agriculture and commerce; for the richer, in vigorous exercises of mind and body. This watch was maintained over the daily life even of adults, and was aided by the division of the town into wards, of the country into demes. The Supreme Court knew well that two things chiefly restrain crime; probability of detection and certainty of punishment. Thus controlled, the young men of that time did not spend their days in the haunts popular now; nay, if they had to cross the marketplace, they did so with downcast eyes. Disrespect to elders, dissipation, buffoonery, were not then in fashion.

‘I do not mean to be hard upon youthful follies. My censure is meant for those statesmen who, a little before our own time²⁷⁸, abolished the controlling power of the Areiopagos. While that power lasted, Attica was so secure from invasion ²⁷⁹ and from faction that the houses in the country were handsomer than those within the walls; many citizens never came to town even for the festivals. The contrasts of a thoroughly vulgar policy were not to be seen then. There were no citizens casting lots for their daily bread²⁸⁰ outside the lawcourts, while they paid strangers liberally to fight their battles: no choregi, blazing in golden robes, who were doomed to shiver through the winter in rags. The Areiopagos, while it had power, found employment for the poor and restrained the excesses of the wealthy (§§ 36—55).

‘Some who have heard this account of our ancestors’ life, while admiring it, have thought that my advice was unpractical—long habit cannot be broken through,—and also dangerous to myself. I shall be suspected, they say, of desiring an oligarchy. Now if I were praising some new ²⁸¹ scheme of government, and urging the appointment of a special commission to carry it out, I might incur suspicion. As it is, I have only been urging a return to that old system under which, as everyone knows, Athens was greatest. On all other occasions, too, I have censured dynasty and supported democracy—not a reckless democracy, but one tempered like that of Sparta, in which the principle of equality is most truly expressed. If we go through the chief cities of Hellas, a democratical, not an oligarchical, form of government will be found to have been most frequently prosperous.

‘Even our corrupt democracy would seem god-made by the side of the government of the Thirty Tyrants. It was ²⁸² their doing that the walls of Athens were levelled; that the dockyards, which had cost 1,000 talents, were destroyed by contract for three; that 1,500 citizens were put to death untried, and more than 5,000 banished. When the exiles were restored, the ekklesia generously voted the payment of a debt contracted by the adherents of the Thirty in making war upon the Peiraeus; Athens resumed, on the proposal of Sparta herself, the empire of the sea, and, later, was besought for help by the Power which, under the Thirty, had constantly dictated to her. I say this to show, first, that I am no friend of oligarchies: next, that even a bad democracy is a less evil than an oligarchy.

‘You may ask why, then, I am dissatisfied with this ²⁸³ democracy, seeing that it has been productive of so much good? I answer that it is not enough to excel the Tyrants; we must strive to reach the standard of our ancestors. No race ought to be better than the Athenians. As other countries have their special products, Attica has her breed of men; we are of that breed, but at this moment we dishonour it. Enough of this: I return to my immediate subject (§§ 56—77).

‘If our general system of government remains unaltered, all its particular phenomena must continue the same—our conduct of war, our conduct of debate, the spirit of our private life. If we go back to the old system we shall get the old results. Then the Greeks trusted us; then the ²⁸⁴ Persians launched no war-ship west of Phaselis; moved no camp beyond the Halys²⁸⁵. The generals can tell you how the Greeks hate us now; the mind of the Persian king may be seen in his letters. Then, the citizens were so educated as to be a terror to invaders and to live comfortably with each other; now, not a man will fight but for pay, and there are more citizens destitute than solvent. If we imitate our ancestors we shall get rid of our own troubles and save Hellas. Believing this, I have come forward to urge it; reflect, and vote as you think best for Athens’ (§§ 78—84).

The purpose of the Areopagitikos involves a contrast between old times and new; it has therefore a double interest, as a picture of the past and of the present. As a picture of the older democracy it supplements the Panegyrikos. The Panegyrikos describes the external relations of Athens at the time of her most splendid activity²⁸⁶; the Areopagitikos portrays the inner life by which that activity was created and nourished. As a picture of the new democracy, this speech may be compared with another spoken four²⁸⁷ years later—with the First Philippic of Demosthenes. The First Philippic sets forth vividly the utter indifference of the Athenian public to the foreign concerns of Athens, their halfheartedness in all things, their habitual indolence broken by spasmodic efforts which always came too late: the Areopagitikos exposes in detail that civil and domestic life of which such a foreign policy was the counterpart. Demosthenes saw the true remedy in a more earnest attention to the actual crisis. Isokrates, who saw the inner decay but believed in no urgent danger from without, found the remedy in a simple return to old forms and manners²⁸⁸.

The powers exercised by the Areiopagos before the reforms of Ephialtes were of two kinds, definite and indefinite. The definite powers were:—1. A limited criminal jurisdiction: 2. the supreme direction of religious worship, especially of the cultus of the Eumenides. The indefinite powers were:—1. A general supervision of all magistrates and law-courts: 2. a general guardianship of the laws, with the right of protest (though not of veto) when proposed new laws conflicted with old: 3. a general control of the education of the young: 4. a general censorship of public morals: 5. competence to assume, in emergencies of the State, a dictatorial authority²⁸⁹.

The definite powers of the Areiopagos were never at any time taken from it²⁹⁰. But Ephialtes abolished almost²⁹¹ wholly the indefinite powers. It is for the revival of these—especially of (3) and (4)—that Isokrates is anxious. While it possessed these, the Areiopagos had been the strongest influence, though mainly a negative influence, in the State; it had been able to impress a conservative character upon the whole civic body²⁹². Deprived of these, it was merely a criminal court of narrow competence. Its connection with what was most venerable in the old religion, and the high standing of its individual members, still secured to it, indeed, a large measure of respect. Isokrates speaks of the influences which, even in his own day, changed bad men when they became members of the college²⁹³. But politically the Areiopagos was now powerless. The plea of Isokrates for a restoration of its strength is strikingly illustrated by the protest of Aeschylos against its enfeeblement. It is not on any welldefined function, but rather on those prerogatives which, being vague, were boundless, that orator and poet alike insist:—

Here, on the Hill of Ares,

Once seat and camp of Amazons who came

In anger against Theseus, and defied

From their new ramparts his acropolis,

And poured blood unto Ares, where is now

The hill, the rock of Ares—in this place

Awe kin to dread shall hold the citizens

From sinning in the darkness or the light,

While their own voices do not change the laws.

This Court, majestic, incorruptible,

Instant in anger, over those who sleep

The sleepless watcher of my land I set.

( Eum. 660 ff.)

The Attic Orators from Antiphon to Isaeos. Sir Richard C. Jebb. London. 1876.

Sponsored by Perseus Project, Tufts University.

Funding provided by National Endowment for the Humanities.

Current edition Perseus

The Attic Orators from Antiphon to Isaeos (English) (The Attic Orators from Antiphon to Isaeos. Jebb, Richard Claverhouse, author. London: Macmillan, 1876.)

Notes on the current edition

The Attic Orators from Antiphon to Isaeos

1. Preller, Demeter and Persephone, p. 71 n., who refers to § 62, εἰς τὴν χώραν ταύτην: but ταύτην merely answers to ἐξ ἧς—( that land, from which). The Greater Panathenaea fell in the third year of each Olympiad. The celebrations nearest to 380 B.C. would therefore have been those of 382 and 378; and the Lesser Panathenaea can scarcely be thought of.

2. Date.

3. An ingenious, but to my mind improbable view, has lately been suggested by W. Engel (Rauchenstein, Introd. to Panegyr. p. 21). Engel thinks that the whole speech — except §§ 125—132—was written and published as early as 385 B. C. He observes that (1) in §§ 125—132 the Spartans are spoken of with a bitterness which is in contrast with the conciliatory tone used towards them in the rest of the oration: (2) in § 141 the defeat of Evagoras by the Persians (placed by Diod. in 386 B. C.) is alluded to; but Isokrates seems to know nothing of the capitulation of Evagoras in 385 (acc. to Diodoros XV. 4). Engel thinks that the war between Evagoras and Persia began in 394 B. C. It lasted 10 years, and ended in 385 B C. (Diod. XV. 9). The six years of § 141 are then, 391—385.Now argument (1) from the tone of §§ 125—132 appears to me wholly untenable; since in §§ 129 —132 Isokrates expressly and elaborately apologises for whatever may seem harsh in the tone of §§ 125—128. As regards argument (2), it is valid only if the chronology of Diodoros is accepted. Clinton, F. H. vol II. p. 279 (Appendix c. 12, on the Cyprian War), thinks that Diodoros is clearly wrong. He believes that the war began in 385 and ended in 376. Grote, too, rejeets the authority of Diodoros, and places the war in 390—380 B.C.: c. 76, vol. x. p. 30 n.

4. See above, on the Olympiakos of Lysias.

5. Mode of publication.

6. Sandys, Introd to Paneg. p. xli.

7. State of the Greek world in 380 B.C.

8. Analysis.

9. A summons to unity.

10. Obstacle to Greek concord— Sparta.

11. Claims of Athens to Empire.

12. Gifts of Athens to primitive Greece.

13. Athens the mother of Colonisation.

14. Athens the founder of civil life.

15. The Athenian Festivals.

16. Athens the military champion,

17. (1) of oppressed Greeks:

18. (2) of Greeks against barbarians.

19. The Persian Wars.

20. Cf. the note of Mr Sandys on Paneg. § 74, where he enumerates the known early ἐπιτάφιοι, viz. (1) that of Perikles in honour of those who fell at Samos in 440 B C.: (2) the speech of Perikles in 431 B.C.: (3) the ἐπιτάφιος of Gorgias. (4) the ἐπιτάφιος commonly ascribed to Lysias: (5) the Menexenos of Plato: (6) the ἐπιτάφιος ascribed to Demosthenes and purporting to have been spoken after Chacroneia: (7) the ἐπιτάφιος of Hypereides.

21. Public spirit of old.

22. Marathon.

23. Thermopylae. Arlemision.

24. Salamis.

25. Charges against Athens.

26. § 100, τὸν Μηλίων ἀνδραποδισμὸν καὶ τον Σκιωναίων ὅλεθρον. The fate of the Melians in 416 B. C. (Thuc. V. 84—116) and of the Skioneans in 423 B.C. (Thuc. V. 37) was the same;—the men of military age were put to death, the women and children sold as slaves. If any real antithesis is meant between ἀνδραποδισμός and ὄλεθρος, it must refer to the fact that the very name of Skione was effaced. The territory was given to the Plataean refugees: Thuc. v. 32.

27. Test of Imperial Athens.

28. The kleruchiae.

29. Imperial Sparta.

30. Lysander was a μόθων,—i.e. the son of a Helot, brought up as fosterbrother of a Spartan, and afterwards freed: see Lidd. and Scott s. v.

31. § 115, the Peace of Antalkidas.

32. Present condition of Greece.

33. § 118, ἐπὶ τάδε Φασήλιδος. The so called Peace of Kimon has usually been placed in 450 B.C.: Clinton F. H. The tradition was founded on the fact of an Athenian embassy to Persia headed by Kallias: Her. VIII. 151. Grote and Curtius take different views of this. Grote thinks that Kallias really negotiated a treaty—in 449 B. C.; c. xlix. vol. v. pp. 455—464. Curtius thinks that the embassy of Kallias failed; no treaty was formally concluded, but the terms of the legendary treaty represent truly the relative positions of Persia and Hellas at the time. ( Hist. Gr. vol. II. p. 412 tr. Ward.) Note that (as Mr Sandys observes) the cessation of Persia from hostilities is described in § 118 as a simple result of Athenian victories; in § 120, as the result of a definite convention. This well illustrates the view of Thirlwall, Curtius and others, that the belief in a definite treaty grew out of the vague boasts of orators who were seeking a contrast to the treaty of Antalkidas.

34. § 126. Amyntas II. began to reign in 394 B C. In 393 the Illyrians invaded Macedonia. Amyntas, compelled to evacuate Pella, made over to the Olynthian Confederacy the towns and territory on the Thermaic gulf, and withdrew to Thessaly. In 383 he succeeded in recovering the greater part of his kingdom. But the Olynthians refused to restore that part of it which he had given into their keeping. Hereupon, in 383, Amyntas sent envoys to Sparta asking for help against Olynthos (Diod. XV. 19). Envoys from Akanthos and Apollonia came on the same errand about the same time: Xen. Hellen. v. 2. 11. Throughout the Olynthian war(383—379) Sparta was actively aided by Amyntas: Diod. XV. 19—23.

35. The Spartan alliances

36. Appeal to Sparta.

37. The position of Persia.

38. § 134. The war between Evagoras and Persia lasted ten years (Isokr. Evag., Or. IX. § 64: Diod. XV. 8, 9). In the course of it, Evagoras got together 200 triremes and attacked the Persian fleet at Citium, but was utterly defeated; was blockaded soon afterwards in Salamis; and, after a brave resistance, capitulated.Diodoros assigns the war to 394 —385 (XV. 8, 9); the seafight to 386 (XV. 2, 3); the capitulation ( ib. 8) to 385. Isokrates alludes in § 141 to the seafight, and here (§ 134) speaks of the blockade as existing. He says, moreover, that the king of Persia has now wasted six years in the war; which naturally means, and has always been taken to mean, that it is six years since the war began.I. Engel reconciles Diodoros with Isokrates by supposing that, with the exception of §§ 125—132 which allude to 380 B.C., the Panegyrikos was published in 385, just before Evagoras capitulated. The ‘six years’ of Isokrates are, then, 391—385, during which the war was actively prosecuted,—394—391 having been years chiefly of preparation. (See Rauchonstein, Introd. to Panegyr. p. 21 and note above.)II. Clinton, holding the natural view that the entire Panegyrikos was first published in 380, sets aside the chronology of Diodoros. He believes that the war began in 385, in which year Evagoras suffered his defeat at sea, and ended in 376. The ‘six years’ of Isokr. are, then, 385—380. The blockade of Salamis must have followed soon upon the defeat; and we have, then, to suppose a resistance of some nine years on the part of Evagoras, if, as Diodoros says, the blockade was terminated only by his surrender.III. Grote also places the Panegyrikos in 380. But he assigns the war to 390—380 or 379. Xenophon ( Hellen. IV viii. 24) mentions that an Athenian fleet was sent to the aid of Evagoras in 390 B. C. Grote relies on this fact as showing that the war between Evagoras and Persia had begun in 390. Clinton, on the other hand, thinks that this Athenian expedition, and a subsequent one in 388, related to hostilities which preceded formal war. Grote does not define the ‘six years’ of Isokr.; but suggests that they may be taken either from the Peace of Antalkidas (from which, however, 380 was the eighth year) or from the defeat of Evagoras in 385.It seems impossible—in the absence of better data—to arrive at a certain or satisfactory conclusion. For my own part, I incline to prefer, with Clinton, the authority of Isokrates to that of Diodoros; to suppose that the Athenian expeditions of 390 and 388 preceded any formal declaration of war; that the actual war began in 385; that the naval defeat of Evagoras also fell in 385, and was soon followed by the blockade; but that Evagoras held out (whether able to take the sea again or not) till 376.

39. § 134. The Persian fleet (at this time blockading Salamis) was commanded by Gaos; the Persian land-forces by Orontes and the satrap Teiribazos. With Teiribazos served a contingent of Ionian Greeks: οἱ μετὰ Τειριβάζου στρατευόμενοι, § 135.

40. § 136. The particular dispute —if any such is referred to—is unknown. Isokrates perhaps means merely that Athens and Sparta contended for the hegemony, and for that privilege of levying contributions on the Aegaean islands which belonged to the head of a naval confederacy. Cf. § 132, χρὴ τοὺς φύσει καὶ μὴ διὰ τύχην μέγα φρονοῦντας τοιούτοις ἔργοις ἐπιχειρεῖν μᾶλλον ἢ νησιώτας δασμολογεῖν. Rauchenstein remarks: ‘Das nahere uber diesen Hader ist nicht bekannt, aber Athen konnte den Verlust der Kykladen in Folge des Friedens (§ 115) nicht verschmerzen.’

41. The real weakness of Persia.

42. § 139. Alluding to the revolt of Chios from Athens at a critical time in 412 B. C.: Thuc. VIII. 7.

43. § 140. This revolt of Egypt is not known from other sources; but is again alluded to in the Philippos, § 101. As Mr Sandys observes, it must at any rate have been over before the active hostilities of Persia against Evagoras began, and may be placed about 392—390, or 390—388.

44. Persian repulses.

45. § 142. By ὁ πόλεμος ὁ περὶ Ρόδον is meant the naval war which the Persian fleet, under Konon and Pharnabazos, waged with the Lacedaemonian fleet under Pharax and Peisandros, beginning nearly at the same time as the first campaign of Agesilaos in Asia, and ending with the battle of Knidos: 396—394 B. C.

46. § 142. The Greek words answering to ‘ held in check for three years’ are τρία ἔτη πολιορκούμενον. But by πολιορκούμενον, as Schneider on § 142 points out, is meant not merely the literal blockade of Konon by Pharax in Kaunos (Diod XIV. 83) in 395;—that, of course, did not last three years;— but the fact that, during 396—394, even after the revolt of Rhodes from Sparta, Konon kept his fleet in harbours, avoiding engagements on the open sea, until just before Knidos.

47. The alliance against Sparta of Athens, Thebes, Argos, Euboea and Corinth in 394 B.C., the first year of the Corinthian war: ‘Corinth was the συνέδριον of the allies (Xen. Hellen. IV. 4. 1. and Diod. XIV. 82)’: Mr Sandys ad loc.

48. § 144. Thimbron commanded in Asia in 400: Derkyllidas in 399—397: Agesilaos in 396—395. Derkyllidas having taken Atarneus in Mysia in 398 placed Drakon there as harmost: Xen. Hellen. II. 11.

49. The ‘Ten Thousand.’

50. § 149. Cf. Xen. Anab. II. 4. 4. (in allusion to the victory at Kynaxa): ἐνικῶμεν τὸν βασιλέα ἐπ ταῖς θύραις αὐτοῦ καὶ καταγελάσαντες ἀπήλθομεν.

51. Causes of Persian weakness.

52. § 154 ἐπὶ θανάτῳ. Konon was seized by order of Teiribazos in 390. How he actually perished was never known. According to Deinon, an historian of the 4th century, quoted by Cornelius Nepos, Con. § 3 , Konon escaped from the Persians.

53. Greek hatred of Barbarians.

54. Reasons for a War on Persia.

55. § 161. See notes above on §§ 134, 140.

56. § 161. Evagoras had ‘ravaged Phoenicia, stormed Tyre, made Cilicia revolt from the king’: Isokr. Evag. (Or. IX.) § 62.

57. § 162. Hekatomnos, Greek prince of Karia, had been appointed by Artaxerxes admiral of the Persian fleet at the beginning of the war with Evagoras (Theopomp. frag. 111, ed. Müller, quoted by Mr Sandys on § 134); but had afterwards become disaffected, and had secretly supplied Evagoras with money (Diod. XIV. 98).

58. Suffering in Greece.

59. § 169. In 389—387 B C. Dionysios I. had reduced successively Kaulon, Hipponium and Rhegium in Magna Graecia: Diod. XIV. 106 ff.

60. § 169. Dionysios had surrendered some Sicilian towns—as Akragas, Himera, Selinos—to Carthage; and brought others—as Naxos, Leontini, Messene—under his own power: see Diod. XIII. 114.

61. Peace of Antalkidas.

62. Its terms criticised.

63. § 179. The meaning seems to be:—‘Zeus is absolute lord of the whole earth. But Artaxerxes claims to be absolute lord of half the earth, i. e. of the continent of Asia. Europe—the other of the δισσαὶ ἤπειροι—is all that he leaves for Zeus.’

64. The invasion will be a theoria.

65. I have ventured to paraphrase the meaning of the image—so deeply suggestive to a Greek— contained in the words θεωρίᾳ μᾶλλον ἢ στρατείᾳ προσεοικώς (§ 182).

66. Summary.

67. Asia shall pour its wealth into Europe.

68. Fame of the Panegyrikos.

69. Dionys. de Isocr. c. 14 ἐν τῷ Πανηγυρικῷ, τῷ περιβοήτῳ λόγῳ.

70. Philostr. Vit. Soph. I. 17.—Isokrates himself, in the Philippos (Or. V.) § 11, notices the prestige of the Panegyrikos.

71. Quint. Inst. X. 4: Plut. Mor. p. 350 E (‘almost three Olympiads’): [Plut.] Vitt. X. Oratt.: Phot. Cod. 260.

72. Merits of expression.

73. Merits of structure.

74. Historical interest.

75. Above, p. 20.

76. See vol. I. p. 206.

77. See esp. §§ 133—159.

78. §§ 28—50.

79. See the Philippos (Or. v.) §§ 128, 129.

80. In the Philippos, § 84, he speaks of the difficulty of putting his conceptions in a new way— the Panegyrikos has beggared him; he can only say over again what he has said there: ὁ λόγος ὁ πανηγυρικός, ὃ τοὺς ἄλλους...εὐπορωτέρους ποιήσας, ἐμοὶ πολλὴν ἀπορίαν παρέσχηκεν .

81. Cf. Grote, c. 86, vol. XI. p. 332.

82. Motive of the Discourse.

83. Date.

84. Cf. Clinton, F. H. sub ann. 346.

85. Analysis.

86. § 7. Ἀμάδοκος, or Μήδοκος, king of the Thracian Odrysae, is called here ὁ παλαιός to distinguish him from the Amadokos who inherited, in 358 B. C., part of the dominions of Kotys, and who was perhaps his son: see O. Schneid. ad loc. The elder Amadokos is first heard of in 405 B.C.: Diod. XIII. 105. Xen. Hellen. IV. 8 says that in 390 B.C. Thrasybulos, then commanding an Athenian fleet, reconciled Amadokos to Seuthes, ruler of Lower Thrace ( ἐπὶ θαλάττῃ ἄρχοντα), and received both of them into friendship and alliance with Athens:— νομίζων καὶ τὰς ὑπὸ Θράκῃ οἰκούσας πόλεις Ἑλληνίδας φίλων ὄντων τούτων μᾶλλον προσέχειν ἂν τοῖς Ἀθηναίοις τὸν νοῦν. Isokrates speaks here as if the object of the favour shown to Amadokos had been rather to restrain him from interfering with the Athenian colonies in Thrace than to impress the Greeks in that region with the influence of Athens over the Thracian princes. Cf, Dem. in Aristocr. p. 623.

87. Philip must lead Greece against Asia.

88. His first duty.

89. His hereditary position.

90. § 32. According to Herodotos VIII. 137—8 , Perdikkas I., founder of the dynasty of Edessa, was an Argive of the house of Têmenos. Another tradition—which cannot, however, be traced above Theopompos—made Karanos, also an Argive and a Têmenid, the founder of the monarchy: see Grote, c. 25, vol. IV. p. 21. Cf. Liv. 27. 30

Macedonum reges ex ea civitate ( Argis) oriundos se referunt.

91. It is possible for him to reconcile the Greeks.

92. Sparta.

93. Argos.

94. Thebes.

95. Athens.

96. The task is even easy.

97. What illnatured people say of Philip.

98. § 81, πρὸς Διονύσιον την τυραννίδα κτησάμενον. Dionysios I. became master of Syracuse in 406 B.C.: but Isokrates certainly did not write to him till after 380 B.C.: cf. Philipp. §§ 128, 129: Ep. I. § 8. The words τὴν τυραννίδα κτησάμενον do not, however, imply that the application of Isokrates immediately followed the acquisition of the tyrannis by Dionysios. Benseler and O. Schneider read τὸν τὴν τυραννίδα κτησάμενον. The meaning would then be:—‘Dionysios I., founder of the despotism,’ as opposed to Dionysios II. who succeeded him in 367.

99. Invasion of Asia.

100. First condition of success.

101. Why Agesilaos failed.

102. § 87, τοὺς ἑταίρους—oligarchs who had been driven by political troubles from the towns of Asia Minor: see Ep. IX. § 13.

103. A precedent.

104. § 93. Cf. Panegyr. § 91.

105. Comparative advantages of Cyrus the younger and Philip.

106. § 99. Artaxerxes II. (Mnemon), king of Persia, 405—359 B.C.: Clinton, F. H. vol. II. Append. c. 18.

107. Their respective opponents.

108. Artaxerxes III. (Ochos): 359 —339 B.C.

109. Position of Persia.

110. As regards the earlier revolt mentioned here, see Panegyr. § 140 note. The chronology of the later revolt, spoken of here as not yet subdued, is uncertain. Schäfer ( Demosth. u. seine Zeit, vol. I. pp. 436 f.) thinks that Ochos made three expeditions against Egypt: (1) On the occasion noticed, but without date, by Diod. XVI. 40. (2) In the winter of 351—350 B.C., when Nectanebos II. was assisted by Diophantos and Lamios: Diod. XVI. 48: cf. Isokr. Ep. VIII. § 8. This would be the expedition, alluded to here, in which Ochos was ignominiously repulsed. (3) In 340 B.C., when Egypt was reconquered—Ochos again commanding in person. See Thirlwall, c. 48, vol. VI. p. 187 n.: Clinton, F. H. vol. II. Append c. 18.

111. § 102. ‘ Then’—i. e. at the time of the earlier Egyptian revolt, which was probably earlier than 385 B.C.: see note on Panegyr. § 161.

112. § 103. Idrieus, second son of Hekatom nos, succeeded Artemisia, widow of his brother Mausôlos, as dynast of Karia in 351 B.C., and reigned till 344. On the chronology of the princes of Karia, see Clinton, F. H. vol. II. Append. c. 14.

113. The true spell for Asia.

114. These counsels are in the spirit of Philip's ancestry.

115. § 106. Amyntas II., who began to reign in 394 B.C. and died in 370.

116. § 106. Perdikkas I.: see note on § 32.

117. § 112, τοὺς βασιλέας τῶν ἐθνῶν τῶν ἐφ’ ἑκατέρας τῆς ἠπείρου.—ἐθνῶν here can mean only βαρβάρων.

‘Man hat also für Europa nicht mit Benseler auch an griechische Fürsten, Neleus in Pylos, Hippokoon in Lacedämon, sondern nur an Barbaren wie an den Thrakerfürsten Diomedes (Apollodor 2, 5, 8) zu denken; für Asien (und Afrika) ist an Mygdon, die Hippolyte, Sarpedon (über Alle Apollodor 4, 5, 9), Busiris (obwohl Is. über diesen 11, 36 seq. anders urtheilt), Antaeus u. s. w. zu denken.’

O. Schneid. ad § 112.

118. Jason of Pherae.

119. § 119. In regard to this intention, see the conversation which Polydamas of Pharsalos reported at Sparta as having passed between himself and Jason of Pherae: Xen. Hellen. VI. 1. 12.

120. Results possible for Philip.

121. Athens.

122. Asia cannot resist Greece.

123. Beneficence is the test of achievement.

124. A message from the gods.

125. Summary.

126. Remarks.

127. Dionys. de Isocr. c. 6.

128. See Thirlwall's remarks on §§ 73—80 of the Philippos: c. 44: vol. V. p. 480.

129. See esp. §§ 32—38: 76—80: 108.

130. Demosth. Philipp. III. p. 118, § 31, directly calls Philip βάρβαρος—with political, if not with technical truth. Cf. Grote, c. 90, vol. XI. p. 604.

131. The Theban Revolution.

132. Grote, c. 77, vol. X. p. 217, n. 1.

133. Plataea.

134. Diodor. XV. 46.

135. Paus. IX. 1. 6.

136. Occasion of this Speech.

137. Pausanias (IX. 1. 8) defines the time as the third year before Leuktra, when Asteios was Archon (i. e. midsummer 373—midsummer 372). Schäfer ( Dem. I. 61), whom I follow, takes the last half of 373: Grote (c. 77, vol. X. p. 219) the first half of 372. Clinton, F. H. 374 B.C.

138. Diod. XV. 38: Grote c. 77, X. 221.

139. Paus. IX. 1. 8.

140. Cf. Grote, c. 77, X. 220.

141. Date.

142. Analysis.

143. Object of the Appeal.

144. § 1. εἰρηνης οὔσης. This is understood by Grote (c. 77, vol. X. p. 217 n.) as meaning simply that Plataea and Thebes were at peace —the autonomy of Plataea, subjcet to the Boeotian confederacy, having been guaranteed by Thebes when she reconstituted that confederacy in 377—376. Thirlwall, on the other hand (vol. V. pp. 70—73), understands the peace of 374 between Athens and Sparta, to which, he thinks, Thebes was a party, and under which the Spartan garrisons had been withdrawn from Boeotia. The words ἢν πάλιν γένηται πόλεμος (§ 43) must, as the context shows, refer to a prospective war between Athens and Sparta; and imply that, when the Plataikos was written, those States were at peace. But the peace of 374 was of very short duration; and, if the reference is to it, the Plataikos would appear to belong to the year 37 4/3. Diodoros does, indeed, place the surprise of Plataea in that year (XV. 41, 46), and Clinton agrees with him. On the other hand, the clear and precise specification of the year 37 3/2 by Pausanias (IX. 1. 3—8) as that in which Plataea was seized, can scarcely be set aside. Schäfer, placing the Plataikos in the latter half of 373, thinks that the peace of 374 was still formally in force, but that Athens was on the point of resuming hostilities against Sparta; cf. § 38 (Schäf. Demosth. I. p. 61 n.).

145. Pretexts of Thebes: (1) that Plataea rejected dependence:

146. § 9. The walls of Thespiac had been razed soon after the destruction of Plataea (Diod. XV. 46), but the inhabitants had not, like the Plataeans, been driven from their territory. Pausanias speaks of the Thespians as retreating from their town to Kerèssos, a neighbouring stronghold, after Leuktra (IX. 14. 2). The praycr to the Athenians, which Xenophon puts into their month— μὴ σφᾶς περιϊδεῖν ἀπόλιδας γενομένους—is snfficiently explained by the destruction of their walls—to which the τῶν μὲν τὰ τείχη κατεσκάφασι of § 35 may (as Mr Grote suggests) refer. Cf. Schäf. Dem. I. p. 62, n 1.

147. (2) that Plataea was leagued with Sparta.

148. Athens must defend the autonomy of the cities.

149. § 20. In 412 B C. Oropos had been treacherously seized by the Boeotians (Thuc. VIII. 60), and in 402 it was still in their power (Diod. XIV. 17). But at some time between 402 and 374 Oropos had placed itself under the protection of Athens. At the congress of 374 at Sparta—resulting in the brief peace between Sparta and Athens —Thebes probably laid claim to Oropos, but without success: cf. § 37 and see Schäf. Dem. I. 47. In 366 Oropos was seized by a party of exiles and placed in the hands of the Thebans (Xen. H. VII. 4. 1). It was not until, in 338, Philip gave the town to the Athenians that their possession of it became secure: see Paus. I. 34. 1.

150. The Theban policy.

151. Plataea and Thebes— their deeds towards Athens contrasted.

152. i.e. in 427 and in 373 B.C.

153. In the debate held at Sparta, after Aegospotami, on the terms which should be granted to Athens (405 B.C.). But Isokrates exaggerates. Not the Thebans alone, but the Corinthians and many others of the Peloponnesian allies, voted for the extermination of Athens. It was by Sparta alone that Athens was saved.—Xen. Hellen. II. ii. 19; Grote, c. 65, vol. VIII. p. 311.

154. No danger from Thebes.

155. § 37. The Thebans were excluded from the peace of 374 B.C. between Athens and Sparta—as afterwards from the general peace of 371—because they insisted on the formal recognition of Thebes as head of the Panbocotic confederacy: Schäf. Dem. I. 47.

156. The Peace of Antalkidas must be upheld.

157. Miseries of the Plataeans.

158. § 48, μικρῶν ἕνεκα συμβολαίων δουλεύοντας. Isokrates has borrowed this touch from Lysias Against Eratosthenes (Or. XII.) § 98, μικρῶν ἂν ἕνεκα συμβολαίων ἐδούλευον.

159. Appeal to gratitude:

160. and to the sacredness of the Plataean land.

161. Remarks.

162. § 18.

163. Cf. Grote, c. 77, vol. x. p. 220.

164. §§ 11—16.

165. §§ 21—25.

166. § 3.

167. The result.

168. Date.

169. Clinton says ‘before the conclusion of the peace—perhaps in the beginning of 355.’ Thirlwall— ‘while the negotiation with the allics was pending, or soon after the peace’; but, Isokrates would hardly have delayed the publication till the question which he discussed had been aetually settled. Schäfer puts the speech in 355; so, too, Benseler (1854). Oncken ( Isokrates und Athen, Appendix) argues for 357 B.C.— just after the attack of Chares on Chios.

170. Cf. Schäf. Dem. I. 169.

171. Thirl. v. p. 325, ch. 42.

172. Analysis.

173. Popularity of the WarParty.

174. Athens too ready to espouse quarrels.

175. True basis for peace— the Treaty of Antalkidas

176. Advantages of peace for Athens.

177. § 22. Philip had now been for two years (since 357 B.C.) in actual possession of Amphipolis.

178. Ib. By a treaty concluded in 357 between Chares and Kersobleptes, the Thracian Chersonese, with the exception of Kardia, was formally recognised as belonging to Athens. But the treaty was not at once fully executed,—Sestos, among other places, still remaining in the hands of Kersobleptes; and hence Isokrates can still, in 355, speak of that prince as disputing the claim of Athens. See Schäf. Demosth. I. pp. 144, 380.

179. § 24. Athenodoros of Imbros, by birth an Athenian citizen (Dem. in Aristocr. § 12), had served with distinction as a captain of mercenaries in the army of Artaxerxes Ochos during the war (360 B. C.) between the king and his satrap Orontes, who was supported by an Athenian force under Chares, Charidemos and Phokion. In that contest for the throne of Thrace which ensued on the death of Kotys in 359, Berisades was supported by Athenodoros, as Kersobleptes by Charidemos, and Amadokos by Simon and Bianor. The position of Athenodoros at that time (359— 357) would have been one of sufficient influence to enable him to become founder (oekist) of a new town, though he was merely an ἰδιώτης, i.e. neither a prince nor the official representative of a city. Schäf. Dem. I. pp. 137—144.

180. Ib. Kallistratos of Aphidna, the orator, was condemned to death, and withdrew into exile, in 361 B. C. It was in 360 (Schäf. Dem. I. 120), that he induced the Thasians to recolonise the decayed town of Daton or Datos on the coast of Thrace, N.W. of Thasos. The excellence of the site, and its neighbourhood to the gold mines of Pangaeos, gave rise to the proverb Δάτος ἀγαθῶν (Zenob. prov. Graec. Cent. 3. 11). The young colony was destroyed four years later, when, in 356, Philip founded Philippi in its near neighbourhood. Daton was probably on the site of Neapolis, the port of Philippi (Scylax, p. 27 § 67). Schäfer places the return of Kallistratos to Athens (immediatcly followed by his death) in 355, before the end of the Social War, and observes that there is nothing in this passage to warrant the inference that he was alive when it was written. But the perfect γεγόνασιν (§ 24) surely implies that Kallistratos, as well as Athcnodoros, still lived. The return of Kallistratos may perhaps be placed in 354, the year after this speech, when Aristophon and Chares brought Iphikrates, Menestheus and Timotheos to trial. Kallistratos, sympathising strongly with the accused, would have been tempted to come back to Athens at any risk for the sake of standing by them at such a time.

181. Aggressive ambition is a snare.

182. The men of Marathon.

183. Citizens no longer fight.

184. Home affairs.

185. Alien intruders.

186. Corruption.

187. The statesmen are no longer the generals.

188. Thebes is as bad as Athens.

189. The remedy —to resign the Empire of the sea

190. Athens before and after she was Imperial

191. The men of the Empire.

192. § 85. Dekeleia—here called a προαστεῖον of Athens—was 14 miles N. of it, and as many from the Boeotian frontier. It was occupied by the Pcloponncsians in the spring of 413 B.C.; and the Sicilian disaster came in September of the same year. It is of this passage that Dionysios is probably thinking when he speaks of Isokrates as censuring, in the De Pace, τοὺς πρὸ τῶν Δεκελεικῶν γενομένους ( de Isocr. c. 8). As to the large schemes of conquest—embracing Italy and Libya—entertained at Athens in 415, see Curtius Hist. Gr. bk. IV. C. IV. VOL. III. p. 303 tr. Ward.

193. What they brought about.

194. § 86. Alluding to the destruction, in 455 B C., of the Athenian armament sent to aid Inaros.

195. Ib. In 449 B.C. Kimon laid siege to Citium in Cyprus. After his death, hissuccessor Anaxikrates was compelled by famine to raise the siege; but the fleet was soon afterwards victorious near Salamis (Thuc. I. 112). Either Isokrates is here inisrepresenting the unsuccessful siege as the destruction ( διεφθάρησαν, § 86) of an Athenian armament; or he may refer to the earlier expedition in 460 B.C. of the Athenians and their allies, with 200 ships, to Cyprus, which Thucydides mentions (I. 104), but of which he gives no particulars, except that it was ultimately abandoned for the purpose of helping Inaros in Egypt.

196. § 86. ἐν Δάτῳ δὲ μυρίους ὁπλίτας αὑτῶν καὶ τῶν συμμάχων ἀπώλεσαν. As to the site of Daton see note above. Herodotos mentions—but without closer definition of the time than that it was after 378 B. C.—an incident to which Isokrates is perhaps referring:—

αὐτὸν δὲ Σωφάνεα χρόνῳ ὕστερον τούτων κατέλαβε ἄνδρα ἀγαθὸν γενόμενον Ἀθηναίων στρατηγέοντα ἅμα Λεάγρῳ τῷ Γλαύκωνος ἀποθανεῖν ὑπὸ Ἠδώνων ἐν Δάτῳ περὶ τῶν μετάλλων τῶν χρυσέων μαχεόμενον,

IX. 75 . But the μυρἱους looks as if Isokrates was thinking also of the destruction, by the Thracians, of 10,000 Athenians at Drabëskos near Ennea Hodoi in 465 B.C.: Thuc. I. 100.

197. Imperial Sparta,

198. § 95. The beginning of the ‘seven centuries’ is taken from 1104 B C.—the legendary epoch of the Dorian conquest of Peloponnesos. Cf. Isokr. Archid. § 12 δόξαν ἣν οἱ πρόγονοι...ἐν ἑπτακοσίοις ἔτεσι κτησάμενοι κατέλιπον; and Panathen. § 204.

199. her insolence;

200. her fall.

201. Dangers of Empire.

202. Why Megara is rich.

203. The demagogues.

204. Perikles.

205. § 126. Περικλῆς ὁ πρὸ τῶν τοιούτων δημαγωγὸς καταστάς. Cf. Panathen. § 148, where Peisistratos also is described as a δημαγωγός.

206. Three conditions of welfare.

207. The Spartan Kings.

208. Remarks.

209. Cf. Schäf. Dem. I. p. 168. Arist. Rhet. III. 17.

210. §§ 45—56.

211. §§ 121—131.

212. Dionys. de Isocr. c. 8.

213. Antid. §§ 62 ff.

214. On the Peace.

215. Cf. § 75.

216. And not the Spartans, as the author of the ὑπόθεσις wrongly says: cf. Grote, c. 79, vol. x p. 309 n.

217. Grote and Schäfer place the first invasion of Lakonia by Epameinondas, and the commencement of the new town of Messene, at the close of 370 B.C.; Clinton, at the beginning of 369 B.C. Xenophon speaks of the restoration as complete in 368: Hellen. VII. 1. 27.

218. As Troezen and Hermione: Grote, c. 79, x. p. 400.

219. Date and occasion.

220. It may be questioned whether the scene of the debate was (1) the Gerousia, or (2) the Assembly of Spartan citizens above thirty. ( ἄπελλα, Plut. Lys. 35), or (3) that more select assembly of citizens— probably limited to the ὅμοιοι— which is heard of as being convened in special emergencies: Xen. Hellen. III. 3. 18. But, except the kings and the ephors, no citizen under 60 years of age could be a member of the Gerousia. On the other hand it is certain that the Public Assembly ( ἡ ἐκκλησία τῶν Λακεδαιμονίων, Thuc. I. 87) was sometimes the scene of a real debate, (and not merely of passive voting)—as of the debate in which the Peloponnesian War was decided upon: Thuc. I. 79—87. The king Archidamos and the ephor Stenelaidas are, indeed, the only speakers named on that occasion: and probably a private citizen could speak only by permission. Archidamos, though a Heraklid and next heir to the throne, apologises for presuming to speak: but mainly on account of his youth: §§ 1—2.

221. Referring to the opinion of Niebuhr that the Archidamos was written after the battle of Mantineia, Thirlwall says—‘We must however remember the speech which Cleon made for Lysander, and that Xenophon ( H. VII. 4. 9) gives us reason to believe that the spirit prevailing at Sparta was just that which breathes through the Archidamus’: V. p. 178, c. 40.

222. The Μεσσηνιακός of Alkidamas of Elaea (Ar. Rhet. I. 13. II. 23) may, as Spengel thinks ( συναγ. τεχν. XXIV), have been composed in rivalry of the Archidamos.

223. Spengel says of the Archidamos ( συν. τεχν. XXIV) ‘non est ut Philippus oratio Archidamo missa, sed declamatio.’ It is not easy to see why the fact of the speech being a declamation should exclude the hypothesis of its having been sent to Archidamos.—The speaker's apology for the length of his remarks (§§ 15, 16) may be noticed as an attempt to give the composition something of a Spartan air. But Spartan brevity was now no longer so severe as formerly: cf. Plut. Apophth. 16 (quoted by Thirlwall V. 179), where Epameinondas replies to a Spartan's invective—‘At least the Thebans have taught you to make longer speeches.’

224. § 1. νεώτερος ὤν. Archidamos is mentioned as a young man in 378 B.C.: Xen. H. V. 4, §§ 25—33: and as commanding Spartan armies in 371 ( H. VI. 4, §§ 17—26) and 367 ( H. VII. 1, § 28). He may now have been about thirty-five years of age.

225. The issue.

226. The allies.

227. § 12. Cf. note on De Pace, § 95.

228. Sparta's title to Messene.

229. Return of the Herakleidae.

230. Sparta's threefold claim.

231. The Thebans.

232. § 27. Dating from the accession of Cyrus to the empire, 559 B.C.

233. § 27. In 373 B.C.: cf. introd. to the Plataikos.

234. § 27. ‘Three hundred’ would have been more accurate. The Second Messenian War ended, and the conquest of the country was completed, in 668 B.C.

235. Delphic oracle.

236. Examples of recovery from disaster.

237. § 44. i.e. Dionysius I. in 394 B.C.: cf. Grote, c. 82, vol. X. p. 695.

238. § 46. See note on Panegyr. § 126.

239. Spartans for Sparta.

240. § 53. When Chios revolted from Athens in 412 B.C. Pedaritos was posted there as Lacedaemonian governor: Thuc. VIII. 28. Soon afterwards the Athenians set about fortifying Delphinion, a promontory on the east coast of the island: ib. 38. Pedaritos having refused to help Astyochos in supporting the revolt of Lesbos, Astyochos refused to support Pedaritos at Chios. The Athenian fort was at length eompleted. Pedaritos then sent an urgent message to the Spartan fleet at Rhodes, representing that, unless help came speedily, Chios must be lost. In the mean time he made an attack on Delphinion with such forces as he had, but was defeated and slain: Thuc. VIII. 55. The words of Isokrates— εἰς Χίον εἰσπλεύσας τὴν πόλιν διέσωσε—are calculated, therefore, to convey an inaceurate imprcssion. Pedaritos did, indeed, hold out in Chios for a year; but his command ended disastrously.

241. § 56. i.e. Leuktra, § 10.

242. § 56. At this time Epameinondas had thrice invaded Peloponnesos—in 370, 369, 367. But he had invaded Lakonia only once, in 370. The next invasion of Lakonia occurred shortly before Mantineia in 362.

243. § 57. Referring to the siege of Ithome in the first Messenian War, 743—723 B.C.

244. Hopes from without.

245. The last resort.

246. Sparta a camp.

247. § 91. See introductory remarks.

248. Appeal to reputation.

249. § 95. As Mr Grote observes (c. 78, vol. X. p. 314, n. 2), no free Messenian theoria could have visited Olympia since 723 B.C.

250. § 99. According to Herod. IX. 36 the five ἀγῶνες in which Tisamenos of Elis was victorious in company with the Spartans were— 1. Plataea, 479 B.C.: 2. a battle at Tegea against the Tegeatans and Argives: 3. a battle at Dipaea— a town of Maenalia in Arcadia— ‘against all the Argives except the Mantineans’: 4. the third Messenian War, 464—355: 5. Tanagra, 457. From this it may be inferred that the battle at Dipaea was fought between 479 and 464 B.C.

251. Summary.

252. Remarks.

253. Cf. Grote, c. 78, vol. X. p. 313.

254. §§ 11—14.

255. §§ 70—87.

256. Xen. H. VII. 4, §§ 8—11. ἀκούσαντες δὲ ταῦτα οἱ Λακεδαιμόνιοι τοῖς τε Κορινθίοις συνεβούλευον τὴν εἰρήνην ποιήσασθαι καὶ τῶν ἄλλων συμμάχων ἐπέτρεψαν τοῖς μὴ βουλομένοις σὺν έαυτοῖς πολεμεῖν ἀναπαύσασθαι· αὐτοὶ δὲ ἔφασαν, κ.τ.λ.

257. After Mantineia: Diod. XV. 89: Plut. Ages. 35.

258. Form.

259. Date.

260. Arguments for 346 B.C.

261. Dem. de F. L. § 125.

262. Id. de Cor. § 169.

263. Arguments for 355 B.C.

264. Diod. XVI. 22.

265. Rauchenstein, Introd. to the Areopag. p. 107.

266. Schäfer, Demosth. u. s. Zeit, vol. I. p. 462 n.: Paus. IV. 28. 1, 2.

267. Introd. p 108: Diod. XV. 79.

268. Peace was concluded about midsummer 355: Clinton, F. H. Rauchenstein places the Areopagitikos in 354, following Böhnecke, who assigns the embassy from Artaxerxes III. to that year. But according to Diod. XVI. 22 the embassy preeeded and hastened the peace; and the peace certainly belongs to 355.Clinton refers the Areopagitikos to 353, the year (probably) of the Antidosis, which he thinks must have been published before it. But on this point no inference ean be drawn from the fact that the Areopag. is not mentioned in the Antidosis. In the Antidosis Isokrates quotes from several, but by no means from all, of his important works; and, in such an apology for his life and teaching, it can be easily understood why he avoided reference to the Areopagitikos, which may have been represented as hostile to the democracy—a calumny which he himself antieipates, Areop. §§ 57, 70. Sehäfer, Dem. u. s. Z. III. 329, also puts the Areopagitikos in 355.

269. Oncken (p. 79) seems to refer the Areop. to 358 B C.

270. Dangers of confidence.

271. One of these two oceasions was probably when Chares, aided by Artabazos, had defeated the Persian army under Tithraustes in 356 B.C.: see Grote, c. 86, vol. XI. p. 324. What the other occasion was is more doubtful. Schneider refers to the vietory gained by Chares over Adaeus, one of Philip's generals, at Cypsela on the Hebrus but this was in 353 B.C. (see Schäf Dem. I. 399) and no one, except Clinton, places the Areopagiticos later than 354: Schneider himself (p. 71) places it ‘soon after’ the end of the war in 355.

272. The old democracy.

273. Its ‘equality.’

274. It is difficult to say how much Isokrates meant by this vague assertion. He states that the public officials generally ( οἱ τῶν πραγμάτων ἐπιστατοῦντες) were selected aecording to merit ( προκρίνειν). It is now pretty well ascertained:— 1. That, in the election of the nine archons, Kleisthenes substituted the democratic ballot ( κλήρωσις) for election ( αἵρεσις). 2. That at least the ten Strategi, and the Tamias or Steward of the Public Treasury, were at all periods, as a rule, αἱρετοί, not κληρωτοί. 3. That, as regards most other offices, lot was substituted for election about 478 B.C.—Isokrates probably believed that, in the case of archous, αἵρεσις continued to be the rule longer than it really did. It is possible, again, that in his time Strategi were sometimes appointed by ballot; and also that the proportion of inferior officials so appointed was larger than in former times.See Curtius, App. to bk. II. e. 2, vol. I. p. 478 tr. Ward: Rauehenstein Introd. to Areop. p. 112: C. F. Herm. Antt. § 112. 7.

275. Its general tone.

276. The Areiopagos:

277. guardian of the unwritten law.

278. § 50. The law of Ephialtes is usually placed in Ol. LXXX. 2, 459 B.C.: by Curtius in 460 ( Hist. Gr. II. 381 trans.).

279. Sense of security.

280. § 54: i.e. for employment as dikasts: cf. de Pac. (Or. VIII.) § 130 τοὺς ἀπὸ τῶν δικαστηρίων ζῶντας.

281. This is no plea for oligarchy.

282. The Thirty Tyrants.

283. The present Democracy.

284. A contrast.

285. Demosthenes de Fals. Legat. § 311 says that the conditions were — ἵππου μὲν δρόμον ἡμέρας πεζῆ μὴ καταβαίνειν ἐπὶ τὴν θάλατταν βασιλέα, ἐντὸς δὲ Χελιδονίων (the Swallow Islands, opposite the frontier of Lykia and Pamphylia, and S.W.E. of Cape Phaselis) καὶ Κυανέων πλοίῳ μακρῷ μὴ πλεῖν. As Mr Grote observes (c. 45, v. 456), even the ‘one day's course for a horse’ is probably more than the truth. But the statement of Isokrates—if, indeed, he recollected where the Halys was—is a strange exaggeration. As to this legendary treaty, see note on Panegyr. § 115.

286. See esp. Panegyr. §§ 51—99.

287. For I follow Schäfer, Dem. u. s. Zeit, II. 66 ff., in placing the First Philippic in 351, and not, as it is usually placed, in 352.

288. Dionys. Isokr. 8 characterises the Areopag. as an exhortation to εὐκοσμία—the decorum of the old school.

289. Such as, e.g., it assumed in the year of Salamis. Niebuhr compares this to the power conferred on Roman consuls by the formula ‘videant ne quid detrimenti, &c.’ Vortrage ub. alte Gesch. II. 29.

290. It has, indeed, been supposed that the jurisdiction of the Areiopagos was temporarily taken away by the Thirty Tyrants. It is in this sense that Mr Grote (c. 46, v. 498) understands Lys. de caede Eratosth. § 32:— ᾧ καὶ πάτριόν ἐστι καὶ ἐφ’ ὑμῶν ἀποδέδοται τοῦ φόνου τὰς δίκας δικάζειν—the passage mainly relied on by those who, like Meier, Boeckh and O. Müller, think that Ephialtes abolished the criminal jurisdiction of the Areiopagos. But there I think with Hermann that the meaning is simply:—‘(that court) of which it is the ancestral right, and to which it has been assigned in your own time also, to try causes of homicide.’ The antithesis is between πάτριον and ἐφ’ ὑμῶν. ἀποδέδοται means, not ‘ restored,’ but ‘ rendered, assigned as a province.’ The idea might have been expressed thus— ᾧ καὶ πάτριόν ἐστι καὶ ἐφ’ ὑμῶν ὑπάρχει. The statement of Demosthenes is precise and emphatic ( in Aristocr. § 66) — τοῦτο μόνον τὸ δικαστήριον οὐχὶ τύραννος οὐκ ὀλιγαρχία οὐ δημοκρατία τὰς φονικὰς δίκας ἀφελέσθαι τετόλμηκεν.

291. The Areiopagos retained the power, shared by the Senate of Five Hundred and by all magistrates, of inflicting small fines: cf. Grote, c. 46, v. 498. And on at least one occasion subsequent to the reform of Ephialtes—namely in 405 B.C., after Aegospotami— the Areiopagos is found acting in a dictatorial capacity: Lys. in Eratosth. (Or. XII.) § 69, πραττούσης τῆς ἐν Ἀρείῳ πάγῳ βουλῆς σωτήρια.

292. Cf. Curtius, Hist. Gr. bk. III, c. II., vol. II., p. 378 tr. Ward.

293. § 38. It is at least credible that democrats, on becoming members of an ancient and dignified official body, grew more conservative. On the esprit de corps of the Areiopagos Niebuhr says:— Der Areopag est ein merkwürdiges Beispiel von dem was man esprit de corps nennt in seiner schönsten Bedeutung, wie vor der französischen Revolution der pariser Parlament eine Gravität und Unabhängigkeit hatte, die sich allen Mitgliedern mittheilten und das ganze Leben und Weise übergingen.’ Vorträge üb. alte Gesch. II. p. 31.

Sir Richard C. Jebb The Attic Orators from Antiphon to Isaeos 2.16