Position and prospects of Kallippus, after the assassination of Dion

The assassination of Dion, as recounted in my last chapter, appears to have been skilfully planned and executed for the purposes of its contriver, the Athenian Kallippus. Succeeding at once to the command of the soldiers, among whom he had before been very popular,—and to the mastery of Ortygia,—he was practically supreme at Syracuse. We read in Cornelius Nepos, that after the assassination of Dion there was deep public sorrow, and a strong reaction in his favour, testified by splendid obsequies attended by the mass of the population. But this statement is difficult to believe; not merely because Kallippus long remained undisturbed master, but because he also threw into prison the female relatives of Dion—his sister Aristomache and his pregnant wife Aretê, avenging by such act of malignity the false oath which he had so lately been compelled to take, in order to satisfy their suspicions. Aretê was delivered of a son in the prison. It would seem that these unhappy women were kept in confinement during all the time, more than a year, that Kallippus remained master. On his being deposed, they were released; when a Syracusan named Hiketas, a friend of the deceased Dion, affected to take them under his protection. After a short period of kind treatment, he put them on board a vessel to be sent to Peloponnesus, but caused them to be slain on the voyage, and their bodies to be sunk in the sea.

Position of Philip after the conclusion of the Sacred War

I have described in my last chapter the conclusion of the Sacred War, and the re-establishment of the Amphiktyonic assembly by Philip; together with the dishonourable peace of 346 b.c., whereby Athens, after a war, feeble in management and inglorious in result, was betrayed by the treachery of her own envoys into the abandonment of the pass of Thermopylæ;—a new sacrifice, not required by her actual position, and more fatal to her future security than any of the previous losses. This important pass, the key of Greece, had now come into possession of Philip, who occupied it, together with the Phokian territory, by a permanent garrison of his own troops. The Amphiktyonic assembly had become an instrument for his exaltation. Both Thebans and Thessalians were devoted to his interest; rejoicing in the ruin of their common enemies the Phokians, without reflecting on the more formidable power now established on their frontiers. Though the power of Thebes had been positively increased by regaining Orchomenus and Koroneia, yet, comparatively speaking, the new position of Philip brought upon her, as well as upon Athens and the rest of Greece, a degradation and extraneous mastery such as had never before been endured.

Sufferings of the Olynthians and Chalkidians—triumph and festival of Philip

It was during the early spring of 347 b.c., as far as we can make out, that Olynthus, after having previously seen the thirty Chalkidic cities conquered, underwent herself the like fate from the arms of Philip. Exile and poverty became the lot of such Olynthians and Chalkidians as could make their escape; while the greater number of both sexes were sold into slavery. A few painful traces present themselves of the diversities of suffering which befel these unhappy victims. Atrestidas, an Arcadian who had probably served in the Macedonian army, received from Philip a grant of thirty Olynthian slaves, chiefly women and children, who were seen following him in a string as he travelled homeward through the Grecian cities. Many young Olynthian women were bought for the purpose of having their persons turned to account by their new proprietors. Of these purchasers, one, an Athenian citizen who had exposed his new purchase at Athens, was tried and condemned for the proceeding by the Dikastery. Other anecdotes come before us, inaccurate probably as to names and details, yet illustrating the general hardships brought upon this once free Chalkidic population. Meanwhile the victor Philip was at the maximum of his glory. In commemoration of his conquests, he celebrated a splendid festival to the Olympian Zeus in Macedonia, with unbounded hospitality, and prizes of every sort, for matches and exhibitions, both gymnastic and poetical.