A Greek, who had been watching the course of Philip's movements, must have been surprised to hear, that, after having raised the sieges of Byzantium and Perinthus, on which he had spent so much time and money, if not many lives; after having been driven out of the Chersonesus; and when his own territories were suffering from the enemy's inroads; instead of making any attempt to retaliate on the Athenians, as he had boasted it was always in his power to do, his next enterprise was an expedition against the Scythians. The motives assigned for this expedition seemed by no means urgent. Atheas, king of the Scythians, pressed by the tribes on the banks of the Danube, had sought aid, through the mediation of the Greeks of Apollonia, from Philip; and a body of troops had been sent to support him. That the Scythian promised, in return for his help, to adopt him as heir to his throne, sounds hardly credible. The danger however which threatened the Scythians had ceased before their allies arrived; and Atheas sent them back with an insulting message, by which he disclaimed all connection with Philip. Philip, it is said, then demanded compensation for the cost of their march, which was likewise scoffingly refused.

After the battle of Gaugamela Darius had taken the road to Ecbatana. This ancient capital of Media contained a considerable treasure, and here he thought he might wait in safety for the turn of events: not without a hope that some accident might happen to arrest Alexander's progress. He calculated perhaps on the resistance which might be made by the satrap of Persis, or by the wild tribes on its north-west border; partly too, it may be, on the movements which were beginning to threaten Macedonia in Greece. For even after his last defeat he had received an embassy from Sparta, which was accompanied by an Athenian named Dropidas; and he had learnt that the nation at large was not so blinded by names, as to share the sentiment of the Corinthian Demaratus, who, when he saw Alexander seated on the throne of the Great King, is said to have shed tears of joy, and to have observed that the Greeks who had died before they witnessed that sight, had lost a great pleasure: as if it was a happiness for Greece to have the Great King reigning at Pella, as well as at Susa. But it seems that he trusted entirely to fortune, or to the exertions of others. It is very doubtful whether he ever entertained the design of collecting a fresh army, and meeting Alexander again in the field: though Arrian's silence may not prove anything against the assertions of the other historians on this point, which are in some degree confirmed by the rumour which he himself mentions about the preparations of Darius.

From the remotest ages of Pelasgian antiquity down to the time of the Roman empire, the holy island of Samothrace, the seat of an awfully mysterious worship, accounted equal to Delphi in sanctity, and an inviolable asylum, continued to be visited by pilgrims, who went to be initiated into the rites which were believed to secure the devotee against extraordinary perils both by sea and land, and, in the later period, to fix his destiny after death in some brighter sphere. It had probably been always held in great reverence by the Macedonian kings, as it was here that the last of them sought refuge in the wreck of his fortunes. Here it is said Philip first saw Olympias, when they partook at the same time in the Cabirian mysteries, and resolved to seek her hand. For him such a scene may have had little other interest: but Olympias seems to have taken delight in such ceremonies, and to have given herself up with fervour to the impression they produced. She loved the fanatical orgies celebrated by the Thracian and Macedonian women in honour of their Dionysus; and is even said to have introduced some of the symbols of this frantic worship, the huge tame snakes, which the Bacchanals wreathed round their necks and arms, into her husband's palace. It is a stroke which agrees well with the other features of her wild impetuous character.

The state of public feeling in Athens at the close of the Phocian war, may be easily conceived. It was a struggle between fear and resentment. Fear of an enemy who had been irritated by a long conflict, had become more powerful than ever, and, while his forces had been brought nearer to the confines of Attica than they had ever before advanced, had given a fresh specimen, in the political extinction of another Grecian state, of the fearful lengths to which his animosity might be carried, or to which he might even be led by the cool calculations of his ambitious policy. Resentment, which was so much the keener, because the injury that provoked it was one which afforded but slight ground for remonstrance, or even for complaint. One of the consequences of this state of feeling was, that the peace just concluded, though almost universally admitted to be necessary, became generally odious, and its authors and promoters–the orators who proposed and recommended it, and the negotiators who brought it about–extremely unpopular. Demosthenes, as one of the ambassadors who had been engaged in this business, must have shared the odium to which his colleagues were exposed, if he had not been able to separate his case from theirs, and if the whole tenor of his past public life had not exempted him from all suspicions of a leaning toward the Macedonian interest.

Alexander's invasion of Asia might well form the subject of a separate work: but it belongs rather to universal history than to the history of Greece. The Greeks indeed were deeply interested in the event: but the effect it produced on their condition might be sufficiently understood from a very summary account of the transactions by means of which it was brought about. Still it was not without reason that writers of Grecian history thought themselves called upon to relate this great triumph of Grecian arts and arms–for such it was, though they were employed by a people whom the Greeks themselves did not account worthy of their name–which spread a Greek population over the fairest provinces of Asia, and carried the Greek language, manners, and modes of thinking, from the shores of the Mediterranean to the banks of the Indus. It is now scarcely permitted to one who is traversing the same field to depart from their example. The reader however will not expect to see this subject treated here even with all the fulness of details into which we have entered in other portions of our narrative, which were more essential parts of a history of Greece. Our aim must be confined to a survey of the leading features of this ever memorable conquest, which may enable us to understand the spirit in which it was accomplished, and perhaps to judge of the designs as well as the achievements of the conqueror.

ON THE ORDER OF THE OLYNTHIACS.

I am not about to add another dissertation to the many which have been written on this perplexing subject, but only to direct the reader's attention to some questions connected with it, which have not been noticed in the text. It will be observed that I have not only followed the order of Dionysius, but have assumed that each oration was delivered on the occasion of a fresh embassy from Olynthus. On this point, as well as on the other, opinions differ, and those who agree on the one question may take opposite sides on the other.

We have been used to see the Athenians making the most vigorous exertions in the midst of their greatest calamities: we might otherwise have been disposed to question the accuracy of the descriptions we have received of the disastrous consequences of the Social War. For that war was scarcely at an end, before we find them again acting on the offensive, and even ready to enter into a new contest, apparently still more arduous and hazardous than that from which they had just retired with such heavy loss. There is reason to believe that in the course of the same summer in which they made peace with the allies, they sent an expedition against Olynthus, as to which we are informed that it was the second occasion that called forth the services of voluntary trierarchs, and that a body of Athenian cavalry was employed in it; facts which imply a considerable effort, though we have no account of the results; nor is the precise date well ascertained. Notwithstanding the peace the public mind continued to be agitated by rumours of the Persian preparations; and it appears that there were orators — politicians, we may suppose, of the school of Isocrates — who endeavoured to instigate the people to declare war against Persia. The deliberation of the assembly on this subject is chiefly known to us as the occasion on which Demosthenes began his career as a statesman, with an oration which is still extant.

It is peculiarly necessary in this period of Greek history to distinguish between the impression made by the events on the mind of the reader, who reviews them at a distance of many ages, and that which they produced on the chief actors and their contemporaries, as they occurred. To us the fall of Olynthus, which completed the subjugation of the Chalcidian peninsula, may seem to have decided Philip's contest with Athens, and virtually to have made him master of Greece. Thessaly might be considered as already almost a province of Macedonia. The struggle between Thebes and Phocis had reached such a point, that the one party needed assistance, and the other could not hope to withstand the force with which he was able to support its antagonist. Then, if his arms terminated the conflict, the use to be made of the victory would depend on his will, and there remained no Greek state capable of resisting him. In Peloponnesus there was a similar division of strength and interests: and the side on which he threw his weight must prevail. He had already formed a considerable marine, which after the conquest of the Chalcidian towns he had means of continually augmenting, and which enabled him to threaten and molest the foreign possessions of Athens. The road to Thrace lay open to him: he had already gained a strong footing there: the rival princes were either his humble allies, or enemies who lay at his mercy.

To an enlightened and patriotic Greek the prospects of his country must have appeared more gloomy after the battle of Mantinea than at any previous epoch. The most desirable of all conditions for Greece would have been, to be united in a confederacy, strong enough to prevent intestine warfare among its members, and so constituted as to guard against all unnecessary encroachment on their independence. This was the mark toward which the aims of the nation would have been most wisely directed. But though the Amphictyonies, particularly that of Delphi, afforded not only a hint, but a ground-work, which might have been enlarged and adapted to this purpose: though the Lycian colonies exhibited an admirable example of a similar union: though the Persian invasion held out a strong motive, and a fair opportunity for such an undertaking; it is doubtful whether the thought had ever occurred to a single Greek statesman; and it is probable that, if it had suggested itself, it would have been rejected as a chimera. The next good to this would have been the supremacy of some Grecian state, powerful enough to enforce peace, but not to crush liberty. Nearly such had been that which Sparta exercised over the Peloponnesian confederacy before the Persian war. And, for a few years after, the division of power between Sparta and Athens might have seemed to promise the attainment of the blessing, in a different form indeed, but in one which afforded better security for freedom than could have been enjoyed under the sway of either alone.

Thus by a vigorous and dexterous use of the advantages which she gained from the peace of Antalcidas, Sparta had advanced some steps nearer than she had ever been before to a complete subjugation of Greece. If her old rival had now recovered her independence, Thebes was reduced to a state of subjection like that in which Athens had been held by the Thirty. Within the peninsula the hostility of Argos was counterpoised by the attachment of the newly-restored Corinthian oligarchy: and the fate of Mantinea and of Phlius struck the smaller states with awe. The acquisition of Olynthus raised her reputation no less than it immediately strengthened her power. To one who considers the dangers — at this time completely veiled from human foresight — which really impended over the liberty of Greece, the establishment of the Spartan dominion may seem to have been, as at least the lighter evil, a desirable event. Such it would certainly have been, if it could have been effected so as not to excite irritation and alarm. But the causes which made the Spartan ascendancy generally odious, rendered it also insecure. Pleas might be found for the proceedings against Phlius, and Mantinea, and Olynthus. But the seizure of the Cadmea was so glaring an act of injustice, that even at Sparta, according to Xenophon, no attempt was made to defend it except on the score of expediency.

The ill-humour with which the news of the battle of Leuctra was received at Athens, seems to have arisen merely out of the old jealousy and animosity with which the Athenians had been used to regard their northern neighbours, and which revived as soon as the affairs of Thebes became prosperous. For in the event itself, considered with respect to their own interests, they could have seen nothing to deplore. And they proceeded without delay to take advantage of the shock which it had given to the influence of Sparta. It seems to have been the prevailing opinion throughout Greece, and not least at Sparta itself, that the Spartan power had suffered a fatal blow; and Xenophon intimates that the Athenians were surprised to find that any of the Peloponnesian states still adhered to the ancient chief of their confederacy. They believed that the time had now come when Athens might step into the place of Sparta, as guardian of the peace of Antalcidas, and might transfer all the advantages which her rival had reaped from that title to herself. They therefore assembled a congress in their own city, to which they invited deputies not only from their old allies, but from all the states of Greece which were willing to adopt the peace of Antalcidas as the basis of their mutual relations.

The storm had passed over Sparta, and, chiefly perhaps through the prudence and energy displayed at this critical juncture by Agesilaus, had left her standing erect; but it had shaken her power to the centre, had stript her of the fairest half of her territories, and converted it into a strong-hold for a foe from whom she had to expect implacable and active hostility, and who possessed the means of offering her continual annoyance. The prospect of the internal disorders likely to be produced by the blow which deprived so many of her citizens of the whole or the greater part of their property, was sufficient to excite alarm for the safety of her institutions; and she still saw herself exposed to the recurrence of the same danger which had lately threatened her very existence. The whole line of her frontier was encompassed by enemies, who might again invite and support an invader; and within the peninsula her allies were few and feeble. Beyond the Isthmus there was no power to which she could look for efficacious assistance, but her ancient rival; and one of the first measures of the government, when Laconia was relieved from the enemy's presence, was to send an embassy to Athens, for the purpose of cementing the alliance between the two states, and of concerting plans for mutual defence. The Athenian council, in compliance with the views of the Peloponnesian ministers — for envoys came from Phlius and other allied states — proposed a decree to the assembly, by which it was to be declaied, that the naval armaments of the confederacy were to be under the control of Athens, the land forces to be commanded by Sparta.

When the Athenian orators wished to rouse the spirit of their countrymen in their contest with Philip, they sometimes reminded them that Macedonia had once been subject and tributary to Athens. This was indeed a rhetorical figure; but yet not without a substantial meaning: nor was it, as has sometimes been imagined, only applicable to the state of things in the reign of one of Philip's remote predecessors. Arrian has put a speech into the mouth of Alexander the Great, in which he mentions among the benefits which his father had conferred upon his people, that instead of paying tribute to the Athenians, he had reduced them to depend upon Macedonian protection. It seems clear that these expressions can only relate to the maritime part of Macedonia; and even in that sense it is not easy to assign their exact value. It is certain however that Philip, at the beginning of his reign, did not possess a single place of any importance on the coast. Several maritime towns which had belonged to his predecessors, were then subject to Athens, and probably contributed to the common fund of her revived confederacy. And though it does not appear that after the Peloponnesian war the Athenian government levied any duties in any foreign port, except at Byzantium, still those with which the Macedonian commerce was burdened in the towns dependent on Athens, might, in vague language, be described as tribute which she received from Macedonia; and, so long as her fleets commanded the sea, nothing could be directly exported or imported without her permission.

The position in which Sparta was standing at the end of the Peloponnesian war was so strong and commanding, that only a little moderation and prudence on her part seemed to be wanting, to secure her dominion over Greece, and the general tranquillity, for a long course of years. Yet not many, as we have seen, had passed, before she found herself engaged in a new struggle, which at one time threatened her safety, and, even when most prosperously conducted, added little to her glory, and did not compensate by any solid advantage for the sacrifices which it required. It is not easy to determine, how far this result must be ascribed to errors of policy committed by the Spartan government, or to causes which it could not control, or to the nature of the constitution, which every year changed the officers of state who had the principal share in the administration of affairs. But after making full abatement for unavoidable adverse circumstances, it can hardly be questioned that the Spartans were too much elated by success, that they overlooked the bounds of a reasonable ambition, and neglected the steps and the instruments by which they had risen to their lofty station. Their treatment of Athens was clearly injudicious.

The news of the disaster which had befallen the Athenian arms in Sicily, was no doubt soon conveyed by many channels to Greece; but, if we may believe an anecdote preserved by Plutarch, it did not reach Athens until it was generally known elsewhere. He relates, that a foreigner who had landed at Piræus, as he took his seat in a rber's shop, happened to mention the event of the Sicilian expedition as a subject of conversation which he supposed to be commonly notorious; and the barber, having hastened to the city to convey the intelligence to the archons, was immediately brought before an assembly of the people, which they summoned to hear his report but as he was unable to give any account of his informer, he was put to the rack, as the author of a false alarm, until the truth was confirmed by other witnesses. According to another story, in itself not more improbable, the multitude was assembled in the theatre, listening with unusual delight to a burlesque poem of the Thasian Hegemon, the client of Alcibiades, which by a singular coincidence turned on the overthrow of the Giants, when the sad tidings arrived, and soon spread through the spectators: yet, though almost each had some private loss to bewail, beside the public calamity, they both kept their seats, and hid their tears, that their grief might not be observed by the foreigners present, and would not even suffer the poet to leave off.

The despondency with which the Greeks viewed the situation in which they were left by the loss of their generals, can only be estimated, if we consider not only its real dangers, but the reluctance with which they had been induced to follow Cyrus on to the goal of his enterprise, and the opinion which Clearchus himself had expressed, on the desperate difficulty of making good their retreat against the will of the enemy, who had just given such a proof of his implacable hostility, as utterly precluded all further attempts at negotiation, and all possibility of compromise. On the other hand the whole amount of the loss which had been actually sustained through the perfidy of Tissaphernes might be looked upon as confined to the person of Clearchus. Yet this loss might well seem irreparable. For he was the only man who had hitherto displayed the abilities and acquirements requisite for the station which he had filled among his colleagues, whose deference was a tacit acknowledgment of their own incapacity. Even he had despaired of conducting them home in defiance of the Persian power. They were now in the case which he had described, left, at the distance of at least 1200 miles from Greece, without provisions, without guides, without a single horseman, to find and fight their way through an enemy's country, across unfordable rivers, with a hostile army watching their movements, and ready to seize every opportunity of falling upon them with advantage: and beside all this, they were without a chief.