Demosthenes

As regards all other marks of honour and kindly attention, however, Philip did not treat Demosthenes as well as the others, but courted rather the party of Aeschines and Philocrates. And so when these lauded Philip as most powerful in speaking, most fair to look upon, and, indeed, as a most capable fellow-drinker, Demosthenes had to say in bitter raillery that the first encomium was appropriate for a sophist, the second for a woman, and the third for a sponge, but none of them for a king.

And when matters were inclining at last to war, since Philip was unable to keep quiet and the Athenians were being stirred up by Demosthenes, in the first place, he urged the Athenians to invade Euboea, which had been brought into subjection to Philip by its tyrants; and it was on his motion that they crossed over to the island and drove out the Macedonians.

In the second place, he came to the aid of the citizens of Byzantium and Perinthus when the Macedonian was making war upon them, by persuading the Athenian people to remit their hatred and forget the wrongs committed by each of these cities in the Social War,[*](At the outbreak of the Social War (357-355 B.C.) Byzantium and other allies of Athens had revolted from her.) and to send them a force,—the force which saved them.

Next, he went on an embassy to the Greek states, and by arguing with them and pricking them on brought almost all of them into a league against Philip, so that they raised a mercenary force of fifteen thousand foot and two thousand horse, apart from the citizen soldiery, and readily contributed money to pay them. It was at this time, as Theophrastus says, when the allies were demanding that their contributions be fixed within limits, that Crobylus the popular leader said: War has no fixed rations.[*](See the note on the Crassus, ii. 8.)