Demosthenes

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.)

Greece was now in suspense as it thought of the future, and its peoples and cities were leaguing themselves together, Euboeans, Achaeans, Corinthians, Megarians, Leucadians, and Corcyraeans. But the most important struggle still remained for Demosthenes in bringing the Thebans to join the alliance, for they had a territory bounding that of Attica and a force ready to take the field, and at that time were accounted the best soldiers in Greece.

But it was no easy matter, in view of the recent benefits with which Philip had cultivated their favour during the Phocian war, to make the Thebans change sides, and especially because in the petty quarrels brought on by their proximity to Athens the differences which made for war between the two cities were all the while stirred up anew.

Philip, however, elated by his good-fortune in the matter of Amphissa,[*](In 339 B.C., Philip was deputed by the Amphictyonic Council to punish the city of Amphissa, near Delphi, for sacrilege. Cf. Demosthenes, On the Crown, § § 143 ff. ) surprised Elateia and occupied Phocis. This step drove the Athenians out of their senses: no one ventured to ascend the bema and no one knew what ought to be said, but perplexity and silence reigned in the assembly. Then it was that Demosthenes, and he alone, came forward and advised the people to cling to Thebes; and after giving them courage in other ways and buoying them up with hopes, as he was wont to do, he was sent with others as ambassador to Thebes.

Philip also, as Marsyas tells us, sent Amyntas and Clearchus of Macedonia, Daochus of Thessaly, and Thrasydaeus, to speak in opposition to the Athenians. Well, then, the Thebans, in their calculations, were not blind to their own interests, but each of them had before his eyes the terrors of war, since their losses in the Phocian war[*](The second so-called Sacred War (357-346 B. C.), in which Athens aided the Phocians, and Philip the Thebans.) were still fresh;