Philip’s Letter

Philip to the Council and People of Athens, greeting.

To the embassies that I have repeatedly dispatched to ensure the observance of our oaths and agreements you have paid no attention, so that I am forced to send you a statement of the matters in which I consider myself wronged. But you must not be surprised at the length of the letter, for I have many charges to prefer, and it is necessary to put them all clearly and frankly.

In the first place, when Nicias, my herald, was kidnapped[*](Nothing is known of this incident. The letters were obviously not intended for Athenian ears.) from my territory, you not only failed to bring the law-breakers to justice, but you kept the victim a prisoner for ten months, and the letters from me, of which he was the bearer, you read before your Assembly. Next, when the Thasians opened their harbor to the Byzantine war-galleys and to any pirates that chose to touch there, you ignored the incident, in spite of the clauses expressly denouncing such acts as hostile.

Furthermore, about the same date, Diopithes[*](See Dem. 8. Crobyle is not mentioned elsewhere; Tiristasis was in the Chersonese.) attacked Crobyle and Tiristasis and enslaved the inhabitants, laying waste the adjacent parts of Thrace. But his crowning act of lawlessness was the arrest of Amphilochus, the ambassador sent to negotiate for the captives; he subjected him to the severest torture and wrung from him a ransom of nine talents. And this he did with the approval of your Assembly.

Yet violation of the rights of heralds and ambassadors is regarded by all men as an act of impiety, and by none more than by you, if I may judge from the fact that, when the Megarians arrested Anthemocritus,[*](The incident is narrated by Plutarch (Plut. Per. 30). A. was sent to remonstrate with the Megarians for cultivating sacred ground. The statute was still to be seen in the time of Pausanias (Paus. 1.36.3).) your Assembly went to the length of excluding them from the celebration of the mysteries, and actually erected a statue before the city gates to commemorate the outrage. Yet is it not monstrous that you are now yourselves notoriously guilty of acts which, when you were the victims, excited in you such detestation of the perpetrators.

Again, your general, Callias,[*](Of Chalcis in Euboea. Originally an ally of Philip, he changed sides and helped Phocion’s expedition in 341, which cleared Oreus and Eretria of tyrants. The captured cities, as allies of Philip, were included in the Peace of Philocrates (346).) captured the cities on the Pagasaean Gulf, every one of them, though they were protected by treaty with you and were in alliance with me all merchants sailing to Macedonia he regarded as enemies and sold them into slavery. And for this you passed him a vote of thanks! So I am at a loss to say what difference it will make if you admit that you are at war with me, for when we were openly at variance, then too you used to send out privateers, enslave merchants trading with us, help my adversaries, and lay waste my territory.

Not content with this, you have shown your contempt for right and your hostility to me by actually sending an embassy to urge the king of Persia to declare war on me. This is the most amazing exploit of all; for, before the king reduced Egypt and Phoenicia,[*](These two provinces, together with Cyprus, revolted in 346 and were recovered by Artaxerxes Ochus. Greek mercenaries formed the backbone of the armies on both sides. See Grote, chap. 90. Nothing is known of any such Athenian decree.) you passed a decree calling on me to make common cause with the rest of the Greeks against him, in case he attempted to interfere with us.

and today you have such a superabundance of hatred for me that you negotiate with him for a defensive alliance. Yet I am given to understand that your fathers of old punished the sons of Pisistratus for inviting the Persians to invade Greece. You are not ashamed to do what you have always made a matter of indictment against your tyrants.

But there is more to come. In your decrees you order me in so many words to leave Thrace to the rule of Teres[*](Not otherwise known.) and Cersobleptes, because they are Athenians. But I am not aware that these two had any share with you in the terms of peace, or that their names were included in the inscription set up, or that they are really Athenians. On the contrary, I know that Teres fought with me against you, and that Cersobleptes was quite ready in private to take the oath of allegiance to my ambassadors, but was prevented by your generals, who denounced him as an enemy of the Athenians.

And yet is it fair and right that, when it suits your convenience, you should call him an enemy of your state, but, when you want to bully me, the same man should be described as your fellow-citizen; and that on the death of Sitalces,[*](Apparently a mistake. Sitalces, king of the Odrysae, was an ally, but not a citizen, of Athens, and was killed in battle against the Triballi in 424 (Thuc. 4.101). The description here exactly suits Cotys.) on whom you did confer your citizenship, you should at once cultivate the friendship of his murderer, and pick a quarrel with us to shield Cersobleptes? And all the time you know perfectly well that of those who receive such honors at your hands not one cares a jot for your laws or your decrees.

However, if I may mention two instances to the exclusion of the rest, you gave your citizenship to Evagoras[*](If this is the younger Evagoras, Philip’s history is inaccurate. He was expelled from Cyprus, and helped Artaxerxes to recover the island after the revolt, but he was never reinstated. His grandfather, of the same name, the friend and helper of Conon, was made an Athenian citizen.) of Cyprus and to Dionysius[*](The younger, expelled by Dion in 356 and by Timoleon in 343.) of Syracuse, to them and their descendants. Now, if you can persuade either of these peoples to restore their exiled tyrants, then you may apply to me for as much of Thrace as was ruled by Teres and Cersobleptes. But if you have not a word to say against those who overthrew Evagoras and Dionysius, but persist in harassing me, have I not a perfect right to defend myself against you.

Now I prefer to pass over many complaints that I might justly make, but I admit that I am helping the Cardians,[*](See Dem. 8) for I was their ally before the peace, and you refused to submit your claim to arbitration, though you were often pressed to do so by me, and not infrequently by the Cardians. Should I not be utterly contemptible if I threw over my allies and paid more regard to you, who are harassing me in every way, than to those who have always been my staunch friends.

The following affront also should not be passed over. Though formerly you confined yourselves to the charges I have mentioned, your arrogance is now such that, when the people of Peparethus[*](See Dem. 7) complained of the latest outrage, you instructed your general to demand redress from me on their behalf. I actually punished them less rigorously than they deserved, for they seized Halonnesus in time of peace and refused to restore either the fortress or the garrison in spite of my repeated remonstrances.

But you, with full knowledge of the facts, ignored their offences against me, and only considered their punishment. Yet I robbed neither them nor you of the island, but only the pirate chief, Sostratus. Now, if you say that you handed it over to Sostratus, you admit that you employ pirates; if he captured it against your wishes, why this indignation against me for taking it and making the district safe for traders.

In my regard for the interests of your city, I offered you the island, but your statesmen urged you to refuse it as a gift and demand it as an act of restitution, in order that, if I submit to their dictation, I may thereby confess that I have no right to the place, but if I do not give it up, I may arouse the suspicions of your democracy. Conscious of this, I challenged you to submit our claims to arbitration, so that if the island was adjudged to be mine, I might give it to you; if yours, then I might restore it to your people.

I repeatedly demanded a trial, but you paid me no attention, and the Peparethians occupied the island. What, then, was I to do? Was I not to punish those who had violated their oaths? Was I not to take vengeance for such a wanton outrage? For if the island belonged to the Peparethians, what right had the Athenians to demand it back? If it was yours, why are you not angry with the Peparethians for seizing the territory of others.

Our mutual hostility has become so acute that, when I wanted to convey my fleet to the Hellespont, I was compelled to escort it with my army through the Chersonese, because your settlers there were at war with us in accordance with the decree of Polycrates,[*](Unknown; apparently the author of the decree by which the colony was sent out.) backed up by your resolutions, and your general was inciting the Byzantines and publicly announcing that your orders were to make war on me, if he got the chance. In spite of this provocation, I kept my hands off the fleets and the territory of your state, though I was strong enough to seize most, if not all, of these, and I have not ceased to appeal to you to have the points in dispute between us settled by arbitration.

Yet consider which is the more honorable—to settle the dispute by arms or by arguments, to be yourselves the umpires or to win the verdict from others. Also reflect how unreasonable it is that Athenians should force Thasians and Maronites[*](Maronea and Stryme were neighboring towns on the coast of Thrace, eastward from the island of Thasos. Maronea laid claim to Stryme, which was a colony of Thasos.) to submit to arbitration about Stryme, but should not themselves in this way settle with me the points on which we are at variance, especially when you realize that, if you lose the verdict, you will sacrifice nothing, and if you win it, you will gain territory which is now in my possession.

But the crowning absurdity, I think, is that, though I sent ambassadors from all my allies to attend as witnesses, and was willing to come to a just agreement with you in the interests of the Greek world, you turned a deaf ear to the representations of the ambassadors, when you might perfectly well have relieved the fears of those who attributed sinister motives to me, or else have proved me beyond all doubt the most worthless of mankind.

Such a course was indeed in the interests of your people, but it would not have paid your talkers. For those who have any experience of your constitution say that to the orators peace means war and war means peace; because they always manage to make something out of the generals either by backing them up or by blackmailing them, and also, by abusing from the Public platform your most prominent citizens and the most esteemed of your foreign residents, they win a reputation with the mob for democratic zeal.

Now it would be easy for me, at a trifling expense, to stop their abuse and set them singing my praises. But I should be ashamed if I were known to purchase your goodwill from men who, besides their other faults, have reached such a height of impudence that they even venture to dispute with me about Amphipolis, to which I think I can advance a far better claim than my rivals.