The republican reaction against the policy of Antigonus Gonatas had by no means spent its force. This is shown in the seriousness with which it was now reckoned with by Antigonus Doson. He could not ignore the well established practice of the league assemblies to decide all important questions of foreign policy. Hence his synod differs from that of Philip II particularly in this important respect, that its action in declaring war, concluding peace, and other like matters was taken subject to ratification by the league authorities, and was, seemingly, binding only on such of them as ratified it.[138] His synod, in other words, stood to the league assemblies as the Achæan synod stood to the Achæan _syncletus_. Naturally, the confederates could not withdraw from the hegemony at pleasure, much less join its enemies; so that the refusal of a league to accept a decision of the synod to declare war meant only that it assumed a position of neutrality. In Philip's time each city had had to pay per day a fine of thirty drachmæ for every horseman, twenty drachmæ for every hoplite, ten drachmæ for every light-armed soldier, and seven or eight drachmæ for every sailor who was absent from a duly authorized expedition.[139] Now the leagues could refuse to coöperate without suffering any penalty. They surrendered their liberty to fight one another, and their right to contract alliances with outside states; but they did not surrender their diplomacy entirely to the hegemon, though they agreed to enter into no negotiations with any outside king.[140] They gave their hegemon no right whatever to interfere in their local concerns.[141] Such were the generous concessions to local sentiment by means of which Antigonus Doson sought to place the hegemony of the kings of Macedon in Hellas on a secure basis. Never before in the history of the people had a conqueror made so noble a use of his power. Antigonus Doson went in fact so far in conciliating the Greek states that had he withdrawn Macedonian troops from Demetrias, Chalcis, and Corinth,--the three shackles of Hellas,--added new conquests like Orchomenus, Sparta, and Messene to the constituent leagues instead of to the central organization, and possessed less personal prestige, it is difficult to imagine how the Hellenic league could ever have been brought into action. Probably all that he cared to be absolutely sure of was the neutrality of the confederates who did not support him in the field.