In 358 B. C., an opening was afforded to the Athenians for regaining their influence in Eubœa; and for this island, so near their own shores, they struck a more vigorous blow than for the distant possessions of Amphipolis. At the revival of the maritime confederacy under Athens (immediately after 378 B. C.), most of the cities in Eubœa had joined it voluntarily; but after the battle of Leuktra (in 371 B. C.), the island passed under Theban supremacy. Accordingly Eubœans from all the cities served in the army of Epaminondas, both in his first and his last expedition into Peloponnesus (369-362 B. C.).[452] Moreover, Orôpus, the frontier town of Attica and Bœotia—immediately opposite to Eubœa, having been wrested from Athens[453] in 366 B. C. by a body of exiles crossing the strait from Eretria, through the management of the Eretrian despot Themison—had been placed in the keeping of the Thebans, with whom it still remained. But in the year 358 B. C., discontent began in the Eubœan cities, from what cause we know not, against the supremacy of Thebes; whereupon a powerful Theban force was sent into the island to keep them down. A severe contest ensued, in which if Thebes had succeeded, Chalkis and Eretria might possibly have shared the fate of Orchomenus.[454] These cities sent urgent messages entreating aid from the Athenians, who were powerfully moved by the apprehension of seeing their hated neighbor Thebes reinforced by so large an acquisition close to their borders. The public assembly, already disposed to sympathize with the petitioners, was kindled into enthusiasm by the abrupt and emphatic appeal of Timotheus son of Konon.[455] “How! Athenians (said he), when you have the Thebans actually in the island, are you still here debating what is to be done, or how you shall deal with the case? Will you not fill the sea with triremes? Will you not start up at once, hasten down to Peiræus, and haul the triremes down to the water?” This animated apostrophe, reported and doubtless heard by Demosthenes himself, was cordially responded to by the people. The force of Athens, military as well as naval, was equipped with an eagerness, and sent forth with a celerity, seldom paralleled. Such was the general enthusiasm, that the costly office of trierarchy was for the first time undertaken by volunteers, instead of awaiting the more tardy process of singling out those rich men whose turn it was to serve, with the chance of still farther delay from the legal process called Antidosis or Exchange of property,[456] instituted by any one of the persons so chosen who might think himself hardly used by the requisition. Demosthenes himself was among the volunteer trierarchs; he and a person named Philinus being co-trierarchs of the same ship. We are told that in three or in five days the Athenian fleet and army, under the command of Timotheus,[457] were landed in full force on Eubœa; and that in the course of thirty days the Thebans