[551] Thucyd. vi. 7. Μεθώνην τὴν ὅμορον Μακεδονίᾳ, etc. So strong were the Phokians now, that they were more than a match for the Thebans with their other hostile neighbors, and had means to spare for combating Philip in Thessaly. As their force consisted of a large body of mercenaries, whom they were constrained for security to retain in pay—to keep them employed beyond the border was a point not undesirable. Hence they readily entered upon the Thessalian campaign. At this moment they counted, in the comparative assessment of Hellenic forces, as an item of first-rate magnitude. They were hailed both by Athenians and Spartans as the natural enemy and counterpoise of Thebes, alike odious to both. While the Phokians maintained their actual power, Athens could manage her foreign policy abroad, and Sparta her designs in Peloponnesus, with diminished apprehensions of being counterworked by Thebes. Both Athens and Sparta had at first supported the Phokians against unjust persecution by Thebes and abuse of Amphiktyonic jurisdiction, before the spoliation of the Delphian temple was consummated or even anticipated. And though, when that spoliation actually occurred, it was doubtless viewed with reprobation among Athenians, accustomed to unlimited freedom of public discussion—as well as at Sparta, in so far as it became known amidst the habitual secrecy of public affairs—nevertheless political interests so far prevailed, that the Phokians (perhaps in part by aid of bribery) were still countenanced, though not much assisted, as useful rivals to Thebes.[552] To restrain “the Leuktric insolence of the Thebans,”[553] and to see the Bœotian towns Orchomenus, Thespiæ, Platæa, restored to their pristine autonomy, was an object of paramount desire with each of the two ancient heads of Greece. So far both Athens and Sparta felt in unison. But Sparta cherished a farther hope—in which Athens by no means concurred—to avail herself of the embarrassments of Thebes for the purpose of breaking up Megalopolis and Messênê, and recovering her former Peloponnesian dominion. These two new Peloponnesian cities, erected by Epaminondas on the frontier of Laconia, had been hitherto upheld against Sparta by the certainty of Theban interference if they were menaced. But so little did Thebes seem in a condition to interfere, while Onomarchus and the Phokians were triumphant in 353-352 B. C., that the Megalopolitans despatched envoys to Athens to entreat protection and alliance, while the Spartans on their side sent to oppose the petition. [552] Such is the description of Athenian feeling, as it then stood, given by Demosthenes twenty-four years afterwards in the Oration De Coronâ, p. 230. s. 21. Τοῦ γὰρ Φωκικοῦ συστάντος πολέμου, πρῶτον μὲν ὑμεῖς οὕτω διέκεισθε, ὥστε Φωκέας μὲν βούλεσθαι σωθῆναι, καίπερ οὐ δίκαια ποιοῦντας ὁρῶντες, Θηβαίοις δ᾽ ὁτιοῦν ἂν ἐφησθῆναι παθοῦσιν, οὐκ ἀλόγως οὐδ᾽ ἀδίκως αὐτοῖς ὀργιζόμενοι, etc.