In the vote passed by the people of Athens some years afterwards,
awarding a statue and other honors to Demosthenes, these
proceedings in Peloponnesus are enumerated among his titles
to public gratitude—καὶ ὡς ἐκώλυσε Πελοποννησίους ἐπὶ Θήβας
Ἀλεξάνδρῳ βοηθῆσαι, χρήματα δοὺς καὶ αὐτὸς πρεσβεύσας, etc.
(Plutarch, Vit. X. Orator. p. 850).
[81] Arrian, i. 10, 2; Æschines adv. Ktesiphont. p. 634.
Here was a crisis in Grecian affairs, opening new possibilities
for the recovery of freedom. Had the Arcadians and other Greeks
lent decisive aid to Thebes—had Athens acted even with as much
energy as she did twelve years afterwards during the Lamian war,
occupying Thermopylæ with an army and a fleet—the gates of Greece
might well have been barred against a new Macedonian force, even
with Alexander alive and at its head. That the struggle of Thebes
was not regarded at the time, even by macedonizing Greeks, as
hopeless, is shown by the subsequent observations both of Æschines
and Deinarchus at Athens. Æschines (delivering five years afterwards
his oration against Ktesiphon) accuses Demosthenes of having by his
perverse backwardness brought about the ruin of Thebes. The foreign
mercenaries forming part of the garrison of the Kadmeia were ready
(Æschines affirms) to deliver up that fortress, on receiving five
talents: the Arcadian generals would have brought up their troops
to the aid of Thebes, if nine or ten talents had been paid to
them—having repudiated the solicitations of Antipater. Demosthenes
(say these two orators) having in his possession 300 talents from the
Persian king, to instigate anti-Macedonian movements in Greece, was
supplicated by the Theban envoys to furnish money for these purposes,
but refused the request, kept the money for himself, and thus
prevented both the surrender of the Kadmeia and the onward march
of the Arcadians.[82] The charge here advanced against Demosthenes
appears utterly incredible. To suppose that anti-Macedonian movements
counted for so little in his eyes, is an hypothesis belied by his
whole history. But the fact that such allegations were made by
Æschines only five years afterwards, proves the reports and the
feelings of the time—that the chances of successful resistance to
Macedonia on the part of the Thebans were not deemed unfavorable. And
when the Athenians, following the counsels of Demades and Phokion,
refused to aid Thebes or occupy Thermopylæ—they perhaps consulted the
safety of Athens separately, but they receded from the generous and
Pan-hellenic patriotism which had animated their ancestors against
Xerxes and Mardonius.[83]
[82] Æschines adv. Ktesiph. p. 634; Deinarch. adv. Demosth. p.
15, 16. s. 19-22.
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