he would himself go to the king of Macedonia and intercede for them, either because he trusted in the friendship which existed between him and Alexander, or because he thought that he should find him like a lion that has been satiated with slaughter. Demades succeeded in saving their lives, and arranged terms of peace between the Athenians and Alexander. XXIV. After Alexander's departure Demades and his party were all powerful at Athens, and Demosthenes was completely humbled. He made an effort to assist the abortive attempts of Agis[133] King of Sparta, but as the Athenians would not take part in the proposed rising, and the Lacedæmonians were crushed, he again retired into obscurity. At this time also the action bought by Æschines against Ktesiphon about the Crown came on for trial. This action had been formally begun during the archonship of Chærondas, a short time before the battle of Chæronea, but it was not decided until ten years later, in the archonship of Aristophon. This, although a private action, attracted greater interest than any public one, both on account of the eloquence of the speakers on both sides and the spirited behaviour of the judges, who refused to truckle to the party in power, which had banished Demosthenes and which was slavishly subservient to Macedonia, but acquitted Demosthenes by such a splendid majority that Æschines did not obtain the fifth part of the votes. He in consequence at once left the city, and spent the remainder of his life at Rhodes and the other cities of the Ionian coast as a sophist and teacher of rhetoric.