But after Philip, puffed up with his good success at Amphissa, on a sudden surprised Elatea and possessed himself of Phocis, the Athenians were in a great consternation, none durst venture to rise up to speak, all were at a loss, and the whole assembly was in silence and perplexity. In this extremity of affairs, Demosthenes was the only man who appeared, his counsel to them being alliance with the Thebans. And having in other ways encouraged the people, and, as his manner was, raised their spirits up with hopes, he, with some others was sent ambassador to Thebes. To oppose him, as Marsyas says, Philip also sent thither his envoys. Now the Thebans, in their consultations, were well enough aware what suited best with their own interest, but every one had before his eye the terrors of war, and their losses in the Phocian troubles were still recent: but such was the force and power of the orator, fanning up their courage, and firing their emulation, that, casting away every thought of prudence, fear, or obligation, in a sort of divine possession, they chose the path of honor, to which his words invited them. And this success, thus accomplished by an orator, was thought to be so glorious and of such consequence, that Philip immediately sent heralds to treat and petition for a peace: all Greece was aroused, and up in arms to help. And the commanders-in-chief, not only of Attica, but of Boeotia, applied themselves to Demosthenes, and observed his directions. He managed all the assemblies of the Thebans, no less than those of the Athenians; he was beloved both by the one and by the other, and exercised the same supreme authority with both; and that not by unfair means, or without just cause, but it was no more than was due to his merit. But there was, it should seem, some divinely-ordered fortune, commissioned, in the revolution of things, to put a period at this time to the liberty of Greece, which opposed and thwarted all their actions, and by many signs foretold what should happen. Such were the sad predictions uttered by the Pythian priestess, and this old oracle cited out of the Sibyl's verses: The battle on Thermodon that shall be Safe at a distance I desire to see, Far, like an eagle, watching in the air. Conquered shall weep, and conqueror perish there. This Thermodon, they say, is a little rivulet here in our country in Chaeronea, running into the Cephisus. But we know of none that is so called at the present time; and can only conjecture that the streamlet which is now called Haemon, and runs by the Temple of Hercules, where the Greeks were encamped, might perhaps in those days be called Thermodon.