Despite all his hard work, Demosthenes’ maiden speech was a disaster. He was heckled and laughed at. However, he spent three years suing his former guardians for negligence and fraud, during which time he learned to perfect his craft. Eventually he won the action, but probably recovered only a little of his lost family fortune. However, his reputation grew and he earned a good living as a popular writer of courtroom speeches. Through sheer willpower, he had realized his dream.
His attention turned to politics and he gave speech after speech to the ecclesia in which, like a dog with a bone, he obsessively worried at the threat from the north. He soon became Philip of Macedon’s most feared and hated critic.
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Phocis was one of the smallest states in Greece, but it contained within its boundaries the international center and oracle of Delphi. The oracle was guaranteed its independence by a committee of neighboring powers, called the Amphictyonic Council, which had the authority to punish any state’s sacrilegious acts. Phocis had been forced unwillingly to join the Boeotian alliance after the Battle of Leuctra, but now that the power of Thebes was fading and Epaminondas had lost his life at Mantinea, it began to act independently.
The Thebans took offense and accused Phocis of failing to pay the oracle a fine for sacrilege; apparently it had been tilling land in the plain below Delphi that was sacred to the god’s sacrificial animals. They were met with defiance, a refusal to hand over an obol, and a quotation from the Iliad to justify an ancient claim to the land in question.
Here were the origins of what the Greeks came to call a Sacred War. Phocis had many enemies on the Amphictyonic Council—the Thessalians, the Locrians, and, worst of all of course, the Thebans. If it did not act now it would be under their thumb for the foreseeable future. Unlike the Athenians and King Philip, it had no silver or gold mines. However, in Delphi it possessed something almost as good—the treasuries where Greek states stored their silver and gold gifts to Apollo. In 356 the Phocians seized Delphi and “borrowed” these possessions of the god and used them to pay for an army of mercenaries. They even dug beneath the floor of the temple of Apollo itself on a rumor of secret treasure, only to be disappointed.
They raided the treasury of the long-ago king of Lydia, Croesus, rich with gold and silver artifacts and ingots. All this was melted down into coins worth 4,000 gold talents. Croesus’s silver offerings were also recast as ready money—totaling 6,000 silver talents.
Over the coming years vast sums were extracted from the treasuries of Delphi and the Phocians enjoyed a brief heyday of military glory. In their opinion Delphi was not only an international institution, it was a national possession. Rather as the Athenians had made use of the precious metals in their temples when the Peloponnesian War was going badly for them, they believed they were justified in exploiting the riches of Delphi. At least to begin with, they had every intention of repaying what they saw as loans. However, after a while their indebtedness grew so large that repayment in full would take many years. From borrowers they insensibly mutated into thieves.
Sparta, which also owed the god a steep fine for capturing the citadel of Thebes during a time of peace (see this page), and Athens discreetly supported Phocis, largely because any enemy of the Thebans was a friend of theirs.
The Macedonian king was drawn into the affair when the Phocian general Onomarchus marched into Thessaly to help Pherae, which complained of Philip’s rough treatment of them. He was defeated by Onomarchus and withdrew to Macedon. He was used to winning his battles and growled: “I am retreating like the ram, to butt harder.”
He told the truth. In 353 or 352 he returned and expelled the Phocians from Thessaly. In a plain by the sea where a crocus field was planted, he drove their army into the waves. One third of it was destroyed. A friendly Athenian fleet helped pick up survivors. Onomarchus was carried out to sea on his horse and drowned. Philip insulted his corpse by displaying it on a cross.
Philip prepared to march south and rescue Apollo and his shrine at Delphi from the temple-robbing Phocians. Athens, ever anxious about Macedon’s seemingly irresistible rise, moved fast. Eubulus, usually an advocate of parsimony and peace, sent a large force to guard the pass at Thermopylae and so halted the king in his tracks. He withdrew and went campaigning instead in Thrace, where he threatened the interests of Athens in the Chersonese. All the while he awaited a new opportunity to deal with Phocis.
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The next stage in the growth of Macedonia was the annexation of the peninsula of Chalcidice. Olynthus proved to be an unreliable ally and harbored a claimant to Philip’s throne (one of his stepbrothers, see this page). Fearful of Philip’s intentions they entered into an alliance with Athens. In 348 this was enough to persuade the king to intervene and place the city under siege. He distracted Athens by fomenting trouble in Euboea and, by the time a relief force of two thousand Athenian hoplites and a cavalry squadron arrived, Olynthus had fallen. It is presumed that the unlucky pretender was caught and killed.
Philip always punished disloyalty; he razed the city to the ground and sent its surviving inhabitants to Macedon where they were put to work as slaves in the mines or the fields.
The ecclesia was furious and feelings against Philip ran high, but Athens was broke. It needed peace. So too did the king, for, now that he had gotten his way over Chalcidice, he had another project in mind. The Thebans had invited him to march south on behalf of the Amphictyonic Council and crush the Phocians. This was very tempting, for victory would make Macedon the dominant power in mainland Greece. Before embarking on this new military adventure, though, he needed to clear his desk.
In 346 peace negotiations were opened. Demosthenes joined a delegation to Philip whom they met in Pella, Macedon’s capital. The encounter appears to have been a disaster, if we can trust the lip-smacking account of Aeschines, a fellow-envoy and no friend of his. Apparently when his turn came to address the king, Demosthenes succumbed to stage fright. He forgot his lines and suddenly stopped speaking. Philip behaved very well, encouraging the orator to take heart and try again, but the speech had to be abandoned.
A treaty was agreed on the terms that all parties should retain the territories of which they were in possession at the time. The allies of Macedon and Athens were included in the pact—with the major exception of Phocis, which had now emptied the treasuries of Delphi and was no longer the serious military threat it had been. Philip hoped that the treaty would lead to a friendly and active partnership with Athens, but Demosthenes made sure that anti-Macedonian sentiment was reignited.
Philip had no special grievance against Phocis, but its sacrilege gave him an ideal means of strengthening his political position by intervening in central Greece. His army was allowed through the pass at Thermopylae, thanks to a treacherous Phocian general. To the general surprise the government of Phocis surrendered to Philip without demur or delay, and some suspected the king to have eased his way with gold. Members of the Amphictyonic Council were grateful for the fall of Phocis and argued that the maximum legal penalty for the sacrilege to the god should be imposed; that is, all Phocians should be thrown from the top of some high cliffs.
Philip, who was appointed chairman of Delphi’s Pythian Games, a high honor, persuaded the council to adopt a more lenient approach. Phocis lost its seat on the council and its two votes were given to Macedon. It was no longer allowed to consult the oracle at Delphi. It was required to repay the money value of the stolen treasures in annual installments.