chapter 2-3.

ATHENS: B. C. 395-387. Confederacy against Sparta. Alliance with Persia. The Corinthian War. Conon's rebuilding of the Long Walls. Athenian independence restored. The Peace of Antalcidas.

See GREECE: B. C. 399-387.

ATHENS: B. C. 378-371. Brief alliance with Thebes against Sparta.

See GREECE: B. C. 379-371.

ATHENS: B. C. 378-357. The New Confederacy and the Social War.

Upon the Liberation of Thebes and the signs that began to appear of the decline of Spartan power--during the year of the archonship of Nausinicus, B. C. 378-7, which was made memorable at Athens by various movements of political regeneration,--the organization of a new Confederacy was undertaken, analogous to the Confederacy of Delos, formed a century before. Athens was to be, "not the ruling capital, but only the directing city in possession of the primacy, the seat of the federal council. ... Callistratus was in a sense the Aristides of the new confederation and doubtless did much to bring about an agreement; it was likewise his work that, in place of the 'tributes' of odious memory, the payments necessary to the existence of the confederation were introduced under the gentler name of 'contributions.' ... Amicable relations were resumed with the Cyclades, Rhodes and Perinthus; in other words, the ancient union of navies was at once renewed upon a large scale and in a wide extent. Even such states joined it as had hitherto never stood in confederate relations with Athens, above all Thebes."

_E. Curtius, History of Greece, book 6, chapter 1_.

This second confederacy renewed much of the prosperity and influence of Athens for a brief period of about twenty years. But in 357 B. C., four important members of the Confederacy, namely, Chios, Cos, Rhodes, and Byzantium leagued themselves in revolt, with the aid of Mausolus, prince of Caria, and an inglorious war ensued, known as the Social War, which lasted three years. Athens was forced at last to assent to the secession of the four revolted cities and to recognize their independence, which greatly impaired her prestige and power, just at the time when she was called upon to resist the encroachments of Philip of Macedonia.

_C. Thirlwall, History of Greece, chapter 42._

ATHENS: B. C. 370-362. Alliance with Sparta against Thebes. Battle of Mantinea.

See GREECE: B. C. 371-362.

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ATHENS: B. C. 359-338. The collision with Philip of Macedon. The Policy of Demosthenes and Policy of Phocion.

"A new period opens with the growth of the Macedonian power under Philip (359-336 B. C.) We are here chiefly concerned to notice the effect on the City-State [of Athens], not only of the strength and policy of this new power, but also of the efforts of the Greeks themselves to counteract it. At the time of Philip's accession the so-called Theban supremacy had just practically ended with the death of Epaminondias. There was now a kind of balance of power between the three leading States, Sparta, Athens, and Thebes, no one of which was greatly stronger than the others; and such a balance could easily be worked upon by any great power from without. Thus when Macedon came into the range of Greek politics, under a man of great diplomatic as well as military capacity, who, like a Czar of to-day, wished to secure a firm footing on the sea-board of the Ægean [see GREECE: B. C. 359-358], she found her work comparatively easy. The strong imperial policy of Philip found no real antagonist except at Athens. Weak as she was, and straitened by the break-up of her new confederacy, Athens could still produce men of great talent and energy; but she was hampered by divided counsels. Two Athenians of this period seem to represent the currents of Greek political thought, now running in two different directions. Demosthenes represents the cause of the City-State in this age, of a union, that is, of perfectly free Hellenic cities against the common enemy. Phocion represents the feeling, which seems to have been long growing up among thinking men at Athens, that the City-State was no longer what it had been, and could no longer stand by itself; that what was needed was a general Hellenic peace, and possibly even an arbiter from without, an arbiter not wholly un-Hellenic like the Persian, yet one who might succeed in stilling the fatal jealousies of the leading States. ... The efforts of Demosthenes to check Philip fall into two periods divided by the peace of Philocrates in 346 B. C. In the first of these he is acting chiefly with Athens alone; Philip is to him not so much the common enemy of Greece as the dangerous rival of Athens in the north. His whole mind was given to the internal reform of Athens so as to strengthen her against Philip. In her relation to other Greek States he perhaps hardly saw beyond a balance of power. ... After 346 his Athenian feeling seems to become more distinctly Hellenic. But what could even such a man as Demosthenes do with the Hellas of that day? He could not force on the Greeks a real and permanent union; he could but urge new alliances. His strength was spent in embassies with this object, embassies too often futile. No alliance could save Greece from the Macedonian power, as subsequent events plainly showed. What was needed was a real federal union between the leading States, with a strong central controlling force; and Demosthenes' policy was hopeless just because Athens could never be the centre of such a union, nor could any other city. Demosthenes is thus the last, and in some respects the most heroic champion of the old Greek instinct for autonomy. He is the true child of the City-State, but the child of its old age and decrepitude. He still believes in Athens, and it is on Athens that all his hopes are based. He looks on Philip as one who must inevitably be the foe alike of Athens and of Greece. He seems to think that he can be beaten off as Xerxes was, and to forget that even Xerxes almost triumphed over the divisions of the Greek States, and that Philip is a nearer, a more prominent, and a far less barbarian foe. ... Phocion was the somewhat odd exponent of the practical side of a school of thought which had been gaining strength in Greece for some time past. This school was now brought into prominence by the rise of Macedon, and came to have a marked influence on the history of the City-State. It began with the philosophers, and with the idea that the philosopher may belong to the world as well as to a particular city. ... Athens was far more open to criticism now than in the days of Pericles; and a cynical dislike betrays itself in the Republic for the politicians of the day and their tricks, and a longing for a strong government of reason. ... Aristotle took the facts of city life as they were and showed how they might be made the most of. ... To him Macedon was assuredly not wholly barbarian; and war to the death with her kings could not have been to him as natural or desirable as it seemed to Demosthenes. And though he has nothing to tell us of Macedon, we can hardly avoid the conclusion that his desire was for peace and internal reform, even if it were under the guarantee of the northern power. ... Of this philosophical view of Greek politics Phocion was in a manner the political exponent. But his policy was too much a negative one; it might almost be called one of indifferentism, like the feeling of Lessing and Goethe in Germany's most momentous period. So far as we know, Phocion never proposed an alliance of a durable kind, either Athenian or Hellenic, with Macedon; he was content to be a purely restraining influence. Athens had been constantly at war since 432; her own resources were of the weakest; there was little military skill to be found in her, no reserve force, much talk, but little solid courage. Athens was vulnerable at various points, and could not possibly defend more than one at a time, therefore Phocion despaired of war, and the event proved him right. The faithfulness of the Athenians towards him is a proof that they also instinctively felt that he was right. But he was wanting on the practical and creative side, and never really dominated either Athens, Greece, or Philip. ... A policy of resistance found the City-State too weak to defend itself; a policy of inaction would land it in a Macedonian empire which would still further weaken its remaining vitality. The first policy, that of Demosthenes, did actually result in disaster and the presence of Macedonian garrisons in Greek cities. The second policy then took its place, and initiated a new era for Greece. After the fatal battle of Chæronea (338 B. C.) Philip assumed the position of leader of the Greek cities."

_W. W. Fowler, The City-State of the Greeks and Romans,