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BEFORE CH^RONEA 359 cessful. It was a stroke of religious intrigue that turned the day. The Locrians were induced to accuse Athens of impiety before the Amphictyonic council. Impiety was in Greece, like heresy afterwards, an offence of which most people were guilty if you pressed the inquiry. The Athenians had irregularly consecrated some Theban shields. But the Locrians themselves had profanely occupied the sacred territory of Kirrha. ^schines, who was the Athenian representative, con- trived to divert the warlike bigotry of the council against the Locrians. He is very proud of his achievement. But either turn served Philip equally well : he only desired a sacred war of some sort, in order that the Amphictyons, who were without an army, might summon him into Greece as defender of religion. Once inside Thermopylae, he threw off the mask. Demosthenes obtained at the last moment what he had so long sought, an alliance between Athens and Thebes ; but the Mace- donian generalship was too good, and the coalition of Greece lay under Philip's feet at Cha^ronea in 338. Athens received the blow with her usual heroism. Lycurgus the treasurer was overwhelmed with volun- tary offerings for the defence fund, and the walls were manned for a fight to the death. But that was not Philip's wish. He sent Demades the orator, who had been made captive in the battle, to say that he would receive proposals for peace. The friends of Macedon, Phokion, ^schines, and Demades, were the ambassa- dors, and Athens was admitted on easy terms into the alliance which Philip formed as the basis of his march against Persia. Then came a war of the law-courts, the Macedonian party straining every nerve to get rid of the war element. Hyperides had proposed, in the