CHAPTER XI.
CHÆRONEIA—FALL OF GREECE.
We must now hurry on to the decisive catastrophe which sealed the fate of Greece and of its political independence. Its glory had been to have been represented by an aggregate of free states, of which Athens was immeasurably the first in culture and civilisation. Its weakness and curse had been perpetual and all but irremediable rivalries and jealousies, which went far to neutralise its collective strength in the face of a real peril. It was now on the eve of a revolution which the Greek mind, in spite of many a warning from Demosthenes, had never been able to bring itself to contemplate as possible. He had done his best, as we have seen, to retard it amid endless discouragements, and to the last we shall find him faithful to the cause of which he never once seems to have allowed himself to despair. In the train of events which culminated in Chæroneia we find him bearing a conspicuous and honourable part.
Philip's career, as we have just seen, had been temporarily checked; and at the close of the year 340 B.C. Athens might almost congratulate herself on all
