Page:History of Greece Vol XI.djvu/502

476 HISTORY OF GKKECE. pose of sacrifice and consultation of the oracle. Loud and indig nant were the denunciations pronounced in this meeting against the Amphissians ; while Athens was eulogized as having taker, the lead in vindicating the rights of Apollo. It was finally re- solved that the Amphissians should be punished as sinners against the god and the sacred domain, as well as against the Amphikty- cns personally ; that the legates should now go home, to consult each his respective city ; and that as soon as some positive resolu- tion for executory measures could be obtained, each should come to a special meeting, appointed at Thermopylae for a future day, seemingly not far distant, and certainly prior to the regular season of autumnal convocation. Thus was the spark applied, and the flame kindled, of a second Amphiktyonic war, between six and seven years after the conclu- sion of the former in 346 B. c. What has been just recounted comes to us from -^Eschines, himself the witness as well as the incendiary. "We here judge him, not from accusations preferred by his rival Demosthenes, but from his own depositions ; and from facts which he details not simply without regret, but with a strong feeling of pride. It is impossible to read them without becoming sensible of the profound misfortune which had come over the Grecian world ; since the unanimity or dissidence of its compo- nent portions were now determined, not by political congresses at Athens or Sparta, but by debates in the religious convocation at Delphi and Thermopylae. Here we have the political sentiment of the Amphissian Lokrians, their sympathy for Thebes, and dislike to Athens, dictating complaint and invective against the Athenians on the allegation of impiety. Against every one, it was commonly easy to find matter for such an allegation, if par ties were on the look-out for it ; while defence was difficult, and the fuel for kindling religious antipathy all at the command of the accuser. Accordingly ^Eschines troubles himself little with the defence, but plants himself at once on the vantage-ground of the accuser, and retorts the like charge of impiety against the Am- phiaaians, on totally different allegations. By superior oratory, as well as by the appeal to an ancient historical fact of a character peculiarly terror-striking, he exasperates the Amphiktyons to a pitch of religious ardor, in vindication of the god, such as to make them disdain alike the suggestions either of social justice or o/