Page:History of Greece Vol XI.djvu/503

CONDUCT OF THE AMPH1KT10KS. 47] political prudence. Demosthenes giving credit to the Amphik- tyons for something like the equity of procedure, familiar to Athenian ideas and practice affirmed that no charge against Athens could have been made before them by the Lokrians, be- cause no charge would be entertained without previous notice given to Athens. But JEschines, when accusing the Lokrians, on a matter of which he had given no notice, and which it first crossed his mind to mention at the moment when he made his speech 1 found these Amphiktyons so inflammable in their relig- ious antipathies, that they forthwith call out and head the Del- phian mob armed with pickaxes for demolition. To evoke, from a far-gone and half-forgotten past, the memory of that fierce re- ligious feud, for the purpose of extruding established proprietors, friends and defenders of the temple, from an occupancy wherein they rendered essential service to the numerous visitors of Delphi to execute this purpose with brutal violence, creating the maximum of exasperation in the sufferers, endangering the lives of the Amphiktyonic legates, and raising another Sacred War pregnant with calamitous results this was an amount of mis- chief such as the bitterest enemy of Greece could hardly have surpassed. The prior imputations of irreligion, thrown out by the Lokrian orator against Athens, may have been futile and malicious; but the retort of ^Eschines was far worse, extending as well as embittering the poison of pious discord, and plunging the Amphiktyonic assembly in a contest from which there was no exit except by the sword of Philip. Some comments on this proceeding appeared requisite, partly because it is the only distinct matter known to us, from an actual witness, respecting the Amphikytonic council partly from its ruinous consequences, which will presently appear. At first, in- deed, these consequences did not manifest themselves ; and when u^Eschines returned to Athens, he told his story to the satisfaction of the people. We may presume that he reported the proceed- ings at the time in the same manner as he stated them afterwards, in the oration now preserved. The Athenians, indignant at the accusation brought by the Lokrians against Athens, were dispos- 1 jEschines adv. Ktesiph.p. 70. eTr^/ltfe <5' 3vv jioi l-nl rrjv yvu- I*TIV jj.vi)a$j]vai Ttyf TUV J A.fj.(j>ic s tuv -Kept rf/v }';; TTJV ifpuv ucretJa'aj , etc.