Page:History of Greece Vol XI.djvu/507

PHILIP IS CALLED IN. 4#J in Philip was adopted, legates from Athens were doubtless pres- ent (^Eschines among them), according to usual custom ; for the decree of Demosthenes had enacted that the usual custom should be followed, though it had forbidden the presence of legates at the special or extraordinary meeting. JEschines l was not back- ward in advocating the application to Philip ; nor indeed could he take any other course, consistently with what he had done at the preceding spring meeting. He himself only laments that Athens suffered herself to be deterred, by the corrupt suggestions of De- mosthenes, from beading the crusade against Amphissa, when the the Amphiktyona, and with the documentary statement " 6-rjf, J Av&eaT?ipiuvo(; eKTy girl fie^a. which we read as incorporated in the oration De Corona, p. 279. But I have already stated that I think these documents spurious. The archon Mnesitheides (like all the other archons named in the docu- ments recited in the oration De Corona) is a wrong name, and cannot have been quoted from any genuine document. Next, the first decree of the Am- phiktyons is not in harmony with the statement of .ZEschines, himself the great mover, of what the Amphiktyons really did. Lastly, the second de cree plainly intimates that tVie person who composed the two decrees con ccived the nomination of Philip to have taken place in the very same Am- phiktyonic assembly as the first movement against the Lokrians. The same words, fai iepEue Kheivayopov, kapivrji; TrvAaiac prefixed to both decrees, must be understood to indicate the same assembly. Mr. Clinton's supposi- tion that the first decree was passed at the spring meeting of 339 B. c. and the second at the spring meeting of 338 B. c. Klcinagoras being tho cponymus in both years appears to me nowise probable. The special purpose and value of an eponymus would disappear, if the same person served in that capacity for two successive years. Boeckh adopts the conjec- tuie of lleiske, altering iapivfis irvTiaiaf in the second decree into v-ruoivf/e wvhaiar. This would bring the second decree into better harmony with chro- nology ; but there is nothing in the state of the text to justify such an inno- vation. Bohnecke (Forsch. p. 498-508) adopts a supposition yet more im- probable. He supposes that ^Eschines was chosen Pylagoras at the begin- ning of the Attic year 340-339 B. c., and that he attended first at Delphi at the autumnal meeting of the Amphiktyons 340 B. c. ; that he there raised the violent storm which he himself describes in his speech ; and that he af- terwards, at the subsequent spring meeting, came both the two decrees which we now read in the oration De Corona. But the first of these two decrees can never have come after the outrageous proceeding described b/ JEschines. I will add, that in the form of decree, the president Kottyphua is called an Arcadian : whereas ^Eschincs designates him as a Phai sahan. 1 'PcmosJ;h. De Corona, p. 278. voi. n. 41