504 HISTORY 0* GREECE. tear. Her powerful naval force was untouched, and her supe- riority to Philip on that clement incontestable. Envoys trere sent to Troezen, Epidaurus, Andros, Keos, and other places, to solicit aid, and collect money; in one or other of which embas- sies Demosthenes served, after he had provided for the immediate exigencies of defence. 1 What was the immediate result of these applications to other cities, we do not know. But the effect produced upon some of these .(Egean islands by the reported prostration of Athens, is remarkable. An Athenian citizen named Leokrates, instead of staying at Athens to join in the defence, listened only to a dis- graceful timidity, 2 and fled forthwith from Peiraeus with his family and property. He hastened to Rhodes, where he circulated the false news that Athens was already taken and the Peiraeus under siege. Immediately on hearing this intelligence, and believing it to be true, the Rhodians with their triremes began a cruise to seize the merchant-vessels at sea. 3 Hence we learn, indirectly, that the Athenian naval' power constituted the standing protec- tion for these merchant vessels ; insomuch that so soon as that protection was removed, armed cruisers began to prey upon them from various islands in the .^Egean. Such were the precautions taken at Athens after this fatal day. But Athens lay at a distance of three or four days' march from 1 Lykurgus (adv. Leokrat. p. 171 c. 11) mentions these embassies ; Dei- narchus (adv. Demosth. p. 100) affirms that Demosthenes provided for him self an escape from the city as an envoy avrbf kavrbv 7rpe<r/3n>r^v icarc. ffKevaaaf, lv' kK rj?f Tro/lewf unodpairj, etc. Compare .^Eschines adv. Ktesiph p. 76. The two hostile orators treat such temporary absence of Demosthenes on the embassy to obtain aid, as if it were a cowardly desertion of his post. This is a construction altogether unjust.
- Leokrates was not the only Athenian who fled, or tried to flee. An-
other was seized in the attempt (according to ^schines) and condemned to death by the Council of Areopagus (^schines adv. Ktesiph. p. 89). A mem- ber of the Areopagus itself, named Autolykus (the same probably who is mentioned with peculiar respect by ./Eschines cont. Timarclmm, p. 12), sent away his family for safety ; Lykurgus afterwards impeached him for it, and he was condemned by the Dikastery (Harpokration v. AvroZvicof). 3 Lykurgus adv. Leokrat. p. 149. Ovru 6e aQotipa raOr' tmare'iaav oJ ra Tthola arJiyov, etc.
