XVI. THE C NQUESTS OF ALEXANDER. CHAPTER X or PHILIP OF MACEDON. B.C. 359 TO B.C. 336. Λέγεταί τι καινόν ; γένοιτο γὰρ ἄν τι καινότερον ἢ Μακεδὼν ἀνὴρ Αθηναίους καταπολεμῶν καὶ τὰ τῶν Ἑλλήνων διοικῶν ; "Do you ask, What is the news? What could be greater news than a Macedonian making war upon the Athenians, and regulating the affairs of Greece?"-Demosthenes. "That dishonest victory At Chæroned, fatal to liberty, Killed with report that old man eloquent."*-MILTON. ACCESSION OF PHILIP-HIS FIRST SUCCESSES-THE MACEDONIAN MONARCHY-EDUCATION 46 FOR the space of nearly a century and a half, from the Ionic revolt to the battle of Mantinea, the whole interest of the world's history has centered in the Greek republics. Having proved the power of liberty to raise the intellectual state of man to its highest pitch, they failed to show how the liberty they had achieved could be made the basis of a permanent constitution or extended to the world at large. Exhausted by their intestine conflicts, they were doomed to follow in the train of a master, who, in the name of the old cause of Hellenic liberty against Persian despotism, founded yet another Asiatic empire, short-lived indeed in itself, but which proved the means of extending Greek civilization to the East. That master was the ruler of a country adjacent to Greece, but hitherto regarded as beyond the Hellenic pale. The military genius of its new and youthful sovereign now first brought its natural resources into full action. PHILIP II., sometimes called the Great, ascended the throne of Macedonia in B.C. 359. He was the youngest of the three sons *The allusion is to the death of Isocrates on hearing of the battle of Charonca. See p. 30. of Amyntas II. His eldest brother, Alexander II., had been slain, at the age of twenty-three, after a reign of only two years, by Ptolemy Alorites (B.c. 369-367). The second brother, Perdiccas III., who recovered, the crown by killing the usurper, fell in battle against the lyrians, after a reign of five years (B.C. 364-359), having left his infant son, and probably his kingdom, to the guardianship of Philip, when he set out on the campaign. A minority, always intolerable in a rude state, such as Macedonia then was, invited rival claimants for the crown, and gave Philip a fair pretext for seizing it himself. Young as he was, he at once displayed that deep policy which was always a chief source of his success. Of his two competitors, Pausanias was favoured by the king of Thrace, whom Philip gained over by liberal offers: the other, Argæus, was supported by the Athenians, to whom he promised to restore their ancient, and still much regretted, possession of Amphipolis ;—in which Perdiccas had placed a Macedonian garrison. Philip made the same offers, and withdrew the garrison; and, having defeated Argæus, he showed great kindness to some Athenian volunteers, who had accompanied the pretender, and sent them back to Athens as envoys of conciliation. These measures were followed by a peace with Athens, and the formal acknowledgment of their right to Amphipolis (B.c. 359). Having disposed of these rivals, Philip hastened to meet the dangers that threatened Macedonia from the barbarian tribes on the north and west. The upper courses of her rivers were occupied by the Pæonians, a powerful Thracian tribe, long dangerous neighbours, and who were now threatening an invasion. Philip speedily subdued them, but allowed them to remain as his subject allies, under their own kings, whom we find ruling over them down to the time of the Roman conquest. He next advanced against the more formidable Illyrians. As a geographical term, Illyria denotes the country between Mount Pindus and the Mediterranean, from the borders of Epirus on the south, as far north and west as the river Save and the Julian Alps, corresponding to the modern Albania and Bosnia. But, in an ethnic sense, the name describes no compact and united people, but a number of tribes of Thracian race, intermixed with others of Celtic origin, in consequence of that great movement from the west, which we shall have to notice in connection with the history of Rome. It was one result of this movement, that the Illyrian tribes pressed more and more upon their neighbours; and of late a large body of them, under their aged king Bardylis, had occupied a consider B.C. 359.] THE MACEDONIAN MONARCHY. 5 able portion of Western Macedonia. Against this people Philip marched at the head of 10,000 men; and, in the battle that ensued, he conquered by the tactics which Epaminondas had used at Leuctra and Mantinea. About 7,000 of the Illyrians fell; and Bardylis purchased peace by the sacrifice of all he had conquered in Macedonia, at the same time placing the passes of Pindus in the hands of Philip. These victories made Philip master of the whole country within what may be considered the natural limits of Macedonia, the Cambunian Mountains on the south, Pindus and Bernus on the west, Scardus, Orbelus, and Scomius on the north, and the Strymon on the east. The last, however, like most rivers, was rather a conventional than a natural boundary; and, beyond it, Thrace awaited the time when Macedonia should be strong enough to subdue her. Secured, meanwhile, against the dangers that had menaced him from within and without, Philip finally set his nephew's claims aside, but brought him up at his own court, and afterwards married him to his daughter. * The line of Macedonian kings, of whom Philip thus became the representative, claimed an Hellenic descent, though ruling over a non-Hellenic people; and we have already seen that Alexander I. was permitted to contend at the Olympic games on the strength of the proofs he produced of his descent from Temenus, the Heraclid king of Argos.* The claim thus admitted was a pretext ready to be used on any opportunity for interference with the politics of Greece; and the close neighbourhood of Macedonia to the Greek settlements on the Chalcidic peninsula caused her aid to be sought, as we have seen, by the contending parties in the Peloponnesian War. A better effect of the Hellenic pretensions of her kings was the inducement to cultivate Greek civilization. Such was the course taken by Archelaüs, who made his new capital at *The following is the entire succession of the Macedonian kings, from the foundation of the monarchy to its conquest by the Romans :-(1.) Perdiccas I.; (2.) Argæus; (3.) Philip I.; (4.) Aëropus; (5.) Alcetas; (6.) Amyntas I., about B. C. 540-500; (7.) Alexander I., to about B. C. 454; (8.) Perdiccas II., to B.C. 413; (9.) Archelaus, to B.C. 399; (10.) Orestes and Aëropus, to B.C. 394; (11.) Pausanias, to B.C. 393; (12.) Amyntas II., to B.C. 369; (13.) Alexander II., to B.C. 367; [Ptolemy Alorites, usurper, to B. C. 364]; (14.) Perdiccas III., to B.C. 359; (15.) PHILIP II., to B.C. 336; (16) ALEXANDER III., THE GREAT, to B. C. 323; (17.) Philip III., Aridæus, and Alexander IV., Ægus, to B. c. 315; (18.) Cassander, to B. C. 296; (19.) Philip IV., to B.C. 295; (20.) Demetrius Poliorcetes, to B.C. 287; (21.) Pyrrhus, to B. c. 286; (22.) Lysimachus, to B. c. 280; [various rivals, ending with Pyrrhus again, to B.C. 277]; (23.) Antigonus Gonatas, to B. C. 239; (24.) Demetrius II., to B. C. 229; (25.) Antigonus Doson, to B.c. 220; (26.) Philip V. to B. C. 178; (27.) Perseus, to B.C. 167, the date of the Roman conquest. Pella the resort of some of the greatest literary men,-such as Euripides, who died there,-and who employed Zeuxis to decorate his palace. The same monarch organized the resources of his kingdom, improved the army, constructed roads, erected fortresses to check the inroads of his barbarian neighbours, and seemed ready to take a decisive part in the affairs of Greece, when his assassination, and the troubles that ensued, postponed the crisis for two more generations. Meanwhile, another point of contact between Macedonia and Greece was occasioned by those relations between Thebes and Thessaly, which we have not considered important enough to narrate. In B.C. 368, Pelopidas, having been successful in his expedition against Alexander of Pheræ, advanced into Macedonia, and decided the contest for the crown between Ptolemy of Alorus and Alexander II. in favour of the latter, who gave, among other hostages, his youthful brother, Philip. * Thus it happened that Philip spent the best years of his youth at Thebes, at the time when Thebes held the supremacy of Greece. His quick parts enabled him to improve the opportunity, which his ambition taught him to value. He acquired such mastery over the Greek language, and studied to such purpose under the masters of rhetoric, as to be able to meet the great orators of that age on their own ground. He heard the philosophers who had heard Socrates, and he is said to have conversed with Plato. If so, he must have had for his fellow-pupil the great Aristotle, whom he afterwards invited to his court to be the tutor of Alexander. But there were two things that he valued above any literary culture-the lessons in the art of war which he learnt from Epaminondas, and the personal acquaintances which he formed with the leading statesmen of Athens, as well as Thebes. On the tactics of the great Theban general, Philip founded his invention of that irresistible engine of war, the Macedonian phalanx; but he found a surer way to victory in what he learnt of the weaknesses of the Athenian orators. We shall soon see how he corrupted some and cajoled others, while nearly all were prepared to trust the goodwill of the illustrious prince who had lived so familiarly among them. They forgot that the knowledge which a foreign despot may thus acquire of the internal working of a free country is sure to be used, in the long run, for his own *Aristotle went to Athens in B.C. 367, and heard Plato from the return of the latter from Sicily in B.C. 365 to his death in B.C. 347. He went to the court of Philip in B.C. 342, and was received with honours which prove the king's true respect for philosophy. |