Demosthenes, Speeches 1-17

6. SECOND PHILIPPIC

⣠⣠⣠⣠⣠⣠⣠⣠⣠⣠⣠⣠⣠⣠⣠⣠⣠⣠⣠⣠⣠⣠⣠⣠⣠⣠⣠⣠⣠⣠ introduction The Second Philippic is dated to 344/3, according to Dionysius of Halicarnassus, who adds the information that it was delivered in reply to an embassy “from the Peloponnese.”¹ This was a year of important diplomatic activity for Athens. First, the Persian King sent ambassadors to the city, as well as to others, asking for friendship and alliance, in the hope of securing Greek help for his attempt to reconquer Egypt.² Second, there was at least one embassy from Philip that offered to renegotiate those terms of the Peace of Philocrates with which the Athenians were unhappy.³ This diplomatic overture is referred to by a number of sources: 1. Didymus writes of an embassy from Philip about peace in 344/3 coinciding with the Persian appeal noted above (col. 8.8). 2. Libanius, in his Introduction to this speech, relates it to an embassy to Athens of Macedonians, Messenians, and Argives (i.e., from Philip and some of his Peloponnesian allies) that he found recorded in “the Philippic histories,” by which he probably means the Philippic History of Theopompus. 3. Philip, in his letter to the Athenians of 340, refers to an embassy that he had previously sent them, containing representa-¹First Letter to Ammaeus 10. This date is generally accepted as correct.²Philochorus FGH 328 fragment 157; Diodorus 16.44.³The Peace of Philocrates was negotiated between Athens and Philip in 346. 6. SECOND PHILIPPIC ⣠⣠⣠⣠⣠⣠⣠⣠⣠⣠⣠⣠⣠⣠⣠⣠⣠⣠⣠⣠⣠⣠⣠⣠⣠⣠⣠⣠⣠⣠ 6. second philippic 101 tives “from the whole alliance,” to which they had refused to listen (Dem. 12.18). 4. The author of the speech On Halonnesus, attributed to Demosthenes (probably by the Athenian politician Hegesippus: see the Introduction to Dem. 7), refers in 343/2 to an embassy from Philip to Athens that offered to negotiate changes to the Peace of Philocrates, one of whose members was the orator Python of Byzantium (7.18–23). 5. Demosthenes boasted in 330 of having taken this opportunity to accuse Philip of acting unjustly “when Philip dispatched Python of Byzantium together with delegates from all his other allies to humiliate the city and prove that we were at fault” (18.136). It is likely that all these sources refer to the same Macedonian embassy, led by Python of Byzantium, accompanied by representatives from Philip’s allies, and offering to renegotiate the peace, probably in spring 343.⁴ It is also likely that this is the embassy that prompted Demosthenes to write the present speech (28 implies the presence in Athens of ambassadors from somewhere). An alternative suggestion, that the ambassadors referred to in the speech were in fact from the Peloponnesian city of Sparta, which was hostile to Philip, has not generally found favor.⁵ In this speech Demosthenes accuses Philip of violating the Peace of Philocrates (1–2) and of plotting (18) against the whole of Greece, and in particular against Athens, which is now his only rival (17). The Athenians need to realize that his massive, and growing , power is directed against them (6). Demosthenes refers to Philip’s dealings with Messenia and Argos, which were both enemies of Athens’ ally Sparta: he not only is sending them mercenaries and money but is expected in person with a large force (15, cf. 9), and is ordering the Spartans to leave Messenia alone (13). Demosthenes also summarizes a speech that he had previously given as an Athenian ambassador to the Messenian Assembly, in ⁴See Cawkwell 1963b: 123–126. ⁵The proposal is that of Calhoun 1933. 102 demosthenes which he reminded his audience of Philip’s deceitfulness and encouraged them to distrust him, although he failed to persuade them to change their allegiance (20–26). The speech is notably chauvinistic in tone. Demosthenes repeatedly contrasts Athens with two of the other leading (proMacedonian ) states in Greece: Thebes and Argos. Athens, he claims, is the only Greek state that is concerned for Greece as a whole (10): it resisted the Persian king Xerxes in the fifth century, whereas Thebes, Argos, and Macedonia either collaborated or stayed neutral (11). Philip naturally sides with Thebes and Argos, since these states are selfish and have no concern for the Greeks as a whole (12). In 346 Philip chose to side with the self-centered Thebans against the Phocians (9); the Messenians and other Peloponnesians are stupidly acting against their own interest, whereas the Athenians are intelligent (27). Demosthenes is sharply critical of those Athenian politicians...