of Greece, in which at that time they swayed most, they caused both the Lacedæmonians and Phocians to be condemned in greater sums of money than they could well bear; the one for surprising the castle of Cadmea in the time of peace, the other for ploughing up a piece of ground belonging to the temple of Delphos. The Phocians being resolved not to obey this edict, were secretly set on and encouraged by the Lacedæmonians; and for refusal were exposed as sacrilegers, and accursed to all their neighbournations, for whom it was then lawful to invade and destroy them at their pleasures.

The Phocians, persuaded thereunto by Philomelus, a captain of their own, cast the same dice of hazard that Cæsar after many ages following did, but had not the same chance. Yet they dealt well enough with all the enemies of their own nation. And the better to bear out an ungracious quarrel, of which there was left no hope of composition, they resolved to sack the temple itself. For seeing that for the ploughing of a piece of Apollo's ground, they had so much offended their neighbour-god and their neighbournations, as worse could not befall them than already was intended; they resolved to take the gold with the ground, and either to perish for all, or to prevail against all that had commission to call them to account. The treasure which they took out of the temple in the beginning of the war was ten thousand talents, which in those days served them to wage a great many men; and such was their success in the beginning of the war, as they won three great battles against the Thebans, Thessalians, and Locrians, but being beaten in the fourth, their leader Philomelus cast himself headlong over the rocks.

In the mean while the cities of Chersonesus, both to defend themselves against their bad neighbour Philip, who encroached upon them, and to draw others into their quarrel, rendered themselves to the Athenians. Philip prepareth to get them into his hands, and at the siege of Methone lost one of his eyes. It is said, that he that shot him did purposely direct his arrow towards him, and that it was

written on the shaft thereof, Aster Philippo, "Aster to "Philip;" for so he was called that gave him the wound. This city he evened with the soil.

The tyrant Lycophron before mentioned, while Philip was busied on the border of Thrace, and the Thessalians engaged in the holy war, entered Thessaly with new forces, being assisted by Onomarchus, commander of the Phocian army in place of Philomelus. For hereby the Phocians hoped so to entertain the Thessalians at home, as they should not find leisure to invade them. Hereupon was Philip the second time called into Thessaly; but both the Thessalians and Macedonians (Philip being present) were utterly overthrown by Onomarchus, and great numbers of both nations lost. From Thessaly Onomarchus drew speedily towards Boeotia, and with the same victorious army brake the forces of the Boeotians, and took from them their city of Coronæa. But Philip, impatient of his late misadventure, after he had reinforced his army, returned with all speed into Thessaly, there to find again the honour which he lately lost; and was the second time encountered by Onomarchus, who brought into the field twenty thousand foot and five hundred horse. All this great preparation sufficed not; for Onomarchus was by Philip surmounted both in numbers and in good fortune, his army overturned, six thousand slain, and three thousand taken; of which number himself being one, was among others hanged by Philip. Those that fled were in part received by the Athenian galleys, which sailed along the coast, commanded by Chares, but the greatest number of those that took the sea were therein devoured ere they recovered them. Lycophron was now again driven out of Thessaly, and Pheres made free as before.

SECT. V.

Of the Olynthian war. The ambitious practices of Philip. FROM hence Philip resolved to invade Phocis itself; but the Athenians did not favour his entrance into those parts, and therefore with the help of the Lacedæmonians

Plut. Ulpian. Strab. 1. 8.

they retrenched his passage at the straits of Thermopylis. Whereupon he returned into Macedon, and after the taking of Micyberne, Torone, and other towns, he quarrelled with the Olynthians, whom not long before he had wooed to his alliance, and bought his peace of them. For the Olynthians were very strong, and had evermore both braved and beaten the Macedonians. It is said that Philip having put to death Archelaus his half-brother, (for Amyntas had three sons by Eurydice the mother of Philip, and three other sons by Gygæa; but Philip's elder brothers by the same mother being dead, he determined to rid himself also of the rest,) the two younger held themselves within Olynthus; and that the receiving of them by the Olynthians was the cause of the war, P Justin affirmeth. But just quarrels are balanced by just princes; for to this king all things were lawful that might any way serve his turn; all his affections and passions, how diverse soever in other men, were in his ambition swallowed up, and thereinto converted. For he neither forbare the murder of his own brothers, the breach of faith, the buying of other men's fidelity; he esteemed no place strong where his ass laden with gold might enter, nor any city or state unconquerable, where a few of the greatest,' to be made greater, could lose the sense of other men's sorrow and subjection. And because he thought it vain to practise the winning of Olynthus, till he had enclosed all the power they had within their own walls, he entered their territory, and by the advantage of a well-compounded and trained army he gave them two overthrows ere he sat down before the city itself; which done, he bought Euthicrates and Lasthenes from their people, and from the service of their country and commonweal, by whose treason he entered the town, slew his brothers therein, sacked it, and sold the inhabitants for slaves by the drum. By the spoil of this place he greatly enriched himself, and had treasure sufficient to buy in other cities withal, which he daily did. For so was he advised by the oracle in the beginning of his undertaking,

P Just. 1. 8.

"That he should make his assaults with silver spears:"

whereupon 9 Horace well and truly said,

Diffidit urbium

Portas vir Macedo, et subruit æmulos

Reges muneribus.

By gifts the Macedon clave gates asunder,

And kings envying his estate brought under.

And it is true that he won more by corruption and fraud than he did by force. For as he had in all the principal cities of Greece his secret workers, (which way of conquest was well followed by Philip the second of Spain,) so, when in the contention between the competitors for the kingdom of Thrace he was chosen the arbitrator, he came not to the council accompanied with piety and justice, but with a powerful army, and having beaten and slain both kings, gave sentence for himself, and made the kingdom his own.

SECT. VI.

How Philip ended the Phorian war.

THE war still continuing between the Phocians and the associates of the holy war, the Boeotians, finding themselves unable to subsist without some present aid, sent unto Philip for succour, who willingly yielded to their necessities, and sent them such a proportion of men as were neither sufficient to master their enemies, nor to assure themselves, but yet to enable them to continue the war, and to waste the strength of Greece. They also sent to Artaxerxes Ochus for supply of treasure, who lent them thirty talents, which makes a hundred and fourscore thousand crowns; but when with these supplies they had still the worst in all their attempts against the Phocians, who held from them three of their strongest cities within Boeotia itself, they then besought Philip of Macedon that he would assist them in person, to whom they would give an entrance into their territory, and in all things obey his commandments in that war.

Now had Philip what he longed for; for he knew himself

9 Hor. Carm. 3. Od. 16.

in state to give the law to both, and so quitting all his other purposes towards the north, he marched with a speedy pace towards Boeotia, where being arrived, Phallecus, who commanded the Phocian army, fearing to shock with this victorious king, made his own peace, and withdrew himself with a regiment of eight thousand soldiers into Peloponnesus, leaving the Phocians to the mercy of the conqueror, and for conclusion he had the glory of that war called sacred, which the Grecians with so many mutual slaughters had continued for ten years, and, besides the glory, he possessed himself of Orchomene, Coronea, and Corsia, in the country of the Boeotians, who invited him to be victorious over themselves. He brought the Phocians into servitude, and wasted their cities, and gave them but their villages to inhabit, reserving to himself the yearly tribute of threescore talents, which make six and thirty thousand French crowns. He also hereby (besides the fame of piety for service of the gods) obtained the same double voice in the council of the Amphictyons which the Phocians had, with the superintendency of the Pythian games, forfeited by the Corinthians by being partakers in the Phocian sacrilege.

SECT. VII.

How Philip with ill success attempted upon Perinthus, Byzantium, and the Scythians.

PHILIP, after his triumphant return into Macedon, by the lieutenant of his army, Parmenio, slaughtered many thousands of the Illyrians and Dardanians, and brought the Thracians to pay him the tenth part of all their revenues. But his next enterprise against the Perinthians stayed his fury. Perinthus was a city of Thrace, seated upon Propontis, in the midway between Sestos and Byzantium, a place of great strength, and a people resolved to defend their liberty against Philip, where the Athenians encouraged and assisted them. Philip sat down before it with a puissant army, made many fair breaches, gave many furious assaults, built many overtopping and commanding towers about it. But he was repelled with equal violence.