End of the Third Sacred War and Peace with Athens - Macedonia forged by Philip II - 9

End of the Third Sacred War and Peace with Athens (346 BC)

An embassy of ten men was sent to Pella to discuss ‘peace and the common interests of Athens and Philip’ (see: Demosthenes). This would be the first of four embassies. Personally, I find this passage very exciting because of the vivid and captivating story told by Mary Renault in her book Fire from Heaven, featuring young Alexander.  The ten envoys traveled to Pella in March 346 BC, when Alexander was about ten years old. Among them were great names like Philocrates, Nausicles, Demosthenes, and Aeschines. Each had prepared his speech on the proposed alliance and peace, and they had decided to speak in order of age, the youngest last and this happened to be Demosthenes after Aeschines who tells us that he began “in a voice dead with fright, and after a brief narration of earlier events suddenly fell silent and was at a loss for words, … Seeing the state he was in, Philip encouraged him to take heart and not to suppose that he had suffered a complete catastrophe. … But Demosthenes … was now unable to recover; he tried once more to speak, and the same thing happened.” What an appearance for such an orator!

Having listened graciously to every ambassador, Philip told them that he recognized Athens’ claim to the Chersonese, their corn route to the Black Sea. On the subject of the Sacred War, he made believe through his usual confusing diplomacy that he would consider the protection of the Phocians but he needed Athens’ full guarantee to support him in this matter. In other words, he meant to exclude Phocis from the treaty. As to the Athenian prisoners taken at Olynthus in 348 BC, he would release them without ransom as soon as they had accepted his terms – a handy gesture to put their fate in Athens’ hands. In short, Philip’s idea was that of a bilateral agreement between him and his allies on one side and Athens and their allies on the other.

As soon as the embassy left, Philip set off to Thracia to clean up all their independent forts along the coastline, but not before he had sent Antipater, Parmenion, and Eurylochus to Athens to repeat his terms of peace and received Athens’ consent in return. The news was buzzing in Athens’ Assembly, which at first was inclined to accept Philip’s proposal but Demosthenes had to put his own twist as usual and persuaded the Assembly to go for a Common Peace in which every state was free to join. Of course, this was refused by Antipater when he was called in the next day for that were not his king’s terms. In the end, the Athenians and their allies swore their oaths to the peace and alliance to Macedonia.

The Macedonian envoys left Athens which prepared a second delegation with the same men to set off to Pella. Since Philip was still warring in Thracia, the Athenians sat there waiting for some time while Demosthenes filled his days with brooding schemes. After Philip gave his oath to peace, the company left and collected the oaths from the king’s allies on their way back to Athens. By this treaty, the war between Athens and Amphipolis finally came to an end.

Philip then played his own political maneuver with Thebes which in the end forced the Phocians to surrender, not to the Amphictyonic Council as they should, but to Philip. How that went down with the Athenians in 346 BC, I don’t know. They must have been relieved to learn that the Third Sacred War was now over and that Delphi finally was liberated – Apollo’s crowned soldiers had done their job!

At this stage, the punishment of Phocis had to be decided and the Athenians once more sent an embassy to Philip, without Demosthenes this time, who thought he could do more harm to Philip talking to the people of Athens… It is this delegation that attended the Amphictyonic Council instead of Athens. Several states wanted to impose the legal penalty for sacrilege, whereby all the Phocian males would be thrown from the Phaedriades cliffs of Delphi. Since Philip did not want to take sides for or against Phocis he managed to obtain a milder punishment, meaning that those who had participated in the occupation and robbery of Delphi would be cursed, their lands confiscated, their membership to the Council withdrawn, their weapons and horses taken away. Phocis itself would not be allowed to consult the oracle and the people couldn’t buy any horses until they had repaid the money stolen from Delphi’s treasury. The exact sum is not known but seems to vary between 1,622 and 3,244 talents, a considerable amount of money in any case.

To reward Philip for the liberation of Apollo’s treasury, Thessaly proposed to give Phocis two votes in the Council to Philip, who as Archon automatically held at least half of all the votes already. These two votes, however, were Philip’s in his own right, whereby he became an official member of the Amphictyonic Council  – no small achievement for a ‘barbarian’ king!

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Philip vs. Demosthenes, an ongoing business - Macedonia forged by Philip II - 7

Philip vs. Demosthenes, an ongoing business (351 BC)

In an attempt to simplify things, I generally tend to skip the names of kings, generals, or other people involved in all these skirmishes, negotiations, and battles, but I would like to make one exception for Demosthenes. Athens, as it turned out, was Philip’s bitterest enemy, and Demosthenes was the politician who put it into words. Athens was a democracy where people had the final say in all matters through the Assembly, which would address the issues and vote by a show of hands. Another important component was the Boulé or Council that would set up the agenda of the Assembly and serve as its advisor while meeting on a daily basis. A number of men took advantage of their rhetorical skills to address the people, and one of them was Demosthenes, who earned the reputation as the greatest Greek writer of speeches, but if he did so out of patriotism or simply to attack Philip’s credibility remains to be proven. In any case, he was highly influential in Athens’ decision to support Olynthus against Philip, as he wrote an extensive speech for each call for help, known as the three Olynthiacs.

The fact is that Demosthenes did not realize that the days of Athens’ polis system were counted and that he could have given Philip at least a chance to rally on an equal basis when he made this overture. It was clear that Philip could make a decision and act upon it immediately, while the Athenian system was slow, and by the time they reached a decision, it was often too late. Philip had raised a vast number of soldiers and could draw forces from Thessaly or other allies if needed. Because of the Third Sacred War at their doorstep, the Greeks had allowed this to happen, and by the time this war was over, some ten years later, they had no way to stop Philip anymore. But we are not there yet.

With his power growing, Philip felt the time was right to seek personal revenge by attacking Thebes. He had not forgotten his years there as a hostage; relations between Macedonia and Thebes had never been easy, and now that he was more involved in the matters of Central Greece, he was not going to miss the opportunity to teach them a lesson. He could not, of course, turn openly against Thebes but used Athens and Phocis, working behind the scenes. His manipulation would ultimately lead to ending the Third Sacred War and the war with Athens over Amphipolis. Everybody in Athens, including Demosthenes, believed this and thought it wise to make peace with Philip before he would set off to make more conquests. What Philip really wanted was a treaty of peace and alliance where he and the Athenians were equals, something that probably did not sink in with the Athenians.

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Philip’s involvement in the Sacred Wars - Macedonia forged by Philip II - 5

Philip’s involvement in the Sacred Wars (355 BC)

But soon thereafter, another situation called for Philip’s full attention when, in 356 BC, the state of Phocis seized Delphi, the home of Apollo’s oracle. His involvement in this Sacred War could and would boost Macedonia’s power dramatically.

Now, the very name of Sacred War raises some questions with most of us, and we tend to associate or compare it with our Crusaders heading for the Holy Land in the Middle Ages. Yet, nothing is less true. Here it is all about the oracle site of Delphi, which the Greeks considered to be far too important for a single state or city to control. As a result, they created an association of states called the Amphictyonic League to protect them - the word “amphictyony” means as much as “those that dwell around or near”. This Amphictyonic League was very powerful and at some point even counted as many as 24 states. This League was led by a Council functioning as its executive arm. So, whenever the oracle was violated, the Amphictyonic Council would meet and declare a Sacred War against the offending state, calling to the other league members to defend the rights of the Delphian Apollo.

The Third Sacred War that lasted from 355 to 346 BC was the one in which Philip got involved, fighting over the occupation of Delphi by Phocis, roughly the territory locked between Thessaly and Attica, because the Phocians cultivated land on which the sacrificial animals of Delphi were kept. But there was also a matter of unpaid fines, not only by Phocis but by other states as well, which made matters worse.

This situation escalated when Phocis tried to take advantage of the hostile feelings between Thebes - then a formidable military power - on one side, and Athens and Sparta on the other; while taking sides with Athens, Phocis arrogantly invaded Delphi with a nice promise to protect its treasuries. A sensitive matter since this is the place where, besides the famous oracle, precious offerings and money from all over Greece were kept. All the states got involved one way or another, and in 355 BC, the Amphictyonic Council declared the Sacred War against Phocis.

Phocis stubbornly went on the warpath, bluntly seizing part of the temple’s treasury in order to hire mercenaries, some ten thousand of them. It is interesting to learn from Ian Worthington that a mercenary in those days was nothing like what we understand it to be today. And I quote: “Mercenaries formed a distinct group that was an accepted part of Greek society; they had their own identity as a group regardless of where they came from, and they played a political and economic role in relations between states. States and generals who provided or led mercenary armies for rulers and the like made political and trading contacts with them. The Greeks had no word for ‘mercenary’ as such, but instead used terms like epikouros, ‘fighter-alongside’, misthophoros, ‘wage-earner’ and xenos misthophoros, ‘foreign wage-earner’ (cfr Philip of Macedonia, Ian Worthington).” This army defeated the states of eastern Thessaly, splitting the territory in two. Facing this threatening situation, Larissa in eastern Thessaly turned to Philip for help. But Philip was busy laying siege to Methone, and when that was taken care of the next summer (354 BC), he went on to take four towns in eastern Thracia, which were key ports on Athens’ corn route from the Black Sea.

Yet Larissa’s call for help was something that Philip could not ignore, as Macedonia’s southern border could not be compromised. Besides, it was a convenient stepping stone for him to get more closely involved in the politics of Central Greece. Surprisingly and unexpectedly, Philips’ army was defeated by the Phocians – or should I say by the mercenaries they had hired. Antique sources tell us that Philip’s army had fallen into a trap set by Phocis and that the king had to leave behind a large number of dead and injured soldiers. Of the men still alive, many deserted him, and it was only with great difficulty that he instilled them enough courage and discipline to obey his orders in the retreat.

The outcome of this battle rattled like a thunderbolt through the streets of Eastern Thracia and Athens, followed by Illyria, Paeonia, and even Epirus who all welcomed a potential disintegration in Philip’s power. Eastern Thracia was the first to renew its alliance with Athens, which meant a serious blow to Philip’s arduous diplomatic maneuvers. Then Olynthus, in spite of its treaty of 357 BC with Philip, sought an alliance with Athens. The blow must have hit Philip very hard, making him realize how vulnerable Macedonia still was and how easily it could fall back into the chaos he found when he became king.

Click here to read the full story about Philip II from the beginning