Creating a Common Polity - Emily Mackil Hellenistic Culture and Society

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accepted a Lokrian appeal for help in defending the shrine, and in 354 the amphiktyony declared war on Phokis.143 Most of central Greece supported the amphiktyons, while the Athenians and Spartans, along with the Achaians and some other Peloponnesians, decided to defend the Phokians and, implicitly, the claim that the charge leveled against the Spartans was unjust. Within the year the amphiktyonic forces had won a battle at Neon in Phokis, which appeared to be a decisive victory.144 But the Phokians retreated to Delphi, which they still held, and met with their allies in an assembly that took on the guise of what has been aptly termed a rebel amphiktyony.145 The Phokians’ use of the sacred treasuries to arm and fund their mercenary army protracted the conflict and made it expensive for the amphiktyony and its allies as well. The Boiotians accepted contributions for the war from a number of Greek states, including their steadfast ally Byzantion, and the Persian king.146 But repeated Phokian attacks on western Boiotia exploited some internal divisions within the Boiotian poleis and in 349 resulted in the complete detachment of Koroneia, Tilphosaion, Chorsiai, and Orchomenos from the koinon.147 These losses, combined certainly with financial exhaustion, led the Boiotians to appeal to Philip II of Macedon for help in the summer of 347.148 The relationship was formalized as an alliance shortly thereafter.149 The Thessalians made their own appeals to Philip, and in 346 his victories resulted in the surrender first of the Phokian leaders and then of the Phokian poleis, when they saw that they had been abandoned by their leaders. In the settlement, the Boiotians regained control of their western poleis.150 Philip dismantled most of the Phokian poleis, scattered their populations into villages, and received control of the two Phokian votes in the amphiktyony.151 Athenian fantasies notwithstanding, Philip did not use his upper hand to restore Plataia and Thespiai or to punish the Thebans in any way; the koinon was left fully intact and autonomous.152 But Philip’s now de facto leadership of the amphiktyony and his unique ability to settle an otherwise costly and unwinnable war had profound long-term consequences.

      A NEW MACEDONIAN ORDER, 346–323

      The settlement was ephemeral. Not only did Philip’s peace with the Athenians break down quickly as a result of clashing interests in Thrace and the Hellespont, but his record of settling central Greek disputes appears to have made it unthinkable to combatants not to involve him. Between 346 and 340 relations between Philip and Athens became increasingly strained, rupturing completely when Philip seized Byzantion itself, thereby threatening the Athenian grain supply and eliciting a declaration of war from the Athenians.153 Meanwhile, another amphiktyonic conflict was brewing, this time between Athens and Thebes. Probably shortly after 346 the Athenians had dedicated some shields in the new temple, with an inscription that declared them to have been taken “from the Medes and the Thebans, when they fought on the opposite side to the Greeks”; this was certainly a rededication of shields from the Persian Wars, destroyed in the fire that burned the temple in 373. The Thebans were displeased, and it was purportedly at their behest that amphiktyonic delegates from Lokrian Amphissa proposed that the amphiktyons should fine the Athenians fifty talents for having hung the shields on the walls of the temple before they had been properly purified or sanctified.154 The orator Aeschines was one of the Athenian representatives at the meeting where the charge was leveled, and rather than deny the charge he sought to deflect it by accusing the Amphissans of cultivating the sacred plain and levying harbor taxes at Kirrha. These accusations triggered a minor conflict between the amphiktyony and Amphissa, the so-called Fourth Sacred War, in which the amphiktyons sought assistance from Philip.155 From his base at Elateia Philip made overtures to the Thebans, and though they may have initially renewed their alliance, opinions on the matter were divided.156 They had control of Lokrian Nikaia, just east of Thermopylai, which was tantamount to controlling the pass, and refused either to surrender it or to grant Philip unhindered passage.157 News of Philip’s proximity struck terror in the Athenians; when no one would come forward with a proposal in the Athenian assembly, Demosthenes braved the suggestion that the Athenians make an alliance with their long-reviled Theban neighbors, who stood between Philip and Athens and were therefore forced to take a stance on the matter.158 Aeschines suggests that the Boiotians were so divided over the issue that some poleis threatened secession from the koinon if the Athenian alliance were accepted, and he quotes an Athenian decree promising help to any that might do so.159 With the experience of having lost control of western Boiotia during the Third Sacred War still fresh, these threats of secession made the complete collapse of the Boiotian koinon a very real possibility. It was perhaps with the Athenian promise in mind that the Boiotians reversed themselves and accepted the Athenian alliance. The battle that ensued at Chaironeia in western Boiotia in August 338 was a terrible defeat for the allies and is regularly taken by historians to mark the end of Greek freedom.160

      In the settlement that followed, the Thebans were punished by Philip while the Athenians received conciliations. Philip’s evident intention was not to subordinate the Greeks but to secure their cooperation; but the Thebans’ betrayal was evidently unforgivable. They were forced to ransom their dead; the city was garrisoned, and pro-Macedonian exiles were forcibly returned and put in control of a narrowly oligarchic regime.161 Orchomenos, which had been lost to the koinon during the Third Sacred War and may have been one of the poleis that threatened secession over the question of the Macedonian alliance in the autumn of 339, was also forced to restore its exiles.162 The Plataians were invited by Philip to return to their city.163 But the koinon itself was certainly left intact, and this is no surprise if Philip wanted stability and cooperation from the Greeks.164 By restoring pro-Macedonian exiles and putting them in power in the member poleis of the koinon, he could be sure to get both from Boiotia.

      Before the Fourth Sacred War, Philip had been working to build alliances in central Greece. It was probably in this context that he had promised the Aitolians that he would hand over Naupaktos to them; it was apparently back in Achaian hands.165 The Aitolians duly fought on Philip’s side at Chaironeia, but after the battle, when he was finally in a position to make good on his promise, he apparently failed to do so. Theopompos tells us that Philip captured Naupaktos and slaughtered the garrison at the behest of the Achaians, probably in the winter of 338/7; the certain implication is that it was now given to the Achaians. We are probably to infer that in the interim the Aitolians had seized Naupaktos on their own initiative when Philip reneged on his promise to give it to them.166 The episode triggered a long-held Aitolian opposition to Macedonian kings.

      Aside from the garrisoning of Thebes, Philip’s efforts were focused on minor corrections and adjustments with the goal of securing a broad base of support in Greece for his planned campaign against Persia. His major innovation was the creation of the so-called League of Corinth, essentially a large military alliance in which the troop obligations of each member state were probably spelled out.167 But Philip’s sudden death in 336 created an opportunity for the Greeks to challenge these arrangements. In this effort the Thebans and Aitolians joined the Athenians in playing a leading role.

      While the Aitolians undertook the restoration of anti-Macedonian exiles, the Thebans waited until they had heard a rumor of the death of Alexander, Philip’s son and successor, in Illyria in 335 to attempt to expel the Macedonian garrison from their own city.168 The Thebans sought help from several quarters, but they were matched in their enthusiasm only by the Aitolians.169 Fearing that the revolt could easily spread, Alexander rushed into mainland Greece with terrifying speed at the head of his army. After inflicting a battlefield defeat the Macedonians entered the city of Thebes and destroyed it utterly. Women and children were raped and enslaved; men were slaughtered or captured, and following a vote by Alexander’s Greek allies, who cited the Theban Medism of the previous century as an excuse, the ancient city was razed to the ground.170 The Thespians, Plataians, and Orchomenians, whose cities had all been destroyed by the Thebans in the last century, took the opportunity for revenge by participating in the Macedonian attack.171 Survivors of the attack scattered, some going to Akraiphia and others to Athens, while at least a few able-bodied Thebans who sought some means of continuing their struggle against Alexander joined the Persian army.172 The remains of the city were held by a Macedonian garrison, which presumably also policed the way in which the other

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