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Read about the evidence
Demosthenes (Dem. 19).
 
Plot on a Map
Amphipolis.
Thessaly (in text as “Thessalians”).
Thebes (in text as “Thebans”).
Orchomenos.
Coroneia.
Boeotia (in text as “Boeotian”).
Athens.
Phocis.
Thermopylae.
Pylae.
Attica.

(1) Because the war over Amphipolis had dragged on, Philip and the Athenians were both eager for peace, the Athenians because they were bearing up badly in the war, and Philip because he wanted to do what he had promised for the Thessalians and Thebans. (2) He had promised the Thebans that he would give them back Orchomenos and Coroneia (both Boeotian cities), and had promised both of them that he would break off the Phocian war. It was impossible for him to do this while Athens was his enemy. In fact, when he had previously tried to attack Phocis while the Athenians were sailing around in their ships to the so-called “Gates” (which some call “Thermopylae”), he was beaten back from the approach. (3) So when he had made peace with the Athenians, since there was nobody to prevent him, he passed inside Pylae, drove the Phocians from their homes, put their territory under the control of the Amphictyons, and took their votes in the Council away from the other Greeks. (4) But he also sent ambassadors to the Athenians, demanding that they, too, go along with this arrangement. And Demosthenes exhorts them to go along with it, not associating himself in the affair as though it were right, and not saying that it is just for this Macedonian to participate in a Greek assembly, but instead saying that he was afraid that they might be forced into conducting a common war against all the Greeks. (5) For he says that some people have taken offense with the Athenians for some reasons, others for others. They will all fight us as a group (he says), if we give them as a group this common reason against us: that we alone oppose the decrees of the Amphictyons. The result (he says) is that it is better to protect the peace than to bring such a great danger down on themselves over such a little thing, even though Philip has committed these crimes inside Pylae and could easily attack Attica. (6) This speech seems to me to have been been prepared but not delivered. For in his prosecution of Aeschines, the orator denounces Aeschines for a number of things, including the fact that he was the only one who advised them to vote that Philip be a member of the Amphictyonic Council, when nobody else would dare propose this—not even Philocrates, the most shameful man of all.³ (7) Therefore, since he himself made this same recommendation, he would not have denounced Aeschines for it; rather, he evidently feared that people would suspect him of being on Philip’s side and of making this recommendation because he had been influenced by the king’s money, because in taking a stand against this sort of suspicion in the speech, he is also trying to portray himself as well-disposed toward the city and incapable of being bribed.

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— Notes —

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