probably a cruel slander. Leon, the citizen to whom he attributed the base intention, seems to have been a man of honour and patriotism. Still we may fairly assume that the sagacious king would never have ventured on so very difficult an enterprise, had he not believed that he saw grounds for hoping something from disunion among the Byzantines. Almost the normal state of a Greek city was one of division and faction. At Byzantium there would be sure to be many who feared and hated Athens, and would be ready to submit to anything rather than again pass under her power. Philip might well think that it might be possible for him to appeal successfully to such persons, and that through them the city might be cajoled into an alliance with himself against Athens. It must have been with some such idea that he made his attempt on Byzantium. But the Byzantines, much to their credit, declined to become his tools, and preferred to stand by the common cause of Greece. The siege they now sustained is an honourable passage in the history of their city.
Great indeed was their peril. Philip, with his powerful and well-trained army, with a fleet too strong to be despised, though no doubt inferior to their own, which almost rivalled that of Athens; above all, with his well-known persistent energy and amazing fertility in resources, was an enemy whom the very strongest city would have good reason to fear. Byzantium was certainly strong and skilfully fortified, but it had wisely and generously given liberal aid to its sister and neighbour Perinthus, and now, as the result, its garrison was not by
