3 50 LITERATURE OF ANCIENT GREECE perfectly real, and proved, in fact, to be nearer the eventual outcome than those of any contemporary. The evils he sought to remove were practical — the financial distress, the over-population, the hordes of mercenaries, and the pirates, who, excepting for the brief supre- macies of Athens and Rhodes, and perhaps of Venice, have scourged the Eastern Mediterranean from the times of Homer to the present century. But Athens was intent on her last fatal war, and was not going to palter with her enemy. Isocrates fell into extreme unpopularity. It is remarkable that even in that suspicious time no enemy ever hinted that he was bribed. They only called him an unpatriotic sophist, a perverter of the statesmen who had been his pupils. Against these attacks we have two answers : the Panathenaicus — com- posed for the Panathena^a of 342, but not finished in time — a confused rechauffe of the patriotism of the Panegyricus, to which the author no longer really held ; and the speech On the Exchange of Property, mentioned above, defending his private activity as a teacher. One letter more, and the long life breaks. The battle of Chaeronea in 338 dazed the outworn old man. It was the triumph of his prophecies ; it made his great scheme possible. Yet it was too much to bear. His country lay in the dust. His champion of united Hellas was rumoured to be sitting drunk on the battle-field among the heroic dead. Isocrates did the last service he could to his country and the world. Philip was absolute victor. No one knew what his attitude would be to the conquered. There is no word of baseness in Isocrates's letter. He does not congratulate Phihp on his victory ; he only assumes his good intentions to- wards Greece, and urges him, now that Hellas is at his
