Page:History of Greece Vol XII.djvu/65

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SYMPATHY OF THE GEEEKS WITH THEBLS. 35 das. Yet their scheme, though from its melancholy result it is generally denounced as insane, really promised better at first than that of the anti-Spartan conspirators in 380 b. c. The Kadmeia was instantly summoned ; hopes being perhaps indulg- ed, that the Macedonian commander would surrender it with as little resistance as the Spartan harmost had done. But such hopes were not realized. Philip had probably caused the cita- del to be both strengthened and provisioned. The garrison de- fied the Theban leaders, who did not feel themselves strong enough to give orders for an assault, as Pelopidas in his time was prepared to do, if surrender had been denied.^ They con- tented themselves with drawing and guarding a double line of circumvallation round the Kadmeia, so as to prevent both sallies from within and supplies from without.^ They then sent envoys in the melancholy equipment of suppliants, to the Arcadians and others, representing that their recent movement was directed, not against Hellenic union, but against Macedonian opjiression and outrage, which pressed upon them with intolerable bitter- ness. As Greeks and freemen, they entreated aid to rescue them from such a calamity. They obtained much favorable sympa thy, with some promise and even half-performance. JNIany of the leading orators at Athens — Demosthenes, Lykurgus, Hype- rides, and others — together with the military men Charideious and Ephialtes — strongly urged their countrymen to declare in favor of Thebes and send aid against the Kadmeia. But the citizens generally, following Demades and Phokion, waited to be better assured both of Alexander's death and of its consequences, before they would incur the hazard of open hostility against Macedonia, though they seem to have declared sympathy with the Theban revolution.^ Demosthenes farther went as envoj into Peloponnesus, while the Macedonian Antipater also sent round urgent applications to the Peloponnesian cities, requiring their contingents, as members of the confederacy under Alexan- der, to act against Thebes. The eloquence of Demosthenes, backed by his money, or by Persian money administered through ' Xenoph. Hellen. v. 4, 11. Sec Volume X. Cli. Ixxvii. p. 61 ot tlii* History. ^ Arrian, i. 7, 14. ^Diodor, xvii. 6.