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What were the motives behind Greek opposition to and co-operation with Philip of Macedon?

Greece had been warned. In 370BC, Jason of Pherae had been assassinated, putting an end to the united Thessaly and its status of a major player in Greece. His career had shown that the large and ‘uncivilised’ areas of northern Greece with their considerable resources and man-power under the guidance of a military genius could pose a threat to the position of the traditional superpowers of Greece: Athens, Thebes and Sparta. It was into the breach left by the collapse of the ‘Thessalian potentates’ (Bury + Meiggs, 1987, p369) power that Philip of Macedon would step some twenty-five years later. However, there were to be a couple of major differences between Philip and Jason. As far as we know, Philip tried to not openly side with one ‘superpower’ against another. His alliances with Athens and Thebes were mutually defensive while Jason’s alliance with Thebes and membership of the Second Athenian Confederacy was an almost direct affront to Sparta (Bury + Meiggs, 1987, p366), who, despite her decline in power, was still regarded as the leading state in Greece up until the Battle of Leuctra in 371BC. The other major difference between the King of Macedon and the tyrant of Pherae was their successors. Upon their assassinations in 336BC and 370BC respectively both were succeeded by an Alexander, however due to the lack of political framework left by his fraternal predecessor, Alexander of Pherae, who was no military genius, was unable to bring Thessaly under control, where as Alexander III of Macedon, with his father’s army and strong government, was able to subdue Greece and become one of the most famous men in history.

Having secured his own succession and stabilised the shaky Macedonian kingdom, Philip started to look abroad and almost immediately came into contact with the leading states of southern Greece and he was received in differing ways. Macedonia had traditionally been a pawn of these superpowers, especially Athens, who were looking for a buffer zone around their assets in Thrace and the Chalcidice, but this new Macedonia was not to be a pawn. So how did the Greeks respond? Many did not see Macedon as any kind of threat and those who did – namely Demosthenes – used it to gain political support for themselves while never fully grasping how great the threat actually was until it was too late. This led to different opinions towards. Some saw him as a liberator, mostly those who had under the yoke of superpower hegemony, and others, larger cities like Athens, Thebes, Corinth and Sparta, saw him as a barbarian conqueror. There were other motives as well behind the attitudes shown towards Philip and they were to be instrumental in the actions taken by both large and small states in Greece.

Immediately upon his accession to the throne of Macedon in 359BC, Philip looked to secure and enhance his position. Through diplomacy, he obtained an alliance with Athens, to whom he promised Amphipolis, giving himself time to defeat rival claimants and invasions from Paeonia and Illyria. The promise of the silver, gold and timber reserves that would come with control of Amphipolis was easily enough to prevent Athens from interfering in Macedonia, a region that Athenians thought was backward and ruled by an insignificant quasi-Greek monarch – how wrong they would be proven to be. But why did the Athenians and many others Greeks think that the Macedonians were not wholly Greek? It comes down to Herodotus’ definition of a Greek. He said that all Greeks shared the same blood, the same language, a common religion and a shared way of life. The intermarriage of ancient Macedonians with Illyrians, Paeonians and Thracians had diluted the blood and language of the invading tenth century Dorians, and the where their ancestors had settled had altered the way of life and introduced non-Hellenic customs into their religion, basically disqualifying the Macedonians from equal treatment that most Greeks enjoyed.

Having defeated both the Illyrians and Paeonians in 358BC, Philip turned his attention to Amphipolis, however, finding Athens embroiled in the Social War with the remnants of her empire, he laid siege to the city and when the Athenians protested he promised them Amphipolis in return for Pydna, which the Athenians, eager to avoid another war, accepted. Despite the daring shown by Philip, it is unlikely that the Greek opinion of the king had changed very much from the two years previous, except maybe regarding him as more opportunistic than before for taking advantage of Athens while she was unable to act. With the Spartans now inactive and unimportant and the short-lived Theban hegemony crumbling only Athenian naval presence in the northern Aegean was in close contact with Philip and his army and this agreement over Amphipolis was enough to appease Athens again for now, leaving Philip alone to concentrate on local affairs and in 356BC acquire the Thasian settlement of Krenides, which he renamed Philippi, thus beginning his expansion of Macedonian territory. In all during the early years of his reign, as long as Philip was campaigning in northern Macedonia and Western Thrace, the Greeks generally ignored him, seeing him and the region as of little interest and wanting to deal with quasi-Greeks as little as possible.

However, after cementing his control in northern Greece, Philip began to catch the attention of several Greek states, for his next move was to capture the Athenian ally Methone, leaving the naval power without a foothold in the Thermaic Gulf. Even more alarming than this was Philip’s interference and open backing of the Thessalian League – led by Larissa, which was traditionally the northern-most point of ‘civilised’ Greece. This intrusion into Thessalian politics brought Philip into the Third Sacred War and into conflict with the Phocians, who had taken control of the Delphic Oracle and scored multiple victories over Doris and, more importantly, Thebes. Acting as an ally of Thebes, Philip marched into Thessaly, confronted and defeated a force leader of Phocians, led by the brother of the Phocian leader, Onomarchos. However, when Onomarchos himself marched to meet Philip, the Macedonian king suffered two heavy defeats and was driven from Thessaly. In the past, such defeats would have signalled the end of Macedonian adventures, but the resolve of this new king had been instilled in his troops and it would not bide well for Greek liberty, because, in 352BC, Philip returned to Thessaly and annihilated Onomarchos and his Phocian army at the Battle of the Crocus Field. This could probably be considered the first step on the road to a Macedonian hegemony because the Phocians, with the financial backing of the Delphic treasury and the military support from the mercenaries they bought with that gold, were at the height of the their power and were arguably the most powerful force on land in Greece, before the Crocus Field. Philip was now elected archon of the Thessalian League (a first for an non-Thessalian) and Thebes, now indebted to Philip for ridding them of their Phocian problem, and especially Athens began to regard Philip with a bit more respect than they had before, but in 352BC was it already too late? It is after Philip’s victory in the Third Sacred War that our only real contemporary evaluation (Ellis + Milns, 1981, General Introduction) of the Macedonian advance begins. In 351BC, the Athenian orator Demosthenes stepped out of the shadows of the Pnyx and delivered the first of what would become known later copied by Cicero, as the Philippics. It is these speeches that for centuries determined the judgement of classicists about Philip, despite the fact that they are issued by a politician trying to make a name for himself by attacking an easy target and someone who Demosthenes saw as his ‘greatest single enemy’ (Ellis + Milns, 1981, General Introduction).

The reason that many Athenians and other Greeks believed what Demosthenes was preaching was due to Philip’s next actions. In 349BC, having been checked by a Greek army led by the Athenian Nausicles three years earlier when trying to force the pass at Thermopylae, the king declared war on the Chalcidice League, which in 353BC, fearing Macedonian expansion, had abandoned their peace treaty of 356BC in favour of an alliance with Athens, who had been nominally at war with Philip since the ‘War for Amphipolis’ (Britannica.com, 2000). Roused by the Olynthiac speeches by Demosthenes, the Athenians mobilised their fleet and tried to send help to the Chalcidice capital, Olynthos, however this relief force was hindered by poor weather and Philip was able to capture most of the Chalcidice with little or no resistance. This may have Greece’s first real glimpse of the tactical genius of Philip, which would eventually be Greece’s downfall, as he may have timed his invasion to coincide with the north-easterly winds that blew across the Aegean, preventing the Athenian ships from sailing. The following year, 348BC, gives us another example of Philip’s forward planning and timing, for when his troops were threatening Olynthos and the Athenians had sent another relief fleet, this time with a hoplite army, to prevent the city’s fall, Philip instigated the revolt of several major cities on the island of Euboea, and with its proximity to Attica the Athenians had to redirect their forces to quell the revolt, leaving Philip free to besiege, capture and raze Olynthos to the ground. This annexation of the Chalcidice and the enslavement of the Olynthians was ‘more than a little disquieting to the other Greeks’ (Britannica.com, 2000).

Although we are not certain, due to the complete lack of contemporary evidence concerning Philip’s interpretation of events – not including Demosthenes 12, ‘Philip’s Letter’, which is thought to have been written by Anaximenes, a tutor of Alexander (Ellis + Milns, 1981, General Introduction) – I do not think that it is an exaggeration to think that Philip realised that if he pushed on now, he might galvanise the Greeks into a pan-Hellenic crusade against him (like against the Persians some 140 years earlier) and in 348BC his army was not the battle-hardened force it would become in ten years time. So over the next two years the king engaged in peace talks with Athens, who seems to have been, unofficially at least, the leader of southern Greece, and after the ‘Peace of Philokrates’ was ratified in early 346BC, Philip went off to campaign in Thrace and Illyria. While the peace lasted, Philip, while he strengthened his position in northern Greece, put out feelers to determine the attitude towards him throughout Greece. He may have been pleasantly surprised. Many of the northern Hellenes were indebted to him for ending the Sacred War and Phocian supremacy, and while they had been save from extermination at the hands of Philip in late 352BC by a combined army of Athens, Sparta and Achaea, the Phocians were in no state to resist Macedonian will. The Thebans, also severely weakened by the reverses they suffered at the hands of Phocis in the 350’sBC, were happy with their alliance with Philip for now. Probably the most surprising thing the king would have found was he reception in the Peloponnese. As usual the major cities such as Corinth and Sparta were apathetic and indignant, however, other peoples such as Messenians, Megalopolitans, Tegeans and Argives would have welcomed a Macedonian invasion so Philip could finish what Epaminondas had started in 370BC but failed to finish before his death at the Battle of Mantinea in 362BC – the complete elimination of any remaining Sparta authority (Polybius, XVIII.14.1). Indeed, during the interval of peace many of the major cities were starting to become very weary of Philip. In 343BC, after Philip had reorganised Thessaly and was rumoured to have been interfering in Elis, Euboea and Megara, a Corinthian army forced him out of Epirus without a fight. This is an example of the growing concern about Macedonian expansion, enhanced by the pan-Hellenic touring of Demosthenes, spreading his anti-Philip message, and the defensive alliance between Corinth and Athenian late 343BC. These signs that his alliance system was crumbling in Greece forced Philip to write to Athens in an attempt to stabilise their faltering relationship, as he had the rebellion of the Thracian king, Cersobleptes, on Macedonia’s north-eastern border to deal with.

It is during this period between the Athenian-Corinthian alliance and Philip’s decent into Greece in 338BC that we see the Greeks beginning to realise that Philip is a major threat to them and that a pre-emptive strike may be necessary against the ‘barbarian totalitarianism’ (Ellis, 1976, Preface), but as usual they did not band together as a unit until Philip was on top of them. Even the declaration of war by Athens in 340BC (historyofmacedonia.org, 2003) was a hollow and futile act as Philip, although technically at war, did not hurry back to defend his territory because he probably realised that if he made a lightning march it would give the Greeks a real reason to unite behind Demosthenes’ banner of anti-Macedonianism. Philip also still had several supporters in the Peloponnese, who wanted him to march through the Isthmus and destroy Laconia and most importantly the key position of Boeotia was still held by Philip’s ally Thebes. However, this situation changed when, after Philip was invited to suppress Amphissa and had rebuilt Elatea, the Athenians, and especially Demosthenes, began to tempt Thebes to join them and kick out Philip. This left Thebes in an unenviable position. If they openly sided with Philip and allowed the destruction of Athens, they would more than likely be next as Philip had no love-loss for the people who had held him as a political hostage for three years during the 360’sBC (historyofmacedonia.org, 2003). However, if the Thebans sided with Athens, they would be first in line for reprisals from a man who did not take kindly to those who went back on treaties – the example of Olynthos was still fresh in people’s minds. In the end the Thebans, persuaded by Demosthenic speeches and the offers of Athens to pay two thirds of the expenses, abandon their claim to Oropus and recognise the Theban confederacy of Boeotia (Bury + Meiggs, 1987, p439), decided that in the long run protecting Athens and her power was more beneficial to them than letting Philip subjugate her. So in early 338BC the Thebans renounced their treaty with Philip and allied themselves with Athens. Feeling that the time was right and possibly fearing that if he ‘did not move fast it would be they who invaded his territory, not he theirs’ (Peter Green, historyofmacedonia.org, 2003), Philip marched his army to the plain of Chaeronea to meet the amassing Greek force. He had perhaps 30,000 infantry and 2,000 cavalry, however the numbers of Greek troops is disputed. Some suggest that Philip slightly outnumbered them (Bury + Meiggs, 1987, p439), others that both sides had similar forces (Errington, 1990, p83) and still others that the Greeks, while similar in cavalry, actually outnumbered the king by about 5,000 in infantry (historyofmacedonia.org, 2003). The Greek army consisted mainly of Thebans, including the Sacred Band, and Athenians, one of whom was supposedly Demosthenes himself (Bury + Meiggs, 1987, p439), however, these were augmented by regiments of Corinthians, Achaeans, Euboeans, Phocians, Megarians and Arcananians (Errington, 1990, p83) but this was hardly the pan-Hellenic force that met the Persians on the banks of the Europus River in 379BC. The Battle of Chaeronea is a prime example of the complete lack of evidence about Philip himself during what perhaps his finest hour, where his superior tactics and well-disciplined army fooled the Greeks with a false retreat and then cut them down with accurate cavalry charges as they advanced out of battle order. Not even Demosthenes has much to say about Chaeronea; probably because he could not see the battle while he had his back turned to it as he fled back to Athens. This battle showed that ‘the rise of a strong national state, with its national standing army, altered the balance of power around the Aegean’ (Ellis + Milns, 1981, General Introduction) because it left Philip as the master of Greece and the Greeks, with all their motives for co-operation and opposition, their theories on freedom and democracy, were now under the yoke of the absolute ruler of uncivilised barbarians.

However, as ruler of Greece, Philip failed to fulfil any of the expectations that were held of him. The slaughter predicted by Demosthenes never materialised, except in Thebes who was punished for abandoning their alliance, and the Greeks who wanted the new Macedonian hegemony to mean the destruction of the traditional powers were to be disappointed. Athens was treated with remarkable clementia and got away with the proverbial ‘slap on the wrist’, while retaining her navy and, through it, the remnant of her second empire. The treatment of Sparta, who refused to heel to Philip, had all the hallmarks of total destruction until when the king was baring down on the city itself and he desisted from razing it to the ground under mysterious circumstances; he did, however, devastate Laconia, much like Epaminondas had done (Bury + Meiggs, 1987, p442). It is possible that Philip left Sparta alone as the ultimate humiliation to the once-great power, leaving it isolated as if it was not worth any further attention. Another person who was let down by Philip was Isocrates, the author of the Panegyrikos, who survived old age just long enough to hear the outcome of Chaeronea and died thinking Greek unity had been achieved. He would have been disappointed. The subsequent ‘League of Corinth’ was a sham because, despite a ‘common dependency on Macedon, there was no zeal for the aims of the northern power and no faith in her as a guide and leader of Greece’ (Bury + Meiggs, 1987, p442). So in the end the motives behind resistance to and co-operation with Philip, although ‘the evidence is simply too scant for definite judgement’ (Ellis + Milns, 1981, General Introduction), were all unfulfilled and most of Greece continued as it had before Chaeronea, except with a new superpower in control and one who was happy to leave Greece as it was as long as her population did not step out of line.





Bibliography

Ancient Sources

Polybius ‘Histories I-III’
(commentary by F.W. Walbank, 1979)


Modern Sources

J.B. Bury + R. Meiggs ‘A History of Greece’
(fourth edition, 1987)

C. Errington ‘A History of Macedonia’
(1990)

J.R. Ellis + R.D. Milns ‘The Spectre of Philip’
(1981)

J.R Ellis ‘Philip II and Macedonian Imperialism’ (1976)

Britannica.com Greek History: Philip II
(2000)

historyofmacedonia.org Philip of Macedon
(2003)

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