CHAP. XLIII - FROM THE END OF THE SOCIAL WAR TO THE FALL OF OLYNTHUS

Summary

We have been used to see the Athenians making the most vigorous exertions in the midst of their greatest calamities: we might otherwise have been disposed to question the accuracy of the descriptions we have received of the disastrous consequences of the Social War. For that war was scarcely at an end, before we find them again acting on the offensive, and even ready to enter into a new contest, apparently still more arduous and hazardous than that from which they had just retired with such heavy loss. There is reason to believe that in the course of the same summer in which they made peace with the allies, they sent an expedition against Olynthus, as to which we are informed that it was the second occasion that called forth the services of voluntary trierarchs, and that a body of Athenian cavalry was employed in it; facts which imply a considerable effort, though we have no account of the results; nor is the precise date well ascertained. Notwithstanding the peace the public mind continued to be agitated by rumours of the Persian preparations; and it appears that there were orators — politicians, we may suppose, of the school of Isocrates — who endeavoured to instigate the people to declare war against Persia. The deliberation of the assembly on this subject is chiefly known to us as the occasion on which Demosthenes began his career as a statesman, with an oration which is still extant.