CHAP. XLII - FROM PHILIP'S ESTABLISHMENT ON THE THRONE OF MACEDONIA TO THE END OF THE SOCIAL WAR

Summary

When the Athenian orators wished to rouse the spirit of their countrymen in their contest with Philip, they sometimes reminded them that Macedonia had once been subject and tributary to Athens. This was indeed a rhetorical figure; but yet not without a substantial meaning: nor was it, as has sometimes been imagined, only applicable to the state of things in the reign of one of Philip's remote predecessors. Arrian has put a speech into the mouth of Alexander the Great, in which he mentions among the benefits which his father had conferred upon his people, that instead of paying tribute to the Athenians, he had reduced them to depend upon Macedonian protection. It seems clear that these expressions can only relate to the maritime part of Macedonia; and even in that sense it is not easy to assign their exact value. It is certain however that Philip, at the beginning of his reign, did not possess a single place of any importance on the coast. Several maritime towns which had belonged to his predecessors, were then subject to Athens, and probably contributed to the common fund of her revived confederacy. And though it does not appear that after the Peloponnesian war the Athenian government levied any duties in any foreign port, except at Byzantium, still those with which the Macedonian commerce was burdened in the towns dependent on Athens, might, in vague language, be described as tribute which she received from Macedonia; and, so long as her fleets commanded the sea, nothing could be directly exported or imported without her permission.