iations, a fatal step,
since it required the united forces of Greece from preventing the further
encroachments of the Macedonian king. He had now leisure for the
completion of the conquest of Thrace. When this was completed, he marched
toward Thermopylae, which was held by the Phocians, carefully veiling his
real intentions, and even pretending that his advance to the south was for
the purpose of reconstituting the Boeotian cities and putting down Thebes.
His real object was to surprise the Pass, for he was a man who had very
little respect to treaties, promises, or oaths. All this while he
contrived to deceive Athens and the Phocians, with the connivance of
AEschines, whom he had bribed or cheated. But he did not deceive
Demosthenes, who entreated his countrymen to make a stand against him,
even at the eleventh hour, for he was then within three days' march of the
Pass. But the eloquence and warnings of Demosthenes were in vain. The
people went with AEschines, who persuaded them that Philip was friendly to
Athens and only hostile to Thebes. It was the design of Philip to detach
Athens from the Phocians, and thus make his conquest easier; and he
succeeded by his falsehoods and intrigues. Under these circumstances, the
Phocians surrendered to Philip the pass, which they ought to have defended
at all hazard, and the king retired to Phocis, but still professed the
greatest friendship for Athens, with whom he made peace.

(M714) Master now of Phocis, with a triumphant army, he openly joined the
Thebans and restored the Temple of Delphi to its inhabitants, and convoked
the Amphictyonic Council, which dispossessed the Phocians of their place
in the assembly, and conferred it upon Philip. The unhappy Phocians were
now reduced to a state of utter ruin. Their towns were dismantled, and
their villages were not allowed to contain over fifty houses each. They
were stripped, and slain, and their fields laid waste. Philip was now
master of the keys of Greece, and the recognized leader of the
Amphictyonic Council. Athens had secured an inglorious peace with her
enemy, through the corruption of her own envoys, B.C. 346, and was soon to
reap the penalty of her credulity and indolence. She allowed herself to be
deceived, and Philip, in co-operation with Thebes, the enemy of Athens,
presently threw off the mask and disgracefully renewed the war with
Athens, He had gained his object by bribery and falsehood. It is mournful
that the Athenian