defeat the father first
hastened to destroy the papers in his cabinet that might compromise
him, whereas the son took his treasure-chests and embarked. In
ordinary times he might have made an average king, as good as or
better than many another; but he was not adapted for the conduct of
an enterprise, which was from the first a hopeless one unless some
extraordinary man should become the soul of the movement.

Resources of Macedonia

The power of Macedonia was far from inconsiderable. The devotion of
the land to the house of the Antigonids was unimpaired; in this one
respect the national feeling was not paralyzed by the dissensions
of political parties. A monarchical constitution has the great
advantage, that every change of sovereign supersedes old resentments
and quarrels and introduces a new era of other men and fresh hopes.
The king had judiciously availed himself of this, and had begun his
reign with a general amnesty, with the recall of fugitive bankrupts,
and with the remission of arrears of taxes. The hateful severity of
the father thus not only yielded benefit, but conciliated affection,
to the son. Twenty-six years of peace had partly of themselves filled
up the blanks in the Macedonian population, partly given opportunity
to the government to take serious steps towards rectifying this which
was really the weak point of the land. Philip urged the Macedonians
to marry and raise up children; he occupied the coast towns, whose
inhabitants he carried into the interior, with Thracian colonists of
trusty valour and fidelity. He formed a barrier on the north to check
once for all the desolating incursions of the Dardani, by converting
the space intervening between the Macedonian frontier and the
barbarian territory into a desert, and by founding new towns in the
northern provinces. In short he took step by step the same course in
Macedonia, as Augustus afterwards took when he laid afresh the
foundations of the Roman empire. The army was numerous--30,000 men
without reckoning contingents and hired troops--and the younger men
were well exercised in the constant border warfare with the Thracian
barbarians. It is strange that Philip did not try, like Hannibal, to
organize his army after the Roman fashion; but we can understand it
when we recollect the value which the Macedonians set upon their
phalanx, often conquered, but still withal believed to be invincible.
Through the new sources of revenue which Phili