B.C. 317, War be sperchon and Kassander, in Attica and Pelopon nesus. Po lysperchon is repulsed of Mega also de feated at sea. that fatal system of mistrust, inertia, self-seeking, and corruption, which had betrayed the once autonomous Athens to a foreign conqueror. I have already mentioned that Polysperchon with his army was in Phokis when Phokion was brought tween Poly- before him, on his march towards Peloponnesus. Perhaps he may have been detained by negotiation with the Etolians, who embraced his alliance'. At any rate he was tardy in his march, for before he reached Attica, Kassander arrived at Peiræus to in the siege join Nikanor with a fleet of thirty-five ships and lopolis, and 4000 soldiers obtained from Antigonus. On learning this fact, Polysperchon hastened his march also, and presented himself under the walls of Athens and Peiræus with a large force of 20,000 Macedonians, 4000 Greek allies, 1000 cavalry, and sixtyfive elephants; animals which were now seen for the first time in European Greece. He at first besieged Kassander in Peiræus, but finding it dif ficult to procure subsistence in Attica for so numerous an army, he marched with the larger portion into Peloponnesus, leaving his son Alexander with a division to make head against Kassander. Either approaching in person the various Peloponnesian towns or addressing them by means of envoys-he enjoined the subversion of the Antipatrian oligarchies, and the restoration of liberty and free speech to the mass of the citizens. In most of the towns, this revolution was accomplished; but in Megalopolis, the oligarchy held out; not only forcing Polysperchon to besiege the city, but even defending it against him successfully. He made two or three 2 Diodor. xviii. 69. 1 Diodor. xix. 35. CHAP. XCVI.] KASSANDER MASTER OF ATHENS. 487 attempts to storm it, by moveable towers, by undermining the walls, and even by the aid of elephants; but he was repulsed in all of them', and obliged to relinquish the siege with considerable loss of reputation. His admiral Kleitus was soon afterwards defeated in the Propontis, with the loss of his whole fleet, by Nikanor (whom Kassander had sent from Peiræus) and Antigonus2. strength der in possession After these two defeats, Polysperchon seems to Increased have evacuated Peloponnesus, and to have carried of Kassanhis forces across the Corinthian Gulf into Epirus, Greeceto join Olympias. His party was greatly weakened he gets all over Greece, and that of Kassander propor- of Athens. tionally strengthened. The first effect of this was, the surrender of Athens. The Athenians in the city, including all or many of the restored exiles, could no longer endure that complete severance from the sea, to which the occupation of Peiræus and Munychia by Kassander had reduced them. Athens without a port was hardly tenable; in fact, Peiræus was considered by its great constructor, Themistokles, as more indispensable to the Atheniaus than Athens itself. The subsistence of the people was derived in large proportion from imported corn, received through Peiræus; where also the trade and industrial operations were carried on, most of the revenue collected, and the arsenals, docks, ships, &c. of the state kept up. It became evident that Nikanor, by seizing on the Peiræus, had rendered Athens disarmed and helpless; so that the irreparable mischief done by Phokion, in 1 Diodor. xviii. 70, 71. 3 Thucyd. i. 93. 2 Diodor. xviii. 72. Restoration of the oli conniving at that seizure, was felt more and more every day. Hence the Athenians, unable to capture the port themselves, and hopeless of obtaining it through Polysperchon, felt constrained to listen to the partisans of Kassander, who proposed that terms should be made with him. It was agreed that they should become friends and allies of Kassander; that they should have full enjoyment of their city, with the port Peiræus, their ships, and revenues; that the exiles and deported citizens should be readmitted; that the political franchise should for the future be enjoyed by all citizens who possessed 1000 drachmæ of property and upwards; that Kassander should hold Munychia with a governor and garrison, until the war against Polysperchon was brought to a close; and that he should also name some one Athenian citizen, in whose hands the supreme government of the city should be vested. Kassander named Demetrius the Phalerean (i. e. an Athenian of the Deme Phalerum), one of the colleagues of Phokion; who had gone into voluntary exile since the death of Antipater, but had recently returned'. This convention restored substantially at Athens garchical the Antipatrian government; yet without the severities which had marked its original establishthough in a ment-and with some modifications in various government at Athens, mitigated the Phale rean Demetrius. ways. form, under It made Kassander virtually master of the city (as Antipater had been before him), by means of his governing nominee, upheld by the garrison, and by the fortification of Munychia; which had now been 1 Diodor. xviii. 74. CHAP. XCVI.] ATHENS UNDER DEMETRIUS PHALEREUS. 489 greatly enlarged and strengthened', holding a prac tical command over Peiræus, though that port was nominally relinquished to the Athenians. But there was no slaughter of orators, no expulsion of citizens; moreover, even the minimum of 1000 drachmæ, fixed for the political franchise, though excluding the multitude, must have been felt as an improvement compared with the higher limit of 2000 drachmæ prescribed by Antipater. Kassander was not, like his father, at the head of an overwhelming force, master of Greece. He had Polysperchon in the field against him with a rival army and an established ascendency in many of the Grecian cities; it was therefore his interest to abstain from measures of obvious harshness towards the Athenian people. tration of rean De That the Phalesatrap metrius at He was Athens, in a moderate spirit. taken of nian popu Census the Athe Towards this end his choice of the Phalerean AdminisDemetrius appears to have been judicious. citizen continued to administer Athens, as or despot under Kassander, for ten years. an accomplished literary man, friend both of the philosopher Theophrastus, who had succeeded to the school of Aristotle-and of the rhetor Deinarchus. He is described also as a person of expensive and luxurious habits; towards which he devoted the most of the Athenian public revenue, 1200 talents in amount, if Duris is to be believed. His administration is said to have been discreet and moderate. We know little of its details, but we are told that he made sumptuary laws, especially 1 See the notice of Munychia, as it stood ten years afterwards (Diodor. xx. 45). lation. restricting the cost and ostentation of funerals'. He himself extolled his own decennial period as one of abundance and flourishing commerce at Athens. But we learn from others, and the fact is highly probable, that it was a period of distress and humiliation, both at Athens and in other Grecian towns; and that Athenians, as well as others, welcomed new projects of colonization (such as that of Ophellas from Kyrênê) not simply from prospects of advantage, but also as an escape from existing evils3. What forms of nominal democracy were kept up during this interval, we cannot discover. The popular judicature must have been continued for private suits and accusations, since Deinarchus is said to have been in large practice as a logographer, or composer of discourses for others. But the fact 1 Cicero, De Legg. ii. 26, 66; Strabo, ix. p. 398; Pausanias, i. 25, 5. τύραννον τε Αθηναίοις ἔπραξε γενέσθαι Δημήτριον, &c. Duris ap. Athenæum, xii. 542. Fragm. 27. vol. iii. p. 477. Frag. Hist. Græc. The Phalerean Demetrius composed, among numerous historical, philosophical, and literary works, a narrative of his own decennial administration (Diogenes Laert. v. 5, 9; Strabo, ib.)—ñepì tŷs dekaetías. The statement of 1200 talents, as the annual revenue handled by Demetrius, deserves little credit. 2 See the Fragment of Demochares, 2; Fragment. Historic. Græc, ed. Didot, vol. ii. p. 448, ap. Polyb. xii. 13. Demochares, nephew of the orator Demosthenes, was the political opponent of Demetrius Phalereus, whom he reproached with these boasts about commercial prosperity, when the liberty and dignity of the city were overthrown. To such boasts of Demetrius Phalereus probably belongs the statement cited from him by Strabo (iii. p. 147) about the laborious works in the Attic mines at Laureium. * Diodor. xx. 40. ὥσθ ̓ ὑπελάμβανον μὴ μόνον ἐγκρατεῖς ἔσεσθαι πολλῶν ἀγαθῶν, ἀλλὰ καὶ τῶν παρόντων κακῶν ἀπαλλαγήσεσθαι. Dionys. Halic. Judicium de Dinarcho, p. 633, 634; Plutarch, De |