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[Introduction. Late in the year 343 (some time after the acquittal ofAeschines) Philip invaded Epirus, made Alexander, brother of his wifeOlympias, king of the Molossi instead of Arybbas, and so secured, hisown influence in that region. Arybbas was honourably received atAthens. Philip next threatened Ambracia and Leucas, which were coloniesof Corinth, and promised to restore Naupactus, which was in the handsof the Achaeans, to the Aetolians. But Athens sent Demosthenes,Hegesippus, Polyeuctus and others to rouse the Corinthians toresistance, and also dispatched a force of citizens to Acarnania tohelp in the defence against Philip. Philip thereupon returned, capturedEchinus and Nicaea on the Malian Gulf, and established a tetrarch ineach division of Thessaly (343 B.C., or early in 342). In 342Philistides was established, by Philip's influence, as tyrant at Oreusin Euboea (as Cleitarchus had been at Eretria in the preceding year),and the democratic leader Euphraeus committed suicide in prison.[1] Thetown of Chalcis, however, under Callias and Taurosthenes, remainedfriendly to Athens, and made a treaty of alliance with her.
About the same time a controversy, begun in the previous year, inregard to Halonnesus, was renewed. This island had belonged to Athens,but had been occupied by pirates. At some time not recorded (butprobably since the Peace of 346) Philip had expelled the pirates andtaken possession of the island. He now sent a letter, offering to giveHalonnesus to Athens, but not to give it back (since this wouldconcede their right to it); or else to submit the dispute toarbitration. He also offered to discuss a treaty for the settlement ofprivate disputes between Athenians and Macedonians, and to concertmeasures with Athens for clearing the Aegean of pirates. He was willingto extend the advantages of the Peace to other Greek States, but not toagree that he and Athens should respectively possess 'what was theirown', instead of 'what they held'; though he was ready to submit toarbitration in regard to Cardia and other disputed places. He againdenied having made the promises attributed to him, and asked for thepunishment of those who slandered him. Hegesippus replied in an extantspeech ('On Halonnesus'), while Demosthenes insisted that no impartialarbitrator could possibly be found. Philip's terms in regard toHalonnesus were refused, but the Athenian claim to the island was notwithdrawn.
Philip spent the greater part of 342 and 341 in Thrace, mainly in thevalley of the Hebrus, where he endured very great hardships through thewinter, and founded colonies of Macedonian soldiers, the chief of thesebeing Philippopolis and Cabyle. He also entered into relations with theGetae, beyond the Haemus, and garrisoned Apollonia on the Euxine. Theseoperations were all preparatory to his projected attack upon Byzantium.(Byzantium and Athens were at this time on unfriendly terms, owing tothe part taken by the latter in the Social War.)
But the immediate subject of the present Speech was the state ofaffairs in the Chersonese in 342. The Chersonese (with the exception ofCardia) had been secured for Athens in 357, but had been threatened byPhilip in 352,[2] when he made alliance with Cardia, and forced theneighbouring Thracian Prince Cersobleptes to submit. Soon after thePeace of Philocrates, Athens sent settlers to the Chersonese