The Aetolian league.

Rights and duties of confederates.

appointed strategus, and again two years later when he succeeded in wresting Corinth from the Macedonians, and gaining it for the league. It was followed by Troezen, Epidaurus, Hermione, and other cities; and ultimately the league included Athens, Salamis, Megara, Aegina, and all the Peloponnese, except Sparta, Elis, and a few of the Arcadian towns.

The Aetolian league1 was similarly an association of tribes. Its history is somewhat obscure; but it must have had a fixed constitution in the time of Philip and Alexander, seeing that Aristotle wrote a treatise on it. We find that it played an important part in the Lamian war (323-322 B.C.). After Alexander's death, the Aetolians conquered Locris, Phocis, Boeotia, and parts of Acarnania, Thessaly, and Epirus, and got both the Amphictyonic Council and the Delphian oracle in their power. In 220 B.C. they defeated the Achaeans, who soon entered into an alliance with Philip. The war which ensued between the two leagues is commonly designated the Social war (220-217 B.C.). Later the Aetolian league suffered various vicissitudes of fortune. As to its constitution, there was a general council called the Panaetolium (IIavairλov), which assembled every autumn, usually at Thermum, to elect the strategus and other officers. The details of the administration were attended to by a kind of permanent council, or executive committee, termed the Apocleti (οἱ Απόκλητοι).4

3

In all these and similar confederacies, or alliances of a less comprehensive extent, the reciprocal rights and obligations of the members thereof were either explicitly

1 See Dubois, op. cit. pp. 185 seq.

2 Livy, xxxi. 29, speaks of the "concilium Aetolorum quod Panaetolium vocant ; and, again, in xxxi. 32, he mentions the "Panaetolicum concilium.'

3 Strabo, x. 3. 2.

4 Polyb. xx. 1. 1.-Cf. Livy, xxxvi. 29: "Quum in concilio delectorum quos Apocletos vocant....

laid down in the special treaties respectively entered into between them, or were understood as following by a necessary and immediate implication from the avowed objects of the union. Of course, infractions were not by any means infrequent, but the principles were none the less recognized, and often forcibly and drastically insisted on. Thus the confederates were bound to help in war, and usually, as we have seen, by contingents or substituted contributions of a predetermined amount. Fre

quently this duty devolved also on the allies of the confederates, that is, of course, when they were not for any urgent reason specifically excluded from the league; though, as a general rule, express provisions on this matter were made in the major treaties. At the congress of Nicaea, the Aetolian ambassadors demanded the restoration by Philip of all the cities which had formerly been members of the Aetolian league. In reply, Philip pointed out that the Aetolians had not only plundered their enemies, but also their allies when at war with each other,—and even without a formal decree of the people; that there seemed to be in their eyes no clearly defined line of demarcation between hostility and friendship. How then, exclaimed he, could they have any right to blame him if, as an ally of Prusias, he had acted in support of his own allies against the Ciani, who had been allied to the Aetolians?i

treaties.

The federal States or allies were prohibited from As to concluding treaties with the common enemy, or from conclusion of violating their engagement by establishing relationships with another State, even under pressure of an urgent cause. When Cleomenes was blockading the Isthmus, the Megarians, who had been members of the Achaean league, finding themselves cut off from the Achaeans, joined the Boeotians with the consent of the former. Discovering, however, that Boeotia was in a disorganized condition, and disapproving, moreover, of its constitu

1 Polyb. xviii. 5 : πόθεν οὖν ἔξεστι τούτοις ἐγκαλεῖν νῦν, εἰ φίλος ὑπάρχων Αἰτωλοῖς ἐγώ, Προυσίου δὲ σύμμαχος, ἔπραξα τι κατὰ Κιανῶν, βοηθῶν τοῖς αὑτοῦ συμμάχοις ;

Right to abandon alliances.

tion, Megara again joined the Achaeans, whereupon the Boeotians made an attack upon the city.1 When assistance was proffered to one State, and for reasons of political interest was transferred to an adversary or to a rebel, such act was esteemed a piece of deliberate treachery. During the decline of Sparta, the veteran Agesilaus hoped to resuscitate his country by expeditions to the East. He proceeded with his mercenaries to Egypt to assist the king, Tachos, in his revolt against Persia; but in the absence of the king his cousin, Nectanebis, rose and caused himself to be proclaimed king of Egypt. Agesilaus abandoned Tachos, and joined the usurper, "making the interests of his country," as Plutarch says, "the pretext for his extraordinary conduct, which we can hardly call anything better than treachery." 2

In certain cases of extreme necessity and vital State interest, such as self-preservation, ancient States claimed the right to abandon alliances. Thus, Polybius is at pains to determine whether Aristaenus, in causing the Achaeans to renounce their alliance with Philip and join that of Rome, was a wise opportunist, or a traitor in the strict sense of the term. It is difficult, he says, to state exactly who is to be regarded, under certain circumstances, as a real traitor. Obviously not all those who, at a time of tranquillity, make compacts with sovereigns can be considered such off hand; nor, again, those who at a time of danger withdraw their country from existing friendships and alliances, and transfer it to others. For and treachery, such individuals have frequently been the authors of manifold advantages to their own States. The historian

Polybius on

1 Polyb. xx. 6.

2 Plut. Ages. 37: οὕτω δὴ λαβὼν τοὺς μισθοφόρους ὁ ̓Αγησίλαος ἀπὸ τοῦ Τάχω μετέστη πρὸς τὸν Νεκτάναβιν, ἀτόπου καὶ ἀλλοκότου πράγματος παρακαλύμματι τῷ συμφέροντι τῆς πατρίδος χρησάμενος, ἐπεὶ ταύτης γε τῆς προφάσεως ἀφαιρεθείσης τὸ δικαιότατον ὄνομα τῆς πράξεως ἦν προδοσία.

3 Polyb. xviii. 13: τίνα γὰρ ὡς ἀληθῶς προδότην δεῖ νομίζειν οὐ ῥᾴδιον ἀποφήνασθαι. δῆλον γὰρ ὡς οὔτε τοὺς ἐξ ἀκεραίου συντιθε

gives an example in connection with the circumstances under consideration. If Aristaenus, he argues, had not at this time opportunely caused the Achaeans to give up their alliance with Philip and unite themselves to Rome, it is clear that the entire league would have suffered utter destruction. But, as it was, this man and this policy were avowedly the means not only of procuring at the time the safety of individual Achaeans, but also the aggrandizement of the confederacy as a whole. And consequently he was not regarded as a traitor, but, on the contrary, was universally honoured as a benefactor and saviour of the country. Hence, Polybius infers that such a principle of conduct would be perfectly legitimate in the case of all others who might be obliged to adapt their policy and measures to the necessities of the hour.1 Admitting the validity of this point of view, His criticism of he continues, Demosthenes, admirable as he is in many respects, might well be censured for having rashly and indiscriminately hurled a bitter accusation against the most illustrious of the Greeks. For he asserts that in Arcadia, Cercidas, Hieronymus, and Eucampidas were traitors to Greece for entering into alliance with Philip; in Messene, the sons of Philiades, Neon and Thraylochus; in Argos, Mystis, Teledamus, one Mnaseas; in Thessaly, Daochus and Cineas; in Boeotia, Theogeiton and Timolas; and many more besides being put in the same category. And yet, insists Polybius, all these men, especially those of Arcadia and Messene, had obvious and weighty reasons to advance in vindication of their

μένους τῶν ἀνδρῶν πρός τινας, βασιλεῖς ἢ δυνάστας κοινωνίαν πραγμάτων εὐθέως προδότας νομιστέον, οὔτε τοὺς κατὰ τὰς περιστάσεις μετατιθέντας τὰς αὑτῶν πατρίδας ἀπὸ τῶν ὑποκειμένων πρὸς ἑτέρας φιλίας καὶ συμμαχίας, οὐδὲ τούτους. πολλοῦ γε δεῖ. ἐπείτοι γε πολλάκις οἱ τοιοῦτοι τῶν μεγίστων ἀγαθῶν γεγόνασιν αἴτιοι, ταῖς ἰδίαις πατρίσιν.

1 Ibid.: ὁ δ ̓ αὐτὸς ἂν εἴη λόγος καὶ περὶ τῶν ἄλλων, ὅσοι κατὰ τάς τῶν καιρῶν περιτάσεις τὰ παραπλήσια τούτοις πολιτεύονται καὶ πράττουσιν.

2 Cf. De corona, 43, 48, 295.

Demosthenes.

conduct.1 For it was by their bringing Philip into the Peloponnese and humbling the Lacedaemonians that these men, on the one hand, enabled all its inhabitants to breathe again and conceive the idea of liberty; and, on the other, by recovering their cities and territory, which the Lacedaemonians had captured from the Messenians, Megalopolitans, Tegeans, and Argives, notoriously raised the fortunes of their own countries. In return for this they were obliged to refrain from making war on Philip and the Macedonians. Now had they done all this for merely personal reasons or base selfseeking, or even from a purely party spirit, they would have well merited to be branded as traitors. But if, while being faithful in their duty to their countries, they yet differed in their judgments of politics, and did not consider their interests to be the same as those of Athens, then Demosthenes is scarcely justified in stigmatizing them, on that account, as traitors. "The man who measures everything by the interests of his own particular State, and imagines that all the Greeks ought to have their eyes fixed upon Athens, on the pain of being styled traitors, seems to me to be ill-informed, and to be labouring under a strange delusion," —especially so as the course which events in Greece took at the time has testified to the wisdom, not of Demosthenes,

1 xviii. 14 : . . . καίτοι γε πάντων μὲν τῶν προειρημένων ἀνδρῶν πολὺν ἐχόντων λόγον καὶ φαινόμενον ὑπὲρ τῶν καθ ̓ αὑτοὺς δικαίων, πλεῖστον δὲ τῶν ἐξ ̓Αρκαδίας καὶ Μεσσήνης.

2 That is 338 B.C. after the battle of Chaeronaea. Polybius' argument is, of course, an ex post facto one; and one may nevertheless urge, as is suggested by Shuckburgh, The Histories of Polybius, vol. ii. p. 213, note (to whose translation I am here and in other places indebted), that if Demosthenes' advice had been carried into effect, these States might have been liberated from Spartan tyranny without necessarily falling under the subjection of Macedon.

8 Cf. Polyb. xviii. 15.

4 Ibid. xviii. 14: ὁ δὲ πάντα μετρῶν πρὸς τὸ τῆς ἰδίας πατρίδος συμφέρον, καὶ πάντας ἡγούμενος δεῖν τοὺς Ἕλληνας ἀποβλέπειν πρὸς Αθηναίους, εἰ δὲ μή, προδότας ἀποκαλῶν, ἀνογεῖν μοι δοκεῖ καὶ πολὺ παραπαίειν τῆς ἀληθείας. . . .