The aim of this piece is to examine a congeries of diplomatic, political, and legal arrangements and obligations that linked the Greeks, Macedonians, and Persians in various complicated ways during Philip’s final years. The ties among them all were then often tangled and now imperfectly understood and incompletely documented. These matters evoke such concepts as the King’s Peace and the Common Peace, and involve a number of treaties, some bilateral between Philip and individual states, others broader, as with the Peace of Philokrates between himself and his allies and the Athenians and theirs, and finally the nature of Philip’s settlement with the Greeks in 338/7. In the background there always stood the King, who never formally renounced the rights that he enjoyed under the King’s Peace of 386, even though he could seldom directly enforce them. It is an irony of history that Philip used the concept of a common peace in Greece both to exclude the King from Greek affairs and also as a tool of war against him. By so doing, Philip rejected the very basis of the King’s Peace as it was originally drafted and later implemented. In its place he resurrected the memory of the days when the Greeks had thwarted Xerxes’ invasion, and fanned the desire for retaliation of past wrongs, a theme that Alexander would also later put to good use.
The year 346 was remarkable for three peace treaties, each separate, although all involved at least some of the same numerous belligerents. The first was the Phokian general Phalaikos’ surrender to Philip that ended the hostilities between them. The next was the Peace of Philokrates between Philip and the Athenians that ended their conflict for control of the northwestern Aegean. The terms of the Peace of Philokrates bound most, but not all, of the major participants of the “War for Amphipolis.” Thebes and its allies were not considered a party to it, even though Thebes itself had only the year before concluded a separate alliance with Philip. Last-minute efforts to include Phokis failed; and Kersebleptes, who had played such a prominent, if undistinguished, role in the conflict was expressly excluded from it. The only Athenian allies who formally participated in it were the members of the Second Athenian Confederacy. Despite the number of Greeks involved, this treaty can in no way be considered a Common Peace, and was not so referred to in antiquity. That much should have been clear from the testimony of Aischines, who repeatedly mentions the failure of the Athenians to interest other Greeks in peace with Philip. This simple fact is hardly surprising, inasmuch as most of them were not at war with him, which of itself made a peace treaty pointless. Nor did they wish unnecessarily to become embroiled with him. Finally, the Peace of Philokrates did not include the King, who had played no part in these events.
John Buckler
Illinois Classical Studies: Vol. 19 (1994)
Abstract
The aim of this piece is to examine a congeries of diplomatic, political, and legal arrangements and obligations that linked the Greeks, Macedonians, and Persians in various complicated ways during Philip’s final years. The ties among them all were then often tangled and now imperfectly understood and incompletely documented. These matters evoke such concepts as the King’s Peace and the Common Peace, and involve a number of treaties, some bilateral between Philip and individual states, others broader, as with the Peace of Philokrates between himself and his allies and the Athenians and theirs, and finally the nature of Philip’s settlement with the Greeks in 338/7. In the background there always stood the King, who never formally renounced the rights that he enjoyed under the King’s Peace of 386, even though he could seldom directly enforce them. It is an irony of history that Philip used the concept of a common peace in Greece both to exclude the King from Greek affairs and also as a tool of war against him. By so doing, Philip rejected the very basis of the King’s Peace as it was originally drafted and later implemented. In its place he resurrected the memory of the days when the Greeks had thwarted Xerxes’ invasion, and fanned the desire for retaliation of past wrongs, a theme that Alexander would also later put to good use.
The year 346 was remarkable for three peace treaties, each separate, although all involved at least some of the same numerous belligerents. The first was the Phokian general Phalaikos’ surrender to Philip that ended the hostilities between them. The next was the Peace of Philokrates between Philip and the Athenians that ended their conflict for control of the northwestern Aegean. The terms of the Peace of Philokrates bound most, but not all, of the major participants of the “War for Amphipolis.” Thebes and its allies were not considered a party to it, even though Thebes itself had only the year before concluded a separate alliance with Philip. Last-minute efforts to include Phokis failed; and Kersebleptes, who had played such a prominent, if undistinguished, role in the conflict was expressly excluded from it. The only Athenian allies who formally participated in it were the members of the Second Athenian Confederacy. Despite the number of Greeks involved, this treaty can in no way be considered a Common Peace, and was not so referred to in antiquity. That much should have been clear from the testimony of Aischines, who repeatedly mentions the failure of the Athenians to interest other Greeks in peace with Philip. This simple fact is hardly surprising, inasmuch as most of them were not at war with him, which of itself made a peace treaty pointless. Nor did they wish unnecessarily to become embroiled with him. Finally, the Peace of Philokrates did not include the King, who had played no part in these events.
Click here to read this article from the University of Illinois
Sponsored Content