THE RISE OF MACEDON AND ALEXANDER THE GREAT The question remains, Why did the city-state fail to save Greece from conquest by Macedon? Was this result due to the inherent weakness either of the city-state itself, or of one par ticular form of it, democracy? It is clear, in any case, that the triumph of Macedon was the effect of causes which had long been at work. If neither Philip nor Alexander had appeared on the scene, Greece might have maintained her independence for an other generation or two ; but, when invasion came, it would have found her weaker and more distracted, and the conquerors might easily have been less imbued with the Greek spirit, and less sym pathetic to Greek ideals, than the great Macedonian and his son. These causes are to be found in the tendencies of the age, political, economic and moral. Of the two movements which characterized the Great Age in its political aspect, the imperial and the democratic, the one failed and the other succeeded. The failure and the success were equally fatal to the chances of Greece in the conflict with Macedon. By the middle of the 4th century Greek politics had come to be dominated by the theory of the balance of power. This theory, enunciated in its coarsest form by Demosthenes, had shaped the foreign policy of Athens since the end of the Peloponnesian War. As long as Sparta was the stronger, Athens inclined to a Theban alliance ; after Leuctra she tended in the direction of a Spartan one. At the epoch of Philip's. accession the forces were everywhere nicely balanced. The Peloponnese was fairly equally divided between the Theban and the Spartan interests, and central Greece was similarly divided between the Theban and the Athenian. Farther north we get an Athenian party opposed to an Olynthian in Chalcidice, and a re publican party, dependent upon the support of Thebes, opposed to that of the tyrants in Thessaly. Thus the political conditions of Greece, both in the north and in the south, invited interference from without. And the triumph of democracy in its extreme form was ruinous to the military efficiency of Greece. On the one side there was a monarchical state, in which all powers, civil as well as military, were concentrated in the hands of a single ruler; on the other, a constitutional system, in which a complete separation had been effected between the responsibility of the statesman and that of the commander.
It could not be doubtful with which side the victory would rest. The cause which Aristotle assigns for the decay of the Spartan state—a declining population (see Politics, p. 127o a)—might be extended to the Greek world generally. The loss of population was partly the result of war and civil strife—Isocrates speaks of the number of political exiles from the various states as enormous—but it was also due to a de clining birth-rate, and to the exposure of infants. Aristotle, while condemning exposure, sanctions the procuring of abortion (Politics,
b). It is probable that both ante-natal and post natal infanticide were rife everywhere, except among the more backward communities. The materials for forming a trustworthy estimate of the population of Greece at any given epoch are not available; there is evidence to prove that the military population of the leading Greek states at the era of the battle of Chaeroneia
B.c.) fell far short of what it had been at the beginning of the Peloponnesian War. The decline in population had been ac companied by a decline in wealth, both public and private; and while revenues had shrunk, expenditure had grown. It was a cen tury of warfare; and warfare had become enormously more expensive, partly through the increased employment of mercena ries, partly through the enhanced cost of material. The power of the purse had made itself felt even in the 5th century; Persian gold had helped to decide the issue of the great war. In the politics of the 4th century the power of the purse becomes the determin ing factor. The public finance of the ancient world was singularly simple in character, and the expedients for raising a revenue were comparatively few. The distinction between direct and indirect taxation was recognized in practice, but states as a rule were reluctant to submit to the former system. The revenue of Athens in the 5th century was mainly derived from the tribute paid by her subjects; it was only in time of war that a direct tax was levied upon the citizen-body. In the age of Demosthenes the revenue derived from the Athenian Confederacy was insignificant. The whole burden of the expenses of a war fell upon the 1,200 richest citizens, who were subject to direct taxation in the dual form of the Trierarchy and the Eispliora (property-tax). The revenue thus raised was wholly insufficient for an effort on a great scale ; yet the revenues of Athens at this period must have exceeded those of any other state.
The economic history of Greece is discussed in a subsequent article. But it is to moral rather than to political or economic causes that the failure of Greece in the conflict with Macedon is attributed by the most famous Greek statesmen of that age. Demosthenes is never weary of insisting upon the decay of patriotism among the citizens and upon the decay of probity among their leaders. Venality had always been the besetting sin of Greek statesmen. Pericles' boast as to his own incorruptibility (Thus. ii. 6o) is sig nificant as to the reputation of his contemporaries. In the age of Demosthenes the level of public life in this respect had sunk at least as low as that which prevails in many states of the modern world. Corruption was certainly not confined to the Macedonian party. The best that can be said in defence of the patriots, as well as of their opponents, is that they honestly be lieved that the policy which they were bribed to advocate was the best for their country's interests. The evidence for the general decay of patriotism among the mass of the citizens is less con clusive. The battle of Megalopolis (33i B.c.), in which the Spartan soldiery "went down in a blaze of glory," proves that the spirit of the Lacedaemonian state remained unchanged. But at Athens it seemed to contemporary observers—to Isocrates equally with Demosthenes—that the spirit of the great days was extinct (see Isocr. On the Peace, 47.48). It cannot, of course, be denied that public opinion was obstinately opposed to the diversion of the Theoric Fund to the purposes of the war with Philip. It was not till the year before Chaeroneia that Demos thenes succeeded in persuading the assembly to devote the entire surplus to the expenses of the war. Nor can it be denied that mercenaries were far more largely employed in the 4th century than in the 5th. In justice, however, to the Athenians of the Demosthenic era, it should be remembered that the burden of direct taxation was rarely imposed, and was reluctantly endured, in the previous century. It must also be remembered that, even in the 4th century, the Athenian citizen was ready to take the field, provided that it was not a question of a distant expedition or of prolonged service. In the two expeditions sent to Euboea, the cavalry force that took part in the battle of Mantineia, and the army that fought at Chaeroneia, the troops were citizens. For distant expeditions, or for prolonged service, a citizen-militia is unsuited. The substitution of a professional for an unprofes sional force is explained, partly by the change in the character of Greek warfare, and partly by the operation of the laws of supply and demand. There was a time when warfare meant a brief cam paign in the summer months against a neighbouring state. It came to mean prolonged operations against a distant enemy. Athens was at war, e.g., with Philip, for eleven years continuously
B.c.). If winter campaigns in Thrace were unpopular at this epoch, they were hardly less unpopular in the epoch of the Peloponnesian War. In the days of her greatness, too, Athens freely employed mercenaries, but in the navy rather than the army. In the age of Pericles the supply of mercenary rowers was abundant, the supply of mercenary troops inconsiderable. In the age of Demosthenes incessant warfare and ceaseless revolu tion had filled Greece with crowds of homeless adventurers. The supply helped to create the demand. The mercenary was as cheap as the citizen-soldier, and much more effective. On the whole, then, it is a mistake to regard the prevalence of the mercenary system as the expression of a declining patriotism. It would be nearer the mark to treat the transition from the volun tary to the professional system as cause rather than effect : as one among the causes which contributed to the decay of public spirit in the Greek world.
