Stories of Achievement, Volume III

to hear him praised, turned these things off as trifles. "The first," he said, "was the property of a sophist, the second of a woman, and the third of a sponge; and not one of them could do any credit to a king."

Afterward, it appeared that nothing was to be expected but war; for, on the one hand, Philip knew not how to sit down in tranquillity; and, on the other, Demosthenes inflamed the Athenians. In this case, the first step the orator took was to put the people upon sending an armament to Euboea, which was brought under the yoke of Philip by its petty tyrants. Accordingly he drew up an edict, in pursuance of which they passed over to that peninsula, and drove out the Macedonians. His second operation was the sending succor to the Byzantians and Perinthians, with whom Philip was at war. He persuaded the people to drop their resentment, to forget the faults which both those nations had committed in the confederate war, and to send a body of troops to their assistance. They did so, and it saved them f