page_title: Demosthenes
section_title: First Philippic and the Olynthiacs (351–349 BC)
hierarchical_section_title: Demosthenes / Career / Confrontation with Philip II / First Philippic and the Olynthiacs (351–349 BC)
caption_attribution_description: Français&#160;: Nikétérion à l'effigie de Philippe II de Macédoine&#160;: médaillon de victoire monétiforme issu du trésor de Tarse, IIIe siècle ap. J.-C., probablement frappé sous le règne de l'empereur Sévère Alexandre. English: Niketerion (victory medallion) bearing the effigy of king Philip II of Macedon, 3nd century AD, probably minted during the reign of Emperor Alexander Severus.
context_page_description: Demosthenes was a Greek statesman and orator of ancient Athens. His orations constitute a significant expression of contemporary Athenian intellectual prowess and provide an insight into the politics and culture of ancient Greece during the 4th century BC. Demosthenes learned rhetoric by studying the speeches of previous great orators. He delivered his first judicial speeches at the age of 20, in which he argued effectively to gain from his guardians what was left of his inheritance. For a time, Demosthenes made his living as a professional speech-writer and a lawyer, writing speeches for use in private legal suits.
  Demosthenes grew interested in politics during his time as a logographer, and in 354 BC he gave his first public political speeches. He went on to devote his most productive years to opposing Macedon's expansion. He idealized his city and strove throughout his life to restore Athens' supremacy and motivate his compatriots against Philip II of Macedon. He sought to preserve his city's freedom and to establish an alliance against Macedon, in an unsuccessful attempt to impede Philip's plans to expand his influence southward by conquering all the other Greek states.
context_section_description: Most of Demosthenes' major orations were directed against the growing power of King Philip II of Macedon. Since 357 BC, when Philip seized Amphipolis and Pydna, Athens had been formally at war with the Macedonians. In 352 BC, Demosthenes characterised Philip as the very worst enemy of his city; his speech presaged the fierce attacks that Demosthenes would launch against the Macedonian king over the ensuing years. A year later he criticised those dismissing Philip as a person of no account and warned that he was as dangerous as the king of Persia.
  In 352 BC, Athenian troops successfully opposed Philip at Thermopylae, but the Macedonian victory over the Phocians at the Battle of Crocus Field shook Demosthenes. In 351 BC, Demosthenes felt strong enough to express his view concerning the most important foreign policy issue facing Athens at that time: the stance his city should take towards Philip. According to Jacqueline de Romilly, a French philologist and member of the Académie française, the threat of Philip would give Demosthenes' stances a focus and a raison d'être. Demosthenes saw the King of Macedon as a menace to the autonomy of all Greek cities and yet he presented him as a monster of Athens's own creation; in the First Philippic he reprimanded his fellow citizens as follows: "Even if something happens to him, you will soon raise up a second Philip [...]".
  The theme of the First Philippic (351–350 BC) was preparedness and the reform of the Theoric fund, a mainstay of Eubulus' policy. In his rousing call for resistance, Demosthenes asked his countrymen to take the necessary action and asserted that "for a free people there can be no greater compulsion than shame for their position". He thus provided for the first time a plan and specific recommendations for the strategy to be adopted against Philip in the north. Among other things, the plan called for the creation of a rapid-response force, to be created cheaply with each ὁπλῑ́της (hoplī́tēs) to be paid only ten drachmas per month (two obols per day), which was less than the average pay for unskilled labourers in Athens—implying that the hoplite was expected to make up the deficiency in pay by looting.
  From this moment until 341 BC, all of Demosthenes' speeches referred to the same issue, the struggle against Philip. In 349 BC, Philip attacked Olynthus, an ally of Athens. In the three Olynthiacs, Demosthenes criticised his compatriots for being idle and urged Athens to help Olynthus. He also insulted Philip by calling him a "barbarian". Despite Demosthenes' strong advocacy, the Athenians would not manage to prevent the falling of the city to the Macedonians. Almost simultaneously, probably on Eubulus' recommendation, they engaged in a war in Euboea against Philip, which ended in stalemate.
caption: Philip II of Macedon: victory medal (nikétérion) struck in Tarsus, c. 2nd century BC (Cabinet des Médailles, Paris).
exif: {"Image Make": "NIKON CORPORATION", "Image Model": "NIKON D70", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "300", "Image YResolution": "300", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Ver.2.00", "Image DateTime": "2006:03:17 18:03:32", "Image ExifOffset": "196", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/640", "EXIF FNumber": "2", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Aperture Priority", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "500", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0221", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2006:03:17 18:03:32", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2006:03:17 18:03:32", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF CompressedBitsPerPixel": "4", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "1/3", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "8/5", "EXIF MeteringMode": "CenterWeightedAverage", "EXIF LightSource": "Unknown", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire", "EXIF FocalLength": "50", "EXIF SubSecTime": "10", "EXIF SubSecTimeOriginal": "10", "EXIF SubSecTimeDigitized": "10", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "955", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "903", "EXIF SensingMethod": "One-chip color area", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF SceneType": "Directly Photographed", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF DigitalZoomRatio": "1", "EXIF FocalLengthIn35mmFilm": "75", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "EXIF GainControl": "None", "EXIF Contrast": "Normal", "EXIF Saturation": "Normal", "EXIF Sharpness": "Normal", "EXIF SubjectDistanceRange": "0"}