Answer to Philip’s Letter (3-5)

Then again, he has at last come to the end of his policy of deception and his lavish promises of future benefit, which before helped him to power. The Perinthians and Byzantines with their allies realize that his aim is to deal with them even as he dealt with the Olynthians before.

The Thessalians recognize that he is determined to be their despot and not the president of a confederacy. The Thebans suspect him, because he keeps a garrison at Nicaea and has stolen into the Amphictyonic Council, and because he attracts to his court the embassies of the Peloponnesian powers and secures their allies for himself. Thus of his old friends some are even now his irreconcilable foes, others are no longer his hearty supporters, while all regard him with suspicion and dislike.

Then too—nor is this a matter of small importance—quite recently the satraps of Asia Minor sent a force of mercenaries and compelled Philip to raise the siege of Perinthus; but today their hostility is confirmed, the danger, if he reduces Byzantium, is at their very doors, and not only will they eagerly join the war against him.