With Aeschines as their trusty guide, the Amphictyons began their tour of the territory; but the Locrians fell upon them, were within an ace of spearing the whole crowd, and did actually seize and carry off the sacred persons of several commissioners. Complaints were promptly laid, and so war against the Amphissians was provoked. At the outset Cottyphus was commander of an army composed of Amphictyons; but some divisions never joined, and those who joined did nothing at all. The persons engaged in the plot, mostly scoundrels of old standing from Thessaly and other states, prepared to put the war into Philip’s hands at the next congress.

They found a plausible pretext: you must either, they said, pay contributions to a war-chest, maintain mercenary forces, and levy a fine on all recusants, or else elect Philip as commander-in-chief: and so, to cut a long story short, elected he was on this plea. He lost no time, collected his army, pretended to march to Cirrha, and then bade the Cirrhaeans and the Locrians alike good-bye and good luck, and seized Elatea.

When the Thebans saw the trick, they promptly changed their minds and joined our side; otherwise the whole business would have descended upon Athens like a torrent from the hills. In fact, the Thebans checked him for the moment; and for that relief, men of Athens, you have first and chiefly to thank the kindness of some friendly god, but in a secondary degree, and so far as one man could help, you have to thank me. Hand me those decrees, with the dates of the several transactions. They will show you what a mass of trouble this consummate villain provoked; and yet he was never punished.

Please read the decrees.

In the priesthood of Cleinagoras, at the spring session, it was resolved by the Wardens and the Assessors of the Amphictyons, and by the General Synod of the Amphictyons, that, whereas Amphissians are encroaching upon the sacred territory and are sowing and grazing the same, the Wardens and Assessors shall attend and mark out the boundaries with pillars, and shall forbid the Amphissians hereafter to encroach.

In the priesthood of Cleinagoras, at the spring session, it was resolved by the Wardens, Assessors, and General Synod that whereas the Amphissians who have occupied the sacred territory are tilling and grazing the same, and, when forbidden to do so, have appeared in arms and resisted the common assembly of the Greeks by force, and have actually wounded some of them, the general appointed by some of the Amphictyons, Cottyphus the Arcadian, shall go as an ambassador to Philip of Macedon and request him to come to the help of Apollo and the Amphictyons, that he may not suffer the god to be outraged by the impious Amphissians; he shall also announce that Philip is appointed General with full powers by the Greeks who are members of the Assembly of the Amphictyons.

Now read the dates of these transactions. They are all dates at which he was or spokesman at the Congress of Thermopylae.

Archonship of Mnesitheides, on the sixteenth of the month Anthesterion.