allow him to bring in a bill before the people, in their name and authority, ought not his pupa to carry that on the face of it? Is the concise phrase δέδοχθαι τῇ βουλῇ καὶ τῷ δήμῳ a sufficient notification to the duos that the consent of the Bovy has already been obtained? I should have expected a formula more like that in page 265, Εἶπε Καλλίας Φρεάῤῥιος, πρυτανέων λεγόντων βουλῆς γνώμῃ, if at least the text there is sound, and if we may translate it :— "A bill was brought in by Callias, the prytanes reading it aloud, in accordance with a vote of the senate." Some act on the part of the officers of the senate would seem needed, in order to guarantee the bill to the people as that which the senate had approved. Nevertheless, I write this, much more in hope of being instructed better, than from feeling that I have any understanding of these

matters.

The last of these decrees for which we can get a sufficient date, is the bill of impeachment against Ctesiphon by Eschines. We know at least that it cannot have been written before the offence was committed by Ctesiphon, and before Demosthenes was elected a Texorroids by his tribe. This at once convicts the decree before us as anachronistic. It is dated Elaphebolion 6th, in the year of Charondas; yet we have seen from Æschines that the office of Teixotolia was not conferred until the 3rd of Skirophorion in that year. Such is the ill luck of the fabricator of these decrees, when he ventures to deal with a real, instead of a fictitious archon.

Several documents still remain. Two of them are found in p. 265, and represent Nausicles to have been crowned when Demonicus was archon, (a false name,) for advancing money to 2000 troops in Imbros, and not exacting it of the treasury :—also Charidemus and Diotimus, (under what archon is not stated,) for similar generosity.

The orator has just named four persons whom the Athenians had honoured. "First Nausicles," says he, " has often received crowns for the generosity he has shewn in his office of general: next Diotimus, for his present of the shields, was crowned; and again Charidemus: afterwards Neoptolemus here has been honoured for the surplus payments which he made in various offices of trust." Then he adds, "To prove that I speak truth, read aloud

ποτάμου

the decrees which were made for these men." Hereupon follow, not four decrees, (which might have seemed the least to be expected, since Nausicles had been often crowned,) but two only; and the latter combines Diotimus and Charidemus in a single vote. The words are not without obscurity: 'Etteidǹ Xapídnμos ó ἐπὶ τῶν ὁπλιτῶν ἀποσταλεὶς εἰς Σαλαμῖνα, καὶ Διότιμος, ὁ ἐπὶ τῶν ἱππέων, ἐν Tŷ ènì toû noráμov páxп, &c. . . . . The plural verbs with which the decree closes, show that the expression droσradeìs els Eaλapîva is to be repeated with the second clause. Both generals were sent to Salamis, one over the horse, one over the heavy-armed foot; and when the shields of certain troops were captured by surprise during "the battle on the river," they unitedly sustained the expence of replacing them. On the contrary, the words of Demosthenes strongly impress me with the belief that it was on two different occasions that these generals were crowned; otherwise the word πάλιν seems unnatural: ὅτι τὰς ἀσπίδας Διότιμος ἔδωκε, καὶ πάλιν Xapionuos. Again, it is a strange coincidence that the Athenians should have fought a battle in Salamis called ἡ ἐπὶ τοῦ ποτάμου μάχη, when this name was likewise given to a battle fought against Philip, in the campaign which preceded Charonea. The battle so called by Demosthenes (p. 300) must surely have been in Phocis or Boeotia, not in Salamis: moreover, that the affair for which Charidemus was crowned, was very recent, appears from the perfect tense, Navoikλýs éoreþávwrau. If there had been two wellknown battles lately fought on rivers, the latter would have probably gained some distinctive title. But we have further to ask, against whom was this Salaminian battle fought? and where else is it named ? or is it possible so to interpret ἀποσταλεὶς εἰς Σαλαμίνα as to evade the conclusion that the battle was fought in Salamis?

The decrees of the Byzantines and Chersonesites are the more difficult to bring to a severe test, from our little knowledge of their customs; and if they stood alone, I should probably receive them. as genuine. At first, indeed, I regarded it as a favourable symptom in the former, that it made no mention of the Selymbrians; but here the orator himself gave the clue, by naming only the Byzantines and Perinthians. A peculiarity in the decree, is the opening Ἐπὶ ἱερομνάμονος : for we might naturally have doubted whether the Hieromnemon was an annual officer. All objection, however, appears to be overruled by the similar phrase in Polyb. iv. 52. A

more important difficulty strikes me in the orator's phrase, Aéye τοὺς τῶν Βυζαντίων στεφάνους, καὶ τοὺς τῶν Περινθιών. The repetition of Tous implies that the Perinthians sent oréparo separately from the Byzantines. Yet the decree not only joins the two cities in the act, but uses the strong expression τῷ δάμῳ τῷ Βυζαντίων καὶ Περινθίων, as if they were but a single people'. It has also been remarked to me by a judicious friend, that the splendid gifts named in both these decrees are more like the liberality of a rhetorician, than the practical life of Greek cities. The Byzantines and Perinthians give to the Athenians "the rights of intermarriage, of citizenship, of possessing land or houses, &c. &c., and exemption from all λeToúpyia for such of them as choose to dwell among them :" this last particular elevates them above citizens. Besides, three statues sixteen cubits high are to be erected, &c. &c. As for the towns of the Chersonese, considering that they were Ionian, and indeed colonies from Athens, we might have less wondered if they had been ready to confer émiyaμía, moλireia, &c....They, on the contrary, bestow on the senate and people of Athens "a golden crown of the value of sixty talents:”—(å ñò radávτwv égýkovta, from a fund of sixty talents; i. e. not to exceed that sum?)-and build an altar to "Gratitude and the People of Athens." Bishop Thirlwall (Hist. Greece, Vol. vi. p. 50, note 3) has remarked on a discrepancy between this latter decree and the words of Justin, ix. 1, 7; where we read, "Ne unius urbis [Byzantii] oppugnatione tantus exercitus teneretur, [Philippus] profectus cum fortissimis, multas Chersonensium urbes expugnat." But nothing, I think, can be hence deduced to the discredit of the decree before us; for its expression, that Athens has "restored their native soil" (árodovs Tàs TaTρidas) is quite appropriate, if Justin be correct; and that Philip was at this time expelled, is declared by Demosthenes immediately after : - οὐκοῦν οὐ μόνον τὸ Χεῤῥόνησον σῶσαι, &c...

I have now noticed all the documents in this speech, except that in p. 268, headed Nóμos, and those in 272, 273, called Máprupes. There is nothing in them which could not be invented by any one out of the speech itself, names being added at pleasure for the

4 If the whole confederacy of Byzantium was so united as to regard itself as a single people, why are the two names of Byzantium and Perinthus put forward

as representing the entire league? Was Selymbria, which lay between them, not part of the same people?

witnesses. To us, indeed, it might appear that the former affidavit, or rather the fragment of it which alone is quoted, is highly unsatisfactory, for we read, Maprupovou inèр árávтwv oïde, &c. without any statement what the aπavта meant. The second affidavit is

also disfigured by the name of a pseudo-archon Nicias; when the event was probably about the year 341. The Nópos set before us is not quite consistent with the more probable statement in the speech of Eschines; but this may naturally have arisen from the arts of the rival orator.

Thus far, I have studiously refrained from making any remarks upon the phraseology of these documents, because I regard that side of the argument as far more difficult and treacherous. Many of the scholiasts and grammarians possessed a full and delicate acquaintance with the language which we shall never attain; and those of them who tried their skill at affecting the style of old decrees, or of letters from Philip, (however they may blunder as to chronology,) are more likely to deceive us by their excellent imitation of the antique manner, than to be detected by us through their failure. The same phenomenon would be remarked, if an Englishman at all versed in our antiquities were now to fabricate letters with the names of Henry VIII and Wolsey:how hard would it be for a stranger, in a distant age, to say, by the mere idiom, This cannot be authentic! It is by error of fact, not by faults of style, that the foreigner would detect the fraud.

Nevertheless, I avow that there are peculiarities of phraseology in these documents which more or less startle me. They occur indeed oftener in the letters imputed to Philip, than in the so-called Attic decrees; and if the latter were quite free from such phenomena, I might regard their presence in Philip's letter as an evidence on the side of the authenticity of the latter. I mean, that the phrases which appear like the idiom of Polybius or Diodorus, might have existed already in the diplomatic Greek of Philip's day, though not yet visible in the genuine Attic writers and speakers. As the case stands, however, it rather appears to me that the composer has exerted himself more, and more successfully, to imitate

5 Yet I am biassed in favour of this than Demosthenes's comment would affidavit, by its very moderate tone, which imply.

is so much less to his rival's discredit

the stiff and formal style of the decrees, than the epistolary idiom of an accomplished man like Philip; and in attaining for the latter more freedom, has unawares admitted a larger infusion of recent phrases. To put the evidence, such as it is, in the clearest light, I will remark upon the Athenian documents separately, first.

I. ATHENIAN DOCUMENTS.

Strange titles of office at Athens seem in several cases to occur in these decrees. First I will name vaúapxos, although a difficulty hangs over the word. It is notoriously the proper term in the Lacedæmonian navy, but the Athenians closely adhere to the title στρατηγός. Frequently as the στρατηγοί are mentioned by these orators, it seems hardly credible that the word vavapxos should not once slip out, if that term had been the properly descriptive one in the Athenian public documents. That Philip (p. 251) should employ the title concerning an Athenian sea-captain, is less wonderful, not to say that Laomedon was captain over merchant vessels only (λoîa), perhaps corn-ships. But even in the decree of Demosthenes (p. 289) it is ordered that the vaúapxos should sail évròs Пvλ, to attack, it seems, Philip's sea-coast, or intercept convoys of provisions. At Arginusæ, indeed, (Xen. Hell. 1. 6, 29) besides eight orparnyol, there were three vaúapxo: these, however, had but one ship each, and I conjecture (in the dearth of certain knowledge) that they were permanent and experienced sea-captains; since such persons would be essential as άpedpor to the admirals. One passage, nevertheless, in the same author, makes the question perplexing. Xen. Hell. v. 1, 5: οἱ ̓Αθηναῖοι... ἀντιπληροῦσι ναῦς τρισκαίδεκα, καὶ αἱροῦνται Εὔνομον ναύαρχον ἐπ' αὐτάς. Is it too bold a conjecture, that Xenophon, living abroad, and habituated to the titles of Lacedæmonian and Corinthian officers, has here slipped into an unAttic phraseology? At least I cannot find a similar instance in early writers.

In the decree of Callisthenes, moreover, we find the titles ó éì τῶν ὅπλων στρατηγὸς, and ὁ ἐπὶ τῆς διοικήσεως (paymaster of the forces?) in agreement to which there recur in the decrees of p. 265, ó éπì τῆς διοικήσεως κεχειροτονημένος, ὁ ἐπὶ τῶν ὁπλιτῶν, and ὁ ἐπὶ τῶν ἱππέων. I should be glad to know if there is any other proof that such a distribution of functions and such appellations, existed at that time. I observe that Boeckh (Pub. Econ. Athens, book 11. ch. vii.)