3 56 LITERATURE OF ANCIENT GREECE Mysteries, ^schines himself had been an actor, a profession which carried no slur, and a clerk in the public service. He was a hater of demagogues and a follower of Eubulus. The three speeches of his which we possess are all connected with Demosthenes and with this embassy. The negotiations were long. Eventually a treaty was agreed to, containing at least two dangerous ambiguities : it included Athens and her allies, and it left each party in possession of what it actually held at the time. Now Athens was anxious about two powers, which were allies in a sense, but not subject allies — Kersobleptes, king of a buffer state in Thrace, and the Phokians, any attack on whom would bring Philip into the heart of Greece. Philip's envoys refused to allow any specific mention of these allies in the treaty ; the Athenian com- missioners were left to use their diplomacy upon the king himself. And as to the time of the conclusion of the treaty, Athens was bound to peace from the day she took the oaths. Would Philip admit that he was equally bound, or would he go on with his operations till he had taken the oaths himself ? Philocrates and ^schines considered it best to assume the king's good faith as a matter of course, and to conduct their mission according to the ordinary diplomatic routine. Demosthenes pressed for extreme haste. He insisted that they should not wait for Philip at his capital, but seek him out wherever he might be. When the commissioners' passports did not arrive, he dragged them into Macedonia without passports. However, do what he might, long delays occurred ; and, by the time Philip met the ambassadors, he had crushed Kersobleptes and satisfactorily rounded his eastern frontier. Demosthenes made an open breach
