friendly attitude towards Thebes, a state against which Athenian feeling was peculiarly bitter. As soon as it seemed clear that there was no prospect of organising a combination throughout Greece against Philip, the wish for peace grew in strength, and the people were not averse to opening negotiations with their powerful enemy.
It is at this juncture that the name of Demosthenes' famous rival Æchines first comes before us. He rose to be one of the foremost Athenian orators and statesmen from a very lowly origin. His father kept what we should call a preparatory school, and he himself began life as an inferior actor and a government clerk. He was a man of immense industry and ability, and was naturally endowed with all the qualities which go to make an orator. He was one of the envoys sent on the mission to the Peloponnese, which had for its purpose the stirring up of the Greeks against Macedonian aggression. It appears that he addressed a very powerful appeal to the Arcadian Assembly at Megalopolis, fiercely denouncing all traitors to the liberties of Greece, and stigmatising Philip as a "blood-stained barbarian." Such was the beginning of the political life of a man who subsequently allowed himself to become the means of furthering that "barbarian's" most dangerous designs upon Greece and her liberties.
In the negotiations of this period between Athens and Philip, Æchines took a leading part as an envoy. So, too, did Demosthenes himself; and the hostile
