81. i HISTORY OF GREKCE. ing the Athenian envoys, who felt the full value of his energeti* eloquence, in the various Peloponnesian towns. So effective was the service Avhich he thus rendered to his country, that the Athenians not only passed a vote to enable him to return, but sent a trireme to fetch him to Peira^us. Great was the joy and enthusiasm on his arrival. The archons, the priests, and the entire body of citizens, came down to the liarbor to welcome his landing, and escorted him to the city. Full of impassioned emo- tion, Demosthenes poured forth his gratitude for having been al- lowed to see such a day, and to enjoy a triumph greater even than that which had been conferred on Alkibiades on returning from exile ; since it had been granted spontaneously, and not ex- torted by force. His fine could not be remitted, consistently with Athenian custom ; but the people passed a vote granting to him fifty talents as superintendent of the periodical sacrifice to Zeus Soter ; and his execution of this duty was held equivalent to a liquidation of the fine.^ Wliat part Demosthenes took in the plans or details of the war, we are not permitted to know. Vigorous operations were now carried on, under the military command of Leosthenes. The confederacy against Antipater included a larger assemblage of Hellenic states than that Avhich had resisted Xerxes in 480 b. c. Nevertheless, the name of Sparta does not appear in the list. It was a melancholy drawback to the chances of Greece, in this her last struggle for emancipation, that the force of Sparta had been altogether crushed in the gallant but ill-concerted effort of Agis against Antipater seven years before, and had not since re- covered. The great stronghold of Macedonian interest, in the interior of Greece, was Bocotia, Platasa, Orchomenus, and the other ancient enemies of Thebes, having received from Alexan- der the domain once belonging to Thebes herself, were well aware that this arrangement could only be upheld by the contin- ued pressure of Macedonian supremacy in Greece. It seems probable also that there were Macedonian garrisons in the Ivad- meia — in Corinth — and in Megalopolis; moreover, that the Arcadian and Achaean cities had been macedonized by the mea- Bures taken against them under Alexander's orders in the pre- ' Plutarch, Dcmostli 27
