3IESSAGES OF THE PERSIANS TO GREECE. 21 even brought (as far as appears) to any formal trial. Out of such data we can elicit no specific fact. But they warrant the general conclusion, that Darius, or the satraps in Asia Minor, sent money to Athens in the spring of 335 b. c, and letters or emissaries to excite hostilities against Alexander. That Demosthenes, and probably other leading orators, re- ceived such remittances from Persia, is no evidence of that per- sonal corruption which is imputed to them by their enemies. It is no way proved that Demosthenes applied the money to his own private purpose =^. To receive and expend it in trying to organize combinations for the enfranchisement of Greece, was a proceeding which he would avow as not only legitimate but patriotic. It was aid obtained from one foreign prince to enable Hellas to throw off the worse dominion of another. At this mo- ment, the political interests of Persia coincided with that of all Greeks who aspired to freedom. Darius had no chance of be- coming master of Greece ; but his own security prescribed to him to protect her from being made an appendage of the Mace- donian kingdom, and his means of doing so were at this moment ample, had they been efficaciously put forth. Now the pxirpose of a Greek patriot would be to preserve the integrity and auto- nomy of the Hellenic woi'ld against all foreign interference. To invoke the aid of Persia against Hellenic enemies, — as Sparta had done both in the Pcloponnesian war and at the peace of An- talkidas, and as Thebes and Athens had followed her example in doing afterwards — was an unwari'antable proceeding : but to invoke the same aid against the dominion of another foreigner, at once nearer and more formidable, was open to no blame on the score either of patriotism or policy. Demosthenes had vainly urged his countrymen to act with energy against Philip, 9-14. It is ^scliines who states that the 300 talents were sent to llio Athenian people, and refused by them. Three years later, after the battle of Issus, Alexander in his letter to Da- rius accuses that prince of having sent both letters and money into Greece, for the purpose of exciting war against him. Alexander states that the Lacedemonians accepted the money, but that all the other Grecian cities refused it (Arrian, ii. 14, 9). There is no reason to doubt these facts ; but I find nothing identifying the precise point of time to which Alexander alludes.
