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[3] He was courteous in his intercourse with men and sought to win over the multitudes by his gifts and his promises to the fullest loyalty, and endeavoured to counteract by clever moves the crowd of impending dangers. For instance, when he observed that the Athenians were centring all their ambition upon recovering Amphipolis and for this reason were trying to bring Argaeus back to the throne, he voluntarily withdrew from the city, after first making it autonomous.1

1 Amphipolis was coveted by the Athenians (who had lost it to Brasidas in the Peloponnesian War) because of its commanding position by the Strymon River, giving access to the plains of Macedonia, and its nearness to forests needed in shipbuilding and to the gold and silver mines of Mt. Pangaeus. Between this occasion when Amphipolis was declared autonomous to thwart Argaeus, who had promised to hand it over to Athens if they made him king, and Philip's capture of the town (see chap. 8.2 ff.), a secret treaty was made by which Philip promised to procure Amphipolis for Athens if he were assured of a free hand in Pydna, formerly Macedonian but then in the Athenian League. See Beloch, Griechische Geschichte (2), 3.1.225-226; Pickard-Cambridge, Cambridge Ancient History, 6.203-204. Compare Polyaenus 4.2.17; Justin 7.6; Dem. 23.121; Dem. 2.6 f.; and Theopompus fr. 165 (Oxford).

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