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MAECUS N. TOD, M.A., ON INTERNATIONAL 



that no arbiter could be found capable of undertaking so serious 

 a task and at the same time wholly unbiased, or that the 

 Assembly had no proper opportunity of expressing its view 

 clearly upon the question. All we know is that the long and 

 disastrous Peloponnesian War ensued, that the Spartans felt 

 many a twinge of conscience as they reflected on their refusal to 

 accept arbitration,* and that the Greek world received a clear 

 proof that arbitration is no infallible and automatic cure for 

 war, but that its efficacy is wholly conditioned by the sincerity 

 and the good faith of both the states which are involved in the 

 dispute. 



The rise of the Macedonian power, the conquests of Philip 

 and Alexander, and the partition among the Diadochi of the 

 vast empire they had acquired, brought the Greek world under 

 the sway of a small number of powerful rulers, who, while 

 careful to maintain their supremacy, did not attempt to control 

 all the relations between city and city. There was thus a 

 continuance of the old feuds between the Greek states and an 

 opportunity, of which advantage was frequently taken, of 

 employing arbitration as a means of settlement. Again and 

 again, before the fateful battle of Chaeronea, Philip had urged 

 Athens to decide its differences with him by reference to an 

 arbitrator, and although its citizens, swayed by the eloquence 

 of Demosthenes and those who shared his political views, sus- 

 pected his hona fides and rejected his reiterated appeals, he and 

 his successors were constantly invoked during more than a 

 century and a half to settle the differences which arose, or 

 those which had previously existed, between various Greek 

 states. That this was due solely to the might of the conquering 

 kings, on the one hand, and to the servility of a degenerate 

 Greek race, on the other, as is sometimes asserted, I cannot 

 believe. We must bear in mind that though the potentate, 

 whoever he might be, may well have been pleased to have such 

 cases referred to him for decision, yet his award could not 

 satisfy both the states concerned save in very rare cases ; if it 

 was in favour of the one, it disappointed the other. Surely the 

 truth is rather this (and the appointment of the Czar of Eussia, 

 the Emperor of Germany, and our own King Edward VII. as 

 arbitrators in recent international disputes will confirm our 

 view), that in the Macedonian and Seleucid monarchs the Greek 

 cities found rulers, most of whom possessed considerable gifts of 



^ Thucydides, vii, 18. 



