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The Public Orations of Demosthenes, volume 1

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Title: The Public Orations of Demosthenes, volume 1

Author: Demosthenes

Translator: Sir Arthur Wallace Pickard-Cambridge


        
Release date: October 1, 2005 [eBook #9060]
                Most recently updated: October 13, 2014

Language: English

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  THE PUBLIC ORATIONS OF DEMOSTHENES
  IN TWO VOLUMES
  VOL I

  TRANSLATED BY
  ARTHUR WALLACE PICKARD




PREFACE

The translations included in this volume were written at various times
during the last ten years for use in connexion with College Lectures,
and a long holiday, for which I have to thank the Trustees of the
Balliol College Endowment Fund, as well as the Master and Fellows of
Balliol College, has enabled me to revise them and to furnish them with
brief introductions and notes. Only those speeches are included which
are generally admitted to be the work of Demosthenes, and the spurious
documents contained in the MSS. of the Speech on the Crown are omitted.
The speeches are arranged in chronological order, and the several
introductions to them are intended to supply an outline of the history
of the period, sufficient to provide a proper setting for the speeches,
but not more detailed than was necessary for this purpose. No
discussion of conflicting evidence has been introduced, and the views
which are expressed on the character and work of Demosthenes must
necessarily seem somewhat dogmatic, when given without the reasons for
them. I hope, however, before long to treat the life of Demosthenes
more fully in another form. The estimate here given of his character as
a politician falls midway between the extreme views of Grote and
Schäfer on the one hand, and Beloch and Holm on the other.

I have tried to render the speeches into such English as a political
orator of the present day might use, without attempting to impart to
them any antique colouring, such as the best-known English translations
either had from the first or have acquired by lapse of time. It is of
the essence of political oratory that it is addressed to
contemporaries, and the translation of it should therefore be into
contemporary English; though the necessity of retaining some of the
modes of expression which are peculiar to Greek oratory and political
life makes it impossible to produce completely the appearance of an
English orator's work. The qualities of Demosthenes' eloquence
sometimes suggest rather the oratory of the pulpit than that of the
hustings or that of Parliament and of the law-courts. I cannot hope to
have wholly succeeded in my task; but it seemed to be worth
undertaking, and I hope that the work will not prove to have been
altogether useless.

I have made very little use of other translations; but I must
acknowledge a debt to Lord Brougham's version of the Speeches on the
Chersonese and on the Crown, which, though often defective from the
point of view of scholarship and based on faulty texts, are (together
with his notes) very inspiring. I have also, at one time or another,
consulted most of the standard German, French, and English editions of
Demosthenes. I cannot now distinguish how much I owe to each; but I am
conscious of a special debt to the editions of the late Professor Henri
Weil, and of Sir J.E. Sandys, and (in the Speech on the Crown) to that
of Professor W.W. Goodwin. I also owe a few phrases in the earliest
speeches to Professor W.R. Hardie, whose lectures on Demosthenes I
attended twenty years ago. My special thanks are due to my friend Mr.
P.E. Matheson of New College, for his kindness in reading the
proof-sheets, and making a number of suggestions, which have been of
great assistance to me.

The text employed has been throughout that of the late Mr. S.H. Butcher
in the _Bibliotheca Classica Oxoniensis_. Any deviations from this are
noted in their place.




CONTENTS


INTRODUCTION                                 i. 7

LIST OF SPEECHES TRANSLATED

  Traditional Order                   In this Edition
  ORATION I. OLYNTHIAC I                       i. 87
         II. OLYNTHIAC II                      i. 99
        III. OLYNTHIAC III                     i. 109
         IV. PHILIPPIC I                       i. 68
          V. ON THE PEACE                      i. 120
         VI. PHILIPPIC II                      i. 133
       VIII. ON THE CHERSONESE                ii. 3
         IX. PHILIPPIC III                    ii. 26
        XIV. ON THE NAVAL BOARDS               i. 31
         XV. FOR THE FREEDOM OF THE RHODIANS   i. 56
        XVI. FOR THE MEGALOPOLITANS            i. 45
      XVIII. ON THE CROWN                     ii. 47
        XIX. ON THE EMBASSY                    i. 144

  NOTES                                       ii. 149




INTRODUCTION


Demosthenes, the son of Demosthenes of Paeania in Attica, a rich and
highly respected factory-owner, was born in or about the year 384 B.C.
He was early left an orphan; his guardians mismanaged his property for
their own advantage; and although, soon after coming of age in 366, he
took proceedings against them and was victorious in the law-courts, he
appears to have recovered comparatively little from them. In preparing
for these proceedings he had the assistance of Isaeus, a teacher and
writer of speeches who was remarkable for his knowledge of law, his
complete mastery of all the aspects of any case with which he had to
do, and his skill in dealing with questions of ownership and
inheritance. Demosthenes' speeches against his guardians show plainly
the influence of Isaeus, and the teacher may have developed in his
pupil the thoroughness and the ingenuity in handling legal arguments
which afterwards became characteristic of his work.

Apart from this litigation with his guardians, we know little of
Demosthenes' youth and early manhood. Various stories have come down to
us (for the most part not on the best authority), of his having been
inspired to aim at an orator's career by the eloquence and fame of
Callistratus; of his having overcome serious physical defects by
assiduous practice; of his having failed, nevertheless, owing to
imperfections of delivery, in his early appearances before the people,
and having been enabled to remedy these by the instruction of the
celebrated actor Satyrus; and of his close study of the _History_ of
Thucydides. Upon the latter point the evidence of his early style
leaves no room for doubt, and the same studies may have contributed to
the skill and impressiveness with which, in nearly every oration, he
appeals to the events of the past, and sums up the lessons of history.
Whether he came personally under the influence either of Plato, the
philosopher, or of Isocrates, the greatest rhetorical teacher of his
time, and a political pamphleteer of high principles but little
practical insight, is much more doubtful. The two men were almost as
different in temperament and aims as it was possible to be, but
Demosthenes' familiarity with the published speeches of Isocrates, and
with the rhetorical principles which Isocrates taught and followed, can
scarcely be questioned.

In the early years of his manhood, Demosthenes undertook the
composition of speeches for others who were engaged in litigation. This
task required not only a very thorough knowledge of law, but the power
of assuming, as it were, the character of each separate client, and
writing in a tone appropriate to it; and, not less, the ability to
interest and to rouse the active sympathy of juries, with whom feeling
was perhaps as influential as legal justification. This part, however,
of Demosthenes' career only concerns us here in so far as it was an
admirable training for his later work in the larger sphere of politics,
in which the same qualities of adaptability and of power both to argue
cogently and to appeal to the emotions effectively were required in an
even higher degree.

At the time when Demosthenes' interest in public affairs was beginning
to take an active form, Athens was suffering from the recent loss of
some of her most powerful allies. In the year 358 B.C. she had counted
within the sphere of her influence not only the islands of Lemnos,
Imbros, and Scyros (which had been guaranteed to her by the Peace of
Antalcidas in 387), but also the chief cities of Euboea, the islands of
Chios, Cos, Rhodes, and Samos, Mytilene in Lesbos, the towns of the
Chersonese, Byzantium (a city of the greatest commercial importance),
and a number of stations on the south coast of Thrace, as well as
Pydna, Potidaea, Methone, and the greater part of the country bordering
upon the Thermaic Gulf. But her failure to observe the terms of
alliance, laid down when the new league was founded in 378, had led to
a revolt, which ended in 355 or 354 in the loss to her of Chios, Cos,
Rhodes, and Byzantium, and of some of the ablest of her own commanders,
and left her treasury almost empty. About the same time Mytilene and
Corcyra also took the opportunity to break with her. Moreover, her
position in the Thermaic region was threatened first by Olynthus, at
the head of the Chalcidic League, which included over thirty towns; and
secondly by Philip, the newly-established King of Macedonia, who seemed
likely to displace both Olynthus and Athens from their positions of
commanding influence.[1]

Nevertheless, Athens, though unable to face a strong combination, was
probably the most powerful single state in Greece. In her equipment and
capacity for naval warfare she had no rival, and certainly no other
state could vie with her in commercial activity and prosperity. The
power of Sparta in the Peloponnese had declined greatly. The
establishment of Megalopolis as the centre of a confederacy of Arcadian
tribes, and of Messene as an independent city commanding a region once
entirely subject to Sparta, had seriously weakened her position; while
at the same time her ambition to recover her supremacy kept alive a
feeling of unrest throughout the Peloponnese. Of the other states of
South Greece, Argos was hostile to Sparta, Elis to the Arcadians;
Corinth and other less important cities were not definitely attached to
any alliance, but were not powerful enough to carry out any serious
movement alone. In North Greece, Thebes, though she lacked great
leaders, was still a great power, whose authority throughout Boeotia
had been strengthened by the complete or partial annihilation of
Platacae, Thespiae, Orchomenus,[2] and Coroneia. In Athens the ill
feeling against Thebes was strong, owing to the occupation by the
Thebans of Oropus,[2] a frontier town which Athens claimed, and their
treatment of the towns just mentioned, towards which the Athenians were
kindly disposed. The Phocians, who had until recently been unwilling
allies of Thebes, were now hostile and not insignificant neighbours,
and about this time entered into relations with both Sparta and Athens.
The subject of contention was the possession or control of the Temple
of Apollo at Delphi, which the Phocians had recently taken by force
from the Delphians, who were supported by Thebes; and in the 'Sacred
War' to which this act (which was considered to be sacrilege) gave rise
in 355 B.C., the Thebans and Locrians fought against the Phocians in
the name of the Amphictyonic Council, a body (composed of
representatives of tribes and states of very unequal importance[3]) to
which the control of the temple traditionally belonged. Thessaly
appears to have been at this time more or less under Theban influence,
but was immediately dominated by the tyrants of Pherae, though the
several cities seem each to have possessed a nominally independent
government. The Greek peoples were disunited in fact and unfitted for
union by temperament. The twofold desire, felt by almost all the more
advanced Greek peoples, for independence on the one hand, and for
'hegemony' or leadership among other peoples, on the other, rendered
any effective combination impossible, and made the relations of states
to one another uncertain and inconstant. While each people paid respect
to the spirit of autonomy, when their own autonomy was in question,
they were ready to violate it without scruple when they saw their way
to securing a predominant position among their neighbours; and although
the ideal of Panhellenic unity had been put before Greece by Gorgias
and Isocrates, its realization did not go further than the formation of
leagues of an unstable character, each subject, as a rule, to the more
or less tyrannical domination of some one member.

Probably the power which was most generally feared in the Greek world
was that of the King of Persia. Several times in recent years (and
particularly in 387 and 367) he had been requested to make and enforce
a general settlement of Hellenic affairs. The settlement of 387 (called
the King's Peace, or the Peace of Antalcidas, after the Spartan officer
who negotiated it) had ordained the independence of the Greek cities,
small and great, with the exception of those in Asia Minor, which were
to form part of the Persian Empire, and of Lemnos, Imbros, and Scyros,
which were to belong to Athens as before. The attempt to give effect to
the arrangement negotiated in 367 failed, and the terms of the Peace of
Antalcidas, though it was still appealed to, when convenient, as a
charter of liberty, also came to be disregarded. But there was always a
sense of the possibility or the danger of provoking the great king to
exert his strength, or at least to use his wealth, to the detriment of
some or all of the Greek states; though at the moment of which we are
speaking (about 355) the Persian Empire itself was suffering from
recent disorders and revolutions, and the king had little leisure for
interfering in the affairs of Greece.

It was to the department of foreign and inter-Hellenic affairs that
Demosthenes principally devoted himself. His earliest political
speeches, however, were composed and delivered in furtherance of
prosecutions for the crime of proposing illegal legislation. These were
the speeches against Androtion (spoken by Diodorus in 355) and against
Leptines (in 354). Both these were written to denounce measures which
Demosthenes regarded as dishonest or unworthy of Athenian traditions.
In the former he displays that desire for clean-handed administration
which is so prominent in some of his later speeches; and in the
prosecution of Leptines he shows his anxiety that Athens should retain
her reputation for good faith. Both speeches, like those of the year
352 against Timocrates (spoken by Diodorus), and against Aristocrates
(spoken by Euthycles), are remarkable for thoroughness of argument and
for the skill which is displayed in handling legal and political
questions, though, like almost all Athenian forensic orations, they are
sometimes sophistical in argument.

The first speech which is directly devoted to questions of external
policy is that on the Naval Boards in 354; and this is followed within
the next two years by speeches delivered in support of appeals made to
Athens by the people of Megalopolis and by the exiled democratic party
of Rhodes. From these speeches it appears that the general lines of
Demosthenes' policy were already determined. He was in opposition to
Eubulus, who, after the disastrous termination of the war with the
allies, had become the leading statesman in Athens. The strength of
Eubulus lay in his freedom from all illusion as to the position in
which Athens stood, in his ability as a financier, and in his readiness
to take any measures which would enable him to carry out his policy. He
saw that the prime necessity of the moment was to recruit the financial
and material strength of the city; that until this should be effected,
she was quite incapable of carrying on war with any other power; and
that she could only recover her strength through peace. In this policy
he had the support of the well-to-do classes, who suffered heavily in
time of war from taxation and the disturbance of trade. On the other
hand, the sentiments of the masses were imperialistic and militant. We
gather that there were plenty of orators who made a practice of
appealing to the glorious traditions of the past and the claim always
made by Athens to leadership among the Greek states. To buy off the
opposition which his policy might be expected to encounter, Eubulus
distributed funds freely to the people, in the shape of
'Festival-money', adopting the methods employed before him by
demagogues, very different from himself, in order that he might
override the real sentiments of the democracy; and in spite of the
large amounts thus spent he did in fact succeed, in the course of a few
years, in collecting a considerable sum without resorting to
extraordinary taxation, in greatly increasing the navy and in enlarging
the dockyards. For the success of this policy it was absolutely
necessary to avoid all entanglement in war, except under the strongest
compulsion. The appeals of the Megalopolitans and the Rhodians, to
yield to which would probably have meant war with Sparta and with
Persia, must be rejected. Even in dealing with Philip, who was making
himself master of the Athenian allies on the Thermaic coast, the fact
of the weakness of Athens must be recognized, and all idea of a great
expedition against Philip must be abandoned for the present. At the
same time, some necessary measures of precaution were not neglected. It
was essential to secure the route to the Euxine, over which the
Athenian corn-trade passed, if corn was not to be sold at famine
prices. For this purpose, therefore, alliance was made with the
Thracian prince, Cersobleptes; and when Philip threatened Heraeon
Teichos on the Propontis, an expedition was prepared, and was only
abandoned because Philip himself was forced to desist from his attempt
by illness. Similarly, when Philip appeared likely to cross the Pass of
Thermopylae in 352, an Athenian force was sent (on the proposal of
Diophantus, a supporter of Eubulus) to prevent him. The failure of
Eubulus and his party to give effective aid to Olynthus against Philip
was due to the more pressing necessity of attempting to recover control
of Euboea: it had clearly been their intention to save Olynthus, if
possible. But when this had proved impossible, and the attempt to form
a Hellenic league against Philip had also failed, facts had once more
to be recognized; and, since Athens was now virtually isolated, peace
must be made with Philip on the only terms which he would accept--that
each side should keep what it _de facto_ possessed at the time.

Demosthenes was generally in opposition to Eubulus and his party, of
which Aeschines (once an actor and afterwards a clerk, but a man of
education and great natural gifts) was one of the ablest members.
Demosthenes was inspired by the traditions of the past, but had a much
less vague conception of the moral to be drawn from them than had the
multitude. Athens, for him as for them, was to be the first state in
Hellas; she was above all to be the protectress of democracy
everywhere, against both absolutism and oligarchy, and the leader of
the Hellenes in resistance to foreign aggression. But, unlike the
multitude, Demosthenes saw that this policy required the greatest
personal effort and readiness for sacrifice on the part of every
individual; and he devotes his utmost energies to the task of arousing
his countrymen to the necessary pitch of enthusiasm, and of effecting
such reforms in administration and finance as, in his opinion, would
make the realization of his ideal for Athens possible. In the speeches
for the Megalopolitans and the Rhodians, the nature of this ideal is
already becoming clear both in its Athenian and in its Panhellenic
aspects. But so soon as it appeared that Philip, at the head of the
half-barbarian Macedonians, and not Athens, was likely to become the
predominant power in the Hellenic world, it was against Philip that all
his efforts were directed; and although in 346 he is practically at one
with the party of Eubulus in his recognition of the necessity of peace,
he is eager, when the opportunity seems once more to offer itself, to
resume the conflict, and, when it is resumed, to carry it through to
the end.

We have then before us the sharp antagonism of two types of
statesmanship. The strength of the one lies in the recognition of
actual facts, and the avoidance of all projects which seem likely,
under existing circumstances, to fail. The other is of a more sanguine
type, and believes in the power of enthusiasm and self-sacrifice to
transform the existing facts into something better, and to win success
against all odds. Statesmen of the former type are always attacked as
unpatriotic and mean-spirited; those of the latter, as unpractical and
reckless. There is truth and falsehood in both accusations: but since
no statesman has ever combined all the elements of statesmanship in a
perfect and just proportion, and since neither prudence and
clear-sightedness, nor enthusiastic and generous sentiment, can ever be
dispensed with in the conduct of affairs without loss, a larger view
will attach little discredit to either type. While, therefore, we may
view with regret some of the methods which both Demosthenes and
Aeschines at times condescended to use in their conflicts with one
another, and with no less regret the disastrous result of the policy
which ultimately carried the day, we need not hesitate to give their
due to both of the contending parties: nor, while we recognize that
Eubulus and Phocion (his sturdiest supporter in the field and in
counsel) took the truer view of the situation, and of the character of
the Athenians as they were, need we (as it is now fashionable to do)
denounce the orator who strove with unstinting personal effort and
self-sacrifice to rouse the Athenians into a mood in which they could
and would realize the ideal to which they, no less than he, professed
their devotion.

But the difficulties in the way of such a realization were wellnigh
insuperable. Neither the political nor the military system of Athens
was adapted to such a policy. The Sovereign Assembly, though capable of
sensible and energetic action at moments of special danger, was more
likely to be moved by feeling and prejudice than by businesslike
argument, particularly at a time when the tendency of the best educated
and most intelligent men was to withdraw from participation in public
life; and meeting, as the Assembly did (unless specially summoned),
only at stated intervals, it was incapable of taking such rapid,
well-timed, and decisive action as Philip could take, simply because he
was a single man, sole master of his own policy, and personally in
command of his own forces. The publicity which necessarily attached to
the discussions of the Assembly was a disadvantage at a time when many
plans would better have been kept secret; and rapid modifications of
policy, to suit sudden changes in the situation, were almost
impossible. Again, while no subjects are so unsuited under any
circumstances for popular discussion as foreign and military affairs,
the absence in Athens of a responsible ministry greatly increased the
difficulties of her position. It is true that the Controller of the
Festival Fund (whose office gradually became more and more important)
was now appointed for four years at a time, while all other offices
were annual; and that he and his friends, and their regular opponents,
were generally ready to take the lead in making proposals to the
Council or the Assembly. But if they chose to remain silent, they could
do so;[4] no one was bound to make any proposal at all; and, on the
other hand, any one might do so. With such a want of system, far too
much was left to chance or to the designs of interested persons.
Moreover, the Assembly felt itself under no obligation to follow for
any length of time any lead which might be given to it, or to maintain
any continuity or consistency between its own decrees. In modern times,
a minister, brought into power by the will of the majority of the
people, can reckon for a considerable period upon the more or less
loyal support of the majority for himself and his official colleagues.
In Athens the leader of the moment had to be perpetually adapting
himself afresh to the mood of the Assembly, and even to deceive it, in
order that he might lead at all, or carry out the policy which, in his
opinion, his country's need required. It is therefore a remarkable
thing that both Eubulus and Demosthenes succeeded for many years in
maintaining a line of action as consistent as that taken by practical
men can ever be.

The fact that the Council of Five Hundred, which acted as a standing
committee of the people, and prepared business for the Assembly and was
responsible for the details of measures passed by the Assembly in
general form, was chosen by lot and changed annually, as did
practically all the civil and the military officials (though the latter
might be re-elected), was all against efficiency and continuity of
policy.[5] After the system of election by lot, the most characteristic
feature of the Athenian democracy was the responsibility of statesmen
and generals to the law-courts.[6] Any citizen might accuse them upon
charges nominally limited in scope, but often serving in reality to
bring their whole career into question. Had it been certain that the
courts would only punish incompetence or misconduct, and not failure as
such, little harm would have resulted. But although there were very
many acquittals in political trials, the uncertainty of the issue was
so great, and the sentences inflicted upon the condemned so severe
(commonly involving banishment at least), that the liability to trial
as a criminal must often have deterred the statesman and the general
from taking the most necessary risks; while the condemnation of the
accused had usually the result of driving a really able man out of the
country, and depriving his fellow countrymen of services which might be
urgently required when they were no longer available.

The financial system was also ill adapted for the purposes of a people
constantly liable to war. The funds required for the bare needs of a
time of peace seem indeed to have been sufficiently provided from
permanent sources of income (such as the silver mines, the rent of
public lands, court fees and fines, and various indirect taxes): but
those needed for war had to be met by a direct tax upon property,
levied _ad hoc_ whenever the necessity arose, and not collected without
delays and difficulties. And although the equipment of ships for
service was systematically managed under the trierarchic laws,[7] it
was still subject to delays no less serious. There was no regular
system of contribution to State funds, and no systematic accumulation
of a reserve to meet military needs. The raising of money by means of
loans at interest to the State was only adopted in Greece in a few
isolated instances:[8] and the practice of annually distributing
surplus funds to the people,[9] however necessary or excusable under
the circumstances, was wholly contrary to sound finance.

An even greater evil was the dependence of the city upon mercenary
forces and generals, whose allegiance was often at the call of the
highest bidder, and in consequence was seldom reliable. There is no
demand which Demosthenes makes with greater insistence, than the demand
that the citizens themselves shall serve with the army. At a moment of
supreme danger, they might do so. But in fact Athens had become more
and more an industrial state, and men were not willing to leave their
business to take care of itself for considerable periods, in order to
go out and fight, unless the danger was very urgent, or the interests
at stake of vital importance; particularly now that the length of
campaigns had become greater and the seasons exempted from military
operations shorter. In many minds the spread of culture, and of the
ideal of self-culture, had produced a type of individualism indifferent
to public concerns, and contemptuous of political and military
ambitions. Moreover, the methods of warfare had undergone great
improvement; in most branches of the army the trained skill of the
professional soldier was really necessary; and it was not possible to
leave the olive-yard or the counting-house and become an efficient
fighter without more ado. But the expensiveness of the mercenary
forces; the violent methods by which they obtained supplies from
friends and neutrals, as well as foes, if, as often happened, their pay
was in arrear; and the dependence of the city upon the goodwill of
generals and soldiers who could without much difficulty find employment
under other masters, were evils which were bound to hamper any attempt
to give effect to a well-planned and far-sighted scheme of action.

It also resulted from the Athenian system of government that the
general, while obviously better informed of the facts of the military
situation than any one else could be, and at the same time always
liable to be brought to trial in case of failure, had little influence
upon policy, unless he could find an effective speaker to represent
him. In the Assembly and in the law-courts (where the juries were large
enough to be treated in the same manner as the Assembly itself) the
orator who could win the people's ear was all powerful, and expert
knowledge could only make itself felt through the medium of oratory.

A constitution which gave so much power to the orator had grave
disadvantages. The temptation to work upon the feelings rather than to
appeal to the reason of the audience was very strong, and no charge is
more commonly made by one orator against another than that of deceiving
or attempting to deceive the people. It is, indeed, very difficult to
judge how far an Athenian Assembly was really taken in by sophistical
or dishonest arguments: but it is quite certain that such arguments
were continually addressed to it; and the main body of the citizens can
scarcely have had that first-hand knowledge of facts, which would
enable them to criticize the orator's statements. Again, the oration
appealed to the people as a performance, no less than as a piece of
reasoning. Ancient political oratory resembled the oratory of the
pulpit at the present day, not only because it appealed perpetually to
the moral sense, and was in fact a kind of preaching; but also because
the main difficulty of the ancient orator and the modern preacher was
the same: for the Athenians liked being preached at, as the modern
congregation 'enjoys' a good sermon, and were, therefore, almost
equally immune against conversion. The conflicts of rival orators were
regarded mainly as an entertainment. The speaker who was most likely to
carry the voting (except when a great crisis had roused the Assembly to
seriousness) was the one who found specious and apparently moral
reasons for doing what would give the audience least trouble; and
consequently one who, like Demosthenes, desired to stir them up to
action and personal sacrifices, had always an uphill fight: and if he
also at times 'deceived the people' or employed sophistical arguments
in order to secure results which he believed to be for their good, we
must remember the difficulty (which, in spite of the wide circulation
of authentic information, is at least equally great at the present day)
of putting the true reasons for or against a policy, before those who,
whether from want of education or from lack of training in the
subordination of feeling to thought, are not likely to understand or to
listen to them. Nor, if we grant the genuineness of Demosthenes'
conviction as to the desirability of the end for which he contended,
can many statesmen be pointed out, who have not been at least as guilty
as he in their choice of means. That he did not solve the problem, how
to lead a democracy by wholly honest means, is the less to his
discredit, in that the problem still remains unsolved.

It should be added that with an audience like the Athenian, whose
aesthetic sensitiveness was doubtless far greater than that of any
modern assembly, delivery counted for much. Aeschines' fine voice was a
real danger to Demosthenes, and Demosthenes himself spoke of delivery,
or the skilled acting of his part, as the all-important condition of an
orator's success. But it is clear that this can have been no advantage
from the standpoint of the public interest.

In the law-courts the drawbacks to which the commanding influence of
oratory was liable were intensified. In the Assembly a certain amount
of reticence and self-restraint was imposed by custom: an opponent
could not be attacked by name or on purely personal grounds; and an
appearance of impartiality was commonly assumed. But in the courts much
greater play was allowed to feeling; and the arguments were often much
more disingenuous, not only because the personal interests at stake
made the speaker more unscrupulous, but also, perhaps, because the
juries ordinarily included a larger proportion of the poorer, the
idler, and the less-educated citizens than the Assembly. The legal
question was often that to which the jury were encouraged to pay least
attention, and the condemnation or acquittal of the accused was
demanded upon grounds quite extraneous to the indictment. (The two
court-speeches contained in these volumes afford abundant illustrations
of this.) Personalities were freely admitted, of a kind which it is
difficult to excuse and impossible to justify. To attempt to blacken
the personal character of an opponent by false stories about his
parentage and his youth, and by the ascription to him and his relations
of nameless immoralities, is a very different thing from the assignment
of wrong motives for his political actions, though even in purely
political controversy the ancients far exceeded the utmost limits of
modern invective. And this both Demosthenes and Aeschines do freely.
There is also reason to suspect that some of the tales which each tells
of the other's conduct, both while serving as ambassadors and on other
occasions, may be fabrications. The descriptive passages for which such
falsehoods gave an opening had doubtless their dramatic value in the
oratorical performance: possibly they were even expected by the
listeners; but their presence in the speeches does not increase our
admiration either for the speaker or for his audience.

All the force of Demosthenes' oratory was unable to defeat the great
antagonist of his country. To Philip of Macedon failure was an
inconceivable idea. Resident during three impressionable years of his
youth at Thebes, he had there learned, from the example of Epaminondas,
what a single man could do: and he proceeded to each of the three great
tasks of his life--the welding of the rough Macedonians into one great
engine of war, the unification of Greece under his own leadership, and
the preparation for the conquest of the East by a united Greece and
Macedonia--without either faltering in face of difficulties, or
hesitating, out of any scrupulosity, to use the most effective means
towards the end which he wished at the moment to achieve; though in
fact the charges of bad faith made against him by Demosthenes are found
to be exaggerated, when they are impartially examined. Philip intended
to become master of Greece: Demosthenes realized this early, and, with
all the Hellenic detestation of a master, resolved to oppose him to the
end. Philip was, indeed, in spite of the barbarous traits which
revealed themselves in him at times, not only gracious and courteous by
nature, but a sincere admirer of Hellenic--in other words, of
Athenian--culture; the relations between his house and the people of
Athens had generally been friendly; and there was little reason to
suppose that, if he conquered Athens, he would treat her less
handsomely than in fact he did. Yet this could not justify one who
regarded freedom as Demosthenes regarded it, in making any concession
not extorted by the necessities of the situation: his duty and his
country's duty, as he conceived it, was to defeat the enemy of Hellenic
independence or to fall in the attempt. Nor was it for him to consider
(as Isocrates might) whether or no Philip's plans had now developed
into, or could be transformed into, a beneficent scheme for the
conquest of the barbarian world by a united Hellas, if the union was to
be achieved at the price of Athenian liberty. It is because, in spite
of errors and of the questionable methods to which he sometimes
stooped, Demosthenes devoted himself unflinchingly to the cause of
freedom, for Athens and for the Hellenes as a whole, that he is
entitled, not merely as an orator but as a politician, to the
admiration which posterity has generally accorded him. It is, above
all, by the second part of his career, when his policy of antagonism to
Philip had been accepted by the people, and he was no longer in
opposition but, as it were, in office, that Demosthenes himself claims
to be justified; and Aeschines' attempt to invalidate the claim is for
the most part unconvincing.

It is not easy to describe in a few paragraphs the characteristics of
Demosthenes as an orator. That he stands on the highest eminence that
an orator has ever reached is generally admitted. But this is not to
say that he was wholly free from faults. His contemporaries, as well as
later Greek critics, were conscious of a certain artificiality in his
eloquence. It was, indeed, the general custom of Athenian orators to
prepare their speeches with great care: the speakers who, like
Aeschines and Demades, were able to produce a great effect without
preparation, and the rhetoricians who, like Alcidamas, thought of the
studied oration as but a poor imitation of true eloquence, were only a
small minority; and in general, not only was the arrangement of topics
carefully planned, but the greatest attention was paid to the sound and
rhythm of the sentences, and to the appropriateness and order of the
words. The orator had also his collections of passages on themes which
were likely to recur constantly, and of arguments on either side of
many questions; and from these he selected such passages as he
required, and adapted them to his particular purpose. The rhetorical
teachers appear to have supplied their pupils with such collections; we
find a number of instances of the repetition of the same passage in
different speeches, and an abundance of arguments formed exactly on the
model of the precepts contained in rhetorical handbooks.[10] Yet with
all this art nothing was more necessary than that a speech should
appear to be spontaneous and innocent of guile. There was a general
mistrust of the 'clever speaker', who by study or rhetorical training
had learned the art of arguing to any point, and making the worse cause
appear the better. To have studied his part too carefully--even to have
worked up illustrations from history and poetry--might expose the
orator to suspicion.[11] Demosthenes, in spite of his frequent attempts
to deprecate such suspicion, did not succeed wholly in keeping on the
safe side. Aeschines describes him as a wizard and a sophist, who
enjoyed deceiving the people or the jury. Another of his opponents
levelled at him the taunt that his speeches 'smelt of the lamp'.
Dionysius of Halicarnassus, one of the best of the ancient critics,
says that the artificiality of Demosthenes and his master Isaeus was
apt to excite suspicion, even when they had a good case. Nor can a
modern reader altogether escape the same impression. Sometimes,
especially in the earlier speeches to the Assembly, the argument seems
unreal, the joints between the previously prepared commonplaces or
illustrations and their application to the matter in hand are too
visible, the language is artificially phrased, and wanting in
spontaneity and ease. There are also parts of the court speeches in
which the orator seems to have calculated out all the possible methods
of meeting a particular case, and to be applying them in turn with more
ingenuity than convincingness. An appearance of unreality also arises
at times (again principally in the earlier speeches) from a certain
want of imagination. He attributes feelings and motives to others,
which they were really most unlikely to have entertained, and argues
from them. Some of the sentiments which he expects Artaxerxes or
Artemisia to feel (in the Speeches on the Naval Boards and for the
Rhodians) were certainly not to be looked for in them. Similar
misconceptions of the actual or possible sentiments of the Spartans
appear in the Speech for the Megalopolitans, and of those of the
Thebans in the Third Olynthiac (§ 15). The early orations against
Philip also show some misunderstanding of his character. And if, in
fact, Demosthenes lived his early years largely in solitary
studiousness and was unsociable by disposition, this lack of a quick
grasp of human nature and motives is quite intelligible. But this
defect grew less conspicuous as his experience increased; and though
even to the end there remained something of the sophist about him, as
about all the disciples of the ancient rhetoric, the greatness of his
best work is not seriously affected by this. For, in his greatest
speeches, and in the greatest parts of nearly all his speeches, the
orator is white-hot with genuine passion and earnestness; and all his
study and preparation resulted, for the most part, not in an artificial
product, but in the most convincing expression of his real feeling and
belief; so that it was the man himself, and not the rhetorical
practitioner that spoke.

The lighter virtues of the orator are not to be sought for in him. In
gracefulness and humour he is deficient: his humour, indeed, generally
takes the grim forms of irony and satire, or verges on personality and
bad taste. Few of his sentences can be imagined to have been delivered
with a smile; and something like ferocity is generally not far below
the surface. Pathos is seldom in him unmixed with sterner qualities,
and is usually lost in indignation. But of almost every other variety
of tone he has a complete command. The essential parts of his reasoning
(even when it is logically or morally defective) are couched, as a
rule, in a forcible and cogent form;[12] and he has a striking power of
close, sustained, and at the same time lucid argumentation. His matter
is commonly disposed with such skill that each topic occurs where it
will tell most powerfully; and while one portion of a speech affords
relief to another (where relief is needed, and particularly in the
longer orations) all alike bear on the main issue or strengthen the
orator's position with his audience. Historical allusions are not (as
they often are by Aeschines and Isocrates) enlarged out of proportion
to their importance, but are limited to what is necessary, in order to
illustrate the orator's point or drive his lesson home. Add to these
qualities his combination of political idealism with absolute mastery
of minute detail; the intensity of his appeal to the moral sense and
patriotism of his hearers; the impressiveness of his denunciation of
political wrong; the vividness of his narrative, the rapid succession
of his impassioned phrases, and some part of the secret of his power
will be explained. For the rest, while there is in his writing every
degree of fullness or brevity, there is no waste of words, no 'fine
language' out of place. His language, indeed, is ordinarily
simple--sometimes even colloquial; though in the arrangement of his
words in their most telling order he shows consummate art, and his
metaphors are often bold and sometimes even violent. In the use of the
'figures of speech' he excels; above all, in the use of antitheses
(whether for the purpose of vivid contrast or of precise logical
expression), and of the rhetorical question, used now in indignation,
now in irony, now in triumphant conclusion of an argument: and at times
there are master-strokes of genius, which defy all analysis, such as
the great appeal to the men of Marathon in the Speech on the Crown.[13]
He does not as a rule (and this is particularly true of the Speech on
the Crown) cover the whole of the ground with the same adequacy; but so
concentrates all his forces upon certain points as to be irresistible,
and thus 'with thunder and lightning confounds'[14] the orators who
oppose him. It is no wonder that some of the greatest of English
orators, and notably of those of the eighteenth and early nineteenth
centuries, borrow from him not only words and phrases, but inspiration
and confidence in their cause, and look upon him as a model whom they
may emulate, but cannot excel.


FOOTNOTES

[1] See Introduction to First Philippic.

[2] See notes on Speech for the Megalopolitans.

[3] See note on Speech on the Crown, § 140.

[4] See Speech on the Crown, §§ 170 ff.

[5] See Zimmern, _The Greek Commonwealth_, pp. 159 ff., for an
excellent short account of the constitution and functions of the
Council. That the councillors themselves sat (for administrative
purposes) in relays, changing ten times a year, was also against
continuity.

[6] See Speech on Embassy, § 2 n.

[7] See Introduction to Speech on Naval Boards, and Philippic I, §§ 36,
37.

[8] See Zimmern, _The Greek Commonwealth_, p. 205.

[9] See Zimmern, _The Greek Commonwealth_, p. 205.

[10] The 'Art' of Anaximenes is an interesting extant example of a
fourth-century handbook for practical orators. The Rhetoric of
Aristotle stands on a higher plane, but probably follows the lines laid
down by custom in the rhetorical schools.

[11] See Speech on Embassy, § 246, and note.

[12] He is especially fond of the dilemma, which is not indeed cogent
in strict logic, but is peculiarly telling and effective in producing
conviction in large audiences.

[13] See [Longinus] 'On the Sublime', especially chap, xvi-xviii
(English translation by A. O. Prickard in this series). This treatise
should be read by all students of Demosthenes, especially chap. xii,
xvi-xviii, xxxii, xxxiv, xxxix.

[14] 'On the Sublime', chap. xxxiv.




[TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE: The text for all notes marked [n] will be found at
the end of the second volume.]




ON THE NAVAL BOARDS (OR. XIV)


[_Introduction_. The speech was delivered in 354 B.C. News had been
brought to Athens that the Persian King Artaxerxes Ochus was making
great military and naval preparations, and though these were, in fact,
directed against his own rebellious subjects in Egypt, Phoenicia, and
Cyprus, the Athenians had some ground for alarm: for, two years before
this, Chares, in command of an Athenian fleet, had given assistance to
Artabazus, Satrap of Ionia, who was in revolt against the king. The
king had made a protest, and (late in 355) Athens had ordered Chares to
withdraw his aid from Artabazus. A party in Athens now wished to
declare war on Persia, and appealed strongly to Athenian traditions in
favour of the proposal. Demosthenes opposes them, on the ground that it
was not certain that the king was aiming at Athens at all, and that the
disunion of the Hellenic peoples would render any such action unsafe:
Athens had more dangerous enemies nearer home, and her finances were
not in a condition for such a campaign. But he takes advantage of the
interest aroused, to propose a reform of the trierarchic system,
designed to secure a more efficient navy, and to remedy certain abuses
in the existing method of equipping vessels for service.

In earlier times, the duty of equipping and commanding each trireme was
laid upon single citizens of means, the hull and certain fittings being
found by the state. When, early in the fourth century, the number of
wealthy men had diminished, each ship might be shared by two citizens,
who commanded in turn. In 357 a law was passed, on the proposal of
Periander, transferring the responsibility from individuals to
'Symmories' or Boards. (The system had been instituted in a slightly
different form for the collection of the war-tax in the archonship of
Nausinicus, 378-7 B.C.) The collection of the sums required became the
work of twenty Boards, formed by the subdivision of the 1,200 richest
citizens: each contributor, whatever his property, paid the same share.
The richer men thus got off with the loss of a very small proportion of
their income, as compared with the poorer members of the Boards,[1] and
in managing the business of the Boards they sometimes contrived to
exact the whole sum from their colleagues, and to escape payment
themselves. At the same time the duties of the several Boards and their
members were not allocated with sufficient precision to enable the
responsibility to be brought home in case of default; and the nominal
Twelve Hundred had fallen to a much smaller number, on whom the burden
accordingly fell with undue weight. Demosthenes' proposal provided for
the distribution of the responsibility of equipping the vessels and
providing the funds, in the most detailed manner, with a view to
preventing all evasion; but it was not carried. In fact, it was not
until 340 that he succeeded in reforming the trierarchy, and he then
made the burden vary strictly with property. The proposal, however, to
declare war upon Persia went no further.

While, in this speech, Demosthenes is in accord with the policy of
Eubulus, so far as concerns the avoidance of war with Persia, his
proposals of financial reform would not be viewed with favour by the
wealthy men who were Eubulus' firm supporters. Some of the themes which
recur continually in later speeches are prominent in this--the futility
of rhetorical appeals to past glories, without readiness for personal
service, and the need of a thorough organization of the forces. While
the speech shows rather too strongly the marks of careful preparation,
and seldom rises to eloquence--the style, indeed, is often rather
cramped and stiff, and the sentiments, especially at the beginning,
artificially phrased--it is moderate and practical in tone, and shows a
characteristic mastery of minute detail.]


{1} Those who praise your forefathers,[n] men of Athens, desire, no
doubt, to gratify you by their speeches; and yet I do not think that
they are acting in the interests of those whom they praise. For the
subject on which they attempt to speak is one to which no words can do
justice; and so, although they thus win for themselves the reputation
of capable speakers, the impression which they convey to their hearers
of the merit of our forefathers is not adequate to our conception of
it. For my part I believe that their highest praise is constituted by
Time: for the time that has passed has been long, and still no
generation has arisen, whose achievements could be compared with
advantage to theirs. {2} As for myself, I shall attempt to point out
the way in which, in my opinion, you can best make your preparations.
For the truth is, that if all of us who propose to address you were to
succeed in proving to you our rhetorical skill, there would not be the
slightest improvement in your condition--I am sure of it; but if a
single speaker were to come forward, whoever he might be, who could
instruct and convince you as to the nature of the preparations which
would meet the city's need, as to their extent, and the resources upon
which we can draw for them, your present fears would instantly be
dissolved. This I will attempt to do--if indeed it is in my power. But
first I must briefly express my views as to our relations with the king.

{3} I hold the king to be the common enemy of all the Hellenes; and yet
I should not on that account urge you, alone and unsupported, to raise
war against him. For I observe that there is no common or mutual
friendship even among the Hellenes themselves: some have more faith in
the king than in some other Hellenes. When such are the conditions,
your interest requires you, I believe, to see to it that you only begin
war from a fair and just cause, and to make all proper preparations:
this should be the basis of your policy. {4} For I believe, men of
Athens, that if it were made plain to the eyes and understandings of
the Hellenes, that the king was making an attempt upon them, they would
both fight in alliance with those who undertook the defence for them
and with them, and would feel very grateful to them. But if we quarrel
with him prematurely, while his intentions are still uncertain, I am
afraid, men of Athens, that we may be forced to fight not only against
the king, but also against those for whose benefit we are exercising
such forethought. {5} For he will pause in the execution of his
project, if indeed he has really resolved to attack the Hellenes, and
will bribe some of them with money and offers of friendship; while
they, desirous of bringing their private wars to a successful end, and
animated only by such a spirit, will disregard the common safety of
all. I urge you then, not to hurl the city needlessly into the midst of
any such chaos of selfish passions. {6} Moreover, I see that the
question of the policy to be adopted towards the king does not even
stand on the same footing for the other Hellenes as for you. It is
open, I think, to many of them to manage certain of their own interests
as they please, and to disregard the rest of the Hellenes. But for you
it is not honourable, even if you are the injured party, and are
dealing with those who have injured you, to punish them so severely as
to leave some of them to fall under the domination of the foreigner:
{7} and this being so, we must take care, first, that we do not find
ourselves involved in an unequal war, and secondly, that he, whom we
believe to be plotting against the Hellenes, does not gain credit from
the supposition that he is their friend. How then can this be achieved?
It will be achieved if it is manifest to all that the forces of Athens
have been overhauled and put in readiness, and if her intentions in
regard to their use are plainly righteous. {8} But to those who take a
bold line, and urge you, without any hesitation whatever, to go to war,
my reply is this--that it is not difficult to win a reputation for
bravery, when the occasion calls for deliberation; nor to prove
yourself an accomplished orator, when danger is at the door: but to
display your courage in the hour of danger, and, in debate, to have
wiser advice to offer than others--that is the hard thing, and that is
what is required of you. {9} For my part, men of Athens, I consider
that the proposed war with the king would be a difficult undertaking
for the city; while the decisive conflict in which the war would result
would be an easier matter, and for this reason. Every war, I suppose,
necessarily requires ships and money and the command of positions. All
such advantages the king, I find, possesses more abundantly than we.
But a conflict of forces requires nothing so much as brave men; and of
these, I believe, the larger number is with us, and with those who
share our danger. {10} For this reason I exhort you not to be the
first, in any way whatever, to take up the war; but for the decisive
struggle I think you ought to be ready and your preparations made. And
further, if the forces[n] with which foreigners and Hellenes could
respectively be repelled were really different in kind, the fact that
we were arraying our forces against the king would naturally, it may
be, admit of no concealment. {11} But since all military preparations
are of the same character, and the main points of a force must always
be the same--the means to repel enemies, to help allies, and to retain
existing advantages--why, when we have our acknowledged foes,[n] do we
seek to procure others? Let us rather prepare ourselves to meet the
enemies whom we have, and we shall then repel the king also, if he
takes the aggressive against us. {12} Suppose that you yourselves
summon the Hellenes to your side now. If, when the attitude of some of
them towards you is so disagreeable, you do not fulfil their demands,
how can you expect that any one will listen to you? 'Why,' you say, 'we
shall tell them that the king is plotting against them.' Good Heavens!
Do you imagine that they do not foresee this themselves? Of course they
do. But their fear of this does not yet outweigh the quarrels which
some of them have against you and against each other. And so the tour
of your envoys will end in nothing but their own rhapsodies.[n] {13}
But if you wait, then, if the design which we now suspect is really on
foot, there is not one of the Hellenes who stands so much upon his
dignity that he will not come and beg for your aid, when he sees that
you have a thousand cavalry, and infantry as many as any one can
desire, and three hundred ships: for he will know that in these lies
his surest hope of deliverance. Appeal to them now, and we shall be
suppliants, and, if unsuccessful, rejected suppliants. Make your own
preparations and wait, and then they will be the suppliants and we
their deliverers; and we may rest assured that they will all come to us
for help.

{14} In thinking out these points and others like them, men of Athens,
my object was not to devise a bold speech,[n] prolonged to no purpose:
but I took the greatest pains to discover the means by which our
preparations could be most effectively and quickly made; and therefore,
if my proposal meets with your approval, when you have heard it, you
ought, I think, to pass it. Now the first element in our preparation,
men of Athens (and it is the most important), must be this: your minds
must be so disposed, that every one of you will perform willingly and
heartily any service that is required of him. {15} For you see, men of
Athens, that whenever you have unanimously desired any object, and the
desire has been followed by a feeling on the part of every individual,
that the practical steps towards it were for himself to take, the
object has never yet slipped from your grasp: but whenever the wish has
had no further result than that each man has looked to his neighbour,
expecting his neighbour to act while he himself does nothing, the
object has never yet been attained. {16} But supposing you to be filled
with the keenness that I have described, I am of opinion that we should
make up the Twelve Hundred to their full number, and increase it to
2,000, by the addition of 800. For if you can display this total, then,
when you have allowed for the unmarried heiresses and orphans,[n] for
property outside Attica,[n] or held in partnership, and for any persons
who may be unable to contribute,[n] you will, I believe, actually have
the full 1,200 persons available. {17} These you must divide into
twenty boards, as at present, with sixty persons to each board; and
each of these boards you must divide into five sections of twelve
persons each, taking care in every case to associate with the richest
man the poorest men,[n] to maintain the balance. Such is the
arrangement of persons which I recommend, and my reason you will know
when you have heard the nature of the entire system. {18} I pass to the
distribution of the ships. You must provide a total complement of 300
ships, forming twenty divisions of fifteen ships apiece, and including
in each division five of the first hundred vessels,[n] five of the
second hundred, and five of the third hundred. Next, you must assign by
lot[n] to each board of persons its fifteen ships, and each board must
assign three ships to each of its sections. {19} This done, in order
that you may have the payments also systematically arranged, you must
divide the 6,000 talents (for that is the taxable capital[n] of the
country) into 100 parts of sixty talents each. Five of each of these
parts you must allot to each of the larger boards--the twenty--and each
board must assign one of these sums of sixty talents to each of its
sections; {20} in order that, if you need 100 ships,[n] there may be
sixty talents to be taxed for the expense of each ship, and twelve
persons responsible for it; if 200, thirty talents will be taxed to
make up the cost, and six persons will be responsible; if 300, then
twenty talents must be taxed to defray the expense, and four persons
will be responsible. {21} In the same way, men of Athens, I bid you
make a valuation according to the register of all those fittings of the
ships which are in arrear,[n] divide them into twenty parts, and allot
to each of the large boards one-twentieth of the debtors: these must
then be assigned by each board in equal numbers to each of its
sections, and the twelve persons composing each section must call up
their share of the arrears, and provide, ready-equipped, the ships
which fall to them. {22} Such is the plan by which, in my opinion, the
expense, the ships, the trierarchs, and the recovery of the fittings
could best be provided for and put into working order. I proceed to
describe a simple and easy scheme for the manning of the vessels. I
recommend that the generals should divide the whole space of the
dockyards into ten, taking care to have in each space thirty slips for
single vessels close together. This done they should apportion to each
space two of the boards and thirty ships; and should then assign a
tribe to each space by lot. {23} Each captain should divide into three
parts the space which falls to his tribe, with the corresponding ships,
and should allot these among the three wards[n] of each tribe, in such
a way that if each tribe has one division of the entire docks, each
ward will have a third of one of these divisions; and you will know, in
case of need, first the position assigned to the tribe; next, that of
the ward; and then the names of the trierarchs and their ships; each
tribe will be answerable for thirty, and each ward for ten ships. If
this system is put in train, circumstances as they arise will provide
for anything that I may have overlooked to-day (for perhaps it is
difficult to think of everything), and there will be a single
organization for the whole fleet and every part of it.

{24} But what of funds? What resources have we immediately at our
command? The statement which I am about to make on this subject will no
doubt be astonishing; but I will make it nevertheless; for I am
convinced that upon a correct view of the facts, this statement alone
will be proved true, and will be justified by the event. I say then,
that this is not the time to discuss the financial question. We have
large resources upon which, in case of necessity, we may honourably and
rightly draw: but if we inquire for them now, we shall not believe that
we can rely upon them even against the hour of need; so far shall we be
from supplying them now. 'What then,' you will ask me, 'are these
resources, which are non-existent now, but will be ours then? This is
really like a riddle.' I will tell you. {25} Men of Athens, you see all
this great city.[n] In this city there is wealth which will compare, I
had almost said, with the united wealth of all other cities. But such
is the disposition of those who own it, that if all your orators were
to raise the alarm that the king was coming--that he was at the
doors--that there was no possible escape; and if with the orators an
equal number of prophets foretold the same thing; even then, far from
contributing funds, they would show no sign[2] [and make no
acknowledgement] of their possession of them. {26} If, however, they
were to see in course of actual realization all the terrors with which
at present we are only threatened in speeches, not one of them is so
blind that he would not both offer his contribution, and be among the
first to pay the tax. For who will prefer to lose his life and
property, rather than contribute a part of his substance to save
himself and the remainder of it? Funds, then, we can command, I am
certain, if there is a genuine need of them, and not before; and
accordingly I urge you not even to look for them now. For all that you
would provide now, if you decided upon a levy, would be more ludicrous
than nothing at all. {27} Suppose that we are told to pay 1 per cent.
now; that gives you sixty talents. Two per cent. then--double the
amount; that makes 120 talents. And what is that to the 1,200 camels
which (as these gentlemen tell us) are bringing the king's money for
him? Or would you have me assume a payment of one-twelfth, 500 talents?
Why, you would never submit to this; and if you paid the money down, it
would not be adequate to the war. {28} You must, therefore, make all
your other preparations, but allow your funds to remain for the present
in the hands of their owners--they could nowhere be more safely kept
for the use of the State; and then, if ever the threatened crisis
arises, you will receive them as the voluntary gift of their
possessors. This, men of Athens, is not only a possible course of
action, but a dignified and a politic one. It is a course of action
which is worthy to be reported to the ears of the king, and which would
inspire him with no slight apprehension. {29} For he well knows that by
two hundred ships, of which one hundred were Athenian,[n] his ancestors
were deprived of one thousand; and he will hear that Athens alone has
now equipped three hundred; so that, however great his infatuation, he
could certainly not imagine it a light thing to make this country his
foe. But if it is his wealth that suggests proud thoughts to his mind,
he will find that in this respect too his resources are weaker than
ours. {30} It is true that he is said to be bringing a great quantity
of gold with him. But if he distributes this, he must look for more:
for just so it is the way of springs and wells to give out, if large
quantities are drawn from them all at once; whereas we possess, as he
will hear, in the taxable capital of the country, resources which we
defend against attack in a way of which those ancestors of his who
sleep at Marathon can best tell him: and so long as we are masters of
the country there is no risk of our resources being exhausted.

{31} Nor again can I see any grounds for the fear, which some feel,
lest his wealth should enable him to collect a large mercenary force.
It may be that many of the Hellenes would be glad to serve under him
against Egypt,[n] against Orontas,[n] or against certain other foreign
powers--not from a wish that the king should conquer any such enemies,
but because each desires individually to obtain some private means to
relieve his present poverty. But I cannot believe that any Hellene
would march against Hellas. Whither will he turn afterwards? Will he go
to Phrygia and be a slave? {32} For the war with the foreigner is a war
for no other stake than our country, our life, our habits, our freedom,
and all that we value. Where is the wretch who would sacrifice self,
parents, sepulchres, fatherland, for the sake of some short-lived gain?
I do not believe that he exists. And indeed it is not even to the
king's own interest to conquer the Hellenes with a mercenary force; for
an army which has conquered us is, even more certainly,[n] stronger
than he; and his intention is not to destroy us only that he may fall
into the power of others: he wishes to rule, if it may be, over all the
world; but if not, at least over those who are already his slaves.

{33} It may be supposed that the Thebans will be on the king's side.
Now this subject is one upon which it is hard to address you. For such
is your hatred of them, that you cannot hear a good word about them,
however true, without displeasure. And yet those who have grave
questions to consider must not on any pretext pass over any profitable
line of argument. {34} I believe, then, that so far are the Thebans
from being likely ever to march with him against the Hellenes, that
they would give a great deal, if they had it to give, for an
opportunity of cancelling their former sins against Hellas.[n] But if
any one does believe that the Thebans are so unhappily constituted, at
least you are all aware, I presume, that if the Thebans take the part
of the king, their enemies must necessarily take the part of the
Hellenes.

{35} My own belief is that our cause, the cause of justice, and its
supporters, will prove stronger in every emergency than the traitor and
the foreigner. And therefore I say that we need feel no excessive
apprehension, and that we must not be led on into taking the first step
towards war. Indeed, I cannot even see that any of the other Hellenes
has reason to dread this war. {36} Are they not all aware, that so long
as they thought of the king as their common foe, and were at unity with
one another, they were secure in their prosperity; but that ever since
they imagined that they could count upon the king as their friend, and
fell to quarrelling over their private interests, they have suffered
such evils as no malediction could have devised for them? Must we then
dread a man whose friendship, thanks to Fortune and Heaven, has proved
so unprofitable, and his enmity so advantageous? By no means! Let us
not, however, commit any aggression, in view of our own interests, and
of the disturbed and mistrustful spirit which prevails among the rest
of the Hellenes. {37} Were it possible, indeed, to join forces with
them all, and with one accord to attack the king in his isolation, I
should have counted it no wrong even were we to take the aggressive.
But since this is impossible, we must be careful to give the king no
pretext for trying to enforce the claims of the other Hellenes against
us. If you keep the peace, any such step on his part would arouse
suspicion; but if you are the first to begin war, his hostility to you
would make his desire to befriend your rivals appear natural enough.
{38} Do not then lay bare the evil condition of Hellas, by calling the
powers together when they will not obey, or undertaking a war which you
will be unable to carry on. Keep the peace; take courage, and make your
preparations. Resolve that the news which the king hears of you shall
certainly not be that all Hellas, and Athens with it, in distress or
panic or confusion. Far from it! {39} Let him rather know that if
falsehood and perjury were not as disgraceful in Hellenic eyes as they
are honourable in his, you would long ago have been on the march
against him: and that though, as it is, your regard for yourselves
forbids you to act thus, you are praying to all the gods that the same
madness may seize him as once seized his ancestors. And if it occurs to
him to reflect upon this, he will find that your deliberations are not
conducted in any careless spirit. {40} He at least shares the knowledge
that it was your wars with his own ancestors that raised Athens to the
summit of prosperity and greatness; while the peaceful policy which she
previously pursued never gave her such a superiority as she now enjoys
over any single state in Hellas. Aye, and he sees that the Hellenes are
in need of one who, whether intentionally or not, will reconcile them
one to another; and he knows that if he were to stir up war, he himself
would assume that character in relation to them; so that the news which
he will hear of you will be intelligible and credible to him.

{41} But I do not wish to trouble you, men of Athens, by unduly
prolonging my speech. I will therefore recapitulate my advice and
retire. I bid you prepare your forces with a view to the enemies whom
you have. If the king or any other power attempts to do you injury, you
must defend yourselves with these same forces. But you must not take
the aggressive by word or deed; and you must take care that it is your
deeds, and not your platform speeches, that are worthy of your
forefathers. If you act thus, you will be consulting both your own
interests and those of the speakers who are opposing me; since you will
have no cause to be angry with them afterwards, because you have
decided wrongly to-day.


FOOTNOTES

[1] See Speech on Crown, §§ 102 ff. and notes.

[2] See Speech on Crown, §§ 102 ff. and notes.




FOR THE MEGALOPOLITANS (OR. XVI)

[_Introduction_. In 371 B.C. the Thebans under Epaminondas defeated the
Spartans at Leuctra, and, assisted by Thebes, the Arcadians and
Messenians threw off the Spartan yoke. The former founded Megalopolis
as their common centre, the latter Messene. But after the death of
Epaminondas in 362, Thebes was left without a leader; and when, in 355,
she became involved in the 'Sacred War' with the Phocians, the new
Peloponnesian states turned towards Athens, and Messene received a
solemn promise of Athenian assistance, if ever she was attacked by
Sparta. In 353 Thebes was suffering considerably from the Sacred War,
and the Spartans made an ingenious attempt to recover their power, in
the form of a proposal for the restoration of territory to its original
owners. This meant that Athens would recover Oropus, which had been in
the hands of Thebes since 366, and had previously been the subject of a
long-standing dispute; that Orchomenus, Thespiae, and Plataeae, which
had all been overthrown by Thebes, would be restored; and that Elis and
Phlius would also recover certain lost possessions. All these states
would then be morally bound (so the Spartans thought) to help Sparta to
reconquer Arcadia and Messenia.

On the occasion of this speech (delivered in 353) the Megalopolitans
had appealed to Athens, and an Arcadian and a Spartan embassy had each
had an audience of the Assembly, and had each received strong support
from Athenian speakers. The principal motives of the supporters of
Sparta were their hostility to Thebes, and their desire not to break
with the Spartans, whom Athens had assisted at Mantineia in 362 against
the Thebans and Megalopolitans. Demosthenes supports the Arcadians, and
lays great stress on the desirability of maintaining a balance of power
between Sparta and Thebes, so that neither might become too strong. To
allow Sparta to reconquer Arcadia, and, as the next step, Messenia,
would be to render her too formidable; and to reject the proposal of
Sparta would not preclude Athens from recovering Oropus and demanding
the restoration of the Boeotian towns. But the promise of assistance to
the Arcadians should be accompanied by a request for the termination of
their alliance with Thebes.

Demosthenes' advice was not followed. In fact Athens was hardly in a
position to risk becoming entangled in a war with Sparta, particularly
in view of the danger to her northern possessions from Philip. She
therefore remained neutral, while the Thebans, relieved from the
pressure of the Sacred War owing to the defeat of the Phocian leader
Onomarchus by Philip, were able to send aid to Megalopolis. A truce
between Sparta and Megalopolis was made about 350. It was, however, a
result of the neutrality of Athens, that she was unable, a few years
later, to secure the support of the Arcadians against Philip, whose
allies they subsequently became.

Lord Brougham describes the oration as 'one of extraordinary subtlety
and address in handling delicate topics'; and, after quoting the
passage in which Demosthenes urges the necessity of maintaining a
balance of power between rival states, adds that 'this is precisely the
language of modern policy'. At the same time, the speech has in places
a somewhat academic and theoretical air: it is much occupied with the
weighing of hypothetical considerations and obligations against one
another: and though it enunciates some plain and reasonable political
principles, and makes an honest attempt to satisfy those who wished to
help the Arcadians, but at the same time desired to regain ground
against Thebes, it is not always convincing, and the tone is more
frankly opportunist than is usually the case with Demosthenes.]

 {1} I think, men of Athens, that those who have spoken on the Arcadian side and
those who have spoken on the Spartan, are alike making a mistake. For
their mutual accusations and their attacks upon one another would
suggest that they are not, like yourselves, Athenians, receiving the
two embassies, but actually delegates of the two states. Such attacks
it was for the two deputations to make. The duty of those who claim to
advise you here was to discuss the situation impartially, and to
inquire, in an uncontentious spirit, what course is best in your
interests. {2} As it is, if one could alter the fact that they are
known to us, and that they speak the dialect of Attica, I believe that
many would imagine that those on the one side actually were Arcadians,
and those on the other, Spartans. For my part, I see plainly enough the
difficulty of offering the best advice. For you, like them, are
deluded, in your desire for one extreme or the other: and one who
endeavours to propose an intermediate course, which you will not have
the patience to understand, will satisfy neither side and will forfeit
the confidence of both. {3} But in spite of this, I shall prefer, for
my own part, to risk being regarded as an idle chatterer (if such is
really to be my lot), rather than to abandon my conviction as to what
is best for Athens, and leave you to the mercy of those who would
deceive you. And while I shall deal with all other points later, by
your leave, I shall take for my starting-point, in explaining the
course which I believe to be best, those principles which are admitted
by all.

{4} There can be no possible question that it is to the interest of the
city that both the Spartans and these Thebans should be weak; and the
present situation, if one may judge at all from what has constantly
been asserted in your presence, is such, that if Orchomenus, Thespiae,
and Plataeae[n] are re-established, Thebes becomes weak; and that if
the Spartans can reduce Arcadia to subjection and destroy Megalopolis,
Sparta will recover her former strength. {5} We must, therefore, take
care not to allow the Spartans to attain a formidable degree of
strength, before the Thebans have become insignificant, lest there
should take place, unobserved by us, such an increase in the power of
Sparta as would be out of proportion to the decrease in the power of
Thebes which our interests demand. For it is, of course, out of the
question that we should desire merely to substitute the rivalry of
Sparta for that of Thebes: that is not the object upon which we are
bent. Our object is rather that neither people shall be capable of
doing us any injury. That is what will best enable us to live in
security.

{6} But, granted that this is what ought to be, still, we are told, it
is a scandalous thing to choose for our allies the men against whom we
were arrayed at Mantineia, and further, to help them against those
whose perils we shared that day. I agree; but I think that we need to
insert the condition, 'provided that the two parties are willing to act
rightly.' {7} For if all alike prove willing to keep the peace, we
shall not go to the aid of the Megalopolitans, since there will be no
need to do so; and so there will be no hostility whatever on our part
towards our former comrades in battle. They are already our allies, as
they tell us; and now the Arcadians will become our allies as well.
What more could we desire? {8} But suppose they act wrongfully and
think fit to make war. In that case, if the question before us is
whether we are to abandon Megalopolis to Sparta or not, then I say
that, wrong though it is, I will acquiesce in our permitting this, and
declining to oppose our former companions in danger. But if you all
know that, after capturing Megalopolis, they will march against
Messene, let me ask any of those who are now so harshly disposed
towards Megalopolis to say what action he will _then_ advise. No answer
will be given. {9} In fact you all know that, whether they advise it or
not, we _must_ then go to the rescue, both because of the oath which we
have sworn to the Messenians, and because our interests demand the
continued existence of that city. Ask yourselves, then, on which
occasion you can most honourably and generously interpose to check the
aggressions of Sparta--in defence of Megalopolis, or in defence of
Messene? {10} On the present occasion it will be understood that you
are succouring the Arcadians, and are anxious that the Peace, which you
fought for and risked your lives to win, may be secure. But if you
wait, all the world will see plainly that it is not in the name of
right that you desire the existence of Messene, but because you are
afraid of Sparta. And while we should always seek and do the right, we
should at the same time take good care that what is right shall also be
advantageous.

{11} Now an argument is used by speakers on the other side to the
effect that we ought to attempt to recover Oropus,[n] and that if we
make enemies of those who might come to our assistance against it we
shall have no allies. I too say that we should try to recover Oropus.
But the argument that the Spartans will be our enemies now, if we make
alliance with those Arcadians who desire our friendship, is an argument
which no one has less right even to mention, than those who induced you
to help the Spartans when they were in danger. {12} Such was not their
argument, when all the Peloponnesians came to you,[n] entreating you to
support them in their campaign against Sparta, and they persuaded you
to reject the entreaty, with the result that the Peloponnesians took
the only remaining course and applied to Thebes--when they bade you
contribute funds and imperil your lives for the deliverance of the
Spartans. Nor, I presume, would you have been willing to protect them,
had they warned you that you must expect no gratitude for their
deliverance, unless, after saving them, you allowed them once more to
do as they pleased and commit fresh aggressions. {13} And further,
however antagonistic it may be to the designs of the Spartans, that we
should make the Arcadians our allies, they are surely bound to feel a
gratitude towards us for saving them when they were in the utmost
extremity, which will outweigh their vexation at our preventing their
present wrongdoing. Must they not then either assist us to recover
Oropus, or else be regarded as the basest of mankind? For, by Heaven, I
can see no other alternative.

{14} I am astonished, also, to hear it argued that if we make the
Arcadians our allies, and carry out my advice, it will seem as though
Athens were changing her policy, and were utterly unreliable. I believe
that the exact reverse of this is the case, men of Athens, and I will
tell you why. I suppose that no one in the world can deny that when
this city saved the Spartans,[n] and before them the Thebans,[n] and
finally the Euboeans,[n] and subsequently made them her allies, she had
one and the same end always in view. {15} And what was this? It was to
deliver the victims of aggression. And if this is so, it is not we that
should be changing, but those who refuse to adhere to the right; and it
will be manifest that, although circumstances change from time to time
with the ambitious designs of others, Athens does not change.

{16} I believe that the Spartans are playing a very unscrupulous part.
At present they tell us that the Eleans are to recover part of
Triphylia,[n] and the Phliasians, Tricaranum;[n] other Arcadians are to
recover their own possessions, and we ourselves are to recover
Oropus--not that they have any desire to see every state enjoying its
own--far from it!-- such generosity on their part would be late indeed
in showing itself. {17} They wish rather to present the appearance of
co-operating with each separate state in the recovery of the territory
that it claims, in order that when they themselves march against
Messene, all may take the field with them, and give them their hearty
assistance, on pain of seeming to act unfairly, in refusing to return
an equivalent for the support which each of them received from Sparta
in regard to their own several claims. {18} My own view is that, even
without the tacit surrender of some of the Arcadians to Sparta, we can
recover Oropus, aided not only by the Spartans, if they are ready to
act honourably, but by all who disapprove of allowing Thebes to retain
what is not her own. But even if it were made quite plain to us, that
without allowing Sparta to subdue the Peloponnese, we should not be
able to take Oropus, I should still think it preferable, if I may dare
to say so, to let Oropus go, rather than sacrifice Messene and the
Peloponnese to Sparta. For our quarrel with them would not, I believe,
be confined to this; since--I will not say what occurs to me; but there
are many risks which we should run.

{19} But, to pass on, it is a monstrous thing to use the hostile
actions which, they say, the Megalopolitans committed against us, under
the influence of Thebes, as a ground of accusation against them to-day;
and, when they wish to be friends and so atone for their action by
doing us good, to look askance at them, to seek for some way of
avoiding their friendship, to refuse to recognize that in proportion to
the zeal which my opponents can prove the Megalopolitans to have shown
in supporting Thebes will be the resentment to which my opponents
themselves will deservedly be exposed, for depriving the city of such
allies as these, when they have appealed to you before appealing to
Thebes. {20} Such a policy is surely the policy of men who wish to make
the Arcadians for the second time the allies of others. And so far as
one can forecast the future by calculation, I am sure, and I believe
that most of you will agree with me, that if the Spartans take
Megalopolis, Messene will be in peril; and if they take Messene also,
then I predict that we shall find ourselves allies of Thebes.[n] {21}
It is a far more honourable, a far better, course that we should
ourselves take over the Theban confederacy,[n] refusing to leave the
field open to the cupidity of the Spartans, than that we should be so
afraid of protecting the allies of Thebes, as first to sacrifice them,
and then to save Thebes itself; and, in addition, to be in a state of
apprehension for our own safety. {22} For if the Spartans capture
Megalopolis and become a great power once more, the prospect, as I
conceive it, is not one which this city can view without alarm. For I
can see that even now they are determining to go to war, not to prevent
any evil which threatens them, but to recover their own ancient power:
and what their aims were when they possessed that power, you, I think,
know[n] perhaps better than I, and with that knowledge may well be
alarmed.

{23} Now I should be glad if the speakers who profess their hatred for
Thebes on the one side, or for Sparta on the other, would tell me if
their professed hatred is based on consideration for you and your
interests, or whether the one party hates Thebes from an interest in
Sparta, and the other Sparta from an interest in Thebes. If the latter
is the case, you should not listen to either, but treat them as insane:
but if the former, why this inordinate exaltation of one side or the
other? {24} For it is possible, perfectly possible, to humiliate Thebes
without rendering Sparta powerful. Indeed, it is by far the easier
course; and I will try to tell you how it can be done. We all know
that, however unwilling men may be to do what is right, yet up to a
certain point they are ashamed not to do so, and that they withstand
wrongdoers openly, particularly if there are any who receive damage
through the wrong done: and we shall find that what ruins everything
and is the source of all evil is the unwillingness to do what is right
without reserve. {25} Now in order that no such obstacle may stand in
the way of the humiliation of Thebes, let us demand the
re-establishment of Thespiae, Orchomenus, and Plataeae, co-operating
with their citizens ourselves, and requiring others to do so; for the
principle of refusing to allow ancient cities to lie desolate is a
right and honourable one. But let us at the same time decline to
abandon Megalopolis and Messene to the aggressors, or to suffer the
destruction of existing and inhabited cities, on the pretext of
restoring Plataeae and Thespiae. {26} Then, if our policy is made plain
to all, there is no one who will not wish to terminate the Thebans'
occupation of territory not their own. But if it is not, not only will
our designs be opposed by the Arcadians, in the belief that the
restoration of these towns carries with it their own ruin, but we shall
have troubles without end. For, honestly, where can we expect to reach
an end, when we permit the annihilation of existing cities, and require
the restoration of those that have been annihilated?

{27} It is demanded by those whose speeches display the strongest
appearance of fairness, that the Megalopolitans shall take down the
pillars[n] which commemorate their alliance with Thebes, if they are to
be trustworthy allies of Athens. The Megalopolitans reply that for them
it is not pillars, but interest, that creates friendship; and that it
is those who help them, that they consider to be their allies. Well,
that may be their attitude. Nevertheless, my own view is, roughly
speaking, this:--I say that we should simultaneously require the
Megalopolitans to take down the pillars, and the Spartans to keep the
peace: and that in the event of either side refusing to fulfil our
request, we should at once take the part of those who are willing to
fulfil it. {28} For if the Megalopolitans obtain peace, and yet adhere
to the Theban alliance, it will be clear to all that they prefer the
grasping policy of Thebes to that which is right. If, on the other
hand, Megalopolis makes alliance frankly with us, and the Spartans then
refuse to keep the peace, it will surely be clear to all that what the
Spartans desire so eagerly is not the re-establishment of Thespiae, but
an opportunity of subduing the Peloponnese while the Thebans are
involved in the war.[n] {29} And I am surprised to find that there are
some who are alarmed at the prospect of the enemies of Sparta becoming
allies of Thebes, and yet see nothing to fear in the subjugation of
these enemies by Sparta herself; whereas the experience of the past can
teach us that the Thebans always use such allies against Sparta, while,
when Sparta had them, she used to use them against us.

{30} There is another point which I think you should consider. Suppose
that you reject the overtures of the Megalopolitans. If they are
annihilated and dispersed, Sparta can recover her power at once. If
they actually survive--for things have happened before now beyond all
hope--they will quite rightly be the firm allies of Thebes. But suppose
you receive them. Then the immediate result, so far as they are
concerned, is that they are saved by you: and as to the future, let us
now transfer our calculation of possible risks to the case of the
Thebans and Spartans. {31} If the Thebans are crushed, as they ought to
be, the Spartans will not be unduly powerful, for they will always have
these Arcadians at their doors to hold them in check. But if the
Thebans actually recover and survive the attack, they will at least be
weaker; for the Arcadians will have become our allies, and will owe
their preservation to us. Thus on every ground it is to our interest
not to sacrifice the Arcadians, nor to let them think that their
deliverance, if they are really saved, is due to themselves, or to any
other people than you.

{32} And now, men of Athens, I solemnly declare that what I have said
has been prompted by no personal feeling, friendly or hostile, towards
either side. I have told you only what I believe to be expedient for
you; and I exhort you not to sacrifice the people of Megalopolis, and
to make it your rule, never to sacrifice a smaller power to a greater.




FOR THE FREEDOM OF THE RHODIANS (OR. XV)


[_Introduction_. Dionysius of Halicarnassus places the speech in 351
B.C. He is not always accurate, and the internal evidence has been
thought by some to suggest a date perhaps two years earlier. The
reasons, however, for this are not strong, and there has recently been
a disposition to accept Dionysius' date.

As the result of the Social War, Chios, Cos, Rhodes, and Byzantium had
made themselves independent of Athens. They had been assisted by
Mausolus, King of Caria, a vassal of Persia. After the termination of
the war, a Carian garrison occupied Cos and Rhodes; the democratic
constitution of Rhodes was overthrown and the democratic party driven
into banishment, as the result of an oligarchic plot, which Mausolus
had fostered. In 353 Mausolus died, and was succeeded by Artemisia, his
sister and wife. The exiles appealed to Athens for restoration, and for
the liberation of Rhodes from the Carian domination. It is evident that
the feeling in Athens against the Rhodians was very strong, owing to
their part in the late war, for which the democratic party had been
responsible; and there was some fear of the possible consequences of
offending Artemisia and perhaps becoming involved in war with Persia.
Demosthenes, nevertheless, urges the people to assist them, and to
forget their misconduct. He appeals to the traditional policy of
Athens, as the saviour of the oppressed and protectress of democracies,
and warns them of the danger which would threaten Athens herself, if
the conversion of free constitutions into oligarchies were allowed to
go unchecked. He takes a different view from that of his opponents of
the probable attitude of Artemisia, and utters an impressive warning
against corrupt and unpatriotic statesmen, which foreshadows his more
vehement attacks in the orations against Philip.

The appeal was unsuccessful, for in the speech on the Peace (§ 25)
Demosthenes speaks of Cos and Rhodes as still subject to Caria.

The speech is more eloquent than the last, and more outspoken.
Political principles and ideals are enunciated with some confidence,
and illustrated by striking examples from history. But there also
appears for the first time that sense of the difficulty of rousing the
Athenians to action of any kind, which is so strongly expressed in
later speeches.]


{1} It is, I think, your duty, men of Athens, when you are deliberating
upon affairs of such importance, to grant freedom of speech to every
one of your advisers. And for my part, I have never yet felt any
difficulty in pointing out to you the best course; for I believe that,
broadly speaking, you all know from the first what this is. My
difficulty is to persuade you to act upon your knowledge. For when a
measure is approved and passed by you, it is as far from execution as
it was before you resolved upon it. {2} Well, you have to render thanks
to Heaven for this, among other favours--that those who went to war
with you not long ago, moved by their own insolent pride, now place
their own hopes of preservation in you alone. Well may we rejoice at
our present opportunity! For if your decision in regard to it is what
it should be, you will find yourselves meeting the calumnies of those
who are slandering this city with a practical and a glorious
refutation. {3} For the peoples of Chios, Byzantium, and Rhodes accused
us of entertaining designs against them; and on this ground they
combined against us in the recent war. But now it will be seen[n] that,
while Mausolus, who under the pretence of friendship towards Rhodes,
directed and instigated their efforts, in reality robbed the Rhodians
of their freedom; while their declared allies, Chios and Byzantium,
never came to aid them in their misfortunes; {4} you, of whom they were
afraid, and you alone, have been the authors of their salvation. And
because all the world will have seen this, you will cause the popular
party in every city to consider your friendship a guarantee of their
own safety; nor could you reap any greater blessing than the goodwill
which will thus be offered to you, spontaneously and without
misgivings, upon every hand.

{5} I notice, to my surprise, that those who urge us to oppose the king
in the interest of the Egyptians,[n] are the very persons who are so
afraid of him when it is the interest of the popular party in Rhodes
that is in question. And yet it is known to every one that the Rhodians
are Hellenes, while the Egyptians have a place assigned them in the
Persian Empire. {6} I expect that some of you remember that, when you
were discussing our relations with the king, I came forward and was the
first to advise you[n] (though I had, I believe, no supporters, or one
at the most), that you would show your good sense, in my opinion, if
you did not make your hostility to the king the pretext of your
preparations, but prepared yourselves against the enemies whom you
already had; though you would resist him also, if he attempted to do
you any injury. {7} Nor, when I spoke thus, did I fail to convince you,
but you also approved of this policy. What I have now to say is the
sequel to my argument on that occasion. For if the king were to call me
to his side and make me his counsellor, I should give him the same
advice as I gave you--namely, that he should fight in defence of his
own possessions, if he were opposed by any Hellenic power, but should
absolutely forego all claim to what in no way belongs to him. {8} If,
therefore, you have made a general resolve, men of Athens, to retire
from any place of which the king makes himself master, either by
surprise or by the deception of some of the inhabitants, you have not
resolved well, in my judgement: but if you are prepared, in defence of
your rights, even to fight, if need be, and to endure anything that may
be necessary, not only will the need for such a step be less, the more
firmly your minds are made up, but you will also be regarded as showing
the spirit which you ought to show.

{9} To prove to you that I am not suggesting anything unprecedented in
bidding you liberate the Rhodians, and that you will not be acting
without precedent, if you take my advice, I will remind you of one of
those incidents in the past which have ended happily for you. You once
sent out Timotheus, men of Athens, to assist Ariobarzanes,[n] adding to
your resolution the provision that he must not break our treaty with
the king; and Timotheus, seeing that Ariobarzanes was now openly in
revolt against the king, but that Samos was occupied by a garrison
under Cyprothemis, who had been placed there by Tigranes, the king's
viceroy, abandoned his intention of helping Ariobarzanes, but sat down
before Samos, relieved it, and set it free. {10} And to this day no war
has ever arisen to trouble you on account of this. For to enter upon a
war for the purpose of aggrandizement is never the same thing as to do
so in defence of one's own possessions. Every one fights his hardest to
recover what he has lost; but when men endeavour to gain at the expense
of others, it is not so. They desire to do this, if it is allowed them;
but if they are prevented, they do not consider that their opponents
have done them any wrong.

{11} Now listen for a moment, and consider whether I am right or wrong,
when I conclude that if Athens were actively at work, Artemisia herself
would now not even oppose our action. If the king effects in Egypt all
that he is bent upon, I believe that Artemisia would make every attempt
to secure for him the continued possession of Rhodes--not from any
goodwill towards him, but from the desire to be credited with a great
service to him, while he is still in her neighbourhood,[n] and so to
win from him as friendly a reception as possible. {12} But if he is
faring as we are told, if all his attempts have failed, she will
consider, and rightly, that the island can be of no further use to the
king, except as a fortified post to command her own dominions--a
security against any movement on her part. Accordingly she would
prefer, I believe, that you should have it, without her openly
surrendering it to you, rather than that he should occupy it. I think,
therefore, that she would not even make an attempt to save it; or that
if she actually did so, it would be but weakly and ineffectively. {13}
For although I cannot, of course, profess to know what the king will
do, I must insist that it is high time that it should be made clear, in
the interests of Athens, whether he intends to lay claim to Rhodes or
not: for if he does so, we have then to take counsel, not for the
Rhodians alone, but for ourselves and for the Hellenes as a whole.

{14} At the same time, even if the Rhodians who are now in
possession[n] of the town held it by their own strength, I should never
have urged you to take them for your allies, for all the promises in
the world. For I observe that they took to their side some of their
fellow citizens, to help them overthrow the democracy, and that, having
done this, they turned and expelled them: and I do not think that men
who failed to keep faith with either party would ever be trustworthy
allies for yourselves. {15} And further, I should never have made my
present proposal, had I been thinking only of the interests of the
popular party in Rhodes. I am not their official patron,[n] nor have I
a single personal friend among them; and even if both these things were
otherwise, I should not have made this proposal, had I not believed it
to be for your advantage. For as for the Rhodians, if I may use such an
expression when I am pleading with you to save them, I share your
joy[1] at what has happened to them. For it is because they grudged you
the recovery of your rights that they have lost their own freedom; and
that, instead of the equal alliance which they might have had with
Hellenes, better than themselves, they are in bondage to foreigners and
slaves, whom they have admitted to their citadels. {16} Indeed, if you
resolve to go to their aid, I may almost say that this calamity has
been good for them; for, Rhodians as they are, I doubt if they would
ever have come to their right mind in prosperity; whereas actual
experience has now taught them that folly generally leads to manifold
adversities; and perhaps they will be wiser for the future. This
lesson, I feel sure, will be no small advantage to them. I say then
that you should endeavour to save these men, and should bear no malice,
remembering that you too have been greatly deceived by conspirators
against you, and yet would not admit that you deserved yourselves to
suffer for such mistakes.

Observe this also, men of Athens. {17} You have waged many wars both
against democracies and against oligarchies; and of this no doubt you
are as well aware as I. But I doubt whether any of you considers for
what objects you are fighting in each case. What then are these
objects? In fighting against a democracy, you are fighting either over
some private quarrel, when the parties have failed to settle their
disputes by the means publicly provided;[n] or you are contending for a
piece of territory, or about a boundary, or for a point of honour, or
for paramountcy. But in fighting against an oligarchy, it is not for
any such objects--it is your constitution and your freedom that are at
stake. {18} And therefore I should not hesitate to say that I believe
it would be better for you, that all the Hellenic peoples should be
democracies, and be at war with you, than that they should be governed
by oligarchies, and be your friends. For with a free people you would
have no difficulty, I believe, in making peace whenever you desired:
but with an oligarchical State friendship itself cannot be safe. For
there can be no goodwill between Few and Many--between those who seek
for mastery, and those who have chosen the life of political equality.

{19} It surprises me also that though Chios and Mytilene are ruled by
oligarchies, and though now the Rhodians and all mankind, I may almost
say, are being brought into the same bondage, no one considers that any
danger threatens our own constitution also, or reflects that if every
State is organized upon an oligarchic basis, it is not possible that
your own democracy should be suffered to remain. For they know that no
people but you could ever bring them forth into a state of liberty
again; and they will wish to put an end to so likely a source of
trouble to themselves. {20} As a rule we may regard wrongdoers as
enemies only to those whom they have wronged. But when men destroy free
constitutions and convert them into oligarchies, I say that you must
think of them as the common enemies of all whose hearts are set on
freedom. {21} Again, men of Athens, it is only right that you, a
democracy yourselves, should show towards other democracies in distress
the same spirit as you would expect them to show towards you, if any
such calamity (which God forbid!) should happen to you. It may be said
that the Rhodians are justly punished. If so, this is not the time to
exult over them. When men are prosperous they should always be found
taking thought how best to help the distressed; for the future is
unknown to all men.

{22} I have often heard it stated here in your presence, that when our
democracy had met with disaster,[n] you were joined by certain others
in your anxiety for its preservation. Of these I will only refer on the
present occasion to the Argives, and that briefly. For I cannot desire
that you, who enjoy the reputation of being always the saviours of the
distressed, should prove inferior to the Argives in that work. These
Argives, though their territory borders on that of the Spartans, whom
they saw to be masters by land and sea, neither hesitated nor feared to
display their goodwill towards you; but when envoys came from Sparta
(so the story goes) to demand the persons of certain Athenian refugees,
they even voted that unless the envoys departed before sunset, they
should be adjudged public enemies. {23} If then the democracy of Argos
in those days showed no fear of the might of the Spartan Empire, will
it not be a disgrace if you, who are Athenians, are afraid of one who
is a barbarian--aye, and a woman?[n] The Argives, moreover, could point
to many defeats sustained at the hands of Sparta, while you have often
defeated the king, and have not once proved inferior either to his
servants or to himself. For if ever the king has gained any success
against Athens, it has been by bribing the basest of the Hellenes to
betray their countrymen; in no other way has he ever succeeded. {24}
Indeed, even such success has done him no good. You will find that no
sooner had he rendered Athens weak,[n] by the help of the Spartans,
than he had to fight for his own kingdom against Clearchus and Cyrus.
His successes, therefore, have not been won in the open field, nor have
his plots brought him any good. Now some of you, I notice, are in the
habit of speaking contemptuously of Philip, as though he were not worth
reckoning with; while you dread the king, as a powerful enemy to any
whom he chooses to oppose. But if we are not to defend ourselves
against Philip, because he is so mean a foe, and are to give way in
everything to the king, because he is so formidable, who is there, men
of Athens, against whom we shall ever take the field?

{25} Men of Athens, you have among you those who are particularly
skilful in pleading with you the rights of the rest of the world; and I
should be glad to give them this single piece of advice--that they
should seek to plead your rights with the rest of the world,[n] and so
set an example of duty. It is monstrous to instruct you about rights,
without doing right oneself; and it is not right that a fellow citizen
of yours should have studied all the arguments against you and none of
those in your favour. {26} Ask yourselves, in God's name, why it is
that there is no one in Byzantium to tell the Byzantines that they must
not occupy Chalcedon,[n] which belongs to the king and formerly
belonged to you, but upon which they had no sort of claim; or that they
must not make Selymbria, once your ally, a contributory portion of the
Byzantine state; or include the territory of Selymbria[n] within the
Byzantine frontier, in defiance of the sworn treaty which ordains the
independence of the cities? {27} Why was there no one to tell Mausolus,
while he lived, and Artemisia after his death, that they must not
occupy Cos and Rhodes and other Hellenic cities as well, which the king
their master ceded to the Hellenes by the treaty,[n] and for the sake
of which the Hellenes of those days faced many a peril and fought many
a gallant fight? Even if there actually are such advisers[n] in both
cases, at least it is not likely that they will find listeners. {28}
For my part I believe that it is right to restore the exiled democracy
of Rhodes. But even if it were not right, I think it would be proper to
urge you to do it, when I consider the course taken by such speakers as
these; and for this reason. If all the world, men of Athens, were bent
upon doing right, it would be a disgrace to us if we alone were
unwilling to do so: but when all the world is preparing itself in order
to be able to commit wrong, then for us alone to abstain from every
enterprise, on the plea of right, is no righteousness, to my mind, but
cowardice. For I observe that the extent to which rights are admitted
is always in proportion to the claimant's power at the moment. {29} I
can illustrate this by an instance familiar to all of you. There are
two treaties[n] between the Hellenes and the king. The first was made
by our own city, and all men praise it; the second by the Spartans, and
it is denounced by all. The rights defined in these two treaties are
not the same. For whereas a common and equal share of private rights is
given by law to weak and strong alike, in a settlement of international
rights it is the stronger who legislate for the weaker.

Well, you already know what the right course is.[n] {30} It remains to
inquire how you can carry out your knowledge into action; and this will
be possible, if you come to be regarded as public champions of
universal liberty. But the great difficulty which you find in doing
your duty is, to my mind, natural enough. All other men have only one
conflict to face--the conflict with their declared foes; and when these
are subdued, there is no further obstacle to their secure enjoyment of
their happiness. {31} But for you there is a double conflict. In
addition to that to which all men are liable, there is another which is
harder, and which must be faced first: for you have to win the victory
in your councils over those who are deliberately working in your midst
against the interests of the city; and because, thanks to them, you can
effect nothing that is demanded of you without a struggle, it is
natural that you should often miss your mark. {32} The chief reason for
the fearless adoption of such a course in public life by so many men is
perhaps to be found in the benefits which they obtain from those who
hire them. Yet at the same time, some of the blame may fairly be laid
at your own doors. For you ought, men of Athens, to think of a man's
post in public life as you think of his post in the army in the field.
And how do you think of this? If a man leaves the post assigned to him
by his general, you think that he deserves to be disfranchised and to
lose all share in the privileges of a citizen. {33} And so when men
desert the post of civil duty, committed to them by our forefathers,
and follow an oligarchical[n] policy, they should forfeit the privilege
of acting as advisers to yourselves. As it is, while you believe that
those of your allies are best disposed towards you, who have sworn to
have the same friends and foes as yourselves, the politicians in whom
you place most faith are those whom you well know to have chosen the
side of the enemies of Athens.

{34} It is easy enough, however, to find reasons for accusing them and
reproaching all of you. But to find words or actions which will enable
us to rectify what is now amiss with us, is a task indeed. Moreover,
the present is not, perhaps, the time for entering into every point:
but if only you can confirm the policy which you have chosen by some
suitable action, it may be that other conditions will each in turn show
some improvement. {35} I think, therefore, that you ought to take this
enterprise in hand with vigour, and to act worthily of your country.
Remember with what delight you listen to the praises of your
forefathers,[n] the recital of their deeds, the enumeration of their
trophies. Consider then that your forefathers dedicated these trophies,
not that you might gaze at them in idle wonder, but that you might
imitate the actions of those who placed them there.


FOOTNOTES

[1] [Greek: humin sygchair_o].




THE FIRST PHILIPPIC (OR. IV)


[_Introduction_. Philip became King of Macedonia in 359 B.C. Being in
great difficulties both from external enemies and from internal
division, he made peace with the Athenians, who were supporting the
pretensions of Argaeus to the throne, in the hope of recovering (by
agreement with Argaeus) the colony of Amphipolis on the Strymon, which
they had lost in 424. Philip acknowledged the title of Athens to
Amphipolis, and sent home the Athenian prisoners, whom he had captured
among the supporters of Argaeus, without ransom. The Athenians,
however, neglected to garrison Amphipolis. In 358 (the year in which
Athens temporarily recovered her hold over Euboea, by compelling the
Thebans to evacuate the island), Philip carried on a successful
campaign against the Paeonian and Illyrian tribes, who were standing
enemies of Macedonia. For the next three years Athens was kept occupied
by the war with her allies, and Philip saw his opportunity. He besieged
Amphipolis: when the citizens sent Hierax and Stratocles to ask Athens
for help, he dispatched a letter promising the Athenians that he would
give them Amphipolis when he had taken it; and a secret understanding
was arrived at between Philip and the Athenian envoys sent to him, that
Athens should give him Pydna (once a Macedonian town, but now an ally
of Athens) in exchange. Athens, therefore, listened neither to
Amphipolis nor to Olynthus, which had also made overtures to her. The
Olynthians in consequence made a treaty with Philip, who gave them
Anthemus and promised to help them against their old rival Poteidaea, a
town in alliance with Athens. The Olynthians on their part agreed not
to make peace with Athens except in conjunction with him. But Philip,
when he had captured Amphipolis by a combination of siege and intrigue,
did not give it up to Athens, and instead of waiting to receive Pydna
from Athens, besieged and took it, aided once more by treachery from
within. In 356 he took Poteidaea (in conjunction with the Olynthians,
to whom he gave the town), the Athenians arriving too late to relieve
it; and then pursued his conquests along the Thracian coast. Further
inland he expelled the Thasians (allies of Athens) from Crenides and
founded Philippi on the site, in the centre of the gold-mines of Mount
Pangaeus, from which he henceforward derived a very large revenue;
while the forests of the district provided him with timber for
ship-building, of which he took full advantage: for in the next few
years his ships made descents upon the Athenian islands of Lemnos and
Imbros, plundered the Athenian corn-vessels off the coast of Euboea,
and even landed a force at Marathon. In the latter part of 356 and in
355 he was occupied with the conquest of the Paeonians and Illyrians,
with whom Athens had made an alliance in 356. At the end of 355 he laid
siege to Methone, the last Athenian port on the Thermaic gulf, and
captured it in 354. (Some place the siege and capture of Methone in
354-3, but an inscription, C.I.G. II. 70, makes it at least probable
that the siege had begun by the last month of 355.) In 353 Philip made
his way to the Thracian coast, and conquered Abdera and Maroneia. At
Maroneia we find him in company with Pammenes (his former host at
Thebes), who had been sent by the Thebans to assist Artabazus in his
revolt against the Persian king; and at the same place he received
Apollonides of Cardia, the envoy of the Thracian prince Cersobleptes.
On his way home his ships escaped from Chares, off Neapolis, by a ruse.
In the same year he interfered in the affairs of Thessaly, where the
Aleuadae of Larissa had invited his assistance against Lycophron and
Peitholaus of Pherae, who had invoked the aid of the Phocians. (In
opposing the Phocians, the antagonists of the Thebans in the Sacred
War, Philip was also helping the Thebans themselves, and gaining credit
as the opponent of the plunderers of the temple of Apollo at Delphi.)
Onomarchus, the Phocian leader, twice defeated Philip, but was
overthrown and slain in 352. Philip took Pherae and Pagasae (its port),
occupied Magnesia, and, by means of promises, obtained financial aid
from the Thessalians. The expedition sent by Athens to relieve Pagasae
arrived too late; but when Philip, after putting down the tyrants of
Pherae and arranging matters in Thessaly, advanced towards the Pass of
Thermopylae, an Athenian force, sent on the advice of Diophantus and
Eubulus, appeared in time to oblige him to retire to Macedonia. Late in
the autumn of 352 we find him once more in Thrace. It was probably now
that he assisted the peoples of Byzantium and Perinthus, together with
Amadocus, a rival of Cersobleptes, against the latter; with the result
that Cersobleptes was obliged to give up his son to Philip as a
hostage. Philip had also made alliance with Cardia, which, like
Byzantium, was on bad terms with Athens. He now laid siege to Heraeon
Teichos, a fortress on the Propontis, but illness obliged him to
suspend operations, and the rumour of his death prevented the Athenians
from sending against him the expedition which they had resolved upon.
(The retention of her influence in this region was essential for
Athens, if her corn-supply was to be secure.) In 351, on recovering
from his illness, he entered the territory of Olynthus, which, contrary
to the agreement with him, had made peace with Athens in the previous
year, apart from himself: but he did not at present pursue the invasion
further. In October 351 Athens sent Charidemus to the Hellespont with
ten ships, but no soldiers and little money. If these are the ships
alluded to in § 43 of the present Speech, the Speech must have been
delivered after that date. Otherwise any date after Philip's incursion
into the territory of Olynthus would suit the contents of the Speech,
and many writers place it earlier in the year. The question of the
relations of Athens with Philip had been brought forward; and
Demosthenes, who had risen first to speak, proposes the creation of a
large permanent fleet, and of a smaller force for immediate action,
laying great stress on the necessity of sending Athenian citizens both
to command and to form a substantial proportion of the troops, which,
had so far been mostly mercenaries. The scheme was worked out in
detail, both in its military and in its financial aspects, and
supported with an eloquence and an earnestness which are far in advance
of those displayed in the earlier speeches.

The statement of Dionysius of Halicarnassus, that the Speech as we have
it, is really a conflation of two speeches, of which the second
(beginning at § 30) was delivered in 347, is generally (and rightly)
discredited.]


{1} If some new subject were being brought before us, men of Athens, I
would have waited until most of your ordinary advisers had declared
their opinion; and if anything that they said were satisfactory to me,
I would have remained silent, and only if it were not so, would I have
attempted to express my own view. But since we find ourselves once more
considering a question upon which they have often spoken, I think I may
reasonably be pardoned for rising first of all. For if their advice to
you in the past had been what it ought to have been, you would have had
no occasion for the present debate.

{2} In the first place, then, men of Athens, we must not be downhearted
at our present situation, however wretched it may seem to be. For in
the worst feature of the past lies our best hope for the future-in the
fact, that is, that we are in our present plight because you are not
doing your duty in any respect; for if you were doing all that you
should do, and we were still in this evil case, we could not then even
hope for any improvement. {3} In the second place, you must bear in
mind (what some of you have heard from others, and those who know can
recollect for themselves), how powerful the Spartans were, not long
ago, and yet how noble and patriotic your own conduct was, when instead
of doing anything unworthy of your country you faced the war with
Sparta [n] in defence of the right. [n] Now why do I remind you of
these things? It is because, men of Athens, I wish you to see and to
realize, that so long as you are on your guard you have nothing to
fear; but that if you are indifferent, nothing can be as you would
wish: for this is exemplified for you both by the power of Sparta in
those days, to which you rose superior because you gave your minds to
your affairs; and by the insolence of Philip to-day, which troubles us
because we care nothing for the things which should concern us. {4} If,
however, any of you, men of Athens, when he considers the immense force
now at Philip's command, and the city's loss of all her strongholds,
thinks that Philip is a foe hard to conquer, I ask him (right though he
is in his belief) to reflect also that there was a time when we
possessed Pydna and Poteidaea and Methone; when all the surrounding
country was our own, and many of the tribes [n] which are now on his
side were free and independent, and more inclined to be friendly to us
than to him. {5} Now if in those days Philip had made up his mind that
it was a hard thing to fight against the Athenians, with all their
fortified outposts on his own frontiers, while he was destitute of
allies, he would have achieved none of his recent successes, nor
acquired this great power. But Philip saw quite clearly, men of Athens,
that all these strongholds were prizes of war, displayed for
competition. He saw that in the nature of things the property of the
absent belongs to those who are on the spot, and that of the negligent
to those who are ready for toil and danger. {6} It is, as you know, by
acting upon this belief, that he has brought all those places under his
power, and now holds them--some of them by right of capture in war,
others in virtue of alliances and friendly understandings; for every
one is willing to grant alliance and to give attention to those whom
they see to be prepared and ready to take action as is necessary. {7}
If then, men of Athens, you also will resolve to adopt this principle
to-day--the principle which you have never observed before--if each of
you can henceforward be relied upon to throw aside all this pretence of
incapacity, and to act where his duty bids him, and where his services
can be of use to his country; if he who has money will contribute, and
he who is of military age will join the campaign; if, in one plain
word, you will resolve henceforth to depend absolutely on yourselves,
each man no longer hoping that he will need to do nothing himself, and
that his neighbour will do everything for him; then, God willing, you
will recover your own; you will take back all that your indolence has
lost, and you will have your revenge upon Philip. {8} Do not imagine
that his fortune is built to last for ever, as if he were a God. He
also has those who hate him and fear him, men of Athens, and envy him
too, even among those who now seem to be his closest friends. All the
feelings that exist in any other body of men must be supposed to exist
in Philip's supporters. Now, however, all such feelings are cowed
before him: your slothful apathy has taken away their only rallying
point; and it is this apathy that I bid you put off to-day. {9} Mark
the situation, men of Athens: mark the pitch which the man's outrageous
insolence has reached, when he does not even give you a choice between
action and inaction, but threatens you, and utters (as we are told)
haughty language: for he is not the man to rest content in possession
of his conquests: he is always casting his net wider; and while we
procrastinate and sit idle, he is setting his toils around us on every
side. {10} When, then, men of Athens, when, I say, will you take the
action that is required? What are you waiting for? 'We are waiting,'
you say, 'till it is necessary.' But what must we think of all that is
happening at this present time? Surely the strongest necessity that a
free people can experience is the shame which they must feel at their
position! What? Do you want to go round asking one another, 'Is there
any news?' Could there be any stranger news than that a man of
Macedonia is defeating Athenians in war, and ordering the affairs of
the Hellenes? {11} 'Is Philip dead?' 'No, but he is sick.' And what
difference does it make to you? For if anything should happen to him,
you will soon raise up for yourselves a second Philip, if it is thus
that you attend to your interests. Indeed, Philip himself has not risen
to this excessive height through his own strength, so much as through
our neglect. I go even further. {12} If anything happened to Philip--if
the operation of Fortune, who always cares for us better than we care
for ourselves, were to effect this too for us--you know that if you
were at hand, you could descend upon the general confusion and order
everything as you wished; but in your present condition, even if
circumstances offered you Amphipolis, you could not take it; for your
forces and your minds alike are far away.

{13} Well, I say no more of the obligation which rests upon you all to
be willing and ready to do your duty; I will assume that you are
resolved and convinced. But the nature of the armament which, I
believe, will set you free from such troubles as these, the numbers of
the force, the source from which we must obtain funds, and the best and
quickest way, as it seems to me, of making all further
preparations--all this, men of Athens, I will at once endeavour to
explain when I have made one request of you. {14} Give your verdict on
my proposal when you have heard the whole of it; do not prejudge it
before I have done; and if at first the force which I propose appears
unprecedented, do not think that I am merely creating delays. It is not
those whose cry is 'At once', 'To-day', whose proposals will meet our
need; for what has already happened cannot be prevented by any
expedition now. {15} It is rather he who can show the nature, the
magnitude, and the financial possibility of a force which when provided
will be able to continue in existence either until we are persuaded to
break off the war, or until we have overcome the enemy; for thus only
can we escape further calamity for the future. These things I believe I
can show, though I would not stand in the way of any other speaker's
professions. It is no less a promise than this that I make; the event
will soon test its fulfilment, and you will be the judges of it.

First then, men of Athens, I say that fifty warships must {16} at once
be got in readiness: and next, that you must be in such a frame of mind
that, if any need arises, you will embark in person and sail. In
addition, you must prepare transports for half our cavalry, and a
sufficient number of boats. {17} These, I think, should be in readiness
to meet those sudden sallies of his from his own country against
Thermopylae, the Chersonese, Olynthus, and any other place which he may
select. For we must make him realize that there is a possibility of
your rousing yourselves out of your excessive indifference, just as
when once you went to Euboea,[n] and before that (as we are told) to
Haliartus,[n] and finally, only the other day, to Thermopylae. {18}
Such a possibility, even if you are unlikely to make it a reality, as I
think you ought to do, is not one which he can treat lightly; and you
may thus secure one of two objects. On the one hand, he may know that
you are on the alert--he will in fact know it well enough: there are
only too many persons, I assure you, in Athens itself, who report to
him all that happens here: and in that case his apprehensions will
ensure his inactivity. But if, on the other hand, he neglects the
warning, he may be taken off his guard; for there will be nothing to
hinder you from sailing to his country, if he gives you the
opportunity. {19} These are the measures upon which I say you should
all be resolved, and your preparations for them made. But before this,
men of Athens, you must make ready a force which will fight without
intermission, and do him damage. Do not speak to me of ten thousand or
twenty thousand mercenaries. I will have none of your paper-armies. [n]
Give me an army which will be the army of Athens, and will obey and
follow the general whom you elect, be there one general or more, be he
one particular individual, or be he who he may. {20} You must also
provide maintenance for this force. Now what is this force to be? how
large is it to be? how is it to be maintained? how will it consent to
act in this manner? I will answer these questions point by point. The
number of mercenaries--but you must not repeat the mistake which has so
often injured you, the mistake of, first, thinking any measures
inadequate, and so voting for the largest proposal, and then, when the
time for action comes, not even executing the smaller one; you must
rather carry out and make provision for the smaller measure, and add to
it, if it proves too small--{21} the total number of soldiers, I say,
must be two thousand, and of these five hundred must be Athenians,
beginning from whatever age you think good: they must serve for a
definite period--not a long one, but one to be fixed at your
discretion--and in relays. The rest must be mercenaries. With these
must be cavalry, two hundred in number, of whom at least fifty must be
Athenians, as with the infantry; and the conditions of service must be
the same. {22} You must also find transports for these. And what next?
Ten swift ships of war. For as he has a fleet, we need swift-sailing
warships too, to secure the safe passage of the army. And how is
maintenance to be provided for these? This also I will state and
demonstrate, as soon as I have given you my reasons for thinking that a
force of this size is sufficient, and for insisting that those who
serve in it shall be citizens.

{23} The size of the force, men of Athens, is determined by the fact
that we cannot at present provide an army capable of meeting Philip in
the open field; we must make plundering forays, and our warfare must at
first be of a predatory nature. Consequently the force must not be
over-big--we could then neither pay nor feed it--any more than it must
be wholly insignificant. {24} The presence of citizens in the force
that sails I require for the following reasons. I am told that Athens
once maintained a mercenary force in Corinth,[n] under the command of
Polystratus, Iphicrates, Chabrias and others, and that you yourselves
joined in the campaign with them; and I remember hearing that these
mercenaries, when they took the field with you, and you with them, were
victorious over the Spartans. But even since your mercenary forces have
gone to war alone, it is your friends and allies that they conquer,
while your enemies have grown more powerful than they should be. After
a casual glance at the war to which Athens has sent them, they sail off
to Artabazus,[n] or anywhere rather than to the war; and the general
follows them naturally enough, for his power over them is gone when he
can give them no pay. You ask what I bid you do. {25} I bid you take
away their excuses both from the general and the soldiers, by supplying
pay and placing citizen-soldiers at their side as spectators of these
mysteries of generalship;[n] for our present methods are a mere
mockery. Imagine the question to be put to you, men of Athens, whether
you are at peace or no. 'At peace?' you would say; 'Of course not! We
are at war with Philip.' {26} Now have you not all along been electing
from among your own countrymen ten captains and generals,[n] and
cavalry-officers, and two masters-of-the-horse? and what are they
doing? Except the one single individual whom you happen to send to the
seat of war, they are all marshalling your processions for you with the
commissioners of festivals. You are no better than men modelling
puppets of clay. Your captains and your cavalry-officers are elected to
be displayed in the streets, not to be sent to the war. {27} Surely,
men of Athens, your captains should be elected from among yourselves,
and your master-of-the-horse from among yourselves; your officers
should be your own countrymen, if the force is to be really the army of
Athens. As it is, the master-of-the-horse who is one of yourselves has
to sail to Lemnos; while the master-of-the-horse with the army that is
fighting to defend the possessions of Athens is Menelaus.[n] I do not
wish to disparage that gentleman; but whoever holds that office ought
to have been elected by you.

{28} Perhaps, however, while agreeing with all that I have said, you
are mainly anxious to hear my financial proposals, which will tell you
the amount and the sources of the funds required. I proceed, therefore,
with these at once. First for the sum. The cost of the bare rations for
the crews, with such a force, will be 90 talents and a little over--40
talents for ten swift ships, and 20 minae a month for each ship; and
for the soldiers as much again, each soldier to receive rations to the
value of 10 drachmae a month; and for the cavalry (two hundred in
number, each to receive 30 drachmae a month) twelve talents. {29} It
may be said that the supply of bare rations to the members of the force
is an insufficient initial provision; but this is a mistake. I am quite
certain that, given so much, the army will provide everything else for
itself from the proceeds of war, without injury to a single Hellene or
ally of ours, and that the full pay will be made up by these means. I
am ready to sail as a volunteer and to suffer the worst, if my words
are untrue. The next question then is of ways and means, in so far as
the funds are to come from yourselves. I will explain this at once.

[_A schedule of ways and means is read_.]

{30} This, men of Athens, is what we have been able to devise; and when
you put our proposals to the vote, you will pass them, if you approve
of them; that so your war with Philip may be a war, not of resolutions
and dispatches, but of actions.

{31} I believe that the value of your deliberations about the war and
the armament as a whole would be greatly enhanced, if you were to bear
in mind the situation of the country against which you are fighting,
remembering that most of Philip's plans are successfully carried out
because he takes advantage of winds and seasons; for he waits for the
Etesian winds[n] or the winter-season, and only attacks when it would
be impossible for us to effect a passage to the scene of action. {32}
Bearing this in mind, we must not carry on the war by means of isolated
expeditions; we shall always be too late. We must have a permanent
force and armament. As our winter-stations for the army we have Lemnos,
Thasos, Sciathos, and the islands in that region, which have harbours
and corn, and are well supplied with all that an army needs. And as to
the time of year, whenever it is easy to approach the shore and the
winds are not dangerous, our force can without difficulty lie close to
the Macedonian coast itself, and block the mouths of the ports.

{33} How and when he will employ the force is a matter to be
determined, when the time comes, by the commander whom you put in
control of it. What must be provided from Athens is described in the
scheme which I have drafted. If, men of Athens, you first supply the
sum I have mentioned, and then, after making ready the rest of the
armament--soldiers, ships, cavalry--bind the whole force in its
entirety,[n] by law, to remain at the seat of war; if you become your
own paymasters, your own commissioners of supply, but require your
general to account for the actual operations; {34} then there will be
an end of these perpetual discussions of one and the same theme, which
end in nothing but discussion: and in addition to this, men of Athens,
you will, in the first place, deprive him of his chief source of
supply. For what is this? Why, he carries on the war at the cost of
your own allies, harrying and plundering those who sail the seas! And
what will you gain besides this? You will place yourselves out of reach
of disaster. It will not be as it was in the past, when he descended
upon Lemnos and Imbros, and went off, with your fellow-citizens as his
prisoners of war, or when he seized the vessels off Geraestus,[n] and
levied an enormous sum from them; or when (last of all) he landed at
Marathon, seized the sacred trireme,[n] and carried it off from the
country; while all the time you can neither prevent these aggressions,
nor yet send an expedition which will arrive when you intend it to
arrive. {35} But for what reason do you think, men of Athens, do the
festival of the Panathenaea and the festival of the Dionysia[n] always
take place at the proper time, whether those to whom the charge of
either festival is allotted are specially qualified persons or
not--festivals upon which you spend larger sums of money than upon any
armament whatsoever, and which involve an amount of trouble[n] and
preparation, which are unique, so far as I know, in the whole world--;
and yet your armaments are always behind the time--at Methone, at
Pagasae, at Potidaea? {36} It is because for the festivals all is
arranged by law. Each of you knows long beforehand who is to supply the
chorus,[n] and who is to be steward of the games,[n] for his tribe: he
knows what he is to receive, and when, and from whom, and what he is to
do with it. No detail is here neglected, nothing is left indefinite.
But in all that concerns war and our preparation for it, there is no
organization, no revision, no definiteness. Consequently it is not
until the news comes that we appoint our trierarchs and institute
exchanges of property for them, and inquire into ways and means. When
that is done, we first resolve that the resident aliens and the
independent freedmen[n] shall go on board; then we change our minds and
say that citizens shall embark; then that we will send substitutes; and
while all these delays are occurring, the object of the expedition is
already lost. {37} For we spend on preparation the time when we should
be acting, and the opportunities which events afford will not wait for
our slothful evasions; while as for the forces on which we think we can
rely in the meantime, when the critical moment comes, they are tried
and found wanting. And Philip's insolence has reached such a pitch,
that he has sent such a letter as the following to the Euboeans.

[_The letter is read_.]

{38} The greater part of the statements that have been read are true,
men of Athens; and they ought not to be true! but I admit that they may
possibly be unpleasant to hear; and if the course of future events
would pass over all that a speaker passes over in his speech, to avoid
giving pain, we should be right in speaking with a view to your
pleasure. But if attractive words, spoken out of season, bring their
punishment in actual reality, then it is disgraceful to blind our eyes
to the truth, to put off everything that is unpleasant, {39} to refuse
to understand even so much as this, that those who conduct war rightly
must not follow in the wake of events, but must be beforehand with
them: for just as a general may be expected to lead his army, so those
who debate must lead the course of affairs, in order that what they
resolve upon may be done, and that they may not be forced to follow at
the heels of events. {40} You, men of Athens, have the greatest power
in the world-warships, infantry, cavalry, revenue. But none of these
elements of power have you used as you ought, down to this very day.
The method of your warfare with Philip is just that of barbarians in a
boxing-match. Hit one of them, and he hugs the place; hit him on the
other side, and there go his hands; but as for guarding, or looking his
opponent in the face, he neither can nor will do it. {41} It is the
same with you. If you hear that Philip is in the Chersonese, you
resolve to make an expedition there; if he is at Thermopylae, you send
one there; and wherever else he may be, you run up and down in his
steps. It is he that leads your forces. You have never of yourselves
come to any salutary decision in regard to the war. No single event do
you ever discern before it occurs--before you have heard that something
has happened or is happening. Perhaps there was room for this
backwardness until now; but now we are at the very crisis, and such an
attitude is possible no longer. {42} Surely, men of Athens, it is one
of the gods--one who blushes for Athens, as he sees the course which
events are taking--that has inspired Philip with this restless
activity. If he were content to remain at peace, in possession of all
that he has won by conquest or by forestalling us--if he had no further
plans--even then, the record against us as a people, a record of shame
and cowardice and all that is most dishonourable, would, I think, seem
complete enough to some of you. But now he is always making some new
attempt, always grasping after something more; and unless your spirit
has utterly departed, his conduct will perhaps bring you out into the
field. {43} It amazes me, men of Athens, that not one of you remembers
with any indignation, that this war had its origin in our intention to
punish Philip; and that now, at the end of it, the question is, how we
are to escape disaster at his hands. But that he will not stay his
progress until some one arrests it is plain enough. Are we then to wait
for that? Do you think that all is right, when you dispatch nothing but
empty ships and somebody's hopes? Shall we not embark? {44} Shall we
not now, if never before, go forth ourselves, and provide at least some
small proportion of Athenian soldiers? Shall we not sail to the enemy's
country? But I heard the question, 'At what point on his coast are we
to anchor?' The war itself, men of Athens, if you take it in hand, will
discover his weak points: but if we sit at home listening to the mutual
abuse and recriminations of our orators, you can never realize any of
the results that you ought to realize. {45} I believe that whenever any
portion of Athens is sent with the forces, even if the whole city does
not go, the favour of Heaven and of Fortune fights on our side. But
whenever you dispatch anywhere a general with an empty resolution and
some platform-hopes to support him, then you achieve nothing that you
ought to achieve, your enemies laugh at you, and your allies are in
deadly fear of all such armaments. {46} It is impossible, utterly
impossible, that any one man should be able to effect all that you wish
for you. He can give undertakings and promises;[n] he can accuse this
man and that; and the result is that your fortunes are ruined. For when
the general is at the head of wretched, unpaid mercenaries, and when
there are those in Athens who lie to you light-heartedly about all that
he does, and, on the strength of the tales that you hear, you pass
decrees at random, what _must_ you expect?

{47} How then can this state of things be terminated? Only, men of
Athens, when you expressly make the same men soldiers, witnesses of
their general's actions, and judges at his examination[n] when they
return home; for then the issue of your fortunes will not be a tale
which you hear, but a thing which you will be on the spot to see. So
shameful is the pass which matters have now reached, that each of your
generals is tried for his life before you two or three times, but does
not dare to fight in mortal combat with the enemy even once. They
prefer the death of kidnappers and brigands to that of a general. {48}
For it is a felon's death, to die by sentence of the court: the death
of a general is to fall in battle with the enemy. Some of us go about
saying that Philip is negotiating with Sparta[n] for the overthrow of
the Thebans and the breaking up of the free states; others, that he has
sent ambassadors to the king;[n] others, that he is fortifying cities
in Illyria. {49} We all go about inventing each his own tale. I quite
believe, men of Athens, that he is intoxicated with the greatness of
his successes, and entertains many such visions in his mind; for he
sees that there are none to hinder him, and he is elated at his
achievements. But I do not believe that he has chosen to act in such a
way that the most foolish persons in Athens can know what he intends to
do; for no persons are so foolish as newsmongers. {50} But if we
dismiss all such tales, and attend only to the certainty--that the man
is our enemy, that he is robbing us of our own, that he has insulted us
for a long time, that all that we ever expected any one to do for us
has proved to be against us, that the future is in our own hands, that
if we will not fight him now in his own country we shall perhaps be
obliged to do so in ours--if, I say, we are assured of this, then we
shall have made up our minds aright, and shall be quit of idle words.
For you have not to speculate what the future may be: you have only to
be assured that the future must be evil, unless you give heed and are
ready to do your duty.

{51} Well, I have never yet chosen to gratify you by saying anything
which I have not felt certain would be for your good; and to-day I have
spoken freely and without concealment, just what I believe. I could
wish to be as sure of the good that a speaker will gain by giving you
the best advice as of that which you will gain by listening to him. I
should then have been far happier than I am. As it is, I do not know
what will happen to me, for what I have said: but I have chosen to
speak in the sure conviction that if you carry out my proposals, it
will be for your good; and may the victory rest with that policy which
will be for the good of all!




THE OLYNTHIAC ORATIONS (OR. I-III)


[_Introduction_. It has already been noticed that when Philip took
Amphipolis in 357 B.C., the Olynthians made overtures to the Athenians,
with whom they had been at war for some years, and that, being
rejected, they became allies of Philip, who gave them Anthemus and
Poteidaea. In 352, alarmed at Philip's growing power, they once more
applied to Athens. Peace was made, and negotiations began with regard
to an alliance. In 351 Philip appeared in the territory of Olynthus. He
did not, however, at once carry the invasion further, but took pains,
during this year and the next, to foster a Macedonian party in the
town. In 349 Philip virtually declared war on the Olynthians by
demanding the surrender of his step-brother Arrhidaeus, who had taken
refuge with them. The Olynthians again appealed to Athens; an alliance
was made; Chares was sent with thirty ships and 2,000 mercenaries, but
seems to have mismanaged the war by misfortune or by design. Probably
he had been badly supplied with funds, and instead of helping Olynthus,
resorted to acts of piracy to satisfy his men. The Macedonian troops
proceeded to take Stageira and other towns of the Olynthian League,
though Philip still professed to have no hostile intentions against
Olynthus (see Phil. III, § ii). Chares was recalled and put on his
trial; and, probably in response to a further message from Olynthus,
Charidemus was transferred thither from the Hellespont. With a
considerable mercenary force at his disposal, Charidemus overran
Pallene and Bottiaea, and did some damage to Philip's territory, but
afterwards gave himself up to dissipation in Olynthus. In the meantime,
some of the Thessalians had become restless under Philip's supremacy
(see Olynth. I, § 22, II, § ii), and he was obliged to undertake an
expedition to suppress the revolt, and to put down Peitholaus (who had
apparently become tyrant of Pherae once more, though he had been
expelled in 352). But early in 348 he appeared in person in Chalcidice,
and took one after another of the towns of the League, including
Mecyberna the port of Olynthus, and Torone. He thrice defeated the
Olynthians in battle, and at last obtained possession of Olynthus
itself by the treachery of Euthycrates and Lasthenes, the commanders of
the Olynthian cavalry.

Athens had probably been occupied during the early part of the year [1]
with an expedition which she sent (against the advice of Demosthenes)
to help Plutarchus of Eretria to repel attacks which were partly, at
least, instigated by Philip; and in consequence she had done little for
Olynthus, though on a request of the Olynthians for cavalry, she had
ordered some of those which had been sent to Euboea to go to Olynthus,
and these may have been the Athenians whom Philip captured in that
city. The seventeen ships, 2,000 infantry, and 300 cavalry (all
citizens), which Athens dispatched under Chares in response to a last
urgent appeal from Olynthus, were delayed by storms and arrived too
late. Philip entirely destroyed Olynthus and thirty-two other towns,
sold their inhabitants into slavery, brought the whole of Chalcidice
within the Macedonian Empire, and celebrated his conquests by a
festival in honour of the Olympian Zeus at Dium.

The First Olynthiac Oration was delivered before Olynthus itself was
attacked or any other towns actually taken (Olynth. I, § 17); and both
the First and Second before the discontent with Philip in Thessaly had
taken an active form (I, § 22, II, § 7). Both, that is, belong to the
summer of 349, and the situation implied is very much the same in both.
The First was perhaps spoken when the Olynthians first appealed to
Athens in that year, before the mission of Chares; the Second, to
counteract the effect of something which had caused despondency in
Athens (possibly the conduct of the Athenian generals, or the account
given by other orators of Philip's power). In both Demosthenes urges
the importance of resisting Philip while he is still far away, and of
sending, not mercenaries, but a citizen-army; and while hinting at what
he regards as the true solution of the financial difficulty, proposes a
special war-tax. The solution which he thinks the right one is more
explicitly described in the Third Olynthiac, spoken (probably
[Footnote: See note on Olynth. III, Section 4]) in the autumn of the
same year, and certainly at a time when the situation had become much
more grave. The root of the financial difficulty lay in the existence
of a law which prohibited (evidently under severe penalties, Olynth.
III, Section 12) any proposal to devote to military purposes that
portion of the revenues which constituted the 'Festival' or 'Theoric
Fund', and was for the most part distributed to the citizens to enable
them to take part in the public festivals, and so join in fulfilling
what was no doubt a religious duty as well as a pleasure. This
particular form of expenditure is stated to have been introduced by the
demagogue Agyrrhius in 394, when it revived in an extended form a
distribution of theatre money instituted late in the fifth century by
Cleophon; but the special law in question appears to have been of
recent date (Olynth. III, Section 12), and was almost certainly the
work of Eubulus and his party. Demosthenes himself proposes an
extraordinary Legislative Commission, to repeal the mischievous laws
and leave the way clear for financial reform. At the same time he
attacks the whole policy of Eubulus, charging him with distributing
doles without regard to public service, adding to the amenities of
Athens instead of maintaining her honour in war, and enriching her
politicians while degrading her people. The main object of the speech
was unsuccessful; and just about this time (though whether before or
after the speech is disputed) Apollodorus proposed that the people
should decide whether the surplus revenues should go to the Festival
Fund, or be applied to military purposes, and was heavily fined for the
illegality of the proposal.

The Three Olynthiacs rank high among the Orations of Demosthenes. Some
passages, indeed, show that he had hardly as yet appreciated the genius
of Philip, or the unlikelihood of his making a false move either
through over-confidence or because he had come to the end of his
resources. But the noble patriotism of the speaker, the lofty tone of
his political reflections, the clearness of his diagnosis of the evils
of his time, and the fearlessness of his appeal for loyal and united
self-sacrifice, are nowhere more conspicuous.]


THE FIRST OLYNTHIAC

{1} I believe, men of Athens, that you would give a great sum to know
what policy, in reference to the matter which you are now considering,
will best serve the interests of the city, and since that is so, you
ought to be ready and eager to listen to those who desire to give you
their advice. For not only can you hear and accept any useful proposals
which a speaker may have thought out before he came here; but such, I
conceive, is your fortune, that the right suggestion will often occur
to some of those present on the spur of the moment; and out of all
these suggestions it should be easy for you to choose the most
advantageous course.

{2} The present time, men of Athens, seems almost to cry aloud that you
must take matters into your own hands yonder, if you have any interest
in a successful termination of the crisis: and yet our attitude appears
to be--I do not know what. My own opinion, at all events, is that you
should at once resolve to send this assistance; that you should prepare
for the departure of the expedition at the first possible moment--you
must not fall victims to the same error as before--and that you should
dispatch an embassy to announce our intention, and to be present at the
scene of action. {3} For what we have most to fear is this--that he,
with his unscrupulous cleverness in taking advantage of
circumstances--now, it may be, by making concessions; now by uttering
threats, which he may well seem likely to fulfil; now by
misrepresenting ourselves and our absence from the scene--may turn and
wrest to his own advantage some of the vital elements of our power. {4}
And yet it may fairly be said, men of Athens, that our best hope lies
in that very circumstance which renders Philip's power so hard to
grapple with. The fact that the entire control over everything, open or
secret,[n] is concentrated in the hands of a single man; that he is at
one and the same time general, master, and treasurer; that he is always
present in person with his army--all this is a great advantage, in so
far as military operations must be prompt and well-timed. But as
regards the compact which he would so gladly make with the Olynthians,
the effect is just the reverse. {5} For the Olynthians know well that
they are not fighting now for honour and glory, nor for a strip of
territory, but to avert the devastation and enslavement of their
country. They know how he treated[n] those who betrayed to him their
city at Amphipolis, and those who received him at Pydna; and it is, I
imagine, universally true that tyranny is a faithless friend to a free
state, and that most of all, when they occupy adjoining territories.
{6} With this knowledge, men of Athens, and with all the reflections
that the occasion calls for in your minds, I say that now, if ever
before, you must make your resolve, rouse all your energies, and give
your minds to the war: you must contribute gladly, you must go forth in
person, you must leave nothing undone. There is no longer any reason or
excuse remaining, which can justify you in refusing to do your duty.
{7} For every one was but recently harping on the desirability of
exciting Olynthus to war with Philip; and this has now come to pass of
itself, and in the way which most completely suits your interests. Had
they taken up the war because you had persuaded them to do so, their
alliance might perhaps have been precarious, and their resolution might
only have carried them a certain way. But now their detestation of
Philip is based upon grievances which affect themselves; and we may
suppose that a hostility which is occasioned by their own fears and
sufferings will be a lasting one. {8} Since, therefore, men of Athens,
such an opportunity has been thrown in your way, you must not let it
go, nor fall victims to the mistake from which you have often suffered
before. If, for instance, when we had returned from our expedition in
aid of the Euboeans,[n] and Hierax and Stratocles came from Amphipolis
and stood upon this platform and urged us to sail and take over the
city; if, I say, we had continued to display in our own interest the
eagerness which we displayed in the deliverance of the Euboeans, you
would have kept Amphipolis then, and we should have been free from all
the trouble that we have had since. {9} And again, when news kept
coming of the investment of Pydna, Poteidaea, Methone, Pagasae, and all
the other places--I will not stay to enumerate them all--if we had
acted at once, and had gone to the rescue of the first place attacked,
with the energy which we ought to have shown, we should now have found
Philip much less proud and difficult to deal with. As it is, we are
always sacrificing the present, always fancying that the future will
turn out well of itself; and so we have raised Philip to a position of
such importance as no king of Macedonia has ever before attained. {10}
And now an opportunity has come to Athens, in this crisis at Olynthus,
as great as any of those former ones: and I believe, men of Athens,
that one who was to draw up a true account of the blessings which have
been given us by the gods, would, in spite of much that is not as it
should be, find great cause for thankfulness to them; and naturally so.
For our many losses in the war must in fairness be set down to our own
indifference; but that we did not suffer such losses long ago, and that
an alliance has presented itself to us, which, if we will only take
advantage of it, will act as a counterpoise to them--all this I, for
one, should set down as a favour due to their goodness towards us. But
it is, I imagine, in politics, as it is in money-making. {11} If a man
is able to keep all that he gets, he is abundantly grateful to Fortune;
but if he loses it all before he is aware, he loses with it his memory
of Fortune's kindness. So it is in politics. When men have not made a
right use of their opportunities, they do not remember any good that
heaven may actually have granted them: for it is by the ultimate issue
that men estimate all that they have enjoyed before. Therefore, men of
Athens, you must pay the very utmost heed to the future, that by the
better use you make of it, you may wipe out the dishonour of the past.
{12} But if you sacrifice these men also, men of Athens, and Philip in
consequence reduces Olynthus to subjection, I ask any of you to tell me
what is to prevent him from marching where he pleases. Is there a man
among you, men of Athens, who considers or studies the steps by which
Philip, weak enough at first, has become so strong? First he took
Amphipolis, next Pydna, then again Poteidaea, and then Methone. Next he
set foot in Thessaly. {13} Then when Pherae, Pagasae, Magnesia[n] were
secured for his purposes, just as it suited him, he departed to Thrace.
In Thrace, after expelling one prince and setting up another, he fell
ill. When he grew easier again, he showed no inclination to take things
easily, but at once attacked the Olynthians[n]--and I am passing over
his campaigns against the Illyrians and the Paeonians, against
Arybbas,[n] and in every possible direction.

{14} Why, I may be asked, do I mention these things at the present
moment? I wish you to understand, men of Athens, and to realize these
two points: first, the unprofitableness of perpetually sacrificing your
interests one by one; and, secondly, the restless activity which is a
part of Philip's very being, and which will not allow him to content
himself with his achievements and remain at peace. For if it is to be
his fixed resolve, that he must always be aiming at something greater
than he has yet attained; and ours, that we will never set ourselves
resolutely to work; ask yourselves what you can expect to be the end of
the matter. {15} In God's name, is there one of you so innocent as not
to know that the war will be transferred from Olynthus to Attica, if we
pay no heed? But if that happens, men of Athens, I fear that we shall
be like men who light-heartedly borrow at a high rate of interest, and
after a brief period of affluence, lose even their original estate;
that like them we shall find that our carelessness has cost us dear;
that through making pleasure our standard in everything, we shall find
ourselves driven to do many of those unpleasant things which we wished
to avoid, and shall find our position even in our own country
imperilled.

{16} I may be told that it is easy to criticize--any one can do that;
but that a political adviser is expected to offer some practical
proposal to meet the existing situation. Now I am well aware, men of
Athens, that in the event of any disappointment, it is not upon those
who are responsible that your anger falls, but upon those who have
spoken last upon the subject in question. Yet I do not think that
consideration for my own safety should lead me to conceal my conviction
as to the course which your interests demand. {17} I say then that
there are two things which you must do to save the situation. You must
rescue these towns [n] for the Olynthians, and send troops to
accomplish this: and you must damage Philip's country with your ships
and with a second body of troops. {18} If you neglect either of these
things, our campaign, I greatly fear, will be in vain. For suppose that
you inflict damage on his country, and that he allows you to do so,
while he reduces Olynthus; he will have no difficulty in repelling you
when he returns. Suppose, on the other hand, that you only go to the
help of Olynthus; he will see that he has nothing to fear at home, and
so he will sit down before the town and remain at his task, until time
enables him to get the better of the besieged. The expedition,
therefore, must be large, and it must be in two parts.

Such is my view with regard to the expedition. {19} As to the sources
of supply, you have funds, men of Athens--funds larger than any one
else in the world; but you appropriate these without scruple, just as
you choose. Now if you will assign these to your troops, you need no
further supplies: otherwise, not only do you need further supplies--you
are destitute of supplies altogether. 'Well' (does someone say?), 'do
you move that this money should form a war-fund?' I assure you that I
make no such motion. {20} For while I do indeed believe that a force
ought to be made ready [and that this money should form a war-fund],
and that the receipt of money should be connected, as part of one and
the same system, with the performance of duty; you, on the contrary,
think it right to take the money, after your present fashion, for your
festivals, and spare yourselves trouble. And therefore, I suppose, our
only resource is a general tax--larger or smaller, according to the
amount required. In any case, we need funds, and without funds nothing
can be done that we ought to do. Various other sources of supply are
suggested by different persons. Choose whichever you think best of
these, and get to work, while you have the opportunity.

{21} It is worth while to remember and to take into account the nature
of Philip's position at this moment. For neither are his affairs at
present in such good order, or in so perfectly satisfactory a state, as
might appear to any but a careful observer; nor would he ever have
commenced this present war, if he had thought that he would really have
to fight. He hoped at first that by his mere advance he would carry all
before him; and he has since discovered his mistake. This
disappointment, then, is the first thing which disturbs him and causes
him great despondency: {22} and next there is the disposition of the
Thessalians, naturally inconstant as we know it has always been found
by all men; and what it has always been, that, in the highest degree,
Philip finds it now. For they have formally resolved to demand from him
the restitution of Pagasae; they have prevented him from fortifying
Magnesia, and I myself heard it stated that they intend even to refuse
him the enjoyment of their harbour and market dues for the future.
These, they say, should go to maintain the public administration of
Thessaly, instead of being taken by Philip. But if he is deprived of
these funds, the resources from which he must maintain his mercenaries
will be reduced to the narrowest limits. {23} Nay, more: we must surely
suppose that the chieftains of the Paeonians and Illyrians, and in fact
all such personages--would prefer freedom to slavery; for they are not
accustomed to obey orders, and the man, they say, is a bully. Heaven
knows, there is nothing incredible in the statement. Unmerited success
is to foolish minds a fountain-head of perversity, so that it is often
harder for men to keep the good they have, than it was to obtain it.
{24} It is for you then, men of Athens, to regard his difficulty as
your opportunity, to take up your share of the burden with readiness,
to send embassies to secure all that is required, to join the forces
yourselves, and to stir up every one else to do so. Only consider what
would happen, if Philip got such an opportunity to strike at us, and
there was war on our frontier. Can you not imagine how readily he would
march against us? Does it arouse no shame in you, that, when you have
the opportunity, you should not dare to do to him even as much as you
would have to suffer, were he able to inflict it?

{25} There is a further point, men of Athens, which must not escape
you. I mean that you have now to choose whether you are to carry on war
yonder, or whether he is to do so in your own country. If the
resistance of Olynthus is maintained, you will fight there and will
inflict damage on Philip's territory, while you remain secure in the
enjoyment of this land of your own which you now possess. But if Philip
captures Olynthus, who is to hinder him from marching to Athens? The
Thebans? {26} It seems, I fear, too bitter a thing to say; but they
will be glad to join him in the invasion. The Phocians? They cannot
protect their own country, unless you go to their aid, or some other
power. 'But, my good Sir,'[n] you say, 'he will not want to march
here.' And yet it would be one of the strangest things in the world,
if, when he has the power, he does not carry out the threats, which he
now blurts out in spite of the folly that they show. {27} But I suppose
that I need not even point out how vast is the difference between war
here and war in his country. For had you to camp outside the walls
yourselves, for only thirty days, and to take from the country such
things as men in camp must have--and I am assuming that there is no
enemy in the country--I believe that the loss your farmers would suffer
would exceed your whole expenditure on the war up to the present time.
What then must we think will be the extent of our loss, if ever war
comes to our doors? And besides the loss there is his insolence, and
the shame of our position, which to right-minded men is as serious as
any loss.

{28} When you take a comprehensive view of these things you must all go
to the rescue and stave the war off yonder; you who are well-to-do, in
order that, with a small expense in defence of the great fortunes which
you quite rightly enjoy, you may reap the benefit of the remainder
without fear; you who are of military age, that you may gain your
experience of war in Philip's country, and so become formidable
guardians of a fatherland unspoiled; and your orators, that they may
find it easy to render an account of their public life; for your
judgement upon their conduct will itself depend upon the position in
which you find yourselves. And may that be a happy one, on every ground!


THE SECOND OLYNTHIAC

{1} Many as are the occasions, men of Athens, on which we may discern
the manifestation of the goodwill of Heaven towards this city, one of
the most striking is to be seen in the circumstances of the present
time. For that men should have been found to carry on war against
Philip; men whose territory borders on his and who possess some power;
men, above all, whose sentiments in regard to the war are such that
they think of the proposed compact with him, not only as untrustworthy,
but as the very ruin of their country--this seems to be certainly the
work of a superhuman, a divine, beneficence. {2} And so, men of Athens,
we must take care that we do not treat ourselves less well than
circumstances have treated us. For it is a shameful thing--nay, it is
the very depth of shame--to throw away openly, not only cities and
places which were once in our power, but even the allies and the
opportunities which have been provided for us by Fortune.

{3} Now to describe at length the power of Philip, men of Athens, and
to incite you to the performance of your duty by such a recital, is
not, I think, a satisfactory proceeding; and for this reason--that
while all that can be said on this subject tends to Philip's glory, it
is a story of failure on our part. For the greater the extent to which
his success surpasses his deserts, the greater is the admiration with
which the world regards him; while, for your part, the more you have
fallen short of the right use of your opportunities, the greater is the
disgrace that you have incurred. {4} I will therefore pass over such
considerations. For any honest inquirer must see that the causes of
Philip's rise to greatness lie in Athens, and not in himself. Of the
services for which he has to thank those whose policy is determined by
his interest--services for which you ought to require their
punishment--the present is not, I see, the moment to speak. But apart
from these, there are things which may be said, and which it is better
that you should all have heard--things which (if you will examine them
aright) constitute a grave reproach against him; and these I will try
to tell you.

{5} If I called him perjured and faithless, without giving his actions
in evidence, my words would be treated as idle abuse, and rightly: and
it happens that to review all his actions up to the present time, and
to prove the charge in every case, requires only a short speech. It is
well, I think, that the story should be told, for it will serve two
purposes; first, to make plain the real badness of the man's character;
and secondly, to let those who are over-alarmed at Philip, as if he
were invincible, see that he has come to the end of all those forms of
deceit by which he rose to greatness, and that his career is already
drawing to its close. {6} For I, too, men of Athens, should be
regarding Philip with intense fear and admiration, if I saw that his
rise was the result of a righteous policy. {7} But when I study and
consider the facts, I find that originally, when certain persons wished
to drive from your presence the Olynthians who desired to address you
from this place, Philip won over our innocent minds by saying that he
would deliver up Amphipolis to us, and by inventing the famous secret
understanding; that he afterwards conciliated the Olynthians by seizing
Poteidaea, which was yours, and injuring their former allies by handing
it over to themselves; and that, last of all, he recently won over the
Thessalians, by promising to give up Magnesia to them, and undertaking
to carry on the war with the Phocians on their behalf. There is
absolutely no one who has ever had dealings with him that he has not
deluded; and it is by deceiving and winning over, one after another,
those who in their blindness did not realize what he was, that he has
risen as he has done. {8} And therefore, just as it was by these
deceptions that he rose to greatness, in the days when each people
fancied that he intended to do some service to themselves; so it is
these same deceptions which should drag him down again, now that he
stands convicted of acting for his own ends throughout. Such, then, is
the crisis, men of Athens, to which Philip's fortunes have now come. If
it is not so, let any one come forward and show me (or rather you) that
what I say is untrue; or that those who have been deceived at the
outset trust him as regards the future; or that those who have been
brought into unmerited bondage would not gladly be free.

{9} But if any of you, while agreeing with me so far, still fancies
that Philip will maintain his hold by force, because he has already
occupied fortified posts and harbours and similar positions, he is
mistaken. When power is cemented by goodwill, and the interest of all
who join in a war is the same, then men are willing to share the
labour, to endure the misfortunes, and to stand fast. But when a man
has become strong, as Philip has done, by a grasping and wicked policy,
the first excuse, the least stumble, throws him from his seat and
dissolves the alliance. {10} It is impossible, men of Athens, utterly
impossible, to acquire power that will last, by unrighteousness, by
perjury, and by falsehood. Such power holds out for a moment, or for a
brief hour; it blossoms brightly, perhaps, with fair hopes; but time
detects the fraud, and the flower falls withered about its stem. In a
house or a ship, or any other structure, it is the foundations that
must be strongest; and no less, I believe, must the principles, which
are the foundation of men's actions, be those of truth and
righteousness. Such qualities are not to be seen to-day in the past
acts of Philip.

{11} I say, then, that we should help the Olynthians; and the best and
quickest method which can be proposed is the method which I approve.
Further, we should send an embassy to the Thessalians--to some, to
inform them of our intention; to others, to spur them on; for even now
they have resolved to demand the restitution of Pagasae, and to make
representations in regard to Magnesia. {12} Take care, however, men of
Athens, that our envoys may not only have words to speak, but also
actions of yours to point to. Let it be seen that you have gone forth
in a manner that is worthy of Athens, and are already in action. Words
without the reality must always appear a vain and empty thing, and
above all when they come from Athens; for the more we seem to excel in
the glib use of such language, the more it is distrusted by every one.
{13} The change, then, which is pointed out to them must be great, the
conversion striking. They must see you paying your contributions,
marching to war, doing everything with a will, if any of them is to
listen to you. And if you resolve to accomplish all this in very deed,
as it should be accomplished, not only will the feeble and
untrustworthy nature of Philip's alliances be seen, but the weakness of
his own empire and power will also be detected.

{14} The power and empire of Macedonia is, indeed, to speak generally,
an element which tells considerably as an addition to any other power.
You found it so when it helped you against the Olynthians in the days
of Timotheus;[n] the Olynthians in their turn found its help of some
value, in combination with their own strength, against Poteidaea; and
it has recently come to the aid of the Thessalians, in their disordered
and disturbed condition, against the ruling dynasty: and wherever even
a small addition is made to a force, it helps in every way. {15} But in
itself the Macedonian Empire is weak and full of manifold evils. Philip
has in fact rendered his own tenure of it even more precarious than it
naturally was, by these very wars and campaigns which might be supposed
to prove his power. For you must not imagine, men of Athens, that
Philip and his subjects delight in the same things. Philip has a
passion for glory--that is his ambition; and he has deliberately chosen
to risk the consequences of a life of action and danger, preferring the
glory of achieving more than any King of Macedonia before him to a life
of security. {16} But his subjects have no share in the honour and
glory. Constantly battered about by all these expeditions, up and down,
they are vexed with incessant hardships: they are not suffered to
pursue their occupations or attend to their own affairs: for the little
that they produce, as best they can, they can find no market, the
trading stations of the country being closed on account of the war.
{17} From these facts it is not difficult to discover the attitude of
the Macedonians in general towards Philip; and as for the mercenaries
and Infantry of the Guard who surround him, though they have the
reputation of being a fine body of well-drilled warriors, I am told by
a man who has been in Macedonia, and who is incapable of falsehood,
that they are no better than any other body of men. {18} Granted that
there may be experienced campaigners and fighters among them; yet, he
tells me, Philip is so jealous of honour, that he thrusts all such men
away from him, in his anxiety to get the credit of every achievement
for himself; for in addition to all his other qualities, his jealousy
is insurpassable. On the other hand, any generally temperate or upright
man, who cannot endure the dissolute life there, day by day, nor the
drunkenness and the lewd revels, is thrust on one side and counts for
nothing. {19} Thus he is left with brigands and flatterers, and men
who, when in their cups, indulge in dances of a kind which I shrink
from naming to you now. And it is evident that this report is true; for
men whom every one tried to drive out of Athens, as far viler than even
the very juggler in the street--Callias the public slave and men like
him, players of farces, composers of indecent songs, written at the
expense of their companions in the hope of raising a laugh--these are
the men he likes and keeps about him. {20} You may think that these are
trivial things, men of Athens: but they are weighty, in the judgement
of every right-minded man, as illustrations of the temper with which
Philip is cursed. At present, I suppose, these facts are overshadowed
by his continual prosperity. Success has a wonderful power of throwing
a veil over shameful things like these. But let him only stumble, and
then all these features in his character will be displayed in their
true light. And I believe, men of Athens, that the revelation is not
far off, if Heaven be willing and you desirous of it. {21} So long as a
man is in good health, he is unconscious of any weakness; but if any
illness comes upon him, the disturbance affects every weak point, be it
a rupture or a sprain or anything else that is unsound in his
constitution. And as with the body, so it is with a city or a tyrant.
So long as they are at war abroad, the mischief is hidden from the
world at large, but the close grapple of war on the frontier brings all
to light.

{22} Now if any of you, men of Athens, seeing Philip's good fortune,
thinks that this makes him a formidable enemy to fight against, he
reasons like a sensible man: for fortune weighs heavily in the
scale--nay, fortune is everything, in all human affairs. And yet, if I
were given the choice, it is the fortune of Athens that I should
choose, rather than that of Philip, provided that you yourselves are
willing to act even to a small extent as you should act. For I see that
there are far more abundant grounds for expecting the goodwill of
Heaven on your side than on his. {23} But here, of course, we are
sitting idle; and one who is a sluggard himself cannot require his
friends to help him, much less the gods. It is not to be wondered at
that Philip, who goes on campaigns and works hard himself, and is
always at the scene of action, and lets no opportunity go, no season
pass, should get the better of us who delay and pass resolutions and
ask for news; nor do I wonder at it. It is the opposite that would have
been wonderful--if we, who do nothing that those who are at war ought
to do, were successful against one who leaves nothing undone. {24} But
this I do wonder at, that you who once raised your hand against Sparta,
in defence of the rights of the Hellenes--you, who with opportunities
often open to you for grasping large advantages for yourselves, would
not take them, but to secure for others their rights spent your own
fortunes in war-contributions, and always bore the brunt of the dangers
of the campaign--that you, I say, are now shrinking from marching, and
hesitating to make any contribution to save your own possessions; and
that, though you have often saved the rest of the Hellenes, now all
together and now each in their turn, you are sitting idle, when you
have lost what was your own. {25} I wonder at this; and I wonder also,
men of Athens, that none of you is able to reckon up the time during
which you have been fighting with Philip, and to consider what you have
been doing while all this time has been going by. Surely you must know
that it is while we have been delaying, hoping that some one else would
act, accusing one another, bringing one another to trial, hoping
anew--in fact, doing practically what we are doing now--that all the
time has passed. {26} And have you now so little sense, men of Athens,
as to hope that the very same policy, which has made the position of
the city a bad one instead of a good, will actually make it a good one
instead of a bad? Why, it is contrary both to reason and to nature to
think so! It is always much easier to retain than to acquire. But now,
owing to the war, none of our old possessions is left for us to retain;
and so we must needs acquire. {27} This, therefore, is our own personal
and immediate duty; and accordingly I say that you must contribute
funds, you must go on service in person with a good will, you must
accuse no one before you have become masters of the situation; and then
you must honour those who deserve praise, and punish the guilty, with a
judgement based upon the actual facts. You must get rid of all excuses
and all deficiencies on your own part; you cannot examine mercilessly
the actions of others, unless you yourselves have done all that your
duty requires. {28} For why is it, do you think, men of Athens, that
all the generals whom you dispatch avoid this war,[n] and discover
private wars of their own--if a little of the truth must be told even
about the generals? It is because in this war the prizes for which the
war is waged are yours, and if they are captured, you will take them
immediately for your own; but the dangers are the personal privilege of
your commanders, and no pay is forthcoming: while in those wars the
dangers are less, and the profits--Lampsacus, Sigeum, and the ships
which they plunder--go to the commanders and their men. Each force
therefore takes the road that leads to its own advantage. {29} For your
part, when you turn your attention to the serious condition of your
affairs, you first bring the commanders to trial; and then, when you
have given them a hearing, and have been told of the difficulties which
I have described, you acquit them. The result, therefore, is that while
you are quarrelling with one another and broken into factions-one party
persuaded of this, another of that--the public interest suffers. You
used, men of Athens, to pay taxes by Boards:[n] to-day you conduct your
politics by Boards. On either side there is an orator as leader, and a
general under him; and for the Three Hundred, there are those who come
to shout. The rest of you distribute yourselves between the two
parties, some on either side. {30} This system you must give up: you
must even now become your own masters; you must give to all alike their
share in discussion, in speech and in action. If you assign to one body
of men the function of issuing orders to you, like tyrants; to another,
that of compulsory service as trierarchs or tax-payers or soldiers; and
to another, only that of voting their condemnation, without taking any
share in the labour, nothing that ought to be done will be done in
time. For the injured section will always be in default, and you will
only have the privilege of punishing them instead of the enemy. {31} To
sum up, all must contribute, each according to his wealth, in a fair
proportion: all must go on active service in turn, until you have all
served: you must give a hearing to all who come forward, and choose the
best course out of all that you hear--not the course proposed by this
or that particular person. If you do this, you will not only commend
the proposer of that course at the time, but you will commend
yourselves hereafter, for the whole position of your affairs will be a
better one.


THE THIRD OLYNTHIAC

{1} Very different reflections suggest themselves to my mind, I men of
Athens, when I turn my eyes to our real situation, and when I think of
the speeches that I hear. For I observe that the speeches are all
concerned with the taking of vengeance upon Philip; whereas in reality
matters have gone so far, that we have to take care that we are not
ourselves the first to suffer: so that those who speak of vengeance are
actually, as it seems to me, suggesting to you a false conception of
the situation which you are discussing. {2} That there was a time when
the city could both keep her own possessions in safety, and punish
Philip, I am very well aware. For it was not long ago, but within my
own lifetime, that both these things were so. But I am convinced that
it is now quite enough for us as a first step to make sure of the
preservation of our allies. If this is safely secured, we shall then be
able to consider upon whom vengeance is to fall, and in what way. But
until the first step is properly conceived, I consider it idle to say
anything whatever about the last.

{3} If ever the most anxious deliberation was required, it is required
in the present crisis; and my greatest difficulty is not to know what
is the proper advice to give you in regard to the situation: I am at a
loss rather to know, men of Athens, in what manner I should address you
in giving it. For I am convinced by what I have heard with my own ears
in this place that, for the most part, the objects of our policy have
slipped from our grasp, not because we do not understand what our duty
is, but because we will not do it; and I ask you to suffer me, if I
speak without reserve, and to consider only whether I speak truly, and
with this object in view--that the future may be better than the past.
For you see that it is because certain speakers make your gratification
the aim of their addresses, that things have gone on getting worse,
till at last the extremity has been reached.

{4} I think it necessary, first, to remind you of a few of the events
which have taken place. You remember, men of Athens, that two or three
years ago[n] the news came that Philip was in Thrace, besieging Heraeon
Teichos. That was in the month of November. Amidst all the discussion
and commotion which took place in this Assembly, you passed a
resolution that forty warships should be launched, that men under
forty-five years of age should embark in person, and that we should pay
a war-tax of 60 talents. {5} That year came to an end, and there
followed July, August, September. In the latter month, after the
Mysteries,[n] and with reluctance, you dispatched Charidemus[n] with
ten ships, carrying no soldiers, and 5 talents of silver. For so soon
as news had come that Philip was sick or dead--both reports were
brought--you dismissed the armament, men of Athens, thinking that there
was no longer any occasion for the expedition. But it was the very
occasion; for had we then gone to the scene of action with the same
enthusiasm which marked our resolution to do so, Philip would not have
been preserved to trouble us to-day. {6} What was done then cannot be
altered. But now a critical moment in another campaign has arrived; and
it is in view of this, and to prevent you from falling into the same
error, that I have recalled these facts. How then shall we use this
opportunity, men of Athens? For unless you will go to the rescue 'with
might and main to the utmost of your power',[n] mark how in every
respect you will have served Philip's interest by your conduct of the
war. {7} At the outset the Olynthians possessed considerable strength,
and such was the position of affairs, that neither did Philip feel safe
against them, nor they against Philip. We made peace with them, and
they with us. It was as it were a stumbling-block in Philip's path, and
an annoyance to him, that a great city which had made a compact with us
should sit watching for any opportunity he might offer. We thought that
we ought to excite them to war with him by every means; and now this
much-talked-of event has come to pass--by what means, I need not
relate. {8} What course then is open to us, men of Athens, but to go to
their aid resolutely and eagerly? I can see none. Apart from the shame
in which we should be involved, if we let anything be lost through our
negligence, I can see, men of Athens, that the subsequent prospect
would be alarming in no small degree, when the attitude of the Thebans
towards us is what it is, when the funds of the Phocians are
exhausted,[n] and when there is no one to prevent Philip, so soon as he
has made himself master of all that at present occupies him, from
bringing his energies to bear upon the situation further south. {9} But
if any of you is putting off until then his determination to do his
duty, he must be desirous of seeing the terrors of war close at hand,
when he need only hear of them at a distance, and of seeking helpers
for himself, when now he can give help to others. For that this is what
it must come to, if we sacrifice the present opportunity, we must all,
I think, be fairly well aware.

{10} 'But,' some one may say, 'we have all made up our minds that we
must go to their aid, and we will go. Only tell us how we are to do
it.' Now do not be surprised, men of Athens, if I give an answer which
will be astonishing to most of you. You must appoint a Legislative
Commission.[n] But when the commissioners meet, you must not enact a
single law--you have laws enough--you must cancel the laws which, in
view of present circumstances, are injurious to you. {11} I mean the
laws which deal with the Festival Fund--to put it quite plainly--and
some of those which deal with military service: for the former
distribute your funds as festival-money to those who remain at home;
while the latter give immunity to malingerers,[n] and thereby also take
the heart out of those who want to do their duty. When you have
cancelled these laws, and made the path safe for one who would give the
best advice, then you can look for some one to propose what you all
know to be expedient. {12} But until you have done this, you must not
expect to find a man who will be glad to advise you for the best, and
be ruined by you for his pains; for you will find no one, particularly
when the only result will be that some unjust punishment will be
inflicted on the proposer or mover of such measures, and that instead
of helping matters at all, he will only have made it even more
dangerous in future than it is at present to give you the best advice.
Aye, and you should require the repeal of these laws, men of Athens,
from the very persons who proposed them.[n] {13} It is not fair that
those who originally proposed them should enjoy the popularity which
was fraught with such mischief to the whole State, and that the
unpopularity, which would lead to an improvement in the condition of us
all, should be visited to his cost upon one who now advises you for the
best. Until you have thus prepared the way, men of Athens, you must
entertain no expectation whatever that any one will be influential
enough here to transgress these laws with impunity, or senseless enough
to fling himself to certain ruin.

{14} At the same time, men of Athens, you must not fail to realize this
further point. No resolution is worth anything, without the willingness
to perform at least what you have resolved, and that heartily. For if
decrees by themselves could either compel you to do what you ought, or
could realize their several objects unaided, you would not be decreeing
many things and performing few--nay, none--of the things that you
decree, nor would Philip have insulted you so long. {15} If decrees
could have done it, he would have paid the penalty long ago. But it is
not so. Actions come later than speeches and voting in order of
procedure, but in effectiveness they are before either and stronger
than either. It is action that is still needed; all else you already
have. For you have those among you, men of Athens, who can tell you
what your duty is; and no one is quicker than you are to understand the
speaker's bidding. Aye, and you will be able to carry it out even now,
if you act aright. {16} What time, what opportunity, do you look for,
better than the present? When, if not now, will you do your duty? Has
not the man seized every position from us already? If he becomes master
of this country too, will not our fate be the most shameful in the
world? And the men whom we promised to be ready to save, if they went
to war--are they not now at war? {17} Is he not our enemy? Are not our
possessions in his hands? Is he not a barbarian? Is he not anything
that you choose to call him? In God's name, when we have let everything
go, when we have all but put everything into his hands, shall we then
inquire at large who is responsible for it all? That we shall never
admit our own responsibility, I am perfectly sure. Just so amid the
perils of war, none of those who have run away accuses himself; he
accuses his general, his neighbour--any one but himself; and yet, I
suppose, all who have run away have helped to cause the defeat. He who
now blames the rest might have stood fast; and if every one had done
so, the victory would have been theirs. {18} And so now, if a
particular speaker's advice is not the best, let another rise and make
a proposal, instead of blaming him; and if some other has better advice
to give, carry it out, and good fortune be with you. What? Is the
advice disagreeable? That is no longer the speaker's fault--unless, of
course, he leaves out the prayer that you expect of him. There is no
difficulty in the prayer, men of Athens; a man need only compress all
his desires into a short sentence. But to make his choice, when the
question for discussion is one of practical policy, is by no means
equally easy. _Then_ a man is bound to choose what is best, instead of
what is pleasant, if both are not possible at once. {19} But suppose
that some one is able, without touching the Festival Fund, to suggest
other sources of supply for military purposes--is not he the better
adviser? Certainly, men of Athens--if such a thing _is_ possible. But I
should be surprised if it ever has happened or ever should happen to
any one to find, after spending what he has upon wrong objects, that
what he has _not_ is wealth enough to enable him to effect right ones.
Such arguments as these find, I think, their great support in each
man's personal desire, and, for that reason, nothing is easier than to
deceive oneself; what a man desires, he actually fancies to be true.
{20} But the reality often follows no such principle. Consider the
matter, therefore, men of Athens, after this fashion; consider in what
way our objects can be realized under the circumstances, and in what
way you will be able to make the expedition and to receive your pay.
Surely it is not like sober or high-minded men to submit
light-heartedly to the reproach which must follow upon any shortcomings
in the operations of the war through want of funds--to seize your
weapons and march against Corinthians and Megareans,[n] and then to
allow Philip to enslave Hellenic cities, because you cannot find
rations for your troops.

{21} These words do not spring from a wanton determination to court the
ill-will of any party among you. I am neither so foolish nor so
unfortunate as to desire unpopularity when I do not believe that I am
doing any good. But a loyal citizen ought, in my judgement, to care
more for the safety of his country's fortunes than for the popularity
of his utterances. Such, I have heard, and perhaps you have heard it
also, was the principle which the orators of our forefather's time
habitually followed in public life--those orators who are praised by
all who rise to address you, though they are far from imitating
them--the great Aristides, and Nicias, and my own namesake, and
Pericles. {22} But ever since these speakers have appeared who are
always asking you, 'what would you like?' 'what may I propose for you?'
'what can I do to please you?' the interests of the city have been
wantonly given away for the sake of the pleasure and gratification of
the moment; and we see the consequences--the fortunes of the speakers
prosper, while your own are in a shameful plight. {23} And yet
consider, men of Athens, the main characteristics of the achievements
of your forefathers' time, and those of your own. The description will
be brief and familiar to you; for you need not have recourse to the
history of others, when your own will furnish examples, by following
which you may achieve prosperity. {24} Our forefathers, who were not
courted and caressed by their politicians as you are by these persons
to-day, were leaders of the Hellenes, with their goodwill, for
forty-five years;[n] they brought up into the Acropolis more than
10,000 talents; the king[n] who then ruled Macedonia obeyed them as a
foreigner ought to obey a Hellenic people; serving in person, they set
up many glorious trophies for victories by land and sea; and alone of
all mankind they left behind them, as the crown of their exploits, a
fame that is beyond the reach of envy. {25} Such was the part they
played in the Hellenic world: and now contemplate the manner of men
they were in the city, both in public and in private life. As public
men, they gave us buildings and objects of such beauty and grandeur, in
the temples which they built and the offerings which they dedicated in
them, that no room has been left for any of those that come after to
surpass them: while in priv

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