Page:Demosthenes (Brodribb).djvu/121

Rh, would humble their old enemy Thebes, and give them Oropus and Eubœa in exchange for Amphipolis.

"All these declarations on the hustings," he says, with the Philippising party in his eye, "I am sure you remember, though you are not famous for remembering injuries. While the mischief is only coming and preparing, whilst we hear one another speak, I wish every man, though he know it well, to be reminded who it was persuaded you to abandon Phocis and Thermopylæ, by the possession of which Philip commands the road to Attica and Peloponnese, and has brought it to this, that you have now to deliberate, not about claims and interests abroad, but about the defence of your home and a war in Attica, which will be a grievous shock to every citizen when it comes; and indeed it commenced from that day of your infatuation. Had you not been then deceived, there would be nothing now to distress the State."

One point insisted on in this speech is, that the struggle in the Greek states was no longer, as it had hitherto been, one between aristocracy and democracy, but between Philip's party and its opponents.

The following year witnessed a memorable contest between Demosthenes and Æschines. It arose out of the embassies to Philip and the various negotiations with him, which ended, as we have seen, so unfortunately for Athens and Greece. Æchines, it will be remembered, was an adherent of the peace party of Eubulus; and Demosthenes now made a great effort