Page:Demosthenes (Brodribb).djvu/93

Rh citizens, instead of mercenaries commanded by men of the type of the officer whose misconduct, as we have seen, had given them so much offence. Of all the political orations of Demosthenes, this is perhaps the most stirring and impressive. It is, in the opinion of Mr Grote, one of the most splendid harangues ever spoken. It seems that people at Athens still talked about punishing Philip; and there were orators, no doubt, who flattered them into the notion that they could do so whenever they chose. "Such talk," says Demosthenes, "is founded on a false basis. The facts of the case teach us a different lesson. They bid us look well to our own security, that we be not ourselves the sufferers, and that we preserve our allies. There was, indeed, a time—and that, too, within my own remembrance—when we might have held our own, and punished Philip besides; but now our first care must be to preserve our own allies." In this speech he ventures on a bold proposal, which would be sure to provoke bitter opposition from the peace party of Eubulus. "Repeal such of the existing laws as are injurious at the present crisis—I mean those which regard the public entertainments fund. I speak this out plainly. The same men who proposed such a law ought also to take upon them to propose its repeal." In speaking thus, Demosthenes knew that he was fighting against a most powerful Athenian sentiment. It would cost them a painful struggle to sacrifice the fund in question to the exigencies of a war which also demanded personal service. They could hardly become like the men who won Marathon and Salamis. There was the broadest