Page:History of Greece Vol XI.djvu/342

 *16 HISTORY OF GREECE. officers her tei generals, ten taxiarchs, ten phylarchs, and two hipparchs, annually chosen were busied only in the affairs cf the city and in the showy religious processions. They left the real business of war to a foreign genaral named Menelaus. 1 Such a system was disgraceful. The honor of Athens ought to be maintained by her own citizens, both as generals and as soldiers. Such are the principal features in the discourse called the First Philippic ; the earliest public harangue delivered by Demosthe nes to the Athenian assembly, in reference to the war with Philip. It is not merely a splendid piece of oratory, emphatic and forcible in its appeal to the emotions ; bringing the audience by many dif- ferent roads, to the main conviction which the orator seeks to im- press ; profoundly animated with genuine Pan-hellenic patriotism, and with the dignity of that free Grecian world now threatened by a monarch from without. It has other merits besides, not less important ia themselves, and lying more immediately within the scope of the historian. We find Demosthenes, yet only thirty years old young in political life and thirteen years before the battle of C'haeroneia taking accurate measure of the political relations between Athens and Philip ; examining those relations during the past, pointing out how they had become every year more unfavorable, and foretelling the dangerous contingencies of the future, unless better precautions were taken ; exposing with courageous frankness not only the past mismanagement of public men, but also those defective dispositions of the people themselves wherein such management had its root ; lastly, after fault found, adventuring on his own responsibility to propose specific measures of correction, and urging upon reluctant citizens a painful imposi- tion of personal hardship as well as of taxation. We shall find him insisting on the same obligation, irksome alike to the leading politicians and to the people, 2 throughout all the Olynthiacs and 1 Demosthen. Philipp. i. p. 47. Inel vvv ye AeAuf ecr$' (if .-juM?t9o rots rrpuyfiaai. 3 Demosthenes, Philippic i. p. 54 s.58. 'Ey> uev ovv OUT' d^ore mirror- jrpof xiipw e'M/j.r)v heyetv, 5,Tt uv firj Kal cvvoiaeiv v/uiv TreTreifffiEvof w, vw ft. a yiyvuoKu iravd' aTr/lwf, ovdev {>7roffm/la//evof, nsTrappijaiaauai. 'E/3ov koutjv <5' uv, uanep on vplv av/i(j>Epi ra /Jfe'/lrurra UKOVEIV olda, oiiruf eldeva, nov ital Ty'ru p&Tiara E'nrbvr:- Tto7d,y yap uv fj&iQv ('TOV. Nyj; 6' kv