Page:History of Greece Vol XI.djvu/499

 SPEECH OF AESCHINES. 475 yourselves. You are here about to offer sacrifice and pray to the gods for good things, publicly and individually. Look well then, where will you find voice, or soul, or eyes, or courage, to pro- nounce such supplications, if you permit these accursed Amphis- sians to remain unpunished, when they have come under the im- precations of the recorded oath ? Recollect that the oath distinct- ly proclaims the sufferings awaiting all impious transgressors, and f.ven menaces those who tolerate their proceedings, by declaring, They who do not stand forward to vindicate Apollo, Artemis, Latona, and Athene Pronsea, may not sacrifice undefined or with favorable acceptance.' " Such is the graphic and impressive description, 1 given by ^Eschines himself some years afterwards to the Athenian assem- bly, of his own address to the Amphiktyonic meeting in spring 339 B. c. ; on the lofty sight of the Delphian Pylaea, with Kirrha and its plain spread out before his eyes, and with the ancient oath and all its fearful imprecations recorded on the brass plate hard by, readable by every one. His speech, received with loud shouts, roused violent passion in the bosoms of the Amphiktyons, as well as of the hearers assembled round. The audience at Delphi was not like that of Athens. Athenian citizens were ac- customed to excellent oratory, and to the task of balancing oppo- site arguments : though susceptible of high-wrought intellectual excitement admiration or repugnance as the case might be they discharged it all in the final vote, and then went home to their private affairs. But to the comparatively rude men at Del- phi, the speech of a first-rate Athenian orator was a rarity. When JEschines, with great rhetorical force, unexpectedly revived in their imaginations the ancient and terrific history of the curse of Kirrha 2 assisted by all the force of visible and local associa- tion they were worked up to madness ; while in such minds as theirs, the emotion raised would not pass off by simple voting, but requiied to be discharged by instant action. 1 JEschines adv. Ktesiph. p. 70. 3 Demosth. De CoronA, p. 277. ug <5e rb 1% iroZeuf a^iufia 2o/?i> ( JEs- chines) d^wcero elf Toi)'A.[j.(f>iKTvova, naira ru/U,' u, , aireipov; ual rb jj.i7J.ov ov irpoopuut-vov, rovf A^tj>iKTVovaf, ireidei ipi)iaa<idai etc 40*