Page:The World's Famous Orations Volume 1.djvu/177

 DEMOSTHENES opinion; but his attack on Lacedæmon, in conjunction with the Thebans and Argians, is not yet to be made. No: he is actually detaching forces, supplying money, and is himself expected at the head of a formidable army. The Lacedæmonians, therefore, the enemies of Thebes, he now infests. And will he then restore the Phocians, whom he has but just now ruined? Who can believe this? I, for my part, can never think, if Philip had been forced into those former measures, or if he had now abandoned the Thebans, that he would make this continued opposition to their enemies. No, his present measures prove that all his past conduct was the effect of choice; and from all his actions, it appears that all his actions are directly leveled against this state; and there is in some sort a necessity for this. Consider, he aims at empire, and from you alone he expects opposition. He has long loaded us with injuries; and of this he himself is most intimately conscious; for those of our possessions which he has reduced to his service he uses as a barrier to his other territories: so that, if he should give up Amphipolis and Potidæa, he would not think himself secure even in Macedon. He is therefore sensible that he entertains designs against you, and that you perceive them. Then, as he thinks highly of your wisdom, he concludes that you must hold him in that abhorrence which he merits: hence is he alarmed, expecting to feel some effects of your resentment (if you have any favorable