Page:The World's Famous Orations Volume 1.djvu/194

 THE WORLD'S FAMOUS ORATIONS can never be secure while you continue free; but that, if once he meets with any accident (and every man is subject to many), all those whom he has forced into his service will instantly revolt, and fly to you for protection; for you are not naturally disposed to grasp at empire yourselves, but to frustrate the ambitious attempts of others; to be ever ready to oppose usurpation, and assert the liberty of mankind; this is your peculiar character. And therefore it is not without regret that he sees in your freedom a spy on the incidents of his fortune. Nor is this his reasoning weak or trivial.

In the first place, therefore, we are to consider him as the enemy of our state, the implacable enemy of our free constitution. Nothing but the deepest sense of this can give you a true, vigorous, and active spirit. In the next place, be assured that everything he is now laboring, everything he is concerting, he is concerting against our city; and that wherever any man opposes him, he opposes an attempt against these walls; for none of you can be weak enough to imagine that Philip's desires are centered in those paltry villages of Thrace (for what name else can one give to Drongilus, and Cabyle, and Mastira, and all those places he is now reducing to his obedience?); that he endures the severity of toils and seasons, and braves the utmost dangers for these, and has no designs on the ports, and the arsenals, and the navies, and the silver mines, and all the other revenues of Athens,