Page:The World's Famous Orations Volume 1.djvu/214

 THE WORLD'S FAMOUS ORATIONS and inconsiderable place, to possess such inborn magnanimity, as to aspire to the mastery of Greece and form the project in his mind, while you, who were Athenians, day after day in speeches and in dramas reminded of the virtue of your ancestors, should have been so naturally base, as of your own free will and accord to surrender to Philip the liberty of Greece. No man will say this!

The only course then that remained was a just resistance to all his attacks upon you. Such course you took from the beginning, properly and becomingly; and I assisted by motions and counsels during the period of my political life:—I acknowledge it. But what should I have done? Was it meet that any of the Greeks should rise up to prevent these proceedings, or not? If not—if Greece was to present the spectacle (as it is called) of a Mysian prey, while Athenians had life and being, then I have exceeded my duty in speaking on the subject—the commonwealth has exceeded her duty, which followed my counsels—I admit that every measure has been a misdeed, a blunder of mine. But if some one ought to have arisen to prevent these things, who but the Athenian people should it have been? Such then was the policy which I espoused. I saw him reducing all men to subjection, and I opposed him; I continued warning and exhorting you not to make these sacrifices to Philip.

When Philip therefore was driven out of Eubœa, with arms by you, with counsels and decrees— 152