Page:The World's Famous Orations Volume 1.djvu/226

 THE WORLD'S FAMOUS ORATIONS war in Amphissa, and his coadjutors had helped to establish enmity with Thebes, Philip marched against us—that was the object for which these persons embroiled the states—and had we not roused up a little in time, we could never have recovered ourselves: so far had these men carried matters.

Now, Æschines, how would you have me describe you, and how myself, upon that day? Shall I call myself Batalus, your nickname of reproach, and you not even a hero of the common sort, but one of those upon the stage, Cresphontes or Creon, or the Œnomaus whom you execrably murdered once at Colyttus? Well; upon that occasion I the Batalus of Pæania was more serviceable to the state than you the Œnomaus cf Cothocidæ. You were of no earthly use; I did everything which became a good citizen.

Had I attempted to say, that I instructed you in sentiments worthy of your ancestors, there is not a man who would not justly rebuke me. What I declare is, that such principles are your own; I show that before my time such was the spirit of the commonwealth; tho certainly in the execution of the particular measures I claim a share also for myself. The prosecutor, arraigning the whole proceedings, and embittering you against me as the cause of our alarms and dangers, in his eagerness to deprive me of honor for the moment, robs you of the eulogies that should endure for ever. For should you, under a disbelief in the wisdom of my policy convict 164