Page:The World's Famous Orations Volume 1.djvu/272

 THE WORLD'S FAMOUS ORATIONS baseness and treachery to his friends, he must acquire the character of a consummate patriot. The enemies of our tranquillity perceived his designs: they at once invited him to the gallery, and extolled him as the only man who disdained to betray the public interest for a bribe. The moment he appeared he kindled up the flame of war and confusion. He it was, Athenians, who first found out the Serrian fort, and Doriscum, and Ergiske, and Murgiske, and Ganos, and Ganides—places whose very names were hitherto utterly unknown; and such was his power in perverting and perplexing, that if Philip declined to send his ministers to Athens, he represented it as a contemptuous insult on the state; if he did send them, they were spies and not ministers; if he inclined to submit his disputes with us to some impartial mediating state, no equal umpire could be found, he said, between us and Philip. This prince gave us up the Halonesus; but he insisted that we should not receive it unless it was declared, not that he resigned, but restored—thus caviling about syllables. And to crown all his conduct, by paying public honors to those who had carried their arms into Thessaly and Magnesia, under the command of Aristodemus, in direct violation of the treaty, he dissolved the peace, and prepared the way for calamity and war.

When he had finished he presented a decree to the secretary longer than the Iliad, more frivolous than the speeches which he usually