Page:The World's Famous Orations Volume 1.djvu/274

 THE WORLD'S FAMOUS ORATIONS lost the contributions of your allies, you were defrauded of ten talents.

It remains that I inform you of the real motive which prompted Demosthenes to procure this decree; and that was a bribe of three talents—one received from Chalcis, by the hands of Callias, another from Eretia, by Clitarchus, the sovereign of this state; the third paid by Oreum, by which means the stipulation was discovered; for as Oreum is a free state, all things are there transacted by a public decree. And as the people of this city had been quite exhausted in the war with Philip, and reduced to the utmost indigence, they sent over Gnosidemus, who had once been their sovereign, to entreat Demosthenes to remit the talent, promising, on this condition, to honor him with a statue of bronze, to be erected in their city. He answered their deputy, that he had not the least occasion for their paltry brass; that he insisted on his stipulation, which Callias should prosecute. The people of Oreum, thus pressed by their creditor, and not prepared to satisfy him, mortgaged their public revenues to Demosthenes for this talent, and paid him interest at the rate of one drachma a month for each mina, until they were enabled to discharge the principal. And, to prove this, I produce the decree of the Oreitans.

Here is a decree, Athenians, scandalous to our country. It is no small indication of the general conduct of Demosthenes, and it is an evidence of the most flagrant kind, which must