Page:The World's Famous Orations Volume 1.djvu/285

 ÆSCHINES penalties with the man directly convicted of cowardice; for there are laws enacted against cowardice. It may, perhaps, seem wonderful that the law should take cognizance of a natural infirmity, but such is the fact. And why? That every one of us may dread the punishment denounced by the law more than the enemy, and thus prove the better soldier in the cause of his country. The man, then, who declines the service of the field, the coward, and he who leaves his post in battle, are by our lawgiver excluded from all share in public deliberations, rendered incapable of receiving the honor of a crown, and denied admission to the religious rites performed by the public. But you direct us to crown a person whom the laws declare to be incapable of receiving a crown; and by your decree you introduce a man into the theater who is disqualified from appearing there; you call him into a place sacred to Bacchus, who, by his cowardice, hath betrayed all our sacred places. But that I may not divert you from the great point, remember this: when Demosthenes tells you that he is a friend to liberty, examine not his speeches, but his actions; and consider not what he professes to be, but what he really is.

And now that I have mentioned crowns and public honors, while it yet rests on my mind, let me recommend this precaution. It will be your part, Athenians, to put an end to this frequency of public honors, these precipitate grants of crowns; else they who obtain then; will