Page:The World's Famous Orations Volume 1.djvu/291

 ÆSCHINES pomp? Should any of these tragic poets whose works are to succeed our public proclamations represent Thersites crowned by the Greeks, no man could endure it, because Homer marks him as a coward and a sycophant: and can you imagine that you yourselves will not by the decision of all Greece of this man be permitted to receive his crown? In former times your fathers ascribed everything glorious and illustrious in the public fortune to the people; transferred the blame of everything mean and dishonorable to bad ministers. But now Ctesiphon would persuade you to divest Demosthenes of his ignominy, and to cast it on the state. You acknowledge that you are favored by fortune; and justly, for you are so favored; and will you now declare by your sentence that fortune hath abandoned you; that Demosthenes hath been your only benefactor? Will you proceed to the last absurdity, and in the very same tribunals condemn those to infamy whom you have detected in corruption; and yet confer a crown on him whose whole administration you are sensible hath been one series of corruption? In our public spectacles, the judges of our common dancers are at once fined if they decide unjustly; and will you who are appointed judges, not of dancing, but of the laws, and of public virtue, confer honors not agreeably to the laws, not on a few, and those most eminent in merit, but on any man who can establish his influence by intrigue?

And here, in your presence, would I gladly