The Public Orations of Demosthenes/On the Crown

Introduction
The advice given by Demosthenes in the Third Philippic (spoken before the middle of 341) was in the main followed. He himself was sent almost immediately to Byzantium, where he renewed the alliance between that city and Athens, and at the same time entered into relations with Abydos and the Thracian princes. Rhodes, and probably Chios and Cos, were also conciliated, and an embassy was sent to the King of Persia to ask for aid against Philip. The king appears to have sent assistance to Diopeithes, and it is also stated (not on the best authority) that he sent large sums of money to Demosthenes and Hypereides. Demosthenes further succeeded, in conjunction with Callias of Chalcis, in organizing a league against Philip, which included Corinth, Megara, Corcyra, and the Acarnanians, and which at least supplied a considerable number of men and some funds. The cities of Euboea, most of which had been in the hands of Philip's party, were also formed into a confederacy, in alliance with Athens, under the leadership of Chalcis; Philistides was expelled from Oreus, about July 341, by the allied forces under Cephisophon; and later in the summer, Phocion drove Cleitarchus from Eretria. On the motion of Aristonicus, the Athenians voted Demosthenes a golden crown, which was conferred on him in the theatre at the Great Dionysia in March 340. The arrest of Anaxinus of Oreus, and his condemnation as a spy, acting in Philip's interest, must have occurred about the same time. Not long afterwards Demosthenes succeeded in carrying out a complete reorganization of the trierarchic system, by which he made the burden of the expense vary strictly according to property, and secured a regular and efficient supply of ships, money, and men.

In the meantime (in 341 or 340) the island of Peparethus was attacked by Philip's ships, in revenge for the seizure of the Macedonian garrison in Halonnesus by the Peparethians: and the Athenian admirals were ordered to retaliate. Philip himself had been pursuing his course in Thrace; and on the rejection of his request to Byzantium for an alliance, he laid siege (late in 340) to Perinthus (which lay on his way to Byzantium), sending part of his forces through the Chersonese. Aided by Byzantine and Persian soldiers, Perinthus held out, till at last Philip took off most of his forces and besieged Byzantium itself. He had shortly before this sent to Athens an express declaration of war, and received a similar declaration from her, the formal excuse for which was found in the recent seizure by his ships of some Athenian merchant-vessels. But with help from Athens, Chios, Rhodes, and Cos, the Byzantines maintained the defence. Philip's position became serious; but he managed by a ruse to get his ships away into the open sea, and even to do some damage to the Athenian settlers in the Chersonese. In the winter he withdrew from Byzantium, and in 339 made an incursion into Scythia; but, returning through the country of the Triballi, he sustained some loss, and was severely wounded. Later in the year a new Sacred War which had arisen gave him a convenient opportunity for the invasion of Greece.

At the meeting of the Amphictyonic Council in the autumn of 340, Aeschines was one of the representatives of Athens. The Athenians had recently offended Thebes by re-gilding and dedicating in the restored temple at Delphi fifty shields, with an inscription stating that they were spoil 'taken from the Medes and the Thebans, when they fought against the Hellenes' (probably at Plataeae in 479). The Locrians of Amphissa intended (according to Aeschines' account) to propose that the Council should fine Athens fifty talents. Aeschines rose to state the case for Athens; but a delegate from Amphissa forbade all mention of the Athenians, and demanded their exclusion from the temple, on the ground of their alliance with the accursed Phocians. Aeschines retorted by charging the Amphisseans with cultivating and building upon the sacred plain of Cirrha--acts forbidden for all time in 586 B.C.--and roused the Council to such indignation that they gathered a body of men and destroyed the harbour and the unlawful buildings of Cirrha; but they were severely handled by the Amphisseans, and the Council now voted that the Amphictyonic states should send representatives, to discuss the question of war against Amphissa, to a meeting to be held at Thermopylae before the spring meeting of the Council. To this preliminary meeting, the Athenians (though inclined to view Aeschines' performance with favour), on the advice of Demosthenes, sent no representatives; nor did the Thebans (the allies of Amphissa). War was declared by the Amphictyons against Amphissa; but Cottyphus, the Thessalian, who had been appointed general, made little headway, and (at the spring or the autumn meeting of the Council) declared that the Amphictyonic states must either send men and money, or else make Philip their general. Philip was, of course, at once appointed; but instead of proceeding against Amphissa, marched to Elateia and fortified it. This caused the greatest alarm at Athens. Demosthenes was immediately dispatched to Thebes, where he succeeded, by what appear to have been liberal and judicious proposals, in making an alliance between Thebes and Athens, in spite of the attempts of Philip's envoys to counteract his influence. Euboea, Megara, Corinth, and other members of the league also sent help. Philip himself called upon his own friends in the Peloponnese for aid, and at last moved towards Amphissa. Demosthenes seems now to have succeeded in applying the festival-money to purposes of war, and with the aid of Lycurgus, who became Controller of the Festival Fund, to have amassed a large sum for the use of the State. At the Dionysia of 338 he was again crowned, on the proposal of Demomeles and Hypereides. The allies at first won some successes and refortified some of the Phocian towns, but afterwards unfortunately divided their forces, and so enabled Philip to defeat the two divisions separately, and to destroy Amphissa. Philip's proposals of peace found supporters both in Thebes and in Athens, but were counteracted by Demosthenes. Late in the summer of 338, the decisive battle was fought at Chaeroneia, and resulted in the total rout of the allies. Demosthenes himself was one of the fugitives. Philip placed a Macedonian garrison in Thebes, restored his exiled friends to power there, established a Council of Three Hundred, and (through them) put to death or banished his enemies. He also gave Orchomenus, Thespiae, and Plataeae their independence. After a moment of panic, the Athenians, led by Demosthenes, Lycurgus, and Hypereides, proceeded to take all possible measures for the defence of the city, while private munificence supplied the treasury. Demosthenes himself superintended the repair of the fortifications, and went on a mission to secure a supply of corn. But Philip, instead of marching upon Athens, sent a message by Demades, whom he had taken prisoner at Chaeroneia; and the Assembly, in reply, instructed Demades, Aeschines, and Phocion to ask Philip to release his Athenian prisoners. Philip released them without ransom, and sent Antipater and Alexander (with the ashes of the Athenian dead) to offer terms of peace. By the 'Peace of Demades', concluded while Demosthenes was still absent, the alliance between Athens and Philip was renewed; the independence of Athens was guaranteed; Oropus was taken from Thebes and restored to Athens; and she was permitted to retain Salamis, Samos, Delos, and probably Lemnos and Imbros. On the other hand, she lost all her possessions on the Hellespont and in the Chersonese, and promised to join the league which Philip intended to form for the invasion of Persia. Demosthenes was selected by the Assembly to deliver the funeral oration upon those who fell at Chaeroneia; and although the Macedonian party attacked him repeatedly in the law-courts, he was always acquitted. Philip paid a long visit to the Peloponnese, in the course of which he placed a Macedonian garrison in Corinth, ravaged Laconia, giving parts of it to his allies, the Argives and Arcadians, and announced his plans for the invasion of Persia at the head of the Greeks; he then returned to Macedonia.

In 337 Demosthenes was again Commissioner of Fortifications, as well as Controller of the Festival Fund--the most important office in the State. He not only performed his work most efficiently, but gave considerable sums for public purposes out of his private fortune; and early in 336 Ctesiphon proposed, and the Council resolved, that he should once more be crowned at the Dionysia. But before the proposal could be brought before the Assembly, Aeschines indicted Ctesiphon for its alleged illegality. The trial did not take place until late in the summer of 330. We do not know the reason for so long a delay, but probably the events of the intervening time were such as to render the state of public feeling unfavourable to Aeschines. In 336 Philip was assassinated, and was succeeded by Alexander. In 335 Alexander destroyed Thebes, which had revolted, and sold its inhabitants into slavery. He also demanded from Athens the surrender of Demosthenes and other anti-Macedonian politicians and generals, but was persuaded to be content with the banishment of Charidemus and Ephialtes, and the promise of the prosecution of Demosthenes for using subsidies from Persia to help Thebes--a prosecution which was allowed to drop. From 334 onwards Alexander was pursuing his conquests in the East, and we know practically nothing of the history of Athens until the trial of Ctesiphon came on in 330.

Aeschines alleged against Ctesiphon (1) that it was illegal to propose to crown any one who had not passed his examination before the Board of Auditors at the end of his term of office; and that Demosthenes, who had been Commissioner of Fortifications and Controller of the Festival Fund, was still in this position: (2) that it was illegal to proclaim the grant of a crown at the Dionysia, except in the case of crowns conferred by foreign states: (3) that it was illegal to insert untrue statements in the public records, and that the language in which Ctesiphon's decree described the political career of Demosthenes was untrue. On the first point Aeschines was almost certainly right: Demosthenes' defence is sophistical, and all that could really be said was that the rule had often been broken before. On the second point, certainty is impossible: the most probable view (though it also has its difficulties) is that there were two inconsistent laws, and that one of them permitted the proclamation in the theatre, if expressly voted by the people; but the alleged illegality had certainly been often committed. The third point, which raised the question of the value to Athens of Demosthenes' whole political life, was that upon which the case really turned; and it is to this that Demosthenes devotes the greater part of his speech, breaking up his reply into convenient stages by discussions (of a far less happy description) of the other counts of the indictment, and of the character and career of Aeschines. As in the Speech on the Embassy, certain facts are misrepresented, and there are passages which are in bad taste; but Demosthenes proves beyond doubt his unswerving loyalty to the high ideal of policy which he had formed for his country, and it is with good reason that parts of this speech have always been felt to reach a height of eloquence which has never been surpassed.

The jury acquitted Ctesiphon: and Aeschines, failing to obtain a fifth part of the votes, and thus incurring a heavy fine and the loss of some of the rights of a citizen, left Athens, and lived most of the remainder of his life at Rhodes.

The following is an analysis of the speech in outline:--


 * I. Introduction (Sec.Sec. 1-8).
 * II. Defence against charges irrelevant to the indictment (Sec.Sec. 9-52).
 * (1) Introduction (Sec. 9).
 * (2) Postponement of reply to charges against his private life (Sec.Sec. 10, 11).
 * (3) Reply to charges against his public life (Sec.Sec. 12-52).
 * (a) Criticism of Aeschines' method of attack (Sec.Sec. 12-16).
 * (b) Reply in reference to the Peace of Philocrates (Sec.Sec. 17-52).
 * III. Defence against the indictment itself (Sec.Sec. 53-125).
 * (1) Introduction (Sec.Sec. 53-9).
 * (2) Defence of his policy B.C. 346-340 (Sec.Sec. 60-109).
 * (3) The alleged illegality of crowning him before he had passed his audit (Sec.Sec. 110-19).
 * (4) The alleged illegality of the proclamation in the theatre (Sec.Sec. 120, 121).
 * (5) Conclusion, including criticism of Aeschines' method of attack (Sec.Sec. 122-5).


 * IV. Aeschines' life and character (Sec.Sec. 126-59).
 * (1) Introduction (Sec.Sec. 126-8).
 * (2) Parentage and early life of Aeschines (Sec.Sec. 129-31).
 * (3) Aeschines' connexion with Antiphon, Python, Anaxinus, and others (Sec.Sec. 132-8).
 * (4) Aeschines' part in stirring up the war against Amphissa in 339 (Sec.Sec. 139-59).


 * V. Demosthenes' own policy in 339 and 338 (Sec.Sec. 160-226).
 * (1) Narrative and defence of the alliance with Thebes (Sec.Sec. 160-95).
 * (2) Why did not Aeschines protest at the time? (Sec.Sec. 196-8).
 * (3) Defence of his policy as true to the spirit of Athenian history (Sec.Sec. 199-210).
 * (4) Narrative and defence, continued (Sec.Sec. 211-22).
 * (5) Further criticism of Aeschines' method of attack (Sec.Sec. 223-6).


 * VI. Replies to various arguments of Aeschines (Sec.Sec. 227-96).
 * (1) Aeschines' comparison of the inquiry to the examination of a balance-sheet (Sec.Sec. 227-31).
 * (2) A proper inquiry would show that Demosthenes had increased the resources of Athens (Sec.Sec. 232-7).
 * (3) Reply to the charge of saddling Athens with an undue share of the expense of the war (Sec.Sec. 238-43).
 * (4) Reply to the charge of responsibility for the defeat of Chaeroneia (Sec.Sec. 244-7).
 * (5) Vindication of his policy after the battle of Chaeroneia (Sec.Sec. 248-51).
 * (6) Reply to Aeschines' remarks about the harm done to Athens by Demosthenes' bad fortune (Sec.Sec. 252-75).
 * (a) General remarks (Sec.Sec. 252-5).
 * (b) The fortune of Demosthenes (Sec.Sec. 257, 258).
 * (c) The fortune of Aeschines (Sec.Sec. 259-64).
 * (d) Comparison of the two (Sec.Sec. 265, 266).
 * (e) Demosthenes' use of his fortune for purposes of public and private munificence (Sec.Sec. 267-9).
 * (f) Demosthenes not responsible for the misfortunes of Athens (Sec.Sec. 270-5).
 * (7) Reply to Aeschines' warning against Demosthenes' cleverness (Sec.Sec. 276-90).
 * (a) Comparison of the use made of their talents by the two orators (Sec.Sec. 276-84).
 * (b) The choice of Demosthenes, not Aeschines, to deliver the Funeral Oration (Sec.Sec. 285-90).
 * (8) Aeschines' feelings about the defeat of Chaeroneia (Sec.Sec. 291-3).
 * (9) The part played by traitors in recent history (Sec.Sec. 294-6).


 * VII. Epilogue (Sec.Sec. 297-324).
 * (1) Demosthenes' incorruptibility (Sec.Sec. 297, 298).
 * (2) Demosthenes' measures for the protection of Athens (Sec.Sec. 299-305).
 * (3) Comparison of the services of the two orators to Athens (Sec.Sec. 306-13).
 * (4) Reply to the comparison of Demosthenes with the men of old, by a final comparison of the two orators (Sec.Sec. 314-23).
 * (5) Peroration (Sec. 324).

Text
I pray first, men of Athens, to every god and goddess, that the goodwill, which I ever feel towards this city and towards all of you, may in equal measure be vouchsafed to me by you at this present trial: and secondly--a prayer which especially touches yourselves, your consciences, and your reputation--that the gods may put it into your minds not to take counsel of my adversary in regard to the spirit in which you ought to hear me (for that would surely be a cruel thing), but of the laws and of your oath; wherein besides all other precepts of justice, this also is written--that you shall listen to both sides with a like mind. And this means, not only that you should have formed no prejudice, and should accord equal goodwill to each, but also that you should give leave to every man who pleads before you to adopt that order, and make that defence, upon which he has resolved and fixed his choice.

I am in many respects at a disadvantage in the present controversy, as compared with Aeschines; and particularly, men of Athens, in two points of importance. The first is that I am not contending for the same stake as he. It is not the same thing for me to lose your goodwill now, as it is for him to fail to win his case; since for me--but I would say nothing unpleasant * at the opening of my address--I say only that Aeschines can well afford to risk this attack upon me. The second disadvantage lies in the natural and universal tendency of mankind to hear invective and denunciation with pleasure, and to be offended with those who praise themselves. And of the two courses in question, that which contributes to men's pleasure has been given to Aeschines, and that which annoys (I may say) every one is left for me. If, to avoid giving such annoyance, I say nothing of all that I myself have done, it will be thought that I am unable to clear myself of the charges against me, or to show the grounds upon which I claim to deserve distinction. If, on the other hand, I proceed to speak of my past acts and my political life, I shall often be compelled to speak of myself. I will endeavour, then, to do this as modestly as possible; and for all that the necessities of the case compel me to say, the blame must in fairness be borne by the prosecutor, who initiated a trial of such a kind as this.

I think, men of Athens, that you would all admit that this present trial equally concerns myself and Ctesiphon, and demands no less earnest attention from me than from him. For while it is a painful and a grievous thing for a man to be robbed of anything, particularly if it is at the hands of an enemy that this befalls him, it is especially so, when he is robbed of your goodwill and kindness, just in proportion as to win these is the greatest possible gain. And because such is the issue at stake in the present trial, I request and entreat you all alike to give me, while I make my defence upon the charges that have been brought against me, a fair hearing, as you are commanded to do by the laws--those laws to which their original maker, your well-wisher and the People's friend, Solon, thought fit to give the sanction not of enactment only, but also of an oath on the part of those who act as judges: not because he distrusted you (so at least it seems to me), but because he saw that a defendant cannot escape from the imputations and the slanders which fall with special force from the prosecutor, because he is the first to speak, unless each of you who sit in judgement, keeping his conscience pure in the sight of God, will receive the pleadings of the later speaker also with the same favour, and will thus, because his attention has been given equally and impartially to both sides, form his decision upon the case in its entirety.

And now, when I am about, as it seems, to render an account of my whole private life and public career, I would once more invoke the aid of the gods; and in the presence of you all I pray, first, that the goodwill which I ever feel towards this city and towards all of you, may in equal measure be vouchsafed to me by you at this trial; and secondly, that whatsoever judgement upon this present suit will conduce to your public reputation, and the purity of each man's conscience, that judgement they may put it into all your minds to give.

Now if Aeschines had confined his charges to the subject of the indictment, I too, in making my defence, would have dealt at once with the actual resolution of the Council. But since he has devoted no less a portion of his speech to the relation of other matters, and for the most part has spoken against me falsely, I think it is necessary, and at the same time just, that I should deal briefly, men of Athens, with these, in order that none of you may be led by irrelevant arguments to listen less favourably to my pleas in answer to the indictment itself.

As for his slanderous vituperation of my private life, mark how straightforward and how just is the reply that I make. If you know me as the man that he charged me with being (for my life has been spent nowhere but in your own midst), do not even suffer me to speak--no, not though my whole public career has been one of transcendent merit--but rise and condemn me without delay. But if, in your judgement and belief, I am a better man than Aeschines, and come of better men; if I and mine are no worse than any other respectable persons (to use no offensive expression); then do not trust him even in regard to other points, for it is plain that all that he said was equally fictitious; but once more accord to me to-day the goodwill which throughout the past you have so often displayed towards me in previous trials. Knave as you are, Aeschines, you were assuredly more fool than knave, when you thought that I should dismiss all that I had to say with regard to my past acts and political life, and should turn to meet the abuse that fell from you. I shall not do so; I am not so brain-sick; but I will review the falsehoods and the calumnies which you uttered against my political career; and then, if the court desires it, I will afterwards refer to the ribald language that has been so incontinently used.

The offences charged against me are many; and for some of them the laws assign heavy and even the most extreme penalties. But I will tell you what is the motive which animates the present suit. It gives play to the malice of a personal enemy, to his insolence, his abuse, his contumelies, and every expression of his hostility: and yet, assuming that the charges and the imputations which have been made are true, it does not enable the State to exact a penalty that is adequate, or nearly adequate, to the offences. For it is not right to seek to debar another from coming before the people and receiving a hearing, nor to do so in a spirit of malice and envy. Heaven knows, it is neither straightforward, nor citizen- like, nor just, men of Athens! If the crimes by which he saw me injuring the city were of such a magnitude as he just now so theatrically set forth, he should have had recourse to the punishments enjoined by the laws at the time of the crimes themselves. If he saw me so acting as to deserve impeachment, he should have impeached me, and so brought me to trial before you; if he saw me proposing illegal measures, he should have indicted me for their illegality. For surely, if he can prosecute Ctesiphon on my account, he would not have failed to indict me in person, had he thought that he could convict me. And further, if he saw me committing any of those other crimes against you, which he just now slanderously enumerated, or any other crimes whatsoever, there are laws which deal with each, and punishments, and lawsuits and judgements involving penalties that are harsh and severe: to all of these he could have had recourse; and from the moment when it was seen that he had acted so, and had conducted his hostilities against me on that plan, his present accusation of me would have been in line with his past conduct. But as it is, he has forsaken the straight path of justice; he has shrunk from all attempts to convict me at the time; and after all these years, with the imputations, the jests, the invectives, that he has accumulated, he appears to play his part. So it is, that though his accusations are against me, it is Ctesiphon that he prosecutes; and though he sets his quarrel with me in the forefront of the whole suit, he has never faced me in person to settle the quarrel, and it is another whom we see him trying to deprive of his civil rights. Yet surely, besides everything else that may be pleaded on behalf of Ctesiphon, this, I think, may surely be most reasonably urged--that we ought in justice to have brought our own quarrel to the test by ourselves, instead of avoiding all conflict with one another, and looking for a third party to whom we could do harm. Such iniquity really passes all bounds.

From this one may see the nature of all his charges alike, uttered, as they have been, without justice or regard for truth. Yet I desire also to examine them severally, and more particularly the false statements which he made against me in regard to the Peace and the Embassy, when he ascribed to me the things which he himself had done in conjunction with Philocrates. And here it is necessary, men of Athens, and perhaps appropriate, that I should remind you of the state of affairs subsisting during that period, so that you may view each group of actions in the light of the circumstances of the time.

When the Phocian war had broken out (not through any action of mine, for I had not yet entered public life), your own attitude, in the first place, was such, that you wished for the preservation of the Phocians, although you saw that their actions were unjustifiable; while you would have been delighted at anything that might happen to the Thebans, against whom you felt an indignation that was neither unreasonable nor unfair; for they had not used their good fortune at Leuctra with moderation. And, in the second place, the Peloponnese was all disunited: those who detested the Spartans were not strong enough to annihilate them, and those who had previously governed with the support of Sparta were no longer able to maintain their control over their cities; but both these and all the other states were in a condition of indeterminate strife and confusion. When Philip saw this (for it was not hard to see), he tried, by dispensing money to the traitors whom each state contained, to throw them all into collision and stir up one against another; and thus, amid the blunders and perversity of others, he was making his own preparations, and growing great to the danger of all. And when it became clear to all that the then overbearing (but now unhappy) Thebans, distressed by the length of the war, would be forced to fly to you for aid, Philip, to prevent this--to prevent the formation of any union between the cities--made offers of peace to you, and of assistance to them. Now what was it that helped him, and enabled him to find in you his almost willing dupes? It was the baseness (if that is the right name to use), or the ignorance, or both, of the rest of the Hellenes, who, though you were engaged in a long and continuous war, and that on behalf of the interests of all, as has been proved by the event, never assisted you either with money or with men, or in any other way whatsoever. And in your just and proper indignation with them, you listened readily to Philip. It was for these reasons, therefore, and not through any action of mine, that the Peace which we then conceded was negotiated; and any one who investigates the matter honestly will find that it is the crimes and the corrupt practices of these men, in the course of the negotiations, that are responsible for our position to-day. It is in the interests of truth that I enter into all these events with this exactitude and thoroughness; for however strong the appearance of criminality in these proceedings may be, it has, I imagine, nothing to do with me. The first man to suggest or mention the Peace was Aristodemus the actor; and the person who took the matter up and moved the motion, and sold his services for the purpose, along with Aeschines, was Philocrates of Hagnus--your partner, Aeschines, not mine, even if you split your sides with lying; while those who supported him, from whatever motive (for of that I say nothing at present), were Eubulus and Cephisophon. I had no part in the matter anywhere. And yet, although the facts are such as with absolute truth I am representing them to be, he carried his effrontery so far as to dare to assert that I was not only responsible for the Peace, but had also prevented the city from acting in conjunction with a general assembly of the Hellenes in making it. What? and you--oh! how can one find a name that can be applied to you?--when you saw me (for you were there) preventing the city from taking this great step and forming so grand an alliance as you just now described, did you once raise a protest or come forward to give information and to set forth the crimes with which you now charge me? If I had covenanted with Philip for money that I would prevent the coalition of the Hellenes, your only course was to refuse to keep silence--to cry aloud, to protest, to reveal the fact to your fellow countrymen. On no occasion did you do this: no such utterance of yours was ever heard by any one. In fact there was no embassy away at the time on a mission to any Hellenic state; the Hellenes had all long ago been tried and found wanting; and in all that he has said upon this matter there is not a single sound word. And, apart from that, his falsehoods involve the greatest calumnies upon this city. For if you were at one and the same time convoking the Hellenes with a view to war, and sending ambassadors yourselves to Philip to discuss peace, it was a deed for a Eurybatus, not a task for a state or for honest men, that you were carrying out. But that is not the case; indeed it is not. For what could possibly have been your object in summoning them at that moment? Was it with a view to peace? But they all had peace already. Or with a view to war? But you were yourselves discussing peace. It is therefore evident that neither was it I that introduced or was responsible for the Peace in its original shape, nor is one of all the other falsehoods which he told of me shown to be true.

Again, consider the course of action which, when the city had concluded the Peace, each of us now chose to adopt. For from this you will know who it was that co-operated with Philip throughout, and who it was that acted in your interest and sought the good of the city. As for me, I proposed, as a member of the Council, that the ambassadors should sail as quickly as possible to any district in which they should ascertain Philip to be, and receive his oath from him. But even when I had carried this resolution, they would not act upon it. What did this mean, men of Athens? I will inform you. Philip's interest required that the interval before he took the oath should be as long as possible; yours, that it should be as short as possible. And why? Because you broke off all your preparations for the war, not merely from the day when he took the oath, but from the day when you first hoped that Peace would be made; and for his part, this was what he was all along working for; for he thought (and with truth) that whatever places he could snatch from Athens before he took the oath, would remain securely his, since no one would break the Peace for their sake. Foreseeing and calculating upon this, men of Athens, I proposed this decree--that we should sail to any district in which Philip might be, and receive his oath as soon as possible, in order that the oaths might be taken while the Thracians, your allies, were still in possession of those strongholds of which Aeschines just now spoke with contempt--Serrhium, Myrtenum, and Ergiske; and that Philip might not snatch from us the keys of the country and make himself master of Thrace, nor obtain an abundant supply of money and of soldiers, and so proceed without difficulty to the prosecution of his further designs. And now, instead of citing or reading this decree he slanders me on the ground that I thought fit, as a member of the Council, to introduce the envoys. But what should I have done? Was I to propose _not_ to introduce those who had come for the express purpose of speaking with you? or to order the lessee of the theatre not to assign them seats? But they would have watched the play from the threepenny seats, if this decree had not been proposed. Should I have guarded the interests of the city in petty details, and sold them wholesale, as my opponents did? Surely not. (_To the clerk_.) Now take this decree, which the prosecutor passed over, though he knew it well, and read it.

[_The decree of Demosthenes is read_.]

Though I had carried this decree, and was seeking the good not of Philip, but of the city, these worthy ambassadors paid little heed to it, but sat idle in Macedonia for three whole months, until Philip arrived from Thrace, after subduing the whole country; when they might, within ten days, or equally well within three or four, have reached the Hellespont, and saved the strongholds, by receiving his oath before he could seize them. For he would not have touched them when we were present; or else, if he had done so, we should have refused to administer the oath to him; and in that case he would have failed to obtain the Peace: he would not have had both the Peace and the strongholds as well.

Such was Philip's first act of fraud, during the time of the Embassy, and the first instance of venality on the part of these wicked men; and over this I confess that then and now and always I have been and am at war and at variance with them. Now observe, immediately after this, a second and even greater piece of villainy. As soon as Philip had sworn to the Peace, after first gaining possession of Thrace because these men did not obey my decree, he obtained from them--again by purchase--the postponement of our departure from Macedonia, until all should be in readiness for his campaign against the Phocians; in order that, instead of our bringing home a report of his intentions and his preparations for the march, which would make you set out and sail round to Thermopylae with your war-ships as you did before, you might only hear our report of the facts when he was already on this side of Thermopylae, and you could do nothing. And Philip was beset with such fear and such a weight of anxiety, lest in spite of his occupation of these places, his object should slip from his grasp, if, before the Phocians were destroyed, you resolved to assist them, that he hired this despicable creature, not now in company with his colleagues, but by himself alone, to make to you a statement and a report of such a character that owing to them all was lost. But I request and entreat you, men of Athens, to remember throughout this whole trial, that, had Aeschines made no accusation that was not included in the indictment, I too would not have said a word that did not bear upon it; but since he has had recourse to all kinds of imputation and slander at once, I am compelled also to give a brief answer to each group of charges. What then were the statements uttered by him that day, in consequence of which all was lost? 'You must not be perturbed,' he said, 'at Philip's having crossed to this side of Thermopylae; for you will get everything that you desire, if you remain quiet; and within two or three days you will hear that he has become the friend of those whose enemy he was, and the enemy of those whose friend he was, when he first came. For,' said he, 'it is not phrases that confirm friendships' (a finely sententious expression!) 'but identity of interest; and it is to the interest of Philip and of the Phocians and of yourselves alike, to be rid of the heartless and overbearing demeanour of the Thebans.' To these statements some gave a ready ear, in consequence of the tacit ill-feeling towards the Thebans at the time. What then followed--and not after a long interval, but immediately? The Phocians were overthrown; their cities were razed to the ground; you, who had believed Aeschines and remained inactive, were soon afterwards bringing in your effects from the country; while Aeschines received his gold; and besides all this, the city reaped the ill-will of the Thebans and Thessalians, while their gratitude for what had been done went to Philip. To prove that this is so, (_to the clerk_) read me both the decree of Callisthenes, and Philip's letter. (_To the jury_.) These two documents together will make all the facts plain. (_To the clerk_.) Read.

[_The decree of Callisthenes is read_.]

Were these the hopes, on the strength of which you made the Peace? Was this what this hireling promised you? (_To the clerk_.) Now read the letter which Philip sent after this.

[_Philip's letter is read_.]

You hear how obviously, in this letter sent to you, Philip is addressing definite information to his own allies. 'I have done these things,' he tells them, 'against the will of the Athenians, and to their annoyance; and so, men of Thebes and Thessaly, if you are wise, you will regard them as enemies, and will trust me.' He does not write in those actual terms, but that is what he intends to indicate. By these means he so carried them away, that they did not foresee or realize any of the consequences, but allowed him to get everything into his own power: and that is why, poor men, they have experienced their present calamities. But the man who helped him to create this confidence, who co-operated with him, who brought home that false report and deluded you, he it is who now bewails the sufferings of the Thebans and enlarges upon their piteousness--he, who is himself the cause both of these and of the misery in Phocis, and of all the other evils which the Hellenes have endured. Yes, it is evident that you are pained at what has come to pass, Aeschines, and that you are sorry for the Thebans, when you have property in Boeotia and are farming the land that was theirs; and that I rejoice at it--I, whose surrender was immediately demanded by the author of the disaster! But I have digressed into subjects of which it will perhaps be more convenient to speak presently. I will return to the proofs which show that it is the crimes of these men that are the cause of our condition to-day.

For when you had been deceived by Philip, through the agency of these men, who while serving as ambassadors had sold themselves and made a report in which there was not a word of truth--when the unhappy Phocians had been deceived and their cities annihilated--what followed? The despicable Thessalians and the slow-witted Thebans regarded Philip as their friend, their benefactor, their saviour. Philip was their all-in-all. They would not even listen to the voice of any one who wished to express a different opinion. You yourselves, though you viewed what had been done with suspicion and vexation, nevertheless kept the Peace; for there was nothing else that you could have done. And the other Hellenes, who, like yourselves, had been deluded and disappointed of their hopes, also kept the Peace, and gladly; since in a sense they also were remotely aimed at by the war. For when Philip was going about and subduing the Illyrians and Triballi and some of the Hellenes as well, and bringing many large forces into his own power, and when some of the members of the several States were taking advantage of the Peace to travel to Macedonia, and were being corrupted--Aeschines among them--at such a time all of those whom Philip had in view in thus making his preparations were really being attacked by him. Whether they failed to realize it is another question, which does not concern me. For I was continually uttering warnings and protests, both in your midst and wherever I was sent. But the cities were stricken with disease: those who were engaged in political and practical affairs were taking bribes and being corrupted by the hope of money; while the mass of private citizens either showed no foresight, or else were caught by the bait of ease and leisure from day to day; and all alike had fallen victims to some such delusive fancy, as that the danger would come upon every one but themselves, and that through the perils of others they would be able to secure their own position as they pleased. And so, I suppose, it has come to pass that the masses have atoned for their great and ill-timed indifference by the loss of their freedom, while the leaders in affairs, who fancied that they were selling everything except themselves, have realized that they had sold themselves first of all. For instead of being called friends and guest-friends, as they were called at the time when they were taking their bribes, they now hear themselves called flatterers, and god-forsaken, and all the other names that they deserve. For no one, men of Athens, spends his money out of a desire to benefit the traitor; nor, when once he has secured the object for which he bargains, does he employ the traitor to advise him with regard to other objects: if it were so, nothing could be happier than a traitor. But it is not so, of course. Far from it! When the aspirant after dominion has gained his object, he is also the master of those who have sold it to him: and because then he knows their villainy, he then hates and mistrusts them, and covers them with insults. For observe-- for even if the time of the events is past, the time for realizing truths like these is ever present to wise men. Lasthenes was called his 'friend'; but only until he had betrayed Olynthus. And Timolaus; but only until he had destroyed Thebes. And Eudicus and Simus of Larissa; but only until they had put Thessaly in Philip's power. And now, persecuted as they are, and insulted, and subjected to every kind of misery, the whole inhabited world has become filled with such men. And what of Aristratus at Sicyon? what of Perillus at Megara? Are they not outcasts? From these instances one can see very clearly, that it is he who best protects his own country and speaks most constantly against such men, that secures for traitors and hirelings like yourselves, Aeschines, the continuance of your opportunities for taking bribes. It is the majority of those who are here, those who resist your will, that you must thank for the fact that you live and draw your pay; for, left to yourselves, you would long ago have perished.

There is still much that I might say about the transactions of that time, but I think that even what I have said is more than enough. The blame rests with Aeschines, who has drenched me with the stale dregs of his own villainy and crime, from which I was compelled to clear myself in the eyes of those who are too young to remember the events; though perhaps you who knew, even before I said a single word, of Aeschines' service as a hireling, may have felt some annoyance as you listened. He calls it, forsooth, 'friendship' and 'guest-friendship'; and somewhere in his speech just now he used the expression, 'the man who casts in my teeth my guest- friendship with Alexander.' _I_ cast in your teeth your guest-friendship with Alexander? How did you acquire it? How came you to be thought worthy of it? Never would I call you the guest-friend of Philip or the friend of Alexander--I am not so insane--unless you are to call harvesters and other hired servants the friends and guest-friends of those who have hired them. [But that is not the case, of course. Far from it!] Nay, I call you the hireling, formerly of Philip, and now of Alexander, and so do all who are present. If you disbelieve me, ask them--or rather I will ask them for you. Men of Athens, do you think of Aeschines as the hireling or as the guest-friend of Alexander? You hear what they say.

I now wish, without more delay, to make my defence upon the indictment itself, and to go through my past acts, in order that Aeschines may hear (though he knows them well) the grounds on which I claim to have a right both to the gifts which the Council have proposed, and even to far greater than these. (_To the clerk_.) Now take the indictment and read it.

{54, 55} [The indictment is read.]

These, men of Athens, are the points in the resolution which the prosecutor assails; and these very points will, I think, afford me my first means of proving to you that the defence which I am about to offer is an absolutely fair one. For I will take the points of the indictment in the very same order as the prosecutor: I will speak of each in succession, and will knowingly pass over nothing. Any decision upon the statement that I 'consistently do and say what is best for the People, and am eager to do whatever good I can', and upon the proposal to vote me thanks for this, depends, I consider, upon my past political career: for it is by an investigation of my career that either the truth and the propriety, or else the falsehood, of these statements which Ctesiphon has made about me will be discovered. Again, the proposal to crown me, without the addition of the clause 'when he has submitted to his examination', and the order to proclaim the award of the crown in the theatre, must, I imagine, stand or fall with my political career; for the question is whether I deserve the crown and the proclamation before my fellow countrymen or not. At the same time I consider myself further bound to point out to you the laws under which the defendant's proposal could be made. In this honest and straightforward manner, men of Athens, I have determined to make my defence; and now I will proceed to speak of my past actions themselves. And let no one imagine that I am detaching my argument from its connexion with the indictment, if I break into a discussion of international transactions. For it is the prosecutor who, by assailing the clause of the decree which states that I do and say what is best, and by indicting it as false, has rendered the discussion of my whole political career essentially germane to the indictment; and further, out of the many careers which public life offers, it was the department of international affairs that I chose; so that I have a right to derive my proofs also from that department.

I will pass over all that Philip snatched from us and secured, in the days before I took part in public life as an orator. None of these losses, I imagine, has anything to do with me. But I will recall to you, and will render you an account of all that, from the day when I entered upon this career, he was _prevented_ from taking, when I have made one remark. Philip, men of Athens, had a great advantage in his favour. For in the midst of the Hellenic peoples--and not of some only, but of all alike-- there had sprung up a crop of traitors--corrupt, god-forsaken men--more numerous than they have ever been within the memory of man. These he took to help and co-operate with him; and great as the mutual ill-will and dissensions of the Hellenes already were, he rendered them even worse, by deceiving some, making presents to others, and corrupting others in every way; and at a time when all had in reality but one interest--to prevent his becoming powerful--he divided them into a number of factions. All the Hellenes then being in this condition, still ignorant of the growing and accumulating evil, you have to ask yourselves, men of Athens, what policy and action it was fitting for the city to choose, and to hold me responsible for this; for the person who assumed that responsibility in the State was myself. Should she, Aeschines, have sacrificed her pride and her own dignity? Should she have joined the ranks of the Thessalians and Dolopes, and helped Philip to acquire the empire of Hellas, cancelling thereby the noble and righteous deeds of our forefathers? Or, if she should not have done this (for it would have been in very truth an atrocious thing), should she have looked on, while all that she saw would happen, if no one prevented it--all that she realized, it seems, at a distance--was actually taking place? Nay, I should be glad to ask to-day the severest critic of my actions, which party he would have desired the city to join--the party which shares the responsibility for the misery and disgrace which has fallen upon the Hellenes (the party of the Thessalians and their supporters, one may call it), or the party which looked on while these calamities were taking place, in the hope of gaining some advantage for themselves--in which we should place the Arcadians and Messenians and Argives. But even of these, many--nay, all--have in the end fared worse than we. For if Philip had departed immediately after his victory, and gone his way; if afterwards he had remained at peace, and had given no trouble whatever to any of his own allies or of the other Hellenes; then there would have been some ground for blaming and accusing those who had opposed his plans. But if he has stripped them all alike of their dignity, their paramountcy, and their independence--nay, even of their free constitutions, wherever he could do so--can it be denied that the policy which you adopted on my advice was the most glorious policy possible?

But I return to my former point. What was it fitting for the city to do, Aeschines, when she saw Philip establishing for himself a despotic sway over the Hellenes? What language should have been used, what measures proposed, by the adviser of the people at Athens (for that it was at Athens makes the utmost difference), when I knew that from the very first, up to the day when I myself ascended the platform, my country had always contended for pre-eminence, honour, and glory, and in the cause of honour, and for the interests of all, had sacrificed more money and lives than any other Hellenic people had spent for their private ends: when I saw that Philip himself, with whom our conflict lay, for the sake of empire and absolute power, had had his eye knocked out, his collar-bone broken, his hand and his leg maimed, and was ready to resign any part of his body that Fortune chose to take from him, provided that with what remained he might live in honour and glory? And surely no one would dare to say that it was fitting that in one bred at Pella, a place then inglorious and insignificant, there should have grown up so lofty a spirit that he aspired after the empire of Hellas, and conceived such a project in his mind; but that in you, who are Athenians, and who day by day in all that you hear and see behold the memorials of the gallantry of your forefathers, such baseness should be found, that you would yield up your liberty to Philip by your own deliberate offer and deed. No man would say this. One alternative remained, and that, one which you were bound to take--that of a righteous resistance to the whole course of action by which he was doing you injury. You acted thus from the first, quite rightly and properly; while I helped by my proposals and advice during the time of my political activity, and I do not deny it. But what ought I to have done? For the time has come to ask you this, Aeschines, and to dismiss everything else. Amphipolis, Pydna, Poteidaea, Halonnesus-- all are blotted from my memory. As for Serrhium, Doriscus, the sack of Peparethus, and all the other injuries inflicted upon the city, I renounce all knowledge of their ever having happened--though you actually said that _I_ involved my countrymen in hostility by talking of these things, when the decrees which deal with them were the work of Eubulus and Aristophon and Diopeithes, and not mine at all--so glibly do you assert anything that suits your purpose! But of this too I say nothing at present. I only ask you whether Philip, who was appropriating Euboea, and establishing it as a stronghold to command Attica; who was making an attempt upon Megara, seizing Oreus, razing the walls of Porthmus, setting up Philistides as tyrant at Oreus and Cleitarchus at Eretria, bringing the Hellespont into his own power, besieging Byzantium, destroying some of the cities of Hellas, and restoring his exiled friends to others--whether he, I say, in acting thus, was guilty of wrong, violating the truce and breaking the Peace, or not? Was it fit that one of the Hellenes should arise to prevent it, or not? If it was not fit-- if it was fit that Hellas should become like the Mysian booty in the proverb before men's eyes, while the Athenians had life and being, then I have lost my labour in speaking upon this theme, and the city has lost its labour in obeying me: then let everything that has been done be counted for a crime and a blunder, and those my own! But if it was right that one should arise to prevent it, for whom could the task be more fitting than for the people of Athens? That then, was the aim of _my_ policy; and when I saw Philip reducing all mankind to servitude, I opposed him, and without ceasing warned and exhorted you to make no surrender.

But the Peace, Aeschines, was in reality broken by Philip, when he seized the corn-ships, not by Athens. (_To the clerk_.) Bring the decrees themselves, and the letter of Philip, and read them in order. (_To the jury_.) For they will make it clear who is responsible, and for what.

[_A decree is read_.]

This decree then was proposed by Eubulus, not by me; and the next by Aristophon; he is followed first by Hegesippus, and he by Aristophon again, and then by Philocrates, then by Cephisophon, and then by all of them. But I proposed no decree upon this subject. (_To the clerk_.) Read.

[_Decrees are read_.]

As then I point to these decrees, so, Aeschines, do you point to a decree of any kind, proposed by me, which makes me responsible for the war. You cannot do so: for had you been able, there is nothing which you would sooner have produced. Indeed, even Philip himself makes no charge against me as regards the war, though he complains of others. (_To the clerk_.) Read Philip's letter itself.

{77, 78} [_Philip's letter is read_.]

In this letter he has nowhere mentioned the name of Demosthenes, nor made any charge against me. Why is it then that, though he complains of others, he has not mentioned my own actions? Because, if he had written anything about me, he must have mentioned his own acts of wrong; for it was these acts upon which I kept my grip, and these which I opposed. First of all, when he was trying to steal into the Peloponnese, I proposed the embassy to the Peloponnese; then, when he was grasping at Euboea, the embassy to Euboea; then the expedition--not an embassy any more--to Oreus, and that to Eretria, when he had established tyrants in those cities. After that I dispatched all the naval expeditions, in the course of which the Chersonese and Byzantium and all our allies were saved. In consequence of this, the noblest rewards at the hands of those who had benefited by your action became yours--votes of thanks, glory, honours, crowns, gratitude; while of the victims of his aggression, those who followed your advice at the time secured their own deliverance, and those who neglected it had the memory of your warnings constantly in their minds, and regarded you not merely as their well-wishers, but as men of wisdom and prophetic insight; for all that you foretold has come to pass. And further, that Philistides would have given a large sum to retain Oreus, and Cleitarchus to retain Eretria, and Philip himself, to be able to count upon the use of these places against you, and to escape all exposure of his other proceedings and all investigation, by any one in any place, of his wrongful acts--all this is not unknown to any one, least of all to you, Aeschines. For the envoys sent at that time by Cleitarchus and Philistides lodged at your house, when they came here, and you acted as their patron. Though the city rejected them, as enemies whose proposals were neither just nor expedient, to you they were friends. None of their attempts succeeded, slander me though you may, when you assert that I say nothing when I receive money, but cry out when I spend it. That, certainly, is not _your_ way: for you cry out with money in your hands, and will never cease, unless those present cause you to do so by taking away your civil rights to-day. Now on that occasion, gentlemen, you crowned me for my conduct. Aristonicus proposed a decree whose very syllables were identical with those of Ctesiphon's present proposal; the crown was proclaimed in the theatre; and this was already the second proclamation in my honour: and yet Aeschines, though he was there, neither opposed the decree, nor indicted the mover. (_To the clerk_.) Take this decree also and read it.

[_The decree of Aristonicus is read_.]

Now is any of you aware of any discredit that attached itself to the city owing to this decree? Did any mockery or ridicule ensue, such as Aeschines said must follow on the present occasion, if I were crowned? But surely when proceedings are recent and well known to all, then it is that, if they are satisfactory, they meet with gratitude, and if they are otherwise, with punishment. It appears, then, that on that occasion I met with gratitude, not with blame or punishment.

Thus the fact that, up to the time when these events took place, I acted throughout as was best for the city, has been acknowledged by the victory of my advice and my proposals in your deliberations, by the successful execution of the measures which I proposed, and the award of crowns in consequence of them to the city and to myself and to all, and by your celebration of sacrifices to the gods, and processions, in thankfulness for these blessings.

When Philip had been expelled from Euboea--and while the arms which expelled him were yours, the statesmanship and the decrees (even though some of my opponents may split their sides) were mine--he proceeded to look for some other stronghold from which he could threaten the city. And seeing that we were more dependent than any other people upon imported corn, and wishing to get our corn-trade into his power, he advanced to Thrace. First, he requested the Byzantines, his own allies, to join him in the war against you; and when they refused and said (with truth) that they had not made their alliance with him for such a purpose, he erected a stockade against the city, brought up his engines, and proceeded to besiege it. I will not ask again what you ought to have done when this was happening; it is manifest to all. But who was it that went to the rescue of the Byzantines, and saved them? Who was it that prevented the Hellespont from falling into other hands at that time? It was you, men of Athens--and when I say 'you', I mean this city. And who was it that spoke and moved resolutions and acted for the city, and gave himself up unsparingly to the business of the State? It was I. But of the immense benefit thus conferred upon all, you no longer need words of mine to tell you, since you have had actual experience of it. For the war which then ensued, apart from the glorious reputation that it brought you, kept you supplied with the necessaries of life in greater plenty and at lower prices than the present Peace, which these worthy men are guarding to their country's detriment, in their hopes of something yet to be realized. May those hopes be disappointed! May they share the fortune which you, who wish for the best, ask of the gods, rather than cause you to share that upon which their own choice is fixed! (_To the clerk_.) Read out to the jury the crowns awarded to the city in consequence of her action by the Byzantines and by the Perinthians.

{90, 91} [_The decree of the Byzantines is read_.]

Read out also the crowns awarded by the peoples of the Chersonese.

[_The decree of the peoples of the Chersonese is read_.]

Thus the policy which I had adopted was not only successful in saving the Chersonese and Byzantium, in preventing the Hellespont from falling at that time into the power of Philip, and in bringing honours to the city in consequence, but it revealed to the whole world the noble gallantry of Athens and the baseness of Philip. For all saw that he, the ally of the Byzantines, was besieging them--what could be more shameful or revolting? and on the other hand, it was seen that you, who might fairly have urged many well-founded complaints against them for their inconsiderate conduct towards you at an earlier period, not only refused to remember your grudge and to abandon the victims of aggression, but actually delivered them; and in consequence of this, you won glory and goodwill on all hands. And further, though every one knows that you have crowned many public men before now, no one can name any but myself--that is to say, any public counsellor and orator--for whose merits the city has received a crown.

In order to prove to you, also, that the slanders which he uttered against the Euboeans and Byzantines, as he recalled to you any ill-natured action that they had taken towards you in the past, are disingenuous calumnies, not only because they are false (for this, I think, you may all be assumed to know), but also because, however true they might be, it was still to your advantage to deal with the political situation as I have done, I desire to describe, and that briefly, one or two of the noble deeds which this city has done in your own time. For an individual and a State should strive always, in their respective spheres, to fashion their future conduct after the highest examples that their past affords. Thus, men of Athens, at a time when the Spartans were masters of land and sea, and were retaining their hold, by means of governors and garrisons, upon the country all round Attica--Euboea, Tanagra, all Boeotia, Megara, Aegina, Ceos, and the other islands--and when Athens possessed neither ships nor walls, you marched forth to Haliartus, and again, not many days later, to Corinth, though the Athenians of that day might have borne a heavy grudge against both the Corinthians and the Thebans for the part they had played in reference to the Deceleian War. But they bore no such grudge. Far from it! And neither of these actions, Aeschines, was taken by them to help benefactors; nor was the prospect before them free from danger. Yet they did not on that account sacrifice those who fled to them for help. For the sake of glory and honour they were willing to expose themselves to the danger; and it was a right and a noble spirit that inspired their counsels. For the life of all men must end in death, though a man shut himself in a chamber and keep watch; but brave men must ever set themselves to do that which is noble, with their joyful hope for their buckler, and whatsoever God gives, must bear it gallantly. Thus did your forefathers, and thus did the elder among yourselves: for, although the Spartans were no friends or benefactors of yours, but had done much grievous wrong to the city, yet, when the Thebans, after their victory at Leuctra, attempted to annihilate them, you prevented it, not terrified by the strength or the reputation which the Thebans then enjoyed, nor reckoning up what the men had done to you, for whom you were to face this peril. And thus, as you know, you revealed to all the Hellenes, that whatever offences may be committed against you, though under all other circumstances you show your resentment of them, yet if any danger to life or freedom overtakes the transgressors, you will bear no grudge and make no reckoning. Nor was it in these instances only that you were thus disposed. For once more, when the Thebans were appropriating Euboea, you did not look on while it was done; you did not call to mind the wrong which had been done to you in the matter of Oropus by Themison and Theodorus: you helped even these; and it was then that the city for the first time had voluntary trierarchs, of whom I was one. But I will not speak of this yet. And although to save the island was itself a noble thing to do, it was a yet nobler thing by far, that when their lives and their cities were absolutely in your power, you gave them back, as it was right to do, to the very men who had offended against you, and made no reckoning, when such trust had been placed in you, of the wrongs which you had suffered. I pass by the innumerable instances which I might still give--battles at sea, expeditions [by land, campaigns] both long ago and now in our day; in all of which the object of the city has been to defend the freedom and safety of the other Hellenic peoples. And so, when in all these striking examples I had beheld the city ever ready to strive in defence of the interests of others, what was I likely to bid her do, what action was I likely to recommend to her, when the debate to some extent concerned her own interests? 'Why,' you would say, 'to remember her grudge against those who wanted deliverance, and to look for excuses for sacrificing everything!' And who would not have been justified in putting me to death, if I had attempted to bring shame upon the city's high traditions, though it were only by word? The deed itself you would never have done, I know full well; for had you desired to do it, what was there to hinder you? Were you not free so to act? Had you not these men here to propose it?

I wish now to return to the next in succession of my political acts; and here again you must ask yourselves, what was the best thing for the city? For, men of Athens, when I saw that your navy was breaking up, and that, while the rich were obtaining exemption "obtaining exemption". The undertaking of the trierarchy conferred exemption from other burdens for the year, and (conversely) no one responsible for another public burden need be trierarch. The leaders of the Taxation Boards referred to in Sec. 103 are probably not (as generally supposed) the richest men in the "Naval" Boards [Footnote: They may indeed have been so, but it was in virtue of their function as leading members of the Hundred Boards (for collecting the war tax) that they were grouped together as the Three Hundred.] (responsible for trierarchy), but those in the Hundred Boards responsible for the war tax. In each of these Boards there was a leader, a 'second', and a 'third', and these, all together, are almost certainly identical with the 'Three Hundred' responsible for advancing the sum due. When these were already advancing the war tax, they became exempt from trierarchy, and their poorer colleagues in the Naval Boards (to which of course they also belonged) had to bear the burden without them. But under Demosthenes' law the trierarchic payment was required from all alike, in strict proportion to their valuation as entered for the purposes of the war tax; and the Three Hundred (the leaders, seconds, and thirds) were no longer exempted. (This explains their anxiety to get the law shelved.) Even in years when they were not exempt, before Demosthenes' law was passed, they only paid a very small share in proportion to their wealth, since all the members of each Naval Board paid the same sum. It appears, however, that (though the Three Hundred as such cannot be shown to have had any office in connexion with the trierarchy) the richer men in the Naval Boards arranged the contracts for the work of equipment, and that when they had contracted that the work should be done (e.g.) for a talent, they sometimes recovered the whole talent from their poorer colleagues. (Speech against Meidias, Sec. 155.) on the strength of small payments, citizens of moderate or small means were losing all that they had; and further, that in consequence of these things the city was always missing her opportunities; I enacted a law in accordance with which I compelled the former--the rich--to do their duty fairly; I put an end to the injustice done to the poor, and (what was the greatest service of all to the State) I caused our preparations to be made in time. When I was indicted for this, I appeared before you at the ensuing trial, and was acquitted; the prosecutor failed to obtain the necessary fraction of the votes. But what sums do you think the leaders of the Taxation-Boards, or those who stood second or third, offered me, to induce me, if possible, not to enact the law, or at least to let it drop and lie under sworn notice of prosecution? They offered sums so large, men of Athens, that I should hesitate to mention them to you. It was a natural course for them to take. For under the former laws it was possible for them to divide their obligation between sixteen persons, paying little or nothing themselves, and grinding down their poorer fellow citizens: while by my law each must pay down a sum calculated in proportion to his property; and a man came to be charged with two warships, who had previously been one of sixteen subscribers to a single one (for they used now to call themselves no longer captains of their ships, but subscribers). Thus there was nothing that they were not willing to give, if only the new plan could be brought to nothing, and they could escape being compelled to do their duty fairly. (_To the clerk_.) Now read me, first, the decree in accordance with which I had to meet the indictment; and then the lists of those liable under the former law, and under my own, respectively. Read.

[_The decree is read_.]

Now produce that noble list.

[_A list is read_.]

Now produce, for comparison with this, the list under my own law.

[_A list is read_.]

Was this, think you, but a trifling assistance which I rendered to the poor among you? Would the wealthy have spent but a trifling sum to avoid doing their duty fairly? I am proud not only of having refused all compromise upon the measure, not only of having been acquitted when I was indicted, but also of having enacted a law which was beneficial, and of having given proof of it in practice. For throughout the war the armaments were equipped under my law, and no trierarch ever laid the suppliants' branch before you in token of grievance, nor took sanctuary at

Munychia; none was imprisoned by the Admiralty Board; no warship was abandoned at sea and lost to the State, or left behind here as unseaworthy. Under the former laws all these things used to happen; and the reason was that the obligation rested upon the poor, and in consequence there were many cases of inability to discharge it. I transferred the duties of the trierarchy from the poor to the rich; and therefore every duty was properly fulfilled. Aye, and for this very reason I deserve to receive praise--that I always adopted such political measures as brought with them accessions of glory and honour and power to the city. No measure of mine is malicious, harsh, or unprincipled; none is degrading or unworthy of the city. The same spirit will be seen both in my domestic and my international policy. For just as in home affairs I did not set the favour of the rich above the rights of the many, so in international affairs I did not embrace the gifts and the friendship of Philip, in preference to the common interests of all the Hellenes.

It still remains for me, I suppose, to speak about the proclamation, and about my examination. The statement that I acted for the best, and that I am loyal to you throughout and eager to do you good service, I have proved, I think, sufficiently, by what I have said. At the same time I am passing over the most important parts of my political life and actions; for I conceive that I ought first to render to you in their proper order my arguments in regard to the alleged illegality itself: which done, even if I say nothing about the rest of my political acts, I can still rely upon that personal knowledge of them which each of you possesses.

Of the arguments which the prosecutor jumbled together in utter confusion with reference to the laws accompanying his indictment, I am quite certain that you could not follow the greater part, nor could I understand them myself; but I will simply address you straightforwardly upon the question of right. So far am I from claiming (as he just now slanderously declared) to be free from the liability to render an account, that I admit a life-long liability to account for every part of my administration and policy. But I do not admit that I am liable for one single day--you hear me, Aeschines?--to account for what I have given to the People as a free-will offering out of my private estate; nor is any one else so liable, not even if he is one of the nine archons. What law is so replete with injustice and churlishness, that when a man has made a present out of his private property and done an act of generosity and munificence, it deprives him of the gratitude due to him, hales him before a court of disingenuous critics, and sets them to audit accounts of sums which he himself has given? There is no such law. If the prosecutor asserts that there is, let him produce it, and I will resign myself and say no more. But the law does not exist, men of Athens; this is nothing but an informer's trick on the part of Aeschines, who, because I was Controller of the Festival Fund when I made this donation, says, 'Ctesiphon proposed a vote of thanks to him when he was still liable to account.' The vote of thanks was not for any of the things for which I was liable to account; it was for my voluntary gift, and your charge is a misrepresentation. 'Yes,' you say, 'but you were also a Commissioner of Fortifications.' I was, and thanks were rightly accorded me on the very ground that, instead of charging the sums which I spent, I made a present of them. A statement of account, it is true, calls for an audit and scrutineers; but a free gift deserves gratitude and thanks; and that is why the defendant proposed this motion in my favour. That this principle is not merely laid down in the laws, but rooted in your national character, I shall have no difficulty in proving by many instances. Nausicles, to begin with, has often been crowned by you, while general, for sacrifices which he had made from his private funds. Again, when Diotimus gave the shields, and Charidemus afterwards, they were crowned. And again, Neoptolemus here, while still director of many public works, has received honours for his voluntary gifts. It would really be too bad, if any one who held any office must either be debarred thereby from making a present to the State, or else, instead of receiving due gratitude, must submit accounts of the sums given. To prove the truth of my statements, (_to the clerk_) take and read the actual decrees which were passed in honour of these persons. Read.

[_Two decrees are read_.]

Each of these persons, Aeschines, was accountable as regards the office which he held, but not as regards the services for which he was crowned. Nor am I, therefore; for I presume that I have the same rights as others with reference to the same matters. I made a voluntary gift. For this I receive thanks; for I am not liable to account for what I gave. I was holding office. True, and I have rendered an account of my official expenditure, but not of what I gave voluntarily. Ah! but I exercised my office iniquitously! What? and you were there, when the auditors brought me before them, and did not accuse me?

Now that the court may see that the prosecutor himself bears me witness that I was crowned for services of which I was not liable to render an account, (_to the clerk_) take and read the decree which was proposed in my honour, in its entirety. (_To the jury_.) The points which he has omitted to indict in the Council's resolution will show that the charges which he does make are deliberate misrepresentations. (_To the clerk_.) Read.

[_The decree is read_.]

My donations then, were these, of which you have not made one the subject of indictment. It is the reward for these, which the Council states to be my due, that you attack. You admit that it was legal to accept the gifts offered, and you indict as illegal the return of gratitude for them. In Heaven's name, what must the perfect scoundrel, the really heaven-detested, malignant being be like? Must he not be a man like this?

But as regards the proclamation in the theatre, I pass by the fact that ten thousand persons have been thus proclaimed on ten thousand different occasions, and that my own name has often been so proclaimed before. But, in Heaven's name, Aeschines, are you so perverse and stupid, that you cannot grasp the fact that the recipient of the crown feels the same pride wherever the crown is proclaimed, and that it is for the benefit of those who confer it that the proclamation is made in the theatre? For those who hear are stimulated to do good service to the State, and commend those who return gratitude for such service even more than they commend the recipient of the crown. That is why the city has enacted this law. (_To the clerk_.) Take the law itself and read it.

[_The law is read_.]

Do you hear, Aeschines, the plain words of the law? 'Except such as the People or the Council shall resolve so to proclaim. But let these be proclaimed.' Why, wretched man, do you lay this dishonest charge? Why do you invent false arguments? Why do you not take hellebore to cure you? What? Are you not ashamed to bring a case founded upon envy, not upon any crime--to alter some of the laws, and to leave out parts of others, when they ought surely, in justice, to be read entire to those who have sworn to give their votes in accordance with the laws? And then, while you act in this way, you enumerate the qualities which should be found in a friend of the People, as if you had contracted for a statue, and discovered on receiving it that it had not the features required by the contract; or as if a friend of the People was known by a definition, and not by his works and his political measures! And you shout out expressions, proper and improper, like a reveller on a cart -- expressions which apply to you and your house, not to me. I will add this also, men of Athens. The difference between abuse and accusation is, I imagine, that an accusation is founded upon crimes, for which the penalties are assigned by law; abuse, upon such slanders as their own character leads enemies to utter about one another. And I conceive that our forefathers built these courts of law, not that we might assemble you here and revile one another with improper expressions suggested by our adversary's private life, but that we might convict any one who happens to have committed some crime against the State. Aeschines knew this as well as I; and yet he chose to make a ribald attack instead of an accusation. At the same time, it is not fair that he should go off without getting as much as he gives, even in this respect; and when I have asked him one question, I will at once proceed to the attack. Are we to call you, Aeschines, the enemy of the State, or of myself? Of myself, of course. What? And when you might have exacted the penalty from me, on behalf of your fellow countrymen, according to the laws--at public examinations, by indictment, by all other forms of trial--did you always omit to do so? And yet to-day, when I am unassailable upon every ground--on the ground of law, of lapse of time, of the statutable limit, of the many previous trials which I have undergone upon every charge, without having once been convicted of any crime against you to this day--and when the city must necessarily share to a greater or smaller degree in the glory of acts which were really acts of the people, have you confronted me upon such an issue as this? Take care lest, while you profess to be _my_ enemy, you prove to be the enemy of your fellow countrymen!

Since then I have shown you all what is the vote which religion and justice demand of you, I am now obliged, it would seem, by the slanders which he has uttered (though I am no lover of abuse) to reply to his many falsehoods by saying just what is absolutely necessary about himself, and showing who he is, and whence he is sprung, that he so lightly begins to use bad language, pulling to pieces certain expressions of mine, when he has himself used expressions which any respectable man would have shrunk from uttering; for if the accuser were Aeacus or Rhadamanthus or Minos, instead of a scandal-monger, an old hand in the marketplace, a pestilent clerk, I do not believe that he would have spoken thus, or produced such a stock of ponderous phrases, crying aloud, as if he were acting a tragedy, 'O Earth and Sun and Virtue,' and the like; or again, invoking 'Wit and Culture, by which things noble and base are discerned apart'--for, of course, you heard him speaking in this way. Scum of the earth! What have you or yours to do with virtue? How should _you_ discern what is noble and what is not? Where and how did you get your qualification to do so? What right have _you_ to mention culture anywhere? A man of genuine culture would not only never have asserted such a thing of himself, but would have blushed to hear another do so: and those who, like you, fall far short of it, but are tactless enough to claim it, succeed only in causing distress to their hearers, when they speak--not in seeming to be what they profess.

But though I am not at a loss to know what to say about you and yours, I am at a loss to know what to mention first. Shall I tell first how your father Tromes was a slave in the house of Elpias, who kept an elementary school near the temple of Theseus, and how he wore shackles and a wooden halter? Or how your mother, by celebrating her daylight nuptials in her hut near the shrine of the Hero of the Lancet, was enabled to rear you, her beautiful statue, the prince of third-rate actors? But these things are known to all without my telling them. Shall I tell how Phormio, the ship's piper, the slave of Dion of Phrearrii, raised her up out of this noble profession? But, before God and every Heavenly Power, I shudder lest in using expressions which are fitly applied to you, I may be thought to have chosen a subject upon which it ill befits myself to speak. So I will pass this by, and will begin with the acts of his own life; for they were not like any chance actions, but such as the people curses. For only lately--lately, do I say? only yesterday or the day before--did he become at once an Athenian and an orator, and by the addition of two syllables converted his father from Tromes into Atrometus, and gave his mother the imposing name of Glaucothea, when every one knows that she used to be called Empusa --a name which was obviously given her because there was nothing that she would not do or have done to her; for how else should she have acquired it? Yet, in spite of this, you are of so ungrateful and villainous a nature, that though, thanks to your countrymen, you have risen from slavery to freedom, and from poverty to wealth, far from feeling gratitude to them, you devote your political activity to working against them as a hireling. I will pass over every case in which there is any room for the contention that he has spoken in the interests of the city, and will remind you of the acts which he was manifestly proved to have done for the good of her enemies.

Which of you has not heard of Antiphon, who was struck off the list of citizens, and came into the city in pursuance of a promise to Philip that he would burn the dockyards? I found him concealed in the Peiraeus, and brought him before the Assembly; but the malignant Aeschines shouted at the top of his voice, that it was atrocious of me, in a democratic country, to insult a citizen who had met with misfortune, and to go to men's houses without a decree; and he obtained his release. And unless the Council of Areopagus had taken notice of the matter, and, seeing the inopportuneness of the ignorance which you had shown, had made a further search for the man, and arrested him, and brought him before you again, a man of that character would have been snatched out of your hands, and would have evaded punishment, and been sent out of the country by this pompous orator. As it was, you tortured and executed him-- and so ought you also to have treated Aeschines. The Council of Areopagus knew the part which he had played in this affair; and for this reason, when, owing to the same ignorance which so often leads you to sacrifice the public interests, you elected him to advocate your claims in regard to the Temple of Delos, the Council (since you had appointed it to assist you and entrusted it with full authority to act in the matter) immediately rejected Aeschines as a traitor, and committed the case to Hypereides. When the Council took this step, the members took their votes from the altar, and not one vote was given for this abominable man. To prove that what I say is true, (_to the clerk_) call the witnesses who testify to it.

[_The witnesses are called_.]

Thus when the Council rejected him from the office of advocate, and committed the case to another, it declared at the same time that he was a traitor, who wished you ill.

Such was one of the public appearances of this fine fellow, and such its character--so like the acts with which he charges me, is it not? Now recall a second. For when Philip sent Python of Byzantium, and with him envoys from all his allies, in the hope of putting the city to shame and showing her to be in the wrong, I would not give way before the torrent of insolent rhetoric which Python poured out upon you, but rose and contradicted him, and would not betray the city's rights, but proved the iniquity of Philip's actions so manifestly, that even his own allies rose up and admitted it. But Aeschines supported Python; he gave testimony in opposition to his country, and that testimony false.

Nor was this sufficient for him; for again after this he was detected going to meet Anaxinus the spy in the house of Thrason. But surely one who met the emissary of the enemy alone and conferred with him, must himself have been already a born spy and an enemy of his country. To prove the truth of what I say, (_to the clerk_) call the witnesses to these facts.

[_The witnesses are called_.]

There are still an infinite number of things which I might relate of him; but I pass them over. For the truth is something like this. I could still point to many instances in which he was found to be serving our enemies during that period, and showing his spite against me. But you do not store such things up in careful remembrance, to visit them with the indignation which they deserve; but, following a bad custom, you have given great freedom to any one who wishes to trip up the proposer of any advantageous measure by dishonest charges--bartering, as you do, the advantage of the State for the pleasure and gratification which you derive from invective; and so it is always easier and safer to be a hireling in the service of the enemy, than a statesman who has chosen to defend your cause.

To co-operate with Philip before we were openly at war with him was --I call Earth and Heaven to witness--atrocious enough. How could it be otherwise--against his own country? Nevertheless, concede him this, if you will, concede him this. But when the corn-ships had been openly plundered, and the Chersonese was being ravaged, and the man was on the march against Attica; when the position of affairs was no longer in doubt, and war had begun; what action did this malignant mouther of verses ever do for your good? He can point to none. There is not a single decree, small or great, with reference to the interests of the city, standing in the name of Aeschines. If he asserts that there is, let him produce it in the time allotted to me. But no such decree exists. In that case, however, only two alternatives are possible: either he had no fault to find at the time with my policy, and therefore made no proposal contrary to it; or else he was seeking the advantage of the enemy, and therefore refrained from bringing forward any better policy than mine.

Did he then abstain from speaking, as he abstained from proposing any motion, when any mischief was to be done? On the contrary, no one else had a chance of speaking. But though, apparently, the city could endure everything else, and he could do everything else unobserved, there was one final deed which was the culmination of all that he had done before. Upon this he expended all that multitude of words, as he went through the decrees relating to the Amphisseans, in the hope of distorting the truth. But the truth cannot be distorted. It is impossible. Never will you wash away the stain of your actions there! You will not say enough for that!

I call upon all the gods and goddesses who protect this land of Attica, in the presence of you all, men of Athens; and upon Apollo of Pytho, the paternal deity of this city, and I pray to them all, that if I should speak the truth to you--if I spoke it at that very time without delay, in the presence of the people, when first I saw this abominable man setting his hand to this business (for I knew it, I knew it at once),-- that then they may give me good fortune and life: but if, to gratify my hatred or any private quarrel, I am now bringing a false accusation against this man, then they may take from me the fruition of every blessing.

Why have I uttered this imprecation with such vehemence and earnestness? Because, although I have documents, lying in the public archives, by which I will prove the facts clearly; although I know that you remember what was done; I have still the fear that he may be thought too insignificant a man to have done all the evil which he has wrought--as indeed happened before, when he caused the ruin of the unhappy Phocians by the false report which he brought home. For the war at Amphissa, which was the cause of Philip's coming to Elateia, and of one being chosen commander of the Amphictyons, who overthrew the fortunes of the Hellenes--_he_ it is who helped to get it up; he, in his sole person, is to blame for disasters to which no equal can be found. I protested at the time, and cried out, before the Assembly, 'You are bringing war into Attica, Aeschines--an Amphictyonic War.' But a packed group of his supporters refused to let me speak, while the rest were amazed, and imagined that I was bringing a baseless charge against him, out of personal animosity. But what the true nature of these proceedings was, men of Athens--why this plan was contrived, and how it was executed-- you must hear from me to-day, since you were prevented from doing so at the time. You will behold a business cunningly organized; you will advance greatly in your knowledge of public affairs; and you will see what cleverness there was in Philip.

Philip had no prospect of seeing the end of the war with you, or ridding himself of it, unless he could make the Thebans and Thessalians enemies of Athens. For although the war was being wretchedly and inefficiently conducted by your generals, he was nevertheless suffering infinite damage from the war itself and from the freebooters. The exportation of the produce of his country and the importation of what he needed were both impossible. Moreover, he was not at that time superior to you at sea, nor could he reach Attica, if the Thessalians would not follow him, or the Thebans give him a passage through their country; and although he was overcoming in the field the generals whom you sent out, such as they were (for of this I say nothing), he found himself suffering from the geographical conditions themselves, and from the nature of the resources which either side possessed. Now if he tried to encourage either the Thessalians or the Thebans to march against you in order to further his own quarrel, no one, he thought, would pay any attention to him; but if he adopted their own common grounds of action and were chosen commander, he hoped to find it easier to deceive or to persuade them, as the case might be. What then does he do? He attempts (and observe with what skill) to stir up an Amphictyonic War, and a disturbance in connexion with the meeting of the Council. For he thought that they would at once find that they needed his help, to deal with these. Now if one of his own or his allies' representatives on the Council brought the matter forward, he thought that both the Thebans and the Thessalians would regard the proceeding with suspicion, and that all would be on their guard: but if it was an Athenian, sent by you, his adversaries, that did so, he would easily escape detection--as, in fact, happened. * How then did he manage this? He hired Aeschines. No one, I suppose, either realized beforehand what was going on or guarded against it--that is how such affairs are usually conducted here; Aeschines was nominated a delegate to the Council; three or four people held up their hands for him, and he was declared elected. But when, bearing with him the prestige of this city, he reached the Amphictyons, he dismissed and closed his eyes to all other considerations, and proceeded to perform the task for which he had been hired. He composed and recited a story, in attractive language, of the way in which the Cirrhaean territory had come to be dedicated; and with this he persuaded the members of the Council, who were unused to rhetoric and did not foresee what was about to happen, that they should resolve to make the circuit of the territory, which the Amphisseans said they were cultivating because it was their own, while he alleged that it was part of the consecrated land. The Locrians were not bringing any suit against us, or taking any such action as (in order to justify himself) he now falsely alleges. You may know this from the following consideration. It was clearly impossible for the Locrians to bring a suit against Athens to an actual issue, without summoning us. Who then served the summons upon us? Before what authority was it served? Tell us who knows: point to him. You cannot do so. It was a hollow and a false pretext of which you thus made a wrongful use. While the Amphictyons were making the circuit of the territory in accordance with Aeschines' suggestion, the Locrians fell upon them and came near to shooting them all down with their spears; some of the members of the Council they even carried off with them. And now that complaints and hostilities had been stirred up against the Amphisseans, in consequence of these proceedings, the command was first held by Cottyphus, and his force was drawn from the Amphictyonic Powers alone. But since some did not come, and those who came did nothing, the men who had been suborned for the purpose--villains of long standing, chosen from the Thessalians and from the traitors in other States--took steps with a view to entrusting the affair to Philip, as commander, at the next meeting of the Council. They had adopted arguments of a persuasive kind. Either, they said, the Amphictyons must themselves contribute funds, maintain mercenaries, and fine those who refused to do so; or they must elect Philip. To make a long story short, the result was that Philip was appointed. And immediately afterwards, having collected a force and crossed the Pass, ostensibly on his way to the territory of Cirrha, he bids a long farewell to the Cirrhaeans and Locrians, and seizes Elateia. Now if the Thebans had not changed their policy at once, upon seeing this, and joined us, the trouble would have descended upon the city in full force, like a torrent in winter. As it was, the Thebans checked him for the moment; chiefly, men of Athens, through the goodwill of some Heavenly Power towards us; but secondarily, so far as it lay in one man's power, through me also. (_To the clerk_.) Now give me the decrees in question, and the dates of each proceeding; (_to the jury_) that you may know what trouble this abominable creature stirred up, unpunished. (_To the clerk_.) Read me the decrees.

[_The decrees of the Amphictyons are read_.]

(_To the clerk_.) Now read the dates of these proceedings. (_To the jury_.) They are the dates at which Aeschines was delegate to the Council. (_To the clerk_.) Read.

[_The dates are read_.]

Now give me the letter which Philip sent to his allies in the Peloponnese, when the Thebans failed to obey his summons. For from this, too, you may clearly see that he concealed the real reason for his action--the fact that he was taking measures against Hellas and the Thebans and yourselves--and pretended to represent the common cause and the will of the Amphictyons. And the man who provided him with all these occasions and pretexts was Aeschines. (_To the clerk_.) Read.

[_Philip's letter is read_.]

You see that he avoids the mention of his own reasons for action, and takes refuge in those provided by the Amphictyons. Who was it that helped him to prepare such a case? Who put such pretexts at his disposal? Who is most to blame for the disasters that have taken place? Is it not Aeschines? And so, men of Athens, you must not go about saying that Hellas has suffered such things as these at the hands of one man. I call Earth and Heaven to witness, that it was at the hands, not of one man, but of many villains in each State. And of these Aeschines is one; and, had I to speak the truth without any reserve, I should not hesitate to describe him as the incarnate curse of all alike--men, regions or cities-- that have been ruined since then. For he who supplied the seed is responsible for the crop. I wonder that you did not turn away your eyes at the very sight of him: but a cloud of darkness seems to hang between you and the truth.

I find that in dealing with the measures taken by Aeschines for the injury of his country, I have reached the time when I must speak of my own statesmanship in opposition to these measures; and it is fair that you should listen to this, for many reasons, but above all because it will be a shameful thing, if, when I have faced the actual realities of hard work for you, you will not even suffer the story of them to be told. For when I saw the Thebans, and (I may almost say) yourselves as well, being led by the corrupt partisans of Philip in either State to overlook, without taking a single precaution against it, the thing which was really dangerous to both peoples and needed their utmost watchfulness--the unhindered growth of Philip's power; while, on the contrary, you were quite ready to entertain ill-feeling and to quarrel with one another; I kept unceasing watch to prevent this. Nor did I rely only on my own judgement in thinking that this was what your interest required. I knew that Aristophon, and afterwards Eubulus, always wished to bring about this friendly union, and that, often as they opposed one another in other matters, they always agreed in this. Cunning fox! While they lived, you hung about them and flattered them; yet now that they are dead, you do not see that you are attacking them. For your censure of my policy in regard to Thebes is far more a denunciation of them than of me, since they were before me in approving of that alliance. But I return to my previous point--that it was when Aeschines had brought about the war at Amphissa, and the others, his accomplices, had effectually helped him to create the ill-feeling against the Thebans, that Philip marched against us. For it was to render this possible that their attempt to throw the two cities into collision was made; and had we not roused ourselves a little before it was too late, we should never have been able to regain the lost ground; to such a length had these men carried matters. What the relations between the two peoples already were, you will know when you have heard these decrees and replies. (_To the clerk_.) Take these and read them.

{164, 165} [_The decrees are read_.]

(_To the clerk_.) Now read the replies.

[_The replies are read_.]

Having established such relations between the cities, through the agency of these men, and being elated by these decrees and replies, Philip came with his army and seized Elateia, thinking that under no circumstances whatever should we and the Thebans join in unison after this. And though the commotion which followed in the city is known to you all, let me relate to you briefly just the bare facts.

It was evening, and one had come to the Prytanes with the news that Elateia had been taken. Upon this they rose up from supper without delay; some of them drove the occupants out of the booths in the market- place and set fire to the wicker-work; others sent for the generals and summoned the trumpeter; and the city was full of commotion. On the morrow, at break of day, the Prytanes summoned the Council to the Council-Chamber, while you made your way to the Assembly; and before the Council had transacted its business and passed its draft-resolution, the whole people was seated on the hill-side. And now, when the Council had arrived, and the Prytanes had reported the intelligence which they had received, and had brought forward the messenger, and he had made his statement, the herald proceeded to ask, 'Who wishes to speak?' But no one came forward; and though the herald repeated the question many times, still no one rose, though all the generals were present, and all the orators, and the voice of their country was calling for some one to speak for her deliverance. For the voice of the herald, uttered in accordance with the laws, is rightly to be regarded as the common voice of our country. And yet, if it was for those to come forward who wished for the deliverance of the city, all of you and all the other Athenians would have risen, and proceeded to the platform, for I am certain that you all wished for her deliverance. If it was for the wealthiest, the Three Hundred would have risen; and if it was for those who had both these qualifications--loyalty to the city and wealth--then those would have risen, who subsequently made those large donations; for it was loyalty and wealth that led them so to do. But that crisis and that day called, it seems, not merely for a man of loyalty and wealth, but for one who had also followed the course of events closely from the first, and had come to a true conclusion as to the motive and the aim with which Philip was acting as he was. For no one who was unacquainted with these, and had not scrutinized them from an early period, was any the more likely, for all his loyalty and wealth, to know what should be done, or to be able to advise you. The man who was needed was found that day in me. I came forward and addressed you in words which I ask you to listen to with attention, for two reasons--first, because I would have you realize that I was the only orator or politician who did not desert his post as a loyal citizen in the hour of danger, but was found there, speaking and proposing what your need required, in the midst of the terror; and secondly, because by the expenditure of a small amount of time, you will be far better qualified for the future in the whole art of political administration. My words then were these: 'Those who are unduly disturbed by the idea that Philip can count upon the support of Thebes do not, I think, understand the present situation. For I am quite sure that, if this were so, we should have heard of his being, not at Elateia, but on our own borders. At the same time, I understand quite well, that he has come to prepare the way for himself at Thebes. Listen,' I said, 'while I tell you the true state of affairs. Philip already has at his disposal all the Thebans whom he could win over either by bribery or by deception; and those who have resisted him from the first and are opposing him now, he has no chance of winning. What then is his design and object in seizing Elateia? He wishes, by making a display of force in their neighbourhood and bringing up his army, to encourage and embolden his own friends, and to strike terror into his enemies, that so they may either concede out of terror what they now refuse, or may be compelled. Now,' I said, 'if we make up our minds at the present moment to remember any ill-natured action which the Thebans may have done us, and to distrust them on the assumption that they are on the side of our enemies, we shall be doing, in the first place, just what Philip would pray for: and further, I am afraid that his present opponents may then welcome him, that all may philippize with one consent, and that he and they may march to Attica together. If, however, you follow my advice, and give your minds to the problem before us, instead of to contentious criticism of anything that I may say, I believe that I shall be able to win your approval for my proposals, and to dispel the danger which threatens the city. What then must you do? You must first moderate your present alarm, and then change your attitude, and be alarmed, all of you, for the Thebans. They are far more within the reach of disaster than we: it is they whom the danger threatens first. Secondly, those who are of military age, with the cavalry, must march to Eleusis, and let every one see that you yourselves are in arms; in order that those who sympathize with you in Thebes may be enabled to speak in defence of the right, with the same freedom that their opponents enjoy, when they see that, just as those who are trying to sell their country to Philip have a force ready to help them at Elateia, so those who would struggle for freedom have you ready at hand to help them, and to go to their aid, if any one attacks them. Next I bid you elect ten envoys, and give them full authority, with the generals, to decide the time of their own journey to Thebes, and to order the march of the troops. But when the envoys arrive in Thebes, how do I advise that they should handle the matter? I ask your special attention to this. They must require nothing of the Thebans--to do so at such a moment would be shameful; but they must undertake that we will go to their aid, if they bid us do so, on the ground that they are in extreme peril, and that we foresee the future better than they; in order that, if they accept our offer and take our advice, we may have secured our object, and our action may wear an aspect worthy of this city; or, if after all we are unsuccessful, the Thebans may have themselves to blame for any mistakes which they now make, while we shall have done nothing disgraceful or ignoble.' When I had spoken these words, and others in the same strain, I left the platform. All joined in commending these proposals; no one said a word in opposition; and I did not speak thus, and then fail to move a motion; nor move a motion, and then fail to serve as envoy; nor serve as envoy, and then fail to persuade the Thebans. I carried the matter through in person from beginning to end, and gave myself up unreservedly to meet the dangers which encompassed the city. (_To the clerk_.) Bring me the resolution which was then passed.

But now, Aeschines, how would you have me describe your part, and how mine, that day? Shall I call myself, as you would call me by way of abuse and disparagement, _Battalus_? and you, no ordinary hero even, but a real stage-hero, _Cresphontes_ or _Creon_, or--the character which you cruelly murdered at Collytus --_Oenomaus_? Then I, Battalus of Paeania, proved myself of more value to my country in that crisis than Oenomaus of Cothocidae. In fact you were of no service on any occasion, while I played the part which became a good citizen throughout. (_To the clerk_.) Read this decree.

{181-7} [_The decree of Demosthenes is read_.]

This was the first step towards our new relations with Thebes, and the beginning of a settlement. Up to this time the cities had been inveigled into mutual hostility, hatred, and mistrust by these men. But this decree caused the peril that encompassed the city to pass away like a cloud. It was for an honest citizen, if he had any better plan than mine, to make it public at the time, instead of attacking me now. The true counsellor and the dishonest accuser, unlike as they are in everything, differ most of all in this: the one declares his opinion before the event, and freely surrenders himself as responsible, to those who follow his advice, to Fortune, to circumstances, to any one. The other is silent when he ought to speak, and then carps at anything untoward that may happen. That crisis, as I have said, was the opportunity for a man who cared for his country, the opportunity for honest speaking. But so much further than I need will I go, that if any one can _now_ point to any better course--or any course at all except that which I chose--I admit my guilt. If any one has discovered any course to-day, which would have been for our advantage, had we followed it at the time, I admit that it ought not to have escaped me. But if there neither is nor was such a possibility; if even now, even to-day, no one can mention any such course, what was the counsellor of the people to do? Had he not to choose the best of the plans which suggested themselves and were feasible? This I did. For the herald asked the question, Aeschines, 'Who wishes to speak?' not 'Who wishes to bring accusations about the past?' nor 'Who wishes to guarantee the future?' And while you sat speechless in the Assembly throughout that period, I came forward and spoke. Since, however, you did not do so then, at least inform us now, and tell us what words, which should have been upon my lips, were left unspoken, what precious opportunity, offered to the city, was left unused, by me? What alliance was there, what course of action, to which I ought, by preference, to have guided my countrymen?

But with all mankind the past is always dismissed from consideration, and no one under any circumstances proposes to deliberate about it. It is the future or the present that make their call upon a statesman's duty. Now at that time the danger was partly in the future, and partly already present; and instead of cavilling disingenuously at the results, consider the principle of my policy under such circumstances. For in everything the final issue falls out as Heaven wills; but the principle which he follows itself reveals the mind of the statesman. Do not, therefore, count it a crime on my part, that Philip proved victorious in the battle. The issue of that event lay with God, not with me. But show me that I did not adopt every expedient that was possible, so far as human reason could calculate; that I did not carry out my plan honestly and diligently, with exertions greater than my strength could bear; or that the policy which I initiated was not honourable, and worthy of Athens, and indeed necessary: and then denounce me, but not before. But if the thunderbolt [or the storm] which fell has proved too mighty, not only for us, but for all the other Hellenes, what are we to do? It is as though a ship-owner, who had done all that he could to ensure safety, and had equipped the ship with all that he thought would enable her to escape destruction, and had then met with a tempest in which the tackling had been strained or even broken to pieces, were to be held responsible for the wreck of the vessel. 'Why,' he would say, 'I was not steering the ship'--just as I was not the general --'I had no power over Fortune: she had power over everything.' But consider and observe this point. If it was fated that we should fare as we did, even when we had the Thebans to help us in the struggle, what must we have expected, if we had not had even them for our allies, but they had joined Philip?--and this was the object for which Philip employed every tone that he could command. And if, when the battle took place, as it did, three days' march from Attica, the city was encompassed by such peril and terror, what should we have had to expect, if this same disaster had occurred anywhere within the borders of our own country? Do you realize that, as it was, a single day, and a second, and a third gave us the power to rally, to collect our forces, to take breath, to do much that made for the deliverance of the city: but that had it been otherwise--it is not well, however, to speak of things which we have not had to experience, thanks to the goodwill of one of the gods, and to the protection which the city obtained for herself in this alliance, which you denounce.

The whole of this long argument, gentlemen of the jury, is addressed to yourselves and to the circle of listeners outside the bar; for to this despicable man it would have been enough to address a short, plain sentence. If to you alone, Aeschines, the future was clear, before it came, you should have given warning, when the city was deliberating upon the subject; but if you had no such foreknowledge, you have the same ignorance to answer for as others. Why then should you make these charges against me, any more than I against you? For I have been a better citizen than you with regard to this very matter of which I am speaking--I am not as yet talking of anything else--just in so far as I gave myself up to the policy which all thought expedient, neither shrinking from nor regarding any personal risk; while you neither offered any better proposals than mine (for then they would not have followed mine), nor yet made yourself useful in advancing mine in any way. What the most worthless of men, the bitterest enemy of the city, would do, you are found to have done, when all was over; and at the same time as the irreconcilable enemies of the city, Aristratus in Naxos, and Aristoleos in Thasos, are bringing the friends of Athens to trial, Aeschines, in Athens itself, is accusing Demosthenes. But surely one who treasured up the misfortunes of the Hellenes, that he might win glory from them for himself, deserved to perish rather than to stand as the accuser of another; and one who has profited by the very same crisis as the enemies of the city cannot possibly be loyal to his country. You prove it, moreover, by the life you live, the actions you do, the measures you take --and the measures, too, that you do not take. Is anything being done which seems advantageous to the city? Aeschines is speechless. Has any obstruction, any untoward event occurred? There you find Aeschines, like a rupture or a sprain, which wakes into life, so soon as any trouble overtakes the body.

But since he bears so hardly upon the results, I desire to say what may even be a paradox; and let no one, in the name of Heaven, be amazed at the length to which I go, but give a kindly consideration to what I say. Even if what was to come was plain to all beforehand; even if all foreknew it; even if you, Aeschines, had been crying with a loud voice in warning and protestation--you who uttered not so much as a sound; even then, I say, it was not right for the city to abandon her course, if she had any regard for her fame, or for our forefathers, or for the ages to come. As it is, she is thought, no doubt, to have failed to secure her object--as happens to all alike, whenever God wills it: but then, by abandoning in favour of Philip her claim to take the lead of others, she must have incurred the blame of having betrayed them all. Had she surrendered without a struggle those claims in defence of which our forefathers faced every imaginable peril, who would not have cast scorn upon you, Aeschines--upon you, I say; not, I trust, upon Athens nor upon me? In God's name, with what faces should we have looked upon those who came to visit the city, if events had come round to the same conclusion as they now have--if Philip had been chosen as commander and lord of all, and we had stood apart, while others carried on the struggle to prevent these things; and that, although the city had never yet in time past preferred an inglorious security to the hazardous vindication of a noble cause? What Hellene, what foreigner, does not know, that the Thebans, and the Spartans, who were powerful still earlier, and the Persian king would all gratefully and gladly have allowed Athens to take what she liked and keep all that was her own, if she would do the bidding of another, and let another take the first place in Hellas? But this was not, it appears, the tradition of the Athenians; it was not tolerable; it was not in their nature. From the beginning of time no one had ever yet succeeded in persuading the city to throw in her lot with those who were strong, but unrighteous in their dealings, and to enjoy the security of servitude. Throughout all time she has maintained her perilous struggle for pre-eminence, honour, and glory. And this policy you look upon as so lofty, so proper to your own national character, that, of your forefathers also, it is those who have acted thus that you praise most highly. And naturally. For who would not admire the courage of those men, who did not fear to leave their land and their city, and to embark upon their ships, that they might not do the bidding of another; who chose for their general Themistocles (who had counselled them thus), and stoned Cyrsilus to death, when he gave his voice for submission to a master's orders--and not him alone, for your wives stoned his wife also to death. For the Athenians of that day did not look for an orator or a general who would enable them to live in happy servitude; they cared not to live at all, unless they might live in freedom. For every one of them felt that he had come into being, not for his father and his mother alone, but also for his country. And wherein lies the difference? He who thinks he was born for his parents alone awaits the death which destiny assigns him in the course of nature: but he who thinks he was born for his country also will be willing to die, that he may not see her in bondage, and will look upon the outrages and the indignities that he must needs bear in a city that is in bondage as more to be dreaded than death.

Now were I attempting to argue that _I_ had induced you to show a spirit worthy of your forefathers, there is not a man who might not rebuke me with good reason. But in fact, I am declaring that such principles as these are your own; I am showing that _before_ my time the city displayed this spirit, though I claim that I, too, have had some share, as your servant, in carrying out your policy in detail. But in denouncing the policy as a whole, in bidding you be harsh with me, as one who has brought terrors and dangers upon the city, the prosecutor, in his eagerness to deprive me of my distinction at the present moment, is trying to rob you of praises that will last throughout all time. For if you condemn the defendant on the ground that my policy was not for the best, men will think that your own judgement has been wrong, and that it was not through the unkindness of fortune that you suffered what befell you. But it cannot, it cannot be that you were wrong, men of Athens, when you took upon you the struggle for freedom and deliverance. No! by those who at Marathon bore the brunt of the peril--our forefathers. No! by those who at Plataeae drew up their battle-line, by those who at Salamis, by those who off Artemisium fought the fight at sea, by the many who lie in the sepulchres where the People laid them, brave men, all alike deemed worthy by their country, Aeschines, of the same honour and the same obsequies--not the successful or the victorious alone! And she acted justly. For all these have done that which it was the duty of brave men to do; but their fortune has been that which Heaven assigned to each. Accursed, poring pedant! if you, in your anxiety to deprive me of the honour and the kindness shown to me by my countrymen, recounted trophies and battles and deeds of long ago--and of which of them did this present trial demand the mention?--what spirit was I to take upon me, when I mounted the platform, I who came forward to advise the city how she should maintain her pre-eminence? Tell me, third-rate actor! The spirit of one who would propose things unworthy of this people? I should indeed have deserved to die! For you too, men of Athens, ought not to judge private suits and public in the same spirit. The business transactions of everyday life must be viewed in the light of the special law and practice associated with each; but the public policy of statesmen must be judged by the principles that your forefathers set before them. And if you believe that you should act worthily of them, then, whenever you come into court to try a public suit, each of you must imagine that with his staff and his ticket there is entrusted to him also the spirit of his country.

But I have entered upon the subject of your forefathers' achievements, and have passed over certain decrees and transactions. I desire, therefore, to return to the point from which I digressed.

When we came to Thebes, we found envoys there from Philip, and from the Thessalians and his other allies--our friends in terror, his full of confidence. And to show you that I am not saying this now to suit my own purpose, read the letter which we, your envoys, dispatched without delay. The prosecutor, however, has exercised the art of misrepresentation to so extravagant a degree, that he attributes to circumstances, not to me, any satisfactory result that was achieved; but for everything that fell out otherwise, he lays the blame upon me and the fortune that attends me. In his eyes, apparently, I, the counsellor and orator, have no share in the credit for what was accomplished as the result of oratory and debate; while I must bear the blame alone for the misfortunes which we suffered in arms, and as a result of generalship. What more brutal, more damnable misrepresentation can be conceived? (_To the clerk_.) Read the letter.

[_The letter is read_.]

When they had convened the Assembly, they gave audience to the other side first, on the ground that they occupied the position of allies; and these came forward and delivered harangues full of the praises of Philip and of accusations against yourselves, recalling everything that you had ever done in opposition to the Thebans. The sum of it all was that they required the Thebans to show their gratitude for the benefits which they had received from Philip, and to exact the penalty for the injuries they had received from you, in whichever way they preferred--either by letting them march through their country against you, or by joining them in the invasion of Attica; and they showed (as they thought) that the result of the course which they advised would be that the herds and slaves and other valuables of Attica would find their way into Boeotia; while the result of what (as they alleged) you were about to propose would be that those of Boeotia would be plundered in consequence of the war. They said much more, but all tending to the same effect. As for our reply, I would give my whole life to tell it you in detail; but I fear lest, now that those times have gone by, you may feel as if a very deluge had overwhelmed all, and may regard anything that is said on the subject as vanity and vexation. But hear at least what we persuaded them to do, and their answer to us. (_To the clerk_.) Take this and read it.

[_The answer of the Thebans is read_.]

After this they invited and summoned you; you marched; you went to their aid; and (to pass over the events which intervened) they received you in so friendly a spirit that while their infantry and cavalry were encamped outside the walls, they welcomed your troops into their houses, within the city, among their children and wives, and all that was most precious to them. Three eulogies did the Thebans pronounce upon you before the world that day, and those of the most honourable kind--the first upon your courage, the second upon your righteousness, the third upon your self-control. For when they chose to side with you in the struggle, rather than against you, they judged that your courage was greater, and your requests more righteous, than Philip's; and when they placed in your power what they and all men guard most jealously, their children and wives, they showed their confidence in your self-control. In all these points, men of Athens, your conduct proved that their judgement had been correct. For the force came into the city; but no one made a single complaint--not even an unfounded complaint--against you; so virtuously did you conduct yourselves. And twice you fought by their side, in the earliest battles-the battle by the river and the winter- battle --and showed yourselves, not only irreproachable, but even admirable, in your discipline, your equipment, and your enthusiasm. These things called forth expressions of thanks to you from other states, and sacrifices and processions to the gods from yourselves. And I should like to ask Aeschines whether, when all this was happening, and the city was full of pride and joy and thanksgiving, he joined in the sacrifices and the rejoicing of the multitude, or whether he sat at home grieving and groaning and angry at the good fortune of his country. If he was present, and was seen in his place with the rest, surely his present action is atrocious--nay, even impious--when he asks you, who have taken an oath by the gods, to vote to-day that those very things were not excellent, of whose excellence he himself on that day made the gods his witnesses. If he was not present, then surely he deserves to die many times, for grieving at the sight of the things which brought rejoicing to others. (_To the clerk_.) Now read these decrees also.

[_The decrees ordering sacrifices are read_.]

Thus we were occupied at that time with sacrifices, while the Thebans were reflecting how they had been saved by our help; and those who, in consequence of my opponents' proceedings, had expected that they would themselves stand in need of help, found themselves, after all, helping others, in consequence of the action they took upon my advice. But what the tone of Philip's utterance was, and how greatly he was confounded by what had happened, you can learn from his letter, which he sent to the Peloponnese. (_To the clerk_.) Take these and read them: (_to the jury_) that you may know what was effected by my perseverance, by my travels, by the hardships I endured, by all those decrees of which Aeschines spoke so disparagingly just now.

You have had, as you know, many great and famous orators, men of Athens, before my time--Callistratus himself, Aristophon, Cephalus, Thrasybulus, and a vast number of others. Yet not one of these ever gave himself up entirely to the State for any purpose: the mover of a decree would not serve as ambassador, the ambassador would not move the decree. Each left himself, at one and the same time, some respite from work, and somewhere to lay the blame, in case of accidents. 'Well,' some one may say, 'did _you_ so excel them in force and boldness, as to do everything yourself?' I do not say that. But so strong was my conviction of the seriousness of the danger that had overtaken the city, that I felt that I ought not to give my personal safety any place whatever in my thoughts; it was enough for a man to do his duty and to leave nothing undone. And I was convinced with regard to myself--foolishly perhaps, but still convinced--that no mover would make a better proposal, no agent would execute it better, no ambassador would be more eager or more honest in his mission, than I. For these reasons, I assigned every one of these offices to myself. (_To the clerk_.) Read Philip's letters.

[_Philip's letters are read_.]

To this condition, Aeschines, was Philip reduced by my statesmanship. This was the tone of his utterances, though before this he used to threaten the city with many a bold word. For this I was deservedly crowned by those here assembled, and though you were present, you offered no opposition; while Diondas, who indicted the proposer, did not obtain the necessary fraction of the votes. (_To the clerk_.) Read me these decrees, (_to the jury)_ which escaped condemnation, and which Aeschines did not even indict.

[_The decrees are read_.]

These decrees, men of Athens, contain the very same syllables, the very same words, as those which Aristonicus previously employed in his proposal, and which Ctesiphon, the defendant, has employed now; and Aeschines neither prosecuted the proposer of them himself, nor supported the person who indicted him. Yet surely, if the charges which he is bringing against me to-day are true, he would have had better reason then for prosecuting Demomeles (the proposer of the decree) and Hypereides, than he has for prosecuting Ctesiphon. And why? Because Ctesiphon can refer you to them--to the decision of the courts, to the fact that Aeschines himself did not accuse them, though they had moved exactly what he has moved now, to the prohibition by law of further prosecution in such cases, and to many other facts: whereas then the case would have been tried on its merits, before the defendant had got the advantage of any such precedent. But of course it was impossible then for Aeschines to act as he has acted now--to select out of many periods of time long past, and many decrees, matters which no one either knew or thought would be mentioned to-day; to misrepresent them, to change the dates, to put false reasons for the actions taken in place of the true, and so appear to have a case. At the time this was impossible. Every word spoken then must have been spoken with the truth in view, at no distance of time from the events, while you still remembered all the facts and had them practically at your fingers' ends. For that reason he evaded all investigation at the time; and he has come before you now, in the belief (I fancy) that you will make this a contest of oratory, instead of an inquiry into our political careers, and that it is upon our eloquence, not upon the interests of the city, that you will decide.

Yes, and he ingeniously suggests that you ought to disregard the opinion which you had of each of us when you left your homes and came into court; and that just as, when you draw up an account in the belief that some one has a balance, you nevertheless give way when you find that the counters all disappear and leave nothing over, so now you should give your adhesion to the conclusion which emerges from the argument. Now observe how inherently rotten everything that springs from dishonesty seems to be. By his very use of this ingenious illustration he has confessed that to-day, at all events, our respective characters are well established--that I am known to speak for my country's good, and he to speak for Philip. For unless that were your present conception of each of us, he would not have sought to change your view. And further, I shall easily show you that it is not fair of him to ask you to alter this opinion--not by the use of counters--that is not how a political reckoning is made--but by briefly recalling each point to you, and treating you who hear me both as auditors of my account and witnesses to the facts. For that policy of mine which he denounces caused the Thebans, instead of joining Philip, as all expected them to do, in the invasion of our country, to range themselves by our side and stay his progress. It caused the war to take place not in Attica, but on the confines of Boeotia, eighty miles from the city. Instead of our being harried and plundered by freebooters from Euboea, it gave peace to Attica from the side of the sea throughout the war. Instead of Philip's taking Byzantium and becoming master of the Hellespont, it caused the Byzantines to join us in the war against him. Can such achievements, think you, be reckoned up like counters? Are we to cancel them out, rather than provide that they shall be remembered for all time? I need not now add that it fell to others to taste the barbarity which is to be seen in every case in which Philip got any one finally into his power; while you reaped (and quite rightly) the fruits of the generosity which he feigned while he was bringing within his grasp all that remained. But I pass this over.

Nay, I will not even hesitate to say, that one who wished to review an orator's career straightforwardly and without misrepresentation, would not have included in his charges such matters as you just now spoke of-- making up illustrations, and mimicking words and gestures. Of course the fortune which befell the Hellenes--surely you see this?--was entirely due to my using this word instead of that, or waving my hand in one direction rather than the other! He would have inquired, by reference to the actual facts, what resources and what forces the city had at her command when I entered political life; what I subsequently collected for her when I took control; and what was the condition of our adversaries. Then if I had diminished our forces, he would have proved that the fault lay at my door; but if I had greatly increased them, he would have abstained from deliberate misrepresentation. But since you have avoided such an inquiry, I will undertake it; and do you, gentlemen, observe whether my argument is just.

The military resources of the city included the islanders--and not all, but only the weakest. For neither Chios nor Rhodes nor Corcyra was with us. Their contribution in money came to 45 talents, and these had been collected in advance. Infantry and cavalry, besides our own, we had none. But the circumstance which was most alarming to us and most favourable to our enemies was that these men had contrived that all our neighbours should be more inclined to enmity than to friendship--the Megareans, the Thebans, and the Euboeans. Such was the position of the city at the time; and what I say admits of no contradiction. Now consider the position of Philip, with whom our conflict lay. In the first place, he held absolute sway over his followers--and this for purposes of war is the greatest of all advantages. Next, his followers had their weapons in their hands always. Then he was well off for money, and did whatever he resolved to do, without giving warning of it by decrees, or debating about it in public, or being put on trial by dishonest accusers, or defending himself against indictments for illegality, or being bound to render an account to any one. He was himself absolute master, commander, and lord of all. But I who was set to oppose him--for this inquiry too it is just to make--what had I under my control? Nothing! For, to begin with, the very right to address you--the only right I had--you extended to Philip's hirelings in the same measure as to me; and as often as they defeated me--and this frequently happened, whatever the reason on each occasion--so often you went away leaving a resolution recorded in favour of the enemy. But in spite of all these disadvantages, I won for you the alliance of the Euboeans, Achaeans, Corinthians, Thebans, Megareans, Leucadians, and Corcyreans, from whom were collected--apart from their citizen-troops--15,000 mercenaries and 2,000 cavalry. And I instituted a money-contribution, on as large a scale as I could. But if you refer, Aeschines, to what was fair as between ourselves and the Thebans or the Byzantines or the Euboeans--if at this time you talk to us of equal shares--you must be ignorant, in the first place, of the fact that in former days also, out of those ships of war, three hundred in all, which fought for the Hellenes, Athens provided two hundred, and did not think herself unfairly used, or let herself be seen arraigning those who had counselled her action, or taking offence at the arrangement. It would have been shameful. No! men saw her rendering thanks to Heaven, because when a common peril beset the Hellenes, she had provided double as much as all the rest to secure the deliverance of all. Moreover, it is but a hollow benefit that you are conferring upon your countrymen by your dishonest charges against me. Why do you tell them _now_, what course they ought to have taken? Why did you not propose such a course at the time (for you were in Athens, and were present) if it was possible in the midst of those critical times, when we had to accept, not what we chose, but what circumstances allowed; since there was one at hand, bidding against us, and ready to welcome those whom we rejected, and to pay them into the bargain.

But if I am accused to-day, for what I have actually done, what if at the time I had haggled over these details, and the other states had gone off and joined Philip, and he had become master at once of Euboea and Thebes and Byzantium? What do you think these impious men would then have done? What would they have said? Would they not have declared that the states had been surrendered? that they had been driven away, when they wished to be on your side? 'See,' they would have said (would they not?), 'he has obtained through the Byzantines the command of the Hellespont and the control of the corn trade of Hellas; and through the Thebans a trying border war has been brought into Attica; and owing to the pirates who sail from Euboea, the sea has become unnavigable,' and much more in addition. A villainous thing, men of Athens, is the dishonest accuser always-- villainous, and in every way malignant and fault-finding! Aye, and this miserable creature is a fox by nature, that has never done anything honest or gentlemanly--a very tragical ape, a clodhopping Oenomaus, a counterfeit orator! Where is the profit to your country from your cleverness? Do you instruct us now about things that are past? It is as though a doctor, when he was paying his visits to the sick, were to give them no advice or instructions to enable them to become free from their illness, but, when one of his patients died and the customary offerings were being paid him, were to explain, as he followed to the tomb, 'if this man had done such and such things, he would not have died.' Crazy fool! Do you tell us this _now_?

Nor again will you find that the defeat--if you exult at it, when you ought to groan, accursed man!--was determined by anything that was within my control. Consider the question thus. In no place to which I was sent by you as ambassador, did I ever come away defeated by the ambassadors of Philip--not from Thessaly nor from Ambracia, not from the Illyrians nor from the Thracian princes, not from Byzantium nor from any other place, nor yet, on the last occasion, from Thebes. But every place in which his ambassadors were defeated in argument, he proceeded to attack and subdue by force of arms. Do you then require those places at _my_ hands? Are you not ashamed to jeer at a man as a coward, and in the same breath to require him to prove superior, by his own unaided efforts, to the army of Philip--and that with no weapons to use but words? For what else was at my disposal? I could not control the spirit of each soldier, or the fortune of the combatants, or the generalship displayed, of which, in your perversity, you demand an account from me. No; but every investigation that can be made as regards those duties for which an orator should be held responsible, I bid you make. I crave no mercy. And what are those duties? To discern events in their beginnings, to foresee what is coming, and to forewarn others. These things I have done. Again, it is his duty to reduce to the smallest possible compass, wherever he finds them, the slowness, the hesitation, the ignorance, the contentiousness, which are the errors inseparably connected with the constitution of all city- states; while, on the other hand, he must stimulate men to unity, friendship, and eagerness to perform their duty. All these things I have done, and no one can discover any dereliction of duty on my part at any time. If one were to ask any person whatever, by what means Philip had accomplished the majority of his successes, every one would reply that it was by means of his army, and by giving presents and corrupting those in charge of affairs. Now I had no control or command of the forces: neither, then, does the responsibility for anything that was done in that sphere concern me. And further, in the matter of being or not being corrupted by bribes, I have defeated Philip. For just as the bidder has conquered one who accepts his money, if he effects his purchase, so one who refuses to accept it [and is not corrupted] has conquered the bidder. In all, therefore, in which I am concerned, the city has suffered no defeat.

The justification, then, with which I furnished the defendant for such a motion as he proposed with regard to me, consisted (along with many other points) of the facts which I have described, and others like them. I will now proceed to that justification which all of you supplied. For immediately after the battle, the People, who knew and had seen all that I did, and now stood in the very midst of the peril and terror, at a moment when it would not have been surprising if the majority had shown some harshness towards me--the People, I say, in the first place carried my proposals for ensuring the safety of the city; and all the measures undertaken for its protection--the disposition of the garrisons, the entrenchments, the funds for the fortifications--were all provided for by decrees which I proposed. And, in the second place, when the People chose a corn-commissioner, out of all Athens they elected me. Subsequently all those who were interested in injuring me combined, and assailed me with indictments, prosecutions after audit, impeachments, and all such proceedings--not in their own names at first, but through the agency of men behind whom, they thought, they would best be screened against recognition. For you doubtless know and remember that during the early part of that period I was brought to trial every day; and neither the desperation of Sosicles, nor the dishonest misrepresentations of Philocrates, nor the frenzy of Diondas and Melantus, nor any other expedient, was left untried by them against me. And in all these trials, thanks to the gods above all, but secondarily to you and the rest of the Athenians, I was acquitted--and justly; for such a decision is in accordance both with truth and with the credit of jurors who have taken their oath, and given a verdict in conformity with it. So whenever I was impeached, and you absolved me and did not give the prosecutor the necessary fraction of the votes, you were voting that my policy was the best. Whenever I was acquitted upon an indictment, it was a proof that my motion and proposals were according to law. Whenever you set your seal to my accounts at an audit, you confessed in addition that I had acted throughout with uprightness and integrity. And this being so, what epithet was it fitting or just that Ctesiphon should apply to my actions? Was it not that which he saw applied by the People, and by juries on their oath, and ratified by Truth in the judgement of all men?

'Yes,' he replies, 'but Cephalus' boast was a noble one--that he had never been indicted at all.' True, and a happy thing also it was for him. But why should one who has often been tried, but has never been convicted of crime, deserve to incur criticism any the more on that account? Yet in truth, men of Athens, so far as Aeschines is concerned, I too can make this noble boast that Cephalus made. For he has never yet preferred or prosecuted any indictment against me; so that by you at least, Aeschines, I am admitted to be no worse a citizen than Cephalus.

His want of feeling and his malignity may be seen in many ways, and not least in the remarks which he made about fortune. For my part, I think that, as a rule, when one human being reproaches another with his fortune, he is a fool. For when he who thinks himself most prosperous and fancies his fortune most excellent, does not know whether it will remain so until the evening, how can it be right to speak of one's fortune, or to taunt another with his? But since Aeschines adopts a tone of lofty superiority upon this as upon many other subjects, observe, men of Athens, how much more truthful and more becoming in a human being my own remarks upon Aeschines' fortune will be. I believe that the fortune of this city is good; and I see that the God of Dodona also declares this to you through his oracle. But I think that the prevailing fortune of mankind as a whole to-day is grievous and terrible. For what man, Hellene or foreigner, has not tasted abundance of evil at this present time? Now the fact that we chose the noblest course, and that we are actually better off than those Hellenes who expected to live in prosperity if they sacrificed us, I ascribe to the good fortune of the city. But in so far as we failed, in so far as everything did not fall out in accordance with our wishes, I consider that the city has received the share which was due to us of the fortune of mankind in general. But my personal fortune, and that of every individual among us, ought, I think, in fairness to be examined with reference to our personal circumstances. That is my judgement with regard to fortune, and I believe (as I think you also do) that my judgement is correct and just. But Aeschines asserts that my personal fortune has more influence than the fortune of the city as a community--the insignificant and evil more than the good and important! How can this be?

If, however, you determine at all costs to scrutinize my fortune, Aeschines, then compare it with your own; and if you find that mine is better than yours, then cease to revile it. Examine it, then, from the very beginning. And, in Heaven's name, let no one condemn me for any want of good taste. For I neither regard one who speaks insultingly of poverty, nor one who prides himself on having been brought up in affluence, as a man of sense. But the slanders and misrepresentations of this unfeeling man oblige me to enter upon a discussion of this sort; and I will conduct it with as much moderation as the facts allow.

I then, Aeschines, had the advantage as a boy of attending the schools which became my position, and of possessing as much as one who is to do nothing ignoble owing to poverty must possess. When I passed out of boyhood, my life corresponded with my upbringing--I provided choruses and equipped warships; I paid the war-tax; I neglected none of the paths to distinction in public or private life, but gave my services both to my country and my friends; and when I thought fit to enter public life, the measures which I decided to adopt were of such a character that I have been crowned many times both by my country and by many other Hellenic peoples, while not even you, my enemies, attempt to say that my choice was not at least an honourable one. Such is the fortune which has accompanied my life, and though I might say much more about it, I refrain from doing so, in my anxiety not to annoy any one by the expression of my pride. And you--the lofty personage, the despiser of others--what has been your fortune when compared with this?--the fortune, thanks to which you were brought up as a boy in the depths of indigence, in close attendance upon the school along with your father, pounding up the ink, sponging down the forms, sweeping the attendants' room, occupying the position of a menial, not of a free-born boy! Then, when you became a man, you used to read out the books to your mother at her initiations, and help her in the rest of the hocus-pocus, by night dressing the initiated in fawnskins, drenching them from the bowl, purifying them and wiping them down with the clay and the bran, and (when they were purified) bidding them stand up and say, 'The ill is done, the good begun,' priding yourself upon raising the shout of joy more loudly than any one had ever done before--and I can believe it, for, when his voice is so loud, you dare not imagine that his shout is anything but superlatively fine. But by day you used to lead those noble companies through the streets, men crowned with fennel and white poplar, throttling the puff-adders and waving them over your head, crying out 'Euoe, Saboe,' and dancing to the tune of 'Hyes Attes, Attes Hyes'--addressed by the old hags as leader, captain, ivy-bearer, fan-bearer, and so on; and as the reward of your services getting sops and twists and barley-bannocks! Who would not congratulate himself with good reason on such things, and bless his own fortune? But when you were enrolled among your fellow parishioners, by whatever means (for of that I say nothing)--when, I say, you _were_ enrolled, you at once selected the noblest of occupations, that of a clerk and servant to petty magistrates. And when at length you escaped from this condition also, after yourself doing all that you impute to others, you in no way--Heaven knows!--disgraced your previous record by the life which you subsequently lived; for you hired yourself out to the actors Simylus and Socrates--the Roarers, they were nicknamed --and played as a third-rate actor, collecting figs and bunches of grapes and olives, like a fruiterer gathering from other peoples' farms, and getting more out of this than out of the dramatic competitions in which you were competing for your lives; for there was war without truce or herald between yourselves and the spectators; and the many wounds you received from them make it natural for you to jeer at the cowardice of those who have had no such experiences. But I will pass over all that might be accounted for by your poverty, and proceed to my charges against your character itself. For you chose a line of political action (when at length it occurred to you to take up politics too), in pursuance of which, when your country's fortune was good, you lived the life of a hare, in fear and trembling, always expecting a thrashing for the crimes which lay on your conscience; whereas all have seen your boldness amid the misfortunes of others. But when a man plucks up courage at the death of a thousand of his fellow citizens, what does he deserve to suffer at the hands of the living? I have much more to say about him, but I will leave it unsaid. It is not for me, I think, to mention lightly all the infamy and disgrace which I could prove to be connected with him, but only so much as it is not discreditable to myself to speak of.

And now review the history of your life and of mine, side by side-- good temperedly, Aeschines, not unkindly: and then ask these gentlemen which fortune, of the two, each of them would choose. You taught letters; I attended school. You conducted initiations; I was initiated. You were a clerk; I a member of the Assembly: you, a third-rate actor, I a spectator of the play. You used to be driven from the stage, while I hissed. Your political life has all been lived for the good of our enemies, mine for the good of my country. To pass over all besides, even on this very day, I am being examined with regard to my qualification for a crown--it is already admitted that I am clear of all crimes; while you have already the reputation of a dishonest informer, and for you the issue at stake is whether you are to continue such practices, or to be stopped once for all, through failing to obtain a fifth part of the votes. A good fortune indeed--can you not see?--is that which has accompanied your life, that you should denounce mine!

And now let me read to you the evidence of the public burdens which I have undertaken; and side by side with them, do you, Aeschines, read the speeches which you used to murder--


 * 'I leave the abysm of death and gates of gloom,'

and


 * 'Know that I am not fain ill-news to bring';

and 'evil in evil wise', may you be brought to perdition, by the gods above all, and then by all those here present, villainous citizen, villainous third-rate actor that you are. (_To the clerk_.) Read the evidence.

[_The evidence is read_.]

Such was I in my relation to the State. And as to my private life, unless you all know that I was open-hearted and generous and at the disposal of all who had need of me, I am silent; I prefer to tell you nothing, and to produce no evidence whatever, to show whether I ransomed some from the enemy, or helped others to give their daughters in marriage, or rendered any such services. For my principle may perhaps be expressed thus. I think that one who has received a kindness ought to remember it all his life; but that the doer of the kindness should forget it once for all; if the former is to behave like a good man, the latter like one free from all meanness. To be always recalling and speaking of one's own benefactions is almost like upbraiding the recipients of them. I will do nothing of the kind, and will not be led into doing so. Whatever be the opinion that has been formed of me in these respects, with that I am content.

But I desire to be rid of personal topics, and to say a little more to you about public affairs. For if, Aeschines, you can mention one of all those who dwell beneath the sun above us, Hellene or foreigner, who has not suffered under the absolute sway, first of Philip, and now of Alexander, so be it! I concede that it is my fortune or misfortune, whichever you are pleased to call it, that has been to blame for everything. But if many of those who have never once even seen me or heard my voice have suffered much and terribly--and not individuals alone, but whole cities and nations--how much more just and truthful it is to regard the common fortune (as it seems to be) of all mankind, and a certain stubborn drift of events in the wrong direction, as the cause of these sufferings. Such considerations, however, you discard. You impute the blame to me, whose political life has been lived among my own fellow countrymen--and that, though you know that your slander falls in part (if not entirely) upon all of them, and above all upon yourself. For if, when I took part in the discussion of public affairs, I had had absolute power, it would have been possible for all of you, the other orators, to lay the blame on me. But if you were present at every meeting of the Assembly; if the city always brought forward questions of policy for public consideration; if at the time my policy appeared the best to every one, and above all to you (for it was certainly from no goodwill that you relinquished to me the hopes, the admiration, the honours, which all attached themselves to my policy at that time, but obviously because the truth was too strong for you, and you had nothing better to propose); then surely you are guilty of monstrous iniquity, in finding fault to-day with a policy, than which, at the time, you could propose nothing better. Among all the rest of mankind, I observe that some such principles as the following have been, as it were, determined and ordained. If a man commits a deliberate crime, indignation and punishment are ordained against him. If he commits an involuntary mistake, instead of punishment, he is to receive pardon. If, without crime or mistake, one who has given himself up wholly to that which seems to be for the advantage of all has, in company with all, failed to achieve success, then it is just, not to reproach or revile such a man, but to sympathize with him. Moreover, it will be seen that all these principles are not so ordained in the laws alone. Nature herself has laid them down in her unwritten law, and in the moral consciousness of mankind. Aeschines, then, has so far surpassed all mankind in brutality and in the art of misrepresentation, that he actually denounces me for things which he himself mentioned under the name of misfortunes.

In addition to everything else, as though he had himself always spoken straightforwardly and in loyalty, he bade you keep your eyes on me carefully, and make sure that I did not mislead or deceive you. He called me 'a clever speaker', 'a wizard', 'a sophist', and so on: just as if it followed that when a man had the first word and attributed his own qualities to another, the truth was really as he stated, and his hearers would not inquire further who he himself was, that said such things. But I am sure that you all know this man, and are aware that these qualities belong to him far more than to me. And again, I am quite sure that my cleverness--yes, let the word pass; though I observe that the influence of a speaker depends for the most part on his audience; for in proportion to the welcome and the goodwill which you accord to each speaker is the credit which he obtains for wisdom;--I am sure, I say, that if I too possess any such skill, you will all find it constantly fighting on your behalf in affairs of State, never in opposition to you, never for private ends; while the skill of Aeschines, on the contrary, is employed, not only in upholding the cause of the enemy, but in attacking any one who has annoyed him or come into collision with him anywhere. He neither employs it uprightly, nor to promote the interests of the city. For a good and honourable citizen ought not to require from a jury, who have come into court to represent the interests of the community, that they shall give their sanction to his anger, or his enmity, or any other such passion; nor ought he to come before you to gratify such feelings. It were best that he had no such passions in his nature at all; but if they are really inevitable, then he should keep them tame and subdued. Under what circumstances, then, should a politician and an orator show passion? When any of the vital interests of his country are at stake; when it is with its enemies that the People has to deal: those are the circumstances. For then is the opportunity of a loyal and gallant citizen. But that when he has never to this day demanded my punishment, either in the name of the city or in his own, for any public--nor, I will add, for any private-- crime, he should have come here with a trumped-up charge against the grant of a crown and a vote of thanks, and should have spent so many words upon it--that is a sign of personal enmity and jealousy and meanness, not of any good quality. And that he should further have discarded every form of lawsuit against myself, and should have come here to-day to attack the defendant, is the very extremity of baseness. It shows, I think, Aeschines, that your motive in undertaking this suit was your desire, not to exact vengeance for any crime, but to give a display of rhetoric and elocution. Yet it is not his language, Aeschines, that deserves our esteem in an orator, nor the pitch of his voice, but his choice of the aims which the people chooses, his hatred or love of those whom his country loves or hates. He whose heart is so disposed will always speak with loyal intent; but he who serves those from whom the city foresees danger to herself, does not ride at the same anchor as the People, and therefore does not look for safety to the same quarter. But I do, mark you! For I have made the interests of my countrymen my own, and have counted nothing as reserved for my own private advantage. What? You have not done so either? How can that be, when immediately after the battle you went your way as an ambassador to Philip, the author of the calamities which befell your country at that time; and that, despite the fact that until then you always denied this intimacy with him, as every one knows? But what is meant by a deceiver of the city? Is it not one who does not say what he thinks? Upon whom does the herald justly pronounce the curse? Is it not upon such a man as this? With what greater crime can one charge a man who is an orator, than that of saying one thing and thinking another? Such a man you have been found to be. And after this do you open your mouth, or dare to look this audience in the face? Do you imagine that they do not know who you are? or that the slumber of forgetfulness has taken such hold upon them all, that they do not remember the speeches which you used to deliver during the war, when you declared with imprecations and oaths that you had nothing to do with Philip, and that I was bringing this accusation against you, when it was not true, to satisfy my personal enmity? But so soon as the news of the battle had come, you thought no more of all this, but at once avowed and professed that you stood on a footing of friendship and guest-friendship with him; though these were nothing but your hireling-service under other names; for upon what honest or equal basis could Aeschines, the son of Glaucothea the tambourine-- player, enjoy the guest-friendship, or the friendship, or the acquaintance of Philip? I cannot see. In fact, you had been hired by him to ruin the interests of these your countrymen. And yet, though your own treason has been so plainly detected--though you have been an informer against yourself after the event--you still revile me, and reproach me with crimes of which, you will find, any one is more guilty than I.

Many a great and noble enterprise, Aeschines, did this city undertake and succeed in, inspired by me; and she did not forget them. It is a proof of this, that when, immediately after the event, the People had to elect one who should pronounce the oration over the dead, and you were nominated, they did not elect you, for all your fine voice, nor Demades, who had just negotiated the Peace, nor Hegemon, nor any other member of your party: they elected me. And when you and Pythocles came forward in a brutal and shameless fashion, God knows! and made the same charges against me as you are making again to-day, and abused me, the People elected me even more decidedly. And the reason you know well; but I will tell it you nevertheless. They knew for themselves both the loyalty and zeal which inspired my conduct of affairs, and the iniquity of yourself and your friends. For what you denied with oaths when our cause was prosperous, you admitted in the hour of the city's failure; and those, accordingly, who were only enabled by the misfortunes of their country to express their views without fear, they decided to have been enemies of their own for a long while, though only then did they stand revealed. And further, they thought that one who was to pronounce an oration over the dead, and to adorn their valour, should not have come beneath the same roof, nor shared the same libation, as those who were arrayed against them; that he should not there join with those who with their own hands had slain them, in the revel and the triumph-song over the calamities of the Hellenes, and then come home and receive honour--that he should not play the mourner over their fate with his voice, but should grieve for them in his heart. What they required they saw in themselves and in me, but not in you; and this was why they appointed me, and not any of you. Nor, when the people acted thus, did the fathers and brothers of the slain, who were then publicly appointed to conduct the funeral, act otherwise. For since (in accordance with the ordinary custom) they had to hold the funeral-feast in the house of the nearest of kin, as it were, to the slain, they held it at my house, and with reason; for though by birth each was more nearly akin to his dead than I, yet none stood nearer to them all in common. For he who had their life and their success most at heart, had also, when they had suffered what I would they had not, the greatest share of sorrow for them all.

(_To the clerk _) Read him the epitaph which the city resolved to inscribe above them at the public cost; (_to Aeschines_) that even by these very lines, Aeschines, you may know that you are a man destitute of feeling, a dishonest accuser, an abominable wretch!


 * _The Inscription_.


 * These for their country, fighting side by side,  By deeds of arms dispelled the foemen's pride.   heir lives they saved not, bidding Death make clear--   Impartial Judge!--their courage or their fear.   For Greece they fought, lest, 'neath the yoke brought low,   In thraldom she th' oppressor's scorn should know.   Now in the bosom of their fatherland   After their toil they rest--'tis God's command.   'Tis God's alone from failure free to live;   Escape from Fate to no man doth He give.

Do you hear, Aeschines [in these very lines], 'Tis God's alone from failure free to live' ? Not to the statesman has he ascribed the power to secure success for those who strive, but to the gods. Why then, accursed man, do you revile _me_, for our failure, in words which I pray the gods to turn upon the heads of you and yours?

But, even after all the other lying accusations which he has brought against me, the thing which amazed me most of all, men of Athens, was that when he mentioned what had befallen the city, he did not think of it as a loyal and upright citizen would have thought. He shed no tears; he felt no emotion of sorrow in his heart: he lifted up his voice, he exulted, he strained his throat, evidently in the belief that he was accusing me, though in truth he was giving us an illustration, to his own discredit, of the utter difference between his feelings and those of others, at the painful events which had taken place. But surely one who professes, as Aeschines professes now, to care for the laws and the constitution, ought to show, if nothing else, at least that he feels the same griefs and the same joys as the People, and has not, by his political profession, ranged himself on the side of their opponents. That you have done the latter is manifest today, when you pretend that the blame for everything is mine, and that it is through me that the city was plunged in trouble: though it was not through my statesmanship or my policy, gentlemen, that you began to help the Hellenes: for were you to grant me this--that it was through me that you had resisted the dominion which was being established over the Hellenes--you would have granted me a testimonial which all those that you have given to others together could not equal. But neither would I make such an assertion; for it would be unjust to you; nor, I am sure, would you concede its truth: and if Aeschines were acting honestly, he would not have been trying to deface and misrepresent the greatest of your glories, in order to satisfy his hatred towards me.

But why do I rebuke him for this, when he has made other lying charges against me, which are more outrageous by far? For when a man charges me--I call Heaven and Earth to witness!--with philippizing, what will he not say? By Heracles and all the gods, if one had to inquire truthfully, setting aside all calumny and all expression of animosity, who are in reality the men upon whose heads all would naturally and justly lay the blame for what has taken place, you would find that it was those in each city who resemble Aeschines, not those who resemble me. For they, when Philip's power was weak and quite insignificant--when we repeatedly warned and exhorted you and showed you what was best--they, to satisfy their own avarice, sacrificed the interests of the community, each group deceiving and corrupting their own fellow citizens, until they brought them into bondage. Thus the Thessalians were treated by Daochus, Cineas, and Thrasydaeus; the Arcadians by Cercidas, Hieronymus and Eucampidas; the Argives by Myrtis, Teledamus, and Mnaseas; the Eleans by Euxitheus, Cleotimus and Aristaechmus; the Messenians by the sons of the godforsaken Philiadas--Neon and Thrasylochus; the Sicymians by Aristratus and Epichares; the Corinthians by Deinarchus and Demaretus; the Megareans by Ptoeodorus, Helixus and Perillus; the Thebans by Timolaus, Theogeiton, and Anemoetas; the Euboeans by Hipparchus and Sosistratus. Daylight will fail me before the list of the traitors is complete. All these, men of Athens, are men who pursue the same designs in their own cities, as my opponents pursue among you--abominable men, flatterers, evil spirits, who have hacked the limbs each of his own fatherland, and like boon companions have pledged away their freedom, first to Philip and now to Alexander; men whose measure of happiness is their belly, and their lowest instincts; while as for freedom, and the refusal to acknowledge any man as lord--the standard and rule of good to the Hellenes of old--they have flung it to the ground.

Of this shameful and notorious conspiracy and wickedness--or rather (to speak with all earnestness, men of Athens), of this treason against the freedom of the Hellenes--Athens has been guiltless in the eyes of all men, in consequence of my statesmanship, as I have been guiltless in your eyes. And do you then ask me for what merits I count myself worthy to receive honour? I tell you that at a time when every politician in Hellas had been corrupted--beginning with yourself--[firstly by Philip, and now by Alexander], no opportunity that offered, no generous language, no grand promises, no hopes, no fears, nor any other motive, tempted or induced me to betray one jot of what I believed to be the rights and interests of the city; nor, of all the counsel that I have given to my fellow countrymen, up to this day, has any ever been given (as it has by you) with the scales of the mind inclining to the side of gain, but all out of an upright, honest, uncorrupted soul. I have taken the lead in greater affairs than any man of my own time, and my administration has been sound and honest throughout all. That is why I count myself worthy of honour. But as for the fortifications and entrenchments, for which you ridiculed me, I judge them to be deserving, indeed, of gratitude and commendation--assuredly they are so--but I set them far below my own political services. Not with stones, nor with bricks, did I fortify this city. Not such are the works upon which I pride myself most. But would you inquire honestly wherein my fortifications consist? You will find them in munitions of war, in cities, in countries, in harbours, in ships, in horses, and in men ready to defend my fellow countrymen. These are the defences I have set to protect Attica, so far as by human calculation it could be done; and with these I have fortified our whole territory--not the circuit of the Peiraeus or of the city alone. Nor in fact, did _I _prove inferior to Philip in calculations--far from it!--or in preparations for war; but the generals of the confederacy, and their forces, proved inferior to him in fortune. Where are the proofs of these things? They are clear and manifest. I bid you consider them.

What was the duty of a loyal citizen--one who was acting with all forethought and zeal and uprightness for his country's good? Was it not to make Euboea the bulwark of Attica on the side of the sea, and Boeotia on that of the mainland, and on that of the regions towards the Peloponnese, our neighbours in that direction? Was it not to provide for the corn- trade, and to ensure that it should pass along a continuously friendly coast all the way to the Peiraeus? Was it not to preserve the places which were ours--Proconnesus, the Chersonese, Tenedos--by dispatching expeditions to aid them, and proposing and moving resolutions accordingly; and to secure the friendship and alliance of the rest--Byzantium, Tenedos, Euboea? Was it not to take away the greatest of the resources which the enemy possessed, and to add what was lacking to those of the city? All this has been accomplished by my decrees and by the measures which I have taken; and all these measures, men of Athens, will be found by any one who will examine them without jealousy, to have been correctly planned, and executed with entire honesty: the opportunity for each step was not, you will find, neglected or left unrecognized or thrown away by me, and nothing was left undone, which it was within the power and the reasoning capacity of a single man to effect. But if the might of some Divine Power, or the inferiority of our generals, or the wickedness of those who were betraying your cities, or all these things together, continuously injured our whole cause, until they effected its overthrow, how is Demosthenes at fault? Had there been in each of the cities of Hellas one man, such as I was, as I stood at my own post in your midst-- nay, if all Thessaly and all Arcadia had each had but one man animated by the same spirit as myself--not one Hellenic people, either beyond or on this side of Thermopylae, would have experienced the evils which they now suffer. All would have been dwelling in liberty and independence, free from all fears, secure and prosperous, each in their own land, rendering thanks for all these great blessings to you and the rest of the Athenian people, through me. But that you may know that in my anxiety to avoid jealousy, I am using language which is far from adequate to the actual facts, (_to the clerk_) read me this; and take and recite the list of the expeditions sent out in accordance with my decrees.

[_The list of expeditions is read]_

These measures, and others like them, Aeschines, were the measures which it was the duty of a loyal and gallant citizen to take. If they were successful, it was certain that we should be indisputably the strongest power, and that with justice as well as in fact: and now that they have resulted otherwise, we are left with at least an honourable name. No man casts reproach either upon the city, or upon the choice which she made: they do but upbraid Fortune, who decided the issue thus. It was not, God knows, a citizen's duty to abandon his country's interests, to sell his services to her opponents, and cherish the opportunities of the enemy instead of those of his country. Nor was it, on the one hand, to show his malice against the man who had faced the task of proposing and moving measures worthy of the city, and persisting in that intention; while, on the other hand, he remembered and kept his eyes fixed upon any private annoyance which another had caused him: nor was it to maintain a wicked and festering inactivity, as you so often do. Assuredly there is an inactivity that is honest and brings good to the State--the inactivity which you, the majority of the citizens, observe in all sincerity. But that is not the inactivity of Aeschines. Far from it! He, on the contrary, retires just when he chooses, from public life (and he often chooses to do so), that he may watch for the moment when you will be sated with the continual speeches of the same adviser, or when fortune has thrown some obstacle in your path, or some other disagreeable event has happened (for in the life of man many things are possible); and then, when such an opportunity comes, suddenly, like a gale of wind, out of his retirement he comes forth an orator, with his voice in training, and his phrases and his sentences collected; and these he strings together lucidly, without pausing for breath, though they bring with them no profit, no accession of anything good, but only calamity to one or another of his fellow citizens, and shame to all alike. Surely, Aeschines, if all this practice and study sprang from an honest heart, resolved to pursue the interests of your country, the fruits of it should have been noble and honourable and profitable to all--alliances of cities, supplies of funds, opening of ports, enactment of beneficial laws, acts of opposition to our proved enemies. It was for all such services that men looked in bygone days; and the past has offered, to any loyal and gallant citizen, abundant opportunities of displaying them: but nowhere in the ranks of such men will you ever be found to have stood--not first, nor second, nor third, nor fourth, nor fifth, nor sixth, nor in any position whatsoever; at least, not in any matters whereby your country stood to gain. For what alliance has the city gained by negotiations of yours? What assistance, what fresh access of goodwill or fame? What diplomatic or administrative action of yours has brought new dignity to the city? What department of our home affairs, or our relations with Hellenic and foreign states, over which you have presided, has shown any improvement? Where are your ships? Where are your munitions of war? Where are your dockyards? Where are the walls that you have repaired? Where are your cavalry? Where in the world _is_ your sphere of usefulness? What pecuniary assistance have you ever given, as a good and generous fellow citizen, either to rich or poor? 'But, my good sir, 'you say, 'if I have done none of these things, I have at least given my loyalty and goodwill.' Where? When? Why, even at a time when all who ever opened their lips upon the platform contributed voluntarily to save the city, till, last of all, Aristonicus gave what he had collected to enable him to regain his civil rights--even then, most iniquitous of men! you never came forward or made any contribution whatever: and assuredly it was not from poverty, when you had inherited more than five talents out of the estate of your father-in-law Philo, and had received two talents subscribed by the leaders of the Naval Boards, for your damaging attack upon my Naval Law. But I will say no more about this, lest by passing from subject to subject I should break away from the matter in hand. It is at least plain that your failure to contribute was not due to your poverty, but to your anxiety to do nothing in opposition to those whose interest is the guide of your whole public life. On what occasions, then, do your spirit and your brilliancy show themselves? When something must be done to injure your fellow countrymen--then your voice is most glorious, your memory most perfect; then you are a prince of actors, a Theocrines on the tragic stage!

Again, you have recalled the gallant men of old, and you do well to do so. Yet it is not just, men of Athens, to take advantage of the good feeling which you may be relied upon to entertain towards the dead, in order to examine me before you by their standard, and compare me, who am still living amongst you, with them. Who in all the world does not know that against the living there is always more or less of secret jealousy, while none, not even their enemies, hate the dead any more? And am I, in spite of this law of nature, to be judged and examined to-day by the standard of those who were before me? By no means! It would be neither just nor fair, Aeschines. But let me be compared with yourself, or with any of those who have adopted the same policy as yourself, and are still alive. And consider this also. Which of these alternatives is the more honourable? Which is better for the city?--that the good services done by men of former times--tremendous, nay even beyond all description though they may be--should be made an excuse for exposing to ingratitude and contumely those that are rendered to the present generation? or that all who act in loyalty should have a share in the honours and the kindness which our fellow citizens dispense? Aye, and (if I must say this after all) the policy and the principles which I have adopted will be found, if rightly viewed, to resemble and to have the same aims as those of the men who in that age received praise; while yours resemble those of the dishonest assailants of such persons in those days. For in their time also there were obviously persons who disparaged the living and praised the men of old, acting in the same malicious way as yourself. Do you say then, that I am in no way like them? But are you like them, Aeschines? or your brother ? or any other orator of the present day? For my part, I should say, 'None.' Nay, my good sir--to use no other epithet--compare the living with the living, their contemporaries, as men do in every other matter, whether they are comparing poets or choruses or competitors in the games. Because Philammon was not so powerful as Glaucus of Carystus and some other athletes of former times, he did not leave Olympia uncrowned: but because he fought better than all who entered against him, he was crowned and proclaimed victor. Do you likewise examine me beside the orators of the day--beside yourself, beside any one in the world that you choose. I fear no man's rivalry. For, while the city was still free to choose the best course, and all alike could compete with one another in loyalty to their country, I was found the best adviser of them all. It was by my laws, by my decrees, by my diplomacy, that all was effected. Not one of your party appeared anywhere, unless some insult was to be offered to your fellow countrymen. But when there happened, what I would had never happened--when it was not statesmen that were called to the front, but those who would do the bidding of a master, those who were anxious to earn wages by injuring their country, and to flatter a stranger--then, along with every member of your party, you were found at your post, the grand and resplendent owner of a stud; while I was weak, I confess, yet more loyal to my fellow countrymen than you. Two characteristics, men of Athens, a citizen of a respectable character (for this is perhaps the least invidious phrase that I can apply to myself) must be able to show: when he enjoys authority, he must maintain to the end the policy whose aims are noble action and the pre-eminence of his country: and at all times and in every phase of fortune he must remain loyal. For this depends upon his own nature; while his power and his influence are determined by external causes. And in me, you will find, this loyalty has persisted unalloyed. For mark this. Not when my surrender was demanded, not when I was called to account before the Amphictyons, not in face either of threats or of promises, not when these accursed men were hounded on against me like wild beasts, have I ever been false to my loyalty towards you. For from the very first, I chose the straight and honest path in public life: I chose to foster the honour, the supremacy, the good name of my country, to seek to enhance them, and to stand or fall with them. I do not walk through the market, cheerful and exultant over the success of strangers, holding out my hand and giving the good tidings to any whom I expect to report my conduct yonder, but shuddering, groaning, bowing myself to the earth, when I hear of the city's good fortune, as do these impious men, who make a mock of the city --not remembering that in so doing they are mocking themselves--while they direct their gaze abroad, and, whenever another has gained success through the failure of the Hellenes, belaud that state of things, and declare that we must see that it endures for all time.

Never, O all ye gods, may any of you consent to their desire! If it can be, may you implant even in these men a better mind and heart. But if they are verily beyond all cure, then bring them and them alone to utter and early destruction, by land and sea. And to us who remain, grant the speediest release from the fears that hang over us, and safety that naught can shake!