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DEMOSTHENES BEFORE THE ATHENIAN
ASSEMBLY
The Third Philippic
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Demosthenes.
Go here for more about
Demosthenes' oration The Third
Philippic.
Here you can find the
Pnyx Hill on a map.
It follows the full text transcript of
Demosthenes' Third Philippic speech, delivered
on the Pnyx Hill, Athens, ancient Greece - late spring or
early summer of 341 BC.
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Many speeches are
made, men of Athens, at almost every meeting of
the Assembly, with reference to the aggressions
which Philip has been committing, ever since he
concluded the Peace, not only against yourselves
but against all other peoples. |
And I am sure
that all would agree, however little they may
act on their belief, that our aim, both in
speech and in action, should be to cause him to
cease from his insolence and to pay the penalty
for it. And yet I see that in fact the
treacherous sacrifice of our interests has gone
on, until what seems an ill-omened saying may, I
fear, be really true - that if all who came
forward desired to propose, and you desired to
carry, the measures which would make your
position as pitiful as it could possibly be, it
could not, so I believe, be made worse than it
is now.
It may be that there are many
reasons for this, and that our affairs did not
reach their present condition from any one or
two causes. But if you examine the matter
aright, you will find that the chief
responsibility rests with those whose aim is to
win your favor, not to propose what is best.
Some of them, men of Athens, so long as they can
maintain the conditions which bring them
reputation and influence, take no thought for
the future and therefore think that you also
should take none, while others, by accusing and slandering
those who are actively at
work, are simply trying to make the city
spend its energies in
punishing the members of its own body, and so
leave Philip free to say and
do what he likes.
Such political methods as
these, familiar to you as
they are, are the real causes of the evil. And I
beg you, men of Athens,
if I tell you certain truths outspokenly, to let
no resentment on your
part fall upon me on this account. Consider the
matter in this light. In
every other sphere of life, you believe that the
right of free speech
ought to be so universally shared by all who are
in the city, that you
have extended it both to foreigners and to
slaves; and one may see many a
servant in Athens speaking his mind with greater
liberty than is granted
to citizens in some other states: but from the
sphere of political counsel
you have utterly banished this liberty.
The result is that in your
meetings you give yourselves airs and enjoy
their flattery, listening to
nothing but what is meant to please you, while
in the world of facts and
events, you are in the last extremity of peril.
If then you are still in
this mood to-day, I do not know what I can say;
but if you are willing to
listen while I tell you, without flattery, what
your interest requires, I
am prepared to speak. For though our position is
very bad indeed, and much
has been sacrificed, it is still possible, even
now, if you will do your
duty, to set all right once more.
It is a
strange thing, perhaps, that
I am about to say, but it is true. The worst
feature in the past is that
in which lies our best hope for the future. And
what is this? It is that
you are in your present plight because you do
not do any part of your
duty, small or great; for of course, if you were
doing all that you should
do, and were still in this evil case, you could
not even hope for any
improvement. As it is, Philip has conquered your
indolence and your
indifference; but he has not conquered Athens.
You have not been
vanquished, you have never even stirred.
Now if it was admitted by us
all that Philip was at war with Athens, and was
transgressing the Peace, a
speaker would have to do nothing but to advise
you as to the safest and
easiest method of resistance to him. But since
there are some who are in
so extraordinary a frame of mind that, though he
is capturing cities,
though many of your possessions are in his
hands, and though he is
committing aggressions against all men, they
still tolerate certain
speakers, who constantly assert at your meetings
that it is some of _us_
who are provoking the war, it is necessary to be
on our guard and come to
a right understanding on the matter.
For
there is a danger lest any
one who proposes or advises resistance should
find himself accused of having brought about the
war. Well, I say this first of all, and lay it down
as a principle, that if it
is open to us to deliberate whether we should
remain at peace or should go to war ...
Now if it is possible for the city to remain
at peace, if the decision
rests with us that I may make this my
starting-point, then I say that
we ought to do so, and I call upon any one who
says that it is so to move
his motion, and to act and not to defraud us.
But if another with
weapons in his hands and a large force about him
holds out to you the name of peace while his own acts are acts of
war what course remains
open to us but that of resistance?
Though if you
wish to profess peace in
the same manner as he, I have no quarrel with
you. But if any man's
conception of peace is that it is a state in
which Philip can master all
that intervenes till at last he comes to attack
ourselves, such a
conception, in the first place, is madness; and,
in the second place, this
peace that he speaks of is a peace which you are
to observe towards
Philip, while he does not observe it towards
you: and this it is, this
power to carry on war against you, without being
met by any hostilities on
your part, that Philip is purchasing with all
the money that he is
spending.
Indeed, if we intend to wait till the time
comes when he admits that
he is at war with us, we are surely the most
innocent persons in the
world. Why, even if he comes to Attica itself,
to the very Peiraeus, he
will never make such an admission, if we are to
judge by his dealings with
others.
For, to take one instance, he told
the Olynthians, when he
was five miles from the city, that there were
only two alternatives,
either they must cease to live in Olynthus, or
he to live in Macedonia:
but during the whole time before that, whenever
any one accused him of any
such sentiments, he was indignant and sent
envoys to answer the charge.
Again, he marched into the Phocians' country, as
though visiting his
allies. It was by Phocian envoys that he was
escorted on the march; and
most people in Athens contended strongly that
his crossing the Pass would
bring no good to Thebes.
Worse still, he
has lately seized Pherae
and still holds it, though he went to Thessaly
as a friend and an ally.
And, latest of all, he told those unhappy
citizens of Oreus that he had
sent his soldiers to visit them and to make kind
inquiries; he had heard
that they were sick, and suffering from faction,
and it was right for an
ally and a true friend to be present at such a
time.
Now if, instead
of giving them warning and using open force, he
deliberately chose to
deceive these men, who could have done him no
harm, though they might have
taken precautions against suffering any
themselves, do you imagine that he
will make a formal declaration of war upon you
before he commences
hostilities, and that, so long as you are
content to be deceived?
Impossible! For so long as you, though you are
the injured party, make no
complaint against him, but accuse some of your
own body, he would be the
most fatuous man on earth if he were to
interrupt your strife and
contentions with one another, to bid you turn
upon himself, and so to cut
away the ground from the arguments by which his
hirelings put you off,
when they tell you that he is not at war with
Athens.
In God's name, is there a man in his senses
who would judge by words,
and not by facts, whether another was at peace
or at war with him? Of
course there is not. Why, from the very first,
when the Peace had only
just been made, before those who are now in the
Chersonese had been sent
out, Philip was taking Serrhium and Doriscus,
and expelling the
soldiers who were in the castle of Serrhium and
the Sacred Mountain, where
they had been placed by your general. But
what was he doing, in
acting thus? For he had sworn to a Peace. And
let no one ask, What do
these things amount to? What do they matter to
Athens?
For whether these
acts were trifles which could have no interest
for you is another matter;
but the principles of religion and justice,
whether a man transgress
them in small things or great, have always the
same force. What? When he
is sending mercenaries into the Chersonese,
which the king and all the
Hellenes have acknowledged to be yours; when he
openly avows that he is
going to the rescue, and states it in his
letter, what is it that he is
doing?
He tells you, indeed, that he is not
making war upon you. But
so far am I from admitting that one who acts in
this manner is observing
the Peace which he made with you, that I hold
that in grasping at Megara,
in setting up tyrants in Euboea, in advancing
against Thrace at the
present moment, in pursuing his machinations in
the Peloponnese, and in
carrying out his entire policy with the help of
his army, he is violating
the Peace and is making war against you. Unless
you mean to say that even
to bring up engines to besiege you is no breach
of the Peace, until they
are actually planted against your walls. But you
will not say this; for
the man who is taking the steps and contriving
the means which will lead
to my capture is at war with me, even though he
has not yet thrown a
missile or shot an arrow.
Now what are the
things which would imperil
your safety, if anything should happen? The
alienation of the
Hellespont, the placing of Megara and Euboea in
the power of the enemy,
and the attraction of Peloponnesian sympathy to
his cause. Can I then say
that one who is erecting such engines of war as
these against the city is
at peace with you?
Far from it! For from
the very day when he
annihilated the Phocians, from that very day, I
say, I date the beginning
of his hostilities against you. And for your
part, I think that you will
be wise if you resist him at once; but that if
you let him be, you will
find that, when you wish to resist, resistance
itself is impossible.
Indeed, so widely do I differ, men of Athens,
from all your other
advisers, that I do not think there is any room
for discussion to-day in
regard to the Chersonese or Byzantium.
We
must go to their defense
and take every care that they do not suffer and
we must send all that
they need to the soldiers who are at present
there. But we have to take
counsel for the good of all the Hellenes, in
view of the grave peril in
which they stand. And I wish to tell you on what
grounds I am so alarmed
at the situation, in order that if my reasoning
is correct, you may share
my conclusions, and exercise some forethought
for yourselves at least, if
you are actually unwilling to do so for the
Hellenes as a whole; but that
if you think that I am talking nonsense, and am
out of my senses, you may
both now and hereafter decline to attend to me
as though I were a sane
man.
The rise of Philip to greatness from such
small and humble
beginnings; the mistrustful and quarrelsome
attitude of the Hellenes
towards one another; the fact that his growth
out of what he was into what
he is was a far more extraordinary thing than
would be his subjugation of
all that remains, when he has already secured so
much. All this and all
similar themes, upon which I might speak at
length, I will pass over.
But I see that all men, beginning with
yourselves, have conceded to him
the very thing which has been at issue in every
Hellenic war during the
whole of the past. And what is this? It is the
right to act as he pleases, to mutilate and to strip the Hellenic peoples,
one by one, to attack and
to enslave their cities.
For seventy-three years you were the
leading people of Hellas, and the Spartans for
thirty years save one;
and in these last times, after the battle of
Leuctra, the Thebans too
acquired some power: yet neither to you nor to
Thebes nor to Sparta was
such a right ever conceded by the Hellenes, as
the right to do whatever
you pleased. Far from it!
First of all it
was your own behavior, or
rather that of the Athenians of that day, which
some thought immoderate;
and all, even those who had no grievance against
Athens, felt bound to
join the injured parties, and to make war upon
you. Then, in their turn,
the Spartans, when they had acquired an empire
and succeeded to a
supremacy like your own, attempted to go beyond
all bounds and to disturb
the established order to an unjustifiable
extent; and once more, all,
even those who had no grievance against them,
had recourse to war.
Why mention the others? For we ourselves and the
Spartans, though we could
originally allege no injury done by the one
people to the other,
nevertheless felt bound to go to war on account
of the wrongs which we saw
the rest suffering. And yet all the offences of
the Spartans in those
thirty years of power, and of your ancestors in
their seventy years, were
less, men of Athens, than the wrongs inflicted
upon the Greeks by Philip,
in the thirteen years, not yet completed, during
which he has been to the
fore. Less do I say?
They are not a
fraction of them. A few words
will easily prove this. I say nothing of
Olynthus, and Methone, and
Apollonia, and thirty-two cities in the Thracian
region, all
annihilated by him with such savagery, that a
visitor to the spot would
find it difficult to tell that they had ever
been inhabited. I remain
silent in regard to the extirpation of the great
Phocian race. But what is
the condition of Thessaly? Has he not robbed
their very cities of their governments and set up tetrarchies, that
they may be enslaved, not
merely by whole cities, but by whole tribes at a
time?
Are not the
cities of Euboea even now ruled by tyrants, and
that in an island that is neighbor to Thebes and Athens? Does he not
write expressly in his
letters, "I am at peace with those who choose to
obey me"? And what he
thus writes he does not fail to act upon; for he
is gone to invade the
Hellespont; he previously went to attack
Ambracia; the great city of
Elis in the Peloponnese is his; he has
recently intrigued against Megara; and neither Hellas nor the world
beyond it is large enough to
contain the man's ambition.
But though all
of us, the Hellenes, see
and hear these things, we send no
representatives to one another to
discuss the matter; we show no indignation; we
are in so evil a mood, so
deep have the lines been dug which sever city
from city, that up to this
very day we are unable to act as either our
interest or our duty require.
We cannot unite; we can form no combination
for mutual support or
friendship; but we look on while the man grows
greater, because every one
has made up his mind, as it seems to me, to
profit by the time during
which his neighbor is being ruined, and no one
cares or acts for the
safety of the Hellenes. For we all know that
Philip is like the recurrence
or the attack of a fever or other illness, in
his descent upon those who
fancy themselves for the present well out of his
reach.
And further,
you must surely realize that all the wrongs that
the Hellenes suffered
from the Spartans or ourselves they at least
suffered at the hands of
true-born sons of Hellas; and, one might
conceive, it was as though a
lawful son, born to a great estate, managed his
affairs in some wrong or
improper way. His conduct would in itself
deserve blame and denunciation,
but at least it could not be said that he was
not one of the family, or
was not the heir to the property.
But had
it been a slave or a
supposititious son that was thus ruining and
spoiling an inheritance to
which he had no title, why, good Heavens! how
infinitely more scandalous
and reprehensible all would have declared it to
be. And yet they show no
such feeling in regard to Philip, although not
only is he no Hellene, not
only has he no kinship with Hellenes, but he is
not even a barbarian from
a country that one could acknowledge with
credit. He is a pestilent
Macedonian, from whose country it used not to be
possible to buy even a
slave of any value.
And in spite of this, is there any degree
of insolence to which he
does not proceed? Not content with annihilating
cities, does he not manage
the Pythian games, the common meeting of the
Hellenes, and send his
slaves to preside over the competition in his
absence? Is he not master
of Thermopylae, and of the passes which lead
into Hellenic territory? Does
he not hold that district with garrisons and
mercenaries? Has he not taken
the precedence in consulting the oracle, and
thrust aside ourselves and
the Thessalians and Dorians and the rest of the
Amphictyons, though the
right is not one which is given even to all of
the Hellenes?
Does he
not write to the Thessalians to prescribe the
constitution under which
they are to live? Does he not send one body of
mercenaries to Porthmus, to
expel the popular party of Eretria, and another
to Oreus, to set up
Philistides as tyrant? And yet the Hellenes see
these things and endure
them, gazing, it seems to me, as they would gaze
at a hailstorm, each
people praying that it may not come their way,
but no one trying to
prevent it. Nor is it only his outrages upon
Hellas that go unresisted.
No one resists even the aggressions which
are committed against
himself. Ambracia and Leucas belong to the
Corinthians. He has attacked
them: Naupactus to the Achaeans. He has sworn to
hand it over to the
Aetolians: Echinus to the Thebans. He has
taken it from them, and is
now marching against their allies the
Byzantines, is it not so? And
of our own possessions, to pass by all the rest,
is not Cardia, the
greatest city in the Chersonese, in his hands?
Thus are we treated. And we
are all hesitating and torpid, with our eyes
upon our neighbors,
distrusting one another, rather than the man
whose victims we all are.
But
if he treats us collectively in this outrageous
fashion, what do you think
he will do, when he has become master of each of
us separately? What then is the cause of these things? For
as it was not without
reason and just cause that the Hellenes in old
days were so prompt for
freedom, so it is not without reason or cause
that they are now so prompt
to be slaves. There was a spirit, men of Athens,
a spirit in the minds of
the people in those days, which is absent
to-day, the spirit which
vanquished the wealth of Persia, which led
Hellas in the path of freedom,
and never gave way in face of battle by sea or
by land; a spirit whose
extinction to-day has brought universal ruin and
turned Hellas upside
down. What was this spirit? It was nothing
subtle nor clever.
It
meant that men who took money from those who
aimed at dominion or at the
ruin of Hellas were execrated by all; that it
was then a very grave thing
to be convicted of bribery; that the punishment
for the guilty man was the
heaviest that could be inflicted; that for him
there could be no plea for
mercy, nor hope of pardon.
No orator, no
general, would then sell the
critical opportunity whenever it arose--the
opportunity so often offered
to men by fortune, even when they are careless
and their foes are on their
guard. They did not barter away the harmony
between people and people, nor
their own mistrust of the tyrant and the
foreigner, nor any of these high
sentiments.
Where are such sentiments now?
They have been sold in the
market and are gone; and those have been
imported in their stead, through
which the nation lies ruined and
plague-stricken, the envy of the man who
has received his hire; the amusement which
accompanies his avowal, the
pardon granted to those whose guilt is proved, the hatred of one who
censures the crime; and all the appurtenances of
corruption.
For as
to ships, numerical strength, unstinting
abundance of funds and all other
material of war, and all the things by which the
strength of cities is
estimated, every people can command these in
greater plenty and on a
larger scale by far than in old days. But all
these resources are rendered
unserviceable, ineffectual, unprofitable, by
those who traffic in them.
That these things are so to-day, you
doubtless see, and need no
testimony of mine: and that in times gone by the
opposite was true, I will
prove to you, not by any words of my own, but by
the record inscribed by
your ancestors on a pillar of bronze, and placed
on the Acropolis, not to
be a lesson to themselves, they needed no such
record to put them in a
right mind, but to be a reminder and an example
to you of the zeal that
you ought to display in such a cause.
What
then is the record? "Arthmius, son of Pythonax, of Zeleia, is an
outlaw, and is the enemy
of the Athenian people and their allies, he and
his house." Then follows
the reason for which this step was
taken, "because he brought the gold
from the Medes into the Peloponnese." Such
is the record.
Consider,
in Heaven's name, what must have been the mind
of the Athenians of that
day, when they did this, and their conception of
their position. They set
up a record, that because a man of Zeleia,
Arthmius by name, a slave of
the King of Persia, for Zeleia is in Asia, as
part of his service to the
king, had brought gold, not to Athens, but to
the Peloponnese, he should
be an enemy of Athens and her allies, he and his
house, and that they
should be outlaws.
And this outlawry is no
such disfranchisement as
we ordinarily mean by the word. For what would
it matter to a man of
Zeleia, that he might have no share in the
public life of Athens? But
there is a clause in the Law of Murder, dealing
with those in connection
with whose death the law does not allow a
prosecution for murder but the
slaying of them is to be a holy act: "And let
him die an outlaw," it
runs. The meaning, accordingly, is this that
the slayer of such a man is
to be pure from all guilt.
They thought,
therefore, that the safety
of all the Hellenes was a matter which concerned
themselves, apart from
this belief, it could not have mattered to them
whether any one bought or
corrupted men in the Peloponnese; and whenever
they detected such
offenders, they carried their punishment and
their vengeance so far as to
pillory their names for ever. As the natural
consequence, the Hellenes
were a terror to the foreigner, not the
foreigner to the Hellenes. It is
not so now. Such is not your attitude in these
or in other matters.
But what is it? You know it yourselves; for why
should I accuse you
explicitly on every point? And that of the rest
of the Hellenes is like
your own, and no better; and so I say that the
present situation demands
our utmost earnestness and good counsel. And
what counsel? Do you bid
me tell you, and will you not be angry if I do
so?
[He reads from the document.]
Now there is an ingenuous argument, which
is used by those who would
reassure the city, to the effect that, after
all, Philip is not yet in the
position once held by the Spartans, who ruled
everywhere over sea and
land, with the king for their ally, and nothing
to withstand them; and
that, none the less, Athens defended herself
even against them, and was
not swept away. Since that time the progress in
every direction, one may
say, has been great, and has made the world
to-day very different from
what it was then; but I believe that in no
respect has there been greater
progress or development than in the art of war.
In the first place, I
am told that in those days the Spartans and all
our other enemies would
invade us for four or five months during, that
is, the actual summer, and
would damage Attica with infantry and
citizen-troops, and then return home
again. And so old-fashioned were the men of that
day, nay rather, such
true citizens, that no one ever purchased any
object from another for
money, but their warfare was of a legitimate and
open kind.
But now,
as I am sure you see, most of our losses are the
result of treachery, and
no issue is decided by open conflict or battle;
while you are told that it
is not because he leads a column of heavy
infantry that Philip can
march wherever he chooses, but because he has
attached to himself a force
of light infantry, cavalry, archers,
mercenaries, and similar troops.
And whenever, with such advantages, he falls
upon a State which is
disordered within, and in their distrust of one
another no one goes out in defense of its territory, he brings up his
engines and besieges them. I
pass over the fact that summer and winter are
alike to him, that there is
no close season during which he suspends
operations.
But if you all
know these things and take due account of them,
you surely must not let
the war pass into Attica, nor be dashed from
your seat through looking
back to the simplicity of those old hostilities
with Sparta. You must
guard against him, at the greatest possible
distance, both by political
measures and by preparations; you must prevent
his stirring from home,
instead of grappling with him at close quarters
in a struggle to the
death.
For, men of Athens, we have many
natural advantages for a
war, if we are willing to do our duty. There
is the character of his
country, much of which we can harry and damage,
and a thousand other
things. But for a pitched battle he is in better
training than we.
Nor have you only to recognize these facts,
and to resist him by
actual operations of war. You must also by
reasoned judgment and of set
purpose come to execrate those who address you
in his interest,
remembering that it is impossible to master the
enemies of the city, until
you punish those who are serving them in the
city itself.
And this,
before God and every Heavenly Power, this you
will not be able to do. For
you have reached such a pitch of folly or
distraction or, I know not what
to call it, for often has the fear actually
entered my mind that some
more than mortal power may be driving our
fortunes to ruin, that to enjoy
their abuse, or their malice, or their jests, or
whatever your motive may
chance to be, you call upon men to speak who are
hirelings, and some of
whom would not even deny it; and you laugh to
hear their abuse of others.
And terrible as this is, there is yet worse
to be told. For you have
actually made political life safer for these
men, than for those who
uphold your own cause. And yet observe what
calamities the willingness to
listen to such men lays up in store. I will
mention facts known to you
all.
In Olynthus, among those who were engaged
in public affairs, there
was one party who were on the side of Philip,
and served his interests in
everything; and another whose aim was their
city's real good, and the
preservation of their fellow citizens from
bondage. Which were the
destroyers of their country? which betrayed the
cavalry, through whose
betrayal Olynthus perished? Those whose
sympathies were with Philip's
cause; those who, while the city still existed
brought such dishonest and
slanderous charges against the speakers whose
advice was for the best,
that, in the case of Apollonides at least, the
people of Olynthus was even
induced to banish the accused.
Nor is this instance of the unmixed evil
wrought by these practices
in the case of the Olynthians an exceptional
one, or without parallel
elsewhere. For in Eretria, when Plutarchus
and the mercenaries had been
got rid of, and the people had control of the
city and of Porthmus, one
party wished to entrust the State to you, the
other to entrust it to
Philip. And through listening mainly, or rather
entirely, to the latter,
these poor luckless Eretrians were at last
persuaded to banish the
advocates of their own interests.
For, as
you know, Philip, their
ally, sent Hipponicus with a thousand
mercenaries, stripped Porthmus of
its walls, and set up three tyrants - Hipparchus, Automedon, and
Cleitarchus. And since then he has already twice
expelled them from the
country when they wished to recover their
position sending on the first
occasion the mercenaries commanded by Eurylochus,
on the second, those
under Parmenio.
And why go through the mass of the
instances? Enough to mention how
in Oreus Philip had, as his agents, Philistides,
Menippus, Socrates,
Thoas, and Agapaeus - the very men who are now in
possession of the city -
and every one knew the fact; while a certain
Euphraeus, who once lived
here in Athens, acted in the interests of
freedom, to save his country
from bondage.
To describe the insults and
the contumely with which he
met would require a long story; but a year
before the capture of the town
he laid an information of treason against
Philistides and his party,
having perceived the nature of their plans. A
number of men joined forces,
with Philip for their paymaster and director,
and haled Euphraeus off to
prison as a disturber of the peace.
Seeing
this, the democratic party
in Oreus, instead of coming to the rescue of
Euphraeus, and beating the
other party to death, displayed no anger at all
against them, and agreed
with a malicious pleasure that Euphraeus
deserved his fate. After this the
conspirators worked with all the freedom they
desired for the capture of
the city, and made arrangements for the
execution of the scheme; while any
of the democratic party, who perceived what was
going on, maintained a
panic-stricken silence, remembering the fate of
Euphraeus. So wretched was
their condition, that though this dreadful
calamity was confronting them,
no one dared open his lips, until all was ready
and the enemy was
advancing up to the walls. Then the one party
set about the defense, the
other about the betrayal of the city.
And
when the city had been
captured in this base and shameful manner, the
successful party governed
despotically: and of those who had been their
own protectors, and had been
ready to treat Euphraeus with all possible
harshness, they expelled some
and murdered others; while the good Euphraeus
killed himself, thus
testifying to the righteousness and purity of
his motives in opposing
Philip on behalf of his countrymen.
Now for what reason, you may be wondering,
were the peoples of
Olynthus and Eretria and Oreus more agreeably
disposed towards Philip's
advocates than towards their own? The reason was
the same as it is with
you, that those who speak for your true good can
never, even if they
would, speak to win popularity with you. They
are constrained to inquire
how the State may be saved: while their
opponents, in the very act of
seeking popularity, are co-operating with
Philip.
The one party said,
"You must pay taxes." The other, "There is no
need to do so." The one
said, "Go to war, and do not trust him." The
other, "Remain at peace." -
until they were in the toils. And, not to
mention each separately, I
believe that the same thing was true of all. The
one side said what would
enable them to win favor; the other, what would
secure the safety of
their State. And at last the main body of the
people accepted much that
they proposed, not now from any such desire for
gratification, nor from
ignorance, but as a concession to circumstances,
thinking that their cause
was now wholly lost.
It is this fate, I
solemnly assure you, that I
dread for you, when the time comes that you make
your reckoning, and
realize that there is no longer anything that
can be done. May you never
find yourselves, men of Athens, in such a
position! Yet in any case, it
were better to die ten thousand deaths, than to
do anything out of
servility towards Philip or to sacrifice any of
those who speak for your
good. A noble recompense did the people in Oreus receive, for entrusting
themselves to Philip's friends, and thrusting
Euphraeus aside! And a
noble recompense the democracy of Eretria, for
driving away your envoys,
and surrendering to Cleitarchus! They are
slaves, scourged and butchered!
A noble clemency did he show to the Olynthians,
who elected Lasthenes to
command the cavalry, and banished Apollonides!
It is folly, and it is
cowardice, to cherish hopes like these, to give
way to evil counsels, to
refuse to do anything that you should do, to
listen to the advocates of
the enemy's cause, and to fancy that you dwell
in so great a city that,
whatever happens, you will not suffer any harm.
Aye, and it is
shameful to exclaim after the event, "Why, who
would have expected this?
Of course, we ought to have done, or not to have
done, such and such
things!" The Olynthians could tell you of many
things, to have foreseen
which in time would have saved them from
destruction. So too could the
people of Oreus, and the Phocians, and every
other people that has been
destroyed.
But how does that help them now?
So long as the vessel is
safe, be it great or small, so long must the
sailor and the pilot and
every man in his place exert himself and take
care that no one may capsize
it by design or by accident: but when the seas
have overwhelmed it, all
their efforts are in vain.
So it is, men of
Athens, with us. While we
are still safe, with our great city, our vast
resources, our noble name,
what are we to do? Perhaps some one sitting here
has long been wishing to
ask this question. Aye, and I will answer it,
and will move my motion; and
you shall carry it, if you wish. We ourselves,
in the first place, must
conduct the resistance and make preparation for
it with ships, that is,
and money, and soldiers. For though all but
ourselves give way and become
slaves, we at least must contend for freedom.
And when we have made
all these preparations ourselves, and let them
be seen, then let us call
upon the other states for aid, and send envoys
to carry our message in
all directions, to the Peloponnese, to Rhodes,
to Chios, to the king. For
it is not unimportant for his interests either
that Philip should be
prevented from subjugating the world, that so,
if you persuade them, you
may have partners to share the danger and the
expense, in case of need;
and if you do not, you may at least delay the
march of events.
For
since the war is with a single man, and not
against the strength of a
united state, even delay is not without its
value, any more than were
those embassies of protest which last year
went round the Peloponnese,
when I and Polyeuctus, that best of men, and
Hegesippus and the other
envoys went on our tour, and forced him to halt,
so that he neither went
to attack Acarnania, nor set out for the
Peloponnese.
But I do not
mean that we should call upon the other states,
if we are not willing to
take any of the necessary steps ourselves. It is
folly to sacrifice what
is our own, and then pretend to be anxious for
the interests of others, to
neglect the present, and alarm others in regard
to the future. I do not
propose this. I say that we must send money to
the forces in the
Chersonese, and do all that they ask of us. That
we must make preparation
ourselves, while we summon, convene, instruct,
and warn the rest of the
Hellenes.
That is the policy for a city with a
reputation such as yours. But if you fancy that the people of Chalcis
or of Megara will save
Hellas, while you run away from the task, you
are mistaken. They may well
be content if they can each save themselves. The
task is yours. It is the
prerogative that your forefathers won, and
through many a great peril
bequeathed to you.
But if each of you is to
sit and consult his
inclinations, looking for some way by which he
may escape any personal
action, the first consequence will be that you
will never find any one who
will act; and the second, I fear, that the day
will come when we shall be
forced to do, at one and the same time, all the
things we wish to avoid.
This then is my proposal, and this I move.
If the proposal is carried
out, I think that even now the state of our
affairs may be remedied. But
if any one has a better proposal to make, let
him make it, and give us his
advice. And I pray to all the gods that whatever
be the decision that you
are about to make, it may be for your good.
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