Chapter IV: Part 4

It still remains for me, I suppose, to speak about the proclamation, and about my examination. {110} 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.

{111} Of the arguments which the prosecutor jumbled together in utter confusion with reference to the laws accompanying his indictment,[n] 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. {112} 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. {113} 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. {114} 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,[n] to begin with, has often been crowned by you, while general, for sacrifices which he had made from his private funds. Again, when Diotimus[n] gave the shields, and Charidemus[n] 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. {115} 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.

{116} [_Two decrees are read_.]

{117} 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?

{118} 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_.]

{119} 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?

{120} 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_.]

{121} 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[n] 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? {122} 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[n]--expressions which apply to you and your house, not to me. I will add this also, men of Athens. {123} 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. {124} 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? {125} And yet to-day, when I am unassailable upon every ground--on the ground of law, of lapse of time, of the statutable limit,[n] 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!

{126} 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; {127} for if the accuser were Aeacus or Rhadamanthus or Minos,[n] instead of a scandal-monger,[n] an old hand in the marketplace,[n] 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,'[n] 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. {128} 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.

{129} 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[n] 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,[n] 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. {130} So I will pass this by, and will begin with the acts of his own life; for they were not like any chance actions,[n] 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,[n] when every one knows that she used to be called Empusa[n]--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? {131} 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.

{132} Which of you has not heard of Antiphon,[n] who was struck off the list of citizens,[n] 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;[n] and he obtained his release. {133} 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. {134} 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[n] 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,[n] and not one vote was given for this abominable man. {135} To prove that what I say is true, (_to the clerk_) call the witnesses who testify to it.

[_The witnesses are called_.]

{136} 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,[n] 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.

{137} Nor was this sufficient for him; for again after this he was detected going to meet Anaxinus[n] 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_.]

{138} 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.

{139} 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.

{140} 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!

{141} 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[n] 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.

{142} 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. {143} For the war at Amphissa, which was the cause of Philip's coming to Elateia, and of one being chosen[n] 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. {144} 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.

{145} 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. {146} 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[n] which either side possessed. {147} 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. {148} 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[n] 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. {149}* 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; {150} 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,[n] 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[n] 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. {151} 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. {152} 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. {153} 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.

{154} [_The decrees of the Amphictyons are read_.]

{155} (_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_.]

{156} 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.

{157} [_Philip's letter is read_.]

{158} 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.[n] I call Earth and Heaven to witness, that it was at the hands, not of one man, but of many villains in each State. {159} 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.

{160} 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. {161} 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. {162} 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. {163} 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_.]

{166} (_To the clerk_.) Now read the replies.

{167} [_The replies are read_.]

{168} 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.

{169} It was evening, and one had come to the Prytanes[n] 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;[n] 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,[n] the whole people was seated on the hill-side.[n] {170} 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. {171} 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[n] 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. {172} 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. {173} 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. {174} 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. {175} 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. {176} 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[n] 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. {177} 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,[n] 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. {178} 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.' {179} 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.

{180} 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_?[n] and you, no ordinary hero even, but a real stage-hero, _Cresphontes_ or _Creon_,[n] or--the character which you cruelly murdered at Collytus[n]--_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_.]

{188} 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. {189} 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.[n] The other is silent when he ought to speak, and then carps at anything untoward that may happen. {190} 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? {191} 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?

{192} 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. {193} 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. {194} 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[n]--'I had no power over Fortune: she had power over everything.' But consider and observe this point. {195} 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[n] 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.

{196} 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? {197} 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. {198} But surely one who treasured up[n] 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.

{199} 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. {200} 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? {201} 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? {202} 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? {203} 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. {204} 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[n] 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. {205} 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.